The long-awaited for We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things Jason Mraz’s new album was released on May 13, in order to hold us spellbound, he brought out three acoustic EP’s of his new songs. The now Jason’s cult song I’m Yours is the first single. This new release is a real turning point and is very different unlike the previews albums: funky, folky, bluesy, jazzy, this is a beautiful mixture of genres with its 12 unique tracks ! We can find some “vestiges” of his first album Waiting For my Rocket To Come (Details in the Fabric (a duet with James Morrison) or Love for a Cild), but also of MR. A-Z ( Coyotes and Beautiful Mess), the rest of We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things is strongly marked by the brass wind, the string band and the choirs. We can also notice the presence of Colbie Caillat in the bautiful and nice duet Lucky !

Anyway, you must listen to this album with a brand new ear and a lot of dispassion in order to appreciate every niceties it offers you.

We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things
Jason Mraz
Original Release Date: May 13, 2008
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Enhanced
Label: Atlantic
Buy Album : Click Here

Some People Have Real Problems is Sia Furler’s last album, released on January 8, 2008. And what an album ! It’s inconceiveble not to mention it on this site…

Her music was principally trip-hop so far (let’s not forget she was part of the band Zero 7), in which we could listen to a pretty voice in songs quite smooth and soothing (especially in “Colour the Small One“), and here we easily recognize her humour (”Death by Chocolate” and “Playground“) and perfect voice skills that characterize her so well. But this third record is definitely my favorite one, since it reveals with grace and elegance Sia’s voice which turns out to be powerful, really heart wrenching and above all awesome, particularly in “Day Too Soon“, “Soon We’ll Be Found” and “Lentil“. Anyway, this album may have lost its trip-hop influences but we discover another facet of Sia’s voice, what a great surprise !

For once, we’ll break the rules and we will talk about… a man ! It’s difficult to let Justin Nozuka the new figure of the folk soul music pass us by. The debut album “Holly” (named after his mother) of this barely 19-year-old canadian is a real success, people have already fallen under Justin’s spell throughout Canada and Europe. Endowed with an astonishingly mature, strong and intense voice, he’s one of the few artists who are able to touch people just with the simplicity and sensibility of their voices.
Justin Nozuka may be young but the lyrics of his songs are profound and deal with passions of life, violence (domestic abuse in Save Him), death (Down in a Cold Dirty Well) and of course love (Supposed to Grow Old). In fact I can’t be really objective regarding this review because I am personally a huge fan of this artist, but you can’t deny that his talent is more than obvious…

SoKo, an actress and singer whose real name is Stéphanie Sokolinski, is one of those discoveries we owe to Myspace, the social network. At barely 22, she’s a genuine French revelation who is already successful outside France begining with Denmark that adopted her from the start, Australia and Japan.
Even the very influential Nic Harcourt’s KCRW gave way to her pretty little face. She has this voice with this little sweet and smooth French accent, between Kate Nash and Maria Mena, a pop folk style marked with its musical references (among whom Daniel Johnson) but above all an unique style which talks about unhappy love affairs which is intended for every girls.
In this way, her highly influencal song “I’ll Kill Her” (a sufficiently explicit title) ends up number 1 among the top sellers in Belgium on iTunes last January. And to think that SoKo isn’t signed to any label yet, she only owns a nice 5 track EP “Not SoKute”. But it won’t be long considering her talent and the fact she’s surrounded by a strong French management.

We have to admit that Tristan Prettyman has matured ! After her smooth, acoustic and timid debut album “Twentythree”, here’s the second record “Hello” released on April 15, 2008, marked by the discovery of new genres but still in the “Prettyman mold” (we find many songs that are quite similar to the previous album: “Madly”, “God Gave Me Reason” or “Hello”).

Indeed, spending several months travelling the USA opened her mind to new music styles and she was quite right to take advantage of it. We discover through this album a fragile and bluesy voice which gained confidence, accuracy and power, enhanced by musical instruments that weren’t present on the previous record, we can hear piano, electric guitars and drums. We can also notice very definite influences such as John Butler Trio (“California Girl”) or the Australian singer Missy Higgins ( “Echo” and “You Got Me”).

Tristan Prettyman is definitely not stuck in the gentleness and the shyness and reveals herself being full of confidence and maturity.

‘Neptune City’ is an album marked with retro styles thanks to grandiose and graceful instrumentations that could have appeared flashy but Nicole Atkins’ voice which reveals itself as a powerful and seductive one makes the whole difference.
She describes her music as “aquatic and mysterious”, and how mysterious! Indeed, this record seems so timeless, between past and present, the sound could easily come from a gramophone but the electric guitars and the few electric organ sounds take us back to our time. ‘Neptune City’ is really a gem, astonishing and outstanding. Nicole Atkins is a promising artist… stay tuned!

At 34 and with her 11 years of experience as a singer and guitarist in the band The Delgados, Emma Pollock launches into a solo career and brings up her 1^st album ‘Watch the Fireworks’. With strongly marked rhythmes, this release points up the lightness and ease of her voice. Without ever forcing it, she makes it slide on rock instrumentationsbut can easily swap electric guitar with acoustic one and piano.

Emma Pollock has been able to take advantage of this freedom, this absence of constraints one hasn’t in a band, and offers us punchy, smooth and touching songs through her 11 track album.