The Quixotic Engineer

This month’s Musical Box is brought to you by Second Cup, who very kindly allowed me to leech their free wireless Internet without buying anything. *cough* Well, here’s last month’s musical discoveries (one week late.)

(If I keep posting Nav’s musical suggestions, I’m going to have to rename this series “The Copy/Pasted from Google Reader Box.”) The Internet tells me that Santogold (Santi White) is a music industry veteran, and there was a great deal of anticipation leading up to her debut release. I’m not hip enough to have caught a whiff of said hype, but I really like the album. Santogold has been compared to M.I.A., and the comparison is apt. It’s extremely hard to categorize her sound, she blurs the lines between pop, electro and alternative. The album has hits and misses, but the whole is well worth checking out.

I was linked to British indie rock band Guillemots by Save The Robot. The video above is of them playing “Get Over It” live on Jonathan Ross. Great track, isn’t it? What a shame that the album version is TERRIBLE. Ok, minor hyperbole. It’s not THAT bad, but I really dig the rocked out version they played. I can’t speak too highly of their latest album Red, but I recommend their 2006 release Through the Windowpane.

I’m cheating a little, I didn’t actually discover the Yoshida Brothers this month. The Beatles introduced the West to Sitar-enhanced rock ‘n’ roll, could these guys spark a new trend of shamisen rockers? Wikipedia tells me that their style of music is inspired by Japanese Tsugaru-jamisen music. If you enjoy this song, I suggest checking out their 2003 debut release.

Finally, I was linked by Dubious Quality to a video of Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones hanging out backstage. The song in the background was a rough take of jam between Hendrix and Brian Jones, and you can hear both takes (take 1 [MP3] and take 2 [MP3]) at RocksOff.org.