by Tom WaitsBasically, you either love Tom Waits, or you don't. Anyone who has looked over the types of music I usually write about on this site would perhaps be surprised to see that Ol' Tom is one of my favourite musical artists, but there is something so appealing about most of his music, and I've been listening to him for close to twenty years now, having first been introduced to him by a co-worker in retail who often used Waits as a means of clearing the store of lingerers a half hour before closing.
Bad As Me is Tom's newest album, and he plays things safe within the context of his experimental roots/rockabilly/punk/cabaret mash-ups. It starts off strong - in fact, the first few seconds of 'Chicago', the opening song, sounded more like the beginning of a Michael Nyman piece than Waits.
We get the usual mix of Brawlers and Bawlers, with just a couple Bastards (to use the classification system that Tom introduced for his songs with his triple-album Orphans). My favourite song is the closer to the first disc (I picked up the 'deluxe edition', which came with a second CD comprised of three songs), 'New Year's Eve', which has Tom paint a scene of urban disaffection, borrowing the chorus from 'Auld Lang Syne'; it's a formula that worked so well for him years ago with 'Tom Traubert's Blues' (aka 'Waltzing Matilda').
It's terrific to see that Waits is still producing new music, and continues to do it the way he always has, with staunch individualism and little regard for radio play or marketability. This is not Tom's best album, but it's pretty good.
is a compilation of sixteen songs, selected by someone who works for Lacoste who was given access to the Now-Again vaults. In the liner notes, he talks about how he selected music for which it is hard to pin down a location. There is Afro-funk from Germany, and rock from Iran and Indonesia.
, and a Panbers track off the Indonesian compilation 
. Also, some of the Karl Hector & The Malcouns tracks (there are two) sound familiar. I also wish there was a little more information in the liner notes about where some of the artists that are unknown to me, such as Damon, Dan Lambert, and Mrr-Adm can be found.
, which I was previously on the fence about.
of 70s Indonesian music under the belief that no album that comes out of Egon's Now-Again record label, an off-shot of Stones Throw, could ever be bad. I knew nothing of the Indonesian music scene of any decade, and have never been much of a rock fan, but I thought this would be worth checking out.
, Egon (the man behind Now-Again Records) has worked his usual magic, pulling together some thirty-one cuts representing the early history of Zam-rock, or rock music from Zambia. The set focuses on Rikki Ililonga, who is seen as the father of this musical movement. The first disc holds thirteen tracks by Ililonga's band, Musi-O-Tunya, recorded between 1973 and 1975, when Ililonga left the group. The second disc has Ililonga on his own, and encompasses his first two solo albums from 1975 and 1976.
might very well be my favourite album of this summer. 
, one of my favourite movies, and 
, which he provided the soundtrack for) with a deep, golden voice, whose timbre reminds me a little of mid-90s Leonard Cohen in its mellifluousness. 
is a pretty different offering from the previous ones, as the usual hip-hop or jazz elements are missing, and we get instead an incredibly eclectic mix of music, with the typical samples of comedy and strange recordings (like the Bugs Bunny anti-drug PSA) interspersed throughout and around the music.
, or perhaps for another MF Doom project (I can't quite remember).
