Man, I'm glad I'm divorced and definitely not looking.
Check out Love in the Time of Darwinism. That is, if you're a man—a "real" man—who wants to be reminded of why he behaves in the manly way that he does. Or if you're a "real" woman without a man and need reminding of why that is so.
It's a shameful fact that I came across Malian duo Amadou & Mariam's entrancing 2005 album, Dimanche à Bamako, well into 2006, too late to include it in my "best albums" list. While the album was produced with a professional sheen by Manu Chao, it still maintained a direct line to traditional Malian sounds while expanding into more complex musical and lyrical territory. Sure, with Chao's help, Bamako achieved international acclaim, but one can hope that it was the album's emotional purity that resonated with listeners worldwide. The duo's new album is called Welcome to Mali, but oddly enough, it finds them moving even further afield.
Album opener and first single "Sabali" ("Wisdom") was produced by Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame, and it's superb, a strange mashup of Gorillaz' "Feel Good Inc." with the rising-and-falling computerized tones and melancholy feel of Grandaddy's "The Crystal Lake." It's a fascinating, retro-futuristic re-interpretation of chiming Afropop, with brief lo-fi transmissions from the past laid over the top.
Paul McCartney has confirmed to BBC Radio 4 the existence of a "mythical" 14-minute-long unreleased Beatles track, and says the song will see the light of day. The track, called "Carnival of Light," commissioned for an electronic music festival, was recorded during the Penny Lane sessions in 1967, and was apparently only played once, at the festival itself. McCartney told Radio 4 that at the time he asked the other Beatles to indulge him:
I said all I want you to do is just wander around all the stuff, bang it, shout, play it, it doesn't need to make any sense. Hit a drum then wander on to the piano, hit a few notes, just wander around. So that's what we did and then put a bit of an echo on it. It's very free.
He said the track was never released because it was too "adventurous," but that "the time has come for it to get its moment."
Not to be all-Prop-8-all-the-time over here on the Riff, but there was some surprising, funny, and surprisingly funny stuff on SNL Saturday night, and some of the best bits seemed to be inspired by the sudden re-emergence of gay rights as a newsy topic. In fact, homosexuality was pretty much the running theme of the whole episode, from the overly-kissy family opening sketch (which culminated in a jaw-dislocating open-mouth snog between Andy Samberg and Fred Armisen) to the baffling-but-hilarious digital short featuring Samberg and host Paul Rudd painting each other's naked portraits, Titanic-style. Justin Timberlake's lispy cameo as one of three terrible male dancers in leotards in a Beyonce video also might count. By the way, somebody give Justin Timberlake a variety showhis two-minute version of himself hosting the show was pretty mind-blowing.
Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW has announced that longtime evening host Jason Bentley (right) will be taking over for Nic Harcourt as Music Director and host of the influential "Morning Becomes Eclectic" when Harcourt leaves on December 1. Harcourt's exit was just announced last week, and included a vague notion of "expanding on other activities" which to me seems code for "I didn't have anything else lined up," but what do I know.
Harcourt came to KCRW from Woodstock, New York's WDST in 1998, and over the past ten years used the morning show to introduce artists like Coldplay, Dido and Franz Ferdinand. Bentley's promotion will excite fans of groovy beats, as the DJ and producer has focused much of his career on electronic music, with his KCRW show "Metropolis" and a long-running Saturday night show on Los Angeles alternative juggernaut KROQ. We'll see how well his laid-back late-night DJ persona translates to 9am.
It's a shameful fact that I came across Malian duo Amadou & Mariam's entrancing 2005 album, Dimanche à Bamako, well into 2006, too late to include it in my "best albums" list. While the album was produced with a professional sheen by Manu Chao, it still maintained a direct line to traditional Malian sounds while expanding into more complex musical and lyrical territory. Sure, with Chao's help, Bamako achieved international acclaim, but one can hope that it was the album's emotional purity that resonated with listeners worldwide. The duo's new album is called Welcome to Mali, but oddly enough, it finds them moving even further afield.
Paul McCartney 
Not to be all-Prop-8-all-the-time over here on the Riff, but there was some surprising, funny, and surprisingly funny stuff on SNL Saturday night, and some of the best bits seemed to be inspired by the sudden re-emergence of gay rights as a newsy topic. In fact, homosexuality was pretty much the running theme of the whole episode, from the 
Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW 
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