Kwaping! Music

“Find You Out” by RJD2

I recently described this artist to my wife as “Girl Talk, but jazzy”. While not 100% accurate, it’s pretty close. If you’ve heard the Get Shorty soundtrack (highly recommended), you have a good idea of what RJD2‘s latest work sounds like. It also reminds me a bit of some Propellerheads songs.

Find You Out, from the album Your Face Or Your Kneecaps, has some nice vocal samples in Spanish, laid over a jazz-lounge beat. One of RJD2′s signatures is horn samples, and he has plenty of them here. Fortunately, I love horn samples, so count me as an instant RJD2 fan. In fact, I liked this song so much, I went out and purchased one of his (many) other albums, Magnificent City Instrumentals. That will probably be reviewed in another post in the near future.

“French Navy” by Camera Obscura

Similar in concept to much of Zee Avi’s music, Camera Obscura‘s “French Navy” features a female lead singer and feels like it should be a very old song when in fact it’s brand new. However, where Ms. Avi has a jazzy acoustic/island-girl vibe from the 40′s, “French Navy” is more like a 60′s song. To be honest, I’m having quite a hard time describing it – it’s very hard to define. It’s upbeat, has a great hook, and some nice violin work.

Some might call it a girlie song, and it does have mass female appeal, but I think guys like it too. Strangely enough, I heard it playing in Home Depot lately! That was definitely a surprise.

The rest of Camera Obscura’s new album, My Maudlin Career, is pretty good, but this is the standout single for me.