Article
Lucy

Albums
Alphabets Heaven
AREA C
Aidan Baker
Black Devil Disco Club
Cluster
Dakota Suite & Errante
Davis & Machinefabriek
Deaf Center
Fancy Mike
FM3
Forest Swords
Frivolous
Hakobune
Kyo Ichinose
Juv
Deniz Kurtel
Sven Laux
Lucy
Stephan Mathieu
Joel Mull
Near The Parenthesis
Netherworld
nunu
Fabio Orsi
Penalune
Pleq
port-royal
Rainbow Arabia
Todd Reynolds
Roedelius
Rosenqvist and Scott
Steffi
Sublamp
SubtractiveLAD
Tapage

Compilations
Back and 4th
Future Disco Volume 4
SMM: Context
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo

EPs
Aardvarck & Kubus
Corrugated Tunnel
Debilos
Djamel
Tolga Fidan
Flowers and Sea Creatures
Anne Garner
Mike Jedlicka / Cloudburst
Mo 2 Meaux-2
Proximity One: Remixes
Darren Rice
Sepalcure
Sharma + Krause
Josh T
Talvihorros
Francesco Tristano
Widesky
Dez Williams

Rainbow Arabia: Boys and Diamonds
Kompakt

Put together tribal beats of the Bow Wow Wow variety, sprinkle them with African and Caribbean flourishes, electro-synth blaze, and lead vocals that sound a tad, shall we say, reminiscent of The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson and package it into three-minute, kaleidoscopic pop songs and whaddya got? Rainbow Arabia, natch. Word has it that LA duo Danny and Tiffany Preston inaugurated the project with the purchase of a Lebanese Casio that played microtonal scales and Eastern beats, a move that led to two EPs, The Basta and Kabukimono, that merged a potpourri of sounds and styles—bossa nova, post-punk, disco, synth-pop, and exotic Middle Eastern rhythms—into a “fourth world” pop style that now finds its fullest flowering on the group's debut full-length Boys And Diamonds.

Nearly a year in the making, the album's a solid collection that manages to be boldly imaginative and accessible; the songs may be built up from exotic tribal beats and left-field vocal and instrumental touches, but they're at root pop songs that live or die on the caliber of their hooks. At times the material suggests what might result from The Knife jamming with the Tom Tom Club, with all involved focusing on concise song construction as opposed to freeform meander. “Without You,” a sing-song New Wave anthem elevated by a parade of vocal-and-synth hooks, stands out as one of the album's strongest pieces. In some other galaxy, “Hai” has been holding the top spot in the singles' chart hostage for three weeks now. In contrast to such extra-terrestrial material, neon-lit tracks such as “Mechanical” and “This Life is Practice” are more squarely rooted in the electro-pop tradition but no less engaging for being so. What Boys And Diamonds is doing on Kompakt is anyone's guess, but the Berlin label gets high marks for including such an unashamedly pop album in its release schedule. Best of all, Rainbow Arabia's album weighs in at forty-two minutes, bless its little heart, just like all good pop albums should.

March 2011