The Ting Tings are an English duo made up of Jules De Martino and Katie White who formed in Salford in 2006. Their style is one that is pure adrenalin and pop music and some kind of unmamed sugary confection thrown in to make it stick. The singles in their so-brief career have been like bubble-gum electro-pop with guitars. But the catchiness of “Great DJ” is also due to the song-craft underneath, integrating play yard melodies with a touch of indie rock hooks. Their first full-length “We Started Nothing” sees the light in the spring of 2008.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
Santogold hails from Philadelphia and was the former lead singer of the Philly punk rock/ska band Stiffed. After leaving Stiffed to go solo, her initial singles became an internet success. We think you’ll like this one too.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
Alex Cuba is a singer and multi-instrumentalist from (take a guess…) Cuba who also calls Canada home. This track is from his second album, Agua Del Pozo, a mellow collection of soulful rhythms and strikingly agreeable melodies. His music has a touch of his Cuban roots, but has a knack for melancholy that is like a combination of sad Brazilian sambas and more American-ized baroque pop.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
“Worrisome Heart” is the title track to the debut from the young vocalist Melody Gardot. Gardot’s debut is out on Verve Records and the sound she conjures here is a good fit with that label’s classic recordings. This is smoky vocal jazz with Gardot providing plenty of mystery and guile in the composition and vocal style. She unfolds the song like a blues tune, focusing on repitition, but tells more with each line of the song.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
NG2 are a pop-salsa duo from Puerto Rico who honed their considerable chops as part of romantic salero Victor Manuelle’s group. “Ella Menea” is an unstoppable groove with some great, funky trombone work and the duo’s own interchanging vocal leads. “Ella Menea” is stylish, hip and yet completely classic in its approach.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
If you saw the film La Vie en Rose, then you’ve heard Jil Aigrot. She was the singing voice of French vocal legend Edith Piaf in the film when Piaf’s original recordings weren’t used. Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard then lip-synced to Aigrot’s renditions. Aigrot’s uncanny approximation of Piaf’s phrasings and signature matieral is available on the album Word’s of Love, on which you’ll find this week’s free Discovery Download.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
In the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles from nowhere, a floating city rises above the sea. Twenty-four stories high, three football fields long, carrying 5,000 sailors and marines and 85 military aircraft – this is the USS Nimitz. From May to November 2005, a team of documentary filmmakers embedded aboard the USS Nimitz as it deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The result is a raw and honest look at the United States Navy and its role at a critical turning point in this controversial war. With startling intimacy, Carrier follows a core group of subjects as they navigate personal conflicts around their jobs, family, faith, patriotism, and the rites of passage – all against the extraordinary backgrop of the war in Iraq.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
Cut from the same singer-songwriter cloth as Jack Johnson and Jill Sobule, Tristan Prettyman applies a warm Carnauba wax to her acoustic California pop, then burnishes it to a deep glow. A troubadour in flip-flops, Prettyman’s sunny take on heartbreak, “Madly,” appears on her second album Hello.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
In the case of Puerto Rico’s Tony Dize, you can definitely judge the man by the company he keeps. Dize has been working closely with reggaeton duo, Wisin & Yandel. The compilation Los Vaqueros that was put out by the dynamic duo featured the track “Quizas”, which was a big hit. Now Dize is out on his own and we’ve got a track from his full-length debut, La Melodia De La Calle.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
Algebra Blessett is an R&B songbird from Atlanta whose gentle rain caught the ear of Kedar Massenburg, who assisted D’Angelo and Erykah Badu early on in their careers. With “Run and Hide”, Blessett curls toes with a sensuous tale of elusive love, heightened by synthesized strings, hearbeat keys, and a bedrock beat. Nothing complex about this Algebra; enter her classroom and get schooled.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
