Baiki - "Do It Yourself"

A promising act - check it out if you like folk rock (6/10) The title of the album soon imposed itself : We had no label, so we threw ourselves in self-production We had no distributor, so we went into self-distribution We had no promoter, so we self-promoted We had no website, so self-webmastered Knowing we could only rely on ourselves, we named the album after this self-attitude. And to push the concept further, we declined the imagery of a multinational DIY furniture store to create the cover of our album. It was nothing more than a gimmick, no bad intentions… We must confess that the end result was remarkable thanks to the combined talents of 2 friends : Michel and Chan. So we had a good laugh though that didn’t last long. This multinational got really upset. The end result was that we had to bring their minds at peace and promise to put an end to our misdemeanour and commit to stop annoying them again in the future. This CD was therefore “released” in a fairly confidential way in Belgium at the end of 2003. Nevertheless, there only remains a handful of this “outlaw collector”. And then hope came from the South, from Montpellier to be precise. A modest label, Musiquémo took “Do It Yourself” under their wings and signed a licensing agreement. A new cover was created, the CD repressed and bang “Do It Yourself” now proudly sits in the music shop racks in France since mid-February 2005. This is quite an interesting work, blending rock, pop rock and folk rock, based on heavy use of acoustic instruments, with the singer trying to sing in four different languages. I do not know if it was such a good idea, because I have the impression that because of lack of language skills his performance is much weaker than it could be. This is definitely true with my native Polish, but Spanish also sounds very unconvincing, as if he had much trouble with proper pronunciation. Nevertheless, it is a promising act, with a potential to grow. For the time being some tracks lack good melodies, the others have them too obvious and simple. The ugly cover of the Polish folk standard "Sokoly" shows clearly that they should work much much harder on their arrangements and ability to transmit musical energy through their recordings. Still, I listened to this album with interest and I put them on my watchlist, hoping they will improve. Check them out if you like folk rock.

Royalty Free Music - Stock Music Library | Jamendo PRO [Artist's website]

Manta Raya - "Remix My Ass! Vol. 1"

Mostly dull electroclash (5/10) MANTA RAYA is born in 2000, in Argentina. Mecha, George and Quique knew each other studying Visual Arts in Mar del Plata city. At that time, 1998, they played in different bands. This is how they shared their art and gigs and parties sometimes. After a while, destiny and the same love for music brought them back together. And they had no other choice but to do what they like the most. to Rock!! They've played in every single place they could. From the smallest shitty underground bar to big venues, clubs and festivals. In march '07 Manta Raya was selected by Paste Magazine and Coca Cola Company to be one of the independent artists promoted at Coca Cola's website. Finally their new album Yeah! was released in October 2007. Produced by Manta Raya. Mixed by MantaGeorge and Luciano Siclari. Mastered by Luciano Siclari. Supported by UMI ( Independents Musicians Union ). And one week after the release, they started their first European Tour performing in Berlin, Hamburg, London, Paris and Guadalajara. I never listened to Manta Raya, so I cannot compare these remixes to their original versions. I will, therefore, judge them on their own merits. Most of the remixes fall into electroclash genre, with accompaniment based on 8-bit - to a rather tiring effect. Dull punkish vocals combined with primitive disco-like beats add up to a really ugly whole. The only two interesting tracks are nos. 02 & 08, because of much more intelligent, breakbeat-based instrumentals. The album has been released by the 49manekinow.net netlabel and is available for downloading at archive.org in mp3 format.

[Artist's Myspace]