Month In Review – May 2010

One of the most eclectic months since I started the blog, in May I covered many events like the passing of Lena Horne, the emergence of Greyson Chance and the latest instrument being developed by Roger Linn – all while providing coverage on artists I had already introduced you to. Albums reviewed included Tom Petty’s “Full Moon Fever” and “Into The Great Wide Open”, whereas I also reviewed “The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3” and Richard Thompson’s “Mirror Blue”.

What’s more, The Kinks were (finally!) added to the roll of artists featured on MusicKO

The startups I reviewed this month were SongVote, Radar Music Videos, G2, Lyreach and BuyWidget. And I managed to interview James Fontana from SongVote, and the two founders of a startup I had covered in April: Earwurm.

Finally, I am very pleased with the way the coverage of Uruguayan musicians has evolved. In addition to reviewing Sordromo’s “Salvando La Distancia” I posted a classic audio clip (Jorge Nasser beating some radio hosts that got too cheeky), and I covered a new unsigned artist: Retrocedonia. Best of all, one of the bands I collaborate with shot its first video. The band is RostbiF, and the song is “En Una Lágrima”.

Retrocedonia (Uruguayan Unsigned Artist)

Retrocedonia Are Pablo Sassi, Sergio Astengo, Ana Garland & Alejandro Tuala

Retrocedonia Are Pablo Sassi, Sergio Astengo, Ana Garland & Alejandro Tuala

A band that got me quite intrigued, Retrocedonia is more pop than rock, but it can rock far more than your conventional poppy outfit. More than anything, it is a band whose sound melds old and new Uruguayan traditions in a very idiosyncratic way – they clearly know what has come and gone before and they make sure indicators are dropped all over the place, but not in a way that would devaluate what they are actually doing.

That is something tricky to pull off – to many younger listeners, the musical history of the country is often anything but cool or hip. They won’t necessarily listen to someone who plays an accordion and sings about the Mama Vieja (one of the most representative protagonists of Uruguayan Candombe) as this band does. Continue reading