Jamie Lidell's second album, Multiply caught people off-guard in 2005. Few expected the restless sonic scientist to make an uplifting soul record, but he did; and audiences and critics were captivated by the fusion of his influences with deeply felt song writing, meticulous production skills, and most of all, that flipping amazing voice. According to the reviews, Jamie was at various times, Little Richard, Jimi, Otis, Sly, Prince, Marvin, Stevie or some mashed-up combo of them all. Meanwhile, his live show has become an infamously exhilarating experience, with Jamie performing on the edges of control and chaos, turning music inside out. And now here he comes again. Jim is ten very different songs. Jim is energy, integrity, emotion. Jim is all about the hooks. Jim is getting the sounds absolutely right. Jim is keeping things fresh. Jim is the voice. Jim is Jamie and Jamie is Jim. Recorded in Berlin, Los Angeles and Paris, Jim takes even further what was started with Multiply, finding the balance between the spontaneous creativity of his raw ideas and the careful craft and polish of a great record. The musical world of Jim is richer and more refined; but it always comes back to the voice. As Jamie says, "The most important thing was the vocal, to capture the balance of me delivering the songs with full gusto, and at the same time retaining the grain and the grit." Jim will switch you on in the morning, move you on the dance-floor and take you down in the small hours. It's a bold, promiscuously diverse album, mixing up gospel grooves, sweetly sung and fiercely passionate soul, delicately moving ballads, thumping early R & B, synthed-up disco, and even a touch of 'hillbilly funk'. "I haven't tried to hide the influences," he says "This is the music I love." But, listen closely and you can hear Jamie moving in new directions, creating a sound and style that is entirely his own.

The music industry convention of calling a second album a “sophomore record” makes it sound like rock is some kind of college, which is weird. If Born Ruffians’ 2008 debut album Red Yellow & Blue was the result of a talented and precocious gang of freshmen, their 2010 follow-up, Say It, would be the project they left school to finish — a declaration that they’re smart and ambitious enough to make it on their own, and furthermore, that they’re in it for the long haul.

Where Red Yellow Blue began with a utopian dream, Say It opens with “Oh Man,” a jagged romp that finds singer/guitarist Luke Lalonde shaking his head at a romantic fool, and trying to steer him right. “You’ve got to go man,” he explains, riding smoothly over Mitch DeRosier’s galloping bassline and Steve Hamelin’s malleable but steady drum pattern, “and go take your place in this wonderful race.” A ragged echo slaps back at the guitar like wind in the band’s faces; they don’t flinch.

“We had two and a half weeks to work on Say It,” Lalonde says, “which wasn’t quite a luxurious amount of time, but it was more luxurious than we had during the sessions for Red, Yellow and Blue, when we had two weeks to record and mix it. Then, we were doing two songs a day.” Again teaming up with producer Rusty Santos, the Ruffians and co. holed up at Mississauga’s Metalworks studio and loosed the reins on their ambitions, experimenting with Minimoogs and saxophones before eventually scaling much of it back in the mixing process. Not that it was a wasted effort; DeRosier says, “I think it was important that we did that, adding things just to hear how they sounded.”

You can still hear the nuts and bolts of the songs, with guitar hanging out on its own (the jagged arpeggios in “Late”) or a bassline running away with that infectious crazy-quilt, “Retard Canard.” Which, incidentally, isn’t about the developmentally delayed. Lalonde: “Retard Canard is about a certain kind of person who feels like they don’t fit in, or can’t fit in and get along in life. That’s where the “not part of the human race” lyric comes from; it’s about how you just have to do it, or die trying.” And the residue of their production experiments can be traced in the swooning sax licks dangling over “Come Back” or the watery synths lurking in the tightly-wound “What To Say”: “When I get drunk I’m speaking more / get too drunk and I don’t speak at all / get too close to you and I don’t know / what to say.” Hamelin describes “What To Say” as “one of those songs where we put it together out of a bunch of different ideas, and it really came together as a cohesive whole. Unlike some of the songs we’ve put together out of a bunch of ideas, and they sound like a bunch of different ideas.” The parts hang together, a clattering machine bonded by a combination of kinetic energy and unshakeable confidence.

With Hamelin having reversed his earlier declaration that he no longer planned to tour with the band (“Steve was always going to be recording with us,” says Lalonde. “If we had to get another drummer to go on tour, we would have done it”) and ex-Caribou bassist Andy Lloyd joining them on tour to fill out Say It’s added complexities, Born Ruffians are ready to pull on their boots and get down to business. Let the sophomores stumble — these guys are showing up to work every day, paying the rent on time and sharing a secret laugh with the bartender. School’s out.

n November 2007, following a US tour supporting The Boggs' third album, Forts, Jason Friedman and touring-Bogg Eleanore Everdell found themselves in the studio recording a brand new collaborative track, without the rest of the band. “In the past, the collaborators I worked with would adjust what they did to fit my vision,” says Friedman. “Working with Eleanore it was clear that the time had come to shift into a more equal partnership.” The result of this new approach was “DRESSED IN DRESDEN”, a fractured pop thumper that showed Eleanore assuming full vocal duties over heavy beats and staccato guitars.

In the months since that session, the seven-year-old Boggs were laid to rest, and THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS were formed.

With carefully composed polyrhythms, jagged guitar lines, and layered, breathy vocals, THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS keep the raw energy of post-punk illuminating their minds and Studio One boogie-down beats churning in their guts. This is no Rock concert spectacle, no stationary stare-fest. These are soundsytem-backed, foot stomping, clap hands beats for akimbo-limbed boogie kids. Ballrooms and bar floors are built strong, it’s time to give them a pounding.

Eleanore Everdell sings on ‘Lover’s Day’ the final cut off TV on the Radio’s Dear Science, and has recorded vocals for Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson’s forthcoming Summer Of Fear.

Jason Friedman's The Boggs have released three critically acclaimed albums, played and toured with the Rapture, Hot Chip, Long Blondes, The Kills, Calla, and the Duke Spirit, and have been remixed by Hot Chip and Shy Child. Past members include Matt Schulz of Enon and Holy Fuck, Heather D’Angelo of Au Revoir Simone, and Sam Jayne of Love As Laughter...