When, exactly, did the world start to resemble some kind of twisted distopian vision of the future? Either I’ve been reading too many newspapers recently, or life on Earth has come to resemble something George Orwell would liked to have put in ‘1984’, but thought it would give his readers nightmares. I started listing the looming political and environmental Armageddon (global warming, Putin’s new bellicose Russia, mass extinction, Iraq…) but it just got too depressing. Thankfully, this month I was sent some life-affirming bits of music to review.
We begin with Kate Nash, and her debut LP, entitled ‘Made of Bricks’. There’s no sensible reason to dislike Kate Nash. She has some touchingly honest lyrics, has a bit of a gift for storytelling, and her first release was on the seriously credible Moshi Moshi records. What’s more, her first real single, Foundations, is instantly likable. Or at least it would be, were it not for… her accent. It’s the aural equivalent of placing your hand into a food blender whilst having live wires applied to your genitals. In a word – it’s fake.

Accent’s are funny old things. In the UK we literally have a different accent for different villages. If I go to the town two kilometres down the road from where I was born, they have a different accent, and you’d better keep your mouth shut if you don’t want people to take the piss out of you for not being ‘local’. Now, before I start laying into Nash for her accent, I should point out that my own accent is the English equivalent of the Moldovan accent. People like it, but only because 1) it immediately renders everything you say, even the most foul mouthed insult, inoffensive, and, 2) it’s unintentionally funny. It’s the kind of accent that honest, hard-working coal-miners are meant to have. But I like my accent. It’s my accent. Kate’s, on the other hand, clearly isn’t her own.

I did a bit of research and found out that Kate Nash is actually from the salubrious district of Harrow and went to a pretty posh school, where they definitely would have taught her to ‘speak proper’. So she’s got literally no excuse for singing like a match-selling cockney street-urchin from the musical ‘Oliver’. If you can bear the sound of her voice for more than thirty seconds without wanting to start screaming at your speakers with all the vigour of a 16th century serf drowning a witch, then you’ll probably love this album.

Last month the album of the week spot was as vacant as a 17th century serf having the concept of gravity explained to him. This week we have not one, but two contenders for the title. Omu’ Cu Sobolani have been together for a shocking ten years, which is pretty impressive (until you realise that it’s merely a one-hundredth of the length of the last Rolling Stones tour.) To celebrate, they’ve released a rather nice DVD, which I demand you buy. I decided to make this ‘DVD of the Month’, leaving the rather wonderful Firma clear to scoop ‘Album of the Month’ with their album, entitled ‘Exit’ – that’s two ‘Of The Month’ titles, nicely making up for last months embarrassing absence. Firma are basically just what the Romanian music industry needs right now – a band with a kind of indie-rock-meets-pop ethic who throw out radio-friendly tunes like an automatic hay-bailing device. They’re like the Romanian Maroon 5, with the main difference that Firma aren’t shit.

On Calea Victoriei you’ll find the wonderful Zebra Society. Every day for the month of December, I’ll leave a CD in a brown envelope with the date on it. If you enter the shop and say the words “Do you have something for me?”, you’ll be presented with the envelope (unless, of course, someone has taken it before you. In which case you’ll just have to try the next day). It is, admittedly, a bit of a lucky dip. You could be happily walking home with the latest Just Jack album, or you might find yourself the rather miffed owner of Nicoleta Luciu’s latest efforts. I’d say half the CDs are worth keeping, so there’s a 50% chance of disappointment. Or, seen the other way, there’s a 50% chance of getting a CD that’s worth having. By the way, for once in this column, I’m actually telling the truth – this is a serious offer. While stocks last!