So now the Kid, for whom I've been a musical dinosaur with a few respectable tastes, warns me that should I pursue the burning interests she's aroused with some of the CDs she brings round at weekends, I'll be outpacing her own grasp of contemporary music trends.
"Well yes, darling," I confessed at the weekend, "but a lot of this stuff is really good!"
Indeed, it's called for a revision of my budget slots, which already feature a smaller allowance for clothes than many people's, a larger one for "culture" with a small "c", less on cigarettes and 'phone bills and more on music. I've also stopped buying one or two magazines from which I've decided I learn little, in favour of more instructive ones.
I don't plan to take too much business away from Francis, my favourite newsagent, sage, football fanatic and purveyor of essential local tidings, but he's up against places like Info Presse (Fr) for cut-rate subscriptions.
And finally, I'm becoming as skilled at knowing where to find new releases both legally and at low prices as my colleague Karin is at tracking down cheap flights and holidays for people. She amazes us with some of the deals she turns up.
I'll admit now that the ears that last year made little distinction among Marianne's various musical tastes and were prone to hear it all as abominable noise have become more discerning. She still swiftly turns it down when I enter the room, but I've asked her to stop this; it was partly her rush to keep the volume low that had me missing most of the subtleties and dismissing it as all more or less the same kind of racket.
The other nice thing about yesterday, apart from that strong hint of a Parisian spring I hastened to mention before the weather turned grotty again, was that it was the first "music allowance day" in the new month's budget.
Notable recent discoveries include Dave Clarke. Not to be confused with the Factory's Lagos bureau chief -- whose original trance-dance style has doubtless now introduced new trends to Nigeria which some of us were first privileged to see in Youssouf N'Dour's Dakar nightclub (now temporarily closed to improve safety standards) --I mean the British hip-hop DJ turned techno producer and album maker.
'Devil's Advocate' (Skint, 2003) proved an admirable and eclectic introduction to a range of dancefloor music which has passed me by, where it's evident even to an unpracticed ear that Clarke also sends up precisely the kinds of techno and house I haven't liked.
"Banging a few metal objects together over a solid 4x4 used to be hours of fun. Ask any respecting tech-head and they’ll tell you that you just can’t get better than a bit of Black n’ Decker.
Or so they thought."
That's the start of a review at Ministry of Sound which expresses one of my dislikes better than what I was going to say about some prevalent techno noises that bore me rigid. 'Devil's Advocate' doesn't and is strongly recommended.
Out of France and not yet at Amazon UK, Carla Elves, aka Laurent Hô, is provocative with 'Soundtracks, the Tronica Project' (UWe, 2003; Trip-Hop; Fr), which is another eclectic album drawing on samples and weird extracts of dialogue (in American, German...) to make a kind of tight electronica cinema music.
'Soundtracks' has grown on me, a subtle and sometimes sombre album with a coherence I've come to appreciate on repeated listening.
My real surprise of the week so far was Lenine's 'Falange Canibal' ( Ariola, 2002), a Brazilian album which brings rock, funk and electronic techniques to music in samba, bossa and other "traditional" styles.
It comes out of international musical encounters at a popular nightclub and bar under the Lapa arches, an aqueduct turned tramway in Rio de Janeiro, with a strong social message to some of the poetic lyrics. Lenine, a big name in Brazil but new to me, and his friends produce some great melodies and some very odd noises on a staggeringly original CD.
I can find little about Lenine in English on the Net, but there's some good stuff (sound and video too) at Mondomix, a French world music site.
Whether the Kid will like Lenine is a different question.
10:54:56 PM link 
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