Radio Retaliation

Thievery Corporation – Radio Retaliation
Reviewed by Sadie O., 10/24/08
Stylistically all over the map (quite literally) – Reggae, Indian, Latin, Funk, Folky/Spacey… Many different vocalists. Most tracks are excellent – political and/or philosophical lyrics, strong musicianship. A few tracks are a bit too spacey-pretty for my tastes, but on the whole a terrific package (although I personally find the packaging annoying as hell!)
FCC on track 11, sadly. I like all of the first 8 tracks, and 12 and 14.
1. 3:41 ***siren, then uptempo reggae skank, nicely aggressive.
2. 4:01 ***spacy hand percussion and drones, sitar. Scratching fits right in – interesting stuff!
3. 3:27 ***starts with bit of toasting, then midtempo roots skank. Great sound, and lyrics made for radio.
4. 4:57 ***funky cool upbeat percussion, chimes –Soul Makossa feel.
5. 3:36 **downbeat funky worldbeat groove. Vocals appear to be in Brazilian Portuguese – I guess the relation to Krishna is all in the translation, not the sound.
6. 3:29 ***sweet and energetic Latin groove, lovely vocal harmonies, in Spanish.
7. 3:11 ***lovely flute intro, midtempo hand percussion, mysterious vibe. Instrumental – excellent.
8. 3:48 ***swingy, jazzy, hip hoppy, relaxed and groovy, hip hop vocals in English.
9. 3:28 *trancey, breathy, very downbeat, female vocals. Actually puts me to sleep, but there are worse ways to go.
10. 4:29 *also trancey, downbeat and breathy, with electronic whooshes, pretty female vocals, this time in French.
11. 2:54 FCC: “motherfuckers” X 2 **electronic squeebles intro, then upbeat midtempo jazzy instrumental with an island feel in the percussion. Bit of recording of fiery speech, beboppy clarinet solo.
12. 3:04 ****straight up funk, male soul singing, great lyrics. Marvin Gaye would be proud.
13. 3:38 *lowkey echo-y electronics, building gradually to a swingy groove with lots of spacey sounds, instrumental. Gets better as it goes along.
14. 3:34 ***long intro, then very downtempo reggae skank, fine vocals, electronic boops.
15. 4:49 very slow, folky, anthemic chord structure, but in a very relaxed and spacey way, breathy female vocals. You can do that Grateful Dead dance where they wave their hands and twirl around…