Dhira – Dhira (Universal Music Spain)
Reviewed by Sadie O., 8/2/06
Dance/hip hop/electronica from Spain, featuring an Indian singer/sitar player. Most tracks have great beats and a cool mix of Indian sounds and Spanish hip hop, but the English bits are often rather pop and crap (ain’t that just the way?)
IMO this could – and should – chart and be played as Hip Hop and World as well as Dance/Electronica. Tracks 1 and esp. 11 are Reggae, as well…
No FCCs that I could recognize. Most tracks are excellent. I like 4 best and didn’t care much for 6, and the rest are all funky cool.
1. 3:34 ***hip hop in English and Spanish, bit of reggae beat, midtempo and a bit relaxed. Nice Spanish guitar break.
2. 4:03 *mellow electronica opening, then slightly downtempo with acoustic and electric guitar, hip hop Spanish vocal. Folky chorus in English.
3. 3:47 ***sweet midtempo bounce with sitar in Hindi (?), nicely funky. Long fade.
4. 5:00 ****downtempo funky dance groove, hip hop vocals in Spanish, Indian-style female vocals, guest singing by Amparanoia
5. 3:34 ***funky midtempo electronica, sitar and tabla, a bit trance-y but you can still dance to it.
6. 5:00 downbeat folky beat with sitar, hip hop vocals in Spanish, rather pop English chorus – which kinda spoils the effect. Early ending and uptempo funky extra bit at end.
7. 3:24 ***long male Indian vocal intro, then funky dance beat with hip hop Spanish vocals. Slow gloopy bit with female Indian vocals, back to dance groove.
8. 4:13 **languid electronic groove with sitar, a bit of scratching
9. 4:02 **funky guitar and random talking intro, slightly downtempo funky bounce in English and Spanish, fun vocals with a bit of random talking. Ends 25 seconds early, then bit of spoken Hindi.
10. 4:26 **starts witih spoken Hindi and midtempo beat. Wawa guitar and funky riddim with a bit of sitar and flamenco handclaps. Groove fades a minute from end into violin/sitar/shoopshoop noises. Interesting…
11. 4:34 ***cool midtempo reggae with female backup vocals, melodica, funky yet relaxed. Ends early, then random sounds.
12. 12:54 *downtempo sitar funk, chill vibe. Some tabla, electronics, classical guitar. Fades at 4:20, silence til 6:20 when a heartbeat fades in with sitar (backwards?) and random electronica. Which is fairly interesting noise. pretty random and beatless, however.