Daboa

Coming out of left field, this CD is an amalgam of South American influences, American pop, studio finesse, clever synthesizer programming, world music, folk music, jazz, island music, and great melodies. Vocals are in Spanish, Portugese, and English. If you have a high-end audio system, there is a remarkably huge sense of space on most tracks. The songs are catchy and you'll be whistling them or running through them in your head. This is still one of my favorite CDs after owning it for 5 years. My tastes run from classic rock to folk, bluegrass, jazz, blues, progressive rock, classical, progressive country and very selective world music like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and The Chieftains. Sound effects are blended with the music on many tracks - jungle sounds including bird calls moving around in the trees in track 1, a moving stream in another track, a "rain stick" in another track, a plastic tube whirled overhead in another track. Very interesting and very visual (in that if you sit and listen to the music without distractions, it invites visualizations). This is easy to listen to, pleasant, melodic music, lots of synthesized sounds mixed with some real instruments. Very rich and attractive female vocals from Maria Marquez who also contributes some writing and male vocals from Frank Harris (Oakland, CA) who also writes the music and is probably responsible for all the clever use of synthesizers. Really interesting, really different. Play it for your friends, they'll think you're amazing for finding this gem.