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CHRISTINE ANU - Styling Up
CHRISTINE Anu has put together a fresh and funky sound, infusing elements of traditional music into the latest dance beats like hiphop, techno, rhythm and blues, and reggae.
Adding token ethnic elements into modern disco music often sounds forced, but she's managed, for the most part, to blend it all together in an organic fashion.
Christine, 24, has her roots in the Torres Straits Islands between Papua New Guinea and Cape York. Her background offers a stylistically different outlook on her music and song writing, with colourful idioms and speech drawn from the Creole tongue.
There's Wanem Time, where she sings about the need to take time out for the better things in life; San E Wireless, a hard-driving tune about the need to stay in contact; and the very positive and punchy Love That Heals.
There are also some cameo folk-oriented touches as in Rain which is filled with affecting vocal harmonies. Lively strummed guitars, thick, catchy dance grooves, and words that come from her heart ... this is a very strong first album. RITCHIE BLACKMORE - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow
From Deep Purple to Rainbow, and back to Deep Purple and back to Rainbow, guitarist Blackmore, famed for his mood swings, left Purple last year to allow first, Joe Satriani, and now, Steve Morse to step in. Blackmore hasn't been idly twiddling his thumbs either, and this Mark Two (or is...