Speaking of excuses, yes I am still alive. But barely. I’ve been dealing with a herniated disc for the past couple months which has kept me in pain during most of my evenings, when I did have a little free time to write about music here at C-Pop. How’d it happen you ask? Funny thing is one of my last live music reviews I wrote about, could explain how I got into this condition. Back in November when I saw Spearhead I described how Franti encourages the audience to get up and jump. The entire floor was doing the pogo as was I. This most likely caused my spine to crush. I didn’t feel the effects right away and I was already experiencing the problem before I went into the show. But take note: jumping up and down on a wooden floor is not a good thing for your back. Although I’ve still been listening to and thinking about music over the past couple weeks, it has been hard to get the thoughts down as I deal with the pain. Last weekend I discovered that listening to music rather than watching TV calms my nerves and muscles down.

So bear with me as I try to make a comeback as I spell out a couple albums I’ve been playing in the past week. All of the following are recent downloads from eMusic and if you like and already heard one of them I’ll bet you’ll like the other two as well. My top favorite of this week and I predict being on my Top 10 list for 2007 is Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra - Voices and Choices. Lee a multi instrumentalist, vocalist, game soundtrack composer, combines the sounds of Ennio Morricone and Serge Gainsbourg meshes them with Pink Floyd, hip-hop and tons of other references to create a transfiguring soundtrack for your mind. If you grab the eMusic daily download you may gotten the track “Song For David” a couple weeks ago. Last week KCRW’s Podcast: Today’s Top Tune featured the same song. Both places are great sources for new free legal downloads.

Next on my list which has been in my “Save For Later” folder for a while is “Voice Of Chunk” the 1989 release by Lounge Lizards, which blends a atmospheric moody cinematic sound with boundary breaking jazz. Speaking of atmospheric if you look up the word in the dictionary a picture of Vini Reilly (The Durutti Column) should be next to it. For nearly 30 years Reilly has been building upon an ethereal canvas that evokes the movements of both punk and dance. I download two albums this month by The Durutti Column but have only had to time to listen to 2003’s “Someone Else’s Party” which isn’t a completely perfect album but still works, particularly when played with the two previous albums I just mentioned.