Marie “Tweek” is my new favorite. Most of her body of work with the Rurals, the Devonshire-based, bucolic soul duo she has fronted with husband Andy Compton since 1994, falls under the wide umbrella of melodic Deep House. Actually, much of the rural’s nearly 50 EPs worth of music is instrumental. It is Tweek’s solo effort that marked shift towards more downtempo and nu-jazz. I don’t really want to say a lot about this song except that it is uplifting and really poppy. Also it is intricately arranged and the instrumentation is stellar. Not gonna say that it doesn’t remind me a great deal of the chord structure of Vanessa Carlton’s early aughts radio hit, “A Thousand Miles.” Oh, and the lyrics are pretty house.

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I fell in love with Gustavo Cerati in Barcelona of all places. My friend Diego had an extensive library of Spanish-language pop from the 90s and I took a hearty helping for myself before leaving the city. An aging Argentine pop star not unlike Sting or Phil Collins, but perhaps more attractive than the latter, Cerati was once the frontman for the beloved Hispanablante rock trio Soda Stereo. After the band’s breakup he released several solo albums. I just reunited with all of my Gustavo Cerati, most of which I lost from my own library in the great external hard drive meltdown of 2006 (imagine me pouring out a bit of rhum for all the artists I lost). Vivo is a torch song. The album version from “Siempre es Hoy” is a mid-tempo ballad where pulsating synth pads ebb and flow over bright humbucker psychedelia. This version, ostensibly put out by Gustavo himself, winks into existence on a 120bpm clip. Each sonic element from the original joins the disco bounce at logical benchmarks until the anthemic hook drops: “El fin de amar, sentirse más vivo.” Its a bit of a paint by numbers remix, but when the swell hits and Cerati’s pleading tenor soars … Well, let’s just say Sting may have tantra, but he doesn’t have the romantic soul of an Argentine disco daddy.

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