I’m a little late with the Amoeba Hollywood World Music best sellers list for March, so here it goes.

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg-IRM
2. Basseko Kouyate-I Speak Fula
3. Bunbury-Las Consecuencias
4. Chatmonchy-S/T
5. V/A-Pomegranates
6. Julieta Venegas-Otra Cosa
7. V/A-Pomegranates (LP version)
8. V/A-Dengue Fever Presents: Electric Cambodia
9. Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate-Ali & Toumani
10. V/A-Nigeria Special Vol.2

Charlotte tops the chart for the third month in a row. Most likely she will bumped by the new Ozomatli in April (More on that later). If you live in or near San Francisco, take note: Charlotte Gainsbourg will be appearing at the SF Amoeba for Record Store Day, where she will be doing a signing at 12 noon! The Pomegranates compilation scores double positions on the chart with both the CD and LP version making the top ten. Two in-store performances fueled the sales of  Basseko Kouyate and Chatmonchy. None of the releases on the top ten show any signs of slowing down; if anything, some may sell more than when they were first released in the coming weeks!

April is turning into another busy month of new releases. So far we had releases by Angelique Kidjo’s Oyo, Mulatu Astatke's Steps Ahead and Richard Bona’s The Ten Shades of Blues. Another B-Music compilation, Absolute Belter, is a collection of Psychedelic pop nuggets from Spain from the late 60’s/early 70’s. The LP version will be out soon, so I hear.

Julieta Venegas-Otra Cosa

For someone as hugely popular as Julieta Venegas is, I find it takes her fans a good couple of weeks to discover that she has a new album out. The album artwork and the first video look like they came from the British Psychedelic Folk movement of the late sixties. No worries though, Julieta remains on Planet Julieta and there is no one who can do it better than her. So women and Indie-nerd boys rejoice, the new album is here!

Julieta Venegas - "Buen o Mal"





Bunbury- Las Consecuencias

The former (and maybe still current) member of Heroes Del Silencio latest’s album is somewhat of a departure from the 2006’s guitar driven Hellville En Deluxe, which only available as an import in the U.S. The song “Frente A Frente” is a cover song of Spanish singer Jeanette, done slightly darker. What is cool about this song is that it includes the vocals of Miren Iza from the group,Tulsa. Her vocals mixed with Enrique Bunbury's give the song a Serge Gainsberg/Jane Birkin feel.

Bunbury - "Frente A Frente"

Here are some of our latest releases that you may want to check out for yourself. Everything from World Psychedelic to Afrobeat to French Crooners and Afro-Colombian jams...

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg-IRM
2. Charlotte Gainsbourg-IRM (LP version)
3. Huun Huur Tu/ Carmen Rizzo - Eternal
4. Dengue Fever Presents: Electric Cambodia
5. Tinariwen - Imidiwan: Companions
6. Basseko Kouyate – I Speak Fula
7. V/A - Pomegranates (LP version)
8. Ali Faurka Toure/Toumani Diabete - Ali & Toumani
9. Mulatu Astatke - New York-Addis-London
10. Shakira - She Wolf

So far 2010 has been shaping up to be the year of the women. Amoeba’s three biggest releases this year have been from the likes of Sade, Joanna Newsom, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Ms. Gainsbourg tops the Amoeba Hollywood World Music chart once again in February and shows no signs of slowing down. The LP version of IRM also landed the second spot. At number three was Huun Huur Tu from Tuva, who had an amazing instore performance back on February 7th (Super Bowl Sunday). I managed to catch Huun Huur Tu once again a few weeks later opening for Tinariwen at Royce Hall at UCLA. The two groups combined were three and a half hours of musical bliss. I hope that perhaps both these groups would consider going on the road together. Tinariwen’s Imidiwan: Companions was at number five in the charts, up a few notches from last month.

Nacional Records seems to be the only choice these days for any Latin Alternative music these days. While releases by artists such as Mexican Institute Of Sound, The Nortec Collective and the Zizek crew show the electronic future of the genre, Banda De Turistas reaches back to 60’s era Kinks for inspiration. Magical Radiophonic Heart contains fifteen songs of garage/psyche/pop bliss that would please the kids discovering a past that they never knew. Those kids that look retro yet weren’t born when The Dukes Of Stratosphere first came out, let alone The Kinks! Banda De Turistas is available on CD only.

Speaking of retro, Vampi Soul just released a couple of reissues. Spiteri, a band of Venezuelan brothers (Charles & Jorge) who moved to England, hung out with the likes of Traffic, The Animals and Osibisa and, in 1973, released a gem of a debut album. Spiteri, or as it was known in Venezuela, Disco De La Culebra (The Snake Record…because the band logo was a cobra), which was their only proper album. They were supposed to be Venezuela’s answer to Santana. But like the band’s original press release stated, “Santana is a rock band influenced by Latin music…Spiteri are Latin musicians influenced by rock.” Within the heavy 70’s rock and onslaught of percussion, one can hear Spiteri’s Venezuelan roots. As Jorge Spiteri put it, the band played “With The Beatles and Traffic in our minds and Joe Cuba in our hearts.” Sadly, due to immigration problems, most of the band started to leave England and the brothers were left with a line-up that consisted of them with English musicians. The band soon broke up but not before recording a killer funk version of The Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m A Man” that sounds like something Mandrill would have done. This release is available on CD and limited edition vinyl.

The other reissue Vampi Soul released this week is from El Gran Fellove, a totally underrated Cuban singer that made most of his career in Mexico. Born and raised in Cuba, he was a contemporary of the likes of Cachao, Perez Prado, Celia Cruz and Chano Pozo. He was known for his scatting, a style that he later dubbed the “Chua Chua.” El Gran Fellove could have been much bigger if it wasn’t for his loyalties. He was asked to play in both Machito and Tito Puente’s groups while performing in New York in the late fifties, but turned them down because he didn’t want to cause friction with the singers that those groups already had. On top of that, he had a career in Mexico. There, he starred in a few movies and released recordings on the RCA label. Vampi Soul's collection, Mango Mangue, focuses on the work he did in the 60’s on RCA, including the song “El Jamaiquino,” a Ska/Mambo fusion that has been the desires of deejays for many years. This release is available on CD and LP.