Her Potty Mouthed Highness: Some singers are ready made for the spotlight and their 15 years of fame. Soulful Aussie up-and-comer Sia ("SEE-ya") sings like a Dusty Springfield dream and writes instant deep soul classics, but it's her provocative potty mouth that has everyone at Yahoo! Music buzzing. The 30-year-old told one publication that she likes to be punched and penetrated up the poop shoot. Another interviewer was invited to listen to her "wee." In the video for "Buttons" her face is mashed up with ropes and condoms. Sia's written songs about junkies and dating a cocaine addict, and friends like Beck and Inara George clamor to be part of her star making music machinery. Which you can hear in fantastic relief on the January 8 release, Some People Have REAL Problems (Monkey Puzzle/HEAR Music).

Ahhh...here's where the real fun begins. A treat of album in a wasteland of tepid releases from talentless hacks, a gift from on high from the Gods of music and mystery, Some People Have REAL Problems makes you wonder what the folks at Sia's former label (Astralwerks) were thinking when they dropped her after two hot and fleshy CDs. At times recalling a gutsier Amy Winehouse, Sia is a powerhouse singer and songwriter who seems to channel Janis Joplin, Beth Gibbons, Beth Orton and Dinah Washington all at once. Formerly known as the amazing voice that sweetened the music of Zero 7 and Jamiroquai, Sia leaves the boy's club behind and asserts her stone soul genius on Some People Have REAL Problems.

Sia's voice is a penetrating, bracing super soul vehicle that both cuts up your ears and lulls your brain to a gentle sleep. She combines gritty but gentle soul funk with that amazing voice, a barbed-wire thing of beauty covered in hot port wine and the occasional hip-hop inspired cadence that would make Gnarls Barkley drop their scrubs. She balances that blend so well on Some People Have REAL Problems, from the elevating tones of "Academia" and the sharp tongued "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine," to nipple rubbing stunner, "Little Black Sandals" and today's MP3, "Electric Bird." Tame by comparison to the rest of the album's bruised desserts, "Electric Bird" comes off like a classic '70s track, ala Melanie, all wafting arms, sweet electric piano, and triumphant brass figures. Sia Fuller soars over it all, her magic tunes and richly demented vocals killing us softly.

Sia:"Electric Bird"  (MP3, 4:26)

Exclusive for Yahoo! Music users, this official remix of "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine," produced by Jimmy Hogarth, mixed by Jeremy Wheatley, with additional production by Stonebridge.  

 

Ear Candy for the Head Phone Trippers: Cool title, eh? It's by those lost songwriting soothsayers from Langhorne, PA, Days Away. These nervy bros take it all by the horns, combining soft boy vocals with Mute Math inspired rhythms, squiggly line guitars and the remains of a great summer day.

Days Away
"Being A Part of You" (mp3)
from "Ear Candy for the Head Phone Trippers"
(Sargent House)

More On This Album

Days Away
"I'm Sorry I Told You All My Problems" (mp3)
from "Ear Candy for the Head Phone Trippers"
(Sargent House)

More On This Album