Excerpts are from Amazon and All Music Guide. Her albums are available on Rhapsody and at ITMS.

The swirl of Egyptian strings, hip-hop beats, love, and politics can make strange bedfellows, but Brussels-born and Washington, DC-based vocalist Natacha Atlas, chanteuse and belly dancer, makes sense of it all.

... full of exuberance, reflection, and yearning that are at once compassionate and militant ... Atlas's serpentine vocals entwine the listener in tales of passion, injustice, and the mysteries of life.

... one of the most intriguing and original artists blending international cultures into a common musical language.

... while singing in Arabic, Hindi, English and French, she draws her musical backing from drum & bass, Parisian vaudeville, R&B, ambient dance, pop, rap and film music, and never once do her sonic movements feel remotely gratuitous.

... snake-hipped, seductive, and sophisticated with a feral emotional core ... the songs swell shaabi style, incorporating trippy beats, guttural cries, sinuous strings, and a disturbing yet undeniable beauty ...

This is music of the cells, the body, and the roaming spirit; yet another way to free the mind and have the flesh follow.

Natacha Atlas

And it's way, way down inside

From the editorial review at Amazon: "Even listeners who don't share the faith expressed in these songs will have trouble resisting the unflinching intimacy of the performances."

ITMS has the standard 30-second samples. Tracks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 are the uptempo gospel songs.

'I've Got That Old Time Religion In My Heart' - Iris DeMent, Lifeline

From the All Music Guide:

When Kasey Chambers sings, she manages the not-unremarkable accomplishment of splitting the difference between Emmylou Harris's crystalline purity and Lucinda Williams's rough-hewn emotional honesty, and the most startling thing is you sense she sounded like this before she ever heard of either artist.

Wayward Angel is the work of a strikingly talented singer and songwriter, and it's simply a pleasure to hear Kasey Chambers work -- anyone who doubts that this woman is a major artist needs to hear this album as soon as possible.

East Coast tour dates are coming up Real Soon Now.

Kasey Chambers

I'm gonna learn the best way to walk
I'm gonna search and find a better way to talk
I'm gonna spit and polish my old rough-edged self
Til I get rid of every single flaw
I'm gonna be the World's best friend
I'm gonna go around shaking everybody's hand
Hey, I'm gonna be the cotton-pickin' Rage of the Age
I'm gonna be a diamond some day

If you don't get it, you just don't Get It.

This four-CD box set marking the 100th anniversary of Louis Armstrong's birth contains some of his most groundbreaking, historic works.

Recorded when Armstrong was emerging from the influence of his idol, Joe "King" Oliver, these discs feature the main staples of the Armstrong canon. The jewel of the collection is "West End Blues," with Armstrong's stratospheric, pyramid-structured solo, which ranks as one of the greatest in the history of music. The sessions also mark an important technological breakthrough, with the transition from acoustic to electrical recording.

All in all, this set shows that Louis Armstrong's heroic talents enabled him to become the alpha and omega of 20th century music.

From Rhapsody's Artist Snapshot:

"The Reverend Satchelmouth is the beginning and the end of music in America." So said Bing Crosby, and how right he was, because Armstrong is the single most important figure in twentieth century popular music.

If there's an artist who wasn't directly influenced by his astounding improvisations, and most importantly, his phrasing, then he was influenced by those who were.

Armstrong did more with time, nuance, and personality than whole armies of musicians.

But forget about influencing others -- if his music doesn't fill you with tingles of joy and delight then you just may be dead. And don't fret if you are six feet under; Pops will be serenading you in heaven. For how can there be a heaven without Louis?

Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings

His tenor and falsetto tell you of the complicated emotions harbored by an acutely perceptive blues musician in the denigratory South; so does his guitar playing, which amazingly often mixes leads with chords. Johnson's thematic lyrics -- further bespeaking his restlessness, fatalism, and defiance -- are stately in their imagery.

The Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson

Most riveting are the numerous traditional numbers, the songs that were clearly closest to the Man in Black's heart. "Banks of the Ohio," "Old Chunk of Coal," "Hard Times," and the entire disc of previously unreleased gospel tunes are powerful statements, tunes where you feel privileged to hear Cash sing one more time, the way he wanted.

Unearthed Johnny Cash

Imagine being able to dip in and listen to the unadorned music from the whole of this pioneer's musical career, along with preserved historical spoken words. His career truly represents the major turning point in country music's history, and this box set is as much a social history of America at mid-20th century as it is a music document.

The Complete Hank Williams

Do you like to own your music? Or do you prefer to rent? Either way, Virgin Digital has it.

From the Software License Agreement:

The Virgin Digital Service affords you the unique and thrilling opportunity to experience 30 second samples of music and to stream, download and think about digitized sound recordings and related nifty digital content.

The entire Agreement, as well as the FAQ, is peppered with this sort of forced cheekiness.

The service is still in beta, and the client software shows it. It is nice to see they have integrated the All Music Guide into the client.

A quick review of the breadth and depth of the catalog finds minor differences from Rhapsody. However, if an artist or album is unavailable on one service, chances are that it's not available on the other, either.

Also, something is amiss when Scissor Sisters, Blues Explosion, and Toots & The Maytals are on the front page, filed under "Most Popular."

Virgin Digital

From the artist snapshot on Rhapsody:

Drunk Texans play lo-fi hillbilly boogie that is so funny you'll laugh your ass right off.

It's like country music, only funny!

They do a stumbling Honky-Tonk cover of Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise." Can you imagine?!

The Dallas Observer wrote:

You haven't lived until you've heard Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise" turned into a white-trash stomp, its call-to-arms sung though a white man's nasal passages until the rhyme animal squeals in what's either pain or delight.

These boys play the song like they just learned it on a stage at the local VFW hall during nickel-beer night, clunking and clattering through it until PE starts whistling with "Dixie" and makes you wonder why we all just can't get along, especially by the time guitarist Morgan Geer gets around to insisting Farrakhan's a prophet he thinks you oughta listen to.

"Ternitup," Geer snarls in a bastard twang, while drummer Jamie Stirling goes looking for the beat in someone else's back pocket. Then, the punch line: "Braaaang the noise," and you can't tell whether the Trio's makin' fun or just havin' fun, though there's a fine line anyway."

Note: The streaming video link at SXSW is no longer active. The audio is available on Rhapsody and iTunes.

Bring The Noise, by Unholy Trio