This is Kimbra, a 20-year-old singer from New Zealand. According to my calculations, this makes Kimbra a kiwi.

“Settle Down” is the debut single from the debut album of Kimbra, Vows. It is about commitment (“Won’t you settle down with me?” “Won’t you have a child with me?”), sung with plenty of hand claps and plenty of silly mouth sounds.

Combine 70% of the look and 30% of the sound of St. Vincent, a bit of Regina Spektor, and the quirk-pop of Róisín Murphy‘s first album, and there you have it–the Kimbra sound. Sort of.

Most impressive of all is the gorgeous accompanying video, which you can watch above.

While there are many, many things to love here–the mannequin man, the glamorous ’60′s plastic sheen a la Mad Men–it is, without a doubt, the jaunty choreographed dance with the twins straight out of The Shining performed in front of the shelves of burning dolls that really seals the deal for me here.

Like all good things, it’s a little weird. Basically, here’s hoping she goes the way of Róisín–first banging out some weird, organic tracks, and then diving headfirst into unapologetic, next level disco.

I expect good things.

The Family Jewels is the debut album by Marina and the Diamonds (real name Marina Diamandis–see what she did there?).

Having just been named the #2 “One to Watch” on the BBC’s prestigious Sound of 2010 list, Marina is about to endure a great deal of scrutiny and criticism under the magnifying glass of the English press with the album’s release on February 22. But is she worth the dreaded hype?

Marina’s full, throaty delivery style has the ability to quickly divide her supporters from her detractors, meshing Regina Spektor‘s quirk and Fiona Apple‘s angst with a heavily theatrical flair. Never one to shy from over-enunciation, Marina tackles the bulk of her debut with a bold, brassy delivery and a dizzying array of instrumentation and sound.

The formula works wonderfully for the most part, as with the gorgeous, slow building “Obsessions” and the electro-bubbly contemplation of “Are You Satisfied?”Occasionally though, the album suffers from becoming all too much (and shrill), as evidenced by “Hermit the Frog,” a jumpy, quirky piano and strings-led number that sounds as though Marina is recalling the tale of her deflowering whilst spinning around a carousel filled with Broadway singers and marching band members.

The highlights of Jewels that shine brightest reside in its beginning and end, including “Oh No!”, “Shampain” and “Rootless,” a rewarding, slower moment of choral coos and ample amounts of harpsichord: “Running with my roots pulled up / Caught me cold so they could cut / What there was left of love / I’m rootless, I’m rootless.” Though just as ‘epic’-sounding as the rest of the album, it’s a much needed comedown from the occasionally overwhelming production.

If there’s a major criticism to be made about this album, it’s not the music, but rather the messages behind them. Lyrically, The Family Jewels offers a strange, if not inconsistent array of tales. “I know exactly what I want and who I want to be / I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine / I’m now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy,” Marina announces in the delightfully explosive “Oh No!,” only seven songs after the seemingly contradictory “I Am Not A Robot.”

As with many of the songs that simultaneously fete and belittle the impossible dreams of fame and beauty such as “Girls” and “Hollywood,” Marina’s bouts of maniacal lyricism and celebrations of excess (“I’m obsessed with the mess that’s America”) too often position the singer as an unreliable narrator. We’re never entirely sure just who or what she’s singing about and, by the end, left wondering whether anything being sung is even sincere in the first place.

Then again, if the occasional contradiction in pop music were important, Lady “I hate money!” Gaga would be nowhere, money honey.

Marina’s debut is full of infectious melodies, bright sounds and fresh, delicious hooks. Even if the album as a whole may be a bit too much to tolerate in one spin, it’s not hard to see that there are more than just a few gems hidden in this box of Jewels.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen Madonna do that one.

A projection of Gaga appears on the giant LED screen in front of us, floating slowly across the stage as the Vandalism remix of Ce Ce Peniston‘s “Finally” surges into the speakers. On the right side, a small ticker begins counting down, starting at sixty seconds and counting down.

The timer ticks down to zero. The crowd bursts into a frenzy as purple and green smoke begin wafting from the stage floor. At once, the stage goes dark, only to be re-illuminated by the dull glow of green, cross-hair lasers.

And then, she appears. Performing behind the green laser grid projection, Lady Gaga‘s LED-lit body, frozen in monster vogue, forms a sillouette against the industrial, diamond-shaped stage behind her. “Silicone, saline…” she begins with cold-blooded vitriol, as the Monster Ball takes way and the claws come out from everywhere within the audience.

Video courtesy of YouTube user, TabbyButah.

Filled to the brim with tweens and dads, sloshed twenty-somethings and gaggles of gays, the Gaga concert was pretty much as I expected audience-wise. As I tweeted during the show,  it was  “Roughly the same clientele as the Britney concert, though with better shoes.”

The first opener (and Gaga’s longtime tour-mates), Semi Precious Weapons, were a happy surprise: A cross between Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the better parts of Glambert and a hint of Jeffree Star, the glam-rock outfit thrashed through a set of their finest electro-rock, yelling obscenities at the crowd about showing their tits, performing cunnilingus and encouraging us all to get laid tonight.

It worked, as the crowd cheered and fist-pumped in approval. By the time their set is over, the energy in the theater is electric–so much so that the main act should have come next.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Instead, it was time for Kid Cudi. Everyone (well, not me…elitist?) was on their feet, swaying to his bass-heavy beats with their cups of brew raised high. As I told my friends during the show, the music was good and all, but I just didn’t care (aside from his brief performance of his David Guetta collaboration, “Memories,” at which point I briefly stood and danced.)

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

With the exception of “Telephone” (saving the song for a Beyonce cameo somewhere down the line, perhaps?), Gaga performed the entirety of The Fame Monster, as well as most of The Fame and even, to my greatest of  delights, “Fashion,” a shelved Fame track once covered by the impossibly untalented trash bag, Heidi Montag, spanning nineteen tracks in total.

Video courtesy of YouTube user, TabbyButah.

The concept of the Monster Ball Tour, like the album itself, is a meshing of technology (digital countdowns, scanning lasers) with the macabre (gothic Gaga, guns, and growls). Highlights were beyond frequent, altering between genuine show-shopping entertainment and somewhat unintended hilarity.

The latter applies to instances such as in “Alejandro,” where the singer danced a semi-awkward, interpretive dance with two of her male back-up dancers. As the song began, one of the two dancers knelt down behind Gaga, thrust his fist through her legs and, in one sweeping motion, lifted the singer…FROM HER VAGINA. I can’t say I’ve ever seen Madonna do that one.

“Paparazzi” was another winning moment, as Gaga slowly marched out from the right side of the stage wearing 40-foot pigtails being carefully held by her flock of dancers. As she sat perched atop the broken-metal light fixture, three dancers came out and snipped at her locks until they fell. Rapunzel no more, as it were.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Honestly though, there were just too many moments that require full attention attention here: Writhing around the dentist’s chair for “Paper Gangsta;” the shirtless male celebration of “Boys Boys Boys;” her playing the keytar atop a glass cube for “Just Dance.” It was all so juicy!

As for the artist herself, Gaga’s onstage persona is a mixed bag of vulnerability and sado-masochistic delight: She’s weird; she’s broken; she’s entirely dependent on approval and validation. “Do you love me?” she would ask time and time again behind a coquettish smirk. “Do you think I’m sexy? WOULD YOU FUCK ME?” she’d shriek even more urgently, only to be met with wild hooting and cat calls from around the theater.

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

The Gaga that saunters to the audience and, using her best baby voice, coos “I love you, my little monsters. When you’re feeling lonely, I’m lonely too…” is not the same Gaga that performs “Teeth” only seconds later, who, upon clawing her way into the front row and pointing her finger menacingly into one monster’s face, shouts: “SHOW ME YOUR FUCKING TEETH!” It’s a terrifying dichotomy, to say the least.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Yet Lady Gaga proved an adept entertainer throughout the show. When she wasn’t harassing the fans, she was busy barking out choreography for us to emulate: Hands! Teeth! Claws! Guns! Every song had its own designated hand sign that the audience was required to provide. It worked well, making the show feel even more intimate and interactive than it already was.

For an artist so heavily driven by the visual, it was somewhat surprising to see how focused and minimal the visuals actually were: There are no elaborate set designs, less dramatic wardrobe changes than one might have expected, and only a handful of high-contrast interludes. Instead, the show’s energy is carried solely on the (very high) shoulders of the performer.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Yet even with the lack of narrative in video, the few interludes we did get were sublime: My favorite of course being the brief visual study of the dual Gaga personality: As a blonde-bobbed Gaga poses in a white couture dress, the dark-haired version appears standing next to her suddenly, vomiting what appeared to be neon blue milk all over the dress, repeated and reversed relentlessly time and time again. Mmm…

Later toward the end, Gaga indulged in her inner freak once more, donning absurd, comical reinterpretations of spiked fetish garb, feather and bone pieces, and gas masks featuring a Mickey Mouse print while reciting a passage about perception and art. Is it too soon in her career to declare it ‘Classic Gaga’?

MuuMuse Excluusive video. Please credit if used.

Throughout, Gaga entertained us with a few personal anecdotes regarding her relationship with fame and excess, as with the opening of “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich”: Pacing the stage, the singer reminisced about the days she spent living in New York with her friends, having no money and gallivanting around town with the lead singer of Semi Precious Weapons.

(Funny, as I remember reading about how she used to spend her days doing ‘bags and bags’ of cocaine that were hand-delivered to her Lower East Side apartment but sure Gaga, whatever you say…you were ‘poor.’)

MuuMuse Excluusive Photo. Please credit for use.

Settling down for the ballad portion of the show (can I call her only two slow songs the ‘ballad portion’?), Gaga announced that her mother was in the audience tonight. As she broke into song–which was pitch-perfect faithful to the studio recording–she urged us all to sing along during the chorus so that her mother, scratch that, her father could hear us.

Sitting back and hearing the audience scream the chorus, she was immediately overcome. “You know all the words…” she began incredulously, wiping her eyes for a moment as the crowd exploded with support. Gotta love those Gaga tears!

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

With “Speechless” over, Gaga began plucking away at the piano, stretching, standing and fussing all over the piano chair like an impatient 12-year-old at her opening recital. At one point, she even began raising one leg high into the air behind her while riffing alo ng with her acoustic version of “Poker Face,” a look that just about resembled this. At that point, Gaga got a bit of Regina Spektor fever in her, pulling at her high heel behind her while singing sweetly: “I hope you enjoy my show…If you don’t like it, you can fucking leave!”

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

It wasn’t until the show’s final moment that the crowd truly seemed at its most manic state (and rightfully so!) as Gaga performed her greatest song to date, “Bad Romance.” Clad in a black top and white high-waist pants, Gaga nailed all the moves from the video, causing the entire audience to raucously jump and yelp along, from the song’s first charging chorus until her final bow.

As Gaga returned to the darkness, an outro video blurred the video screens: It’s Gaga, suited in her best “Bad Romance” skull couture, getting an actual tattoo–the word “Dad,” on her upper back. Watching her in slow-motion in those final moments of the process, meshing her personal life with her business, the concert at which we were all watching her being tattooed, solidifies the fact that Gaga truly does live and breathe her art. Lady Gaga really is Gaga, 110% of the time.

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

While it’s becomes more difficult to reconcile the sky-high prices of some artists and their arena-wide tours, Lady Gaga has defied the pop landscape once again by staging a show worth the $300 her contemporaries are charging for only a $60 entry fee.

Aside from a few slip-ups during the show (minor trips and falls along the way, some lights and sound cues coming too early), Gaga’s already cleared enough hurdles in her career as a performer to come startlingly close to garnering comparison to the superstar idols who’ve done this for far longer than she has.

MuuMuse Excluusive Photo. Please credit for use.

As an artist, Gaga remains in her own league, strictly of her own kind by being perhaps the most art-minded, intellectual personalities to ever break onto the mainstream pop scene. The Monster Ball Tour is the next step in the natural evolution of Gaga’s artistry; yet another rung in her blood-laden ladder to icon status.

And now, I collapse…This little monster is toasted.

Anticipation can be a terrible thing.

After the BBC, various ‘zines, and blogs proclaimed rising space-pop starlet Little Boots as The One To Watch for 2009 way back in December (guilty as charged!), the hype cloud hovering over poor Boots was muddying up her debut with impossible expectations long before its release.

First was the announcement of “New In Town” as the first single–a simple ditty with a predictable verse-chorus pop confection nowhere near the trance throbs of breakout track, “Stuck On Repeat,” causing some fans to cry “too commercial” from the start. Following that was a larger offense–the video; a misguided attempt at keeping it “cool,” featuring a deer-in-the-headlights Boots wandering in between break-dancing homeless citizens and horned-up teens performing fellatio in rhythm. It was unearthly–and not in the Little Boots kind of way.

But looking past the hyper-criticism of the campaign, Boots continued on her own path to debut. On June 8, the space cadet will have finally, officially landed in the UK. And her offering to the public? Why, her Hands, of course!

It’s funny, but reviewing this album felt a lot like working with last year’s The Fame–this however being a less pretentious, far superior rendition of Gaga’s own. Ushering in the album with her lead single “New In Town,” Boots hits hard at the offset of Hands: The strong, summer pulsations of “Earthquake” blend seamlessly with the surprisingly acceptable three-minute cut of “Stuck On Repeat.” (Even still, the 7-minute original may well go down as the unappreciated “I Feel Love” for the 21st century.) Further on, the sexy minimal pulsations of “Click” prepare the way for the hands-in-the-air scorcher “Remedy,” perhaps akin to comparison to Gaga’s own celebration, “Just Dance”: “No more poison killing my emotion / I will not be frozen / Dancing is my remedy, remedy.”

However, much like Gaga’s triple dunk of samey production (“Just Dance” is to “Poker Face” as is to “Money Honey”), Boots also seems to be digging through her musical recycling bin from time to time (“Meddle” sounds a lot like “Mathematics,” as does the slower counterpart, “Ghost”). It’s not as obvious as the aforementioned trio, but the songs do seem to blur into one large pop confection about two-thirds of the way into the album.

The last third diverges in a brilliant fashion, offering three soft spoken mid-tempos, including the sugary-sweet ’80′s drop of color, “Tune Into My Heart,” and the acoustic title track, “Hands.” The stripped down piano pop finish sounds a lot like the singer’s weekly homemade YouTube song covers, proving Boots is more than just an intergalactic dancefloor sweetheart.

Though each song is superior in its own right, standouts include (obviously) “Stuck On Repeat,” the mysteriously jazzy “Hearts Collide,” and the chilly duet with The Human League’s Phil Oakley on “Symmetry” : “Love me in perfect symmetry, be my everything. If you just love me in perfect symmetry, only you can make me feel complete,” the two croon on the Kylie-esque joyride through futuristic electro lines and spacey synths. (Speaking of which, does anyone else see this as the perfect companion piece for Minogue’s X album?)

So in the end, what are we left with? Hands is an accessible, immediate, and instantly re-playable body of work combining modern bass lines, smart lyrics, and space-age zings, zaps, and plops. Does it hold against the hype surrounding it? Not really. There’s nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary hidden here–just a solid, unwavering collection of pop. Don’t get me wrong, however: A pop album with all killer, no filler is very difficult to properly create, and for that, Boots deserves all the credit in the world. Had she debuted with little to no fanfare behind her, this might have well been heralded as the Second Coming of Pop.

For fans who have been following since the beginning of Boots’ journey, some may be feeling a bit cheated by the album’s commercial vibe and lack of unheard material, but fear not–I think she’s got plenty more gems stored away in her spaceship for us in the not-so-distant future.

Rating:

You can either click here to purchase the physical album, or, if you’re from the UK, click below to preview & purchase Little Boots’ Hands now.

Today is the official release of Marina and the Diamonds‘ Crown Jewel EP, featuring “I Am Not A Robot,” a snazzy new version of “Seventeen,” “Simplify,” and a delicious, absolutely essential mix of “Robot” by Starsmith.

And since I never really did “properly” introduce the girl that I consider thoroughly thrilling…

Marina & The Diamonds sounds a bit like if Regina Spektor met briefly with Fiona Apple (on a good day), Katy Perry (on speakerphone), and Frankmusik for tea (EDIT: AND YES, OF COURSE KATE BUSH–I just felt the reference was too obvious as it’s been used in every write-up about her already) and then they all got into an argument but then patched it up in the form of a massive duet.

Please consider yourself formally introduced.

DL: Marina And The Diamonds – I Am Not A Robot (Starsmith’s 24 Carat Remix)

Click here to purchase the package from the US, and here for the UK.

I think this could be the beginning of something really lovely. For no reason in particular, I accidentally stumbled upon the MySpace of up-and-coming artist, Charlotte Sometimes while avoiding my studies. With a genre label of “Nu-Jazz/Alternative/Pop” (ooh!), I was naturally quite intrigued. After the first song off the page (“How I Could Just Kill A Man”), I was sold. It was catchy, melodic, and full of deep, rich sound. She’s got a definite top notch singer-songwriter quality, but thankfully lacks the monotony that plagues so many one hit wonder crooners that pop up on the radio every month or so. “Love Song,” anyone? Just saying.

Like a more orchestrated version of Fiona Apple‘s voice, Charlotte delivers with a rich set of emotion-fueled pipes and an urgent vibrato. It’s a little amazing that she’s only twenty, since her vocal skills are at the same level as that of a seasoned musician. I’m also quite smitten with her self-image. She seems to bemuse herself with the idea of a stage persona versus her natural self: “For the most part I like to write poetry and hang out in my apartment and cry, but when I’m on stage I’m a man eating machine. It’s a way of being two people but still remaining myself.”

The man eating becomes apparent from the get-go off of her debut, Waves & The Both Of Us. The songs are charged with a burning energy with lyrics than are more biting than one would expect. They’re absolutely loaded with well executed vocal performances, never providing a dull moment…I’m honestly blown away by her singing ability. As for her sound? It’s a refreshing blend of mellowed hip-hop grooves a la Lily Allen, chugging guitars, a deep nu-jazzy undercurrent, and a nice melodic Regina Spektor nature, give or take a crazy pill…a winning combination, in my opinion.

So far, so very wonderful. I see opportunities of promise, and growth, and all of the squishy things that make a musician pump out tunes far, far into the future. This is the first time I’ve been excited about a new artist for some time. Give her a try, you never know when they’ll take off into the mainstream. Check her out at her MySpace, buy the album (which was actually released two days ago) on iTunes, or stream the entire album over at iMeem now!

You may not have heard of this, so I’m posting the song. Kate Nash’s B-Sides (this offering coming from the Foundations single) all seem to be the quirkiest…I wish they were included on the main CD. Kate’s track is very Regina, combining a mix of piano and percussion, as well as silly little vocal exercises I’ve come to love from both the little Brit and little Russo, respectively. The song’s name, “Habanera,” is a type of Cuban music with a certain type of rhythm. Don’t worry, I had to look that one up.

DL: Kate Nash – Habanera (Tango Version)

I’m about to go to bed, but I just found a new track by Kate Nash tonight. Not new, but less heard. Perhaps the darker companion to “Foundations,” “Old Dances” is the B-side on the 7″ single. Essentially an acapella, this timed ballad with minimal piano jumps between pensive, floating nonsense and short spurts of enthusiastic moments. “Old Dances” sounds as though it was lifted from the tracklist of Regina Spektor’s Begin To Hope, especially with the way the volume bounces between inaudibility to yelping, yet the miffed lyrics and heavily pronounced syllables solidify the track as positively Kate.

DL: Kate Nash – Old Dances

And you, what do you think?