N.A.S.A- The Spirit Of Apollo

N.A.S.A (North America, South America), the brainchild of Squeek E. Clean and DJ Zegon, certainly wins the award for most star studded album of 2009. The people involved in his project range from straight up hip-hop (Ghostface Killah, Chuck D, ODB), hipster crossover (MIA, Santogold, Spank Rock) right through to Tom Waits, Karen O, David Byrne and John Frusciante. Somehow they manage to bring these disparate voices together to create a vibrant and exciting record that bursts with excitement and possibilities.

Alongside Byrne the biggest name on show here is Kanye West and his track 'Gifted' alongside Santogold is one of the albums highlights. symptomatic of the album it's full of big beats, red hot rapping and hook laden choruses. West provides his typically confident and charismatic vocals alongside Santi White sounding as good as anything on her 2008 debut record. David Byrne follows his work with Dirty Projectors with another unlikely collaboration featuring here on 2 tracks 'The Money Tree' and 'Money'- his enigmatic vocals providing a welcome air of weirdness to proceedings.

At 17 tracks it is perhaps too long but this is an album designed to be cut and pasted across blogs, playlists and mixtapes. Regardless of what style of music you're into there will be a guest on here to capture your attention and almost certainly more to keep you tuned in.

8/10

N.A.S.A- The Spirit Of Apollo