…in which i will be commenting very slowly about the music i have enjoyed so far in the summer (part 2)

Well, it’s 95 degrees here in the Newest of Yorks, but weather.com assures me it “feels like 100,” so rest assured that hauling my dryer-hot girlpants-and-other-laundry up the hill sev­eral blocks back home was extra spe­cial this after­noon. And rest also assured that I wished I had a mar­tini after­ward. But I didn’t — sadly, there’s only con­tra­band rum in the freezer — so I had to settle for ice cream and the dulcet tones of north­west twelve-piece Pink Martini.

I know this is old news — the album’s been out for like weeks, I’m sure you’ve seen the pom­padoured woman drunk­enly smiling at you from the cover — but Hey Eugene! is fast becoming one of my summer favorites. Pink Martini’s big band-Disney song-tropicalia-fusion could prob­ably get a bit grating in the rains of fall or the blus­tery bliz­zards of winter, but it’s actu­ally a pretty per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment to the hot air that my fan seems to enjoy fruit­lessly blowing around.

One of the amazing things about this album is that there’re so many lan­guages on it. Aside from Eng­lish, there’s at least Spanish, Por­tuguese, Russian and Arabic — the last being the very badass “Bukra W’Badu,” which I shall post here for your enjoy­ment. In addi­tion, and for com­par­ison, I offer “Tempo Per­dido,” which sounds like it’s straight from a Latin-American dance hall. Singer China Forbes has the kind of full-on jelly donut voice that is required to be able to pull off both of these songs, in their vastly dif­ferent lan­guages, with the proper amount of finesse. But do your­self a favor and also locate the title track, k? Better yet, check out the album. It’s worth it — really, there’re too many kitschy-cool tracks for me to even begin to discuss.

• Pink Mar­tini — “Tempo Perdido”

• Pink Mar­tini — Bukra Wa’Bado

And, as with all things intox­i­cating, please enjoy respon­sibly. Remember what Dorothy Parker said about mar­tinis? Google it if you don’t, wink wink secret handshake.