What’s burning a hole in your ipod right now?

I’m a binger when it comes to music. When I stumble upon an album I love, I put in on the highest rotation imagineable until it practically infuses into my bloodstream. And so it is right now with Australian singer-songwriter Mark Sholtez‘s new album.

It was sent to me by his record company (along with Kylie’s new album Aphrodite which….I’m struggling to love although I’m quite partial to the title track) and hot damn if I didn’t fall in love the minute I loaded it (and I’m not just saying that because it was free. I would have bought this album in a heartbeat had I known about it)

It’s a bit Jeff Buckley meets Jack Johnson meets John Mayer meets Paul Simon. Does that make any sense at all?

From his official bio, here’s a bit about Mark Sholtez:

Sholtez surfaced on our radar with his 2006 jazz-inspired debut ‘Real Street’, (an ARIA Top 30 album and debuted in the ARIA Jazz and Blues chart at #1 where it stayed for ten consecutive weeks, was nominated for an ARIA award in that same year, and in 2007 won him a coveted APRA Music Award) .

With the benefit of hindsight, Sholtez realised the album didn’t showcase his song-writing skills as it should. So went about writing a second album which did. During a song-writing jaunt in London this second album, Sholtez was waiting for a tardy musician when he bumped into Alex Lloyd who was walking into the same studio. He introduced himself, told him what he was doing and that they should write a song together. That track, ‘A Thousand Lies’, is the stunning introduction to a beautifully crafted album, The Distance Between Two Truths.

These are two tracks from the album, you can also check him out on myspace:

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What’s burning a hole in your ipod right now and why do you love it?

Even though artists HATE being compared, I always find it’s helpful when you’re describing or recommending music to throw in the names of other artists that are similar so feel free….kind of like the itunes store genius recommendations.