When some kids look under their beds, they see monsters; when 26-year-old Matthew Adam Hart looks under his, he hears symphonies. His third album under his Russian Futurists moniker, the charming Our Thickness, bursts with a bedroom sound that’s so lo-fi and grandiose it’s warm just from the overheating of…
It seems a lifetime ago when Madlib unveiled his Quasimoto creation on The Unseen. Since that 2000 classic, the prolific LA musician has replicated its bugged-out, nearly psychedelic jazz-soul sounds on countless recordings, including last year’s acclaimed collaboration with MF Doom as Madvillain. The long-awaited The Further Adventures of Lord…
Talk to anybody well versed on the topic and the response is always the same: Israel “Cachao” Lopez is the true mambo king. Problem is, the always-humble and gentlemanly Cuban bassist/composer/jam session maestro has never felt a need to drag Perez Prado into a steel cage and slug it out…
Looking to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday, in a city of Cuban, Caribbean, and South American people? Take yourself out to Under One Beat, a party with a lineup as diverse as this city’s cultural makeup. The bands range from IDM stalwart Phoenecia to rapper Seven Star to…
Mick Collins is one of Detroit’s unsung musical heroes. In the Eighties his band the Gories brought back garage rock to Motortown, resurrecting maximum R&B (as in rhythm and blues, not rap and bullshit) for the benefit of the White Stripes, the Von Bondies, and other better-known young’uns who followed…
Churchill’s Pub can be a hit-or-miss proposition. The venue is so willing to book new and unproven rock bands that its shows sometimes turn into amateur hour — at annoyingly high decibels. But the upcoming show headlined by one-time local stars The Stop Motion is a must-see. Backing them up…
Before it was supplanted by the asinine 93 Rock (WHDR-FM), Party 93.1 (WPYM-FM) was one of South Florida’s most distinctive radio stations and one of only a handful of dance stations in the country. Like its successor, Party 93.1 was often criticized. Electronic music fans trashed it for pandering to…
Richard Vasquez Sundays, Raleigh Hotel Richard Vasquez began DJ’ing nearly three decades ago in New York when, as a young man, he helped create the original house sound alongside other pioneers such as the late, legendary Larry Levan. But his musical history in Miami, which has encompassed guest spots at…
The first time Rich Harrison heard Amerie Rogers sing was in a car parked by a McDonald’s restaurant near Howard University. It was February of 2000, and Amerie was a sophomore at Georgetown University working toward a major in English and a minor in Fine Arts. Prior to that meeting,…
You know a trend has reached its nadir when it inspires progressively lamer bands to jump on the bandwagon. This was made clear when the Bravery, a Brooklyn act (with emphasis on the word act) whose mascara-and-leather fashion sense steers toward Good Charlotte, launched itself into the mediasphere with a…
Truth be told, Mississippi’s Lavell Crump is both Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby, though he looked to Bixby’s Dr. David Bruce Banner character from The Incredible Hulk when selecting a stage name, a moniker appropriate for describing a combination of larger-than-life bombast and quietly measured intelligence he shares with the…
Every decade or so, Bruce Springsteen toys with a return to the heartland, to the isolated, icy bleakness of Nebraska. He strips down to just a guitar, his raspy voice, and stark songs that intimately identify with both the crooked cop and the cop killer. Although 1995’s The Ghost of…
Written during his late teens, Trouble Is Real, the debut full-length from Johnathan Rice (no relation to Damien), is far more aware than any kid’s album has a right to be. The 21-year-old’s weapon is his breathy, rough voice. Whether whispering hoarsely over a plucked guitar on “Break So Easy”…
In The Fader’s November 2004 issue, Canadian expatriate Leslie Feist describes herself as a cross-pollinator. This is a wholly appropriate summation of the smokily seductive singer. Now living in Paris, Feist has played with fellow Canadians Peaches and Broken Social Scene as well as Norwegians Kings of Convenience. Her sophomore…
The legacy of New Order (and their prior incarnation, Joy Division) casts a long shadow over the rock world. The group hasn’t made a consistently entertaining album since 1989’s Technique, and, much like the once-mighty R.E.M., has been fading away via flaccid middle-age rockers devoid of innovation. But its new…
By the time a band releases its fifth album, it should be garnering more than a mere smattering of recognition. However, for Love as Laughter, it’s almost understandable that its off-handed arrangements just barely coalesce. In fact, on Laughter’s Fifth, songs such as “Survivors” and “Makeshift Heart” sound so loose…
Until his “Callin’ Out” track was used on a Coca-Cola commercial, Bay Area MC Lyrics Born’s debut Later That Day was one of the most slept-on albums in recent years. Same Shit, Different Day, a remix disc meant to tide fans over until the next opus, isn’t as polished. But…
Guitarist and singer-songwriter Oliver Mtukudzi blends the influences, percussive sounds, and language of his native Zimbabwe with modern instruments and jazz-inflected arrangements on Nhava. On “Izere Mhepo,” electric guitarist Philani “Mzala” Dube plays a beautiful set of riffs around Mtukudzi’s story of a family who “is split in numerous directions,…
Music is always being reinvented, and when it comes to the bossa nova beat, it is appropriate that the style’s creators would pass the baton to musicians generated and raised among them such as bassist Marcio Menescal, son of Roberto Menescal and a member of Bossacucanova, a trio that also…
British producer Andrea Parker exemplifies the best of dark wave: mysterious, beguiling, and seductive. Her tracks are edgy and Gothic, but mindful of the dance floor, enveloped by bass frequencies that rumble and hiss like clouds of smoke. Parker is an electro producer with artistic ties to Miami, issuing records…
Since its opening last month, the folks at Sweat Records have worked hard at living up to the expectations surrounding them, inviting local DJs and performers to play amid its CD racks and thrift-store couches. Their first full-fledged show — following an Infiltrate showcase during Winter Music Conference — is…
Since the mid-Nineties, when record labels discovered that mix compilations were the best way to capitalize on world-renowned DJs who weren’t prolific musicians (or, in many cases, didn’t produce records at all), nightclub owners have used their venues’ names to create brand-name discs, from the top-notch Fabric series to the…
