There are a handful of names that scream out sexy, smooth lounge, such as the Hed Kandi and Naked Music imprints, Thievery Corporation, and Stephane Pompougnac. The French producer has achieved a kind of fame among discerning adults for his Hotel Costes series, which amazingly manages to blend cool chillout…
Venues such as Flavour, which usually stick to DJ nights, have slowly begun to invite their midweek patrons to choose between the dance floor and the mosh pit. It’s a good sign that indicates the live music scene is being rejuvenated, and it allows bands to get their music in…
In the three years since the release of his first album, 2001’s Out of the Anonymous, Ulysses Perez has had a lot of time to reflect on the philosophies that guide him: attention, intention, and focus. The result is a well-crafted and highly refined followup, Masked Media. Creating a template…
A Latin pop singer fronting an underground dance DJ? At Party 93.1’s (WPYM-FM) Fourth of July Blast 3.0, Grammy Award-winning crooner Jon Secada belted one of his best-known tunes, “Just Another Day,” as George Acosta manned the decks behind him. Yes, the producer who brought us freestyle classics such as…
Gabriel Fain Sundays, Jade Last year Gabriel Fain was making waves on the Miami dance scene, producing club hits such as Push the Bass and holding down gigs at Blue, Nerve, and Space. After a brief hiatus, he has returned to host an afternoon of tribal, progressive, tech-house, and breaks…
Every week I get several phone calls from publicists eager to promote some hot new artist or band in the hopes that I’ll write about them. They usually try to pitch me by trumpeting the client’s achievements — an appearance on Mun2’s The Roof, perhaps, or a couple of spins…
Icelandic trio Múm collages memories, the more indistinct the better. Whether it’s detritus of digitally accosted acoustic sources, or the impressions of sailors drowned off the coast of Iceland hundreds of years ago, as permeate the mood of the band’s third full-length, Summer Make Good, Múm constructs songs out of…
Hip-hop producer Jazze Pha is supposed to be working hard on his solo album. For the past hour or so, he’s been ensconced in a vocal booth at one of Circle House’s three recording studios, rhyming the same verse over and over again. “Accounts with no amounts/No, that can’t happen,”…
Thirty-eight-year-old Jersey City, New Jersey native George Van Orsdel likes to think that he has learned a thing or two. At first glance George seems like a dip-chewing, cantankerous drunk. Appearances, of course, can be deceiving. He smiles at jokes that he could be twenty-year-old guitarist Todd Van Orsdel’s dad…
Although I slept through my freshman microeconomics course far more than I attended it, and thus am hardly an expert in such matters, I believe a band may safely be deemed “efficient” if it can make an entire album for six dollars (no matter how long it takes) or in…
Interviews with overexposed, platinum-certified stars such as D12 can sound a bit scripted. Check out this chestnut posed to group member Swift: What makes you stand out from Kuniva, Bizarre, Kon Artis, Proof, and Eminem? “I’m a hardcore MC. I’m a lyrical assassin,” says Ondre “Swift” Moore during a phone…
Can you imagine a city ordinance prohibiting sports jerseys and baseball caps on South Beach? What if the Florida state legislature banned Ladies’ Night at Mr. Moe’s in Coconut Grove? I, for one, would have a shit fit. But thanks to asinine politicians, who should be ridding society of crime…
Bebob Grabowski’s Gecko Jazz Bob Grabowski, a professor at Florida International University, has an alter ego. When he isn’t educating throngs of students on the evolution of jazz, he picks up his upright bass and becomes an old-school superhero named Bebob, following the tradition of South Florida legends such as…
Jim Camacho If anyone could claim a name that boasted some truth in advertising, it was the Goods, arguably the best band South Florida has ever delivered. Steered by brothers Jim and John Camacho, the Goods left behind a brilliant legacy, including Good Things Are Coming, their 1998 hopeful major-label…
Joanie Leeds A native Miamian, Joanie Leeds attended Syracuse University in the late Nineties, returned to South Florida for a spell, then went back to Manhattan and parlayed a bartending gig at Greenwich Village’s venerable the Bitter End into an ongoing residency. As demonstrated by her two albums to date…
Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, Slick Rick When it comes to rocking parties, Eighties hip-hop legends Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and Slick Rick are can’t-lose propositions. From Doug E.’s “The Show” and Biz’s “Just a Friend” to Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di,” the hits these three titans should…
Hernán Cattáneo Hernán Cattáneo hails from Argentina, home of the world’s most happening trance parties. And no, this DJ does not dabble in tribal, techno, or even dark progressive house, but classic trance tracks that he adds up into lush, lovely, and ethereal sets. Do your homework and pick up…
After an amicable split with guitarist Jorge Gonzalez earlier this spring, the remaining members of the Brand were briefly in a state of limbo. Not the type to amble too long and realizing the confinements of performing as a duo, they were forced to take their sound back to the…
New York upstarts the Izzys possess a twanged self-assurance that lifts aggressively from Sticky Fingers but never trips off bullshit detectors or attracts style cops. These boys fancy a come-as-you-are authenticity not usually heard from the Big Apple these days, one welled from rock and roll’s bluesy heyday but stylish…
Lloyd Banks is garnering the kind of acclaim Jadakiss earned back in the late Nineties for the same reasons: a series of high-profile mixtapes, an allegiance with a superstar rap crew (50 Cent’s platinum-certified G-Unit), and a distinct voice that sounds cool and husky, expressing a surprising elegance. But he’s…
In press interviews for his new album, Kiss of Death, Jadakiss, a member of the Lox, asserts that he wants to be thought of as one of the greatest MCs of all time. Though it seems like bravado, the fact that New York’s hip-hop community has taken his statements seriously…
Fans of Britain’s Mojave 3 have probably noticed that the role of singer-bassist Rachel Goswell — who has been the angelic vocal foil to major-domo Neil Halstead for fifteen years, ever since the duo’s early-Nineties days as the core of shoegazers Slowdive — dwindles with each new offering from the…
