Cologne, Germany’s Aksel “Superpitcher” Schaufler is in love, as the title to his debut LP indicates. Erase all images of women inspired by Swiss Miss packages from your head, however. What Here Comes Love reveals is that his heart does not lie with any one person or place, but in…
Pigeon Funk is a minimal techno side project initiated by San Francisco producers Kit Clayton, Sutekh, and Safety Scissors in 2001. Though originally released as a series of EP-length “battles” among the three artists, the trio’s Pigeon Funk! compilation is still remarkably consistent, a weird collage of scattershot samples and…
There are two criticisms frequently leveled at the current jazz scene: The musicians are too slick and averse to risk, and the industry is concentrating on repackaging past glories rather than encouraging innovation. Both of these concerns apply in some measure to Adam Dorn. He’s definitely a jazz guy, a…
In the heart of the United Kingdom’s industrial city of Birmingham, there exists an authentic and thriving dub reggae scene. At the core of this movement is the longstanding Different Drummer label owned by Rockers Hi-Fi. Overproof Soundsystem — which features members of G-Corp, vocalists Ras MC T-Weed and Juggla,…
Malian musician Oumou Sangare’s amazing voice and songs that directly address the plight of women in a highly conservative society have made her a superstar in her native country, and the eight new tracks on Oumou will show you why. “Yala,” which asks the youth to avoid the pitfalls of…
Carmel Ophir doesn’t show up for his Back Door Bamby party at crobar till it’s already kicking at about 2:00 a.m. By the time he arrives, his Monday-night institution is slammed with loads of stunningly seductive women, along with some men who could very well pass for women. Anyway, Carmel…
Since first forming 22 years ago, Brazilian rock band Os Paralamas do Sucesso (the Fenders of Success) has had its share of success after emerging in the mid-Eighties as one of South America’s hottest exports. But on February 4, 2001, the trio nearly disintegrated, its heart broken. While flying his…
Britney Spears brought her megabudget Onyx Hotel spectacle to the American Airlines Arena on Sunday, March 28, to the high-decibel screams of what appeared to be thousands of teenage girls. The lovelies were prepared for their idol. Brace-face smiles sparkled with glitter makeup. High-heeled stringbean legs awkwardly slinked around in…
The four years that passed between Modest Mouse’s 2000 album The Moon and Antarctica and its new opus, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, were an eternity. Gone is the world-weary anxiety that girded The Moon … like a vicious, inescapable undertow; in its place is leader Isaac…
The anonymous four-artist team collectively known as Lansing-Dreiden has certainly made a name for itself since relocating from Miami to New York several years ago. Their multimedia creations incorporate video, photography, text, performance art, and jewelry into oblique presentations such as Death Notice and Greenscreens. Now the group’s 2003 debut…
Knock, knock. Who is it? Hey White America, it’s Kanye, open up. Yo, what’s good … oh Babu, Evidence, and Rakaa … uh, come on in. Dilated Peoples’ third LP, Neighborhood Watch, sees the portly Southern Californians still starved like college students, still vowing to sneak some good old skool…
While not attracting the same sort of attention as fellow Eighties downtown New York acts Liquid Liquid and ESG, Death Comet Crew was just as important. This groundbreaking trio — Stuart Argabright, Michael Diekmann, and Shinichi Shimokawa — used the postdisco, nascent hip-hop sound as a starting point for their…
Madlib’s Madvillain project is the second of his dream matchups, following his slightly disappointing pairing last year with Detroit iconoclast Jay Dee (Jaylib’s Champion Sound). While Jay Dee favors original compositions, track-busting Madlib finds more in common with MF Doom, since the latter’s early-Nineties work with KMD as Zevlove X…
Everything about Nicodemus Hammil and Anitra Warren, from their appearance to the eerie, Venetian-style masks hanging on the white walls of their West Avenue apartment in South Beach, is enchanting and mad freaky. Their union is draped in theater and consecrated by black magic. Nicodemus, a high priest-looking Aussie whose…
Germans seem to have a natural affinity for making cars, techno, and beer, but not hip-hop. One rare instance was Funkstörung’s glitchy remix of Wu-Tang Clan’s “Reunited.” Now after that 1999 breakthrough, followed by an uneven career of noisy electronic experiments, the German duo — Chris De Luca and Michael…
While New York, Chicago, and Detroit’s DJ/producers were reveling in the spotlight during the early Nineties, San Francisco quietly built a scene that eventually spread across the West Coast. At the heart of it was the Wicked crew: four DJs, one ridiculously superior sound system, and parties that took place…
With Johan Lagerlof’s clipped vocals soaring against angular guitars and rolling snares gunning it from all quarters, Kid Commando posits a manic conflict of an album inside the ashen, desolate territory of postpunk. The music on Holy Kid Commando, this Swedish outfit’s debut LP, conjures the raw force of an…
The cover photo adorning Gingersol’s third full-length opus is a visual pun of sorts. By showing L.A.’s architectural landmark, the Eastern Columbia Building, it hearkens back to the album’s title, which literally refers to the fact that band founder and songwriter Steve Tagliere and his musical partner Seth Rothschild left…
Raul Malo, lead vocalist and leader of the Mavericks, has one of the best voices in pop. In several recent interviews Malo said he spent the early years of his career trying to “not sound like Roy Orbison,” the singer he was most often compared with. But since signing onto…
I’ve been living next to the Abbey Brewing Company for eight months, and I never knew it. Like a lot of people, when told about the neat little dive bar where the conversation froths as much as the homemade microbrewed beer, I assumed it was a reference to the Abbey…
The smoke. The backbeat. The dancing. The jubilation. The hand claps. The bouncy New Orleans jazz scene that thrived in the Sixties sure as heck isn’t dead. Not if the Preservation Hall Jazz Band can help it. Ben Jaffe, who plays bass in Preservation Hall, just turned 33 years old…
College campuses are the perfect place for a concert, where a young crowd is guaranteed to be up for a party. Sometimes you’ll even hear some good bands brought in by an enlightened student activity group or a campus radio station. But more often than not, big events at So-and-So…
