Jamaica’s hottest producer didn’t exactly set New York on fire during his last visit. After sharing some studio time with Wayne Wonder, Donovan “Don Vendetta” Bennett found himself lost when he drove through Brooklyn during a record-setting cold snap and there wasn’t a helpful pedestrian in sight. “Is it possible…
The saga of the Flatlanders is peppered with irony. A genuine supergroup if ever there was one, this West Texas trio released a debut album in 1972 and then waited a full 30 years for a followup. Blame it on lack of motivation; their debut disc was virtually ignored the…
The Walkmen deserve praise for painting their influences with something that is both a few shades weirder and more charged and electrifying. On the hell-raising “The Rat” from its second full-length, Bows and Arrows, the group sounds like it’s updating a lost U2 track circa ’83 (when Bono, the Edge,…
One from the Heart stands as one of Hollywood’s most famous disasters. Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola as an “antidote” to his Apocalypse Now, it was his only musical and was almost universally panned upon its release in 1982. It vanished from theaters in less than two weeks,…
Oh, where art hipper-than-thou Chromeo? Servicing a talk box with Bambi Woods-like smoothness, this Canadian couplet stars Vice magazine’s rap editor Dave 1 (he’s A-Trak’s older sibling) as a Casanova MC wannabe and his gold-grilled associate, Pee Thug, who chimes in with enough synths to power a Third World country…
If you’re among the culturally fortunate, then you’ve stumbled into a dive bar in Anywhere, U.S.A. in the last few years and heard: “We’re Supagroup from New Orleans, Louisiana, and we’re here to kick your ass.” Sure, you tried to act cool. But before you got the chance to snort…
When I heard Fritz “e” Romeus was taking over a billiards bar, I was afraid to ask what role pool cues and balls would serve in his endeavor. See, Fritz, a tall, dark, Calvin Klein model-type of Euro-Caribbean descent, is the P.I.M.P. behind those famous Skin parties. You know, the…
Lounging on a leather couch in Miami’s Circle House recording studio, Marcello Valenzano and Andre Lyon — better known as Cool & Dre — are dressed in crisp white T-shirts and sagging blue jeans. Dre is the talkative one, his tall, slim frame draped over the couch and long limbs…
You won’t be seeing Roosevelt Franklin on MTV anytime soon. You probably won’t read about them in music magazines such as Spin, CMJ, or even XLR8R, although you may catch a perfunctory review of their album Something’s Gotta Give in URB. As for radio? Forget it: Your best bet is…
To find evidence of Jay-Z’s far-reaching influence in club culture, all you need to do is look toward South Beach on a weekend night. Visit any hip-hop club on the Washington Avenue strip, or Opium Garden on Collins Avenue, and you’ll find people acting out one of the rapper’s videos:…
Shuffling between pseudonyms like Delarosa and Asora (currently retired), Prefuse 73 (most popular), and Savath & Savalas (now receiving the lion’s share of recognition), Scott Herren has created a steady string of productions ranging from digitally flecked folk to frayed hip-hop. Yet he has simultaneously seemed to suffer from an…
With Map of What Is Effortless, Telefon Tel Aviv marks a radical departure from the opaque ambience of its 2001 debut, Fahrenheit Fair Enough, toward a rich brew of soul and IDM electronics. Much of it, in fact, features the Loyola University Chamber Orchestra, which lends the proceedings a regal,…
Since emerging in 1996 as Air, the prolific duo of Jean-Benoit “JB” Dunckel and Nicolas Godin has tended to veer in a slightly different direction with each release, going from loungey sounds (Moon Safari) to psychedelic musings (The Virgin Suicides soundtrack) to crackling experiments (City Reading: Tre Storie Western with…
Dub soundclashes are a classic technique (traditionally a meeting of Jamaican sound systems in a sparring match) honored here by two prolific musicians who live miles away from its geographical origin. DJ Spooky resides in New York but spends his life traveling around the world, while Twilight Circus’s Ryan Moore…
After nine studio albums, the Anglo-French unit Stereolab has become very comfortable in its sound, sinking into a beanbag chair of Laetitia Sadier’s “ba-da-ba’s,” Farfisa organ drones, wonderfully serpentine bass lines, and krautrock/bossa nova/waltz rhythms. One would think that Margerine Eclipse, the first album released since singer/keyboardist Mary Hansen’s death…
Colette Marino emerged from Chicago in the late Nineties as one-fourth of the house collective Superjane. What distinguished her from partners Lady D, DJ Heather, and Dayhota wasn’t her strong DJ skills, but her penchant for spinning records and singing at the same time. This is far from a gimmick;…
The electro-bass underground scene continues to tease with periodic parties that blow up like waifers. You know, first you’re peaking balls, then the feeling dies down only to hurl another wave through your insides. Not that many people are rolling at these parties anymore, though; in fact it’s cool to…
It’s a Saturday night in Homestead and most of the action in town is centered at the Main Street Cafe. The sounds of Bob Dylan capture the attention of a rapt audience here, similar to the way all-star tributes to folksingers like Carole King and the late Phil Ochs used…
One day very soon, our radio hits will sound like outsider music wunderkinds Girls With Attitude. Not familiar with the term outsider music? Well, it’s an acquired taste and an oddball genre made up of unlikely performers that include singing psychics, autistic children, certifiable karaoke maniacs, and fervent do-gooders with…
Pot, grass, weed, ganja, reefer, doobie, herb, sensi. Whatever you call it, the little spiky-leafed cannabis plant most commonly known as marijuana inflames passions on both sides of the pro/con fence, from those who use it as a sacrament in religious ceremonies held everywhere from India to Jamaica, to our…
The sheer strangeness of Manding “swing” music can be daunting. Sure, there are enough familiar elements, from amplified instrumentation to radio-friendly lengths that tell you in an instant that you’re listening to pop. But the heightened sense of drama feels foreign, from the operatic intensity that courses through the vocals…
Last November Pop Up Records issued its first release, an album by Summer Blanket titled Charm Wrestling. The album has a rare, fragile quality emphasized by its downbeat melodies and confessional verse, the work of Keith Michaud, who plays bass and guitar while singing on its nine tracks, and a…
