Count Jan Jelinek is another intriguingly “cutting-edge” German producer you’ve never heard of. Like compatriots Thomas Brinkmann and Laub, Jelinek specializes in crafting strange and wondrous experimental music that is surprisingly sleek and melodic, if not entirely free of pretension. Case in point: his most recent album, La Nouvelle Pauvreté,…
Two weeks ago Style Wars, a PBS documentary on the early-Eighties graffiti scene in New York, was rereleased on DVD. For those who don’t know, Style Wars is necessary viewing for anyone wishing to know about old-school hip-hop in general and graff writing in particular. But the 1983 film never…
Detroit’s Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus (a.k.a. Adult.) are both technically and aesthetically better electro producers than the sub-par imitators who have temporarily crawled out of their expensive East Coast art schools with designs on dominating the electronic music world. With five years of singles such as “Nausea” and…
In the mid-Nineties, nu-metal was a strong, fledgling genre that yielded multiplatinum acts like Korn and Limp Bizkit. By the end of the decade, however, it was frayed and worn out like a flannel shirt, thanks to all the many me-too bands manufacturing their own versions of nearly indistinguishable rapping,…
DJ Ani Phearce is a man on a spiritual journey, a shaman in the world of house music. The music that he creates and spins varies from Latin-influenced dance music to progressive and tribal rhythms. “I believe that we are all spiritual beings,” says the DJ and producer. “The music…
If you’re going to say something, make sure you have something worth saying. More to the point, “Diarrhea mouth/Constipation brain/No more talking,” decrees the title track of Talkatif, the latest release from the politically minded Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. The big band whose members wield instruments like weapons of peace follows…
In the small hours of last Saturday night, Poplife was slowly, inexorably fading to a close. Most of the faithful left in the Soho Lounge, an even split between ultra-trendroids clad in designer skirts and everypeople stuffed into T-shirts and jeans, had wandered up to the Red Room, its pulsating,…
Luis Alberto Spinetta is more than an Argentine artist. Fellow countrymen like to see him as a legend because his music is considered the soundtrack to their lives. For the last 30 years, Spinetta has mutated as many times as you can imagine for a man who has fronted bands…
As 50 Cent’s star keeps rising, the fallout from his ascendancy keeps growing. The Queensbridge rapper responsible for the year’s biggest album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, has just released his first DVD, The New Breed, an odds-and-sods collection featuring videos, a short film, and two behind-the-scenes documentaries (for “Wanksta”…
When Buju Banton plunges his hand into the bowl of coconut milk, his forearm is black and slim as the letter ‘I’ on a blank page. Even standing in a humble kitchen in Miramar, he is a prophet. His gestures speak of larger things than steamed fish and pigeon peas…
“I’m Superman and I’m from Mars,” says LA Smooth with a childlike giggle. “And I met this girl and she’s from Venus.” Sitting at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Alton Road in a baseball cap worn low, T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, the Brooklyn-born hip-hop personality works his well-worn shtick. His most…
With its cool pan-global sounds, tailored suits, Washington, D.C. home base, and shadowy moniker, the Thievery Corporation is the James Bond of the turntable set. Its image calls forth double agents and secret Interpol plots. Never mind that Rob Garza, one-half of the electronic duo along with partner Eric Hilton,…
Despite a star-packed backing band boasting Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Pharaoh Sanders, Gigi owed its success on the European world music charts to Ethiopian singer Ejigayehu “Gigi” Shibabaw. Even the supple reeds of those jazz legends couldn’t top the twists and turns of an acrobatic voice bending notes, hopping…
The recent chart success of French duo Les Nubians’ One Step Forward is both a heartening rebuke and a disturbing indicator of our country’s xenophobic culture. Usually foreign-speaking artists have to learn to sing in English (like Shakira or T.A.T.U.) to succeed on the U.S. pop charts at the risk…
Few bands have managed to capture the feeling of love turning from sugar to shit as succinctly as Scotland’s Arab Strap. In the past, Aidan Moffat’s swaggered rants about cheating, jealousy, and other ways relationships go wrong have maintained a brutal honesty that holds no punches. But that has since…
The Bad Plus may not be the answer to the prayers of those musicians, listeners, and industry types hoping for a higher profile; acoustic instrumental jazz remains a rock-hard sell. Pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King aggressively disdain genre conventions, opting for pointedly eclectic programming, upending…
British duo Zero dB (Chris Vogado and Neil Combstock) have earned equal if not more attention for their remixes as for their own songs, and Reconstruction features nine of their most solid interpretations of other musicians’ work. Few of the artists “reconstructed” (Grupo Batuque, Peace Orchestra, Interfearance) will be familiar…
Easing his white Ford Bronco into the lead spot of the funeral procession, red-faced, red-haired Irish Catholic priest Father Gabriel O’Reilly leaves the church in Broward where he’s just officiated over the mass for Vincent “Randy” Chin. A trail of funeral flags follows him, all flying atop sedans and SUVs…
The Bronx is hundreds of miles away from Little Louie Vega’s vantage point on the patio behind Miami Beach’s Panna Café, where he sits and enjoys a cup of coffee on this late March morning. He’s here under some duress: In three hours he has to rejoin his wife, the…
To paraphrase KRS-1’s adage on rap vs. hip-hop, reggae is something you do; the massive is something you live. In other words, reggae culture is bound by more than just music. And one thing that holds us together, as much as the I-tal stew of spirituality, sex, and sensi, is…
When I first moved here from Oakland, California, my boss lent me a sleeping bag (my furniture hadn’t arrived yet), a lawn chair to put it on, some paper plates and plastic utensils, and a copy of Joan Didion’s Miami. Not having a television to watch or a computer to…
Eric Krasno, the goateed, beret-wearing, absolutely killin’ guitar riff master for organ trio Soulive, told DownBeat recently of his inability to find the right feeling in an enclosed booth with headphones on and the meter running. Krasno, whose group might be described as a high-energy, open-ended update of Jimmy Smith…
