Simian Mobile Disco apes much of what made the late Eighties fertile as well as fetid. On the British duo’s full-length debut, James Ford and James Shaw revel in the pure Hi-NRG and hip-house that propelled Todd Terry, Tommy Boy, and Technotronic. Peppered throughout the melodic electrohaus mélange are nods…
The Thrills’ 2003 debut, So Much for the City, was an idealistic homage to the California myth, as filtered through the Day-Glo haze of wistful Seventies euphoria. Its idyllic imagery summoned up endless vistas of surf and sand, idealized and admired from a vantage point somewhat distant and distinct. It’s…
Zach Condon, Beirut’s 21-year-old frontman, is too young to have any stories of his own. So he imagines other folks’ — and usually folks living on other continents, in other centuries. On “The Penalty,” he speaks from the perspective of a worker caught in a time of plague: “Yesterday fever,…
If there’s one thing Asheville, North Carolina, is good at exporting, it’s sure-fire music talent — especially of the Afro-hippie variety. That town’s got more dub, Afrobeat, and West African percussion acts fronted by Anglos than you can imagine. Interestingly, most of them are pretty good, but one Asheville group…
Witness Sigur Ros talking to Luke Burbank, in advance of its upcoming release, Hvarf / Heima. Or, rather, witness Sigur Ros really not sure what to say to Burbank’s line of questioning — a phrase I use loosely. The video is linked here. Now, commenters have been lashing out at…
If you stumble onto your favorite familiar, well-trodden path of earth tonight, you won’t find your weekly drum circle bros. Nay, hand-percussion instruments and less portable toking tools will also be abandoned for the next 48 hours in honor of the two-day stint by jam-band-powerhouse Medeski, Martin & Wood. The…
Guster October 14, 2007 The Culture Room Better Than: And egghead keg party 10 years after graduating college. Thank Zeus for huge favors: Last night Guster did not open for Barenaked Ladies or Toad the Wet Sprocket or Modest Mouse (as they have in the past), nor did they play…
Octopus Project, Humbert, Zombies! Organize!!, Electric Pizza Party City Limits October 9 We rolled up to City Limits just as Humbert, the second band of the night (Emergency Pizza Party had the early slot), was about to play. The lights dropped as the boys were settling in near their instruments…
So it’s been a week since the whole Fiascogate situation that took place at last week’s VH1 Hip-Hop Honors, where Lupe Fiasco forgot two bars to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation” during a tribute to the group. I remember hearing him fumble the verse, but didn’t think too much…
Last night, after checking out the grand opening of the Fillmore Miami Beach, I made the short walk down Lincoln Road to the Colony Theatre, to check out a screening put on by the awesome arts organization GenArt. The film? Wristcutters: A Love Story, directed by Goran Dukic. The main…
Photo by Michelle F. Solomon Ricky Martin The Fillmore Miami Beach at The Jackie Gleason Theater October 10, 2007 The Review: The words Fillmore and Ricky Martin somehow just didn’t seem to go together. Ricky Martin opening the Fillmore Miami Beach, the namesake of the Fillmore San Francisco where Jerry…
It’s going to be a long Saturday night for New York house DJ Roger Sanchez. First he hits Cameo and then the infamous Space terrace for afterhours, beginning at 4:00 Sunday morning. And, mind you, all of this is on his plate 24 hours after finishing up at Voodoo in…
Time once again for Sander Kleinenberg to visit one of the burgs that helped put him on the map — or is it the other way around? Like a superelaborate GPS system, Sander Kleinenberg’s bloopy progressive-house megahit “This Is Miami” mysteriously becomes “This Is Ibiza” if you’re on a certain…
Bronx in the Sixties: Jerry Gonzalez and his younger brother Andy frequented their neighborhood’s street jams, which were powered by a soundtrack of Latin and Afro-Cuban rhythms. But at the same time, New York clubs such as the Colgate Gardens were featuring the hybrid Latin-jazz rhythms of Eddie Palmieri, Mongo…
Founder of the UK’s Roll Deep crew — a grime outfit that counts Dizzee Rascal among its alumni — producer/MC/”godfather of grime” Wiley announced early this year his retirement from the mike. At that point, the British release of his Playtime Is Over LP had yet to drop. When it…
The title might lead one to believe that Songs of Mass Destruction is a collection of political tunes, but that’s not the case. Annie Lennox has always been an outspoken feminist, but in her art she prefers to deal with individuals’ lives. “Love Is Blind” uses a punishing beat to…
Brooklyn-based trio Black Dice writes songs that confound, challenge, and sneer at concepts taken for granted in most popular music — things like linearity, pacing, and accessibility. Initially the group went for sheer noise overload, only to shift to time-blurring tactics for Beaches & Canyons. By 2005, with the band’s…
After expanding its head count, L.A.’s hippified West Indian Girl cooked up loose, electronically augmented rock for 4th & Wall, its sophomore album, following a departure from Astralwerks Records. Founders Robert James and Francis Ten fleshed out the group with more keyboards and vocals; huge crescendos on tracks like “Indian…
The rural Texas-based quintet Fair to Midland holds a platypus-rare distinction of sounding like pretty much no one else in rock music today. Take a track such as “Tall Tales Taste Like Sour Grapes,” from the band’s debut album, Fables from a Mayfly, released this past June on System of…
Val Kilmer has been a lot of things — Batman, Iceman, bloated — but he remains a renaissance man. The classically trained actor has done David Mamet and Shakespeare, and has even released a book of poetry. (Used copies of the rare tome, My Edens After Burns, go for upward…
Raver graybeards are dusting off beanie hats and swallowing the first two tablets — the Happy Mondays’ Bummed: Collector’s Edition (Rhino) and Paul Oakenfold’s Greatest Hits & Remixes (New State) — of what’s sure to be an intoxicating yearlong revival. It’s just in time for the upcoming 20th anniversary of…
Boyish good looks, a charming personality, and a tender voice made the character of Miguel Morez an overwhelming favorite among female soap opera aficionados in the mid-Nineties. The charismatic and flirty Hispanic bartender developed quite a fan base among followers of General Hospital. It was the kind of role for…
