Growing up in New Orleans, Pulitzer Prize-winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis knew little about the historical and cultural significance of African slaves playing their indigenous music in what is now called Louis Armstrong Memorial Park from the early Eighteenth Century to the mid-Nineteenth Century. That all changed three years ago when…
Zeitgeist: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit): the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. Yeah, it’s a loaded word, one that knots sober Teutonic gravity around dramatic academic loft. But Merriam-Webster’s definition couldn’t be more on-point in describing the music of UK quartet Bloc Party. When…
Every countryside in the Third World has drivers of beat-up pickup trucks who will take hitchhikers to the city. Most of the time the trucks are manned by farmers traveling to and from town to buy supplies, and often livestock like chickens or peccary share the cab. Hitching a ride…
With Expressions (2012 a.u.), Los Angeles MC-turned-crooner Dudley Perkins improves on his solid 2003 album, A Lil’ Light. For one, he sounds more comfortable singing and harmonizing, and even allows his rapper guise “Declaime” to take over at times (particularly on “Dolla Bill,” an effective reprise of A Lil’ Light’s…
“My twelfth album launch! Now everything is carte blanche!” trumpets the Rod Stewart of rap at the launch of his Todd Smith. The single “It’s LL and Santana” may be a thunderous collabo with Juelz, but Carlos would have been a wiser guest to intro the five “ooh girl ooh…
What an odd yet adventuresome fellow this Nick Wright, a.k.a. Dogme 95, appears to be. Although the music that graces The Reagle Beagle and last year’s companion piece, Arcadian Hymns, is the lowest of lo-fi, even downright primitive in places, Wright’s current concept — a fictionalized voyage with social scientist…
Critical disdain for the Fiery Furnaces reached its apex last year, when the NYC-based brother-sister pair recorded and released Rehearsing My Choir, a twisty time’s-outta-joint album — conceived with their grandmother — that rewards patience. The year prior, Blueberry Boat was assailed as unfocused, indigestible garbage. And now comes a…
Like Lucinda Williams, to whom she’s frequently compared, Shannon McNally packs a wallop of a vocal — a tough, tenacious delivery that’s equally adept at conveying both pain and poignancy. McNally’s latest album — a live showcase for a signature style she’s dubbed “North American Ghost Music” — emphasizes a…
Though drummer Glenn Kotche’s role with Wilco may be all the credence needed to draw the indie faithful, little evidence of his day job shows on this, his third solo outing. Drum solos were once the rage, but Kotche’s ability to hammer out increasingly complex rhythms on a variety of…
This track is brisker than the Yoshimi singles — closer to the spazzy sound of Hit to Death in the Future Head from 1992. Unfortunately the Lips haven’t regained their sinister sense of humor, leaving Wayne Coyne’s mawkish attempts at deep thought totally insufferable. It’s Styx for a sloppier subgenre…
One downside of the mashup is the way it can conflate diametrically opposed musical eras into a glop of mere nostalgia: the Jive Bunny effect. This clumsy combination of 1971 psychedelic apocalypse and 1981 postdisco futurism is an evil, awkward example…
It’s been only two years since DMX’s album Grand Champ, 24 months spent dealing with personal and criminal issues that would cripple a weaker person. But from the classic bark and bravado he and Swizz Beatz show here, you wouldn’t guess he’d even caught a cold…
She seizes your attention with hardscrabble, gritty guitar riffs and then holds forth on the title theme in aggro, anguished fashion, like the bastard spawn of Eddie Vedder and Alanis Morissette. Sure, no one’s really heard of Carol Bui yet, but that could and should change, provided she kicks the…
Miami’s own DJ Khaled has assembled an all-star team, drafting players Weezy fucking baby and Paul Wall as guards, Fat Joe as center, and forwards Pitbull and Rick Ross. There’s a bleacher full of screaming bitches; still, the boys are all lookin’ to score the same broad: your baby’s mama…
While microscopic tonal twinkles charge tinnily at a zillion bpm, phantoms stir and coo along to new-age fanfare. As the volume eases north; creaking, eerie violins come out to play; and thin snips mushroom into assaultive clacks, “Velocity of the Yoke” sheds its skin to reveal a screaming ghost bullet…
Nouvelle Vague is an imaginative and genre-bending group that has emerged from the French electronica scene, which is populated by many worthwhile acts that never see these shores. Those who think cover bands are worthless hacks with nothing to offer haven’t heard this Parisian duo (Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux)…
Atlanta’s Family Force Five creates a dubious first impression at best. Much like the mustached, pudgy crooner Har Mar Superstar, the act could be a colossal ironic joke the rest of us might not be getting. After all, the slogan of this group of five pasty-white hipsters with emo-style haircuts…
It is the curse of the blues musician, the tragic twist of fate that seems to haunt every player since Robert Johnson was said to have sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads in exchange for musical immortality. The Crossroads Curse is rumored to have struck Lynyrd Skynyrd,…
Trumpeter Hugh Masekela is the one South African musician almost everybody has heard of. His American profile received a big boost when he was a member of Paul Simon’s traveling Graceland extravaganza, but he’s had a strong international presence since he fled apartheid in 1960. His blend of jazz, township…
When the Chemical Brothers ridiculed the term superstar DJ on their 1999 single “Hey Boy Hey Girl,” the duo was undoubtedly referencing (along with Paul Oakenfold and Moby) Dutch turntablist Tiësto. Like Linda Evangelista, most well-known nightclub-and-rave performers of the late Nineties wouldn’t even get out of bed (at 5:00…
People, don’t you understand? Jaheim doesn’t need your helping hand — being in the ghetto is fine with him. Over the course of three albums recorded and produced at Miami’s own Hit Factory studio, ‘Heim has dedicated his brand of R&B to reclaiming the word ghetto from those who use…
Murs’s new album, Murray’s Revenge, is a followup to his last collaboration with underground producer 9th Wonder, 2004’s critically acclaimed Murs 3:16: The 9th Edition. Although that album was moodily introspective — its cover image featured Murs under a streetlamp, tipping his hat toward the night sky — Murray’s Revenge…
