In an open-air club in the hills above Kingston, the half-dozen members of the Turbo Force sound system huddle behind a sculptural citadel of equipment, sifting through a mountain of 45s. Working two turntables, one of the Turbo Force DJs jaggedly switches selections like the stations on a transistor radio,…
March is a busy month for music fans in South Florida. There’s the Calliope Fest at the end of the month, and the brand-new Langerado Music Festival at the beginning. And of course there’s that little gathering of DJs called the Winter Music Conference in the middle. Then there’s the…
In the early Nineties, the rising cost of funk and soul samples chased producers right into the arms of digital instrumentation. Thus the “golden age” of Pete Rock’s and DJ Premier’s horn-laden sample tapestries ultimately yielded to the Neptunes’ vacuum-sealed bleeps and robo-claps. While cheap MIDI technology brought about innovative…
Chan Marshall, known to the rock and roll world as Cat Power, is a painfully shy woman with a lot to say. You Are Free, her new album and first since 2001’s bleak The Covers Record, is the least self-assured-sounding self-assured record in ages. “Don’t be in love with the…
When the media decided to adopt electro music as its new “next big thing,” it caused a rift in the small community that had supported machine music for years. Many were appalled at the media’s coverage of so-called “electroclash” (named after a series of club nights hosted by New York’s…
Somewhere between the Lone Star State and the nation’s capital, Citizen Cope (Clarence Greenwood’s nom de plume) learned to mold rhythm and blues and Sixties folk into arrangements that recall everything from Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder to Arrested Development. Sure, he’s white, but Greenwood has soul. Last year’s self-titled…
Peace in the world seems lost as mounting tensions abroad hint that we are on the brink of war. Airports, subways, nuclear plants, hotels, the Versace store on Washington Avenue, and nearly every other public institution in between received new attention after the federal government upgraded the terror alert color…
You can’t blame Ry Cooder for wanting to try something new. It’s been six years since the original Buena Vista Social Club sessions and almost 50 years since prerevolutionary Cuban music had its heyday. Ibrahim Ferrer’s first solo CD, Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer, referenced the classic Cuban…
When Eminem was asked by XXL magazine last month why he signed Queensbridge rapper 50 Cent to his Shady Records, the hip-hop Elvis replied, “His life story sold me.” Admittedly, in an industry that values street credibility and hard-luck tales, 50 Cent has an impressive pedigree. His mother, a drug…
How many times has it happened? You set the radio to scan the FM dial and — BAM — you catch a snatch of some really wild music. Something so raw and so out there that for one split second you take back everything you ever thought about Latin radio…
It was an event that ended on a high note, with a third of Soho Lounge’s capacity crowd inspired to break dance on mats in the center of the club. At the end of the concert, legendary Bronx DJ Afrika Bambaataa, who was headlining that night, said it best: “That’s…
You know you’d like to say something special to your sweetie, but you just can’t find the right words or the right tone to tickle her ears. This year why not let one of the masters whisper sweet nothings for you, as Valentine’s Day weekend brings not one but two…
It happens to all of us at one time or another. An overwhelming feeling comes over us that suggests we are living inside elaborate theatrical productions that we mistake for being real life. Granted, everything about our nighttime rites of passage seems more dreamlike when caught up in high-speed alcohol…
This Thursday, the Mid-Eastern Dance Exchange (MEDE) is hosting its seventh annual Orientalia festival, a yearly event that draws hundreds of people to see belly-dance performances and participate in workshops with the featured dancers. But this year Orientalia comes with a twist. The event will also kick off a nationwide…
Drum and bass doesn’t leave much white space for the listener. It fills the air without pause: drum fills layered on top of one another, breakbeats at a breakneck frequency, and a splatter of chest-pumping bass that can stop someone from breathing. This is drum and bass around the world,…
Miami DJ George Acosta is a soldier who plays straight-up, balls-to-the-wall trance and nothing else. His latest mix compilation Touched is a two-CD cannon ready to bombard stereo systems everywhere with catchy, club-worthy tracks that flow easily yet roll with just enough edge to avoid becoming watered-down radio fodder. The…
Glasgow’s Delgados write songs like Grimm Brothers fairy tales. From first album Domestiques onward, band co-founders Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward have played the innocents abroad, their sweet vocal melodies a bread-crumb trail through Sonic Youth-inspired guitar pyrotechnics and, beginning with 2000’s The Great Eastern, an enchanted forest of shimmering…
Contrary to popular belief, the Spanish word puto doesn’t mean “fag.” Only a homosexual who also happens to be an asshole is a puto. But puto is anything that’s bad, wrong. For example if you accused Molotov of homophobia for its 1997 hit “Puto” (which repeated a “Puuuuuto-Puuuuuto” chorus dozens…
As a white French hip-hop producer, DJ Cam’s recordings have been alternately categorized by beat heads as trip-hop and downtempo, or acid jazz, anything other than the music to which he frequently and unashamedly pays homage. In fact his mid-Nineties albums like Mad Blunted Jazz mostly consisted of breaks already…
As one of the most prominent members of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, Clarence Clemons blows his sax with all the low-down power of waves crashing upon the Jersey shore, even though he moved to West Palm Beach several years ago. No matter, says the sax man, “I bring Asbury…
With a setting Sun, a dead King, a reformed Killer, and empty Stax, Memphis has spent the past few decades coasting on the fumes of its musical reputation. After making the world suffer through countless garage bands rehashing the same old, same old, Memphis has come up with Lost Sounds:…
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING EDITORIAL MAY CONTAIN MATERIAL THAT IS OFFENSIVE TO READERS WHO TAKE THIS COLUMN WAY TOO SERIOUSLY. With your existence edging closer and closer toward that elephant’s graveyard in clubland, a place somewhere between early-evening tea parties and Saturday visits to the movies with your fortysomething women friends,…
