Okay, so Winter Music Conference might not start officially until Tuesday. But Miami will make any excuse to party a little bit extra. And if you’re from out of town and here for the conference, you’re likely similarly swingin’. No worries — besides the city’s usual debauchery, the special events…
Kids are going crazy out in Los Angeles. Every month it seems a new opus emerges from the region: Aloe Blacc’s Shine Through, Georgia Anne Muldrow’s Olesi: Fragments of Earth, Daedelus’s Denies the Day’s Demise, Ta’Raach’s The Fevers, and Flying Lotus’s 1983. These recordings don’t reinvent the rules of soul,…
New Yorker Shauna Slevin is a veteran label manager and house music hustler, but she has a slightly strange scheduling stipulation when booking international trips for the Martinez Brothers. European gigs are limited to Saturday nights as the guys have a prior commitment on Fridays: high school. Apparently, playing at…
Just when electroclash was becoming a punch line and dance music threatened to turn moribund again, along came Ed Banger Records to give it another swift kick in the ass. Postmodern and ice-cool, the label’s signature sound is equal parts electro-tech-house, hip-hop swagger, and punk-rock attitude and distortion. Its biggest…
I’m an electronic-folk-soul-jazz-singer, or something in between,” writes Clara Hill. The German singer communicates via e-mail, but her warmth and enthusiasm shine through the text. Hill’s most recent album, All I Can Provide (released on Jazzanova’s imprint Sonar Kollektiv near the end of last year), is a delight. It finds…
Before beginning, a brief warning: Above & Beyond, the nom de plume for producers Jonathan Grant, Paavo Siljamäki, and Tony McGuinness, makes airy trance. And no, this isn’t the kind of borderline-trance Kompakt techno that hipsters like. This is the kind of sickly-sweet trance that makes hipsters grit their teeth…
He has produced songs for — and become friends with — Afrika Bambaataa. He lives around the corner from Snoop Dogg. But Überzone’s Tim Wiles is not a hip-hop star by any stretch of the imagination. You won’t find him rocking the latest platinum chain. He has no entourage, unless…
When the hip-hop movement was born, it was the beat heard around the world. Apparently Stockholm caught the buzz and a young Swede, now known as Mad Mats (Mats Carlsson), was obsessively listening to the tunes and practicing his street dancing. “I was the king of windmills,” he says. Fast-forward…
David Guetta drew international attention as the impresario (along with his wife, Cathy) behind the glamorous, VIP-clogged Fuck Me I’m Famous. First launched at Pacha Ibiza, it is now an internationally recognized brand for hedonistic, Studio 54-style shenanigans. Guetta’s career as a producer and DJ spans more than two decades,…
New York’s Def Mix is the dynamic production company helmed by Judy Weinstein, Frankie Knuckles, David Morales, Satoshi Tomiie, and Hector Romero. An anchor of the entire house music scene, Def Mix celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2007, kicking off a year of parties with Def Mix 20 at Shine…
Philadelphia rapper/producer Omar “Jneiro Jarel” Gilyard first gained attention after collaborations with future soul powerhouse Rich Medina. On Jarel’s 2005 album, Three Piece Puzzle, his first to receive widescale distribution, he evolved into an avatar of the electronic/hip-hop/soul style, an emerging trend expounded by artists such as the late J…
Berlin-based DJ/producer Dixon (born Steffen Berkhahn and occasionally also known under the alias Wahoo) is best known for working with that city’s renowned record label Sonar Kollektiv, for which he compiled several singles and mix CDs (including the acclaimed Off Limits series). He will soon release the eclectic mix Body…
Give Heidi a break and let her DJ set at the Get Physical party speak for itself. Don’t judge her for being from Richie Hawtin’s hometown of Windsor, Canada, or for being the latest girl to give the German techno scene the gift of a hot track (though Vejer is…
Most years it’s New York DJ Danny Tenaglia who performs marathon DJ sets at WMC. But this time around it’s going to be another Danny — Howells, from Hastings, England — who will rock the party for the long haul when he plays a nine-hour set at Pawn Shop Lounge…
Polish-born, Detroit-reared, and Berlin-residing DJ/producer Magda (ne Magda Hojnacka) is quite often found spinning at the same events as mentor Richie Hawtin and is signed to his M_Nus (pronounced minus) label. She is also quite possibly the only DJ to have ever had both a tea mug and a T-shirt…
King Britt’s fifteen-year-plus musical career is an astonishingly diverse one. The Philly producer’s career began with a partnership with Josh Wink, cranking out hits for Strictly Rhythm and Wink’s Ovum imprint. It peaked as a neo-soul pioneer who DJed for Digable Planets and issued a well-received 1997 debut, When the…
Snow Patrol The boys from Snow Patrol have come a long way from the days when they posed as members of the band Belle & Sebastian to infiltrate the student union club at the Glasgow School of Art. In fact, the indie darlings (from Glasgow by way of Dundee) are…
The city of Miami boasts plenty of local architectural gems. The three-month-old Umoja Shantytown is not one of them. Located in a dilapidated section of Liberty City, the makeshift camp constitutes the only known address of some 40 homeless residents, who are currently protesting Miami-Dade County’s lack of low-income housing…
For the guys in Maná, taking it on the chin from music critics isn’t just an occupational hazard — it’s a way of life. The band has been called everything from “overly earnest” to “heavily varnished” to plain old “fake.” Ouch. But much of the Maná-bashing can be diffused if…
Malecón. Just the word makes Lazaro Perez — a.k.a. Lashy — homesick. “Malecón, Malecón, Malecón. What a special place, especially at night, woooow,” says reggaeton artist Lashy, in a lilting accent. The Arizona-based Cuban transplant is performing at the Calle Ocho Festival this Sunday, and spoke with New Times on…
Rockstar Taste of Chaos Tour The Used, Senses Fail and 30 Seconds to Mars head up a marathon nu-metal/emo show this Friday, sponsored (somewhat insipidly) by Rockstar Energy Drink. Although headline act The Used has historically written hard rock songs with poppy elements, its new LP Berth leans toward an…
Mari Rosa There is something inherently retro about a bossa nova/jazz make-out album. Mari Rosa’s debut disc, Honeyspot, feels like the sonic progeny of Martin Denny’s Afro-Desia (1959) and Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz’s Getz Au Go-Go (1964). Like those two classics, songwriter/vocalist Rosa’s disc resists blushing at its own…
