The music of Oakland, California’s Moore Brothers is like a poison ivy leaf: bright, green, sparkling, and likely to get under your skin and make you itch and twitch. Their close sibling harmonies bring to mind the adolescent wail of the Everlys, and although their angelic harmonies can be soothing,…
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…
Bandleader and producer Johnny Otis gave DeSanto the nickname “Little Miss Sugar Pie” because she was so small, weighing only 85 pounds. But when she opened her mouth to sing, the intensity and volume of her blues-drenched vocals always stopped the show. In a career that now spans 50 years,…
Michael Ramos, the Austin, Texas musician who records as Charanga Cakewalk, grew up bilingual and bicultural and made a name for himself as a sideman playing with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, and Patty Griffin. As a young man, he turned away from his Latino heritage to pursue rock, but when…
Allen Ginsberg is undoubtedly the greatest American poet of the latter part of the Twentieth Century. Bob Dylan’s innovative lyrics owed a huge debt to Ginsberg’s stream-of-consciousness approach to composition, and when the two met in the late Sixties, Dylan encouraged Ginsberg’s dream of becoming a singer/songwriter. The results are…
The Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest, a jazz/pop/cabaret ensemble, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. They’re famous for collaborations with visiting artists such as Stan Getz, Celine Dion, and now Elvis Costello. Recorded at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2004, with arrangements by Costello, the program revisits tunes old and new, and…
A name like Bombay Dub Orchestra whets the appetite with an expectation of exotic delights beyond compare — a hybrid of dub reggae, Bollywood pop madness, and electronica, a tsunami of global beats to wash away the humdrum riddims of a typical night out clubbing. BDO’s Andrew T. Mackay and…
Ninja High School shoots for a middle ground between pop culture’s flash and trash and agitprop’s polemical slash and burn. The arty rap/rock band from Toronto hoists Eighties synth squeak, early No Wave sax noodling, and booty-bouncing Miami bass beats atop rapid-fire lyrical rants laced with politics, wicked humor, and…
Micah Blue plays folk blues in a style both archaic and timeless. He made a name for himself in the Boston punk scene of the Eighties and Nineties with bands like Pinkerton Thugs and Out Cold. In the new century he dropped out for a while before returning with 2002’s…
The Domino Kings aren’t the only band from Springfield, MO, you’ve never heard of, but they’re probably the best. Their brand of hard-rockin’, honky-tonk swing reverberates like a drunken earthquake. Lead singer, main songwriter, and rhythm guitarist Stevie Newman’s warble is part Hank Snow, part Buck Owens, and part perfect…
Nortec, an abbreviation of norteño-techno, may sound like an oxymoron to some, but the five-man Tijuana-based Nortec Collective thrives on contradictions. They deconstruct norteño, ranchera, and banda sinaloense and add loops, samples, and globally minded club beats. The result is a bright, bouncy sound that’s miles away from the Tijuana…
Former Stray Cats frontman and swing purveyor Brian Setzer is one of a handful of guitarists who’d dare attempt to put his own spin on the classic Sun Records catalogue, and perhaps the only who can actually reinterpret the raucous Memphis pre-rock without embarrassing himself. A rumbling doo-wop chorus and…
By calling themselves Robbers on High Street, this Brooklyn band dares you to guess their influences, and many of them are fairly obvious. There’s snarling guitar reminiscent of the Kinks, vocal harmonies inspired by the Beatles, and a lead singer who could double for the Zombies’ crooner Colin Blunstone. What’s…
When Sabina Sciubba, the only woman in the New York group that calls itself Brazilian Girls (and, for the record, she’s Italian, not Brazilian), sings on “Corner Store,” “I love the music on the radio/And this is how it goes,” you have to assume that the radio she’s talking about…
The ominous grooves that Shivaree creates for its tales of treachery, frustrated sexuality, and emotional defeat sound like the disjointed music emanating from a carny sideshow tent after midnight. Eerie hints of tango, girl-group R&B, spaghetti western guitar, and musical saw all drift through the disjointed soundscapes, weaving a spell…
The cumbia is a frenetic Colombian beat that’s part cha cha cha and part ska. A slower, more laid-back form (usually performed with acoustic instruments — accordion, percussion, bajo sexto — that give it a less electric, more folkloric feel) is also massively popular in northern Mexico and Latin communities…
Adam Green was half of the Moldy Peaches, an anti-folk duo (Kimya Dawson was his female counterpart) known for its singsong melodies and scatological humor. Now, as a solo artist, Green has taken a quantum leap with Friends of Mine. Its lush melodies are instantly memorable and supported by a…
The Anniversary, a well-known emo outfit from Lawrence, Kansas, has morphed into the dark, bluesy The Only Children. Lead singer Josh Berwanger has a pleasing indie-rock warble that lets him sing his tales of heartbreak, homelessness, and murder with candor, and the band plays everything from ragged Americana stomps to…
Akron, Ohio drummer Patrick Carney and guitarist Dan Auerbach, who together make up the Black Keys, are reinvigorating blues/rock by sticking to the basics: the sound of a screaming, feedback-drenched guitar clashing with a kick drum that smacks you like the loud splat of a drunk’s head bouncing off the…
On her last album, Black Ivory Soul, Angélique Kidjo sang a duet with Dave Matthews, who later invited her to open for him on his 2001 American tour and introduced her to a whole new, mainstream audience. Most artists would have followed up that coup with something a bit more…
You’re walking alone down an alien cityscape surrounded by familiar, yet vaguely threatening sounds — the far-off wail of an ambulance siren, the hollow echo of a passing subway train rising up from an iron grate, the hiss of dirty steam coming from a rusted pipe, and the sudden tap-tap-tap…
Malian musician Oumou Sangare’s amazing voice and songs that directly address the plight of women in a highly conservative society have made her a superstar in her native country, and the eight new tracks on Oumou will show you why. “Yala,” which asks the youth to avoid the pitfalls of…
