Germany’s Gabor Schablitzki, who sometimes spells his name backward and is also half of the Wighnomy Brothers, might be the sliest producer to beep and blip since the heyday of Aphex Twin. Here Robag flings snares, winks, and then takes quicksilver stutter-steps that recall “Windowlicker,” even as a minor-key melody…
The following two events are connected: Now, right now, Madonna has a single on the pop charts — “Hung Up” — an eminently danceable throwback to her Eighties heyday. And, in 2000, after foibles as stone-faced global moralists and the humbling horrors of “Lemon” and “Discothque,” U2 enjoyed a late-career…
Underdog New York hardcore got a little out of hand in the Seventies, when its practitioners began hitting the gym after band practice. Soon hundreds, if not thousands, of semi-metal acts began bombarding us with “chugga-chugga” breakdowns and deep, guttural screams. NY’s Underdog can claim being there when it all…
Hip-Hop Hors D’oeuvres There were at least a couple of classic albums (Beanie Sigel’s The B. Coming and Kanye West’s Late Registration) and a slew of great ones (Madlib’s The Further Adventures of Lord Quas, Young Jeezy’s Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101, and The Game’s The Documentary) in 2005…
Hate it or love it, reggaeton was everywhere in 2005. It became the format for dozens of Latin radio stations across the nation. Two of its biggest stars — Tego Calderon and Daddy Yankee — were the first in the genre to sign with major labels. This year reggaeton faced…
This year’s crop of electronic music seemed more concerned with looking in than locking in. For the most part top producers haven’t seemed as worried about innovation as connotation. It’s been a year of cobbling together old genres rather than molding new ones, and there’s a definite trend toward composing…
These strays are too artsy and meandering for No Dep, too rootsy and plainspoken for Pitchfork, and too concise for the hippies at Relix. My Morning Jacket, Z (ATO): Sure, the lyrics are stupid (burning kittens and babies in blenders, anyone?), and the pub-rock/Hawaii 5-0/carnival-in-Hell middle stretch of the record…
Exploration and expansion in urban music marked 2005. Against a Matrix-like background of corporate-controlled radio and TV, iPod-enabled consumers demanded more musical choices. For every lackluster commercial effort (like 50 Cent’s The Massacre), 50 superior underground albums stepped up. Meanwhile the global fusion trend developing over the past decade reaped…
This year major festivals like Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, and the revived Lollapalooza mashed up alt-rock mainstays with a colorful new breed of improv road warriors. These groups share a noncommercial, tour-intensive work ethic that assures grassroots devotion across the country. So get hip, kid. Sound Tribe Sector 9, Artifact…
My undying love for Dudes with Guitars Who Think Way Too Much About Girls is now a critical liability, for rockism has recently become grounds for public execution. I can only hope my final hours (before I am decapitated by Missy Elliott) are as graceful, poignant, and unabashedly melodramatic as…
I need variety, which is why I hog the headphones at the Putumayo World Music sampler stand every time I go to Wild Oats supermarket. This year, while everyone else in the store was contemplating low-fat tofu, I was daydreaming of nibbling Serrano ham tapas and sipping red wine in…
A few turntablists aside, DJing has always been as much about what you play as how you play it. And Diplo, perhaps more than any other DJ from this decade, is adept at locating the sonic correlations between culturally disparate sounds. His sets effortlessly oscillate between Rio de Janeiro’s favela…
Philadelphia’s The Roots have broken down hip-hop stereotypes. They may not have been the first hip-hop band to employ live instrumentation — that distinction belongs to Stetsasonic — but they certainly made the idea palpable for mainstream audiences. Since emerging in the early Nineties, they have had a long, prosperous…
When asked about favorite Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa memories, most people remember the good times. Ask a musician the same question and, instead of poignant tales of seasonal mirth, you hear stories of embarrassment and crime. There’s a lesson about artists wrapped up in there somewhere, but it’s a little…
The Source Latino made its debut on newsstands across the nation this week. The South Beach-based publication is the first nationally distributed magazine to concentrate solely on the Latin hip-hop and reggaeton markets. While this is an exciting development for these woefully underreported genres, the actions and stature of its…
Last month it was revealed that Sony BMG Music had been covertly installing spyware on its new CDs to combat music piracy. Sony used a program called XCP, created by UK firm First 4 Internet, that employed a cloaking system to hide the proprietary media player so consumers were forced…
It has been fifteen years since Albita Rodriguez decided to pack her bags and leave Cuba. And much has changed with the expressive and vocally gifted Cuban sonera/songwriter. Gone is the closely cropped hair. Gone are the Armani suits and fedora hats. But one thing that hasn’t changed is her…
In an unfortunate confluence of the Hebrew and Christian calendars, Hanukkah begins at sundown December 25, which means that we Jews will have to deal with the ol’ “Hanukkah? Isn’t that the Jewish Christmas?” thing from those unenlightened goyim a lot more than usual this year. Still, when it comes…
The dance music festival season has traditionally begun in Candyland. Held at Nocturnal this year, the Candyland event has been around even longer than Winter Music Conference and holds the title of Florida’s longest-running dance music festival. In the past ten years, it has played host to everyone from Josh…
Although he first landed on the scene in 1989 with his classic Frankie Knuckles collaboration “Tears,” another decade would pass before Satoshi Tomiie implanted himself in the national dance-floor consciousness. His critically acclaimed 2000 debut, Full Lick, featured the hits “Love in Traffic” and “Up in Flames” and established Tomiie…
DJ Tom Laroc has thousands of records, and every Thursday he brings more than 2000 of them to the Pawn Shop to spin a seven-hour mix that encompasses everything from hip-hop and R&B to reggae and freestyle. His sets have become increasingly popular with the bobbing masses of SoBe exiles…
With the exception of a handful of songs — most notably 1999’s “Yo Se Que Es Mentira” (“I Know It’s a Lie”) and 2001’s “Dime Corazón” (“Tell Me, My Love”) — Cuban pop balladeer Amaury Gutierrez has enjoyed little commercial success since leaving the communist island more than a decade…
