A DJ is oftentimes judged on how well he can thread together seemingly disparate genres while stealthily hiding the seams. And by all accounts New York’s DJ Language is a genius with the needle. Language’s latest, Real Music for Real People, proffers a brilliant patchwork of hip-hop legends such as…
Son Volt’s recent A Retrospective: 1995-2000 is a must-have for altcountry partisans, but it “isn’t a tombstone,” according to the liner notes. We beg to differ. The first edition of Son Volt, led by ex-Uncle Tupelo member Jay Farrar, is now defunct. In fact Farrar is the sole survivor from…
Maestro, a feature documentary by Cuban-born Josell Ramos that attempts to chronicle the origin of dance music culture, forces the viewer to draw parallels between the past and the present. It does this not simply by comparing the golden spoons of disco’s coke days to the Vicks inhalers of the…
It’s not only the coarseness of their rabble that keeps power-pop’s jangling tunesmiths from ruling the world; they’re forever looking backward and are no better for it. Louisville’s Digby, however, has no unhealthy obsessions with genre pioneers such as Big Star or Squeeze. From beginning to end, the quintet’s twelve-track…
It’s that time of year again when all self-respecting punks dutifully brush off their spiked leather jackets with the Dead Kennedys logos and head on down to incite anarchy and distortion at the last bastion of rock and roll in Miami, Churchill’s Pub. That’s right, it’s Skunk’s Seventh Annual Big…
During a New Times interview earlier this year (“Ugly Beautiful,” January 20), Miami-based Cuban-American rocker Rhett said his first Spanish-language album, which comes after two decades of his performing Anglo rock in three bands (Young Turk, the Butter Club, and now Rhett and the Pawn Shop Drunks), was like taking…
When Luciana Souza takes the stage, the Grammy-nominated jazz singer projects a power both hypnotic and jarring. In the voice of Souza — a slender brunette in her late thirties — resides the subtle refinement of a classically trained singer cut with the passion of a child raised by legendary…
The air hangs in the sky like molasses on this hot South Florida Saturday night as I wind through the poorly lit pathway that leads to the lavish Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. I’ve arrived with the departing music editor, the admirable Mosi Reeves, who like me made the unfortunate decision…
When asked in early 2003, a few short months after the release of his band’s debut album, where he thought he’d be in five years, Steve Bays was convinced he’d find himself in one of two positions: Either his band, Hot Hot Heat, would sound totally different and its fans…
Having grown up with the words to “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” all but a priori in my head, I have found it hard to appreciate the scope and reach of Willie Nelson. Sure, he penned classic songs for country superstars like Patsy Cline, Faron…
After a seven-year layoff when the group concentrated on DJ gigs, remix work, and their label Yoshitoshi, Deep Dish returns with George Is On. As it leaps from a rock-tinged love song for an unlikely dance capital (“Sacramento”) to whacked-out robot breaths that ideally illustrate club confusion (“Everybody’s Wearing My…
OV is either a monolithic masterpiece or as numbing as five spin cycles in a washing machine. The bandmates of metalcore Orthrelm scale this 45-minute work like two guys fulfilling a dare, climbing from one repetitive section to the next. At one point they play one riff 126 times in…
If a secret fountain of fun exists, producer Andres Levin has found it and is hoarding it for himself and his band Yerba Buena. On Yerba’s second release, Island Life, the group seamlessly blends Afro-Cuban funk, hip-hop, and salsa together for a concoction that is the sonic equivalent of spiked…
With a hammer-of-the-gods voice and enough street cred to be the ghetto president, Slim Thug is the latest import from the scorching Houston underground. Of course it doesn’t hurt that his major-label debut, the optimistically titled Already Platinum, is a collaborative effort with reigning pop kings the Neptunes. It’s an…
Say it with me: SOOF-yahn. Last year you could still get away with mispronouncing the symphonic folkie’s first name. His previous two records, the sprawling Greetings from Michigan and the banjo-filled Seven Swans, were gorgeous works that never received nationwide attention. Illinois follows Michigan’s semisymphonic path. The beautiful “Come On,…
You know the end is nigh when the summer’s biggest song is a sixteen-minute morality play by R. Kelly. While his latest, TP.3 Reloaded, contains all the key elements of his past albums — the club anthems (“Playa’s Only” featuring Game) and the slow sex jams (the masterfully titled “[Sex]…
From the Clash’s early rap tributes to Mos Def’s ghetto rock, when musical boundaries correspond to racial ones, musicians cross them self-consciously and very carefully. But on Hoodlum Rock: Vol. 1, Atlanta’s all-black quintet El Pus stitches together funk, punk, hip-hop, and hard rock so confidently and with such apparent…
Bust out your skinny ties and gel up your best bed-head hair, boys, because the Bravery is coming to town. Like New York’s Interpol, Vegas’s the Killers, and Scotland’s Franz Ferdinand, the Bravery is one of many bands these days channeling Eighties New Wave, sporting dance-inducing rock riffs, keyboard fun,…
While they await the debut album from Florida’s favorite teenage synthpop band, fans can satiate their appetite when Dance, Jenny shuffles into I/O this weekend. Pitch-perfect lilting melodies, abstract lyrics, and boy-toy indie charm are the order of the day. Lovers of like-minded indietronica acts such as the Books and…
With a father who accompanied Miles Davis on piano and a brother who played bass for George Benson, DJ Disciple seems destined for musical greatness. Disciple has spent the past few years burning up NYC’s underground scene with his eclectic mix of garage, disco, Latin, and hard house. Last year…
The first thing listeners will ask themselves when attempting to buy Karma’s latest release and first full-length album, Don’t Walk, Fly, is: What the hell is 120.00R in good ol’ American greenbacks? It’s just another one of the ways the band’s leader, South African pop star Karma-Ann Swanepoel, subtly reminds…
The first things you notice when you visit Sweat Records are the pastel colors. Several canvasses by local artists such as LEBO, Duane Hosein, and Helena Garcia dot walls painted in bright hues, creating a perpetually warm and earthy environment. You could assert without irony that Sweat Records is a…
