It’s a Friday afternoon and indie pop group Secret P.E. Club is getting in one last practice for a gig later that night. Guitarist Andrea Vigil, however, is missing. Scheduled to return from a vacation that morning, Vigil is somewhere between Los Angeles and Miami. Where, exactly, her bandmates aren’t…
Aina Candela might want to think about changing the name of its new weekly show at Jazid from “Cooltura” to “Trance Tuesdays.” After all, lead singer and percussionist Philbert Armenteros’s mixture of modern instrumentation and an intense flurry of traditional Cuban percussion has been known to propel his audiences into…
I met Nadia [Harris] when she came into the studio one day and we started drumming,” says Agape founder Erick Paredes. “I was blown away. We connected immediately.” Two and a half years later, Agape (pronounced ah-gah-pay) has been doling out cool down-tempo, electro, and worldbeat vibes. Agape produces the…
Generation Excess is a term that has been used to describe today’s twentysomethings, overconsuming underachievers more likely to move back in with their parents after college and “find themselves” instead of look for a job. But 25-year-olds Adam Heathcott and Sara Padgett blow that stereotype out of the water. Not…
As an outfit worshipping at the altar of British rock, Nothing Rhymes with Orange may not have had to put up much of a fight to win the devotion of South Florida’s famished Anglophiles. Fortunately local renown and lack of competition hasn’t dulled its ambitions. Five years after solidifying its…
When it comes to accomplishments in the world of jazz, percussionist Sammy Figueroa has been there and played that. The Bronx-born Figueroa began his music career in the mid-Seventies with the Latin fusion group Raices. His stint with the widely acclaimed band was soon followed by tours and recordings with…
Arturo Sandoval has firmly cemented himself in the annals of jazz. His performances are rich in history, education, reverence, and fun. This CD/DVD showcases his 40-plus years in the biz and is a galloping ride replete with Sandoval’s signature Afro-Cuban styling, raucous scat vocals (even a little rapping in “Eso…
Latin Grammy-winning rocker Jorge Moreno’s new bilingual album El Segundo is cultural hodgepodge that seamlessly shifts from alternative tropical rock to British pop and touches on all points in between. The album’s first single, the brooding, lovelorn “Avión” (“Airplane”), mixes bachata with rockabilly. Elsewhere, “La Cama” (“The Bed”) spruces up…
Miami quartet Little Atlas calls itself an art-rock band, but its music skews closer to the adventures of Genesis, Yes, and Rush than the undulations of Franz Ferdinand and the Futureheads. Lead vocalist Steve Katsikas sings songs such as “The Prisoner” and “The Ballad of Eddie Wanderlust” that are filled…
On their followup to last year’s debut EP, Your Move, indie rock group Baby Calendar offers an album custom-made for these slow summer days. Tom Gorrio’s guitar work continues to gain complexity without losing its sense of euphoric zeal, while lead singer/bassist Jackie Biver’s vocals have become an amalgam of…
Dan “Doormouse” Martin is one of the only local producers making breakcore, the latest twist on experimental electronic music. Operating in a post-Schematic environment, the producer is more likely to be found spinning hip-hop records at Buck 15 and Purdy Lounge than cranking out his cut-and-paste splatter tracks, which is…
Like most on Eight76’s roster, Evette shuttles between her native Jamaica and South Florida, using both territories to foment her music career. As a result, her debut Lately is smooth and compressed like American R&B while bearing an effortlessly light touch atypical of the best reggae records. Working with in-house…
DJ’ing isn’t easy. It usually takes years of sweating it out in hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, passing out mix CDs to anyone who’ll take one, and opening for big-name headliners before you finally reach the heights of Tisto. Concurrently most of the top jocks who can sell out a superclub or arena…
When Renea L. Moss took the microphone during Mello Mondays, the District’s weekly spoken-word event, there were few men in the room. The Miami Heat were playing the Detroit Pistons in the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals. The place was mostly filled with groups of smartly dressed young black women (which…
I hate it when I get electrocuted,” says Jasmine Betances. One of South Florida’s commonplace summer thunderstorms is passing through, but it isn’t lightning the petite brunette, standing half-naked next to a cart full of Red Bull, is complaining about. She has just received a jolt from the strings of…
Until recently, the yin and the yang, ancient Taoist symbols that reflect cosmic harmony through two polar opposites, appeared to be merely a convenient graphic design gimmick for Atlanta’s twurkin’ twosome Kaine and D-Roc. But with U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta), the Ying Yang Twins have produced an album that…
Childlike wonder swarms around Ladybug Mecca’s solo debut, Trip the Light Fantastic, as she skips from genre to genre and her voice flutters between singing and rapping. With each recollection of grade school, each whimsical protagonist, and each jump-rope-rhyme chorus, it’s clearer that for this member of the newly reformed…
Wikkid Lil Girls is light years removed from the sub-Björk-isms that infected Breath from Another, Esthero’s 1998 debut. Esthero vocalizes over her backgrounds, which range from jazz and cabaret to pop, soul, and hip-hop, with more confidence and swagger than before. The album is excitingly drenched in sex, with songs…
With much uninspired R&B cannibalism from a generation, and generalization based on American Idol idolization, is it any wonder that the most innovative, reverent soul album of 2005 comes from left field? Here it is: Multiply, the first solo full-length in five years from Jamie Lidell, one half of oddball…
So this is Spectral’s silver-stamped 25th release, a double-disc collection celebrating the label’s fifth year of operation. Who knew? Sure, there are those who can’t resist the imprint’s fuck-a-scene singles, but come on — most recognize Spectral solely as the stable of Matthew Dear. Well, those who prefer dancing to…
“We’re a hall of mirrors,” says Tsar’s candy-voiced singer Jeff Whalen. He must mean vanity mirrors — Tsar is one of a few rock bands wearing makeup these days for something other than gothic effect — because this retro-glam LA quartet can be a tricky beast to identify. With one…
Soaring on the strength of wistful sentiments and cool confidence, this fourth album from singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Erin McKeown exudes a rare quality in these troubled times — a sense of unbridled optimism. Buoyed by shifting rhythms, from the persistent shuffle of “Air” to the clattering, kinetic undertow of “To…
