Indian summer can be lovely in New York City, but for Ed Hale there was little time to savor the sights. He and his band Transcendence were in town for the annual CMJ Music Marathon. And that found Hale talking up more record industry players than a Jehovah’s Witness who’s…
When Genius/GZA, Inspectah Deck, and Masta Killa pass the mike between them on “Silverback,” one of the best cuts on Masta Killa’s No Said Date, lyrically working themselves into a frenzy, it just sounds right. It makes you feel as if it’s 1995 all over again, back when Wu-Tang Clan…
It seemed only yesterday that Friendster (www.friendster.com) was the destination for young, hip Americans to build their own personalized Websites and participate in a worldwide online network. But Friendster is so, like, two years ago. These days everyone is heading over to MySpace (www.myspace.com). Since the Los Angeles-based portal launched…
Given the fact that about half the videos in rotation on MTV Latin America are in English, it’s not surprising that artists such as Black Eyed Peas, Lenny Kravitz, and Beastie Boys performed at the network’s third annual Video Music Awards Latin America on October 21. The event opened with…
Nearly a year after the release of DFA Records Presents: Compilation #1, the New York label continues to compile its output with the aptly titled DFA Compilation #2. Bursting out of the new disco punk scene, Tim Goldsworthy and James Murphy made DFA (which stands for Death From Above) as…
Ursadelica, the second official DJ mix from Alex Gimeno (a.k.a. Ursula 1000), could have just as accurately been called Breaksula, since he runs so rampantly through genres. This makes for consistently surprising bedfellows, like when he rubs Skeewiff’s swingin’ contemporary lounge number “Nitty Gritty” against the neo-garage rock of the…
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…
Psapp’s Galia Durant and Carim Clasmann don’t wanna grow up, but they’re more like garage-sale kids than Toys ‘R Us brats. The London-based duo’s debut album, Tiger, My Friend, is full of toy keyboards, and squeaks and rattles sound off as Durant sings tales of separation anxiety, ponies, and zoos…
After plowing the dark fields of gothic Americana with his band 16 Horsepower, David Eugene Edwards unveils a third album under his solo moniker Woven Hand. With Edwards’s sinister growl underscored by seething atmospherics, Consider the Birds’ ten songs convey a rumbling sense of peril and foreboding. You can actually…
Wrangler Brutes is a thrash supergroup that makes a racket reminiscent of Japanese hypercore/power violence acts such as Slight Slappers and Assfort. Their street cred is legit. Vocalist Sam McPheeters and drummer Brooks Headley made their bones in the great hardcore band Born Against; and bass player Cundo Si Murad…
Roni Size After coming up on Bryan Gee and Jumping Jack Frost’s V Recordings, the Mercury Prize-winning, Bristol-based Roni Size then built his own Full Cycle label and released intelligent drum and bass from the Reprazent/Breakbeat Era collectives, including the seminal New Forms and In the Mode. With Return to…
Tired of paying an $8 cover charge to get into a nightclub and drink $6 beers? One cool alternative is Jacques Chirock Fridays, a new party over at Paco’s Tavern in North Miami Beach. Operating on the principle of free parties and fairly priced drinks, this is rapidly becoming a…
Trying to get out of a bland funk? From the land of chimichurri, mojo, and mole comes the flavorful second annual Latin Funk Music Festival, which should get your chops drooling and your cola wagging. Take a hit of Grammy-nominated Afro-Cuban soul group Yerba Buena, and let Suenalo wash it…
On September 21, 1996, I turned nineteen years old. The night was hot and muggy. The streets of Little Haiti still glowed from the light afternoon rain, and Churchill’s Pub was in full swing, packed with all kinds of people armed with alcoholic drinks. In those days, one could hang…
The warehouse belonging to Not Just Hype sits at the edge of Little Haiti on NE 59th Street. Leo Beletsky, who helped found the hip-hop political group, noted that they only procured the warehouse a few weeks ago, thanks to his own money and some key donations. Now, this modest…
If Jim Camacho, ex-singer, bassist, and architect of Nineties rock and roll prospects The Goods, is bitter about his missed chances at national stardom, he isn’t letting on. Sitting at a table outside a Kendall strip mall and nursing a coffee on a steamy September night, the unceasingly affable musician…
How do you like your religion served up? Raining blood and lakes of hellfire, or lambs and lions idling side by side in the green grass? Your particular holy bent may determine your taste for the gritty Abattoir Blues and the pastoral The Lyre of Orpheus, two very different offerings…
Following their 2002 album Dance and Dense Denso, which included the valiant “Frijolero” (“Beaner”), the four guys in Molotov, Mexico City’s sarcastic answer to Rage Against The Machine, developed a new bomb between studio albums. Con Todo Respeto (With All Due Respect), a covers album reminiscent of Rage’s own Renegades,…
UNKLE is Mo’ Wax tastemaker James Lavelle’s all-star project. He and songwriter Richard File gather a noteworthy group of musicians for Never, Never, Land, and although the grocery list of guests is overwhelming, the duo elicit interesting performances from each participant. Where Psyence Fiction, Lavelle’s inaugural UNKLE collaboration with DJ…
It has been 22 years since Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released “Planet Rock,” a seminal hip-hop cut that borrowed its funky electro goodness from the German act Kraftwerk, and Bambaataa is still perfecting the beat, whether it’s in hip-hop, breakbeat, or drum and bass form. After releasing several…
On the year’s best officially released DJ mix, Unclassics, Morgan Geist turns water into wine by presenting Italo and Euro disco of the early Eighties as a clean, soulful form. He plays down Italo’s low-rent synth-love and emphasizes its disco roots, peaking with Purple Flash’s “We Can Make It,” a…
Much like Amp Fiddler’s Waltz of a Ghetto Fly, Plantlife’s The Return of Jack Splash is the amoeboid representation of modern funk: ritualistic and improvised. The Return of Jack Splash is a series of riffs cut into nineteen tracks, with the L.A. band’s lead singer Jack Splash and backup singers…
