In a city that often feels that life is but a joke, Seven Star’s serious, studied commitment to hip-hop culture stands out. You can hear the weight of this burden in his sober, workmanlike My Mother and Father Were Astronauts, which doesn’t sound like most rap music you hear on…
When Josh Gabriel first met Dave Dresden, Gabriel thought Dresden was full of shit. It was March of 2001, and the Winter Music Conference was in full glittering swing. Gabriel was staying at the Royal Hotel in South Beach, where Leon Alexander of Hope Recordings was spinning records at a…
During Labor Day weekend, Hurricane Frances caused considerable damage, and not only to our unlucky neighbors in Broward and Palm Beach counties. The interminable storm sparked a flurry of cancellations and postponements of several major concerts. A big Friday, September 3, rap show at the Coconut Grove Convention Center with…
Kevin Barnes won’t play along. I’m trying to break the ice with Barnes, Of Montreal’s idiosyncratic leader, with a game of word association I’ve created by cherry-picking some of his striking lyrics, adding words that are often used to describe his band and, just for kicks, tossing in a few…
A quick refresher on the evolution of the snare drum in hip-hop music. American producers have always ratcheted the pop to beats two and four — boom-pop-boom-pop — which club peacocks harness to propel their big booties in many exciting directions. In the Caribbean, however, Jamaican dancehall producers liberated the…
2003 Grammy winner Lady Saw catapulted to fame in 1993 with raunchy hits such as “If Him Lef (A No Mi Pussy Fault)” and ribald live performances featuring several simulated sex acts. On Strip Tease, her most consistent album to date, she bumps and grinds her way through raw tracks…
On Chicago Forever, legendary producer Roy Davis, Jr. infuses various styles into a classic bumping house backdrop. Intensely soulful and full of gospel vibes, with vocals by Terry Dexter, Jeremy “Ayro” Ellis, and Davis himself, it drips syrupy sweet on tracks such as “Heavenly Father” and “My Soul Is Electric.”…
In contrast to the starry-eyed ode to Southern California that was So Much For The City, The Thrills’ sunny sentiments grow cloudy on its sophomore outing, Let’s Bottle Bohemia. The Irish quintet still mines retro references — guests such as former Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks and arranger Michel…
Whereas gritty dramatists such as Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, and Devo once existed in a vacuum, flouting pop tradition with idiosyncratic, synth-borne friction, new school progeny The Faint exists as if in a vacuum bag. The Omaha, Nebraska quintet amasses stylized flecks within its syncopated voltage-spiked vortex and spits forth…
The British duo Swayzak is a dance Darwinist. Last time, on 2002’s Dirty Dancing, the onetime tech-house act’s evolution lapsed into fashion and electroclashed with its previous emphasis on beauty. Loops From the Bergerie, Swayzak’s fourth studio album, houses all that was good about Dancing (specifically, rampant pop tendencies) while…
No more Chinese Democracy jokes — the long promised follow-up to the Prodigy’s 1997 breakthrough The Fat of the Land has finally landed. Sadly, though, the group’s once-torrid attack has gone limp from sitting under the heat lamps for so long. Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned kicks off nicely enough with…
For the past several months, the electro consortium behind the Speakeasy Soundsessions has been bringing some of the best electro DJs in the region and the world to Miami. This week sees Chris Roman driving down from the Tampa area to make an appearance for Speakeasy’s occasional blowout, Electro Base…
Contrary to popular belief, the Nineties rave movement birthed more than glowsticks, copious ecstasy use, and bad trance instrumentals; it also served as a meeting point for naturalists and hippies bored from following jam band dinosaurs around the country and subsequently attracted to the dance community’s peace-and-love ethos. It was…
The Miami Jazz Party hosts Grammy-winning songstress Cheryl Bentyne at the Barbara Gillman Gallery. With her crystalline high notes, and frisky, teasing tone, the redheaded Manhattan Transfer soprano and husband/keyboardist Corey Allen are sure to induce a sentimental mood. The gallery itself is cozy as a friend’s living room. Gracing…
“Mature” and “polished:” two words that strike fear into the hearts of hardcore fans when used to describe their favorite group’s newest efforts. Granted, it’s silly to expect long-running punk bands who aren’t named the Ramones to operate ad infinitum with the same songwriting template and a recording budget less…
Estelar, the latest CD from Miami’s Volumen Cero, conjures up memories of an innocent, pre-Columbine era, when disenchanted middle class youth in trenchcoats would meet up at Denny’s to harmlessly commiserate over “Girlfriend in a Coma” by The Smiths. Martin Chan alternates between dreamy guitar chords and spacey keyboard to…
Hey Fat Joe, where you going with that crown in your hand? Back in May, online, workplace, and street corner powwows were abuzz over a litter of ferocious rap singles that would bear a bigger-dick aura obnoxiously similar to the season’ s Hollywood movies. The summery weeks ahead for major…
Seated behind the large mixing board of his modest X-Claim recording studio in a Kingston shopping plaza, Scatta Burrell’s demeanor belies what one would expect from one of dancehall reggae’s hottest producer. Exceedingly humble, uncommonly polite and quite talkative, he often punctuates his comments with surprising personal disclosures. “Right now…
Berlin’s Ulrich Schnauss spends his sophomore album, A Strangely Isolated Place fighting against the titular solitude. His attack is a dense, gently suffocating sound/security blanket that places him in a shoegazing context, with its thick haze of string-slung and digital melodies and neutered vocals (delivered by Schnauss’s girlfriend Judith Beck,…
Quick, name an artist that began their career in the Sixties and is still pushing the parameters of popular music in the new millennium. Once you check off Dylan, Bowie, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, and Lou Reed, the choices wind down rapidly. John Cale, Reed’s onetime partner in the Velvet…
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…
What do you get when you cross the sounds of a young guy from the Old World with the sounds of an old guy from the New World? The dramatic cry of 25-year-old flamenco singer Diego “El Cigala,” who takes his inspiration from the late traditional gypsy music great Camarón…
