— Hans Morgenstern Some electronic recordings ring so cold, precise, and gimmicky that they can wear thin after a few listens. With its self-titled debut, Waterford Landing brings a human pulse to an often overprocessed style of music. On the CD, the group wittily straddles the divide between rock and…
5, 4, 3 … Applause! Keep it going!” a production assistant commands the 200 or so teenyboppers assembled in the newly created park behind American Airlines Arena for a special Video Music Awards episode of TRL. The show hasn’t even begun taping yet, but the kids, mostly girls in bikini…
It was around 2:00 a.m. on Monday, August 30 when I ventured into the alleyway behind Mansion for OutKast’s MTV Video Music Awards after party. I had just spoken to the publicist overlooking the velvet rope in front of the club, telling her I was on the press list. She…
The ADD world of Kid 606 resembles an oversexed, Mad-magazine-reading kid who’s just been introduced to acid and gabber. It is all about spontaneity, rushing headlong into whatever he hears and processing it into a gloriously inspired mess. Miguel Depedro, the man behind this boyish yet mature persona, claims industrial…
Forest of the Echo Downs is an ambient electro album from the New York (formerly Miami) trio Secret Frequency Crew, the follow-up to their excellent 2001 debut EP, The Underwater Adventure Hop Secret Treasure. It has been designed as an aural swamp, and overlaid with crickets chirping, bugs buzzing, and…
The Libertines The Libertines are lost, violently swirling within a British punk rock dream. Even the sneaker-tapping and smiles brought on by listening to the tough, yearning pop on this, the quartet’s theoretically great self-titled follow-up to their 2002 debut Up The Bracket, poorly hide the fact that they are…
On her stubbornly conceptual fifth solo LP, Björk mostly cares about blowing — almost all of Medulla’s sounds were generated from human mouths. Nothing sucks the fun out of a record like a pretentious concept, but she’s capable of pulling off this stuffy idea because at her core (her medulla,…
After four years, Jill Scott returns with her second studio album. Fans of her debut, 2000’s Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1, will be pleased that the hiatus is over. Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2 finds Scott mining many of the same themes as before:…
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Snow Patrol, an alternative for those of you put off by Chris Martin’s floppy Muppet histrionics and questionable baby naming skills. This Scotland-via-Ireland quartet is led by Gary Lightbody, who is also known in indie circles for leading the low-key supergroup Reindeer Section, which comprises members…
In the most popular DJ contest, few house music advocates can compare to trance spinners such as Paul van Dyk and Tiesto … except for Danny Tenaglia. Defying all odds, Tenaglia has ruled New York’s dance scene for over a decade, fueling his sets with tribal (hell, he was one…
This summer has been a most unusual one for the Magic City. Far from being just another sleepy sweater post-season, this summer has featured an inundation of great concerts (Mum, the Cure), car shows galore and, to cap it all off, a wild and overcrowded MTV VMA weekend of parties…
Miami quartet Sunday Driver has been touring all year behind their great 2003 rawk debut, A Letter to Bryson City, with little talk of a follow-up. Joining them on their current jaunt are two equally promising bands: Batavia, New York’s Down to Earth Approach, who just released its debut, Another…
Sting and Annie Lennox have a lot in common. Both came to prominence in the early Eighties, leading groundbreaking rock outfits (the Police and the Eurythmics, respectively) that served as springboards to superstardom. Likewise, each has enjoyed a successful solo career by shedding the edgier aspects of their bands for…
When he reviewed a Throbbing Gristle gig in 1979, Melody Maker’s Chris Bohn described the “in joke” that was the group’s nihilistic stage presence. “They can smile smugly if you stay, snigger derisively if you leave. Either way it’s a hollow, depressing victory,” he wrote. Otto Von Schirach, whose music…
By the time Usher Raymond appeared before a horde of journalists, photographers, videographers, and city officials during a press conference announcing the MTV Video Music Awards nominees outside the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the morning sun had risen completely into the sky, threatening to scorch the gathering beneath it. But the…
On Sunday, August 29, the MTV Video Music Awards will be presented in a location other than New York or Los Angeles for the first time in its history. It is the latest coup for a locale that already boasts a World Series champion in the Florida Marlins; features an…
Congratulations Miami, you’re officially in bed and between the sheets with MTV. All of the world’s twinkling, teenybopper eyes are on y-o-u, so twerk that TV-14 culo and act irresistibly coy as the crisp Benjamins and soaring Nielsen ratings assuredly roll in. But before you take a celebratory dip in…
While MTV’s hitmakers may make their second home here (Missy and J.Lo, we’re talking to you), what are our real residents doing during Video Music Awards weekend? Well, stealing some of that warm MTV spotlight and taking advantage of the extra exposure. Miami’s best qualities will be on display, including…
While Waylon, Willie, and company turned Nashville on its collective ear back in the Sixties and Seventies, they never opined as freely, wore their political posture so defiantly, or, for that matter, fully mirrored the outlaw persona quite like Steve Earle. Setting a standard for alt-country insurgency, Earle established his…
Dorothy Parker once wrote that Katherine Hepburn ran the “gamut of emotions from A to B.” Well, it’s not as if Lhasa de Sela can’t sing, but she conveys a range of emotions that goes from A to A-and-a-half. The Mexican-American musician first introduced us to her husky alto on…
Impresario Madlib has adopted a new alter ego and created a new genre. In the UK, they call it “breakbeat.” In the U.S., we use the term “broken soul.” Although some may view Madlib’s transition into DJ Rels as a radical change, Theme For a Broken Soul isn’t too much…
For years, British rappers were ridiculed in the States for mimicking our American hip-hop traditions. Recently, however, as they’ve begun to firmly embrace their own distinct culture, authentic UK hip-hop has blossomed across the pond. Wiley is the latest personality to break out from this still-nascent community, offering a unique…
