Wimme Saari is more than unplugged on Instinct. He’s completely unhitched from any kind of instrumental accompaniment. Wimme, as he is most often known, made his name on four previous albums for the Nordic roots label Northside, marrying the joik chants of the Scandinavian Arctic Sámi people (once known as…
Andrew “DJ Le Spam” Yeomanson has dubbed his house, a two-bedroom cottage nestled within North Miami, the City of Progress Studio. But it is more akin to a sprawling, overstuffed thrift store. There are toys: kaleidoscopes, dolls, and action figures. The walls are lined with posters for shows the 34-year-old…
Vacating the dense alien space station of Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein, rapper Vast Aire falls back to his native New York with a laundry list of goals obtainable. After copping the latest Nikes and visiting his moms (in that order), the formidable and disgruntled Lobo dials the right numbers…
Chicago’s John Hughes III has operated Hefty Records for nine years. The independent label has released albums by artists such as Telefon Tel Aviv and the Aluminum Group and has built a following among listeners seeking out music in that catchall category of “postrock,” a tag rooted in the early-Nineties…
Yesterdays New Quintet’s Stevie originally began life in late 2002 as a promo-only CD manufactured by Triple Five Soul, given out through its Website, and occasionally sold during Stones Throw showcases. Its limited availability turned it into a collector’s item, fetching upward of three figures in online auctions, which eventually…
There’s a wondrous duality to the Southern California coastline. In the daytime, it’s a carefree paradise of sand, surf, rays, and an endless loop of Beach Boys songs running through the mind. And at night, as bonfires and blankets dot the beaches, the same turf takes on expansive, reflective, near-mystical…
Brooklyn quintet Ambulance Ltd’s eponymous album demonstrates the group’s resistance to being limited by the garage-rock sound that city has recently become associated with. A great deal more somber and introspective than its 2003 self-titled EP, Ambulance Ltd falls somewhere between the solid indie-rock sensibilities of Pavement, the classic yet…
On April 8 Playboy magazine held its 50th-anniversary bash at Mansion. It shouldn’t surprise anybody that I arrived with my tongue (and tail) wagging. I remained in this rabid state until my first look around inside, when I had to exhale. What a sight. The place was hopping with Playboy…
Producer Rey Rubio says of the imminent release of his electro-inflected group Alpha-606’s debut, Computer Controlled, “One thing is, we’ve never been pressured to force it out.” Rubio is not exaggerating. Over the course of a relaxed two-hour interview at his house in Little Havana, the seven-man team behind his…
Under most circumstances, the notion of six box sets — for a grand total of 36 discs, 245 tracks, and a shade under 23 hours of music — dedicated to one band would seem a tad excessive, no? But then again, we’re talking about Depeche Mode. Few groups have been…
In the narrow, gravelly parking lot of the Billabong Pub in Pembroke Park, a visibly intoxicated young man makes a joke about being from the wrong side of the tracks. The pub sits in a strip mall on the west side of the train tracks that cross Hallandale Beach Boulevard,…
If you visited a local record store on Tuesday, March 30, looking for Jacki-O’s long-awaited debut album, Poe Little Rich Girl, you didn’t find it. That is because the Liberty City rapper’s record label, Poe Boy Entertainment, recently lost its distribution deal with Warner Music Group. In a brief phone…
Cologne, Germany’s Aksel “Superpitcher” Schaufler is in love, as the title to his debut LP indicates. Erase all images of women inspired by Swiss Miss packages from your head, however. What Here Comes Love reveals is that his heart does not lie with any one person or place, but in…
Pigeon Funk is a minimal techno side project initiated by San Francisco producers Kit Clayton, Sutekh, and Safety Scissors in 2001. Though originally released as a series of EP-length “battles” among the three artists, the trio’s Pigeon Funk! compilation is still remarkably consistent, a weird collage of scattershot samples and…
There are two criticisms frequently leveled at the current jazz scene: The musicians are too slick and averse to risk, and the industry is concentrating on repackaging past glories rather than encouraging innovation. Both of these concerns apply in some measure to Adam Dorn. He’s definitely a jazz guy, a…
In the heart of the United Kingdom’s industrial city of Birmingham, there exists an authentic and thriving dub reggae scene. At the core of this movement is the longstanding Different Drummer label owned by Rockers Hi-Fi. Overproof Soundsystem — which features members of G-Corp, vocalists Ras MC T-Weed and Juggla,…
Malian musician Oumou Sangare’s amazing voice and songs that directly address the plight of women in a highly conservative society have made her a superstar in her native country, and the eight new tracks on Oumou will show you why. “Yala,” which asks the youth to avoid the pitfalls of…
Carmel Ophir doesn’t show up for his Back Door Bamby party at crobar till it’s already kicking at about 2:00 a.m. By the time he arrives, his Monday-night institution is slammed with loads of stunningly seductive women, along with some men who could very well pass for women. Anyway, Carmel…
Since first forming 22 years ago, Brazilian rock band Os Paralamas do Sucesso (the Fenders of Success) has had its share of success after emerging in the mid-Eighties as one of South America’s hottest exports. But on February 4, 2001, the trio nearly disintegrated, its heart broken. While flying his…
Britney Spears brought her megabudget Onyx Hotel spectacle to the American Airlines Arena on Sunday, March 28, to the high-decibel screams of what appeared to be thousands of teenage girls. The lovelies were prepared for their idol. Brace-face smiles sparkled with glitter makeup. High-heeled stringbean legs awkwardly slinked around in…
The four years that passed between Modest Mouse’s 2000 album The Moon and Antarctica and its new opus, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, were an eternity. Gone is the world-weary anxiety that girded The Moon … like a vicious, inescapable undertow; in its place is leader Isaac…
The anonymous four-artist team collectively known as Lansing-Dreiden has certainly made a name for itself since relocating from Miami to New York several years ago. Their multimedia creations incorporate video, photography, text, performance art, and jewelry into oblique presentations such as Death Notice and Greenscreens. Now the group’s 2003 debut…
