Music

Over the past several years Los Angeles’s Chris Manak, better known as Peanut Butter Wolf, has established himself as one of the most intriguing personalities in hip-hop, one known for his impeccable taste in classic funk, rock, and rap breaks. Though he began his career in the mid-Nineties as a…

For British house music duo Freaks (Luke Solomon and Justin Harris), there’s something wrong if you’re on the dance floor and do not have a smile on your face. Not one of those ironic smiles that says, “Aren’t we trendy and retro?” They’re looking for one of those unconscious wide…

House music’s throbbing beats, feel-good vibe, and bare midriffs are never going to be mistaken for Rachmaninoff. But the genre’s bad rep can actually be attributed to DJs and producers who pander to the lowest common denominator with a steady stream of 4/4 beats and whooshy atmospherics instead of pushing…

Muggs gets off on dirty, grimy, sexy beats. He loves its unmistakable whiffs of grit and cool. While he was producing the early trailblazing work of Cypress Hill, Tricky and trip-hop were exploding across the pond, creating an even more swampy mix of dark tones and moods. On his third…

In dancehall reggae, the term “background instrumental” is an oxymoron: It’s the vocals that are secondary. Instrumentals or “riddims” get their own names, compilations (on which a variety of vocalists use the same riddim), and presumably their own backstage dressing rooms. This, combined with the fact that the worldwide massive…

“I don’t like to rush it when I’m cooking,” says the 49-year-old Jaime Roos, a hugely influential Uruguayan musician who hasn’t released an album of originals since 1996. His most recent album, Contraseña (Password), is a collection of covers of Uruguayan classics by Alfredo Zitarrosa, Eduardo Mateo (Roos’s aesthetic role…

In 2002 the face of reggae was irrevocably changed. America was introduced to undiluted dancehall reggae via Sean Paul’s hit song “Gimme the Light.” The song helped shed light on a slice of Jamaican dance culture called the “riddims,” a beat created and then used as a backing track for…

On a breezy Wednesday evening at the South Beach nightspot Tantra, DanceStar USA, the upstart Miami-based production company whose second annual American Dance Music Awards should be a highlight of this year’s eighteenth annual Winter Music Conference, was giving away so many free mojitos that you could literally walk around…

The Honest Jon’s label — launched by the U.K. record shop of the same name and co-owned by none other than Blur’s Damon Albarn — has built an eclectic roster over the course of its initial three releases. First came Albarn’s Mali Music project, a set of rootsy collaborations with…

What do you get when you put together a band whose guitar and bass players either don’t play their instruments or are just learning them? While a lot of noise may seem like the obvious answer, it afforded the members of Rainer Maria an opportunity to follow their own instincts…

As everyone could use a little break from terror alerts and talk of looming nuclear and biological fallout, the timing couldn’t be better for a fresh dose of dub narcotic. Enter Nutone’s latest, Sunset Nights: A Collection of Deep Jazzy Beats. The compilation of acid jazz (or nu jazz, jazzy…

In 1960 a broke Willie Nelson left a steady gig at Houston’s Esquire Club for Nashville. Despite finding instant success as a hit songwriter for premier Nashville talents like Faron Young, Patsy Cline, Ray Price, and Billy Walker, a frustrated Nelson returned to Texas in 1973 having recorded fourteen albums…

Most locals living in Miami know that the party is always on at Mac’s Club Deuce — even when slow nights in Miami Beach leave its streets eerily barren. At the pink, nearly 40-year-old landmark between Washington and Collins, there is no VIP and the liquor is so cheap, Clubbed…

Finding yourself operating in an over-it-all mode you are once again struck with the need to embark on an effort to create something of a memorable night out. You are no longer satisfied with dipping into the same watering holes filled with scenes inspired by rap videos or Doug Liman’s…

In an open-air club in the hills above Kingston, the half-dozen members of the Turbo Force sound system huddle behind a sculptural citadel of equipment, sifting through a mountain of 45s. Working two turntables, one of the Turbo Force DJs jaggedly switches selections like the stations on a transistor radio,…

March is a busy month for music fans in South Florida. There’s the Calliope Fest at the end of the month, and the brand-new Langerado Music Festival at the beginning. And of course there’s that little gathering of DJs called the Winter Music Conference in the middle. Then there’s the…

In the early Nineties, the rising cost of funk and soul samples chased producers right into the arms of digital instrumentation. Thus the “golden age” of Pete Rock’s and DJ Premier’s horn-laden sample tapestries ultimately yielded to the Neptunes’ vacuum-sealed bleeps and robo-claps. While cheap MIDI technology brought about innovative…

Chan Marshall, known to the rock and roll world as Cat Power, is a painfully shy woman with a lot to say. You Are Free, her new album and first since 2001’s bleak The Covers Record, is the least self-assured-sounding self-assured record in ages. “Don’t be in love with the…

When the media decided to adopt electro music as its new “next big thing,” it caused a rift in the small community that had supported machine music for years. Many were appalled at the media’s coverage of so-called “electroclash” (named after a series of club nights hosted by New York’s…