Music

Like fine wine, music often carries with it a sense of place, a terroir, if you will. Southern rock, British heavy metal, South African kwaito, Scandinavian death metal — the imprint of place on these soundscapes is unavoidable and often fairly heavily referenced in the music itself. Some acts like…

Daft Punk, whose twerping, bleepy music has lately hit such a global chord, has also crafted a distinct visual aesthetic. As an extension of its experiments with imagery, the French duo has established a film production company, Daft Arts, through which it has released its first feature-length film, Electroma. Sure,…

Berlin is gray, drizzly. Paris was clear-skied, beautiful. Fresh off a flight from the French capital to the German capital, Englishman Jamie Lidell has just set his bags down in his hotel room and is off in search of some lunch. Over a dodgy mobile phone connection as he walks…

In an effort to stabilize itself by any means necessary, the music industry releases almost as many music DVDs as CDs each week. They are often no more than poorly shot concerts or compilations of videos; sometimes they’re hastily assembled documentaries. And most of the time, they totally suck. Here’s…

When the members of Three 6 Mafia won a 2006 Best Song Oscar for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” from Hustle & Flow, they reacted with so much exuberance that they made Cuba Gooding Jr.’s Jerry Maguire acceptance speech seem restrained — and even though the group is…

True to guitarist Evan Mast’s side career as a graphic designer, Ratatat’s instrumental pop owes as much to the Photoshop ethic as it does to Pro Tools. At times, this Brooklyn duo shoots its wad in the songs’ layouts, as if simply choosing which genres to mix and match is…

After years of having worked with artists such as the Temptations, Bette Midler, Kenny G., and the late Luther Vandross, Latin jazz percussionist Steve Kroon has finally released his own album. It’s short, comprising only 10 songs. Of those, nine are instrumentals; the sole vocal track here is a remake…

Sometimes a little bit of masturbatory metal revelry is just what the doctor ordered. In the case of Swedish power/melodic/technical metal maestros, that prescription comes filled in the form of Blooddrunk. A 40-minute rampage through crunching riffs, chain-gun rhythms, climaxing guitar crescendos, and the occasional lovely keyboard flourish, Blooddrunk provides…

It’s safe to assume it was the first time a bunch of West Kendallites appeared in the New York Post’s infamous “Page Six” gossip column. And it’s especially notable because they did so for indirectly inciting a minor riot in L.A. alongside a famously celebrated, then disgraced, then semi-redeemed memoirist…

Jose D. Duran Poplife founders Barbara Basti and Aramis Lorie. Nine years is a lifetime in clubland. It’s hard to stay relevant in a business in which the trends change as fast as the minds of the people who frequent it. So when perennial indie party Poplife turns 9 this…

Danny Daze As far as local DJs go, Danny Daze easily comes in as one of my top five favorites. Why? Because he is better than most DJs in the nation, and even better than most DJs who have come to rule the blog house “genre.” But I sort of…