What has six legs, a big Afro, and is forever compared to Led Zeppelin? If you guessed Wolfmother, you’re right. In this instance, though, we’re talking about the other six-legged, Afroed Zep disciples, New York’s Earl Greyhound. The trio’s debut album, Soft Targets, has been building up a head of…
“A lot of people have found their way into learning about music through smooth jazz,” saxophonist Marion Meadows observes of his chosen genre. “It does seem to draw on new ideas, and it gets people to later dig harder material.” A West Virginia native, Meadows himself studied classical music as…
Danish guitarist, composer, and bandleader Pierre Dørge admits that he requires a bit of effort from his audiences when they come to hear his New Jungle Orchestra perform. Not that his troupe (which debuted in 1980) makes experimental music by any definition. Adventurous, yes, but there certainly exist greater challenges…
It’s getting harder and harder to figure out what the kids are listening to these days. Case in point: Ratatat. Does the Brooklyn duo of Mike Stroud (guitars) and Evan Mast (synthesizers) make nouveau electronica? Or instrumental hip-hop? Or lo-fi IDM? Or alt-hop trance? Whatever you call the stuff, it’s…
There’s no shortage of bands composing ditties about love and loss in bustling alternative music sweet spots such as London and Brooklyn. Even so, if an indie group is capable of producing gorgeous modern ballads while residing in sleepy strip-mall South Florida, you can bet the players are tapping into…
His face inevitably looks familiar, like someone you’ve met at a real estate function on Brickell. Or he might’ve been that lousy waiter from Cafeteria on Lincoln Road. Or maybe he was the lucky bastard who nabbed the last parking spot on Washington Avenue. Whatever the case, you just know…
Imagine a planet where two of your favorite artists from various genres are constantly smashed together on one track. Rick James and Busta Rhymes. Sean Paul and the Temptations. Arrested Development and Jay-Z, for Christ’s sake. It’s an odd world, but Brooklyn’s funky DJ collective the Rub pulls it off…
Following the critical acclaim garnered by the 2005 simultaneous release of I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, Bright Eyes seems eager to confirm its status as indie overachievers. With anticipation building for a followup, the band’s mainstays — boy-genius Conner Oberst, joined by Mike…
Victor Jara was one of Chile’s top folk composers, educators, and political activists until the time of his murder in 1973 during a military coup. On a newly released CD, Chilean vocalist Francesca Ancarola has found an amorous way of paying tribute to the fallen songwriter by revisiting his work…
Detroit rappers/producers are entering an age of acclaim. Now that late Motown rapper/producer extraordinaire J Dilla is getting posthumous props all over the globe, the rap world seems hungry for anything with an authentic Detroit sound. It’s a fine time for former in-house Slum Village producer Black Milk to release…
One great thing about classical music is that it can take the wan populism of Oprah, the decaffeinated blandness of Good Morning America, and the incessant pablum of Jay Leno — and render them all irrelevant. When the Utah sibling piano quintet the 5 Browns appear on these shows (armed…
Local punk rock vets the Crumbs and Stay Hitt will help support Tuff Luvs, visiting from Mississippi, at Churchill’s on Saturday. Back in 1992, the Crumbs took over the garage at drummer Chuck Loose’s house and turned it into “Garageland,” a place for kids to party on the weekends while…
Futurepop pioneers VNV Nation bring their 1984 imagery to Studio A on Thursday for an all-ages show. The band, made up of Londoners Ronan Harris and Mark Jackson, has taken its time in becoming electronic music’s next big thing: They’ve been together since 1990. But let’s back up a second,…
Anybody who was around during the South Beach boom of the early Nineties will remember Nil Lara, and the incendiary shows he put on — virtually every week, it seemed — at the legendary and now-defunct Stephen Talkhouse. A Cuban-American who spent much of his childhood in Venezuela, Lara led…
Deyson Rodriguez, a.k.a hip-hop MC Soarse Spoken, has rocked thousands of fans at music festivals in Barcelona. He and his music have been featured on BBC’s vaunted Radio One. Google his nom de guerre and you’ll find his releases dissected on Websites from Sweden to Japan. But in his hometown…
There must be something in the water of Brazil — the country produces a seemingly endless stream of innovative musicians. Maybe it has more to do with the fact that music is as common as water in Brazil, played everywhere from the streets to the shopping malls to the corporate…
Norah Jones is still searching for her perpetual groove. Since garnering instant acclaim at the top of the jazz and pop charts with her multiplatinum debut album, Come Away With Me, Jones’s forward momentum hasn’t been all that successful. Though undeniably sensual and seductive, her second album, Feels Like Home,…
The Weirdness ain’t punk-classic like Fun House, but let’s be fair — nothing the recently reunited Stooges can do will ever match their early-Seventies peak. This band does rock, however. Ax-man Ron Asheton is not only a funky-ass rhythm freak, but the dude’s piercing feedback screech on “Greedy Awful People”…
The world of indie rock has never really embraced the concept of the instrumental jam band. The few exceptions that (barely) fit into that category — Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Tortoise — don’t really follow the genre’s rules, instead occupying a space between the Fall’s deconstructed rock and the…
Otep, the L.A.-based metal fusion quartet led by singer/poet/self-described “mental pugilist” Otep Shamaya, released in 2002 one of the densest, most disturbing debut albums in the history of metal with Sevas Tra. It was a fiery confessional wherein Shamaya screamed about being raped by her father against a searing sonic…
In the video for Of Montreal’s latest single, “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse,” frontman Bryan Poole plays the role of an aggressive dancing bear who loves cowboy hats. Unlike previous installments of Of Montreal’s summery and somewhat detached absurdist oeuvre, these latest developments are in large part a product of…
Axe-wielding marauders from the City of Progress take charge of Churchill’s stage on Saturday. With all the punk and metal bands in and around Miami, it’s amazing that Dave Daniels and his Churchill’s crew are still — still — carrying the scene around here almost single-handedly. That fact isn’t lost…
