If not for their roles in Canadian indie-dance duo Death from Above 1979, MSTRKRFT’s bandmates have evidently made their way into hipster dialogue with steep, significant remix cred. Members Jesse Keeler and Al-P (DFA 1979 bass/synth man and producer, respectively) have spruced up their resumés with sultry, uncaged second takes…
At the age of eighteen, Niña Pastori became one of the youngest rising Spanish stars when she released her flamenco-pop debut album, Entre Dos Puertos, which sold more than 150,000 copies and spawned a hit single, “Tú Me Camelas,” that was played on radio stations and in clubs across Spain…
Jamaican-born Monty Alexander shares more with Bob Marley than a homeland. Though Alexander is a jazz pianist, his penchant for reggae runs deep throughout his music. One of his first albums released was Stir It Up, a Marley tribute, and although Alexander has since experimented with other genres such as…
Usually when you tell someone he hits like a girl, it’s meant as an insult. But the punch the all-girl trio AKA packs is anything but weak. The up-and-coming local group has been making a name for itself since 2004. Now with a different drummer and frequent shows at PS…
Cat Power is a fine example of simplicity at its best. For a decade the artist also known as Chan Marshall has charmed listeners with her ethereal voice and low-key music. Her minimalist sound is stripped to its bare essentials with moving vocals and sweet, sad melodies echoing from the…
You can be thankful that members of Awesome Cool Dudes don’t think their band name is that great, either. “We just got really drunk and tried to pick the worst possible name that we could come up with,” says singer and guitarist Cory Plump. The band kicked off in Indiana…
At the end of each Storm Tour concert, headliner Aceyalone, Miami natives ¡Mayday! and Wrekonize, and the rest of the backpacker road show’s roster take the stage and freestyle. “All the artists come onstage and we have a big jam session,” says ¡Mayday!’s MC Bernbiz. “It’s a good vibe.” Founded…
By 1985, New Wave music was on the decline. With the rise of jangle-pop and hair metal, teenagers who once proudly waved the New Romantic flag were driven back to the pale shelter of their Hello Kitty-theme bedrooms, where they could listen to synthpop in peace. Then, suddenly, across the…
Let’s be honest: Despite the perceived sensitivity injection (courtesy of tear-stained emo and indie artists), radio is no more welcoming to female musicians — at least those of substance — now than it was during the days of frat-mook nü-metal. Save for Kelly Clarkson and KT Tunstall, modern airwave starlets…
Now that’s what I’m talking about — an album title that gets to the point. Thing is, Cex (the perpetually transforming solo project/group/something helmed by Rjyan Kidwell) misleads: AF’s toned-down slew of breakbeats, synths, and poppy guitar melodies sounds more like sonic foreplay than Kidwell’s former albums, which previously concentrated…
Cohead of and A&R man for Brooklyn’s Embedded label, DJ ESE shares his humble digs with the eloquent Cool Calm Pete, Junk Science, and other independent hip-hop outfits. The Side: Two compilation gathers competent Embedded MCs and friends for a selection of stunning cuts over ESE’s multifaceted, lethargic productions. Babbletron’s…
As a teenager, John Lee Hooker Jr. was a featured player in John Lee Sr.’s road show and then spent the next twenty years fighting the demons of drugs, drink, divorce, and jail. Given his troubled past, you might expect Junior’s music to be even more dark and dangerous than…
Bad Religion singer Greg Graffin gets old-timey on Cold as the Clay, an unplugged sophomore solo LP that mixes original songs with similar Deadwood-era tunes like the finger-pick murder-hoedown “Little Sadie.” Graffin plays traditional music as convincingly as he handles punk. He’s no Mike Ness, though the disc will probably…
“I’d rather fuck who I want/Than kill who I am told to” are the first words Peaches (a.k.a. Merrill Beth Nisker of Germany) hollers, like a petulant schoolgirl, on Impeach My Bush — a false sign that the schoolteacher-turned-electroclash-vixen has traded in porno for politics on her third album. Again…
“What now?/What now?/What now?/What now whaaaaaaaaaat?” wonders this Brooklyn boy’s choir, ethereal and cosmic, from a rosy, wavering Radiohead/Beach Boys howl of a sunset. The answer, apparently, is the state where Hunter S. Thompson spent most of his complicated life and eventually ended it — but Grizzly Bear may be…
All over her self-titled debut, Tam sings like she’s loaded or a few hours removed from that state, and the music is just as drunk — a colorless Ax UPR speeding up a ramp to the proper RPM at the outset, only to reappear later (tumbling and then ramping and…
Although the issue of selling souls tends to come up in church and in movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the act of marrying a soul is difficult to come across, making Jaguar Wright’s latest album, Divorcing Neo to Marry Soul, even more labor-intensive. Compared to Aretha Franklin and…
Naeem Juwan, better known as Spank Rock, has a debut album called YoYoYoYoYo, and his hit single is about an “ass-shaking competition champ.” It’s pretty clear that Spank Rock is absolutely insane. And considering other songs on the album deal with everything from the abilities of his tongue to the…
With an album titled Stars Invited Me to Fly Through Time, it isn’t surprising that Dyslexic Postcards are a tie-dye rock band. “The basis of all of our sound just comes from psychedelic rock,” says singer and guitarist Ely Bacoy. “But there’s also a bit of a punk rock edge…
After two years of attending Miami Sunset Senior High School, Jordan Davis dropped out to make music. Two years later, he has nine hip-hop albums and his own record label, and, oh yeah, he’s in college. A Magic City native now living in West Kendall, Davis recorded and produced his…
It’s almost endearing that Sascha Funke seems to be so uncertain on his installment of Bpitch Control’s Boogy Bytes DJ mix series. It is, after all, his first officially released mix, and so the anonymity he displays with run-of-the-mill electrohouse selections on the disc’s first half is understandable. He just…
Venice Is Sinking may seem like a less than descriptive moniker for this Athens, Georgia quintet, but the overcast melodies that pervade the band’s full-length debut do project a clear sense of despair. Nevertheless an undeniably haunting sound is etched in these sad, sweet songs, as manifested in the forlorn…
