Rock en español is a fusion of alternative rock, pop, punk, and Latin music. And it’s a term that best defines Tango36 and its music. The group’s songs come across like a sick mix of Hoobastank, Sublime, and Dave Matthews Band — but in Spanish, sung by locally renowned crooner…
If it is true — as it undoubtedly must be — that legends are made, not born, then Joey Youngman is on his way to some truth. Producing at the ripe young age of eleven and spinning at fourteen years old, Youngman was on the make while his peers were…
The temperature will climb from a simmer to a boil at the inaugural Memorial Fest, a reggae concert that boasts so many topnotch performers it’s difficult to determine exactly who the headliner ought to be. The festival comes on a weekend that has become infamous for bringing dense crowds of…
The Belle Album is the last great secular record Al Green made before turning his life over to preaching the Gospel. (He returned to the Hi formula in 2003 with I Can’t Stop, but that’s another story.) It is the first album Green produced himself, and the first to feature…
One of 2005’s most satisfying releases came from vintage-equipment-flaunting Boards of Canada; the duo’s third full-length shone amid the year’s electronic-instrument-filled output. Campfire Headphase’s seductive analog textures also featured an occasional guitar strum, which is highlighted straight away on followup Trans Canada Highway, for the six-song EP opens with one…
Instituto Mexicano del Sonido (IMS) is a one-man type of project, with lots of after-hour editions and additions at a home computer. During the day, Camilo Lara is the well-known industry man and savvy record label guy who works for major companies in Mexico City. By night, he finds magic…
It’s not so much a case of what Chachi Jones expects of listeners but what he subjects them to. A pioneer in bleeding-edge headphone-electro, Jones deals in circuit-bending, a dada style that smuggles toys, power tools, and other sampled objects into bizarre synth moonscapes. One minute listeners are being sucked…
The Aggrolites play ska, the Sixties rhythm that gave birth to reggae, with a hard-core dedication to the style that’s amazing. They capture the archetypal feel of the Upsetters and Skatalites while putting their own unique stamp on the music. They’ve earned props from Prince Buster, who said they play…
These gangstas are religious? Hav, Prodigy, and the crooning 50 Cent combine their commentaries on Heaven and Hell, backed by the soulful Rhodes of DJ Exile. Looks like the Mobb has been infected by D’Evils, and we’re not talking “Kirk” Franklins. See you on Judgment Day…
Sometimes sonics say more than words alone. This dynamite Canadian foursome rocks its significant-other separation anxiety like a toned-down Throwing Muses hurricane until all the band can muster is a lyric-free horde of evil-caterpillar keyboard patter punctuated by drum fills and random guitar scabs…
Roy Haynes, born in Boston in 1925, is one of the most recorded jazz drummers in history and has been a major name in the jazz world for half a century. His early work was with the Sabby Lewis big band, Frankie Newton, and Luis Russell in the late Forties…
Keep the intoxicating vibes going after Faktura Gallery’s artist-meets-alcohol exhibit “Spilt Over Sugar, Crushed Under Foot” with South Florida jam band Side Project. The seven-piece group will perform its acid fusion of funk, rock, and jazz for the afterparty. Side Project’s release, Our Last Album, features twelve tracks of trippy…
The Bible might not know much about rock and roll, but one fact of life was long ago established in it: “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Sure enough, every artist is a bit of a thief building upon the work of predecessors, but innovation has been rare despite the…
Eartha Kitt’s vowels, especially her a’s, drawl a beat, and her r’s roll. Imagine her speaking the word darling. Kitt is, at 79 years old, every bit the sultry cabaret diva she was when Orson Welles called her “the most exciting woman in the world,” every bit the feline seductress…
When Kamal “Radioinactive” de Iruretagoyena lets loose with a compressed, jammed rush of gobbledygook here — see “Refrigerator” or “Trouble” — it’s difficult to understand why this Los Angeles-based MC/producer hasn’t yet broken out of the backpacker scene that’s home to the Anti-Con contingent and its malcontent fellow travelers. Peep…
Babasonicos is so ready to finally cross over into larger markets that singer Adrián “Dárgelos” Rodríguez even writes it in one of the fourteen magnificent new tracks that compose Anoche, the eighth release of the Argentine rock band. “Song, take me away where nobody remembers me/I want to be the…
To match the record label’s delicate hand in signing electronic and world music acts, or both combined, Shrift’s debut offers a dreamy set of songs in which musical passages of electronic programming are humanized by a sweet girl’s voice. Singer Nina Miranda is the key British producer whom Dennis Wheatley…
Over the past 30 years or so, Alan Parsons has created a reliable musical brand by recruiting the talents of high-profile contributors and presiding over the proceedings with his name on the marquee. Valid Path follows the same formula, even as it marks Parsons’s continued transition from old-school to new…
Icon of Coil’s Andy LaPlegua continues his lifelong genre-jumping expedition, this time planting his flag in an uncharted section of Reznorland where a scent of Bowie is carried on the breeze. In antithetical contrast to IOC’s poppish EBM, the two albums released under the Combichrist banner were unholy noise truncheons…
Charley Pride was the first and, so far, only African-American country music superstar. He began recording in 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, when race was a burning issue in America, and went on to enjoy a decade-long run of consecutive Top 10 hits. Fans and DJs…
Dr. John, a.k.a. Mac Rebennack, has undergone a number of incarnations in a career that spans nearly 50 years, from the acid-tinge voodoo of his Night Tripper persona to his role as one of New Orleans’ most revered champions of American musical tradition. Following several outstanding albums elaborating on the…
