Michael Ramos, the Austin, Texas musician who records as Charanga Cakewalk, grew up bilingual and bicultural and made a name for himself as a sideman playing with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, and Patty Griffin. As a young man, he turned away from his Latino heritage to pursue rock, but when…
The name Tanya Morgan might sound like that of a neo-soul songstress, but it is actually the pseudonym of a collaboration among MCs — Brooklyn’s Von Pea and Cincinnati’s Ilwil (Ilyas and Donwill). The trio met online and began e-mailing song demos back and forth between takes on their other…
Eliot Lipp’s sophomore album, Tacoma Mockingbird, is meant to be a tribute to the young producer’s hometown of Tacoma, Washington, but the album seems more in love with sound than anything else. With the zeal of Roger Troutman or James “D-Train” Williams, Lipp piles on thick, retro-futuristic keyboards that exude…
Jason Collett redefines the traditional notion of the dewy-eyed, shoegazing folk-rock troubadour. On this, his sophomore solo set, Collett — a professional carpenter when he’s not gigging with the Toronto musical co-op known as Broken Social Scene — offers a dozen concise acoustic gems enhanced by burnished, back-porch arrangements …..
Ray Davies’s first solo album and first new studio album since the Kinks’ Phobia from 1993 might seem like cause for celebration, especially if you’re a young Kinks konvert who hasn’t bothered to check out the albums that followed Muswell Hillbillies. Sadly it doesn’t take long for Other People’s Lives…
Producer Don Was gives Jessi Colter’s Out of the Ashes a gratifyingly dry post-Willie Mitchell groove, and Colter boasts pop moves. The cover of Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” contextualizes this female outlaw, while her own “Starman” bears comparison to the David Bowie song of the same…
New York R&B newcomer Cassie sounds blasé about everything, even her sexual history. “I know them other guys, they been talkin’ ’bout the way I do what I do/They heard I was good, they wanna see if it’s true,” she mentions on her debut single, “Me & U.” Her goodies,…
Wyclef Jean’s presence is rather gratuitous in this infectious if twerpy (watch out for that ringtone trumpet) ode to the honesty of Shakira’s lower torso; in the current pop context, he sounds like a cheap substitute for will.i.am. He’s not really welcome in the video either, where he distracts from…
On “Turn Out the Lights,” Matthew Pryor of the New Amsterdams has a touch of country in his crooning — not a twang so much as a prairie-state lonesomeness. A distant guitar drones in the background, adding to the broodiness of the tune, which is all about finding redemption in…
Why see a tribute band when you can see the real thing? Well, when the real thing is U2, and nosebleed tickets go for about $85 each, a good tribute band goes a long way, which might explain the growing popularity of acts such as UV. An obsessive fan’s dream…
Calla’s 2001 album Scavengers was rife with highly atmospheric music and speculative lyrics. The band itself and guitarist Aurelio Valle’s songwriting were clearly maturing: After a few years of delivering obscure tracks, Calla had compiled some crafty and intelligent pop tunes for that disc. The band formed in Texas in…
Electroclash was simply too retro for its own good. Why listen to Fischerspooner’s carbon copy of “Blue Monday” when the original was still around? Then Princess Superstar along with DJ Alex Technique formed the DJs Are Not Rock Stars collective. The duo learned the elusive art of beatmatching and quickly…
Part beatnik, part Ben Folds, Brendan O’Hara is quickly becoming one of South Florida’s most interesting musical commodities. Backed by the Humble Ones trio — drummer, bassist, and keyboardist — O’Hara fuses hip-hop, jazz, folk, and saloon-style swing into something soothingly familiar and cleverly offbeat. A self-described “good ole Irish…
Quick, name your favorite Irish DJ. Come on, we’re waiting. Okay, maybe you see our point. Even though it supports a flourishing underground scene, the Emerald Isle isn’t known stateside as a dance music hot spot. Which is why we’re just as surprised as you that this year’s New Times/Village…
According to frontman Liam Hewlett, people have the Prodigy all wrong. Hewlett laments about how the media struggle to categorize the trio, sometimes calling it a punk band, sometimes calling it heavy metal, constantly trying to squeeze it into genres in which it doesn’t quite fit. Since the group’s break…
Schematic Records. Upon seeing such a name, any rational consumer would deduce a record label with a distinct plan, a blueprint. And why not, considering the increasingly high degree of regimentation electronic music has exhibited over the past three decades. Except Miami-based Schematic Records — celebrating its tenth anniversary during…
The flak that religiously oriented music gets from secular camps generally lies within the parameters of acceptance and “mass appeal.” So it is strikingly refreshing when a rambunctious teenager discovers the meaning of his parents’ G-d in the wilderness and sets out to mix that with his past rebellions. Matisyahu’s…
Since striking its own multithread trajectory off of the early Nineties breakbeat hardcore sound, drum ‘n’ bass has swung back and forth in popular opinion. There have been times when its hyperkinetic breakbeats and penchant for speaker- and tweaker-punishing malevolence have been labeled too insular, and other times when its…
Though it’s true that jazz thrives on forward-looking innovation, the best progress comes from artists who are as aware of their predecessors as their peers. In the eleven years since its inception, the Berlin-based collective Jazzanova has pushed the envelope as often as it has licked it and sent love…
Something like an Amazonian leprechaun, Curumin is a mythical jungle troublemaker in the guise of a feral child. His favorite tactic is misdirection; with his feet facing backward, poachers never know exactly which way he is heading. The same can be said for Luciano Nakata Albuquerque, the multitalented Brazilian wunderkind…
When the Rub — a Brooklyn DJ crew comprising DJ Eleven, DJ Cosmo Baker, and DJ Ayres — performs at the new Wynwood venue Bullfrog Eatz on Friday, the dance-ready patron in attendance can expect a few of the usual suspects (Miami bass, Baltimore club, rock, rip-hop, New Wave, electro,…
Juan Luis Guerra’s band, 4.40, takes its name from the universal tuning pattern of the A note, 4.40 hertz. The name was chosen, by Guerra’s brother José Gilberto, as a reference to their obsession with staying in perfect tune. This musical fixation led Guerra and 4.40’s bandmates, all natives of…
