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…
Call crate-digging wunderkind Andy Votel a modern-day Phileas Fogg, spanning the globe in 80 minutes while spinning wax pressed up before he was born. Having already documented Welsh beat and French soundtracks, Votel returns to the LSD flashback era of early prog, as documented on last year’s head-trip mixes Songs…
Ricardo Villalobos is the avatar of that avant-garde permutation of house music often called ketamine-house (for its drugged, psychedelic effects that swirl around the beat, though one can also hear that giddy rush of whippet hits too). And every album and single he releases anticipates where the amoebic form might…
Tres Chicas’ second album is the auditory equivalent of a chick flick. It’s not so much because of the group’s name or the bandmates’ feminine bond or that the CD and cover booklet are swathed in pink. Rather it has to do with their wistful, starry-eyed themes and the music’s…
“It’s goin’ down, y’all, like the wall of Berlin,” says Prince during 3121’s opening title track, a slice of funk more wobbly and bizarre than anything he has released this side of that wall tumbling. It’s comforting to know that, like Kate Bush, he still lets the weirdness in. And…
Whispered vocal clusters, busy laptop beats, and an occasional brass arrangement drive the electronic pop pieces on Music A.M.’s third album. Unwound from the Woods was mixed in the Welsh mountains, and bears lofty, expansive psychedelia in its eleven sleepy tracks — notably in the swirling chime coda of “Ten…
The four genetically blessed siblings collectively known as the Corrs hail from Irish environs, so it’s no surprise their sound boasts a certain measure of folk finesse. Despite the cute and cuddly approach that has marked their previous efforts, they have always stayed in touch with tradition through the use…
Multimedia artist Takagi Masakatsu works in an ambient medium on Journal for People, his third CD and second DVD release for Washington, D.C.’s Carpark label. The audio half of Journal stays within miniature-sounding orchestrations concocted mostly of piano melodies, varied instrumentation, and field recordings that get chopped and looped in…
Legendary Jamaican trombonist Rico Rodriguez created a signature sound on many reggae and ska albums. The septuagenarian leads the way through standards such as Jerry Johnson’s “Jumbo Rock” and Sado Watanabe’s “Eastern Island”; classic ska pieces including Don Drummond’s “Eastern Standard Time”; and the theme from the television show Dr…
Who’d have thought an improv klatch between Four Tet’s resident knob-twiddler and a storied jazz drummer could yield something so aurally stunning, so open-ended and trippy? And yet here the players’ styles collide and mesh nicely, a crowded but comfortable sprawl of steel-drum patter and undulating, wailing electronics goaded into…
When this ex-Television member tries to test the limits of his limited singing voice, the results suggest an unfortunately overambitious Lou Reed. On “Documentary” the manic-depressive, seesawing melody — low-slung, swampy blues shot through intermittently with engaging bursts of sunshine buoyancy — compensates for Verlaine’s inelegant warble and penchant for…
One way or another, our worst fears demand confrontation. Dawson faces her mother’s illness armed with a precociously childlike, I-can-stare-down-death sing-song, fumbling at an acoustic guitar as bells chime like comforting pixies, screwing up her courage and holding tears in check. “There’s something in her blood/And there’s something in her…
If the Rub ‘n’ Tug dudes (Thomas Bullock and Eric Duncan) can jerk a happy ending out of Coldplay’s limp “Square One,” then why can’t they get this one off? While their DJ mixes are sloppy drunk, all bleary-eyed on the EQs, when saddling up alongside New York’s cowbell kings,…
The four blokes in Hot Chip may look like colorblind football hooligans, but their R&Bedroom pop reveals them to be softies at heart. Such a sad center gives the DFA team the raw materials necessary to craft one of the most heart-rending dance-floor tracks of recent memory. The kick throbs…
This German quartet traffics in traditionally Canadian maneuvers, tunneling Godspeed You Black Emperor!-style poli-sci post-rockout. “Warmachine” tumbles the standard-issue dominoes via cement-mixer bass rumble spiced with sinister movie dialogue, phantasmic guitar slime, and anxious drumming building in foreshadowed intensity — the balls-out, full-bore amps-to-eleven money shot elongated — with an…
People talk about Conference — no modifier — as if it is a holiday on par with, say, Christmas or Halloween. Indeed the event, now in its 21st year, is just that monolithic in the minds of electronic music aficionados and the DJs, nightclub owners, liquor purveyors, electronics providers, and…
The Winter Music Conference and M3 Summit are a dance-music lover’s yearly dream, a paradise of sound for even the most jaded ex-clubbers. It almost takes extra resolve to not be completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of creativity that splashes over the city as artists from throughout the U.S…
WMC is about three things: the actual conference (meaning WMC and M3), partying to the sounds of your favorite DJs, and discovering artists you’ve never heard before. The last goal can be an elusive one, especially when it comes to sifting through party lineups packed with dozens of turntable jocks…
“Global Gathering Miami is a test vessel,” says Nick McCabe, coproducer of the event. “This first year, we may not even make a profit; we just want to put on such a great show, create such a great experience, that it will spread nationwide.” Indeed this event is a very…
