Nas is one of the most influential artists of his generation. Want proof? Check out a lyric from his rival Jay-Z’s “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”: “I was raised in the projects, roaches and rats/Smokers out back, sellin’ they mama’s sofa/Lookouts on the corner, focused on the Ave/Ladies in the window, focused on…
Forget ABBA and forget all the garage bands; Sweden’s greatest contribution to music remains the early-Nineties death-metal sound exemplified by Entombed, Unleashed, and Grave. The latter’s first disc in six years, Back From the Grave, displays an impressive understanding that when you’ve got a good thing, you don’t mess with…
Longwave’s second album and major-label debut, The Strangest Things, has been steadily building a buzz since it was first released three months ago. It has its charms, thanks to lead guitarist Shannon Ferguson’s icily atmospheric guitar playing and the wall of sound producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) erects…
Like tumbling down a rabbit hole and finding yourself wandering dizzily through a strange, surreal new world, attending an Of Montreal show necessitates a wholesale abandonment of reality. Led by the ever-fanciful Kevin Barnes, the Athens, Georgia band dwells at the intersection where Sgt. Pepper, Lewis Carroll, Dr. Seuss, and…
Though they’re named after a Smiths song (which in turn was named after a quote from Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums), Pretty Girls Make Graves has precious little to do with English fop-pop. The loud-rawkin’, female-fronted, energetic Seattle quintet is well-versed with life on the road, though, having toured incessantly…
The last time Anthony Rother was here, during this year’s WMC, he had a packed Soho Lounge lit to the gills from his low-frequency bass riffs and synthesized vocals. While the atmosphere was more back-in-the-day — all hand-raising reminiscent of rock concerts — the electro-funk Rother threw down on his…
Everyone knows Chaka Khan from her “glory days,” an era that, by most standards, began in 1973 with a hit-laden five-year run as the frontwoman for Rufus and slowly faded away after her vital 1984 cover of Prince’s “I Feel For You.” She’s had an unassuming career ever since while…
The dance music scene, we’re often told, is much better in Europe. As the stereotype goes, it’s far different and of much higher quality than the secondhand tracks we’re forced to listen to here. And what of Layo and Bushwacka? The two Londonites are well-known producers on the international breaks…
Poor Ben Harper. No matter where he goes, no matter what new songs he brings, he always gets slapped with either the “poor man’s Lenny Kravitz” or the “thinking man’s Lenny Kravitz” tag (depending on the graciousness of the critic). Of course, that’s probably what the 33-year-old singer-songwriter deserves for…
Count Jan Jelinek is another intriguingly “cutting-edge” German producer you’ve never heard of. Like compatriots Thomas Brinkmann and Laub, Jelinek specializes in crafting strange and wondrous experimental music that is surprisingly sleek and melodic, if not entirely free of pretension. Case in point: his most recent album, La Nouvelle Pauvreté,…
Luis Alberto Spinetta is more than an Argentine artist. Fellow countrymen like to see him as a legend because his music is considered the soundtrack to their lives. For the last 30 years, Spinetta has mutated as many times as you can imagine for a man who has fronted bands…
For the past twenty years, through surviving lineup changes that could rival Spinal Tap’s; helplessly watching white, manufactured ska-punk outfits climb the pop charts; and undergoing its own search for truth and soul, Fishbone has persevered for one simple reason: talent. Angelo Moore, Norwood Fisher, and Walter Kibby continue to…
Over the past decade, Mystikal has had a surprisingly long and fruitful career for a rapper best known for maniacally catchy novelty hits like “Shake Ya Ass” and “Danger.” Part of the appeal, of course, lies in his distinctive voice, a wild and loud bark that sounds like someone yelling…
It’s been over a year since Dieselboy (a.k.a. Damian Higgins) dropped Project Human on the drum and bass world, eliciting praise and accolades from even the most hardened U.K. purists. Dubbed America’s best jungle DJ by fans and critics alike, Dieselboy has avoided any dropoff in interest with constant touring…
It remains to be seen if Moreno Veloso +2 will be accompanied onstage this Saturday with a cardboard cutout of Peter Rabbit and “indulge in falsetto banter like Brazilian Monty Python characters,” as The Guardian reported at one of their London gigs last year. But we can expect Veloso, Domenico…
Télépopmusik is further proof of the staying power of French dance music, which has commanded the world electronic stage since the late 1990s. The trio — Stephan Haeri, Christophe Hétier, and Fabrice Dumont — joins the likes of Air and Daft Punk in permeating the mainstream through movie soundtracks and…
Somewhere between the Lone Star State and the nation’s capital, Citizen Cope (Clarence Greenwood’s nom de plume) learned to mold rhythm and blues and Sixties folk into arrangements that recall everything from Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder to Arrested Development. Sure, he’s white, but Greenwood has soul. Last year’s self-titled…
You know you’d like to say something special to your sweetie, but you just can’t find the right words or the right tone to tickle her ears. This year why not let one of the masters whisper sweet nothings for you, as Valentine’s Day weekend brings not one but two…
As one of the most prominent members of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, Clarence Clemons blows his sax with all the low-down power of waves crashing upon the Jersey shore, even though he moved to West Palm Beach several years ago. No matter, says the sax man, “I bring Asbury…
With a setting Sun, a dead King, a reformed Killer, and empty Stax, Memphis has spent the past few decades coasting on the fumes of its musical reputation. After making the world suffer through countless garage bands rehashing the same old, same old, Memphis has come up with Lost Sounds:…
The thump of rolling bodies and whoosh of sand poured over a dancer’s head form part of the soundtrack to the entrancing one-hour piece Figninto, performed by the Salia ni Seydou dance company. Two musicians accompany the bare-torsoed movements of the troupe from Burkina Faso. Sitting before the three male…
The benefits of medicinal marijuana have long been noted as helping those with illnesses such as HIV or glaucoma better cope with the symptoms. Proponents argue for legalization so cataracted grandmothers no longer have to suffer through a day without a fat spliff between their lips. On four stages, Ploppy…
