Whatever happened to that glorious era when rockeros everywhere turned their backs on Anglo influences and began doing their own native shit? Nowadays everyone seems to be going electric, and even icons like the Grammy Award-winning Café Tacuba (who became the most respected Mexican rock band ever with an unusual…
There’s a reassuring familiarity about the way Leona Naess sings lyrics like “Roll up the carpet and pour out the wine/Treat me like I’m your valentine” on “Calling,” the opening track from her self-titled album. Who hasn’t gone through a spell of embracing melancholy, lovestruck folk-pop singers like Joni Mitchell…
David Oquendo has good reason to believe in the American dream. The Cuban immigrant moved from the island to New Jersey in 1991 looking for artistic freedom. And he found it in a little club in Union City. Back in 1996 Tony Sequeira, the owner of a joint called La…
More than three years after fusing bossa nova with funk, hip-hop, and acid jazz, Rio de Janeiro’s jazz-pop sensation Bossacucanova has developed a niche for itself. The trio, comprised of Alexandre Moreira, Marcelinho DaLua, and Márcio Menescal, are inspired by the classic Brazilian sound. In fact Menescal’s father is the…
Since Elephant Man’s “Pon Di River, Pon Di Bank” was first released earlier this year, the barreling dance-friendly track has been a mainstay in all the local clubs, from South Beach hip-hop spots to Jamaican dance halls. For those who like a little reggae sprinkled in their rap diet, it…
Baby Anne could easily pass for a pop tart diva if she wanted to. Her face is a perfect selling point for any sexy and seductive sound. Instead the Bass Queen enjoys jarring audiences with bone-crushing electro-breaks, and she has no intentions of lightening up. In fact she never really…
For a subgenre that prides itself on innovation and a healthy dose of anti-establishment attitude, the underground hip-hop scene has yielded few breakout stars in 2003 — except for Little Brother. The North Carolina-based trio seemingly came out of nowhere to foist The Listening on unsuspecting hip-hop fans. A sumptuous…
Like a paunchy, aging executive trying to wedge into the ripped jeans, band T-shirt, and Chuck Taylors of his college days, the return of Lollapalooza feels forced, hollow, and a tad disingenuous. There’s a reason why the traveling festival petered out in 1997 after seven editions: It simply couldn’t sustain…
Tie-dye nation, hear thy call: The Dead are coming to town. And while they’re no longer “Grateful,” they are still alive and performing after all those long, strange trips. Sharing the bill (and for a set, the stage, too) with the group for the first time since 1987 is old…
While a local sighting of Victor Calderone behind the turntables is none too rare, it’s good that there is actually a celebrity DJ out there doing the unexpected: that is, practicing the subtle art of working a nightclub with his mixes. Unlike a lot of jocks, Calderone knows he’s not…
Argentineans are as fascinated by Paris as the French are infatuated with tango, a mutual affection that, over the last three years, has even reached the European charts in the form of the Gotan Project. This Paris-based team includes French producer Philippe Cohen Solal, his Swiss partner Christoph H. Muller,…
Since his memorable mix CD for Global Underground’s Nubreed series two years ago, Sander Kleinenberg has earned a reputation as a storyteller, the rare DJ capable of building a stirring narrative with break beats, dark progressive house tracks, and trance anthems. The Holland-born Kleinenberg is also a strong producer in…
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,…
