Miguel Migs’s music is not easy to classify. He hails from Northern California, and hints of the Golden State can be found shining through his productions with chill, soulful beats infused with jazzy horns and an assortment of other influences. Classy deep house tracks have made dance music’s pretty boy…
Following in the almost absurd tradition of Teflon-coated, press-shy android-funk duo Daft Punk, Frenchman Pascal Arbez-Nicolas has maintained an ambiguity in the press as he produces under the name Vitalic. Lurking in the shadows, however, has not diminished the profile of Vitalic’s unrelenting electro-house singles (releases dating from 2001 to…
Part of the appeal of producing music with machines and expensive toys is that instruments and complex beats can be synthesized with the turn of a knob. Yet when a DJ’s live set is more akin to checking e-mail than performing, technology can be a drawback. D:Fuse is bringing the…
House music veteran Frankie Knuckles and rising stars Simon Marlin and Max Reich, a.k.a. the Shapeshifters or Shape UK, are joining forces during WMC to promote their respective new albums. If Knuckles’s 2004 A New Reality is any indicator of what to expect for his new release, fans of house…
Any city whose very existence captures the public imagination becomes an elusive, flickering ideal. Miami has proved to be an especially potent muse, a mirage viewed as an oasis of paparazzi and celebrities, a Latin paradise, a haven of illicit and criminal behavior, and a concrete proving ground for immigrants…
Think of it as career day for DJs. Technology and music pioneers present three days of workshops, demonstrations, and Q&A sessions to enlighten aspiring musicians during Remix magazine’s Remix Hotel Miami 2005. “It’s an extension of what we do at the magazine — focusing on the technical and creative aspects…
Sandy Rivera, the man behind Kings of Tomorrow, epitomizes New Jersey deep. He came to international attention in 2000 with “Finally,” a classic love number featuring the svelte vocals of Julie McKnight. “Finally” was a massive house anthem that was inescapable for months in discotheques around the world and was…
“The goal is to make music that makes people hop as much as it hops genres,” states Ian Parton, founder and primary songwriter of Brighton-based sextet the Go! Team. Note the exclamation point in the group’s name, because Parton’s poly-cultural troupe is all about the forceful punctuation. The male/female outfit…
Los Amigos Invisibles have the right idea when it comes to keeping dance music alive: Bring back da live rhythms! Simple, no? This Venezuelan sextet provides a full band of piquant Latin funk, salsa, merengue, and breezy, hedonistic lounge tunes, all sex-tinged with lyrics describing nightlife woes and even stuff…
Not that long ago, Argentine DJ Hernan Cattaneo refused to acknowledge his world-class status and claimed, “I don’t think I’m Mr. Big DJ yet.” Well, things have changed. Cattaneo’s deep house-and-progressive marathons have earned him a reputation among clubbers around the planet, and he’s a regular feature at hot Tokyo…
When we announced our second annual Ultra Music Festival spinoff, we never imagined we would receive a staggering 87 submissions, 54 of which were sent to Miami New Times and 33 to New Times Broward-Palm Beach, from both established DJs and relative greenhorns. Amazingly, we managed to listen to them…
by Mosi Reeves
DJ Hell Pawn Shop Lounge, March 25 DJ Hell, the nom de plume for Helmut Josef Geier, signifies Eurotrash electronics at its most seductive and confrontational, all acid noise and dark, deep techno-funk. He plays many roles, from owner of the hugely influential International Deejay Gigolo label to producer of…
Miguel migs State, March 24 This week, you’ll want to go deep — deeper than you’ve ever been before. Here to transport you to the inner sanctum of housedom is Bay Area-based DJ and Miami favorite Miguel Migs. He’s got a jazzy way of spinning tracks without falling into the…
Damian lazarus Pawn Shop Lounge, March 25; Fairwinds Cafe, March 26 British DJ and producer Damian Lazarus purveys dance-floor futurism through his imprint Crosstown Rebels. The sound is at once familiar — think Rephlex-style Luke Vibert mixed with a bit of industrial techno — and eerie: the records he spins…
Back in the early days of WMC, talking about diversity meant comparing and contrasting the work of, say, Junior Vasquez with that of Danny Tenaglia. But now that M3 is a major player as well, spotlighting a host of musical genres traditionally overlooked by the house-music-heavy WMC, the parties and…
Despite the undisputed fact that women fuel all party scenes, both literally and spiritually, DJ and artist lineups for WMC/M3 remain largely an annual sausage fest. Women are in the minority, but the balance appears to have improved over the years as trends evolved. “It seems the scene, for the…
Admit it. All you wanna do is “party and bullshit,” hip-hop style. Fortunately there will be some peeps in town this week to join you, including DJ JS-1 from the famed Rock Steady Crew, who plans to join a scratch battle tentatively scheduled for the M3 summit. “I don’t usually…
While one hails from Ghent, Belgium, and the other from Glasgow, Scotland, the Glimmers (Mo & Benoelie, formerly the Glimmer Twins) and Optimo (JD Twitch & JG Wilkes, named after a Liquid Liquid song) are DJ teams who prove the old adage “two heads are better than one.” Or rather,…
Anyone who has copped a broken beat twelve-inch over the last few years has probably stumbled across the unusual name Bugz in the Attic splashed across the record label. This murky alliance of DJs, producers, engineers, and musicians has made a name for itself in hot West London clubs by…
Ten years ago Sven Väth was trying to conquer America. He had a contract with Warner Bros. and a Los Angeles outpost for his acclaimed Frankfurt-based record labels Harthouse and Eye Q. But America wasn’t ready for the techno and trance sounds of Germany. Väth’s Warner Bros. contract fizzled after…
Each conference brings a buzzword for the latest micro-strain. In 2004 it was grime, a hybrid of hip-hop and jungle with UK MC Dizzee Rascal as its poster boy. This year finds hipsters talking about dirty house, a more electro-leaning, rhythmically playful incarnation of good ol’ fashioned house. The music…
In the seven years since the Ultra Music Festival began as a neat little block party starring Florida’s own Rabbit in the Moon on a fenced-off section of sand behind the Outback Steakhouse on Collins Avenue, some of its most outspoken critics have been those people you’d expect to have…
