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…
If you haven’t heard the music of Maya Arulpragasam, you aren’t alone. But visit any online music-geek mecca, like the MP3 post Fluxblog (www.fluxblog.org) or the tempest-in-a-text-post board ILM (I Love Music) (ilx.wh3rd.net), and you’ll be smacked with the feeling of missing out. As the definitive word-of-fingers sensation, her debut…
There are only a handful of DJs whose names resonate beyond dance music: John Digweed is one of them. Back in the salad days of the late Nineties, when the genre exploded from an underground cultural renaissance to a global industry, the British-born Digweed and his frequent partner Sasha invaded…
The shoe-gazer phenomenon of the early Nineties exploded out of the UK like a giant sunburst of swirling guitars, distorted synths, and cascades of feedback. By the end of the decade the heat of the movement had waned. Now Germany’s Ulrich Schnauss is breathing new life into its ethereal textures…
Most internationally respected DJs are known for spinning only one genre of dance music. Not so with San Francisco’s Mark Farina, who is comfortable plying nightclubs with jackin’ grooves one night and down-tempo, instrumental hip-hop flavored “Mushroom Jazz” the next. In the late Eighties the Chicago native participated in the…
German house producer Ian Pooley’s repertoire ranges from the airy, ambient Euro-house of his brilliant Meridian to his Brazilian house anthem with Esthero “Balmes (A Better Life).” As one of a handful of house producers to earn a major-label deal in the past few years (via his now-defunct relationship with…
Do all the New York hipsters and Miami club kids know where mash-up — mixing up records from disparate genres — really came from? It’s something hip-hop and disco DJs have been doing for ages, and their modern counterpart is expert party-rockin’ DJs such as Z-Trip. Raised in Phoenix and…
They say everything’s bigger in Texas, so Austin’s Dustin “D:Fuse” Fusilier, who Urb magazine rated as its second-favorite DJ at last year’s conference, is reckoned to be a contender this year with his expansive musical approach. D:Fuse plays drums (using the Roland V-Pad) during his sets, and he also sings…
David Morales spins true, classic New York house, the pumping, four-to-the-floor, body-moving tracks that everyone, whether elitist, anti-dance, or rockist still gives props to. His most recent album, 2 Worlds Collide, was one of the best released last year, thanks to the blazing first single and collaboration with Tamra Keenan,…
Record companies love to say that their song did well at the Winter Music Conference. “This was the hit of WMC!” looks great splashed across the sales sheets and press releases. (If I had a nickel for every hype sheet I get with this absurd claim on it, well, I…
