Throughout his career Brazilian-born saxophonist and composer Livio Tragtenberg has innovated in the field of electronic music under the influence of John Cage and in the concrete and visual poetry movement of his native land. In Tragtenberg’s latest work, he partners with real-time video artist Benton C. Bainbridge (who has…
L.A. bands, whether they are rappers or kitschy electronic acts, are rarely taken seriously by music critics. And Seksu Roba is no exception. But its 2003 debut album, Pleasure Vibrations, is sunny and melodic, if somewhat goofy. (One of its best songs is called “LA Freeway.”) Granted, unlike Adult or…
Back in the mid-Nineties, Brooklyn’s Black Moon — Evil Dee, Buckshot, and 5Fter — spat out brutal, amoral gangsta chronicles while its crew the Beatminerz ran samples through bass filters, achieving a relentless, dub-like, and callused feel. Just as the world seemed to be catching up, Black Moon disbanded in…
From the opening harmonies on “Come On” to its reprise during First Against the Wall’s closing seconds, the Parlaphone aims for one goal: compositional mastery. This disc’s ten tracks are expertly built and realize the full potential of the band’s rhythm section, Peter Arzeno’s powerhouse drumming and the frenetic fretwork…
Throughout its twenty-year history, WMC has been about dance music: specifically, house and its many variants. But stylistic diversity is central for any good multiday festival, which makes much of this year’s events superfluous. After all, who needs to see Mark Farina five times in one week? To encourage a…
Ubiquity Recordings has a fairly bold and clear-cut mission: “Take great music and make it ubiquitous.” Hmmm. Ostensibly, that’s what every friggin’ record label aims to do. “Yeah, it should be,” says Andrew Jervis, Ubiquity’s vice president and A&R man, “but it’s not always the case, is it? We’re not…
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…
