With his new The Greatest Hits collection, C-Bo (Shawn Thomas) is sixteen albums deep into his career. It’s likely that his name and songs are unfamiliar to those outside of his home state of California, save for those who follow the intricacies of gangster rap. But his craft has been…
Lab Waste, a project between solo rapper Subtitle and MC/producer Thavius Beck, can be as cryptic as the title of its debut, Zwarte Achtegrond (Dutch for “Black Background”). At least the music is: Beck’s beats knock along, sly and off-kilter, even as they sometimes miss their mark. Meanwhile, the two…
On this debut, the chameleonic Vancouver fivesome is lovin’ the Seventies. “Oh, we can’t stand/Your modern music/We feel afflicted,” singer Stephen McBean moans on the saxophone-and-drums swells of “Modern Music.” Things get retro on the bounding-down-the-boulevard “Druganaut,” which sounds like Jimi Hendrix by way of Band of Gypsys. But when…
Picking up where his retired “band” Songs: Ohia left off, Jason Molina leads his Magnolia Electric Co. in capturing Big Sky spirit on a live album that snakes through what feels like decades-forged hot licks. Great live albums loom bigger than their source material, and Trials & Errors feels, well,…
Nope, this isn’t another movie starlet looking to validate her questionable musical ability. Rowlands is billed but not involved, merely name-dropped alongside actress Janeane Garofalo (“Garofalo, C’est Moi”), singer Lesley Gore (“The Last Words of Lesley Gore” and even winemaker Ernest Gallo (“Easter @ the 7-11”) by the band’s true…
The Octopus Project will ring familiar to anyone conversant in the dynamics of indietronica and Postal Service poptronics. But there’s no Jenny Lewis cooing pretty-girl vocals, nor Ben Gibbard whining about his god-awful life, just peppy instrumentals that are deceptively smart. When Josh Lambert strums his guitar, he actually plays…
As far as punk albums go, Strike Anywhere’s To Live In Discontent is slightly above-standard stuff, with chants of “Oi!” adorning its anti-capitalist lyrics and buzzsaw rock. True to its title, the album is contradictory in nature, advocating self-sufficiency in the face of societal oppression. “In this world you must…
Man, how amazingly cool would it be to learn that an outfit named Cattle Decapitation is actually a Celine Dion tribute act? The gory reality is that this band of sinister San Diego vegetarians makes exactly the type of gruesome death-racket you’d expect: an extreme grind-core/thrash onslaught, replete with guitars…
Since the Nineties, Anthony B has brought a cool, relaxed savoir faire to the Bible-thumping wing of the reggae world, garnering a steady stream of hits since his classic “Fire Pon Rome.” Nowadays, however, he may be best known for “Lighter,” the Wyclef Jean collabo that worked its way onto…
Every school season brings a fresh pack of young rockers eager to strut their stuff. Most of them hail from the University of Miami, that hothouse of lawless footballers and modeling coeds. It is from these parts that Dead Hookers Bridge Club, a band that may be as dangerous as…
Michael Donaldson, better known as Q-Burns Abstract Message, has had a long and varied career. During the “electronica” hype of the late Nineties, he cranked out everything from turntablist tracks (for the memorable Deep Concentration compilation) to breezy jazz & bass and downtempo. If his latest compilation of remixes, Future…
Creating catchy acronyms and singing snippets of popular songs are necessary skills for any spoken-word artist. Fortunately, Profet (Politikal Revolutionary Orating For an Educated Tomorrow) Yusuf Malik Shabazz, who peppers his poetry with bars from Bob Marley, can do both. On his latest disc, State of Emergency, he begins his…
Most pop music fans have probably never heard of Erick Morillo. He is a top DJ and producer, one of the few American leaders (alongside Christopher Lawrence, Danny Tenaglia, Deep Dish, and others) in an international dance scene traditionally dominated by Europeans. But Morillo doesn’t produce the cheesy trance shit…
At the opening of The Roots’ 1999 album Things Fall Apart, esteemed writer Harry Allen remarked, “Inevitably, hip-hop records are treated as disposable. They are not maximized as product, even, not to mention as art.” Nearly six years after the Media Assassin made this statement, it has become cliché among…
The annual La Feria de Cali wasn’t officially scheduled to begin for more than a week. But by last December 16, the excitement was plain in the banners and billboards plastered throughout Cali trumpeting seven days of bullfights, dancing, drinking, street fairs, sports events, and generalized nonstop revelry. Punctuating the…
If Blueberry Boat was the Who’s Tommy modernized, resurrecting the self-indulgent carcass of the Seventies concept opus, then the new The Fiery Furnaces EP is a fleeter, more focused beast. It finds brother-sister duo Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger returning to the complex, rollicking compositions of their marvelous debut, Gallowsbird Peak…
As a self-described introduction to the music of Junior Kimbrough, this tribute album fails spectacularly: These versions of his songs are so radically and haphazardly interpreted that they give only the faintest clue as to what set Kimbrough apart from other venerated bluesmen. And yet almost every eclectic cut here…
Kimberly Rew’s seminal efforts alongside Robyn Hitchcock in the Soft Boys first established his creative credentials before he confirmed his pop pedigree in the early Eighties by penning the hit “Walking On Sunshine” for Katrina and the Waves. But Rew’s solo outings eschew the infectious accessibility of his work with…
The ominous grooves that Shivaree creates for its tales of treachery, frustrated sexuality, and emotional defeat sound like the disjointed music emanating from a carny sideshow tent after midnight. Eerie hints of tango, girl-group R&B, spaghetti western guitar, and musical saw all drift through the disjointed soundscapes, weaving a spell…
Until her “O.G. Bitch” joint last year, Esthero was best known for her appearances on other people’s songs, including some by Ian Pooley (“Balmes [A Better Life]”) and Black Eyed Peas (“Weekends”). We R In Need of a Musical Revolution, a 30-minute teaser for an album scheduled for release this…
The original soundtrack to Appleseed, the new anime film from the creators of Ghost in the Shell, initially promises to be more interesting than the emo-rock blowouts that usually accompany action films. It boasts cuts by Basement Jaxx (“Good Luck”), Adult. (a special “Appleseed’ version of Carl Craig’s brilliant “Hand…
Felix da Housecat’s soundtrack for the video game Playboy: The Mansion harkens back to the straight-ahead house DJ’ing he used to do back in the Nineties, before he became an electroclash star. Fans of 2003’s A Bugged Out Mix and his selections of key Ladytron and Metro Area tracks will…
