On the year’s best officially released DJ mix, Unclassics, Morgan Geist turns water into wine by presenting Italo and Euro disco of the early Eighties as a clean, soulful form. He plays down Italo’s low-rent synth-love and emphasizes its disco roots, peaking with Purple Flash’s “We Can Make It,” a…
Much like Amp Fiddler’s Waltz of a Ghetto Fly, Plantlife’s The Return of Jack Splash is the amoeboid representation of modern funk: ritualistic and improvised. The Return of Jack Splash is a series of riffs cut into nineteen tracks, with the L.A. band’s lead singer Jack Splash and backup singers…
Out of the Darkness is the sixth album from English producer Kirk Degiorgio and, following 2001’s 21st Century Soul, only his second to be released stateside. Initially titled Into the Darkness, a nod to our lives in a post-9/11 world, the Ipswitch-based Degiorgio changed the title to honor the birth…
For the past year, resident DJs Danny Bled, Ben Matrix, Miss K, along with emcees Duchess, Nico, and Mad have brought national and regional spinners to Lounge 16, that much-underrated incubator of underground culture, for a weekly celebration of drum and bass called Infrastructure. If not for them, you would…
Pinback’s new release, a catchy indie rock affair entitled Summer in Abaddon, could be its best work yet. Intricate vocal harmonies provide an essential component to its sound, which took three years of fine-tuning. “Zach and I are different people,” says multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Rob Crow of his coconspirator, Armistead Burwell “Zach”…
In the early Nineties, American Music Club was hailed for its original sound and singer/guitarist Mark Eitzel’s lyrical talents, which ranged from self-deprecating to astutely perceptive of humanity’s shortcomings. Now, after ten years in limbo, the godfathers of emo have reunited. Far from sounding outdated, however, the San Francisco group’s…
While Blowfly, the original dirty rapper, is well past the acceptable age for trick-or-treating, that won’t stop him from squeezing into a pair tights and donning his shiny mask and flowing cape one more time. The foul-mouthed “Hole Man” is scheduled to deliver a scary set of triple-X tongue-lashings at…
How’s this for a lineup: Easy Star All-Stars, progenitors of the infamous “Dub Side of the Moon” interpretation of Pink Floyd’s classic album; Bunny from rave stars Rabbit in the Moon; the bizarre cover band Mini Kiss; hard house veteran Junior Sanchez; one-time rapper Princess Superstar and Alexander Technique, the…
Jacki-O’s debut album, Poe Little Rich Girl, is finally seeing release after her former label, Warner Bros., temporarily shelved it back in February. Now signed to TVT, Jacki-O and her Poe Boy production team have retooled the album, adding key collaborations with rap stars such as Ghostface Killah, and sharpening…
Fridays, Amika and Privilege With so many hip-hop DJs angling for stardom in the ultracompetitive South Beach nightlife scene, you’ve got to be a hustler. L-Smooth knows how to keep it moving: He often appears on Mun2’s video program The Roof, helps Melissa Giles organize the Soulfrito Urban Latin Music…
TV on the Radio’s utter distinctiveness has driven critics to scrounge for adjectives and pronouns. The vocal harmonies of Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe have been compared to everything from the Beach Boys and Peter Gabriel to gospel music. But lead singer Adebimpe denies having any religious aspirations beyond “the…
From a strictly visual standpoint, Laurie Anderson is on a simplicity kick these days. For the bulk of her nearly 30-year career, the famed New York City performance artist treated audiences to elaborate multimedia blowouts combining monologues and poetry with experimental film and video, synthetic music, modern dance, still photography,…
Around this time last year, police detectives were examining the body of 34-year-old Elliott Smith and scouring the Los Angeles apartment the cherished singer-songwriter shared with his girlfriend, trying to determine whether or not the two mortal knife wounds to his heart were self-inflicted. Although suicide was presumed — given…
Jimmy Eat World’s hook-happy brand of emo rock has always sounded polished and accessible, yet as their fourth album proves, the Phoenix foursome hasn’t passed through the personality removal machine on their way to mainstream success. Futures features lots of splendid little touches: the delicate psych-pop detour in the middle…
East Coast pub-punk troubadour Ted Leo is a mad pundit in the tradition of Elvis Costello and Billy Bragg, and Shake the Sheets is his tautest album to date. Slithering songs such as “Angels’ Share,” “The One Who Got Us Out,” and “Bleeding Powers” acknowledge the downward spiral of American…
No woman is an island. But in 1999, New York-based electropunks Le Tigre suggested one could be, since the DIY dance-punks — fronted by Bikini Kill’s socio-politico riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna — sounded equally idiosyncratic and didactic at the time, their sole peer being Germany’s Chicks on Speed. On Le…
As a soloist in a post-Anti-Pop Consortium career, Beans has attracted mixed reviews from listeners fearful of a lone, enigmatic artist voicing wily and esoteric raps with no one else to distort the static. A true auteur, Beans shuns forced collaborations, and he doesn’t seem to mind the hermetic claustrophobia…
After a year of unexplained delays, Jin’s debut album has finally dropped, only to sound less like the proverbial next shit than late-Nineties hip-pop with a Chinese face. From the 8 Mile-like anthem “Here Now” and the maraca-shaking Latina ode “Señorita” to the hard Ruff Ryders beats of “Handz Off,”…
As a solo conceptualist who once led The Fugees, Jean has produced a fascinating catalog of recordings for a slowly decreasing audience more enchanted with crunk-and-thug bleats than smart pop/R&B. Released on his new imprint, Sak Pasé, Welcome to Haiti Creole 101 further displays Jean’s knack for drawing connections among…
Although the media tries to ignore it, hard rock (or emo, or rap metal, or whatever you want to call it) rules the heartland, selling out arenas while hip-hoppers struggle to fill seats with massive package tours. In South Florida, radio station 94.9 ZETA (WZTA-FM) is the rallying point for…
Has Morrissey, the man with le voz like rain who brightened up the Eighties with his morose and moody lyrics, gotten conservative in his middle-age? On the cover photo for his latest album, You are the Quarry, he looks quite presidential dressed in a plum pinstriped jacket, designer lavender, and…
Over the past two decades, David Byrne has delved into all styles of music, from the straightforward pop of Uh-Oh and the salsa of Rei Momo to the instrumental world beat of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and the stately Grown Backwards. But it is his work with…
