The sheer strangeness of Manding “swing” music can be daunting. Sure, there are enough familiar elements, from amplified instrumentation to radio-friendly lengths that tell you in an instant that you’re listening to pop. But the heightened sense of drama feels foreign, from the operatic intensity that courses through the vocals…
Last November Pop Up Records issued its first release, an album by Summer Blanket titled Charm Wrestling. The album has a rare, fragile quality emphasized by its downbeat melodies and confessional verse, the work of Keith Michaud, who plays bass and guitar while singing on its nine tracks, and a…
From the Latin jazz imprint of San Francisco-based groove merchant Ubiquity Records comes the latest in a reputable catalog of CDs guaranteed to satisfy. Ochimini is Latin percussion legend Francisco Aguabella’s fifth release on the label. Despite decades of professional performances and a rangy discography that includes dates and recordings…
Relying on a cheap pun isn’t the best way to start a review. But given Sigmatropic’s origins, as well as its strange mix of sounds, the oft-quoted expression “it’s all Greek to me” somehow seems appropriate. Taken literally, Sigmatropic refers to Greek producer/multi-instrumentalist Akis Boyatzis, who recruited several musicians to…
The title of Firewater’s fifth album, Songs We Should Have Written, would suggest that this New York-based bunch is falling back on a pop music primer. In fact it’s more an affirmation of their own musical stance, a heady art-punk mix that blends such disparate elements as klezmer, Indian wedding…
Was it so long ago that hip music prognosticators proclaimed electronica as the new musical form that was going to render rock and roll, jazz, etc. irrelevant? Still, although it never caught on in America like it did in England, the genre has refused to crumple in the trend-end of…
While most South Bitch DJs are resolutely earthbound in their advocacy of the good thug life, Richard “Q-Bert” Quitevis is from planet Mars, a UFO with lightning-quick hands. Since emerging from the Bay Area’s potent hip-hop scene in the early Nineties, Q-Bert has evolved from a dominant hip-hop DJ with…
Most revelers at an Art Miami Wreck 2 party in the now-infamous Rectangle ArtSpace on January 10 were completely unaware that a grisly scene was found there the week before. The decomposing body of an artist was discovered in a loft on the same floor that now housed 70 or…
On this breezy January afternoon, the Doubletree Surfcomber Hotel hardly looks like the future home of the inaugural Miami Music Multimedia Summit. The hotel entrance leads to a long outside corridor that is infamous around South Beach for being confusing and difficult to navigate; it leads to a pool area…
An anonymous e-mail that was sent out to dozens of clubs and publications last week is causing quite a stir. Apparently somebody has it in for high-profile celebrity photographer Seth Browarnik and the way he treats his picture-taking peers. Whoever is behind the campaign prefers to “remain anonymous,” hiding under…
“We are proud to be a Miami band,” says drummer Toto González after taking part in a round of spoken dreams, wishes, and resolutions for the new season with his band, Sóniko. The Latin altrock quartet is about to celebrate its third anniversary in February; as a graduation party of…
In the photo gallery on the Mosquitos Website, www.mosquitosnycom a single picture footnotes the raison d’être for the group’s self-titled debut, a bossa nova/indie-pop love child that’s earning praise from imbibers of cool drinks and stirring hipsters’ hips. From above, we see singer Juju Stulbach, a slight young woman in…
With his supersized Afro, just-woke-up-after-a-late-night voice, and I-can’t-believe-I’m-a-star humility, Tego Calderón might be the most lovable thug of all time. Certainly he’s the most loved rapper in reggaetón. His 2002 debut album El Abayarde finally dragged the genre out of the underground, where young Boricuas had been toasting in Spanish…
Self-contained female performers have always been a rarity in R&B, so when one comes along, overreaction is perhaps inevitable. In 2001 plenty of those who heard Alicia Keys were so knocked out by the preternaturally poised nineteen-year-old pianist that they failed to notice that much of the music from her…
Like their punk-rock brethren, “conscious” rappers are fond of making flat-earth statements about overthrowing the government and obtaining some form of abstract justice for the people. But it’s not Harlem rapper Immortal Technique’s ability to spew well-written calls to kill the pigs that makes him so deadly; instead it’s allegations…
Quite possibly the weirdest album yet from nomadic house music hero Maurice Fulton, Afro Finger and Gel was born out of his relationship with Japanese frontwoman Mutsumi Kanamori. The two met at the infamous Electric Chair party in Sheffield, England, and apparently it was love at first sight. He had…
Recently Joël Virgel’s sexy, throaty voice resonated throughout the house music world on the Latin Project’s “Lei Lo Lai,” which soared to near-anthem status last year thanks to a prescient remix by New York house mainstays Masters at Work. But the debut album for this French-Caribbean artist, who was raised…
Back in the Sixties, at a time when the only male jazz singers on the scene seemed to be the swingers of Rat Pack notoriety and lounge lizard fame — Frankie and Sammy and Deano — Mark Murphy was keeping the true flame alive with his post-bop renditions of standards…
Michael Robbins, Justin Levine, and Perry Sasson (still the smoothest name in nightlife) of Empire Events — or, as other nightlifers know them, the J Crew — have been hosting a Sno party at Pearl, the elegant restaurant/lounge atop Nikki Beach, on Saturday nights. The plush surroundings make a perfect…
In the past four years, the music business has experienced a near-meltdown, hemorrhaging billions of dollars and sending shock waves that have reverberated all the way to South Florida’s dance music industry. Slow CD sales, a lukewarm U.S. economy, and peer-to-peer downloading of copyrighted music have continued to hammer away…
Anyone who admits to an obsession for music knows by now that there are too few stores in South Florida to effectively feed a collector’s habit. With the limited selection found at major retail outlets like Spec’s, Circuit City, Best Buy, and the prohibitively expensive Virgin Megastore, only a smattering…
The first time I spun at a reggae house party, I brought two armfuls of records with me. One was full of roots, ska, and rocksteady, for warming things up. The other was filled with dancehall — mostly single riddim compilations that were easy to mix — for when the…
