Music

Don’t be surprised if Peace Division’s latest mix compilation becomes the beginner’s manual for DJs looking to save a night gone wrong. DJ/producers Clive Henry and Justin Drake have been at the decks since the late Eighties and their skills have been lent to such acclaimed electronic artists as Moby,…

At 50, Argentine rock legend Charly Garcia is back with Influencia, his best work in a decade. The album is based on the song “Influenza,” originally included in Todd Rundgren’s The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect. As odd as it may sound, the title of that album released in 1983…

Driving away from the scene of an accident, windows glittered in rain, David J contemplates the power and celebrity causing the pileup. The Guitar Man is this conceptual narrative in hardback, an EP of beautifully orchestrated eyeliner folk that should satisfy the Love and Rockets faithful. The curtain opens with…

Orlando “Maraca” Valle segued easily from his years as a prodigious flute player with Cuban jazz heavyweights Bobby Carcasses, Emiliano Salvador, and Irakere to leading his own band, Otra Vision, purveyors of well-crafted good-time music. Performing a brand of popular Cuban music with wide appeal, Maraca and Otra Vision have,…

In 1998 Mr. Vegas busted upon the dancehall community in a huge way with his unstoppable hit “Heads High” and his new sing-jay style. Creativity and unique delivery almost always ensure success — provided the outcome is good. However, oftentimes these occurrences result from a fluke. Vegas (Clifford Smith) had…

A soul as sensitive as Dan Gellar’s would be expected to shy away from controversy and cave in when the PC brigade comes rallying round. After all, the twee music that Gellar champions — both as co-founder of the influential indie label Kindercore and leader of the electro-pop duo I…

Unless you’re friends with puppets or you know the ice cream man, you won’t find a more enjoyably inconsequential way to spend your Friday night this week than with Louisville, Kentucky’s VHS or Beta, a quartet of disco survivalists determined to fill a darkening world with the brightest, most day-glo…

Few folks are liable to turn handsprings at the thought of a double-CD of traditional music from East and Central Asia. It suggests a listening experience loaded with nutritional value but perilously low on the enjoyment scale. But The Silk Road (Smithsonian/Folkways) plows new ground by opening disc one with…

Blues Night: For more than six months that’s been the official tag on Thursday evenings in the Veranda Bar at Miami Beach’s Palms Hotel. But as those who frequent the place know well, there is little to be sad about. Even after dark, the room seems sunny. A lengthy bar…

Since the early Eighties, more than twenty musicians have been Guided By Voices. The brainchild of Robert Pollard, GBV has still managed to pull off a cohesive string of records, consistently forcing a Siddhartha six-handed bitchslap of sound to fit into a fistful of recording space. With Universal Truths &…

There’s a lull in the schedule, and Paulina Rubio doesn’t like it. “Open the curtains,” she says across the back of the couch to anyone who will listen. “Let’s do something. Let’s practice yoga. Turn on the television. Anything.” This should have been a good day; the first interview wasn’t…

Ah, to be young and over it already. It’s an old story: Talented local musician makes a serious stab at success in the biz, only to play his heart out in a mostly indifferent South Florida music scene. He records, he tours, he practices his balls off. He does all…

Multiple-choice time. Recently the following words were uttered: “Ain’t no way that SPM can be a human being.” Who said them? a. the prosecutor during SPM’s molestation case b. a disgusted juror on that same case c. a pissed-off grandmother after hearing about the case on the news d. none…

Think of it this way, and perhaps Marshall Mathers’s (or Eminem’s, or Slim Shady’s) 25-mil-plus-sold popularity makes more sense to the old farts who stoop to find him repellent. He’s the bleached-blond Holden Caulfield, a catcher-in-the-dye job loaded down by “all that David Copperfield kind of crap” who spends his…

Things you need to know about Mexican singer and actress Pilar Montenegro: She recently set a record in the music world by topping Billboard’s Latin charts for eleven consecutive weeks with her hit song “Quítame Ese Hombre” (literally, “Take That Man Away From Me”); her album Desahogo (Release) is a…

Love Jewel. Hate Jewel. Fear her manipulative mom. Laugh at her poetry. Give her props for not fixing that snaggletooth. Marvel at her staying power. Almost seven years ago, I interviewed the fresh-from-Alaska Jewel Kilcher, before she’d sold many copies of her first album. At the time, she’d just parked…

It’s the challenge DJ Simply Jeff loves. Perhaps the leading authority on the dance-music genre known as breakbeats, the California native just won’t let electronic music sink in a 4/4 sea. Instead the prolific DJ spreads around the recognizable styles of house and techno and slices the known into a…

“Andan Diciendo por Ahi” (“They Go Around Saying”), a guaguancó written by Albita Rodriguez, denounces gossips and affirms the Cuban singer/songwriter’s resilience despite speculation by busybodies about her professional and personal life. Funny and menacing, the rowdy rumba chastises liars with the threat “I’ll cut your tongue off” and warns…

If you don’t believe that underground hip-hop is enjoying a serious renaissance, just listen to El-P’s brilliant solo debut. Maybe “enjoying” is the wrong word: The oh-so-appropriately-titled album doesn’t make it sound as though it’s enjoying much of anything, save for the ruin of listener-friendly mainstream rap. In the midst…

Oh, what haunted places some songwriters wander. Smog, Cat Power, Sparklehorse — these artists’ songs sound as though they were carried over by a skip on the river Styx. You can add Nina Nastasia to that list. The Blackened Air is a frightening and gorgeous piece of work, notes from…