If you’ve paid a recent late-night visit to the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in North Miami Beach, chances are you’ve seen Bobby Washington in the parking lot. “This is when it gets really packed,” notes the 33-year-old R&B singer. Washington cuts an odd figure amid the SUVs and sedans circling this…
The sophomore album by hip-hop artist El-P portrays a world plagued by war and malevolent technology. Cities are burning under the noses of uncaring mayors. There are “rats tappin’ glass in a government lab.” It doesn’t sound happy. Then again, these aren’t happy times. “C’mon mom, can I borrow the…
Alright is a love-or-loathe proposition. Plenty of listeners will be enchanted by Allen’s defiantly casual singing, cool-girl vocabulary, and taste for hybrid pop, while others are sure to find these attributes irritating in the extreme. As for the MySpace phenom in the spotlight, she doesn’t appear to care what reaction…
Since putting their collaborative efforts on hiatus last year, the dynamic duo of Dubfire and Sharam, known more famously as Deep Dish, have each sought to create a stronger distinction between their solo recordings. While Sharam has adopted a free-wheeling aesthetic, Dubfire has taken a decidedly rootsy turn with his…
Anyone hoping that singer David Kilgour’s latest disc, The Far Now, would be a return to the streamlined, guitar-driven rush of his former New Zealand punk outfit the Clean will quickly be disappointed. Instead for this, his sixth album, he’s offering down-to-earth, contemplative jangle-rock with melodies and moods strong enough…
While many of his famous Brazilian contemporaries are reissuing hits from their lengthy back catalogs, 64-year-old singer Caetano Veloso stubbornly continues to push himself forward as evidenced on his newest album, Cê. The simple, stripped-down instrumentation here (guitar, bass, drums) is also a nice change from some of his larger…
John Digweed Long gone are the days when John Digweed needed the name of his erstwhile partner, Sasha, to draw attention to his talents. The DJ has been shining alone for a while and is now lending his skills to others, specifically Canada’s production duo du jour, MSTRKRFT. Digweed and…
Aterciopelados In the ten years since they released La Pipa de La Paz (“The Pipe of Peace”), this genre-busting duo has continued to break musical barriers, blending the folk traditions of their native Colombia with a melange of sounds picked up as they’ve toured the Americas and Europe. The pair’s…
The Cleveland Orchestra Miami has no pressing need to borrow cultural institutions from smaller cities. On the contrary, classical music fans in Phoenix, Seattle, and San Diego can only dream of seeing an orchestra of New World Symphony’s caliber. But The Cleveland Orchestra happened to have some winter downtime, so…
It sounds like an incredible, genre-defying jam that could only be conjured up in the wildest dream state. A week packed with parties and special events, where the collective lineup of talent features everything from classic goth-rockers the Cure to the current “King of Crunk” Lil Jon, with every conceivable…
While the American dance scene has in many ways cooled from the peaks of the late Nineties, it’s also adapted to fit into the fast-forward culture of today. With mix CD and especially 12-inch sales virtually nonexistent, dance fans have instead emphasized the experience. Just ask anyone stuck at the…
Some of electronic music’s most recognizable names are slated to appear at Ultra Music Festival, from Richie Hawtin and Fatboy Slim to Sasha and John Digweed. But the full lineup (available at www.ultramusicfestival.com) reveals a certain curatorial skill even beyond all of the star power, offering samples of house, techno,…
“Over the years, we’ve always had a great time in Miami. The Cure has a really strong following there. When we first started coming to America, we didn’t play there for years, because certain promoters told us that no one would like us in the city. But when we did,…
When it began in 2004, M3: Miami, Music & Multimedia was inspiring. The panel discussions, which featured future superstars like Danger Mouse alongside industry veterans like legendary British mogul Tony Wilson (who discovered New Order), were conducted in air-conditioned tents at the end of Washington Avenue, near the beach and…
Andrew Mason describes the experience of spinning vinyl records — as opposed to playing MP3s — in deeply reverential terms. “It’s the thrill of the needle on the groove and hearing the noise of the record and then the song starts. It’s this visceral thing,” says Mason, also known as…
We are certainly not the Oscars or the Grammys. Heaven knows there’s no budget for fancy statues — or pretty girls to stand behind the podium holding them, for that matter. But we do like to give praise where it is due, and there are lots of cool happenings set…
Okay, so Winter Music Conference might not start officially until Tuesday. But Miami will make any excuse to party a little bit extra. And if you’re from out of town and here for the conference, you’re likely similarly swingin’. No worries — besides the city’s usual debauchery, the special events…
Kids are going crazy out in Los Angeles. Every month it seems a new opus emerges from the region: Aloe Blacc’s Shine Through, Georgia Anne Muldrow’s Olesi: Fragments of Earth, Daedelus’s Denies the Day’s Demise, Ta’Raach’s The Fevers, and Flying Lotus’s 1983. These recordings don’t reinvent the rules of soul,…
New Yorker Shauna Slevin is a veteran label manager and house music hustler, but she has a slightly strange scheduling stipulation when booking international trips for the Martinez Brothers. European gigs are limited to Saturday nights as the guys have a prior commitment on Fridays: high school. Apparently, playing at…
Just when electroclash was becoming a punch line and dance music threatened to turn moribund again, along came Ed Banger Records to give it another swift kick in the ass. Postmodern and ice-cool, the label’s signature sound is equal parts electro-tech-house, hip-hop swagger, and punk-rock attitude and distortion. Its biggest…
I’m an electronic-folk-soul-jazz-singer, or something in between,” writes Clara Hill. The German singer communicates via e-mail, but her warmth and enthusiasm shine through the text. Hill’s most recent album, All I Can Provide (released on Jazzanova’s imprint Sonar Kollektiv near the end of last year), is a delight. It finds…
Before beginning, a brief warning: Above & Beyond, the nom de plume for producers Jonathan Grant, Paavo Siljamäki, and Tony McGuinness, makes airy trance. And no, this isn’t the kind of borderline-trance Kompakt techno that hipsters like. This is the kind of sickly-sweet trance that makes hipsters grit their teeth…
