Ekayani, long and slender at six feet one inch tall, began her career in the early Nineties in Paris, where she was a model for fashion giants like Dior, Paco Rabanne, and Courrges. “It was hard,” she says. “You’re expected to be pretty and shut up. You have to sort…
Shrill, darkened-corridor atmospherics and nearly medicinal synth arrangements intersect on Because We Can, the rather experimental debut full-length from Australia’s Lostep. Oddly “Burma,” the most recognizable track here thanks to its inclusion on Sasha’s Involver in 2004, is the lot’s most accessible in its vibrant vocal snippets and crisp beat…
It’s often difficult to critically analyze a much-beloved artist, because the tendency is to excuse irksome traits or loathsome sonic detours simply because of past greatness. So while it’s tempting to give Morrissey a free pass for hauling in a children’s choir for several songs on his eighth solo studio…
Depictions of futuristic music in popular culture are often either cheesy and childish (think the first Star Wars movie or television’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) or uninspired commercial trance and techno (think the Matrix trilogy). What has been lacking is a seriousness of purpose combined with serious chops…
Eef Barzelay is best known as the erstwhile leader of the power-pop combo Clem Snide, but with his first solo effort, Eef finds a new motif. Discarding the effusive sound associated with his day job, Bitter Honey is a low-key acoustic ramble that finds Barzelay shoring up his sentiments with…
Before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O strutted, spit, and cooed her way to indie-rock icon status, the last dynamic female to front a rock band was arguably Courtney Love. The grunge widow propelled Hole to stardom in the 1990s with her inimitable martyr poses and baby-doll fashion on the…
If recent breakouts by Mylo and Vitalic have proven there’s life left in house music and upbeat electronica (and they have), Idol Tryouts proves there’s also life beyond it. This double-disc set, compiled by the soothsayers at edgy Ann Arbor label Ghostly International, is split into two loosely associated categories…
Though Global Communication’s Mark Pritchard might have borrowed Dabrye’s “No Child of God (Instrumental)” for Fabric 26’s striking opener, as he borrowed the records used in his impressively selected end of the mix, it still might be the best choice here. A healthy interest in lesser-discussed MCs spices up Pritchard’s…
Don’t blame the fiery Pérez Prado for that enervating Louie Vega remake of “Mambo #5,” though you could possibly blame him for Ricky Ricardo, as well as America’s continuing obsession with the sensual Latino experience. Even James Brown’s infamous grunts and “hunh”s are echoed in the hollers of this diminutive…
Mexican alt-rock fans won’t be surprised by Barcelona, Spain’s the Pinker Tones, for they present a cut-and-paste formula of pop, funk, soul, bossa, breakbeat, swing, lounge, and psychedelia. The fact that band members Mister Furia and Professor Manso played a long list of instruments in their own recording studio, Pinkerland,…
Props are due Anti-Flag for not merely chucking to its Warped Tour mall-rat constituents some three-chord poli-sci punk they can shout along to, but also for writing liners chock full of thoughtful essays and links to provoke further research of U.S. capitalism’s ills. It doesn’t hurt that this “ef Bushco”…
Nearly three years after their semibreakthrough into the MTV2/VH1 cultural consciousness, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs return with a lead single celebrating the previous decade’s FM hegemony. To wit: Karen O genuflects before Courtney Love’s gritted-teeth yowl and Polly Jean Harvey’s wordless yet expressive yelp while the rest of the band…
This tinfoil-helmeted indie ditty telegraphs its paranoia through subject matter and structure alike. Jittery, nervous guitars constrict and snap in harried rhythm while birds are revealed as spybots and “The footage is beamed back to central headquarters/Where all of the agents know their orders.” Who says police-state horror has to…
Quirky New Hope, Pennsylvania duo Ween can’t be put into any sort of musical genre box or category. So don’t even try, big-booty bitch. Over the past two decades, Gene and Dean Ween (Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo) have kept their devoted fans amused with music only a fifteen-year-old boy…
It seems like there’s some unwritten law dictating that all great American jazz performers must migrate to Paris in order to be appreciated back home. Dee Dee Bridgewater is no exception. During her self-imposed exile in France, Bridgewater’s great voice finally found its place as a great interpreter. Her majestic…
Angst. Anger. Apathy. Issues. That’s what you get from L.A.’s Get Set Go. A self-professed slacker, singer Mike TV fesses up that he’s a loser, unworthy of rock-star reverence. The new album, Ordinary World, is buttressed by self-effacing irony, insecurity, and ineptness. Bereft of cash, girls, ambition, and purpose, he…
British indie-rock quartet Editors is constantly compared to Joy Division and Interpol, and justifiably so. But what the group lacks in innovation it makes up for in absorbing anthems that remind us why the New Wave revival happened in the first place. Editors’ debut album, The Back Room, blasts vigorous…
The geeky Motion City Soundtrack is often called punk because of its label Epitaph’s punk-heavy roster. Truth be told, the band is just about as punk as similar-sounding Jimmy Eats World, and, well, that’s just not very punk at all. The Mark Hoppus-produced Commit This to Memory followed up the…
Think of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. Not the spooky, psychedelic depiction you might find displayed under a black light in a head shop, but the huggable Disney version who puffs out fluffy vowels and silhouettes of crocodiles from a questionable water pipe that rests on a giant mushroom…
In the song “Street Fighting Man,” Mick Jagger wrote a lyric that seemed to suggest an employment opportunity: “What can a poor boy do but to sing for a rock ‘n’ roll band?” Indeed the Stones have slogged it out for the better part of the past 45 years, but…
Massive Attack’s coolness expiration date is as yet unknown. The Bristol, England-based cooperative came to prominence with shivering bass, unpredictably syncopated beats, reggae-flecked rhythms, Middle Eastern rattles, and vocals as seductive as they are threatening. Over the years the core members have been joined by a revolving door of collaborators…
Michael Ramos, the Austin, Texas musician who records as Charanga Cakewalk, grew up bilingual and bicultural and made a name for himself as a sideman playing with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, and Patty Griffin. As a young man, he turned away from his Latino heritage to pursue rock, but when…
