On the 2000 album The Moon and Antarctica, Modest Mouse begins with “Third Planet,” one of the great songs in recent American rock. Opening with a few solitary chords plucked by guest musician and lap steel guitarist Ben Blankenship, “Third Planet” thrusts the listener into a melancholy world of self-doubt…
With Map of What Is Effortless, Telefon Tel Aviv marks a radical departure from the opaque ambience of its 2001 debut, Fahrenheit Fair Enough, toward a rich brew of soul and IDM electronics. Much of it, in fact, features the Loyola University Chamber Orchestra, which lends the proceedings a regal,…
Based in Baltimore and run by producer Skiz “Spectre” Fernando, Wordsound is one of the strongholds for the electronic/dub/hip-hop crossover that germinated in mid-’80s no-wave New York and has occasionally reared its head through sundry mutant genres like trip-hop and minimal techno. This latest volume by Crooklyn Dub Outernational isn’t…
South Beach’s famous Lincoln Road promenade, with its clean sidewalks, chic designer boutiques, and smartly dressed tourists, seems a long way from the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Liberty City. But it is here in the offices of SoBe Entertainment, hidden away in a nondescript white office building a few doors down…
These days, any band that ventures into post-rock territory is bound to get compared with Mogwai, which is akin to every trip-hop/downtempo/chillout act being written off as a DJ Shadow knockoff. Although Canadian quintet Do Make Say Think shares its Scottish predecessors’ knack for stop-start commotion, the details in Winter…
It’s not easy getting into Jay-Z’s recording home at Bassline Studios, tucked away on West 26th Street in Manhattan. I have to sneak in behind a woman walking into the building, take an elevator to the eighth floor, then knock on a pair of glass doors before a security guard…
Chingy’s debut album, Jackpot, rides into record stores on the strength of “Right Thurr,” an insanely catchy single full of chest-swelling keyboard melodies. It sounds like the inside of a strip club full of Neptunes-inspired snare effects and lewd drum patterns that twirl and clap like dancers spinning on a…
There is an austerity to the Lifesavas that some will find off-putting or atypical of underground hip-hop acts. One skit on their debut album, Spirit in Stone, “Thuggity Skit,” clumsily parodies monosyllabic Southern rappers. On “Livin’ Time/Life: Movement I/Livin’ Lude,” Vursatyl proclaims, “We pro-life and we’re pro-longevity/Procreation/Produce/Provoca- tive/And pro-prosperity,” while…
When I listen to Vanessa van Hemert’s soaring voice and Carlo Resoort’s epic lush production, I feel like a naked princess riding bareback on a white horse, the wind blowing against my long blond tresses, hurtling through a forest toward a castle where my knight in shining armor will take…
In Dead Prez’s world, politics and activism usually take precedence over the music or, to be more precise, motivate the music and give it a reason for being. Every song is another opportunity to talk about issues, whether it’s the gentrification of “Hip-Hop,” the transformation of urban America into a…
