Rafer Guzman

Fatboy Slim You've Come a Long Way, Baby (Astralwerks) As the hype surrounding electronica fades, the most inventive artists will start to stand out from the bandwagon-jumpers. Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim, is one of the few who've been able to steer clear of overexposure while gaining fans and doing...

Q-Burns Abstract Message Feng Shui (Astralwerks) Michael Donaldson, the DJ-songwriter known as Q-Burns Abstract Message, can't be terribly serious about practicing feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of arranging furniture to create maximum environmental harmony. Q-Burns lives and records and keeps a weekly DJ gig in Orlando, the home of...

Arranca is Spanish for "uproot" or "tear out." It's also the name of a new South Florida band that tackles Cuban music -- and politics -- with the energy of old-school punk rock. The band's frontman and songwriter, Victor Garcia-Rivera, was arrancado from his Cuban homeland at the age of...

To music buffs who remember the mid '70s as the age of long hair, African garb, and jazz-rock, the name Omar Mesa might ring a bell. Mesa played guitar with the group Mandrill, whose Afro-Cuban-fusion-rock gave Carlos Santana, War, and Earth, Wind and Fire a run for their money. "Back...

Smashing Pumpkins Adore (Virgin) The massive success of Smashing Pumpkins is positively uncanny -- MTV Video Awards, Grammy Awards, plaudits from Rolling Stone and Spin -- but in a decade with so few true rock stars, the band fills a void. The band's frontman and overweening artistic visionary, Billy Corgan,...