The title track of this nifty debut platter is a nearly perfect love song: heartfelt enough to sell you on the yearning but catchy enough to transcend the dead zone of schmaltz. Credit Salett’s knack as an arranger. He knows that the best way to showcase the song’s plangency is…
What if a miracle happened and rap suddenly replaced stupid self-aggrandizement with progressive politics of inclusion and unity? Give praise, for that has finally happened. The party line touted by L.A.’s Jurassic 5 is free of the standard hip-hop trappings of violence, status, jewelry, bad taste, and champagne. In fact…
Anyone who thinks the Confederate flag is better suited for burning than waving better tiptoe around Nashville Pussy’s latest disc like a Sturgis preacher on Labor Day weekend. Yet for all of its sinfully contrived bombast, High as Hell shouldn’t prompt God Himself to declare smitin’ season on backslid rednecks…
Odd as it may seem, coming from a woman who once ripped up a photo of the Pope on national television, Sinéad O’Connor’s declaration of faith, “Everything in this world would be OK/If people just believed in God enough to pray,” (on “The Lamb’s Book of Life,” a hymnal track…
For months, one of the area’s most dynamic streets — the pedestrian mall that West Palm Beach’s Clematis Street becomes on weekend nights — has been under siege from the city. Mayor Joel Daves, who lives less than a mile from the busy 500 block of Clematis, has been the…
I’m always glad to make the acquaintance of a woman singer not afraid to moan. And by moan, I don’t mean the Britney Spears variety of moan, which is essentially a crass imitation of sexuality produced for a record label. I mean the noise produced spontaneously by a voice in…
The release of a career retrospective is a natural time to reflect on one’s contribution to the musical landscape. On the occasion of Pioneers Who Got Scalped, the audio résumé of Akron, Ohio’s most oddly influential band, Devo bassist Gerald V. Casale ponders the question of the band’s high-water mark…
Royal Trux struggles with a rep as clumsy, junkie noise merchants, developed during its early days a decade ago. It hit the world with a one-two punch of records that were both very difficult but in very different ways and thus frightened away most while alerting the sympathetic and curious…
Spin City: It’s sad, but this very newspaper had the poor judgment to name Best Buy as the best place to buy CDs in Broward and Palm Beach. (Why dontcha just go shoot Mom and Pop in the head, huh?) We all know that saving a few bucks on that…
Pop is quietly making a comeback. Who woulda thunk it? With ballyhooed new platters from the likes of Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, and Josh Rouse, pop bands are no longer feeling obliged to make sure they include elements of country/folk/roots-rock/hip-hop/death-metal in their three-minute gems. That spells good news for Admiral…
In 1999 Tony! Toni! Toné! cofounder Raphael Saadiq tapped former En Voguer Dawn Robinson and A Tribe Called Quest’s beatmeister Ali Shaheed Muhammad to form the neosoul collective Lucy Pearl. With these credentials you’d expect something life-changing — the possibilities from this talent pool seem endless. Lucy Pearl’s debut is…
After an unsuccessful attempt to crash the mainstream and its subsequent relegation to mere background music and VW commercials, electronica is poised again to enter the forefront of American popular music. The recent American release of BT’s Movement in Still Life promises to continue the success started by Moby and…
It was set to be a rather serious affair at Fort Lauderdale City Hall last Thursday, when the mayor and the city commissioners held a public hearing regarding the proposed ban of underagers from clubs that serve alcohol that is threatening to migrate from Miami Beach north to Fort Lauderdale…
The cover art for Installation Sonore, the full-length debut album from France’s rinôçérôse, is a perfect metaphor for the band’s sound: A Concorde jet’s gleaming white nose cone set against a steel-gray background evokes both speed and sleekness, the latest technology wrapped up in an aerodynamic package capable of producing…
Whether it’s the result of a karmic quirk or of nostalgic indulgence on the part of rock fans, there’s no denying that Ian Astbury’s career suddenly and almost inexplicably has more legs than a Catholic girls’ school. A founding member of the Cult, a group whose blend of old-school swagger…
Chris Smither is about as unassuming a songwriter as you’re likely to find. Over the past two decades, he’s quietly released a dozen records and toured consistently without so much as a brush with big-time fame. Live as I’ll Ever Be isn’t likely to change that. But it’s a wonderful…
Strictly speaking this is a story not about music but about noise. It is also the tale of a fairly young performance artist in Lake Worth named Kenny 5 who creates noise — and sometimes by mere coincidence, music — on a variety of self-invented instruments, all of which begin…
Whereas most drum ‘n’ bass acts are identifiable by a signature sound (Goldie, LTJ Bukem, and the like), Spring Heel Jack doesn’t really have one, which makes its music all the more interesting. The duo’s inventiveness may be a result of pedigree: When he’s not with Spring Heel Jack, John…
One of the area’s best roots/blues acts, the Keith Brown Trio, is undergoing some major lineup changes. The group has long kept a twice-weekly residence at the Bamboo Room in Lake Worth and will continue to do so — albeit with a different rotation of players. Just a few weeks…
Fort Lauderdale’s Dr. Lonnie Smith is at it again. He’s the resident keyboardist (and world-renowned Hammond B3 master) who regularly jams at the two O’Hara’s locations. For his latest project, Smith contributed to his old pal and fellow organist Jimmy McGriff’s new disc, McGriff’s House Party. In the ’50s and…
Get Pitchshifter frontman J.S. Clayden talking about politics in his native Britain, and it’s like listening to comedian Dennis Miller rant about crap here in the United States, only in a thick north-London accent — and not as funny. Clayden, who sings and writes the lyrics for the techno-tinged, heavy-rock…
“Jan and Andi make the most bulbous sounds,” once declared Mouse on Mars’ record label, and no one has found a better word yet to describe the music of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma. It’s bulbous in the way liquids bubble through the grease trap of a sink; bulbous…
