Once you get past My Morning Jacket’s barefoot hippie sentimentality, you’ll find a classic, urgent, rock sound. Every drumbeat is titanic, every guitar riff rings with precision and place, and the croon of singer Jimmie James, while drowning in waves of reverb, is ethereal and wielded like an instrument all…
Nearly a decade ago, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik announced OutKast as one of hip-hop’s most inspired acts, and on subsequent albums, the duo has created one of the most unusual catalogs in the genre, beefing up double-barreled Southern bounce with acid rock, drum ‘n’ bass, and gospely G-funk. The rappers’ dovetailing vocal interplay,…
It really took ZZ Top thirty-three years to come up with a song called “Liquor”?…
Coheed and Cambria is that rare band that can draw from contrary rock movements and not appear confused and pretentious. Influenced by the hardcore from New York City and the pop of their suburban youth, the quartet flits between violent barks and suddenly sweet singing. With almost androgynous vocals, the…
Angry industrial rocker spews bile, noise, and venom, blah blah blah… what else is new? Suffering fools with conspicuous ingratitude, KMFDM bassist/vocalist/bandleader Sascha Konietzko seethes with resentment and rage from the beginning bombast of “WWIII,” the title track of the band’s newest album. It isn’t hard to discern the target…
“Yeah, I jumped off a cliff, but let’s talk about something else,” Elliott Smith told me back in 1997. It was shortly after the release of his breakthrough album on Kill Rock Stars, Either/Or, and Smith had recently tried to commit suicide by throwing himself off a cliff, suffering only…
Keyboardist Page McConnell (of mega-grossing jam band Phish) and his side project Vida Blue (named after the Hall of Fame pitcher) have injected a dose of electronic salsa soul into their latest album, The Illustrated Band. And that dosage has been administered by a hometown disc doctor and his staff…
The Shins are another bunch of ordinary guys making extraordinary sounds. Since their debut album two years ago, 2001’s brilliant Oh, Inverted World, they’ve relocated from their hometown of Albuquerque to the Meltzerian environs of Portland, Oregon. Judging by this new album, they are none the worse because of it…
On her stunner of a second album, Rosie Thomas again shows that gestures needn’t be grand to be powerful. In some ways, her indie-folk sound has a lot in common with close pal, periodic collaborator, and fellow Seattle-ite Damien Jurado’s: fragile acoustic guitars and piano, gently tapped drums, and whispers…
It’s unfortunate that the term world beat has become synonymous with middle-aged yoga bodies, orange chi pants, and bad b.o. It’s worse still that some of the world’s most innovative artists are forced to share space in the same record bin as Mickey Hart. While it’s true that a pair…
If there were any justice in the world, the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition of giant would have a picture of Solomon Burke next to it. Nothing the 400-pound, 62-year-old father of 21 known as the “King of Rock and Soul” does is small. Burke doesn’t have a powerful voice; he…
The numbers, at first glance, don’t add up. Three albums after playing for more than 30 years may not sound right, but nobody said the climb to the top of the blues world, especially for Michael Burks, would be easy. In the late 1970s, Burks led a house band in…
The work ethic ingrained in Death Cab for Cutie singer/guitarist Ben Gibbard is the sort Sly Stone never mastered. Gibbard, who is 27 years old, is already doing a phone interview at 9:30 this morning, even though he was up well past 3 a.m. Instead of sounding dull or half-awake,…
While last year’s self-titled debut from this Richmond, Virginia, quartet received its share of Björk comparisons, the group’s sophomore offering is likely to stand on its own merits rather than its trip-hop stylings and Maura Davis’ voice, which can be as earsplitting as that of Iceland’s pint-size princess. The Instinct,…
Last summer, Doria Roberts appeared under the banner “Twat Rocker” on the cover of lesbian interest magazine Velvet Park and proclaimed herself a “pissed-off, rock ‘n’ roll, dyke-nigger bitch.” Following the self-made folkstresses who’ve come before her, Roberts owns her own label, works the festival circuit, and tours constantly. Lesbians,…
What can be said about Fort Lauderdale’s neighbor to the north — Pompano Beach? Unless you enjoy mullet-spotting, sports bars, or lying facedown in a pool of your own sick after that sixth shot of tequila — well, not a whole lot. But much can be said about Whirlaway’s third…
Mark Farina is a San Francisco resident by way of Chicago, and his name is as revered as other Windy City DJs such as Derrick Carter and Roger Sanchez. Though Farina is best-known for his smoking live sets and the successful Mushroom Jazz series of mix CDs, Air Farina is…
Some day, Slug is going to find a loving, mature relationship with a sensible wonderful woman. He will be grateful to have finally arrived at that happy destination, and Lord knows he’ll deserve it. But it’s gonna be hell on his invigorating music. Slug, leader of Atmosphere, one of underground…
While Portishead is on indefinite hiatus, the voice of the groundbreaking duo, Beth Gibbons, has found another collaborator in former Talk Talk bass player Paul Webb, a.k.a. Rustin Man. On Out of Season, the duo’s first effort together, Webb brings out new dimensions in Gibbons, giving her range while deepening…
Joe Strummer was well into his life’s second act when a heart attack felled him last December at age 50. After more than a decade of relative silence following the dissolution of the Clash, the iconic singer-guitarist finally came to terms with his past and started looking toward the future…
Lucky Dube sits in his office and watches the busy lunchtime hustle from his Johannesburg window. Back here in South Florida, the sun hasn’t even risen yet. It’s too early to contemplate even coffee at this hour. Dube reflects on how things have changed since the end of apartheid in…
Anyone who has listened to Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora has heard the word sodade. In Creolu, the mixture of Portuguese and West African languages spoken on the tiny chain of islands 300 miles off the coast of Senegal, sodade means nostalgia, yearning, longing for love lost. Portuguese sailors felt…
