Talib Kweli has been called a revolutionary, a philosopher, a teacher, a social critic who waxes poetic on the black community’s travails. While he doesn’t necessarily accept these labels, his latest CD, The Beautiful Struggle, most definitely is a solid foundation for this talented MC. Kweli’s struggle doesn’t feature the…
Some people dread reunions. It would be easy to assume that about Charles Thompson — the Pixies front man who shrieked and howled under the name Black Francis before launching a successful solo career as Frank Black. He is infamous for being a grouch. And interviewing a grumpy rock star…
The mandolin, like the cowbell, is a misunderstood instrument. Is it bluegrass? Classical? Latin? And while you will most likely never hear an overzealous fan scream “More mandolin!” at a concert or hear a killer minute-plus mandolin solo, the instrument has its place in history. You can pretty much incorporate…
DJ Anthony B set dancehall ablaze in 1996 with the searing single “Fire Pon Rome,” which condemned several Jamaican leaders and was promptly banned from the island’s airwaves. He continues his lyrical denunciations on Untouchable, his first album for Miami’s Togetherness Records, addressing topics ranging from racial profiling (“Love I…
Interpol faces a tough challenge: how to top its rich, 2002 debut, Turn on the Bright Lights, an album that imported the enlightened desperation of Thatcher-era Manchester to our shores. Sophomore efforts have always been the fodder of scourge. Such is the dilemma of call and response, and hence the…
The voice and vintage-R&B vibe of Joss Stone’s 2003 debut, The Soul Sessions, were so at odds with reality — how could the second coming of Aretha be a lily-white British teen? — that it’s still hard to believe. But not only does Mind, Body & Soul repeat the trick,…
Surely, Ben Gibbard’s lyrics have been the impetus for many a mixtape since Death Cab for Cutie started in 1997. His lyrics drip and ache with longing and lust and extract that ubiquitous feeling that deep down we’re all fucked up, searching for that one person to unfuck us up…
Last summer, MorissonPoe dropped a record called Leaving It All Behind, and then they did just that. The quartet ditched the South Florida music scene for New York City. But amazingly, they didn’t come back. Instead, they recorded an album with Ethology Records in New York, and the result is…
BY AUDRA SCHROEDER Helen Horal’s voice is familiar. Familiar like a face you see at a party, make eye contact with, and smile at briefly before looking away, even though you and that person are total strangers. It’s a voice that garners many comparisons, but there’s something more tangible than…
Caetano Veloso has often been called the Bob Dylan of Brazil. But it’s just as accurate to say that Dylan is the Caetano Veloso of America. Both are founding fathers of modern pop music, deified as icons in their respective countries. Each has written poetry, worked in film, and are…
Joe Satriani is a guitarist’s guitarist, someone who can also speak to the ears of nonnoodlephiles. By taking technical, blatantly wankcentric music and rescuing it from the cliché so common with other shredders (Yngwie Malmsteen being the ugliest example), Satriani creates layered music as opposed to a two-dimensional backdrop for…
What in tarnation is a Proto-Shizo? It could be a new type of Honda SUV. It could be some weird new Japanese sex toy that runs on solar power. Maybe it’s some kind of massage technique. Heck if we know, but it sounds like it might hurt. You know what?…
These three declarations took place at Whirlawayjavascript:passCharacter(‘180’)s last show, which was staged at the Billabong Pub, 3000 Country Club Ln., Pembroke Park. The first occurred at the beginning of the night. The second and third came around last call. These things happen at a bar with 100 beers: I really…
Our biggest dream is to make it in this country,” says Toto González, drummer for the Miami Latin quartet Sóniko. He’s giving an honest response to a question loaded with pure nostalgia: As emigrated South Americans, do they want to go back there to play in front of their old…
Every band has a story — drugs, deception, debauchery. The Electras are no different. Formed in 1961 by prep school students Andy Gagarin, Jack Radcliffe, Peter Lang, Jon Prouty, Larry Rand, and current presidential hope-hope-hopeful John Kerry, the Electras enjoyed a two-year life span, playing their versions of classic garage…
Once merely wee sensitive emo rockers, the Faint has gone through almost as many metamorphoses in ten years together as Prince has costume changes. This time around, they’ve beefed up the darkness factor and added strings for a heightened sense of drama. But the effect is so histrionic, it borders…
The British duo Swayzak is a dance Darwinist. Last time, on 2002’s Dirty Dancing, the onetime tech-house act’s evolution lapsed into fashion and electroclashed with its previous emphasis on beauty. Loops from the Bergerie, Swayzak’s fourth studio album, houses all that was good about Dancing (specifically, rampant pop tendencies) while…
For the third straight album, Alabama’s Drive-By Truckers write what they know with a zeal unsurpassed in American rock groups. Suicide, drugs, corruption, tornadoes, family — these complex topics populate The Dirty South, a bracing reconsideration of life below the Mason-Dixon Line. What had become an easy cultural stereotype –…
2003 Grammy winner Lady Saw catapulted to fame in 1993 with raunchy hits such as “If Him Lef (A No mi Pussy Fault)” and ribald live performances featuring several simulated sex acts. On Strip Tease, her most consistent album to date, she bumps and grinds her way through raw tracks…
IQU The press photo for Seattle electro group IQU (pronounced ee-koo) shows Japanese-American singers Michiko Swiggs and Kento Oiwa posing in front of people dressed in furry-animal costumes. How deliciously Japanese, you think. But the duo’s music isn’t all cute and cuddly. On its latest album, Sun Q, theremins screech,…
Campaign songs. They’re important. But Bush and Kerry are going about it all wrong: U2? “God Bless America”? Sheesh. Dominic Sirianni, bassist for the Remnants, offers some alternatives: For Bush, I would say that GG Allin is the most representative performer for him as a person and his campaign. The…
It’s amusing that a band that sets its sights so high with its name (Palomar is an observatory that houses one of the world’s biggest telescopes) ends up writing songs concerning earthly matters. But throughout the 14 tracks on Palomar III, the coed Brooklyn quartet contemplates everything from the Old…
