21 January 2012
Approximately a year and a half ago, one of my good buddies told me of an amazing show he had seen while living in Montreal. In person, they were supposed to be incredible, and through MP3s, I was picking up the same vibes he was feeling. Instantly, I knew this was a band I could [...]
20 January 2012
One emcee, one DJ, no gimmicks was the winning formula for elite hip hop duo Gang Starr. Their style of hip hop rose to prominence around the early ‘90s alongside other equally influential hip hop artists the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Brand Nubian. Dedicated to bringing the truth to air and digging [...]
19 January 2012
“I just find that when I listen to it—I’ve listened to it so many times at this point—I can almost just call up a lot of those songs in my mind, even if I’m nowhere near a stereo. It changes my posture. It changes the way I walk. If I’m writing an email to somebody, [...]
18 January 2012
I generally like to stay away from cliché terms like chill or trippy when describing music, but when it comes to guys like Nosaj Thing sometimes there’s just no good words to try to explain what this music sounds like. Best known for making the instrumental Kid Cudi used for Man on the Moon (The [...]
17 January 2012
For the mainstream radio listeners, the name Calvin Harris probably doesn’t mean all that much. When you mention that he made the beat for Rihanna’s “We Found Love” though, they probably perk up their ears and make a statement about how he’s a newcomer (they are radio-lovers after all). But that couldn’t be further from [...]
16 January 2012
Sometimes labels hinder. I’ve written about this a little bit in the past, most recently in my Metallica review of a few months back: associating music (or, for that matter, books, pottery, dance, whatever) with some kind of genre provides an unfair and often unflattering preconception of the art in question. Of course, we need [...]
15 January 2012
Korn’s success was, in hindsight, unsustainable. It was very much the sort of success which eats a band alive from the inside out and, when combined with a false consciousness and slip in the way in which a band sees itself and the way everyone else sees it, might cause a band to release an [...]
14 January 2012
Near the end of the track “Louder” the words “this is the best elevator music I ever heard” are spoken in a rather dead pan tone. The moment perfectly encapsulates for me what Danny! has been about, and how this album builds on it. The off kilter humor with non-serious undertones interlaced between intense and [...]
13 January 2012
Sometimes in order to go forward sometimes you’ve got to take a few steps back. Mutemath’s stellar 2011 release, Odd Soul, is a prime example of this mentality. Their previous releases were a sharp blend of rock with heavy electronic instrumentation that had a decidedly 21st-century feel to it all. With Odd Soul the band [...]
12 January 2012
John Talabot is an electronic music producer fresh off the Iberian Peninsula, who specializes in a form of dance-ish music that popped up during that period when everyone on the Internet thought it was important to give every damn song its own subgenre—this one was called “glo-fi” or “glo-house.” Not chill enough for that wave [...]
11 January 2012
There are very few musicians that I will make a bold of a claim in saying that they’re my favorite artist ever, but Saul Williams is definitely one of those names that comes to mind when the question is asked. The spoken-word poet turned musician has made a career out of socially charged lyrics and [...]
10 January 2012
36 minutes of pure electronic bliss never sounded so good thanks to Rhode Island producer, Abraham Orellana, better known as Araabmuzik. This, his first true solo effort, Electronic Dream covers every little slice of electronica that your tender little heart desires. At times it pushes the line of ambience, remaining steady and calm—at others, brash [...]
09 January 2012
The most gruesome but fascinating artifact in my vast collection is an unused ticket to see Unwound play on September 11th, 2001. The show was cancelled (but not as fast, I shit you not, as the upstairs show that night: Arab on Radar was supposed to play the Middle East Upstairs) and the band never [...]
08 January 2012
Pack your dancing shoes for this one! Arguably, fantastic dance albums do not always make fantastic listening albums. It probably pays to note that Metro Area, the self-titled debut and only album to date from Brooklyn production duo Darshan Jesrani and Morgan Geist, ain’t quite a headphones album. It demands movement, whether it is being [...]
