For Black Music Deep Burial have taken samples, and influence, from zombie movies and horror films. The result is an album full of black humour that conjurs feelings of beautiful darkness, without ever being heavy.
He may have stopped smoking superhuman amounts of weed, but otherwise it’s business as usual for Ghostface Killah as he continues to spread the Wu-Tang gospel.
Having released one of hip-hop’s seminal records, DJ Shadow has struggled for years to leave behind his repuation as a sample wizard. He may finally have succeeded.
Choice Cuts are a promotional collective specialising in hip hop, soul and funk gigs around Ireland since 2001. Now, as mainman Mark Murphy explains, they're on the verge of starting a regular residency in London and launching a label.
Although Ireland’s still finding its own sound in terms of hip hop, MJEX keep the bar raised with this sweet little ditty. Featuring Def Jux’s C Rayz Walz, bolstering both their reputation and record sales, it’s a catchy track with simple beats and an infectious hook that will definitely keep our heads nodding into the summer. An indication that their second album, due out in autumn, has been worth waiting for.
Producers to the stars, Deep Dish have won numerous awards (including two Grammys), supported Madonna, remixed The Stones, Michael and Janet, The Pet Shop Boys and many more, played Versace couture fashion shows, DJed in the world’s most famous clubs, have had plenty of top 20 hits and were voted the second best DJ/ production outfit in the world by Rolling Stone magazine.
Producers to the stars, Deep Dish have won numerous awards (including two Grammys), supported Madonna, remixed The Stones, Michael and Janet, The Pet Shop Boys and many more, played Versace couture fashion shows, DJed in the world’s most famous clubs, have had plenty of top 20 hits and were voted the second best DJ/ production outfit in the world by Rolling Stone magazine.
My initial reaction to catching Dizzee Rascal live in London’s Electric Ballroom in the heart of Camden was that it’d be funnily akin to hearing Cash on Nashville’s Grand Old Opry in the '50s. He’s an artist performing during his peak, in the environment that inspiried the music, surrounded by the very fans that put him where he is.
Culled from their 2004 world tour, this generously endowed 22-track live album finds the German electronic pioneers giving a fresh lick of paint to classics like 'The Model', 'Autobahn', 'Trans Europe Express' and 'Tour De France'.
Three years since Moloko’s last album, Statues, and seven years since they had a hit with ‘Sing It Back’, Roisin Murphy’s going it alone. Credited as co-writer with her new collaborative partner and producer Matthew Herbert, when you pick this up you should remember that the version of ‘Sing it Back’ that we heard non-stop that summer was a Todd Terry remix, and that Roisin’s tastes naturally, like those of her former band, gravitate towards the experimental and leftfield.
The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, has just promised “to streamline and modernise our liquor licensing laws”. Karla Healion asks if the government is correct in its approach to curbing problems associated with alcohol.
Those opposed say it’s an acute infringement on civil liberties. Supporters say it’s an essential step. Anti-social behaviour (ASB) may be a serious issue – but there is an increasing belief that the on-the-spot fines and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOS) proposed by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell are not the answer. Karla Healion reports.
Until recently vibrant and prolific, Cuban music fell headfirst into the fate of an industry dominated by a communist government. Most local acts of promise were either over-regulated and not allowed to flourish on their own terms, or were snapped up by foreign imperialists and brought away from their homeland. Then came the Buena Vista Social Club. Juan de Marcos teamed up with executive producer Nick Gold in 1997, and with the help of Ry Cooder and some very important Cuban musicians, they realised a musical dream.
In the continuing craze of genre- invention that’s sweeping the planet, LCDS are, apparently, a ‘discopunk’ act. You may get an idea of what this sounds like if I tell you that The Rapture have released some pretty ‘discopunk’ material, and I’d imagine Warp Records’ !!! (pronounced chink, chink, chink) fall into the same bracket.
Someone once said that listening to a Tom Waits CD is more like watching a play than hearing an album. So seeing a Tom Waits show is perhaps akin to some abstruse sensory overload that, no matter how high the expectation, will bite you like a shark. The Carre Theatre in Amsterdam is a beautifully classic, large auditorium with retracting chandeliers and burgundy seats.
Someone once said that listening to a Tom Waits CD is more like watching a play than hearing an album. So seeing a Tom Waits show is perhaps akin to some abstruse sensory overload that, no matter how high the expectation, will bite you like a shark. The Carre Theatre in Amsterdam is a beautifully classic, large auditorium with retracting chandeliers and burgundy seats.
With a masterful debut EP in their back catalogue and consistently positive word on the street surrounding their gigs, Second Level Crossing is the full length debut from Dublin based trio Rollers/ Sparkers.
Perhaps Method Man meant a kind of back-to-basics paradigm in the title, but The Prequel is more regression than new precedent. The ingredients that made such a smooth and consistent mixture have been skewed.
Perhaps Method Man meant a kind of back-to-basics paradigm in the title, but The Prequel is more regression than new precedent. The ingredients that made such a smooth and consistent mixture have been skewed.
This is not a bad album, and if it was released three years ago it would have come across better, but now there is a lot of music like this around and it takes really good songs, and something very original, to make a band shine.
Los Paranoias began as techno producers in Brighton when it was the UK’s clubbing capital, but now the rock revolution is in full swing, they’re not sure how to realign to the displacement. For their debut album they remain an electronic act, but with the qualification that they play ‘rocking electronica’.
Along with contemporaries like Skinny Puppy or Laibach, the early Einsturzende Neubauten represented the crest of an experimental wave of music that was just breaking, to encompass post punk and electronics.
So how do you review a Kraftwerk concert? With four members, including two from the original line-up, the undisputed godfathers of electronic music would never really disappoint, particularly in an intimate venue like the Olympia. Yet, even as a huge fan, it is important not to get carried away and resign all objectivity.
Alphabetical certainly picks up where United left us; the Americana idiom is still there, juxtaposed with drum machines, synths and playful pop structures.
While in college studying film, Grant Lee Philips helped form a moderately successful act called Shiva Burlesque, whose 1990 album Mercury Blues opens with ‘Who is the Mona Lisa?’. After many big releases as Grant Lee Buffalo (most notably 1993’s Fuzzy), and two offerings under this moniker, Philips is back with Virginia Creeper.
The 69-year-old Kris Kristofferson walked onto the stage of a packed Point Depot with nobody and nothing but his gee-tar. Although advertised, there was no support on the night, but the songwriter's songwriter didn't need any.
To give this release some context, it’s worth noting that When It’s Ajar is not quite a re- mix album. It’s a compilation of re-compositions of Daniel Figgis’ work by prominent producers and musicians from the experimental and electronic music scene.
