Music

Whereas most rappers make a name for themselves by slaying competitors in freestyle rhyme battles, MC Chris came up through strange circumstances: voicing a cartoon spider. Fans of the Cartoon Networks cult favorite Adult Swim series should know Chris from his hyper-obnoxious voice as Hesh on Sealab 2021 and various…

There are two routes taken on most collaborations between distinctive musicians. Either one fantastic sound disappears while the other dominates (see Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz or those electronic tracks with Neil Tennant on lead vocals), or both sounds disappear and a lifeless, unremarkable disgrace remains (see Velvet Revolver, Audioslave, the Thorns)…

Plenty of reviewers ripped on 2004’s Love, Angel, Music, Baby, No Doubt-er Gwen Stefani’s solo debut, because it was superficial. “An exercise in showy artifice,” sniffed a Los Angeles Times pundit. “Pure fluff,” added a Drawer B scribe. But even though both of these statements are defensible, they miss the…

Just as Planes Mistaken for Stars finished inking a new deal with Abacus, a subsidiary of Century Media, the group’s side project, Ghost Buffalo, joined the roster of local punk institution Suburban Home. The sad news? Matt Bellinger has quit Planes — which he helped found in 1998 — to…

David Schifino has been playing the underground rave circuit as DJ Venom since the early ’90s, after cutting his teeth as a hip-hop battle DJ. Finding the hard-core techno scene a better fit, Venom took hip-hop’s turntablism and applied it to techno, resulting in a unique electro-booty mash-up. Over the…

James Murphy is tired. It’s 10 a.m. in Brooklyn — a decidedly un-rockin’ hour for any rock star. But it’s not just the time of day that’s weighing on him. “I just don’t see the point of being in a rock band,” the 35-year-old musician/producer laments. “I love rock. I…

I’m Irish, but I’m not a leprechaun. Yeah, I know. That’s Whitey Ford’s line, and I’m about as Irish as Antonio Banderas. Nevertheless, this past Saturday night, I had so much fun with a scrappy Celtic rock outfit called the Potcheen Folk Band — drummer Chris Blochinger, guitarist/ vocalist Chris…

Riding in on punk’s second wave with Joy Division, Talking Heads and the Fall, Gang of Four distinguished itself by wedging militant left-wing politics and atonal riffs into a rubbery dance groove. Now singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham — who initially met…

This past summer, Ville Valo, the charismatic frontman for Finland’s H.I.M., announced his engagement to gal pal Jonna Nygren, and he’s got some ambitious plans for their impending betrothal. “My main idea is to build up a church,” Valo declares, his English accented with more than a smidgen of Scandinavia…

All hail X, the band that has somehow remained unembarrassing as it ages, a most difficult task for punk-rockers. Just look to its contemporaries, the Germs, to witness how sad punk rock has become. Despite the 1980 death of singer Darby Crash, the band’s surviving members want their glory back…

Fiona-philes will no doubt raise their wine to the heavens and toast their tortured troubadour for her latest burst of brilliance. Six years in the making, Extraordinary Machine, originally produced by Jon Brion, then scrapped (except for two songs) and retooled by hip-hop sage Mike Elizondo, was the subject of…

Some people get home at night, neatly undress, and place their clothes in tidy piles. Real human beings, though, throw their shit all over the floor and drunkenly stub their toes on half-eaten pots of Chef Boyardee as they stumble to their unmade beds. Broken Social Scene plays it both…

If the idea of a synthesized bass line opening a My Morning Jacket record disturbs you, stop reading and go back to your latest issue of No Depression. Your loss. With each release, Jim James and his compadres take another leap, further alienating their alt-country fans while charming a brand-new,…

At a time when hip-hop is mostly concerned with escapism, the song “That Night” is an enormous exception. It concerns Marissa Mathy-Zvaifler, a sixteen-year-old who was slain a few hours after a 2003 Atmosphere show in Albuquerque, and rapper Slug doesn’t hide behind metaphors. Sample couplet: “He raped and killed…

Everything about Dead Ringer — from its name to its vaguely radical screeds to the shrill tone of its guitars — screams generic. So it’s to the band’s credit that Let Freedom Ring, its debut full-length, takes such played-out elements and pounds them into something compelling. With obvious nods toward…

This four-piece is a genuine hybrid. Their lyrics vacillate between English, Spanish and Portuguese, while the music blends hard-core punk and metal. The results are as brutal as they are effective. Judging strictly by time, Valiomierda, which clocks in at well under half an hour, qualifies as an EP. Somehow,…

Afro-Cuban All Stars, Step Forward the Next Generation (Globestar). Ex-Sierra Maestra drummer Juan De Marcos Gonzalez expands the Buena Vista Social Club’s infectious dance vibe with his own big band’s first studio album in more than six years. Along with the fox-trot rhythms of “Adivinador” are tracks whose styles range…

In the view of some Tortoise critics, slow and steady doesn’t always win the race. It’s All Around You, the latest Thrill Jockey Records release by this Chicago combo, is a deliberately paced effort that doesn’t radically depart from Tortoise’s previous platter, 2001’s Standards. As a result, the disc disappointed…

Embodying the spirit of Louisiana on many levels, Tab Benoit has been calling Colorado home this month. In an effort to help rebuild his beloved hurricane-ravaged bayou region (and spread the gospel of the blues), Benoit and his band have played their way through the high country, including at benefits…

Canada’s We Are Wolves epitomizes the evolution of the band’s American label, Fat Possum Records. That Oxford, Mississippi-based firm first made its name by championing blues artists such as R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and T-Model Ford, whose rough-hewn stylings contrasted with the slick products put out by more commercially cautious…

There’s a darkness on the edge of Lucero’s town. The foursome comes from Memphis, which seems a million miles away from the golden smile of Nashville — at least in light of the act’s defiantly titled new album, Nobody’s Darlings. On the disc, Lucero works solidly in the Uncle Tupelo…