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Techno Tease

The dirtybird crew gives kinky dance jams playful tweaks.

By Tony Ware

Published: March 12, 2008

This isn't a Philadelphia story, even though it has brotherly love. It's not a St. Louis story, despite being full of spirit. This story isn't about the Motor City or the Big Apple, while it has...

Music

Noise Pop Preview: Quick Picks

By Tony Ware

Published: February 20, 2008

If it's the end of February, and the clubs are packed with indie darlings from here and abroad, that can only mean one thing: Noise Pop has once again taken over the town. San Francisco's...

BeatBox

Plaid's body-moving, soul-stirring beats

By Tony Ware

Published: January 16, 2008

New Jersey's Harry "Choo Choo" Romero has a locomotive moniker, but the house DJ and producer isn't known for trainwrecking records. Instead, he's managed to remain relevant in a fickle scene...

Reviewed

Various

Well Deep: 10 Years of Big Dada (Big Dada)

By Tony Ware

Published: January 16, 2008

Longevity in hip-hop is increasingly rare, so milestones should be memorialized. Enter Well Deep , two CDs (31 tracks total) marking the first decade of U.K.–based indie label Big Dada. An...

Music

Technicolor Schwarzenegger: Dan Deacon's new eyeball-scrambling DVD

By Tony Ware

Published: January 16, 2008

On Dan Deacon and Jimmy Joe Roche's new Ultimate Reality DVD, a montage of tie-dye electro-coustic compositions and vintage Arnold Schwarzenegger film footage runs through a thermal filter. This...

Reviewed

Boys Noize

Oi Oi Oi (Last Gang)

By Tony Ware

Published: December 19, 2007

Berlin producer Alex "Boys Noize" Ridha believes in the concept of the sweet spot. His music provides no duck and weave — there is only a percussion-heavy center. And once that center is...

Reviewed

Prefuse 73

Preparations/Interregnums (Warp)

By Tony Ware

Published: December 5, 2007

The production work of Scott Herren began as a study in diametric personalities. The Brooklyn- and Atlanta-based producer emerged full-force in 2000 under the aliases Delarosa & Asora, Savath...

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What the Christ Was That? Skeleton Key Makes a Junk-Rock Racket

By Tony Ware

Published: November 21, 2007

Twenty-one years after his debut, Kenneth Edmonds looks youthful enough to still be called Babyface . Thankfully, his songs have matured quite a bit since the days of his revealing slow jams like...

Reviewed

The Warlocks

Heavy Deavy Skull Lover (Tee Pee Records)

By Tony Ware

Published: November 14, 2007

As astral planes go, that of the Warlocks takes after Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose : it's part visionary, but mostly indulgent. The Los Angeles band has been flying high on the opalescent...

Music

Jersey Boys

Bruce Springsteen and Danzig battle for Garden State supremacy

By Tony Ware

Published: October 24, 2007

Like oil and pharmaceutical tankers in the New Jersey night, two of the Garden State's other greatest exports are passing one another on Bay Area tours in the next couple weeks. Bruce...

Music

Brain-Teasing

Caribou twists your melon with intelligent psych-pop

By Tony Ware

Published: October 24, 2007

It's rare to find musicians who don't claim to put blood, sweat, and tears into their craft. Dan Snaith, however, is offering to bring something a bit more extreme to the table. "Do you know...

BeatBox

DJ Vadim Ditches Breakbeat for Dub on 'The Soundcatcher'

By Tony Ware

Published: October 17, 2007

German techno duo Modeselektor (Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary) has one hell of a Rolodex. On their latest release, Happy Birthday , they schizophrenically cobble together collaborations...

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Hear This

By Tony Ware

Published: October 10, 2007

A Boston-based gang of indie rockers reveling in '80s hair metal, Bang Camaro comes off like the infernal spawn of the Polyphonic Spree and Def Leppard. Employing a choir of up to 15 lead...

BeatBox

Paul Van Dyk: hardest working Berliner in showbiz

By Tony Ware

Published: September 26, 2007

With the passing of James Brown late last year, Berlin's superstar DJ Paul Van Dyk might now assume the title of hardest-working man in show business. Or in any event, Van Dyk and his flight...

Music

Animal Collective's Panoramic Kingdom

A casting call of the wild

By Tony Ware

Published: September 12, 2007

Sir David Attenborough, the British naturalist celebrated for his BBC Life series, has captured many compelling images of existence. Giant starfish, for example, vacuum up brittle stars by the...

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The Bravery Far from Bold

By Tony Ware

Published: September 12, 2007

With FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake gained an unlikely spot as the present king of R&B, a position that he seems likely to hold for some time. The former Mickey Mouser's cultural...

BeatBox

Reggae, raw funk, and Afro-Latin grooves are "Hella Tight"

By Tony Ware

Published: September 5, 2007

Underworld 's last effort, the 2002 album A Hundred Days Off , showed the group sounding disjointed as it pinged aimlessly between minimal techno and ramping Moroder-isms. But with the duo's...

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Hear This

Angelina Jolie's ex, Mr. Billy Bob Thornton, shifts from the big screen to Slim's stage

By Tony Ware

Published: August 29, 2007

It wasn't until Chromatics ringleader Adam Miller split with the band's other founding members that he began mastering a different form of popular music. He kept the name for himself, and...

BeatBox

Beat Box

S.F. gives a big ol' "Funk You" to Burning Man

By Tony Ware

Published: August 29, 2007

You can either use or abuse what you're given, and since San Francisco's thing is foggy maritime moodiness, it's no surprise that an industry has arisen to cane the microclimate into submission....

Reviewed

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Is Is (Interscope)

By Tony Ware

Published: August 15, 2007

The best Yeah Yeah Yeahs songs have always felt like a balling or a brawling, and oftentimes both. Since emerging in 2000, the serrated sleaze-rockin' trio of vamping singer Karen O, bassy...