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Music, Reviewed

Alias & Ehren

Lillian is like a halfway house for geeky high school band instruments. Beat-maker Alias (Brendon Whitney) and his brother, multi-instrumentalist Ehren, rehabilitate the wind section, remaking timbres that haven't had much pop-cultural cachet since the big-band era into hip, upstanding…

by Rachel Devitt August 31, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Brendon Whitney, Kenny G, Kanye West

Music, Misc. Reviews

Misc. Reviews

Indie Rock Cribs is a mouthwatering peek into the private life of a scorching-hot indie musician in the style of MTV's voyeuristic look at the homes of various and sundry FOPs (that's Friends of Paris). But instead of the same…

by Rachel Devitt July 27, 2005 Tags: Misc. Reviews, Columns, Joe Pernice, Paris, MTV Networks Company, Pernice Brothers

Music,

Afro-Beefs

Afrobeat has its origins in conflict. Using his thrilling musical hybrid of American soul, James Brown-style big-band funk, jazz, and the traditional West African pop genre Highlife to address and resist everything from colonialism to military violence, Fela Anikulapo Kuti,…

by Rachel Devitt August 24, 2005 Tags: Music, Feature, Nathan Endsley, Geoffrey Omadhebo, Bruce Buchanan, Fela Kuti

Music, Reviewed

The Catheters

What do you do when you're a bunch of wannabe-punk kids from the suburbs of Seattle who already have a grimy, modestly successful, Stooges-heavy album under your belts? You jump on the classic/garage rock revival bandwagon, of course. Their relative…

by Rachel Devitt June 30, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Seattle, Jack White, Mudhoney, Green River (Musical Group)

Music, Reviewed

TV on the Radio

Review after orgasmic review has tripped over itself in an attempt to lie prostrate at the feet of TV on the Radio, which may very well be the World's Coolest Band (WCB). Chances are even your kid brother already rocks…

by Rachel Devitt April 28, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, Peter Gabriel, Tunde Adebimpe

Music, Reviewed

Nedelle and Thom

I cannot get enough of Summerland. It's a bit embarrassing, actually. I keep finding myself driving around, blasting at top volume what may be the most white-bread music ever -- all girl-group harmonies, softly syncopated percussion, "Dear Diary" lyrics, and…

by Rachel Devitt August 11, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Summerland

Music, Reviewed

The Hives

Of all the "The" bands swearing devotion to the Sonics/Stones/Stooges holy trinity of garage rock, the Hives have always seemed to have the most fun. Unhindered by the Strokes' penchant for rock star cliché or the White Stripes' Machiavellian creepiness,…

by Rachel Devitt July 28, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Pelle Almqvist, The Hives (Musical Group), The Strokes, The White Stripes

Music, Reviewed

Gwen Stefani

Your friends are totally going to make fun of Gwen Stefani's first-ever solo album. Granted, they have quite a bit of ammunition at their disposal. "Cool," a synthy pile of schlock about Stefani's overly coiffed marriage (to Bush's Gavin Rossdale),…

by Rachel Devitt December 15, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Gwen Stefani, Bush (Musical Group), Gavin Rossdale, Bubble Pop Electric

Music,

Ladysmith Black Mambazo Views South Africa Through a Complicated Icon

In 1987, Ladysmith Black Mambazo released an album, Shaka Zulu, named after the 19th-century founder of the Zulu empire. The record was both the group's proper international debut (it was produced by Paul Simon, who worked with Mambazo for his…

by Rachel Devitt February 27, 2008 Tags: Music, Feature, South Africa, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon, Graceland

Music, Reviewed

Schoolyard Heroes

Schoolyard Heroes aren't really a rock band -- they are Gothic operettists. Fantastic Wounds, the second album from this young Seattle band, indomitably scales monstrous, bloody themes, nicked out of pulp novels, sci-fi movies, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show,…

by Rachel Devitt July 27, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Brian Turner, Ryann Donnelly, Seattle, Steve Bonnell

Music, Reviewed

Deep Dickollective

A few years back, everyone was momentarily crazy for the rap fags. Articles on "homo thugs" popped up everywhere, from the New York Times to my mom's bathroom (in the form of Utne Reader). Oakland-based crew Deep Dickollective (made up…

by Rachel Devitt March 10, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Man Man, Oakland, Bayard Rustin, Bill Cosby

Music,

Lizard Kings

With a couple of tours with the Killers under their hot little belts and the release of their new album, The Best Little Secrets Are Kept, the four guys who make up Louis XIV -- singer/guitarists Jason Hill and Brian…

by Rachel Devitt June 22, 2005 Tags: Music, Feature, Louis XIV (Musical Group), Jason Hill, The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards

Music, Reviewed

Rufus Wainwright

I was initially a little immune to the baroque fabulousness of Want One, the precursor to Want Two, Wainwright's fifth album -- that is, until One's gut-ripper "Go or Go Ahead" followed me around like a larger-than-life washed-up cinema star…

by Rachel Devitt November 24, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Claude Debussy, Norma Desmond, Apple iPod

Music, Hear This

Hear This

It's easy to love the quasi-folk duo Two Gallants . They're superyoung -- barely of legal drinking age -- but in their own words "ain't good-lookin' from a quarter-mile," which creates a kindred bond among the majority of youngsters who…

by Sam Prestianni and Rachel Devitt May 4, 2005 Tags: Hear This, Preview, Two Gallants, Adam Stephens, Thievery Corporation, Bob Dylan

Music, Reviewed

Stereo Total

If Euro-chic is your thing, Do the Bambi is your record. "Babystritch," for example, is imbued with the chilled, cosmopolitan marble of a train station, its bits of frosty German speech coming at you like announcements over a staticky intercom,…

by Rachel Devitt February 16, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Francoise Cactus, Burt Bacharach, Chelsea Girls

Music,

Go! With the Spirit

The other day I happened, to my great surprise, to walk by a cheerleading camp, a small army of kids with words like "TIGERS" emblazoned across their trim, peppy asses. Sometimes I forget that herkies and the compulsive spelling of…

by Rachel Devitt July 13, 2005 Tags: Music, Feature, Ian Parton, Michael Jackson, United Kingdom, Brighton

Music, Hear This

Hear This

Think Fiona Apple ... only a little more rock 'n' roll, a little less waifishly haunted, a little less prone to embarrassing, incoherent outbursts. Add a bit of Rufus Wainwright's lush theatricality, as well as some of Nellie McKay's "It"…

by Rachel Devitt and Dan Strachota June 30, 2004 Tags: Hear This, Critics Picks, Brian Eno, Doug Hilsinger, Rachael Yamagata, Caroleen Beatty

Music, Reviewed

The Makers

For years, the Makers have been doing what everyone else is doing now -- pilfering religiously from Iggy, Pete, and myriad garage rock bands. They're an arena band without the arena, all trashy panache and swaggering bravado but with none…

by Rachel Devitt November 24, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Mick Jagger, Mike Maker, Seattle, Hot Kiss, Inc. Corporation

Music, Hear This

Hear This

In the music world, like in the rest of this country, ethnicity is all too often condensed into an overly simplistic black/white binary that leaves a whole lot of damn good musical perspectives out. Chicago singer/songwriter Jenny Choi created the…

by Rachel Devitt and Sam Prestianni August 25, 2004 Tags: Hear This, Critics Picks, Rachel Zis, Chicago, Jenny Choi, Juliana Hatfield

Music, Reviewed

The Chemical Brothers

Push the Button marks the return of the electronica eclecticism the Chemical Brothers infected the masses with back in the halcyon, glow-stick-lit days of the mid-'90s. The album is littered with such ephemera as kung-fu gongs, funk-bass thwacks, electro jew's-harp…

by Rachel Devitt February 16, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, The Chemical Brothers, Anwar Superstar, Bloc Party, Q-Tip (Rapper)

Music, Reviewed

Sage Francis

Sage Francis walks that fine line between offensively earnest and incisively romantic. What should sound pretentious (the numbing soullessness of society) and/ or obscenely melodramatic (calling a failed relationship "slave labor") drips from Francis' tongue as if his spit were…

by Rachel Devitt February 16, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Sage Francis, Michael Moore, Georgia

Music, Reviewed

Fannypack

Call off the truant officer, because the school of lo-fi sass is back in session. To kick things off, Brooklyn's Fannypack throws itself a raunchy little pep rally on "Keep It Up," with MCs Jessibel, Belinda, and Cat playing head…

by Rachel Devitt March 30, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Brooklyn, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest

Music, Reviewed

The Cuts

The Cuts' influences can pretty accurately be listed as the Stooges, Television, the Stones, and even a little Jefferson Airplane, but let me boil all that down for you: The band's new self-titled album (a rerelease of a limited-edition LP…

by Rachel Devitt June 2, 2004 Tags: Reviewed, Reviewed, Jefferson Airplane, Andy Jordan, Moby Grape, The Rolling Stones

Music, Reviewed

Tori Amos

Five steps toward becoming Tori Amos: Step 1: Be the kid of a preacher man and drop out of music school. Step 2: Release two elegantly, ridiculously intimate solo albums, and inspire millions of girls to don fairy wings and…

by Rachel Devitt February 23, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Tori Amos, Saab AB

Music, Reviewed

Kings of Leon

Kings of Leon are the sons of a Southern evangelist, and they play music coated in the dirt of a backwoods beer bash and descended from Creedence and Blind Lemon Jefferson. It's the sort of equation that cramps the feverish…

by Rachel Devitt February 23, 2005 Tags: Reviewed, Review, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Kings of Leon, Caleb Followill

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Rachel Devitt

Lillian is like a halfway house for geeky high school band instruments. Beat-maker Alias (Brendon Whitney) and his brother, multi-instrumentalist Ehren, rehabilitate the wind section, remaking timbres that haven't had much pop-cultural cachet since the big-band era into hip, upstanding…

Indie Rock Cribs is a mouthwatering peek into the private life of a scorching-hot indie musician in the style of MTV's voyeuristic look at the homes of various and sundry FOPs (that's Friends of Paris). But instead of the same…

Afrobeat has its origins in conflict. Using his thrilling musical hybrid of American soul, James Brown-style big-band funk, jazz, and the traditional West African pop genre Highlife to address and resist everything from colonialism to military violence, Fela Anikulapo Kuti,…

What do you do when you're a bunch of wannabe-punk kids from the suburbs of Seattle who already have a grimy, modestly successful, Stooges-heavy album under your belts? You jump on the classic/garage rock revival bandwagon, of course. Their relative…

Review after orgasmic review has tripped over itself in an attempt to lie prostrate at the feet of TV on the Radio, which may very well be the World's Coolest Band (WCB). Chances are even your kid brother already rocks…

I cannot get enough of Summerland. It's a bit embarrassing, actually. I keep finding myself driving around, blasting at top volume what may be the most white-bread music ever -- all girl-group harmonies, softly syncopated percussion, "Dear Diary" lyrics, and…

Of all the "The" bands swearing devotion to the Sonics/Stones/Stooges holy trinity of garage rock, the Hives have always seemed to have the most fun. Unhindered by the Strokes' penchant for rock star cliché or the White Stripes' Machiavellian creepiness,…

Your friends are totally going to make fun of Gwen Stefani's first-ever solo album. Granted, they have quite a bit of ammunition at their disposal. "Cool," a synthy pile of schlock about Stefani's overly coiffed marriage (to Bush's Gavin Rossdale),…

In 1987, Ladysmith Black Mambazo released an album, Shaka Zulu, named after the 19th-century founder of the Zulu empire. The record was both the group's proper international debut (it was produced by Paul Simon, who worked with Mambazo for his…

Schoolyard Heroes aren't really a rock band -- they are Gothic operettists. Fantastic Wounds, the second album from this young Seattle band, indomitably scales monstrous, bloody themes, nicked out of pulp novels, sci-fi movies, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show,…

A few years back, everyone was momentarily crazy for the rap fags. Articles on "homo thugs" popped up everywhere, from the New York Times to my mom's bathroom (in the form of Utne Reader). Oakland-based crew Deep Dickollective (made up…

With a couple of tours with the Killers under their hot little belts and the release of their new album, The Best Little Secrets Are Kept, the four guys who make up Louis XIV -- singer/guitarists Jason Hill and Brian…

I was initially a little immune to the baroque fabulousness of Want One, the precursor to Want Two, Wainwright's fifth album -- that is, until One's gut-ripper "Go or Go Ahead" followed me around like a larger-than-life washed-up cinema star…

It's easy to love the quasi-folk duo Two Gallants . They're superyoung -- barely of legal drinking age -- but in their own words "ain't good-lookin' from a quarter-mile," which creates a kindred bond among the majority of youngsters who…

If Euro-chic is your thing, Do the Bambi is your record. "Babystritch," for example, is imbued with the chilled, cosmopolitan marble of a train station, its bits of frosty German speech coming at you like announcements over a staticky intercom,…

The other day I happened, to my great surprise, to walk by a cheerleading camp, a small army of kids with words like "TIGERS" emblazoned across their trim, peppy asses. Sometimes I forget that herkies and the compulsive spelling of…

Think Fiona Apple ... only a little more rock 'n' roll, a little less waifishly haunted, a little less prone to embarrassing, incoherent outbursts. Add a bit of Rufus Wainwright's lush theatricality, as well as some of Nellie McKay's "It"…

For years, the Makers have been doing what everyone else is doing now -- pilfering religiously from Iggy, Pete, and myriad garage rock bands. They're an arena band without the arena, all trashy panache and swaggering bravado but with none…

In the music world, like in the rest of this country, ethnicity is all too often condensed into an overly simplistic black/white binary that leaves a whole lot of damn good musical perspectives out. Chicago singer/songwriter Jenny Choi created the…

Push the Button marks the return of the electronica eclecticism the Chemical Brothers infected the masses with back in the halcyon, glow-stick-lit days of the mid-'90s. The album is littered with such ephemera as kung-fu gongs, funk-bass thwacks, electro jew's-harp…

Sage Francis walks that fine line between offensively earnest and incisively romantic. What should sound pretentious (the numbing soullessness of society) and/ or obscenely melodramatic (calling a failed relationship "slave labor") drips from Francis' tongue as if his spit were…

Call off the truant officer, because the school of lo-fi sass is back in session. To kick things off, Brooklyn's Fannypack throws itself a raunchy little pep rally on "Keep It Up," with MCs Jessibel, Belinda, and Cat playing head…

The Cuts' influences can pretty accurately be listed as the Stooges, Television, the Stones, and even a little Jefferson Airplane, but let me boil all that down for you: The band's new self-titled album (a rerelease of a limited-edition LP…

Five steps toward becoming Tori Amos: Step 1: Be the kid of a preacher man and drop out of music school. Step 2: Release two elegantly, ridiculously intimate solo albums, and inspire millions of girls to don fairy wings and…

Kings of Leon are the sons of a Southern evangelist, and they play music coated in the dirt of a backwoods beer bash and descended from Creedence and Blind Lemon Jefferson. It's the sort of equation that cramps the feverish…

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