It seems like just last week that a new viral sensation was born: Die Antwoord. A couple totally mysterious, compelling YouTube videos appeared and Die Antwoord was, to quote the group’s MC Ninja from their “Zef Side” track, “all up in the Interweb, worldwide!” Three days ago, no less a tastemaker than Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber declared on his twitter that Die Antwoord “just made 2010 official.”

José James just might be the male Sade. Like her, this soulful crooner uses his smokily seductive voice to effortlessly fold himself into the listener’s consciousness. But while this young, New York-based singer starts with jazzy soul as his root force—his haunting vocals recall everyone from Billie Holiday and Chet Baker to Bill Withers—he’s smart enough to know that his smoothness will stand out best when placed against edgier textures.

Classic Albums Revisited: DEVO And The Pixies Take Los Angeles Lightning struck twice this past week in Los Angeles, when two of rock’s most boundary-shattering bands performed an entire classic album from their career on two consecutive nights.

Worldwide DJ, radio personality, sportswide fanatic, tastemaker of groove Gilles Peterson sure seems to do it all ! Now add “book author” to that list. Along with co-compiler Stuart Baker, Peterson is responsible for Freedom, Rhythm & Sound – Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965-83, a hardcover tome that collects many of the greatest, truly visionary examples of album art during one of the most revolutionary moments in recent history.

The XX marked the spot last night at Shepherds Bush Empire in London. I was truly excited about seeing them open up for the glamourous Florence & The Machine. This was the first time I purposely went to a gig to solely catch the supporting act instead of the headliner.

Manu Chao has always been an iconoclast, from his inclusive, multilingual blend of punk and world sounds to his tireless quest for spreading his ethos of justice and understanding via music-as-protest. But when we heard about his new project – recording an album with a bunch of psychiatric patients – we were understandably intrigued….

Not many bands name themselves after an obscure mathematical method used to score cricket. Then again, not many bands are like The Duckworth Lewis Method! The Duckworth Lewis Method is a deliciously twee pop band whose primary distinction is… all their songs are odes to the game of cricket.

Increasingly desperate record companies are presently in the midst of a search for a “new MGMT” – and as ludicrous as that mission may be, they might have found it in Amazing Baby. Like all cool bands trafficking in the area of neo-psychedelic-electronic-shoegaze-folk-whatever…

Dirty Projectors have it all: the akimbo folk soul of Jeff Buckley, iconoclastic pop deconstruction a la Panda Bear, irresistibly ethereal, strange harmonies recalling School of Seven Bells, surprisingly effective ethnic cops evoking their Ivy League peers in Vampire Weekend – and contender for possibly album of 2009 in the band’s latest release, Bitte Orca.

Kings of “math rock”, Mars Volta continues to register on the scale of most classic rock outfits with their inimitable point of view and delivery. With Octahedron they stretch out and replace their prog rock jams with some acoustic ballads

The remix of Animal Collective’s “Summertime Clothes” by Stones Throw’s resident L.A. boogiemonster Dam-Funk is the damn funkiest, weirdest, summeriest, catchiest track we’ve heard in a minute…

It’s a ‘Cold Fact’ that seeing an artist you loved as a child, can be a rather hit or miss affair and up until about half way in this past Saturday’s return of Rodriguez to the London stage, it was um rather surreal and a bit shaky. But thankfully, since my memories of the man’s music remain strong and deep from the scaree grim days of South Africa, I was optimistic.

It’s heartwarming that London continues to give love and respect to the Classic and timeless artists that roll through. This past Wednesday was no exception when Ethiopian legend Mulatu Astatke, performing together with The Heliocentrics, was ecstatically celebrated by a capacity crowd at Koko. The diverse mix of musos, new converts and London based Ethiopian allowed for a whole lot of shaking and quivering goin’ on as Mulatu effortlessly strutted his Ethiopiques magic together with the dynamic Heliocentrics crew.

Never had any doubt as to the Abstract tearin’ the roof off the Paradiso ! was just a matter of which tune was gonna set it off. Fact is though that there are so many great ‘vivrant’ solo TIP tunes that had a full Amsterdam house jumpin’ even before the timeless ATCQ classics boomed and [...]

dateline 9 aug 08 – AMSTERDAM!
Planes, trains and automobiles—BLK JKS made it to Amsterdam late last night, effectively stepping out of the chauffeured Cadillac that squired them from the airport in Brussels (after 2 days of back and forth to Dublin) and on to what is arguably the finest stage in the Netherlands: Paradiso. [...]

You gotta love a matinee on a Sunday ! even if it’s a bright crisp and sunny day out and especially if it’s with our man FINK in Amsterdam. Needless to say the mighty Fin rocked the packed out Paradiso with tunes from both his exceptional albums ‘Biscuits for Breakfast’ and ‘Distance and Time’ and [...]