Music

Looks are deceiving. Listen and you’ll hear classic reggae bounce and the toasting rap style of Jamaican dancehall, but glance at the album cover and you’ll note that Matisyahu (born Mathew Miller) is a Hasidic Jew right down to the broadbrimmed black hat and full, untrimmed beard. After initially rebelling…

Singing in a fragile, angelic falsetto, at first blush singer-songwriter Jeff Hanson sounds like folkie Suzanne Vega. But listen closely to the Milwaukee native’s two albums for Kill Rock Stars and you’ll hear familiar echoes of fellow onetime KRS artist Elliott Smith. Like Smith, Hanson’s ambling folk at times borders…

Of all recent cross-cultural collaborations, the pairing of Senegalese vocalist Julia Sarr and French flamenco guitarist Patrice Larose proves to be one of the most refreshing. Sarr, who cut her teeth singing backup for Malian singer Lokua Kanza and Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour, jumps into the lead role like she…

What exactly it was that went wrong with J Dilla’s body over the course of the last few years is between him and his doctors, but whatever it was kept him flat on his back for the better part of a year. For creative types, paralysis is a curious paradox:…

In the late ’90s, the suffix “-tronica” could loosely be defined as “pop music to which drum loops have been glued.” It was a goofy movement, one built on the questionable logic that adding a bunch of synthetic clatter to mealy AM acoustic pop somehow makes it less dull. British…

John Fahey was an original, a guitarist with an instantly recognizable style, a conglomeration of ragtime, country, blues, Indian classical music, and electronica. With his usual self-effacing sense of humor, he called his music “American primitive,” but it was a sophisticated kind of acoustic psychedelia that no one has ever…

For the glam-trash rocker set that’s infiltrated seemingly every club in town for at least one night a week, it really doesn’t get much bigger than this: Marky Ramone throwing down on the turntables at Hot Pink. There’s mad competition in the rawk DJ scene these days, and that’s a…

Most of you know the South African brooders in Seether from “Broken,” a song from their debut album that they rerecorded for The Punisher soundtrack as a duet between Shaun Morgan and Evanescence singer Amy Lee. Please refrain from singing “When a Front Man Loves a Front Woman,” as Morgan…

As you’ve undoubtedly heard, now is a good time to be of Montreal — just ask such critically slurped bands as the Arcade Fire, Stars, and Broken Social Scene. It’s also a good time to be Of Montreal, the colorful Athens, Georgia, psych-pop band fronted by ever-clever songsmith Kevin Barnes,…

A cancellation by headliner Yellowcard has booted this Virginia Beach quintet to the top of the bill and brought in local luminaries Lydia for added entertainment value. Mae is an acronym for Multisensory Aesthetic Experience, a study of how our senses perceive information and decipher it for the other senses…

Wasn’t Josh Gracin that country-singing Marine from American Idol’s second season? How did that jarhead land himself a recording contract? Well, actually, it’s a lot easier to understand than you might think: While Simon, Randy, and the eternally narcotized Paula have never really understood the relevance of country music to…

In a previous incarnation, Robinella and her husband, multi-instrumentalist and arranger Cruz Contreras, cut Robinella & the CC Band, an album that blended the swing of Bob Wills and Duke Ellington, with a side of Bill Monroe. Solace is less eclectic and more focused, living up to its name with…

1. Yellowcard, Lights and Sounds (Capitol) 2. Cat Power, The Greatest (Matador Records) 3. The Strokes, First Impressions of Earth (RCA) 4. Panic! At the Disco, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out (Decaydance) 5. Rocky Votolato, Makers (Barsuk) 6. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat (Team Love…

Saturday night is overrated. More often than not, I find myself having the most fun on a school night. After all these years, there’s still a naughty thrill to going out in the middle of the week. Maybe it’s because there are lower expectations and people loosen up. Maybe folks…

Like the Flaming Lips tripping with the Butthole Surfers and listening to Nick Drake albums, this Brooklyn quartet makes quirky, folk-inflected art rock, similar in mood to that of Devendra Banhart, who also got his start on Michael (The Swans, Angels of Light) Gira’s Young God Records. While many songs…

They’re cute, they’re Canadian, they may or may not be sisters, and if you can get their track “Walking With a Ghost” out of your head, you are stronger than we are. After being discovered by Neil Young and releasing one record that sank like a rock, the ladies abandoned…

To be a musician and hail from New Orleans this year is to have the world’s ear — up to a point. That very same world would probably demand that your group have some kind of universally recognizable blues or R&B packed away in its rowboat and expect that you…