Category: Music
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John Scofield
“It’s hard to put a level on my music, like jazz of fusion”, says guitarist John Scofield. “It’s instrumental music that has one foot in the jazz tradition and the other in the popular traditions, especially rhythm and blues. You know, jazz musicians don’t live in a vacuum where they only hear jazz”. A veteran…
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Scritti Politti – Anomie & Bonhomie
Artist: Scritti Politti Title: Anomie & Bonhomie Label: Virgin Rating: 3/10 Scritti Politti’s sound has surely changed. From punk to pop to rap to R&B, this mix sounds more clich than refreshing. Anomie & Bonhomie features artists like Mos’ Def, Me’shell Ndegeochello, and a piecemeal backing band. Luckily, Green Gartside, the only remaining member of…
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Scritti Politti
Scritti Politti will be ringing in the new millennium with Anomie & Bonhomie, the band’s first full-length album in over a decade. Anomie & Bonhomie (which roughly translates as “despair and delight”) contains 11 new songs, all of them written, arranged and performed by brainchild and sole survivor Green Gartside. The album was recorded in…
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Seafood
Some people think that this rock ‘n roll thing is a laugh, a bit of cheeky fun to be had until the royalties come pouring in. Those who have lived it aren’t quite so sure, however. Take Seafood. In 2001, the London-based four-piece were sent to Mission Sound studios in New York to record their…
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Seal
“I was able to create the perfect conditions to stimulate great productivity. It was like breaking a code, opening up a valve. I’m in the midst of the most creative period of my life and I think you can hear it on this album.” After five years away, Seal is back with his new album…
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Jon Secada
The arrival of any new trend in popular music inevitably will produce both leaders and followers, innovators and imitators. Such a musical wave will leave some performers stranded on shore even as others sail on to new, uncharted territory. Amid the so-called “Latin pop explosion” in contemporary music, the music of Jon Secada has already…
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Jon Secada – Better Part of Me
Artist: Jon Secada Title: Better Part of Me Label: Epic Rating: 6.5/10 Ricky Martin may have opened the doors for Latin music, but before he was a household name, there was Jon Secada. Jon Secada was there when Gloria Estefan was making a name for herself as the Miami Sound Machine opened a few doors…
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Henry Rollins
In the ’90s, Henry Rollins emerged as a post-punk renaissance man, without the self-conscious trappings that plagued such ’80s artists as David Byrne. Since Black Flag’s breakup in 1986, Rollins has been relentlessly busy, recording albums with the Rollins Band, writing books and poetry, performing spoken-word tours, writing a magazine column in Details, acting in…
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Roni Size
Some cities have a wealth of gold and diamonds; others have vast quantities of oil. Bristol, England is a city rich in musical pioneers. In the same way that their fellow Bristol-bred comrades Massive Attack, Tricky, Soul II Soul’s Nellee Hooper, and Smith & Mighty rewrote the rules of their chosen genres, Reprazent – the…
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Rooney
Rooney is a five-piece rock band hailing from Los Angeles whose music is reminiscent of artists spanning from the sixties to the present day. Although they have a distinctive style, their sound has been compared to everything from The Beatles to The Cars to Blur. Having toured the nation with acts such as Weezer and…