Music

I care a lot about politics,” says Akrobatik, “but I don’t believe in the political process.” The Perceptionists’ MC remembers sitting in a Chinese restaurant in John Kerry’s home town of Boston on Election Day 2004 and being “almost oblivious” to what was going on with what many were calling…

“I don’t want people to think that I’m throwing in the towel,” says Kenton Schawe, aka DJ Nutmeg. “I’m just not going to do it for a living anymore.” Schawe, long a cornerstone of the local house scene, is pulling up stakes and moving to Kona, Hawaii. Faced with losing…

Sam Jayne, leader of Love as Laughter, would have you believe Laughter’s Fifth is a cock-in-fist homage to all that is bluesy, ballsy and cool about classic rock. After all, 2001’s Sea to Shining Sea was exactly that: a greasy scramble of the Who, Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy and Exile on…

Emancipation, my ass. Rather than letting their client display her distinctiveness, the members of the Carey Career Resurrection Braintrust have practically erased any individuality she had left. On Mimi’s cover, she looks less like a person than a hood ornament or a carving on the prow of a ship, and…

According to such dot-com authorities as Pitchfork and Allmusic, Hot Hot Heat’s long-awaited new album is a disappointing lump of crap. Maybe everyone’s just sick of hearing shitty bands that sound like Hot Hot Heat — because it’s hard to find a single serious fault with Elevator. From the double-knotted…

Jim Thirlwell’s musical output is as unpredictable as his identity. With more aliases than Dick Cheney has conflicts of interest, he has recorded thrash, industrial, dance pop and cartoon swing. His latest Foetus record is another diverse collection. The opener, “(Not Adam),” is a dance-floor hit, complete with a sing-along…

Danny Howells’s third Global Underground release is culled from a pair of live performances at Space, in Miami. The first disc is taken from a sunrise set on the venue’s rooftop terrace. A smooth blend of sexy vocals and exotic rhythms, the set builds slowly and, while the high points…

Crediting the Lips above the title of this album is a bit misleading, because the only song by the band among the twenty on hand is an entertaining cover of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” Yet Tales, part of a series issued by Azuli, provides fans with additional insight…

“We don’t sell starry-eyed schoolboy songs.” So declares Bailer on “Savor Control,” one of the more blatantly anthemic tracks from the group’s new disc, Sing It Like a Victim (whose release will be celebrated Saturday, April 30, at Pancho’s Villa). And that lyric is an apt self-description: With tongues wrapped…

In some ways, acts that attempt to make a first-rate recording in a mainstream style take on a more challenging task than artists who leap into the creative unknown. After all, listeners have probably heard plenty of similar stuff in the past and will be that much harder to impress…

“How many sparrows are inside a cat?/How many cats in a man?/How long can you keep your eyes shut on the interstate?” Boston’s adventurous art-punk outfit Ho-Ag asks plenty of screwball questions on its latest EP, Pray for the Worms, but offers little in the way of easy answers (not…

Electric bassist Victor Wooten seems to suffer from attention deficit disorder. Or so you’d think as you watch him juggling basses, snatching from a gleaming row of four-strings as the moment strikes him. His sound runs the gamut from jazz and bluegrass to rock and funk to classical and rap…

Either Moby (right) has never seen Magnum Force, or he was in the lobby ordering tofu when Clint Eastwood, as Inspector Harry Callahan, delivered one of moviedom’s most trenchant statements: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” The performer born Richard Melville Hall has long chafed at the restrictions of…

The distinction between a riff and a hook is totally lost on most bands scavenging today’s retro-rock wasteland. Detroit’s the Sights not only know the difference, but they synthesize power and pop into a seething, brilliantly infectious mess of rock-and-roll soul. Singer/ guitarist Eddie Baranek formed the trio in the…

The name Nik Freitas doesn’t hold as much weight in the indie-rock community as it does in the skate world. In 1999, the then-twenty-year-old photographer hit the road for Thrasher and spent the next few dozen months documenting the feats of some of the top pro skaters on the planet…

Buzz bands from here, there and everywhere are nicking U.K. sounds, but too many of them are targeting the same period: the early ’80s post-punk days, when it was okay to wear any color as long as it was black, and young men were discovering how much fun they could…

It’s ironic that Kan’Nal, a band of local worldbeaters steeped in Mayan mysticism, would preach a philosophy of peace, love and understanding. Lest we forget, the ancient Aztecs sacrificed prisoners of war on a colossal scale, removing and burning their still-beating hearts before tossing their bodies down the steps of…

Since he first stepped behind the decks at San Francisco’s warehouse parties nineteen years ago, Doc Martin has helped put house music on the map in the U.S. Having flourished during the heyday of the ’90s rave scene, Doc is a living throwback to that era and will always be…

If you rely on your eyes, you might not find the Nightingale house. In a neighborhood that’s rapidly becoming gentrified, where Novas on cinderblocks sit next to Volvo wagons and classic bungalows languish in the shadows of sterile new condos, the little white cottage is almost lost. But seek it…

We’ve been able to survive on, basically, what a dishwasher’s wage would be, which is more than enough for us,” says drummer Zach Hill of the experimental freak-rock duo Hella. “As long as we tour and stay creative and work and progress.” Hill is referring to himself and longtime collaborator…

“I’ve become what I said I’d never become,” says Trevor Pryce, laughing into the phone. “Yeah, a hipster. I have a Mohawk.” The VH1 exec on the other end wants a photo of 33Hz, the flagship act of Pryce’s Outlook Music Co. label; the network is slated to feature the…