Legions of Book

As published in issue 377 of The Wire (July 2015), here’s my joint review of two recent books about soundsystem/DJ culture, each of them impressive efforts of deep documentation and deliberate framing even as each takes a rather different approach to the project. Together, they further round out our understanding of the soundsystem as global […]

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Salvadora Robot (review)

I reviewed Salvadora Robot, the latest album from Colombia’s Meridian Brothers, for Issue 364 of The Wire (June 2014). Meridian Brothers Salvadora Robot Soundway CD/DL/2xLP Cutting their own odd swath though a tangle of urban musicians now embracing their country’s regional, grassroots popular traditions, Meridian Brothers’ newest offering is a genre-hopping, funhouse reflection of the […]

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El Gran Fidelito

Estoy muymuy emocionado about tomorrow nights guest(s) at Beat Research. Dorchester’s own Trizlam, no stranger to BR, will be accompanied by his very own picó — or piquito anyway — a mini-replica of one of the Colombian Caribbean coast’s classically souped-up soundsystems, one of the very outfits that developed the local genre known as champeta […]

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El Freaky Research

This Monday at Beat Research we’ve got a midsummernight’s dream of a bill — and how’s that for a flyer! (thx, fatsuggardaddy) El Freaky is a renowned DJ/VJ collective hailing from Bogotá. They’re up in these parts on part of a tour which brought them to NYC this past week for the LAMC, where, based […]

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Straight Outta B/quilla

Tonight at Beat Research we’re happy to have Trizlam, a Dorchester native and crate-digging scholar interested in the circulation of musical media — he wrote an extensive essay on the importance of “yardtapes” in the Jamaican diaspora — who recently returned from a three-month tour of Colombia where he engaged in some serious picó peeping […]

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Crashing Two Bumpy Dances

Yesterday Cluster Mag posted my second contribution to what we’re calling a “multimedia mash-up series.” (The first was my Lambada mega-mix.) As with my “Gasodoble” remix, this mashy montage sources related clips from YouTube — in this case drawing from Colombian (and a Dominican) choque vids and a variety of folk (mostly US-based) doing the […]

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Best African Dance Ever

So, yeah. There’s rearing; and then there’s rearing — Slightly older kids, well enculturated & irrepressibly motivated, can tend to take things to the next level, bumping body parts with acrobatic abandon and lighting rooftops (and laptops) on fire — Devotees of dancehall reggae and reggaeton will no doubt recognize elements of perreo and daggering […]

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Demo My Demo My Demo My Media

Yesterday, in a post about music and cellphones, Jace said something striking and funny and perfect — More is my favorite type of music, actually. Then comes 128kbps, one of my favorite musical genres. This reminded me that my favorite co-producer these days is without a doubt AVS Media Demo — (h/t who else but […]

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linkthink #8340: Zuper Globalized!

Zizek brings to N.Y. its infectious Buenos Aires cumbia beats carolina gonzalez hypes the zzk tour’s NYC stop :: my favorite, perplexing bit — “You don’t hear this music mix anywhere in New York,” said Héctor Arce Espasa, 25, a visual arts student and Zizek fan. “It’s super globalized.” (tags: cumbia argentina buenosaires newyork latin […]

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