Where we review music releases, club nights, concerts, dance, theatre, film and other interesting goings-on
in London and NYC.
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Music Releases - latest 19
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Album: V/A - New Brazilian Music: Pernambuco (Trama)
Pernambuco is the rough diamond of Brazil's northeast. From the colonial charm of Olinda and its carnival, to its dusty and dangerous outback and marijuana growing region, it is a wily and mysterious part of the country...
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Album: V/A - Latin Vibes: Lounge Selection (Mettle)
With its Cuban vista of Old Havana on the cover, this compilation is eye-catching and looks promising. Musically, however, this release has very little to do with Cuba, and so, if you're looking for Cuban-influenced Latin music, you'll be disappointed...
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Album: John Arnold - Style and Pattern (Ubiquity)
The latest offering from the Ubiquity stable, John Arnold’s sophomore effort Style And Pattern is a hotchpotch of progressive dance-orientated tracks that are relatively more eclectic than his acclaimed debut album Neighbourhood Science...
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Album: Maya Azucena - Maya Who?
A lot of flowery language can be used to describe singers, but when you stumble upon that rarity who can consistently radiate power from both their performance and voice, even when singing a ballad, simplicity prevails...
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Album: Zuco 103 - Whaa! (Ziriguiboom)
Whaa! is the latest production from Netherlands-based Euro-Brazilian outfit Zuco 103. It's a global tutti-frutti of electronic sounds that blends bossa/samba, Cuban and numerous African influences...
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Album: V/A - HVW8 presents: Music Is My Art (Ubiquity)
Comic Sans walks into a bar and asks for a beer. The barman says, “Sorry, we don’t serve your type in here.” Badoom tish. That’s my font joke. If you want you can embellish it by saying that Comic Sans walked into a saloon bar...
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Album: V/A - A Slice Of Paradise (Fusinova)
Sadly perhaps, in light of these crazy frogs, the days of the novelty summer
single (think Sabrina's Boys, Boys, Boys if you can stand to) appear to be
behind us. And the fact that the soundtrack to a million summer holidays...
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Album: A Race Of Angels - Broadcast No. 1 (Luv Classics)
A Race Of Angels' debut release is not your run of the mill soul music. A mixture of folk and soul driven heavily by synthesizers and string instruments, broadcast no.1 creates a unique sound that delights in not conforming...
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Album: Shantel / Bucovina Club Volume 2 (Essay)
In the last two years’ rush for all things Balkan and musical, Frankfurt-based DJ Shantel’s Bucovina Club project is probably the most prominent and effective portrayal of the wildness and sheer ecstasy of traditional-modernised Gypsy...
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Album: Recloose - Hiatus On The Horizon (Artist)
Recloose’s new album Hiatus On The Horizon has be long awaited, following the buzz created by CD-R copies of the track Dust, which went into Gilles Petersons’s Worldwide Winners for 2004, and gained support from DJs...
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Album: Ska Cubano - Ay Caramba! (Casino Sounds)
Ska Cubano's music brings instant grins to everyone, no doubt about it. The brains behind the operation are Peter Scott (production) and Natty Bo (instrumental niceness). That's not to ignore the 24-carat players' roster...
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Album: V/A - Future World Funk: On The Run (BEleza)
If there’s one thing we Brits have always done better than others in the club-music field, it’s Eclecticism. Those with long memories (and longer teeth) will remember magic all-nighters in the mid-60s...
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Albums: Hip Hop Round-up August
In the ongoing quest for the perfect hip hop album, KTL presents you with another eleven contenders in this month's roundup. With some worthy entries, from debuts to seasoned veterans, we've provided you with...
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Album: V/A - Joey and Norman Jay MBE present Good Times 5 (Resist)
People tend to scatter the term 'living legend' around like so much confetti. But if you're talking about Norman Jay, a tireless promoter of good times, good music, good vibes, good feelings, then you've got no choice but to drag it out, really...
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Album: Rappin Hood - Em Sujeito Homem 2 (Trama)
The overriding problem faced by non-Anglophone hip hop in the international marketplace is: what are these guys rappin' about? It really shouldn't matter if, like a musician, you listen to the human voice as just another instrument ...
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Album: Zion I - True and Livin' (Live Up)
Talib Kweli doesn’t only have an unmistakeable magic on the mic. He’s also got an incredible eye for talent, championing the brilliant Pete Philly and Perquisite and now appearing on the latest album from the West Coast Bay Area’s Zion I...
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Album: V/A - Mali (Putumayo)
Despite being one of the world’s poorest countries, Mali is rising to fore of the world music scene and it is easy to see why. “A lot of people believe Mali will be the next Cuba” argues Putumayo’s A & R VP Jacob Edgar...
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Album: Miguel 'Angá' Diaz - Echu Mingua (World Circuit)
Just when you were beginning to suffer from Buena
Vista overkill fatigue, along come a trio of World Circuit albums
that turn the whole concept of Cuban music on its head. First, we
had the bassist Cachaito, with his Mingus-inspired take...
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Album: V/A - Motown Remixed (Motown)
When the Chapman brothers exhibited a set of original Goya etchings they'd 'defaced' with cartoons, the art establishment, who'd barely raised a well defined eyebrow at their giant models of concentration camps or 1970s charity figurines, were appalled...
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Music Releases Archive
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Music Events - latest four
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Concert Review: Jaguar Wright - Jazz Cafe, London - 9 July 2005
The near packed-out crowd at London's Jazz Café were still bouncing from the performance of support act United Soul and their interpretation of Stevie Wonder's classic Higher Ground, when the sultry figure of Jaguar Wright...
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Concert Review: M.I.A. - Central Park, NYC - Sunday 7 August 2005
M.I.A. is proceeded by her hype. The internet chatter about the Sri Lankan born political singer/songwritter is deafening. So I had specific expectations for the 28 year old when she performed at New York City's Summer Stage in Central Park...
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Concert: Big Daddy Kane + The Beatnuts - B.B. King's, NYC - Friday 4 March
2005
We know that New Yorkers have a reputation for being
hard to please, but Big Daddy Kane and the Beatnuts
didn't have to work to hard to get us jumping. After a very late start, The Beatnuts showed the crowd...
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Concert: Zona Marginal - Parker Place Bar, London - Saturday 12 February 2005
Zona Marginal are the real deal. Latin ghetto superstars in the making. After being talent spotted by a humanitarian delegation touring Colombia last summer, they were literally plucked out of the notorious shanty towns...
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Music Events Archive
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And the rest... - latest four
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DVD: Freestyle - The Art Of Rhyme (Palm Pictures)
Freestyle reminded me of my love of hip hop, that tingling excitement I used to feel shivering down my back – a sensory stimuli-induced flashback to simpler (or was that more complex?) times. Over ten years in the making...
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Dance: Breakin' Convention '05 - Sadler's Wells, London - Sunday 15 May 2005
I hadn't been front and centre at the stage pit of Sadler's
Wells' theatre for long, before I bumped into a photographer friend of mine. He asked
if I got the play of words on Breakin' Convention. I said no. But after I
thought about it...
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Theatre: Tropicana - SHUNT Vaults, London - Friday 14 January 2005
The bustle of London Bridge underground station appears from the gloom of history-laden Shad Thames like a well-tended fish tank sat glowing at the back of a coal cellar. Within, we join a queue of people...
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Book: Wrapped In Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd (Virago Press)
“Hurston, on the other hand, sought her identity in her own self, in her work, in writing and speaking her mind”. The quote is an excerpt from Wrapped in Rainbows, Valerie Boyd’s biography on Zora Neale Hurston...
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