Nels Cline, by Karen Cline It was quite a weekend for jazz in Baltimore. Friday night began with a concert by Baltimore pianist Lafayette Gilchrist, New York bassist William Parker, and Baltimore reed player John Dierker at the University of Baltimore. Later that same night, New York’s Matthew Shipp Trio held forth at An...
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By Erika Horn On Friday night, the Baltimore post-punk trio Stars and the Sea got a pretty plum gig playing to a full house of goths and weirdos dressed in top hats and corsets and leather jackets, opening for the like-minded cult acts Rasputina and Voltaire. It was an ideal audience for the band,...
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Civilian News you can use: Civilian, the third album from Baltimore duo Wye Oak, is streaming in its entirety over at npr.org until its release date on March 8. You’re welcome.
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"Whore of Baltimore" Enjoy this new song/video from Baltimore’s Bethany Dinsick, making lovely out-folk ambience equal parts song and ritual: slow, falling-off guitar strums; honeyed, burrowing vocals; and background texture courtesy of an MRI machine (according to the video’s notes). Also: more, more, MORE triangles.  It seems like Disnick doesn’t appear out all that...
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It's never too early? Earlier this week, DJ Class released a song called “Wacko Flacco” that’s sort of about the Ravens, sort of about weed, and seems to be somehow grabbing onto the Waka Flocka Flame radio rap zeitgeist . . . or something? It’s got AutoTune, pretty much the same sing-rap cadence as...
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"Play it loud" Last year, Volcom Entertainment’s “vinyl club” announced a 7-inch from Maryland metal god Scott “Wino” Weinrich‘s old, recently reunited band Saint Vitus. It was supposed to feature live recordings of “Saint Vitus” and “Born Too Late” (those are links to studio recordings, by the way). But “Saint Vitus” b/w “Born Too...
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MC Height More than a decade ago, Dan Keech began rapping under the name Height, forming the short-lived hip-hop group Wounds with a few high school buddies and later releasing three solo albums. In 2009, however, he began billing his records as Height With Friends, first with Baltimore Highlands and then last year’s Bed...
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Crossfaded Bacon? Uncle Jesse put together this Best Of Rod Lee mix for the Philly internet label Crossfaded Bacon (which also released Uncle Jesse’s Glen Tech EP). It’s a near hour of spare break-beats, hilarious/filthy lyrics, and lots and lots of Lee’s inimitable throaty shout-singing. And speaking of shout-singing, not sure how a Rod...
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The Rocket Man Baltimore-based hip-hop producer Street Heat has been selling tracks out of town for years, most notably to various members of New York’s Diplomats crew. But as an artist in his own right, he also records for local label Team Arson Music alongside another talented rapper/producer, PenDragon. And just as Street Heat...
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The One . . . Cohesive Huntsville, Ala., rap group G-Side is known for its working-class raps and experimental but distinctively Southern beats. Along with its in-house production team the Block Beattaz, it also has a thing for out-of-the-box, though somehow never gimmicky, samples (Chinese new-age on “Rising Sun,” and um, Enya on “Speed...
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KaneMayfield Last Thursday’s Mobtown Studios microshow from Mania Music Group’s Kane Mayfield and a live band—guitarist Karlos Brickhouse, keyboardist Dennard Watson, drummer Brandon Segar, and trombonist Patrick Harrison—is now available for download at the Mobtown Studios web site. Kane begins with a snappy, near Neptunes-like take on his recent single “Wreck,” and from there...
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Kitties The band Ponytail isn’t dead. The beachy, squealy art-punk force-of-nature even has another album coming out, a long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s Ice Cream Spiritual, this April, Do Whatever You Want All the Time. Dig this teaser video, an ecstatic barf of found footage, reappropriated pop imagery, and kitties. Be more excited about the...
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Through the Wire Kil, a beatmaker and a former host of Strictly Hip Hop, has put together a surprisingly non-shticky concept album based around The Wire. On his Bandcamp page—where Through the Wire can be downloaded for free—Kil calls the tape “a perfect marriage between two of my loves, making beats and the HBO...
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Other signs welcome “My first club was Odell’s, and for the first year I worked there I didn’t get paid a dollar,” DJ Mike Crosby says. “You gotta pay your dues in this business.” And after two decades of spinning records in Baltimore, Crosby and his frequent partner DJ Kenny K have definitely paid...
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The nicest bus stop ever The Seldon Plan’s fourth album, Coalizione del Volere, due out March 1 on The Beechfields Record Label, values brevity even more than the band’s previous full-lengths, which never pushed very far past the half-hour mark. The new album is over and done with in just 24 minutes, but the...
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DJ Pierre Norwegian production duo Stargate have put together dance-pop hits like Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable,” Ne-Yo’s “Closer” (which DJ Booman remixed), and more recently Katy Perry’s “Firework” and Rihanna’s “S & M.” All of the songs follow this loud-quiet-loud, build-up blueprint that isn’t too far removed from club music, but still doesn’t really compare given...
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DJ Excel Don’t know too much about this Phil Adé character, other than that he’s one of those nimble, excited young rappers really repping this whole super-nebulous “DMV” movement, but Bmore Original’s DJ Excel turned Adé’s “Disco Flow” into, well—actually, not all that sure how to explain this one. Excel’s made a club song...
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Day in the Life Sean Touré doesn’t really give guest rappers Kev Brown and Ab Rock a chance on this one. He kicks off “A Day in the Life” with a verse that captures not only his struggles as a musician, but as a regular dude trying to make it through the day with...
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The machine doesn't know what's comin' Mullyman’s new mixtape, Mullyman vs. the Machine, is sponsored by noted mixtape shouter DJ Whoo Kid, and in New York last night, there was a party and performance hosted by Angela Yee, morning DJ for New York’s Power 105.1. (Reports of Jimmy Jones dancing to “No Hands” should...
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By Brock Fetch When a band releases its first album after something big and terrible has happened, like the death of a band member, it’s inevitable and natural, if a little morbid, to want to comb through that album listening for clues to how that event informed the music. But the Death Set, whose...
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