Music

By Martin Cizmar

Halloween creeps ever closer, and with it the concert posters get ever darker. Like this one for Sadisco* collective’s monthly party this Saturday.

“Don’t you know you’re in the presence of greatness, bwoi?” Brother Ali snarls from the pulpit on “Original King,” shortly before launching into a brief refresher course/sermon for the uninitiated over a beat that sounds like Earth Wind and Fire on crack: “I bring it like it never been brung/Swing…

If there’s one way that Cousins of the Wize’s second album, The Art of Living, suffers, it’s in poor track sequencing. There’s a lot to like here, from the radio-ready “Two Bottles of Beer” to the instrumental “Spaghetti Western,” which could easily be subbed into the Kill Bill soundtrack without…

In a match made in piano-rock heaven, Dresden Dolls vamp Amanda Palmer teamed with fellow ivory-tickler Ben Folds to produce this strings-and-spinet stunner. Originally, the singer had planned a low-budget project, showcasing some songs she felt sounded better without Dolls collaborator Brian Viglione’s distinctive drumming. Palmer’s vocal acrobatics, dynamic pianism,…

Facing New York is a band that easily defies pigeonholing. Their brand of heavy-handed melodies infused with a jazz-like swagger is remarkable — especially considering what it means to be an “indie rock” band these days. Convention is hardly their main concern, as evidenced on a song like “Comin’ Up,”…

Since rising to international fame in 2002 with the rowdy, inventive Original Pirate Material, British MC Mike Skinner — a.k.a. The Streets — has released a series of increasingly sincere albums. Starting with his 2004 narrative-heavy masterpiece A Grand Don’t Come for Free, he has turned his attention to simple,…

Amie Miriello sounds strangely familiar at times. Spinning her record, you get a comfortable feeling, as if you’ve known her since the late ’90s, when many similar female artists hit the scene — think Sheryl Crow, Tori Amos, and Alanis Morissette. One can definitely hear angry grrrl echoes of Morissette…

When you’re a new band, one of the biggest challenges can be describing the style of music you play to journalists, especially if it doesn’t fit into a neat and tidy category. Take the case of the Montreal trio Plants and Animals: Though their songs evoke several classic-rock styles (psych…

Born Ruffians, a nascent Toronto trio, move with mesmerizing twitch, shouting with childish abandon, as if they were Hot Hot Heat stuck in an elevator with the Go! Team. Frontman Luke Lalonde’s guitar tone is thin and shrill, switching between jagged Pixies pulses and more lugubrious indie noodling, like that…

Somewhere in the course of making his mark as a mastermind behind Cartoon Network’s smartass Adult Swim programs, Christopher Ward found time to concoct a junk culture/computer nerd rap persona that sounds like Eminem strung out on whippits. On his 2002 debut (Life’s a Bitch and I’m Her Pimp, free…

Hope you’re in the mood to shake a tail feather this weekend, as the PHX is being invaded by a trio of top-shelf EDM talent. SoCal house maestro DJ Dan, a boffo beat-mixing protégé of Donald Glaude (who’s been rated one of the best in the biz by BPM), visits…

By Lilia Menconi It’s a very classy slideshow (for once). It’s no secret that we are all about hitting some of the scummier places in town for our partying desires but, every once in a while, we crave a nice place that actually has toilet seat covers and more than…

By Martin Cizmar

Every Tuesday, we here at Up On The Sun do a little feature called You asked For It where we review local CDs. Here’s the thing with You Asked for It: If you ask for it, we give it to you. Pretty much every CD we get in here goes in the queue for review, thereby committing me to listening to it at least once all the way through.