Recent posts: Interviews

After a long work week, nothing’s better than dancing the stress away. Para vivir, necesitamos bailar. Bomba Estéreo’s intimate session at Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica last week proved the ideal hype venue to do so. The Latin Grammy nominated group Bomba Estéreo returned to Southern Cali with cuts including the perfect summer song “Fiesta”, off their new fourth album ‘Amanecer’. With assistance from Wallpaper artist and producer Ricky Reed, the album blends the trademark B.E. fusion cumbia, Afro-Caribbean folk sound with a harder electro edge. With plans to play multiple continents the rest of the year, they’ll be seeing sunrises all over the U.S., Europe and Latin America pronto.

As a frequent listener of new music, I’m quite familiar with the venn diagram that outlines dope music on one end and critical acclaim on the other. Not often do we see show awards overlap within that dope music component but it’s a blessing when voters/academies get it right. When I heard Brooklyn based Snarky Puppy’s collaboration with Lalah Hathaway “Something” off their CD/live DVD ‘Family Dinner-Volume One’, sonic amazing filled my headphones and it garnered the worldwide media attention it deserved winning 2014’s Grammy for “Best R&B Performance”.

More often than not, on any given night like most creative types, insomnia and I are besties. When I saw K. Flay’s video “Can’t Sleep” released this week off her 2014 album ‘Life As A Dog’, the idea of a kindred restless spirit reveals itself vividly. That frenetic energy also transfers well onstage as anyone who’s seen her live can attest. Wrapping up the Austin rollercoaster that is SXSW, I connected with K.Flay after her last show of the week to chat about a series of random and not so random items before we left the Lone Star state.

As we head into May and Star Wars fans all over the world yell “May the 4th be with you”, one of my top anticipated releases of the year drops TODAY, beginning the month with a bang. Grammy nominated foursome Hiatus Kaiyote’s  sophomore album ‘Choose Your Weapon’ is available everywhere in the U.S., providing more airport dancing jams for all (including me who’s previously danced in several terminals to ‘The World It Softly Lulls’ blasting from my headphones). Stumbling upon this Melbourne, Australia based group when they were scheduled to open for D’Angelo and Busta Rhymes at The Summer Spirit Festival in 2013, I’ve loved their unique blend of electro future soul/ jazz with world music influences ever since.