On a recent Saturday at New York’s Gramercy Theatre, an EDM DJ plays thumping, loud remixes to ubiquitous songs. Glow sticks are thrown. Psychedelic imagery adorns the stage. The DJ skulks around the stage like a messianic cult leader commanding his flock. Except it’s 1 p.m., not 1 a.m., the …
Read More »
T he average high temperature in Quebec City in March is 33 degrees Fahrenheit, with a low of around 18. That’s apparently of no consequence to the locals, who have chosen the month for an outdoor music festival appropriately dubbed Igloofest. The annual event, billed as “the coldest music festival …
Read More »
At Forest Hills Stadium, on a chilly Saturday afternoon in Queens, throngs of Asian Americans crowd the grounds of 88Rising’s Head in the Clouds festival. Among the sea of concertgoers, one uniform crops up again and again: black jerseys with white piping, one name splashed across the back — ILLENIUM. …
Read More »
For the Australian alt-dance trio Rüfüs Du Sol, playing Coachella feels like returning to a home away from home. Composed of Tyrone Lindqvist on vocals, Jon George on keys, and James Hunt on drums, the group had long dreamed of playing the California festival before they showcased their album Bloom, …
Read More »
Taylor Character attributes her early exposure to house music legends like Frankie Knuckles and CeCe Peniston to her late mother. When Character, known professionally as HoneyLuv, decided to leave her Navy drone mechanic job in 2020 and pursue music full time, she says her mother was skeptical at first. But …
Read More »
When Peggy Gou is working on a new track, she keeps one thing in mind. “Every song that I do has to have sexiness to it,” says the Berlin-based, South Korea-born DJ, singer, producer, and songwriter who’s as close to an It girl as anyone in today’s club scene. Maybe …
Read More »
When Detroit techno producer Omar S thinks back on the early days of his label, FXHE, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, he sounds as down-to-earth as his inviting, party-oriented music suggests. “I was just working at my job and making tracks,” he recalls over Zoom. Before then, he’d …
Read More »
One of the first sounds you hear on Hagop Tchaparian’s debut album Bolts is that of the British-Armenian artist quite literally following his family’s footsteps. That soft pulse of shoes on gravel, treading beneath the twangy loop of the 26-stringed Arabic instrument, the qanun on “Timelapse,” was recorded in Musa …
Read More »
With her new album Renaissance, Beyoncé flung open the doors to a nightclub of her own making, a place where anyone can be the hottest person in the galaxy. Released last Friday, the album traverses eras of dance music to conjure the superhuman confidence and deeply human connection of a …
Read More »
All humans are comprised of contradictions, and multimedia artist Dirty Bird is self-aware of his. He’s a Twitter-famous internet personality who doesn’t want to be known for his online persona. He’s a jazz-laden dance music producer who wouldn’t describe his own music as jazz. He’s a capital-A Artist who’s frighteningly …
Read More »