Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

For whatever reason --- primarily the title, WHEN ELECTRIC NIGHT FALLS --- I had prejudged Bisc1 to be a dance club turntablist and his disc to be a collection of hit for a minute dance tracks. Wrong on one count --- Bisc1 is a rapper, over electronica ...

Fat Joe has left the major label race behind, and while he has always basically done it his own way his vision on THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM seems a bit more focused without the distractions that music industry tethers seem to impose upon even the most ...

After being leaked on the Internet, the release date for the second album from Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple, was pushed up from April 8 to March 18. That, in and of itself, proves the power of this truly odd couple. Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo are back, and this time ...

His street name is Mr. Criminal. That will tip you off right away that his two disc release RYDER MUZIC is not a compilation of classical compositions performed on the harpsichord. I have no idea what his government name is, though I suppose that information is readily ...

Their roots in hip-hop and experience in the electronic sound of Paris, Outlines releases Our Lives Are Too Short, an album for your ears, feet and booty. The three blokes that make up Outlines are Jerome, Irfane and Jay1, who all come from different but equally impressive backgrounds. Jerome has ...

Paul Randolph presently lives in Detroit, but he has a truly international resume. Born in Philadelphia, raised in Sao Paolo, Brazil (where his father was a music producer) Randolph’s music is rich with influences which result in a stew of sound evocative, but not imitative, of a ...

SECRET LOVE IV: ONE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER is yet another compilation from the eclectic Sonar Kollectiv…uh, collective, the Berlin-based dance imprint that doesn’t behave like one. SECRET LOVE IV, like everything that comes from Sonar Kollectiv, is full of surprises, always to varying degrees interesting. ...

Snoop’s latest effort, Ego Trippin, is yet another one in line of the many classic volumes of the Doggfather saga. His career has taken him from having the most hyped debut album ever, as Doggystyle was when it was dropped in ’93; to translating his sexual voraciousness from the mic ...

The Grouch is one of the best MC’s that you’ve probably never heard of.  And yet, he’s literally a living legend.  Grouch emerged from the Bay-area underground scene in the early nineties, and has since maintained a steady solo career that also led him to join the now-LA based group ...