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Yousif Kassab on February 15, 2018
Michelle Zauner is having a moment. As the woman behind indie rock and electronic project Japanese Breakfast, she’s recently collaborated with Bay Area producer Giraffage and enjoyed critical praise for her two latest full-length efforts.
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Yousif Kassab on January 24, 2018
Anyone who has passed high school English knows the story. Facts are manipulated or fabricated outright, an unnervingly docile populace is endlessly tracked and surveilled through the use of personal electronic devices. This is the world George Orwell predicted back in 1949 with his seminal, then-science fiction work, 1984. Disillusioned with the…
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Yousif Kassab on January 24, 2018
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at RCA when it was first proposed that Kenny Rogers pick up a song originally penned for Marvin Gaye by the Bee Gees. One imagines that conversation raised some eyebrows. But “Islands in the Stream,” Rogers’ 1983 hit duet with Dolly Parton, is…
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Yousif Kassab on January 17, 2018
On the cusp of the 1960s, America’s civil rights movement had only just begun. While it’s clear—even in 2018—how far we still have to go, Kenneth Jones’ Alabama Story gives us a glimpse of how far we’ve come. The story follows librarian Emily Wheelock Reed as she champions Garth Williams’ controversial children’s…
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Yousif Kassab on January 17, 2018
Penned by Athol Fugard, The Road To Mecca follows the story of Miss Helen, a South African widow who finds herself at a crossroads. Harboring an unconventional artistic ability, she must choose between the advice of an old friend to conform to society and the urges of a younger one to follow…
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Yousif Kassab on January 17, 2018
Ray Scott is a good, old-fashioned country boy. Starting his career at 19, he noodled about in a few bands before finding success writing songs for the likes of Randy Travis and Clay Walker. His newest album, last year’s Guitar For Sale, saw Scott use his rich baritone to denounce some of…
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Yousif Kassab on January 12, 2018
Pepe Mogt, founder of the Tijuana-based electronic music collective Nortec, found his way into music like so many do these days—by messing around with found sounds on his computer. However, rather than digging through bargain record crates searching for break beats and horn punches, Mogt pulled many of his earliest samples scouring local…
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Yousif Kassab on November 24, 2017
Any musical act can talk about growing pains. With each new entry in their discography, a band or artist toils in an endless cycle of experimentation, inadvertently finding what works and what doesn’t. For Charlie Yin—better known by his stage name, Giraffage—some of that experimentation has also involved figuring out what he can…
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Yousif Kassab on September 20, 2017
Akrobatik and Mr. Lif are back. The Boston-bred hip-hop duo, better known as The Perceptionists, come to San Jose this week behind their first album in more than a decade, Resolution. Fans of the group might remember the pair from their 2005 album Black Dialogue. The project featured one of their most…
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Yousif Kassab on September 15, 2017
TroyBoi is a master of tone. In a genre that all too often prioritizes cursory beauty, maximalist explosions and the instant gratification of the massive drop, the London-based producer prefers to give his listeners a single feeling to explore. Consider “O.G.” from his debut album, Left is Right—a trap affair, packed with…
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