Zero 7, North Londoners Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns and a brace of guest vocalists (Mozez, Sia Furler, Sophie Barker, Tina Dico) and musicians, sounds exactly like the picture above looks: neo-psychedelic pastel hues surging with subversive stealth up the nervous system into the heart of the head. Though firmly …

Not much. Van the Man keeps doing his medium-intensity thing, now for the legendary Blue Note label, and Van IS essentially a pop-jazz and jump-blues singer these days anyway. With strings, reeds and horns providing a sweet but not saccharine, gently swinging bed, Van riffs off of standard blues progressions …

I keep struggling to make time in the day to review new (or recent) records that I like. But like everything else I do, I labor over reviews like I’m giving birth and writing the constitution for a new nation at the same time. Henceforth, I will recommend CDs that …

I am not particularly a fan of Pink Floyd’s The Wall – I see it as a rather tuneless and humorless exercise in introspective self-pity by Roger Waters that destroyed the band. It does, however, work rather better as a stage production. The ’90 Berlin performance is spectacular and the …

Charlie Daniels has been among the more vocal pro-war musicians since 9/11: Why you bunch of pitiful, hypocritical, idiotic, spoiled mugwumps. Get your head out of the sand and smell the Trade Towers burning. Do you think that a trip to Iraq by Sean Penn did anything but encourage a …

Filming is already underway on the fourth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Ralph Fiennes has been cast as the dreaded Lord Voldemort, Potter’s lethal nemesis: In the first three films, only Voldemort’s spirit has been visible, but he returns in the flesh for the …

In comparison to the often bizarre noises emanating from the heyday of SST by the likes of the Minutemen, Black Flag, Meat Puppets, and to a lesser extent Husker Du, the Descendents were a user friendly, girls-and-growing-up punk band, writing short, playful, tight numbers from the perspective of the eternally …

Dave Chappelle, 30, snags a two-year deal with Comedy Central that could be worth $50m: The new contract is believed to mark not only a steep increase for Chappelle as star, writer, co-executive producer and co-creator of “Chappelle’s Show,” but more significantly, reward him with a hefty chunk of the …

Looking at it from the meta position, I think it’s fascinating how politicized the nation, and in particular pop culture has become over the last year-and-a-half (since the Iraq war), which is exactly the opposite end of the spectrum from the unity brought about by the terrors of 9/11 (which …

It’s too bad the atmosphere of repression in the United States is preventing musicians from speaking out on matters political: In an unprecedented series of concerts in nine swing states, more than 20 musical acts — including Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks — will perform fund-raising concerts …