The path of Deadmau5, AKA 31-year-old electronic music producer Joel Thomas Zimmerman, has undoubtedly been a strange one.

See also
- Deadmau5 Uploads Photo Gallery Dedicated to Kat Von D on Facebook: Cute or Creepy?
- Deadmau5 Drops New EP The Veldt on Ultra Music; Admits He Just Presses Play in Blog

Ever since the release of his 2008 breakthrough, Random Album Title, he's been the defining figure in the North American EDM revolution. Yet behind the rodent head, visually stunning, highly priced headlining shows, genre-defining tunes, and Grammy success, Zimmerman has consciously positioned himself as the movement's malcontent.

More »

Love music for Fall 2012

Induce is truly one of our more effective turn of the century transitional musicians. Right when he's about to get pegged as a DJ, he produces, sings, raps, and writes about all things music. Just when you feel he's pure hip-hop, he delves deep into über-obscure Italian disco. He's been linked with the Midnight Moroders and Casual Sax and the Saxual Revolution as well as some of hip-hop's choicest honies. He's been the vinyl guy at Sweat Records and editor for the defunct Tablist Magazine. He's provided entire evenings worth of music at art events throughout Wynwood and the Design District. His record crates were usual sights in downtown before the rest of Miami realized the area's potential.

It'd be easy to lose the importance of Ryan "Induce" Smith within South Florida's musical community due to the morass of completely worthless SoBe counterparts who grab bigger headlines. But headlines have never been Induce's thing. Nah, this man is at his most effective when left alone to tinker and explore. And more importantly, to reinvent himself.

More »

Daniel De Las Casas

Canadian dubstep duo Zeds Dead played a noticeably well-attended and rapturously received show at Revolution a couple of weeks ago. It was part of an epic 70 date tour of North America to support their new release The Living Dead EP on Ultra Music. The production team of DC and Hooks first came to public attention a couple of years ago, following the word-of-mouth buzz generated by their first official single, the Diplo-endorsed track "Rude Boy." Constructed around a deep stuttering bass drop and natural hip-hop swagger, it's the sort of highly recognizable live track that has become a staple at EDM events around the country.

More »

Heroes and Cons have been quietly etching their mark on the South Florida punk scene for the last three years and they might possibly be one of the better local bands you haven't heard about. Lord knows I'm new to their racket and from the opening instrumental of "I'm Sorry Boys, She's Married... To Science!" they firmly establish the fact that they are very adept at their instruments.

On this second full-length effort, The Artist Aesthetic, they follow up their self-produced album Gone as Ghosts with some decidedly more ambitious compositions that run the gamut of sweet pop, post-alternative, and hardcore punk with metal touches.

I might be an army of one in thinking this since these kids seem quite young, but I'm sensing a mid-'90s Scandinavian pop punk influence in the vein of Millencolin and the Satanic Surfers but devoid of the applications that eventually rendered the majority of their respective catalogues with too much of an early Epitaph Records influence. Oh well.

More »

It goes without saying that in South Florida harbors a diverse pool of immigrants. We are in a constant state of flux, with different ideas anchored in life outside our world intermingling with our own. Many Diasporic communities meet in our little tip of the US, usually with excellent results.

Chilean-born DJ Manuvers has been calling this area home for a long time, as does glitch hop-bass scene queen Yarlen. It's no surprise that their new EP, The Drive Home, comes to us via Discos Pegaos, a digital label based out of Santiago de Chile. I can almost smell the Mapocho in it.

Just kidding.

What I do smell are some ambient, bassy concoctions that are perfect for the current and upcoming Florida summer heat. This album really does drive you home. And it does do in the way that a good mixtape gets the job done, or rather, works like an EP should: all killer, no filler.

More »

Sexy teenage weirdness like a warrior

Pool Party
Teenage Weirdo
(Mooster Records)
moosterrecords.tk

Well, summer is upon us yet again, and the unrelenting heat can be quelled only with a nervous mixture of pool partying necessities like booze, drugs, pools, sun, floaties, and rock 'n' roll. But of course, it would take those happening cats over at Chicago's Mooster Records to bring us the goods via the most heat-resistant vehicle of clear colored wax cut for seven-inch pleasures.

That's right! Fire up the grill, dump muriatic acid in the pool and call your friends over, because Pool Party's Teenage Weirdo four-song EP is finally here to help us get through the merciless and sweltering heat of another South Florida summer. Afraid of mosquitoes? This disc repels them. Think the gator's gonna get that little sliver of flesh on your ankle? Pool Party serves delicious tail-meat appetizers while your burger grills.

Destined to be a classic within their already impressive catalog, this four-song scorcher has two new tracks, a cover of a local favorite, and a retooling of an older tune.

More »

Drew Ressler

More »

Robert Pollard is a wizard, an inebriated, rule-breaking, melody-wielding wizard. Class Clown Spots a UFO, Guided by Voices' 17th full-length -- also the second of three 2012 releases -- is GBV at their drunkenly meditative best. 
More »

There's something relatively soothing about Brooklyn-based indie rock quartet The Faulkner Detectives. It's something slightly primal and askew and somewhat not at ease with itself that I find comfortably calming. South Florida expat Alex Segura (guitar/vocals) has done well for himself in various mediums (journalism and comics mostly) and now turns his creative juices to stripped-down indie gems.

Like any man's dreams, he's surrounded himself with women and where he's gruff and unrepentant about his southern bend towards literature, the girls soften it up whilst adding the aforementioned edge of unease. This is not sweet play on play of boy and girl, this is more like awkward first dates and coming into terms with feelings.

And like the opening twangs of "A Matter of Time," it's pretty and promising.

More »

Kiss it dudely.

Torche's 2005's self-titled effort on Robotic Empire had everybody making the obvious comparisons to the last echoes of Floor still floating around. Meanderthal was 2008's breakthrough as far as finding a unique voice distancing from the band members' individual pasts (besides Floor, Cavity, Shitstorm, Mehkago N.T., Ed Matus' Struggle, Panda Bite, Tyranny of Shaw, Tunes for Bears to Dance To, etc...) and then a slew of EPs and splits kept the appetites whet and the band in the spotlight.

This is good. This is what you expect. And while those sourpusses over at Pitchfork might want to wield their "mighty" cool swords all over town, remember this: Steve Brooks was setting up his mastery of the "guitar bomb" for the very bands these people went gaga for when they were in diapers and the internet was Al Gore's feverish dream. It's true.

So now comes the band's new album, Harmonicraft. And if those cranks at Pitchfork feel like "predictability" is at play on this album, I posit the following: This is new guitarist Andrew Elstner's first ride on the bull that is Torche, and here you have everything that you need for a solid album: soaring vocals, gruff guitars, a well-gelled rhythm section, and varied compositions that work together symbiotically to create a full and ethereal aural experience.

More »