Word: drums
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...year-old from Wenzhou is bowling well under 100 and trying not to look flustered. After all, this is the guy who can pirouette 11 times in succession without mussing a hair, and became a national sensation by whirling, seemingly airborne, on the head of a drum. But tonight he is getting out-bowled?badly?and by a girl. He grins and we play again. And again. And again. By the end of the night he's throwing strikes and I'm nursing a sore shoulder and a purple pinkie finger. Then it dawns on me: Huang...
...Huang may be to dance what Ang Lee is to film: both have found a way to present traditional Chinese culture and make it contemporary. Huang's works like the Drunken Drum and Terra-cotta Warriors have managed to break out from the dance-world ghetto to become bonafide pop-culture phenomena. "Chinese people have a problem when they think about the past," Huang explains of his merging of East and West, old and new. "They think like people from the past. I'm trying to interpret history through the filter of a modern person." Considering the passion...
...After this smooth opening, Frankie switched instruments and tempos, kicking into sizzling Latin mode with a cut from his new album A.S., dedicated to Arturo Sandoval. Here the rhythm section began to show its chops. The percussionists (drum and conga players) performed a rocking and driving solo that got the previously staid audience vibrating in their seats. The pianist—playing on a Yamaha with a sound as bright as its polished finish—thumped out a series of chromatic arpeggios that got the audience pumping. But the peak was naturally Frankie’s sharp and tuneful...
...chillout beats and electronic burbles with blissed-out vocals. That band is Park Avenue Music. And the result is not half bad: captivating, ethereal vocals that mumble about how “I’ll always be with you,” or some such, over uneven, skittering drum loops...
...much. They cannot match Portishead, the band they most resemble, for eerie gloom and atmospherics, nor Massive Attack for their raps and stylistic breadth, nor Tricky for his sheer, well, trickyness. By about half-way through the album, there is the distinct impression of having heard that particular drum loop somewhere before, and the lyrics certainly aren’t going to save the album: Like Portishead, you’re doing well if you can make out anything of what the lead singer is singing about. The lack of any song with a definite groove begins...