Sing the Real
The nine-piece group Quetzal certainly loves cross-cultural fusion. Sing the Real is ripe with Mexican roots and Afro-Caribbean music merged with rock, folk, and jazz influences. Given the diverse backgrounds of the members--including a Brazilian percussionist and a guitarist ... | 
Worksongs
Like its hometown of Los Angeles, the 10-year-old Mexican-American sextet Quetzal is a patchwork of North and s South, encompassing such north of the border sounds as modern rock and soul, as well as earthy Mexican folk music, driving salsa, loping cumbia rhythms, and chattering ... | 
Back to Black
Amy Winehouse's second album, Back to Black, is one of the finest soul albums, British or otherwise, to come out for years. Frank, her first album, was a sparse and stripped-down affair; Back to Black, meanwhile, is neither of these things. This time around, she's taken her inspi... | 
Don't Mess With The Dragon
On their fourth full-length studio release, Ozomatli serve up a rhythmically seething musical mélange that serves as virtual mirror to the dizzying cultural contradictions at the heart of their Los Angeles hometown, wrapping it in a studio-polished veneer (largely courtesy of Sa... | 
Live at the Fillmore
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Quetzal
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Street Signs
You generally don't have to listen too hard to hear what's on the mind of Los Angeles music collective Ozomatli. The multi-faceted band is rarely subtle in its politics or its incorporation of countless Latin traditions as well as modern rock, jazz, pop and hip-hop. But on the ba... | 
Wincing the Night Away
Indie-rock's hardest-working slackers finally release their third album, on which they've made the clear transition from bedroom-pop to stadium-rock without losing everything that makes them great. Those soaring vocals that sound like the unholiest collision of the Cure and Simon... | 
My Name Is Buddy
Though this release carries the deceptive subtitle Another Record by Ry Cooder, the virtuosic guitarist and ethnomusicological adventurer has never released another album quite like this. And neither has anyone else. After brilliant side trips into the music of pre-Castro Cuba an... | 
La Cantina
As a follow-up to her 2005 Latin Grammy win, Mexican-American diva Lila Downs has chosen to release a loving tribute to canciones rancheras, the heartfelt ballads ubiquitous in cantinas throughout Mexico. With their merry accordion riffs and perky snare-led rhythms, the tunes c... |
