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MICHAEL C. WALSH

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Review: Knuckleball!

Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg's documentary
For a film that's centered around such a silly-looking pitch, Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg's documentary is packed with considerable drama.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | September 18, 2012

Review: Shut Up and Play the Hits

Documenting LCD Soundsystem's farewell show
For those in their 20s who worship dance and Internet culture with equal voracity, LCD Soundsystem was a "generation defining" band, and this documentary detailing the their 2011 farewell concert is their Stop Making Sense.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | September 14, 2012

Matthew Dear | Beams

Ghostly International (2012)
Matthew Dear has always been a producer first, DJ second, and songwriter third.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | August 28, 2012

Shed | The Killer

50 Weapons (2012)
If aliases in the world of techno indicated split personalities, Rene Pawlowitz would surely qualify for dissociative identity disorder treatment.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | August 14, 2012

Cloudy with a chance of Skrillex

Summer camp
Anything that can go wrong at Camp Bisco, will go wrong. I've been attending the annual festival in upstate New York since 2007, and every year there seems to be a hitch: torrential rain begetting knee-deep mud, eight-hour traffic backups, and even those neon-clad dubstep kids on my damn lawn.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | July 18, 2012

Review: Lockout

Guy Pearce rises above the rest
Every once in a while, an actor can single-handedly hoist a film to near greatness, despite a banal script and subpar direction.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | April 18, 2012

Review: Detention

The Breakfast Club meets Scream 2
A knife-wielding maniac plots his exploits off of a popular slasher film. If you were to call out Joseph Kahn for unabashedly ripping this plot straight from Scream 2 , he'd probably take it as a compliment.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | April 12, 2012

The dance-music scene heats up Austin

Bodies moving
"Like in 10 years, this is Lollapalooza— we're just ahead of shit," said Nick Hook of Cubic Zirconia on Saturday night, toward the tail end of his solo set during SBTRKT's collaborative shindig with burgeoning UK-label Young Turks.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | March 21, 2012

Scuba | Personality

Hotflush Recordings (2012)
Believe it or not, there still exist some pockets of the globe where dubstep remains sacred, with champions of purism deflecting the ever-tainting mainstream intrusions.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | March 06, 2012

Ital | Hive Mind

Planet Mu
If there was a broken-record knock against electronic music in the last decade, it's that it all sounded the same.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | February 07, 2012

Schoolboy Q | Habits & Contradictions

Top Dawg Entertainment (2012)
Without much that can be considered "structure" in terms of the verse-chorus-verse standard, Q confidently wobbles through an album's worth of jaded bangers.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | January 31, 2012

Dubstep's party crashes the mainstream

Wobble to the top
And with a single magazine cover, it was written.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | December 20, 2011

The Roots | Undun

Def Jam (2011)
The year was 1999, and the Roots were entering a cool-kids club thanks to the release of Things Fall Apart .

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | December 14, 2011

Out: Drinking up Soul Clap’s sensuous house fare on Thanksgiving Eve

Home for the holidaze
Meteoric rise would be an understatement regarding the path Boston's most libidinous DJ duo have taken over the past few years.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | November 29, 2011

Pinch & Shackleton | Pinch & Shackleton

Honest Jon's Records (2011)
Honest Jon's Records is nearing deity status within the pantheon of electronic music labels.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | November 29, 2011

Creating 'living monuments' to young lives lost

Stop the violence
Fliers adorning folding chairs at the Fourth Wall Project displayed the evening's mantra in their first sentence: This is not a party.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | November 23, 2011

Sepalcure | Sepalcure

Hotflush Recordings (2011)
Taste-making electronic music Web site Resident Advisor recently declared 2011 as Sepalcure's year, citing early buzz from this release, their debut LP, and solo releases by members Travis Stewart (a/k/a Machinedrum) and Praveen Sharma (a/k/a Braille).

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | November 16, 2011