Matador Featured Articles - Music+Art

Khoomei: The Ancient Art of Tuvan Throat Singing

girlgoesglobal — Wed, 5 Dec 2007 15:23:28 -0600

"Historians believe that khoomei was birthed from a desire to speak the language of Nature, translating the earthly sounds of a whistling wind or gurgling brook into human tones," writes Angie Teater, in this personal account of a khoomei concert in Tuva.

How to Make a Travel Documentary

kenneth macias — Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:47:41 -0500

From camera selection to shooting on location, this concise guide gets you started working on your first documentary.

Around the Coyote

listen109 — Sun, 7 Oct 2007 19:45:37 -0500

From its beginnings in the underground art scene to it's current place as a fixture of Chicago's cultural landscape, the Around the Coyote Festival has evolved into a truly independent creative outlet for emerging artists, writers, and musicians from both the local community and around the world.

40th Vallenato Festival

ricardo_emp — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:29:06 -0500

While filming a documentary on the 40th Vallenato Festival in Valledupar, Richard McColl discovers that within the mayhem of Colombian politics and music, the only constant is the human warmth of the people.

Bring the Dance and Leave the Guns: an Interview with Balkan Beat Box

an_acrostic — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:16:33 -0500

As with the various musical elements--hip hop, punk, and Klezmer, among others--mixed into their sound, Balkan Beat Box brings together musicians, artists, and fans from around the world in their live shows, and is rightfully gaining international attention.

Groping Through the Dance of Darkness

Lauren Lim — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 09:58:10 -0500

Through the study of Butoh, the Japanese "Dance of Darkness," a young traveler faces the fundamental question: am I faking it?

True Speech: The Music of Čači Vorba

Lauren Lim — Mon, 9 Jul 2007 19:18:20 -0500

In the small Polish village of Teremiski, a young traveler shares in the experience of a Čači Vorba concert and learns that music, while always good for dancing and celebrations, is also about remembrance.

Hyper-real: the high dynamic range photography of Trey Ratcliff

David Miller — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:03:37 -0500

"I think by "stylizing" the lighting in my photos, it gives people the opportunity to escape into a world that is enveloped in their own emotional context," says Trey Ratcliff in this profile of his innovative hyper dynamic range photography.

recognize, resist, represent: the music of Debajo del Agua

David Miller — Tue, 6 Mar 2007 20:06:40 -0600

“Everybody stand up!” Pablo shouted into the mic. We stood immediately. Since the opening batucada (a ripping, percussive substyle of samba), most of us had been fighting the urge to jump out of our seats. We just weren’t sure how to act. This wasn’t a music venue but a lecture hall in...

The Bay Area’s “Hyphy” Bomb

Dino-Ray Ramos — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0500

When the hip-hop culture was still in its early stages of development in the Bronx, the music was simple, rhythmic, refreshing and rapper’s lyrics contained an unbelievable amount of aesthetic skill. Fast forward to the 21st century and hip-hop has become a mélange of artistry, commerciality,...

Finding Picasso in Havana

novoarte — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Havana’s annual film festival always attracts cinephiles from around the world, but 1999 was a particularly crowd-drawing year. With the premiere of Julia Mirabal’s documentary “Los Picassos Negros” (“The Black Picassos”), film lovers were in for a treat: the first visual evidence...

The Do Lab: An L.A. experiment that’s working

Molly Freedenberg — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Some people are just insane. That’s the only conclusion to come to when confronted with evidence of the Do Lab, the Los Angeles artists’ collective behind the most outrageous, impressive, magical, and ambitious projects I’ve encountered in the last few years.

The 80-foot mobile flower at...

Booty and Bootlegs: A diary of Baile Funk in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro

Drew Murphy — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:54:55 -0500

A marijuana-sweat stew boils in the walls. It’s 11am. The sun drags on the earth’s belt. Only now are the sounds of life emerging -- cheap TV’s and radios pump the western world through bad reception and small speakers. Dylan’s universal words blare in mono over the boom-crash absurdities of...

Diamond in the rough: A gypsy jazz phenom who plays at a dive in Brooklyn

BrooklynGuy — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 21:39:42 -0500

French guitar virtuoso Stéphane Wrembel doesn’t play the clubs you find in the New York City guidebooks. He is a bit of a renegade, a purveyor of the Gypsy jazz invented by Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, but also an innovative musician in his own right. To hear him play, you have to take a short subway...