Jazz band celebrates immigrants through music

The Outpost, one of the venues dedicated to jazz music in Albuquerque, hosted Antonio Sánchez & Migration's sold-out show; they presented their new album Lines in The Sand, an album that, in the words of Sánchez, “is dedicated to immigrants.” 

Sánchez also won a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media for “Birdman” (2015), a film by Alejandro González Iñarritu.

“I’m a proud immigrant, a proud Mexican and a proud American that feels torn by the injustices that are being perpetrated against so many innocent people in search of a better life," Sánchez said. "This album is dedicated to them and their journey."

Taking Back Sunday to tour in Albuquerque

First formed by guitarist, Eddie Reyes in 1999, Adam Lazzara, John Nolan, Shaun Cooper and Mark O'Connell of Taking Back Sunday are celebrating their 20-year anniversary as a band with a nation-wide tour. The band is stopping at Albuquerque's Sunshine Theater on April 3 to celebrate with their Albuquerque fans.

20 years ago, when the band first connected, they weren't signed to a record label and were just breaking into the scene, something that guitarist and co-lead vocalist, John Nolan, said he looked at as a step toward to a career playing music.

"Realistically at that point I figured it wouldn't last that long, and hopefully though, it would lead to the next thing that would take me further," Nolan said. 

New music to check out this week

Music in 2019 has seen plenty of new and familiar faces challenging the norms that genre conventions can bring. Here's a list of some of those trailblazing artists and the new material they have released.

“I” by Lil Skies

Kimetrius Foose, more popularly known as Lil Skies released his debut album, and first project of 2019, late last month. Shelby, named after his mother, opens up with “I” as Skies delivers a reminiscent punch, drawing on the pain and struggle that his last relationship left him with. The track is produced by CuBeatz, Otx Hello and Danny Wolf and the visual was dreamt up by music video master, Cole Bennett of Lyrical Lemonade. 

Local band Polyhedra drops self-titled EP

From right here in Albuquerque comes Polyhedra, a melodic death-core band who released a self-titled EP in the beginning of March. The five-track album explores a plethora of sounds, testing the dichotomy between the ordered chaos of metal and the peacefulness of guitar ballads. Each song is a journey within itself, moving from fast paced blast beats and technical progressions, to slower melodic fills and hypnotic guitar riffs.

The album begins with the song “Infernus Machina," the instruments featured in the song progressively building throughout the intro. Clean guitar melts with the drums, moving into distortion before quickly transitioning into structured disorder by introducing the varying tones of screaming vocals. The guitar and drums are in sync with one another, no matter the change in tempo, a testament to the chemistry of the band.

Ariana Grande's recent music video is problematic

The term “problematic favorite” refers to people, that for various reasons are problematic or their work is problematic, usually socially, culturally or politically. For me, Ariana Grande is the ultimate problematic-fave, pop culture,  diva. Grande who just released her fifth album thank u, next has come under fire for a variety of reasons — including cultural appropriation, musical plagiarism, blackfishing and queerbaiting.

That’s a pretty long list of transgressions. 

Of this list of transgressions what I can speak to is that Grande’s most recent video for “break up with your girlfriend, I’m bored” is likely queerbaiting. Grande’s video depicts her attempting to steal the boyfriend of her look alike but in the plot twist ending she kisses the woman, not the man she appeared to be going after. 

J.I.D. packs the SUB in sold-out show

On Friday, the University of New Mexico Student Union Building ballrooms were transformed from a drab conference space into an electric concert scene to host rappers Aphelion Barz and J.I.D.

“I thought it was gonna be a little weird, just because I’ve never heard of anything (like this) in the SUB,” said Julian Garcia, who attended the concert.

Aphelion Barz kicked the show off, hyping up the crowd with chants of 5-0-5.