Ursula 1000

One of the mainstays of the Thievery Corporation's Eighteenth Street Lounge label, the Miami-raised, Brooklyn-based Ursula 1000 (Alex Gimeno) comes off as something of a trickster amid his head-nodding labelmates: his '60s references are less Kind of Blue and more mambo, easy listening and even sleazy disco and softcore go-go. His 1999 debut The Now Sound of Ursula 1000 was well schooled in hip-hop breaks, kitschy samples and acid-jazz affect, while the mix CD All Systems Go-Go had a similar whiff of basket-bottle chianti. With 2002's Kinda Funky, Gimeno began toughening up his collages with fatter production and bigger beats. Mystics found an Ursula 1000 updated, with the overtones of beatniks and Breathless giving way to heavy funk and a miasma of synth bass.