Electronica and Synthpop
Beaver and Krause: Earth People's Pop: Beaver and Krause's In A Wild Sanctuary
Review by Ellen Sander, Saturday Review, August 1970
GREAT AND MAJESTIC the mountains burst from the craggy surface, ethereal and delicate clouds nestle in their crevices. A hammerhead cloud hooks into the sky, ...
Tonto's Expanding Head Band: Zero Time (Embryo)
Review by Dick Meadows, Sounds, October 1971
AT FIRST sight this is an album to put fear into the hearts of stronger men than me. After all, two whole sides of Moog ...
Interview by Lisa Persky, New York Rocker, May 1976
Suicide Note: "The thought of suicide is a great consolation; with the help of it, one has got through many a bad night."– F. Nietzsche ...
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, February 1978
SUICIDE? PERHAPS; rather life at one remove, through a one-way mirror. Or wilful withdrawal from the sea of impossibility... ...
Report and Interview by Richard Riegel, Creem, March 1979
(Investigative Reporter Dances The Poot) ...
Gary Numan: Looking Through Gary Newman's Eyes
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, June 1979
THE LIST went something like: 2.00pm – Jackie, 2.30pm – My Guy, 3.15pm – Patches, 4.00pm – Record Mirror, 4.45pm – Smash Hits, 5.30pm – ...
Gary Numan: The Pleasure Principle
Review by Danny Baker, NME, September 1979
AND PEOPLE seethe at the Golden Boy. Let's forget the threadbare rock'n'roll bitch that it's all been done before by 'proper' artists — Bowie this, ...
Gary Numan: Do Sheep Dream Of Electric Androids? The Gary Numan Enigma
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, October 1979
DATA: Gary Numan found his stage name in the Yellow Pages. The original Numan is a vendor of domestic appliances. In German ...
Gary Numan: Warfield Theatre, San Francisco
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, March 1980
Frozen Robots ...
Suicide: Suicide As A Way Of Life
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, July 1980
"I THINK," breathes the camp dwarf in the sweatshirt and stubble, "that people should only write songs about economics and sex, because that's all everybody's ...
Depeche Mode: This Year's Mode(l)
Profile and Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, January 1981
DISPEL FROM your minds the untenable notion that Futurists are either bored Mummy's boys tinkering with expensive gadgets or desperately earnest avant-garde merchants trying to ...
DAF: D.A.F.: The Venue, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, June 1981
'ALLES IST Gut', for sure, ist gut: there's an almost imagistic pointedness to DAF's musical progressions, just simple sequencer patterns stripped bare of "musicianly" encumbrances ...
Moog On The State Of The Synthesizer
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, June 1981
IT’S NOT UNUSUAL for a musician to become controversial, but it is rare for a musical instrument to be debated. Robert Moog may have envisioned ...
Human League, The: The Human League: Beautiful Dreamers
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, August 1981
Start with pop with a capital P, add a touch of glamour, stir with a generous helping of amateur enthusiasm and you've got the new ...
Human League, The: The Human League: Dare (Virgin)
Review by Paul Morley, NME, October 1981
SURPRISE! ...the love of human MOR-als ...
Interview by Chris Roberts, Sounds, May 1985
"I DON'T KNOW exactly what a pop theorist is," says Green. "I think everybody has their own ideas on what pop music's about and what ...
Depeche Mode: Private Lives: The Depeche Mode Story, Pt. 2 – Martin Gore, The Decadent Boy
Interview by Max Bell, No.1, May 1985
In the second part of our exclusive Depeche Mode series Martin Gore talks about his steady progression from milkmaid to bank clerk to popstar in ...
Pet Shop Boys: The Pet Shop Boys: An ex-Smash Hits Writer and the Grandson of a Nitwit
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Smash Hits, December 1985
Doesn't sound like the ideal line-up for a successful pop duo, does it? But now that 'West End Girls' is whizzing up the charts that's ...
Propaganda: The Pop Machinery Cranks On
Interview by Chris Roberts, Sounds, February 1986
In the frozen musical wastes of '86, Claudia Brucken-Morley thinks of PROPAGANDA as "being a life long thing". CHRIS ROBERTS is thinking more along the ...
Depeche Mode: The Unlikely Lads
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1989
The latest stadium-filling attraction in the States is a band that began as a cheaply equipped electronic pop act from Basildon. Today, Depeche Mode are ...
Brian Eno: Man Out Of Time: Brian Eno
Interview by Don Watson, Spin, May 1989
"IS THIS 1962 OR 20 YEARS ON?" asked the sleeve notes of the first Roxy Music LP, the record that introduced Brian Eno to the ...
Electronica: Electronics Anonymous
Report by Johnny Black, Q, December 1990
Swatched in dry ice, tucked behind towering banks of keyboards, they are the spiritual descendents of Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, prescribing "psycho-active music to bring ...
Review by Keith Cameron, Vox, July 1991
IT'S THE DREAM ticket – two prime movers from the two most significant British pop groups of the '80s unite to form a unique presidential ...
William Orbit/Bassomatic: Inner Space
Interview by Jim Arundel, Melody Maker, January 1992
It's four in the afternoon, which is a bit early in the day for William Orbit, especially as he awoke with a migraine. ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, March 1992
IT'S GRIM down south. Suicidally so on the remote escarpment of lunar terrain where the Dungeness nuclear reactor hums its menacing mantra out across beaches ...
Leftfield: Release The Pressure!
Interview by Push, Melody Maker, December 1992
CRITICAL ACCLAIM means bugger-all in clubland. Here, an act's reputation is better measured by the number of others sampling them. And, right now, it's impossible ...
Shamen, The, T99, Third Eye, L.F.O., Orbital, Orb, The: Techno
Overview by Mark Dery, Keyboard, April 1993
TECHNO. THE name sounds at once monolithic and impersonal, the acronym of a multinational conglomerate, and toylike, as in brightly colored plastic Lego blocks. ...
Live Review by Dele Fadele, NME, August 1993
GOOD VIOLATIONS ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, November 1993
Aphex Twin is unusual. He likes tanks. He hates sleeping. And he pours tea on his cereal. SIMON REYNOLDS meets the rave-age Mozart in a ...
Aphex Twin: Machine Soul: A History Of Techno
Overview by Jon Savage, Village Voice, Summer 1993
Oooh oooh Techno cityHope you enjoy your stayWelcome to Techno cityYou will never want to go away– Cybotron, 'Techno City' (1984) ...
Aphex Twin: Armed and Fairly Dangerous
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, March 1994
AND BY their conspicuous celebrity consumption you shall know them. When Rick Wakeman entered rock's upper echelon, he armed himself with a fleet of Rolls-Royces. ...
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Warp)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1994
The prodigious, prolific and increasingly eccentric Richard James brings us two and a half hours of his unique muse. SIMON REYNOLDS is bewitched on our ...
Interview by David Toop, Wire, The, September 1994
Pete Namlook is one of the more remarkable figures of 90s electronic music. Since December 1992, he has released over 150 albums on his own ...
Tricky: [the Phantoms of] TRICKNOLOGY [versus a Politics of Authenticity]
Essay by Ian Penman, Wire, The, March 1995
"Machine technology is a type of transformation." Martin Heidegger ...
Carl Craig: Listen To The Future
Profile and Interview by Kodwo Eshun, i-D, April 1995
One of Detroit's legendary first generation, Carl Craig has left behind the legacy he's outgrown. Ripping up techno's rule-book, this 25-year-old is making records for ...
Chemical Brothers, The: The Chemical Brothers: Chemicrazy Pilots
Interview by Push, Muzik, June 1995
THE ONE with the long blond hair and the tinted glasses, the one who looks like a bleached Nana Mouskouri, is called Tom. ...
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, June 1995
NOW HERE'S what you know about Björk. She's tiny, elfin, mad as a rabbit, childish, arty, trendy and Icelandic. ...
Interview by Phil McMullen, Ptolemaic Terrascope, 1996
"You are about to have probably the most unusual musical experience of your life. The music will enter areas of your mind never before opened ...
DJ Spooky: Spooky After Dark: The DJ as Dead Dreamer
Review by Richard Gehr, Village Voice, June 1996
DJ SPOOKY'S Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Asphodel) magically distills the mysterioso live performances the artist (and occasional Voice contributor) otherwise known as Paul D. ...
Electronic: Raise the Pressure
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 1996
FIVE YEARS after cementing their partnership as the coolest Mancunians on the planet, Messrs Marr and Sumner return with a dreadfully disappointing album. Raise The ...
Guide by John McCready, MOJO, 1997
UNLIKE THE Hoover, a similarly undisputed brand leader which describes any vacuum cleaner as all vacuum cleaners do the same thing, all synthesizers are, over ...
Profile by Richard Gehr, Village Voice, January 1997
An akimbo version of hippie-band staple 'In the Midnight Hour' was the only thing about the Silver Apples' recent appearance suggesting they were anything other ...
MTV's Unconventional Amp Takes A Stab At Reinventing Popular Music for the 21st century
Report by Matt Hanks, Memphis Flyer, March 1997
SO YOU'VE HEARD about this new craze that's all the rage with the kids. Although it has yet to produce its first teen idol, 'electronica' ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Request, May 1997
"DOCTOR" ALEX Patterson, overlord of the Orb and revered godfather of the genus Ambient Techno, would like another brandy and ginger, if you don’t mind. ...
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, June 1997
YELLO HAVE been into electronica since their inception in 1980, when only the most wilfully avant-garde dabbled in synthesisers for any purpose other than the ...
Prodigy, The: Prodigy: The Fat of the Land
Review by Simon Reynolds, Village Voice, July 1997
SOME SAY the Prodigy have betrayed the bright promise of the "electronica revolution", resulting in a techno-rock hybrid that's not so much kick-ass as half-assed. ...
Prodigy, The: Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, August 1997
RARELY HAS a pop trend been so shamelessly spoon-fed to America as the hold-all genre dubbed "electronica". Rarely, indeed, has the music industry tried so ...
Pet Shop Boys: Savoy Theatre, London
Live Review by Paul Morley, Uncut, September 1997
Neil Tennant: vaudevillian existentialist? ...
Orb, The: Living in Orblivion: The Orb
Report and Interview by JoE Silva, Remix, 1998
"THE RECORD COMPANY didn't have a clue what was going on." ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty', 1998
DRIVING ON THE M25 in a rusty Mini. Early evening, thick drizzle. Only one windscreen wiper works because someone has snapped the end off the ...
Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, August 1998
THOUGH THEY'RE often lumped in with other early Eighties techno-tarts as shiny and superficial, Soft Cell had a soot-black heart, a vicious edge, and an ...
DAF: Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft: Reissues
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, December 1998
Overdue reissue of Eighties German minimalist synth duo's electronic pop albums ...
Chemical Brothers, The: The Chemical Brothers: Back To The Lab
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, July 1999
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE BLOCK-ROCKIN' SOUND YOU INVENTED HAS BECOME THE SOUNDTRACK TO LAME TEEN FLICKS AND TAMPON COMMERCIALS? IF YOU'RE THE CHEMICAL ...
Chemical Brothers, The: Chemical Brothers: Heeeere we go!
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 1999
The Chemical Brothers: Surrender First album since 1997's chart-topping Dig Your Own Hole features guest vocals from Noel Gallagher, Hope Sandoval, Jonathan Donahue and Bernard ...
Various Artists: Machine Soul: An Odyssey Into Electronic Dance Music
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 2000
From Kraftwerk to BT, via Throbbing Gristle, Moby and the Chemicals – the history of synthpop ...
Max Tundra, Tele:funken: Tele:funken: A Collection Of Ice Cream Vans Vol 2
Review by Nick Hasted, Uncut, July 2000
LIKE LABELMATE Max Tundra's debut last month, Tele:funken, aka Tom Fenn, here attempts electronica disconnected from the dancefloor, skipping round the looped conservatism of current ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2000
Founding fathers of technopop come together in electro land ...
Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent, The, September 2000
"WHEN YOU'RE YOUNG", explains 29-year old North London electro-soul auteur Leila Arab, "you get into these strange emotional states - either of over the top ...
Radiohead: Sound and Fury: Radiohead
Profile and Interview by Andrew Smith, Observer, The, October 2000
IN THE EARLY '90S, you knew you'd arrived as a rock group the day you made it on to MTV and the Beavis & Butthead ...
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Mixed bag of tricks from latest Electronica whiz ...
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, April 2001
Gods of "filter disco" finally issue follow-up to 1997'strailblazing Homework. ...
Air, Daft Punk: Daft Punk & Air: Disco Tech
Profile and Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, July 2001
DAFT PUNK AND AIR ARE THE BEATLES AND STONES OF THE INTERNATIONAL DANCE SCENE. SO WHY IS THE FRENCH ESTABLISHMENT – SO PROUD OF ITS ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2001
First six studio albums plus Tennant's extra ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Various Compilations
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2001
From post-punk to dance crossover: Sheffield pioneers' mid-Eighties revisited The Original Sound Of Sheffield — The Best Of The Virgin/EMI Years Conform To Deform — The Virgin/EMI ...
My Computer: MY COMPUTER: Vulnerabilia
Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, October 2002
YOU COULD get the wrong impression about My Computer from Vulnerabilia, as raved about everywhere from Uncut ("the most original debut LP by a Manchester ...
Underworld: Celebrating the Underbelly: Underworld
Retrospective and Interview by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, September 2008
UNDERWORLD HAVE been at the forefront of electronic music for the past 15 years. The partnership at the group's core, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, ...
Live Review by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, February 2009
THE STEEL CITY TOUR is a thrilling glimpse of the once- future through the lens of the past. What these groups attempted in Sheffield at ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2009
JUST 29 YEARS into Depeche Mode's evolution from hoppity-boppity three-minute wonders of Futurism to global phenomenon of electronic rock and here's sempiternal hit songwriter Martin ...
Grizzly Bear, Boards Of Canada, Aphex Twin: 20 years of the Warp factor
Retrospective by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, August 2009
Sheffield's Warp Records celebrates its 20th anniversary in September. Nick Hasted looks back on the cutting-edge electronica/indie label that has produced acts as diverse as ...
La Roux: 'Of course Lady Gaga's not my thing'
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Guardian, The, September 2009
IT IS MORNING, and 21-year-old Elly Jackson – or La Roux, arguably the biggest new pop star of the year – is on the Eurostar ...
Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Gary Numan: One Nation Under a Moog: How Britain Went Synthpop
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, October 2009
As new BBC4 documentary Synth Britannia shows, the synthesizer first dehumanised then re-humanised British pop, fulfilled the DIY promise of punk, and changed how bands ...
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, May 2010
"I'VE GOT so much to do. All the music in the world," wrote Arthur Russell to a San Francisco friend after arriving in New York ...
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, National, The, October 2010
ONE OF THE MOST exciting breakthrough artists of 2010, Flying Lotus has been hailed as the Jimi Hendrix of his generation. Besides his own genre-blurring ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, October 2010
CURRENTLY THE hottest rising star of electronic music on both sides of the Atlantic, Steven "Flying Lotus" Ellison played his biggest London show so far ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: You Should Already Know: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Report and Interview by Ken Scrudato, Filter, November 2010
DESPITE BEING BORN into the choking, mechanized wasteland that was early '80s urban England (Dear Old Blighty had, sadly, become Dear Old Blighted.), ...
Heaven 17: Penthouse and Pavement Revisited
Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, November 2010
"SHEFFIELD HAS ALWAYS had a bit of a maverick attitude," says Martyn Ware of evergreen electro-pop veterans Heaven 17. "It's the natural bolshiness of the ...
Skrillex: 100% Shock & Awe: Skrillex Blasts Tiny Venue
Live Review by John Calvert, Quietus, The, August 2012
THE SCENE IN the Shacklewell Arms is fairly typical of any gentrified boozer in the Hackney precinct, come Sunday night. ...
xx, The: the xx: Civic Hall, Wolverhampton
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2012
MODESTY, UNDERSTATEMENT and tasteful restraint have no place in pop music, an art form tailor-made for dysfunctional drama queens. Yet somehow the xx have backed ...
New Order: Lost Years in Original Modernity? On Listening to New Order's Lost Sirens
Retrospective by Steve Redhead, Rock's Backpages, March 2013
THIRTY SEVEN Year Party People! Since Ian Curtis, Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook began playing regularly as Joy Division in 1978, that's effectively ...
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