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Electronica and Synthpop

686 articles

Beaver and Krause: Earth People's Pop: Beaver and Krause's In A Wild Sanctuary

Review by Ellen Sander, Saturday Review, 29 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, 16 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 ...

Walter/Wendy Carlos: The Walter Carlos Sonic Boom

Interview by Roy Hollingworth, Melody Maker, 23 September 1972

"There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if man had ears; The Earth is ...

Walter/Wendy Carlos: Walter Carlos: Sonic Seasonings (CBS Quadraphonic)

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 January 1973

HERE'S ONE for Tangerine Dream freaks. ...

Tangerine Dream: Exclusiv interview mit Tangerine Dream

Interview by Fred Dellar, New Musical Express, 29 June 1974

They were in Oxfordshire, mixing it at the Manor and sunbathing with scantily clad ladies in the presence of fully clad FRED DELLAR, who here ...

Kraftwerk: Keystone, Berkeley CA

Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 13 May 1975

German robots of sound ...

Kraftwerk: Synthetic Rockers

Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 27 September 1975

Kraftwerk are happiest when surrounded with technology and artificial items. Karl Dallas reports ...

Get Arp And Get Down!

Overview by Davitt Sigerson, Black Music, November 1975

Arps, Moogs, Rhythm Boxes... the sounds of black music have never been more complex. DAVITT SIGERSON explains all. ...

Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity (Capitol)

Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 20 December 1975

Kraftwerk: too mechanical ...

Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity (Capitol)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, February 1976

DOES ANYBODY out there remember 1962's top ten screamer, 'Telstar', by the Tornadoes? I really loved it at the time. Not only was it one ...

Suicide

Interview by Lisa Jane 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 ...

Kraftwerk: Deutsche Disko

Interview by Glenn O'Brien, Interview, 1977

KRAFTWERK is Germany's top pop group, and that's saying something because plenty of original sounds have been emanating from Deutschland since the psychedelic era. But ...

Devo, the Weirdos: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 15 October 1977

Avant-Garde Devo at Whisky ...

Kraftwerk talks to Caroline Coon

Interview by Caroline Coon, Ritz, November 1977

KRAFTWERK: RALF HÜTTER (composer, vocalist, electronics). FLORIAN "V2" SCHNEIDER (lyricist, vocalist, electronics) KARL BARTOS and WOLFGANG FLÜR (electronic percussion). ...

Kraftwerk

Interview by Mark Bliesener, Rocky Mountain Musical Express, December 1977

FEW BANDS are as truly contemporary, precise, efficient, and emotionally controlled as Germany's Kraftwerk. The quartet's name aptly translates to "electronic power plant," and they ...

Suicide: Suicide

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 4 February 1978

SUICIDE? PERHAPS; rather life at one remove, through a one-way mirror. Or wilful withdrawal from the sea of impossibility... ...

Cabaret Voltaire: Something strange is going on in Sheffield tonight

Interview by Jon Savage, Sounds, 15 April 1978

INSIDE THE HOUSE, an hour to kill before going into town. Hungover. Sit on the sofa and watch TV with the sound off. A tape ...

Suicide: The Third International Science Fiction Festival, Metz, France

Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 17 June 1978

METZ: SOURCES inform it to be located some 20 miles east of Paris, France. Or two hours of sky from Luton, England, as it proved ...

Kraftwerk: You're never alone with a clone

Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 29 July 1978

Tim Lott observes the kraft of Kraftwerk ...

Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol)

Review by Bruce Malamut, Circus, 17 August 1978

THE MAIN thing that separates Kraftwerk from the rest of its electronic German contemporaries is the band's sense of melody and rhythm. ...

Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol)

Review by Stephen Demorest, Rock Scene, October 1978

MORE UNIVAC rock from the Berlin brainiacs. These geeks (you want a definition of 'geek', just look at this cover) nicknamed themselves "the man machine" ...

Giorgio Moroder, The Three Degrees: The Three Degrees: New Dimensions (Ariola); Giorgio Moroder: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Of Midnight Express (Casablanca)

Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 11 November 1978

TEN YEARS from now, some Nick Lowe with perfect recall will mimic the sound of Giorgio Moroder; for it defines and will come to represent ...

The Human League: Factory, Manchester

Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 17 February 1979

Discovering silliness in League with severity ...

Devo: Actual Size

Report and Interview by Richard Riegel, Creem, March 1979

(Investigative Reporter Dances The Poot) ...

Jean Michel Jarre: Jarre's Eclectic Electic Music

Interview by Jim Sullivan, Sweet Potato, March 1979

YOU HAVE TO credit Jean Michel Jarre for making the sometimes forboding world of electronic music accessible to the public. Me. I've lone been a ...

Jean Michel Jarre: A Jarre With Bottle

Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 3 March 1979

OR YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A LOUT TO HAVE CLOUT ...

Tubeway Army: Looking Through Gary Numan's Eyes

Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 9 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, New Musical Express, 8 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, ...

Fashiøn: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 September 1979

PRODUCT PERFECT they called their album and the song of that name was in their set at the Odeon when they supported the Police. But ...

Gary Numan: City Hall, Newcastle

Live Review by Ian Ravendale, Sounds, 29 September 1979

Are pin-ups electric? ...

Gary Numan: Do Sheep Dream Of Electric Androids? The Gary Numan Enigma

Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 October 1979

DATA: Gary Numan found his stage name in the Yellow Pages. The original Numan is a vendor of domestic appliances. In German "nu" means "now' ...

The Human League: Reproduction (Virgin V2133)

Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 6 October 1979

DON'T BE a dummy... Zarki looked at the cover: naked babies trampled on by adults. A cheap shock shot masquerading as message? There’s a baby ...

The Beat, The Human League, The Teardrop Explodes: Human League, Teardrop Explodes, The Beat, Flowers: Lyceum, London

Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 17 November 1979

HAIRCUTS, HAIRCUTS everywhere and 70p a drink. ...

David Bowie, Can, Brian Eno, Faust, Lothar and the Hand People, Neu!, Silver Apples, Suicide, Tangerine Dream, The United States of America: The Concise NME Guide To Electronic Music & Synthesised Sound

Guide by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980

"Progress in the physical and mechanical sciences determines a progress in art." — Carlos Chavez, 1957 ...

Walter/Wendy Carlos, Chicory Tip, The Chipmunks, Devo, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Fad Gadget, The Human League, Jean Michel Jarre, M, Giorgio Moroder, Gary Numan, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Todd Rundgren, Donna Summer, Telex, Tonto's Expanding Head Band, The Tubes, Frank Zappa: The Concise NME Guide To Electronic Music & Synthesised Sound PART TWO — Synthesisers

Overview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 12 January 1980

POMP THE trouble with synthesisers is actually playing them, accepting their status as sound-generators and starting from scratch. Mechanical keyboards were included in early synth ...

John Foxx, Ultravox: John Foxx: Technological man

Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 19 January 1980

It's not the machine that is evil, nor the synthesizer. Man canuse technology and benefit. Nevertheless, John Foxx, the quiet man, still likes to sing. ...

Buggles

Interview by Fred Dellar, Smash Hits, 21 February 1980

GEOFF DOWNES is the one with 20/20 vision. Trevor Horn is the one with the go-go goggles. Together they're the Buggles, purveyors of clean-machine pop, ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Eric's, Liverpool

Live Review by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 23 February 1980

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES are going to be big. It's the opening night of an important tour, on home ground (almost), and the message is there. It's there ...

Gary Numan: Warfield Theatre, San Francisco

Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 22 March 1980

Frozen Robots ...

Suicide: Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev (Ze)

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1980

TEN YEARS ago in a dingy New York loft two blokes were whipping up formidable walls of sheer, pulverising sound using just a set of ...

The Human League: Human League: The Kids Are Alright

Interview by Ronnie Gurr, Record Mirror, 24 May 1980

IT'S A BRAVE new world for young moderns and, current events considered, The Human League, look like suitable candidates for the apocalyptical Titanic dance band. ...

The Human League: Travelogue (Virgin V2160) ***

Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 24 May 1980

Paradoxes in industry chic ...

Suicide: Suicide As A Way Of Life

Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 5 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 ...

Ultravox: Vienna (Chrysalis)

Review by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 5 July 1980

HERE'S the first Ultravox album since signing to Chrysalis, and the first since Midge Ure filled the space left by John Foxx. The new lead ...

The Human League: Very Ordinary People With Very Odd Tastes

Profile and Interview by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 10 July 1980

THE HUMAN League are different. Yes, I know that's the fanfare that's trotted out to greet the arrival of every other new act these days ...

The Human League: LADIES, GENTS, ANDROIDS, MUTANTS & BIOTRONS A BIG HAND For The Human League

Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 12 July 1980

THE HUMAN LEAGUE ADVENTURE IS JUST BEGINNING. The first slide appears on the top left-hand screen. It is rapidly flanked by another: A LONG TIME AGO IN ...

Ultravox

Interview by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 2 August 1980

Penny Kiley uncovers a smile on the face of the robots, and discovers that synthesizers are just rock'n'roll hardware. ...

New Musik: The Appliance of Science

Interview by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 7 August 1980

Knee deep in keyboards and cables, Tony Mansfield makes New Musik. Tape Op: D. Hepworth ...

Gary Numan: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 18 September 1980

IF YOU choose to sow in the field of fashion, you must expect to reap a brief harvest. There were empty seats at Gary Numan's ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Techno Conservationists

Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 25 October 1980

Dave McCullough bumps into Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark ...

Fad Gadget: Art of work but not redundant

Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 6 December 1980

Fad Gadget's Fireside Favourites A doleful tale of a sweet and sickly apocalypse ...

Gary Numan: Match Wits With Gary Numan!

Interview by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, January 1981

...if you were him, what would you do? Administered and Graded by Neuromantic Jeffrey Morgan, B. A. ...

Ultravox: Vienna (Chrysalis)

Review by Wesley Strick, Creem, January 1981

EVER WANT to meet the geniuses who made Gary Numan viable? Well, here they are. Most of them, I mean. John Foxx is gone, with ...

Depeche Mode: This Year's Mode(l)

Profile and Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 31 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 ...

Simple Minds, Visage: Visage: Visage (Polydor PD-1-6304); Simple Minds: Empires and Dance (Zoom SPART1140)

Review by Jim Green, Trouser Press, February 1981

BOTH THESE records explore the musical turf of brave new pop swathed in synthesizers and studio effects. Neither is quite a paradigm of such experimentation; ...

Landscape (avant) Gardener

Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 14 February 1981

Betty Page meets Landscape's Richard Burgess, computer man behind Spandau Ballet, Visage and Shock ...

British Electric Foundation, Heaven 17, The Human League: The Human League: In the Battle for Gallactic Supremacy — Humans Beleaguered

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 2 May 1981

Life in the League with only one haircut between them ...

Kraftwerk: Computer World (EMI EMC 3370) ***

Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 16 May 1981

Deutschmark doublethink ...

Kraftwerk: Computer World (EMI)

Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981

COMPUTER-WORLD is the first Kraftwerk LP for over three years, an inordinate period of silence for most groups, but no surprise in their case. Indeed, ...

Soft Cell: Would we soft-soap you about... Soft Cell

Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 23 May 1981

(1) We Intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy end tearfulness. ...

DAF: D.A.F.: The Venue, London

Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 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, 7 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 ...

Kraftwerk: A Computer Date with a Showroom Dummy

Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 13 June 1981

And we'll fahr'n, fahr'n, fahr'n auf der Autobahn — until big daddy takes our Volkswagen away. Chris Bohn and Anton Corbijn do the Spanish hustle with Kraftwerk ...

Depeche Mode: Depeche Guevara

Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 27 June 1981

FIVE MONTHS ago the prospect of doing an interview shut inside an airless, sterile studio would have made Depeche Mode run all the way home ...

Kraftwerk: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 1 August 1981

WHEN KRAFTWERK played the Santa Monica Civic in 1975, the German quartet's electronic music seemed like an academic aberration from the rock norm, and the ...

Soft Cell: The Big Softies

Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 1 August 1981

"COMING!" SHREIKS a familiar voice, as we knock on the door of the flat that appears to have been built on a slag heap in ...

Kraftwerk: Rock's Mad Scientists

Profile and Interview by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 2 August 1981

Kraftwerk Moves Electronic Music Out of the Lab and Onto the Dance Floor ...

Soft Cell: Cell Division

Interview by Johnny Black, Smash Hits, 6 August 1981

Soft Cell are half-Soul, half-Electronic. Johnny Black likes both bits. ...

The Human League: Beautiful Dreamers

Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 8 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 ...

Suicide: The Sound of NYC

Sleeve notes by Lester Bangs, ROIR Records, September 1981

OVER THE LAST few years there've been a whole lot of catch phrases bandied about to describe what folks kept insisting was "new" music unlike anything ...

The Chefs, Depeche Mode, Tarzan 5: Depeche Mode, the Chefs, Tarzan 5: ICA Rock Week, the Institute of Contemporary Art, London

Live Review by Leyla Sanai, New Musical Express, 5 September 1981

THE SECOND day of the ICA Rock Week sees the immaculate combination of the Chefs, Tarzan 5 and Depeche Mode. The Chefs are high-grade Peelie ...

Gary Numan: Dance (Beggars Banquet)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 5 September 1981

"These New Romantics are oh so boring I could swear I've been there once or twice before" ('Moral') ...

British Electric Foundation, Heaven 17: Heaven 17… Or Music For Business And Pleasure

Report and Interview by Ian Birch, Smash Hits, 17 September 1981

BACK IN THE middle '70s, when punk snapped out of the woodwork, everyone wanted "complete control". It was a Robin Hood policy — steal from ...

Heaven 17: Penthouse and Pavement (BEF/Virgin)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 19 September 1981

YES, THERE'S plenty of use! Sometimes you can wonder why you're so enthalled by pop's maze: it would be easy to break out in that ...

The Loved One: "We are the psychic telephone"

Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 19 September 1981

IT CAME to them in the deepest reaches of nether-Oxfordshire, close to a four track machine where months seemed like days: that personal Hiroshima that ...

The Human League: Dare (Virgin)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 17 October 1981

SURPRISE! ...the love of human MOR-als ...

Suicide: Punk Rockers Who Don't Self-Destruct

Interview by Michael Goldberg, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 November 1981

A group "dripping blood and spit" ...

ABC: Tongue in Chic

Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 21 November 1981

Martin Fry spells out the ABC manifesto to MARK COOPER ...

Soft Cell: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (Some Bizzare BZLP 2)

Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 28 November 1981

SYMPATHETIC SYNTHESIS ...

Devo: Sixties Idealists or Nazis and Clowns?

Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 10 December 1981

LOS ANGELES — "Someone wanted to know where your home is," the waitress said to Mark Mothersbaugh. "I don't have a home," Mothersbaugh replied softly, peering at ...

Depeche Mode: Speak And Spell (Mute)

Review by Betty Page, Sounds, 19 December 1981

THE FACT that the boys chose to depict an absurd, surreal swan draped in a plastic bag on their LP cover rather than to sell ...

Soft Cell: Marc Almond: The Whip Hand

Interview by Jon Savage, The Face, January 1982

…and who holds it? The pop process, alienation and sexuality discussed with Marc Almond. By JON SAVAGE. ...

Ultravox: Rage in Eden (Chrysalis CHR 1338)

Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, January 1982

LATELY, ULTRAVOX has been experiencing a new surge of popularity in Europe and America. Though lumped in with the "new romantic" movement spearheaded by fashion ...

Fad Gadget: Fadfoolery and Frank Confessions

Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 23 January 1982

Paul Morley encounters Frank Tovey on the verge of failure, and Fad Gadget on the point of hysteria. So why is this a succesful combination? ...

Kraftwerk: Art & Kraft

Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 4 February 1982

TWELVE YEARS OF PRACTICAL ELECTRONICS FINALLY PAY OF WITH THE SUCCESS OF 'THE MODEL'DAVE RIMMER TOURS THE WERKS ...

Heaven 17: Heaven CAN wait

Profile and Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 18 February 1982

MAYBE IT'S something to do with the '80s computerised approach to pop. Or maybe it's a reflection of the hard business sense many young bands ...

Depeche Mode: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 20 February 1982

FAST FORWARD TO THE FUTURE! ...

Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Soft Cell: Depeche Mode: Speak & Spell; Soft Cell: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret; Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Architecture & Morality

Review by Jim Green, Trouser Press, March 1982

PUNK BANDS made up in sheer energetic vitality and charm what they lacked in technique. The young electronic bands now taking the British charts by ...

Blancmange: Custard's last stand

Profile and Interview by Mick Sinclair, Sounds, 13 March 1982

Blancmange crack the instant whip ...

Ultravox: Number 1 With A Bullet Train

Report and Interview by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 20 March 1982

HUGH FIELDER goes along for the ride with ULTRAVOX in Japan ...

Soft Cell: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (Sire)

Review by Jim Farber, Creem, April 1982

WOW — A TRENDY electronic dance band that isn't awful! In fact, they're pretty good. Most of these not-so-new-fangled computerized groups sound just fab in ...

The Human League

Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, Vogue, May 1982

The Human League are widely acknowledged as this minute's perfect pop group. The following is an account of their perfectly romantic rise in the charts. ...

Yazoo: Who's Yazoo?

Report and Interview by Lesley White, The Face, May 1982

IN CASE YOU'RE still wondering, Vince Clarke's amicable departure from Depeche Mode was motivated by nothing less than that time honoured and truly honourable ideal: ...

Thomas Dolby: The Golden Age Of Wireless (Venice In Peril)

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 May 1982

THE NOISE REDUCER ...

The Human League Wants You

Profile and Interview by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 20 May 1982

ONCE UPON a time in Sheffield, England, there were four men who called themselves the Human League. They made expressive synthesizer music with intriguing lyrics ...

The Human League, Japan: Human League: Dare (A&M); Japan: Japan (Virgin/Epic)

Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1982

CONTRARY TO popular belief, all synthesizer bands are not unlistenable. True, many do sound rather like the result of an infinite number of silicon chips ...

New Order (For The Old Ceremony)

Report and Interview by Richard Grabel, Creem, June 1982

NEW YORK — The word had gone out through Ruth Polsky, the booking agent handling New Order's American tour. No interviews. They never do them. ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: OMD: Pilgrims' Unplanned Progress

Interview by Toby Goldstein, Creem, June 1982

NEW YORK — Think a minute, and recall the members of the Electronics Club at your school. If stereotypes haven't been swept under the carpet ...

Visage

Interview by Betty Page, Noise!, 24 June 1982

EVERY OTHER individual who burst forth from neo-legendary club The Blitz as aspiring popster or artist/designer/photographer has now almost been forgiven the cardinal sin of ...

Marc Almond, Soft Cell: Marc Almond: The Human Torch

Interview by Betty Page, Noise!, 8 July 1982

Starring mild-mannered Marc and cub reporter Betty Page ...

Depeche Mode: Perkins Palace, Pasadena CA

Live Review by Mark Leviton, Music Connection, 24 July 1982

TECHNO-BUBBLE gum came to Perkins in the form of Depeche Mode, the most melodic of the new English synthesizer bands and the one most steeped ...

The Human League, Japan, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Soft Cell: Human League et al: Synth-Pop

Report and Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1982

Music Without Musicians...But Not Without Craftsmanship and Great Songs ...

Thomas Dolby: Tom Club

Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 21 August 1982

Mark Cooper explores boffin chic with electro popper Thomas Dolby ...

A Flock of Seagulls

Profile and Interview by Toby Goldstein, Trouser Press, October 1982

MIKE SCORE, 24-year-old founder and lead vocalist of A Flock of Seagulls, strongly resembles a large winged being: His carroty-blond hair has been coaxed into ...

Heaven 17: You Ware It Well

Report and Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 6 November 1982

THESE THREE men belong to neither pavement nor penthouse. Instead they've grown comfortable by the fireside. Heaven 17, Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn ...

Thomas Dolby: Life in the Age of Wireless: Thomas Dolby's State-of-the-Artwork

Interview by Toby Goldstein, Creem, December 1982

PERHAPS IN another century, Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson would have been an explorer of science. I imagine him in an antique laboratory like another Thomas ...

Thomas Dolby: Marquee Club, London

Live Review by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 9 December 1982

UNTIL THIS series of four shows at London's Marquee, live appearances from the redoubtable Mr Dolby have been rare indeed. He was, apparently, locked up ...

Blancmange: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 8 January 1983

Tea's company ...

Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget: Ace Cinema, Brixton

Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 January 1983

SOME OF the many moods of Mute were on show tonight. Label mates Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget would appear to be polar opposites, but ...

Depeche Mode: Modes to Freedom

Interview by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 22 January 1983

A YELLOW PLASTIC watering can rests idly on the floor, haying just recovered from a bashing the previous night in the name of 'percussive effects'. ...

Soft Cell, Yazoo: Soft Cell and Yaz(oo): Synths and Singers

Interview by Jon Young, Trouser Press, February 1983

JUST TWELVE months ago it was unclear if the primarily British phenomena of synthesizer bands would exhibit any staying power. Although 1981 was a good ...

Yazoo: Yaz: Upstairs At Eric's (Mute/Sire)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, March 1983

"YAZ," ARE really "Yazoo," and still go by that name in the U.K. and Europe, but for North American consumption they had to drop the ...

Eurythmics

Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 3 March 1983

Most electronic duos seem to have hits instantly. Not so Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox. Dave Rimmer finds out why it's taken them so long. ...

Blancmange: The Ritz, New York

Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 12 March 1983

AMERICANS HAVE never heard of Blancmange: they can't buy it in shops and they can't pronounce it. If Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe are to ...

Blancmange: Stuck In The Mould

Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, New Musical Express, 19 March 1983

Paolo Hewitt attempts to cultivate a taste for Blancmange but finds their electronic packet mix still leaves him cold... but not freezing. ...

Soft Cell: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 19 March 1983

The hard Cell ...

Soft Cell: The Art of Falling Apart (Sire 237691)

Review by Jon Young, Trouser Press, May 1983

MARC ALMOND and David Ball of Soft Cell make great singles. Like Paul McCartney, Abba and precious few others these days, they're adept at creating ...

Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (Arista)

Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 9 August 1983

DISCRIMINATING rock-and-roll fans in this country can finally tone down their horrified wails about white British dance bands' ubiquitous, maddening, mosquito-whine electroboogie. Pride in shallowness ...

The Human League: Fascination! (A&M)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, September 1983

BACK IN THEIR serious-artiste days, before they shed the future Heaven 17 to go POP! with capital P's, the Human League used to attempt to ...

Gary Numan: Warriors (Beggars Banquet)

Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 17 September 1983

NUMAN — OLD HAT... ...

Howard Jones: Keeping Up with the Joneses

Interview by Helen Fitzgerald, Melody Maker, 8 October 1983

Helen FitzGerald finds reasons to believe in the musical integrity of synth-pop wiz, HOWARD JONES ...

Gary Numan: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 18 October 1983

EVEN IF you are undecided about his music, you have to give Gary Numan credit for his nerve and the mysterious hold which his meagre ...

Gary Numan: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 29 October 1983

BARBIE'S BOYFRIEND IN BONDAGE GEAR ...

Great Polysynths For Under $2,000

Overview by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1984

Making Trickle-Down Economics Work for You ...

Howard Jones: Human's Lib

Interview by Helen Fitzgerald, Melody Maker, 4 February 1984

Undeterred by the psychological disadvantages of being a one-man band and the subject of a national 'paper slur campaign', HOWARD JONES struggles on... to victory, ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: New Junk for Old

Interview by Helen Fitzgerald, Melody Maker, 28 April 1984

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK emerge from the shadows with a new album, Junk Culture. Helen FitzGerald hops on the Sealink to Belgium for a ...

Howard Jones: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 5 May 1984

"YOU'D BETTER give this a good write-up," quoth my 18-year-old brother, veritably frothing at the mouth with raw aggression, halfway through giving Howard Jones a ...

Blancmange Q&A

Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 10 May 1984

When Neil Arthur first met Stephen Luscombe, he thought he was "a bit strange". When Stephen first met Neil, he thought he was "a right ...

Bronski Beat: Runaway Boys: Bronski Beat

Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 21 June 1984

Bronski Beat are young, talented and they've only played a handful of concerts. And suddenly everyone's asking them questions. Questions about their "stance" as a ...

Thomas Dolby: The Case For Thomas Dolby

Interview by David A. Keeps, Creem, July 1984

SUBJECT: Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson, age 25, white male Caucasian of English extraction. Taller than average height; average medium body weight. Dirty blond hair. Shortsighted, ...

Angel Corpus Christi, Suicide: Suicide, Angel Corpus Christi: Irving Plaza, New York NY

Live Review by David A. Keeps, New Musical Express, 25 August 1984

BACK FROM THE DEAD ...

Heaven 17: The Heaven 17 Manifesto

Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, 1 September 1984

Once upon a time, Heaven 17 presented themselves as the dynamic young businessmen of pop. But now they've crossed sides to support the miners, the Labour ...

Heaven 17: How Men Are (Virgin)

Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 29 September 1984

YOU KNOW the pokerwork proverb in every chippy/cab firm/newsagent in the country: "You don't have to be mad to work here…but it helps!" ...

Severed Heads: Since the Accident (Ink/Virgin)

Review by Clinton Walker, Rolling Stone (Australia), 1 October 1984

I USED TO be an advocate of the "electro" revolution in rock, but somewhere along the way I became disenchanted. It's developed a reliance on ...

Depeche Mode: Empire, Liverpool

Live Review by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 6 October 1984

SOFT SELL ...

Depeche Mode: Boys Keep Swinging

Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, 19 January 1985

Pop groups come and go, but Depeche Mode keep on getting bigger and better. Max Bell joined them on tour in German — and if ...

Frank Chickens: Why did the chickens cross the globe

Interview by Cath Carroll, New Musical Express, 26 January 1985

To get to Milton Keynes! Cath Carroll finds out that fact is stranger than fiction and how canaries relate to chickens. ...

Heaven 17: Gregory's Gossip

Interview by Paul Sexton, Record Mirror, 2 February 1985

In our fascinating profile of Mr Glenn Gregory, crooner of this parish, we discover what Heaven 17 and toilet paper have in common. And there's ...

Yello: Stella (Elektra ECT1)

Review by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 6 April 1985

GOTTA SAY Yes To Another Excess was quite categorically one of my favourite elpees of the recent past. A definite eargasm. This picks up where ...

Howard Jones: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by David Sinclair, The Times, 18 April 1985

HOWARD JONES, a successful pop star for about 18 months, has become the doyen of the new breed of singer-songwriters who, with their electronic keyboards ...

Depeche Mode: Private Lives: The Depeche Mode Story, Pt. 2 – Martin Gore, The Decadent Boy

Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, 11 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 ...

Scritti Politti: Word Play

Interview by Chris Roberts, Sounds, 18 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 ...

Jean Michel Jarre: Jean-Michel Jarre: French Polish

Interview by Robin Katz, Over 21, June 1985

Jean-Michel Jarre — more than an upmarket face and Sunday supplement music. He talks to Robin Katz. ...

Propaganda: Doctrine In The House

Interview by Mick Sinclair, ZigZag, June 1985

MICK SINCLAIR MEETS THE QUIET TYPES WITH THE ABILITY TO EXPLODE ...

Martin Rev: Glory Boy

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 1 June 1985

Is there life after Suicide? Martin Rev gets fired up ...

New Order: Low-Life (Qwest)

Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 2 June 1985

FEW BANDS can claim a better pedigree than New Order. The English quartet is the offspring of Joy Division, the influential group whose name is ...

The Human League: Six Go Completely Bonkers

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Smash Hits, 17 July 1985

Three years ago, The Human League were the biggest pop group in the whole world. Their classic single 'Don't You Want Me' had been number ...

George Clinton, Thomas Dolby: George Clinton and Thomas Dolby: The Nut & The Nerd

Interview by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, 20 July 1985

We're known as The Nut and The Nerd say George Clinton and Thomas Dolby, now together as DOLBY'S CUBE. Caroline Sullivan met this unlikely pair ...

George Clinton, Thomas Dolby: Dog-Gone Dolby

Report and Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, 3 August 1985

Max Bell yaps with Thomas Dolby and George Clinton. ...

Marc Almond: Do You Hate This Man?

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Smash Hits, 11 September 1985

Do you hate this man? If so you're not alone. Marc Almond admits he's "one of the most disliked of all pop stars". But he ...

Pet Shop Boys: The Pet Shop Boys: An ex-Smash Hits Writer and the Grandson of a Nitwit

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Smash Hits, 18 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 ...

Bronski Beat (1985)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, uncredited writer, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1985

The two-thirds Glaswegian trio talk about their relationship with the press: homophobia, and the fixation with their sexuality; not being a conventional band, and the developments in electro pop; Jimmy Sommerville discovering his voice; 'Small Town Boy'; on being a trio, and their stage show; the US release of album The Age of Consent; being gay in Glasgow, and on the London gay scene; the importance of Tom Robinson; Jimmy's lyrics, and on looking forward to their US visit.

File format: mp3; total file size: 37.2mb, total interview length: 38' 46" sound quality: ****

Blancmange, Timbuk3: Roxy, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 12 February 1986

BLANCMANGE DEBUT STILL IN ITS MOLD ...

The Rich Kids, Slik, Ultravox, Midge Ure, Visage: The Midge Ure Story

Interview by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, 12 February 1986

He's had a hand in almost every type of pop group imaginable: he was number one in 1976 with "teenybop" group Slik, almost become singer ...

Propaganda: The Pop Machinery Cranks On

Interview by Chris Roberts, Sounds, 22 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 ...

Pet Shop Boys: What Does It Take To Make These Men Happy?

Interview by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, 26 February 1986

A NUMBER ONE RECORD? GETTING ON THE COVER OF SMASH HITS? LOTS OF LOVELY MONEY?  WELL, THEY'VE HAD ALL THAT AND THEY STILL LOOK LIKE ...

Depeche Mode: One Of Those Days...

Interview by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, 26 March 1986

...you know, when the alarm doesn't go off and you've got a cold and your radio's conked out and the gerbil's chewed the corner off ...

Pet Shop Boys: Please (Parlophone PS81)**

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 29 March 1986

AUF WIEDERSEHEN PETS ...

A Flock Of Seagulls, Modern English: The Ritz, New York NY

Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, 24 May 1986

BRITISH SYNTH-poppers a Flock of Seagulls and Modern English each dented the top 10 three to four years ago — the former with 'I Ran' ...

A Flock of Seagulls: Dream Come True (Arista)

Review by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 5 June 1986

AFTER THEIR 1982 debut became one of that year's most popular albums, A Flock of Seagulls found itself unable to expand on its kinetic, reductive ...

Depeche Mode's Kinky Moods

Interview by David A. Keeps, Creem, July 1986

WHAT WOULD you call a band that wears a lot of black leather, sings about 'Masters And Servants' and claims that "God has a sick ...

Suicide: CBGB, New York

Live Review by Abby Weissman, East Coast Rocker, 10 September 1986

THE JURY IS still out on the music of the '70s, but the smoke is starting to clear. It's easier to see who was truly ...

Suicide: Camden Palace, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 8 November 1986

A LITTLE hipper than they were when Clash fans bottled them a decade ago, the cult New York duo Suicide have reformed for some select ...

Kraftwerk: Electric Café (Warner Brothers)

Review by Glenn O'Brien, Spin, March 1987

Platter du Jour ...

Erasure: Central Hall, Westminster, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 11 April 1987

THANKS MOSTLY to the glittering Andy Bell, Erasure manage not to be the cold stew of circuits and digital read-outs decried by some. Certainly, much ...

Erasure: Westminster Central Hall, London

Live Review by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 25 April 1987

IT WAS A night full of juicy contradictions. Fancy having a pop show in a Methodist hall next to a statue of John Wesley! Fancy ...

Depeche Mode: Fzss!... Zwiing! Aaargh!... Hahahahah!!

Report by Sylvia Patterson, Smash Hits, 6 May 1987

Hark! Depeche Mode are having a party — i.e. they're having "a" drink, scoffing streamers, pretending to be space-men, cavorting under tables, stealing "a" drink ...

Pet Shop Boys: Take: 1 Wasteland, 2 Pet Shop Boys, 7 Deadly Sins, 15 Monks

Report and Interview by William Shaw, Smash Hits, 1 July 1987

...and what have you got? "Beats me," says William Shaw, "but I hope they don't eat all of that vegetable crumble." ...

Pet Shop Boys: Actually (Parlophone)

Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 5 September 1987

ACTUALLY BRILLIANT ...

Scritti Politti: A Restauranteur's Guide To The Galaxy

Report and Interview by Rachel Felder, Alternative Press, 1988

GREEN GARTSIDE – Mr. Scritti Politti – describes his band's sound in the distanced terminology of a fed up rock critic; as he puts it, ...

Joyce Sims: Plain and Simple

Interview by Edwin J. Bernard, Record Mirror, 23 January 1988

CONSIDERING JOYCE Sims has made her mark forging a co-operation between soul and hip hop, her upbringing and lifestyle could hardly have prepared her for ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (1988)

Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 11 February 1988

OMD's Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys talk about their just released "best-of" album; its accompanying video compilation, and making videos from back in the day to now; the bad contracts they signed and their management issues; their not-very-good book; suffering a consistently bad press, their relative longevity; being seen as an electro-pop band, the ethics of sampling; not doing cover versions, and their veneration of Kraftwerk and Eno.

File format: mp3; file size: 34.7mb; Interview length: 36' 08"; sound quality: *****

Depeche Mode: Spreading A Pack Of Lies About Depeche Mode

Interview by Jon Young, Creem, April 1988

OR, NEW WAYS TO HAVE FUN ...

Thomas Dolby: Town & Country Club, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 27 April 1988

Cruising in the slow lane ...

Thomas Dolby: Town And Country Club, London

Live Review by Helen Mead, New Musical Express, 7 May 1988

THOMAS DOLBY is a musical Fagin. In his top hat and gutter-sweeping coat he has to pick a pocket or two but has this small ...

Pet Shop Boys: Outsiderdom: The Pet Shop Boys

Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1988

The Pet Shop Boys have played live once, never toured and only grudgingly socialize with the pop fraternity. They've stoutly refused to take the conventional ...

Depeche Mode: California Screaming

Report by Paul Mathur, Blitz, September 1988

In Britain, they're known as just another plinky plonk band. But in the USA, the boys from Basildon are megastars. Paul Mathur visits California during ...

Suicide: Dingwalls, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 17 September 1988

DEAD ON THEIR FEAT ...

Suicide: Dingwalls, London

Live Review by Jane Solanas, New Musical Express, 17 September 1988

THE THING about this alarming trend of 'rock comebacks' is that the term can mean anything from the return of a bankrupt geriatric to the ...

Depeche Mode's Synthetic Survival

Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, October 1988

You can't stop the beating of a human heart ...

Gary Numan: "I'd love to carry a gun. If some nutter comes at me with a gun I'd like to be able to shoot him."

Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 15 October 1988

"IT'S COLD outside" sang GARY NUMAN nine years ago during 'Are Friend's Electric''s wintery grip on the charts. None of Gaz's more recent attempts have ...

Depeche Mode: Modernists à la Mode

Profile and Interview by Jon Savage, The Observer, 12 March 1989

JON SAVAGE enters the futuristic visions of Depeche Mode, where androgyny meets electro-pop ...

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 ...

Thomas Dolby: Has The Man of a Thousand Faces Spread Himself Too Thin?

Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, May 1989

1. OPEN ON long shot of Hollywood skyline. Grimy fog and half-hearted drizzle give the city the mean, seedy look it always has when the ...

The Beloved: They Wanna Be Loved

Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 27 January 1990

THE BELOVED may have started life as dodgy New Order copyists with that ubiquitous Peel session under their studded leather belts, but now they're Dance ...

Depeche Mode: Violator

Review by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 10 March 1990

DEPECHE MODE have always been the poor relations of New Order and Kraftwerk, offering pedestrian, sometimes inconsequential variations on the electro-pop theme. Their simplified interpretations ...

Nitzer Ebb: Re-Pressing The Start Button

Interview by Cathi Unsworth, Sounds, 17 March 1990

The jackboots are off and Nitzer Ebb have loosened up into a cool pumping rock mode. But do they long to strut afront a Marshall stack letting ...

The KLF: KLF: Tales From The White Room

Interview by John McCready, The Face, September 1990

SINISTER. That's the word. The KLF are sinister. With their pervy mail-order black-hooded packamacks, their propaganda and their perfect assimilation of rave culture they are ...

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 ...

Front 242: The Number of the Beat

Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 12 January 1991

We are coming to your House! Paradise crumbles to the sound of FRONT 242's tyrannical Techno ...

Candy Flip: Madstock

Review by Lucy O'Brien, Select, April 1991

YOU HAVE to hand it to them. On first hearing, 'Strawberry Fields Forever' just seemed to be insipid pop, the nadir of the cover version. ...

Gary Numan: Who The Hell Does Gary Numan Think He Is?

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, May 1991

THANK CHRIST for this "Siberian snap" and all this snow, is all I can say. Thank Christ that "it's cold outside" (as G. Numan sang ...

Enigma: MCMXC a.D. (Charisma)

Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, 16 May 1991

IT'S NOT every day that a hit single comes along that combines the accidental da da appeal of Focus's 'Hocus Pocus' or Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' ...

Pet Shop Boys: Opera House, Blackpool

Live Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 8 June 1991

"WELL, MY mother would agree with you," says Neil Tennant after. "She doesn't like the first half either." ...

Electronic: Electronic

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 ...

Bomb The Bass: Seasonal Adjustment

Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 13 July 1991

TIM SIMENON shuts his eyes, shakes his head and through gritted teeth describes the last Bomb The Bass single, 'Love So True', as "a total ...

Kraftwerk: Barrowlands, Glasgow

Live Review by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 20 July 1991

THEY SMILE. That's the first surprise. Dressed in black, the four Kraftwerk-ers briskly stride on stage to take their places behind the giant computer consoles ...

Kraftwerk: Brixton Academy, London

Live Review by David Toop, The Times, 23 July 1991

FOLLOWING THIS year's release of a remix album, a greatest hits by any other name, Kraftwerk fans have been forced to ask themselves whether this ...

Nine Inch Nails: A Bang On The Gear

Report and Interview by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 7 September 1991

SAN FRANCISCO, city of peace and love. Perhaps the last refuge of the beautiful people who advocate making babies, not bombs. But, hey, get out ...

Leftfield: Bobbing to the top of The Next Big Thing List

Interview by Andy Crysell, Mixmag, January 1992

IT'S NOT often that a band with no definite plans for their next release, without even so much as a recording contract, land a page ...

William Orbit/Bassomatic: Inner Space

Interview by Jim Arundel, Melody Maker, 4 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. ...

Juan Atkins, Inner City, Kraftwerk, Derrick May, Gary Numan, Kevin Saunderson: Techno: Watts Going On

Retrospective by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 18 January 1992

AND SO, we hear you say, tell us more about the origins and development of this exciting music you call Techno. ...

Orbital: Fission Blips

Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 7 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 ...

Curve, Primal Scream: Curve: Town and Country Club; Primal Scream: Brixton Academy, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 30 March 1992

THE TRADITIONAL concert is being supplanted in some surprising quarters by the rave — anything from an all-nighter in which the group are just one ...

Recoil: Bloodline (Mute/All formats)

Review by Betty Page, New Musical Express, 18 April 1992

ALAN WILDER is the John Major of Electro. A nice chap — if every member of the public could spend ten minutes with him, he'd ...

Bomb The Bass, Brand New Heavies: Waterfront, Norwich

Live Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 16 May 1992

THE FIRST live appearance by Bomb The Bass since the Gulf War temporarily rendered theirs the least diplomatic and commercially astute moniker extant is delayed ...

Suicide: ManRay, Boston MA

Live Review by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 20 July 1992

Suicide casts a deep, dark spell ...

Leftfield: Release The Pressure!

Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 5 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 ...

Utah Saints: Utah Saints (London/PLG) ; Various Artists: Techno Mancer (Antler Subway/Caroline)

Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 21 January 1993

TECHNO IS music that gets on people's nerves. Whether pounding like metal or watercoloring like New Age, it strikes many as repetitive and cold, about ...

Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (R&S/Apollo Double 12"/CD); Polygon Window: Surfing On Sine Waves (Warp LP7 Double 12"/CD)

Review by David Toop, The Wire, February 1993

ALWAYS PREJUDGE the intentions of a piece of music by its title. The judgement may not be entirely fair, yet its accuracy is frequently uncanny. ...

The Beloved: The love that revived the Beloved

Interview by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 20 February 1993

Waxing lyrical, Jon Marsh explains the Beloved's three-year absence ...

Björk: A Quiet Storm

Interview by Simon Witter, The Sunday Times Magazine, 21 February 1993

A brief interview piece from early '93, just before her album Debut came out. Nobody, least of all her, had any idea how huge it ...

Pink Floyd Meet The Orb: David Gilmour and Dr. Alex Patterson

Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 27 March 1993

JUST ABOUT everything anybody has ever told you is wrong. Take, for a very mundane example, the music you listen to. Most likely, there are ...

Depeche Mode: In the Mode

Interview by William Shaw, Details, April 1993

Depeche Mode are (1) techno pioneers, (2) synthpop pervs, (3) the Second Coming. During the making of their new LP, Songs of Faith and ...

L.F.O., The Orb, Orbital, The Shamen, T99, Third Eye: 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. ...

Depeche Mode, Sisters of Mercy: Depeche Mode, The Sisters Of Mercy: Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, London

Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 7 August 1993

GOOD VIOLATIONS ...

Depeche Mode, Sisters of Mercy: Depeche Mode/Sisters of Mercy: National Sports Centre, Crystal Palace, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 7 August 1993

"THAT'S IT THEN," bellows the portly juggler, with some relief, on the train back to civilisation. "Done The Mode. Tick that one off." ...

The Orb, System 7: Trekroner Fort, Copenhagen

Live Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 11 September 1993

SOMETHING'S ROCKING IN THE STATE OF DENMARK ...

Zoviet France: Collusion

Review by Ian Christe, Alternative Press, November 1993

INSIDE AN artful cardboard CD holder, liner notes for Collusion explain that Zoviet France refused to participate in compilations for many years for two reasons: ...

Aphex Twin

Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 27 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 ...

Depeche Mode's Martin Gore and Alan Wilder (1993)

Interview by Steven Daly, Rock's Backpages audio, Summer 1993

Messrs. Gore and Wilder talk about the stresses of recording their latest album, Songs of Faith and Devotion, and the band's internal dynamics in the studio; the effect that living in L.A. has had on singer Dave Gahan; electronic versus traditional musical instruments. Martin Gore also discusses his songwriting; the band's development from the early days... and fatherhood. Alan Wilder talks about touring, the future of Depeche Mode and his place in the band.

Part 1, Martin Gore: File format: mp3; file size: 29.3mb; Interview length: 30' 29"; sound quality: **½; File format: mp3; file size: 46.1mb; Interview length: 48' 03"; sound quality: ***

Aphex Twin: Machine Soul: A History Of Techno

Overview by Jon Savage, The 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) ...

The Orb: Live '93 (Island COO 8022)

Review by Lisa Verrico, Vox, January 1994

Q. WHAT'S THE difference between The Orb in concert and The Orb in the studio? A. An amazing light show, a revolving spiky symbol and ...

µ-ziq: Tango N'Vectif (Rephlex)

Review by Dave Simpson, Melody Maker, 22 January 1994

THE WAGES OF SYNTH ...

Ultramarine: Heaven, London

Live Review by Andrew Smith, Melody Maker, 22 January 1994

THE CHAP next to me looks as though he's trying to squeeze the juice from a lemon using only his buttocks. This is a sight ...

Underworld: Going Overground

Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 22 January 1994

I KNOW IT'S ONLY January but there's no way you will hear a more thrilling dance music album this year than Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman. No fucking ...

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, 5 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 ...

Aphex Twin: 'Phex And Drugs And Rock'N'Roll

Interview by David Stubbs, Melody Maker, 12 March 1994

APHEX TWIN is the first superstar of ambient, the crossover King of innovative pop. Which is why Seefeel, Saint Etienne, The Boo Radleys, Curve, hell, ...

Erasure: I Say I Say I Say I Say (Mute/All formats)

Review by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 21 May 1994

DURING THE recent furore over the homosexual age of consent, nobody saw fit to introduce into the debate the on-going 30-year-old love affair between straight ...

Future Sound Of London: Lifeforms (Virgin V27722 19 tks/93 mins/FP/Double)

Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 28 May 1994

It's been a long while since FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON led us, entranced, to 'Papua New Guinea'. Now they've captured that long while on disc. ...

Pete Namlook

Interview by David Toop, The Wire, 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 ...

Future Sound of London: The Future Sound of London: Lifeforms (Astralwerks/Caroline)

Review by Richard Gehr, Spin, September 1994

GOD BLESS the Future Sound of London — Gary Cobain and Brian Dougans — for striving to infuse personality and humanity into the chip-driven technoscape. ...

Future Sound of London: Beauty/Paranoia at the Flick of a Pixel

Interview by Chris Campion, Mondo 2000, Summer 1994

EMITTING ELECTRONIC effluvia across a liquid sky. Broadcasting their alienation out to the world. Future Sound Of London's music and pronouncements contain viral strains of ...

Tricky: [the Phantoms of] TRICKNOLOGY [versus a Politics of Authenticity]

Essay by Ian Penman, The Wire, March 1995

"Machine technology is a type of transformation." Martin Heidegger ...

The Orb: O Is For Orb

Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 25 March 1995

THE ORB, the first band since Pink Floyd to transfer ambient noodling and stunning visuals from clubs to stadia, return this week with a new ...

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 ...

Aphex Twin — You don't have to be made to work here…but it helps.

Interview by William Shaw, Select, May 1995

Richard "Aphex Twin" James is branching out these days. Now he creates challenging sounds by using a Black & Decker sander on a stereo stylus. ...

The Chemical Brothers: Apothecary Now: The Chemical Brothers : Exit Planet Dust (Junior Boys Own)

Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 24 June 1995

THINK OF THE truly great, era-defining albums of the last 18 months. Definitely Maybe would be in there. Ill Communication and Dummy, too. ...

Björk: Björking Girl

Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 24 June 1995

NOW HERE'S what you know
 about Björk. She's tiny, elfin, mad as a rabbit, childish, arty, trendy and Icelandic. ...

Aphex Twin: I Care Because You Do (Sire/Elektra)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, July 1995

NO, MR TWAIN, I care because you do. I wasn't sure I did, for a minute — the largely drumless synth moans of 1994's oddly ...

Silver Apples

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 ...

David Toop: Toop Guru

Interview by David Stubbs, Melody Maker, 27 January 1996

For 25 years, DAVID TOOP has been writing about making music that breaches all musical boundaries. Now he's compiled a CD that sets out to ...

Add N To (X): On The Wires Of Our Nerves (Satellite/CD/LP)

Review by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 31 January 1996

ADD N TO (X) have heard the future, and it sounds old. These three merry pranksters inhabit a dimension dedicated solely to unearthing the most ...

Pet Shop Boys: An Attitude Thing

Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 20 April 1996

THERE IS NO MORE embarrassing chapter in the big book of Pop Interview Ritual than the one in which you're forced to listen to music ...

DJ Spooky: Spooky After Dark: The DJ as Dead Dreamer

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 6 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. ...

Orbital, Spacetime Continuum: Found In Space: In the electronic universe of Orbital, the star is sound

Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 5 July 1996

ROCK 'N' ROLL often has a lot to do with public image – a preening Mick Jagger, a prancing Tina Turner, a spitting Johnny Rotten, ...

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 ...

Pet Shop Boys: Bilingual

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, 31 October 1996

PET SHOP BOYS have become an institution. The quintessential '80s act, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant have stuck to their guns and refused to defer ...

Aphex Twin: The Clink, London

Live Review by Ian Watson, Melody Maker, 9 November 1996

WHAT... what... what the fuck is going on? Frenzied breakbeats and oppressive bursts of synth are emanating from the front of the venue, but the ...

In a Moog Mood

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 ...

Silver Apples

Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 23 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 ...

Depeche Mode: Synth and Sensibilities

Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 25 January 1997

Last week Dave Gahan flabbered your collective 'gast with his terrible tale of all-round narcotic foolishness. In the second part of our DEPECHE MODE exclusive ...

MTV's Unconventional Amp Takes A Stab At Reinventing Popular Music for the 21st century

Report by Matt Hanks, Memphis Flyer, 27 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' ...

Daft Punk: Plastique Fantastique

Interview by David Stubbs, Melody Maker, 29 March 1997

It's taken a while, but mainstream America is finally welcoming dance music with open aims. Now they're going crazy over the Chemicals and are poised ...

Tangerine Dream

Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997

Chilly symphonies and misty synth-scapes: the Gothic revival starts here ...

The Orb: Orbiting The Orb

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. ...

Yello: Pocket Universe

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 ...

The Prodigy: Prodigy: The Fat of the Land

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 8 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. ...

The Prodigy: Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, 7 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 ...

The Prodigy: Keith Flint Is the Firestarter

Profile and Interview by Chris Heath, Rolling Stone, 21 August 1997

How a faceless ass-rumbling hard rock techno band found a voice (and a haircut) and set the world on fire. ...

Aphex Twin

Interview by Jason Gross, Perfect Sound Forever, September 1997

IT'S HARD NOT TO praise someone who's a pioneer and a star in techno/electronica — that's just Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin) for you. ...

Pet Shop Boys: Savoy Theatre, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, Uncut, September 1997

Neil Tennant: vaudevillian existentialist? ...

Aphex Twin, Si Begg, Squarepusher, Cristian Vogel: Richard James, Tom Jenkinson et al: A Taste Of Wonderland, Ministry Of Sound, London

Live Review by Rob Young, The Wire, September 1997

AH, A DUMBSHOW — now that's entertainment. In the middle of the floor in the largest of the Ministry Of Sound's three shapeless spaces, the ...

Silver Apples: Oscillate Wildly

Retrospective and Interview by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, September 1997

After 30 years of universal neglect, New York's Silver Apples are finally getting recognition for their pioneering electronic rock. ...

Coldcut: Heat to the Beat: Coldcut at 333, London

Live Review by Neil Mason, Melody Maker, 6 September 1997

"HOW COLD can Coldcut get?" When sweat is dripping off your nose, your T-shirt has stuck and the most strenuous thing you've done is light ...

Kraftwerk play Tribal Gathering

Report and Interview by Toby Manning, Jockey Slut, December 1997

HOW ON EARTH DID UNIVERSE ENTICE THE TECHNO INNOVATORS BACK ONTO A STAGE? LET'S FIND OUT. ...

Juno Reactor, The Orb: 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." ...

Future Sound of London, Orbital, Ultramarine, Underworld: Our Electric Friends: Humanising the Highway, from ‘Autobahn’ to Orbital

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 ...

Air: Moon Safari

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 16 January 1998

IF, AS SOME believe, 1998 is to be the year that France finally produces pop music of international appeal, then synth duo Air are the ...

Air: How ELO Can You Go?

Interview by Andy Crysell, New Musical Express, 17 January 1998

Qu'est-ce que c'est? Music that sounds like ELO jamming over a porn flick soundtrack — on the moon!? Oh yes indeedy, prepare to enter the ...

Suicide (1998)

Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 22 January 1998

After a brief chat about touring with the Clash, Alan Vega and Martin Rev go back to how they first joined forces; Martin's jazz roots; their electronic predecessors the Silver Apples; being "punk" before Punk; their relationship with New York City's music scene and not being druggies; the name Suicide; their music as confrontational; their use of electronic instruments; their lyrical concerns; their second album, produced by the Cars' Ric Ocasek; their innate futurism; DIY and the future of recording and distribution.

File format: mp3; file size: 43mb, interview length: 38' 29" sound quality: ****

Add N to (X): Equation Plug Foundation

Interview by Andy Crysell, New Musical Express, 14 February 1998

They take their name from a mathematical formula, think electricity is God, want to form a 1,000-strong synth orchestra and play a millennium gig from ...

Suicide: Garage, London

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 21 March 1998

The OD couple ...

Suicide: Darkness Visible

Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, May 1998

Before the Chemical Brothers, before Ministry, before even Soft Cell, there was SUICIDE, the original electro-duo. DAVID STUBBS meets the synth-terrorists whose noise still provokes ...

Kraftwerk: Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1998

Techno-Rocking Kraftwerk Charges Up In its first L.A. concert in almost 15 years, the German quartet shows the influence of its ground-breaking circuit-driven music. ...

Walter/Wendy Carlos: A huge, ever pulsating brain

Retrospective and Interview by Mark Sinker, The Wire, July 1998

Mark Sinker reopens the music vs technology debate with Robert Moog, who invented the portable modular synthesizer to give the world an ever expanding index ...

The Balanescu Quartet, Bedouin Ascent, Big Star, Charlemagne Palestine, John Coltrane, Johnny Copeland, Funkadelic, Spiritualized, Suicide: Invisible Jukebox: Spiritualized

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, July 1998

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Asian Dub Foundation

Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, August 1998

"BRITPOP IS AN ATTEMPT TO REASSERT A sort of mythical whiteness," asserts Aniruddha Das, aka Dr Das, bassist of Asian Dub Foundation, leaning forward in ...

Soft Cell: Reissues

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 ...

Depeche Mode: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Carl Loben, Melody Maker, October 1998

CITED BY MANY electronica artists as an early influence, Depeche Mode began life as chirpy synth-poppers in the early '80s before moving into superb clangers ...

Depeche Mode's sonic revival: The godfathers of techno tour again

Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, October 1998

IT'S ABOUT A month ago, and Depeche Mode -- Martin Gore, David Gahan, and Andy Fletcher -- are in England, on the eve of a ...

DAF: Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft: Reissues

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, December 1998

Overdue reissue of Eighties German minimalist synth duo's electronic pop albums ...

Underworld

Retrospective and Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, February 1999

AS LOW POINTS go, this one was not merely a dip in life's road. It was a chasm. A gorge. A bloody great sheer-sided canyon. ...

Underworld: Warhol Without the Wackos: Underworld's Beaucoup Fish

Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 19 April 1999

THERE'S ALWAYS BEEN something different about Underworld, the three cunning Englishmen who in the '90s have had their way with U.K. beat culture, recasting it ...

Atari Teenage Riot: 60 Second Wipe Out (Digital Hardcore)

Review by Andy Crysell, New Musical Express, 8 May 1999

There's A Riot Going On... and On ...

Atari Teenage Riot: 'I Would Die For This'

Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 8 May 1999

...And Atari Teenage Riot's Alec Empire means it. So away, you doubters, and come on feel the mid-frequencies! ...

Cornelius: Beck to the Future

Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, June 1999

CORNELIUS is a pick 'n' mix match retro-futurist whizz-kid. Stephen Dalton meets the boy they're calling the Japanese Beck ...

Fatboy Slim: Electronica Goes Straight To Ubiquity

Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 6 June 1999

THE USUAL trajectory for a new form of pop music is from underground sound to mainstream omnipresence, followed by eventual banalization as the style filters ...

The Chemical Brothers: 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 ...

The Beta Band: Ramble On

Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, July 1999

Lace up some gaiters and uncork a flask of weak lemon drink, as uncompromising art bods the Beta Band take us to a rugged dell ...

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 ...

Technique: 100 Club, London

Live Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, 22 July 1999

SUCH IS THE brouhaha provoked by Technique in their brief career that one might innocently suppose it had something to do with their music, and ...

Autechre: EP7

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 11 August 1999

AUTECHRE, THE ENGLISH DUO of Sean Booth and Rob Brown, don't so much write songs as program ecosystems. Within electronica, where everyone says Autechre have ...

Chicks on Speed: Speed Queens!

Profile and Interview by Toby Manning, Jockey Slut, October 1999

MUNICH'S CHICKS ON SPEED: THEY CAN PAINT FAST! ...

Pet Shop Boys

Interview by David Bennun, The Observer, 3 October 1999

AS REGENCY drawing rooms go, this one is on the largish side but, at first sight, perfectly ordinary.  ...

Merz: Merz (Epic)

Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 29 October 1999

Don't wait until next year for Oasis or Radiohead — the debut album from Merz is here now, and it will leave you bewitched, says ...

Walter/Wendy Carlos: Wendy Carlos: Switched-On Boxed Set (East Side Digital ESD 81422 4xCD)

Review by David Toop, The Wire, December 1999

GOD KNOWS, there are enough CDs out there that clamour to be recognised as expressions of posthuman synthesis and the 21st century Zeitgeist. Then a ...

Go-Kart Mozart: Instant Wigwam And Igloo Mixture (West Midlands)****

Review by Bob Stanley, Uncut, January 2000

No reservations: Former Felt and Denim singer Lawrence presents unsettling novelty electronica ...

Death in Vegas: The Cockpit, Leeds

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 18 February 2000

Better listen at home ...

Kid Koala: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Ninja Tune)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 23 February 2000

LISTENING TO Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, it's possible to imagine that generations of musical progress have brought us back to the dawn of jazz, that through ...

Vladislav Delay: Against the grain

Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, March 2000

"I'm quite a moody person and I like blue music," says Vladislav Delay, the enigmatic 23 year old musician from Helsinki, and the latest prodigy ...

Susumu Yokota: Ambient Confessions of a Japanese Technohead

Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 1 March 2000

THE IDEA OF an ambient recording that stops you in your tracks might seem to be a contradiction in terms, but Susumu Yokota's Image 1983-1998 ...

Asian Dub Foundation: Community Music

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, April 2000

Storming new set of eclectic agit-pop from best live band in Britain ...

Martin Rev: Strangeworld

Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, April 2000

MARTIN REV might not be toppling too many new barriers, but the rhythmic and lyrical ghosts he summons up have an indefinable, haunting quality. ...

Pole: 3

Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, May 2000

ON THE FACE of it, Stefan Betke is producing a very samey, so-what? music; compared to some modern millenarians, the bunker dub he releases under ...

Pole: Bassline shifter

Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, June 2000

Pole music combines glitch electronics with the cyclonic eddies of dub. In London, Rob Young meets its creator, Stefan Betke, to uncover a secret life ...

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 ...

Matmos: Where Art Worlds Collide

Profile by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 14 June 2000

I MUST HAVE misplugged my phone adapter before interviewing Drew Daniels and Martin Schmidt of Matmos, because all I hear on the tape are my ...

Phoenix: It’s hip hop to be square

Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 23 June 2000

Phoenix are French and funky and like some very uncool records indeed, says Lisa Verrico ...

Bentley Rhythm Ace: For Your Ears Only

Review and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, July 2000

Three years on from their eponymous debut, Midlands men Richard March and Mike Stokes release the follow-up. Features former Black Grape vocalist Kermit on two ...

Leftfield: X-tra Limmathaus. Zurich

Live Review by Toby Manning, Select, July 2000

"THE ENGINEER'S been and had a look," winces Leftfield's Neil Barnes, taking a pained sip of coffee. "It's still not working." It seems Leftfield are ...

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 ...

Cabaret Voltaire, Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget, Giorgio Moroder, Japan, Kraftwerk, Soft Cell, Suicide: Various Artists: Dawn Of Electronica

Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2000

Founding fathers of technopop come together in electro land ...

Jimi Tenor: Out Of Nowhere (Warp)

Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, September 2000

SOMETIMES YOU just need a Song: one that makes you feel electric angels are sitting on your shoulder and whispering arcane formulae of timeless Passion ...

Leila

Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 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 ...

Brothers in Sound: Are We Slack Enough For You?

Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, October 2000

"YES, WE ARE as slack as we appear," confesses Brothers In Sound's Paul Hanford with a you've-rumbled-us-guv shrug. "We need people to organise us getting ...

Radiohead: Sound and Fury: Radiohead

Profile and Interview by Andrew Smith, The Observer, 1 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 ...

Radiohead: Kid A

Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 2000

MAYBE WE SHOULD all get a little perspective on this. Radiohead are five blokes from Oxford; they've been at it nearly 10 years now; their ...

Radiohead: Kid A

Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, November 2000

WITH THEIR FOURTH album Kid A, Oxford quintet Radiohead have caused a tsunami-sized wave of confusion by breaking with stadium rock orthodoxy to exhibit an ...

Bent: Rocket, Leeds

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 18 November 2000

WE’RE HEADING for the silly season. For the next month or so, the TV companies will dig out those old episodes of Top of The ...

Kid606: ps i love you

Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000

Mixed bag of tricks from latest Electronica whiz ...

Moby

Profile and Interview by David Bennun, Hot Air, Summer 2000

THEY CALLED him Moby from the moment he was born. A tiny homunculus, small for his age even then – too small, they thought, for ...

Air

Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001

Jean-Benoit Dunckel, b. Versailles, France; Nicolas Godin, b. Versailles, France ...

Erasure

Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001

Vince Clarke, b. 3 July 1960, Basildon, Essex, England; Andy Bell, b. 25 April 1964, Peterborough, Northants, England ...

Nine Inch Nails

Book Excerpt by uncredited writer, 'Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music', 2001

Trent Reznor, b. Erie, Pennsylvania, USA ...

Yello

Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001

Dieter Meier; Boris Blank ...

Dido: Scala, London N1

Live Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 12 February 2001

WHEN DIDO scheduled her first British tour since becoming a star in America, opening at a small London club must have seemed like a smart ...

Add N To (X): The Mean Fiddler, London

Live Review by Julian Marszalek, music365.com, 14 March 2001

THE COMBINATION OF analogue terrorism, screaming Theramins, machines that serve no discernable purpose other than howling and live drums should — on paper at least ...

Alabama 3: Underworld, London NW1

Live Review by Sheryl Garratt, The Observer, 25 March 2001

A shambolic and inspiring band prove that Alabama is a state of mind ...

Daft Punk: Discovery

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, April 2001

Gods of "filter disco" finally issue follow-up to 1997'strailblazing Homework. ...

Goldfrapp: "The Mercury prize? Oh God, that would be great. I deserve something"

Profile and Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 4 May 2001

Singing sensation Alison Goldfrapp tells Dave Simpson why her time has come. ...

Air: 10,000 Hz Legend

Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 2001

Self-proclaimed "grown-up" album from French duo who created 1998's million-selling retro-pop classic Moon Safari and inspired many imitators. ...

Aphex Twin: Rephlex Records at 10

Report and Interview by Chris Campion, URB, June 2001

PART MALL, part Moroccan Souk, Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre is a dilapidated mish-mash of late '60s brutalist architecture that contains a bustling marketplace. It's ...

To Rococo Rot

Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, June 2001

Soothing German trio ...

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 ...

Pet Shop Boys: Reissues

Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2001

First six studio albums plus Tennant's extra ...

Plaid, Prefuse 73, Squarepusher: Warp Records: Various Reviews

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, July 2001

Don't all rush at once, alt.country fans – a triple-whammy of Warp techno  Plaid - Double Figure Prefuse 73 - Vocal Studies And Uprock Narratives Squarepusher - Go ...

The Human League: Don't you want them? Maybe

Profile and Interview by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 15 July 2001

Sheffield synth-pop trio the Human League haven't always had it easy, but they've never given up. Simon Price met them as they prepare to stage ...

New Order: Olympia Theatre, Liverpool

Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 22 July 2001

"IT'S LIKE WE'VE never been away," says New Order's Bernard Sumner, and they haven't, really. ...

Björk: The Last Great Pop Star

Interview by Nick Coleman, The Independent, 9 August 2001

She thumps reporters, wears funny clothes and thinks she was born in the wrong century. Now she's made an album about her kitchen. Nick Coleman ...

Björk: Alone in the Dark: Björk on Vespertine

Interview by David Toop, The Wire, September 2001

Björk's eerie night songs are infused with the mythological landscapes of her native Iceland and the concrete fjords of Manhattan. She tells David Toop about ...

Richie Hawtin: Manchester Sankey's Soap

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 29 September 2001

ON THOSE RARE NON-DJ-ING NIGHTS, when Richie Hawtin sleeps, perhaps he dreams that he was part of the Detroit stable of artist-DJs who invented techno, ...

Lamb: Happy as Larry...

Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Observer, 14 October 2001

After babies and break-up, Lamb have grown up.  ...

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 ...

Hood: Cold House

Review by Simon Reynolds, Spin, December 2001

HOOD MAKE mope rock for the laptop era. This British quartet are survivors of a brief early-'90s moment of mingling between U.K. indie rock and ...

Soft Cell: The Twelve Inch Singles (Mercury)

Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2001

Every 12-inch single A and B-side of their career collected into o 3-CD set ...

Juan Atkins, Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Shadow, Richie Hawtin, Derrick May, Josh Wink: Six Machines That Changed The Music World

Guide by Pat Blashill, Wired, 5 January 2002

EVER SINCE Sam Phillips stuffed some wads of paper into an amplifier, inadvertently creating the fuzzed-up, overdriven electric guitar sound on Ike Turner's 1951 rave-up ...

The Chemical Brothers: Come With Us (Astralwerks)

Review by Simon Reynolds, Spin, February 2002

No surrender: With dance music in a funk, the Chemical Brothers return to Big Beats ...

Kurt Ralske, Ultra Vivid Scene: Kurt Ralske: An Interview

Interview by David Hemingway, unpublished, 1 March 2002

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was intended as the basis for a feature in Alternative Press. It's never been previously published. ...

Boards Of Canada: Geogaddi (Warp)

Review by Kodwo Eshun, The Wire, April 2002

LIKE YOU, NO doubt, I'm a sucker for what Marshall McLuhan called "participation mystique". ...

Matthew Herbert, Matmos, Nymphomatriarch, Ultra-red, Matt Wand: Music From Unlikely Places: Nymphomatriarch, Matmos, Matthew Herbert, Ultra Red, Matt Wand

Review by David Hemingway, The Guardian, April 2002

NOEL GALLAGHER may attribute Oasis's success to having simply written unpretentious, uncomplicated songs on his guitar, but not everyone shares this fascination with six strings. ...

Coil, Mouse On Mars, Plaid: Mouse on Mars, Plaid and Coil: Barbican, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 29 April 2002

THE FINAL CONCERT in the Barbican's Only Connect series sought to explore "the inspiration of the computer game on electronic music", or so it said ...

Boards Of Canada, Takagi Masakatsu: Boards Of Canada: Geogaddi/Takagi Masakatsu: Pia

Review by Simon Reynolds, Spin, May 2002

GENREPHOBES HAVE had it easy lately. It's been a while since electronica coughed up any New Sounds of note. ...

Moby

Report and Interview by Ian Watson, Sunday Herald, May 2002

FROM THE OUTSIDE, Moby Mansions looks like any other whitewashed townhouse in upmarket west London. Walk a little too quickly and you'd pass it without ...

Adult, Fischerspooner: The '70s are so '90's: The '80s are the thing now

Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 5 May 2002

AND NOW, the '80s. It was probably inevitable. The pop music and fashion industries depend on recycling their own history, and the retro styles of ...

DJ Shadow: King of the Vinyl Junkies

Report and Interview by Chris Campion, Daily Telegraph, 6 June 2002

DJ Shadow revolutionised hip hop with his first album and toured the world with Radiohead, but he is still regarded as a record-collecting nerd, he ...

Beth Orton: Electric Ballroom, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 11 July 2002

WITH A NEW album, Daybreaker, due at the end of the month, this one-off show was an opportunity for Beth Orton to shake down the ...

Senor Coconut y su Conjunto: El Baile Aleman (New State Recordings)

Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 16 August 2002

DESPITE HIS name, his album title and the fact that his introduction is in Spanish, Senor Coconut is a German called Uwe Schmidt who fronts ...

Global Ear: Izhevsk

Report and Interview by Don Watson, The Wire, September 2002

A survey of sounds from around the planet. This month: Don Watson travels deep inside Russia’s Volga Basin to eavesdrop on the region’s new electronica ...

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 ...

Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express

Review by Pat Blashill, Rolling Stone, 22 October 2002

WITH THEIR 1974 international smash hit 'Autobahn', Kraftwerk had coolly demonstrated that an experimental electronic group from Dusseldorf, Germany, could kick out perfect pop on ...

Sparks: Lil' Beethoven

Review and Interview by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2002

THIS IS SPARKS' 19th album, the follow-up proper to 1994's Gratuitous Sax..., and one might be forgiven for saying "So what?", since their work after ...

New Order: "We've had it large"

Profile and Interview by Ted Kessler, The Guardian, 22 November 2002

A five-year split, a suicide, financial ruin, heavy cocaine abuse... New Order have survived the lot – and they're nowhere near quitting. Ted Kessler meets ...

Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man: Out of Season

Review by Rob Young, The Wire, December 2002

Lighting out for a rural retreat, Portishead singer Beth Gibbons and ex-Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb fashion a pastoral strain of folk rock.  ...

Röyksopp: Bristol Academy

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 21 December 2002

NINE MONTHS AGO, the Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp were the cultish darlings of the style press, their debut album Melody AM hailed as an esoteric ...

Underworld: The iJamming! Interview: Underworld

Interview by Tony Fletcher, iJamming.net, Summer 2002

IN THEORY, THEY'RE the greatest group on the planet. By which I mean that Underworld's Modus Operandi reads, to me, like a blueprint for how ...

New Order: Retro

Review and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, January 2003

Four CDs of Mancunian magic from New Order's back pages, including cherry-picked album tracks, B-sides, rarities, remixes and live performances ...

Asian Dub Foundation: Rappers With A Cause: Asian Dub Foundation

Report and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 24 January 2003

They helped secure the release of the warehouse worker Satpal Ram from prison. Now they're tackling domestic violence, asylum, the war on terror and the ...

Asian Dub Foundation: Foundation Course

Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, unpublished, February 2003

JOHN PANDIT is hopping mad. We were supposed to be discussing the latest album by Pandit's multi-cultural protest-pop collective Asian Dub Foundation, but our interview ...

Marc Almond, Soft Cell: Marc Almond: That's enough erotic cabaret!

Report and Interview by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 2 February 2003

Soft Cell's Marc Almond is intending to grow old gracefully, says Simon Price. Then again... ...

Massive Attack: He used to be massive

Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 11 February 2003

Massive Attack have just one original member left. Robert Del Naja tells our critic about the struggle to create a fourth album alone. ...

Clipse, Melanie C, Moloko, Spice Girls: Melanie C: Reason/Moloko: Statues/Clipse: Lord Willin'

Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 21 February 2003

Melanie C has too much going for her to rejoin the Spice Girls. ...

Tosca: Delhi 9

Review by Lulu Le Vay, Jockey Slut, March 2003

DELHI 9 — Richard Dorfmesier and Rupert Huber's third album — references the band the duo formed when they were still at school, surreptitiously smoking ...

Colin Newman, Wire: Invisible Jukebox: Colin Newman

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, April 2003

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Autechre: The Futurologists: Autechre

Interview by David Stubbs, The Wire, April 2003

The world of electronica might have become overcrowded since their first releases a decade ago, but Autechre are still burrowing through microscopic cracks into the ...

Goldfrapp: Black Cherry (Mute) ****

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 2003

Second album from sultry singer/musician Alison Goldfrapp and musical partner Will Gregory. ...

Matthew Herbert: The Body Politician

Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, May 2003

If electronica constructed entirely from sampled body parts, stacked recordings of falling telephone directories or the noise of domestic appliances hasn't already established that utopian ...

Four Tet: Scala, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 20 May 2003

YOU COULDN'T ACCUSE Kieran Hebden, alias Four Tet, of lack of ambition. Now 25, he has already made eight albums, four as Four Tet and ...

Kraftwerk: Return of the Robots of Rock

Comment by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 4 July 2003

Kraftwerk are about to release their first album in a decade — probably. Stephen Dalton examines the mythical status of the men from Düsseldorf.  ...

Cornelius: Point

Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 1 September 2003

WHEN I WAS 8 OR 9 YEARS OLD our school had a guest speaker come and talk to us about the years he had spent ...

Moby: 18

Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003

Critical dead ends for an album full of musical dead ends. ...

Moby: Play

Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003

NOW, I DON'T HATE MOBY because he uses the same synth string sound in each song, a sound that feels like it needs something. I ...

Kraftwerk: Tour De France Soundtracks/Karl Bartos: Communication

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, October 2003

Kraftwerk's first "proper" album since 1986, plus ex-member's solo outing ...

Kraftwerk: Tour de Force

Retrospective by David Hemingway, Record Collector, October 2003

Kraftwerk regularly appear in lists of the most influential artists of all time. David Hemingway takes the digital pulse to find out exactly why. ...

Plaid: Spokes

Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 31 October 2003

ED HANDLEY AND ANDY TURNER have been making exquisitely structured and melodious post-techno Warptronica for more than a decade now, first as part of the ...

Aphex Twin: Protection Racket

Interview by David Stubbs, The Wire, November 2003

It's been a long trip for Richard D James, the notorious and misunderstood figure behind the Aphex Twin and co-founder of the Rephlex label. As ...

Air: One for the Ladies

Report and Interview by James Medd, Esquire, January 2004

"IN FRANCE, the more you have girlfriends,the more you are a seductive man, and the more you are healthy," says Jean-Benoit "JB" Dunckel. "In France, ...

Scissor Sisters: Cut to the New York dolls

Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 2 January 2004

Our critic goes to the cutting edge of glam as she meets Scissor Sisters, the band most likely to in 2004 ...

Air: Dome, Brighton

Live Review by Simon Price, The Independent, 15 February 2004

A TRIP TO the sea air, to see Air. And Air, like air itself, are great to have around you, but nothing much to look ...

Zero 7: When It Falls (Ultimate Dilemma)

Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 27 February 2004

Out in the cold: Chilled-out Zero 7 need to thaw ...

Yellow Magic Orchestra: Yellow Magic Orchestra; Solid State Survivor; Technodelic; Naughty Boys & Instrumental

Review by Johnny Black, MOJO, March 2004

Four originals by Japan's oft-overlooked electronic trail-blazers, re-mastered and repackaged with some extra material but no supporting information. ...

Kraftwerk: Academy, Glasgow

Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 21 March 2004

Automata for the people ...

Dean Roberts: Lost City Rambler

Profile and Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, April 2004

"I LIKE TO get songs to find their place in the air and sort of float there," says Dean Roberts, who began his career in ...

Kraftwerk: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, June 2004

The virtual electronic museum that is Kraftwerk bring their Man-Machine to London. ...

Two Lone Swordsmen: Basics, Leeds

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 12 October 2004

FOR MOST OF THE LAST DECADE Andrew Weatherall was one of dance culture's prime movers. He produced Primal Scream's hallowed Screamadelica and lived it large ...

Handsome Boy Modeling School — Cartoon capers

Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 4 November 2004

They found fame with Gorillaz and De La Soul. Now Handsome Boy Modeling School are taking inspiration from Batman to make surreal hip-hop. They talk ...

Depeche Mode: The Day I Met Four Terrified Teenagers Called Depeche Mode

Memoir by Beverley Glick, beverleyglick.com, 2005

In the fourth extract from my '80s memoir, another brand-new pop group gets interviewed by Sounds' Betty Page, who is fast establishing herself as the go-to ...

The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk: The Turn Away from the Turntable: Daft Punk and the Chemical Brothers

Report by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 23 January 2005

IN THE FIRST months of 2005, two of electronic dance music's biggest bands will release what are generally referred to as long-awaited albums. ...

Jeans Team: Kings Of Neon

Profile and Interview by Frances Morgan, Plan B, February 2005

Baroque electronic antiquarians Jeans Team dream of a Berlin-on-Sea. ...

Nine Inch Nails

Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, February 2005

FIVE YEARS. It's a long time by most people's standards, but when such a period passes between albums by Nine Inch Nails, the turbulent electro-noir ...

Harmonia's Hans Joachim Roedelius: The man music tried to forget

Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 18 February 2005

Before Kraftwerk, there was Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Meet the neglected pioneer of German electronica. ...

Moby: Hotel

Review by Dan Gennoe, dotmusic.co.uk, March 2005

ONCE TAGGED the "Iggy Pop Of Techno", New York electronica geek Moby's come a long way. ...

The Prodigy: Two Tribes Go To War

Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), March 2005

While last year's underachieving Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned album was released after a break of more than seven years between records, The Prodigy's European shows ...

Moby: Garage, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 17 March 2005

AMONG MOBY’s many hats are producer, remixer, club DJ, techno-nerd and ambient maestro. For this one-off gig to mark the arrival of his new album, ...

Moby's Sampler Unplugged

Profile and Interview by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 5 May 2005

The electronic music poster boy picks up a guitar and uncages his rock 'n' roll animal. ...

Tom Vek: We Have Sound

Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 11 May 2005

TO BE HONEST, I've been considering giving up writing about music. Someone told me it was as useful as dancing about architecture — I told ...

Ladytron: ICA, London

Live Review by Simon Price, The Independent, 12 June 2005

THE ICA CINEMA SCREEN shows a monochrome montage of vintage audio machinery — reel-to-reel tapes, amplifier dials — distorted, twisted, chopped up and re-cut. Then ...

Röyksopp: Music to Watch Grills By

Interview by James Medd, Esquire, August 2005

Royksopp say they've made the perfect soundtrack for your barbecue. ...

Goldfrapp: Tales Of The Supernatural

Interview by Ian Watson, The Scotsman, 13 August 2005

ABOUT A year and a half ago, Alison Goldfrapp finally snapped. ...

Ladytron: Rise Of The Machines

Interview by Simon Price, The Independent, 28 August 2005

Ladytron are a little bit Kraftwerk, a little bit Roxy and very, very now. So should the doe-eyed boys of angst rock be worried about ...

Kraftwerk: Paranoid Android

Retrospective and Interview by Simon Witter, MOJO, September 2005

2009 NOTE: This is a 9000-word "Director's Cut" version of a 5000-word piece written for MOJO in September 2005. ...

Boards Of Canada: Protect and Survive

Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, October 2005

In a rare face to face interview at their Scottish retreat, Boards Of Canada break their self-imposed isolation to scotch the myths that have coalesced ...

Tom Vek: "Everything I'm doing is so cool"

Interview by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 7 October 2005

Super-geek Tom Vek talks to Laura Barton about the silence between CD tracks, how his album 'just fell out of him' and what he gets ...

Cut Copy: 'It's Certainly Not Knob Twiddling'

Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 14 October 2005

When they are not letting off fireworks in people's houses, or rugby tackling Mylo off the stage, Australia's Cut Copy are the future of synth-pop. ...

Boards Of Canada: The Campfire Headphase

Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 19 October 2005

ROLAND BARTHES would tell you that myth is a powerful thing, that it perpetuates itself, that it doesn't need to be created, just allowed room ...

Gorillaz: Opera House, Manchester

Live Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, 3 November 2005

AS IF IT HADN'T escaped the attention of the Gorillaz co-creator, we're in the Oasis heartlands. And in the city where more than anywhere else ...

Hot Chip: Coming on Strong (Astralwerks)

Review by Will Hermes, Spin, January 2006

TIMMY THOMAS' 1972 beat-boxdriven hit 'Why Can't We Live Together?' is a paradigm of how machine rhythms can make the human voice sound simultaneously stalwart ...

Coldcut: Cargo, EC2

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 23 January 2006

LONG BEFORE Basement Jaxx or Fatboy Slim, Matt Black and Jonathan More were Britain's original kings of big beats. ...

The Knife: Silent Shout

Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 24 March 2006

ONE THEORY explaining the decline in dance music's capacity to shock and amaze points the finger at the DJ jetset's culture of professional good-blokery, which ...

Erasure: Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 18 April 2006

WITH BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN dominating the recent Academy Awards, 2006 is shaping up to be a vintage year for camp cowboys. ...

Cortney Tidwell: ICA, SW1

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 16 May 2006

CROUCHED BEHIND an acoustic guitar on a pocket-sized stage, Cortney Tidwell struggled to be heard above the chatter of the late-night drinkers who crowded her ...

Hot Chip: The Warning ****

Review by Paul Morley, The Observer, 21 May 2006

The style-mag favourites walk the irony tightrope with their airy electro-pop. Paul Morley applauds from the stalls ...

Hot Chip: King's College, London

Live Review by Sophie Heawood, The Guardian, 3 June 2006

HOT CHIP are five white Englishmen who stand in a straight line across the stage, as if waiting to be shot. They claim to love ...

Burial: Burial

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Observer, 18 June 2006

Dubstep has finally thrown up an album that will work in your living room. Simon Reynolds soaks up the ambience. ...

Peaches: Impeach My Bush

Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 7 July 2006

MIX THE rudest bits of Madonna, Goldfrapp, Pink, Lil’ Kim and Princess Superstar and — arguably — you get Peaches. ...

Atari Teenage Riot, Alec Empire: Atari Teenage Riot: Atari Teenage Riot –1992-2000/Alec Empire: Futurist

Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 2 August 2006

AS MUSICAL PUNCHLINES GO, Alec Empire is getting there. But it wasn't always this way. Back in the 1990's, Empire was at the forefront of ...

Burial: Burial

Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 22 December 2006

YOU DON'T NEED to know a thing about London's dubstep scene to find this cryptic debut the most mesmerising electronic album of the year. ...

Everything But The Girl, Tracey Thorn: Tracey Thorn: Everything and More

Profile and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, Daily Telegraph, 24 February 2007

Tracey Thorn is the voice of Everything But The Girl, one of pop's most enduring partnerships. Seven years after retreating from music to raise her ...

LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver

Review by David Stubbs, The Wire, March 2007

THE LYRIC to the title track of LCD Soundsystem's latest album is more of a mantra: "The sound of silver/Makes you want to be a ...

LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver

Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 9 March 2007

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM'S James Murphy is chiefly regarded as a man with a gargantuan record collection. ...

LCD Soundsystem: The Sound of Silver

Review by Jeff Weiss, Passion of the Weiss, 9 March 2007

JAMES MURPHY is the David Eckstein of music. He's an unassuming schlubby looking guy. The sort of dude you expect to see in line in ...

CocoRosie: Dinner with pop's strangest sisters

Interview by Chris Campion, Daily Telegraph, 7 April 2007

Off-the-wall indie band CocoRosie spend the evening with Chris Campion. ...

Daft Punk, Justice: Electronica that Rocks, à la Française

Report and Interview by Will Hermes, The New York Times, 1 July 2007

ONE OF THE most blogged-about sets at this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Southern California took place on a stage dominated by ...

Wilderness Survival: We Were 21 In '03

Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 16 August 2007

WE WERE 21 IN '03 is San Diego-based indie band Wilderness Survival's third album in as many years, and at 50 minutes is also their ...

Robyn: Scala, London N1

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 3 November 2007

ROBYN’S WEBSITE makes the contentious claim that the Swedish singer is the "most killingest pop star on the planet", which will be news to, say, ...

Burial: Love Among the Ruins: Burial and the Poetics of Hoodie Dubstep

Comment by The Rev. Al Friston, eMusic.com, December 2007

IF I'M WRITING about dubstep, then it's officially over as a trend. I don't even know what dubstep is, and I'm not sure I need ...

Crystal Castles: New Band of the Day: Crystal Castles

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 6 December 2007

Paul Lester hearts these darlings of the electronic underground, whose "songs" sound like a load of Gameboys going off all at once in your brain ...

The Chemical Brothers: Chemical Brothers: Chemical Romance

Report and Interview by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 7 December 2007

WHILE MANY OF their 1990s superstar DJ peers have fallen by the wayside, the Chemical Brothers remain a phenomenal British success story. Duo Ed Simons, ...

Robyn: Blonde Ambition

Interview by Scott McLennan, Attitude (Australia), Summer 2007

IN 1987, ROBYN Carlsson made her stage debut with the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. ...

Hot Chip: Made in the Dark ****

Review by Ben Thompson, The Observer, 20 January 2008

You might know them as pop nerds, but Ben Thompson just loves their power ballads ...

Hot Chip: The League of Very Ordinary Gentlemen

Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Spin, February 2008

Everybody seems to love Hot Chip's catchy, endearing dance pop. But are these bookish Brits ready to love everybody back? ...

Hot Chip: Super Fry Guys: Hot Chip's Made In The Dark (EMI)

Review by John McCready, The Word, February 2008

Hot Chip: Brains from Thunderbirds and his science-block mates create wonderful dance music — that you don't have to dance to. ...

Crystal Castles: Astoria 2, London ***

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 18 February 2008

TORONTO DUO Crystal Castles appear intent on being the most cryptic band imaginable. Eschewing interviews and declining to divulge their ages, producer/keyboardist Ethan Kath and ...

Alec Empire strikes back

Report and Interview by Angus Batey, The Guardian, 28 March 2008

"I FIGHT BACK!" a grinning Alec Empire blurts, explaining why his iPod contains only three albums (by John Coltrane and Stockhausen) but has been filled ...

Kylie Minogue, Robyn: Robyn: Robyn/Kylie Minogue: X

Live Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 29 April 2008

MOST OF Robyn recasts the teenage hitmaker of a decade ago as a formidable 26-year-old Stockholm chick. ...

Health: Health//Disco

Review by John Doran, The Quietus, 13 June 2008

SO BY NOW you are aware of the Smell, the Los Angeles art space/studio/gig venue from which emanate the evil sounds of bands such as ...

Yellow Magic Orchestra: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 20 June 2008

JAPAN, the home of technology, was naturally going to produce its own Kraftwerk. We just never imagined Yellow Magic Orchestra, the original cyberpunks, would age ...

Leila: Postcards from the planet Leila

Interview by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, 5 July 2008

Leila Arab fled Iran in 1979 and is now one of the most distinctive forces in pop. Ben Thompson met her. ...

Kieran Hebden: Close-Up: Kieran Hebden

Profile and Interview by John Lewis, Independent on Sunday, 13 July 2008

IF ONE WERE to draw a Venn diagram illustrating London's myriad music scenes – with circles depicting, say, rock, folk, jazz and techno – then ...

UNKLE: End Titles… Stories For Film (Surrender All)

Review by Dan Gennoe, dotmusic.co.uk, 11 August 2008

EXACTLY A DECADE ago, Psyence Fiction, the debut album from Mo' Wax label boss James Lavelle and his then musical partner DJ Shadow, stood as ...

The Chemical Brothers: Chemical Brothers: Talking about new album Brotherhood

Interview by Sheryl Garratt, Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2008

They started out playing the back rooms of pubs, and now fill stadiums around the world. But despite being Britain's biggest dance act, the Chemical ...

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, ...

Metronomy: Nights Out

Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 September 2008

METRONOMY ARE A TRIO from Totnes, now resident in Brighton, whose second album looks set to win them a serious reputation as indie mavericks.  ...

Ladyhawke: Asperger's, allergies and aubergines

Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 11 September 2008

Adored by Courtney and loved by Kylie, Ladyhawke is no ordinary pop star. The '80s throwback tells Paul Lester how music got her through a ...

New Order Reissues

Review by David Quantick, Uncut, 24 September 2008

THERE'S A FILM by mardy avant-garde writer BS Johnson called You're Human Like The Rest Of Us, whose title expresses how many of us came ...

Does It Offend You, Yeah?: We Are Rockstars

Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), 25 September 2008

Severed legs, poltergeist and zombies. Rather than being a breakdown of Stephen King's latest horror thriller, this is a brief summation of macabre moments from ...

Kanye West: 808s & Heartbreak (Roc-A-Fella) ****

Review by Angus Batey, MOJO, November 2008

NB This record wasn't made available to reviewers properly, due partly to Kanye still working on it at the time MOJO went to press. As ...

New Order: Movement/Power, Corruption & Lies/Low-Life/Brotherhood/Technique (Rhino)

Review by Dorian Lynskey, Q, November 2008

From the ashes of Joy Division rose a phoenix fusing indie rock and dance music to create the perfect soundtrack for a decade striped by ...

John Foxx, Ultravox: John Foxx: The Quiet Man Speaks

Interview by Alex Ogg, The Quietus, 7 November 2008

John Foxx is perhaps one of the UK's most undersung musicians. Here he talks to Alex Ogg about Ultravox!, synth pop and nearly being in ...

La Roux: New Band of the Day: La Roux

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 19 November 2008

Make no mistake, today's new artist is a solo female synth star in waiting. ...

New Order: The Making Of 'Blue Monday'

Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 2008

A stone classic, for sure, but the best-selling 12" of all time was a bastard to play live and lost money on first release. "We ...

Lady Gaga, La Roux: Slaves To Synth

Report and Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 17 December 2008

The male guitar band is dead. The future is electro, female, DIY – and very in your face. Caroline Sullivan talks to the solo acts ...

Robyn: Body Shot

Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), 2009

Robyn's fronting on mighty pop moments such as 'Konichiwa Bitches', 'U Should Know Better' and 'Criminal Intent' have projected the Swedish star as a bad-ass ...

Burial, Flying Lotus: Various Artists: Five Years of Hyperdub

Review by David Stubbs, bbc.co.uk, 2009

Dance music with a recurrent sense of subdued anxiety ...

Little Boots is the big sound for 2009

Interview by Sophie Heawood, The Times, 10 January 2009

She's Blackpool's answer to Kylie and a fan of unhinged escapism — Little Boots is a hot prospect ...

ABC, Heaven 17, The Human League: The Steel City Tour: Human League, ABC and Heaven 17 at the Hammersmith Apollo

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 ...

Hudson Mohawke: New band of the week: Hudson Mohawke

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 2 February 2009

This 22-year-old Warp signing sounds like Crystal Castles holding a disco inside an early '80s Atari computer console with the entire crew of George Clinton's ...

Pet Shop Boys: Yes

Review by Dan Gennoe, dotmusic.co.uk, March 2009

WHILE THE unexpectedly sharp return-to-form of last album, 2006's Fundamental, confirmed that the Pet Shop Boys should never be discounted, it's been more than a ...

Pet Shop Boys: Yes

Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 26 March 2009

NEARLY 30 YEARS ON, the Gilbert and George of pop are still charmers. Like two Planet Pop missionaries sent to cheer us up in the ...

Pet Shop Boys: Yes

Review by Steve Pafford, Record Mirror, April 2009

FRESH FROM THEIR Brits accolade (the only electronic act to receive the industry's highest honour, natch), the dynamic disco duo seize the momentum with their ...

Depeche Mode: Sounds Of The Universe

Review by Dorian Lynskey, Q, May 2009

AT THE 12th time of asking, to play the fan-pleasing goth-pop card, or to attempt something more testing? Alas, once again, it's the former. ...

Ladyhawke: Lady's night

Profile and Interview by John Lewis, Hotline, May 2009

Synth-pop queen Ladyhawke, aka New Zealander Pip Brown, talks to John Lewis from the back seat of a New York taxi. ...

Pet Shop Boys: Animal Instinct

Interview by Luke Turner, The Stool Pigeon, May 2009

Pet Shops Boys done good these last three decades, and they're still playing cat-and-mouse with expectation. ...

Mica Levi: An interview

Interview by Mike Diver, Clash, 28 May 2009

In a sea of monochrome indie acts, Micachu and the Shapes drift by like a neon-coloured piece of driftwood. ...

Depeche Mode

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 ...

Kraftwerk at the Manchester International Festival

Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2009

The unlikely rock star Ralf Hütter talks about cycling and the Kraftwerk concert at Manchester. ...

Kraftwerk: Ralf Hütter: "I got a new head, and I'm fine"

Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 19 June 2009

The bikes ... the robots ... the dream of man and machine in perfect harmony. How is the Kraftwerk vision of the future shaping up? ...

La Roux: Together In Electric Dreams

Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), July 2009

ELLY JACKSON is lying under her duvet in the same bedroom she's occupied since birth, but recently something feels different. The David Bowie albums are ...

Frankmusik: Complete Me

Review by Simon Price, The Independent, 12 July 2009

FUNNY, ISN'T IT, how a shift in emphasis can completely alter meaning. Place it on the first word, and Vincent Frank's album title sounds like ...

The Ting Tings: Somerset House, London

Live Review by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 16 July 2009

WITH LA ROUX, that other boy-girl synthpop duo, currently dominating the charts, the Ting Tings have started to look a bit, well, 2008. ...

Hurts: Profile

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 27 July 2009

This electro-pop boy-duo look as though they've been styled by Helmut Newton, directed by Anton Corbijn and produced by Trevor Horn on a Martin Hannett ...

The xx: Between Les Paul's Pick-Up and the Akai MPC2000

Comment by John Doran, The Quietus, 27 August 2009

It is quite timely that the XX's debut came out during the same month that Les Paul died. They are the perfect band for a ...

Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Grizzly Bear: 20 years of the Warp factor

Retrospective by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 28 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, The Guardian, 24 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 ...

Kraftwerk: The Elusive Kings of Digital Pop

Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 25 September 2009

AFTER FOUR DECADES spent standing guard over one of the most secretive and enigmatic bands on the planet, it seems that Ralf Hütter is loosening ...

Kraftwerk: Album By Album

Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, October 2009

HE MIGHT have spent most of the past two decades cocooned in the Kubrickian perfectionism of his secret Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf, but Kraftwerk's ...

Air: Love 2

Review by David Stubbs, bbc.co.uk, 5 October 2009

They sound reinvigorated, differently coloured, and full of fresh intentions. ...

Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Ultravox: One Nation Under a Moog: How Britain Went Synthpop

Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, The Guardian, 10 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 ...

Steve Goodman keeps on pioneering

Interview by Rob Fitzpatrick, The Sunday Times, 11 October 2009

NOTE: This is the original "director's cut" version of the piece that ran in The Sunday Times. ...

Air

Interview by Lois Wilson, MOJO, November 2009

France's Melancholic Melodists, In Their Own Words ...

Pet Shop Boys/Bad Lieutenant: NIA, Birmingham

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, December 2009

FIRST SEEN in Britain six months ago, the Pandemonium world tour feels even more dazzling second time around. Even though every pre-programmed note and choreographed ...

Little Boots, Gary Numan: When Gary Numan met Little Boots

Report and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 3 December 2009

He arrived in 1979, bringing synthpop to the masses. She is part of the bold new wave reinventing the genre for the 21st century. So ...

Yello: Mad About Saffron: Thirty Years of Yello

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 4 December 2009

Yello's Dieter Meier sits down with Wyndham Wallace to discuss the duo's new album Touch and three decades as an aristocratic prankster. ...

Grimes: Halfaxa (Arbutus Records)

Review by Mike Diver, bbc.co.uk, 2010

ON A CURSORY listen it seems Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, creates the kind of ethereal gloom-scapes that have served Zola Jesus well thus far. But ...

Four Tet: There is Love in You (Domino)

Review by Ben Thompson, The Observer, 24 January 2010

Kieran Hebden's latest captures all that was special about dance music's mid-90s heyday ...

Hot Chip: One Life Stand (Parlophone)

Review by Simon Price, The Word, February 2010

THE NAME, of course, is one of pop's great double entendres. As well as carrying the sense of overloaded silicon circuitry, "Hot Chip" — like ...

Pet Shop Boys: Pandemonium

Review by Mike Diver, bbc.co.uk, February 2010

ANYONE WHO caught the Pet Shop Boys touring their superb Yes album – BBC Music's number one Pop & Chart album of 2009 – last ...

Broken Bells: Broken Bells

Review by Johnny Sharp, bbc.co.uk, 9 March 2010

A sweet'n'sour and head-spinningly trippy set from Messrs Mercer and Burton. ...

Arthur Russell

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 ...

Damon Albarn, Gorillaz: Monkey see, monkey do, monkey tour: the Gorillaz are back

Interview by Pete Paphides, The Times, 10 May 2010

"I SAY! They're fancy!" exclaims Jamie Hewlett when Damon Albarn strides into the pair's West London headquarters. The object of his fascination? Albarn, his sidekick ...

Holy Fuck: Latin

Review by Laura Barton, bbc.co.uk, 11 May 2010

The group's third album brings a little more muscle to their punch. ...

Oneohtrix Point Never: Brooklyn's Noise Scene Catches Up to Oneohtrix Point Never

Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 6 July 2010

DANIEL LOPATIN, the young man behind the spacey and spacious mindscapes of Oneohtrix Point Never, operates out of a cramped bedroom in Bushwick, mostly taken ...

Little Axe: From blues to hip-hop and back

Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 15 July 2010

SKIP MCDONALD was playing a gig in Portugal, billed as just him and guitar. A fair portion of the audience had seen the billing and ...

Robyn: Body Talk Part 1

Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2010

"DON'T FUCKIN' tell me what to do," chants reformed teen-pop prodigy Robyn. No worry, girl, things are under control.  ...

Slowdive: Pygmalion

Review by Wyndham Wallace, bbc.co.uk, August 2010

Post-shoegazing classic reissued with bonus disc of demos. ...

Propaganda: Your Wish Is My Command: Propaganda's A Secret Wish

Retrospective by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 5 August 2010

Celebrating 25 years since its release, Propaganda's A Secret Wish has just been reissued with a bonus disc of rarities. Wyndham Wallace confronts their Sturm ...

James Blake: Klavierwerke (R&S Records)

Review by Mike Diver, bbc.co.uk, September 2010

Rising UK producer's latest EP points the way towards an anticipated debut album. ...

Propaganda: A Secret Wish (ZTT/Salvo)

Review by John McCready, The Word, September 2010

Fizzing with conflicting creative energies, Propaganda could have been a disaster. Instead they constructed a masterpiece. ...

Stromae: Cheese (Mosaert)

Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 2 September 2010

IT'S DARING of Belgian rapper Stromae to give his first album a title that encourages gags about it being a load of fromage, and equally brave to ...

Flying Lotus

Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, The National, 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 ...

Flying Lotus: Koko, London

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 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 ...

Jimi Hendrix, Silver Apples: Silver Apples: Early Electronica

Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Sound on Sound, October 2010

Silver Apples jammed with Jimi Hendrix, counted John Lennon as a fan, and produced extraordinary electronic music — with nothing but a drum kit and a pile of ...

Hurts: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 10 October 2010

WITH GEORGE OSBORNE channelling the economic policies of Geoffrey Howe, Manchester duo Hurts appear equally enamoured of the ways of the early 1980s. Their fixation ...

Heaven 17: Penthouse and Pavement Revisited

Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 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 ...

The Human League: Make A Date: Phil Oakey and the Human League

Interview by John Lewis, Metro, November 2010

NEARLY THIRTY years ago, as the Human League were about to become the biggest band on earth, we had a recession, a Tory government enacting ...

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, The Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Forgive Us Our Synths – How 80s Pop Found Favour Again

Overview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 18 November 2010

Ostentatiously intellectual and scornful of rock'n'roll cliche, the likes of OMD and Heaven 17 briefly set 80s pop alight – and now they're back in favour. ...

Deadmau5: O2 Academy, Bournemouth

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 9 December 2010

JOEL "DEADMAU5" ZIMMERMAN has turned facelessness into a brand, elevating his polished electro-trance anthems into a dazzling audio-visual spectacle that owes more to Kraftwerk or ...

Pet Shop Boys: Neil Tennant: "Twitter Is Sickly"

Interview by Jude Rogers, The Word, January 2011

Social-network agnostic, high-church robe-fancier; supreme pop strategist — Neil Tennant casts a weather eye over the wind-lashed landscape of learning. ...

James Blake

Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Spin, February 2011

Home sweet home: London ...

Toro y Moi: Underneath The Pine (Carpark)

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Wire, February 2011

HAVE YOU noticed? Pop music sounds shit these days.  ...

LCD Soundsystem: Give It Up! Ten Reasons We Loved LCD Soundsystem

Comment by Tony Fletcher, iJamming.net, April 2011

On Saturday April 2, 2011, at Madison Square Garden, LCD Soundsystem gave it up for good. Here are Ten Reasons We Loved Them... ...

Blancmange, The Human League: The Human League: Credo/Blancmange: Blanc Burn

Review by John McCready, The Word, April 2011

Shiny new albums by Blancmange and the Human League show they'll stop at nothing in the service of "electronic ideals". ...

LCD Soundsystem: Madison Square Garden

Live Review by Iman Lababedi, Rock NYC, 3 April 2011

JAMES MURPHY is Irish, so why not a wake? Following his decision to kill off the LCD Soundsystem franchise, lead singer Murphy announced a last hurrah ...

John Foxx and the Maths: Interplay

Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 4 April 2011

AFTER A RUN of relatively oblique collaborations, Interplay sees John Foxx's return to the role of pop architect, ably assisted by The Maths (aka Ben ...

Laurel Halo: New band of the week: Laurel Halo

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 23 May 2011

This ambient artist cites the "asymptotic quantification of memory" among her influences. A Wire cover star is born ... ...

Brian Eno/Rick Holland: Drums Between The Bells

Review by Wyndham Wallace, bbc.co.uk, July 2011

IT'S HARD TO know what's more surprising: the fact a man approaching his mid-60s continues to release groundbreaking music in such quantities that this is ...

Björk: Is Björk the last great pop innovator?

Comment by Simon Reynolds, The Guardian, 4 July 2011

EARLIER THIS YEAR I interviewed Amanda Brown of cult band LA Vampires and was surprised when she announced that "every day I wake up and ...

New Order: Joyless divisions: The end of New Order

Report and Interview by Rob Fitzpatrick, The Guardian, 14 July 2011

Brought together to promote a new best-of compilation, Peter Hook and his bandmates can barely bring themselves to speak to each other. They reveal where ...

Hurts: Somerset House, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 15 July 2011

MANCHESTER ELECTRO-DUO Hurts are so in thrall to new-romantic stylishness that one review of last year's debut album, Happiness, suggested that even their gigs were ...

Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Review by Simon Price, The Independent, 17 July 2011

UMO IS the vehicle of Ruban Nielson, formerly of the Mint Chicks, and assisted here by Jake Portrait and Julien Ehrlich in pursuit of what ...

Washed Out: Within and Without

Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 22 July 2011

AS THE chillwaver least inclined to confection, on his introductory EP — complete with genre-iconic artwork — Ernest Greene's one dimensional wares trod a precarious ...

Art of Noise: The Art Of Noise: Who's Afraid Of The Art Of Noise

Review by Wyndham Wallace, bbc.co.uk, September 2011

Innovative, sample-pioneering debut on CD at last. ...

Grimes, Laurel Halo, Maria Minerva, Stellar OM Source: Breaking Through the Synth Barrier

Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 7 October 2011

SUDDENLY IT SEEMS there are a lot more women twiddling those knobs than ever before. ...

Deadmau5, Portishead: Portishead: Hammerstein Ballroom/Deadmau5: Roseland, NYC

Live Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 12 October 2011

AT A LIVE MUSIC event, your eye naturally is drawn to what's happening onstage: guitarists thrashing and sawing at the air, vocalists preening between yawps, ...

Björk Brings Her Biophilia Concert Extravaganza to Iceland

Live Review by Kieron Tyler, Billboard, 13 October 2011

REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Two days after the release of Biophilia, her new multi-platform project, Iceland's foremost sonic auteur Björk took the stage in her hometown ...

Xeno & Oaklander: Sets and Lights

Review by John Calvert, Drowned in Sound, 13 October 2011

UP TO NOW, the problem with coldwave has been an atmospheric one, in that the music has none. If the various players are to successfully ...

Coldplay: Mylo Xyloto

Review by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 25 October 2011

It's the music you can enjoy between meals without spoiling your appetite, made by the world's favourite band and hand-built by robots. Lipsmackin', thirstquenchin', acetastin', ...

Future Islands: On the Water

Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 26 October 2011

THE SOUNDS of a lonely dock, St Elizabeth, North Carolina. It's the sound of lapping saltwater and mooring cables knocking steadily against wet wood. Slowly, ...

Cabaret Voltaire, Richard H. Kirk: Warp Records: Richard H Kirk looks back on a futuristic life

Report and Interview by David Stubbs, The Guardian, 5 November 2011

RICHARD H KIRK spent much of his career waiting for the future. He remains a resident of Sheffield, a city with a rich tradition in ...

Summer Camp: Welcome to Condale

Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 14 November 2011

GRANTED, the memory will play its tricks, but wasn't being a kid in the 80s a simple affair? ...

Plaid: Koko, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 15 January 2012

IT'S 2AM on Sunday morning in this club night, but Plaid are here to move minds, not feet. ...

Leila: U&I

Review by Luke Turner, bbc.co.uk, 23 January 2012

A batty, compelling, smart and unusual fourth LP from the Iranian artist. ...

Leila: U&I

Review by Luke Turner, bbc.co.uk, 23 January 2012

A batty, compelling, smart and unusual fourth LP from the Iranian artist. ...

ABC, Art of Noise, Belle And Sebastian, Buggles, Tina Charles, Dollar, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, Malcolm McLaren, Seal, Tatu, Yes: Interview: Trevor Horn

Interview by Simon Price, The Stool Pigeon, 2 February 2012

"That coldness; that precision": Simon Price meets the man who invented the '80s ...

Simple Minds: "Maybe we shouldn't have cashed in…"

Retrospective and Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Guardian, 23 February 2012

A COUPLE OF YEARS ago a young, anonymous musician approached Jim Kerr in a Glasgow rehearsal studio and began humorously haranguing him. "He was like, ...

Ladyhawke: Walls and Bridges

Profile and Interview by James Medd, The Word, March 2012

Like David Byrne and Gary Numan, Ladyhawke suffers from Asperger's — a tough call in an industry based entirely on communication. ...

Pet Shop Boys: Format 1995-2009

Review by Jude Rogers, The Word, March 2012

Pet Shop Boys' later B-sides — now compiled into a titillating album — offer an alternative narrative to the last two decades. ...

Skrillex: 02 Academy, Glasgow

Live Review by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 22 April 2012

HERE THEY come — the tiger-print leggings, the vest tops, the T-shirts soon to be removed. It is 8.40pm. This 80-year-old art deco venue in ...

New Order: Apollo, Manchester

Live Review by Rob Hughes, Daily Telegraph, 27 April 2012

New Order, on terrific form at the Apollo in Manchester embarking on their first UK tour in six years, didn't seem to miss bassist Peter ...

Depeche Mode: Vince Clarke and Martin Gore: Silent Mode

Report and Interview by Rob Hughes, The Word, May 2012

Vince Clarke and Martin Gore were out of touch for 30 years, then made a record by email, only speaking to discuss the title. Weird ...

The Blue Nile: Love In A Cold Climate

Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Word, June 2012

Every band falls out in the end — even glacially paced chill-ambient sound-weavers the Blue Nile. ...

Chvrches: New band of the week: Chvrches

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 26 June 2012

With their super-heavy brand of "Neon Gold pop", we have nothing but praise for this Scottish indie group. ...

The Human League: The Things That Dreams Are Made Of

Retrospective and Interview by Neil Mason, electronic, July 2012

Studios with leaking roofs, trips to new romantic clubs in a little Hillman Imp, and a heavy metal single recorded between sessions. They're all part ...

Lemonade, Miaoux Miaoux, Visions of Trees: Why the laptop has replaced the acoustic guitar as the entry-level instrument for pop hopefuls and songwriters

Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 July 2012

From Brooklyn to Glasgow, a new wave of musicians are choosing laptops over guitars as their instruments of choice, says Andy Gill. ...

The xx: Earthy & Complicated: The xx's Coexist Track By Track

Review by Luke Turner, The Quietus, 21 August 2012

Next month, London trio The xx release their much-anticipated second album Coexist. Luke Turner takes you on a track-by-track guide through its eleven "far more ...

Skrillex: 100% Shock & Awe: Skrillex Blasts Tiny Venue

Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 29 August 2012

THE SCENE IN the Shacklewell Arms is fairly typical of any gentrified boozer in the Hackney precinct, come Sunday night.  ...

Kid Koala: 12 Bit Blues

Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, September 2012

Canadian turntablist goes to meet the devil down by the crossroads. ...

Ultravox: Hammersmith Apollo, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 28 September 2012

REFORMED BANDS almost always find it nigh-on impossible to recapture the musical glories they routinely summoned up in their pomp. Ultravox may be a unique ...

Lindstrøm: Smallhans

Review by Wyndham Wallace, bbc.co.uk, November 2012

WHEN HANS-PETER Lindstrøm released Six Cups Of Rebel earlier this year, fans of the Norwegian producer might have wondered what they were putting in the ...

Santigold: New Gold Dream

Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), November 2012

If Santi "Santigold" White's strong and independent voice on her two studio albums Santogold and Master Of My Make-Believe hadn't already marked out the performer ...

Beth Orton: Memorial Hall, Sheffield

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 28 November 2012

"GOOD EVENING Shef-f-f-f-f-iel-d-d-d," begins Beth Orton, as an incorrectly set microphone makes her voice sound as if it has been remixed by King Tubby. Then ...

Laurie Spiegel: Resident Visitor: Laurie Spiegel's Machine Music

Retrospective and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 6 December 2012

The experimental pioneer's groundbreaking work with computers in the '70s and '80s helped lay the foundation for many of today's electronic noise makers. ...

the xx: Civic Hall, Wolverhampton

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 14 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 ...

Metronomy: A Nice Walk With A Pop Star

Report and Interview by John Lewis, Do Not Disturb, Spring 2012

JOSEPH MOUNT IS discussing the title of his latest album, The English Riviera. "People abroad are a bit puzzled by England having a Riviera," he ...

Public Service Broadcasting

Interview by Johnny Sharp, MOJO, January 2013

London soundscaper marries archive audio clips with stirring electronic rock scores. ...

Kraftwerk: Ladies und Gentlemen, the future has arrived

Retrospective by David Stubbs, The Independent, 27 January 2013

To the unenlightened (i.e. most of us), they were just naff. Now, with good reason, they are hailed as prophets. David Stubbs hails synthpop pioneers ...

Kraftwerk: Is Kraftwerk still a functioning pop group?

Comment by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, 6 February 2013

On the eve of Kraftwerk's eight sell-out concerts at Tate Modern, Ben Thompson tries to give comfort to the ticketless. ...

Kraftwerk: Autobahn at Tate Modern

Live Review by Paul Morley, Daily Telegraph, 7 February 2013

WHEN I SAW Kraftwerk 38 years ago, as much as they were about the future, I didn't think they would actually make it into the ...

Hurts: Heaven, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 10 February 2013

ONE THING IN HURTS' FAVOUR is that they're no bandwagon-jumpers — here's one band who will never sully their glaciated synth-pop by lobbing in a ...

Autechre: Exai

Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, March 2013

FOLLOWING 2011's mammoth stock-taking collection EPs 1991-2002, this new double-disc offering from electro pioneers Autechre emphasises that this most perpetually forward-thinking of groups is in ...

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 ...

Depeche Mode: Delta Machine

Preview by Luke Turner, The Quietus, 7 March 2013

DEPECHE MODE are back with their 13th album, and Luke Turner sits down with it for an instant, track-by-track appraisal ...

Hurts: Exile

Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 7 March 2013

AS ADAM ANT ONCE SAID, ridicule is nothing to be scared of — words Hurts should take to heart, as their second album will provoke ...

Peaches: IndigO2, London SE10

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 29 April 2013

The Berlin-based provocateur's orgy of hypersexualised party-pop is midway between a DJ set and soft-porn cabaret show ...

Daft Punk: Random Access Memories

Review by Ian Gittins, Virgin Media Music, May 2013

DAFT PUNK'S FORTE has always been their sleek, glistening futurism, the sense of mischievous glee they take in the very textures of electronic sound. ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: From Kraftwerk to Craftsmen

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, May 2013

They were just "two guys with a tape recorder and a name as long as the stage they were standing on", but Orchestral Manoeuvres In ...

Chvrches: Village Underground, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 1 May 2013

SEEING CHVRCHES (pronounced "churches") live is akin to discovering a 1980s edition of Top of the Pops, in which Clare Grogan of Altered Images has teamed ...

Depeche Mode

Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 2013

SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST, "the world's leading music industry event". Depeche Mode are onstage in a conference room at Austin Convention Center answering questions about the ...

FKA Twigs: New Band of the Week: FKA twigs

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 6 August 2013

So, so amazing ethereal dubstep pop from Gloucestershire ...

Zola Jesus: A Zola Jesus Baker's Dozen: 13 LPs By Women Who Inspired Me To Sing

Interview by Luke Turner, The Quietus, 27 August 2013

Zola Jesus (Nika Rosa Danilova) gives us a special Baker's Dozen — 13 albums by female singers who inspired her to find her own voice ...

Björk: Still underestimated after all these years

Comment by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, 3 September 2013

Ben Thompson salutes the maverick Icelander's cunning, as she prepares to play her most recent album, Biophilia, in London for the first time. ...

Goldfrapp explore the shadows

Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 6 September 2013

After 15 years of glam-pop, the duo's new album sees them channelling the spirit of film noir. They tell Nick Hasted where the sequins went. ...

Four Tet: Scala, London

Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 15 September 2013

KIERAN HEBDEN, aka Four Tet, is currently making some of the most accessibly innovative, strikingly beautiful electronic pop music in the world, from the comfort ...

Let's Take A Walk: Clara Hill Interviewed

Interview by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 29 October 2013

With her fourth album, former Jazzanova protégé Clara Hill has reinvented herself as a singer of experimental indie-electronic torch songs. Wyndham Wallace asks her how ...

Glass Animals: New band of the day: Glass Animals

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 7 November 2013

This quirk-pop quartet are the first signing to super-producer Paul Epworth's new label ...

Crystal Fighters: Brixton Academy, London ****

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 24 November 2013

If you thought this sextet could only evoke Vampire Weekend and CSS, then think again: live, their passion can't be faulted ...

Metronomy: Old Market, Brighton

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 30 January 2014

The band makes a euphoric homecoming loaded with new material that twitches and percolates like nu-rave Sly Stone ...

Neneh Cherry: Blank Project (Smalltown Supersound)

Review by Rob Young, The Wire, February 2014

NENEH CHERRY's re-emergence as a solo artist has been a long, gradual process.  ...

Gary Numan's Life Beyond the "Long Shadow" of 'Cars'

Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 12 March 2014

WHILE HIS latest record, the dark and evocative Splinter (Songs From a Broken Mind) is giving him some of the best reviews of his 35-plus-year ...

Banks: Trinity, Bristol

Live Review by Simon Price, New York Observer, 23 March 2014

Banks is on everyone's Next Big Thing list. This haunting show proves the American R&B star worthy of the hype ...

Fuck Buttons: F*** Buttons: The Barbican, London

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 28 April 2014

FEW BANDS can combine punishing volume, discordant drones and blood-curdling screams quite so joyously as F*** Buttons. Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power, the main attraction ...

Lykke Li: Village Underground, EC2

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 13 May 2014

IN LYKKE LI's poetically gloomy world view, love is a dark rainbow of despair with a big pot of bitter disappointment at the end. At ...

Flying Lotus: Colston Hall, Bristol

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 10 June 2014

"BRISTOL, IT'S been a while," beamed the electronic explorer Flying Lotus, aka Steven Ellison, as he welcomed an excitable young crowd to one of his ...

Clean Bandit: New Eyes (Atlantic)

Review by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 1 July 2014

WE'LL PROBABLY look back on this as a golden age of British electronic music, like the first days of disco, as unprepossessing producer types coax ...

Future Islands: Singles Night

Interview by Scott McLennan, mX, 10 July 2014

Baltimore's synthpop trio Future Islands are so hot right now, not even Hollywood royalty can stand in their way. ...

Underworld's Dubnobass... 20 years on

Retrospective and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 9 October 2014

THE PLAN, in the beginning, was that there was no plan. No album, no record label, no tours. Karl Hyde and Rick Smith of Underworld ...

Cut Hands: Festival Of The Dead (Blackest Ever Black)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, November 2014

THE SHOCK WAVES generated by Cut Hands' 2011 album Afro-Noise (Volume 1) have long dissipated. Ritualistic electronic music built around African drum rhythms is now ...

Edgar Froese, Tangerine Dream: Edgar Froese 1944-2015

Retrospective by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages, January 2015

THE GUYS in Tangerine Dream — leader Edgar Froese, plus more than 20 others over the years — always gave us the silent treatment in ...

Django Django: The Wardrobe, Leeds

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 17 February 2015

DJANGO DJANGO have always favoured doing things with a twist. Their eponymous debut was hailed for its innovative, modern take on psychedelia, offering a beaty ...

Marc Almond: Let's Talk About Death

Interview by Simon Price, The Independent, 17 February 2015

Simon Price talks to the enigmatic singer about Soho, Soft Cell and mortality. ...

Björk: Vulnicura (One Little Indian)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, March 2015

The grand drama of the latest Björk album reveals command of texture and mood as her survival mechanism. ...

Django Django: "After our first album, everything went nuts"

Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 26 March 2015

Django Django's first record propelled them from back-room gigs to the top of festival bills. How did they escape second-album syndrome? ...

Giorgio Moroder: Dr. Love Machine

Retrospective and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, MOJO, May 2015

BETWEEN 1974 AND 1986 GIORGIO MORODER TRANSFORMED POP AND DISCO WITH A NEW KIND OF EUPHORIC MACHINE MUSIC. NOW, AFTER HIS 2013 SPOT ON DAFT ...

Halsey

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 4 September 2015

She's the new superstar-in-waiting, dividing the critics — but amassing an army of believers — with her powerful yet sorrowful pop-R&B ...

Carly Rae Jepsen: No ifs, buts or maybes

Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Sunday Times, 13 September 2015

Move over, Taylor Swift — Carly Rae Jepsen has made a retro pop album of genius ...

Halsey: Koko, London

Live Review by Pip Williams, Coup De Main, 18 September 2015

KOKO IS one of London's most splendid gig venues; a converted theatre at the foot of Camden High Street that plays host to an eclectic ...

Chvrches (2015)

Interview by Ian Ravendale, Rock's Backpages audio, 22 November 2015

Iain, Martin and Lauren talk about how the band evolved; the development of their writing style; the influence of '80s electropop; dealing with the focus on Lauren, and the broad nature of their audience.

File format: mp3; file size: 30.2mb, interview length: 31' 29" sound quality: ***

Hudson Mohawke: Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 11 December 2015

With synths that screech like air brakes and crushing, abrasive beats, a night of Mohawke's musical maximalism is both exhilarating and wearying ...

Various Artists: Close To the Noise Floor – Formative UK Electronica 1975–1984

Review by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 3 May 2016

THIS 4XCD BOX draws on electro-punk, industrial, synthpop, dark ambient, and more, including key early tracks from the Human League, Throbbing Gristle, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in ...

James Blake: "I'm the opposite of punk – I've subdued a generation"

Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 5 May 2016

Kanye, Beyoncé, Drake and Frank Ocean have all been inspired by the unassuming Londoner's sound. Now he's coming of age with his new album, The ...

James Blake: The Colour In Anything

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 May 2016

"IN MY HEART, there's a radio silence going on," sings James Blake on the opening track of The Colour In Anything. It's an odd claim ...

Thomas Dolby: Godfathers of Pop: Thomas Dolby

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2016

BEFORE HE EMERGED as a pioneering figure of electronic music in the 1980s, Thomas Dolby wrote Lene Lovich's single, 'New Toy', appeared on the Thompson ...

Shura on her debut album, Nothing's Real

Interview by Pip Williams, Coup De Main, 5 July 2016

Musically, Shura is an enigmatic beast. She remixed her own disco-infused pop into the echoing and eerie 'Space Tapes', and has worked with everyone from ...

Christine and the Queens, Jain: Christine and the Queens: A new French revolution

Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Sunday Times, 10 July 2016

They are now the hottest name in pop. We talk to their leader about changing the industry. ...

Suicide, Alan Vega: A King Has Passed: Alan Vega Remembered

Retrospective by Tim Cooper, The Quietus, 18 July 2016

BY THE SUMMER of 1978, punk rock had lost the power to shock. The revolution that had shot an amphetamine rush into a moribund music ...

Suicide, Alan Vega: Alan Vega, 1938-2016

Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 18 July 2016

Co-founder and frontman of the confrontational electronic band Suicide ...

Alan Vega: Infinity Punk: A Career-Spanning Interview With Suicide's Alan Vega

Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 19 July 2016

Following the musical iconoclast's death at age 78 – an in-depth conversation from 2002 that includes tales of dangerous old New York, what it meant ...

John Foxx, Ultravox: Q&A: John Foxx

Interview by Kieron Tyler, The Arts Desk, 2 September 2016

The leader of the original Ultravox on challenging the punk era's orthodoxies and the band as an art project ...

Bon Iver: 'There are people who are into being famous. And I don’t like that'

Interview by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 24 September 2016

Justin Vernon’s falsetto-folk infiltrated pop and caught Kanye’s ear but now he’s kicking against the fame game. For his new album, he explains why the ...

New Order: Peter Hook: Substance – Inside New Order

Book Review by Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 5 October 2016

The band's bassist gives full details of drugs, groupies and excesses on tour, but his account of New Order's voyage to becoming a pop institution ...

Joe Hertz talks about the How It Feels EP

Interview by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 6 October 2016

Joe Hertz talks early mornings and post-Brexit Britain on new EP How It Feels. ...

David Bowie, The Comet Is Coming, Robert Glasper, GoGo Penguin, Shabaka Hutchings, Kendrick Lamar, Donny McCaslin, Courtney Pine, Sons of Kemet, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington: The new cool: how Kamasi, Kendrick and co gave jazz a new groove

Essay by John Lewis, The Guardian, 6 October 2016

A generation of jazz musicians has grown up with hip-hop in its blood. The result is the thrilling reinvention of a genre that has been ...

LANY on acronyms, albums, and artwork

Interview by Pip Williams, Coup De Main, 10 October 2016

LANY is an L.A.-based three-piece made up of Paul Klein, Les Priest, and Jake Goss. They formed in 2014, and have since amassed over 40,000 ...

Marc Almond: "I've had the chance to be subversive in the mainstream"

Profile and Interview by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 23 October 2016

With a career-spanning 10-album box set coming out, the Soft Cell star reflects on the '80s, Brexit and his fading love affair with London. ...

James Blake: O2 Academy, Bristol

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 1 November 2016

JAMES BLAKE has had a bumper year, guesting on Beyoncé's Lemonade album and releasing his own sublime third long-player, The Colour in Anything. ...

Vaults on "the Ocado delivery" and upcoming album Caught In Still Life

Interview by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 30 November 2016

Electro-pop three-piece Vaults chat to us after shouldering the weight of soundtracking this year's John Lewis Christmas advert, one of 2016's most hotly anticipated releases. ...

Elder Island: Track By Track: Elder Island on their Seeds In Sand EP

Interview by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 8 December 2016

Elder Island discuss the varied influences on their Seeds In Sand EP, including a much-missed feline friend and acid house vibes in their live show. ...

The 1975: O2 Arena, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 16 December 2016

Matt Healy lounge-lizards across the stage as his band charm the first of two sellout O2 crowds with sharp-edged, irresistible songs. ...

Austra: "How psychedelic would our world be if technology wasn't just about making someone money?"

Interview by Maura Johnston, The Guardian, 5 January 2017

Depressed at the state of the world, Canadian vocalist and producer Katie Stelmanis dove into Naomi Klein, Star Trek, cyborgs and Latin American dance music ...

The xx's I See You

Review by Luke Turner, The Quietus, 12 January 2017

In The xx's third full-length effort, Luke Turner finds an album seemingly more geared toward the televisions syncs that catapulted their once affecting minimalism to ...

Ronika

Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 2017

The Madonna of the Midlands' expresses herself ...

MUNA's About U—an unflinching and unapologetic record of the lives of queer women the world over

Review by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 6 February 2017

It's hard to review an album when your words just don't feel big enough. ...

Sailor & I: Track by Track: Sailor & I on The Invention Of Loneliness

Interview by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 24 February 2017

Swedish artist Sailor & I delves into the technicalities behind new record The Invention Of Loneliness. The electronic musician's hypnotic style is lifted by the ...

Cavegreen's Vita Lucida's only problem is being over too soon

Review by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 24 March 2017

Vita Lucida is the debut album from Washington-based duo Cavegreen, and comes following 2015's Journey of Return EP. The band is composed of Eleanor Murray ...

Phoenix and the Flower Girl: New band of the week: Phoenix and the Flower Girl

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 27 March 2017

The last ever New Band of the Week brings an appropriately phantasmagoric end to the column's 11-year run ...

Sylvan Esso: “We’re a goddamn electronic band!”: Sylvan Esso on new album What Now

Interview by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 28 April 2017

North Carolina electronic duo Sylvan Esso open up to Pip Williams about their sophomore record What Now, and plenty more besides. Ahead of today’s release, Amelia ...

Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan: "Why I don't understand my own band"

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 June 2017

WHEN NEIL TENNANT of the Pet Shop Boys was the assistant editor of Smash Hits, he made the following observation: ...

Saint Etienne: 10 of the best

Retrospective by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 7 June 2017

In the early 90s, a trio from south-east England set out to fulfil pop's potential. Nearly 30 years later, they're still making bold, inventive music. ...

LCD Soundsystem: Manchester Warehouse Project

Live Review by Rob Hughes, Daily Telegraph, 17 September 2017

THERE ARE PLENTY of us who'd given up on ever seeing LCD Soundsystem again. In April 2011, the New York ensemble bowed out with a ...

Burial: Why Burial's Untrue Is the Most Important Electronic Album of the Century So Far

Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 26 October 2017

Delving into the politics, emotion, and musical history behind the disquieting masterwork a decade after its release. ...

Sylvan Esso: Gorilla, Manchester

Live Review by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 14 November 2017

Joyful, unaffected abandon ...

Pale Waves: Back To The Future

Profile and Interview by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 4 January 2018

Pale Waves have already achieved so much, but world domination awaits as they bring their retro-tinged indie to a hectic 2018. ...

Boards Of Canada: Why Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children Is the Greatest Psychedelic Album of the '90s

Essay by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 3 April 2018

Unlocking the mysteries behind the Scottish electronic duo's hallucinatory classic, which turns 20 this month ...

Tangerine Dream: Union Chapel, London

Live Review by David Stubbs, The Guardian, 25 April 2018

For their first UK show without founder member Edgar Froese, the synth pioneers enlivened their proggy ambience with techno, but still created the same cosmic ...

Eleanor Friedberger: Rebound

Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 4 May 2018

IN 2016, ELEANOR Friedberger spent a month in Athens, Greece, ending up in what the half-Greek American describes as an "'80s goth disco" – called ...

G Flip: Flip Out

Profile by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 16 May 2018

Christened into the music industry at this year's SXSW, Melbourne's G Flip is getting people seriously excited. ...

Jon Hopkins: Singularity (Domino)

Review and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, June 2018

Versatile collaborator follows up Immunity with ambitious psychedelic epic.  ...

MGMT: Somerset House, London

Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 10 July 2018

The fake plastic shrubs on stage have more charisma than Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser in this understated, underwhelming set. ...

Bon Iver, Cher, Jay-Z, Ke$ha, Migos, Travis Scott, Britney Spears, T-Pain, Kanye West: How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music

Essay by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 17 September 2018

An in-depth history of the most important pop innovation of the last 20 years, from Cher's 'Believe' to Kanye West to Migos ...

Howard Jones: Breaking Down Barriers

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, December 2018

MUSIC HAS always been a tribal thing, and the music press – Classic Pop excepted, of course – has always derived a certain sadistic pleasure ...

Orbital: O2 Academy, Bristol

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 18 December 2018

Few bands of this vintage could get away with so much new material, but their formula is so well-honed that they can carry an audience ...

SOPHIE: Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides

Review by Laura Barton, Q, Summer 2018

Cutting-edge producer delivers dizzying dance-pop hybrid. ...

Nitzer Ebb: The return of pop perverts Nitzer Ebb

Retrospective and Interview by Luke Turner, The Guardian, 3 January 2019

Loud, rude and flirting with fascistic imagery, Nitzer Ebb took synth-pop and sexual deviance to working class Essex. Three decades on, they're back – now ...

Billie Eilish: The teenage pop sensation who soundtracked 13 Reasons Why

Profile and Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Sunday Times, 3 February 2019

LEARNER DRIVER Billie Eilish pulls up outside her house on the outskirts of L.A. in a scruffy station wagon. Her mum gets out of the ...

Chvrches: Alexandra Palace, London

Live Review by Rick Pearson, The Evening Standard, 8 February 2019

ALLY PALLY is an unforgiving venue that will swallow up all but the hardiest of bands, so credit to Chvrches (pronounced churches) for proving they ...

Billie Eilish: Academy, Manchester

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 28 February 2019

A teenage talent not quite eclipsed by screaming fans: the LA singer had her young audience shouting her empowering lyrics as she worked the room ...

Billie Eilish: When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

Review by Lisa Verrico, The Sunday Times, 31 March 2019

HEAVENS, HOW teen pop stars have changed since Britney Spears tantalised dads in school uniform. The L.A.-born Billie Eilish wears what she wants, smiles as ...

Hot Chip: Trinity Centre, Bristol

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 8 April 2019

This London band are likeable crowd-pleasers live, but they need to step out of their cosy pyjama-clad comfort zone more often. ...

Bronski Beat: The Godfather of Pop: Steve Bronski

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2019

SEMINAL SYNTHPOP outfit Bronski Beat – Steve Bronski, Jimmy Somerville and Larry Steinbachek – unwittingly became a mouthpiece for gay issues with their 1984 debut ...

BABii: HiiDE

Review by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 5 July 2019

On her debut LP, BABii presents a DIY electro-pop vision that's distinctively her own ...

Patrick Cowley's pioneering electronica

Retrospective by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 30 October 2019

Today, Patrick Cowley is barely known outside record-collecting circles: but his ecstatic electronic disco left an indelible mark on the music scene. ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 6 November 2019

IN THESE uncertain times it feels oddly reassuring that Andy McCluskey remains the most cheerfully preposterous dancer in pop. As Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: How OMD manoeuvred themselves back from the dark

Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Event Magazine, 16 November 2019

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES In The Dark aren't bitter, not a bit of it. They have missed out on millions, seen marriages collapse and, at one point, ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: How OMD manoeuvred themselves back from the dark

Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Event Magazine, 16 November 2019

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES In The Dark aren't bitter, not a bit of it. They have missed out on millions, seen marriages collapse and, at one point, ...

Mura Masa: RYC (Raw Youth Collage) (Polydor)

Review by Daryl Easlea, MOJO, February 2020

Whip-smart second album by Guernsey's foremost electronic dance pioneer. ...

La Roux: Supervision

Review by David Bennun, Metro, 12 February 2020

SOME RECORDS slip by so easily you hardly notice. You hit play and moments later they're done. In the case of the third album from ...

Marc Almond: "The Royal Family are the one continuous thread that holds Britain together"

Interview by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 13 February 2020

The non-stop Soft Cell singer on his confrontational past, Twitter troubles, and why he doesn't mind being part of "the establishment". ...

Tame Impala: The Slow Rush

Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 14 February 2020

Perth's disco dork returns after a four-year hiatus with an album that finds existential meaning in genre-surfing dance music ...

Midge Ure: Forum, Bath

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 17 February 2020

Behind the New Romantic mask, he remains an old romantic at heart ...

Grimes: Miss Anthropocene (4AD)

Review by David Bennun, Metro, 25 February 2020

WHAT DO YOU do when you become not only a star but a style? When a host of other artists keep remaking (pretty well, too) ...

Sylvan Esso: Free Love

Review by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 21 September 2020

Rife with tenderness and restless energy, Free Love is Sylvan Esso at their most cohesive ...

Jónsi: Shiver (Krunk)

Review by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 4 October 2020

Co-producer AG Cook strips back Jónsi's first album in a decade to a clever mix of crunchy electronica and floating vocals. ...

Annie: Dark Hearts (Annie Melody)

Review by David Bennun, Metro, 22 October 2020

HEY ANNIE – well, look at you. ...

Oneohtrix Point Never: the warped genius behind Uncut Gems's spine-chilling score

Interview by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 27 October 2020

His soundtrack shredded audiences' nerves. Now producer Daniel Lopatin is using radio to bring Trump's America together. ...

Gary Numan with James Hogg: (R)evolution (Little, Brown)

Book Review by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 15 November 2020

IN DYLAN JONES'S recent oral history of the New Romantic movement, Sweet Dreams, Gary Numan stands out like a sore pale thumb. He fell into ...

Litany: Capricorn season

Interview by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 18 November 2020

Singer Beth Cornell chats to Pip Williams about songs, sex, and famous fans as she reveals the new Litany single 'Uh-Huh'. ...

Domenique Dumont: People On Sunday

Review by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 27 November 2020

Domenique Dumont creates a hauntingly evoctative electronic soundtrack for People On Sunday, a landmark silent film from 1930. ...

Caribou: O2 Academy Brixton

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 25 October 2021

A dazzling feast for the senses, but ultimately a little formulaic ...

Caroline Polachek: Roundhouse, NW1

Live Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 29 October 2021

Spooky singalongs from a cult indie star ...

Soft Cell: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret: An Oral History Of Soft Cell's Debut Album

Retrospective and Interview by Patrick Clarke, The Quietus, 26 November 2021

As Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret turns 40, Patrick Clarke speaks to Marc Almond, Dave Ball, and a number of the other key players who crafted Soft ...

GRANT: In Bloom

Review by Pip Williams, The Line of Best Fit, 2022

GRANT brings the drama to every facet of debut album In Bloom ...

Marc Almond, Soft Cell: Soft Cell's Marc Almond is Prepared to Say Good-bye

Interview by Jim Farber, Vulture, 5 May 2022

MARC ALMOND of Soft Cell has an apt metaphor for life at his age. He likens it to the bars that measure the power left ...

Jockstrap: I Love You Jennifer B

Review by Irina Shtreis, The Quietus, 8 September 2022

Sincerity of an urban loner permeates Jockstrap's debut album, finds Irina Shtreis ...

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