Joe Muggs looks back to Tom Jenkinson’s first bid for braindance supremacy and finds much to love has been revealed by a crunchy remaster

Stereotype by Squarepusher

Quite a few years ago, I was talking to Tom Jenkinson about his considerable popularity in Japan, and he remarked that (I’m paraphrasing here), he especially enjoyed playing on the other side of the world because the further you get from the origins of musical styles geographically and temporally, the less categories matter to people and the more they’re able to engage with the music on its own merits. This came back to me more recently when I heard Jenkinson being interviewed by Sherelle on the radio, which brought home how much water has flowed…

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aylu

Fobia

The Argentinian artist (and host of NTS’s Austral show) works through her fears on an album of stuttering rhythms and fluttering lightness

Fobia by aylu

Fears are very individual, and how one person copes with theirs might not make their struggles evident to others. So while Argentinian artist aylu took a generally delicate approach to her latest album, she’s made explicit that it is an exercise in processing with the title Fobia.

aylu – real name Ailin Grad – sets a panicked tone with short, laboured breathing from the opening seconds of Fobia. Depending on your own mental state, this might be the only uncomfortable aspect of the album. But if your brain has ever played a round of pinball with your thoughts,…

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The synth-pop producer behind hits like ‘Tainted Love’ and ‘Bedsitter’ passed away peacefully in his sleep

Dave Ball, who as one half of Soft Cell made iconic synth-pop hits like ‘Tainted Love’ and ‘Bedsitter’, has died at the age of 66.

Representatives for the artist said he “passed away peacefully in his sleep at his London home on Wednesday” (October 22). No cause of death was given.

Ball’s Soft Cell bandmate, Marc Almond, paid tribute to him, sharing a note that read: “It is hard to write this, let alone process it, as Dave was in such a great place emotionally,. He was focused and so happy with the new album that we literally completed only a few days ago. It’s so sad as…

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A quarter of a century after Warp released the sketch album, Darran Anderson looks back at the deep existential malignancy, and brilliance, of Blue Jam

There were islands, however few and far between, in the sea of trash that was 1990s radio. An archipelago of exhilarating pirate radio stations beamed from tower blocks. Lotus eater atolls playing chillout mixes in the early hours to take the edge off vertigo-inducing comedowns. Some, like Peel, contained alien treasures, even if you had to kick through a lot of dreck to find it.  There was one island though that felt forbidden, a place of illicit transmissions, quarantined off in the graveyard shift. Cult listening. A lazaretto of bad taste. It was visited with caution,…

The post An Unkind of Blue: Darran Anderson on Chris Morris’ Blue Jam appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/blue-jam-review/

Various Artists

Tehrangeles Vice (Iranian Diaspora Pop 1983-1993)

A new compilation sifts through the pop music of the Iranian diaspora in Los Angeles in the 80s and early 90s

Tehrangeles Vice (Iranian Diaspora Pop 1983-1993) by Various Artists

Iranian pop music from the 70s is known for its sophistication. With lyrics rich in layers and metaphors, experiments in composition, and a balanced yet developed relationship between composers, lyricists, singers, and studios, 1970s pop reached a level of success yet to be matched after half a century. Its songs are still remembered, performed, and sung by many – possibly more than those from any other era.

With the 1979 Revolution and the emigration of many pop musicians and singers, almost all genres of popular music disappeared…

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Achtung! Hollers Tom Howells, Michael Mann’s 1983 Nazisploitation horror film isn’t merely the turkey it is often seen as – a Tangerine Dream soundtrack, eviscerated fascists, what’s not to love about that?

A dank night in London’s Docklands. After clocking off a shift at a nearby magazine, I’d ducked into dinky and wood-pannelled Limehouse pub The Grapes for a jug of Landlord. Waiting for the quiz to start, I heard a gasp from the back room. Rounding the door and padding the corridor in slippers and gown traipsed Sir Ian McKellen. Compering the quiz is an ad hoc predilection of the great actor – it’s his pub – but I was, along with a cohort of shocked tourists, rather starstruck. 

It wasn’t the…

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The debut album by the Iceboy Violet and BABii collaborator drifts through the non-places of supermodernity, devastated by grief – a stirring and tender work of mourning in which traditional instruments combine with electronics with verve and ambition

The debut album is among the cultural artifacts that seize on the popular imagination with surprising force. In some rare cases, the form can attain mythical status among its audience. But what actually makes a first record successful? Rolling Stone suggests the best debuts give the sense of a band or artist arriving at the scene already fully formed, as if “ready to upend the game right at the very second”. With this as our metric, it is no surprise that new artists…

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Bridget Small speaks to industrial artist, musician, game developer and digital museum curator; and learns that he’s not ready to be considered a pioneer… well, not yet anyway. All portraits courtesy of Sevcom

Australian industrial stalwarts Severed Heads have returned to Oxford Art Factory in Eora/Sydney, and back to their hometown with a show that feels as strange, joyful, and life-affirming as their legacy deserves. It is fitting that four-decade-plus-old group who always prioritised independence, art and experiment over commercial concerns would say yes to a show organised by the DIY Ashfield record store, Prop Records.   

“We’re happy to return to the area where we started back in 1982,” frontman Tom Ellard tells me afterwards. “Cycling back to this original place feels…

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source https://thequietus.com/interviews/severed-heads-interview/

From the artists and musicologists who fuelled a fascination with traditional string instruments, to the songs that make her cry – via a memorable encounter with Erykah Badu, Sudan Archives selects 13 pieces of music that have shaped her life

Photo by Yanran Xiong

Hedonism can be tricky in art – such big expression can come off as cheesy or try-hard, especially outside of the hypergloss realm of pop. But Sudan Archives sees music as a form of world-building, taking historical and cultural signposts and reshaping them into a map that connects the sacred and the synthetic, the ancient and the electric. She threads needles in four dimensions, taking risks effortlessly and boldly.

Speaking from her home office, Sudan Archives is framed by…

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Anna Högberg Attack

Ensamseglaren

With dual drummers and a wall of guitar noise, the Swedish artist’s revived 12-piece ensemble proves a formidable force

Ensamseglaren by Anna Högberg Attack

Over two sides of an LP, Ensamseglaren takes us along paths of genteel jazz, intriguing experimentation, thunderous doom, and brassy sighs capable of breaking your heart. With her 12-strong ensemble, reassembled after a five-year hiatus in order to help work through the grief of losing her father (the lonely sailor to whom the album title alludes), Anna Högberg has transcended any clichés about getting the old band back together. Their collective expression, their artistry, their simply being with one another, proves itself to be a viable method for processing the chest-hollowing feeling of parental loss.

‘Ensamseglaren /…

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