Belbury Poly: Where The Wild Things Are

Meat Beat Manifesto Big chief Jack Dangers takes us on a ride through his Swindon years, being XTC’s teaboy, his British Rail-funded debut LP all the way to his recent release, ‘Impossible Star’

How do you define ambient music? What’s the role of ambient today? And how might it sound in the future? We put these questions and others to our esteemed panel of ambient artists

The tragic tale of the original pop Svengali would be fantastic enough even without the black magic, gangland threats and a pill-popping climax of paranoia, rapidly declining fortunes and murder… through a series of interviews, conducted in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many with collaborators, artists and assistants who have since died, we tell the incredible tale of Joe Meek 

He was forced to the join the Hitler Youth and jailed by the East German secret police. He became a musician after hanging out with Hendrix and Beefheart at a nudist camp in Corsica. As a member of Kluster, Cluster and Harmonia, as well as a hugely respected solo artist, he was a pioneer of the krautrock revolution. Meet Hans-Joachim Roedelius, a man whose life has been no less than extraordinary 

Established in 1988, The Orb were instrumental in a scene whose ripples are still very much felt on these pages today. Where did it all start, and how has it come to be such a vital part of our world? What you need is a potted history of chill-out…