Long Reads

Good things come in little parcels. And the new Metronomy album, ‘Small World’, is certainly a welcome delivery. Joseph Mount, the band’s de facto leader, gives us the lowdown on their finest outing since ‘The English Riviera’ 

Infused with the spirit of Woodstock and resolutely “bound to the mountains”, Midlake and Mercury Rev’s Jesse Chandler pays tribute to his late father on a second album as Pneumatic Tubes

Splitting up, getting back together (twice), a farewell gig that wasn’t quite goodbye… and now Soft Cell are making another welcome return. Marc Almond and Dave Ball remain as thick as thieves and ‘Happiness Not Included’, their first album for 20 years, shows why the duo are still the undisputed kings of twisted synthpop

While he might be curating an online archive for his maverick Severed Heads outfit, Tom Ellard is not a man to rest on his laurels. “Don’t you want to jump full-bodied into the future?” he asks

Recorded in a Pisa living room rather than his Forst home studio where he’s worked for five decades, ‘As Long As The Light’, Michael Rother’s collaboration with partner Vittoria Maccabruni, fizzes with life

From folk singer/songwriter to the electronic music top table, Cate Le Bon has been on quite the journey. With a new album, ‘Pompeii’, ready to roll, we find her at the peak of her powers

When lockdown drudgery stalled Bonobo’s creative process, inspiration for his new album ‘Fragments’ came in the shape of modular synths, sweeping strings, vocals galore and, well, a bagpipe choir

A spectrogram-powered Russian synth, Tibetan drums made of human skulls, and the world’s largest cowbell are just some of the weird instruments that feature on the new album from Helsinki’s Pepe Deluxé. We lift the lid on their box of delights 

Take legendary producer Tony Visconti, Bowie-obsessed academic Dr Leah Kardos, and a car boot stuffed full of Stylophones. The result? The Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra and an album bursting with buzzy delights 

Crammed Discs’ avant-garde ‘Made To Measure’ series has recently reactivated to serve up reissued classics as well as new releases. We meet Crammed boss Marc Hollander and some of the Belgian label’s always idiosyncratic artists