Pet Shop Boys: Boys Keep Swinging
Pet Shop Boys are back with ‘Nonetheless’, their 15th studio album and a fresh creative peak that imbues their quintessential electonic sound with string arrangements and live instruments
Anne Clark ‘The Sitting Room’ (Red Flame, 1982)
Fittingly for an album called ‘The Sitting Room’, I first came across Anne Clark’s debut long-player from 1982 while sitting in the living room of a friend-of-a-friend’s flat in Berlin last summer
Richard Norris, The Grid
In his new memoir, ‘Strange Things Are Happening’, Richard Norris remembers when The Grid headed to Asia and Australasia for a culture shock-inducing tour supported by Autechre
Alex From Tokyo
Alex From Tokyo recalls the changing music scenes of 1980s and 90s Japan and their totemic influence on his career as a producer, DJ and label head
Man Parrish ‘Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop)’
Man Parrish tells the blistering story behind his futuristic and uncompromising 1982 floorfiller ‘Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop)’ – barks and all
Savage Pencil ‘Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul’ Cover Art
Edwin Pouncey, aka Savage Pencil, walks us through his iconic cover art for The Fall’s 1981 seven-inch, ‘Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul’
Bob Stanley
Saint Etienne man Bob Stanley’s recent compilation ‘Fantastic Voyage’ documents the “echo chamber” effect that David Bowie’s Berlin recordings had on European music. No surprise then that Bowie is one of his key influences…
Fingerprintz ‘Beat Noir’ (Virgin, 1981)
There wasn’t much room on the dancefloor for the version of Fingerprintz that released their ‘Distinguishing Marks’ LP in 1980...
I Monster: Bugged Out
With a deluxe reissue of their gloriously quirky ‘Neveroddoreven’ album, their first live dates in nearly two decades and fresh material in the offing, I Monster – Dean Honer and Jarrod Gosling – are back with a vengeance
Electribe 101: On Reflection
Influenced by Chicago deep house but with a discernible European and electro-soul twist, Electribe 101’s 1990 debut album wowed critics far and wide. With a definitive reissue just out, singer Billie Ray Martin looks back at how it all fell into place