Long Reads

We trace how musique concrète mutated from turnable experiments in the 1940s to turntable experiments in the 21st century via audio tape and sampling… 

Eight years after the mind-melting experience that was ‘ISAM’, Amon Tobin returns with ‘Fear In A Handful Of Dust’, another masterful and opaque work of exquisite sound design and strange beauty. Is this neo-musique concrète?

Even on their 1990 debut, Essex’s Ultramarine were ahead of the game. their new ‘Signals In space’ album is yet another evolution, drawing on their love of field recordings, post-rock and house music…

Celebrating the 1970s golden age of TV themes are The Kpm All Stars, whose members Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett composed classics such as ‘Grange Hill’ and ‘Countdown’. thanks to their sterling work, library music is cooler than ever

Cool band, good-looking singer, major label deal, infectious tunes. the Top 40 beckoned for 1980s Glasgow outfit Secession… some 18 years after the death of frontman Peter Thomson, we tell the story of a group who shouldn’t have fallen by the wayside

From 60s R&B pop fame in Manfred Mann, to The Beatles’ Moog advisor and subversive 70s synth sorcerer, Mike Vickers is the quiet man of British electronic music

TV themes from our formative years are as much a part of our lives as the pop we cherish. With A new album of theme tune covers, Matt Berry is doing more than looking back, he’s preserving them for future generations

Female-fronted synthpop that would have ridden roughshod over the charts in the good old days. Hands up who wants to hear Sheffield’s International Teachers Of Pop?

The reclusive synth sorceress Wendy Carlos has granted very few interviews over the last 20 years. This one from 1998, to mark the release of her ‘Tales Of Heaven And Hell’ album and published here for the first time, offers a candid glimpse at her musical philosophy, her working relationship with Stanley Kubrick, what she thinks of her fellow soundtrack composers and much more…

Wendy Carlos’ pioneering soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was just as subversive as the film, debasing classical masterpieces and putting electronic music on the map. We delve into the work of the maverick musician, the singular director, and their turbulent working relationship…