Long Reads

In a further bid for musical world domination, Blancmange’s Neil Arthur enlists musician, sculptor and film-maker Jez Bernholz to create the sumptuously minimal Near Future. the pair’s superb debut album is ‘ideal home’.What’s it all about? We ask the questions….

The inspiration behind Jon Hopkins’ new album ‘Singularity’ is quite surprising… we talk psychedelic trips in the desert, transcendental meditation on planes, bird watching and wild swimming, oh yes we do

Maybe he was in Virgin Prunes and the lynchpin of the Princess Tinymeat offshoot, or maybe he wasn’t. Discover how the enigmatic Daniel Figgis is still crafting beguiling music and bewildering audiences today, thank goodness

Gudrun Gut moved to West Berlin in 1975 and she’s been there ever since. Initially enticed by the smell of kebabs wafting through the air, which represented freedom to her, Gudrun Bredemann hunkered down in the political enclave and artistic demi-monde, gradually becoming punk’s answer to Marlene Dietrich.

It’s been almost 20 years since we’ve had the pleasure of a lesser-spotted Chris Carter solo album. Brewed up and shot through with the influence of his late, great TG pal, Sleazy, ‘Chemistry Lessons Volume One’, is something very special indeed…

With their third album ‘Hormone Lemonade’, Cavern of Anti-Matter set a new benchmark for inspired modular Pulsations. “I’m nowhere near mastering anything to do with music,” shrugs their leader, Tim Gane. We beg to differ…

You may know Carsten Nicolai, AKA Alva Noto, from his pioneering work as co-founder of glitch techno label Raster-Noton, or maybe from his collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Or there’s his work with Michael Nyman and a talking budgie…

How does ‘The Man-Machine’, Kraftwerk’s vision of the future, hold up after four decades? We compare and contrast the vision of 1978 with the reality of 2018

They dress as trees and play wooden log synths, and yet London’s subversive Snapped Ankles are living proof that you should never judge a book by its cover…

It was 40 years ago today, that Kraftwerk taught the synths to play…