Long Reads

From the classical pomp of The Proms to the thrilling pop of her new album ‘Varmints’, Anna Meredith is shaking up preconceptions about composers and turning ideas of what a songwriter is on its head

Plotting a course through the world of electronic music in 50 key releases seemed like a great idea when we came up with it, but it quickly turned into an all-consuming monster.

Ah, the far off days of tempting magazine adverts selling new-fangled synthesisers. We take a trip through some of the very best. They don’t make ’em like this anymore… which is probably just as well

Former DFA recording artists Yacht have their very own belief system. They have a manifesto too. Not only that, the Los Angeles outfit produce shiny electronic pop music with side orders of extraterrestrial intelligence and future gazing. And it really is as marvellous as that all sounds

Myth and legend are never more than a step away from Suicide. In a new book by our very own Kris Needs, ‘Dream Baby Dream — Suicide, A New York Story’, Alan Vega and Martin Rev reveal the inside line on their extraordinary career. With this exclusive extract, we’re treated to the gobsmacking first-hand recollections of the recording sessions that lead to their startling 1977 eponymous debut album

They make music that is at once experimental, propulsive, foreboding and beautiful. They call it “rock concrète”. They love Baudelaire and Shakespeare as well as Suicide and Coil and Swans and Sonic Youth. They are Tomás and Carmen, originally from Argentina but now based in Berlin. Meet Mueran Humanos

Catching him backstage before one of his recent London shows, we enjoy a free-ranging and sometimes painfully honest conversation with Gary Numan, taking in his past, his present and his future. We discuss recordings old and new, his darkest lows and his wildest highs, love and marriage and the kids, his hopes and fears for the years to come, and a whole lot more besides…

Three nights of Gary Numan? Yes please. Three nights of Gary Numan performing first ‘Replicas’, then ‘The Pleasure Principle’, then Telekon’? Yes please with great big knobs on

Beautiful faces, fabulous hair, immaculate clothes. Laconic vocals, luxurious synths, sinuous rhythms. We are talking about Japan. Of course. To mark the release of a superb new biography, ‘Japan: A Foreign Place’, we chronicle the steady rise and sudden fall of one of the most perfect pop groups of all time

With the imminent release of a bumper box set of his solo work, one-time Can man Irmin Schmidt looks back over his illustrious career and talks about fleeing war-torn Berlin as a child, learning his trade under Stockhausen, and his sonic adventures in the worlds of classical music, experimental electronics, film soundtracks and fantasy operatics