Bas Jan: Swamp Things

The new album by London synthpop quartet Bas Jan deftly combines the everyday and the esoteric. Examples? Fonts on British road signs and the tragic history of Irish witchcraft...

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Bob Fischer

Neu!: Get Your Motorik Runnin’

byStephen Dalton

With a new boxset marking the 50th anniversary of their self-titled 1972 debut album, Neu!’s pioneering krautrock groove continues to resonate. Here, Michael Rother sheds light on irascible Neu! co-founder Klaus Dinger, his time with Kraftwerk, and the Bowie collaboration that never quite came to pass

LLong Reads

7 minute read

Woo: A Room With A Woo

byBob Fischer

Since the early 1970s, brothers Mark and Clive Ives have been recording as Woo – arguably the UK’s most prolific DIY outfit. Two new albums, ‘Robot X’ and ‘Xylophonics’, raid their vast archive. And it all began with Uncle Fred’s musical saw

LLong Reads

9 minute read

Kim Gordon

bySharon O'Connell

In which the ice-cool alt-rock queen serves up a new album packed with electronic tricks. ‘No Home Record’ also happens to be her solo long-playing debut.

LLong Reads

20 minute read

Plastikman and Chilly Gonzales: Minimal To The Max

byBen Murphy

As Plastikman, Richie Hawtin is the king of reduction. But ‘Consumed In Key’, a collaboration with piano maestro Chilly Gonzales, is a radically different take on minimal techno, a step into uncharted territory that pushes both artists way beyond their comfort zones. The result is simply stunning

LLong Reads

2 minute read

Who was El Lissitzky?

byNeil Mason

Eagle-eyed Kraftwerk fans scouring album sleeves in the 1970s would’ve come across a few clues to help their knowledge of these mysterious Germans. ‘The Man-Machine’ featured the following credit: ‘Artwork (inspired by El Lissitzky) – Karl Klefisch’

LLong Reads

15 minute read

’Close To The Noise Floor’: The Robots Speak

byMark Roland

There was no single unifying event for the formative UK electronica scene, no point when something suddenly clicked, no precise year zero moment. But there was a bunch of like-minded souls beavering away in what they thought was their own little void, unaware there were others just like them all over the country. We talk to seven of the artists featured on the ’Close To The Noise Floor’ box set and get their big bang stories