https://www.theguardian.com/music/electronicmusic Latest news and features from theguardian.com, the world's leading liberal voice en-gb Guardian News &amp; Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2025 Thu, 23 Jan 2025 02:17:39 GMT 2025-01-23T02:17:39Z en-gb Guardian News &amp; Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2025 https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/guardian-logo-rss.c45beb1bafa34b347ac333af2e6fe23f.png https://www.theguardian.com https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jan/16/in-her-own-out-there-world-fka-twigs-20-greatest-songs-ranked <p>As she prepares to release her new album, Eusexua, we rate the best of an artist who orbits pop in a truly singular style</p><p>An unexpected diversion. From spy action movie The King’s Man, Measure of a Man goes full Bond theme to impressive effect: high drama, big strings, lyrics that romantically depict a tortured tough guy in soft-focus, until <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/07/central-cee-interview">Central Cee</a>’s guest verse breaks the cinematic spell with a dose of street reportage.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jan/16/in-her-own-out-there-world-fka-twigs-20-greatest-songs-ranked">Continue reading...</a> FKA twigs Music Pop and rock R&B Electronic music Culture Thu, 16 Jan 2025 15:33:06 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jan/16/in-her-own-out-there-world-fka-twigs-20-greatest-songs-ranked Photograph: Jordan Hemingway Photograph: Jordan Hemingway Alexis Petridis 2025-01-16T15:33:06Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/27/desi-rap-deep-jungle-and-truck-stop-concrete-five-star-albums-you-may-have-missed-this-year <p>From Jordana’s sprightly soft rock to Pataka Boys’ collagist UK-Punjabi hip-hop, our writers pick their must-listen gems from 2024</p><p>• <a href="https://viewer.gutools.co.uk/music/best-music-of-2024">More on the best music of 2024</a><br>• <a href="https://viewer.gutools.co.uk/culture/2024-in-culture">More on the best culture of 2024</a></p><p>Who could read the description “truck stop concrète” and not be intrigued? The San Diego sound collagist Phil Geraldi’s two-track cassette for Not Not Fun sketches a journey across the American plains in which the glow of a gas station canopy is as integral to the landscape as the dust and cacti. He rides the radio dial as if it were a ferris wheel, creating a recurring flicker of pop into talk radio and classical into ambient beauty that then might break free from the static to forge its own soaring journey across an endless sky.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/27/desi-rap-deep-jungle-and-truck-stop-concrete-five-star-albums-you-may-have-missed-this-year">Continue reading...</a> Music Culture Experimental music Pop and rock Electronic music Indie Americana Punk Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:30:07 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/27/desi-rap-deep-jungle-and-truck-stop-concrete-five-star-albums-you-may-have-missed-this-year Composite: Meghan Katti/ Kate Molleson/ Sonja Horsman Composite: Meghan Katti/ Kate Molleson/ Sonja Horsman Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Claire Biddles, Shaad D'Souza, Jennifer Lucy Allan, Adrian Horton, Tara Joshi, Lauren Martin, Alexis Petridis, Will Pritchard, Dave Simpson, Laura Snapes and Daniel Dylan Wray 2024-12-27T11:30:07Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/27/rip-magic-buzz-band-indie-rock <p>Splicing indie-rock with weird electronics and snottily menacing vocals, this duo stick out from the rest of the capital’s scene – and have turned Tyler, the Creator’s head</p><p><strong>From </strong>London<br><strong>Recommended if you like</strong> Dean Blunt, Nine Inch Nails, Suicide<br><strong>Up next </strong>Debut single in 2025</p><p>Most London bands are so predictable. Oh, you make “jagged post-punk”? And reflect “the malaise and ridiculousness of life online”? Cool. Join the pile. Have fun playing <a href="https://wideawakelondon.co.uk/">Wide Awake</a> festival this summer.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/27/rip-magic-buzz-band-indie-rock">Continue reading...</a> Music Pop and rock Electronic music Culture Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:00:07 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/27/rip-magic-buzz-band-indie-rock Photograph: Beth Boswell-Knight Photograph: Beth Boswell-Knight Shaad D'Souza 2024-12-27T10:00:07Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/20/the-50-best-albums-of-2024-no-1-charli-xcx-brat-and-brat-and-its-completely-different-but-also-still-brat <p>Smart, funny, moving and full of big tunes, the in-your-face masterpiece was the right album at the right time, striking a cultural nerve and defining the changing zeitgeist</p><p>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/09/the-50-best-albums-of-2024">The 50 best albums of 2024</a><br>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024-in-culture">More on the best culture of 2024</a></p><p>In 2022, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/charli-xcx">Charli xcx</a> released <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/dec/20/the-50-best-albums-of-2022-no-4-charli-xcx-crash">Crash</a>, an album that she claimed was a deliberate “sellout”. An artist who had previously seemed hell-bent on singlehandedly dragging pop music into a more interesting, experimental space by sheer force of will – on her acclaimed 2017 mixtape Pop 2, she collaborated with Estonian “post-Soviet” rappers, Brazilian drag queens and the extravagantly foul-mouthed underground artist CupcakKe – had apparently decided not to bother any more. She gamely presented Crash as another experiment in “making a major-label album the way it’s actually done” and knowingly embracing “everything that the life of a pop figurehead has to offer in today’s world – celebrity, obsession and global hits”, but you somehow sensed her heart wasn’t quite in it. Moreover, it didn’t totally work – it was well reviewed and became Charli’s first UK No 1 album, but didn’t exactly produce “global hits”.</p><p>What Charli subsequently described as a deadening experience lit a fire under its author: if playing the game was no fun, then why not do exactly as you please? Certainly, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/06/charli-xcx-brat-review-insecurity-obliterating-anthems-by-pops-most-human-superstar">Charli xcx’s sixth album</a> turned out to be everything Crash wasn’t, up to and including the defining pop album of the year. Instead of a sleeve featuring the singer in a bikini, as Crash did, Brat came wrapped in a blunt, lowercase rendering of the album’s title against a sickly lime green: intended as a snub to the “misogynistic and boring” assumption that a female artist should automatically appear on her own album cover, it turned out to be a masterstroke of branding far more pervasive than any glossy photo, even influencing the US presidential race. Its sound was brash and aggressive, early 00s London club music – electroclash, acid-y bloghouse, dubstep, maximalist rave synths – shot through a chattering, trebly hyperpop filter: “Club classic but I still pop,” as Von Dutch put it. It oozed self-possession and confidence, Brat seemed to swagger even as Charli confessed to insecurity or inadequacy, a cocktail of emotions that seemed to be at the album’s centre: if everyone feels like this, you might as well own it.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/20/the-50-best-albums-of-2024-no-1-charli-xcx-brat-and-brat-and-its-completely-different-but-also-still-brat">Continue reading...</a> Charli xcx Culture Music Experimental music Dance music Electronic music Sophie Lorde Ariana Grande Billie Eilish Fri, 20 Dec 2024 14:00:51 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/20/the-50-best-albums-of-2024-no-1-charli-xcx-brat-and-brat-and-its-completely-different-but-also-still-brat Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters Alexis Petridis 2024-12-20T14:00:51Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/09/the-50-best-albums-of-2024 <p>Topped with Charli xcx’s swaggering yet vulnerable Brat, here are the year’s finest LPs as decided by 26 Guardian music writers<br>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/best-music-of-2024">More best music of 2024</a><br>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024-in-culture">More on the best culture of 2024</a></p><p>***</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/09/the-50-best-albums-of-2024">Continue reading...</a> Music Culture Pop and rock Rap Hip-hop Electronic music Indie Fri, 20 Dec 2024 14:00:02 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/09/the-50-best-albums-of-2024 Composite: Guardian Design/Harley Weir Composite: Guardian Design/Harley Weir Laura Snapes and Ben Beaumont-Thomas 2024-12-20T14:00:02Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/18/aphex-twin-music-from-the-merch-desk-2016-2023-review-afx <p><strong>(Warp)</strong><br>Compiling the highly sought-after limited vinyl releases sold at recent festival sets, this surprise 38-track release filled with bangers and beauty is a trove for fans</p><p>The near transcendentally awful cover art of this 38-track compilation, released with little fanfare this week, will already be familiar to hardcore Aphex Twin fans. Intrigued by a crappy southern hip-hop-style knockoff T-shirt flooding Etsy, team AFX simply made its own “meme top” to sell at recent festival appearances. Since the superb last album Syro in 2014 and the 270+ track deck clearing of his 2015 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/jan/29/aphex-twin-soundcloud-dump-shock-and-delight">SoundCloud dump</a>, Richard D James has transferred most of his restless creativity to festival sets, making the transition to credible old-school DJ headliner, in the same way that Four Tet has, sharing billing space with Peggy Gou, Arca and Bicep. But this transition happened with no toning down of style or intensity, providing a new gen Z audience with an experience that, before we even get to the music, stands somewhere between a Flaming Lips show, the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey and a cocaine/LSD-induced heart attack, thanks to the visuals by mysterious artist <a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/37384/1/weirdcore-aphex-twin-mia-visuals-interview">Weirdcore</a>.</p><p>A practice also emerged in 2016 of releasing new material – often tracks that James would drop into DJ sets – as limited-edition vinyl releases available, physically at least, only from the merch desk of select shows. These EPs and LPs became legendarily hard to get hold of and, by the time most regular fans (me) got to the festival merch desk mid-afternoon, the only thing left would be the meme shirt in XXL and a beanie hat priced to suggest it would bestow magical powers on the wearer.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/18/aphex-twin-music-from-the-merch-desk-2016-2023-review-afx">Continue reading...</a> Aphex Twin Music Dance music Electronic music Experimental music Culture Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:34:05 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/18/aphex-twin-music-from-the-merch-desk-2016-2023-review-afx Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian John Doran 2024-12-18T11:34:05Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/18/10-best-contemporary-albums-of-2024 <p>Astrid Sonne’s sonic odyssey led her to Auto-Tune experiments, Caroline Shaw took Emily Dickinson into junkyard hip-hop and Nala Sinephro went space-age</p><p>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/best-music-of-2024">More on the best music of 2024</a><br>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024-in-culture">More on the best culture of 2024</a></p><p>Feinberg emerged about 20 years ago as the leading member of a San Francisco psych rock band called Citay. He has since moved to upstate New York (to practise psychoanalysis), and his albums now seem to explore music traditionally described as “psychedelic” (stoner rock, krautrock, lysergic folk, acid house and so on). But, crucially, Feinberg subtracts all the “rock” elements: the drums, the distortion, the dissonance. So we get the playful minimalism of Pose Beams; the hypnotic kosmiche rock of The Big Clock; the shimmering ambient house of There Was Somebody There – all wonderfully therapeutic pieces that are part of a beatific song cycle. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/may/24/ezra-feinberg-soft-power-album-review">Read the full review</a></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/18/10-best-contemporary-albums-of-2024">Continue reading...</a> Music Experimental music Classical music Jazz Electronic music Culture Wed, 18 Dec 2024 10:00:39 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/18/10-best-contemporary-albums-of-2024 Composite: ✎Todd Weaver, Robin Lambrecht, Kris Tofjan Composite: ✎Todd Weaver, Robin Lambrecht, Kris Tofjan John Lewis 2024-12-18T10:00:39Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/17/music-80s-ebm-electronic-body-music <p>As documented in a new book, electronic body music swept Belgium and Germany as its artists strove to make something entirely new – but their militaristic look became controversial</p><p>In Düsseldorf in 1978, you might think Kraftwerk would be considered royalty in the local music scene. However, for a new era of kids coming up under punk at the Ratinger Hof club, the opposite was true. “They were uncool,” says Robert Görl of DAF. “You viewed yourself as the opposite of them.”</p><p>“Boring, sedate and sterile” was how his late bandmate Gabi Delgado once described the music of Kraftwerk, who were disliked so much that some took to violence against them in the club if they showed up. Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flür later recalled being kicked by people there multiple times, with cries of: “Let’s beat up the Kraftwerker!”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/17/music-80s-ebm-electronic-body-music">Continue reading...</a> Music Pop and rock Dance music Electronic music Experimental music Culture Tue, 17 Dec 2024 16:00:21 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/17/music-80s-ebm-electronic-body-music Photograph: Sheila Rock/Shutterstock Photograph: Sheila Rock/Shutterstock Daniel Dylan Wray 2024-12-17T16:00:21Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/13/bubble-love-bubble-love-review-felix-weatherall-ross-from-friends-high-energy-pop-club-side-project <p>(Scarlet Tiger)<br>Producer Felix Weatherall adopts another guise, swapping lo-fi analogue for a disorienting burst of alternative dance music</p><p>Felix Weatherall, the London producer best known as <a href="https://www.rossfromfriends.net/">Ross From Friends</a>, has spent much of his career escaping other people’s preconceptions. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tKKNV5sXUs">emerged</a> in the mid-2010s as the most popular face of the so-called “lo-fi house” or “YouTube house” scene – not really a scene, as much as a collection of producers making analog-sounding dance music that algorithms loved – and since then has worked hard to show he has more to offer than just supremely curated vibes. His latest project, under the alias Bubble Love, is a sharp pivot away from sepia-toned gauziness: it’s a high-energy pop-club record that’s extremely fun, if far from groundbreaking.</p><p><em><a href="https://bubblelove.lnk.to/BubbleLovePR">Bubble Love</a></em><a href="https://bubblelove.lnk.to/BubbleLovePR"> </a>often sounds like the work of someone who only just discovered contemporary alternative dance music, which is not a knock. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p06_eimy9Rs">Believe</a>, a warm, jazz-sampling take on the frisky stop-start of Canadian producer Kaytranada, is both sensual and party-starting; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MlIhUZvP0E">Double Caper</a> and Faceless capture the twinkle and shine of great nu-disco. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i76BSHxzeA4">Hate</a>, a furious, minimalist garage track, and &lt;3 &lt;3, which combines calypso drums, a lithe Houston hip-hop guitar line and unnerving computerised vocal samples, feel like appropriately disorientating Two Shell tributes. You walk away knowing little about Bubble Love as a project, but certainly not having had a bad time.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/13/bubble-love-bubble-love-review-felix-weatherall-ross-from-friends-high-energy-pop-club-side-project">Continue reading...</a> Dance music Music Culture Electronic music Fri, 13 Dec 2024 12:00:47 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/13/bubble-love-bubble-love-review-felix-weatherall-ross-from-friends-high-energy-pop-club-side-project Photograph: PR Handout Photograph: PR Handout Shaad D'Souza 2024-12-13T12:00:47Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/11/10-best-global-albums-of-2024 <p>DJ Love celebrated car horns, Kenyan metalhead Lord Spikeheart traversed trap and doom, while 82-year-old Milton Nascimento joined forces with Esperanza Spalding</p><p>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/best-music-of-2024">More on the best music of 2024</a><br>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024-in-culture">More on the best culture of 2024</a></p><p>Mongolian singer Enji’s debut collaboration with German jazz drummer Simon Popp is a masterclass in vocal range and control. Largely wordless and laden with reverb, Enji’s intricate vocalisations span everything from the percussive whispers of sharp breath on Akin to yearning, drawn-out phrases on Cathedral and the sprightly rhythms of Ybbs. Popp, meanwhile, accompanies with melodic drum textures, including interlocking patterns on toms and tuned percussion. Recording almost entirely in single, improvised takes, Enji and Popp produce a remarkably expansive and imaginative sound from just two instruments, sitting somewhere between enveloping ambience and spiritual improvisation.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/11/10-best-global-albums-of-2024">Continue reading...</a> Metal Music Jazz Experimental music Electronic music Classical music Culture Wed, 11 Dec 2024 16:00:02 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/11/10-best-global-albums-of-2024 Composite: Masataka Ishida/ Ronald Dick/ Ricky Weaver Composite: Masataka Ishida/ Ronald Dick/ Ricky Weaver Ammar Kalia 2024-12-11T16:00:02Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/10/sanctuary-club-milton-keynes-massive-hard-dance-grime <p>It eventually got turned into an Ikea, but for over a decade this warehouse unit galvanised hard dance, grime and more. At a big reunion, former ravers recall the magic</p><p>‘The scene is splintered,” Karl says, unsheathing one of his two annual cigars. “But it’s still alive.”</p><p>Milton Keynes’ Stadium MK looms overhead and bass shakes the outdoor Portaloos, as ravers like Karl return to V7 Saxon Street, once the address of the superclub Sanctuary Music Arena. Its great glass doors welcomed close to a million people between 1993 and 2004, and 20 years on, 8,500 of them have returned across two Saturdays in November for Sanctuary Forever: The Return to V7 Saxon Street, billed as the “the biggest rave reunion in history”. With sets spanning drum’n’bass, jungle, hardcore, speed garage and gabber – pierced by soaring, smoke-textured lasers and the squawk of “ravehorns” from the official merch table – it is enough for Karl to be “literally transported back to the early 90s”.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/10/sanctuary-club-milton-keynes-massive-hard-dance-grime">Continue reading...</a> Music Culture Dance music Electronic music Milton Keynes Club culture Tue, 10 Dec 2024 13:23:05 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/10/sanctuary-club-milton-keynes-massive-hard-dance-grime Photograph: PYMCA/Avalon/Universal Images Group/Getty Images Photograph: PYMCA/Avalon/Universal Images Group/Getty Images Liam Gesoff 2024-12-10T13:23:05Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/19/kraftwerk-autobahn-50-epic-road-trip-electronic <p>Fifty years ago, the electronic pioneers released a 23-minute song about a road – and changed pop music for ever. Our writer hits the speed-limit-free highways of Düsseldorf and Hamburg in search of its futuristic brilliance</p><p>Ask people what the most iconic musical road trip is and they’ll most likely direct you towards America: take Highway 61 through the birthplace of the blues, they’ll say, or head to California on Route 66. They may even mention vintage T-Birds or Cadillacs. Yet there’s a road trip arguably more important to the history of popular music than any other, one that tells its story not just via the cities it visits but through the sounds of the journey itself – and the hum of the engine that’s powering you. And the best way to ride it is in a humble Volkswagen.</p><p>Fifty years ago this month, Kraftwerk released Autobahn, a 22-minute 43-second song about the German road network. Astonishingly for a 22-minute 43-second song about the German road network, it somehow managed to change the musical landscape forever. Indeed, look back at the soundtrack to the last few decades – with its abundance of pristine synths, robotic vocoders and repetitive beats – and you’d be hard pressed to find a road that doesn’t somehow lead back to Autobahn.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/19/kraftwerk-autobahn-50-epic-road-trip-electronic">Continue reading...</a> Music Kraftwerk Culture Europe World news Electronic music Germany Road transport Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:00:46 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/19/kraftwerk-autobahn-50-epic-road-trip-electronic Composite: Guardian Design / Getty Composite: Guardian Design / Getty Tim Jonze 2024-11-19T13:00:46Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/15/poppy-negative-spaces-review <p><strong>(Sumerian)</strong><br>On her sixth album, the multi-genre star seems to be having an identity crisis – but amid the industrial guitars and synthpop, she clearly trusts her own instincts</p><p>Since launching a decade ago as a childlike, robotic YouTube character and meme, Los Angeles-based Moriah Pereira, AKA Poppy, has parted from original co-creator Titanic Sinclair and devoted more of her energies to pop, amassing millions of streams for forays into everything from bubblegum to nu-metal. The subtext of her sixth album is a struggle for identity. “Maybe I’m the one I’m running from,” she sings on the hard-but-gentle The Cost of Giving Up, while the self-explanatory Surviving on Defiance is beautifully raw. Over 15 tracks, she emerges as someone determined to trust her own instincts.</p><p>After this year’s successful collaborations with Knocked Loose and Bad Omens, this sixth album leans into metalcore. Producer Jordan Fish (formerly of Bring Me the Horizon) brings industrial machine polish to heavy guitars, blood-curdling screaming and contrarily sweet, honeyed choruses. However, Poppy’s widening sonic palette stretches from electro-goth to the excellent Crystallised, a ready-made EDM-meets-Eurodance anthem.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/15/poppy-negative-spaces-review">Continue reading...</a> Music Pop and rock Metal Culture Dance music Electronic music Fri, 15 Nov 2024 08:30:21 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/15/poppy-negative-spaces-review Photograph: Sam Cannon Photograph: Sam Cannon Dave Simpson 2024-11-15T08:30:21Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/08/actress-darren-j-cunningham-review-ukrainian-elegant-mixtape-leans-into-abstraction <p>(Smalltown Supersound)<br>With Ukraine on his mind, British producer Darren J Cunningham mixes electronics, found sounds and fleeting vocals that both sooth and disrupt</p><p>A self-titled record can be significant, signalling a reset or autobiographical candour. Neither quite applies here, if only because UK electronic producer <a href="https://www.musicradar.com/news/actress-interview">Darren J Cunningham</a> – the title is his name in Ukrainian – doesn’t conform to many norms. Originally more club-oriented, Actress long ago ditched banging tunes for works where retro gamer electronics met aqueous dystopian unease across many types of beats – or, in the case of his first album this year, <em><a href="https://ffm.to/actress-statik">Statik</a></em>, very little percussion at all.</p><p>Moody, restless deconstructions remain Cunningham’s shapeshifting signature, but his move to the Norwegian avant-garde label <a href="https://www.smalltownsupersound.com/news/actress-cd-available-to-pre-order-on-bandcamp/">Smalltown Supersound</a> leans into abstraction. Staticky transmissions remain a reference on this 54-minute mixtape – an evolving piece of sound art first aired <a href="https://ra.co/podcast/938">via Resident Advisor</a> in May and now getting a physical release. (Actress describes it, referring to the artist Georges Braque, as “a collage”.)</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/08/actress-darren-j-cunningham-review-ukrainian-elegant-mixtape-leans-into-abstraction">Continue reading...</a> Electronic music Music Culture Fri, 08 Nov 2024 11:00:09 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/08/actress-darren-j-cunningham-review-ukrainian-elegant-mixtape-leans-into-abstraction Photograph: Ola Rindal Photograph: Ola Rindal Kitty Empire 2024-11-08T11:00:09Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/06/its-shocking-no-ones-done-this-before-the-13-hour-gig-digging-up-the-african-roots-of-global-pop <p>With a marathon performance and album, the wildly ambitious Chromesthesia charts centuries of intercontinental music. Its creator explains why she’s asking big questions about the true owners of culture</p><p>‘Can you own a rhythm?” asks British-Egyptian historian Dr Hannah Elsisi. She points out that pop charts around the world are infused with Africa-rooted music, from reggaeton, dancehall and hip-hop to African pop itself. “But who benefits from this music made from migration? How do we understand and credit the labour that goes into the beat of our culture?”</p><p>These vexed questions struck Elsisi when she came across a 2023 US lawsuit. Jamaican dancehall production duo Steely and Clevie alleged their 1989 track Fish Market originated the dembow rhythm that has since become a staple of reggaeton and countless pop productions. Over 1,000 songs using a version of that rhythm, some of them by the most streamed artists in the world including Bad Bunny and Drake, have been targeted by the pair in the ongoing copyright case.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/06/its-shocking-no-ones-done-this-before-the-13-hour-gig-digging-up-the-african-roots-of-global-pop">Continue reading...</a> Music Culture Experimental music Electronic music Africa World news Wed, 06 Nov 2024 13:46:29 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/06/its-shocking-no-ones-done-this-before-the-13-hour-gig-digging-up-the-african-roots-of-global-pop Photograph: MediaPunch Inc/Alamy Photograph: MediaPunch Inc/Alamy Ammar Kalia 2024-11-06T13:46:29Z https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/nov/06/ekleido-review-floating-points <p><strong>The Place, London</strong> <br>Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser’s double bill pairs precise poses with a compelling electronic score</p><p>Club culture has left its stamp on contemporary dance in recent years – the popularity of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/sharon-eyal">Sharon Eyal</a> is a prime example – and here it is again in a double bill choreographed and performed by new duo <a href="https://www.ekleido.co.uk/">Ekleido</a>. Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser have graced a few dancefloors, you can tell, and the door to the theatre opens to a blast of theatrical haze, house music and a big, buzzy crowd. Some of them might have been attracted by a big name in electronic music, Floating Points, who writes Ekleido’s scores (and is Ekholm’s partner).</p><p>Ekleido are influenced by voguing in particular, arms slicing and scrolling in precise poses with compelling style. The pair work in unison, with telepathic synchrony, or they knot their bodies together in complex sculptures. Then they thread one body through the loops made by another. The first piece, Splice, is reminiscent of Russell Maliphant’s work, the dancers housed within a square of light, exploring every possibility on the spot, before they expand across the stage and the bouncy beats get bassier and make you want to fling yourself around a dancefloor. But what Ekleido do is the opposite – it’s measured, clean, exact. Not robotic, though, but lithe and alert. They might be ultra cool but it’s easy watching.</p><p>Splice is at <a href="https://www.danceeast.co.uk/performances/au24-triple-bill/">DanceEast, Ipswich</a>, 22 November.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/nov/06/ekleido-review-floating-points">Continue reading...</a> Dance Stage Sharon Eyal Culture Music Floating Points Electronic music Club culture Wed, 06 Nov 2024 12:04:33 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/nov/06/ekleido-review-floating-points Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Lyndsey Winship 2024-11-06T12:04:33Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/04/quincy-jones-10-greatest-productions-thriller <p>From his sumptuous vocal jazz with Sarah Vaughan and Helen Merrill to funk with Donna Summer and George Benson, the late producer had astonishing versatility</p><p>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/04/quincy-jones-musician-michael-jackson-producer-dies">Quincy Jones dies aged 91 – news</a><br>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/feb/22/quincy-jones-greatest-ever-moments-ranked">Quincy Jones’s greatest moments – ranked</a><br>• <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2024/nov/04/quincy-jones-a-life-in-pictures">Quincy Jones – a life in pictures</a><strong><br></strong></p><p>For all Quincy Jones’s astonishing versatility, straddling the analogue warmth of big band jazz and the sleek production of the early-digital 80s, there is one work that towers over them all: Thriller, the biggest-selling album of all time.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/04/quincy-jones-10-greatest-productions-thriller">Continue reading...</a> Quincy Jones Music Pop and rock R&B Electronic music Jazz Culture Mon, 04 Nov 2024 13:43:12 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/04/quincy-jones-10-greatest-productions-thriller Photograph: Chris Pizzello/AP Photograph: Chris Pizzello/AP Ben Beaumont-Thomas 2024-11-04T13:43:12Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/31/fishing-lines-mobile-phones-and-wirral-wind-the-oddly-harmonious-music-of-ex-easter-island-head <p>For 15 years, the Liverpool band have been making some of the boldest experiments in British music (around their day jobs). They explain why quietness and community are so important in a chaotic world</p><p>For most bands, the main perk of living in a slightly rundown mansion-cum-artistic community on the city’s edge would be having licence to make an enormous racket. For <a href="https://exeasterislandhead.bandcamp.com/">Ex-Easter Island Head</a>, says Benjamin Fair, it’s that “we get to play quietly”.</p><p>The four members of the Liverpool minimalists are sitting in Benjamin Duvall’s slate-grey bedroom/rehearsal space around the edge of their circular setup: guitars laid flat on keyboard stands, often with sticks wedged under the fretboard strings ready to create a giant reverberant twang, and mallets for hitting them on the floor; a drum kit deconstructed between the stations; haptic motors extracted from mobile phones primed to dance across the surface of the strings and cymbals. The band’s old amps are stacked in a corner behind Andrew Hunt, who joined in 2019 and suggested jettisoning them. “It eliminates any hum so you’re just hearing the strings,” he says.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/31/fishing-lines-mobile-phones-and-wirral-wind-the-oddly-harmonious-music-of-ex-easter-island-head">Continue reading...</a> Experimental music Music Electronic music Liverpool Culture Thu, 31 Oct 2024 10:15:14 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/31/fishing-lines-mobile-phones-and-wirral-wind-the-oddly-harmonious-music-of-ex-easter-island-head Photograph: Simon Gabriel Photograph: Simon Gabriel Laura Snapes 2024-10-31T10:15:14Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/29/the-mysterious-world-of-two-shell-our-pranks-dont-mean-were-not-sincere <p>They promised us an in-person interview – then sent along two decoys. So who are the enigmatic musicians who make it so hard for fans to hear their thrillingly alien music?</p><p>Two Shell, a buzzy London duo who make hyperactive yet melancholy bass music, are well known for giving people the runaround. They keep themselves anonymous, and perform with scarves and sunglasses hiding their faces. Fans are sent on digital breadcrumb trails via mysterious websites and social media posts. Their first interview, with the Face, was conducted in a chatroom of their own design, and scrubbed from the internet shortly after publication. Their second, with Mixmag, was done over email and paired with photos of a duo who fans on Reddit are almost certain are not actually Two Shell.</p><p>So I am excited and wary when I arrive at their Deptford studio to talk with them about their self-titled debut album, released last week on the big-budget indie label Young. Two Shell’s music mashes together various kinds of dance music from the past few decades – speed garage, techno, hyperpop, house, dubstep – and runs it all through a cartoon filter, making for a sound that’s fast and dizzyingly heightened. Their studio is crammed with abstract paintings and pieces of outlandish raver gear. Two tables are covered with dozens of hats, each embellished with embroidery and scraps of fabric. Two young women are sitting on a fuzzy green couch, wearing outfits that sit somewhere between avant garde clubber and first-year art student: they introduce themselves as Flat Earther and Ghost Shrimp.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/29/the-mysterious-world-of-two-shell-our-pranks-dont-mean-were-not-sincere">Continue reading...</a> Dance music Electronic music Music Culture Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:30:12 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/29/the-mysterious-world-of-two-shell-our-pranks-dont-mean-were-not-sincere Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian Shaad D'Souza 2024-10-29T16:30:12Z https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/25/underworld-strawberry-hotel-review-sweet-bangers-and-sad-laments <p>(Smith Hyde Productions/Virgin)<br>The techno giants’ 11th album finds them ranging from cut-up dancefloor fillers to gentle experimentation</p><p>After 2019’s 52-week audiovisual creative marathon, <em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/03/underworld-drift-series-one-sampler-edition-review">Drift</a></em><em>,</em> recent tunes with Irish producer Kettama and a busy touring schedule, the implacable <a href="https://www.underworldlive.com/">Underworld</a> return with a more conventional album – their 11th. Of course, <em>Strawberry Hotel</em> defies easy definition, veering from Born Slippy-indebted bangers to a simple closing guitar track via Ottavia – opera singer (and daughter of Rick Smith) <a href="https://www.esmebronwensmith.com/">Esme Bronwen-Smith</a>’s delivery of a lament by Nero’s wife, set to a percolating electronic indictment.</p><p>The raver’s delights are clustered towards the front. Tracks such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdkvkHUEgP4">Techno Shinkansen</a> (gleaming disco house, Giorgio Moroder bassline) and Sweet Lands Experience (“I was more smashed than you were,” notes Karl Hyde over more primo Smith audio tweakery) confirm the dancefloor remains in Underworld’s forebrain, 30 years since their breakthrough with genre-straddling third album <em>Dubnobasswithmyheadman</em><em> </em>(1994).</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/25/underworld-strawberry-hotel-review-sweet-bangers-and-sad-laments">Continue reading...</a> Underworld Dance music Electronic music Music Culture Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:00:39 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/25/underworld-strawberry-hotel-review-sweet-bangers-and-sad-laments Photograph: Isy Townsend Photograph: Isy Townsend Kitty Empire 2024-10-25T10:00:39Z