New Music Interviews
10 Questions for the avant-pop icons StereolabThursday, 02 November 2023![]()
Just over 30 years ago, avant-pop icons Stereolab released their debut album Peng! establishing the early hallmarks of the English-French band’s sound; 1960s pop harmonies, chorus-laden guitar riffs and a borderless world of analog electrics. Read more... |
'We wanted to make a record we really love': The Rolling Stones at Hackney EmpireFriday, 08 September 2023![]()
One day, someone will compile a full illustrated history of Rolling Stones press conferences, going right back to Mick and Keith in 1964 buying a couple of pints in a pub in Denmark Street for journalists from the NME and Melody Maker – both now in the dustbin of history – and telling them, “here’s our album, have a listen” and leaving them to it. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: musician Susanne Sundfør - ‘Blómi is a message of hope for whoever might need it’Thursday, 27 April 2023![]()
With the release this week of Blómi, her sixth studio album, Norway’s Susanne Sundfør discloses more about herself than she previously has through her music – but nothing is made obvious. As she says during this interview, the driving concept became complex. Read more... |
Wilko Johnson (1947-2022): The Bard of Canvey IslandFriday, 25 November 2022![]()
Wilko Johnson, who has died aged 75, enjoyed an astonishing afterlife while he was still alive. After Julien Temple’s Dr. Feelgood film Oil City Confidential (2009) restored his crucial former band's profile, a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2013 perversely flooded Wilko with the wonder of life, leaving this melancholy soul content for perhaps the first time. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Abel SelaocoeFriday, 23 September 2022![]()
South-African cellist Abel Selaocoe is about to begin his third major concert in London in under a year. As the support artist for kora player Ballake Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal at the Roundhouse in January, he received a lengthy ovation for his 30 minute set, having demonstrated an uncanny ability to play the audience as dexterously as he plays his cello. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Marc Almond of Soft CellThursday, 12 May 2022![]()
Soft Cell, the duo consisting of Marc Almond and Dave Ball, announced they were calling it quits in 2018. The two sold out shows at the 02 in London were supposed to be their swan song, waving goodbye to their Soft Cell days. But as their eponymous Eighties single hinted, waving goodbye is often paired with a hello. Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician JarboeFriday, 22 April 2022![]()
Jarboe is a singer and musician who first rose to prominence as a member of Swans from 1985 to 1997. During this time, she and her then partner and fellow Swan, Michael Gira, also released three albums as Skin (known as World of Skin in the USA). Read more... |
10 Questions for musician and DJ Pete TongFriday, 03 December 2021![]()
Perhaps appropriately, when I called Pete Tong for his 10 questions I was hungover, on the phone in a park after a night at a very good party. It’s a sign of the times that things are appearing to return to a relative normal, despite the threat of Omnicron and a precipitant winter lockdown. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: jazz musician Charles LloydSaturday, 20 November 2021![]()
Miles Davis stole Charles Lloyd’s band, and much else. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Low, the band - 'Structure is key in minimalism. Especially in pop minimalism'Friday, 19 November 2021![]()
After its mid-September release Low’s 13th studio album Hey What hit 23 on the UK’s Official Charts, their highest ranking to date. Back in early 2001, Things We Lost in the Fire topped out at number 81. Despite the increasing profile, Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk remain largely autonomous. There’s the odd change of bass player, label or producer, but their work together as Low is self-determined. They do what they want, and they define Low. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today

A sun deck with seven pale-green padded loungers is the latest setting for the latest...

Myriam Gendron's debut album Not So Deep As A Well was originally released in 2014 by Feeding Tube, a US label run by...

There’s a thread of bright magic running through British...

As the title character in Eileen, set in a miserable Massachusetts backwater in the days before Christmas 1964, Thomasin McKenzie plays a...

It’s an elementary fact that Dickens sells at this time of year — look at all the perennial Christmas Carols sprouting up everywhere. But...

Fallen Leaves is Aki Kaurismäki’s 20th film, the one the...

The realisation that Shirley Hurt is the name assumed by Canada’...

Next door to the beautiful Art Deco Littlewoods Pools Building, nearly 30 years standing derelict, a set of grey sheds stand, a seat of...

Mischief Theatre set themselves a big challenge when they evolved their brand of knowing slapstick. And not just about how to destroy...

It takes a brave or a foolhardy person to walk the streets wearing almost nothing but barbed wire and platform shoes, especially when the occasion...