sat 03/05/2025

club music

CD: Simian Mobile Disco - Unpatterns

This is a techno album. A techno album on a British label best known for the indie-est of indie rock, from a duo whose last album featured rock vocalists Beth Ditto and Alex Turner among others, but a techno album nonetheless. It's all about pulse...

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The Arts Desk Radio Show 2

Welcome to our second show, brought to you again from the Red Bull Studio in London where it was recorded by Brendon Harding.This time, Peter and Joe are joined live in the studio by two guests: friend of theartsdesk and musical polymath Mara...

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Plastician returns to grime

In a surprise move, DJ/producer Plastician (real name Chris Reed) has unveiled a new self-produced release due on his own Terrorhythm record label at the end of this month, consisting of two tracks of retro grime rhythms.In the early days of dubstep...

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CD: Mouse On Mars - Parastrophics

Jan St Werner, half of German duo Mouse On Mars, recently held forth on their inspirations, citing the tension between metrical freedom and metronomic funk in the work of Sun Ra and Funkadelic as their key motivator. And while it might seem odd to...

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Sbtrkt, Koko

A mea culpa from me: I never gave Sbtrkt's records the attention they deserved. I always thought they were a capitulation, a softening of the radical developments of the post grime and dubstep generation with more traditional musicality and indie...

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Black Cab Sessions: music TV catches up with the net?

Tonight on Channel 4, a new music series begins with a fantastic premise. A group of music obsessives drive around the USA in a London black cab, finding interesting musicians and recording them performing and talking in the back of the cab. Sounds...

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theartsdesk video exclusive: Blacksmif

Londoner Yemi Olagbaiye is the model of a new generation musician for whom the dissolution of genre categories means not homogenisation but an opportunity for greater individuality. Olagbaiye grew up playing guitar music, then moved on to drum'n'...

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Justice, Brixton Academy

Justice – pronounce it “Joosteece”, for they are as French as they come – deconstruct the opposition between style and substance. Everything about them is preposterous, from the hipster facial hair via the rock-pig antics in their A Cross The...

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Manchester Rising: Celebrating the City's Vibrant Club Scene

I first heard Zed Bias's Biasonic Hot Sauce – Birth of the Nanocloud last autumn. He may have been one of the key players in the London-centric sound of UK garage, but he was never of that scene. Based in Milton Keynes through the first phase of his...

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Red Bull Music Academy: a caffeine boost for the music industry?

I almost feel duty bound to make a declaration of interest here. I have done several pieces of paid writing for the Red Bull Music Academy, including a piece of course material for this year's Academy, and a few days ago I went to Madrid to see the...

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CD: Aquasky - Raise the Devil

A decade and a half ago I was junglist correspondent for Eternity magazine, a long since defunct organ that catered to the then thriving print press for rave devotees. This was how I ran into Aquasky, a trio of studenty, long-haired guys from...

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CD: Anchorsong - Chapters

It's understandable that people get put off leftfield dance music, given how much micro-genre delineation and dog-in-a-manger protectionism there can be in underground scenes. It can seem a shame sometimes, but then again, these are part and parcel...

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