by Ed Biggs Canadian experimental artist Tim Hecker has, by degrees over the course of 15 years, got to a point where his albums are being anticipated by a wider circle of listeners than simply ‘those who bought the last one’. After all, a man with a PhD in ‘urban noise’ (!) and who used to be a university lecturer in ‘sound culture’ is almost bound to be pigeonholed as an
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by Ollie Rankine Many were slightly taken aback in November last year following exposure to Parquet Courts’ second studio EP Monastic Living. Although it was clearly audacious, the New York punk rockers’ attempt to fashion an idiosyncratic work of art was revealed to be nothing more than an experimental write-off and was consequently battered by critics across the board. With this information in mind, it’s easy to place Parquet Courts back
by Ed Biggs Having spent the entirety of the noughties dwelling in the musical hinterlands, sculpting critically acclaimed but modest-selling albums under the name of M83, Anthony Gonzalez unexpectedly found massive exposure with ‘Midnight City’ five years ago, a transcendent piece of retro/electro pop that got used as the soundtrack for the BBC’s Olympic Games coverage, ‘Made In Chelsea’, and countless adverts on top. Trust me, you know that song.
by Ed Biggs Having recently passed twin milestones – the release of their thirteenth studio album Super and the 30th anniversary of their first, Please – it seems like the ideal time to take stock of the Pet Shop Boys’ career and their impact on pop music. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have adapted to keep themselves on or ahead of the curve for three decades, and still retain that sense
by John Tindale It’s been four years since the release of Yeasayer’s last album Fragrant World, a wonderfully eclectic album which balanced experimental electronics with a pop sound to dazzling effect. But, much like in Yeasayer’s other work, there was always that feeling of more to come, another gear to go through – unfortunately for Amen & Goodbye, the group’s fourth, this is a feeling that will remain for at least
by Ed Biggs 25 years after its release, it’s difficult to conceive of how different British urban music might sound if it wasn’t for Massive Attack. The Bristol trip-hop collective’s debut album Blue Lines did an enormous amount to broaden the horizons for the fledgling British urban music scene. Chief producer Andy ‘Mushroom’ Vowles adopted the sampling and production culture of American hip-hop and filtered it through the aesthetics of the
by Ed Biggs As lead singer and creative fountainhead of Weezer, Rivers Cuomo has overseen one of the most bizarre career arcs ever. Creating twin masterpieces in the mid ‘90s with their first self-titled record ‘The Blue Album’ and then Pinkerton, which sprawled across the dividing lines between pop, rock, indie and emo, Cuomo’s form gradually went completely off the rails with the turn of the millennium.
by Ollie Rankine The Wilderness is perhaps an appropriate album title when considering the content of Texan post-rockers Explosions In The Sky’s newest artistic venture. Although retaining the gentle, dream-like guitar riffs that have featured in previous works all the way back to their 2003 masterpiece The Earth Is Not A Cold, Dead Place, EITS have stepped into the bottomless unknown to explore much deeper territories of music.
by Ed Biggs After three glorious decades, 13 studio albums and a vast arsenal of hit singles that have irrevocably altered the landscape of British pop music, it’s well past time that Pet Shop Boys were recognised as one of the greatest bands this country has ever produced. As a former Smash Hits writer and assistant editor, Neil Tennant always argued strongly for pop to be recognised as equal to, or
by Ollie Rankine The thought of living in an age where the mere, simple push of a single button could begin the cataclysmic implosion of humanity as we know it is certainly not reassuring to say the least. The desire to harness the colossal capabilities of nuclear power has become subject to primary interest of superpowers around the world. The idea of developing something with such formidable potential is mind-bogglingly fascinating
