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Album of the Week
Build Back Better: Greatest Heads by Al Karpenter
Born out of the febrile Basque Country experimental music community and infused with the weirdness of the early 00s New York noise scene, the former solo project of Bilbao’s Alvaro Matilla (now joined by Marta Sainz, Enrique Zaccagnini, and multi-instrumentalist, serial collaborator Mattin) sounds wild and untamed and bursting with possibility
Books
Artists Only? Jonathan Gould’s Book on Talking Heads and Downtown New York
Burning Down the House by Jonathan Gould tells the story of the American new wave band and the fertile scene they came up with, but does the book risk reducing the city and everyone in it to a backdrop for the group's mercurial lead singer? asks Elizabeth Wiet
Album of the Week
In-Between Days: Wind, Again by Sary Moussa
A long-term fixture on Beirut’s underground experimental music scene, the latest from Sary Moussa is caught between the political and the personal, the whisper close and wide-open space. Wind, Again is an album whose contradictions make it all the more compelling, finds Kirsteen McNish
Strange World Of...
The Strange World of… Jon Spencer
For 40 years, Jon Spencer has been playing a mutant strain of rock & roll. Here he offers Mark Andrews 10 entry points to his vast back catalogue, from his earliest days in Pussy Galore, through the Blues Explosion all the way up to his still-nameless new band
Electronic
Hyperspecific: Electronic Music for June Reviewed by Jaša Bužinel
This month’s edition of our dance music column brings a surprise six-hour marathon set from Italian techno legend Donato Dozzy and plenty of dancefloor goodies, from “bard tech” and new gen Italo house to re-touched French Touch and cerebral IDM techno
Black Sky Thinking
O Superfan: How Rock & Pop’s Elite Screw their Loyal Supporters – and why it won’t Work
The mainstream music biz reckons that devoted fans are the golden geese that'll keep laying, and the streaming services are about to get in on the grift. Eamonn Forde explains why this makes no business sense
Books
Live Happening: Peter Ulrich Recalls the First European Tour of Dead Can Dance
In an exclusive extract from his book, Drumming with Dead Can Dance: and Parallel Adventures, former Dead Can Dance drummer Peter Ulrich looks back at an almost fateful mishap in the heady days of the band's early time with 4AD
Reissue of the Week
Reissue of the Week: Soft Cell’s Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing
Seedy English vignettes supercharged by the bombast of New York's superclubs – though they didn't then know it then, the world's first modern remix album found Soft Cell on a seesaw between hedonism and self-destruction, says Patrick Clarke
Baker's Dozen
Instant Grounding: Patrick Wolf’s Favourite Albums
From teenage awakenings at the hands of Björk and Stereolab via English folksong, a lockdown obsession with Dead Can Dance and a newfound love of Lili Boulanger, Patrick Wolf takes Luke Turner through the thirteen records that have defined his life
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