Black Midi are back with a second album that defies most (if not all) expectations people have of the band. They talk to Dan Dylan Wray about abandoning the jam, embracing the melody and picking up the wok. Home page photograph by Yis Kid
You can call it “Crank Wave”, you can call it “Wonk”, or you can even refer to “It Might Give You A Headache But Boy Is It Exciting-core”, says John Doran, as long as you recognise the importance of the Speedy Wunderground label and drop the embarrassing references to IDLES and Shame
Ahead of their appearance at Sea Change Festival this weekend, John Doran speaks to Geordie Greep and Cameron Picton of Black Midi and asks, what exactly does it take for a challenging band to make a genuine go of it in 2019? Avatars created by Anthrox Studio. Band portrait by Dan Kendall. (Warning: the 'Crows Perch' video contains flashing images)
How might electronic music sound in a post human future? Robert Barry enlists the help of Holly Herndon, James Bridle and Conrad Shawcross to explore radical new directions in computer music, from live programming and Algorave to the digital overloads of Black Midi
John Freeman heads up to Sunderland to eat falafel and meet with the Brewis brothers to find out why the sinewy pop of Field Music’s new album Commontime was inspired by fatherhood, Hall & Oates and hatred for a certain brand of 4x4 car
We were offered a very brief phone conversation with Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance recently. There was nothing for it but to activate our many teeted, lizard agent from Interzone, Jonny Mugwump, whose feverish brain and forked tongue work in double time...
With a flurry of recent activity, including reissues and the promise of a book, Duncan Seaman talks to Jowe Head, Biggles Books and Phones Sportsman, as well as Geoff Travis of Rough Trade about the cult DIY band. Home page band portrait by Caroline Kraabel
Michael Chapman's is a remarkable tale: a singer/guitarist veteran of the '60s who last decade connected with US artists such as Thurston Moore and Jack Rose and started making beautiful and exploratory, improvisational music. Ahead of his performance at Supernormal Festival, he tells Russ Slater about staring at woodpiles and why he hates being called 'folk'
In this lost interview from 2009, Rhys Chatham talks to David Moats about doom metal, gentrification and drum & bass as a collaboration between him and Charlemagne Palestine comes to St. John's Church in Hackney on Thursday as part of William Basinski and Art Assembly's Arcadia series
Jeremy Allen interviews Carla Bruni in Paris about her new album French Touch, but politics is strictly interdict. “I wish good luck to Mr and Mrs Trump, I wish good luck to Mr and Mrs Macron, and I don’t care, do you understand?”
Ahead of their Quietus Social show in support of Alexander Tucker, Eden Tizard speaks to Gentle Stranger about audience responses, the dialogue between a musician and non-musician approach, and their own post-clown ethos. Pictures by Daniel Gatenio