"I think that drumming as songwriting is very important - more than any sort of technical proficiency, to have it be as melodic or musical as all the other instruments" - Dave Grohl says in a Rolling Stone interview with Ringo Starr about drumming as songwriting. And then there's this Starr's song - "I think […]
She's an experimental guitarist with a jazz background, he is a drummer steeped in New York's noise-rock scene, together, Jessica Ackerley and Rick Daniel make up ESSi, post-punk noise band, who's just released their first album. Listening to 'Vital Creatures', it can seem baffling that only two musicians are playing on the album. But the two […]
"Human beings and nature are connected. What we’re trying to do is imitate the sound of the water, and the sound of the wind. Nature is right in our voices” - Jaya from the Mongolian hard-rock band The Hu tells in a Guardian interview about what his band is about. The four of them play […]
"More people are listening to orchestral music through video games than ever before in the history of recorded music” Irish composer and conductor Eímear Noone makes an obvious, albeit interesting point about classical music today in Guardian interview. She worked on games such as 'World of Warcraft', 'Diablo III' and 'Hearthstone', and describes how there […]
"Music feels like a barricade at times and anything creative feels like it could be hard to get into. But it can happen for you" - Toby L from the London indie-label Transgressive Records tells the BBC. They started out with just 1.000 pounds, and are still working 15 years later. One of the biggest names […]
"I learned a lot of random things putting this book together and just how many women were in the room, how many women pioneered so much. And then, you know, it's always just kind of passed off to a guy and then, you know, he'll run with it" - author Kathy Iandoli says about her […]
Elton John spent his whole career "trying to show my father what I'm made of", he writes in his new autobiography, 'Me', out now. "It's crazy, but I just wanted his approval. I'm still trying to prove to him that what I do is fine - and he's been dead for almost 30 years" - […]
Pharrell Williams has distanced himself from ‘Blurred Lines’, the 2013 hit he performed alongside Robin Thicke saying he initially didn’t understand the furore surrounding the track’s reception. "There are women who really like the song and connect to the energy that just gets you up", he told GQ. "Then I realised that there are men […]
“I’ve a kinship with women. That’s why I’ve always put women in strong positions in music” - Tricky tells in a Guardian interview about his new autobiography, 'Hell Is Round the Corner', out October 31, where he remembers his fans telling him how his music had helped them through dark periods in life. Bit part […]
"Writing a song like that’s ['Tiny Dancer'] a bit like having a wank, really. You want the climax to be good, but you don’t want it to be over too quickly – you want to work your way up to it" - Elton John answered Bob Dylan in a Guardian interview. The song he wished […]
The London four-piece are the latest chosen by the NME as the "next-big-UK-rock-thing", and they are - quite good. Not as fresh and exciting as Black Midi, but still worth a listen. Their debut album 'Mass', lyrically, pulls a lot from frontman Theo Polyzoides' childhood, as he says in NME interview: “Some of the fondest […]
The Quietus has an interview with an interesting concept - members of Voivod, Hawkwind, Gong, The Utopia Strong, SunnO))), 808 State and more, interview a band they were influenced by, French prog-rockers Magma. "You can achieve something without any concessions if you work hard, believe in yourself and stick to your ideas" - they answered […]
The Quietus interviewed "a genuinely exciting new group with the potential to be massive", London five-piece Squid. They were defined as being post-punk, a label they resist - "We are the first generation that’s been brought up with the internet in developing periods of our lives. It means that genre is much less definable, it’s not […]
The latest edition of NME's The Big Read is about the newest sequel of Josh Homme's Desert Sessions Vol 11/12 , a collaborative album by influential musicians, making music that's just bizarre enough not to be taken seriously, and just good enough not to be taken stupid. This time around, guests in Homme's desert studio […]
“Bach’s been dragged through jazz and easy listening and every genre of music really, and the music has still survived" - Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame, told the Quietus about his new label Octatonic Records, dedicated to contemporary classical music. The other half of his favourite classical music world are composers from the last 100 […]
FKA twigs is a dancer and a singer, but still, she's often referred as "someone's girlfriend" - “I feel like I’ve been indoctrinated to feel like when I’m with a man, things are better,” she says in a Guardian interview - “regardless of whether they are or not. I’ve been made to feel like, if […]
“You’ve got to wait for your ideas to come to you, don’t force 'em” - is the best advice composer and multi-instrumentalist Karl D’Silva ever got, he says in the Quietus interview. "When I’m writing, the minute I try and force it I lose the flow and everything closes up, writing for me is at […]
Early on in their career, Big Thief would focus on “blowing the roof off” the tiny venues they were playing, band's Buck Meek says in a big Stereogum interview. But now it’s a bit different. “The bigger the shows get in capacity, I feel like the more intimate we dig in. It catalyzes us to […]
Kane Robinson is, right next to Dizzee Rascal and Wiley, one of the pioneers of UK grime scene, where he is known as Kano. Now, he's a TV star in a crime drama 'Top Boy' where he plays a drug dealer. His role is already the subject of awards talk, many critics have taken to social […]
"I've never really considered myself so much Mr. Guitar. To me, playing guitar was a means to an end. I needed to play something" - former Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore says in a PopMatters interview about himself and his latest project. It's a box set, named 'Spirit Counsel', with three instrumental pieces spanning nearly […]
An excellent interview in the Quietus with Andrew Falkous from the newly reformed UK indie-punks Mclusky*, with a great introduction. Now that they're playing again "it's the first time I haven't lived month-to-month since I was 18", Falkous says, "I basically don't have to worry about money for a while. And I get to go […]
Guardian has an interview with Black Midi, nominated for the prestigious British Mercury Music Award, trying to explain their music. The journalist of the London paper says their album 'Schlagenheim' reminds her of "the ambience of the internet – a cacophonous, always shifting stream of sonic information that feels spellbinding in part because you can’t […]
“I’ve always just been fascinated by [masculinity]... I’ve just been smothered by it and at the same time expected to behave like that” - Australian singer Alex Cameron tells the Guardian about his new album 'Miami Memory', where he reflects on the harm men’s behaviour causes women. Relationship with his partner, the artist, actor and Girls star […]
"I grew up with Obama and we were happy in New York. We were really, really happy with everything. That’s what I think people miss. We had gotten to a point where we could focus on the music and the arts. It was great” - Lana Del Rey says in an NME interview. Then came Trump […]
"One of the most spectacular debut albums in recent memory", Konradsen's 'Saints And Sebastian Stories' is coming out in October, and it culminates a decade of friendship between vocalist and pianist Jenny Marie Sabel (24) and multi-instrumentalist Eirik Vildgren (26). Stereogum has an interview with the Norwegian duo.
English singer-songwriter's new album 'Any Human Friend' is about sex, what it means, what it really is. NME discussed it with her: “As a queer woman I find the idea that sex is penetration really interesting. It’s like, who’s to tell anyone what sex is? It’s so much broader than that. Technically, if that’s the […]
"Suzi sings a lot about dysfunctional relationships, I sing a lot about fucked up cultural things, and usually there’s humor - a little bit of humor - to it. We all crack each other up too" - L7’s Donita Sparks says in a Spin interview about band's lyrics. The "not-grunge" band started playing in the […]
"When I decided to open up that facet of my life, why not give people a deeper understanding of not only why they should listen, but why they should take heed to some of the lessons" American rapper Stam Goody says in an All Hip Hop interview about a new 6-part docu-series called 'If Anything […]
Physically, they're in Chicago, sonically, on their debut album, somewhere in between Black Sabbath and Fairport Convention, a sort of heavy psychedelic rock. "The title 'All Is Lost' is a message that we can all relate to at the moment. A sense of impending doom" - guitarist Tony Wold explains the album title in an PopMatters interview (listen […]
"We don't have a problem with streaming. We don't have a problem with people listening to our music. What we have a problem with is these streaming services basically treating it like we owe them" - Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor told Rock Feed. What bands can do, he says is "they can start by all […]
