The New York based sound artist and experimental turntablist
shares her favourite online resources on turntablism, sound and
visual art.
The reissue label boss (featured in The Wire 352)
introduces us to his selection of underfunded independent cultural
institutions: "Bear in mind I rarely surf the net for anything
beyond movie showing times. Still, I happen to know these
organisations are worth keeping an eye out for."
Philip Clark muses the death of composer Steve Martland and the
identikit obituary.
Steven Warwick's quick stop tour of his favourite bits of
reading, watching and listening online, taking in drone aircraft
technology, hybridisation and queer actor and director Fred
Halsted.
Clive Bell looks at the threatened ecology of instruments and
the people who still play them.
Fetishising female pioneers of electronic music risks banishing
them to glass cases, away from the main exhibits in the museum of
musical history, says Abi Bliss.
Mark Pilkington speaks to the man behind a book exploring the
crossovers between insect noises and synthesized sounds.
In his latest column, Philip Clark asks whether the piano is still relevant – have things dropped off since Debussy, Ravel and Janáček?
Follow Ashley Paul's top choice picks of the web. The US
multi-instrumentalist was featured in The Wire 350, in an
interview with Nick Southgate.
In the summer of 2012 my friend Stuart offered me a ticket for a
concert of Japanese music at London’s Barbican. The concert was
scheduled for a...
Dennis Johnson's newly recorded piece November, which
inspired La Monte Young's The Well Tuned Piano, rewrites
the history of minimalism. Clive Bell talks to the elusive
mathematician.
In his first column for The Wire online, Philip Clark
looks at unhinged egos, unanswered emails and other occupational
hazards of life as a working composer – and musicians who don't
want to be noticed.
Little Annie Bandez spreads the word about her top websites.
Annie is in The Wire 349 featured in an Invisible Jukebox,
tested by Dave Mandl.
Jazz organist, improviser and interlocutor Alexander Hawkins
takes us on a web journey through the work of Henry Threadgill and
his Zooid group.
The historian and radio broadcaster talks about the power of
eavesdropping and the roar of the crowd, as heard in Noise: A
Human History, his new 30 part series for BBC Radio 4. By
Nathan Budzinski.
As musicians at the forefront of the Athenian music scene, Coti
K, Ilios and Nikos Veliotis triangulate drones, strings and
oscillations. Sophia Ignatidou interviews the trio.
Alex Neilson, author of The
Wire 349 Collateral Damage article on the connections
between folk music and the future promised by digital culture,
chooses five highlights from the newly digitised Topic label.
Abi Bliss takes a look at the recent plethora of live
soundtracking and the Sturm und Drang that kicks off when musician
meets movie.
During a recent visit to Kiev as part of a selection panel for a
call for sound and art works made by the ECAS network , I visited the Ukranian
capital's World War Two memorial. I made my way through the Soviet
era metro and out to the hills overlooking the wide Dnieper River,
with clusters of imposing looking tower blocks beyond its opposite
banks. After passing through a park, the gold-domed Pechersk Lavra
and Memorial To The Holodomor Victims (the Ukrainian
“terror-famine” in the early 1930s) I enter a pedestrian boulevard.
At the head of it sit kiosks and cafes, with small groups of
visitors escaping from the hot weather, sipping beer in the shade
of umbrellas.
The broad boulevard stretches out under the hot sun for nearly a
kilometre. I hear the muffled sounds of distant music being played.
Suddenly, a loud and mournful male voice starts singing in
contrabass right next to me. The entire boulevard is...
The listening session, where writers are herded into a company
office to get the first spin of a new album, is now an everyday –
yet still clandestine – event. Big independents and major labels
are paranoid about their precious new albums leaking through
journalists (anecdotally, most leaks happen before it even goes out
to the media) so they operate an odd nannying operation whereby you
can come along and hear the album... but there's no chance of
getting it into your own hands.
There’s two types of listening session. The first and the most
excruciating is where a PR is detailed to sit in with you, giving
tedious behind-the-scenes gossip on how the artists got their shit
together, all the while trying to keep a sneaky eye on your
response to the music. It's like a waiter in a posh restaurant
painstakingly explaining all the ingredients to you, constantly
checking whether you enjoyed it, and asking if there's anything you
need,...