Seriously, how does Jean Michel Jarre stay looking so young? He must be zapping his wrinkles with those lasers. Or maybe it’s the exercise – he’s bounding around the O2 stage like a pixie after […]
Shaolin smoke & mirrors: Wu-Tang Clan live in London
Wu-Tang Clan are an hour late and DJ Mathematics is playing the fucking Fugees. This is some shameless shit right here, to quote Method Man’s Cheese character in the Wire. Maybe the boos are too harsh, […]
Superbia! Exit Festival in Novi Sad
It’s 7am in a 17th century Serbian fortress and Darth Vader’s behind the decks, flanked by a couple of Stormtroopers punching the air to banging techno. It’s not your average Saturday morning, but Exit’s not […]
‘It’s like they’ve got no bones’: Shangaan Electro
“When you see them dance you feel like they have got no bones,” beams Nozinja aka Dog, the producer behind the top acts emerging in Shangaan electro – a hyper frenetic style erupting in South […]
Techno logic: Surgeon – Fabric 53
Why did it take so long for Fabric to snare Surgeon for a mix CD? Well after nearly a decade and over 100 releases, the go-to label for bleeps has finally secured techno innovator Anthony […]
Typical girls: The Slits live in Dublin
“The Slits are getting poorer,” Ari Up declares to a two-thirds-full Crawdaddy. “It’s time for us to get paid, if we were rich, we could do shit!” It’s true, the original riot grrrls may have […]
Pieces of a man: Gil Scott-Heron live in Dublin
Yes, it really is him on that stage at his beat-up Rhodes piano, telling us we “need to fly to better days ahead”. Some 40 years after A New Black Poet kicked the doors in […]
A day in the life: Matthew Herbert – One One
Sifting through Matthew Herbert‘s website you’ll find writings on critical theory, his self-imposed manifesto, a free stream of his 15-year discography and this claim: “I don’t want music to be dismembered from the body it […]
Dark arts: Autechre live in Dublin
Autechre‘s no-frills live performance works on the thesis that stage shows and visuals are mere pollution, a distraction from their singular musical vision. Sean Booth and Rob Brown famously even play with the house lights turned […]
More Fire: Antipop Consortium live in Dublin
You get plenty of ‘holy shit’ moments at an Anti-Pop Consortium gig: M. Sayyid and High Priest trading verbal punches; beatmaster Earl Blaize’s Morse code racket as the three MCs take the stage; Beans’ breakneck freestyling […]
Krautrocksampler: Cluster live in Dublin
On The Village balcony, a girl is asking her mate: “So is this krautrock?” She may as well be asking: ‘Er, is this it?’ And fair enough, it’s hard to imagine the refined and reserved Cluster […]
You can always turn around: Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here
The opening two minutes of I’m New Here will stop you dead in your tracks. The intro ‘On Coming from a Broken Home’ glides in on a rip of Kanye West’s ‘Flashing Lights’ before Gil […]
La Rock star: Vitalic live in Dublin
Warning: This performance may feature strobe lighting effects. It may also feature frantic LED mania and a 30-foot mirror on stage so you can catch yourself pogoing in the front row. Yes, it does look […]
Dub with my head man: Martyn – Fabric 50
The mix CD seems a bit quaint these days. Without the forced retro kudos of an underground ‘mixtape’, most record label mixes get buried in HMV CD racks beneath the industry detritus from Hed Kandi […]
Quality control: Vitalic – Flashmob
Signalling the arrival of your new album using an online day-hour-minute-second rolling countdown is a bit conceited, but we can forgive Vitalic. Flashmob is another genre-defying record from the French electro trendsetter, and the chattering […]
Moo Kid 