FACT Magazine Watch an hour-long tour of Legowelt’s studio @ Musique Non Stop

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1. Watch an hour-long tour of Legowelt’s studio
2. John Lydon to star in Jesus Christ Superstar arena tour
3. Mumdance, Leon Vynehall, Andy Blake and more added to London’s Elsewhere festival
4. Mobb Deep announce international tour
5. Les Revenants: how Mick Harvey brought Serge Gainsbourg back from the dead
6. Divergent DC rap, chop-and-screw heirs and UKG classics: the week’s best mixtapes and mixes
7. Watch Toddla T, DJ Q and DJ Haus review the week’s singles
8. Bishop Nehru and DOOM are now releasing an album, NehruvianDOOM
9. Stream Four Tet, Ben UFO, Nick Craddock and DJ Slow on Rinse FM
10. A Modest Proposal: tUnE-yArDs on starting from scratch, Pee Wee’s Playhouse and more
11. It’s Album Time
12. Glastonbury announces line-up – and yes, Longy was Kasabian all along

Watch an hour-long tour of Legowelt’s studio Posted: 04 Apr 2014 12:40 PM PDT The Dutch synth fiend tours his gear-loaded studios. Aside from his voluminous techno experiments, prolific Dutch producer Danny “Legowelt” Wolfers is probably best known for his impressive gear collection, frequently giving away sample packs from classic gear. Future Music Magazine recently visited Wolfers in The Hague, where the producer chronicled his many synthesizers and drum machines. Watch the hour-long (!) tour below. Legowelt’s Crystal Cult 2080 is out now. Last year, FACT TV caught up with the producer and talked about how Holland's musical city's differ and interact, soulless Ibiza tech-house and more. For more on classic gear, here are the 14 synthesizers that shaped modern music.

John Lydon to star in Jesus Christ Superstar arena tour Posted: 04 Apr 2014 10:45 AM PDT He won’t be playing the anti-Christ, unfortunately — just King Herod. Rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar will be taken on a 50-city North American tour starting this June, and the cast sounds like the premise for a bad joke: ex-Sex Pistol and Public Image Ltd frontman John Lydon (né Rotten) will be joined by Destiny’s Child Michelle Williams (Mary), Incubus singer Brandon Boyd (Judas), and ‘N Sync’s JC Chasez as Pilate. The winner of ITV’s Superstar contest show, Ben Forster, will play the lead role. The musical, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, debuted on Broadway in 1971. It was adapted as a film in 1973 and the last Broadway revival was staged in 2012. Foster also palyed Jesus in 2012′s Jesus Christ Superstar UK Rock Spectacular.

Mumdance, Leon Vynehall, Andy Blake and more added to London’s Elsewhere festival Posted: 04 Apr 2014 10:23 AM PDT Hackney’s newest festival unveils an impressive list of artists. Elsewhere is a new two-day festival from London-based club promoters Dollop, and it’s the sister event of Everywhere, which launched last year. Along with previously announced artists Actress, Mike Skinner, Floating Point, Kelela and Ryan Hemsworth, Elsewhere will feature FACT mixers Mumdance and Leon Vynehall, London club veteran Andy Blake, and house prodigy Karma Kid, among others. The full list is below. The festival takes place on May 2-3. Tickets are available now. Elsewhere: Actress Andy Blake Blue Hawaii – DJ Set Chainless Dark Circles Doc Daneeka Dorsia Floating Points Jonny Banger Karma Kid Kelela – Live Last Japan & Blackwax Leon Vynehall Lxury Marcellus Pittman Mike Skinner Mumdance Pále – Live Ryan Hemsworth Sisterhood Snakehips – Live Toby Gale Whilk & Misky – Live

Mobb Deep announce international tour Posted: 04 Apr 2014 09:20 AM PDT The Queensbridge originals hit the road in support of their latest album. Earlier this week, Mobb Deep celebrated the 20th anniversary of their classic The Infamous with the similarly-titled The Infamous Mobb Deep, a two-disc set that finds Prodigy and Havoc repping old school hardcore rap as only they can. The duo will bring their act overseas this summer, beginning in Russia in June before working their way through Europe and ending in Sweden in August; the full dates and poster are below. "It’s an honor to be able to continue to do music the way we want," Havoc says in a statement, with Prodigy adding, “I am thankful to be able to perform for our fans overseas. Touring the world is the best way for us to thank everyone for supporting us for 20 years.” FACT TV caught up with the legendary duo at SXSW, where they talked about becoming friends again, getting into UK garage, new artists on their radar and more. June 5th – Moscow, Russia – Megapolis Art Center June 6th – St. Petersburg, Russia – CLUBZAL June 7th – Munich, Germany – Backstage Club June 8th – Schwarze Heide, Germany – Out4Fame Festival June 12th – Berlin, Germany – Astra Kulturhaus June 13th – Hamburg, Germany – Klubsen June 14th – Amsterdam, Holland – Melweg Max June 16th – Copenhagen, Denmark – Amagerbio June 17th – Helsinki, Finland – Tavastia June 18th – Paris, France – Trianon June 19th – Lille, France – Magazine Club June 22th – Lyon, France – Transbordeur June 23rd – Marseille, France – Espace Julien June 24th – Strasbourg, France – La Laiterie June 25th – Oslo, Norway – Parkteatret June 26th – Bodo, Norway – Frost Bar & Lounge June 27th – Athens, Greece – Gagarin July 10th – Liège, Belgium – Festival les Ardentes July 12th – Frauenfeld, Switzerland – Openair Frauenfeld August 2nd – Nice, France – Festival Check The Rhyme August 23rd – Orpund, Switzerland – Royal Arena Festival August 25th – Stockholm, Sweden – Berns Salonger

Les Revenants: how Mick Harvey brought Serge Gainsbourg back from the dead Posted: 04 Apr 2014 08:51 AM PDT It was a mixtape made by a Frenchman and handed to Mick Harvey in reunified Berlin that first alerted him to the oeuvre of Serge Gainsbourg. Like the rest of us, he'd heard 'Je T'aime (Moi Non Plus)', but the variety and depth of Gainsbourg's genius took him aback – so much so that he set about fastidiously translating the lyrics into English and disseminating the chansons to the anglophone world with a missionary zeal. The scope of the project he undertook was breathtaking, not to mention the attention to detail: string arrangements were lovingly rephrased but with broadly the same intentions, Anita Lane stepped into the breach as Jane Birkin…The Australian guitarist covered so much, from the well-thumbed 'Bonnie & Clyde' to the doggedly obscure 'Quand Mon 6.35 Me Fait Les Yeux Doux' (Harvey's version is called 'The Barrel Of My 45') that you wonder if Mick did much else with his time during the mid-90s that didn't involve immersing himself in all things Gainsbourg. Between '95, when Intoxicated Man came out, and '97 when Pink Elephants dropped, Harvey covered 33 songs and wrote one (the title track of the latter with Bertrand Burgalat) and attempted a whole lot more besides that never quite made the cut. One wonders where he found the time. "I'd left Crime And The City Solution," he explains via a phone line from his hotel in Dortmund. "That broke up and I found I had a surprising amount of time on my hands. [Nick Cave And] The Bad Seeds took up a lot of time but there were still big openings for me to do the albums. So that's what I did with the time." Harvey is back in Germany with his band Ministry of Wolves playing nightly for a production of Republik Der Wölfe at the Dortmund Theatre. It'll be no surprise to most to find that Mick has not been putting his feet up since leaving the Bad Seeds in 2011. “Heroin addicts would certainly look down on coke fiends. "That's not real drugs…"” Intoxicated Man came out in 1995. Are you ever surprised when records you made are nearly 20 years old, or 30 years old for that matter… The passage of time always surprises people, especially when you’re busy and you're not really watching it go by. It's probably more surprising that the Birthday Party stuff is over 30 years old; that feels very strange to me. Maybe you become a bit more aware of the way time passes. Do you think English markets are more receptive to Gainsbourg and 'foreign' music in general now? I wouldn't really have any insight into that I'm afraid. I think in the last 20 years they've become a lot more familiar with Gainsbourg's work and I suppose that's partly due to my offerings, but broadly speaking I really wouldn't know about that. I live in Australia and don't spend a lot of time in England, but I don't think the Australians are more receptive, no. How did you come across Serge yourself? Well, he's a very well known figure. He'd had a couple of notorious hits, 'Je T'aime (Moi Non Plus)' and what have you. I was living in Berlin and I had a French friend who made me a compilation tape of his best stuff, and that's what really opened it up for me I guess. I think I thanked Olivier [Picot] on the record. That's what the old mixtape used to do, you'd come across all sorts of unexpected things! Do you speak French? Pretty badly. I kind of do, I've realised, but I really can't understand what they're saying back to me so it's pretty useless. If I have to sit there and explain something I can do it quite efficiently actually, but once they start talking back I'm lost. The French talk far too quickly. On the other hand, I'm fluent in German. You say in the liner notes that you make "no excuses" should any of Serge's double and sometimes triple entendres get lost in translation. Yes. I mean, they're incredibly complex at times, but I think I attempt to stay true to what's in the lyrics. I made stringent efforts and had a more strict policy and approach than most translators would ever take. In my experience they're often quite willing to dispense with something, and I really wasn't willing to do that. So if occasionally – my disclaimer in the liner notes – if something's been missed here or there then it wasn't because I wasn't trying really hard. I'm not going to apologise for that. I did my utmost to do them justice and I don't think you can do any more than that. From what I can gather you did a good job. Yes, I think so too for the most part. There are a lot of songs that were left by the wayside that were sort of dropped in the "too hard" basket. In fact, I was surprised with how many I was pleased with the translations of. I would say I was very respectful in that department. Is it easier to do a lesser known composition like 'Sex Shop' than it is doing a well known number like 'Bonnie & Clyde'? It depends. There's a real oddity with 'Bonnie & Clyde' in that he based the lyrics on a letter Bonnie Parker wrote to the newspapers, so he actually based it on an original English text. So in many ways I felt quite at liberty to change back anything used in the original text where that song was concerned. That was just a case of checking Bonnie's letter. There's a version of Serge reading her letter over the music which is pretty hilarious actually. You should give that a listen, it's pretty strange. He obviously doesn't have a very good grasp of English (laughs). His English was meant to be appalling. I think probably proudly so. I'm sure he didn't care. He was quite an Anglophile mind you… Yeah absolutely, but I think he stopped short of the language. I'm sure he didn't feel any obligation speaking the language. He had an English speaking partner for the most part, so he could just let her do it. Use your keyboard's arrow keys or hit the prev / next arrows on your screen to turn pages (page 1/2)

Divergent DC rap, chop-and-screw heirs and UKG classics: the week’s best mixtapes and mixes Posted: 04 Apr 2014 07:37 AM PDT Listening to the deluge of mixtapes and free mixes from hip-hop artists and electronic producers alike is often an insurmountable task. That's why we scour Datpiff, LiveMixtapes and beyond, separating the wheat from the chaff each week. A well-balanced haul this week: mixtapes from rappers in DC, Toronto, Chicago and Houston interspersed with DJ mixes both exuberant (Ryan Hemsworth, Wookie and Motions) and experimental (Golden Retriever, Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting). Use your keyboard's arrow keys or hit the prev / next arrows on your screen to turn pages (page 1/11)

Watch Toddla T, DJ Q and DJ Haus review the week’s singles Posted: 04 Apr 2014 06:53 AM PDT For our latest edition of the FACT Singles Club, Toddla T, DJ Q and DJ Haus is in the hot seat. Toddla T and DJ Q have been repping for Sheffield-centered music for the best part of a decade, the former holding down a regular BBC Radio 1 show and the latter taking the bassline style that he perfected at Niche club and honing it into his debut album, Ineffable. DJ Haus, meanwhile, runs the Unknown to the Unknown label and was a core member of Hot City – he also collaborates with Q as Trumpet and Badman. Toddla T’s new EP, ‘On Acid’, is out next month on Defected. Q’s debut album Ineffable is out now, and Haus releases way too much music for us to keep up with.

Bishop Nehru and DOOM are now releasing an album, NehruvianDOOM Posted: 04 Apr 2014 05:03 AM PDT We’ve known about NehruvianDOOM, hip-hop supervillain DOOM‘s collaboration with young MC Bishop Nehru for a while now. It was assumed, however, that the project would be an EP or a mixtape. Nehru, however, tweeted last night that the pair will be releasing an album: Hey Nehruvians NEHRUVIANDOOM is no longer an EP and it’s officially going to be an Album. K bye. So there you go. Watch FACT TV’s recent interview with Bishop Nehru, where he talks about DOOM taking him under his wing, here, and read FACT’s semi-recent interview with DOOM here.

Stream Four Tet, Ben UFO, Nick Craddock and DJ Slow on Rinse FM Posted: 04 Apr 2014 02:27 AM PDT Four Tet took over Rinse FM for two hours last night. Although it’s not quite his eight-hour Rinse marathon from last October – which featured appearances from the likes of Caribou, as well as an unheard Four Tet and Burial collaboration – there’s still plenty of food for the ID crew, as Four Tet calls them. Download the podcast over on the Rinse FM site – last night’s schedule also featured shows from Ben UFO (with Nick Craddock guesting) and LuckyMe (with Pelican Fly’s DJ Slow). This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

A Modest Proposal: tUnE-yArDs on starting from scratch, Pee Wee’s Playhouse and more Posted: 04 Apr 2014 02:09 AM PDT "Your music," I suggest to Merrill Garbus, the autodidact studio nerd and streaky-haired ex-puppeteer behind three increasingly jaw-dropping, barely-classifiable albums as tUnE-yArDs, "it’s a bit of a hard sell, isn’t it?" The New England native seems chipper about this assessment, and genuinely taken aback by her surprise introduction to the rock star lifestyle, with all the cab rides, make-up chairs and interminable press engagements it entails. A hard sell, you’d think – but more and more listeners are buying it. "The whole thing feels really surreal," says Garbus, who’s run out of fingers to count today’s interviews and photo shoots. She’s spent the day fielding questions about her forthcoming third album, Nikki Nack, her second for 4AD after the label signed her up on the strength of 2009′s self-released BiRd-BrAiNs, a tangle of scratchy fingerpicking, tinny drum loops and half-yodelled, half-whispered vocals recorded on a dictaphone. Let loose in the studio for 2012′s whokill, however, Garbus finessed her lo-fi roots into an assured cacophony of vocal acrobatics, skronk saxophone, booming hip-hop drums and ukulele loops. Easily one of the weirdest albums of the year, it earned her a place at the top of Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll and an army of new fans, many converted by her gotta-see-it-to-believe-it live shows. But as you’d expect, Garbus isn’t keen on repeating herself. Burned out from touring and empty of inspiration, she ditched her chief songwriting tools – the loop pedal and the ukulele – in the hope of breaking new ground, as she sings on Nikki Nack’s opening track: "I tried to tell him all the reasons that I had to never sing again / And he replied, you better find a new way!" "I felt dried up at the end of whokill. The ideas just weren’t flowing the way that they were earlier in my life," she explains. "I had to let go of what whokill was, because I found myself wanting to please. I needed to step away and decide to do something new – not trash everything, but push myself in new directions and trust that my audience would come with me. And that was a terrifying leap." The resulting album is, on first listen, a tough nut to crack. The fiendish complexity of the arrangements – including a track built around a drum pattern that never repeats itself , plus her typical call-and-response chants and echoes – seems impenetrable to begin with, but as with whokill, it gradually reveals itself as endlessly catchy, crammed with melodic scraps that ricochet around your brain hours later. Leading the charge is first single ‘Water Fountain’, a hyperactive jump-rope anthem powered by buzzing synth lines and a typically elastic bassline from her songwriting partner Nate Brenner. It’s an album that Garbus hopes "people can chew on for a long time, that isn’t instantaneously digestible and disposable", but it didn’t come easily. Hunkering down in the studio for a rigorous, month-long demo process last January, she built up a library of more than 30 song ideas, each week focusing on just one element – first drum machines, including the FunkBox iPad app, then acoustic instruments, then just melodies with no rhythm at all. "And the fourth week was like, oh my god, I can’t do this anymore," she sighs. "It was truly misery to get myself to the studio at times. It was truly misery to sit there with myself," she says. "I don’t like practising. I’m a perfectionist, so I don’t like things to not be good right away – and when you’re learning new things, it’s not gonna be good, it’s gonna be horrible for a while! But a lot of raw things can come from that." You make it sound like an office job, I say. "Yeah. I got to meet Laurie Anderson this year, I had a meeting with her and I was late – embarrassingly late, and she was like, ‘I’m sorry I have to go to my studio at 11.’ And I realised that she just has studio hours – and the more songwriters and artists and creators that I read about, they do it like that too. Leonard Cohen, I think. And it is a job. I think the trick for me was forgiving myself when nothing would come of that." “Pee Wee’s Playhouse was a big inspiration – there’s a variety show sense to the album” The arrangements are so complex now, do you feel any extra pressure or difficulties from being a self-taught musician? Or is it liberating? "With the song ‘Left Behind’, the idea for that was a drum pattern that would never repeat. It started with ‘ba-ba-ba-ba’, and then this long slew of things that I could never memorise, and if I read music better or transcribed it better I would have be able to do that, you know? Maybe in the future I will. For me it all happens in ProTools now, essentially, because it’s too time-consuming for me to transcribe. I totally feel the limitation of not having [musical training], and also not having true vocal training. There’s a lot of tension in my voice that ought not to be there, which I’m trying to work out now, and that was a big part of taking lessons." I’d always assumed that your voice was the element that was trained, as part of your background in theatre? [Garbus was a puppeteer before embarking on the tUnE-yArDs project.] "I had classical training in high school, but not rigorous training." Your voice is your weapon, really. Some of your vocals just make me think, how the hell did she even do that? Do you like to write vocal parts that challenge your abilities? "I wanna say yes, but I’m thinking that it’s intuitive. A lot of it is improvisational. I was trying to iron out the yodel in my voice, because I had accentuated that for so long that my voice didn’t really know how to sing through that break. So yes, absolutely, I want to stretch the instrument, but stretching it healthily has been my latest challenge. I think all of this music is to become a better musician and to push myself, to push it to the limits." Use your keyboard's arrow keys or hit the prev / next arrows on your screen to turn pages (page 1/2)

It’s Album Time Posted: 04 Apr 2014 01:54 AM PDT Available on: Olsen Here's a question I was asking myself prior to hearing It's Album Time: should Todd Terje have made an album? The Oslovian producer may display an almost frightening ability to turn out summer anthems (2011 – 'Ragysh', 2012 – 'Inspector Norse', 2013 – 'Strandbar'), but that doesn't mean he's got a long player in him. In fact, given how close those tracks came to perfecting the cosmic Scandi-disco formula, is there even much more to be said? But of course, anyone enjoying a run of form like Terje's is likely to have a crack at the format sooner or later. In the album's schlocky intro track, a voice (presumably Terje's own) recites its title over sunkissed guitar chords and a fulsome disco beat. There's a razzle-dazzle jubilance to it, but it's also a wry acknowledgement of that inevitability: "well, you've heard the singles – now it's album time". Terje knows what's at stake here; he knows what we're all expecting. When the first chuntering Eurodisco bassline enters – halfway through track two – it creates a moment of hush, as if the celebrity guest has just made his entrance. Later, 'Strandbar' appears in shortened form, and 'Inspector Norse' is the closer (because how could it not be?). There's a new pretender to the cosmic 'floor-filler throne too, in the form of 'Delorean Dynamite' (with preposterous epic 'Oh Joy' coming a close second). The unending motorik bassline, the enormous chords, the heart-squeezing late-game key changes – they're all from the textbook, though there's a wondrous yearning quality to it that sets it apart from its predecessors. Elsewhere, however, It's Album Time turns out to be much less of a victory lap than we might have expected. It's more of a prog extravagance, in fact. There are live instruments everywhere – drums, strings, woodwind, all handled with real skill – and a newfound taste for suite-like structures. The meandering lounge stylings of 'Leisure Suit Preben' meld seamlessly into 'Preben Goes To Acapulco', whose cosmic boogie is briefly, naggingly reminiscent of Herb Alpert's 'Rise' (though it soon wanders off to explore other terrain). 'Swing Star' parts I and II display an equally keen sense of beyond-the-dancefloor narrative. Granted, in places you might find yourself wishing Terje had kept his more wayward tendencies in check. The bracingly corny 'Svensk Saas' and 'Alfonso Muskedunder' riff on Terje's beloved jazz-fusion, falling somewhere between fellow Nords Jaga Jazzist and Weather Report; or perhaps between the Avishai Cohen Trio and that breakdown in Chick Corea's 'Spain'. Those who consider 7/4 time signatures an unnecessary extravagance might find these moments difficult to stomach (the key change in the closing 30 seconds of 'Alfonso Muskedunder' is particularly eye-watering). Still, they're so manicured and bright-eyed that it's difficult not to admire them. In fact, the album's only technical weakness comes from an outside source. 'Johnny and Mary', a cover of Robert Palmer, is Terje's attempt at an 80s power ballad. It's a fine idea, and the hi-def arrangement is nice enough; unfortunately Bryan Ferry's desiccated delivery is just unpleasant on a basic level. Vocal number aside, It's Album Time is an impressively balanced and varied record. It's frequently excellent, and entertaining even when it feels like it's gone astray. Sure, you might switch off partway through 'Inspector Norse' – this is your seven thousandth listen, after all – but who can begrudge our man a little bit of self-congratulation?

Glastonbury announces line-up – and yes, Longy was Kasabian all along Posted: 04 Apr 2014 01:29 AM PDT As we predicted earlier this week, Glastonbury’s whole Longy schtick was a code for Kasabian all along. The Leicester rockers will headline the festival’s Sunday night, with The Arcade Fire topping the bill on Friday. Elsewhere, the bill features Robert Plant, Skrillex, Danny Brown, Jack White, Pixies, Disclosure, Lana Del Rey, Warpaint, Massive Attack and many more, and there’s also a headline slot reserved for ‘Special Guests’. Update: Emily Eavis has confirmed that said ‘Special Guests’ – the Saturday headliner – won’t be revealed until May for contractual reasons. Here’s all the names confirmed so far: Arcade Fire Special Guests Kasabian Dolly Parton Jack White Elbow The Black Keys Robert Plant Lily Allen Lana Del Rey Skrillex Pixies Massive Attack Disclosure Paolo Nutini Manic Street Preachers MIA Rudimental Bryan Ferry Richie Hawtin Ed Sheeran De La Soul Goldfrapp London Grammar MGMT Jake Bugg Jurassic 5 Dexys Above & Beyond The 1975 Bonobo Kelis Blondie Warpaint The Wailers Wilco Johnson James Blake Gorgon City Metronomy Tinariwen Chvrches Little Dragon Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 Kodaline Interpol Foster the People Mogwai Royal Blood John Grant Annie Mac Lil Louis Daptone Super Soul Revue John Newman Chromeo Rodrigo Y Gabriela Midlake Angel Haze Four Tet ESG The Sun Ra Arkestra François Kevorkian Parquet Courts Sam Smith Crystal Fighters Nitin Sawhney DJ Pierre Toumani & Sidiki Diabate Chance the Rapper MNEK Temples Phosphorescent Connan Mockasin Public Service Broadcasting Courtney Barnett Gorgon City Wolf Alice Radiophonic Workshop Suzanne Vega Tune-Yards Eats Everything Jamie xx Ms Dynamite Breach Chlöe Howl Jagwar Ma Danny Brown