One to watch: Plastic Mermaids

The Isle of Wight scores again with this multi-talented, playfully ambitious indie five-piece

If you launched an Isle of Wight festival strictly for homegrown bands – and surely someone will do it soon – Plastic Mermaids are ready for the headline slot. This creative collective don’t just produce their own music, artwork, videos and colourful shows – artist/designer Jamie Richards has also invented an effects pedal used by Bon Iver, Warpaint, Hot Chip, Bicep and many more, and they’re apparently planning a pigeon-operated synthesiser.

There are five main Mermaids, writing playfully ambitious songs that wander from bouncy pop and orchestral psych to indie folk and electro. But there’s an open door to their home studio, bringing string-playing60-somethings or mates with brass to deepen and enrich their ludic sound. The island’s odd demographics (“Most people leave between 18 and 30,” says Jamie’s brother, singer Douglas) necessitate more cross-generational collaboration than you get elsewhere. Over the years, the band’s members have played with local pals Lauran Hibberd, Coach Party, Champs and Wet Leg, alongside day jobs such as making ornaments and directing fashion shoots.

It’s Not Comfortable to Grow is out now on Sunday Best. Plastic Mermaids tour from 2 to 15 November

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by Damien Morris via Electronic music | The Guardian

‘Grace Jones was in a state’: legendary producer Trevor Horn relives his mega-hits

From Frankie Goes to Hollywood to Grace Jones, ABC and Tatu, he gave pop some of its greatest, most forward-looking moments. He also sang for prog rockers Yes. The trailblazing button-twirler recalls his best – and worst – decisions

When I ask if I can use the toilet in Trevor Horn’s house, he shows me the way there himself. “Bob Hoskins’ old thunderbox,” he smiles as he opens the door. “He used to sit there and read his scripts, apparently.”

There’s another door next to it, which leads down to Horn’s studio. A house formerly owned by a Hollywood star, big enough to accommodate a huge recording studio: it’s the home of someone who’s done very well for himself, which of course, Horn has. His recently published autobiography, Adventures in Modern Recording, details a stellar career as a record producer, packed with wildly entertaining stories which usually involve Horn barricaded in a studio, smoking a vast amount of marijuana while dealing with the dizzying array of technical issues that come from pushing the latest recording gadgetry to its limit, then finally emerging with a hugely successful single. ABC’s The Look of Love. Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax. Grace Jones’s Slave to the Rhythm. Tatu’s All the Things She Said.

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

One to watch: Hagop Tchaparian

The British-Armenian producer expertly combines field recordings and grit-flecked electronics on his debut album for Four Tet’s Text Records

Hagop Tchaparian may be a new name to electronic music fans but has been behind the scenes, or in different guises, for some time. Scan the tracklisting for Hot Chip’s 2006 breakthrough The Warning and his surname is right there at number six – a tribute, perhaps, to the period in which he was the group’s tour manager. Before that he was a guitarist in pop-punkers Symposium. After they split in 2000, some went on to form other rock bands, while Tchaparian contributed to a compilation on which artists reflected on their Armenian heritage and mixed up traditional sounds with contemporary beats.

It’s a spirit he has maintained more than two decades later with his debut album, Bolts. Signed to Kieran Hebden AKA Four Tet’s Text Records, it’s rooted in grit-flecked, lambent electronics while weaving together field recordings from Tchaparian’s travels: drummers accompanying a fire-jumping ritual at an Armenian wedding; street musicians playing the Arabic harp called a qanun; gravel underfoot.

Bolts is out on now on Text Records

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by Kate Hutchinson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Post your questions for Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes

The Birmingham legend has spent over 40 years pushing the boundaries of style and sound, accruing platinum records, No 1 hits and Grammy awards in the process. Now he’s ready to answer all your questions

This year sees the 40th anniversary of Duran Duran’s iconic Rio album – the band’s 1982 opus, which featured indelible hits such as Hungry Like The Wolf, My Own Way and, of course, the album’s title track. But the Birmingham four-piece, founded in 1978 by Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, are far more than just one record. In their time together, the New Romantic heroes have released 15 albums, amassed a swathe of chart hits, and embarked on dozens of acclaimed tours.

One of the first bands whose rise was linked inextricably to the launch of MTV, Duran Duran also have a deep catalog of brilliant music videos – the most famous of which, for 1981’s Girls on Film, won a Grammy award. Perhaps because of this association, the band had major success in America, accruing nine top-10s over the course of their career. To this day, the band’s single A View to a Kill is the only Bond theme to ever reach the top of the US charts.

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by Shaad D'Souza via Electronic music | The Guardian

Trax Records faces lawsuit over alleged unpaid royalties and lack of payment

Marshall Jefferson and Adonis are among more than a dozen artists suing the pioneering Chicago house label

More than a dozen artists are suing the pioneering Chicago house label Trax Records, the estate of co-founder Larry Sherman, and current owners Screamin’ Rachael Cain and Sandyee Barns, Rolling Stone reports.

The plaintiffs, among them Trax co-founder Vince Lawrence and musicians Marshall Jefferson, Adonis and Maurice Joshua – allege that the label owes them unpaid royalties and in some cases that the label never paid them anything at all, according to a copy of the lawsuit seen by the Guardian.

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by Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Fred Again: ‘I was fortunate not to be good at anything else, so I had clarity’

The in-demand producer has worked with Ed Sheeran and Stormzy but, for his own records, he’s more often found on buses, tubes and trains with his finger on the record button, waiting for inspiration to strike

Stretched out on the sun-dappled balcony of his fancy LA rental, Fred Gibson looks every inch music’s go-to super-producer. Even dressed down in an embroidered oversized sweatshirt, Gibson’s Zoom screen-dominating smile suggests things are going Quite Well. Having overseen hits for everyone from Stormzy to Rita Ora, Ed Sheeran to AJ Tracey, Gibson was responsible for a third of 2019’s UK No 1 singles. A year later he won the Brit award for best producer, before launching his own dance-leaning artist project, Fred Again in 2021, the same year as spending 15 weeks at No 1 via two Ed Sheeran co-productions.

But looks can be deceiving. When I suggest he got the better deal vis-a-vis interview locales the 29-year-old south Londoner replies with a misty-eyed “I long for where you are”, which is too nice a thing to say about the south-east London suburb of Brockley. He balks, too, at the super-producer tag (“That’s quite gross”), while mention of his Brit is met with a polite shrug. “I’m not really fussed,” he says. “I don’t want to shit on something that matters to people but it’s just so not why I do it.”

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by Michael Cragg via Electronic music | The Guardian

Mode festival review – ‘elevated’ dance music brings new life to Sydney’s Cockatoo Island

The former penal colony has been the sandstone-and-steel backdrop for art shows, concerts and festivals – but nothing quite like Mode

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On a perfect spring Saturday in Sydney, roughly 3,000 people headed for a festival that most of the city knew nothing about.

Siloed in the heritage grandeur of Cockatoo Island and accessible only by private ferry, the first-ever Mode festival was sold on its lineup of “elevated dance music” and an “expansive visual arts experience”. Produced by Sydney-based promoters Bizarro, who until now have largely thrown parties in clubs and warehouses, the festival promised a rare gamble in a typically risk-averse city.

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by Jack Tregoning via Electronic music | The Guardian

Brian Eno: ForeverAndEverNoMore review – personal, intimate and urgent

(UMC)
The producer contemplates the future of the planet on these heartbreaking songs shot through with wonder

You suspect that when Brian Eno co-founded the Long Now Foundation in 1996, he was confident in there actually being a future for the planet – its art projects included a clock in a mountain designed to tick for 10,000 years, as an exercise in stretching our perception of time. But here we are in 2022, the world literally on fire.

Eno’s new album, his 22nd, is an emotional contemplation of environmental catastrophe. It’s as huge and enveloping as you’d hope, its undulating soundscapes suffused with longing and wonder. But there is a mournful quality, too, something heartbreakingly elegiac about these songs. There Were Bells was composed for an event at the Acropolis in Athens last year, performed on a sweltering 45-degree day; as Eno recalls: “I thought, here we are at the birthplace of modern civilisation, probably witnessing the end of it.”

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by Sophie Harris via Electronic music | The Guardian

Todd Rundgren: ‘It’s hard to find sincerely musical artists nowadays. The music is just mediocre’

As the cult musician and producer releases a new collaborative album, he reflects on 50 years of experimentation – including his forays into psychedelics – his obsession with the new, and the recent Rundgrenaissance

It is morning in Hawaii and on the island of Kauai, Todd Rundgren is beginning his day. “The sun is out. It’s balmy,” he says. “Probably somewhere in the high 70s and getting up into the 80s today.” Earlier, he went outside, chose a couple of oranges from one of his trees and juiced them himself. “Filter wide open, by the way,” he says. “You need your fibre!” Then he made one perfectly scrambled egg. “Some day,” he promises, “I’ll show you how to make that.”

Rundgren has lived on Kauai since 1995. Aside from the climate and the orange trees, one appeal is its time zone. Out in the Pacific Ocean, three hours behind the US west coast, Hawaii is quite removed from the rest of the world. “So,” he says, “one of the unique advantages is that, by the time I get up and start moving, everything’s happened already.” Down the line, his voice is warm and leisurely. “The stock market’s already closed. There’s nothing for me to fret about. It’s already happened.”

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by Laura Barton via Electronic music | The Guardian

Aria awards 2022: Rüfüs Du Sol and Amyl and the Sniffers among top nominees

Dance group leads with seven nominations, with Flume, the Kid Laroi, Baker Boy and Vance Joy also winning multiple nods

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Rüfüs Du Sol has dominated the 2022 Aria award nominations, featuring in a total of seven categories, followed by Amyl and the Sniffers and Flume.

The Sydney electronic trio’s latest album, Surrender, continues to pay dividends for the band, who won best group and best dance song for their track Alive at last year’s Arias. Alive also won them best dance song at this year’s Grammy awards.

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by Kelly Burke via Electronic music | The Guardian

Autechre review – a bombardment of singular sounds to combat the dark

Barbican, London
Performing in total darkness, the electronic duo improvise a show of fractal syncopated percussion and cascading chords that makes the whole auditorium thrum

Over the past decade, British experimental electronic duo Autechre have been playing live shows in the dark. Not the darkness of a night-time bedroom but a pitch-black void, ridden of space or structure, from which they unfurl their fractal sounds to a waiting audience.

Like the pulsating dark matter we encounter when we close our eyelids, Autechre’s live environment is liable to switch at any moment from dreamscape to nightmare, all watched over by their intricate hardware manipulations. Tonight, the unassuming pair take to the Barbican’s grandiose concert hall, transforming it into a formless black for an hour of improvisations.

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by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian

One to watch: Tsha

With her thoughtful, propulsive dance music, Teisha Matthews has moved to the floor-filling big time

The dancefloor can be a space for emotive introspection as much as it is a catalyst for hedonism. London-based producer and DJ Teisha Matthews, AKA Tsha, has spent the past four years crafting tracks filled with sparkling melodies and enveloping instrumentals that inspire sweaty crowds with that sense of self-reflection, as well as providing space for kinetic catharsis.

Debuting in 2018 with her EP Dawn, Matthews combined bright vocal features with layered percussion and expansive keyboard sounds to create an electro-acoustic mix reminiscent of early tracks by singer-songwriter Sampha and the orchestral inflections of producer Bonobo’s work. It was the latter’s inclusion of her propulsive single Sacred in his 2019 compilation for London mega-club Fabric that catapulted Matthews from crate-digging find to mainstream floor-filler. With subsequent continent-crossing tours under her belt and a record deal with Bonobo’s Ninja Tune, she has just released her debut album, Capricorn Sun.

Capricorn Sun is out now on Ninja Tune. Tsha will play Depot Mayfield, Manchester, on 21 October

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by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian

Sarathy Korwar: Kalak review | Ammar Kalia's global album of the month

(The Leaf)
Flute, horns, synths and tabla accompany Korwar’s undulating percussion in the dummer’s hypnotic fourth album

Sarathy Korwar has a light touch behind the drum kit. Since debuting with 2016’s Day to Day, where he mixed the folk music of the Siddi community from rural Gujarat with west African rhythms and Indian classical melodies, Korwar’s playing has been soft and subtle enough to encompass the intricacies of disparate rhythms, while still possessing a grounded metronomic solidity. Korwar makes himself heard not through power and volume, but in the guiding steadiness of his hand.

On his fourth album as a bandleader, Korwar reaches the apex of this open drumming technique. Made in collaboration with electronic producer Photay, Kalak is a beguiling body of work, enveloping the listener in undulating synth melodies, layered horn fanfares and vocal features – all driven forward by Korwar’s ever-present percussion.

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by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian

The Orielles: Tableau review – cherry-picking genres to make a rich feast of musical ideas

(Heavenly)
The West Yorkshire trio flit from R&B to funk to dance to indie in their ambitious, disorienting fourth album

The Orielles have always valued artistry over a quick buck. Having emerged from West Yorkshire in the 2010s as a trio of preciously talented teens, they are more interested in geeking out over niche recording techniques than in chasing chart success. Their old-school appeal has earned them a cult following entranced by their slow-burn evolution into a psychedelic jam band.

On their fourth album, Tableau, the exploratory, ambitious side of the band’s music has never been more clear. Many of the songs pick through various genres, magpie-style, subverting expectations: Honfleur Remembered is easy-listening R&B delivered with the light electronic touch of the French band Air, while the bassline of Airtight walks a line between frenetic funk and intergalactic hyper-pop. Likewise, The Room opens as a dance track, but immediately morphs into skittish indie, evoking the skinny-jeaned guitar bands of the 00s.

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by Jenessa Williams via Electronic music | The Guardian

Isabella Manfredi, Tumbleweed and Sollyy: Australia’s best new music for October

Each month we add 20 new songs to our Spotify playlist. Read about 10 of our favourites here – and subscribe on Spotify, which updates with the full list at the start of each month

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For fans of: Holiday-era Madonna, Haim, Duran Duran

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by Nathan Jolly via Electronic music | The Guardian

For a long time I didn’t even know Black composers existed: it’s not just an absence, it’s erasure

The British musician writes about discovering the work of avant garde US composer Julius Eastman and reinterpreting his work for a new century

When the label Phantom Limb got in touch about me creating music inspired by the late New York avant garde composer and pianist Julius Eastman, I had barely heard of him. They had a connection with his surviving brother, Gerry, which meant they had access to parts of his archive. I was gifted a zip drive of original pieces by him. Pretty quickly I realised that I knew lots of his peers – people such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich – who I learned about when I was studying music. But I never got taught anything about Julius Eastman. He was a long-standing part of that New York scene, but for a long time I didn’t even know Black composers existed. It’s not just an absence, it’s erasure – it feels as though there was effort made to leave him out.

Like me, Eastman was a queer Black composer, but while those aspects of his identity resonated with me, we’re also really different – we’re decades apart, and I’m from London. I’ve had it easier than him in some ways, even if my experiences haven’t been wholly positive, but I don’t face what he did, especially as a composer and musician. It’s an ambivalent, bittersweet thing to think about.

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by Loraine James via Electronic music | The Guardian

Shygirl: Nymph review – a sensuous, playful debut

(Because Music)
British rapper, DJ and singer-songwriter Blane Muise slinks between genres, mischief and melody on her experimental first album

With her soft, almost-whispered falsetto floating over low-frequency beats, London-based Blane Muise, AKA Shygirl, has become a sensuous and pervasive force in UK club music over the past five years. Regularly collaborating with experimental producers such as Arca and the late Sophie, Muise has established herself as the perfect vocalist to slip between the melodic cracks of their fractal sound design. On 2020’s Slime, for instance, she sing-raps with a skittering percussiveness over Sophie’s sparse basslines, while 2018’s Nasty pits Muise’s languid vocal against Sega Bodega’s thundering trap drums.

On her debut album, the typical grit of Muise’s productions are supplanted by something altogether brighter. Opener Woe hints at her earlier output with its sinister bass synth, but Nymph soon opens out into the plucked guitar melodies of Shlut and Firefly’s hyperpop inflections. Highlights come on Coochie (A Bedtime Story), when Muise’s sexual lyrics pair with the track’s singsong melodies to create a playful exploration of intimacy, while on Honey, jungle breakbeats are transmuted into an R&B ballad by her entreating vocals. Having explored the darker side of the dancefloor, Nymph finds Muise experimenting with its more irreverent aspects.

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by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian