Klaus Schulze, German electronic music pioneer, dies aged 74

Multi-instrumentalist who played with Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before admired solo career is hailed for his ‘innovative spirit’

Klaus Schulze, the German multi-instrumentalist whose work with drones, pulses and synthesisers was hugely influential on generations of electronic music makers, has died aged 74.

Frank Uhle, managing director of Schulze’s label SVP, wrote: “We lose and will miss a good personal friend – one of the most influential and important composers of electronic music – a man of conviction and an exceptional artist. Our thoughts in this hour are with his wife, sons and family. His always cheerful nature, his innovative spirit and his impressive body of work remain indelibly rooted in our memories.”

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

‘It’s just good energy!’ How TikTok and Covid made drum’n’bass hot again

The 90s genre is being freshened up by young, often female artists mixing hyper-fast breakbeats with soft vocals. But why is it so suited to our post-lockdown, attention-deficient era?

When Lincoln Barrett started making drum’n’bass tracks in the late 90s, he says, “people were kind of mocking me for being into it. People were already saying drum’n’bass is dead. Going into the record shop in Cardiff, Catapult, you would kind of get the piss taken out of you by people who were, I guess, into trance.”

He laughs. In the intervening period, Barrett became High Contrast, one of the most respected drum’n’bass producers in the world: he’s about to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his debut album, True Colours. Drum’n’bass, meanwhile, has steadfastly refused to die – in fact, it is enjoying an unexpected moment in the sun, freshening up 2022’s pop music. “It’s people who aren’t really part of the drum’n’bass scene just coming through and doing jungle in their own way, and it’s really in a separate lane from established artists and what drum’n’bass is now,” says Barrett. “It’s amazing that it’s been led mainly by young women artists as well.”

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Annie Lennox’s 30 greatest songs – ranked!

As the Scottish pop icon’s debut solo album Diva turns 30, we run down through her best work with the Tourists and Eurythmics and as a solo artist

Amid the marquee-name covers on Medusa – Bob Marley, Al Green, Procul Harum – lurks this gorgeous take on the Blue Nile’s masterpiece of careworn romance. You could argue the source material is so good you can’t go wrong, but Lennox really inhabits the lyric: its emotional climax – “I’m tired of crying on the stairs!” – is suitably gut-punching.

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

‘He would get high before teaching’: how Mills College gave birth to music’s boldest minds

Fuelled by psychedelic counterculture, the Californian university has nurtured Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson and more – and caused riots at its concerts. But can it survive?

In the late 1960s, Morton Subotnick’s groundbreaking electronic work Silver Apples of the Moon was both a bestselling classical record and an underground nightclub sensation, since acknowledged as an influence by Frank Zappa and Four Tet alike. But back in 1958, the very first big public presentation of his work did not go quite so smoothly. He’d written a piece for two people playing a single piano and Subotnick was convinced it was “really fresh”. The audience less so. By the third movement they were already growing restless. The players on stage practically had to stare them down. At the end, the crowd rose in a fury, screaming at the stage. The pianists ran for their lives.

Subotnick had just graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California, and his former lecturer, the exiled French composer Darius Milhaud, had helped to arrange the concert. Feeling sick to his stomach, Subotnick spies Milhaud in his seat with tears in his eyes and apologises for what he presumes to be his teacher’s disappointment. “No, my dear,” Milhaud reassures him. “Those are tears of joy. It reminds me of the old days.”

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by Robert Barry via Electronic music | The Guardian

Favourite festival sold out? Here are the best alternatives

After two long years, festivals are back – but tickets are in short supply. Here are some options if you’ve missed out, featuring rave-jazz parties, fairground rides and organic psychedelia

The original
The West Country dairy farm shindig by which all other musical events are judged
Worthy Farm, Somerset; 22-26 June (sold out)

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by Kitty Empire, Kathryn Bromwich and Jude Rogers via Electronic music | The Guardian