Nabihah Iqbal: ‘What’s the point being me if I’m going to keep quiet?’

The lawyer turned outspoken creator of multifaceted guitar-based pop is a trailblazer for Asian women in rock. Just don’t make assumptions about her music based on ethnicity, she says

“Growing up,” says Nabihah Iqbal, “my parents always made a big effort to make sure we did a lot of extracurricular activities and creative stuff – but I don’t think they actually envisaged any of us would then pursue that as a career.”

Shaking yourself free of Asian stereotypes is a burden that most second-generation immigrants have had to deal with. Indeed, for British Pakistani musician Iqbal, perhaps the only one that rings true is having parents who worry about their children getting what she laughingly describes as a “proper job”.

Related: Nabihah Iqbal: Weighing of the Heart review – a thoughtful, immersive debut

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by Tara Joshi via Electronic music | The Guardian

Czarface & MF Doom: Czarface Meets Metal Face review – action-filled hip-hop supersquad

(Get on Down)

The undergroup hip-hop group Czarface – made up of Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck, MC Esoteric and producer 7L – get more super still, with the addition of metal-masked rapper MF Doom. This Avengers-style squad, already nerdily fixated on comic books and prone to supervillainous pronouncements regarding their prowess – be it lyrical, sexual or pharmaceutical – are given very free rein, and there are some ponderous skits for guys to giggle at alone with their vinyl figurines.

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

Contemporary album of the month – Laurence Pike: Distant Early Warning review

This Australian drummer’s solo debut introduces pleasing layers and textures to a minimalist palette

Laurence Pike is an Australian drummer who has appeared in a variety of settings over the past 20 years – making ambient jazz with Triosk; working with his brother Richard in the jerky math rock outfit Pivot; duetting with the one-time ECM pianist Mike Nock; and exploring tantric music with electronic artist Luke Abbott and Portico Quartet saxophonist Jack Wyllie in Szun Waves.

His debut solo album, however, sounds very little like any of those lineups. It’s basically minimalism – drones, pulses, hypnotic arpeggios that alter very gradually – but with drums rumbling over the top. Drum kits are rarely invited into the pristine world of minimalism, a world of clean spaces and right angles. The only percussion you’re likely to hear in the music of, say, Steve Reich or Philip Glass will be the minty-fresh plonk of a vibraphone or marimba. Throughout Distant Early Warning, however, Pike’s drums grind, flutter and growl, adding several pleasing layers of scuffed texture to the smooth surfaces.

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by via Electronic music | The Guardian

Mark Guiliana on the album that sounds like innocence – The Start podcast

The drummer and composer talks about Locked in a Basement, the album he recorded with his band Heernt, before facing the pressures of adulthood

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In 2006, a young American drummer was making waves on the jazz circuit, touring with some of the genre’s greatest musicians. At home, he was playing music influenced by the rock records of the 90s and – alongside his friends – was working on an album in his parents’ basement.

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by Produced by Eva Krysiak with original music by Stephen Fiske via Electronic music | The Guardian

'Deeply weird and enjoyable': Ursula K Le Guin's electronica album

In the 1980s, the sci-fi author teamed up with musician Todd Barton, inventing new instruments and a language to create Music and Poetry of the Kesh. Is the album any good?

The late Ursula K Le Guin wrote many well-loved novels, but few people know that the legendary science fiction and fantasy author once made an album. The strange and enchanting record Music and Poetry of the Kesh – which Le Guin created with the electronic musician and composer Todd Barton to accompany her 1985 book Always Coming Home – has been reissued, following Le Guin’s death in January.

Related: Don't know where to start? The essential novels of Ursula K Le Guin

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by Geeta Dayal via Electronic music | The Guardian