Vampire Weekend make a break from what originally made them popular, to be replaced with a weird yet accessible record. A record based around mortality, sitting deep within the heart of their American heritage. Regardless of how much distance Vampire Weekend try to put between their previous albums and ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’, [...]
‘When digital technology is no longer novel, when zeroes and ones become ubiquitous in everyday life, what happens to the way people write music?’ This was the question posed at Digital is Dead, a 3-day event in Oxford about ‘post-digital music practice’. At the final concert of the festival, I witnessed three disparate examples of [...]
French duo Daft Punk continue to unite music from the past, present and future for their latest release ‘Random Access Memories’. ‘Random Access Memories’ is Daft Punk’s first studio album in seven years, after devoting the majority of their time to the 2010 film soundtrack ‘Tron: Legacy’.‘Random Access Memories’ draws on their roots of French [...]
We do like a good old knees-up here at Flux and the Ray-Ban Envision Tour has all the hallmarks of a great celebration of all things music and design. The Envision tour is about vision, with each event inspired by one of the Ray-Ban lenses’ unique characteristics. The first instalment of this celebration of [...]
Night Engine are getting the old ‘one to watch’ treatment from the national and indie press alike. If that sets your alarm bells ringing I don’t think you need worry as this band really are worth a bit of hype. How well they do depends on so many things but they mean what they play [...]
Nick Cave singing about Mermaids and backed by singing kids? You might wonder what’s going on here. The latest single from Nick Cave and his cohort Bad Seeds is a walk into a magical place fizzing with life and myth. The words are sung in meandering fashion and it sounds quite pretty at first but [...]
Glasgow indie pop band Golden Grrrls’ eponymous debut album contains songs about life’s realities dressed in three part harmonies, heart-tugging changes and a playing style derived from punk and c86 enthusiasm. Like contemporaries Twerps and Sea Lions, Golden Grrrls have joined a line up of bands who refuse to sacrifice melody for mere primitivism. With all three members [...]
Why do I like this? Well Gastric Band is a great name and as for the song title ‘Dustin Binman’ that has to be admired. It’s got a slightly demented prog rock party band feel. Imagine an experimental jazz band getting high on something illegal and trying to turn heavy metal. Or should have been [...]
Interviews, features, exclusive tracks and videos from musical icons and new movers and shakers
Vampire Weekend make a break from what originally made them popular, to be replaced with a weird yet accessible record. A record based around mortality, sitting deep within the heart of their American heritage. Regardless of how much distance Vampire Weekend try to put between their previous albums and ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’, [...]
‘When digital technology is no longer novel, when zeroes and ones become ubiquitous in everyday life, what happens to the way people write music?’ This was the question posed at Digital is Dead, a 3-day event in Oxford about ‘post-digital music practice’. At the final concert of the festival, I witnessed three disparate examples of [...]
French duo Daft Punk continue to unite music from the past, present and future for their latest release ‘Random Access Memories’. ‘Random Access Memories’ is Daft Punk’s first studio album in seven years, after devoting the majority of their time to the 2010 film soundtrack ‘Tron: Legacy’.‘Random Access Memories’ draws on their roots of French [...]
We do like a good old knees-up here at Flux and the Ray-Ban Envision Tour has all the hallmarks of a great celebration of all things music and design. The Envision tour is about vision, with each event inspired by one of the Ray-Ban lenses’ unique characteristics. The first instalment of this celebration of [...]
French music producer and all around urban creative, Grems, has been a tour de force on the French underground music scene since 2001. It’s no surprise then, that a collaboration with headphone supremos, Skullcandy comes naturally with their mantra of ‘Supreme Sound’ made to describe the talents of the Frenchman. Grems, Aka [...]
Nick Cave singing about Mermaids and backed by singing kids? You might wonder what’s going on here. The latest single from Nick Cave and his cohort Bad Seeds is a walk into a magical place fizzing with life and myth. The words are sung in meandering fashion and it sounds quite pretty at first but [...]
Michael Nyman’s brand of broad-strokes baroque is almost as tiring to listen to as it is to play, but there was just enough variation in this unique programme dedicated entirely to his ‘rewritings’ of works by Purcell, Handel and Monteverdi, to make for an entertaining and surprising evening. Michael Nyman is a deeply divisive figure. [...]
Night Engine are getting the old ‘one to watch’ treatment from the national and indie press alike. If that sets your alarm bells ringing I don’t think you need worry as this band really are worth a bit of hype. How well they do depends on so many things but they mean what they play [...]
The near legendary Pere Ubu are out on tour backed by the rather special Variety Lights. So when you combine the two together you’re in for rather a fine night out we reckon (well we’ll be there at the Manchester date at least). See more on Pere Ubu below and listen to a track from [...]
It seems that what could be construed as two artistically distinct domains are in fact more closely related and compatible than we can imagine… Ryoji Ikeda, on the 27th and 28th March, demonstrated the extraordinary unity of science and art in his recent UK premiere of Superposition at the Barbican, through a stunning and thought-provoking [...]
Musician and composer John Parish, best known for his work with PJ Harvey, is, on the 16th April, releasing Screenplay, an album of a selection of his film music. Feature writer, Claire Hazelton, had a chat with John to find out more about the album and his involvement with the Filmic 2013 Festival in Bristol, [...]
Glasgow indie pop band Golden Grrrls’ eponymous debut album contains songs about life’s realities dressed in three part harmonies, heart-tugging changes and a playing style derived from punk and c86 enthusiasm. Like contemporaries Twerps and Sea Lions, Golden Grrrls have joined a line up of bands who refuse to sacrifice melody for mere primitivism. With all three members [...]
Why do I like this? Well Gastric Band is a great name and as for the song title ‘Dustin Binman’ that has to be admired. It’s got a slightly demented prog rock party band feel. Imagine an experimental jazz band getting high on something illegal and trying to turn heavy metal. Or should have been [...]
Cinematic, ever so slightly tongue in cheek, sultry & resolutely Northern: Sheffield’s Canyon Family re-imagine Americana from a diet of daytime Westerns and charity shop country lps, with a refreshing undercurrent of 90s pop playfulness. They easily escape tweeness because of a combination of savvy lyrics, stonking tunes, and the mournful Lee Marvin whisper of [...]
The Southbank Centre’s Harmonic Series, now in its third season, continues to excite and intrigue. Not everything works at artist-in-residence Oliver Coates’ attempt to pair pieces by Andrew Hamilton, Alvin Lucier, Morton Feldman (as well as Bach and John Dowland) with light installations at the Hayward Gallery Light Show, but the slightly shambolic nature of [...]
Ahhh… Muse that great British institution. The high drama, the pyrotechnics the theatrical showmanship and that voice. This is pomp and majesty in all it’s rocked out glory. This live video for the song Knights of Cydonia was filmed live at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire for War Child. The mouth organ opening is straight from [...]
Musical engineers of the electronic and organic, Fol Chen, continue their electro-pop odyssey with a new album out in April, but this time there’s a new front end in the person of Sinosa Loa. The female vocal has given the mysterious synth pop band from Los Angeles a new dimension with songs that are emotional [...]
José Mourinho said ‘the world would stop’ to watch Real Madrid play Manchester United in the Champions League. At the Southbank Centre, however, life went on regardless as we witnessed the newest chapter in the extraordinary career of ‘America’s greatest living composer’, Steve Reich. And whilst the sporting contest was ruined by an attention-seeking referee, [...]
Watching the rise of Paloma Faith has been quite fascinating. She’s grown from the lead singer of a brash guitar and drums combo into a slick soulstress with the added kick of appearances on Later with Jools Holland – that essential aid to any pop career. She is now an established and complete act and [...]
If the question is what could possibly induce me to visit Quebec in late November with the daytime temperature dropping to -16 degrees centigrade then the answer is quite simply ‘Leonard Cohen’. As for many others, Leonard Cohen has long been both an idol and icon for me and his music has accompanied me through [...]
Last December with the Mayan calendar prophesising a cataclysmic end to the year a concert of epic proportions took place. The band was of course The Prodigy whose live events have become the stuff of legends. Liam, Keith and Maxim laid on the mother of all gigs just in case the world was to come [...]
This latest single from Josephine ‘Portrait’ is a striking, soul tinged pop song with some rather reflective and thoughtful lyrics. Her vocal dominates the track. This is a strong voice but this is no fanciful recreation of a rose tinted past but comes at you directly from the present and makes you sit up and [...]
Suede at their height wrote dramatic roller-coaster pop that played with your heartstrings with their tales of young doomed lovers and anthems to outsiderdom. Now they return with ‘Bloodsports’ their first new album for ten years. Now you might expect a mellowing with time, a more mature and a more, dare I say it, dulled [...]
After releasing their debut album to massive critical acclaim, including a Mercury Music Prize for their mantelpiece, The xx had a lot to live up to with their sophomore effort ‘Coexist’. Thankfully it was a brilliantly executed follow-up and led to their latest UK tour which began on a bitterly cold night in Leeds. Following [...]
Sheffield duo L’Amour Des Rêves are the “Love Is…” cartoons made flesh, playing Paradox Pop, a copy of a copy of a retro-futurist classic. Drummer/singer Jessie Love is a tropicalia glamourpuss with a Bardot up-do and a vintage reporter’s mic, streamlined for thrusting in the pursuit of truth. Guitarist/singer Tommy Love’s cherub face is framed [...]
Live at the Electric Ballroom, December 2012. Every day, hour on hour, London dispenses dollops of cool into endless freight trains and viral memes that scorch paths into the suburban minds of England. When teenaged Vienna arrived in London from the provinces, I wanted to kiss the floor, but sadly the streets are paved with [...]
The Misfits ‘Where Eagles Dare’ is an unpolished punk gem from 1979 that comes at you with the swagger of a band at the height of its powers. Well for the first time the band have allowed the much touted track to form the backdrop for a new short film celebrating the rise of the [...]
Tired of the omni-present Christmas markets in cities across the country and wanting to get your hands on unique Christmas gifts full of crafty goodness? Then combine your shopping with a shindig of the highest independent order and get down to the Tiny Parcels Christmas Party. Taking place on 14th December at The Kings [...]
It’s perhaps a bit of an odd choice to have the music video for your new single feature no cinematic imagery, only the lyrics in time with the song. A cheap option at least? Dublin based and Mercury Prize nominated band Villagers video for their new single “Passing a Message” gives it a go. It [...]
Channel 4 and Volkswagen launch a brand new series of live music, Abbey Road Studios: in Session with Volkswagen Beetle, recorded at the seminal studios with the living legend Paul Weller. This opener screened tonight at 12.10 am on Channel 4 looks set to kick the new series off with a bang and the line-up [...]
This is a warm slab of dark, funked up rock from The Heavy that sets your heart a racing with its doomed beats that hit you straight between the temples. The Heavy song ‘Can’t Play Dead’ is from the band’s long awaited new full length album ‘The Glorious Dead’ and is out in time for [...]
The Intel PowerUp with Ultrabook bandwagon drew to a close last week with a spectacular finale in London featuring six new DJ talents keen to make the grade on the national club scene. After regional heats in London, Birmingham & Manchester, Intel selected six winners to share the stage with Benji B from Radio 1 at the [...]
Sometimes you just want to be in the arms of the one you love. We’ve all been there. That powerful emotion is the driving force behind the track ‘Need Someone’ by Stubborn Heart from their forthcoming eponymous debut album. It’s a nice slow build this track that allows the words to shine out and have [...]
Illum Sphere is gaining much respect for the brand of experimental sonic wizardry that he brings to his own music and his productions for others. He also has a bespoke club night called Hoya:Hoya that is on the lips of those in the know in his native Manchester. His singular style, with influences from hip hop, techno, [...]
Kopparberg ün-establishment is a series of creative events taking place in October in Manchester and London. It has a genuine creative focus, is free to attend and has a great line up of guests from art, music, fashion, publishing, invention and design. We were excited to be invited to get involved ourselves, and you can [...]
This is a full-on assault on your senses from midwest rapper P.O.S. The video to ‘F**k Your Stuff’ comes across like a mini revolution in full flow but set to music and looks like it was a hoot to make. Musically this is strong with some powerful hooks and the lyrics ring out like gunfire [...]
Last week, Grimes & I were sorting through nuclear warheads. They were like huge rounds of cheese, and some had gone mouldy. It was a tough job, but at least we were together. I didn’t have to prove to her who I was. Just as she was in my dreamworld, I existed in hers too. [...]
Auchentoshan presents… is a series of exciting UK creative events that aim to innovate and interact with a forward thinking audience. Some of the best known leftfield talent from across the creative spectrum are set to take part. The idea is that each event will personify the character of Auchentoshan, the single malt whisky, by [...]
There can never be too many DJs, but just how good are all those bedroom mixers when it comes to performing on the big stage? We’re always looking to a new generation, so anything that roots out those undiscovered undercover turntablists, assisting them with a bit of razzle-dazzle on the way can only be a [...]
Stepping out solo for the first time in six years, Cat Power (Chan Marshall) presents her new album Sun. She has become well known more recently for her covers and collaborative work with artists such as Beck and the Velvet Underground. Renowned for her grungy style and soulful melancholy song writing, it is not unusual [...]
As part of PowerUp with Ultrabook, their nation-wide initiative to discover new UK DJ talent, Intel have just announced a collaboration between onedotzero and Marshmallow Laser Feast. The digital pioneers are as we speak working on a groundbreaking digital installation that will form the backdrop for the DJ Competition finale that will take place in London on [...]
Music Article by Matthew Kinlin The 90-minute pop gargantuan Kill for Love is the result of an endless editing process, with Johnny Jewel cherry-picking from a vast number of tracks and even compiling his own greatest hits from these. It sounds like a gruelling level of perfectionism that borders on neurosis. It also sounds bloody [...]
Grizzly Bear are on the verge of releasing their new album after the much lauded 2009 album Veckatimest. The song featured here is ‘Sleeping Ute’ and is a great foretaste of things to come. This track has a gentle power to it that washes over you then grabs you by the shoulders and pulls you [...]
Music Artice by Rich Hanscomb It’s part of the lexicon, of course, but ‘re-invention’ has been a pop buzzword of late. From the NME’s (re)deification of that noted game-changer, David Bowie, to the blogosphere’s collective smirk at the chill-wave and Brooklyn based re-branding of Viva Brother as Lovelife, wearing a different hat (quite literally in [...]
Spooky and brooding with great pop hooks and that’s just the music – the video for ‘Seeing in the Dark’ adds atmosphere and the animated elements that hover and move across the video really help to take you somewhere else. Sometimes they resemble ghostly hands that are trying to repeatedly grab hold of the singer. [...]
This looks like a fascinating evening – a special screening of the documentary film ‘Lawrence of Belgravia’ followed by an encounter with Lawrence himself – there’s no surname – just Lawrence – plus Paul Kelly the director. This will all take place on Saturday 13th October in a suitably atmospheric space in the historic 1830 Warehouse [...]
How do you fancy wielding a guitar that actually doubles as a piece of art by none other than Damien Hirst himself? But do you frame it and mount it on your wall and wait a few years for the value to rise or do you use it on stage as you make your own [...]
I do like a good train journey. It’s fascinating how your mind wanders as you see the view changing in your window. In can be the mundane things in life. What you fancy for tea. Have you packed your favourite undies. Sometimes you can even find yourself pondering on life’s big questions. With this in [...]
#Unravel is an experimental sound art piece by Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat and Glasgow art & music collective, FOUND. Supported by Dewar’s whisky, it takes a look at fluid versions of the truth. What is the truth? We often see the truth as something undeniable and solid. In actual fact truth is malleable and constantly evolving. [...]
Who can forget when The Orb and Little Fluffy Clouds made their mark back in 1990? I can remember working in a drab Civil Service office back then. The work was mind numbingly dull and the atmosphere quite depressed. Every now and then people were allowed to bring in a CD and play it through [...]
Our favourite new sneakers from fashion to sportsfield!