Tag: electronic music

John Foxx

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Listening, they were listening. — John Foxx, The Quiet Men

Ultravox! were a band out of time. — My brother

Genres in music, like genders elsewhere, keep multiplying. But there is one which seems particular to England: art-rock. Founder members of bands often met at art college, if they weren’t getting together at Pistols or Bowie gigs (which often meant they were already at art college), and the results of visual arts students transferring their visions to a musical canvas produced a rewarding school of rock music. (more…)

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Kid A belongs on an end-times list of anti-modern records. How is that possible? Radiohead is, by any measure, one of the most successful recording groups in the world and also one of the most reliable when it comes to mainstreaming alternative and experimental music. Does it make sense to call a record like this one (more…)

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In memory of Gabi Delgado-López (April 18, 1958 — March 22, 2020).

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, more concisely known as DAF, is a German electronic music band from Wuppertal consisting of Gabi Delgado-López and Robert Görl. Their name contains a light touch of irony, rendered into English as “German-American Friendship.” (more…)

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Venetian Snares is the working name of Canadian music producer Aaron Funk. Funk is best known for producing in the style known as breakcore, which comprises the bulk of this record. “Breakcore” is a semi-recent style developed when new possibilities afforded by sequencing and music production technology allowed artists (more…)

202 words / 2:03:09

To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”

On the Counter-Currents Radio fundraiser livestream for July 26th, 2020, Greg Johnson is joined by special guest Morgoth to discuss culture, nostalgia, individualism, music, television, and the End of History. (more…)

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I watched Hitchcock’s The Birds the other night, for the first time in years. Alone in my apartment, isolated for weeks now due to Coronavirus, I had a sudden hankering to watch the film. Some little. . . um. . . bird was telling me this was what I needed to see, right now. See it I did, and I have carried away what it has to teach us about the current crisis and, strangely enough, how Heidegger is the key to understanding this enigmatic film, which has haunted me for years. (more…)

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Krzysztof Penderecki, who died on March 29, 2020, was one of the most prolific and creative composers of the past century. His works include four operas, eight symphonies plus other orchestral works, about a dozen concertos, vocal and choral works, and chamber and solo instrumental works. (more…)

215 words / 70:38

To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”

Greg Johnson talks to composer Xurious about his intellectual, political, and artistic journey and the censorship of his music by YouTube. (more…)

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Miss Anthropocene is the fifth full-length release of Canadian avant-pop songstress Claire Boucher, known professionally as Grimes, and it’s considerably darker than much of her previous work. This is fitting — Grimes has stated that the concept of Miss Anthropocene, a triple-entendre, is that of an “anthropomorphic goddess of climate change.” If this sounds like a bunch of woo nonsense to you, you’d be (mostly) correct. (more…)

Jean-Benoît Dunckel (left) & Nicolas Godin of Air.

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Having driven the length and breadth of Western Europe and in parts of the East, one thing has struck me on the long hours on the road: French radio is probably the worst in Europe. Most of it consists of bourgeois chatter, like their television. (more…)

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Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one above or click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.” To subscribe to the CC podcast RSS feed, click here. (more…)

Percy Grainger, 1882–1961

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Percy Grainger was a polymath: a pianist, composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, inventor, artist, polyglot, and man of letters. He was one of the most celebrated pianist-composers of the early twentieth century. His work and writings reflect a worldview marked by both racial consciousness and an opposition to modernity that coexisted alongside radical artistic modernism.  (more…)