New Music Interviews

Chamber Music, Brighton Festival 2019 review - Wu-Tang Clan depths divined

Nick Hasted Monday, 20 May 2019

Martial arts mayhem, Shaolin philosophy, a tribe of masked hip hop warriors emerging from the mist of Staten Island, a Funkadelic-Parliament collective sprawling through the music industry in the age of black mass incarceration: the Wu-Tang Clan were all these things, immediately....

10 Questions for Musician Soumik Datta

Mark Sheerin Tuesday, 30 April 2019

“I think we need to get rid of labels, certainly World Music,” insists Soumik Datta, who is both composer and musician, and has lived in the UK since the age of 11. “It is possible to be a musician in the Indian tradition, as well as an electronic musician, as well as a contemporary musician...

theartsdesk Q&A: Bananarama

Thomas H Green Thursday, 18 April 2019

Bananarama are one of the most successful girl groups of all time. Consisting of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward, the band’s third original member Siobhan Fahey left in 1988 to form Shakespears Sister. The trio reunited in 2017 for a tour but new album, In Stereo, sees them back as the long-standing duo. The pair have been friends since their school days.

theartsdesk Q&A: Musician, writer and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti

Guy Oddy Friday, 08 February 2019

Cosey Fanni Tutti was born Christine Newby in Hull in 1951. She is a musician, performance artist and writer and is best known for her time with COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Chris and Cosey. Her memoir Art Sex Music came out in 2017 and her second solo album, Tutti is released on 8 February.

theartsdesk Q&A: Robert MacFarlane's Spell Songs

Tim Cumming Wednesday, 06 February 2019

With books including Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways and Landmarks, Robert MacFarlane has established himself as one of the leading writers on landscape in the English language, continuing a literary tradition that contains talents as diverse as John Muir, Robinson Jeffers, Edward Thomas and Laurie Lee. His 2017 collaboration with the...

theartsdesk Q&A: Composer Michel Legrand

Jasper Rees Saturday, 26 January 2019

“I want to be a man without any past,” said Michel Legrand, who has died at the age of 86. He had perhaps the longest past in showbiz. Orchestrator, pianist, conductor, composer of countless soundtracks, who else has collaborated as widely - with Miles Davis and Kiri Te Kanawa, Barbra Streisand and Jean-Luc Godard, Gene Kelly, Joseph Losey and Edith Piaf? When I visited him at his house at his splendid classical manoir 100km south of Paris, on the mantelpiece in the large white sitting room...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Hedvig Mollestad, Norway's bridge between heavy metal and jazz

Kieron Tyler Saturday, 19 January 2019

Norway’s Hedvig Mollestad Trio reset the dial to what jazz fusion sought to do when it emerged, and do so in such a way that it’s initially unclear whether they are a jazz-influenced heavy metal outfit or jazzers plunging feet-first...

theartsdesk Q&A: Soft Cell

Thomas H Green Sunday, 30 September 2018

This weekend sees Soft Cell play the O2, a one-off gig celebrating their era-defining music. It’s 16 years since they last worked together and 37 since their heyday, yet they clearly still have a devoted fan-base: they sold out the gigantic London venue in one weekend.

theartsdesk Q&A: Chas and Dave

Jasper Rees Sunday, 23 September 2018

Chas Hodges has died at the age of 74, bringing to an end a career that reaches back to the very beginnings of British pop music. He was best known as one half of Chas and Dave. The duo he formed with Dave Peacock were the poster boys of rockney, a chirpy fusion of three-chord rock'n'roll and rollicking Cockney wit.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: 'Ideally I'm recording all the time, 24 hours a day' - interview

joe Muggs Saturday, 26 May 2018

Ryuichi Sakamoto has conquered underground and mainstream with seeming ease over four decades, never dropping off in the quality of his releases.

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