New Music Interviews
theartsdesk Q&A: Record label New Heavy SoundsFriday, 07 August 2020
New Heavy Sounds is one of Britain’s most exciting and undersung labels. Founded in 2011, they have consistently released music that boasts innovation, imagination and a strong female presence. The added sweetener is that this comes attached to sheer guitar-slingin’ power of the kind heavy rockers, from the 1970s to the present, have always relished. Read more... |
Remembering John Prine, one of the great American singer-songwritersWednesday, 08 April 2020
John Prine, who has died at the age of 73 from a Covid 19-related illness, was one of the great American folk poets. Having spent his early adulthood pounding the sidewalks as a mailman in Chicago, he never quite shucked that blue-collar aura of the working man's minstrel. Read more... |
10 Questions for Irina NalisThursday, 19 March 2020
Normally we'd put a descriptor - "cellist", "film maker", "techno producer" for example - in the title of this interview, but for Irina Nalis there isn't space. Like, "10 Questions for psychologist, ministerial adviser, festival founder, architectural consultant, digital humanism activist and techno veteran Irina Nalis" wouldn't fit across the page. But that's the multidisciplinary world for you. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: musician Rick McMurrayTuesday, 03 March 2020
With them having famously been just teenagers when they released their debut single in 1994 it seems fitting – and not a little tongue in cheek – that the indie rock trio chose Teenage Wildlife for the title of their 25th anniversary compilation. Read more... |
10 Questions for Techno Musician Carl CraigSaturday, 23 November 2019
In the eight years since theartsdesk last spoke to Carl Craig, a lot has happened. He moved from his native Detroit for a sojourn in Barcelona (partly for ease of access to his summer DJ residencies in Ibiza), then recently returned. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Shakespears SisterThursday, 24 October 2019
When goth-pop duo Shakespears Sister split in 1993, the music press dubbed it the break-up of the decade. Partly it was because at the time they were one of the biggest, and coolest, bands around (their single "Stay" managed a record eight weeks at number one). Read more... |
10 Questions for musician Craig FinnSunday, 20 October 2019
As frontman and lyricist of US rockers The Hold Steady, Craig Finn specialises in vivid storytelling featuring larger than life characters. It’s a writing style that he has carried with him into his solo work too even if, as he says, the stories are “more vulnerable and maybe a little more personal” than fans of his other band may be used to. Read more... |
10 Questions for conductor Charles HazlewoodMonday, 23 September 2019
Charles Hazlewood (b. 1966) has worked across the gamut of orchestral music, his career showcasing the multitude of ways it can be perceived and enjoyed. Read more... |
Bob Dylan Special - theartsdesk Q&A: Scarlet RiveraTuesday, 11 June 2019
As Martin Scorsese’s new feature film, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, hits Netflix and cinemas, and a new 14 CD boxed set enters the official Bootleg Series, ... Read more... |
Chamber Music, Brighton Festival 2019 review - Wu-Tang Clan depths divinedMonday, 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.... Read more... |
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