Beatmag’s Khalid Mallassi quizzes the nonchalant, comeback kings.
The Shortwave Set are perhaps the luckiest band in the UK. After their debut 2005 album “The Debt Collection” won them critical acclaim, radio support from tastemakers like Zane Lowe and Lauren Lavern as well as remixing the likes of Moby, Scissor Sisters and Goldfrapp… then they were unceremoniously dropped by their record label. They were down, but not out. Now, with a brand new record deal and help from the biggest record producer in the world, they are back with the epic “Replica Sun Machine”. (more…)
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Catherine Pryce talks to Wales’ premier drum and bass survivor.
Beatmag caught up with High Contrast, the golden boy of Hospital Records, before he jetted off to Prague on a schedule that’s as messy as his hair – “Some quality time in the Eastern European scene”, he says – and he’s an eloquent, charming boy from Wales yet to “make the digression to London”. (more…)
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Tim Aldous Hooks up with DJ, second album artiste and Skint supreme Damian Harris AKA Midfield General
A glance at the papers will inform you that Bob Geldof’s daughter Peaches has got herself in trouble with the police. Despite appearing to be someone who does very little other than go clubbing, it would be accurate to say that she comes across as one of the least delightful people on the planet. That’s quite an achievement for someone who’s not yet turned twenty. A hard worker, then. Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez, the post-Madonna prima donna, hardly wears the charm hat either. Van Morrison is fanously quite an arse, and in his heyday, Liam Gallagher was as likely to cover himself in his own urine than in glory. In fact, the media and music business is littered with arrogant tossers, wankers and arseholes who’d eat their nans if it got them an appropriate front page and a VIP spot in the right club. (more…)
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with Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was one of the biggest-selling artists of the 1960s who has, along with Tom Jones, defined the affable ballad-singing Las Vegas lover man for decades. By the time fame arrived he’d more than paid his dues. Before the massive breakthrough hit, ‘Release Me’, the biggest selling single of 1967, Humperdinck had spent the previous decade chipping away unsuccessfully at a showbiz career under the name Gerry Dorsey. (more…)
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Dan Deacon interview
US electronic iconoclast Dan Deacon does not sound like anyone else. His avant-poptronic music wraps you in a multi-coloured sonic blanket then, when you can’t move, slobbers magical absurdity all over you. It’s Sesame Street heard from the dark heart of a magic mushroom black hole; a fairytale nightmare. (more…)
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Pram interview
The elusive Pram are a Birmingham band who have been quietly going about their business for fifteen years. As well as having one of the oddest press shots in history a few years back, they’re responsible for a series of unsettling albums that fuse elements of electronic easy-listening with their own avant-classical toy orchestra tricks. The result is spooked music redolent of childhood’s more sinister side and their new album, ‘The Moving Frontier’, continues in the same vein like the jazz soundtrack to a surrealist Czech animation. (more…)
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Catherine Pryce meets Ed Solo, Skool of Thought and Darrison to talk about random acts of kindness, Britney Spears and being too rude for radio.
Lloyd Seymour is the head honcho behind Brighton’s famous Supercharged night and Against The Grain record label. He’s also Skool Of Thought, the overall binding influence and father figure to the cheerful Ed Solo/School of Thought/Darrison collective. As Beatmag rocked up at the Brighton label’s office Lloyd was busying himself with coaxing Ed Solo (aka ‘Bed Solo’) from his slumber and into the office for a respectably timed 3PM interview. (more…)
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Catherine Pryce has a pint and finds out what one half of Orbital did next
Long Range are Phil Hartnoll, half of the dance music pioneers Orbital, and Nick Smith, who’s background lies with trance label Dragonfly Records. They have arrived with an easily digestible album, ‘Madness And Me’, which offers listeners a road trip through trance and broken beats flooded with rock, chilled and ambient sounds. They want more people to give trance a chance (wait for the T-Shirts…). (more…)
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Blackbeltjonez meets a very modest musical perfectionist
Talking with Flevans it quickly becomes apparent that his new album ‘Unfabulous’ was less a labour of love and simply more like going through labour. An unnecessary illustration to accompany the metaphor would likely be a sweat-drenched Flevans sporting a green hospital gown, mopping his own brow whilst the doctor slaps the newborn’s arse and from it’s mouth emerges sounds that only its parent fails to recognize as delightful. Slightly odd and overly dramatic a scene it may be, but it makes sense when you learn that he re-wrote the album five times and with Buddhist-like restraint, defied himself to make any new music until ‘Unfabulous’ was complete. ‘Tubular Bells’ it isn’t, but was a padded cell at the local institute ever on the cards? (more…)
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Rob Da Bank interview
With the UK summer season’s best festival, Bestival, just around the corner, resident field-wanderer Khalid Mallassi gets in the festival spirit by quizzing Bestival supremo Rob Da Bank…
With only a few months left till Bestival 2007, how are you feeling? Any nerves? Butterflies?
No butterflies, just a few caterpillars! With having sold out that’s one sweat out of the way but worrying if there’s enough loo rolls and what kind of random security will turn up are more the worries now. (more…)
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