A timeworn means of rebelling against one’s parents: loud guitar music. But in Evan Majumdar-Swift’s case, embracing rock’n’roll represented a rejection of another strain of music long associated with youthful hijinks. His father, Matthew Swift, is hardly your garden-variety Boomer:… Read More
Hackneyed as it may sound, you can learn a lot by taking the right drugs at the right time. You can also learn a lot by quitting drugs, but the emotional and physical lessons of substance experimentation aren’t to be… Read More
John FM recognizes what’s come before him. As a protégé of the enigmatic Omar S, the Detroit-based producer and vocalist is well aware of his city’s triumphs and tribulations, and keen to preserve the spirit of self-reliance and community that… Read More
Sasu Ripatti knows that few things will humble you like time spent in the wilderness. “You learn to face your own limits and fears,” he’s said of his Arctic hiking experiences. His latest solo albums as Vladislav Delay take inspiration… Read More
Centering polyrhythms and syncopation in the traditions of gqom, UK funky, or dembow may be the order of the day for club music, but Mexican producer OMAAR isn’t new to these kinds of sounds. Since 2012, Omar Suárez has cut… Read More
Years before they formed the Drain Gang collective, Ecco2k and Bladee were in a hardcore band called Krossad (“crushed” in Swedish) as schoolmates. This fun fact has become part of the Stockholm group’s narrative: their noisy 2007 demo CD has… Read More
The history of electronic music, particularly in the UK, has been one of fractures and splits, as ever more specific styles and subgenres spin off into their own orbits. Special Request (aka Leeds’ Paul Woolford) is one of the enlightened… Read More
In a city of 23 million, Ahmed El Ghazoly sometimes had trouble finding a receptive audience for his brand of club music. “My stuff is too weird for Cairo,” he told The Wire a few years back. In fact, El… Read More
Dance music can only suspend your belief for so long these days. COVID has lapped us, and what used to be baked-in elements of our musical experience aren’t around anymore—the sparks of connection that fly at a club set, the… Read More
Not three minutes into Like Sunlit Threads, the Scottish producer Mark Kastner tells us he’s disappearing. Amid the hum of rainforest fauna, his voice pitched down, he describes feeling as though he’s “turning to smoke” and becoming “the faint wisp… Read More