Tag Archives: Electronica

Formed in 1981, Belgian industrial group Front 242 helped pioneer aggressive electronic “body” music throughout ’80s with Skinny Puppy and Ministry. Front 242 produced two of the genre’s most important albums (Front By Front, Tyranny For You) and arguably, the genre’s most important single, “Headhunter.” The machine-only Front 242 sound …

Imagine the music created by a 29-year-old Japanese visual artist (Susumu Mukai) living in London on his home four-track with analog electronics, samples, guitars, bass, turntables, electric piano organ and other keyboards, clarinet, cooking spatulas, a matchbox and other found objects, drawing equally from severe avant garde electronica, disco (especially …

Vicious times require vicious music. Arguably, the most important industrial group of all time is Skinny Puppy, which came into being in Vancouver around ’81 when percussionist/synth player cEVIN Key left pop-electronic band Images In Vogue, and joined with vocalist Nivek Ogre (Kevin Ogilvie) in order to pursue the more …

I feel superlatives coming on today. Though in general I love the ECM label, there are times when its euro-centric “chamber jazz” is too arch or attenuated for my taste. With the welter of Italian names all over the Gianluigi Trovesi Ottetto’s (“Octet”) Fugace, I must confess to a small …

Another amazing 20-year anniversary, Bronski Beat’s The Age of Consent. Twenty years ago I was not having an easy time adjusting to the knowledge that a very close family member was gay. I was not particularly homophobic – my wife at the time worked in retail and had many gay …

The rather stark photo on the cover of Annie Lennox’s new CD Bare reminds us she isn’t getting any younger, but it’s still hard to believe the Eurythmics’ (Lennox’s duo with Dave Stewart) best two albums, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and Touch, were both released twenty years ago. …

A beautiful day, the Orb, and Ricki Lee Jones

Laptop jam in Manhattan – I have seen this sort of thing here in Cleveland – it’s the wildest: IN his native West Virginia, George Cicci arouses curiosity when he gets on stage at local open-mike events and turns out beats on his iBook laptop between sets of bluegrass guitarists …

The boys in Blur are back - sort of. . .

Mash-ups sample from samplers: “Rock the Party” is an incredibly generic title, but the song is anything but conventional. Its vocals are lifted from “Let’s Get This Party Started,” Pink’s catchy and forgettable hit du jour. Behind them, though, is the rattling beat of “Rock the Casbah,” released two decades …