John Doran
, April 13th, 2021 08:31
Carla Bley is arguably the greatest living jazz composer; John Doran talks to the woman fellow musicians have nicknamed Countess Bleysie and Bleythoven about foundational free jazz sessions, the magic of The Liberation Music Orchestra and her epic jazz opera, Escalator Over The Hill. Home page photograph courtesy of Tod Papageorge
Edward Said immersed himself in the final works of Beethoven, Genet and Beckett while writing his own last book. Said, who produced
On Late Style while ill with leukaemia, concluded that at the end of their lives, artists did not tend to resolve issues that had preoccupied them for their entire practice but instead produced works of unparalleled complexity and unresolved contradiction.
Stepping Into A New Age 1980–2012
Julian Marszalek
, April 13th, 2021 08:57
A boxset documenting the rise of punk-reggae supergroup New Age Steppers proves a valuable history lesson for Julian Marszalek
There was always so much more to the legacy of punk than the orthodoxy that followed in its wake. Indeed, the seeds were sown right from the early days thanks to the punk’s interface with the reggae that soundtracked the early club nights as well as the covers that followed. Even Bob Marley gave his seal of approval.
But while the less inspired purveyors that followed stuck to rigid formulas, the influence of reggae was keenly felt in the wave that immediately followed punk’s brief but seismic blast. Formed by The Slits’ Ari Up and reggae fan and producer Adrian Sherwood, New Age Steppers were a collective of sorts that included contributions from members of Aswad, The Pop Group, The Raincoats, and others who swan-dived into deep bass work-outs and dub-inflected dread to
Jennifer Lucy Allan
, April 13th, 2021 10:51
tQ is in partnership with Oda, a new speaker system that allows artists including Ann Peebles and Don Bryant to broadcast directly into your home. Jennifer Lucy Allan speaks to the legendary Memphis soul couple about telling stories, singing gospel, staying together, and their biggest hit, I Can’t Stand The Rain
Ann Peebles and Don Bryant’s biggest hit ‘I Can’t Stand The Rain’ was a creative bolt of lightning in a literal downpour. It is a story that has been told and retold so many times it’s a piece of southern soul folklore.
Mycelial Echo
Amanda Farah
, April 12th, 2021 07:43
A work for choreographer Gwendolyn Gussman and an opera about trees provided the starting points for this collaboration between Lisel and Booker Stardrum. But it s on headphones that the music really comes alive for Amanda Farah
Mycelial Echo, the long-distance collaboration between Lisel and Booker Stardrum, is above all a feat of production. Though both have carved out their own corners in experimental music Lisel (the solo project name of Eliza Bagg) as a classically trained avant garde singer-producer and Stardrum as an electronic musician and producer their pairing has pushed each individual’s work beyond predictable progressions, beats, or vocal hooks.
Behind the dialogue
We re in a mess.
There’s a future essay to be written about COVID-19 culture – the artefacts that emerged from our plague year and what they say about where we were as a society: celebrities Zoom duets, the veneration of Sir Tom, our weekly clap for the NHS. These things were born of an instinct to find a unifying sense of positivity. Now, with a few months’ distance, it looks more like escapism, all of it masking a terror writhing beneath.
At the time there seemed to be little alternative, culturally speaking. But last year, amid what we would come to know as the UK’s first wave of the global COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself instead listening obsessively to an album which seemed to capture the public mood perfectly. That album was