Peter O’Grady’s family has long played an important role in his career as Joy Orbison. His cousin Leighann introduced him to drum’n’bass and UK garage at a young age, while he credits his uncle, jungle legend Ray Keith, with fostering… Read More
Veteran Chicago footwork producer Jana Rush says that Painful Enlightenment, only her second album since she debuted in 1995, isn’t a footwork record. She might be right: Painful Enlightenment’s abstract passages, tortured rhythms, and sprawling webs of sound have little… Read More
The debut EP from Speed Dealer Moms came out 11 years ago. The unlikely trio of John Frusciante, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and late-blooming rave maven; Aaron Funk, who makes furiously virtuosic breakcore as Venetian Snares; and Chris McDonald,… Read More
Porter Robinson’s music has often treasured escapism. Whether making ecstatic dance or cinematic pop, the producer has long imagined his work as a portal to other realms, as if, through enough head-spinning drops and intricate synth programming, he could create… Read More
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
For claire rousay, ambient composition is not just a studio practice; it concerns real bodies in physical space. As a percussionist turned sound artist, the San Antonio-based musician has put out a whopping 19 releases since 2019, many featuring dizzying… Read More
A decade ago, the Manchester-based electronic musician Andy Stott extinguished the dub-techno torch he’d been carrying for Basic Channel and plunged into some lightless place where all the usual values got switched around. From that murk, he retrieved a pair… Read More
In tarot, the flame-licked Tower card represents a mercurial period of upheaval and personal transformation. After producer and experimental artist Vegyn moved from London to Los Angeles last fall, the foreboding card became a regular appearance in his deck. The… Read More
In a 2020 interview with The New Yorker, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, who turned 80 last October, said he hadn’t been listening to records for a while. “I listen to things that maybe some guys don’t,” he said. “I listen to… 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