In the rabble-rousing pantheon of UK girl groups, only the Spice Girls have had more domestic No. 1 singles (nine) than the Sugababes (six). The mutable British trio were a defining band of the 2000s—and yet this 20th anniversary reissue… Read More
Fun is a central tenet of Yana Kedrina’s music. Liminal Soul, the Moscow-based producer and vocalist’s third album as Kedr Livanskiy, is defined by a wide-eyed, magnanimous playfulness, an openness to quirk that doesn’t inhibit the seriousness of her message.… Read More
For a place that’s meant to be fun, the club is home to a lot of demons. How we seek release can be a mirror of what made us so tense in the first place, and some of the most… Read More
In his book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks samples the following quote from biologist Gerald Edelman: “Every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.” For 30 years now,… Read More
Indulgence can be its own reward. Take In It for the Money, the wild, careening sophomore set from Supergrass. Flush with success and fresh out of adolescence, the Britpop trio embraced all the new adventures heading their way, a journey… Read More
Footwork isn’t just dance music, it’s meant for competition. At roller rinks, raves, and other functions on Chicago’s South and West Sides, DJs cue up tracks with syncopated layers of percussion to mirror the rapid movements of battling dancers. (At… Read More
Video-game soundtracks have often drawn upon club music for inspiration: Just think of the drum’n’bass of Soichi Terada’s music for Ape Escape, the hard techno of the PlayStation Ghost in the Shell game, even the straight-up proto-grime in an X-Men… Read More
For what is ostensibly club music, Loraine James’ productions can feel fiercely guarded. Many dancers and DJs favor smoothly paved superhighways to bliss; James’ zig-zagging tracks are filled with potholes, speed bumps, and the occasional vertiginous bridge to nowhere. The… Read More
Punk set out to shock the ’70s rock establishment, but disco did a far better job. Safety pins and ironic swastikas had nothing on one-piece jumpsuits and boogie shoes. After all, no one ever hosted a baseball-stadium rally to detonate… Read More
In his work as Murcof, Fernando Corona has long shown a talent for drawing beauty out of bleakness. On his earliest albums, 2002’s Martes and 2005’s Remembranza, the Tijuana native fused the timbres of contemporary classical with the tonal and… Read More