United Kingdom
I’m Jack and I’m a freelance features writer based in Yorkshire.
I mostly write about technology, science, health and business but I also cover the weirder edges of music and internet culture.
My work has appeared in the Guardian, Observer, WIRED UK and Japan, easyJet Traveller, Atlas (Etihad Magazine), BBC, Narrative.ly, OneZero, Mixmag, Dazed and more. This includes several front page stories for the Guardian, the Guardian G2 supplement and Mixmag.
I've also worked and travelled overseas as an on the ground reporter, covering stories in Tokyo, Marrakech, Naples, Paris, Johannesburg and Brussels.
Commission me: [email protected]
Catherine Harvey is a former singer who became a Santa agent when her actor brother became one. She describes the range of prices charged and the backgrounds her Santas come from. Not every Santa needs a beard, she says. Her youngest is 24, and uses prosthetics to age himself.
As a child, Harbia Al Himiary would marvel at the architecture of her home country of Yemen. In her own birthplace of Sanaa she admired from an early age the intricate stone carvings that decorated the Old City, a part of the capital inhabited for more than 2,500 years.
Around six years ago, Jake Karns had a truly frightening experience. He was 12 at the time, and he and his sister Kate had recently moved back in with their mom and their grandmother in Victorville, Calif. after years of living with their dad.
Thomas Sulikowski started playing Minecraft in middle school. He sold his first building for $5. Demand rose quickly for commissions. At 15 he employed four other designers and founded Varuna. The Minecraft design company now has 44 employees. Sulikowski says he charges clients up to $90,000.
The future of home robotics wasn't supposed to be this dumb. We were promised K-9 companions, Baymax best mates, tiny droids with built-in projectors and nights out with Bender, the ultimate party robot. Instead, we got several different incarnations of vacuum and self-driving cars that can't drive themselves.
Over 250 cars were destroyed in F9, estimates Lin. After 2009's Fast Five, he lost count (that film's car wreckage count was somewhere in the low 200s). "When you see one car get hit, there are actually six to eight [versions] of them," says Lin.
Veronica, a 27-year-old artist who lives in Southern California, can trace her love of slaying beasts back to a modded PlayStation 2. It was 2004, and her cousin had gotten his hands on a Japanese import of a video game series called Monster Hunter, in which teams of weapon-wielding warriors go off in search of titans to kill.
aria Clifton can't exactly remember how or why she began making chocolate toilet rolls with messages written on them. It doesn't matter, really. If people want everyday items crafted from Belgian milk chocolate, she will do it. It started about four years ago when she founded Personalised Chocolates 4U, a small family venture she runs from her home in Hastings, East Sussex.
Meghan loved her new dog. Bodhi had tall ears, striking brown eyes and a thick coat of white and oak-coloured fur and a ruff-like neck. The pair took long strolls on Sunday mornings and Meghan felt immensely proud of her new, adopted friend. Then the problems started.
It's a Tuesday afternoon, and during a company Zoom call someone decides to light a cigarette. Most people would likely turn off their cameras but Barry Neufeld, a Canadian school trustee, didn't. His colleagues were appalled, many called for his resignation and the matter of a cheeky cigarette caused a mini-media storm in the city of Chilliwack, British Columbia.
Growing up, Laura had a tumultuous relationship with her parents, in particular her mother, who was emotionally abusive. As an adult, she would weep after every one of her mom's visits, and in January, she began distancing herself, seeking advice through Reddit support groups for people in similar situations.
On 21 June 2017, Iraqi forces were nearing the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul. One of the Iraqi city's most famous and iconic landmarks, the mosque had stood in this part of Mosul - the Old City - since Nur al-Din Mahmoud Zangi, a Turkic ruler of Mosul and Aleppo, oversaw its construction between 1172 and 1173.
Claire's* 2019 Christmas party was a wash out: she works in a 'government area' in Birmingham, a role so secretive that even under anonymity she is not able to share the specifics. Claire's forced festivities for that year were a disappointing soirée fuelled by corner shop bought sausage rolls and loads of booze.
At the height of summer last year, Sophie received an Instagram DM on her phone from an account she didn't follow. "I'm going to make you disabled," it read. With it came a photograph, one of her and her friends crossing the street.
"It's been like riding a boat in the middle of a storm," says Jack Franklin, a booking agent at The Soundhouse, a 220-person venue in the centre of Leicester. Under normal circumstances, sweaty bodies and late-night drinkers would soon pack the walls as the venue celebrates ten years of bringing live music to the largest city in the East Midlands.
Laura* lives and works in Greater Manchester, a local lockdown area where you can grab a pint in your local pub but can't welcome parents in your own back garden. On July 1 she was told by bosses at her recruitment firm that it was safe to return to the office, a month before the government gave the green light.
In May, Singapore's Sengkang Community Hospital unveiled its first specialist Covid-19 ward. Unfortunately, there was a problem: as one of the biggest hospitals in the city with 400 beds, it needed to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission without spending huge sums on PPE or draining staff resources.
Andy works as a cleaner at a college in the East Midlands, looking after a campus that would ordinarily be bustling a few hundred teachers and teenagers. After initially being placed on furlough he returned to work in mid-June, even though there is no-one to clean up after.
Selena Taylor makes her living road-tripping across continents and flying to disparate locations, but each place she visits must have a certain aesthetic. As a travel blogger and photographer, Taylor hunts out the world's most charming destinations and shares her exploits with her 175,000 Instagram followers.
I was 22 when I moved to a different US city and needed a new yoga studio. I discovered a place that believed in eastern mysticism - perfect for an open-minded spiritualist, which was how I saw myself at the time. I walked in and a young woman was very excited to see me.
In normal times, over 19 million global users of fashion reselling marketplace Depop would be upgrading their wardrobes for the summer months. But since the coronavirus crisis upended the economy, the company, like many other startups, is navigating uncharted waters.
Influencers have shot to fame by sharing experiences with addiction, but their success is fraught
Friday drinks have made a return in recent weeks. Months spent inside, the news that up to six people can meet outdoors and the sunniest May on record meant that millions have swapped pubs for parks. But, with public toilets closed across the country, if you've walked through a busy park recently you might have noticed a scent to the air.
In February Amy, a 26-year old journalist, found her new home, forfeited a £400 deposit for a house share in East London where the fourth bedroom is registered as a living room, and waited to move in. So far, so typical of the London rental experience.
Kiran Deep owns the Seaton Sluice Superstore near Whitley Bay, a tight-knit community where gossip travels fast. Deep has been in business for around seven months, splitting her time between building the business, working part-time as a nurse and looking after a young family.
The COVID-19 outbreak forced World Wrestling Entertainment to rethink its plans, as it did for the NBA, the NHL, MLB, and on and on. But against all advice, the WWE is steaming ahead this weekend with WrestleMania 36, which could be the last major mainstream sporting event for the foreseeable future.
Across the world, a number of high-profile events and festivals have been cancelled due to the growing concern, and subsequent prevention methods against COVID-19, or the coronavirus. In China, Singapore and Vietnam, Sónar Hong Kong and Unknwn Fiesta have postponed their upcoming events, while many local promoters, venues and booking agents have been forced to cancel events with artists like DEBONAIR, John Talabot and more.
Gavriel is an aspiring games developer and programmer, a pursuit that comes with all the health problems you expect from someone who spends his waking hours typing alien symbols into a computer. "I used to sit ten hours a day," he says from his home in Quebec.
There's big business in crudely re-recorded karaoke versions of pop songs As a teenager, Nya Crea would rush home from school and rehearse karaoke tracks every night. She found endless inspiration in Christina Aguilera, Aretha Franklin, Pink and "diva singers with powerful voices and charismatic personalities," she says from her London home.
In August, Manchester City and Tottenham were drawing 2-2 in the closing stages of a game at the Etihad stadium when City striker Gabriel Jesus snatched what he thought was a late winner. But, after consulting VAR, the controversial video refereeing technology newly implemented for the 2019/20 Premier League, the goal was disallowed.
When I was 13, I wanted to be like Jimi Hendrix, but when I told my parents I wanted to play the guitar, they looked at me as if I was mad. I was born without a right arm: how was I going to strum chords? That's when I designed my first prosthetic.
We all appreciate the little things in life, and that includes spending five minutes on the toilet scrawling through Twitter on company time. But those days may be at risk with the StandardToilet, a seat that claims to drastically reduce toilet time.
You'd think it'd be a hard time to be a Michael Jackson impersonator - yet business is booming for some acts mimicking problematic stars. Jack Needham finds out more
The small, chirpy commuter city of Kuki-shi isn't the Japan of pachinko parlours, smoky bars and the neon-lit, mile-high skyline of nearby Tokyo. This is where farmers grow crops and retirees get old; the "real Japan", I'm told, countless times, through the course of one mid-August afternoon.
Ambient music's first wave of popularity came during a time of rampant capitalism and social discord. As history repeats itself, Jack Needham scrutinises the impulse for musical solace - and whether we should always follow it "People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture," Thatcher said to Granada's World In Action in 1978.
Complaints left unanswered and housing deposits lost to the ether are common woes for the estimated 4.5 million UK citizens in rented property. But being threatened with eviction over a game is rare. Over the summer, Kevin sat down to a game of Dungeons & Dragons in his Worcester rental property.
Marc and his wife live in America's humid south, where sometimes, toilet paper just isn't enough. "If you're working outside, as I used to do all day, it's not pleasant, so being clean after using the toilet helps prevent the dreaded 'swamp ass'," he says. Now, he's fighting back.
Artists The Japanese artist's findings combine to create his stunning productions Words: Jack Needham | Photos: Yusuke Kashiwazaki 12 September 2019 "Once, I was recording insects at midnight in Thailand," begins Yosi Horikawa, speaking from his home almost 6,000 miles away in Kuki-shi, Saitama, an hours train from Tokyo.
Inspired by the technological boom of 1980s Japan, a group of composers created beautiful futurist fantasies - funded by housing developers and lingerie companies
Walking through the fields of Glastonbury Festival two weeks before the festival gates open is like finding yourself in a quaint English town taken over by circus performers. The rolling hills, which will soon welcome 210,000 revellers, are relatively deserted, aside from a few stages, pop-up tents and the odd giant zombie baby dotted around an area called the Unfairground.
You’d think it’d be a hard time to be a Michael Jackson impersonator – yet business is booming for some acts mimicking problematic stars. Jack Needham finds out more
Glastonbury's crowd pullers like the Pyramid stage run like well-oiled machines, boasting small armies of artist liaisons, roadies and sound crews making sure Kylie can belt out Spinning Around with all the oomph it deserves.
"Italo disco is not a genre. It's everything made for the discotheque in 1980s Italy," says Dario Di Pace via Skype from his home studio, West Hill, outside of Naples. Di Pace, who makes music as Mystic Jungle, is chainsmoking as he speaks. His longtime friend Raffaele Manny Arcella, aka producer and DJ Whodamanny, is beside him.
The online bespoke greetings cards supplier doesn't ban nudity, but has a clear line: 'Penetration is when things have gone too far,' it says
Soccer stars and clubs are investing millions in esports, as virtual football grows as a spectator sport - and Uefa is launching a virtual Champions League.
"Quick question," asks Adam 'Ad-Rock' Horovitz, speaking over the phone from London. "When you get dressed in the morning, do you take your pyjamas off, naked, then put your shoes on and start from there?"
6 Music's A Brief History of Apollo 8 marks the 50th anniversary of the first mission to take humans to the moon and back.'
Jazz musician Terje Isungset on why a trumpet made from a Greenland glacier will sound different to one made from a polluted frozen lake.
Crowdfunding can make a business, but occasionally, it forges a Jeffrey Batio. The inventor of a bizarre laptop-smartphone-tablet hybrid known as The Dragonfly Futurefön raised more than £500,000 in 2014 but never really delivered. Batio's story is one of hundreds found on r/ShittyKickstarters, a Reddit community of more than 90,000 subscribers exposing suspicious, potentially fraudulent or, well, shitty crowdfunding campaigns.
With every theorised apocalypse - biblical, nuclear or otherwise - comes the inevitable question of, 'How would you survive in the wasteland?' Set 200 years after global nuclear destruction, open-world role-playing game Fallout places this question of macabre fantasy at its core.
From gramophones to smartphones, our listening experience has come a long way - and audio technology is not only becoming more immersive, but personalised too. You only have to say the title of a song for your electronic assistant to blare music out of your wireless speakers.
Wearable tech, electrodes and human-controlled robotics in sound
The 2018 World Cup threw a few curveballs. An early German exit, England winning a penalty shoot-out and Croatia reaching the final all categorised a gloriously bizarre tournament. But one thing nobody predicted was quite how predictable it all was - at least for Football Manager fanatics. Take YouTuber GoldenFM.
Produced by the Leeds duo Gez Varley and the late Mark Bell, LFO is four-minutes of mind-dizzying electronica that still sounds like the future to this day, reworking the sci-fi sound of early-Detroit techno for the UK dance community.
skip to main content Shortlist logo Open site navigation Close site navigation Copyright © 2010-2018 ShortList News YouTubers claim to be acting in the public interest by apprehending criminals and uploading the footage to the internet. But are they causing more harm than they claim?
Artists He's about to release his debut album 'Family Portrait' on Brainfeeder Words: Jack Needham | Photography: Alexander Popelier 2 July 2018 Felix Clary Weatherall is having a bad day. The Londoner is set to appear at the Belgian music and tech festival known as and&, but right now, after missing his Eurostar connection, he's alone, has no bank card and has spent the whole day in near-meltdown.
Lists French Touch 2.0, anyone? Words: Jack Needham | Photos: Sentimental Rave 7 June 2018 When, in the 90s, a group of French DJs and producers brought Gallic magic to disco, Chicago house and then unfashionable 70s pop, it created one of the most fertile movements in dance music history: the 'French Touch'.
The early '90s signaled change for South Africa. Bubblegum pop had been bubbling over across South Africa for some years, fusing disco and boogie with the sounds of mbaqanga and township funk, music to take pride in. Bubblegum glistened as if Studio 54 had been transported to Soweto and came dressed in leopard print and PVC.
There are certain sounds that can't be born in the confines of a studio or created after countless hours spent fiddling with expensive synthesizers. The meditative drone of a rainforest can't be replicated by a Juno, and a drum machine will never echo the repetitive, crashing pulse of a waterfall.
"I think Bach would have gone into orbit with these instruments," says Will Gregory, who, over 200 years since the composer's death, is reinventing Johann Sebastian Bach via phasers and filters. From a reclusive garage in the Wiltshire countryside, the trailing black cables that connect the ten members of Will Gregory's Moog Ensemble make the room more reminiscent of a 1940s telephone switchboard than a rehearsal studio.
On a Friday night in central London, 176 shelled gastropods "dance" around me. Few times before has a ballet moved so slowly - but then it's not often that the choreography is performed by snails. I tread lightly on the cling film-covered floor; with every air bubble that pops beneath my feet, I fear the worst.
As Stoke Newington record shop Lucky Seven is forced to close next month in the face of rampant gentrification, local luminaries share their memories of the beautifully chaotic institution. It's a Sunday afternoon in north London. On the street, pedestrians avoid prams with all the agility of hungover gazelles, and queues snake out the doors of local brunch spots, despite the wind and snow.
Every Shrove Tuesday, the entire town of Ashbourne erupts in a brutal football match where almost anything goes and the rare glory of scoring a goal is savored for generations.
For many Western tourists, the 1960s pilgrimage known as The Hippie Trail -which stretched through Turkey, via Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nepal and ended in southern India-offered an unfiltered form of psychedelia with its religions and sights and smells that couldn't be found easily in the squats of London or an LSD-fueled pilgrimage through America's highways.
子どもから大人にまで愛されるレゴブロックは誕生から60周年を迎え、おもちゃの枠組みを超えてアートの域にまで達している。その文化を支えているのが、レゴ愛好者の大人たちがオンライン上に築いてきたコミュニティだ。インターネットに広がる熱狂的なファ
Nathan Sawaya used to be a lawyer. Now he's a LEGO artist. And, in the parlance of LEGO fandom, that makes him an AFOL - an adult fan of LEGO. "I asked my parents for a dog when I was around ten years old.
Should you visit Manchester's Hi-Tackle you'll be forgiven for being taken aback by it. It's a record store first and foremost, found in a snug office above the Hidden nightclub in Manchester's industrial outskirts.
If you believe the legend, digi-dub first emerged in the streets of Jamaica from a simple Casio MT-40 keyboard and a "rock" preset. In the hands of the late MC Wayne Smith and the legendary producer King Jammy, that preset was the backbone for Under Mi Sleng Teng , the first digital riddim that ushered in the era of digital-dub in 1984.
In the late 70s, soundsystems began blasting out dub in dancehalls around Moss Side, Old Trafford and Hulme, providing a cultural cornerstone for the city's black community. Now a reggae scene which rivalled London's is inspiring a new generation n the late 1940s, the roots of reggae and dub arrived in Britain along with Jamaican immigrants, eventually turning the island into a lovers' rock.
One of the great satirical writers and directors of recent times and a crucial voice in the post-Trump era, Armando Iannucci turned his attention to a very different tyrant in most recent film The Death Of Stalin. Drawing on his passion for classical music, he and composer Christopher Willis explain how they channelled the ghost of Shostakovich to craft the film's unsettling ambience.
Sound travels five times faster through water than it does in air. And in the world's oceans, the cacophony has become a manmade orchestra of jet-skis, explosions, sonar and ships. For marine animals, it's a deafening crisis. "You can hear shipping vessels in open oceans for hundreds of kilometres.
Influencing everyone from Björk to Aphex Twin, controversial composer and classical renegade Karlheinz Stockhausen desrves the title "papa of techno" more than anyone else. Jack Needham tells his story through first-hand accounts from collaborators and admirers alike. 'Klang'. That's the word that describes Karlheinz Stockhausen's unfinished symphony.
Drive beyond Marrakech's city walls towards the horizon line and you'll find yourself in a tangerine desert that seems like it'll never end. That is until you take a swift left turn down a dirt road, where the low bassline of a kickdrum emanates from behind a 15-foot wall.
A comet is hurtling towards earth, threatening our entire existence with absolute destruction. Thankfully, the asteroid is discovered well in advance. A crack team of astronauts set forth into space with just one mission; to drive alongside the comet very slowly and over time, use the spacecraft's gravitational pull to change the comet's orbit and miss earth completely, ensuring everything stays just fine.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was the question posed by sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick that went on to influence the film , in turn pre-empting our modern landscape and the blurring of what we consider to be real and what we do not.
Features The city is nurturing a hot, heady and very Italian style of dance music Jack Needham 18 September 2017 I arrive in Naples after a 10-hour train ride through the Italian countryside. I'm here to discover a new breed of modern day Italo discos that are giving birth to what's becoming known as 'The Napoli Sound'.
Every transhuman has an origin story. For Rob Spence, 45, a shotgun accident at the age of nine left his right eye severely damaged. At 34, under his doctor's orders, the eye was removed. It was then Spence set out on a mission to become Earth's first "eyeborg".
When Aphex Twin released "Windowlicker" in 1999, its Chris Cunningham-directed video - at least in its edited, pre-watershed guise - could share MTV airtime with Eiffel 65's "Blue" and "Mambo No. 5". As a nine-year old at the time, the video introduced me to a weirdness I'd never seen on primetime TV before; it's probably the first music video I can remember my family despising.
Comment DJs tell us what happens when the hype dies or becomes too overwhelming Words: Jack Needham | Art: Lawrence Abbott 7 September 2017 Everyone has a past that's at odds with their present. Punk icons now sell you low cholesterol butter, and nobody but Morrissey likes Morrissey anymore.
"As a teenager, way back when, I remember reading a book by the famous marine biologist Jacques Cousteau called 'The Silent Undersea World'...and I thought that it was bollocks," says Chris Watson. As a field recordist, sound designer and composer, Watson's work uncovers the natural, audial phenomena of our world.
Music streaming accounts for more than 51 per cent of the market share for album consumption, yet many artists struggle to get their share of the profits. "Technology is a big destroyer of emotion and truth," as musician Jack White once put it - but what technology takes with one hand, it often gives back with the other.
Could the future of music be body modifications that change the way we interact with instruments and technology, or even a new realm of sound opened up with specialist hearing implants? Jack Needham investigates how bio-hacking is not only changing the we create music, but the way we perceive it.
How an educational children's TV show from the late 1970s inspired artists from De La Soul to MF Doom and beyond
Liberation Day tells the story of Laibach, the first western band to be welcomed into North Korea. Throughout their 37-year career, not-unfounded controversies have become as much a part of the five-piece industrial rock group's brand as their totalitarian aesthetics and the not-unlike-fascist uniforms (designed to disrupt as much as anger) that they wear on stage.
A track-by-track sprint through the landmark album's most important samples. The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique was a masterpiece in sampling, and an album that could never be made in the same way again. Created during the golden age of sampling - that is, before stricter copyright laws were enforced - Paul's Boutique epitomised the times.
The infectious rhythm known as Makossa was once the heartbeat of Cameroon, and dominated the streets and radio stations throughout Central and West Africa. Translated as "(I) dance" in the Douala language, spoken across Cameroon's coastal regions where the genre formed, Makossa was very much at the heart of the country's post-independence musical pride.
As Eddie Peake, Actress and more bring Volcano Extravaganza to Naples this week, we explore the best record shops keeping the Napoli sound alive. Found at the foot of Mount Vesuvius lies Napoli, the second-largest municipality in Italy and capital of the Italian region of Campania.
Japan's ever-changing, contrasting landscapes have influenced its culture for centuries, through both technological advancement and natural phenomena. The awe-inspiring wonder of Mount Fuji is just a 90-minute train ride from the skyscrapers of Tokyo. New volcanic islands surrounding Japan have been formed as recently as 2013.
You've lugged your equipment across the city centre to reach your destination, having taken two buses, a train and a 20-minute walk staggering beneath the weight of your back-breaking record bag. You pitch yourself up behind the booth and begin your set.
FACT Rated is our series digging into the sounds and stories of the most vital breaking artists around right now. Today, Jack Needham meets Kenyan producer and rapper Kelvin Hansen who, between his solo work as Nu Fvnk and his EA Wave producer collective, is helping cultivate an exciting new sound in the capital of Nairobi.
In my immediate surrounding there is nothing to see but open water, mud, geese and a petrol light blinking red. Having been told the best way to visit the Highlands is via a motorhome tour, getting stuck in the middle of Loch Lomond five miles from the nearest pub isn't really honouring that recommendation.
Benjamin Loyseau captures the enduring hidden emotions that persevere through stories of conflict or human strife. Through his photography, Loyseau implores us to find empathy in the individuals who otherwise become lost in the wider stories that surround their lives.
On the night of July 12, 1979, 'the death of disco' was declared from Comiskey Park, Chicago. Orchestrated by local radio host Steve Dahl, the night that came to be known 'Disco Demolition Day' saw the destruction of over 20,000 disco records during a baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers.
' ,' so says the property website Why Dalston is the coolest place in Britain movebubble, seemingly without any sense of irony or self-awareness. As greasy spoons make way for brunch bars and new money overtakes old community, the mainstays that represent Dalston's heritage are a dying breed, but amid the changing face of east London and down a narrow backstreet lies Eldica.
Sitting almost perfectly in the center of Virginia, Richmond is a city of dual identities. On one side, it is home to a host of Fortune 500 companies; on the other, more than 25 percent of its population lives below the poverty line. Known as 'The River City,' the music of Richmond has a similar duality.
Practitioners of the art of field recording on the history of the artform and their distinct creative possibilities
Goldie, by all accounts, is an artist who we should know almost everything about. Timeless, the album that propelled him from underground esteem to mainstream acclaim, has kept him exactly that for over 22 years since its release in 1995.
Last year computer scientists unveiled the first song to be composed by artificial intelligence, the Beatles-esque ditty 'Daddy's Car'. But it's not the first sign of AI infiltrating music-making - from self-generating soundtracks to unique albums created on demand, the robots are on the march.
It feels a little like time is moving in slow-motion right now. Having only withstood two weeks of Trump's presidency so far, we've witnessed both the smallest and the biggest inauguration crowd in history. The image of a neo-Nazi being punched in the face has been carved into the landscape of time forevermore.
Earlier this month, a Manchester clubbing institution shut its doors for the last time. In its '90s and '00s heyday, Sankeys Soap converted thousands of fresh-faced clubbers to the cause and flew the flag for house and techno hedonism as bland superclubs tried to kill of the spirit of rave, with everyone from Jeff Mills to the Spice Girls welcomed inside.
2017: What the fuck is going on? After embarking on a 23 year, self-inflicted hiatus, The KLF are back in an attempt to answer that question. Formed in 1987 by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, The KLF made destroying the mainstream music industry their mission, and - perhaps inadvertently - became the embodiment of a country gripped by rave culture in the process.
When I first make contact with Marcel Dettmann I'm met with a faint voice and a sort of, barely audible droning hum. He asks to rearrange our conversation for another day as he's driving his family out of town for the festive period. When we next speak...
In 1998, Wu-Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard famously stormed the stage at the Grammys to proclaim that "Wu-Tang is for the children". While not everyone would agree with that, it spoke truth: hip hop is for the children, a voice that resonates across the youth whether as a frustrated teen or, perhaps more importantly, as a long sought-after global representation of yourself.
From Fabric to free parties, Night Czars to night tubes, this was all the history - good and bad - that was made at night this year.
From its humble TB-303 noodling origins in Chicago, acid house has become one of the world's most popular genres of dance music. But no culture has absorbed the excitement of that squelchy bassline quite like Japan's. To learn more about Japanese acid addiction, read Dazed Digital's great new long-form piece.
The 80s was a divided time for Britain: for some it was an era of prosperity, but for almost everyone else it was an era of dismantled communities under Thatcherism. Towards the end of the era, however, the combination of the new drug ecstasy and the new dance music form of acid house ushered in a period of free-spirited hedonism.
2016 was the year grime hit the mainstream, but it was also the year it lost one of its earliest patrons in Darren Platt, founder of Channel U. Here we salute the legacy of one of the genre's unsung heroes.
"This is more than just someone in New York City linking Nazi Germany to Donald Trump in a 'hell yeah' kind of way," said the Beastie Boys' Adam 'Ad-Rock' Horovitz on Sunday, addressing a crowd in Adam Yauch Park, a playground in Brooklyn named after his late bandmate Adam 'MCA' Yauch.
Before the Islamic Revolution in the 1979, Iran was a musical hotbed that mixed east and west. Now a new generation of young electronic producers are rising up and carrying the torch.
As 2016 loses another cultural icon, we celebrate the godfather of disco's LGBT legacy at The Loft, the private club in Mancuso's house that became home to a movement.
"In the scene you come across people in the generations above who would say 'African music really took a bad turn in the late-80s, early-90s with all these synthesisers'" Brian Shimkovitz explains, with an understandably sarcastic tone in his voice.
Darren Hughes from Cream started putting me on after the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Sasha and The Chemical Brothers. All these big guys were like ‘who the fuck is Steve Lawler?’ I start our conversation with a simple “so, it’s been a hectic few years...
It’s difficult to pinpoint where in the musical world an artist like Elderbrook fits into. A classically trained multi-instrumentalist whose equally as inspired by Bon Iver as he is Biggie Smalls, someone who leans as much towards folk as he does house...
ldquo;My parents had asked me what I wanted to be when I was older, and supposedly I said to them that I wanted to be a DJ in Ibiza even though I had no idea what one was”. “My Dad once told me a story from when I was 5 years old” begins wAFF, taking a ...
Nervous Records' founder Michael Weiss and iconic DJ Louie Vega and give us the inside story of the record label that made house history in NYC.
It's very rare that a few chosen points of reference can encompass an entire era, something that immediately enters your mind when taking a nostalgia trip through a forgotten youth and paints a perfect picture of that time. For those who experienced their adolescence in 90s Britain it was scenes of M25 hedonism, Mancunian pride, and Ministry of Sound.
It's difficult to describe a festival like Dekmantel. As a first timer at Amsterdam's three day weekender I tried to keep the hype surrounding the festival at arms length so as not to be succumbed by a wave of sheer disappointment. After all, Dekmantel comes with it a reputation like few others.
Police intervention in UK club culture is not new. From Thatcher's disdain for the rave scene to the repeated closures and inevitable death of Sheffield's Niche, the home of the bassline scene, few genres avoid the extended reach of the long arm of the law.