Debbie Harry

I've been lucky enough in my career to interview some of my favourite artists and producers, but interviewing Debbie Harry was one of the coolest things I've done.

DEBBIE HARRY


They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago, and now, thirty years after the release of their breakthrough album Parallel Lines, Blondie have announced a world tour to celebrate the milestone. No Magazine speaks to singer Debbie Harry whose image stands as legacy to the band, perhaps even more so than the music they created.

Minilogue & Loco Dice

CLUBLAND MAY


The Swedish production team of Minilogue have barely put a foot wrong over the last few years. Originally starting out as Son Kite, producing progressive house and trance, they quickly branched out into more techno and house-centric material, finally abandoning their Son Kite project in 2004 in favour of their Minilogue moniker. Most of the releases have always held some element of this beginning but with ever more stylistic touches they have been refining their art, stripping back the clutter whilst enhancing the overall effect. With their debut album Animals recently released it looks like they have reached the zenith of this process. The album is in two parts; a dance oriented chapter and an ambient one, but let’s just look at the floor fare for now.

Portishead

PORTISHEAD

Back from the hinterland of an eleven year hiatus, Portishead gear up to release the aptly titled Third album; just don’t call it trip hop.

The nineties nostalgia capsule may be filled with rollerblades, Vanilla Ice and more about Jennifer Aniston’s hair than anybody ever wanted to know, but it also gave us musical sustenance (and pigeon-holing terminology) with grunge, drum & bass, brit-pop, and trip hop. The latter was one of those sleight of hand moments in music journalism that sought to define a style of emerging music but generally looked upon by the artists unfavourably.

The Littl'ans

NO MORE HIDING FROM SATURDAY NIGHT


London four-piece, the Littl’ans saw their indie rock star rise with an instant hit aided by the effortlessly shambolic Pete Doherty. Now after crashing back to earth they’ve picked up the pieces and once more set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Mark 'The Cobrasnake' Hunter

CAMERAS READY, PREPARE TO FLASH!


It’s there, for your immediate friends - no, the world to see. Your eyes fluttering even in the frozen still-motion of a captured image; drink hanging lazily by your side like a faithful puppy and cigarette pasted to the corner of your mouth but perilously close to succumbing to gravity’s inevitable conclusion. It’s not necessarily how you remember (?) your night but thanks to some scurrilous camera jockey and their photo blog it’s how it will go down in history. Elsewhere on the page everyone else perfectly epitomizes your imagined hipness.

Claro Intelecto

Clubland April

Spring slowly brings a thaw to the chilling vise of winter that held London gripped between its icy jaws. Early mornings are met now with shimmering dew and blinding shards of golden sunlight, the foggy breath of harried commuters heaving a ragged seasonal farewell, scarves giving way to flashes of bare milky necks.

Jimpster, Aaron Carl, Booka Shade

CLUBLAND

Chatting to a friend the other day about tennis shoes, Dadaist art and finally music, he was telling me how he found the latest Poker Flat comp just a little too dry for his tastes. To be honest I haven’t heard it yet so that’s about the only mention it’s going to get in this month’s column. But I could understand what he was on about; despite the fact that we’d just taken in a rather abstract and minimal art exhibition that seemed like it could have been the visual equivalent to sparse techno and arid, housey meanderings, that ultra stripped back sound isn’t for everyone.

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

ARTROCKERS

Séances with Nick Cave, recapturing the great concerts of psychiatric hospital history and mixtapes for the social networking generation; the art world according to Forsyth and Pollard.
It’s almost a courting tool of years gone by, a knick-knack you might find in Grandma’s hope chest in decades to come, something that exists now but through changing media has lost its true essence.

Shackleton, Quantec, Pablo Bolivar

CLUBLAND

If you’d never heard of Shackleton before Ricardo Villalobos got a hold of ‘Blood on my Hands’ then that record cemented him into your memory for all time. To extol the virtues of Villalobos’ immaculate remixes in two parts is somewhat pointless; if you know the tune then more than likely it’s been hanging around in your head/record bag/lap top/top ten ever since.

Sascha Funke - Mango

CLUBLAND FEBRUARY

A slack gray sheet of cloud whimpers across the London sky, spluttering greasy grains of moisture on to my head as I await the bus that begins my morning commute. I push my ear phones deep in to my aural cavity, remnant drops of my recent shower suctioning loudly against the pliable rubber moldings. There’s only one way to blank the pressed humanity of London’s daily commute, the jostling throngs of scurrying maze-rats about tube stations, the weak pushed aside or trampled underfoot.
Music, the sunglasses of the ears.