Cold War Electronica: Atomic Anthems
Five synth-driven gems from the 1980s that captured the paranoia and effervescent pop of the nuclear age – tales of tension, technology, hope and fear, as told by the artists themselves
William Basinski: Loop Guru
William Basinski’s ‘The Disintegration Loops’ has attained legendary status. As an expansive new reissue drops, this dark ambient masterpiece drifts back into focus, shimmering with haunted reverie
Chicks On Speed: Fast And Furious
Anarchic art-poppers Chicks On Speed are back with a career-spanning boxset and typically provocative new material. Co-founder Alex Murray-Leslie discusses witches, creative rebirths and trying to “break music”
Jonny Slut : That Nagging Feeling
With a killer electroclash compilation just released, Nag Nag Nag founder and DJ Jonny Slut lifts the lid on wild club nights, his Human League fixation and the time Cilla Black got down to some seriously filthy tunes
Tristram Cary: A Century In Sound
This year marks the centenary of Tristram Cary’s birth. Regarded as the father of British electronic music, it’s……
Cold War Electronica: A For Armageddon
By the mid-1980s, the threat of nuclear annihilation was dominating British culture. Actor Reece Dinsdale and film editor John Cary look back at their contributions to two keystones of the Cold War aesthetic – ‘Threads’ and ‘When The Wind Blows’
Cold War Electronica: Cold Warrior
Factory Records insider and founding member of Die Unbekannten, Mark Reeder arrived in West Berlin in 1978. His Cold War life in the divided city, smuggling music into the East like a dangerous subversive, reads like a post-punk spy yarn
Cold War Electronica: The Hands Of Doom
Created in 1947, the Doomsday Clock is a terrifying visual representation of how near we are to the end of the world. The closer that the hands get to midnight, the closer we get to oblivion
Cold War Electronica: Wired For War
The birth of electronic music carried the tensions of its age – Cold War anxiety, nuclear dread and divided ideologies. From Stockhausen’s post-war Germany to musique concrète, radio labs and tape experiments, an avant-garde soundtrack emerged, documenting decades of division, secrecy and a world permanently wired for fear
Cold War Electronica: The Jingle At The End Of The World
In 1975, the Central Office of Information secretly produced the chilling ‘Protect And Survive’ series of public information films, to be broadcast on British TV in the event of an imminent nuclear war. And the composer of its jingle, potentially the final piece of music the country would ever hear? The BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s Roger Limb