Piers Martin
The Sound of Fear
Film composer Alan Howarth on the Sci-Fi and horror soundtracks that defined a genre.
Synthesisers In The Rain
Every so often, Scandinavia produces a group who seem to exist in a world of their own, but whose music welcomes you in like an old friend. Röyksopp had that quality, so too, rather more sadistically, do The Knife. And now, from the land of ski-jumping...
Electric Independence
Regular readers may have noticed the absence of this column in Vice for most of last year. For those who cared, I can only mumble a sheepish apology and promise to write it more regularly. What amazing new music have you missed out on? Quite a lot, I...
Electric Independence
For the second month in a row we're over in New York, in a manner of speaking, talking to a couple of guys who've made an incredible record that perhaps a few hundred people might think about buying. We're talking about the Galaxy Toobin' Gang, of...
Electric Independence
There’s rarely anything positive to say about the Daily Mail or the Mail on Sunday, but it wasn’t the toughest decision in the world to buy a copy of the paper the other weekend when it offered a free copy of Jean Michel Jarre’s <i...
Electric Independence
At the end of October last year, Bogdan Raczynski fell from a hotel window in Graz, Austria, and ended up in hospital with two broken heels. Heels-ouch. In Graz to perform at the four-day Elevate festival, the mild-mannered rave heavyweight-who...
Electric Independence
We aren’t the first to say this, and we surely won’t be the last, but, goodness, that Italians Do It Better label knows what it’s doing. This is the New Jersey/Portland imprint that’s been getting a ridiculous amount of heat online in all the right...
Electric Independence
This month’s Electric Independence is dedicated to all the stubborn romantics who spend hours and hours in tiny rooms, slaving over arcane hardware and crunching numbers in a tireless bid to create the music that comes to them in their wildest dreams...
Electric Independence
With a name as good as Passarella Death Squad, it was only a matter of time before this London three-piece got round to releasing an amazing record. Well, folks, that time is now. Having formed in November 2003, it has taken them nearly four years, but...
Electric Independence
Every edition of Electric Independence that appears without a mention of one of Sweden’s leading human beings, Luke Eargoggle, is, some would argue, hardly worth bothering about. As the author, I’m inclined to agree. That’s one reason why the column...
Electric Independence
In Zanzibar for a few days during September, I wandered with my sister through the narrow streets of the East African island's ancient capital, Stone Town, one sweltering afternoon. We'd been to the market, where guys nodded off on butcher's blocks...
Electric Independence
It is hard to believe that Norway's Skatebård could ever top the off-kilter brilliance of his debut, Skateboarding was a Crime (in 1989), but somehow he has. Released in 2002 on the Telle label (what happened to them?) to no fanfare whatsoever...