Electronic
10 Times Daft Punk Blew Our Minds
After nearly 30 years of groundbreaking music, Parisian duo Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, famously known as Daft Punk, amicably ended their partnership. The band were among the most influential and renowned acts of their time, crafting a unique sound that merged electronic, Euro music with funk elements — a unique blend that made them icons in the music world. After hearing the news, fans and fellow artists alike gushed forth with tributes denoting the massive reach of the dynamic duo’s one-of-a-kind artistry. Without question, Daft Punk’s artistic ingenuity and anonymity have left an indelible mark on the music industry and beyond. We don’t know for sure if there’s a future for Daft Punk. However, we can surely pause a day later to look back and celebrate the lega...
The King of Limbs Remains a Crucial Piece of the Radiohead Puzzle
Editor’s Note: Radiohead’s The King of Limbs came out on February 18th, 2011, to strong sales but mixed criticism. A decade later, our own Jordan Blum revisits the band’s eighth studio album and its gradual journey toward the heart of many fans. For more articles like these, check out our Are These Classics Yet? series. People have often said that Radiohead are the last great rock band. While that may be an unfair and hyperbolic assessment — especially since they frequently defy categorization — it’s certainly an understandable one. After all, no other group in the last 30 years have managed to fully sustain their integrity amidst achieving endlessly admirable evolutions and perpetually outstanding commercial and critical reception. In that sense, they’re like a modern-day Bea...
The Avalanches on the Universe, Mortality, and the Afterlife
Kyle Meredith With… The Avalanches Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS The Avalanches grab some time with Kyle Meredith to dive into the creation of their new concept album, We Will Always Love You, which finds the sample masters teaming up with dozens of famous artists to create songs about the universe, mortality, and the afterlife. Together, Robbie Chater and Tony Diblasi discuss the importance of songwriting over sampling and working with Mick Jones. Later, we get a glimpse into what the upcoming tour will look like, which should find the two bringing back the art form of sampling live in front of the audience as they deconstruct songs and build them back up. Kyle Meredith With…&n...
Sonic Boom Announces Remix Album Almost Nothing Is Nearly Enough, Shares “On a Summer’s Day (Remix)”: Stream
In 2020, after a 30 year hiatus, Spaceman 3 co-founder Peter Kember revived his Sonic Boom moniker to share the album All Things Being Equal. Now he’s diving back into that world, announcing a new LP of ATBE remixes called Almost Nothing Is Nearly Enough. To herald the April 23rd release date, Kember has shared the lead single, “On A Summer’s Day (Remix)”. Almost Nothing Is Nearly Enough contains six reworked ATBE tracks, alongside two songs that had previously only been released in Japan: the title track and “Tick Tock”. According to a press release, Kember was inspired by Kraftwerk, Moroder, Blondie, and Eddy Grant to craft a sound both hypnotic and moody. Lyrically, he’s driven by age-old concerns about man’s inhumanity to our fellow man and the effects of techn...
3OH!3 on What to Expect from 303 Day
Kyle Meredith With… 3OH!3 Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS 3OH!3 sit down with Kyle Meredith to detail their upcoming return-to-form record, NEED. Nate Motte and Sean Foreman explain how this new set speaks to their earlier songs, meeting fan expectations, and writing a sad anthem against the abundance of positive songs in pop music. The electronic duo also discuss maturing into middle age and how that finds its way into the music, the 00’s resurgence, and a teaser of the album’s special guests and upcoming 303 Day. Kyle Meredith With… is an interview series in which WFPK’s Kyle Meredith speaks to a wide breadth of musicians. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Meredith digs ...
John Carpenter’s Lost Themes III Haunts With Urgency: Review
The Lowdown: Six years after returning to the synthesizer for 2015’s Lost Themes, the Master of Horror is back for more with its second sequel: Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Once again, John Carpenter is working alongside his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies, a collaboration that’s only grown stronger with time. “We understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning,” Carpenter has stated in press releases leading up to its release, adding: “We’ve matured.” That growth is evident in all 10 tracks of his latest opus, and the tagline is thus: John Carpenter is back, and this time we’re ready. The Good: Synths and piano have forever been the easiest flexes for Carpenter. He didn’t ...
Song of the Week: Danny L Harle Urges Us to Dance and Heal with “On a Mountain”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. It feels significant that British producer Danny L Harle chose to file his latest banger, “On a Mountain”, under his DJ Danny alias. Because, let’s face it: DJs need a win right now. Yes, our favorite spinners have found ways to keep busy behind the scenes over the course of the pandemic. Harle, himself, aside from prepping his upcoming solo album, Harlecore, has remixed no less than Georgia and 100 gecs and produced for 2020 standouts Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama in addition to longtime collaborator Caroline Polachek. That’s damn-good work ...
Blue Stahli Premieres New Single “Catastrophe”: Stream
Blue Stahli, the one-man electro-industrial act masterminded by Bret Autrey, returns with the new album Obsidian this Friday (January 15th). In advance of its release, Heavy Consequence is presenting the exclusive premiere of the track ‘Catastrophe”. Under various names, Autrey has been releasing music since the late ’90s, recording under the Blue Stahli name beginning in 2006. Obsidian marks the the third in his new “deadchannel_Trilogy” of albums, preceded by Quartz in October and Copper in November. The themes of the albums revolve around Autrey’s own tragic loss of his mother to brain cancer in 2018. Regarding the song “Catastrophe”, Autrey tells us, “My songs range from being purely electronic to having more of an electronic rock feel, and ‘Catastrophe’ is a track that will hopef...
Daft Punk Upload Tron: Legacy Bonus Tracks to Streaming Services
Daft Punk have revealed Tron: Legacy — The Complete Edition, a 10th anniversary update of their only film soundtrack. The expanded reissue contains a total of nine bonus tracks, and you can stream it below via Apple Music or Spotify. This comes on the heels of their September vinyl box set from Mondo, which notably included seven previously-unreleased songs: “Sea of Simulation”, “ENCOM, Part II”, “ENCOM, Part I”, “Round One”, “Castor”, and “Reflections”. That deluxe edition was only available on vinyl until this week, when it suddenly appeared on some streaming services for the first time. But it had changed over the last couple of months, acquiring an additional two bonus tracks (“Father and Sons” and “Outlands, Part II”, which were previously iTunes exclusives) as well as the fittin...
12-Year-Old DJ Has Equipment Confiscated After School Bathroom Rave
Cael Bell, 12-year-old DJ and all-ages legend, had his equipment confiscated after hosting a rave in the school bathroom. As his mother Louise Bell related on Facebook, the saga began about two weeks ago, when the budding turntablist sent out a Snapchat announcement inviting “all the boys from year 8” at St. Antony’s Catholic College in Manchester, UK. Together, they held an impromptu dance fest in the boys lavatory during lunch period on December 11th. The set included complimentary soft drinks and Cadbury Twirls, and while a school bathroom is a below-average setting for such a lunch, it is certainly cleaner than your typical rave. The set lasted 30 minutes before anti-fun authorities broke it up. Bell’s mother said that the boy’s speaker and lights have been impounded, although she...
The Avalanches Transport the Listener on We Will Always Love You: Review
The Lowdown: In a recent interview with the BBC, founding member of The Avalanches, Robbie Chater, said of We Will Always Love You, “We were thinking a lot about signal transmission and how every radio broadcast from the last hundred years is still floating out there in space … It’s a beautiful thought to me that all these broadcasts are still out there, surrounding us.” It’s easy to feel this focus in the album, an expansive cosmic compendium that finds its tracks crackling and churning into one another. The context of the album’s production — how the band was inspired by the idea that sampling old records is like summoning old spirits and by the recording of Ann Druyan’s heartbeat for the Golden Record just after Carl Sagan proposed to her — helps, but it isn’t strictly necessary. This a...
Top 50 Songs of 2020
The 2020 edition of our Annual Report continues today with our Top 50 Songs of 2020. If you haven’t already, check out our Top 50 Albums of 2020, which came out earlier in the week. Also, be sure to tune in next week as we begin handing out our annual accolades and continue looking back on the strange year that was 2020. Upon being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame some years ago, Tom Waits said, “We love music, but what we really want is for music to love us back.” Believe it or not, it felt like music did that in 2020. For me, anyway. I know that it’s easy to see the world through pandemic goggles right now or strictly through the lens of racial injustice or political turmoil. Tragedy and frustration that keeps piling on can definitely cloud our vision or color our window on t...
