In electronic music, it’s hard to exaggerate the importance of Isao Tomita’s work. Born in Japan in the 1930s, Tomita imagined other worlds – seemingly outside his own, human reach – and so used his ...

Tim Westwood is something of a British radio legend. As the voice of hip-hop on the BBC throughout the ’90s and early ’00s, Westwood became something like English Funkmaster Flex – ubiquitous, whether ...

Frankie Knuckles was best known as the godfather of house, but that only scrapes the surface. Born in the Bronx, he grew up during the early days of disco and was a regular at The Loft and The Gallery ...

Asha Puthli is a name that’s legendary for many reasons. Over five decades the singer, songwriter and actress has released ten albums, over 25 singles and made numerous guest appearances on a wide ...

Starting out in garage-rock band the Nazz, Todd Rundgren moved seamlessly through prog, power pop and hard rock and became a heavyweight record producer, with the massive multiplatinum Bat Out of Hell ...

Since its inception in 1989, Warp Records has become one of England’s most influential and respected modern record labels. Founded in Sheffield by Steve Beckett and the late Rob Mitchell, Warp tapped ...

If there ever was a DJ/producer/engineer that deserved a monograph, it is probably François Kevorkian. After moving to New York in 1975, his influential disco edits and medleys landed him an A&R job ...

Since the early 1970s, when he began to make music with his childhood friend and Cabaret Voltaire partner Richard H Kirk, Stephen Mallinder has followed a uniquely crooked path. This route has taken ...

A singer, songwriter, producer and actress, Janelle Monáe has been electrifying audiences with her hybrid brand of Afrofuturist funk, soul and R&B since her 2010 debut LP The ArchAndroid. Most ...

For many young indie music fans making their way through the “alternative” section of their local record store in the mid-’90s, it was the music of Stereolab, and in particular the voice of chanteuse ...

Krautrock is a broad, catchall genre that encompasses the many permutations of experimental rock music created by German bands in the ’70s. But one of krautrock’s greatest ironies is that the lead ...

Tom Moulton is the producer famed for his mixes of Gloria Gaynor’s “Never Can Say Goodbye,” MFSB’s “Love Is the Message” and hundreds of other disco and soul songs, beginning with B.T. Express’s 1974 ...