Feature: Wings Of Desire: An Interview With Dustin O'Halloran (The Quietus)

My ongoing obsession with the neo-classical scene continues thanks to Dustin O'Halloran, who's branched out from his solo releases for a collaboration with Stars Of The Lids' Adam Wiltzie. A stunning collection of melodic piano work shrouded in mists of ambience, A Winged Victory For The Sullen is one of the year's most beautiful albums. It's nestling quietly http://thequietus.com/articles/06985-dustin-o-halloran-winged-victory-interview.

Feature: Wings Of Desire: An Interview With Dustin O'Halloran (The Quietus)

Feature: After The Flood: Talk Talk's Laughing Stock 20 Years On (The Quietus)

Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden remains the record I value above all others, with the band's final album, Laughing Stock, also a special favourite. I'm far from alone in this opinion, as the constant name-checking of both records by musicians confirms. The story behind both records is long and complicated, however, and, on the 20th anniversary of the latter's release, The Quietus invited me to examine the story. Containing interviews with manager Keith Aspden and studio engineer Phill Brown, as well as some fairly exhaustive research and comments by other fans of the record - including Wild Beasts and James Lavelle (Mo'Wax, UNKLE) - After The Flood: Talk Talk's Laughing Stock 20 Years On is online here.

Feature: After The Flood: Talk Talk's Laughing Stock 20 Years On (The Quietus)

Feature: A Musician vs The Music Industry: A Conversation (The Quietus)

"In late May, The Quietus published a story entitled ‘How The Music Industry Is Killing Music And Blaming The Fans’.... Despite its considerable length, the piece went on to become the most read story the site had published to date, provoking a stream of comments and also a slew of private messages. Amongst them was a mail from Joe Cardamone, who turned out to be the singer of The Icarus Line. Some three weeks later, a promotional copy of the band’s new album, Wildlife, arrived... I suggested we pick up our communication once again to discuss the issues raised in more detail. What follows is an edited version of a candid exchange, beginning with Joe’s original message sent a few days after the original feature’s publication."

Feature: A Musician vs The Music Industry: A Conversation (The Quietus)

Feature: "A Long Tradition Of Pessimists": Roll The Dice Play Ball (The Quietus)

Sweden's Roll The Dice make dark, dark music. That should be reason enough to chat with them. So I did. Find out what happened here.

"For all its bleak augury, In Dust convinces us that, although its creators have allowed it to be created mechanically, they're constantly pulling at the levers trying to ensure that it maintains some sense of humanity..."

Feature: "A Long Tradition Of Pessimists": Roll The Dice Play Ball (The Quietus)

Feature: A Scenic Highway To Hell: Ppartying At The Pstereo Festival (The Quietus)

And so it's time to return to Norway for the Pstereo Festival in Trondheim. If you want a breakdown of who was hot and who was not, try other journalists. But if you want to know what happened when I was let loose on the streets of that Norwegian city for a couple of nights, then this should do the trick.

"My heart's bruising my ribs, I'm losing the feeling in my left leg and my blood's pumping so ferociously that I'm expecting my hands to fly from my wrists like fireworks..."

Feature: A Scenic Highway To Hell: Ppartying At The Pstereo Festival (The Quietus)

Feature: Pursuing The Obel Arts - An Interview With Agnes Obel (The Quietus)

"The music journalist has an hour in which to unlock the secrets of the musician's work and make it interesting to readers, and the musician in turn needs to communicate enough to intrigue the journalist or else the promotional opportunity will have been wasted. Another day in the life…"

Agnes Obel - almost a neighbour of mine, it turns out - is neither shy or especially reserved, but she's about as far from the tired cliché of both a depressed singer songwriter and a mouthy wannabe indie rock star as one could hope. You can find an unusually down-to-earth discussion of what it's like to watch your music go from 0-250,000 in the space of just a few weeks here...

Feature: Pursuing The Obel Arts - An Interview With Agnes Obel (The Quietus)

Feature: We Are All Norwegians - How Norway’s Bravery Is An Example To Us All (The Quietus)

Norway has become something of a second home for me. I have probably spent more time there since I moved to Berlin than I have done in the UK. The news of the appalling shootings that took place in Oslo on July 22, 2011, were therefore an especially tremendous shock. The country's reaction, however, was extraordinary. In response to the mixed feelings that the nation clearly felt as it gathered under the country's flag, due to the fact that the murders had been carried out by an extreme nationalist, I was prompted me to write a tribute to a country whose behaviour was nobler and more dignified than anyone had any right to expect.

"The old order, in which a nation’s identity is defined by the nature of its historical inhabitants, is no longer relevant. The passports we hold are simply the result of an accident of geography."

The full article is here on the Quietus, and was also reproduced by Matador here.

Feature: We Are All Norwegians - How Norway’s Bravery Is An Example To Us All (The Quietus)

Feature: Tim Burgess On Loving Lawrence & Felt, "Birmingham's Best Band" (The Quietus)

Now this was unexpected, and unexpectedly fun. Tim Burgess of The Charlatans decides to join me on a drive from London to Essen to see KORT, Cortney Tidwell and Kurt Wagner's collaborative project, as I finally drive my entire record collection from London to Berlin. A conversation about Felt ensues, and upon my return we pick up the threads and turn it into a formal interview. The Quietus has it all here.

"I remember walking down Parkway in Camden. I was walking on the street and Lawrence pulled me onto the curb and actually shouted at me. 'A rock star can not be killed by a black cab or a mini cab!'"

Feature: Tim Burgess On Loving Lawrence & Felt, "Birmingham's Best Band" (The Quietus)

Feature: Beyond The Pleasuredome - Frankie's 'Liverpool' 25 Years On (The Quietus)

Having previously written at length about Frankie Goes To Hollywood's debut album, which - for me, at least - represented a Never Mind The Bollocks for the 1980s generation - The Quietus allowed me to wax at length about its follow-up, Liverpool. It's odd that a reader's comment should perhaps nail why I felt the urge to write about this critically and commercially disappointing record, but "I've never read such a fantastically written essay on such a crap album" made me grin a great deal.

"The day-glo colours and the sense of fun and mischief at the heart of their debut had disappeared, replaced by an often monochromatic vision, a seething anger and a raw sense of injustice. This wasn't the Frankie we expected, five cheeky lads in leather waving plastic guns at us and revelling in sexual innuendo, the gang to whom we'd given our hearts wrapped in baggy T-shirts."

The full story is here.

Feature: Beyond The Pleasuredome - Frankie's 'Liverpool' 25 Years On (The Quietus)

Feature: We Dream On Cardboard - Staff Benda Bilili's Rise From The Streets (The Quietus)

When I first heard Staff Benda Bilili, I was so inspired that I actually considered flying to the Democratic Republic Of Congo, their home - if you can call the grounds of capital city Kinshasa's zoo a home. These formerly homeless, disabled musicians have since gone on to seduce people all over the world, while I haven't travelled further than Norway all year.

But the release of Benda Bilili!, a documentary about their last five years, was a great excuse to write about the band without risking my life in the world's most dangerous country."'I’m working for our children’s future,' Ricky explains. 'If I die, what will I be leaving them? A sewing machine. They won’t have anything, not even a roof over their heads. With the music I’ve composed, it’s different. If it’s successful in Europe, it’ll bring in money every year. My kids will be saved."' Mumford & Sons they are not. Find out why here.

Feature: We Dream On Cardboard - Staff Benda Bilili's Rise From The Streets (The Quietus)

Album Review: Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (The Quietus)

It took me a very long time to get to grips with the appeal of Bon Iver's first album, but I got there in the end, and this new one opens up whole new horizons for Justin Vernon, even if it then closes them down lyrically. "Not for Coldplay the lines "doubled in the toes annex it, it minute closed in the morning did not lose it in the stack's stow, imma lay that call back on ya", sung back to them by a mass crowd waving lighters in the air."

Read my review for The Quietus here.

Album Review: Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (The Quietus)

Feature: How The Music Industry Is Killing Music And Blaming The Fans (The Quietus)

Years spent working with musicians, labels, publishers and other sundry music industry types have allowed me to see how changing listening habits have affected not only the business' bottom lines but also made it harder and harder for new musicians to be heard, even though we live in a time when music has never been more accessible. The resulting feature became The Quietus' biggest article to date, shared on Facebook thousands of times and inspiring passionate arguments across the board.

Not everyone agreed with the scenario I presented - "Though democracy won't allow for musicians to be gagged, it can still price them out of the market" - but at the very least it got people talking about issues which I consider very important. You can join in the debate here.

Feature: How The Music Industry Is Killing Music And Blaming The Fans (The Quietus)

Feature: Pure Magic - Julianna Barwick Interviewed (The Quietus)

Sometimes it's necessary to slow things down and enter a world of quiet contemplation. Thank Lousiana for giving us Julianna Barwick, then, who introduces us, perhaps accidentally, to the middle ground between Enya and and Eno. "When something is sad and beautiful at the same time," she says, "it just kills me. It always has. I love that sound." And so do I.

Lie back and let Julianna Hardwick tell you about The Magic Place here.

Feature: Pure Magic - Julianna Barwick Interviewed (The Quietus)

Feature: "The Story Of ThIs Is The Sea - Mike Scott of The Waterboys Interviewed" (The Quietus)

I spent long hours as a teenager under the bedsheets with The Waterboys' third album on my headphones, and I still return regularly to it today, so I was arguably well qualified to discuss its genesis with the band's Mike Scott for The Quietus some 25 years after its release.

In this interview he talks about The Big Music and about how "I keep alert for what the music is saying to me and it always, always, always tells me what to do. And I fucking do it!"

Feature: "The Story Of ThIs Is The Sea - Mike Scott of The Waterboys Interviewed" (The Quietus)

Album Review: Moddi's 'Floriography' (The Quietus)

Winner of a massive grant from A-ha in 2010 designed to help promote Norwegian artists to the world, Moddi finally released his debut album in April 2011, some months after it saw the light of day in his homeland. "It's possibly not a timeless debut, but it's full of timeless music that ebbs and flows like the tide." Read my review here.

Album Review: Moddi's 'Floriography' (The Quietus)

Feature: "Lars Of The International Playboys: Mr Horntveth Of Jaga Jazzist Interviewed" (The Quietus)

So there I am, back on the very boat that saw me attempt yoga for the first time, this time for what can only be called an Anti-Yoga Safari, when I realise that one of my fellow passengers on what's meant to be a cod fishing expedition is none other than Mr Lars Horntveth, star of Jaga Jazzist and the man behind 'Kaleidoscopic', one of the albums I mentioned in my recent Sunday Times piece about the 'neo-classical' movement. Well, naturally I had to corner the poor, exhausted man after he'd finished his sauna, hot tub and hammam for a chat about Norwegian music, Norwegian stereotypes, and his career to date. It's all here.

"Over the next few days Lars makes a fair stab at unwinding. He soaks in the hot tub in a woollen hat, declining the beers clutched tightly in the hands of other passengers from lunchtime until the small hours. He roasts himself in the Hammam until his skin is puce, then lowers himself tentatively into the freezing pool, only to emerge into the fog once more. He endures prolonged bouts in the sauna as the monochrome mountains pass by the windows, emerging briefly on one memorable occasion in just a towel to take charge of a fishing rod for a brief burst of angling amidst a howling gale..."

Feature: "Lars Of The International Playboys: Mr Horntveth Of Jaga Jazzist Interviewed" (The Quietus)

Feature: "Radiohead: Probing Beyond The Hits" (The Quietus)

And back they came, Oxford's finest, with another album released at short notice. Whether or not The King Of Limbs matches the wonderful In Rainbows is open to question, but it gave The Quietus a fine excuse to look at the hidden gems in their back catalogue. It's far from exhaustive, but I like to think my contributions shed a little light on at least a couple of lesser known nuggets, including the early B-side, 'Coke Babies'. Dig deeper here.

"'Myxomatosis (Judge, Jury And Executioner)', from the band's patchy sixth album, is one of their most menacing. Perhaps its impact is increased for me personally by a childhood memory of watching an infected animal bludgeoned to death with the back side of an axe."

Feature: "Radiohead: Probing Beyond The Hits" (The Quietus)

Feature: "News Of The World: Kate Adie Interviewed On Music And War" (The Quietus)

The thing about being a music journalist is that you know there's a chance, from time to time, that you'll meet your heroes. But you don't always expect to meet heroes from outside your field of (ahem) expertise. But here I am, chatting with the celebrated Kate Adie, one of the legends of broadcast journalism, about The Fall, Madonna, PJ Harvey and, inevitably, war and journalism.

"You do not hold power with a camera or a notebook. That is a myth. You do not shame people into better behaviour when they are at a level of determination you can hardly guess at. That's a very important lesson." She shares more in this surprisingly intimate interview, and I also get to provide a portrait of the great lady...

Feature: "News Of The World: Kate Adie Interviewed On Music And War" (The Quietus)

Album Review: East River Pipe - We Live In Rented Rooms (The Quietus)

I've loved the work of Fred 'F.M.' Cornog since the mid 90s, and his new album does nothing to change that. His records "aren't meant to rise above the clamour: they’re there for when all the other noise becomes too much." There's much more on the subject here...

Album Review: East River Pipe - We Live In Rented Rooms (The Quietus)

Live Review: "Neither Saviours Nor False Messiahs: Godspeed Live In Berlin" (The Quietus)

"For 15 minutes, as the rumbling grows into one huge, tumescent roar, that's all we've got: HOPE. We've waited the best part of a decade to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor perform live again, and God knows those hopes are high."

Could they live up to expectations? Find out here.

Live Review: "Neither Saviours Nor False Messiahs: Godspeed Live In Berlin" (The Quietus)