The Portal
From David Byrne to Swells and the Myth of 'Indie Sleaze'
This morning, David Byrne’s forthcoming album Who Is The Sky? dropped into the inbox, which was as good a reason as ever to travel down into the archive to see what we had on the former Talking Heads man and all-round virtuoso. The machine has come back with the Strange World Of… guide to his spectacular career, and a 2012 interview by John Doran from around the time of Byrne’s excellent book, How Music Works. Given there’s a new BBC podcast about on the early 00s ‘Indie Sleaze’ scene that did not exist, we’ve got Daniel Dylan Wray’s Black Sky Thinking on why it didn’t exist, and Ty Bulmer of New Young Pony Club (one of the key bands of this scene, which never existed) discussing Greek mythology, which existed in a far more tangible way than ‘Indie Sleaze’ ever did. We’ve also got the much-missed Swells on John Lydon and Morrissey, the 13 albums that made Thundercat, with a second Baker’s Dozen from Adrian Sherwood, whose new album is out soon. There’s also an interview with Mabe Fratti, and an Organic Intelligence newsletter on Iceland before the Sugarcubes – this is one of our exclusive subscriber articles and, as ever, we need more of those to keep on going through the rest of 2025. You can become a subscriber here. Thanks as ever for reading.
Baker's Dozen
Creating A Songwriter: The 13 Albums That Made Thundercat
The virtuoso bassist takes Rob Hakimian through his musical life story with a baker's dozen that traces his trajectory from kid messing with his parents' records to the in-demand player that he is today. Photographs by The1Point8.
Baker's Dozen
Sound Of Creation: Adrian Sherwood’s 13 Favourite Albums
Legendary UK dub producer and On-U-Sound founder Adrian Sherwood recently released his latest solo album Survival & Resistance. He talks David Stubbs through a list of his favourite albums and inspirations, from Ray Charles to Burning Spear
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