Ben Cardew

Sing It Like Foreigner: When Daft Punk Met Todd Edwards

In an exclusive extract from his new book, Daft Punk's Discovery: The Future Unfurled, Ben Cardew explores the collaboration between the French dance duo and New Jersey garage kingpin behind the classic track ‘Face to Face’

What Does ‘Hard’ Mean, Anyway? Unpicking Dance Music’s Extremity Fetish

Ben Cardew looks at how dance music's obsession with hardness is an arms race that cannot be won. Image via Bangface.

Low Culture 5: So Solid Crew’s They Don’t Know

The Low Culture series of essays written under lockdown continues with Ben Cardew taking a forensic look at So Solid Crew's debut album

How Rosalía’s Music Is A Journey To The Heart Of Divided Spain

Rosalía has been one of pop's standouts in recent years and, says Ben Cardew, her music provides a way for outsiders to understand the complexities of contemporary Spanish politics. Photo thanks to Primavera Sound / Sergio Albert

Things Learned At: Sonar 2018

As the venerable Sonar Festival reaches its 25th anniversary it shows no sign of losing its edge, as Ben Cardew discovers in a line-up packed with forward-thinking DJ sets, visual art, and space for defiant, marginalised voices. Photos by Alexandra Sans Massó

25 Years On: Happy Mondays’ Yes Please! Revisited

Yes Please! is the runt of the Happy Mondays’ litter, an album more likely to turn up on lists of career-ending releases and studio disasters than on playlists and radio. But as Yes Please! approaches its 25th anniversary, could this least redeemable of albums be due a critical re-think? Ben Cardew pushes for a place in history for this unique work of ageing, regret and disaster

Things Learned At: Sónar 2017

Ben Cardew and Karl Smith head to Barcelona for hugging, raving and cosmology. Featuring: Björk, Floorplan, Arca, Bad Gyal, GAIKA, Thundercat, Dopplereffekt, Nadia Rose and MIIIN.

Jlin

Black Origami

Pep Llopis

Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonautes

Marco Shuttle

Systhema

Sinjin Hawke

First Opus

Mr. Mitch

Devout

PTU

A Broken Clock Is Right Twice A Day

WaqWaq Kingdom

Shinsekai

Real Estate

In Mind

Ben Cardew On Aleksi Perälä’s Colundi Sequence Vol. 2

In the second instalment of the Finnish artist's Colundi recordings, Ben Cardew finds both a record more engaged with the idea of space and another component part of Perälä's key to complete musical escapism

Dirty Projectors

Dirty Projectors

The Sine That Celebrates Itself: On Electronic Shoegaze

Ben Cardew revisits the fertile but short-lived shoegaze/electronic music crossover that gave us Seefeel and (eventually) M83 and Ulrich Schnauss

Bjarki

Æ / Lefhanded Fuqs / Б

Pangaea

In Drum Play

Nina Kraviz

Fabric 91

Pedro Vian

Beautiful Things You Left Us For Memories

Tomaga

The Shape Of The Dance

Ben Cardew On DVA [Hi:Emotions]’ NOTU_URONLINEU

In the latest incarnation of DVA, a veritable Janus of culture, Ben Cardew finds a record out on its own, confounding as it is rewarding, weaving a complex sonic atmosphere framed by anxiety — at odds with categorisation but very much in line with reality

Pixies

Head Carrier

Lead Review: Ben Cardew On Zomby’s Ultra

On the masked producer's first full-length work since 2013, Ben Cardew finds an expansion beyond the usual tropes of Zomby-ism — collaborations unexpected for their results rather than their partners, tracks that play out over the five-minute mark, and the sound of thoughtful deliberation, all contributing to a welcome expansion of the known Zomby universe

Ben Cardew On Hieroglyphic Being’s The Disco’s Of Imhotep

In Jamal Moss's latest outing as Hieroglyphic Being, Ben Cardew finds a record of two halves, split between lofty spiritual ambition and music for grubby basement clubs, working in tandem

Aleksi Perälä

The Colundi Sequence Vol.1

Things Learned At: Sonár Barcelona 2016

At this year's Sonár Festival in the Catalan capital, Ben Cardew (with a little help from Philip Sherburne) finds a little hope from Brian Eno, a lot of energy from not-one-not-two-but three UK Grime acts, and that star power absolutely isn't everything

Lead Review: Ben Cardew On Floorplan’s Victorious

On Robert Hood's latest outing as Floorplan, Ben Cardew finds the minimal techno luminary still unafraid to be difficult, but geared more heavily than ever toward a rewarding sense of out-and-out fun as well as funk

Will It Even Be Called Music? The Intriguing Future Of Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality has been hailed as the future of entertainment since back in the 1980s. In 2016, however, VR technology is finally coming of age, bringing with it tantalising ideas of how we might consume music in the future thanks to forward-thinking indie artists like Ash Koosha and Bjork

JLin Reveals Next LP Info

Follow-up to Dark Energy "veers very far left of footwork"