Next month sees the much anticipated return of Godspeed You! Black Emperor- one of the most vital and thrilling bands of late nineties and early naughties. In this week's Deserter's Songs music column, David Bell explains why he finds their music so hauntingly fascinating.
In this week's Deserter's Songs column, David Bell revisits the album which gave his column its name: Mercury Rev's 1998 masterpiece 'Deserter's Songs', and explains how knowing the album for nine years has been like the "wonderful early stage of a relationship".
In this week's Deserter's Songs column on music and politics, David Bell considers the relevance of free improvisation for a 'new way of making and living education'. In so doing, he examines the resonances between the practice of free improvisation and what is commonly termed 'critical pedagogy'.The similarities, he contends, are startling.
When Dave Bell skims his ipod, the most common thing he looks out for is "the feeling of nostalgia". In this week's Deserter's Songs music column, he revisits the enduring spell of looking backwards. Through a tour of musical gems he shows us how "the past and the radical future may not be so hostile to one another" after all.
In the first of a new series of columns on music, 'Deserter's Songs', Dave Bell discusses his fascination with what, he admits, is a "very boring" piece of music: Talking Heads' 'Heaven'.
This is a song, Bell argues, that epitomises "pop as Samuel Beckett might write it: tedious, beautiful and desperate".
Every starting band knows the situation: you record something, spend more than you can afford on getting a few hundred professionally-printed copies made, and then you spend ages wait for sales that never come. As someone who's seen it all before, Alex Andrews shares top 5 tips on how to sell your record the clever way.
After more than 40 years at the top of the music journalism game, Robert Christgau, formerly of the Village Voice and legendary author of the 'Consumer guide' series has this month announced his retirement from writing his weekly column. To mark this end of an era, academic and writer Donal Mac an Eala writes a moving tribute to a unique, encylopedically rich voice in music and cultural criticism.