Matt Parker

Soundtracking low-budget British film ‘Moon’ was an experience that combined Clint Mansell’s love of Bowie, modern morality and a lifetime of sci-fi into one of his
most meaningful projects. The composer tells us how science fiction offers a mirror to mankind

Wondering how to start a Patreon page? Our in-depth guide takes you through the dos and don’ts, with expert insights from UK podcasters RedHanded.

We’ve all heard the term ‘PR’. Like management, most aspiring bands and artists understand it could benefit them at some point, but many remain a little misty on the details.
Simply put, PR is a term used to both reference an individual role – similar to the way you’d discuss a manager or agent – and an industry. While PR stands for ‘public relations’, it’s probably more useful to think of it as ‘media relations’, as the majority of a music PR’s time is spent pitching to editors and writers i...

Described as a love letter to Nashville, Dan Auerbach’s second solo album Waiting On A Song is also, he tells us, a tribute to the magic of writing and recording...

McFly man and solo artist Danny Jones reflects on misconceptions, Mike Oldfield and the teachings of Mayer.
For whom the bells toll
“I first started playing because I was obsessed with the Tubular Bells Live DVD. I remember the guy introducing it was like, ‘Two highly compressed electric guitars!’ and then Mike Oldfield played this amazing guitar solo. Then it was Springsteen. He always played a Telecaster, so then I wanted a Tele and that solidified which guitar I was going to play.”
Finger ...

The electronic music pioneer on how adaptation and determination have proven to be the watch words for his diverse music career
Stephen Mallinder rose to prominence with Cabaret Voltaire in the late 70s, becoming one of Rough Trade’s early signings and establishing an approach to experimental music-making which would prove to be hugely influential in the electronic/ club scene.
In the intervening years, Mallinder remained embedded in music, working in all manner of roles and gaining his docto...

Marking the publication of the first weekly Independent Chart on 19 January 1980, we talk to Cherry Red’s Iain McNay and Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis, the instigator and the catalyst, about how punk rock and a garden shed ignited the indie label revolution

People celebrate selling thousands of singles or albums these days. Duane Eddy has sold 100 million. Ultimately, the numbers don’t matter, but they do serve to show the scale of the pervasive influence of an iconic guitarist.
Eddy is one of that cross-generational handful of players who’s sound is truly unmistakable. The twanging tone established on the likes of Cannonball, Moovin’ And Groovin’ and Rebel Rouser made him an icon, beloved by The Beatles and Elvis, as much as modern heroes like ...

The Flaming Lips dreamer-in-chief serves up his formative influences, which take in painters going punk, communal rainbows and the power of wigging out

Soundtrack whiz Vik Sharma and Blur guitarist Graham Coxon first met, like any self-respecting introvert vegan rockstar and composer, over coffee in London’s Muswell Hill.
Sharma, who soundtracked Stephen Merchant’s series An Idiot Abroad, had been approached about working on the British writer/director’s new film, Fighting With My Family. “He said he was doing this wrestling movie with The Rock and was I up for it?” says Sharma. “I was like, ‘Of course I am!’”
A sports comedy biopic starring...

The multi-instrumentalist brothers behind Long Island’s The Lemon Twigs, Brian and Michael D’Addario, look and sound like rockstars in the original sense of the term.
We’re talking about the time when making this music was the preserve of outcasts and weirdos who couldn’t find a home anywhere else. And we mean this as the deepest of compliments.
Their first record, Do Hollywood, established them as a force for good, capable of combining droll humor and a deep knowledge of rock’s '70s visionar...

It is 9pm. I am fully naked and stood at my kitchen sink, washing my hands, for the third time. I have just been grocery shopping. Taking your clothes off after shopping is almost certainly overkill, but what has become achingly apparent to me lately is that when people are presented with change, our response is not always 100% rational.
At present, there is a real threat to our biological, mental and economic wellbeing, but it is compounded by the rapid upheaval in our lifestyle and the remo...

Jamaican songwriting sensei Jimmy Cliff seems to have been put on this earth purely to produce brilliant music. Most great musicians have a gift - a great voice, a natural charisma, a knack for penning a melody - Jimmy Cliff has all three.

The last time this writer spoke to KT Tunstall, back in 2013, she’d been recording with Giant Sand and studio eccentric Howe Gelb in Tucson, Arizona, channelling her in her inner-analogue junky and getting quiet and introspective. Her latest album, 2018’s Wax, couldn’t be further removed from that.

The boisterous, electric-laden rock ’n’ roll collection was recorded with Franz Ferdinand man Nick McCarthy in his garage studio. The album’s physicality is appropriate, given it comes as the secon...

Booker T. Jones is a master of melody. In the likes of Green Onions, Soul Limbo and Time Is Tight, the Memphis organist has written some of the most instantly memorable melody lines of all time.