May 02, 2025 · 22 min read Album art didn’t always exist. In the early 1900s, recorded music was still a novelty, overshadowed by sales of sheet music. Early vinyl records were vastly different from what we think of today: discs were sold individually and could only hold up to four minutes of music…

Martin Gray revisits the debut long player from Dave Callahan of Wolfhounds’ beguiling, often astonishing and criminally overlooked and underrated early-to-mid 1990s outfit Moonshake: Eva Luna, released on Too Pure records in October 1992 to widespread critical acclaim. An End Followed By A…

Never trust an artist. Returning to his apartment, the young Soviet cinematographer Aleksandr Lemberg discovered his friend and colleague David Abelevich Kaufman had blackened the walls and ceiling in soot, upon which, he had drawn a multitude of clocks in chalk, all showing different times with…

What will life be like in 1000 years? Will humans still exist? Will there be a recognisable London? Such are the idle thoughts that flow to mind as I stand on Trinity Buoy Wharf, downriver from the City, upriver from the Thames Barrier. It’s hard to visualise how much can and will change in such a…

Apartment House plays Julius Eastman’s Femenine at this year’s Intonal Festival, on April 28 The legacy of Julius Eastman to the wider world is as yet untold. At the point of his untimely death in 1990, he left almost no tangible legacy at all. In his later years he was evicted from his home and…

The story of Moving Shadow is a triumph, but also a tragedy. It captures the best and worst aspects of the rave, hardcore and jungle explosion. On one hand, the white heat and unbelievable pace of innovation, the opportunities for outsiders to be recognised as creating true art, the camaraderie and…

It’s hard to describe what it sounded like back then, you know. They were different times. It’s not that there’s no innovation now – of course there is, though it mostly comes from elsewhere – but for a short time in the late 1980s it seemed that every year a handful of rock records could shake you…

Alex Lifeson (left) and Geddy Lee (with Neil Peart on drums) on stage in 1976 on the tour that followed the release of 2112. Antonia Hille/Getty Images "It could have spelled the end for us." Alex Lifeson is on the phone, calling from his Toronto home, thinking back to the time between Rush's third…

Abstract From the time of vinyl records to modern portable music capabilities on phones, music producers have been fighting for the best (read: the loudest) music releases. Sound engineers have been the primary weapons in this war. Compressing the dynamic range, or the gap between the loudest and…

from our March 2012 issue Despite the accusations of incoherence sometimes made against them by critics who ought to know better, the films of David Lynch seem to share a remarkably consistent cosmogony that can be sketched as follows: the soul originates in light and unity and has its home there.…

In June of 2024, I broke up with Spotify after a 10+ year relationship. The signs kept piling up until they simply could no longer be ignored. In the half-year since, I haven’t really looked back. I even forgot to transfer or back up my saved songs. Oh well. Perhaps a clean break was for the best:…

Photo by Brian Evans “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” —Henry David Thoreau Lately, the news has been a slow wrecking, a bruise spreading beneath the skin of the day. But nothing has broken me like the thought of America’s parks, forests, and wildlife—waiting, unknowing, on the edge of…

Explore On a blazing morning in October, I paddled my surfboard into a caramel-colored sea off a beach in Brazil, hoping to catch a wave with its own individual rights. The wave rose up against the wi

Before you read on, we have a favour to ask of you. If you enjoy this feature and are currently OK for money, can you consider sparing us the price of a pint or a couple of cups of fancy coffee. A rise in donations is the only way tQ will survive the current pandemic. Thanks for reading, and best…

“In the beginning was the press and then the world appeared,” Karl Kraus wrote in 1921. The biblical allusion was no rhetorical flourish. Living through an apocalyptic era, the Austrian writer, and arguably the first major media critic, had reason to believe that journalism had moved from being a…

American doctors are accusing US health insurance giants of causing deadly delays to vital medical procedures and care – and putting profits ahead of their patients’ health. Firms including United Healthcare have denied basic scans, and taken months to reconsider, according to physicians who spoke…

Christmas 1988. Cliff Richard held the number one spot for three weeks with ‘Mistletoe & Wine’ while Inner City, Stakker Humanoid, Bomb The Bass and Neneh Cherry lingered around the UK top 40 like bea

Illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo/Slate For a decade, my therapy appointments required a 30-minute train ride to a mid-rise medical office building in suburban Philadelphia, where I reclined on a

by BoardGameGeek reviewer EndersGame Because we are all familiar with the modern deck of playing cards, a standard deck of Bicycle rider back playing cards seems very "normal" and "traditional" to mos

Tech The crusade against bright headlights has picked up speed in recent years, in large part due to a couple of Reddit nerds. Could they know what’s best for the auto industry better than the auto in

Series: Uncovered: How the Insurance Industry Denies Coverage to Patients More in this series our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Do you have experiences with health insurance denials? P

Working in isolation, Wacław Szpakowski made mazelike drawings from single, continuous lines. Wacław Szpakowski, B9, 1926, ink on tracing paper, 13 3/4″ x 15 3/4″. When he was eighty-five, Wacław Szpa

With an anything-goes approach to sampling, and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour that's often branched into the bizarre, ambient house outfit The Orb have cultivated one of the largest, and most vari

neuroscience How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero October 18, 2024 Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain cre

By Photographs by Simona Ghizzoni When Isabella Dalla Ragione assesses a Renaissance painting, she doesn’t immediately notice the brushstrokes or the magnificence of the imagery. The first thing she n

30.07.24 Words by: Original release date: 9 June, 2003 Label: Tempa Recordings Emphasising power and using scarcity to its advantage, the early dubstep scene flexed with the first instalment of this n

The New York artist Rammellzee was, without a doubt, one of the most intriguing visionaries of hip-hop culture from its mid-70s origins. Raised in the remote beach front outpost of Far Rockaway, Queen

Back in the early 1980s, the synth pop guru Thomas Dolby was asked on British television to describe his ideal synthesizer. Although I can’t find any evidence of this on YouTube, I have a vague recoll

What associations spring to mind when you think of "chaos"? Disorder, mess, disarray, confusion, randomness, and noise—these terms likely resonate with many people. Our customary interpretation of the

“Let’s look at the stats, I’ve got the facts / My money like Lizzo, my pockets are fat!” Boy-rat hybrid Ben Shapiro’s recent foray into the political rap arena was as insipid as it was wrongheaded, bu

Long before trippy visualizers and computer animation, before liquid light shows or laser parties, Thomas Wilfred was building organs for visuals. He called the art they produced Lumia, and the instru

Casey Niccoli and Perry Farrell at home in Venice, California, in February 1991. Kevin Westenberg I am an artist. Not the model, not the assistant, not the ex-girlfriend or the muse. I am an artist. R

Elori Saxl, photos: Max Basch Elori Saxl lives between bustling New York City and a remote island in Lake Superior. The composer’s new album Drifts and Surfaces, a gorgeous triptych of commissioned el

Michael Bloomberg last week gave $1 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to make medical school free for most students there. It’s a well-meaning gesture, aiming to remedy America’s do

“Won’t you play a simple melody,” sang Bing Crosby in his rendition of the Irving Berlin classic. Now it seems his wish has come true: research has revealed the tunes of modern chart-toppers are less

You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to True believers in fakery. Photo by Ben Brooks/Flickr i by Daniel DeNicola + BIO Daniel DeNicolais professor and chair of philosophy at Gettysburg

Monday January 2, 2023; 6:10 PM EST Recording the new year# (11 min read)# # A cassette recording is not a copy. You can make an exact copy of a digital file, and each time you load that file you will

Portishead - Dummy Although Portishead weren't the first group to explore the sonic territory that would become known as trip-hop (that honor goes to their peers in Massive Attack), the Bristol, UK-ba