Sampling the robots… A playlist of 25 tracks that ‘borrow’ from Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express

Released in 1977, Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express saw the self-styled robots come of age – moving away from the Krautrock sensibilities of Autobahn and Radio-Activity towards a more minimalist electronic sound. No more was this evident than on the album’s title track, which along with the Metal on Metal/Abzug suite that follows it, bridged the period between…

Read More

“Why limit your expression to certain sounds? If the world was full of purists, music would go nowhere…” Andrew Weatherall in 1994

It’s a little under three months since we said goodbye to musical alchemist Andrew Weatherall (sadly, not the only legendary figure to depart this mortal coil recently), and in the weeks since, a myriad of mixes, interviews and documentary footage (in particular the impressive Weatherdrive project) have underscored just what an influential figure the Screamadelica…

Read More

“You don’t know what you really want…” Check out this playlist of every artist mentioned in LCD Soundsystem’s Losing My Edge

“Yeah, I’m losing my edgeI’m losing my edgeThe kids are coming up from behind…” It’s hard to believe that this summer marks the 18th birthday of LCD Soundsystem‘s Losing My Edge, released in July 2002 – a fable about maintaining musical relevance in a world being taken over by “better-looking people, with better ideas and more…

Read More

“I’ve just always been a melancholy, reflective kind of person…” Larry Heard on (almost) quitting the music industry [December 1997]

There are few tracks as synonymous with the birth of house music as Mr Fingers’ Can You Feel It, released in 1986 – the soundtrack to a million ‘hands in the air’ moments in the three decades since its release. But just over a decade on from setting the template for the flourishing scene to follow,…

Read More

“We have always been guided by the principle that money and time are irrelevant…” WestBam reflects on ten years of Low Spirit Recordings [August 1995]

German rave pioneer WestBam, aka Maximilian Lenz, celebrates his 55th birthday today (4 March 1965), and with that in mind, 909originals has dived into the archives to uncover an interview the Münster-born artist gave to Frontpage Magazin in August 1995, to mark the tenth anniversary of his Low Spirit imprint. “At first we didn’t even…

Read More