Olivia Dean tops the winners list with four, while Sam Fender bags two – see all the category winners here
• News: Olivia Dean sweeps the board at 2026 Brit awards, winning four including artist, song and album of the year
• Alexis Petridis: This year’s Brit awards found a flicker of chaos – but the winners were never in doubt
Olivia Dean
Continue reading...The producer and DJ, real name Keith McIvor, had been diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumour earlier this year
JD Twitch, the Scottish DJ and producer celebrated as one half of the duo Optimo, has died aged 57.
The artist, whose real name was Keith McIvor, had been diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumour, which he announced in July. He died on Friday in Glasgow’s Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, his DJ partner Jonnie Wilkes (AKA JG Wilkes) announced.
Continue reading...SchwuZ, a 50-year-old dance hotspot, falls victim to inflation and rising rents threatening Berlin’s club scene
Germany’s “oldest and biggest” gay dance club has declared itself bankrupt after nearly half a century in business, falling victim to inflation and an evolving party culture threatening Berlin’s nightlife.
Management troubles and dating apps were among the factors putting SchwuZ on the ropes last year and in May the club shortened its opening hours, laid off staff and asked regulars for help to plug a growing shortfall, to little avail.
Continue reading...Blaze came a day before thousands of electronic dance music fans were set to descend on the Belgian event
The main stage of the Tomorrowland music festival near Antwerp was totally destroyed by fire on Wednesday, a day before thousands of electronic dance music lovers were due to arrive at the Belgian event.
There were no injuries, organisers said, insisting they would still go ahead with the festival over the next two weekends.
Continue reading...DJ whose anything-goes spirit had a huge influence on British club culture had suffered a stroke in 2021
DJ Alfredo, who had a significant influence on Ibiza becoming a global centre for dance music culture, has died aged 71.
Amnesia, the club where he held a residency during the 1980s, announced the news, writing on Instagram: “Thank you for the nights and beats we shared together. Your music and vision shaped the sound of Balearic Beat and the soul of Amnesia. So many memories were made through your energy, your legacy will live on our dancefloor forever. You will never be forgotten.”
Continue reading...Family announce DJ’s death in Ibiza after complications arising from accidental head injury
The Scottish DJ and producer Jack Revill, known to many as Jackmaster, has died aged 38, his family has announced.
Revill died in Ibiza on Saturday morning after “complications arising from an accidental head injury”, his family said.
Continue reading...Upmarket Kreuzberg club blames economic pressures, a pandemic hangover and Berlin’s dated image as factors leading to end of 22-year party
Berlin’s Watergate nightclub, one of the institutions of the German capital’s nightlife, is to close down after 22 years, with its owners saying the night-time economy still hasn’t recovered after the pandemic.
In a statement, the club’s management said it had made the “difficult decision” not to extend its lease and close its premises after a New Year’s Eve party at the end of the year.
Continue reading...DJ Kyel 925 says the rave set on a train on Brisbane’s Shorncliffe line resulted in passengers dancing in the aisles
Commuters on a Sunday evening train were surprised when the Brisbane suburban service was transformed into an ad hoc rave by a local DJ.
Kyel 925, from NO. ONE NETWORK and Liquid Steele Sessions, said the group had been heading from a gig with a media trolley on the Shorncliffe line from Fortitude Valley at about 6.30pm when they had the idea.
Continue reading...Ruling means music in Russian republic must ‘conform to Chechen mentality and sense of rhythm’
The Russian republic of Chechnya has banned dance music it deems either too fast or too slow, in an attempt to quash a “polluting” western influence on the conservative majority-Muslim region.
Musa Dadayev, the culture minister, said “all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80-116 beats per minute” to make music “conform to the Chechen mentality and sense of rhythm”, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
Continue reading...The winners of every category at the 2024 Brits, updated as the ceremony progresses
• Brit awards 2024: women dominate as Raye scores record-smashing six wins
• Brit awards 2024: as it happened
Blur – The Ballad of Darren
J Hus – Beautiful and Brutal Yard
Little Simz – No Thank You
Raye – My 21st Century Blues – WINNER!
Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy
British Land and AustraliaSuper want to create cultural venue that will include offices and shops
Printworks London, the 6,000-capacity post-industrial superclub, could reopen by 2026 after property developers that own the site filed their plans to Southwark council.
British Land and its partner AustralianSuper, one of the country’s largest pension funds, submitted a detailed proposal to the council on Monday to redevelop the site in Rotherhithe into a permanent cultural venue just over a year after the cavernous club shut its doors.
Continue reading...Joseph Fiddler performed and recorded with Prince, Seal and Maxwell, and mentored hip-hop producer J Dilla
Joseph Fiddler, the funk musician known as Amp Fiddler who was acclaimed for solo work and collaborations with generations of diverse musicians, has died aged 65.
A statement on social media read: “Detroit’s own world renowned ambassador of funk, soul, & electronic music, keyboardist, producer, afro-futurist, and guiding force of light for so many, has transitioned at the age of 65. After an extensive and noble battle with cancer, he now gracefully rests in peace and power.”
Continue reading...Band say unexpected win is ‘testimony to good, special people putting time and effort’ into helping young people to play music
The 2023 Mercury prize has been awarded to Ezra Collective, the London band whose propulsive blend of jazz, funk and Afrobeat has electrified audiences and cemented the capital’s jazz scene as one of the world’s most exciting.
“We met in a youth club,” said drummer and bandleader Femi Koleoso on accepting the award for the year’s best British or Irish album for Where I’m Meant to Be, the band’s second release. “This moment we’re celebrating right here is testimony to good, special people putting time and effort into [helping] young people to play music … let’s continue to support that,” he added, citing grassroots collectives in London such as Tomorrow’s Warriors and Kinetika Bloco.
Continue reading...A clean sweep led by Harry Styles was an ‘astonishing’ high note for the music industry – but the domination of older songs reflected the impact of streaming
For the first time since year-end charts were introduced more than 50 years ago, British artists have made up the entirety of the year’s 10 most popular songs in the UK.
Topping the biggest songs of 2022 in the UK was Harry Styles’ omnipresent As It Was; Ed Sheeran had two songs on the list, while new artists such as south London songwriter Cat Burns and Scottish dance duo LF System rubbed shoulders with Kate Bush, whose 1985 single Running Up That Hill topped the UK singles chart for the first time last year after being featured in the latest series of Netflix drama Stranger Things, having originally peaked at No 3.
Continue reading...Marshall Jefferson and Adonis are among more than a dozen artists suing the pioneering Chicago house label
More than a dozen artists are suing the pioneering Chicago house label Trax Records, the estate of co-founder Larry Sherman, and current owners Screamin’ Rachael Cain and Sandyee Barns, Rolling Stone reports.
The plaintiffs, among them Trax co-founder Vince Lawrence and musicians Marshall Jefferson, Adonis and Maurice Joshua – allege that the label owes them unpaid royalties and in some cases that the label never paid them anything at all, according to a copy of the lawsuit seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Dance group leads with seven nominations, with Flume, the Kid Laroi, Baker Boy and Vance Joy also winning multiple nods
Rüfüs Du Sol has dominated the 2022 Aria award nominations, featuring in a total of seven categories, followed by Amyl and the Sniffers and Flume.
The Sydney electronic trio’s latest album, Surrender, continues to pay dividends for the band, who won best group and best dance song for their track Alive at last year’s Arias. Alive also won them best dance song at this year’s Grammy awards.
Continue reading...Multi-instrumentalist who played with Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before admired solo career is hailed for his ‘innovative spirit’
Klaus Schulze, the German multi-instrumentalist whose work with drones, pulses and synthesisers was hugely influential on generations of electronic music makers, has died aged 74.
Frank Uhle, managing director of Schulze’s label SVP, wrote: “We lose and will miss a good personal friend – one of the most influential and important composers of electronic music – a man of conviction and an exceptional artist. Our thoughts in this hour are with his wife, sons and family. His always cheerful nature, his innovative spirit and his impressive body of work remain indelibly rooted in our memories.”
Continue reading...Zach Smith recorded himself jamming out to a tune he found in his car. Now it’s racked up 3m plays – and might be on its way to Marvel
Zach Smith never expected the song to go so viral.
On 4 January, the 19-year-old pressed play on an old track he found in his car; he was struck by how catchy it was – he’d never heard this song before.
Continue reading...The films’ heroes look like they’ve just stepped off the Berghain dancefloor – and the connection isn’t merely aesthetic. The series shares the genre’s philosophy of liberation
“We can’t see it,” says a character in The Matrix Resurrections, “but we’re all trapped inside these strange repeating loops.” Small surprise techno producer Marcel Dettmann was commissioned to write music for this latest film in the franchise. It’s a natural fit. Its director, Lana Wachowski, goes clubbing at Berghain, the Berlin techno club where Dettmann is resident and where, cut off from the everyday world, people have surreal, liberating experiences. Techno continues to inspire the franchise’s aesthetics.
When club techno arose in 1980s Detroit, African American producers were reimagining the deindustrialised city as a site of futurist fantasies. Cybotron’s dystopian 1984 track Techno City was inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and the Tokyo of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s track Technopolis. “I extrapolated the necessity of interfacing the spirituality of human beings into the cybernetic matrix,” said Cybotron’s Rik Davis (using the word “matrix” before the film existed), “between the brain, the soul and the mechanisms of cyberspace.”
Continue reading...He managed the Bee Gees and created Saturday Night Fever but the closeted impressario ‘never felt that sense of success’ according to a new documentary
According to film director John Maggio, two types of executives run the entertainment industry – one far rarer than the other. “The vast majority of them don’t know what’s good, or what will be a hit, until ten other people tell them,” he said. “But a few can tell you right away. They’re the visionaries.”
For an extended time, one of the most clairvoyant was Robert Stigwood. Yet no one had made a feature documentary about him until now. Mr Saturday Night lays out the rocket-like trajectory of this manager turned producer turned impresario who scored hits in the worlds of music, theater, concerts and film. Stigwood’s projects ranged from managing the Bee Gees to running a record label featuring artists like Eric Clapton to producing two of the biggest movies of all time – Saturday Night Fever and Grease, as well as the successful movie version of the Who’s Tommy – to bankrolling smash plays like Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. “For a time, he was the Wizard of Oz of entertainment,” said Maggio, who directed the film, to the Guardian. “Between 1970 and 1978, he could not not make a hit.”
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