Kieran Press-Reynolds with a guest piece at Shawn Reynaldo's First Floor, while the main man takes a vacation.  It's a report on "the holy hell of cursed jumpstyle" - a zoomer-oriented TikTok-propelled twist to the gabber continuum.  "vyrval’s ballistic banger is the biggest tune in a growing wave of psychotic jumpstyle music that seems made to express existential fears: technology ..read more

The UK edition of Futuromania is out today on White Rabbit ! Via select record stores, comes with a limited edition freezine of bonus pieces! Check out this radio show about Futuromania I pulled together for NTS - also available at Soundcloud and Mixcloud. And here's an interview I did with Metal&nbsp ..read more

Unless we count caffeine,  I've never used a stimulant - or any kind of drug - to help with writing. Not even during the most against-all-odds of all-nighters, or when facing a pile-up of deadlines.... not even in that marathon-turned-to-sprint last leg of completing a book. Staring down a delivery crisis, the idea of resorting to some kind of writer's little helper, a chemical crutch ..read more

My ninth book is out in a couple of weeks time! Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines & Tomorrow's Music Today is a themed collection about music and the future, looking at the intersection between science fiction and pop, and exploring "the rhetorics of temporality."Release rationale: Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines & Tomorrow's Music Today is ..read more

A mate of mine - a Matt of mine, even - Matthew Worley has a new and excellent book out in a week's time: Zerox Machine: Punk, Post-Punk and Fanzines in Britain, 1976–88. Via Reaktion Books.Here's what I was happy to offer by way of an endorsement: "Intensely researched, teeming with insights and fresh connections, Matthew Worley’s book is the definitive study of punk and postpunk ..read more

 I think I've probably played games less than 20 times in my life.  (Unless we're counting Pong, which my granny had for some reason). Despite unfamiliarity with the whole area, its idiolect and lingo, I  could understand this fascinating Vulture piece by Kieran Press-Reynolds on the outwardly mystifying appeal of the game Lethal Company. A grim, grinding parody of precarious work ..read more

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Love this video, love this song - the video made by my son Eli with his creative partner Max Schneiderman, the single is by their super-talented friend Julia Robyn ..read more

I had a lovely time talking with Jeremy Gilbert and Tim Lawrence for their triffic music + politics podcast Love Is the Message. Our chat covered glam and punk and postpunk, themes of suburbia and boredom and the political economy of 1970s Britain. You can listen to the deftly-condensed and music-illustrated conversation at Apple or Spotify or Patreon ..read more

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