Our fortnightly spotlight series continues this week with more tips curated by our UK Music team, bringing you music news, online performances, blogs, playlists, podcasts and album releases. What have you discovered this week? Let us know on Twitter.
Exhibition Spotlight
The Design Museum’s Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers
Until 14 July
If you’ve been missing dancing enveloped in warm pulsating beats, under zapping hedonistic lights, The Design Museum reopens with Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers, an exhibition that promises to transport us to dancefloors from Detroit to Paris, and UK’s own rave scene. It explores the world of electronic music via it’s early history through to contemporary audio-visual delights.
- Joel Mills (Senior Programme Manager)
Festivals Spotlight (Online)
Wysing Polyphonic: The Ungoverned
4 – 31 August & 5 September
Wysing Arts Centre's annual Polyphonic festival of music and sound returns for its 11th edition in digital form from 4-31 August.
Curated by A---Z (Anne Duffau) and exploring the theme of The Ungoverend the programme will feature a series of mixes and soundscapes by artists including CRYSTALLMESS, mobilegirl, LYZZA, AUDINT and Hannah Catherine Jones.
A special live broadcast on 5 September marks the end of the festival and will feature poetry readings with Whiskey Chow, Rachel Long and Tanaka Fuego followed by a newly commissioned performance from Maëva Berthelot and Coby Sey.
- Tom Sweet (Music Programme Manager)
Brainchild Festival
Brainchild Festival have taken their community get-together which platformed emerging talent in a regular Peckham SE London night online. The first one featuring two artists we’ve worked with, Anaïs & Marysia Osu, can be watched back on their Youtube channel. Subscribe/follow them (@BrainchildFest) for news of their next virtual events.
- Katie Weatherall (Music Programme Manager)
Music Release Spotlight
Tactics EP - Soccer 96
Like others, I am really feeling the gap in my life where live music would usually be this summer. Being amongst a crowd of moving bodies at a Soccer 96 gig (whose members make up two-thirds of Comet is Coming ) creates the sort of adrenaline and excitement that you wish you could bottle up. The recently released three-track Tactics EP from the trio is a punk-fuelled, acid-keyboard laden rave – destined for the dance-floor. Alabaster dePlume adds his punchy and satirical spoken lyrics, denouncing fascism and capitalism and deploring people to fight the good fight.
- Grace Pitkin (Music Programme Coordinator)
Playlist Spotlight
Rinse FM July 2020
During the summer of 2019, Rinse FM were invited to curate a stage at Present Perfect Festival in St.Petersburg as part of the UK-Russia Year of Music. To mark a year passing since that momentous night by the Neva river, we’ve asked the Rinse team to compile a playlist of music that truly represents of the Rinse FM sound and also includes some newer tracks that have been getting traction over the past few months.
- Tom Sweet (Music Programme Manager)
Podcast Spotlight
Interdependence - Episode No. 10
Tom Gray of PRS for Music was the guest on the 10th episode of Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst's podcast, Interdependence, which talks about the big ideas in the future of music culture. He talks about the #brokenrecord campaign which has brought into focus a long-running conversation about how the streaming business model disadvantages music creators and is calling for user-centric streaming which better remunerates artists. Find it on all podcast platforms.
- Katie Weatherall (Music Programme Manager)
Proms Spotlight
In the next couple of weeks there a chance to revisit the Pioneers of Sound prom from 2018, with the London Contemporary Orchestra celebrating the legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with music from Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram alongside Shiva Feshareki and CHAINES (6 August). The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain’s 2012 concert with music by Varèse and Messiaen alongside Anna Meredith’s HandsFree (11 August). And the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla playing Stravinsky and Gerald Barry (14 August).
- Michael Duffy (Music Programme Manager)
Talks/Discussions/Q&As Spotlight (Online)
Interactive Live Stream Q&A with Max Richter
6 August at 7pm / £17.05
Acclaimed composer Max Richter will participate in an Interactive Live Stream Q&A on 6 August. Presented by Rough Trade and hosted by Edith Bowman, Richter will be answering questions from the audiene. This exclusive online event will be discussing Richter's new recording project 'VOICES' (released 31 July) which is inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Scottish Ensemble Musical Book Club
12 August, 2 September, 16 September at 7.30pm / £5
The concert-going experience may still be a way off, and while there are plenty of streamed performance available to whet you musical appetite, Scottish Ensemble are creating something a bit different with their Musical Book Club, which offers a chance to recreate post-concert spirit, with discussions of music with special guests including Sean Shibe, Anna Meredith and Steven Osborne. It’s open to all comers with three more sessions to come.
- Michael Duffy (Music Programme Manager)
