INTERVIEWED & REVIEWED: VCMG, Ital & Tim Hecker for The Stool Pigeon

Grouping together the latest stuff for the 'Pigeon. Two of the best records of the year so far - VCMG's SSSS and Ital's Hive Mind - are to some degree reliant on the internet for their very being.

With VCMG - interview here - Vince Clarke and Martin Gore, star-crossed bandmates who have been estranged since Vince walked out on Depeche Mode in the early 80s, made their entire debut via email. They hardly spoke to each other about it, just mailed sounds back and forth from their constituent synth bunkers.


Ital on the other hand cites the internet as the source of no little melancholy; he talked Second Life and emotional blankness with me, despite it being 8am in California due to a time mix-up. I also laid down my two-cents worth on the album.

Oh - and I reviewed Tim Hecker's intense organ recital at St Giles in the Fields. Can't think of a 100% foolproof link to internet culture for this one, but you're reading it online, right?

INTERVIEWED: Beth Jeans Houghton for The Stool Pigeon

In which I talk to the young singer-songwriter from Newcastle about her boss new album, her synaesthesia, her LA infatuation, and palling around with a Chili Pepper.

INTERVIEWED: Destroyer for The Stool Pigeon

Not only did Destroyer slip such an effortless, sumptuous, bleeeding gorgeous album into the mix as Kaputt, but he went and made the title track the most gawddamn beautiful of all the songs on there, and ensured that the video was a dream-logic escape into the deep space of one's own mind's eye... see above to note that this statement is only a little hyperbolic.

I spoke to Mr Destroyer aka Dan Bejar and you can read it here.

N.B. Another pleasing saxophone-filled album, which isn't in the least bit cheesey. Proves my long-held theory that the sax is the most overlooked of all godlike instruments. If I had my way, 60% of guitarists would replace their axes with saxes.