Questlove has worn many hats. Out of Philadelphia, he’s the drummer and producer of The Roots, band leader on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Oscar winning documentary maker for Summer of Soul, adjunct professor at NYU, prolific instagrammer, and author of a couple of Title’s favourite music books from the last couple of years; […]

On Gorillaz’s new record Cracker Island, the gang have joined a cult… or so says founder Damon Albarn, as each album always takes a new twist on the core concept of Gorillaz – a manufactured band for the end of the world. Themes of misinformation and half-truths, false riches and environmental apocalypse form the album’s […]

Under the pseudonym ‘Tom of Finland,’ Touko Valio Laaksonen created a name for himself with his now iconic illustrations of the male form in all its glory and exaggerated parts, chiseled chests and right-angle jawlines. Young and buff in tight clothing, though often in a state of undress, Laaksonen’s drawings quickly found the Tom of […]

Spanning 20 years, Arctic Monkeys have gone from blasting music in their garage and riling up their neighbours as kids, to becoming globally recognised as genre-bending songwriters, using every word in the dictionary in their lyrics.  Since their formation in Sheffield in 2002, the band have released seven albums, redefined a music scene, and led […]

“I always wanted to be a motivator of positive change…  I sang from that place and chose to share the joy and ecstasy of it, as well as the disappointments, entanglements and life lessons that I had learned at that point.”. – Lauryn Hill 2021. Released in 1998, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill remains one […]

“In Tawada’s work, one has the feeling of having wandered into a mythology that is not one’s own”. – Rivka Galchen, New Yorker. Utterly original. Stories that sit in that intersection between hallucination and reality. The Bridegroom was a Dog. It’s an erotic fable…… and why not? The Naked Eye: A Vietnamese woman is kidnapped […]

“The more things remain obscure and mysterious, the more they interest me. I even try to find mystery in things that have none.” – Patrick Modiano. He doesn’t know either. Or rather, what he does know, he shares with us in a series of novels that have the kind of atmosphere that one finds in […]

“It’s the work of a novelist to tell the truth. Sometimes I don’t know what truth I’m looking for, but it’s always a truth that I’m seeking.” – Annie Ernaux. It isn’t easy to look away once that truth is revealed. Links are what Ernaux has always been after. She has been devoted to a single […]

“Free Dirt is a fine, fiery effort… the band hotwires the past for its own purposes..” – All Music 4 1/2 stars.  Released in 1986, Died Pretty‘s magnificent debut album, Free Dirt, remains one of the great Australian rock albums. Combining Stooges-like grunt with the avant-rock stylings of Pere Ubu and the Velvet Underground, the band forged a dark […]