Hailing from Queens, Marley Marl revolutionized hip-hop when he pioneered the practice of sampling drum sounds and creating his own proto-boom-bap rhythms, yielding gems like MC Shan’s joyfully noisy ...

Dave Smith is a synthesizer designer and tech visionary of the highest order. He created the first polyphonic synth, the Prophet-5, which has become the obsession of everyone from Parliament to Arcade ...

In electronic music, it’s hard to exaggerate the importance of Isao Tomita’s work. Born in Japan in the 1930s, Tomita imagined other worlds – seemingly outside his own, human reach – and so used his ...

For many young indie music fans making their way through the “alternative” section of their local record store in the mid-’90s, it was the music of Stereolab, and in particular the voice of chanteuse ...

Bob Moog changed the face of popular music by producing the first ever commercially available synthesizers. The first Moog Modular was knocked up for fun as a project for his musician friend Herbert ...

Dennis Bovell’s youthful exuberance belies a long and distinguished career taking in some surprisingly far-flung corners of the music industry. Responsible for more or less inventing the lovers rock ...

The couch literally buckled under the weight of Bernard Purdie and the huge number of heavy breaks he’s unleashed upon the world. Whether it’s James Brown or Aretha Franklin, jazz heavyweights like ...

Get inspired by some of music’s most creative minds ...

A demo, recorded back in the day, like people do nowadays with dubplates or CD-Rs. Dubplates, if you’re a dinosaur like me. You recorded a demo to acetate, which you’ve still kept, and which I ...

Every year, artists from around the world came together in a different host city to learn from musical luminaries – and each other – and collaborate in custom-built studios. Many Academy alumni went ...

The cornerstone and pioneer of UK techno, Kirk DeGiorgio has been tirelessly delivering the original message of Detroit techno, born out of a city renowned for its soul music and its factories. In ...

Edwin “Win” Butler III is the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter for Canadian band Arcade Fire. Known for their symphonic pop-dance-rock-noise arrangements, surrealist music arena ...