Latest articles by Danny Turner
Airhead on working with Brian Eno and James Blake: "The main takeaway from those sessions was that the idea should always take precedence over the technology"
Rob McAndrews’ latest IDM-inflected Airhead album Lightness adapts techniques from the jazz guitar greats
Matmos on sampling dolphins, satellites, electromagnetic disturbances and the mud-dauber wasp for their latest album: "We don't sit at the guitar and sing 'my pain is real', or whatever real musicians do..."
The sample-centric duo on Return to Archive, their latest project to cull sounds from the legendary Smithsonian Folkways back catalogue
Danny Daze: "If I want a low-end analogue sound, I’ll turn to my Moog Voyager, and if I want some high-end crispy stuff I’ll reach for an FM synth like the Ensoniq Fizmo"
After canning two albums, Miami-based DJ/producer Danny Daze delivers a 92-minute concept LP, truncated for VR headsets. Danny Turner finds out more…
LCD Soundsystem's Tyler Pope: "James said I should make an EP only using one drum machine and a synth – so I got hold of an old-school Roland CR-78 and an ARP Odyssey"
Best of 2023: The LCD Soundsystem bassist goes solo with a sizzlingly funky electro-punk blend. Danny Turner finds a man on an analogue mission
Evian Christ: "I still use Cubase 6 from 2011 and a £50 Casiotone CT-S100 that I got from Argos. You can get good results without using much gear"
After a decade of silence, Joshua Leary finally returns with his long-awaited debut album, Revanchist. Danny Turner asks, why now?
Fantastic Twins on creating imaginary characters with vocal effects and the Eventide H3500: "The machine is basically endless, especially when it comes to working with vocals"
Based on her schizoid Fantastic Twins persona, Danny Turner delves deep into Julienne Dessagne’s eerie debut album, Two Is Not a Number
Marta Salogni: "Seeing a mixing desk for the first time lit up something inside of me - it's the meeting point of music, art, science and engineering"
Grammy-nominated recording engineer Marta Salogni chats to Danny Turner about her illustrious career and restoration of albums for ’80s synth pioneer Pauline Anna Strom
Vince Clarke: "Martin Gore brought along his synthesizer, we looked at the thing and thought, this is a lot easier than learning chords on a guitar and you only need one finger to play it"
As synth icon Vince Clarke releases his debut solo album, Danny Turner discovers how he’s embraced the electronic dark side
Explosions in the Sky: "People call us post-rock, but we just think of ourselves as a bunch of friends with guitars and drums playing loud rock music"
The instrumental rock quartet’s Chris Hrasky tells Danny Turner why Explosions in the Sky’s eighth album, End, isn’t a goodbye
Forest Swords: "My first couple of records were all software - then I bought an Elektron Octatrack and it blew my mind completely"
Matthew Barnes’ third Forest Swords album delves further into his stark, sumptuous and singularly unique sound world. Danny Turner finds out more
Simo Cell: "I’m so used to Ableton that it’s become an extension of my mind - I’ll have an idea and in 10 seconds I can get it down without having to even think about it"
Having created 50 tracks in two years, Danny Turner chats to bass producer Simo Cell about the identity crisis that led to his mystical debut LP
Josh Caffé on bringing vocals back into house music: "You can count the vocalists that represent house in a really good way on the fingers of one hand"
With his edgy, vocal-led take on Chicago house, Josh Caffé tells all about his ambitious debut LP, Poppa Zesque
Octo Octa: "I use the Volca Keys constantly in my productions - it’s probably one of my favourite synths of all time"
DJ/producer Maya Bouldry-Morrison has been lauded for her modern yet classic approach to house. We sat down with Octo Octa to talk studio secrets, DJ philosophy and the state of house music in 2023
Lukid: “Dance music can be a bit snobbish about melody - but for me, the marriage of rhythmic and melodic elements is where the magic happens”
Adding a lick of paint to his first new Lukid album in ten years, Danny Turner chats to Luke Blair about ditching his pursuit of perfection
Hania Rani on bringing synths and drum machines into contemporary classical: “I spent 20 years playing one instrument, but I’m still interested in investigating others”
Moving beyond her classical repertoire, Hania Rani faces her fears with expansive new album Ghosts. Danny Turner finds out more
Laurence Guy: "I couldn’t go back to Logic. The plugins are better and it sounds more polished, but it’s more fun working in Ableton"
House producer Laurence Guy tells Danny Turner why his first vocal-based album is the one he always wanted to make
Sebastian Mullaert on his cabin-in-the-woods studio: "I walk into the beautiful forest and have all the tools to play around with and be a child"
Sebastian Mullaert talks to Danny Turner about his mentorship programme In Bloom and live jamming with Dorisburg
Levon Vincent: "A nice vintage synth can sound pretty good, but if you layer that with the punch of software it sounds ten times better"
Dance chameleon Levon Vincent plugs straight into the techno grid with fifth album, Work In Progress. Danny Turner finds out more
Ash Walker: "Some people say they never put reverb on bass, but they obviously didn’t listen to a lot of dub records"
Joining the dots between King Tubby, Steve Reich and J Dilla, Ash Walker adopted an ‘anti-engineering’ approach to his latest album, Astronaut
Braids return to their DIY roots on Euphoric Recall: "We embraced that punk mindset of doing everything ourselves - it was the only way for us to get our energy back"
Montreal art-rockers Braids reach a pinnacle with fifth album, Euphoric Recall. Danny Turner learned more about their back-to-basics approach
Groove Armada's Tom Findlay on his new collaborative project: "My studio is stuck in a weird early noughties time loop. Even my desktop computer is a vintage one!"
Tom Findlay teams up with James Alexander Bright to create a love letter to ’70s rock as Bright & Findlay. Danny Turner finds out more
Bone flutes, pelvis banjo and a horse semen shaker: how Matthew Herbert made an entire album using a horse skeleton
“I’m sure my internet search history raised a few red flags when researching this, but when sped up by four or five times it became my favourite melodic squeak on the record“
Octave One: "Once we got the 909 I was hooked. That machine’s like a drug, I could listen to the kick for hours"
Despite diverging from their techno roots, Octave One tell Danny Turner they’d sooner stop making music than sell their Roland TR-909
Channel Tres: "Playing with hardware gives you the feeling back. When I’m up on my feet and physically turning analogue knobs, I’m more willing to do things that I wouldn’t normally do"
One of dance music’s most distinctive voices, Danny Turner chats to Channel Tres about the origins of his ‘Compton house’ sound
Surgeon on how he ditched the studio to record an album with a tabletop live setup: "It’s funny, but people desperately want to know what gear I’m using"
Techno mainstay Anthony Child used a stripped-back setup to capture the energy of his live performances in recording his latest album, Crash Recoil. Danny Turner finds out more