Of any day of the week, ambient minimalism perhaps works best on a Monday. The noisy whirlwind of the start of the working week brought to a halt by its simple calm. Whilst Oren Ambarchi's Monday performance at The Luminaire began as relaxed as we expected, it soon grew more aggressive and dark. The hushed tones of his guitar snaked their way through a seemingly endless series of pedals and effects boxes. What started......

Having recently appeared live with Gravetemple and still on loan to us from Australia, experimental guitarist Oren Ambarchi will play a solo set on Monday 14 July at The Luminaire. Whilst Gravetemple specialises in doom metal, Oren's solo material explores the more subtle tones of the guitar. Although he knows his way around his pedals, Ambarchi doesn't let his effects rack drive his sound. His understated approach to an instrument so frequently taken to......

Look at that gorgeous building. What would it sound like? Head to the Laban centre in Deptford to find out this Thursday evening when artist-musicians Janek Schaefer, Jasper Leyland, Alexander Wendt and Douglas Benford will perform http://www.last.fm/event/610474">108 Pieces Demolition. As the title suggests, and in keeping with the experimental nature of the artists and building involved, demolition and construction will be the theme for this evening. Far from the dance performances normally held in......

"What is house? Technotronic, KLF or something you live in To me house is Phuture, Pierre, Fingers, Adonis The Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode and The Yellow Magic Orchestra" - LFO, "What Is House?" (Warp Records, 1991) Given their famous name check in LFO's classic track "What Is House?" from Warp Records' early days, it seemed appropriate to have a Warp artist open for Yellow Magic Orchestra's......

A brief word of advice, should you ever wish to foray into the questionable profession of music journalism: it's probably not the best idea to begin your busiest week of gig attendance with a rave. That said, the best ideas are generally the most boring, so of course we stayed out last Saturday dancing until dawn at Warp Records' Brainfeeder party at the Hearn Street Car Park. A wise man once said, "Prudence never......

Never underestimate the power of bass. This is a lesson that the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall learned as pieces of aluminium cracked and began to break free from the ceiling on Tuesday night as The Dubstep Chronicles rumbled its way through Meltdown 2008. No one was ever in any danger of being injured, but the low end frequencies compromised the building's structural integrity enough to force organisers to err on the side of......

As Thursday lurches towards an end, naturally thoughts turn to starting the weekend early. Rather than another tired trip to the pub, we can't think of a better way to do so than with minimal techno at the ICA. Ghostly International's Matthew Dear performs there tonight with his full band, Matthew Dear's Big Hands. Though we cannot personally attest to the size of Dear's hands, we do know that they are as equally nimble......

If you like your beats broken and blunted, Warp Records has your Saturday night sorted. No, we're not suggesting that you stay home and chill out to your old Artificial Intelligence records, quite the contrary in fact. The Sheffield label is hosting a party at the Hearn Street Car Park to celebrate the release of their recent signee Flying Lotus' new album, Los Angeles. Should your brainwaves respond favourably to high levels of sub-bass......

Always reliable purveyors of fine musical offerings, Sheffield's Warp Records recently signed their first Australian artist, Pivot. Specialising in off-kilter, driving rhythms peppered with just the right amount of electronics, these lads start their UK tour tonight in Camden at Proud Galleries. Having served in the support slot for the Australian tours of Four Tet and Battles, sonic comparisons to the latter cannot be avoided, but ring true in the best possible way: this......

Whilst celebrated anniversaries generally include the first, tenth, twenty-fifth and so on, we'll afford a dodecadecimal exception to Raster-Noton. The German label has never been much for conformity, so why should they start now? Occupying a space between experimental electronic music and the dancefloor, the label's artists succeed at being simultaneously both but neither. We've never had the good fortune of hearing any club DJ drop one of their tracks into a set and......

If you happened to miss both the Camden Crawl as well as the Stag and Dagger, all hope is not yet lost for you catching an urban festival this season. This weekend the Dot To Dot festival runs through Bristol and Nottingham, but organisers are starting the party early in Hoxton on Thursday with the cutely-named mini-event Hox To Dot. Hopefully you were smart enough to have already requested Friday off work, but if......

After the fantastic sound journey we took with Philip Jeck on Thursday night, we returned to the Museum of Garden History on Friday evening for the second instalment in Touch's Atmospheres 2 festival. With a line-up ranging from processed field recordings to solo piano and laptop-filtered electric guitar, Touch ensured that our interest would be held through sonic diversity as well as stellar performances. Placing effects-treated field recordings at the centre of their sound,......

As we walked across Lambeth Bridge towards the Museum of Garden History on Thurdsay evening, we were immediately reminded us of how much we enjoyed the first Atmospheres festival. It was on that bridge in October where we started it with a field recording workshop led by Chris Watson. With the old St Mary-at-Lambeth church in close sight, it was tempting to stop for a quick recording session, but we were too afraid of......

When we first learned that Touch was planning a follow-up to last autumn's brilliant Atmospheres festival, the question wasn't whether or not we would attend but what line-up they had in store for us this time around. Once again occupying Lambeth's beautiful Museum of Garden History for a long weekend, Atmospheres 2 returns with a focus on hauntology, particularly with respect to music. If your Derrida is as rusty as ours and you fancy......

On Saturday 19 April, three of Londonist's bravest aural explorers arrived at ULU to undergo some serious sonic punishment in the form of Satori, Sutcliffe Jugend and the unmistakeable king of Japanese noise, Merzbow. For fun, naturally; people are strange, as Jim Morrison once said. Whilst Time Out placed the event in their "Rock, pop & dance" section, we assume that's only because the "My Cock's On Fire" section was full. Strange is probably......

On Thursday night, Four tet headlined The Eat Your Own Ears series at the Indigo2 in Greenwich, an incredible space with a really terrific sound and lighting system. Before we get to fawning over Four tet, however, the opening acts deserve a mention here. First up was Kode9, whose pulsing rhythm set the mood nicely, but to be fair, we were concentrating more on the beer. Next up was the happy surprise of the......

With their Ether 08 festival still in full swing, Southbank Centre didn't take even a moment to rest this past weekend when they announced the line-up details for this year's Meltdown. Curated by Massive Attack, the 15th instalment of Meltdown will pack an incredible amount of talks, films and gigs into the eight short days from 14 - 22 June. Fans of the bassbin Bristolians will have an excellent opportunity to explore the band's......

Whilst often lovingly, and perhaps ad nauseam, compared to Panda Bear's Person Pitch, El Guincho's debut Alegranza! is a more extroverted affair than its most cited point of musical reference. Joyous and celebratory from start to finish, Alegranza! mixes repetitive chanting with looped tropical rhythms to create the best summer pop record anyone could hope to release right in the middle of winter. It's that rare album that makes you feel a bit wrong......

The week ahead holds much excitement for fans of the outer sonic limits as London-based audiovisual label Touch continues celebrating its 25th anniversary with an entire week of gigs, discussions and workshops in South London. Founded in 1981/2 by Jon Wozencroft and Mike Harding, Touch has since grown to become one of the world's most respected sources of experimental electronic music. Through the consistently high-quality sounds it releases and the striking visual aesthetic with......

Arguably the best city in the world for a music fan to live, pop legends come to play in London all the time. Often not only do they come for just one gig, but they stay for a while when they could easily make haste for the comforts of their own homes to eat biscuits and play video games. Prince recently played the O2 for three full weeks, Sonic Youth resided at the Roundhouse......

Even with the public transportation odds stacked against them, fans of both electronic music and innovative design would do well to make their way to Phonica Records in Soho tonight for the official launch of Yahama's Tenori-On. Essentially a 16 x 16 grid of touch-sensitive LED buttons, the Tenori-On is a step sequencer that places an emphasis on the creation of sound through vision. As the performer touches the device's buttons to trigger sounds,......

With Notting Hill Carnival upon us in full effect the next day, you probably won't want to cane it too severely on Sunday night, but gently starting the party early never hurt anyone. Well, on second thought, it probably did at some point or other, but Upset The Rhythm should guarantee that at least you'll be entranced by interesting sounds if not completely kept out of harm's way. This Sunday sees these never dull......

After numerous appearances on the Continent, as well as performances at such legendary festivals as MUTEK and Detroit's Electronic Music Festival, we were beginning to think perhaps we smelled bad. Why else wouldn't Gui Boratto come to visit our lovely island? Thankfully we no longer need to be concerned about our possibly poor hygiene, for the kind souls at Allez-Allez have once again teamed with the Kompakt label, this time to bring the Brazilian......

Sprawl's always-interesting Interplay festival returns to The Spitz tonight with the fourth instalment in its ongoing series of digital art collaborations. For over a decade Iris Garrelfs and Douglas Benford's collective have brought us events from some of the most exciting names in contemporary experimental electronic music, with past Interplay rosters including Jan Jelinek, Frank Bretschneider and Pole. Focusing on collaboration in the hopes that "unlikely - like - minds meet each other and......

On entering Kinetica Museum's new Soundwaves exhibition, you're likely to first stumble upon a collaboration between Slade School of Fine Art graduates Lu Clarke and Jaye Ho. The aptly-named "Collaboration 1" is comprised of an array of speakers arranged on the floor, each containing a considerable amount of sand. White wires run everywhere, connecting to a mixer at one end and black foot pads at the other. While instructions given to us at the......

"This was meant to be the epitaph for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Evidently it isn't." So said an overwhelmed Andy McCluskey, lead singer of OMD, as he introduced the song "Walking on the Milky Way" to a Hammersmith Apollo full-house that, from first note to last, roared the re-formed band on to a performance on Friday night that must have been one of the most electrifying they have ever given. Billed as a......

We love Bank Holiday Mondays. They make the week go so quickly, we forget to arrange to do anything on the Friday. If you're as useless at reading a calendar as us, here's a couple of suggestions: Londonist favourite Fiona Bevan (whose debut EP we cited as one of our favourite records of 2005) plays tonight at one of our favourite venues: Bush Hall. She's on as part of the Buzz Night and she's on......

It's proper gig going weather now, so no 'it's a shame to waste the nice weather' rubbish, get thee to a venue and immerse yourself in the glory of music. And then come back stinking of cigarette smoke because the girls next to you spend more time holding their fags in a posey manner near your face, instead of actually smoking them. Anyway, more details of a gig we mentioned on Wednesday. The Sways......