U2 and Eno Again

Producer says they're off to the studio

10 April 2009 - Brian Eno’s revealed that he’s heading back into the studio with U2 next week.

The legendary producer didn’t give any more details at all – but made the comment at the very end of an event last night in which he discussed philosophy and politics with US trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell.The talk at London's South Bank Centre was the opening to this year’s Ether Festival, and on Sunday and Monday night Eno will perform alongside David Byrne as part of the same event.

The legendary producer and former Roxy Music member is credited with the invention of ambient music, and during his career has worked with the likes of Talking Heads, David Bowie, U2 and Coldplay as well as producing numerous world music records.

Hassell collaborated with Eno on the 1980 album ‘Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics,’ and early in his musical career worked with the revered composer and sound pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

In his career Eno has recorded more than forty solo and collaborative studio albums, beginning in 1973 with Here Come The Warm Jets, and most recently last year’s Whatever Happens Will Happen Today with David Byrne.

6 Music will be at Byrne and Eno’s gig on Sunday night – so tune in to our music news bulletins and check the website on Monday for reviews and reaction from fans.

Rodrigo Davies

The Specials return 

The ska legends play at the BBC for the first time in 25 years and drop Glasto hint

08 April 2009 - The Specials made their live return at the BBC last night (April 7) with an appearance on Later...With Jools Holland.The legendary ska band minus Jerry Dammers, bizarrely returned to the scene of their split after a Top Of The Pops appearance at the Television Centre over 25 years ago.

"The last time we were in this building, we did 'Ghost Town' so it's a strange feeling, it's like going back in time." said founding member Lynval Golding ."I keep thinking, 'Did it really happen? Has 20 something years really gone by? We all need reading glasses now." 

The line-up of Terry Hall, Golding, Neville Staple, Roddy Byers, Horace Panter and John Bradbury are set to embark on their 30th anniversary reunion tour later this month.

They made a surprise guest appearance at Bestival last September. Hall and Golding also joined Lily Allen onstage at Glastonbury in 2007."I keep thinking, 'Did it really happen? Has 20 something years really gone by? We all need reading glasses now."  Lynval Golding

Golding hinted that the reformed Coventry collective may make an appearance at this year's Glastonbury Festival."There is a possibility of us doing it," he said. "Look out for that one."

The Specials kick off their reunion tour on 22 April in Newcastle before they wrap up with a special homecoming show in Coventry’s Ricoh Arena on 15 May.

Despite their time away Golding said he's amazed at how many of their tracks are still relevant today.

He added: "'Too Much Too Young' is about how the number of kids having kids keeps going up and 'Concrete Jungle' is about knife violence. It feels like nothing has changed."

YYYs go electro

The New York trio talk about re-tooling their sound for It's Blitz

08 April 2009 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs have argued that they deliberately decided to go for a more electro feel on their new albumIt's Blitz. 

Singer Karen O said it felt like the "next step along the path" for the New York trio following the release of their last EPIs Is."I guess an electronic and more synthesised sound felt right this time," she told 6 Music.

"We moved away from the raw rock that we recently did and freed up the direction for something new."

"It just sort of came in the course of writing and recording the record," guitarist Nick Zinner continued."It's really what seemed to work the best for us."

Another reason for their new polished direction was largely down to the record's co-producer, TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek, who worked on their previous two albums.

"Dave possesses this radical quality that transforms songs," explains drummer Brian Chase. 

"We took what we did with our main producer Nick (Launey) to Dave and he was like, 'You have to try new ideas and experiment.""It knocked the wind out of our sails a little bit at first."Karen O on Yeah Yeah Yeahs' album leaking 

It's Blitz,which is out this week, was leaked ahead of its official physical release on February 23, forcing the band to push the album digitally soon after.

Karen admitted that she was initially disappointed when she heard the album slipped through the net.

"We were really excited about building this excitement around the new record," she sighed."So it knocked the wind out of our sails a little bit at first.

"But at the same time we were lucky because there was a pretty positive reception with the leak."

During their three years out of the spotlight the band have been keeping busy on various side projects most notably the soundtrack to Spike Jonze's new movie 'Where The Wild Things Are'.

Karen roped in her fellow band members, Arcade Fire, The Raconteurs and Deerhunter for the score, which is based on a childhood book.

"My favourite things are music and film and the marriage between the two of them so I was really excited about putting this together," she enthused.

The trio are set to headline this year's Camden Crawl on 24 April and Zinner said their songs are likely to take on a different form live.

"We've had to re-interpret the songs live so it won't sound the same as the studio album," he added.

"I think Nick has about 30 pedals now,"Karen joked. "They’re like bunnies they multiply."

Penate grows up

The singer-song writer teams up with Adele and Paul Epworth on his dark second album

06 April 2009 - Jack Penate has teamed up with Bloc Party and Kate Nash producer Paul Epworth for his "life changing" new album.

His as-yet-untitled second record also saw the singer/songwriter join forces with his old friend Adele and Norman Cook as he retreated to a box studio in Kensal Rise. 

The singer's first single 'Tonight's Today' marks a significant change of direction for Penate. We caught up with him to get the lowdown on his new record.

Tell me about your influences on this album. It seems like it's going in a really different direction?

It is a lot more dance orientated, introspective and emotional as a whole. The idea was to create dance music for people to cry to. That was the basis me and Paul worked closely together to try and create.

Something which had complete atmosphere and soul and also which you could dance and have fun to.Does a lot of the content stem from your own personal experiences?Yeah completely. The last record was a lot of fantasy really, a lot of teenage fantasy which is wonderful and what you should be doing as a teenager, making up love stories.But this one is about real life. I can kind of pinpoint a song to a time of my life or a situation. I just realised I definitely wanted to create something which was completely true to me. I've tried not to be too overt and be more subtle in my lyrics."Her voice always makes such an impact onanything" Jack Penate on working with AdeleHow do you look back on your debutMatineenow?

“That album was such a wonderful experience and incredibly naive in many ways. I look back and it seems like a different me. I really enjoy playing it but that’s probably as far as it goes.

It doesn’t gel with who I am now but I still completely respect it. It's just I can’t see where Matinee fits in with me now.”

The video seems dreamy and free?

The video is inspired by a film I really love and the director turned me onto. I thought, 'Yeah why I don’t I do a black and white video where I kind of kiss a guy?'. I didn’t really see any point in holding back.

I think I almost hid who I was before but I think you do as a teenager.

I would say misrepresentation is too big a word but I may have sent people on a different tangent to who they thought I was. But now I’m more comfortable with myself.

Paul Epworth has a pretty amazing CV with Bloc Party, Kate Nash and Florence And The Machine. What was the relationship with him like?It was incredibly intense and very special. He is in the same mindframe as me in a kind of do or die sense.I learned a ridiculous amount not just about music but about recording, about producing. We did it all in a tiny room on a complete shoe string and it still sounds amazing.Did you work on the track 'Let's All Die' with Fatboy Slim?I did the sessions with him but because it wasn't done live it maybe didn't quite feel quite like I wanted it to. Unfortunately we didn't use his version in the end. Norman still played a big part in it but Paul helped me re-do the song in the end.What is that song about?Let's All Die is a celebration of death. It's completely joyous. It's basically about me going to New Orleans when I was 18 or 19 and seeing a funeral procession.There was this brass band and people were dressing up and dancing.Adele features on guest vocals on this record too. How was that?She was in Notting Hill and I just phoned her and said, 'Can you do this song?' As always she came in and killed it.Her voice always makes such an impact on anything because it’s the most beautiful thing.'Tonight's Today' is out now.Damian Jones

Rappers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

05 April 2009 - Run-DMC have officially been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

The duo were honoured during a star-studded gala and Eminem gave the rap pioneers their award and telling them how their music changed his life as a boy growing up in Detroit.

Run-DMC broke down the barriers between rock and rap and helped push rap and hip hop into mainstream pop culture with hit albums like 1986's "Raising Hell."

That album featured the lead single "Walk This Way," a cover of the classic Aerosmith song of the same name. It fused rap and rock and appealed to fan’s of both genres.

Eminem explained how the group had inspired him:

"They broke away from the pack by being the pack," he said.

"They were the baddest of the bad and the coolest of the cool. Run-DMC changed my life. There's three of them and if you grew up with hip hop like I did, they were the Beatles.""They were the baddest of the bad and the coolest of the cool. Run-DMC changed my life."Eminem on Run DMC

The two remaining members of the group Joseph "DJ Run" Simmons and Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels explained how their music grew and developed:

"We were young guys with a new music that people thought was a fad, but we knew the culture was a way of life and we just lived it," McDaniels said.

"The music that we made then didn't just impact friends, it impacted a generation. So I guess that's what rock and roll does."

Any chance of a Run reunion ended with Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell's death in 2002, when he was shot to death outside his studio. His murder remains unsolved.

Mizell's mother, Connie, accepted the award on his behalf.

"My baby is still doing it for me," she said.

Antony goes techno

Hegarty teams up with Bjork collaborator to re-work set for Coachella

02 April 2009 - Antony Hegarty surprised a few people with an album from his disco side-project Hercules and Love Affair in 2008.

2009 will see the Antony And The Johnsons mastermind delving into the world of techno.

The Mercury Prize-winner has revealed he's linking up with Matthew Herbert, the acclaimed producer who has worked with the Icelandic queen of beats, Bjork, in the past.

Hegarty and Herbert are working together on mashing up his latest album,The Crying Light, for Coachella festival in the US between 17-19 April.Speaking exclusively to 6 Music, Antony told us what he's got in store: “We’ve been re-imagining some of the songs from my album as techno songs. I’m curious to keep exploring.”As for how the collaboration came about, he said: “I wanted to do some kind of vivisection, beak a song apart and just pull out its innards, hang them up on a line look at them and reconfigure them.“Also, because festivals are so impossible to do with my instrumentation because it’s all so twee, it just fades away in the distance.”"We've been re-imagining some of the songs from my album as techno songs."

Antony Hegarty

The singer said the festival setting isn’t always ideal for his live shows.

“People are throwing beers at each other,” he laughed. “No one cares about these tiny little sounds so for a festival you want something that’s more structural and stalwart, a sound that’s just gonna load itself into their computer.”

Herbert has produced and remixed artists from REM, Yoko Ono and Serge Gainsbourg to John Cale and Roisin Murphy.

Of his friend, who is also a classically trained pianist, Hegarty said: “He’s great. He’s a mad scientist, kind of like Professor Brainstorm. I used to read a lot of those books as a kid.”

It’s a possibility that fans in England might get to see the final results.

“We might do it at a festival in England too,” said Hegarty. “I’m not quite sure yet, someone will tell me in the end.”

Jean Michel Jarre tribute

After Maurice Jarre's death his son discusses the Dr Zhivago composer's legacy

01 April 2009 - Electronic musician and performer Jean Michel Jarre has paid tribute to his late father Maurice Jarre.

Aged 84, Maurice won Oscars for his evocative scores ofLawrence Of Arabia,Doctor ZhivagoandA Passage To India.

Born in Lyon in 1924, the composer died in Los Angeles last weekend (Sunday 29 March) after a long battle with cancer.

"I think his legacy is to have been amongst those who really revolutionised the modern soundtracks world," said Jean Michel.The pioneer of synthesised music told BBC 6 Music: "The specificity of his work and his talent was to create such strong moods and melodies attached to movies forever.

"You can listen to three notes of the soundtrack ofLawrence Of ArabiaorDr Zhivagoand it's a very strong reminder of the whole movie."Recognised particularly for his work on the David Lean epics, Maurice Jarre received an Oscar, six Academy Award nominations, two Bafta Awards, four Golden Globes and a Grammy throughout his career.He last appeared in public in February, when he was awarded a lifetime award at the Berlin Film Festival."I'm quite moved by starting this world tour and carrying and conveying and spreading his name all around the planet."

Jean Michel Jarre

Jean-Michel explained why his father's soundtracks were so different to those made today.

"It's quite unusual in the soundtrack world, apparently these days, where you have more of a tracklisting of songs but not the exploitation of a theme all through the movie, in a rather hypnotic way.

"He was amongst those who really revolutionised the modern soundtracks world," he said.

Jean Michel believes his In-Doors World Arena Tour, which kicks off in May, is an opportunity to keep the memory of his father alive.

Adding: "I must say that I'm quite moved by starting this world tour and carrying and conveying and spreading his name all around the planet, in the next few days and weeks, so it's kind of a continuity."