Low-Noise

Boards of Canada have created some of electronic music’s most distinctive and strangely familiar sounds: music that seems to evoke memories you’re not quite sure you ever had. We explore their mysterious world of faded childhood imagery, analogue textures, warped melodies and unsettling nostalgia, and ask: why does their music feel so much like a memory?

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

I hope you enjoy this recording...

Mathew Woodall

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Artificial intelligence is suddenly everywhere in music: writing songs, generating voices, creating performances and raising uncomfortable questions about creativity, ownership and what it means to be an artist.But is AI really the unprecedented disruption it appears to be? Music has always evolved alongside technology, from synthesisers and drum machines to sampling, Auto-Tune and digital production.In this episode of Low Noise, we consider the arguments, the anxieties and the possibilities. Is AI a threat to musicians, simply another creative tool or the next stage in music's continuing evolution?

In this episode I am in discussion with musician Keith Cheshire.

I hope you enjoy this recording...

Mathew Woodall

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https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

David Crosby is one of those musicians whose life story can sometimes obscure his music.The Byrds. Crosby, Stills & Nash. Laurel Canyon. Drugs, prison, fallouts, extraordinary excess and, eventually, an equally extraordinary late creative revival.It's quite a story.But take all of that away and something much more interesting remains.Because David Crosby made some very strange music.His guitar tunings didn't always behave as expected. His songs could seem to drift rather than progress. Harmonies appeared in unexpected places. And when much American songwriting seemed to be heading towards increasingly definite forms, Crosby was often interested in ambiguity.Nowhere is that more apparent than on his 1971 solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name — a record populated by some of the most celebrated musicians of its generation, but which somehow feels less like a collection of songs than a place you temporarily inhabit.And then, remarkably, decades later, Crosby began making some of the most adventurous music of his career.So beyond the mythology, the arguments and that unmistakable moustache, what made David Crosby musically different? And have we perhaps underestimated him? 

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

I hope you enjoy this recording...

Mathew Woodall

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https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

What makes The War on Drugs sound so familiar, yet so completely their own? Drawing on the widescreen sweep of classic American rock, Adam Granduciel and his band transform guitars, synthesisers and repetition into something hazy, hypnotic and strangely timeless. We explore the music, influences and atmosphere of The War on Drugs — and ask how heartland rock became a dreamscape.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

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Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

Can an album be nostalgic for a future that never arrived?

When Donald Fagen released The Nightfly in 1982, it sounded unlike anything else. Immaculately produced, filled with jazz sophistication and lyrical detail, it looked back to the optimism of 1950s America through the eyes of a teenager convinced that tomorrow would always be brighter than today.But beneath its flawless surface lies something more poignant. Is The Nightfly really a celebration of the American Dream, or is it an elegy for a vision of the future that quietly slipped away? I'm Mathew Woodall, and this is Low Noise. Tune in to one of the finest solo albums ever made and asking why, more than forty years later, The Nightfly still sounds like tomorrow.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

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Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

Can music change the atmosphere of a room without demanding your attention?

Few bands have occupied that strange, beautiful space quite like The Durutti Column. Often associated with Factory Records, post-punk and Manchester, Vini Reilly's music somehow exists outside all of those labels. Delicate, melancholic and quietly virtuosic, these are records that whisper rather than shout.But why has The Durutti Column remained a treasured secret for some listeners while never quite entering the wider conversation? And what makes music this understated continue to resonate in an increasingly noisy world?  I'm Mathew Woodall, and this is Low Noise. Today we're spending some time with one of Britain's most singular musical voices.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

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Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

How did Hotel California become one of the defining albums of the 1970s?

Released in 1976, Hotel California found the Eagles at a remarkable creative peak. Beautifully produced and meticulously arranged, it combines soaring harmonies, memorable songwriting and superb musicianship with an atmosphere that remains instantly recognisable nearly fifty years later.In this episode of Low Noise, we return to an album that contains some of the Eagles’ most celebrated music, from the extraordinary title track and the widescreen beauty of “New Kid in Town” to the delicacy of “Wasted Time” and the epic guitar interplay of “The Last Resort”.We explore the arrival of Joe Walsh, the changing sound of the band and the extraordinary craft behind a record that could be both polished and melancholy, expansive and intimate.There are darker shadows here too — fame, excess and disillusionment sit alongside the seductive mythology of California. But above all, we ask what makes Hotel California such an enduring, evocative and genuinely beautiful album.

Was this really the end of the California dream — or its most perfectly realised musical expression?

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

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Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

What does In Another World reveal about one of the most intriguing bands of the last forty years?

In this episode of Low Noise, we discuss Graeme Thomson’s In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk, a book that traces the remarkable evolution of Talk Talk, from their early synth-pop beginnings to the increasingly ambitious, uncompromising music of The Colour of Spring, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock.We explore Thomson’s portrait of Mark Hollis and the band, the decisions and circumstances that shaped their changing sound, and what the book adds to our understanding of a group that seemed determined to move further away from what was expected of them.Is the familiar story of Talk Talk’s transformation quite as straightforward as we think, and what does In Another World reveal when we look again?

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

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Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

What does it mean to be remembered—not loudly, not dramatically—but in a way that quietly refuses to fade?
Forget Me Nots is a song by American R&B musician Patrice Rushen, released in 1982 by Elektra Records as the first single from her seventh album, Straight from the HeartThe song is co-written by Rushen with Freddie Washington and Terri McFaddin, and was produced by Rushen. Although it received very little support from the record label, it became successful in the UK, peaking No. 8 on the Singles Chart.
The song has been covered directly by several artists, but more significantly has been sampled frequently, including: George Michael in "Fastlove" (1996), and in Will Smith's 1997 hit "Men in Black" from the soundtrack to the film of the same name.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

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Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).

What does it sound like when a musician commits fully to a moment that won’t come again?

The Köln Concert is a live solo double album by pianist Keith Jarrett recorded at the Opera House in Köln, West Germany, on 24 January 1975.  It unfolds without a score -just improvisation, in real time, and the subtle pressure of the room.

You hear everything: the mechanics of the piano, the resonance of the space, even Jarrett’s own voice - unfiltered, part of the texture rather than separate from it. Nothing is corrected or contained.
And that’s where its endurance lies. The Köln Concert doesn’t present a finished idea; it documents attention itself. Constraint becomes material. Repetition becomes structure. Time becomes audible.

In this episode I am in discussion with Dr. Andrew Webber.

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https://buymeacoffee.com/lownoise

Why buy me a coffee?

Low Noise is proudly ad-free. If you would like to to say thank you for any of the content you have enjoyed (and help support the continuation of creating more), the above link provides a way to make a small donation of your choice (I also function on coffee!).