Three Minute Epiphany

DJ and major record collector DJ Shadow on interpreting the world around him through his music, and finding the right collaborators for his new record.

Writer Sabrina Mahfouz is this month's Slow Readers Book Club. She'll be discussing her latest play at the Royal Court - A History of Water in the Middle East

Sabrina, who is British Egyptian, grew up with ambitions of being a spy but was turned down by MI6. After turning her attention to writing she has won numerous awards and has recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Sabrina is the editor of 'The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write' and is currently editing a new creative anthology Smashing It: Working Class Artists on Life, Art and Making It Happen which includes contributions from the likes of Riz Ahmed and Maxine Peak and a children's poetry anthology Poems From a Green and Blue Planet both of which will be out in early October. She is also currently writing a biopic of the legendary 'Godfather of Grime', Wiley.

The neuroscientist and author Dr Julia Jones otherwise known as Dr Rock, looks at the effect of music on our mental wellbeing. Her area of study looks closely at the use of music in the treatment of Dementia and she is a core part of BBC Music Day's Music and Dementia initiative.

The initiative is now working with over 80 organisations, including the NHS, to help bring music to everyone living with dementia by 2020. The initiative has inspired over 800 events across the UK, from pop-up nightclubs and raves at care homes to inter-generational singing sessions, all celebrating the power of music to change lives.

The iconic label is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a major new show in London.

Use Hearing Protection: FAC 1 – 50 / 40 takes place at the Chelsea Space in the capital and celebrates the history and on-going influence of Factory Records, supported by rare and unseen materials from personal Factory archives.

Curated by Jon Savage and Mat Bancroft, the Factory exhibition is being featured in this year’s London Design Festival and runs from the 13th September until Friday the 25th of October 2019

Image: Detail from Fac 1, Poster 1978, Design Peter Saville

Mary Anne is joined by Norwegian experimental songwriter and novelist Jenny Hval. Jenny presents a 3 Minute Epiphany on the practice of love.

The title of this 3 Minute Epiphany is also the title of Jenny's latest album and Valie Export’s 1985 film of the same name, which in part inspired the record.

We asked Jenny about the exploration of love in art in poetry and as a way of broadening her own writing practice.

Using the pop song format to attempt to make sense of what love and care actually mean, Jenny explores Love across her new record, saying of the album “Love as a theme in art has been the domain of the canonized, big artists, and I have always seen myself as a minor character, a voice that speaks of other things...But in the last few years I have wanted to take a closer look at the practice of otherness, this fragile performance, and how it can express love, intimacy, empathy and desire.”

We have a 3 Minute Epiphany from US based musician and producer, Salami Rose Joe Louis. Her new album 'Zdenka 2080' was released via Brainfeeder on the 30th of August 2019.

The album draws it's inspiration from film, literature, art, and music, and was heavily influenced in particular by a series of apocalyptic sci-fi novels by Octavia Butler and Gene Wolf.

Salami Rose Joe Louis. (real name Lindsay Olsen) says that the books: "inspired me to explore the realms of fantasy as a means of illuminating concepts and truths about our own society and humanity.”

As a result 'Zdenka 2080' describes a future dystopian Earth in the year 2080 that has been mis-managed by unethical governments and corporations. An initiative by greedy big business to capture solar energy to power a super-sized spaceship, results in a rapidly cooling Earth, and the elite escape via the spaceship to colonize another distant planet. The earthlings left behind find themselves fading with the cooling sun.

Experimental rockers Battles present their 3 Minute Epiphany on making records in NYC. The band recently released their storming new single Titanium 2 on the Warp record label.

The single features No Wave legend Sal Principato from the iconic 80s New York band Liquid Liquid and the track itself is very much a homage to the city. With this in mind, we asked the band how it felt to finally be recording music in their home town after years spent holed up in studios across the USA.

We explore Prom 64: The Breaks. Prom 64 explores the iconic tracks that spawned breaking and formed the origins of hip hop.

Performed by The Heritage Orchestra and conducted by Jules Buckley, the concert will feature historic and modern-classic breaking tunes from James Brown, Incredible Bongo Band, Babe Ruth, Herbaliser, Madcon, and Poets of Rhythm, alongside live breaking crew 'Soul Mavericks’, UK turntable royalty DJ Switch, singer Alice Russell, and many more.

On the show we hear from Jules and the Soul Mavericks crew just ahead of their performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

Producer and DJ Chief Xcel of hip hop duo Blackalicious discusses his career and relationship with rapper and lyricist Gift of Gab.

Involved in sound systems in London for 35 years, Lady Bantam describes why her all-female system adds a unique and important flavour to Carnival.