Anyway, I was on holiday last week, so to fill the space in my Editor’s Letter column, where I would normally moan on about something that had happened during the week, I pre-prepared a list of ten tracks from new(ish) acts I’ve been listening to of late. And now, just for you, I’m reporting it here. Have a listen.

Suzanne Sundfør
There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you completely fall for a song on the first listen, and ‘White Foxes’ was one of those moments. There are few songs I’ve listened to as much this year and it runs excited chills through me every time I hear it still. The album it is taken from is available on iTunes now, and while you’re frantically downloading that, her previous album ‘The Brothel’ is also very much worth checking out.

John Talabot
Released through Permanent Vacation last month, John Talabot’s debut album, ‘Fin’, has been getting some heavy play in the CMU office of late. Taking his strong songwriting skills and drawing heavily on house, bringing to mind acts like Pantha Du Prince and fellow Spaniards Delorean, the record is filled with standout moments. Here’s one, ‘Destiny’, the first of two collaborations with Pional on the album.

Sleep Party People
The solo project of Scarlet Chives member Brian Batz, Sleep Party People’s music is slow, twisted pop that sits somewhere between dreamlike and nightmarish – mainly due to the heavily-effected vocals that are melted almost beyond recognition. This feeling often comes through in SPP videos too, particularly the one for the track below, ‘A Dark God Heart’, which slowly morphs from innocent to morbid. New album ‘We Are Drifting On A Sad Song’ is due out via Blood And Biscuits next month.

THEEsatisfaction
There’s no denying that THEEsatisfaction’s music is ambitious, but its success is in sounding effortless. Allowing hip hop, jazz, funk, Afro-Futurism and psychedlia to run together is not something that has never been attempted before, but to balance it so perfectly is no mean feat. ‘QueenS’ is taken from the duo’s debut album proper ‘awE naturalE’ which is out now via Sub Pop.

Clean George IV
Clean George IV, aka George McFall, first emerged in 2007, releasing the brilliant ‘First Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regiment Of Women’. But the project went on hold for a few years, in which time he began a classical music degree and got sued by Kraftwerk (I’m not sure if these two things are related). He returned last year with debut album ‘God Save The Clean’, sounding like Andrew WK on a bad comedown.

Julia Holter
Last year Julia Holter found herself with an underground hit on her hands with debut album proper ‘Tragedy’. Quickly snapped up by RVNG Intl, she released the follow-up, ‘Ekstasis’, earlier this month. Her sound is unusual and experimental but also warm and welcoming, never attempting to block the listener out with its weirdness. Even her FACT mix, which was largely made up of field recordings with the occasional track dropped in amongst them, manages to pull this off. Here’s the opening track from ‘Ekstasis’, ‘Marienard’:

Bernholz
It’s occurred to me now that I’ve started writing these blurbs, how much of the music here is experimental but with leanings towards pop. Bernholz is no different, although he stands out because while his early releases were completely abstract, latest single ‘Austerity Boy’ sees him attempt to step almost completely over into pop by creating a three minute update of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ for modern Britain.

Asbjørn
I first discovered Asbjørn at last year’s SPOT Festival in Denmark. Wandering into his show for no clear reason, he turned out to be very popular amongst his home audience already, performing to a capacity crowd of around 1500 people in the middle of the afternoon. It was clear to see why too. Still in his teens he makes highly polished, infectious pop and knows full well how to perform it.

Team Me
I bang on about Team Me quite a lot, so forgive me if I’m covering old ground here. They are my favourite indie-pop sextet of the moment though. Their debut album, ‘To The Treetops!’ was released earlier this month and features ten unashamedly poppy songs, including the wonderful ‘Dear Sister’, which first appeared on their eponymous 2010 debut EP.

ScHoolboy Q
‘There He Go’ by ScHoolboy Q has spent extended periods of time jammed in my brain since I first heard it on Jon Hillcock’s New Noise podcast back in January. His second album, ‘Habits & Contradictions’, was released the same month and, while maybe not treading much new ground in hip hop terms, it nonetheless does it well. It also features a roll call of other up and coming rappers, including that A$AP Rocky fella.

New Noise
Jon Hillcock’s New Noise podcast is always a great source of new music, but the first edition of 2012 was particularly good. After I listened to it I went and downloaded ever single track featured on it, because they’re all great. The likes of ScHoolBoy Q, Tonstartssbandht, and Altarboy particularly stand out.

Listen to the whole podcast here:

Julia Holter
Julia Holter released a great album called Tragedy last year, and has another coming out via RVNG Intl in March, which, from the sound of the track below, Marienbad, will be even better. Aly at CMU has this one covered.

Marienbad:

Mallard The Wonderdog
I think David Williams is a shockingly underrated songwriter. As frontman of Derby band Plans & Apologies he churned out countless brilliant songs, and has an amazing way with words. Now recording as Mallard The Wonderdog, he released his second proper solo album this week. It’s called Miserable Fuck and is only a quid on Bandcamp, why would you not buy it?

Rock Bottom
I’m not sure Rock Bottom is that great name to give a band, any band, but that’s what these guys have done and we’re just going to have to live with it. They make up for it by playing really good, no frills hardcore. There are three new demos streaming on their Facebook page now, which you can also download here.

Flight
This isn’t really new, it’s from 2010, but I only heard it last week thanks to DðlfinZ on a recent edition of the Song, By Toad podcast. Something about Witch Hunt Town by Flight instantly grabbed me, so I shot off and bought the whole The Lead Riders EP on Bandcamp, which contains yet more lo-fi joy.

Graphics
Producer Alfie MacGibbon has released a number of EPs as Graphics through various labels, with the latest, Mama Grizzlies, out via GETME! two weeks ago. The title track, which you can hear below, is a stunning piece of work that has no real business being a chilled as it is, considering its component parts.

Mama Grizzlies:

Akira Kiteshi
When I first heard Akira Kiteshi a year or so ago he was already making fairly heavy dubstep. Since then he’s ramped the levels right up and branched out into other areas of bass music. I’m intrigued to hear the whole album, but for now here are some short snippets of each track.

Industrial Avenue album sampler:

Postiljonen
I don’t know a great deal about Postiljonen beyond the fact they’re from Sweden and what little I could decipher from the brief write up of this track on French blog Fluokids. And, yes, I could look them up, but until I absolutely have learn more about them I’m just enjoying the images the choir-heavy 7 conjures up by itself.

7:

Skirt
Another one from Fluokids, this track by Skirt is a nice slice of creepy minimal techno. You can hear the first minute and a half below, or download the full track here.

Racing The Sea (clip):

Gracie
Every project needs a good back story, and Gracie‘s Andrew Balasia’s is that he’s a dog. I suspect he isn’t. Whatever, he has an EP called Treehouse coming out via Small Plates Records later this month. Check out the video for a track from, the laidback, dubby Southern Place, below.

Sleep Party People
I spent about an hour rifling through Sleep Party People videos on YouTube a few weeks ago, so when a new one popped up in my inbox this week, I hit play straight away. Accompanying what is probably their most beautiful song A Dark God Heart (from their We Are Drifting On A Sad Song album, which is out in the UK in April) the video is very good, but also a bit NSFW.

Tracklist:

01. Excision – Boom (Feat. Datsik) (0:03-1:01)
02. Two Fingers – ? (0:32)
03. Eskmo – I Dream I‘m Flying (1:55)
04. Amon Tobin – Theme From Battery (3:11)
05. Amon Tobin – Slowly (4:04)
06. Eskmo – San Francisco (The Rhythm) (4:59)
07. Photek – Deadly Technology (8:50)
08. Dom & Roland – Sylo (Feat. Amon Tobin) (11:19)
09. SPL – Nihil (14:00)
10. Spor – Three Faces (Feat. Infiltrata) (18:22)
11. Evol Intent – 8-Bit Bitch (Spor Remix) (19:00)
12. ?? (20:30)
13. Two Fingers – ? (21:40)
14. Two Fingers – ? (23:42)
15. Two Fingers – Sweden Rhythm (27:04)
16. The Sea Nymphs – Sarah On A Worm (30:03)
17. Amon Tobin – Technique (32:00)
18. Amon Tobin – Taxidermia (34:07)
19. Amon Tobin – It’s A Lovely Night (35:42)
20. Two Fingers – ? (38:22)
21. Two Fingers – Better Get That (Instrumental) (39:42)
22. Two Fingers – Don‘t Hurt Nobody (Feat. Ms Jade) Acapella (39:42)
23. ?? (41:18)
24. Amon Tobin – Taxidermia (Edit) (43:56)
25. The Sea Nymphs – Tree Tops High (46:26)
26. ?? (48:00)
27. Amon Tobin – Kitchen Sink (48:40)
28. Ms. Jade – Jade’s A Champ (49:42)
29. Amon Tobin – Big Furry Head (51:48)
30. Broken Note – Dubversion (53:39)
31. ?? (54:38)
32. ?? (57:42)
33. Spor – The Eyes Have It (59:44)
34. Dom & Roland – Deckers Theme (65:02)
35. Amon Tobin – Straight Psyche (67:50)

So, my plan is to start pulling together bits and pieces I’ve enjoyed recently every now and then, some of which I will have already written about, some of which I won’t. If nothing else, it’ll help me remember what I’ve heard and enjoyed.

Porcelain Raft
Porcelain Raft‘s Strange Weekend is my favourite album of the year so far, and I expect it to stay at or near the top of my personal chart for the remainder of it. I wrote about the album here, and Mauro put together a brilliant playlist for CMU here.

Put Me To Sleep:

Suzanne Ciani
Often compared to Delia Derbyshire (although her advert jingles probably put her closer to Raymond Scott), Suzanne Ciani is an award winning and influential electronic composer. Next month Finder Keepers will release a compilation of her work from 1969 to 1985.

Lixiviation:

Magical Mistakes
Producer Erik Luebs formerly went by the name Death By Panda. Having switched to his current Magical Mistakes moniker, he release his debut album, Dislocation, last summer and has just put out a new EP, called Special Friends.

Supermoon Crashed featuring Mutual Benefit:

Bernholz
Producer Jez Berns, aka Bernholz, began releasing singles through Anti-Ghost Moonray Records last year, and his latest, Austerity Boy, is out in February. It’s a great odd pop track that pays strange homage (maybe homage isn’t the word) to Madonna’s Material Girl.

Austerity Boy:

Frankie Rose
When I’ve not been playing Porcelain Raft’s album lately, I’ve mostly been listening to Frankie Rose‘s solo debut, Interstellar. It’s a very lovely record and will hopefully do very well. My colleague Aly Barchi wrote about Frankie for CMU here.

Know Me:

Asbjørn
I first heard Asbjørn when I saw him play to a packed 1000 capacity room at last year’s SPOT festival in his home town of Aarhus, Denmark, when he was going by the name Asbjørn And The Strange Ears. Still in his teens, he’s already written a raft of great pop songs. I wrote about Asbjørn for CMU here.

The Criminal:

Die Hard
Somehow involved in the set-up of Glasgow label Halleluwah Hits, Die Hard make music it’s hard to define. They remind me a bit of The Beta Band, although that might just be because they’re Scottish and make off-kilter pop music. Their debut album is out in February.

Nailed To The Cross:

Bad Weather California
Psych-rock outfit Bad Weather California release their new album Sunkissed through Akron/Family’s Family Tree Records label next month, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face then you must be having a very bad day.

You’re My Friend:

A Whisper In The Noise
I love the back story to A Whisper In The Noise – it’s almost to perfect to be true. Until fourth album To Forget, which is out next month, all their music was written by one man, West Thordson, in the now abandoned primary school he attended as a child. Now a duo, they write music on a farm in the middle of nowhere. It’s very cinematic. I wrote about this for CMU here.

Black Shroud:

 
Meanwhile, brilliant “ecstatic trance” duo Blondes have just released a video for their new track Wine. Using little more than some flashing lights and a few people on drugs, it effectively depicts the experience of watching the NASA video above.

Midday, as Wall Street wakes up and the first US newswires go out (ie 7am there)? Nope, we were pretty sure it was Universal Music Group getting the EMI labels, and that it would be them making the announcement, and its parent company Vivendi isn’t listed in New York so Wall Street’s not relevant. But would it come from UMG’s New York office? In which case nothing was likely to be said before 9am their time, giving me time to go and grab lunch. But then wouldn’t UMG’s owner Vivendi actually make the announcement, and it’s in Paris an hour ahead of us. I wonder what time French people go for lunch.

The day was speeding by and nothing was happening. Was the press release actually going to come from UMG CEO Lucian Grainge’s HQ in LA? In which case, what time would I have to stick around til? But not to worry, because just before 3.30pm UK time Vivendi HQ did the honours, telling us that Universal Music Group had agreed to purchase EMI Music for £1.2 billion.

Phones rang, statuses were updated, a story was written and posted, suddenly the CMU office was alive with activity, where previously all had been calm. It’s quite exciting when that happens. Now I’m sat here writing this in the aftermath.

Although the sale of its publishing division has still not been formally announced, this nonetheless confirms that EMI is definitely being split up, and the music world’s fourth major label is set to become no label at all. Its recordings will be absorbed into Universal’s catalogue, and most likely Sony/ATV will grab the publishing division – insiders say that’s a done deal, though our sources tell us the formal announcement may now not come until next week.

Announcing the deal, UMG Chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said: “This is an historic acquisition for UMG and an important step in preserving the legacy of EMI Music. For me, as an Englishman, EMI was the pre-eminent music company that I grew up with. Its artists and their music provided the soundtrack to my teenage years. Therefore, UMG is committed to both preserving EMI’s cultural heritage and artistic diversity and also investing in its artists and people to grow the company’s assets for the future. As a result, we will be better positioned to fully capitalise on the many new and exciting opportunities in the current marketplace, and also able to better serve our artists, songwriters and business partners, while offering fans even more choice”.

All of this, of course, depends on the deal getting through the various hurdles now facing it. Pan-European indie labels trade body IMPALA had already said it would oppose any Universal/EMI deal, and confirmed that again following Vivendi’s announcement. With Universal already the world’s biggest music company, IMPALA and others feel it absorbing EMI’s record labels will give it an unfair control of the music market.

IMPALA similarly opposed the merger of the Sony and BMG record labels back in 2004, and although it did not succeed in completely blocking the two companies from joining, it did slow down the process and force certain concessions to be made. Even more so when Universal merged its publishing division with BMG Music Publishing in 2007. UK indie label trade body AIM is also likely to react negatively to the news, and it’s expected that competition regulators will launch an investigation in the not too distant future.

However, Universal seems confident that it can get the deal approved, possibly by selling off some of its existing catalogue – it has already confirmed that it will sell off up to half a billion euros worth of “non-core assets” just to finance the takeover. Presumably, so long as it ends up with the Beatles, Coldplay, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Beach Boys and Radiohead recordings, the company will be happy to lose whatever it takes.

Still, after all this excitement, it’s a shame that this means that EMI will all but disappear. Following the rocky years the company spent owned by equity firm Terra Firma, it emerged leaner, fitter and more forward thinking. The strategy of encouraging a closer relationship between the publishing and recording divisions was both sensible and starting to show signs of paying off. And EMI has launched other interesting initiatives in the last eighteen months, most recently an API giving app developers access to content. What will happen to all of that remains to be seen, but it seems certain that much of the work done by current CEO Roger Faxon will be sadly lost.

Meanwhile we’ll have to get used to referring to the major labels as ‘the big three’. It’s not that long ago that we were saying ‘the big five’. And some of us can remember ‘the big six’. Times are definitely changing.

This is taken from my CMU Editor’s Letter for 11 Nov 2011, read it in full here

I wrote about Dems’ new EP Houses for CMU recently. Now the lead track has a video. That’s it up there.

In the article I included two quotes from the co-curator of the project, and director of the opening play, Derek Bond, that were part of a much longer and very interesting interview. So, for fear of it festering on my hard drive forever more and never being used, I thought I’d put it up here.

Towards the end of the interview, we discussed Hacked in relation to another of Bond’s project, PLAYlist. Adopting pretty much the same format, this recurring show (now a fixture at the Latitude festival, as well as regular runs at Theatre 503) sees writers creating short plays based on songs. The only rule is that the play can’t be longer than the song that inspired it.

AM: How did this project come about and become what it is?
DB: Well, Telegraph theatre critic Dominic Cavendish has been involved in a couple of projects here. He did a thing called Decade a couple of years ago where we asked ten writers to all write a play, one for each year of the last decade, performed on New Year’s Eve 2010, and also Coalition, [where] we paired up other writers from other disciplines and had these sort of unlikely collaborations, and that was sort of examining what the coalition government was all about.

Then he suggested doing something about the phone hacking scandal, and so the artistic directors here, Tim Roseman and Paul Robinson, got in touch with myself and Lisa Cagnacci, who’s the programming director here, and we had a meeting and talked about ideas to do with phone hacking.

I think a lot of people are going to perhaps want to do something phone hacking related that is sort of a verbatim piece that talks about the courtroom drama of what’s been happening with that, the legal ins about outs of it, because it’s an interest scandal, but we want to look at the human story behind it and actually what effects it. What it’s about really is an invasion of privacy and we wanted to look at the sort of emotional feeling behind it. And also what actually is on people’s voicemails.

How would you feel if someone was listening to your voicemail? What sort of idea would they get about you? What would they learn from you? And would they have to fill in the gaps? The big thing we said to all of the writers was, “Don’t feel like you have to stick to the god’s honest truth, use your imagination and don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

AM: How long did it take to put the whole thing together?
DB: Well, Dominic came to us with the idea at the height of the scandal in July and we knew we had this slot that we wanted to do it in at the end of September/beginning of October. There was a worry that actually the story would have gone off the boil by then, [that] by the end of September it would be old news and no one would care about the hacking scandal, but it seems, you know, it’s the gift that keeps on giving to the media, it keeps on coming out and new revelations are coming out. There’s more revelations even just this week, which made the whole event seem very prescient.

Coming up with the idea was the work of an afternoon at a meeting sort of talking about it and thinking about it then refining it, then we commissioned the writers – we got the first drafts about two weeks ago in some cases – and then got directors on board straight away and most of the plays were rehearsed within a week. Because they’re all around ten minutes it’s been something that’s been relatively easy to put together. It’s a great way for us to get involved with a number of writers but also a number of directors who each take charge of their own play and they cast the actors of their choice, which means that you get a multitude of actors all involved who perhaps I’ve never seen or worked with before, but would definitely work with again.

AM: As well as directing one of the plays, what’s your involvement?
DB: So, I directed one of the plays and my involvement along with Lisa Cagnacci, who’s the other curator of the project, we commissioned the writers, chose which writers were going to be involved, and we got the directors involved as well, selected them and paired the writers up with the directors.

We also work on scripts before they actually end up in rehearsal, so we worked with some of the writers and suggested ideas and changes that they might want to make to the scripts before they finally started work with their own director, and obviously changes happen in rehearsal as well all the time, so it’s sort of really about overseeing the whole project and putting it all together and making sure the directors have got the support they need, and making sure the evening feels like a whole, rather than just six episodic, unrelated plays.

AM: You were about to tell me about Chris Beanland’s voicemail just now.
DB: Well, Chris’ voicemails were really interesting because, the other thing, I did all the recordings which meant that I’m one of the only people who’ve listened to all of the voicemails, and then having seen the scripts and then having seen the productions, er, because we’ve kept the voicemails secret, the directors haven’t heard them, and the actors haven’t heard them, only the writers heard them, and the writers and directors don’t know what the voicemails actually contained, or who left the voicemails

AM: So the recordings that were played in the theatre aren’t actually the original voicemails?
DB: A lot of them are recorded verbatim, any voicemails that you heard are actors who’ve recorded as they were heard, so those are the only ones. But having had that overview, it’s really interesting having seen, you know, what the writers have come up with and then what the directors have done.

There’s a very interesting couple of coincidences. In the play that was called Showmance by Anna Jordan about two people who’d met while working on a play and the re-meeting a year later on after their romance had sort of fizzled out, the director chose to cast a Northern Irish actress. And I happened to actually know that the person who owned the voicemail that sparked the play is also a Northern Irish actress, so it’s a very interesting coincidence that that’s all come about – a Northern Irish actress who’s inspired it, and you know, the director happened to cash a Northern Irish woman in the central role.

Also, in the play that was inspired by Chris Beanland’s voicemails, the writer originally wrote the character as named Christopher and I had to get in touch with him and say “I’m really sorry, but you’re gonna have to change the name”, because I guess it must have been left on a message and the writer, Ben Ellis, had no idea that Christopher was the name of the person whose voicemails he’d been listening to because we’d bleep out the names in the messages.

But Chris’ voicemails were very interesting because of course he’s a freelance journalist so he gets a lot of phonecalls from various people asking him to do things. So one of his messages was from somebody in an accounts department at a newspaper apologising for not paying him time, another phonecall was from a PR agency asking him to come to a particular event, another phonecall was from a PR agency asking him to go to another country for an event, another phonecall, you know, another PR agency, a commissioning editor, and then eventually some from his family as well.

What you get when you’re listening to a voicemail is you get little glimpses into people’s life, the different aspects of people’s lives, without actually any context for that, and any kind of understanding of where those pieces belong, and how they fit into someone’s life.

AM: So, it wasn’t based on one message?
DB: No, we told the writers to take inspiration from either one message or all the messages as a whole, in their wider context or to fill in the gaps. The play that I directed by Matt Hartley was inspired just by one message which was a message [from] somebody’s lawyer leaving a message about a house exchange that was going through and it seemed very innocuous. And that’s what Matt’s plays all about, how those things can be misinterpreted when taken out of context, because context is all.

AM: Without naming names, obviously, who are the people whose voicemails were used?
DB: Well, they come from a range of backgrounds. We advertised on Twitter and on Facebook and on the Theatre 503 website about, you know, saying we were doing this project, would people like to volunteer, and we had volunteers from all over.

Some people were from the theatre community, cos I guess those are the people that follow our feed, other people were from the journalism community, again I guess those are the people that follow the feed and were interested in the stories as well, and we also invited some people to get involved as well. So, there are some prominent journalists in there whose voicemails we’ve used and also people who work in bars, people who aren’t connected to any of those industries at all, either the theatre or the press, just ordinary everyday normal humans.

And I think that’s the interesting thing about it, it could be anybody’s voicemail. When we first talked about the project, we thought, you know, will anybody let us listen to their voicemails? And I thought, clearly I wouldn’t mind someone listening to my voicemails, and I just, I, er, then I listened to what was on my voicemail and was talking about that and, yeah, you kind of go, oh wait a minute, would I be comfortable with someone listening to this?

AM: Because there is the one play where everyone’s broadcasting everything in public…
DB: Yeah, it’s sort about the division, the dividing lines between what’s public and what’s private. I think that’s the point there. Because of course what the whole hacking scandal’s about is it’s taking something very private and something personal, somebody’s voicemail, and it’s shown it all to the world. And what we were doing is exactly the same, taking something that’s very private and then we’re showing it to a paying audience in a theatre.

Part of what I think about what’s interesting about the project is how it makes you feel sitting in the audience watching something that’s been inspired by a private message. It sort of makes you complicit in that, and I think in all of the hacking scandal, we as the public are complicit in that, because the reason why these newspapers did this is because they sold papers, and it’s just an interesting way to examine that and sort of ask the audience to examine that as well.

We’re all interested in people’s private lives, that’s why tabloid newspapers sell, that’s why gossip magazines sell, and I think what the Hacked project as a theatre piece does very well is ask everyone to examine that, that sort of voyeuristic interest in other people’s lives, as humans.

AM: Are you planning to do any more with this project? It’s only running for a week.
DB: Yeah, there’s been more interest in this project than we’ve had in almost any project we’ve done at 503. I think that’s largely because the media’s always interested in things that are about the media. The media is very very fond of itself. It’s why it’s been such a big news story and I think it’s why the theatre project has had so much interest as well.

There’s been pieces in the Guardian, in the Independent, I did an interview with Dutch television last week, it’s been covered by ABC in Australia, the Australian version of the BBC, French television came and did a piece on it. It’s had more international interest than anything that’s ever happened at 503, other than The Mountaintop, I think. And I think a lot of that is because the media is very interested in itself, which is understandable.

There’s been interest in other countries about perhaps doing something with the text that’s come out of it with these plays, potentially restaging it in other countries, which we’re looking into. In terms of the idea as a project, I mean as long as the hacking scandal is still in the news it’s still relevant. If it’s still there in six months time, potentially we could get six new writers to do exactly the same and repeat the same format, with six new writers listening to six new volunteers voicemails. But I think as long as it’s in the popular conscious it’s still an interesting format.

I think also what’s good about the format is that it doesn’t rely on necessarily on it being on the news. I think it’s interesting anyway, listening to somebody’s voicemails and using that as inspiration for a play. I think it would be an interesting project at any time with or without the hacking scandal. The hacking scandal makes it feel particularly prescient.

AM: There are similarities between this and PLAYlist, is that because you’re involved? You said it’s not your original idea but is it your format? You’ve just kind of applied the PLAYlist format to this?
DB: That’s right, I mean [in] PLAYlist obviously we ask writers to write plays inspired by songs and in that sense it’s similar, but we do a lot of things at 503 where we provide a stimulus to writers and ask them to write something shared off that and they tend to be multiple writer projects.

We do a thing called Rapid Write Response, which is where, when we have a show that’s running in the theatre for four weeks, we ask writers to come and watch it at the beginning of the run and then write a response play inspired by the themes or the characters, just a short play, and then we perform all those plays in one evening the last week of the play’s run on a set format plan. It’s a fascinating and a great way to get writers new and less experienced writers working alongside more experienced writers and expose them to an audience and see how they get on. We’ve always felt that writers should be developed on the stage at 503 and we wanted to put writers onto the stage and see how their work actually works in front of an audience.

But yeah, the idea of putting in an inspiration to a writer is similar to what we did with PLAYlist, the idea of using recordings as well and asking writers to sort of take an inspiration from an audio thing, yeah, it is a similar idea to PLAYlist and sort of how we came up with the idea was talking about formats we had like PLAYlist.

The big thing I should say about the format is it came out of a discussion about how we wanted the format to be the thing that reflected on the news story of phone hacking and we wanted to free up writers to write plays about whatever they wanted, to write plays about just human beings living their lives and tell a story. We felt if we asked the writers to write plays about the phone hacking scandal we’d end up with a lot of very tedious plays about Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch and newspaper problems and everything would be set inside an office and it would be very boring.

Doing it this way just meant it opened it up and the possibilities were endless, it doesn’t limit the writer’s creativity, it frees it.

Read my article on Hacked for Wired here.

Sadly, the one thing guaranteed to do it happened this week. Just 24 hours after Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the new iPhone 4S, his predecessor Steve Jobs, the man who developed the theatre and spectacle of the company’s announcements, succumbed to the cancer he had been suffering with since 2003.

It was only in August that Jobs stepped down as Apple’s CEO, taking on the role of Chairman instead. Although he had taken a number of leaves of absence from the company in recent years, usually prompting wobbles in Apple’s share price, he being so tied to its vision and ethos, he’d always returned (most recently against doctor’s orders to launch the iPad 2) seemingly with as much drive as ever.

However, two months ago he wrote in his resignation letter: “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come”.

I think most of us knew what that meant. Any man who can brush off pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant is going to have to be very ill indeed to admit that they can’t carry on. But still, I’m not sure any of us quite expected Jobs’ death to come so quickly and it is incredibly sad that a man with such a talent and flair for business died aged just 56.

As the news spread, tributes began to pour in, and such a respected figure was he that even the protesters occupying Wall Street, campaigning against the capitalist system of which Apple is part, felt the need to mark the sadness of his passing.

What this means for Apple as a company isn’t yet clear. Those wobbles in share price have become less pronounced more recently, and as Tim Cook (who had been established by standing in for Jobs whenever he was away) is generally seen as a suitable new leader, the company itself seems perfectly stable in business terms. Also, Apple’s long lead times on new products means that we’ll be seeing new devices that Jobs had a hand in producing for some time yet.

And so influential was he for many new entrepreneurs now rising up the ranks, such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify’s Daniel Ek, his outlook will likely continue to resonate for many years to come.

Just the fact that I’m writing about him here, and assuming that you’re not wondering why I’m talking about some tech guy in a music publication, shows what influence Jobs had. Because, of course, he did do hugely important things for the music industry too. Whatever you think about it, this business would be a very different place without iTunes. By adding a music store to Apple’s music software in 2003 as a means of feeding the already dominant iPod MP3 player, digital music was gradually brought to the masses.

The iTunes Store still has around 75% market share in the digital music space despite facing competition from countless rivals over the years, including all the traditional players in music retail. That’s a huge achievement, and it seems unlikely any of its competitors over the years could have achieved something similar had the Apple platform never existed – either because they are targeting a niche audience, or because their technology is a turn off to many. Apple have always approached digital music with a mainstream agenda, and with a technology the masses can use.

And, of course, all this was just a tiny part of Jobs’ overall achievements. Earlier this year, Wired published this great piece on Steve Jobs’ life in business, how he thought and how he worked. Reading it, it’s hard not to be impressed and inspired by him.

This is taken from my editorial for CMU, which you can read in full here.