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NQ x Abbey Road Studios

Through its nurturing of new superstars like Aitch and other young local talent, Manchester’s NQ has become a veritable institution of modern UK rap, helping elevate regional artists across the UK. James Keith meets members of the crew during a recent takeover at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, and heads to NQ’s northern base to discover the secret to its success

NQ is reshaping Manchester’s musical identity one mega-hit at a time. An entertainment company consisting of a record label, management and publishing house based in...

As we enter a new decade, the ways in which we define electronic music styles are rapidly changing. Chal Ravens explores the etymological evolution of...

Bickering over genre definitions is a time-honoured tradition in dance music. One of the weirder etymological developments of recent years is the changing meaning of...

Photo of an outdoor dancefloor in the sunshine at Field Maneuvers festival

The UK festival landscape is in crisis, with over 40 events cancelled ahead of this year’s season according to recent figures from the Association of Independent Festivals. Amidst the insurmountable rise in the price of production, and the ongoing cost of living crisis, how are organisers and punters feeling about the current situation? What has caused it? And what solutions are being considered that will help us save the sector?

“We went as far as three weeks before the gig, then made the decision [to cancel],” says Dave Clarke, co-director of Glasgow’s Riverside Festival. “We...

Kerri Chandler DJing live

For DJs with a packed touring schedule, gigging at one iconic club after another, finding the time to sit down in the studio can be nearly impossible. But when Kerri Chandler wanted to work on a long-delayed album, he hit on a solution: he’d transform those clubs into temporary studios, creating tracks attuned to each space. The result is ‘Spaces And Places’, and it’s some of his best work yet

“Sorry, it’s a little dark in here. I usually have club lighting on down here, like with rotating heads and stuff,” Kerri Chandler says, with...

How the global boom of African music is resonating with electronic artists in the diaspora

It’s an exciting time to be both a new and old fan of African music, but how does it feel for African artists raised and working in the diaspora? As producers and consumers, these artists have a unique vantage point on this cultural shift. Jessica Kariisa speaks to Nazar, Hagan, Juba and Chief Boima and asks: what does music from “back home” mean today?

In the early 2000s, there was a small, unassuming stall on the second floor balcony of Kampala’s Bugolobi market. Stocked with computers, scanners and other...

Three decades of Trade: celebrating 30 years of boundary breaking LGBTQ+ raving

The fierce LGBTQ+ party Trade was the UK’s first legal after-hours club event, opening at 3am and closing at 9am. It laid the groundwork for a new on-and-on party culture, while its sexual and gender diversity was a forerunner for today’s queer club scene. As it celebrates its 30th anniversary, and prepares for its 24-hour birthday party at Egg London, Joe Roberts speaks to some of its regular DJs, designers and founder Laurence Malice about Trade's boundary-breaking legacy

It’s Sunday afternoon, 16th March 2008, and the dancefloor of Turnmills is packed with dancers in varying states of undress. Watching over them, grinning maniacally...

We talk to three DJs who have subsequently become mental health & wellbeing practitioners in their own individual ways

MATT CANTORMatt Cantor formed The Freestyler with Aston Harvey in the mid-‘90s, and soon had a Top 40 hit with ‘B-Boy Stance’ featuring the late...

He was the Electrifyin’ Mojo of the indie disco. The bootleg king. The electroclash god. But when each of those scenes imploded, Erol Alkan stepped...

Erol Alkan was 27 when he received his first album offer. Kylie Minogue had just performed his ‘Can’t Get Blue Monday Out of My Head’...

Overmono's Ed and Tom photographed by Rollo Jackson 2

After years in the UK underground as solo artists, brothers Tom and Ed Russell, formerly known as Truss and Tessela, have made huge strides as a duo in recent years as Overmono. Lauren Martin learns how they’ve built a sound and A/V live show that taps into UK dance music legacies, all while staying true to themselves

When Tom and Ed Russell moved into their studio in 2018, they felt the weight of UK dance music history. Housed in the deep south-eastern...

Dance music has a mental health problem. Sirin Kale speaks to artists such as Luciano, Courtesy and Marie Davidson, as well as some PRs and...

March 2017. Luciano, real name Lucien Nicolet, is in Frankfurt airport, and he’s bent double with heart palpitations. He knows something isn’t right: things are...

Independent record labels are thriving by adapting to new models and branching out into management, distribution, publishing and clothing. DJ Mag finds out more...

If there’s any sector in dance music that has had to be genuinely run ‘for the love’ and ferociously adapt to survive the music industry’s...

Counting down the 2010s, we round-up the albums that defined the decade in electronic music

How do you rank a decade’s worth of music? The truth is, you can’t. An album that meant the world to you might make someone...

Italo disco’s eternal evolution

Italo disco is everywhere again. But what does Italo even mean today, and is it at risk of being diluted into a catch-all term for anything with an '80s disco sparkle? Joe Roberts dives into the genre's history, and chats to some of its new devotees and longstanding champions about its ever-evolving sound

It now sounds like a DJ mix of the most widely-known Italo disco classics, but when it was released in 1999, I-F’s ‘Mixed Up In...

The past few years have seen mental health pushed to the forefront of conversation in electronic music; however, the effects of racism are still not...

Nilaari (meaning self-worth or value) is a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community-based charity, delivering culturally appropriate counselling, social care support, advice and advocacy...

Tackling extraordinary challenges and pitfalls in his life, Detroit’s Robert Hood is a passionate advocate for the transformative power of electronic music. An ordained Christian minister, we meet him in Berlin after...

In the early hours of the morning on November 10, 1938, anti-Semitic rioting raged across Nazi Germany, in a pogrom that saw more than 100 Jews killed and 267...