Wendy carlos

For 60 years, HERBIE HANCOCK has taken the bonnet off music, hacking its valves and gears, forging a future as yet unseen. He shaped jazz and funk and synth-rock; Miles and Joni felt the benefit. Now he's a Polar Music Prize laureate. "I've always been this geek, this nerdy guy,"

With his cape and on-stage curry, he defined prog rock excess. Breakdowns, penury and near-death were the prices paid, but somehow the baroque synth lines and droll quips kept flowing… and still do. “I’m my own worst enemy,” laughs Rick Wakeman.

The Beatles came together in Liverpool in 1960 and in just ten years, until 1970 when they disbanded, they had changed the face of Western popular culture in ways that still strongly resonate to this

From the noisy streets, community cafés and surprisingly verdant cemeteries of Southeast London have risen CAROLINE : a confoundingly brilliant eight-piece band with no obvious frontperson, fusing choral folk with fractured post-rock and experimental pop. As Sam Richards discovers, they haven’t made life easy for themselves. “But there has to be a vulnerability of some sort. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

shouting forever into the receiver Anne Denholm (harp), Louise McMonagle (cello), Jonathan Morton (violin) et al NMC NMC D285 61:56 mins Tackling social themes and reckoning with history is part of wh

Anna Clyne composer The Beatles are some of the great melodists. One of the things I love about them is that perfect blend of melody and harmony, but also lyrics. I sang ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ at schoo