Executive Overview With over 700 recorded credits to his name, two Grammy Awards adorning his mantelpiece, and an esteemed position as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California (USC), legendary percussionist Peter Erskine stands as a titan in the pantheon of modern music. There are few sonic nuances, rhythmic complexities, or stylistic shifts … Read more
Executive Overview Marking a milestone anniversary of punk rock prompts a critical re-examination of the genre’s seismic cultural rupture. The emergence of punk in the mid-to-late 1970s was predicated on an uncompromising ideology: "Year Zero." This philosophy demanded the total eradication of musical history, branding everything and everyone that came before as obsolete, bloated, and … Read more
Executive Overview On one of the most punishingly sweltering summer evenings London has witnessed in years, Alexandra Palace—affectionately known to gig-goers as Ally Pally—abandoned all earthly conventions. While a blistering heatwave gripped the British capital on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, the historic Victorian venue hosted something far removed from standard touring fare. Australian electronic music … Read more
Executive Overview For millions of cinema-goers and television viewers across the globe, the name Dave Lawson may not immediately ring a bell. Yet, his artistry has woven itself into the very fabric of modern auditory culture. As a pioneering force in synthesizer programming, keyboard performance, and musical arrangement, Lawson shaped the sonic landscapes of some … Read more
Executive Overview For decades, lazy consensus within electronic music circles has often pigeonholed ambient music as a monolith of passive, texture-driven soundscapes. However, the staggering, kaleidoscopic back catalogue of Japanese composer Susumu Yokota stands as a permanent, brilliant refutation of that generalization. Comprising roughly 30 original albums released over a prolific career, Yokota’s discography defies … Read more
Executive Overview Since the inception of the 12-inch 33⅓ rpm long-player format by Columbia Records in the late 1940s, the album has been heralded as the ultimate canvas for popular musicianship. Over subsequent decades, legendary acts elevated the medium from a mere collection of hit singles padded with filler into cohesive artistic statements. Yet, alongside … Read more
Reviewed by Bruno Irace July 8, 2026 Executive Overview Some concerts begin the moment the houselights fade. Others—the genuinely monumental ones—begin years in advance, slowly compounding in the collective consciousness of fans who have waited a decade and a half for the stars to align. For System of a Down, the journey to Milan’s Ippodromo … Read more
By Bruno Irace Published in Record Collector Magazine Executive Overview To speak of a rock concert in the traditional sense is to fundamentally misunderstand what My Chemical Romance achieved on a balmy Friday night in July 2026. Performing at London’s historic Wembley Stadium, the New Jersey luminaries did not merely stage a legacy act nostalgia … Read more
Executive Overview Half a century after exploding onto the British cultural landscape with the force of a sonic bomb, the Sex Pistols’ seminal 1977 masterwork, Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, remains an unmatched cornerstone of modern music history. To mark this monumental milestone, the surviving architects of the global punk phenomenon have … Read more
Executive Overview Long before the world succumbed to Beatlemania, before the screaming crowds at Shea Stadium, and before John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr cemented themselves as the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, they were simply music-hungry teenagers growing up in post-war Liverpool. In the mid-to-late 1950s, the Atlantic Ocean was … Read more
