Tag: songwriting

Listener [Live]

Performing a set covering both old and newer material, Listener create an electric, vacuous atmosphere of mystification and strike the crowd near-dumb. The usual glazed, blank looks at the back of...

Read More

The Heather Findlay Band: Songs from the Old Kitchen

It's a very different sound from their dynamic electric live shows, but great as Heather Findlay can be in full rock mode, the acoustic sound is a very good match for the natural warmth of her voice....

Read More

Declan Sinnott: I Love the Noise it Makes

Adult Acoustic. A domain legendarily populated by the troubled, drunk, sex mad, violent and jail-prone stereotypes that rarely trouble the charts, but in Declan Sinnott they might be given a...

Read More

The Mercy House: Interview

The genre obsessions have to stop, I guess something is going right when everyone becomes the great ‘opinionizer’, but I think that’s what can be exciting about music, take something out of the...

Read More

The Social Club: Mini Interview

We choose to play happier stuff! You have to hold back your money shot and focus on strong songwriting. At first listen the songs sound simple but they’re much deeper than that – Lew...

Read More

Hawk Eyes: Mini Interview

We’ve never really tried to craft an image, just evolve organically – differently from ‘desperate’ bands. Modern Bodies was wall-to-wall get fucked, whereas Ideas is a progression from that. ...

Read More

Wanda Jackson: Interview

Would the Queen of Rockabilly be able to satisfy expectations or would it be a case of your granny’s sister grabbing the microphone at your cousin’s wedding after one too many glasses of fizz? ...

Read More

Rival Sons: Interview

What we do together is pretty fun but you need a producer who’s decisive, especially with us, because we ARE 'Rival Sons'. We are like; he’s seeing it this way, I’m seeing that way, Scott is...

Read More

Music in the Age of No-Effort

‘97,751 albums released in a year’, Jeremy Schlosberg examines the implications of music market gluttony. I was talking to a music industry acquaintance on the phone not long ago and he...

Read More

Furyon: Interview

Furyon singer/frontman Matt Mitchell explains all to Trebuchet interview Meltem. ...

Read More

Astral Projection and Ableton: Mono/Poly Interview

Paramatma is about the supersoul.., I got it from a Vedic scripture and it talks (about) having the omnipresent god-spirit inside of you, that it’s (Paramatma) the observer and you’re the doer. -...

Read More

Make Better Music 68: Words and Music

Writing music comes easily to me for the most part, I’ve usually got a surplus of ideas, so the only the most interesting actually get worked on. The more derivative and unimaginative ideas get...

Read More

Make Better Music 67: Raw Power and Sophistication

For some, measured, intelligent songwriting skills are the pinnacle of musical enjoyment, for others it can be the antithesis of what music is there for - the expression of raw emotion....

Read More

Make Better Music 66: Embrace the Chaos

In the midst of a vast YouTube binge the other evening (I’ve got a thirst for seeking out to interviews with musicians I like, and seem to be hopeless at turning YouTube off), I happened to come...

Read More

Make Better Music 65: A Musical Process

So this week, having been inspired by a particular piece of music, I’m going to focus on one particular kind of procedure - which doesn’t really have a name. I’ll just try to describe it....

Read More

Make Better Music 64: “What Comes Next?”

Make Better Music 64: “What Comes Next?”The big question that always demands an answer, when you are writing music, is what happens next? It seems straightforward until you try it. Then...

Read More

I Hate the Concept of Revolution. I Spit On It: Trey Spruance

Interview with Trey Spruance of Secret Chiefs 3, Faith No More, and Mr Bungle Fame on music and spirituality....

Read More

Make Better Music 63: Simplicity vs Complexity

Sometimes I like to overload a song with overdubs and production tricks - if that is what suits it. More can be more in this case. Of course the opposite is also true, less intensely produced music...

Read More

Make Better Music 62: Working Out Your Musical Muscles

Of course, if you are writing a song every day, it’s unlikely that you are going to be churning out a double album of SOLID GOLD CLASSICS each months, but on the flip side, it will do you a lot of...

Read More

Make Better Music 61: The Music Diet

Every few months I feel like I need this kind of diet for my ears - I’ve either been over-indulging in one particular artist or genre, or I’ve been gluttonous and chowing down way too much of...

Read More

Make Better Music 60: Automation and the Human Form

On the plus side, a new generation (one that has grown up with remarkably powerful music tech tools) will do things with music software that are incredible, ground breaking, ear-catching and mind...

Read More

Make Better Music 59: It’s not what you put in, it’s what you get out

One of the joys of music is that it always has something to say that’s worth listening to, even in tracks that you have heard a hundred times. There’s a richness and enough ambiguity of...

Read More

Make Better Music 58: Go Where the Barriers Are

The idea is simple - things that are easy to do can be done by more people than things that are hard. You want to make your music available as a “self release” via a service like bandcamp? Go for...

Read More

Make Better Music 57: Counterpoint

I regard writing fine counterpoint as a bit of a lost art. In some ways it’s largely redundant in todays music, where single ideas right up front are generally king. This is not any kind of rant...

Read More

Make Better Music 56: Celebrating the Old

I wonder how it feels to be making music after fifty or even sixty active years. Some people have gone on even longer - Elliot Carter is about to turn 103 and is still an active composer - what can...

Read More

Make Better Music 55: Back to Basics

Imbue your music with your passion. If you don’t have a passion for making music, then leave it to those who do. Fill your music to the brim with all the emotion, drive, energy, love, enthusiasm...

Read More

Make Better Music 54: Exile On Mickey Street

Another interesting realisation, specific to time spent in a Disneyland Resort, is that it is hard to feel anything but happy when the air is constantly filled with ragtime, pumped out into the...

Read More

Make Better Music 53: The Software Trap

dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”A/dropcapfter a slightly wild couple of days defending myself from various opinions on last weeks article, I’ve decided to go over what I...

Read More

Suicide Silence – The Black Crown, London.

"I don’t want to sound like a fucking dinosaur or a pig for 45 minutes and no one know what the fuck I’m saying" Trebuchet magazine interviews Mitch Lucker...

Read More

Make Better Music 52: Practice vs. The Software Trap

It occurred to me the other day, after I’d picked up my guitar for the first time in a while, and for the first time in my life my skills had noticeably diminished. I’ve not played much for a...

Read More

Our weekly newsletter

Sign up to get updates on articles, interviews and events.