Sophie and Peter Johnston

If the major labels let you down and you're writing sophisticated electro-pop, forming your own record company is one way of getting your message across. Annabel Scott meets a remarkable brother-and-sister duo.

Richard Elen's fact-extraction mission with engineer Phill Brown reaches its conclusion.

Tracking the progress of a DIY mix that went official

Paul Tingen takes a look behind the scenes with Mai Tai production duo Eric van Tijn and Jochum Fluitsma — and finds out about songwriting, recording and home-made samplers.

Instrumental music doesn't sell, the UK dance scene is totally bereft of life, and dance bands never produce decent albums. Wrong, wrong, wrong — and 808 State are back with proof. Nigel Humberstone talked to Manchester's finest during the recording of Gorgeous, their third album.

England's North has consistently produced some of the most innovative electronic music. Simon Trask talks to a band set to take their place alongside New Order and Heaven 17.

808 State - Absolutely Gorgeous

Into The Nineties

Haying abandoned the independence of Factory Records in favour of the relative safety of a major record deal, ACR are back in the limelight with a new LP. Nigel Lord asks questions of commerciality.

You can't discuss the Manchester dance movement without A Guy Called Gerald. Simon Trask talks success and setbacks to one of Britain's most influential young artists.

Vie Marshall asks who is A Guy Called Gerald?

Dance music with direction

Whatever happened to Thomas Leer? What's become of Propaganda? If you've heard of a band called Act you already know the answers to these questions, if not, David Bradwell is right on cue with this interview.

Adam Mosley chats about producing The Plot Thickens

By ignoring the charts and treating dance music as a live phenomenon, Adamski has won himself a huge following and a chart placing. Simon Trask talks about the live applications of studio music.

One Two listens to Stratists Jeff Beck, Adrian Belew and Richard Thompson. Plus a Hendrix compilation.

What have David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, King Crimson, Frank Zappa and Jean-Michel Jarre got in common? They've all employed the services of Adrian Belew, one of the world's most inventive guitarists, and a man with a passion for creating new sound textures.

Al Hospers, chief executive officer of Dr.T's Music Software in Boston, paid a flying visit to the recent PC Show during a whirlwind tour of Europe. Paul Gilby asks him about the past, present and future activities of this prolific music software house.

A British playwright looks into the future and sees a composer locked away from the world with a machine that makes music for him. John Walters talks scripts and Synclaviers.

The man who took the credit for production on Pink Floyd's superlative 'Dark Side Of The Moon' album has since had ten years of album success with his own creation: The Alan Parsons Project. Richard Elen managed to track him down to London's Mayfair Studios, to discuss the appliance of music technology in his recordings.

Portrait of the artist as a (suffering) young man

or how to keep THESE men happy and stay alive

roadie to the stars tells all

On Fenderising his Gibson and varying his technique