100 TV channels and nothing on? We feel ya. In this blog section we’ll post a selection of ‘under the radar’ & must see music docu’s that are entertaining as well as educating. We’ll post here a trailer and the poster. Expect a various selection from rap, synth to library. We thought it could be fun & usefull, no 🍿?
Stay tuned for daily / weekly updates !

8. Hitman & Her at Hacienda (1989)

7. Sisters with Transistors Documentary (2020)

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS is the remarkable untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today. Theremins, synthesizers and feedback machines abound in this glorious ode to the women who helped shape, not just electronic music but the contemporary soundscape as we know it.

Avant-garde composer Laurie Anderson narration accompanies fascinating archival footage to trace the history of the technological experimentation of sound, the deconstruction of its parts and the manipulation into something altogether other. While traversing a range of musical approaches and personalities, from academia to outsider art to television commercials, we meet Clara Rockmore, Bebe Barron, Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel, Daphne Oram, Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire and Eliane Radigue, fascinating and enigmatic musical geniuses and their peculiar way of hearing the world.

Available to rent for 1 week only via VIMEO 

6. Steve Beckett of Warp Records talks Aphex Twin and early signings (RBM Academy - 2018)

Since its inception in 1989, Warp Records has become one of England’s most influential and respected modern record labels. In this lecture at the 2007 Red Bull Music Academy, Warp founder Steve Beckett recalled the early days and inspirations of the label, how it has remained independent despite changing times and how he came to find two of his biggest recent artists in the folds of the Academy.

Check the whole interview via the Red Bull Academy YouTube channel 

5. Do It Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade (2009)

Documentary about the important & influential record label. Rough Trade was also an international distributor for other labels, a vital part of the independent music network of the late 1970s & early 80s.
Rough Trade is one of the giants in the history of record producing. They were the original model for labels like Sub Pop, IRS Records and Merge, who all specialize (or specialized) in just releasing bands they liked, not bands they thought would sell a ton.

This was broadcasted on BBC4.

4. All Tomorrow's Parties (2009)

A kaleidoscopic journey into the parallel musical universe of cult music festival All Tomorrow’s Parties.
The highlights are many. Archive footage of the campsites serving their original functions in the 60s are intercut with ATP’s revellers roaming the grassy courtyards and crashing each other’s parties. Footage of two Lightning Bolt performances – one an official stage performance and one an impromptu courtyard set – are intercut with each other to sublime effect, demonstrating the festival’s ability to break the divisions between artist and fan, between official and impromptu. All Tomorrow’s Parties makes for excellent viewing, with both its content and its form throwing up many highlights. The film is a great celebration.

The DVD comes with a 64 page booklet with excellent historical notes and photos, plus access to further online content including extra performances and short documentaries. As far as promotional propaganda goes, this is an excellent package. With acts such as Belle & Sebastian, Battles, Sonic Youth, Animal Collective, Grizzly Beat, John Peel etc.

3. Everybody in the place – An incomplete history of Brittain 1984 – 1992

The film titled Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1993 is directed by Turner-winning artist Jeremy Deller and is part 2 in Gucci & Frieze’s Second Summer of Love Series that aired BBC 4.

Everybody in the Place, which came out in 2018, calls into questions many of the long-held assumptions about the genesis of the rave and acid house revolution. It looks to the extraordinary social changes that were taking place in 1980s Britain, and how factors such as protest movements, illegal warehouse raves, Thatcherite politics and creeping neoliberalisms impacted rave culture. He draws on a rich archive of rare and unseen materials to document the large open-air raves between 1988 and 1990 and the ensuing late 1993 crackdown that hampered the movement. (Via HighSnobiety)

2. Synth Brittannia

This top notch BBC docu from 2009 follows a generation of post-punk musicians who went to form successful electronic bands in the 70s and 80s and had a profound impact on present day music. With Depeche Mode, The Normal, Richard H. Kirk, Heaven 17, Soft Cell & many others.

1. Big Fun in The Big Town

What?
Let’s start with one of our favourites and a docu that is still a bit under the radar.
It’s an interview format documentary about the Bronx’s rap culture with Belgian icon Marcel Vanthilt asking locals light to frank questions. Some of the local celebs included:
Grandmaster Flash, Doug E Fresh (best beatbox i’ve seen him do), Roxanne Shante & Biz Markie (live), Russell Simmons, Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels (rapping to a tape in his car), Run & Jam Master Jay (in the studio), LL Cool J & E Love (straight outta Grandma Todd’s house), Suliaman El Hadi of the Last Poets, Schooly D & DJ Code Money (more info via IMDB).