Mute Music

In its encouragement of a group expression that supports musicians to ‘play beyond themselves’ and to evolve singularities within a shared ‘reservoir of artistic richness’, Howard Slater finds in jazz a response to the experience of slavery; one that evolved outside channels of sanctioned expression, and which preserves and propels a collective being. This is his third column for Mute Music

The introduction of the synthesizer gave PoMo bands the means to replay the history of rock ‘n' roll with the authenticity knob turned down low. In this month's music column, Pil and Galia appreciate the flatlands of the synth cover

In the second installment of his music column, Jon Bywater explores the uncanny overlaps between Facebook 'liking' and music criticism

In the second installment of his music column, Ben Watson wages a war of social being against the hip priests of consensus reality

Demetra Kotouza plucks rebetiko, music of Greece's dangerous classes, from the stifling assumptions of its detractors and defenders

What happens when musicians smash the metronome of developmental time and the prison-house of language?, asks Howard Slater in this month's Mute Music Column

On the way to a full silence the mark of language

brands the body with a reminder of the time

- Delphine

Tellingly Inarticulate (2)

When film soundtracks take the form of an iPod on shuffle or a non-stop brass crescendo, do they make alienating cinema more human or alienated lives more cinematic? This month's Mute Music Columnist Nina Power risks removing her earmuffs