Larry Ryan is an Assistant Home News Editor for The Independent. He also writes the "Caught in the Net" music column for the paper's Arts & Books section on Friday. He wears thick glasses and talks slowly, traits which people occasionally mistake for signs of intelligence.
Last year was a pretty good one for Noah Lennox, the man who usually goes by the name Panda Bear (I’m guessing the former is on his passport) and is a member of Animal Collective. That band’s album Merriweather Post Pavillion, released about this time last year, was universally acclaimed – critics drooled over it [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 5:28 pm
Earlier today Jonathan Ross tweeted, "Good morning. My day is turning out to be far more interesting then I had anticipated! See you later – have a good one," which seemed fairly innocuous, until an hour later when news broke that he was quitting the BBC after his contract expires in July. This could be [...]
By Larry Ryan | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 7 January 2010 at 11:33 am
In the late 1970s and 1980s, a genre of underground electronic music from North America and Europe emerged called “minimal wave”. It was characterised by a DIY, lo-fi aesthetic, with musicians using basic analogue synths and drum machines, recording on tape in home studios and making their own artwork (sounds quite like the music scene [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Thursday, 31 December 2009 at 2:49 pm
As someone who grew up in Dublin I’ve been following the The Sun’s revelations of "Spurs XMAS Party Shame" with some amusement. First things first, just how did Harry Rednapp fall for the "16 man one day golfing trip in Dublin" excuse laid down by the players. Really? Because the golfing conditions in Dublin in [...]
By Larry Ryan | | Friday, 18 December 2009 at 2:49 pm
Given that there was a three year gap between Portishead’s first record and their second, and a whopping eleven years between album two and their third LP of new material, the emergence of new music just a little over a year after Third was released, is admirable productivity for the band. Ok, it’s only a [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Thursday, 10 December 2009 at 4:28 pm
Recently the paper’s Arts & Books section profiled the next group of female musicians poised to follow in the footsteps of La Roux, Florence and the Machine, Little Boots et al. Among those named was the laid-back and lo-fi LA duo Best Coast, led by Bethany Cosentino. Another LA duo, Pearl Harbor (after some to-ing [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Friday, 4 December 2009 at 3:06 pm
As musical beefs go this is probably one of the more lame (and one-sided) brewhahas in recent rock history – though the Flaming Lips/Arcade Fire set-to will run it close. A few weeks back Matthew Friedberger of brother-sister duo the Fiery Furnaces took umbrage in an interview with Radiohead’s tribute to Harry Patch declaring:
"F— [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Friday, 20 November 2009 at 5:55 pm
Back in the 90s it was often noted what a great record deal Beck had, allowing him to put out independent releases while still signed to a major label – it’s the sort of creative freedom most bands crave, and while Beck isn’t putting out independent records every day of the week, he does still [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Monday, 16 November 2009 at 4:21 pm
Powerful US music industry magazine and chart compiler Billboard has launched a new website to stream live concerts. Viewers will be able to see concerts for free online with a choice of five different camera angles from which to watch from; so no more freakily tall men blocking your view of the bass player.
The [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 5:22 pm
I’ve been proselytising endlessly for Beck’s revamped website (Beck.com) for quite a while now. The standout feature on the site is his Record Club project, wherein he gathers together a collection of musicians in a studio for a day to cover a classic album in its entirity – they then put videos of the results on [...]
By Larry Ryan | Arts | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 4:31 pm
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