Tate Modern's Turbine Hall combines an industrial past with the slick repackaging of high art for mass consumption, and is therefore an ideal setting for Kraftwerk to perform in. And it is set to generate electricity once again, next month, when the German techno-pop pioneers take up residence there and perform all eight of their studio albums.
Another computer-music pioneer, Laurie Spiegel, is due to return this year. Her 1975 piece "Harmonices Mundi" is the opening track on the golden record which was put aboard the Voyager probe and is presently floating beyond our solar system, but since then she has rather been pushed to the margins. A recent programme of reissues and the use of one of her tracks on the soundtrack to The Hunger Games brought her fresh acclaim, however, and now Spiegel is set to release a collaboration with the Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan on Dan Snaith of Caribou.
Angel Haze and Azealia Banks, superficially similar female rappers from Detroit and New York, respectively, will each soon release a debut album, and it will be interesting to discover which is the Beatles and which the Stones of 21st-century hip-house. My hunch is that Haze will have the best ideas, while Banks will have the tunes you most want to dance to.
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