Selected Articles / Elizabeth Aubrey

Nme • January 2nd, 2019

On The Cover - Yoko Ono: Imagine the future

December 21 marked the start of Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. On that long, dark night a week ago, the Imagine Peace Tower lit up in Reykjavik, Iceland. An artwork conceived by Yoko Ono in 2007 in memory of her late husband John Lennon, the Imagine Peace Tower beams a huge, intense light into the sky from the start of Winter Solstice until New Year’s Day each year...

Nme • May 1st, 2020

On The Cover – Glass Animals: “Everything that made me who I am was taken away by the accident”

It feels like a miracle to be talking to Joe Seaward, drummer of Oxford’s indie quartet Glass Animals. His bandmates tell NME it is a miracle. Seaward himself is certain it is. “I think that my accident shook everyone to the core,” he says, balancing his head in his hand, his fingertips tracing the outline of a deep scar on his skull. “Everyone was very close to losing a friend, a brother, a boyfriend, a son and a bandmate.” His eyes fill with tears. In July 2018, Seaward was hit by a truck whi

Nme • April 16th, 2019

On The Cover – Black Honey: "Ladylike can go fuck itself"

Brighton rockers Black Honey are a band of dandy dreamers living the DIY dream on a shoestring – but the album they’re working on, with strings and horns and ‘Parisian noir’ inspiration – sees them reaching for the sky. As they play NME’s Girls To The Front, Elizabeth Aubrey meets them to hear how ADHD, Billie Eilish and a hatred of the pop world forged their sound and fuels their work.

Nme • July 2nd, 2020

On the Cover - Simon Pegg: "I'd love to go into space with Tom Cruise"

For the past 20 years, Simon Pegg hasn’t stopped. From Spaced to Star Trek and Shaun of the Dead to Star Wars, Pegg’s ascent from cult television hero to red carpet regular has been a breathless watch. It’s no wonder then, that when he greets NME on the phone from his home in Hertfordshire, where he’s staying with his wife and daughter, Pegg sounds grateful for the enforced rest that lockdown has brought...

EMPIRE • September 1st, 2020

Remembering filmmaker Alan Parker

A tribute to the late, great, filmmaker Alan Parker for Empire Magazine. Features interviews with Dexter Fletcher, Alec Baldwin, Gurinder Chadha, Lord David Puttnam, Matthew Modine and more...

EMPIRE • November 26th, 2020

'Writing It Up' - Gareth Evans, Suzanne Heathcote, Lennie James, Mae Martin, Laurie Nunn, Sarah Phelps

In the Understatement of the year, we’d like to say, 2020: Christ, what a year! But, amongst the void-screaming, there have been pockets of joy. And so many of those pockets have been stuffed with the golden minutes and hours that have played across our TV screens. It could even be described, in the very worst of years, as the very best year for television. These shows tore apart genre, structure and narrative. Radical, disruptive storytelling was embraced and sex, finally, was something that we recognised...

EMPIRE • August 6th, 2020

The Elisabeth Moss Method

Elisabeth Moss’ latest release, 'Shirley', sees her playing one her most fascinating characters to date: notorious American horror author, Shirley Jackson. Josephine Decker’s thrilling film sees Moss and co-star Michael Stuhlbarg (he’s playing Shirley’s philandering husband, Stanley) blur fact and fiction in a film offering an imaginative re-working of the traditional biopic. Here, Moss explains why she’s always drawn to playing complex characters, her naturally instinctive process and how she thrives under pressure...

British GQ • May 20th, 2020

The UK’s best small music venues

The coronavirus crisis has left hundreds of grassroots music venues across the UK with uncertain futures. Struggling to pay rents and wages as lockdown continues, more than 556 venues are currently at risk of imminent and permanent closure. Last week, Music Venue Trust – a charity set up in 2014 to help protect the long-term futures of grassroots music venues in the UK – launched a new initiative to help collectively support those most in need via its #saveourvenues campaign...

The Guardian • June 21st, 2019

Pride, Pynk and Prince - Janelle Monáe at The Manchester International Festival

The last time Janelle Monáe visited Manchester, in Sep- tember 2018, the 33-year-old Prince protege delivered a powerful statement of intent: “We all need to embrace who we are, even if it makes others feel uncomfortable.” Celebrating difference via flesh-and-blood humanity, Monáe dispensed with the flawless futurism of her fiction- al android alter ego, Cindi Mayweather – a Bowie-like per- sona who’d graced her music since her Fritz Lang-inspired 2007 debut, Metropolis...

The Guardian • June 16th, 2019

Reggie Gray: 'Flexing is storytelling. Our bodies become the vocabulary'

Brooklyn-based dancer Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray never imagined that a street dance style he invented during his lunchtimes at school would go on to become a global craze. Used by Madonna, Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj, to name a few, Gray’s “flexing” dance became a phenomenon thanks to the audacity of its moves – many of which look physically impossible – and its powerful political comment.

The Guardian • September 8th, 2020

Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Spiller: how we made Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)

This was one of the fastest tracks I ever produced. It was 1999, the night before I was due to fly to Miami for the Winter Music Conference, where all aspiring DJs and producers went. I was trying to stay awake for my early-morning flight and put on an unreleased version of Carol Williams’ Love Is You. I ended up sampling it and, in a couple of hours, I had Groovejet more or less written....

The Guardian • May 4th, 2020

Shaun of the Dead: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg on their zombie classic

Simon Pegg was the first person I’d ever met who was as obsessed with George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead as I was. One evening, I was round at Simon and his pal Nick Frost’s flat for drinks when I said we should make our own zombie movie, a horror comedy. It would be from the point of view of two bit-players, two idiots who were the last to know what was going on, after waking up hungover on a Sunday morning...

Flaunt Magazine • October 2nd, 2020

On The Cover - Ana de Armas

Prior to lockdown, she hadn’t stopped since arriving in LA. After filming finished on Blonde, de Armas got the call to return to Bond once more. “It was kind of a mess in my head,” she laughs, explaining how she went from playing Marilyn to Paloma in the space of just three days. “The second time I had to go back to shoot Bond, I finished filming Blonde on the Friday and started shooting No Time to Die on the Monday..."

Flaunt Magazine • November 21st, 2017

Andrew Garfield Cover: Breathing Life into Characters on the Page

When it comes to America, Garfield is clearly upset about the toxicity of the current political climate. It’s the day after the Las Vegas tragedy and Garfield is clearly stung....

Flaunt Magazine • November 18th, 2019

Helen Mirren Cover | "I don’t worry about the variety of roles available for women on screen. I worry about roles for women in real life"

“I’ve always said, even when I was a young woman, I said I don’t worry about the variety of roles available for women on screen. I worry about roles for women in real life. As we see women enter into major roles in real life, drama will follow. There are still not enough roles yet, but they’re coming. The unfairness and the prejudice of the lack of roles for women has always driven me crazy, it’s enraging. But things are slowly changing.”

Flaunt Magazine • March 10th, 2018

Charlie Heaton Cover | Every Quest Needs Its Hooded Deacons

Part of the program’s enduring popularity is because of the relatability of the characters, particularly the manner in which their flaws often turn out to be strengths.

Nme • October 13th, 2019

Lead Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – 'Ghosteen'

Like C.S. Lewis’ 'A Grief Observed', this devastating album is the work of an artist attempting to make sense of loss. "Peace will come," Nick Cave assures us, although it never really does The last few years have seen Nick Cave engage with fans more directly and openly than ever before. “You can ask me anything,” was the simple and direct message he posted to fans on the launch of his Red Hand Files website. Over the past 12 months, Cave answered questions from fans on everything from the bana

Nme • November 9th, 2019

Lead Review - Michael Kiwanuka – ‘KIWANUKA’

Looking ahead even as he evokes the work of greats as such as Bill Withers and Gil Scott-Heron, Michael Kiwanuka's bravura self-titled record sees him fiercely reclaim his identity “Are you really giving up? Are you really going to stop right now?” Michael Kiwanuka asks on new track ‘Living in Denial’, the lyrics from his self-titled latest feeling like pages from his diary five years ago. An artist well known for his struggles with self-confidence, Kiwanuka may well have spoken those words to

Nme • October 4th, 2019

Kele Okereke: “I’ve never experienced such widespread public racism”

Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke opens up about Brexit Britain, Brandon Flowers' comments on Morrissey, the artists failing to fight far right rhetoric, and his ambitious new album '2042' On the face of it, Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke has a lot to celebrate. He’s soon to become a father for the second time, his anti-Brexit soundtrack and play ‘Leave to Remain‘ premiered to rave reviews earlier this year, and the first two single releases from his upcoming fourth solo album ‘2042’ have been praised as em

Nme • October 17th, 2018

Queues, commerce & chaos: the problems with festivals

After a disgruntling summer for the UK’s music fans, Elizabeth Aubrey asks when did festivals forget the most important element: fun?

Evening Standard • August 31st, 2018

Cover: Shabaka Hutchings is opening up the jazz conversation

Sons of Kemet bandleader Shabaka Hutchings speaks about his band's Mercury nomination and the London jazz scene.

The Independent • October 19th, 2017

Nadine Shah's deliberately unsettling surrealism crosses musical borders - live review

In case anyone wasn’t clear about the message of Nadine Shah’s latest album, Holiday Destination, she gave an overt and timely reminder in Manchester last night. “This song is for...

The Independent • April 9th, 2018

The Boxer Rebellion: 'A lot of young men find it difficult to open up about their feelings'

A few seconds into a chat with Boxer Rebellion frontman Nathan Nicholson, talk turns to our differing accents. “Man-cun-ian,” Nicholson says, slowly, enunciating each syllable cautiously in a thick Tennessee accent. “Is that how you pronounce it?” he asks, nervously...

Nme • October 26th, 2018

Hear Kurt Cobain in a never before heard "lost" interview with Nirvana from 1989

A never before heard early interview with Nirvana band members Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic from 1989 is to be released today.

Mixmag • April 9th, 2020

Nazar's musical storytelling is inspired by war, displacement and hope

Nazar was an exile in Belgium when he first experienced racism, aged 10. Asked by a teacher why his dad wasn’t around, Nazar explained he was in Angola, a soldier in the civil war. The teacher sniggered and accused him of lying, prompting ridicule from his class-mates. “They were so used to judging the parents of black kids and assumed that because mine weren’t around, they must be in prison,” he explains. “My father was deep in the jungle, fighting. I stopped attending classes.”

Nme • July 19th, 2019

“Beauty was a curse for Nico”: Maxine Peake on playing the iconic avant garde singer at Manchester International Festival

“People think of beauty as a blessing, but I think for Nico it was definitely a curse,” Maxine Peake says, a few weeks before she’s due to start rehearsals for a play she’s co-created about the German musician, model and muse. The Nico Project, which is currently showing at Manchester’s International Festival, focuses on Nico’s solo work as a musician...

Nme • November 20th, 2019

Veteran filmmaker Ken Loach: “Boris Johnson is a lout and a bully”

“It’s remorseless,” Ken Loach says with a weary sigh, as talks about the poverty besieging the UK that he and Paul Laverty, his long-term writing partner, witnessed whilst researching his latest film. Sorry We Missed You is the follow-up to 2016’s I, Daniel Blake, and sees the veteran director return to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to document the plight of low-paid workers on zero-hour contracts. What he and Laverty discovered, he says, rivalled the shocking conditions he first documented 53 years ago in the game-changing Cathy Come Home.

The Independent • July 11th, 2018

Body/Head – The Switch, album review: brave, immersive and timely

Former Sonic Youth legend Kim Gordon and avant-garde experimentalist Bill Nace have combined forces once more for new album The Switch – the follow up to their 2013 debut, Coming Apart and improvisational 2016 experiment, No Waves.

The Quietus • December 4th, 2019

Features | A Quietus Interview | "My Music Is Whatever People Want To Call It": Loraine James Interviewed

On the cover of Loraine James’ latest album, For You And I, the past and the present blur as the London-born producer holds up a photo from 2006 of the high rise block of flats she grew up in against a picture of the flats as they are now. On the newer picture, there are three towers – one blue, one green and one purple – the latter being the one where James grew up. On the older photo, a fourth, yellow building is missing...

Nme • June 15th, 2019

Radiohead's 'OK Computer' demos reveal the makings of a masterpiece

It’s one of the most extraordinary stories of Radiohead’s career. In early June, fans started talking about the theft of scores of the band’s private 1995-1998 recordings, many of which ended up on 1997’s classic ‘OK Computer’. Not only that, the thieves were demanding $150,000 for the recordings to be returned...

DrownedInSound • September 19th, 2016

“I’m so tired of subjectivity – let’s just all be vampires!”: DiS Meets Jenny Hval

I greet Jenny Hval on the telephone in her native Norway and, despite just finishing her new album Blood Bitch, she is already working on more material – just one...

DrownedInSound • November 1st, 2016

“There is infinity through a telescope; infinity through a microscope”: DiS Meets Yann Tiersen

I speak to Yann Tiersen a few hours before he is due to play the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, as he continues to tour his new album Eusa. A collection of...

The Quietus • April 13th, 2017

Features | A Quietus Interview | “Time Doesn’t Feel Like A Linear Progression"

Camae Ayewa likes to feel out her audience on the night. "I shape what I do because I see maybe a bunch of younger people there," she says, "or I...

Evening Standard • May 29th, 2018

Björk delivers theatrical and hypnotic set at All Points East

“I wrote this song shortly after reading a book that was recommended to me by Björk,” Father John Misty — aka Josh Tillman — announced mid-set yesterday, on the Sunday closer of the inaugural All Points East festival...

The Quietus • June 6th, 2018

Features | Baker's Dozen | Versions 13.0: Shirley Manson's Favourite Albums

In her Baker's Dozen choices, Manson takes us on a journey through the music that shaped her adolescence in Edinburgh – music which spans a range of diverse genres, styles and cultures, from punk to reggae, shoegaze to rock.

Nme • May 15th, 2020

Moses Sumney interview: “My identity is a kind of patchwork"

Moses Sumney was broke and hungry when he took to the stage for the second solo performance of his professional career back in 2014. A room full of representatives from major record labels packed into the performance, hoping to sign the prodigious young talent they’d already heard so much about. Yet Sumney turned down each and every one of them – but not before they’d bought him dinner...

Nme • October 3rd, 2018

The Beatles’ 50th anniversary remix of ‘The White Album’ – what we learned from Giles Martin’s revelatory playback session

“We had left Sgt. Pepper’s band to play in his sunny Elysian Fields and were now striding out in new directions without a map..."

Crack Magazine • November 6th, 2018

Veronica Vasicka – ‘From Here’ review

New York native Veronica Vasicka is an expert in musical archaeology, reviving obscure cold wave and 80s electro via her Minimal Wave imprint. Now on debut EP From Here, the producer, DJ and label boss turns to excavating a hidden musical treasure of her own.

Nme • January 22nd, 2019

The Cranberries on their final album after Dolores O'Riordan's death

NME talks to The Cranberries on the emotional first anniversary of Dolores O'Riordan's death to discuss their new single, how they've coped over the last year and completing their final album without Dolores.

Royal Albert Hall • January 6th, 2019

Meeting the creators of 'Whose Line is it Anyway?'

When Whose Line is it Anyway? made its debut on Radio 4 in 1988, creators Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson had no idea the show would be still in performance some 30 years later, nor did they ever expect it to appear on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall. Originally, they weren’t even sure if the show would make it to television after a series of early setbacks...

Royal Albert Hall • May 3rd, 2019

Meeting Bazil Meade MBE: “Music absolutely saved my life"

When Bazil Meade MBE founded the London Community Gospel Choir (LCGC) with three other people in 1982, he had no idea how popular the choir would become – nor did he expect LCGC would one day be celebrating its 35th anniversary – especially after their original plan was for the choir to do just a single, one-off performance. Fast forward 35-years, and the choir has travelled far. They’ve graced the stage at The Brits, Glastonbury and The Grammy Awards...

The Quietus • March 20th, 2019

Features | Escape Velocity | Taking Control: Angel-Ho Interviewed

For years, Angel-Ho has worked in both the music and art industry as a highly regarded DJ, music producer and founder of the NON Worldwide collective – an experimental underground record label, art project and network dedicated to working with artists of the African diaspora...

The Line of Best Fit • March 20th, 2019

Tamino: A Place to Call Home

It’s an unseasonably hot February day in London, spring having seemingly sprung weeks ahead of schedule. “Is it always like this?” Tamino Moharam Fouad – better known as Tamino – enquires, as we sit in a quiet café overlooking London’s hazy, sun-drenched skyline...

Evening Standard • July 1st, 2019

Glastonbury Festival 2019 review, Sunday

Sunday at Glastonbury got off to the brightest of starts thanks to the enduring good weather and a surprise appearance from Sir David Attenborough on the Pyramid Stage. Receiving a welcome normally reserved for rock stars, the 93-year-old praised Glastonbury for its decision to go plastic-free just days after Extinct Rebellion led a procession of 20,000 through the festival’s fields to raise awareness of climate change. Attenborough’s appearance was brief but powerful and the pinnacle of the gr

The Line of Best Fit • May 11th, 2019

Collard: Salvation Through Soul

As statements of intent go, “Hell Song” is fierce and dives, Faustian like, into an immediate exploration of desire at odds with the protagonist’s faith. “That was just super, super, vulnerable sexually,” Collard tells me of the song, a track which explores sexual liberation whilst knotted with guilt. “I just wanted to hit people in the face, straight up, with what I was about...”

Nme • February 17th, 2020

Moses Boyd - ‘Dark Matter’ review

It’s perhaps no wonder that Moses Boyd’s debut solo album draws on an eclectic range of influences. Growing up in Catford, south London, Boyd’s music-loving family played everything from gospel, soul and funk to experimental, rock and reggae. On any given day, Boyd said it was normal to hear Björk, Debussy, N.E.R.D., Tupac, Nas and Youssou N’Dour in his childhood home. At school, meanwhile, Boyd was already swapping beats with his grime-loving classmates in his first year and later, after taking up the drums aged 13...

Nme • March 8th, 2020

Musicians react to SXSW cancellation as coronavirus continues to spread

Musicians have been reacting to news that the 2020 edition of SXSW has been cancelled as the coronavirus crisis escalates. The event in Austin, Texas, which features music, film and comedy, was due to begin on March 13 and run until March 22. Yesterday (March 6), organisers announced the official cancellation of the event by the city of Austin. “We are devastated to share this news with you,” they wrote in a statement posted on their website...

The Line of Best Fit • August 16th, 2019

“This is a very traditional love story, but also a very queer love story too": Shura - A Vision of Love

Shura hasn’t had much sleep when our interview begins. Just a few hours earlier, she’d arrived at a deserted Heathrow Airport in the early hours of the morning after her flight from Sweden – where she’d been appearing at Way Out West festival – was delayed. After landing in London, Shura and her band were delayed further when they couldn’t exit the plane...

Notion • July 17th, 2019

Cover Interview with James Bay

“It was nerve-wracking releasing anything after my first album being as big as it was, “Bay says. “But trying to live up to it was also still exciting. I chose to follow my heart and do something different which felt right at the same time. I didn’t just want to reinterpret the same thing in the same way – that didn’t feel like the most honest move.” Bay wanted his record to reflect the new influences he was discovering at the time, even if that meant gambling on the change in direction...

September 21st, 2018

Christine and the Queens - 'Chris' review

“Doing the second album could have been me finding a fancy producer in LA and doing the pop s***”, Héloïse Letissier says about the follow up to the enormously successful debut, Chaleur Humaine...

The Independent • May 30th, 2018

Album reviews: Father John Misty, Roger Daltrey, LUMP and more

Father John Misty wastes no time: He dropped Pure Comedy just one year ago, but planted the seed about another record around the time of release. But God’s Favorite Customer is nothing like Father John Misty’s other works...

The Independent • February 9th, 2018

Steve Aoki: 'Show me the obstacle course and I'll want to run through it'

DJ and record label owner Steve Aoki has a reputation for being one of the hardest working artists in music – and with good reason.

The Independent • November 13th, 2017

Zola Jesus, live review

Blink and you’d have missed Nika Roza Danilova, aka Zola Jesus, making her entrance onto the stage at Manchester’s Band on the Wall last week. Dressed head to toe in...

The Quietus • September 18th, 2017

Features | Baker's Dozen | Irrepressible Discoveries: James Lavelle Of UNKLE's 13 Favourite Albums

With a new album on the way and a much-anticipated set at Brighton's Attenborough Centre at the ready, James Lavelle, the man behind UNKLE and Mo' Wax, takes Elizabeth Aubrey...