New York's seminal No Wave band Swans, led by singer Michael Gira, spent much of the last of three decades making uncompromising music. Now, Gira has emerged from a long hiatus with the release of My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky in 2010 and The...

Songwriter Kevin Ayers died last week at the unripe old age of 68. He was in my favourite band, Soft Machine. Ayers brought a graunchy bass-playing style and a mellifluous baritone voice to counter drummer Robert Wyatt's skittish rhythms and athletic tenor and Mike Ratledge's howling...

What happens after all music that will ever be conceived has been written, performed, recorded, packaged, marketed, sold and downloaded for free? That question, posed by British artist and musician Bill Drummond, would be answered in a small artist's studio in Istanbul on a recent rainy Saturday afternoon....

BP should have done more to prevent the Gulf of Mexico oil spill two years ago but the company's complacency was not unique in the industry, former CEO Tony Hayward said this week in his most public comments yet about the disaster.

Hayward chose to talk about the disaster, the...

Most of Istanbul's Greeks may be gone, but a revival of the raucous, pre-Lent festival of Baklahorani helps keep their spirit alive.

Two parades, led by troupes of costumed revelers banging drums and blaring clarinets, wound through the streets of Istanbul on Sunday and Monday to celebrate Carnival...

A killer earthquake in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast a fortnight ago sparked a genuine show of popular support and charity, but the ugly rhetoric of nationalism was not far behind. And the vitriol comes from the mainstream, not just the political fringes.

The 7.2-magnitude quake in Van province on 23...