About Künstlicher

My name is Laura Snapes. I write about music for NME, The Line of Best Fit , The Quietus and a few others. The majority of work here has been published elsewhere – the categories at the bottom of each post should tell you where precisely. I also edit the music section of Epigram, Bristol University’s student newspaper. In July 2010 I will be moving to Vienna for five months to work for Skug.

I also present a shonky radio show on Burst, Bristol University’s student-run radio station. You can listen here (or through your iTunes, I think…) every Thursday during term time, from 1 – 2.30pm. If you check back here afterwards, there should be a mostly downloadable playlist for your delectation.

My last.fm should give you an idea of the kind of music I like. I’m particularly interested in Swedish music and viral campaigns, I avoid writing hagiographies like the bubonic, and would not ever pretend to a like a band for crisp sheaves of money/column inches.

Amongst others, I have interviewed Sufjan Stevens, Phoenix, Beach House, Midlake, Marina & The Diamonds, Florence & The Machine, Death Cab For Cutie, Geoff Barrow, The Fiery Furnaces, Grizzly Bear, Oh No Ono, Tegan & Sara, Editors, St Vincent, !!!, Foals, Franz Ferdinand, Lykke Li, and more, and hosted a Q&A session with Peter Hook in front of a scarily big audience.

I speak French and German to a fairly high standard, have a working knowledge of Photoshop and InDesign and can touch type at 80wpm. I’m based in Bristol during termtime, Cornwall during the holidays, until July 2010 when I’ll move to Vienna until December, and will then be based in Paris from January until approximately April 2011. I am happy to travel for work. I have a full driving license, but sadly no car of my own…

If you’d like to send me your music (though if your press release contains the words “they’ve had 38372640 plays on MySpace”, maybe best that you don’t bother), commission me, read my proper CV or hurtle abuse, my email address is laurasnapes [at] gmail [dot] com. If you fancy regular updates on music/essay avoidance techniques/mindblowing pictures of cats dressed in human clothes and the like, you can follow me on Twitter.