Dele Fadele looks back to The Bad Seeds album that has odd parallels with gangsta rap. This feature was first published in 2016

In the mid-1990s, I spotted Nick Cave's distinct figure at London's Subterrania venue, under The Westway, for gigs by Wu-Tang Clan leader GZA and Method Man. Cave appeared as enthused as the rest of the room at Genius/GZA's show, and I imagine he couldn't have failed to have heard 'Luminal' from Legend Of The Liquid Sword, a controversial track that severely dented that excellent LP's commercial prospects with its grisly depictions of the serial killer's methodology and awful deeds. Certain acolytes of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds were also staunch Geto Boys fans. If GZA and...

The post Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' Murder Ballads As Gangsta Rap Album appeared first on The Quietus.

In the return of his quarterly column exploring bold new takes on traditional music and sounds, Patrick Clarke speaks to the figures behind the new Black British Folk Collective about their story so far, and reviews eleven new records including harsh noise bodhran, an extraordinary Occitan freakout, Armenian duduk, Polish oberek and more

Bianca Wilson at Land In Our Names' Birthday Folk Session. Photo by Fatima Yasmin

In October last year the musician Angeline Morrison, whose 2022 masterpiece The Sorrow Songs drew on deep research to present new folk music that centred the real Black British figures who are often written out of history, was invited to curate an all-day programme at Cecil Sharp House - the headquarters of the English Folk...

The post Radical Traditional: Folk Music for Winter, by Patrick Clarke appeared first on The Quietus.

Annie Hogan

Tongues In My Head

Intense but beguiling, former Marc Almond and Einstürzende Neubauten collaborator conjures sensual rituals and half-dirges

Annie Hogan is something of a quiet icon of goth and post-punk. A longtime friend of Marc Almond, she put on early Soft Cell shows and played with his dark cabaret side-project Marc and the Mambas. She appears on Barry Adamson's seminal Moss Side Story and has worked with Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave, and several members of Einstürzende Neubauten. She's also been releasing evocative solo music since the late 1980s, the latest of which, the six track album Tongues In My Head, strikes an elegant balance of light and shade.

Opening track 'Alles Ist Verloren' is measured but bleak, a taxonomy of a...

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Manchester's Mandy, Indiana haver never sounded so direct, so fierce, so angry as on this, their second album, a record which forcefully calls out rape culture and toxic masculinity amidst racing polyrhythms and a barrage of noise

Photo Credit: Charles Gall

The striking cover art for Urgh depicts a human head recoiling in what looks like shock and agony. It's one of "founder of human anatomy" Andreas Vesalius's illustrations, rendered here in RGB layers by the artist Carnovsky, and a perfectly fitting image for an album that radiates abhorrence at recent events, both political and personal.

Developed over a rough couple of years for the band, with both singer Valentine Caulfield and drummer Alex Macdougall battling sickness and enduring multiple rounds of surgery,...

The post Justice for All or Justice for None: Urgh by Mandy, Indiana appeared first on The Quietus.

The Liverpool festival will host ØXN, Mohammad Syfkhan and more this May

Outer Waves has confirmed plans for its second edition, taking place across two days this May.

Following its inaugural edition last year, the Liverpool festival will return once again with programming taking place across Invisible Wind Factory and Make North Docks in the city. This year's lineup features the likes of ØXN, Mohammad Syfkhan, Dame Area, WaqWaq Kingdom, Lord Spikeheart, Sex Swing, Carmel Smickersgill, and Keeley Forsyth & Matthew Bourne, among others.

Beyond the music programming, the festival will also feature workshops, panel discussions and art installations, with full details on those set to be announced in the coming months.

Outer Waves will take place from 23 to 24 May 2026. Find...

The post Outer Waves Confirms 2026 Return for Second Edition appeared first on The Quietus.

When There Is No Sun draws on the Arkestra's 2022 album Living Sky, as well as a 2023 release celebrating Sun Ra's poetry

Ricardo Villalobos has curated a new remix compilation of work by Sun Ra Arkestra.

The 12-track When There Is No Sun sees the likes of Underground Resistance, Calibre, Chez Damier, A Guy Called Gerald and Villalobos himself rework material from the Arkestra's 2022 album Living Sky. The compilation also makes use of 2023 release My Words Are Music: A Celebration Of Sun Ra's Poetry, which saw the likes of Saul Williams, Tara Middleton and Mahogany L. Browne deliver spoken word pieces inspired by the late musician's poetry.

Listen to Underground Resistance's Saul Williams-featuring take on 'When Angels Speak' below.

Omni Sound...

The post Ricardo Villalobos, Underground Resistance and More Rework Sun Ra Arkestra on New Compilation appeared first on The Quietus.

The band's second album is getting an updated release to mark its 45th anniversary

Clock DVA's 1981 album Thirst is getting reissued.

Marking 45 years since its original release, the band's second studio LP has been newly remastered especially for the updated edition. The reissue will also include live and alternate versions of tracks from the record.

Speaking about Thirst, Clock DVA's Adi Newton said in a statement: "We set out to form a new sound combination; to combine acoustics and electronics, merging the German electronic wave with the edge of The Stooges, the avant-garde of the French GRM musique concrète, and the pioneering audio-visual creativity of The Velvet Underground. To create a harder form of electronic music with real energy."

Listen to the...

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As he prepares to embark on his first ever headline music tour, Peter Capaldi takes Jude Rogers through 13 records that have defined his life, from the parallels between Talking Heads and Doctor Who, to the time he found himself in a room with Kate Bush

Peter Capaldi's latest role isn't to fuck the fuck in (or indeed fuck the fuck off) like The Thick Of It's Malcolm Tucker, or nail an outfit inspired by David Lynch and David Bowie as he travels through time as the Twelfth Doctor. It's to sit on a tour bus from Newcastle to Edinburgh, Cardiff to Brighton, get behind a microphone, and sing.  "I'm not or trying to be a pop star or anything,"...

The post Doctor's Orders: Peter Capaldi's Favourite Albums appeared first on The Quietus.

Harry Sword explores the world of the cult London shop and record label - one of the most vital imprints for adventurous leftfield heavy metal - offering ten entry points into one of the most beguiling and bewitching catalogues out there

Crypt of the Wizard have ploughed an idiosyncratic furrow through the strangest corners of deeply underground sonics of cleaving ferocity and beyond since 2015. The shop has become an idiosyncratic institution through sheer dogged belief in the power and glory of heavy metal. Setting up on Hackney Road - and expanding to found a label in 2018 and a festival starting in 2024 - CotW remains the only specialist metal emporium in London. Initially the brainchild of founders Charlie Woolley...

The post The Strange World Of… Crypt of the Wizard appeared first on The Quietus.

Shackleton

Euphoria Bound

More dreamstates and haunted dancefloors from the Lancashire-born producer in permanent exile

Euphoria Bound by Shackleton

The gamification of the music industry isn't a choice anymore, it is part of the hustle and grind. As the discourse flits from topic to topic like a hummingbird, the actual art behind the wall of commerce gets brutally atomised. Instead of democratising music, platforms like TikTok have turned musicians into manic clowns: aggressively performing their next trick for a dead-end of likes and disembodied yellow thumbs. Music is part of an extended human centipede of content. Sometimes, it's the least important bit.

So when an artist is truly disconnected from the machine, it's not just an enviable flex of self confidence, it suggests they are...

The post Shackleton - Euphoria Bound appeared first on The Quietus.

The jungle producer's second album for the label is out in March

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Xylitol, the production moniker of Catherine Backhouse, has a new album on the way for Planet Mu.

Spanning 10 tracks, Blumenfantasie builds on the melodic jungle sounds of Backhouse's previous LP for the label, 2024's Anemones. Sarajevo-born minimal synth composer Miaux, whom the producer has described as "a kindred spirit in terms of her directness and melancholy, as well as her lightness of touch", is listed as an influence on the album.

Expanding further, Backhouse said Miaux was the "single biggest inspiration in the shift between Anemones and Blumenfantasie and I think the shift of mood and palette is quite apparent, even if our music is very different in how it presents"....

The post Xylitol Reveals New Album, 'Blumenfantasie', for Planet Mu appeared first on The Quietus.

Arca, photo by Bryan Berrios

Arca has remixed Robyn's recent single 'Sexistential'.

Pushing the original cut further into club music territory, the Venezuelan artist's take on the song features her own vocals. You can listen to it below.

In a statement, Arca said: "I've loved Robyn's music for years, and am psyched to offer my support and encouragement to her. I want her sense of humour - bold vision and sense of melody is so important! And this track I've remixed, 'Sexistential', deconstructs pleasure, play and motherhood in such a refreshing way. Purr!"

'Sexistential' is the title track from Robyn's forthcoming album, which is her first in eight years. Announced last month, it will be released via the Swedish artist's new label home of...

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Your Rum Music roundup returns for 2026, where Jennifer Lucy Allan presents early AOTY contenders from Silvia Tarozzi, Tashi Dorij and more

Silvia Tarozzi, photo by Giorgio Giliberti

January feels like it's been three months long. I made few resolutions. I will be writing half a book's worth of words before my birthday at the end of March, which feels enough of a goal. I did pitch myself a target for reading (52 books) and wrote the word "FLOSS" in the front of my diary. It's going to be a busy year, and it's already in full swing, with releases already dropping that I feel are solidly in the running for my AOTY list, namely by the increasingly prolific Tashi Dorji, and...

The post Rum Music for January Reviewed by Jennifer Lucy Allan appeared first on The Quietus.

Bloody Head

Bend Down And Kiss The Ground

Nottingham quartet drag noise-rock and psych into some dank, unwholesome places

Bend Down And Kiss The Ground by bloody head

Bloody Head have been lurking at the fringes for some ten years now, occupying a greasy, hard-to-clean crevice where noise-rock and psychedelia begin to intermingle. In this time they've tottered, threatened, collapsed and cajoled, their unexpected incursions akin to having a mysterious, slightly cracked 'character' glom onto you at the pub. Like said pub weirdo, they charm and bemuse and recount tall tales, all while a violent sense of mania flickers intermittently behind the eyes.

Bend Down And Kiss The Ground comes hot on the heels of last year's excellent Perpetual Eden, and hews close to that...

The post Bloody Head - Bend Down And Kiss The Ground appeared first on The Quietus.

Dispel the winter gloom! Our subscribers can catch up with all the music we wrote about last month

Even though January's always a bit of a quiet month for releases we've still got a fair wedge of music for our Subscribers to kick off 2026, with the playlist featuring the likes of MPTL Microplastics, Knats, Denzel Curry, Dry Cleaning, The Soft Pink Truth, Craven Faults, Qasu, Peaches, Jane Weaver, Zu, Sleaford Mods, Lightning Bolt, Megadeth, Thundercat, Bruce Springsteen, Robyn and Shackleton is below. Our Subscriber Plus members also have access to bonus playlists - the music from Peaches and Mike Dirnt of Green Day's Baker's Dozens, artist guides to go with the Strange Worlds Of David Berman and Toumani Diabaté, the...

The post The January Subscriber Playlist is Here! appeared first on The Quietus.

Ahead of the release of new album Domestic Bliss and an appearance at Acid Horse festival in May, the amniotically-linked trio speak to Archie Forde in binaural stereo

London trio Voka Gentle have been playing music together in some form "since the womb", their guitarist, William J. Stokes tells me. Which might be why their latest album, Domestic Bliss, works so well. Composed of identical twin sisters Ellie and Imogen Mason, and William, Imogen's husband, the band craft left-field, mercurial pop that's as hard to box into a genre as it is easy to enjoy. 

Recorded at London City University, where the band taught sound workshops in exchange for studio time, their latest LP is a tour-de-force in this synergistic mode of music-making, which...

The post Phone it in: Voka Gentle Interviewed appeared first on The Quietus.

Geologist

Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?

Animal Collective member smashes multiple genres into dizzying, kaleidoscopic combinations

Can I Get A Pack Of Camel Lights? by Geologist

Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? is the phrase that Brian Weitz, the man behind the moniker 'Geologist' and one of the members of Animal Collective, repeated daily for over four thousand days. Now it's been over five thousand days since he stopped.

In the opening of Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice there is a discussion on the impact of rituals, even the smallest ones, how over time they create something bigger, like a river eroding away at a stone or sediment layering into geological strata. Repetition shapes reality. Any singular thing done every day will change...

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The origins of hip hop may be indelibly associated with New York's Five Boroughs - and the South Bronx, in particular. But in the 1980s, Long Island's De La Soul - and near contemporaries like Biz Markie, Public Enemy and Rakim - brought a new suburban sensibility to the genre. In an exclusive extract from his new book, Living in a D.A.I.S.Y Age, West Virginia University Professor Austin McCoy recounts the group's early years

Although Posdnuos, Trugoy, and Maseo found each other while living on Long Island, none of them, including DJ Prince Paul, were born there. Their families, like many, migrated from New York City's boroughs in the 1970s and 1980s. Kelvin Mercer was born in the Bronx, while David...

The post Ain't Hip To Be Labelled A Hippie: The Suburban Origins of De La Soul appeared first on The Quietus.

The US artist's score for Julian Charrière's film is coming out through her own Awe label

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Laurel Halo is set to release her soundtrack for Julian Charrière's film Midnight Zone.

Spanning nine tracks, the US artist's original score was produced especially for the film, which follows the path of a lighthouse lens as it passes deep down into the Pacific Ocean. The visual itself formed part of a video installation that featured in 2025 exhibitions in cities such as Basel, Mexico City and Toyko, and will soon be presented at Wolfsburg's Kunstmuseum.

Halo previously produced a film score in 2018, in the form of Possessed. In 2023, she released the album Atlas.

Listen to Midnight Zone lead track 'Sunlight Zone', which opens the...

The post Laurel Halo to Release Soundtrack for Film 'Midnight Zone' appeared first on The Quietus.

Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers And The Reinvention Of Rock, 1984-1994 acts as a sequel of sorts to the writer's 2005 book on post punk

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Simon Reynolds is releasing a new book.

Set to arrive via publishing house White Rabbit Books in June, Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers And The Reinvention Of Rock, 1984-1994 follows emerging underground guitar music sounds across the titular decade, looking into the rise of shoegaze, slacker rock, grunge and dream pop. It serves as a sequel of sorts to Reynolds' 2005 book Rip It Up And Start Again, which was a history of post punk.

Drawing on Reynolds' own writing and memories of the time - he first started working at Melody Maker covering these sounds...

The post Simon Reynolds Documents the Rise of Shoegaze and Slacker Rock in New Book appeared first on The Quietus.

Andrew Holter praises Paul Weller for throwing down a gauntlet to fans via cosmopolitan eclecticism and for ceding a large amount of creative control to new collaborators

Imagine it's Friday 16 March 1984. The National Union of Mineworkers declared a nationwide strike on Monday and you are ringing in the weekend with Café Bleu, the new LP released today by The Style Council. Something's off, though: by the start of the tenth song on this record, you have heard Paul Weller sing lead vocals on only two tracks. This is, presumably, confounding.

Instead you have heard four instrumentals of varying genre, from a jaunty piano boogie led by Mick Talbot ('Mick's Blessing'), to whimsical bossa nova ('Me Ship Came In!'), melodramatic guitar...

The post Reissue of the Week: The Style Council's Café Bleu appeared first on The Quietus.

With 2026 off to a flyer (musically at least), tQ's staffers select the albums and tracks that stood out in January

There was a time when compiling a best-of list for January felt like scraping the barrel, artists and labels holding fire on their best music until the blossoming of snowdrops and the renewal of post-festive energy. Not so in 2026, as already we've been treated to several records that will be best of the year contenders come next winter, as you can find below.

Everything you'll find below, as well as all the other excellent music we've covered at tQ this month, will be compiled into an hours-long playlist exclusive to our subscribers. In addition, subscribers can enjoy exclusive music from...

The post Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of January 2026 appeared first on The Quietus.

Even within a genre increasingly filled with aberrations, Qasu's debut represents an odd yet scintillating proposition

Photo: Mark Vella

A Bleak King Cometh is like a molotov cocktail casually tossed into the stave church of black metal orthodoxy. There might be tremolo-picked riffs, gnashed teeth and blastbeats aplenty, but the trio explode, expand and fragment their grainy, frost-patterned palette in order to incorporate a delirious mix of noise, electronica, ambient and industrial influences.

The band self-describe as "ancient future black metal" which is as helpful as it is not. It certainly gives a surface-level sense of how they blend gnarled primitivism with programmed electronics, synths and beats, but, as with Agriculture's "ecstatic black metal" or Cryptic Shift's "phenomenal technological astrodeath" it also pre-loads...

The post Black to the Future: A Bleak King Cometh by Qasu appeared first on The Quietus.

The Soft Pink Truth

Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever?

Matmos's Drew Daniel takes its furthest step yet from its roots in the club; still sounds absolutely joyous

Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever? by The Soft Pink Truth

A common theme through The Soft Pink Truth's records of the 2020s is music's ability to build sanctuaries. As the world's got harsher, SPT's albums have got lusher. 2020's Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase?, recorded during the first Trump presidency, saw the project, led by Matmos's Drew Daniel, blur propulsive deep house into velvety minimal composition. 2022's Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This?, made during pandemic lockdown, is a glimmering electro-orchestral record played by a...

The post The Soft Pink Truth - Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever? appeared first on The Quietus.

The record features A$AP Rocky, Tame Impala and more

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Thundercat has shared details of his first album in six years, titled Distracted.

The US artist's fifth studio LP comprises 15 tracks and includes contributions from A$AP Rocky, Tame Impala, Mac Miller, Willow, Channel Tres and Lil Yachty. Flying Lotus, Kenny Beats and The Lemon Twigs also provide additional production touches across the record.

Speaking about what he wanted listeners to take from Distracted, Thundercat said in a statement: "Just enjoy it and have fun and just know that the struggle is real and changes shape, but just to keep pushing forward."

To mark the announcement of the album, he's shared lead track 'I Did This To Myself', which features Lil Yachty and co-production from Flying Lotus....

The post Thundercat Details First Album in Six Years, 'Distracted' appeared first on The Quietus.

Prostitute, Milkweed and more will play the Birmingham event this April

Photo by Robert Barrett

Supersonic has shared details of its stripped-back 2026 edition.

The Digbeth, Birmingham festival will take place earlier in the year, moving away from its usual late August date to two days in late April. Among the first acts confirmed to play are Prostitute, Milweed and Microplastics, a new live band comprised of aya, Jennifer Walton and 96 Back.

The festival will also welcome ØXN, Bong II, DJ Haram, Ameretat, GREET, MMM and Traidora. Further artists will be announced in the coming weeks, alongside a full programme of workshops, talks and guest DJ sets.

In a statement, Supersonic co-founder Lisa Meyer said: "When we first began, Digbeth was our wild frontier,...

The post Supersonic Announces Scaled-Back 2026 Edition appeared first on The Quietus.

Nick Hudson reports from Georgia with his guide to the gripping, eclectic and unpredictable music currently being produced in the Tbilisi underground, and how the city's musical communities are stepping up in the face of significant repression

Protests in Georgia, photo by Jack Hubbell Rosene

It's 5 May 2023 and Georgian anarcho-industrial collective Quemmekh are playing the Holoseum in Tbilisi's old town. They're flanked by wall-to-wall screens depicting burning cop cars and riot footage as a tall, imperious, rainbow-ribboned shaman - performed by queer Tbilisi icon Andro Dadiani, who has since found political asylum in Brussels - stands in the audience with a live sheep on a leash. It's a gripping, emotionally violent and unforgettable show.  

Flash forward to spring 2024 and the...

The post DIY Against the Oligarchy: Underground Music in Tbilisi, by Nick Hudson appeared first on The Quietus.

Erik Hall

Solo Three

Minimalist music by Laurie Spiegel, Glenn Branca, Steve Reich and Charlemagne Palestine reconfigured as nimble-fingered solo works

Solo Three by Erik Hall

Minimalist music takes on many forms. It encompasses works made of short phrases that interlock and repeat, getting more complex with each reintroduction; compositions that observe sound's gradual transformation; pieces that leave space for chance, interpretation, and the unexpected. But most minimalist music shares one guiding force: a search for presence. Michigan-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Erik Hall has the chance to join that continuous expedition on Solo Three, his latest album that revisits and retools minimalist classics into solo works. But his arrangements, however technically impressive, often fall short of realising the flow state that defines the genre.

Solo...

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The drone metal band's Instagram page said the venue "put politics above music and have cancelled the show tonight"

Earth's show at Bologna venue TPO last night (January 27) didn't go ahead because Dylan Carlson, the band's frontman and sole permanent member, reportedly objected to the display of a Palestinian flag at the side of the stage.

As Stereogum reports, the venue reportedly refused to remove the flag, which had been on display since a two-day event, O Re o Libertà, this past weekend, which brought together different activist groups to hold panel discussions - TPO hosts cultural events, as well as music gigs.

Posting a photo from last night's show, Instagram user @zang_tumb_tuumb wrote in Italian: "Dylan Carlson, upon seeing the flag,...

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"It's dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbours, and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renée Good," the US artist said in a statement

Bruce Springsteen has released a new protest song which takes aim at Donald Trump and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Unveiling the track, titled 'Streets Of Minneapolis', the US artist said in a statement: "I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday, and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It's dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbours, and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renée Good."

The song makes specific references to ICE's recent killings of protestors Pretti...

The post Bruce Springsteen Shares Anti-Trump and ICE Protest Song appeared first on The Quietus.

Dialect

Full Serpent

Andrew P.M. Hunt makes music for small speakers and close quarters, a tender kind of futurism

Full Serpent by Dialect

In just the first three weeks of 2026, the world has become more uncertain than it has been in the entire past twelve months. Low temperatures in Kiev, protests in Minneapolis, marches in Nuuk, Greenland. Is anyone else wondering where the world is heading? Overwhelmed by this news, it would be best to hibernate and wait out what is overwhelming us.

Andrew P.M. Hunt - one quarter of one of the best contemporary "guitar" bands, Ex-Easter Island Head, and at the same time an exceptionally creative solo artist - returns with an EP lasting just twenty minutes. Released a year and a...

The post Dialect - Full Serpent appeared first on The Quietus.

Ian Wade meets Peaches in Soho to discuss the 13 records that have shaped her life and work, from Lil' Kim to Laurie Anderson, disco to krautrock

Photo by The Squirt Deluxe

With Peaches' new album No Lube So Rude arriving next month, the temptation to call it a comeback seems, well, rude. Sure, it's her first release in 10 years, but that's not to say she hasn't been busy. There have been films, a succession of features on other people's records as well as her own exhibition Whose Jizz Is This? In Hamburg. There have been anniversary tours as her seismic debut The Teaches of Peaches first reached 20, then 25 last year, and three documentaries about her career. Her influence...

The post The Reaches of Peaches: Peaches' Favourite Albums appeared first on The Quietus.

Ahead of the first ever vinyl reissue of Djelika, Mary Chiney provides ten entry points into the work of the master kora player from Mali, tracing a lineage that stretches back 71 generations

The word "fusion" was an insult to Toumani Diabaté. Throughout his life, the maestro of the kora, the 21-string West African harp-lute, rejected the term with a polite but steely firmness. "Fusion means confusion," he often told interviewers, his voice low-pitched gravel, possessed of a gravity that seemed to pull the room toward him. "I don't do fusion. I do a meeting. When you meet someone, you talk to them. You don't become them."

This distinction is the key to unlocking the strange, sprawling, and intimidatingly beautiful world of Toumani...

The post The Strange World Of… Toumani Diabaté appeared first on The Quietus.

Backengrillen

Backengrillen

A garbled and rushed melding of doom metal and free jazz born from the ashes of Refused's recent demise

Backengrillen by Backengrillen

On 21st December 2025, Swedish post-hardcore stalwarts Refused played their final gig in the group's hometown of Umeå. A sweaty and teary affair, Refused unleashed a rolling broadside over a brisk 90 minutes, unfurling the entirety of the band's dedication to weighty and outspoken hardcore in a fierce and conclusive salvo.

As tastefully monochrome images of the band embracing were dragged and dropped onto social pages, you would assume that after thirty-plus years of sonic vitriol the group might sit back for a bit of R&R; a bit of fika maybe? Maybe this would have been the right move considering the...

The post Backengrillen - Backengrillen appeared first on The Quietus.

The 59-page report supports the introduction of a Nightlife Commission with statutory powers to protect the city's nighttime economy

A new report shared by the London Nightlife Taskforce includes a number of recommendations to city officials on how they can support London's nighttime economy.

The 59-page document, commissioned by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and published today (January 27), aims to put forward a variety of measures that can help to fix the "fragile and fragmented" condition of the capital's nightlife. These recommendations cover reforms related to licensing, planning and transport, warning that without urgent and sustained action, the city's nighttime economy will lose venues, workers and patrons at an ever-growing rate.

Chief among the report's recommendations is the introduction of a London...

The post London Nightlife Taskforce Shares Report Recommending Urgent Action appeared first on The Quietus.

We say goodbye to the Jamaican drummer Sly Dunbar who died at the age of 73 this week, after helping steer the beats of reggae, working globally with everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Grace Jones

It was at the school gates, while picking up a KPop Demon Hunters-obsessed five year old, where I heard the sad news that Sly Dunbar had left this mortal coil yesterday. This may seem like the last place you'd expect to find out about the passing of reggae's most enduring drummer and, alongside bassist Robbie Shakespeare, one half of the most prolific rhythm section in show business, but such was Sly's reach, his music permeated pop culture, supplying the back beat for everyone from Bob Marley...

The post Remembering Sly Dunbar by Wrongtom appeared first on The Quietus.

After gazing into his crystal ball, JR Moores rounds up the latest psych rock rackets 

Michael Hampton

Another year, is it? Already? What's on your bingo card? For me? Maybe actual bingo. I'm old enough to remember when telephones were attached to the walls, like in Stranger Things, and the whole family would gather in front of the telly together to enjoy anything that wasn't hosted by Cilla Black.    

Here are some predictions for 2026 in the world of psychedelia, other music, and beyond. Given the catastrophes that are already looming, they're actually quite light-hearted. 

My Bloody Valentine will "drop" a brand new album… into the bin. And begin rewriting it from scratch. 

The Spectator columnist Bonnie Blue is going to headline Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Jools...

The post Columnfortably Numb: Psych Rock for January by JR Moores appeared first on The Quietus.

Tashi Dorji

Low Clouds Hang, This Land is on Fire

The Bhutan-born, North Carolina-based guitarist picks up an electric guitar for this initially somewhat softer take on his solo practice, albeit spiked with greater urgency as the record progresses

low clouds hang, this land is on fire by Tashi Dorji

One of the more enduring legacies of the World War II partisan movement can be found in its anthems of resistance and uprising. Unlike the brutal force of usual calls to arms, the Soviet war song 'Katyusha', its Italian version 'Fischia il vento', the French 'Le chant des partisans', and the memefied/commodified to death yet eternally poignant 'Bella ciao' occupy a softer emotional space, trading outward aggression for profound melancholy. Their melodies draw strength...

The post Tashi Dorji - Low Clouds Hang, This Land is on Fire appeared first on The Quietus.

The Sheffield group will play six shows across the US and Canada this May

Cabaret Voltaire have shared details of their last-ever North America tour.

The Sheffield group will play six shows across the US and Canada in May, kicking off at Seattle's Moore Theater on May 4. Gigs in Vancouver, Portland, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco will follow through the remainder of the month. Tickets for the tour run are on sale now.

The shows will come ahead of a final tour of the UK and Europe later this year. Coming more than 50 years on from the formation of the band, the 11-date run across the UK will see Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson, who co-founded the project with the...

The post Cabaret Voltaire Announce Final North America Tour appeared first on The Quietus.

Drew Daniel of Matmos has been creating dance music as The Soft Pink Truth for over 20 years, but recently he was forced to ask himself a difficult question: what utility does making music have while the world slides inexorably towards unmitigated disaster?

Drew Daniel aka The Soft Pink Truth by Josh Sisk

Like most of us over the past ten years, I am struggling with how to live my daily life against the backdrop of a global slide into genocide and fascism. Because this is a music publication, I will narrow that down a bit: since the decisive ascension of Trumpist politics in my country, I have struggled in particular with how to proceed as an electronic musician at all in...

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Marta Del Grandi

Dream Life

Caught between the melodic whimsy of indie pop and the atmospherics of minimalist synthesizer music, the Italian-born singer chooses hope every time

Dream Life by Marta Del Grandi

Marta Del Grandi is in a liminal space between the past she always has one eye on and a future she consistently encourages herself to move towards. Her third album, Dream Life, feels like grappling with a reality check where you've put in the work but things don't look the way you expected and there are untold peripheral problems beyond your control.

In the great indie pop tradition, Dream Life masks melancholia with whimsy, whether it's fantasy land synths, syncopated programmed beats, or slide guitar. The dreamy, brooding, and vaguely foreboding synth...

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Fergal Kinney interviews Emma Warren about her excellent new history of how youth clubs galvanised UK and Northern Irish culture, fashion and sounds

Felinheli Youth Club activities. Photo: Geoff Charles CC BY-SA 4.0

For all of its entrepreneurial vigour, the state was more present in the birth of grime than is sometimes realised. In Dan Hancox's Inner City Pressure, Dizzee Rascal describes the informal circuit of youth clubs that became his apprenticeship: Canning Town and Deptford, the Canary Wharf club that financed Ruff Sqwad's first ever released, and further east to Beckton, which was Kano's local.

From Kano to Michael Caine, whose passion for acting first blossomed at Walworth's Clubland youth club under the Lancashire youth work pioneer Reverend Jimmy Butterworth, the youth...

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An exhibition at Hull's Humber Street Gallery explores the early performance art work of Throbbing Gristle's Cosey Fanni Tutti

At the beginning of Cosey Fanni Tutti's Incognito a vitrine holds a delicate black lace bolero. It's laid out with her first modelling shots, taken in Hull in 1972, a year before she moved to London and a few years after she joined COUM. In the photos, Cosey is pictured wearing nothing but unbuttoned bolero. She leans forward a little, looking directly at the camera, her expression perfectly unreadable. It's one of a handful of shots from her very first nude shoot at 21, with a local family portrait photographer. She hoped to get some decent photos in preparation for her Magazine...

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Manu Ekanayake is transported effortlessly back to a time of optimism and creative and cultural flex by a comp digging into the reggae sampling roots of jungle

To create jungle music a cultural melting pot was needed: one with a taste for rave, but also one that could harness Jamaican flavours. Flavours like reggae and more contemporary off-shoot, dancehall, which spawned its own digital offspring, ragga; all of which are all present here. The other parts, for the record (pun intended) are elements of hardcore rave, Belgian nu beat, Detroit techno, hip hop breakbeats and of course the almighty Amen break from American soul group The Winstons' 'Amen Brother', which even people who hate the genre can't help but recognise. All...

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Ben Graham takes a detailed look at the decadent path trod by David Bowie during the creation of Station To Station

Decadence is an appropriately mutable and ambiguous concept. It can be used to signify the most contemptuous approbation, to suggest rottenness, decay, wasteful amorality and an utter disconnectedness from reality and shared social values. Yet without any real change in its meaning, the word can also be used in praising terms to suggest an alluring glamour, a wild, intoxicating freedom from society's petty restraints and a sense of abandon and entitlement that is somehow admirable despite, or even because of, its obvious destructiveness. In some ways, decadence is about style over substance, and whether you view that as a sin;...

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Megadeth

Megadeth

Thrash legends' swan song finds Dave Mustaine and co. at their most Spinal Tap - but perhaps that's no bad thing?

Like him or loathe him, Dave Mustaine has long been one of the most fascinating figures of the modern metal era.

For all his bravado, his outspokenness, his… let's call them "traditional" and "patriotic" views (without prodding directly into that hornet's nest) - not to mention the ease at which he's made enemies, his habit of trashing other bands (shared by too few musicians these days) - there's also been a vulnerability floating near the surface.

He had a tough childhood involving an absent father, the Jehovah's Witnesses, drug taking and dealing. After Mustaine was fired, aged 22, from Metallica before their debut album...

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HELP(2) is inspired by the charity's landmark 1995 release, HELP

Pulp

War Child, the charity which aims to protect children caught up in war, is releasing a new compilation album, HELP(2).

Spanning 23 tracks, it features new music by a wide cast of artists that includes Pulp, Depeche Mode, Beth Gibbons, Sampha, Cameron Winter, Bat For Lashes, Young Fathers, Big Thief and Black Country, New Road, among others.

HELP(2) is inspired by War Child's original 1995 release of HELP, which raised £1.2 million. The new compilation was recorded largely during a week-long session at Abbey Road Studios last November and was overseen by producer James Ford.

Leading the release is a new song from Arctic Monkeys, which marks their first release of new material since...

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The Dutch festival has revealed a second wave of names playing this April's edition

Photo by Alex Heuvink

Rewire has added a number of acts to the lineup for its 2026 edition.

The second wave of artist additions is headed up by Kim Gordon, who will play live in support of her recently announced third solo LP, PLAY ME, which will be released in March. KMRU is also listed for a live set alongside artist and light designer Nick Verstand, with the duo combining under the name As Nature.

This year's Rewire will also host a world premiere screening of Julian Charrière's latest film Midnight Zone, featuring a live score from Laurel Halo, while contemporary dance company Chunky Move will present a show called U>N>I>T>E>D at...

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In this month's Low Culture Essay, Jennifer Lucy Allan considers nostalgia and the Japanese idea of kona in the work of electronic pioneer Susumu Yokota. Featuring an exclusive playlist for our Subscriber Plus tier.

Portrait by Rune Hellestad

The first time I tried to buy a Susumu Yokota album I was in my late teens. I picked up a copy of Image in Vinyl Exchange in Manchester's Northern Quarter. I was taken by the artwork: the vintage colour grading, the abstracted shape that could have been a tree branch or a spool of tape. It was inviting but felt important; those dates - 1983-1998 - were a promise of longevity; of material that might survive the passage of time. When I got...

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After a decade of fluctuating commercial fortunes and sonic wandering, is Oscar Powell ready to start firing out club bangers again? He discusses a time of transition, hedonism and fatherhood with Luke Turner

Portrait by John Cronin

"I've had 10 years in the wilderness as an artist," says Oscar Powell, backlit from the evening light of West London through the window of his studio, which doubles up as the headquarters of his record label, Diagonal. "I ran away from my own success and I feel out of time with everything, but I've reached a point where I don't really care, that's just who I am." Powell's latest album We Do Recover, and the follow-up WDREP1 that came out at the end of of 2025,...

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