The Quietus

Pedro João Santos reports from the latest edition of Portugal’s premiere festival for experimental music, where stellar sets from Noémi Büchi, Tygapaw, Marta Salogni and more lead the way Malcolm Pardon and Gustaf Broms, photo by Adriano Ferreira Borges / Semibreve  A startled Jocy de Oliveira looks out at the sea: it’s well past time the grand piano should be brought ashore. She oversees a woman playing the ivories, drifting in the tide. “What do you expect to achieve this late?”, she blurts at

Angus Batey looks back 35 years at the 360-degree attack of one of the most creatively independent yet offensive hip hop albums ever made. First published October 2011 Classic albums are supposed to be celebrated, but Death Certificate doesn't permit unqualified responses. It's a record made by a young man as talented at needling his listeners as he was at constructing and delivering some of the angriest lyrics in the hip hop canon, and is impossible to love without qualification. If you're not

Leo Chadburn's latest work expands outwards from a seventeenth-century manual of folk dances to a kinetic exploration of human movement, from St Vitus' chorea to raving at Castlemorton Common English Dancing Master is a dance album, but not in the sense you would usually associate with the term. There is no “succession of repetitive beats” (the phrase used by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to criminalise outdoor raves), ribcage splintering bass or woozy toplines. Instead, we are

Maria W Horn Melting Pillars of Snow Melting Pillar of Snow is a dense exploration of time and decay that feels more like a static monument than a living listening experience Melting Pillars of Snow by Maria W Horn On Melting Pillars of Snow, Swedish composer Maria W Horn attempts to map the relentless passage of time across five expansive compositions. The record sets out to chart the friction between microscopic moments and deep historical time. Yet for all its conceptual weight and formal int

From 80s synth pop and 90s trip hop through to mischievous, glitched-out electronics, Andy Stott talks through 13 records that hold significance to him ahead of the release of his new album, Late Loop Across a career that now spans more than two decades, Andy Stott’s name has become synonymous with a style of electronic music that is patient and understated. Early records like Passed Me By and Luxury Problems dealt in dubbed-out minimalism and hauntingly gritty chuggers, while albums like 2016’s

Dis Fig What To Make Of These Mortal Hands Her debut was called PURGE and it was about her. This one is about what people do to each other, and it is named after the part of the body that does it What To Make Of These Mortal Hands by Dis Fig The title tells you where to look. Hands make things and hands wreck them, and Felicia Chen has built her second solo album around that double function. Track ten is called ‘A Hundred Hands’. Track six is ‘The Snake You Built’. The third track is named after

Drukqs has long been one of John Doran's favourite LPs; with a reissue looming, he attempts to articulate why he loves this critically derided album so much Drukqs by Aphex Twin Rereading the contemporary reviews of Drukqs 25 years later is like rubbernecking the aftermath of a motorway crash. Just ahead of release in October 2001, it became wince-inducingly clear that some previously long-term supporters of Richard D. James were ready to start questioning the validity of his art if not gearing

The festival of leftfield electronic music returns to Central London next month for its second edition Soho Electronic, the Central London festival championing leftfield electronic music, will return for its second edition next month. More than 30 artists are scheduled to play across four stages on and around Dean Street, with the likes of Nik Colk Void and Mark Van Hoen, otherwise known as Locust, set to make appearances. The festival will also host sets from reel-to-reel tape manipulator Howlr

They've also shared two tracks from the LP Photo by Harry Ward Factory Floor have shared details of their first studio album in 10 years, titled One Trip. Spanning 10 tracks, it marks the first full-length release from the current formation of Gabe Gurnsey, Nik Colk Void and new member Joe Ward. The new record's foundations lie in a set that the group played at MUTEK in Montréal in 2024 after returning from an extended hiatus, with the performance providing a catalyst for a new chapter in the pr

The album has been out-of-print for some time Photo by Andrew Catlin Throwing Muses' self-titled debut album is being reissued to mark its 40th anniversary. The album has been out-of-print for some time, in addition to not being available on streaming services. It marked the first release from the band on 4AD, with the group being the first American signees to the label. The release of Throwing Muses on 4AD in 1986 marked a shift in the label's direction going forward as it looked more signific

Our electronic music editor tunes out the latest online culture war, and instead reviews 10 recent releases of an auteur-ish bent, spanning avant-pop, experimental electronics, fractured club music, dubwise mutations and form-bending DJing I've not yet jumped on the discourse bandwagon about 300SkullsAndCounting & Jenny Sparks, debates over whether its treatment of millennial aesthetics is an act of hackneyed recycling or innovative salvaging. Rather than participating in online battles (music h

Johnny Marr The Age of Everything Former Smiths guitarist settles some scores – with himself, and others When I spoke to Johnny Marr for Huck in 2019, all Morrissey talk was off the table. Marr is a very affable interviewee though, and given that the conversation was going so well, I couldn’t resist slipping in a cheeky question about how an unnamed “certain person” was chipping away at the legacy of The Smiths with his increasingly unhinged pronouncements. “Honestly? I’m not concerned, is the a

@ Autosmile Philadelphia duo with an ungoogleable name create dreamy psychedelic worlds with Waterboys flutes adn Beach Boys harmonies Autosmile by @ It’s a great time and a nightmarish time to be an @ (pronounced ‘at’) fan. It’s exciting that the Philadelphia art-folk band’s second album has just been released, but it’s also a faff trying to explain to friends who @ are. Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak are making fresh, entrancing music that communicates places and mindsets in contemporary wa

It marks the band's first release for Jack White's Third Man Records The Flaming Lips have a new album on the way, titled The Teardrop Throbs. Featuring 13 tracks, the record marks the band's first release for Jack White's label, Third Man Records. It's the band's first album in seven years, and their first in 35 years to not feature multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, who is no longer a member of the band. In a lengthy statement about the album and each of its tracks, frontman Wayne Coyne said

Ahead of her curation of this year's Deep Time Festival, the Irish experimentalist gives Alastair Shuttleworth 10 entry points into a back catalogue which includes an opera with Barbie dolls, 12 fictional aliases and a board game for them to play Jennifer Walshe by Blackie Bouffant Flann O’Brien, one of Jennifer Walshe’s favourite Irish writers, once wrote of speaking Irish “when it was neither profitable nor popular.” Walshe has been ahead of the curve herself in speaking about the rise of AI,

Oliver Leith Doom and the Dooms Based on transcriptions direct from tapes found at a jumble sale, the latest from Oliver Leith may be the ideal entry point to the British composer's oeuvre Steady pulse, parallel melodies. Strings undulating with opulent vibrato. Percussive garnish that, clinking and clattering, sounds just like a five-year-old breaking a piggy bank. Endless vacillation between hope and despair. Endless vacillation between stately ceremony and soft frolicking. All processed as if

He revealed that he is now in talks with a record label to produce an official box set of the group's material Kevin Martin has taken to Instagram to reveal that he's successfully blocked an unlicensed reissue of Possession, a 1992 album by GOD, the band that he was part of from 1987 until 1996. Updating his social media followers, Martin thanked people who had offered him legal advice on the matter and said he'd fought back against the planned reissue on "legal and moral grounds". He added that

The London party series is aiming to take over a complex formerly used by London College of Fashion Lost, the secretive London party series famed for its big-name lineups, has revealed its pursuing a 24-hour license for a new venue in the heart of Oxford Street. Taking to Instagram yesterday (22 October), the team behind the party revealed that they had secured use of a building complex formerly used by London College of Fashion. Writing on social media, they said: "An entire block on Oxford Str

Exploring the theme of Continuity, it will feature contributions from affiliates of the Príncipe label and tQ's own Jennifer Lucy Allan DJ Marfox, photo by Marta Pina Portuguese festival SQUARE has revealed the first details of the conference programme for its 2027 edition. Returning to Braga for its third edition in January, SQUARE will host a number of panel discussions and artist interviews for the second consecutive year. The programming will revolve around the theme of Continuity. One sessi

Robbie Williams’ hip hop pivot is widely seen as one of the most obnoxious failures in pop. Claire Biddles & Fergal Kinney deal with an LP which is experimental outlier, outsider art & baffling mess all at once There’s a moment in 2016 captured in Chris Heath’s bestselling journalistic portrait of Robbie Williams where the singer is struggling with his infant child emotionally pushing his father away. “Maybe,” offers his wife Ayda Field-Williams, “she’s finally heard Rudebox.”  The September 200