Matthew Horton hails a concise manifesto of pop written by Green Gartside just before reaching his full potential

“I find the Scritti Politti syndrome absolutely hysterical,” said Duran Duran’s fedora-topped bassist John Taylor, reviewing the singles for Melody Maker in September 1982. “All these… radical Rough Trade bands suddenly deciding they want to be pop stars. They seem to have everything right but the songs. They have no perfect pop writers.” Taylor could speak with commercial authority at least, but the tell was he’d heard about Scritti Politti and their scheme to invade and master pop. Green’s new doctrine had spread in mere months.

Only in May, Green had laid out his starry ambitions to Lynden Barber, again in Melody Maker. “I…

The post Reissue of the Week: Scritti Politti’s Songs To Remember appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/reissue-of-the-week/scritti-politti-songs-to-remember-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=scritti-politti-songs-to-remember-review

Melvins & Napalm Death

Savage Imperial Death March

Washington sludge merchants join forces with marauding blast beat progenitors to produce an album of big licks and a dash of silliness

Savage Imperial Death March by Melvins, Napalm Death

Something is in the water. Mark Z. Danielewski’s 2025 opus Tom’s Crossing follows two teenagers who steal a pair of horses and ride into the fictional Isatch mountain range of Utah. Boyhood, David Keenan’s latest novel, features a scene in which four purloined horses are fed acid and raced through the midnight streets of Glasgow. And a third act of equine larceny now takes place during the unholy Melvins/Napalm Death alliance – Savage Imperial Death March.

Setting off at a gallop, with King Buzzo ripping stoner rock…

The post Melvins & Napalm Death – Savage Imperial Death March appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/melvins-napalm-death-savage-imperial-death-march-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=melvins-napalm-death-savage-imperial-death-march-review

The project will debut inside a 17,000 square-foot underground bunker at this month’s Coachella festival

Radiohead have revealed details of a new audiovisual installation centred around 2021’s Kid A Mnesia reissue, which will tour around a number of US and Mexican locations this year and into 2027.

The 75-minute installation is titled Motion Picture House, and features artwork by frontman Thom Yorke and longtime Radiohead visual collaborator Stanley Donwood, alongside music from Kid A Mnesia, the band’s combined reissue of Kid A and Amnesiac. It will debut inside a 17,000 square-foot underground bunker at this year’s Coachella festival, which gets underway this weekend and continues onto next weekend.

Following its Coachella premiere, Motion Picture House will then be exhibited at Brooklyn’s Agger Fish Building from…

The post Radiohead Unveil ‘Kid A Mnesia’ Touring Audiovisual Installation appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/radiohead-unveil-kid-a-mnesia-touring-audiovisual-installation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=radiohead-unveil-kid-a-mnesia-touring-audiovisual-installation

The contentious hip hop and electro veteran had faced multiple allegations of sexual assault that emerged over the past decade

Afrika Bambaataa, the DJ, rapper and producer who merged hip hop with electro in the 80s, has died at the age of 68.

News of his passing was confirmed in an Instagram post by the Hip Hop Alliance, a not-for-profit organisation that supports creatives working in hip hop. TMZ reported that he died in Pennsylvania as a result of complications from cancer.

Born Lance Taylor in The Bronx, New York City in April 1957, the artist is considered an early pioneer of hip hop. He launched the Universal Zulu Nation collective in 1973, which helped the genre emerge from its local New York…

The post Afrika Bambaataa has Died, Aged 68 appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/afrika-bambaataa-has-died-aged-68/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=afrika-bambaataa-has-died-aged-68

The Riga festival takes place across two days this October

Smerz

Skaņu Mežs has added a second wave of acts to the bill for its 2026 edition.

Returning to Riga’s Hanzas Perons venue this October, the festival will newly take in a set from Smerz, who will be touring in support of last year’s album, Big City Life.

Also newly added to the lineup are Planet Mu affiliate Ship Sket; Lithuanian sound artist Augustė Vickunaitė; and veteran free jazz saxophonist Joe McPhee, who will perform with bassist John Edwards and drummer Klaus Kugel.

They join the previously announced likes of aya, Gudrun Gut, Krallice, and Charlemagne Palestine, Oren Ambarchi & Daniel O’Sullivan.

Revisit tQ’s round-up of seven key performances from last year’s Skaņu Mežs here.

Skaņu Mežs will…

The post Skaņu Mežs Adds Smerz and More to 2026 Lineup appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/skanu-mezs-adds-smerz-and-more-to-2026-lineup/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=skanu-mezs-adds-smerz-and-more-to-2026-lineup

It marks the second full-length collaboration between the pair

Photo by Alessio Pizzicannella

Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri have shared details of a new LP, Where Light Pauses In The Silence Of The Sun.

Spanning six tracks, the new record marks the second full-length collaboration between the two artists. It emerged from a three-day residency involving the pair at Morphine Raum in Berlin in spring 2025, where the duo developed their source material through improvisation before each artist transformed the recordings in separate studio settings – Mogard in Rome, and Irisarri in New York.

Cellist Martina Bertoni appears on two tracks on the album, while Andrea Burelli also contributes violin and voice to one track.

Speaking about the recording process of the album and…

The post Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri Reveal Collaborative LP, ‘Where Light Pauses In The Silence Of The Sun’ appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/abul-mogard-and-rafael-anton-irisarri-reveal-collaborative-lp-where-light-pauses-in-the-silence-of-the-sun/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=abul-mogard-and-rafael-anton-irisarri-reveal-collaborative-lp-where-light-pauses-in-the-silence-of-the-sun

Originally commissioned by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, this collaboration between the Amsterdam-based producer and ther UK’s busiest drummer opens up dazzling worlds of percussive sound

Make your first listen to Seismo a naive one. Don’t think about its makers, and the many excellent projects they have worked on. Don’t think about how exciting it is to hear a bold percussionist like Valentina Magaletti collaborate with a producer who can match her inventiveness and unrestricted approach to form and genre. Try not to think about PAN, the storied label backing it. If you can, forget Moin, Midori Takada, Steve Reich, Nicolas Jaar, Miles Davis, Shackleton, or any other past collaborator or influence you might hear flashes of within its eight songs. Don’t think of…

The post Kinetic Energy: Seismo by Upsammy & Valentina Magaletti appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/album-of-the-week/seismo-upsammy-valentina-magaletti-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seismo-upsammy-valentina-magaletti-review

From a childhood obsessed with art to the electroacoustic, treated piano work of new album Requiem via Can’s “school of pain”, the German composer reflects on a life well lived. Words: Adelle Stripe. Portraits: Robin Maddock

As a founding member of Can, and a composer with an illustrious soundtrack career, Irmin Schmidt is a man who needs little introduction to Quietus readers. Now approaching his 89th year, and residing in the Luberon region of France, he has recently recorded a new album, Requiem, in his home studio. A meditative, poignant work of piano and field recordings, it is one of Schmidt’s most affecting and inspiring records to date and adds to a discography that encompasses over a dozen solo albums and…

The post A Particular Beauty: Irmin Schmidt Interviewed appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/irmin-schmidt-interview/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=irmin-schmidt-interview

This month’s edition of the pod sees Luke Turner and John Doran discussing the 1977 classic of “cosmic horror”

In this month’s Low Culture podcast, Luke gets in his battered Austin Maxi and heads down to Wiltshire to pick up John before they head to Avebury henge and hope not to get caught in a time shift caused by a powerful ray from a distant black hole. Yes, this can mean only one thing – the cultural artefact up for chat is 1977 TV drama Children Of The Stones. Shot in the woozy heat of the summer of 1976, the six-part series concerns the arrival of a Professor Adam Brake and his son Matthew in the village of Milbury, where they settle…

The post Low Culture Podcast: Children Of The Stones appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/subscriber-area/low-culture-podcast/low-culture-podcast-children-of-the-stones/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=low-culture-podcast-children-of-the-stones

Memorials

All Clouds Bring Not Rain

One part Electrelane, one part Wire, Memorials are all gravy and All Clouds Bring Not Rain feels like a great lost album from some magical bygone era, finds Hayley Scott

All Clouds Bring Not Rain by MEMORIALS

There’s a ghost in the Leslie speaker. You can hear it on ‘Wildly Remote’, that blurred, rotor-smeared guitar tone fraying at the edges like a tape played too many times, dissolving the boundary between the song’s warm intimacy and something older, colder, and genuinely uncanny.

All Clouds Bring Not Rain is the second album from Memorials, the duo born out of two of the more quietly canonical acts in British underground music: Electrelane and Wire. The territory they cover is vast, traversed…

The post Memorials – All Clouds Bring Not Rain appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/memorials-all-clouds-bring-not-rain-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=memorials-all-clouds-bring-not-rain-review