Charli XCX

Music, Fashion, Film

Its authors may be busy denying that this is the ‘rock’ album expected by some, but perhaps it is still the best punk album of the decade, finds CJ Thorpe-Tracey

“I don’t feel embarrassed even if I suck / I’m always craving an experience that feels dangerous / And maybe this is it, maybe it’s what I need / Cus it’s the only way to feel like I’m not actually me.”(from ‘Camera’)

When Charli XCX released Brat in 2024 (twice), its hectic success, its transformative cultural heft, the size of that impact crater, was a real surprise. With hindsight it feels totally natural. The outcome was a liberation for artist and maybe audience too. XCX became mainstream famous and,…

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In an exclusive extract from their new book, Wild City: Punk Horticulture for a Connected Urban Future, landscape designers Jon Davis and Steve Williams explore a radical new vision for Britain’s cities, shaped by art, music, DIY culture and ecology

Markfield Park is in Tottenham, North London. It’s an area in flux; an old industrial past, keeping up with the needs of a growing multi-cultural community. Near the station, new high-rises are being thrown up fast, with uniform, newly paved streets and municipal planting in tight, tidy rows. But if you venture across the tracks, past old pubs and warehouses, dodging kids on Lime bikes, there you’ll find a real piece of Tottenham’s heritage.

The Markfield Beam Engine, known as a masterpiece…

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Kez Whelan celebrates the thrilling reissue of an album which occupies one of the most unique spaces in the progressive metal canon

Swedish groove machine Meshuggah celebrate their 40th anniversary next year, having amassed one of the most unique and forward-thinking discographies in modern metal. Even as a young band, there was something special about them, but despite the technical proficiency on show right from the off, you could still feasibly refer to the crisp progressive thrash of 1991 debut Contradictions Collapse as their ‘humble beginnings’, if you were so inclined. Whilst the seeds of what Meshuggah were to become were firmly planted here, the band’s influences were the most overtly apparent they’ve ever been, as you’d expect from a first…

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Terry Riley, Claire Chase, Jack Quartet, Samuel Clay Birmaher

The Holy Liftoff

When flautist Claire Chase launched her call for a new flute repertoire for the twenty-first century, Terry Riley responded in typically idiosyncratic fashion

The Holy Liftoff by Claire Chase, JACK Quartet, Terry Riley, Samuel Clay Birmaher

Terry Riley has always had a propensity for cosmic whimsy. As such, and given the fluidity of his work over the last decades, it comes as no surprise that his contribution to flautist Claire Chase’s multi-decade Density 2036 project arrived not in the form of Sibelius-drafted PDFs but as a colourful sketchbook of caricatures, flying creatures, and doodled marginalia. Expectedly, Riley’s non-conformist approach resonated deeply with Chase’s vision of a future flute repertoire – one that…

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The Canterbury event will take place next July

JG Thirlwell, AKA Foetus

Shadowlands, a new four-day festival at Canterbury’s Gulbenkian Arts Centre, has revealed the initial lineup announcement for its inaugural edition in July 2027.

The festival will be headed up by JG Thirlwell’s Foetus project, performing with a 20-piece chamber orchestra in what will be one of his final live appearances under the moniker. There will also be sets by Lustmord – performing in the UK for the first time in two decades – Test Dept, Regis and Clock DVA. Githead – comprised of Colin Newman of Wire, Malka Spiegel of Minimal Compact, and Robin Rimbaud – are also returning from a 13-year hiatus for the event.

The first announcement is rounded out…

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The organisation’s Chief Executive has given the new UK Prime Minister a number of pointers to help grow the UK’s live music industry

Screenshot

Tom Kiehl, Chief Executive of UK Music, has called on new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham to reduce the costs of touring in Europe, and introduce other measures that will support the UK’s live music industry.

Congratulating Burnham on his new role, Kiehl set out five pointers that he could heed in order to support a sector that is struggling amid the increased cost of living. Among those was a suggestion that Burnham remove “costly” and “prohibitive” barriers to touring the EU; deliver on the government’s manifesto pledge to tacle ticket touts; delolve power to grow music in towns…

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The 1987 album is part of a new run of releases bringing new attention to early, overlooked works by the group

Mute is linking with Coil’s Threshold House label to launch a new series of reissues of early, often overlooked works by Coil.

The series launches with the remastered reissue of 1987’s Gold Is The Metal (With The Broadest Shoulders), which was the third release in a trilogy that began with Scatology and Horse Rotorvator. The album, and those in the rest of the upcoming reissues series, were made when Coil were a three-piece consisting of John Balance, Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson and Stephen Thrower.

The material on Gold Is The Metal (With The Broadest Shoulders) draws on work that had been sidelined during Horse Rotovator’s sequencing. Speaking retrospectively,…

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It’s part of a £100 million annual support package for high street businesses, announced by new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced a 20 percent reduction in business rates for nightclubs, live music venues and pubs in England.

Forming part of a £100 million annual support package for high street businesses, the government said the new measures will support 32,000 venues. It’s expected that the average pub would save around £1,100 in the 2027 to 2028 financial year.

These new measures come alongside the existing 15 percent relief for pubs and live music venues that was put in place earlier this year – the largest live music venues are expected to be excluded from this, however, and…

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It comes after the blockchain music marketplace announced its intended mid-July closure in May of this year

SoundCloud has acquired blockchain music marketplace Nina Protocol for an undisclosed fee.

The move was announced today (22 July) in a statement by both companies, and comes after Nina Protocol initially wound down its operations earlier this month citing challenges in making the project financially sustainable.

Artists who used Nina to host and sell their music will now be able to upload their music to SoundCloud and opt into its creator ecosystem. Find more information on how to do so here. SoundCloud will also host Nina Protocol’s editorial content archive as part of the deal.

In a statement confirming the acquisition, the team behind Nina Protocol noted…

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The duo’s first studio album in seven years is their first for Atlantic

Photo by Nathaniel Jerome

Boy Harsher have signed to Atlantic and are releasing a new album, titled GET MEAN.

Marking the minimal synth duo’s first studio album in seven years, the 12-track LP explores themes of love, loss and survival, according to a press release. It was written and recorded in the wake of Boy Harsher’s two members, Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller, ending their romantic relationship and then navigating the future of the project. Personal turmoil, familial loss and creative block had also beset the duo before the production of the album.

The duo’s previous studio album was 2019’s Careful, though they did also release the soundtrack album The Runner…

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