Coastal Time: New Fiction by M. John Harrison


In an exclusive extract from his new book The End of Everything, the Warwickshire-born SF visionary pictures the apocalypse, as seen from the shores of Kent

In the beginning – if there could be said to have been a beginning – no one really understood what had happened.

There was a decade of confusion. Populations declined across the board, as you would expect given the accompanying economic changes. All along the coast, the little places that had made an income from retirees and weekenders – from tourism in general, from a proximity to remnant medieval priories or bijou nature reserves compiled out of two or three acres of hawthorn scrub, a pond and the possible presence of a locally occurring frog –…

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Pixies Announces 2026 Remasters of ‘Bossanova’ and ‘Trompe Le Monde’


Some pressings will come with a limited 7-inch vinyl of unreleased tracks

Pixies are releasing new remastered reissues of their classic albums Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde.

Marking the band’s 40th anniversary celebrations, the remastered LPs will be made available on CD, digital and standard black vinyl formats. There will also be two special limited-edition vinyl pressings that will include additional 7-inch vinyl records of unreleased songs: ‘Dig For Fire (Albini Version)’, ‘Go Man Go’, ‘Brackish Boy’ and ‘Punk Loop’. 

Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde were both remastered by Kevin Vanbergen, who has been working through Pixies’ tape archive to create new Dolby Atmos mixes and high-resolution masters of the band’s back catalogue.

You can pre-order the special limited-edition pressings, featuring the extra 7-inch records, here.

The band’s classic compilation…

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MOBO Awards Founder and CEO Kanya King CBE Dies, Aged 57


She passed away after “a courageous and characteristically determined battle with colon cancer,” a statement said

Photo by Ashley Verse

Kanya King CBE, the founder and CEO of the MOBO Awards, has died at the age of 57.

Announcing her death, the MOBO Awards said: “Kanya passed away peacefully on 3 June 2026 after a courageous and characteristically determined battle with colon cancer. She was surrounded by her family, close friends and love. The music world has lost one of its most fearless champions.”

King founded the Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards in 1996 while working as a TV researcher. Believing that the artistry of Black musicians was not being sufficiently recognised in the music industry, she remortgaged her own home in order…

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Primavera Sound’s First Full Night Mired by Adverse Weather Conditions


Headline sets by Massive Attack, Doja Cat and Bad Gyal were cancelled at short notice leaving many festivalgoers unhappy

Primavera Sound’s first full night was heavily disrupted by adverse weather conditions and crowd management issues last night (4 June).

Amid torrential downpours, headline sets by Massive Attack, Doja Cat and Bad Gyal were cancelled at short notice, while sets by Alex G and Mac DeMarco, on the Occident stage, were also unable to go ahead. A number of performers additionally had their set times postponed and disrupted by the problems.

The issues left many festivalgoers unhappy due to perceived poor communication, while there were also social media reports of bad crowd management on site. Massive Attack had originally been due to take the…

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Europe Eternal: Kraftwerk in Bournemouth


Tariq Goddard dodges the punches and negotiates with arthritis in order to bear witness to one for the ages

I remember the shock at discovering that Marlene Dietrich was still alive in 1992. She lived long enough to have raised a glass with Brecht and listened to all but one of Kraftwerk’s albums; and if she hadn’t been careful, ample time to take in Klaus Kinski and The Scorpions as well. Perhaps sensing that contemporaneity would eventually kill her, Dietrich wisely locked the door and refused to read the papers, an option that does not exist for innovators whose enduring relevance requires meeting their public. I feel something of the same era-straddling incongruity watching Kraftwerk play live in 2026 in Bournemouth,…

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Reissue of the Week: Do The Impossible: Original Soundtrack, by Sun Ra


Daniel Spicer considers the impossible task of trying to compress all facets of Ra into one release…

Do The Impossible: Original Soundtrack To The Documentary by Sun Ra

Among his many mythopoeic pronouncements, the great Sun Ra maintained that he was making music for the future. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and more than 30 years after he left the planet for the last time, his music is gaining more recognition than ever before. A recent slew of reissues, new compilations and previously unheard live recordings continues unabated. His Arkestra – under the direction of long-time member, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen since 1995 – continues to delight audiences worldwide. Just last…

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Only Fangs: Daniel Hart on Writing the Music for The Vampire Lestat


Words by Claire Biddles. Cover image of Sam Reid as Lestat De Lioncourt from The Vampire Lestat, by Sophie Giraud/AMC

“I was trying to write from a vampire’s perspective, but a vampire who still has a connection to the human experience,” explains musician Daniel Hart, composer of songs for The Vampire Lestat, the bolshy, brash, rock opera follow-up to AMC’s cult adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire. The season sees Rice’s vampire creation – played by Sam Reid – become a rock star, with songs written by Hart narrating over two centuries of undead life, love and loneliness. “Songwriting is one of the main ways in which he stays connected to humans in season three,” says Hart, speaking from his home studio…

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Lee “Scratch” Perry & Mouse on Mars – Spatial, No Problem.


Lee “Scratch” Perry & Mouse on Mars

Spatial, No Problem.

The rich voice of the late dub pioneer lifts the latest from the German electronic music duo to an eerie kind of joy

Spatial, No Problem. by Lee "Scratch" Perry & Mouse on Mars

Spatial, No Problem. sees electronic duo Mouse on Mars team up with the late, great Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry for fifty minutes of jaunty, elaborate instrumentals, and deeply enjoyable vocals from the giant of Jamaican music. The opening pair of tracks are the most immediate and accessible over the course of this record. Both blend bass, shrieking guitar and the occasional synth pulse, though the opener snaps into the most blatant – and catchiest – hook off the album. Comparatively, ‘Hallo…

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Khun Narin Electric Phin Band – III


Khun Narin Electric Phin Band

III

Northern Thailand’s premier multi-generational psych rock band return for their third record – and first studio album

III by Khun Narin

The tale of the Khun Narin Electric Phin Band is one of the feel-good stories of the global music ecosystem. In 2013, a grainy YouTube video emerged. In glorious 144p, it showed a village in rural North Thailand, where a large psychedelic ensemble were casually easing through a set of wigged-out free rock jams like it was the most natural thing in the world. DIY instruments – most notably a home-made phin (a traditional three stringed lute) run through a circuit of cheap pedals – blasted through a colossal home-made soundsystem. An obscene reminder of the strange and…

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The Afghan Whigs Detail New LP, ‘Soft Control’


The US band’s first album in four years is out in August

The Afghan Whigs have a new album on the way, titled Soft Control.

Comprised of 10 tracks, including previously released cut ‘House Of I’, it’s the 10th studio LP from Greg Dulli and co., and follows on from 2022’s How Do You Burn? The album was recorded across multiple studio sessions in four different locations: Fireside Sound in Joshua Tree, Gold Diggers Sound in East Hollywood, Marigny Studios in New Orleans, and Sycamore in Cincinnati.

The record’s title is inspired by an old David Bowie quote in which he described ageing as “an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been”. Reflecting on this, Dulli said in…

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