Congolese collective build sonic starships ouf of the scrapyards of Africa, transforming ritual into auditory assault

All photos by Violaine Morgan Le Fur

Kinshasa isn’t the kind of city that waits for you to be ready, the city just takes over your experience. It is a metropolis of staggering contradictions, where the ghosts of Belgian colonialism collide with the relentless, vibrating hustle of hyper-capitalism. To attempt to capture the essence of this place on tape seems like a fool’s errand, yet this is exactly what the Kinshasa-based street art collective KINACT have achieved with their debut LP, Kinshasa in Action. Founded in 2015 by Eddy Ekete, KinAct first made their name not on stage, but in the gutters, markets, and intersections of…

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Taupe

Waxing | Waning

Glaswegian trio summon a lurching, many-limbed beast in a state of restless permanent flux

waxing | waning by taupe

For her latest show Lunartic, the sweetly surreal comedian Lucy Pearman plays the role of the moon. She dresses up in a giant silvery disc and puts on a performance about how it’s lonely up there in space. Various audience members are recruited to fulfil the roles of potential lovers, tickle-recipients, the earth, a cow, a cat with a fiddle, a dish, a spoon… You can see where she’s going with this. She boasts that she’s in control of tides, wolves, and periods and, at one point turns sideways and scrunches her disc to replicate a moon either waxing or waning,…

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Half a century ago – between the release of Sad Wings Of Destiny and Sin After Sin – Judas Priest were engaged in a revolution of image and sound… one that would cement the heavy metal aesthetic for good

“He said in the cosmos is a single sonic soundThat is vibrating constantlyAnd if we could grip and hold on to the noteWe would see our minds were free”Judas Priest ‘Dreamer/Deceiver’

Heads bang, speakers shake and the earth, lost in a wasteland of nothingness, grinds slowly on its axis. The pursuit of life as a metalhead most often feels very much like being part of a vast primeval continuum. For almost its entire history, heavy metal has been forced to endure derision, incomprehension…

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Tim Burrows explains how a conversation on a park bench led to an inventive film about a unique, much missed voice in political philosophy and cultural criticism

We are making a film about Mark Fisher. That much is true. The idea came about in October 2024 while we were sitting on a park bench in the south Essex commuter town of Rochford. I had been talking to the artist and filmmaker Simon Poulter about the parkland that surrounded us, which was created using money provided by Section 106 funds from a developer. During our visit, a succession of dog walkers adhered to an allotted path running alongside an abundant, all but untouched stretch of grass; all of them were moving towards…

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In this month’s Low Culture Essay, Natalie Marlin explores how a under-regarded soundtrack became part of understanding her evolving trans identity

Hanna does not live with music to guide her, at least at first. Her life is scored solely by the openness of the tundra, the crackling of fire. The stillness of open air, of onyx-drenched night. A dwelling shared only with her father, far from any others, from any chatter or clamour. No incandescent hums or white noise whirrs or industrial thrums to speak of. Hanna will not find music here, not until the world beyond this one encroaches. Not until she finds her tune beyond the silence she has known.

It’s a curious start for a film scored by one…

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Spatial, No Problem arrives almost five years on from the dub pioneer’s death

Photo by Constantin Carstens

Lee “Scratch” Perry’s final album is due to be posthumously released this June, almost five years on from the dub pioneer’s death.

Titled Spatial, No Problem, the eight-track record was produced in collaboration with Mouse On Mars at their Berlin-based Paraverse Studio in December 2019. The album name is derived from a conversation that the duo had with Perry about Spatial Audio.

In a statement, Mouse On Mars’ Jan St. Werner said: “We hardly spoke about what we were doing. We met and got going. He was laughing a lot and we laughed along. We also cooked and ate fish soup and papayas.”

The album will be specially…

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The debut self-titled album from Doublespeak features analogue synth takes on songs by ABBA, The Carpenters and more

Vince Clarke has launched a new project devoted to cover versions, together with Benge and Blancmange’s Neil Arthur.

The trio are known as Doublespeak, and are lining up their 11-track self-titled debut album for release in May. It features analogue synth covers of songs by ABBA, The Carpenters, Young Marble Giants and Fad Gadget, among others.

“I knew so little about some of these songs that they were like demos to me,” Clarke said in a statement. “They felt like brilliant new songs that you want to get your hands on. I’ve had people do cover versions of my songs and honestly there’s no better…

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The UK artist hopes to secure rights to her artist name amid ongoing cease-and-desist notices from the 90s band

Photo by Jordan Hemingway

FKA twigs has filed a lawsuit against 90s duo The Twigs in a bid to secure rights to her artist name amid a long-running legal dispute between the two acts.

In the suit, FKA twigs claims the group had challenged her use of the name since 2013, when she was still performing as Twigs. She subsequently offered them $15,000 to settle the matter and allow both acts to coexist, but the duo rejected this offer and launched a lawsuit in 2014, forcing her to change her name to FKA twigs in 2014. The band formed of twin sisters Laura and…

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Fatoumata Diawara and Emma-Jean Thackray are among the first announced artists for this year’s event

EFG London Jazz Festival has shared the first wave of acts playing its 2026 edition later this year.

Taking over several venues across London over the course of 10 days, the festival will this year feature a set from Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara, who will headline the Roundhouse. Samara Joy will also return to the festival following sets in 2023 and 2024, with an appearance at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall.

With 2026 marking the centenary of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, the festival will also take in several special performances in their honour. One of those will see Emma-Jean Thackray take inspiration from Davis’ electric era…

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Objekt and Drew McDowall are among the artists who’ve reworked tracks from last year’s LP

Photo by Juan Camilo Diez

james K is releasing a remix album for her 2025 LP Friend.

Taking in 12 tracks, the release features reworks of songs from last year’s record by the likes of Objekt, Drew McDowall, JASSS, Priori, Loidis and Roza Terenzi.

In a statement, james K said: “Friends remix Friend. It is such a sweet honour to have my friends and collaborators, whose work has inspired mine, interpret and translate this work into new narratives.”

To mark the announcement, two tracks have been shared from the release: Objekt’s remix of ‘Play’ and JASSS’ take on ‘N’Balmed’. You can listen to both below.

Commenting on his contribution to the…

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