Chris Pugmire offers us ten entry points into the back catalogue of Ed Kuepper of Australian iconoclasts The Saints, Laughing Clowns, and solo and collaborative renown

Ed Kuepper by Doctorhawkes

Please meet, acquaint or re-acquaint yourself with Ed Kuepper, one of the greatest musicians to come from post-colonial, or still-colonial, Australia. Were Ed only known as the guitarist in The Saints, he would be revered as the first finger to the socket, directly inspiring such fellow idiosyncratic players as Rowland S. Howard, Larissa Strickland, Kurt Cobain and Guy Picciotto. His relentless playing summons images of bee swarms and electrical surges, an elemental ferocity and economy divorced from even the heroics of their only true precedent, The Stooges. As the primary songwriter and…

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Teerath Majumder

Dust To Dust

Overflowing with sounds and ideas, the latest from the Bangladeshi composer-producer is full of surprises

No stranger to a juxtaposition, Bangladeshi composer Teerath Majumder has previous in merging seemingly disparate forms to create something new. His 2023 EP Mouno Shonchar blended traditional Bangla sounds with more contemporary compositions, whilst a collaboration with Dhaka-based, electro-acoustic outfit Taraga resulted in spiky metal riffs butting heads with ambient soundscapes. And last year’s Do Not Feed The Robots participatory concert featured musical improvisations responding to toys and robots as a way of criticising the disenfranchising approach of “so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI)”.

On Dust to Dust, however, he’s upped the ante.

Within the space of a single track, he takes us through a multitude of…

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The Heads’ chaotic Dionysian abandon is always tempered by a mathematical Apollonian rigour, finds Stewart Lee

When Iggy Pop sang “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell” on The Stooges’ 1973 swan song Raw Power, he anticipated the anti-romantic punk era nihilism that was to see future Brexit fan John Lydon describe love as “two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squelching noises.” Fifty three years later Bristol’s immortal space-garage psychonauts The Heads may still be sculpting their sonic monuments with some of the same flint axes initially fashioned by The Stooges, but rather than being petty and personal, their disgust is profound and existential. For The Heads, on what they claim is their final album, our whole pretty place is going…

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In the latest antidote to the algorithm, Jakub Knera takes us to the wildly diverse and hypnotic sounds of the Portuguese city

The Lovers & Lollypops record label holds a place in the Portuguese music scene that’s similar to the Bonfim district within the city of Porto. The gentrified centre has been reshaped for tourism, while Bonfim is a neighborhood where daily life is diverse and vivid – here, creativity is lived rather than displayed, authenticity is preserved, and being out of the spotlight allows new ideas to flourish. 

Think of Cemitério do Prado do Repouso or the amazing views of Miradouro das Fontainhas, where the Douro opens up in a lived-in view of the city, far from the polished Ribeira. As you…

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The classic work will be released in new Blu-ray, vinyl and digital editions

Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity is getting a 50th anniversary reissue.

The German group’s first electronic record will be released in new Blu-ray, vinyl and digital editions to mark the landmark. It was originally came out in November 1975 as Kraftwerk’s fifth studio album.

The Blu-ray audio disc will feature a new Dolby Atmos Mix created by Kraftwerk founder Ralf Hütter with engineer Fritz Hilpert, using the original 16-track master tapes. Set to come with an inner booklet and special artwork, it will also include two other mixes of the album.

The vinyl edition will include the 2009 stereo remaster of the album and will be pressed on 12-inch picture disc. The Dolby Atmos…

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It’s the second taste of upcoming album Poem 1

Photo by Suzie Maez

Ana Roxanne has shared a new track, ‘Untitled II’.

The delicate song centres around Roxanne’s arresting vocals, as well as pared-back guitar, piano and percussive accompaniment. It’s the second track to be unleashed from the US artist’s forthcoming album Poem 1 after she released ‘Keepsake’ last month.

Poem 1 marks Roxanne’s first solo album in six years, following 2020’s Because Of A Flower. In 2023, she released Natural Wonder Beauty Concept with DJ Python under the joint moniker of the same name.

Listen to ‘Untitled II’ below.

Kranky will release Poem 1 on 1 May 2026.

Poem 1 by Ana Roxanne
…

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RVNG Intl. will release the LP in June

Photo by Kasia Zacharko

Horse Lords have shared details of a new album, titled Demand To Be Taken To Heaven Alive!

Spanning 12 tracks, the record was pieced together between Berlin and Baltimore, and builds on the rhythmically complex sound of the band’s past work. “We like the idea of art as a tool for changing your perspective, being able to rotate ideas and see/hear/feel them from a different vantage point,” they said in a statement about the LP.

To mark the announcement of the album, Horse Lords have shared a video for two of its tracks: ‘Eureka 378-B’ and ‘Brain Of The Firm’. You can watch the visual below.

RVNG Intl. will release Demand To Be…

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By the mid-90s Stereolab should have been at the peak of their powers, so why didn’t it feel that way to Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier? Fergal Kinney examines the series of events that saw the band escape the dead end they’d ended up in culminating in the release of one of their most celebrated albums

Viewed from the outside, by 1996 Stereolab must have seemed like a unit that could only ascend. Half a decade into the project, affectionately termed “the groop” by its nucleus members, the couple of Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier, Stereolab appeared to be going overground. 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet had been their poppiest, sharpest work thus far – and they had been rewarded with a…

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Kwes

Kinds

A suite of delicately coloured ambient electronics offering an almost child-like sense of wonder

I feel sound design as an art form requires some kind of out of body experience. The philosophy is to imagine and subsequently create a world in itself by way of sound that explores what it feels like to exist in said world. Kinds, in terms of tone and instrumentation, feels intrinsically tied with the distance of memory and simultaneously, its delicateness. Inspired by observing his own daughter’s attitude to creation, Kwes offers here a child’s ear on the world, a listening stripped of preconceptions.

The first two offerings on Kinds capture a serenity through fluttering chords that embody a sense of calm. Both ‘Blue White Violet’ and…

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Adelle Stripe meets the artist George Shaw in Sheffield to discuss the 13 records that shaped his formative years, from Annette to Fred Wesley, ska to electro pop 

Along the back alleys, down by the underpass, hidden in ginnels, or the places where many wouldn’t dare venture after dusk, that’s where you’ll find George Shaw walking in the shadows. His work is focused on the Tile Hill estate in Coventry and chronicles a sublime aspect of quiet, understated working class life. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2011, Shaw was artist in residence at The National Gallery and appears in public collections of major institutions around the world. He is one of the most respected painters of his generation, who has…

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