JR Moores emerges from the scented bath to widen his lens in the inaugural edition of our new rock column 

Earth Tongue

Had I known January’s Columnfortably Numb would be its final edition, I might’ve opened with something more heartfelt. Not that Moores’ writing is known for its heartfeltedness. Mostly it’s known for an excessive use of adverbs. For this I can only apologise, humbly.I have written that column for just over 10 years. Never missed a deadline! Bosh, as they say south of where I am from and on TikTok, I assume. Granted, it was only bi-monthly. Incidentally and incredibly, not a single article of mine, Columnfortably Numb or otherwise, has yet made it into the Rock’s Backpages archives. Where’s my…

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John Freeman looks back at the album which saw Martin Gore find his voice against a backdrop of inter-band tension.

According to his family, Martin Gore was a shy, introverted child. But that was then. By his mid-twenties, he had taken to wearing rubber fetish gear and singing ‘A Question Of Lust’ (containing the couplet “My weaknesses / You know each and every one”) to hundreds of thousands of people with his band Depeche Mode. It’s always the quiet ones…

Artistically, Gore had come a long way by 1986. Black Celebration is a fine and kinky record that signaled a transition in Depeche Mode’s career; they became darker, sonically more adventurous and sweetly subversive. “If you call yourself a pop band,”…

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Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy

Dying Is The Internet

Post-geographic bass music with an experimental thrust, defined by Cell’s adventurous arrangements and Miniawy’s commanding Arabic vocals

Dying Is The Internet by Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy

When collaborative projects don’t click, it’s like looking at a chimeric beast with multiple parts sewn together – the seams are noticeable. Occasionally, however, things get alchemical and unexpected mutations occur in the process. Molten sounds petrify and unfamiliar shapes emerge. If we are being esoteric, it’s only because French producer and DJ Simo Cell and Egyptian vocalist, trumpeter, composer and poet Abdullah Miniawy aim for that Fourth World arcaneness. The language barrier (Miniawy sings in Arabic) adds to the mystique for non-native speakers. But it’s more to…

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In an extract from the new biography, Cosmic Music, Andy Beta describes the tensions Alice Coltrane faced in 1976 between releasing her first album for Warner Bros and her new monastic life in California…

For the four kids of John and Alice Coltrane, it seemed like any other morning at home. Three years prior – still mourning the passing of their father – they had packed up and moved with their mother to California. And by 1975, they were firmly settled into life on the West Coast in the suburbs of Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley. Michelle was a full-blown teenager, John Jr. turned eleven, Ravi was ten, and Oran was now eight years old. Alice’s kids were quickly growing up and…

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Delphine Dora

L’ineluctable pulsation du temps

Inspired by a German ‘sociologist of speed’, the French composer and improviser presents a suite of highly resonant compositions

L'ineluctable pulsation du temps by Delphine Dora

On her latest album, Delphine Dora is concerned with temporality, its pace and pressures it produces. L’ineluctable pulsation du temps finds the French pianist, composer and improviser summoning a gentle collection of piano cycles with drone undertows. The record took shape during a time of intense touring, while Dora was simultaneously busy engaging with writings on acceleration and alienation by Hartmut Rosa, a “sociologist of speed”. According to Rosa, capitalist societies are programmed for constant economic growth, which forces us into a rat race, approaching the world instrumentally and as a competition….

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The two artists linked up after Fratti praised Orcutt’s work in an article

Mabe Fratti and Bill Orcutt are releasing a collaborative album, Almost Waking.

Spanning eight tracks, the record sees Fratti provide vocals and cello, and Orcutt play guitar. Their collaboration came about after the former praised the latter’s work in an article. Fratti revealed in a press release that she’d been a fan of Orcutt’s work since the release of his self-titled 2017 album.

“I connected a lot with his music and I had no idea that years later we would be collaborating, Fratti said. “It was a total surprise that we started chatting on the internet about collaborating! We bounced ideas back and forth, all starting with a series of…

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The deal includes the record label and its associates, as well as its publishing arm and roster of songwriters, composers and producers

Concord, the Nashville-based music publishing company, has acquired Ninja Tune for an undisclosed fee.

In addition to purchasing the record label and its associate imprints, the deal also sees Concord take over Ninja Tune’s publishing arm, Just Isn’t Music, and its roster of songwriters, composers and producers. The publishing catalogue includes the majority of the music released on Ninja Tune to date, alongside the output of select other artists.

In a press release, Concord and Ninja Tune said: “The move vastly increases Concord Label Group’s UK and European footprint and provides Ninja Tune with the additional resources necessary to enhance its…

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The Neubaten guitarist (later bassist) and collaborator with Phew, The Tiger Lillies and many more opens up about days wiled away in a seminal Berlin record shop, in an exclusive extract from his new book, Blast: Distorted Memories

Alexander Hacke, riding the s-bahn home after a hard day’s shopping at Zensor

The ‘Zensor’ was located in Schöneberg. In this neighbourhood it was less about politics, class struggle and punk rock, but the atmosphere was more suitable for bohemians, artists, filmmakers, mannequins and the omnipresent gay scene.

I initially bought my records in Neukölln, on Karl-Marx-Straße, either at the Zip or Music Land store. Their advertisements in public transport read: ‘Everything from Abba to Zappa’, and these stores were run by ageing hippies who…

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Prostitute’s brand of frustration and rage already felt immediate upon their debut album’s release in 2024, but as imperial slaughter has only worsened in the time since, a new worldwide release sharpens the image even further, says Natalie Marlin

“We’re just here in Barcelona, just panic everywhere, fear everywhere. It’s like… um… the… well, the movie. That killer, or something like that, so everybody’s afraid here and everything is closed. Well, just call me whenever you have time.”

These words are presented as an unadorned voice memo in the outro of Prostitute’s ‘Judge’, and I find it hard not to think of the devastation on the streets I intimately know. Sights like this one have permeated my home of Minneapolis, where our…

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In this month’s pod, Luke Turner and John Doran explore the beauty and violence of this masterpiece from Alan Vega and Martin Rev

Many moons ago, tQ heard Henry Rollins describing the time that he and Ian MacKaye had spent the afternoon listening to the 1977 debut album from New York duo Suicide, and were so disturbed by it – especially by the song ‘Frankie Teardrop’ – that they had no idea how to respond, other than to wander the street yelling. In this month’s Low Culture Podcast, Luke Turner and John Doran hope to be more articulate as they delve deep into one of the most thrilling and influential electronic records ever made. They discuss the duo’s roots in New…

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