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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In her Baker’s Dozen, self-penned between the release of her latest solo album and the return of her much-loved band Black Box Recorder, Sarah Nixey charts her life in listening from Carpenters to The Cure, via encounters with David Bowie and more

Photo by pip&clo

I’ve spent half a century listening to music, so choosing only 13 albums was a huge challenge. Making lists about music is not my forte, but I started with the idea that these are among my favourite albums at this present moment. Some of these choices may seem obvious, while others might surprise you, and a few may appear out of place. I’ve not deliberately chosen obscure records, and a few of these albums, I’m sure, are…

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Ladytron

Paradises

A quarter-century from their debut, the Liverpudlian electropop group release their eighth album with a wash of ethereal voices and blissful synth sounds

Paradises by Ladytron

What is paradise? It is probably a place where the wash of ethereal voices that herald in Ladytron’s epic new album, Paradises (or the breathy synth sounds that carry it out), will be on tap all day, every day. Repeated listening to this overwhelmingly accessible record brought to mind the terrifying slipstream novel, Ice, by Anna Kavan: a world in which there is no escape from the elements and surrender to the inevitable brings a sinister form of comfort.

Ladytron are back, and with Paradises, their danceable and thoughtful pop music seems to have gained new resolve….

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In his latest missive from the French fringes, David McKenna digs into the archives of the Sonic Protest festival and a recent book on the post-68 French underground, and reviews new noise, folk, rap and indie pop releases

Mérylle Ampe, photo by Titouan Massé

One of the albums reviewed in this week’s column, Mérylle Ampe’s Two Daughters, includes a live recording from the sadly defunct French experimental music festival Sonic Protest, which took place in Paris (and sometimes other cities too) from 2003-2024. The festival may be gone but, thanks to the recently launched Total Replay, it is now possible to access many more live shows from over the years. Dipping into any year on the site reveals documentation – sound recordings,…

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John Freeman looks back at the album which provided Pet Shop Boys with the perfect launch-pad for everything that followed

What would you want from a debut album? Instant success, hit singles and a worldwide fanbase or a musical springboard which would allow exploration of a myriad of styles and influences? In 1986, with the release of Please, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe managed to have it all.

First impressions last. Debut albums set the bar – like a first date that will define a courtship. But sometimes even the most successful debut albums do not sow the seeds for a long-lasting relationship. Is This It by The Strokes was a perfect alignment of the sonic stars by a band who were…

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