Ezra Collective

Here Because of Hope

Their fourth album asks why so much Black music born from pain makes people dance. The band needed the answer for practical reasons

Here Because of Hope by Ezra Collective

The story behind this record is more specific than the concept suggests. After the Mercury Prize in 2023 and a BRIT Award that followed, Ezra Collective found themselves in an unusual line of work. Audiences were coming to their shows expressly to feel good, which meant walking on stage every night as suppliers of joy. Femi Koleoso has been candid that during some of those gigs things were happening, personally and in the wider world, that were painful. The question he ended up with was practical rather than…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/ezra-collective-here-because-of-hope/

From the enigmas in dance music to the surrealist lyrics of Bob Dylan, Gilla Band tell us about the influences behind new LP Pugnello, and compile them into a special 20-track playlist available exclusively for tQ Subscriber Plus tier members

Photo by El Hardwick

Music journalists love to declare the influences that must have gone into a new album, but a lot of the time the artists responsible themselves are left baffled by such comparisons. We thought, why not go straight to the source?

Gilla Band are an acclaimed and highly influential Irish experimental noise rock band whose new album Pugnello will be released on Rogh Trade on 25 September. Their first LP since 2022’s Most Normal, it was recorded over four years…

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source https://thequietus.com/subscriber-area/playlists/guest-playlist-gilla-band-pugnello-influences-interview/

EXAUDI

Pocket Universe

Four pieces by Cassandra Miller, Andrew Hamilton, Leo Chadburn and Geoff Hannan under the baton of conductor James Weeks

Curation is everywhere nowadays: from art biennales to food menus, everything has abespoke theme, bolstered by snazzy presentation, marketing ploys and influencer campaigns. But what happens when you release music without a thematic lynchpin holding things together?

Such is the case of Pocket Universe, the most recent offering from the vocal ensemble EXAUDI and conductor James Weeks, released on NMC Recordings. It comprises four pieces by Cassandra Miller, Andrew Hamilton, Leo Chadburn and Geoff Hannan, commissioned by EXAUDI’s annual EXPOSURE showcase between 2013 and 2019. Conceptually, that doesn’t whet the appetite. While the booklet cites a few similarities between the works –…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/exaudi-pocket-universe-review/

Ahead of a comprehensive box set of live recordings, Richard Foster considers the ‘other’ Joy Division that barely gets mentioned; the live powerhouse that motored its way across Britain and Europe

Joy Division live by Martin O’Neill

As the old line goes, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. Sometimes we do this speculatively, through other people’s lives. This kind of speculation also drives the discourse around Joy Division’s brief and tragic history. A reason to look anew at this well-thumbed tale is the release of an official collection of live audio and video recordings – with unreleased, often brilliant material. It has a canny name: Eternal (Live). The music and video is accompanied by epoch-defining images from the celebrated band photographers,…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/joy-division-live/

Tariq Goddard attends the first event of its kind and wonders what (if anything) the many speakers have learned from the auteur it was named for

I recall my surprise when I was first asked if I was going to a ‘conference’ by a prominent talking head from a left-wing digital organisation. It was at the height of peak Corbyn and I suppose all manner of improbabilities seemed possible, from power moving from one class to another, to a political little-mark like myself attending an event I would sooner choose food poisoning over. Like a majority of my peers during my formative years, I privileged ‘art’ and self expression over public service and duty, viewing politicians as egotists who lacked the…

The post Between Facts and Feeling: The Adam Curtis Party Conference appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/live-reviews/adam-curtis-party-conference-review/

A Certain Ratio

The Joy of Sextet / Force Majeure

Manchester post-punks return to the scene of two classic albums from 1982 and 1986 with new mixes, new tracklistings and a few surprises

Force Majeure by A Certain Ratio

The Joy of Sextet by A Certain Ratio

A Certain Ratio have put out three albums since 2020, more than most bands manage in their first decade, never mind their fifth. So when It All Comes Down to This was followed by a pair of archive campaigns, the obvious worry was that the well had run dry and the accountants had moved in. What’s arrived instead is two companion albums that go about their business in completely different ways, tied to two anniversaries: 45 years since…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/a-certain-ratio-the-joy-of-sextet-force-majeure-review/

Lupe Fiasco’s fabulous first LP was a debut for the ages…. but how come they don’t make ’em like this any more? Angus Batey asks

As loyal subscribers will know – and if you’re not one already, what’s keeping you? Click that button up there at the top of the page immediately! – September 2026 has seen Luke and John celebrating this august organ’s coming of age. Such occasions are always potent – useful staging posts and rest stops before the never-ending journey forward continues; opportunities to reflect and reminisce – and so it is with these anniversary pieces. Especially for this ageing hack, who is always forcibly reminded of his own ongoing meander into disconnected irrelevance when confronted by the…

The post Food For Thought: Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor at 20 appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/lupe-fiasco-food-liquor-review/

The English novelist, author of Doloriad and The Vivisectors talks campus novels, Coil’s ‘Fire of the Mind’ and her surprise longlisting for this year’s Booker Prize

In a never-repeated episode of the BBC arts documentary series Omnibus broadcast on 27 September 1991 titled ‘The Word, The Image, And The Gun’, American writer Don Delillo spoke of his obsession with the television screen. Throughout the documentary, we cut to Delillo; who sits within an empty cinema watching images of the Kennedy assassination on a loop or at his typewriter over-looking Manhattan traffic, with footage of the Lockerbie Bomber or the Iranian Hostage Crisis opaquely overlaid. And from within this gust of sharp, engrossing images of terror, Delillo asks: what effect can the…

The post Enough of the Self and its Dilemmas! An Interview with Missouri Williams appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/culture/books/enough-of-the-self-and-its-dilemmas-an-interview-with-missouri-williams/

In North Macedonia the leftfield scene has thrived for decades in spite of a major lack of musical infrastructure. In his latest guide to the underground music of Central and Eastern Europe, Jakub Knera explores why

Sepak Se Vrti’ Festival, Gostivar

“We have this inside joke: how many people from Stotrojka does it take to change a light bulb? How does it all work, and how on earth has that radio station survived for 35 years? I’ve no idea. It must be some glitch in the system,” says Gjorgji Janevski, one of those without whom it would be difficult to tell the story of North Macedonian independent music.

This “glitch in the system” is a fitting metaphor for a scene that has thrived…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/quietus-international/north-macedonia-experimental-music-review-stotrojka-mrtov-konj/

Archie Forde hails a compilation of young Icelandic electronic music makers, austere experimentalists and noisemongers, which rails against gentrification and foreclosed futures alike

safn by plata

It’s October 2025, and Icelandic noise music collective Spider Network are crammed into a Reykjavik beer garden, working late into the night. Spools of vermillion thread cling to the space’s tarp roof; one member laboriously unwraps tinfoil and plasters it across plastic windows and walls; a ritual doll is suspended from the ceiling.  

This haunting decor is being assembled for Falconfest, a noise show held in Reykjavik venue Lemmy in collaboration with No Borders, a charity dedicated to providing mutual aid to refugees. Spider Network, who organised the gig, have homed in on harsh noise as a way to fight the closures of spaces…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/reissue-of-the-week/safn-plata-review/