Fergal Kinney reports from a roasting Cagliari, where he witnesses sets from Stereolab, The Horrors, Messthetics and more at the returning Siren Festival

Ron Gallo, photo by Stefano Laddomada

In 1921, D.H. Lawrence went to Sardinia. An intended homage to the Italian novelist Grazia Deledda, Lawrence’s trip to Italy – with wife Frieda Lawrence – began with a journey to the island from Sicily and took in Mandas, Sorgono and Nuoro, forming the backbone of that year’s Sea And Sardinia. The highlight for Lawrence, though, was Cagliari. Then and now one of the largest industrial hubs in the Mediterranean – something today visible in its busy harbour populated by oil tankers and cruise liners – was “a naked town rising steep,…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/live-reviews/siren-festival-2025-review-stereolab-the-horrors-messthetics/

Qur’an Shaheed

Pulse

The Pasadena artists pulls and stretches r’n’b into strange and psychedelic new shapes

Pulse by Qur'an Shaheed

For those who heard it, Qur’an Shaheed’s 2020 soul jazz EP Process provided some succour in that bleakest of bleak years. With Pulse, her first album proper, the Pasadena-based pianist and singer has deconstructed what she does with the help of producer Spencer Hartling, who took her demos, brought in some tape loops and applied FX dubbing to help present something far more multi-textured and, ultimately, zeitgeist-y. Pulse is discombobulating at times – but so, too, is the world in which it is being released.

On Shaheed’s Bandcamp, she describes herself as a “woman and her piano on a journey to embrace femininity and love…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/quran-shaheed-pulse-review/

Following the release of his excellent new album, the acclaimed poet, musician, novelist and playwright shares the music that shaped his life – from Nina Simone to Gravediggaz

Photo by Jessy Linton

“Thank God for the multitudes in us, the younger selves that will not give up,” Kae Tempest raps on ‘I Stand On The Line’ – the opener to his stirring, triumphant new album Self Titled. While the record lovingly addresses the trans community, Tempest’s home city of London and his imagined child – over a brooding palette of strings, bass synths, piano and brass – the most recurrent subject is the younger, pre-transition Tempest. On ‘Know Yourself’, the 39-year-old even duets with an old recording of himself performing as a…

The post The Multitudes in Us: Kae Tempest’s Favourite Records appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/bakers-dozen/kae-tempest-bakers-dozen-interview-self-titled/

Jessica Winter

My First Album

Debut from former Pregoblin presents a magpie’s nest of musical references

My First Album by Jessica Winter

What was the first album you bought? Jessica Winter answers that slightly tired question by way of the songs on her debut album, which appears to flip through the CD collection (or wheel through the iPod) of a teenager in the 2000s. Across forty-five minutes we encounter sun-coming-up piano beats, Fever-era Kylie Minogue, inklings of Gwen Stefani and Lily Allen, crunchy alt-90s guitars, a bit of Beck, and even – shudder – The Feeling.

My First Album is a title that also raises an eyebrow to the fact Winter’s releasing her solo debut after well over a decade in the industry. She graduated…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/jessica-winter-my-first-album-review/

From improvisations that capture the archaeology of the internet to werewolf inspired black metal played with Cajun instruments, roaming synths, sidewinding freakouts and clipped nails, Daryl Worthington dives into the latest cassette releases

Monika Pich, photo by Jarema Drozdowicz

Recorded music is an unreliable time capsule – whether thanks to the present leaking in or signs of the past being cleaned out – but fidelity and medium are particularly pronounced in a new four tape collection from shanavlab (shan audio visual art lab – shan being the Mandarin word for mountain), a Beijing-based initiative organised by cellist and visual artist Sheng Jie (aka Gogoj). Between 2010 and 2012, Sheng rented a 60 square metre apartment in downtown Beijing that she turned into a…

The post Spool’s Out: Cassette Reviews for July by Daryl Worthington appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/cassettes/sheng-jie-yan-jun-the-living-rainbow-sullow-mossy-tapes-cassette/

Various Artists

Habibi Funk 031: A Selection Of Music From Libyan Tapes

Habibi Funk’s latest is a surprising compilation of genre-defying Libyan disco, synthpop, funk, and reggae that needs to be shared, says Bernie Brooks

Habibi Funk 031: A Selection Of Music From Libyan Tapes by Various Artists

It’s the Fourth of July as I write this – dusk – and my neighborhood is reverberating with percussive explosions, strobing in time with colourful light. I’ve never really seen the appeal of fireworks, but my neighbours love ‘em, and I like the way they bring people together. Near where I live, there’s a stretch of eight-lane highway that connects the two halves of Dearborn, Michigan. It’s a couple miles of municipal buildings, a nearly defunct…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/various-artists-habibi-funk-031-a-selection-of-music-from-libyan-tapes-review/

Ahead of a show at Green Man next month, Patrick Clarke speaks to new 4AD signings Stone Filipczak and Victoria Rose, aka @, about the joys of home recording, and the balance between organic development and artistic drive

Photo by Kimmy Curry

It’s the crest of a London heatwave, concrete and tarmac reflecting the blasting sunshine back on itself in an endless sweltering loop. A weak breath of air conditioning in the black back room at the ICA offers little respite, so those there to watch a mesmeric performance by Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak, aka @ (pronounced ‘at’) must resort to the white paper fans handed out upon entry. When unfurled, each reveals the logo of 4AD – the name of…

The post Ebb and Flow: An Interview with @ appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/at-band-stone-filipczak-victoria-rose-interview-4ad/

Siavash Amini

Caligo

Working with some of the earliest piano recordings made in Iran, Siavash Amini shatters these archival sounds, recomposing them into a startling new electronic tapestry

Caligo by Siavash Amini

I visited Tehran in April, after more than a year. Coming from a city in the UK where almost everything except pubs and restaurants closes at six, I was struck by the liveliness of the city. Late in the evening, people were strolling along Enqelab Street – known for its endless large bookstores and the university campus – groups of young girls chattering and stopping at art shops, and a few art galleries still open. People were out in fancy, artsy cafés until midnight – the likes of which I have only…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/siavash-amini-caligo/

Shane Pinnegar, author of the new book, Rocksploitation, picks out ten of the strangest marriages of movies and rock music

Ever since Bill Haley rocked around the clock in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, rock ‘n’ roll and movies have existed in a kind of strange symbiosis. From practically the dawn of sound film, cinema has been used to sell records and records have been marshalled into the marketing schemes of hit movies. After all, where would cinema history be without The Rutles, the Max Rebo Band, and Spinal Tap, without Winslow Leach from The Phantom of the Paradise, the Folksmen and Wyld Stallyns? Where would Survivor be without Rocky or Cannibal Corpse without Ace Venture? Where would Celine Dion’s career…

The post “This is My Happening – and it Freaks Me Out!”: 10 of the All-Time Weirdest Rock’n’Roll Movies appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/culture/books/this-is-my-happening-and-it-freaks-me-out-10-of-the-all-time-weirdest-rocknroll-movies/

The additional money will help address ‘critical public safety concerns’ that were identified in an independent review of festival

Notting Hill carnival will go ahead as planned this year after almost £1 million of funding was raised to finance extra safety and infrastructure measures for the event.

City Hall, Kensington & Chelsea Council and Westminster City Council have jointly provided £958,000 for the event after pleas from organisers last month for further financial support. It was deemed that more funding was needed after an independent review recommended several security changes be put in place to make the event safer.

The chair of the organising company, Ian Comfort, told press that the additional financial support to secure the event’s future was gained just in time.

“Although…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/notting-hill-carnival-2025-to-go-ahead-after-securing-additional-funding/