Profits from the group’s first song in five years will go to The Black Music Action Coalition Human Rights Fund and the anti–gun violence organisation Everytown

Public Enemy have released a new protest song, ‘March Madness’.

Marking the hip hop group’s first original song in five years, the track was written and recorded with a collective of student collaborators.

Initial proceeds from the track, which was released to mark this year’s Juneteenth, will go to The Black Music Action Coalition Human Rights Fund and the anti–gun violence organisation Everytown. The student contributors, from Harvard, Berklee, and Howard, include lyricists Anthony Bell, Dee-1, Ollie Marinaccio, Rhiannon Rae Ellis; musicians Sydney DeLeonardis and Ciaran de Chaud; and producer Nigel Sanjai Sanders.

Referencing the Trump’s administration ongoing clampdown on migrants…

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Recordings by Swell Maps for John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show are to be made officially available for the first time in 40 years on a new release.

Due out on vinyl, CD and in digital formats in September, The John Peel Sessions collects three performances for radio by the 70s experimental punk group: from October 1978, May 1979 and March 1980. All of the recordings have been newly remastered for the release.

Formed in the early 70s and fully realised by 1976, Swell Maps launched their own label to self-release debut single ‘Read About Seymour’ in 1978. Peel was an early supporter, playing it on the radio. His regular airplay of their music, particularly around the release of 1979 debut album…

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They’ve also shared lead track ‘In The Margin’

Photo by Gareth Jones

The Lemonheads have shared details of their first album of original music in 19 years, titled Love Chant.

Spanning 11 tracks, much of the record was recorded in Brazil, where frontman Evan Dando is now based. It features contributions from the likes of J Masics, Juliana Hatfield, Bryce Goggin and Erin Rae, among others.

To mark the announcement, Dando and co. have shared lead track ‘In The Margin’, which you can listen to below.

In a press statement about the track, Dando said: “I wanted to have a riffy song, so I wrote riffs all over it. The body of the song was Marciana [Jones’]. It’s like a full-on 8th-grade girl revenge song:…

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Elizabeth Still and David Hand discuss their hypnotic folk process audible most clearly on current album Skylarks. Words: Jeremy Allen. Portraits: Maria Jefferis

Skylarks by HARESS

“Bishop’s Castle: where ambition goes to die,” says Haress guitarist David Hand with a laugh. He’s recounting some words that were said to him when he and Haress lead singer and guitarist Elizabeth Still moved to the Shropshire market town 17 years ago. At the 2021 census, the population of the town was recorded at 1,843 residents in 868 households, though despite the low concentration of people – approximately seven per hectare – Bishop’s Castle boasts a thriving artistic community, bolstered by Still and Hand who are very involved in the local scene, curating festivals such…

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source https://thequietus.com/interviews/haress-interview/

At the quarter way mark Stephanie Phillips is confident that nothing comes close to the brilliance of this consecutive trio of albums by Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter

Three Album Run is a new series on tQ where we explore the best unbroken run of LPs in different genres. This month we deal with pop music made during the last 25 years but if you want to suggest a genre for a future essay please email John@theQuietus.com under the heading Three Album Run. The full rules are at the foot of this feature. 

There are few artists that have become as omnipresent in the culture as Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter. Perhaps because of this, her life is a curiosity that I struggle to get my…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/best-albums-by-beyonce/

Hampus Lindwall

Brace for Impact

An album of contemporary composition for the organ, drawing influence from everything from Xenakis to metal to rave

Brace for Impact by Hampus Lindwall

For Hampus Lindwall, the pipe organ is a playground. The organist and composer makes music that explores its textures and resonances, using it as both a vehicle for powerful chords and delicate rhythmic lattices. On Brace for Impact, he presents five pieces that highlight his experimental approach to the instrument, foregrounding off-kilter rhythms and tumultuous melodies. His music is eerie and light, ancient and futuristic, in equal measure. By experimenting primarily with the textural aspects of the organ, he showcases the instrument’s remarkable flexibility.

Though the organ’s origins trace back centuries, it’s a main player in…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/hampus-lindwall-brace-for-impact-review/

In an exclusive extract from his book, Drumming with Dead Can Dance: and Parallel Adventures, former Dead Can Dance drummer Peter Ulrich looks back at an almost fateful mishap in the heady days of the band’s early time with 4AD

Mugshot sequences from first photo session, 1983: taken in Brendan and Lisa’s flat in Bowsprit Point, Barkantine Estate. By row: Brendan, Lisa, me. Photo by Jeffrey Earp.

On 17 October, Brendan, Lisa, and I went to 4AD’s offices in Alma Road, Wandsworth – coincidentally adjacent to the location of my father’s first childhood home in Melody Road – and formally signed the recording contract with Ivo [Watts-Russell, 4AD co-founder]. It was also confirmed that we were to embark on an eight-date tour…

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source https://thequietus.com/culture/books/live-happening-peter-ulrich-recalls-the-first-european-tour-of-dead-can-dance/

Seedy English vignettes supercharged by the bombast of New York’s superclubs – though they didn’t then know it then, the world’s first modern remix album found Soft Cell on a seesaw between hedonism and self-destruction, says Patrick Clarke

In the liner notes to a new reissue of Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing, Marc Almond calls it “the first sign of a band becoming undone.”  It was, he says, the point at which the balance first tipped between necessary hedonism and gradual self-destruction – though as he concedes “that’s me speaking with the benefit of hindsight.” At the time, working against the backdrop of a thriving New York club scene, fuelled by then-legal MDMA (introduced to them by their elusive guide to the…

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Gelli Haha

Switcheroo

Enter the Gelliverse for an album of such effervescence it is practically a geyser. The debut from Angel Abaya’s spirited new persona is freewheeling and bags of fun, finds Claire Biddles

Switcheroo by Gelli Haha

Like an electroclash party inside a kids TV studio, Gelli Haha’s debut album Switcheroo is characterised by playfulness with a hedonistic, sometimes sinister bent. Gelli Haha is the pseudonym of LA-based artist Angel Abaya, who released a decent indie rock album, The Bubble, under her own name in 2023. She’s since eschewed this more conventional aesthetic to establish ‘the Gelliverse’ – a high-concept theatrical world of play from which the character of Gelli Haha emerged, an amalgamation of Pee Wee Herman, Marina Diamandis’ Electra Heart and a 00s electroclash…

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The letter from organisers of the annual event was addressed to Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The future of London’s Notting Hill Carnival is “in jeopardy” without “urgent funding”, according to a leaked letter from organisers of the annual event.

The letter was sent to Lisa Nandy, who is Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and leaked by the BBC. In it, Carnival Village Trust chair Ian Comfort said that financial support was “essential to safeguarding the future and public safety of this iconic event”.

This follows an independent safety review of the London event which identified “critical public safety concerns” that will require additional funding to address, the letter said. The full findings of the…

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