Briana Marela

My Inner Rest

Straight out of Mills College, this eerie song cycle nods to the bubbling electronics of Laurie Spiegel

My Inner Rest by Briana Marela

Briana Marela turns the every day into the fantastical. Objects like handheld mirrors and light bulbs transform into musical instruments; her voice and body movements distort by electronic processing into contorted and simmering sounds. Through these dreamy transformations, she explores undeniably human sentiments: The desire for deeper understanding of the self, inner peace, artistic freedom. On My Inner Rest, she showcases the breadth of her musical worlds in twelve compositions that, together, form an eerie song cycle woven from the threads of the unknown.

My Inner Rest captures a live performance of Marela’s at Mills College, during…

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Fergal Kinney traces Steve McQueen’s two very different masterminds, its influence on Arthur Russell and Caroline Polachek, and the path not taken to a British indie both sensual and modern

Dominating the music news in 1984 was the early passing of one Black American master and the fullest arrival of another. On 1 April that year in Central Los Angeles, Marvin Gaye Jr was fatally shot following an altercation with his father, the highly complicated Christian pastor Marvin Gay Sr. The soul star died just one day shy of his forty-fifth birthday. As spring turned to summer, Prince – already riding high from the belated attention generated by his 1999 album – released Purple Rain, which detonated as a single, album…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/steve-mcqueen-prefab-sprout-anniversary/

Cosey Fanni Tutti

2t2

Composed, performed and produced fully by the artist herself, the new album by Cosey Fanni Tutti is equal parts abstract electronic experimentation and rhythmic propulsion, finds Jon Buckland

It has been six years since Cosey Fanni Tutti’s last solo outing (and 42 since her first). This thinly veiled sequel, 2t2, continues in much the same fertile vein as her post-Throbbing Gristle output. At the same time, it also appears a little more guarded, as if the candid moments in her early days have left her more cautious.

Split into two distinct halves, 2t2 combines a back half of exploratory electronics with the more rhythmic, Chris & Cosey-esque opening tracks. Formed of mournful cornet cutting through slippery drones and pearlescent pads,…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/259468/

Lyra Pramuk talks to Lucy O’Brien about the transformative power of astrology – how it provides a framework for her new album Hymnal, and a wider code for being human. Words by Lucy O’Brien. Portraits by Krzysztof Bagiński

Following on from the futurist folk and pagan techno of 2020’s debut album Fountain, Berlin-based composer Lyra Pramuk has created Hymnal, a devotional symphony to the universe that moves from feverish jig with banshee wails to beautifully sensuous vocal loops. Using her conservatoire training, Pramuk has worked with the Sonar Quartett string ensemble, interweaving breath, voice, and layered harmonies to investigate how we as humans connect with nature, technology and each other. One surprising instance of this can be seen with how she…

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source https://thequietus.com/interviews/things-i-have-learned/lyra-pramuk-astrology-interview/

Oasis are back, and a publishing supernova of new biographies examines the Manchester band… but for most of their lifespan, they were appalling. Fergal Kinney asks how do writers confront Oasis after their peak

In the second season of The Sopranos, Christopher Moltisanti wakes from a coma following a near-death experience. The gangster has envisioned the afterlife. “The Emerald Piper,” he warns darkly. “That’s our Hell. It’s an Irish bar where it’s St Patrick’s Day every day forever.” 

Being in Oasis seemed a little like this. The Gallaghers brothers would roll into some European or American city to perform, management would book out the nearest Irish bar for after the show, and the dark walls and mock Celtic furnishings provided an unchanging…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/oasis-biography-review/

Holden & Zimpel

The Universe Will Take Care Of You

Collaborators James and Waclaw create vast oceanc feelings using walnuts and teacups

The Universe Will Take Care Of You by Holden & Zimpel

The debut full length from long-time sonic adventurers James Holden and Waclaw Zimpel is a set of focused improvisations striking out for the cosmic zone, for inner space, the weightlessness of trance. Holden & Zimpel are explorers, chasing the ego death, when the music starts to make itself, melting time. This transcendental impulse reaches beyond language, making it tricky to write about. Consider how the word trance feels worn down and sticky. The Universe Will Take Care Of You is a helpful signpost of a title, its music calls for colours…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/holden-zimpel-the-universe-will-take-care-of-you-review/

Sound poetry, percussions, vowels sung in imitation of angels, emissions from the French underground, and an album entirely of water droplets – it’s the latest edition of Jennifer Lucy Allan’s Rum Music

Kasai, photo by Mitzdate Ko

The line was, if I remember correctly: “We are so militant about the softness with which we care for one another, we exhaust ourselves”. Spoken by Fred Moten at Cafe OTO in a duo with Brandon Lopez, the latter of whom kept complaining he was reverting to playing “the same old shit” on his bass. 

Other lines that have ricocheted around the empty holloways of my mind: a line in Denis Johnson’s Nobody Move about someone switching off the radio and their hearing “coming up” to…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/rum-music/rum-music-for-june-reviewed-by-jennifer-lucy-allan/

A small levy on the price of tickets for large capacity gigs would be revolutionary in protecting grassroots, finds Dan McCarthy. So why is there a delay in the government making this law?

The Trades in Hebden Bridge, by Elspeth Moore

Back in April, Andrew Carthy – known to fans as Mr Scruff – completed a run of 15 shows in grassroots venues around the UK. This ‘Miniature Arenas Tour’ was a special one. For every ticket sold, he donated £1 to The Liveline Fund, a joint initiative between Music Venue Trust (MVT) and Save Our Scene (SOS) to bolster the country’s grassroots music industry – becoming the first-ever electronic artist to do so. 

“I’m doing this partly because the people who should be,…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/why-its-time-to-support-grassroots-venue-with-a-1-ticket-levy/

A number of artists have already cancelled their appearances at the Barcelona event over its ownership’s ties to companies operating in occupied Palestinian territory

Barcelona festival Sónar has removed McDonald’s and Coca-Cola as sponsors of the event following engagement with activists working on behalf of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Both brands are listed as targets of the campaign due to their activities in Israel, as well as on occupied Palestinian territory. A number of artists have, however, already cancelled their appearances at this year’s event owing to Sónar’s position as one of a number of festivals operated by owner Superstruct Entertainment.

Its parent company, KKR, is alleged to have ties to weapons manufacturers, as well as various Israeli firms operating…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/sonar-cuts-sponsorship-ties-with-mcdonalds-and-coca-cola-following-pressure-from-bds-campaign/

The project had been due for release shortly after the original record came out in 1998, but was ultimately shelved

Madonna is finally set to release Veronica Electronica, the long-teased companion remix album to her 1998 LP Ray Of Light.

It had originally been due for release not long after the original record came out, but those plans were ultimately shelved and it remained in the archives until now. The remix album collects eight rare and unreleased reworks of tracks from Ray Of Light.

Peter Rauhofer, Sasha and William Orbit (who produced much of the original album) are among the artists whose remixes appear on Veronica Electronica. To mark its announcement, Madonna has shared ‘Skin (The Collaborative Remix)’, which you can listen to…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/madonna-to-release-ray-of-light-remix-album-veronica-electronica/