Emptyset

Dissever

Commissioned for Tate Modern’s Electric Dreams exhibition, Paul Purgas and James Ginzburg turn the building’s giant Turbine Hall into a buzzing, pulsating, resonant instrument

Dissever by emptyset

With the development of studio and recording equipment, the absence of errors resulting from physical media and their wear and tear allows producers to strive for perfection. Distortion, noise, and lack of precision can be quickly eliminated or corrected in post-production. The transition from the analogue to the digital world seemed like a one-way toward soundproofed, perfectly acoustically tuned spaces. CDs replaced the symbolic ‘dirt’ of vinyl, the creaking of tape, and then streaming – a form of perfect, repeatable sound reproduction. The market for audiophile equipment has grown, minimizing the risk of ‘loss’ of…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/emptyset-dissever-review/

Homage paid in reworking and words

London-based producer Daniel Avery has celebrated the influence of Sandwell District on his own work by reworking ‘Hidden’, one of the stand-out tracks of this year’s swansong, End Beginnings. Discussing the remix, Avery spoke of his long-term love of the group, now a duel of Karl ‘Regis’ O’Connor and David ‘Function’ Sumner. “their fabric mix alone felt like an untouchable orb of energy when it first came out,” he said. He went on to pay particular tribute to Juan Mendez, who died in 2024: “All three members of the group have had an impact on me in their own way, not least Juan Silent Servant whose kindness was apparent to all who met…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/daniel-avery-remixes-sandwell-district/

Perturbed by a study that found young women in the north of England are struggling to feel musical, Lottie Brazier set out to speak to the promoters, artists and managers who are helping shift the dial in the region

A scene from Sounds From The Other City, by Jess Robinson

Last year’s Sound Of The Next Generation report, a collaboration between Manchester City Council and the Youth Music organisation, found that although 55% of young people in the UK say that they feel as if they are musical, this figure had gone down 9% since 2018, with the problem particularly acute among girls in the north of England. The report identified that these gender imbalances become worse as women move from…

The post How Women are Changing Greater Manchester’s Grassroots Music Scene appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/manchester-music-gender-fat-out-lonelady/

Ahead of performances of Thar Farraige (Over Sea) in Bradford and London for the New Music Biennial, Patrick Clarke speaks to composer Linda Buckley and musicians The Maxwell Quartet and Brìghde Chaimbeul about the work’s blending of Irish and Scottish music, its guiding themes of migration and connection to place, and more

Linda Buckley, photo by Olesya Zdorovetska

In her composition Thar Farraige (Over Sea), award-winning composer Linda Buckley weaves together several threads. Commissioned by Chamber Music Scotland, the work combines chamber music and folk song, Irish and Scottish traditional music and language, as well as electronics, blurring the boundaries of where each sound source begins and ends; the drones of Scottish smallpipes and the playing of a string quartet interweaving, coalescing,…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/interview-composer-linda-buckley-on-thar-farraige-over-sea/

Nobody wanted what The Soft Boys were selling in 1980, but as David Bennun recounts, their superb swan song, Underwater Moonlight, made them a Velvet Underground for new generations of jangle and psych bands. This feature was first published on 29/06/20

Robyn Hitchcock’s career, for want of a better term, shows a man as squarely out of time as it’s possible to be this side of a Bill & Ted movie. Had he arrived after the mid-Nineties, when pop music’s past began to telescope, everything went up for grabs, and the only truly unfashionable music was that of the immediate past, he might have done rather better for himself. But his band, The Soft Boys, made their first recordings in 1976….

The post Auto-Invention: The Soft Boys’ Underwater Moonlight Revisited appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/the-soft-boys-underwater-moonlight-album-review/

Catch up on the sounds we wrote about last month

It’s another bulbous five-hour playlist blaster as we round up the music we’ve been writing about in May, exclusively for the listening pleasure of our subscribers. We recently conducted a bit of research into which of their subscriber perks our subscribers were most excited by, and (aside from the joy of keeping tQ alive, thanks very much indeed for that) the top answer was this monthly dollop into their inboxes and ears. So cheers to Paddy Clarke for putting together this popular item each month, which for May 2025 features old stalwarts releasing new stuff, including the swansong from Saint Etienne, Stereolab, Andy Bell, The Nightingales, Pulp, Adrian Sherwood, Mclusky,…

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source https://thequietus.com/subscriber-area/monthly-playlists/tqs-exclusive-monthly-playlist-catch-up-with-may-2025/

Death in Vegas

Death Mask

1990s indie-dance survivor Richard Fearless returns with a record that offers a glimpse of something more personal beneath the clattering drum machines and psychedelic organ sounds

Death Mask by Death in Vegas

Electronic outfit Death in Vegas have always been chameleon-like. During the 90s and early 2000s, when dance and indie briefly became symbiotic, they embraced it and sometimes overstepped the mark. 2002’s ‘Scorpio Rising’ brought the disparate and some might say irreconcilable worlds of Kenneth Anger and Liam Gallagher together for a dalliance with the pop charts that looks increasingly naff with every passing year, and so it’s perhaps unsurprising that even as the latter prepares to play the most hyped gigs of a generation, his nibs has…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/death-in-vegas-death-mask/

To celebrate the publication of her new book, Sleeve Notes, photographer Dominique Russell takes us into the weird world of the many handmade record sleeves that have turned over the years at the record shop where her dad works

For the last few years, I’ve been photographing a sizable collection of fan-made record sleeves that have washed up at the second-hand record store Crazy Beat in Upminster, Essex. My dad works in the shop, and this venture began when he brought me two handmade 45 sleeves – one for Sex Pistols, another for T.Rex – that at some point in the 1970s had been decorated with newspaper clippings stuck to the inner sleeves with crispy, yellowing Sellotape. Both are rough and ready,…

The post Filling in the Blanks: The World of Homemade Album Covers appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/culture/books/filling-in-the-blanks-the-world-of-homemade-album-covers/

It marks the first time the artist has publicly addressed an incident involving a pro-Palestine concertgoer at his Melbourne show last year

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has shared a statement about Israel and its ongoing assault on Gaza.

It sees the artist publicly address an incident that took place last year when a pro-Palestine concertgoer at one of Yorke’s solo live shows shouted at him about Israel’s actions. Yorke had previously been subject to significant criticism for his and Radiohead’s decision to perform in Israel and ignore Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) actions.

In the statement shared to social media, Yorke said: “Some guy shouting at me from the dark last year when I was picking up a guitar to sing the…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/radioheads-thom-yorke-issues-statement-on-israel-and-gaza/

Items such as the late director’s chair and personal 35mm print of Eraserhead will be sold in the live auction event on June 18

A collection of items belonging to the late David Lynch are to be placed up for auction in June.

Overseen by Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies, The David Lynch Collection takes in more than 450 items belonging to the director. Among the memorabilia set to be sold are Lynch’s director’s chair, the Black Lodge curtain and rug from the Twin Peaks set, his personal 35mm print of Eraserhead, and various props from Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks: The Return.

Announcing the auction, Catherine Williamson, the managing director of entertainment at Julien’s Auctions, said: “Julien’s and TCM are honoured…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/david-lynch-memorabilia-to-be-placed-for-online-auction/