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After the moderately quiet but of course far from silent month of January we’re back with a bumper blaster in this month’s Subscriber Playlist stakes, with about five hours of music from the likes of Cobrah, Hen Ogledd, Shackleton, Lana Del Rey, Bill Callahan, Kevin Richard Martin, Maria BC, Peaches, Loula Yorke, Jill Scott, Annie Hogan, Squarepusher, Kim Gordon, Robyn, Converge, Geologist, Alan Sparhawk, Sunn O))) and much much more. You can of course find out which of these made it to our music of the month list here. Just to recap, for our Subscriber and Subscriber Plus tier members, the Low Culture Podcast for February was on Missy Elliott’s Miss E… So…

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The Bong remains the same… almost. Kez Whelan talks to Dawn Terry of the newly resurrected Newcastle drone rock band who’ve undergone restructuring

From the ashes of legendary Newcastle drone metal band Bong comes Bong II, as vocalist & bassist Dawn Terry reunites with drummer Mike Smith whilst welcoming Smote’s Daniel Foggin on guitar.

“I very much wanted it to be a continuation – being the original Bong but minus one member, it’s not far off,” Dawn explains. “I really love what Amon Düül did with Amon Düül II, so it’s a little bit of a nod to them. There’s a certain absurdity already to the name of the band, Bong, and to add the II on the end, it adds a…

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The Early

I Want To Be Ready

New album by Philadelphia post-rock duo keeps things tight, amps up the tension

I Want To Be Ready by The Early

The songs across <i>I Want to be Ready</i> are in no rush to introduce themselves. They bask in their own ambient delight until they feel ready to shout. The Philadelphia outfit unfurl across an iridescent run of five tracks, each one more grandiose than the previous. Instruments and textures retreat as quickly as they appear, creating a distinct sense of dynamism. There’s a potent sense of urgency to some of these recordings, and a twinge of unease, yet it never strays into a Swans-like delirium. The mallet-driven verve of tracks like ‘Sand Clock’ grounds the record,…

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The acclaimed NME photographer guides Wyndham Wallace through a selection of pictures from his first book, which documents life in the indie trenches

kinickie Lauren Laverne Marie du Santiago Emmy-Kate Montrose NY 1995

What’s the missing link between Ricky Gervais and Kurt Cobain? The answer is Martyn Goodacre. In 1989, he was skint, a wannabe music photographer working in a stationery shop at the University of London where the Student Union’s Entertainments Officer began giving him passes for shows. Within just months, he’d prepared his portfolio, and though it took persistence – not to mention pockets of small change so he could pester their offices from his local phone box – he soon landed his first NME,/i> commissions.

Working out of a darkroom…

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Records from Hen Ogledd, Shackleton and Mandy, Indiana pop up among our picks of the past month’s best new music

While the depths of winter continue to punish myself and other readers in the UK, the past four weeks have been rich as ever in delivering standout full-length records and on-repeat new tracks as 2026 fully whirs into life. As ever, tQ’s staffers have pulled together to round up our favourite music of the past month, picking out meandering, percussive psychedelia from Shackleton, chaotic protest music by Hen Ogledd, abyssal ambient from Kevin Richard Martin, and plenty more.

Everything featured below, as well as all the other knockout music we’ve covered at tQ this month, will be compiled into an hours-long…

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Cal Cashin salutes the patchwork Goliath that is Circle X’s Prehistory; a post punk, post rock, post-everything-else masterpiece

Much has been written about the Transatlantic fallout of punk rock, with every crevice of the era meticulously scanned in the hope of a lost classic. Whilst Circle X’s fractious run, two albums and two EPs, over a span of seventeen years, might not signify complete unknown status to seasoned crate-diggers, their minimal place in the history books belies their brilliance. 

Formed in 1978, in Louisville, Kentucky – by brothers Rik and David Letendre, alongside Tony Pinotti and Bruce Witsiepe – Circle X emerged from the ashes of the city’s very first punk bands No Fun and The I-Holes, surfing the shockwaves created…

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Mitski

Nothing’s About to Happen to Me

Mitski decamps to Nashville for an album of murder ballads that leans a little country

Nothing's About to Happen to Me by Mitski

Mitski has a talent for creating unique and unifying sounds for her albums. In the same way the acoustic arrangements of her previous album, 2023’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, leaned close to folk, the pedal steel, organ and strings of her eighth album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, approaches country territory. The narrative style of the lyrics – and a mention of Death “moseying” away – suggests that living in Nashville may have rubbed off on her.

This is present from opening song ‘In a Lake’, a twangy treatise on…

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It’s the band’s first studio album since 2011 debut Go Tell Fire To The Mountain

Photo by Anthony Harrison

WU LYF have shared details of their second studio album, A Wave That Will Never Break.

The band’s follow-up to 2011’s Go Tell Fire To The Mountain features seven tracks and its announcement comes after they reunited for a series of live shows in 2025. Those gigs were the group’s first in 13 years having split in late 2012.

WU LYF are planning to release the album, which was produced by Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom, through their L Y F community, according to a press release, and it will not be made available on any major streaming platforms.

In a statement, the band said: “The vision for…

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They’re his first solo tracks since 2024 album White Roses, My God

Photo by Alexa Viscius

Low’s Alan Sparkhawk has released two new songs, titled ‘JCMF’ and ‘No More Darkness’.

They mark the first release of solo material from the US artist since he put out his album White Roses, My God in September 2024. Both songs feature Sparhawk on guitar and vocals, with help from Eric Pollard on drums and Alan’s son Cyrus on bass.

Speaking about ‘JCMF’, the elder Sparkhawk said: “This is a song I’ve had for a few years, but couldn’t find the right way to play or record it. We started playing it last year in the Alan Sparhawk Solo Band, on tour, and with each month, the sentiment…

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The record sees Schmidt play prepared and unprepared piano alongside environmental recordings captured near his home in Southern France

Photo by Robin Maddock

Can’s Irmin Schmidt has a new solo album on the way, titled Requiem.

Split into two parts that clock in together at 41 minutes, the LP sees 89-year-old Schmidt play prepared and unprepared piano alongside environmental field recordings captured in the surroundings of his home in Southern France.

After feeling compelled to record the sounds of a nightingale singing in his garden, Schmidt went on to build up an archive of further sounds, covering water, birds and frog noises. The piano-playing that appears on the record was spontaneous and edited at a later date, with the help of long-time collaborator René…

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