Jude Rogers finds much to love in a timely reissue of Shirley Collins’ first album from 67 years ago… just weeks before her 90th birthday

Sweet England by Shirley Collins

When I was a young girl, people approaching a century seemed like creatures of mythology. But age creeps up, then explodes in midlife. You realise insane things, like that the end of the Second World War was as close to the release of Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love as you are to it now. Each season speeds past in time-lapse. History shrinks. Long lives contract.

On 5 July, Shirley Collins will turn ninety, a woman I’ve known through interviews and friendship for seventeen years. A limited vinyl edition of her debut album, Sweet England, with its…

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I’m Being Good

Shapeshitter

Nine albums and the best part of four decades in, the Brighton noiseniks continue to confound and appal in equal measure with a record of brutish riffs and sudden explosions

Shapeshitter by i'm being good

A staggering 36 years into their mission to explore strange new sounds, to boldly embed themselves inside rewardingly thorny knots of riff, Brighton-based mavericks I’m Being Good’s fascination for the delectable complexities within subterranean noise thrives unabated. Their ninth full-length is the sound of insatiable curiosity on the prowl, an exercise in just how many dangerous twists and occasional jump-scares this kind of post-math, post-prog, post-post-rock music can encompass. Spaceshitter’s not simply out to unnerve you – that would be ungentlemanly, and the group have…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/im-being-good-shapeshitter/

Angus Batey looks back at an album which has as much resonance today as it did when it came out. Article originally published 17/05/2015

It can be a confusing business, being a fan of music. You find yourself going through your listening life holding certain truths to be self-evident, only to be confronted, unexpectedly, with the realisation that more or less each and every one of them flies fast in the face of values you have come to cherish. Just when we think we’ve come up with a reliable set of standards that makes sense out of our esoteric and idiosyncratic tastes, up pops a reminder that this is art, not science, and that there aren’t any rules that can be…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/x-clan-to-the-east-blackwards-review-2/

Ash Fure

Animal

Award-winning composer strikes at the palpable physical presence of sound

Animal by Ash Fure

There is no warning and no chance to prepare. The instant you press play on Ash Fure’s Animal, a mass of thundering sub-bass hits you like a predator pouncing on its prey. With consciousness too slow to react, some ancient, primal region of the brain lights up. Suddenly, you find yourself in fight or flight mode, pumped with adrenaline, heart racing and palms sweating.

The US experimental musician and composer has dedicated a significant part of her career to exploring the physicality of music and our instinctual feedback to sound, with The Force Of Things: An Opera For Air (2014–2022) and Hive Rise (2020) tackling the human body’s…

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Elkotsh’s debut LP is a mahraganat colossus with one foot in electro-shaabi’s past and one in its future, says Bernie Brooks

To delay my not-so-slow slide into irrelevance, ‘’ve begun to draft my manifesto. (Obviously.) So far, this is what I’ve got:

You with me? Pretty reasonable, right? Almost self-explanatory. Not on board yet? Take a peek at the string of empty big-box stores/seasonal Spirit Halloweens lining the choked six-lane boulevard out by my parents’ place and you’ll get it. Simple enough. But! From this point on, I’m gonna need you to buckle up, because this next one might blow your stack:

3.) No unnecessary new art.

If you could see the state of my inbox, you’d immediately understand where I’m coming from. But…

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The academic author and political analyst Spencer Sunshine has uncovered disturbing evidence that links musicians Boyd Rice and Nikolas Schreck, writer Michael Moynihan and publisher Adam Parfrey to the current explosion in neo-Nazi terrorism. CW: discussion of racism, anti-semitism, murder, violent assault & child pornography

James Mason with AWD, via GW Program on Extremism

Boyd Rice & Bob Heick in Sassy Magazine, 1989

Anyone who pays attention to the news today, or has done so over the last decade, can’t have failed to miss numerous stories concerning murder, terrorist plots, and child porn being linked to neo-Nazis. 

The origins of this new wave of neo-Nazi terrorism can be traced to the online forum Iron March, a hate site and platform which united groups such…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/counterculture-nazi-essay/

The future of fully-independent, guaranteed AI-free journalism lies solely with subscribers. Here’s how you can help The Quietus survive and thrive

It’s now exactly a year since The Quietus regenerated, and we got to consign our ancient, anxiety-inducing, terminally tottering original site to the knacker’s yard after 16 fraught years of service, and we thought by way of a birthday present we’d give a whopping discount on new subscriptions.

Last May, we ushered in a brandspankingly new site with a beautiful new design aesthetic, equipped with both a cast of little medieval figures and a navigation tool that actually works, and, let us tell you, life has been a lot easier since. The Quietus has finally become stable – no more…

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Ian Wade travels back three decades to the song that blew the Adidas socks off Britpop, a defiant moment in which Bernard Butler and David McAlmont transcended their pasts with what became a queer anthem

Time is a bastard, isn’t it? You’re happily just going about your life and filling the days and then suddenly you’re greeted with the realisation that you are indeed a fossil, and a song you thought must be at least maybe ten years old came out three decades ago. Take McAlmont & Butler’s Incredible ‘Yes’ for example. First released 15 May, 1995 – a week older than Pulp’s ‘Common People’, another song that can’t possibly be 30 – even then ‘Yes’ had the ability to sound…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/mcalmont-butler-yes-review-bernard-butler-david-mcalmont-suede/

The tracks were debuted during the Venezuelan artist’s performances at last month’s Coachella festival

Arca has released a new double-sided single featuring the new tracks ‘Puta’ and ‘Sola’.

Out now through XL Recordings, the release was previously teased in February via the Venezuelan artist’s social media channels. The two tracks were debuted live last month during her performances at Coachella festival.

In a statement, Arca said: “‘Puta’ and ‘Sola’ are songs I’ve been perfecting for years. Taking my time writing, recording, producing and mixing them on my own, slow cooking, has been important to getting the music just right. I’m so proud of these songs, and both Daniel Sannwald and Stillz are geniuses, the videos are so amazing.

“The themes lyrically span…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/arca-releases-new-double-sided-single-puta-sola/

A new branch of the prominent jazz club will open in Covent Garden early next year

Famous New York jazz club Blue Note is opening a new branch in London in early 2026.

Blue Note London will be located in the basement of Covent Garden’s St. Martin’s Lane Hotel, and will take in two performance spaces: a 250-capacity main room and a 100-capacity second room.

At one point, it appeared that the venue would not be able to open after figures from the Metropolitan Police raised concerns to Westminster City Council during a licensing hearing in February. Officers told a licensing committee they believed Blue Note’s proposed opening hours of 9am until 1am would “expose more people to crime and disorder in the…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/blue-note-given-license-to-open-london-venue/