The two-day festival will take in sets from Flowdan, Slikback, and upsammy & Valentina Magaletti, among others

A new festival, CONTRA, is set to launch at Berlin’s Kraftwerk complex later this month.

The two-day event’s programming will be spread out across the vast building, as well as its adjoining Tresor, Globus and OHM venues. A lineup of more than 70 artists will present DJ sets and live performances, encompassing club music and more experimental fare. Paris-based creative studio Matiere Noire will handle the festival’s spatial design, while the team behind the long-running Berlin Atonal also have a hand in the event’s organisation.

Among the first wave of acts confirmed to play the festival are Flowdan, Slikback, upsammy & Valentina Magaletti, Juliana Huxtable, Bill…

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As the alias-hopping Angel Marcloid releases her mind-bending first album for Warp, she takes Alastair Shuttleworth through the records which have shaped her life, from Dream Theater, Wolf Eyes and early emo, to a passionate defence of The Morning Of

Photo by Alexa Viscius

As a child, Angel Marcloid had an imaginary nemesis: a demon called Ricky, who appeared in some early song lyrics. The Chicago experimentalist recently revisited the creature for ‘A Demon & Its Spinal Cord Flapping In The Wind,’ from her triumphant new Fire-Toolz album Lavender Networks. In those old writings “there’s a visual of me having defeated the demon, but there’s no violence,” she tells tQ. “I think it would have been more of a spiritual warfare.” Regardless,…

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Sergeant

Symbols

From Belgium, an experimental rock trio unafraid to slice up their own jams with a pair of garden shears and dance merrily amongst the shreds

Symbols by Sergeant

Brussels-based plunderphonic rock band Sergeant’s self-titled 2023 debut saw the band homaging “DJ Shadow in reverse”, splicing and collaging their own wayward jams into avant-pop songs. Jagged little guitars, discreetly flickering beats, and detached, lost-sounding vocals pushed the band towards a phantom pop music, but maybe more of a record of moments rather than a cohesive classic.

Far more realised, then, is the group’s new follow-up Symbols. The duo of the debut, composer Benjamin Cools and vocalist Ferre Marnef, have become a trio, enlisting daydream-voiced Geraldine Vanspauwen as a full member, and Sergeant are…

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The 11-track record will be released in August

Photo by Jamie Shimpson-Mourn

Overmono have shared details of their second studio album, titled Pure Devotion.

Comprised of 11 tracks, the new record features guest contributions from John Joseph Holt, Ruthven, Kindora and Rock Floyd. While making the record, the brotherly duo used synths from the 70s and 80s, as well as an antiquated train announcement speaker.

In a statement attributed to the pair, they said: “For us, making music has always been about having fun: being in the studio together, having a laugh. [It’s] a never ending process of exploring new ways of making tunes. Forever learning, always trying to get better.

“With this album, we wanted to try [to] make something that captured the physical…

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The follow-up to 2022’s Trouble The Water is out in July

Photo by Wes Knoll

Show Me The Body have announced their return with a new album, titled Alone Together.

Spanning 13 tracks, the follow-up to 2022’s Trouble The Water focuses on themes of praxis and putting belief into action, according to a press release. The band made the record with producers Klas Åhlund (whose past credits include work with Robyn) and Kenneth Blume III (who has recently worked with Geese and Fcukers).

Referencing words that Åhlund passed on to the band while they were working on Alone Together, frontman Julian Cashwan Pratt said: “There’s certain parts of our music that are distinctly Show Me The Body. And he was like, ‘Those parts only…

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The 2001 release has been remastered for a first-time vinyl pressing

Photo by Renaud Monfourny

Pixies’ Complete B-Sides: 1988-97 is being reissued.

Originally released on CD in 2001, the new edition will see the record get a first-time vinyl pressing. The full compilation has been newly remastered for the reissue, and will also be made available on double-CD.

The 25-track collection includes B-sides from various singles and EP releases, including live versions of ‘Vamos’, ‘Debaser’, ‘In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)’ and ‘Planet Of Sound’. It was originally released when the band were almost a decade into a hiatus that ended in 2004 when they reunited for a series of live shows.

4AD will release Complete B-Sides: 1988-97 on 26 June 2026.
…

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From bone-boiling Aussie racket to French powerpop crust via Cleveland, Bristol, Ross-on-Wye and more, Noel Gardner’s guide to the best in brand new punk returns

Gunner

At the time of typing this sentence, almost exactly one third of the year has gone by, and I have call to be thinking about how Skintern of London were the second band I saw in 2026, as now there is a Skintern tape, Free Use, to say things about also. We can being by addressing its sleeve art, which has the colour palette and typography of a poster for a child’s birthday party, plus some hardcore porn imagery to ensure you don’t accidentally staple it to the church noticeboard.

Its seven songs are lurid and extreme,…

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The Quietus’ favourite drone rock trio played their first American live shows recently and Chris Pugmire was on hand to bear witness

In Los Angeles, the binary aggression of Covid and its aftermath appears to have a slid into a fried truce. People, even security, even their cameras, seem weary. The numb fug of weed is everywhere. The big war, the smaller ones on endless fronts, elicit winces rather than words. The zone, flooded with shit per Bannon’s philosophy, is swallowing language. 

France arrive into this Walker-esque drift and barely disturb it, or perhaps not at first. What could the impact be of a drone trio of Frenchmen, obscure to most American underground denizens excepting the most dedicated of mudlarkers, who don’t…

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Laurie Anderson with Sexmob

Let X=X (Live)

A live set from 2023 sees Laurie Anderson re-imagining her own songs – and, perhaps surprisingly, one from Lou Reed’s album with Metallica

Let X=X (Live) by Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson is known for ambitious, conceptual projects, so it is unsurprising that she would want her live album to be a complete representation of the experience of her show. Her latest Let X=X, has a strong sense of narrative that elevates it beyond the standard performance documentation. Songs are neatly grouped along themes of technology, angels, familial loss, and late stage capitalism, with instrumental breaks sliced out for easy navigation from track to track. Familiar songs have been updated, whether through pruning verses or turning what was once…

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Claire Biddles speaks to the goth / pop-loving duo who make energising electronic music by converting dramatic times to positive energy. Cover photo by Lois Macdonnold

It's All About the Drama by Mas O Menos

The queer electronic duo Godspeed You! Peter Andre make a strong first impression: heavy beats, high-drama gothic aesthetics, and an instantly memorable band name. “We’ve got two friends who both claim they came up with it,” laughs vocalist and loop-maker Emer Thompson, who performs alongside Darren Kaskie on beats and synths. Not long after they started making music together in 2017, the duo were offered a last minute show – their live debut – after another act pulled out. “We needed a name for the show quickly….

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