In his latest exploration of boundary-pushing traditional music from around the world, Patrick Clarke reports from Sweden’s Supertraditional Festival, where bridges are being built across Europe’s experimental folk scenes. Plus, 10 crucial new records, from Spanish electroclash bagpipes to Millinerian weirdness from Leeds

Sara Parkman performs live at the inaugural Supertraditional Festival. Photo by Isak Gudnason

Before we begin, I can’t recommend enough that any England-based readers catch La Tène and Sourdure, two outliers of the French radical folk scene, at their forthcoming Cafe OTO show this Saturday (26 September). I reviewed La Tène live in my last column, and I stand by every effusive word, no matter how hyperbolic they might seem.

It’s Pippi Longstocking day at Skansen, and several artificially-freckled…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/folk-music-reviews/experimental-folk-traditional-music-review-supertraditional-radical-traditional/

Merryn Jeann

Fear Of The Beauty Parlour

Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist finds tenderness in fragments on her second album

At what point does a song stop being a song? Strip away the beat, harmony and narrative; leave behind a voice, a melody, a few repeated words, the hiss of a phone recording. Merryn Jeann’s Fear Of The Beauty Parlour seems fascinated by precisely that threshold.

Jeann has never been particularly interested in conventional singer-songwriting. In the Australian artist’s music, the voice can transform into an instrument, a simple melody can suddenly break off, and an intimate story can give way to a field recording, a strange synth sound or a seemingly random noise. On Dog Beach, producer Rob Ellis helped her organise these eccentric…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/merryn-jeann-fear-of-the-beauty-parlour-review/

Rob Reindorf was an indefatigable Ghanaian powerhouse, who died recently at the age of 77. Unpublished interview and tribute: Filip Kalinowski. Portrait: Sai Galaxy

Sampled by J Dilla and Madlib, reissued by Analog Africa and Soundway, the two legendary loose-up-yourself funk albums by Robert Roy “Rob” Reindorf from Ghana – Rob and Make It Fast, Make It Slow – outlived initially being commercial flops on the cut and thrust highlife-driven musical market of Western Africa of the late 1970s. While Rob moved away from the music industry for several decades, European and American crate diggers started to play and edit the eponymous track from his second album to the extent that the album’s price was boosted on Discogs to two and…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/remember-them/rob-obituary/

Ezra Collective

Here Because of Hope

Their fourth album asks why so much Black music born from pain makes people dance. The band needed the answer for practical reasons

Here Because of Hope by Ezra Collective

The story behind this record is more specific than the concept suggests. After the Mercury Prize in 2023 and a BRIT Award that followed, Ezra Collective found themselves in an unusual line of work. Audiences were coming to their shows expressly to feel good, which meant walking on stage every night as suppliers of joy. Femi Koleoso has been candid that during some of those gigs things were happening, personally and in the wider world, that were painful. The question he ended up with was practical rather than…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/ezra-collective-here-because-of-hope/

From the enigmas in dance music to the surrealist lyrics of Bob Dylan, Gilla Band tell us about the influences behind new LP Pugnello, and compile them into a special 20-track playlist available exclusively for tQ Subscriber Plus tier members

Photo by El Hardwick

Music journalists love to declare the influences that must have gone into a new album, but a lot of the time the artists responsible themselves are left baffled by such comparisons. We thought, why not go straight to the source?

Gilla Band are an acclaimed and highly influential Irish experimental noise rock band whose new album Pugnello will be released on Rogh Trade on 25 September. Their first LP since 2022’s Most Normal, it was recorded over four years…

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source https://thequietus.com/subscriber-area/playlists/guest-playlist-gilla-band-pugnello-influences-interview/

EXAUDI

Pocket Universe

Four pieces by Cassandra Miller, Andrew Hamilton, Leo Chadburn and Geoff Hannan under the baton of conductor James Weeks

Curation is everywhere nowadays: from art biennales to food menus, everything has abespoke theme, bolstered by snazzy presentation, marketing ploys and influencer campaigns. But what happens when you release music without a thematic lynchpin holding things together?

Such is the case of Pocket Universe, the most recent offering from the vocal ensemble EXAUDI and conductor James Weeks, released on NMC Recordings. It comprises four pieces by Cassandra Miller, Andrew Hamilton, Leo Chadburn and Geoff Hannan, commissioned by EXAUDI’s annual EXPOSURE showcase between 2013 and 2019. Conceptually, that doesn’t whet the appetite. While the booklet cites a few similarities between the works –…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/exaudi-pocket-universe-review/

Ahead of a comprehensive box set of live recordings, Richard Foster considers the ‘other’ Joy Division that barely gets mentioned; the live powerhouse that motored its way across Britain and Europe

Joy Division live by Martin O’Neill

As the old line goes, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. Sometimes we do this speculatively, through other people’s lives. This kind of speculation also drives the discourse around Joy Division’s brief and tragic history. A reason to look anew at this well-thumbed tale is the release of an official collection of live audio and video recordings – with unreleased, often brilliant material. It has a canny name: Eternal (Live). The music and video is accompanied by epoch-defining images from the celebrated band photographers,…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/joy-division-live/

Tariq Goddard attends the first event of its kind and wonders what (if anything) the many speakers have learned from the auteur it was named for

I recall my surprise when I was first asked if I was going to a ‘conference’ by a prominent talking head from a left-wing digital organisation. It was at the height of peak Corbyn and I suppose all manner of improbabilities seemed possible, from power moving from one class to another, to a political little-mark like myself attending an event I would sooner choose food poisoning over. Like a majority of my peers during my formative years, I privileged ‘art’ and self expression over public service and duty, viewing politicians as egotists who lacked the…

The post Between Facts and Feeling: The Adam Curtis Party Conference appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/live-reviews/adam-curtis-party-conference-review/

A Certain Ratio

The Joy of Sextet / Force Majeure

Manchester post-punks return to the scene of two classic albums from 1982 and 1986 with new mixes, new tracklistings and a few surprises

Force Majeure by A Certain Ratio

The Joy of Sextet by A Certain Ratio

A Certain Ratio have put out three albums since 2020, more than most bands manage in their first decade, never mind their fifth. So when It All Comes Down to This was followed by a pair of archive campaigns, the obvious worry was that the well had run dry and the accountants had moved in. What’s arrived instead is two companion albums that go about their business in completely different ways, tied to two anniversaries: 45 years since…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/a-certain-ratio-the-joy-of-sextet-force-majeure-review/

Lupe Fiasco’s fabulous first LP was a debut for the ages…. but how come they don’t make ’em like this any more? Angus Batey asks

As loyal subscribers will know – and if you’re not one already, what’s keeping you? Click that button up there at the top of the page immediately! – September 2026 has seen Luke and John celebrating this august organ’s coming of age. Such occasions are always potent – useful staging posts and rest stops before the never-ending journey forward continues; opportunities to reflect and reminisce – and so it is with these anniversary pieces. Especially for this ageing hack, who is always forcibly reminded of his own ongoing meander into disconnected irrelevance when confronted by the…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/lupe-fiasco-food-liquor-review/