Octo Octa

Sigils For Survival

The American producer’s latest album documents a decade of queer life through chaos magic and clubhouse momentum

Sigils For Survival by Octo Octa

In the late autumn of 2015, Maya Bouldry-Morrison, the producer known as Octo Octa, stepped out from the protective anonymity of the DJ booth to claim her identity as a transgender woman. It was a moment that fundamentally recalibrated her relationship with the dancefloor, transforming it from a place of mere performance into a site of profound, public becoming. Now, exactly ten years removed from that threshold, she has delivered Sigils For Survival, an album that functions less like a standard long-player and more like a carefully bound grimoire of the intervening decade.

To understand the weight of Sigils…

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Loraine James releases Detached From The Rest Of You this week via Hyperdub, here she interviews collaborator Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto, before the tables are turned

Music writers. Who needs ’em? We recently had the opportunity to get music producer Loraine James together with Miho Hatori, co-founder of Cibo Matto, so we left them to interview one another with no interference from us.

One of the most singular voices in British electronic music, James has spent the last decade building a catalogue that folds IDM, ambient, club music and fractured pop into something wholly her own, moving from the knotty experimentation of For You And I through to the emotional openness of Gentle Confrontation and her increasingly expansive work as…

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They’ve also shared a single, ‘Weakened’, which features banjo from Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon

Lambchop are releasing a new album, which is titled Punching The Clown.

Spanning 12 tracks, the record was produced by Ryan Olson, and features banjo-playing throughout by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. It’s at April Base, Vernon’s Wisconsin studio, that Kurt Wagner and co. recorded the album.

Speaking about the album, Wagner said: “In early 2024, I heard a song on the radio on my way to get some gas: just a minimal single chord-strummed banjo and a small group of voices. It seemed perfect in the moment as the moment became perfect in itself. I never found out who it was, sounded kinda like early country gospel?

“In a time…

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Ahead of the release of his debut solo LP, Loud Bloom, the Swedish producer and DJ talks Gemma Samways through the albums that have shaped his inimitable sound, from Missy Elliott to Oumou Sangaré

Photo by Bo Bannink

Olof Dreijer can’t remember a time when politics weren’t intrinsic to his outlook. Raised in Gothenburg’s fecund far-left scene, he and his older sister, Karin, spent their childhood attending demonstrations with their parents, making placards and performing at parades. From 1999 to 2014, the pair poured that same radical spirit into The Knife, subverting Sweden’s peppy reputation internationally with experimental synth-pop that placed anti-capitalist critiques, feminism and queer politics front and centre.

Since the band dissolved, Dreijer has continued to create, but bar a spell…

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Adapted from his new book – Groovy, Laidback & Nasty: A History Of Independent Music In Sheffield – Daniel Dylan Wray tells the story of the Rainy City’s premier post punk band. All portraits by Pete Hill

Clock DVA

When Clock DVA formed in Sheffield in 1978, they landed with a fierce agenda, radical sound, and a live show that sent shivers of fear down the spine of promoters all over the city. 

“I didn’t want to play punk,” Adi Newton recalled of the motivation for his new band. “I just wanted to use it. To make something more intense, paranoid, and totally out of control. A sort of totalitarian underground music.” They succeeded in just that. Early shows resulted in them being…

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Russel Haswell

Let It Go

Coventry’s own noise brutalist is as magnificently unlistenable as ever

LET IT GO by Russell Haswell

As we pick our way through the scurf and scree of the modern world, outraged and numbed at every turn, we can maybe agree that Russell Haswell’s new record, Let It Go, is a useful corrective and something of an unlikely balm. Here, with Haswell at the controls, we are just living in a world of shit, some of us are in the gutter but looking at the kerb, we’ve just roasted an Alsatian’s leg in our thirtieth-floor apartment, and so on.

Let It Go is a total heap of noise and openly addresses the listener as such. That’s the record’s narrative, and its…

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It features contributions from Paul McCartney, Robert Smith and Steve Winwood

The Rolling Stones have shared details of a new album, titled Foreign Tongues.

Taking in 14 tracks, the record features guest contributions from Paul McCartney, Robert Smith and Steve Winwood. Andrew Watt, the producer behind the band’s 2023 album Hackney Diamonds, worked with them on the new LP. Late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts appears on a few tracks on Foreign Tongues via recordings that were left over from the recording sessions for Hackney Diamonds. 

The announcement of the new album follows a teaser campaign that began last month with posters going up in London promoting their past The Cockroaches pseudonym. It was later reported that a single called ‘Rough And Twisted’ would be released…

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The 12-track album features PinkPantheress, A. K. Paul and more

Photo by Neva Wireko

Kelela has shared details of a new album, titled new avatar.

Spanning 12 tracks, it features guest contributions from PinkPantheress, A. K. Paul and Foushée. The indie and guitar-centred record is billed as a return to her roots having first started writing songs in the D.C. indie scene before the electronic music connections built on 2013 debut mixtape Cut 4 Me came about.

In a statement, Kelela said: “This album finds solace in confronting. I don’t want the music to be a distraction from what’s really going on in the world; I want it to make sense in this crazy moment while helping people get in touch with the beauty…

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The long-running festival left its Serbia base last year due to “financial and political pressures”

EXIT Festival has relocated to Montenegro for its 2026 and future editions.

The long-running event left its Serbia base last year citing “financial and political pressures” as the reason. It will now take place at Long Beach in Ulcinj, with the dates and lineup yet to be revealed.

Montenegro Prime Minister Milojko Spajić has spoken in support of the festival’s move to the country, saying it will offer “exceptional international promotion” in particular for Montenegro’s beaches.

Dušan Kovačević, CEO and Founder of EXIT Festival group, said: “Montenegro is one of Europe’s best-kept secrets. With its stunning nature and vibrant Adriatic coastline, it has everything it takes to become a…

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The musician was convicted of money laundering, illegal lobbying and campaign finance violations in 2023, and given a 14-year sentence

Fugees’ Pras Michel has turned himself in to authorities in Arizona to begin a 14-year prison sentence after being convicted of money laundering, illegal lobbying and campaign finance violations in 2023.

The musician’s prison sentence was originally due to begin in January, but a judge delayed it until March and gave him an additional 30 days to hand himself in, making the official start date of his time in prison 30 April. Rolling Stone reports that Michel plans to appeal his conviction while behind bars.

Michel was convicted in November 2023 after prosecutors said he accepted $120 million from Malaysian billionaire Low Taek Jho, and funnelled it…

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