A Bosnian satirist Dr. Nele Karajlić recently claimed that the entire Yugo rock scene of the 1980s was created by the socialist State; but what if he isn’t joking? A report by Robert Rigny

Laibach by Nika H. Praper & Ludvik

In a small, smoky room in Sarajevo some time in the early 80s, socialist apparatchiks in suits discuss the problem of youth delinquency and the horror of “Western influence”. One comrade makes a deadpan joke that they should form a rock band. His logic is that the kids are getting restless and rock music already exists: “So let’s channel it; institutionalise it; give it a socialist framework.” The cadres nod and discuss it with the same level of seriousness they would apply to talking…

The post The Yugoslav Psy-Op That may have Given us Laibach… and Inspired Rammstein appeared first on The Quietus.

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Robyn

Sexistential

Dumb pleasure is a philosophy on Sexistential, Robyn’s fizzing record of love, sex and motherhood

Sexistential by Robyn

Sixteen years since Body Talk? Eight since Honey? Robyn’s best albums feel closer and further away than that. The Swedish indie popstar’s best music is timeless in that surreal way; untouched by trends come and gone, and so ubiquitous as to have existed with us forever. Both minimal and maximal, her songs have a purity. Beats and melody are cut down until the nerves are exposed.

That’s still true on her new album, Sexistential, a refined, immaculate set of pop songs which still burst with weirdness and impulse. She flirts with solipsism, references ‘juicy hentai’ and, inexplicably, Don’t Mess with the Zohan. And in its…

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He was already great, but over the course of one year, when he released Fishscale and More Fish, Ghostface became a legend. Words by Angus Batey

 As attentive readers of this august journal will know, the remit and parameters for the occasional Three Album Run series are exacting, the bar set so high it can see for miles. The records that define a whole genre? That’s tough. But it has to be: the artists who’ve made three crackers in a row have already earned their place in the canon, so writing about a particularly storied arc in their catalogue is obvious to the point of laziness. Ghostface didn’t make three records that encapsulated his genre, but, starting in April 2004, he…

The post Fishing for Pearls: Ghostface Killah in 2006 appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/ghostface-killah-more-fish-fishscale-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ghostface-killah-more-fish-fishscale-review

Approval for the development, which could have threatened the future of the London venue, wasn’t granted amid a campaign against it by the venue and its supporters

A planning application for a development adjacent to London venue MOTH Club has been refused, marking what the team behind the venue called “a huge win” for its future.

Announcing the news via Instagram, MOTH Club thanked people who supported its campaign in standing against the nearby development by signing petitions, voicing their disapproval for the plans and amplifying the venue’s cause. “We couldn’t have done it without your support,” the social media post read.

There is still some uncertainty around the situation, however. A separate planning application related to another nearby development is still in…

The post London’s MOTH Club Secures “Huge Win” After Nearby Development Application Refused appeared first on The Quietus.

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tQ’s staffers select the best songs and records that have soundtracked the long-awaited beginning of spring

Last month there was a story doing the rounds about how, up until that point, it had rained every single day in the UK. It’s certainly felt like we’ve needed this particular spring quite desperately, although the flipside is that now that the sunshine has finally arrived, it feels that little bit brighter. It’s been a month of movement here at tQ, sometimes jolting, but almost certainly for the better, and here are the records that have soundtracked it.

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 playlist exclusive to our…

The post Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of March 2026 appeared first on The Quietus.

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With their eighth album Paradises out this week, Simon Price asks Ladytron founder Daniel Hunt to shed some light (and magic) upon ten entry points into the Scouse-based synth lords’ (and ladies’) pristine body of werk. And for top tier subscribers revelation is at hand via an essential playlist

Ladytron by Mark McNulty 

One night in 2005, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, I went to see Ladytron in the company of John Doran, my former colleague at the ill-fated BANG! magazine but not yet the co-founder of The Quietus, and his mate John Tatlock, later a tQ regular himself, and John D’s co-DJ at superb electro-punk-funk-whatever club night BigSexyLand. The two Johns had known each other for decades, from…

The post The Strange World Of… Ladytron appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/strange-world-of/ladytron-best-music/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ladytron-best-music

A new four CD reissue package, including fabled lost album reveals a triumphant portrait of the gruppe, says Alastair Shuttleworth, no matter how short-lived

When Fall Heads Roll came out in 2005, nearly 30 years into their career, The Fall were finally experiencing some proper goodwill. Their longtime champion John Peel had died the previous year, marked by a characteristically unsentimental Newsnight appearance from bandleader Mark E. Smith, but the baton had already been handed off to a raft of new supporters in the media. BBC One’s Final Score started using ‘Theme From Sparta F.C.’ as its theme, BBC Four produced the first proper documentary on the band, Skinner & Baddiel inducted viewers of ITV into the band’s world, and…

The post Reissue of the Week: Fall Heads Roll by The Fall appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/reissue-of-the-week/fall-heads-roll-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fall-heads-roll-review

Iztok Koren & Raphael Rogiński

Nocturnal Consolations

Širom’s banjo and balafon player joins the Polish guitarist and composer to create a map of the folk unconscious, treating tradition as a field of forces in which sound drifts between memory, matter, and imagination

Nocturnal Consolations by Iztok Koren & Raphael Rogiński

The music of Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński and Slovenian multi-instrumentalist Iztok Koren finds its fullest expression as a practice of attentive, high-resolution listening. In a world of overstimulation, Nocturnal Consolations operates through a logic of reduction. Intensification emerges at the point of sharpening. Every gesture, every vibration of a string, every resonant surface exists in suspension. Meanings arise only through the relations between sounds.

The idiom developed by Rogiński reaches an almost crystalline form here,…

The post Iztok Koren & Raphael Rogiński – Nocturnal Consolations appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/iztok-koren-raphael-roginski-nocturnal-consolations-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=iztok-koren-raphael-roginski-nocturnal-consolations-review

The record emerged from a live collaboration between the two artists last year

Actress and Suzanne Ciani are releasing a new album together, titled Concrète Waves.

Marking the first joint release of music by the two artists, the record was born from a live collaboration between the pair last year, which was co-commissioned by London’s Barbican and Barcelona’s Sónar festival. The two performed together at both last year, in addition to appearances elsewhere, such as Braga’s Semibreve festival.

They had first begun discussing each other’s work and the possibility of working together in 2024, according to press materials, with the music on Concrète Waves, which is the first in a new series of records from Actress’ Werkdiscs label, offering a document of what…

The post Actress and Suzanne Ciani Unveil Collaborative Album, ‘Concrète Waves’ appeared first on The Quietus.

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Congolese collective build sonic starships ouf of the scrapyards of Africa, transforming ritual into auditory assault

All photos by Violaine Morgan Le Fur

Kinshasa isn’t the kind of city that waits for you to be ready, the city just takes over your experience. It is a metropolis of staggering contradictions, where the ghosts of Belgian colonialism collide with the relentless, vibrating hustle of hyper-capitalism. To attempt to capture the essence of this place on tape seems like a fool’s errand, yet this is exactly what the Kinshasa-based street art collective KINACT have achieved with their debut LP, Kinshasa in Action. Founded in 2015 by Eddy Ekete, KinAct first made their name not on stage, but in the gutters, markets, and intersections of…

The post Symphonies from Destruction: Kinshasa in Action by KinAct appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/album-of-the-week/kinact-kinshasa-in-action-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kinact-kinshasa-in-action-review