Sleaford Mods

The Demise of Planet X

The latest from Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn finds the duo at their most melodic, but do their familiar rants about cultural decline hit different in an era of far right culture warriors calling for civil war?

The Demise of Planet X by Sleaford Mods

Throughout history, most religions and cultures have a rough idea about how the world might end. Abrahamic ones, like Christianity, Judaism and Islam prophesy their own individual doomsdays, fronted by damning omnipotence, while Dharmic religions, like Hinduism and Buddhism believe a new world will replace ours when it kicks the bucket. For Sleaford Mods, though, the world has already been diagnosed as terminal.

This decline is precisely what drives Jason Williamson and…

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Dry Cleaning

Secret Love

Florence Shaw opens her soul to a bracing cleanse, backed by a band that now sound both darker and groovier than ever before

Secret Love by Dry Cleaning

“The objects outside the head control the mind,” says Florence Shaw, less than a minute into Secret Love. “To arrange them is to control people’s thinking.” She’s backed by a distant rhythm made to sound like heightened breaths – raised just above resting pace, perhaps by distress, perhaps giddiness, perhaps something else. Her words are pushed to the front of the mix so that you hang on each one of them.

At first, it’s easy to view this line merely as one of many others. Shaw’s writing has always offered tightly crafted little…

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Our punk columnist returns with a selection of wicked anarcho goth gear, rampaging crust punk, top drawer retromodern hardcore apocalyptica and more to see you through the new year’s slog

[BRICK], photo by Josh Vintaer

Happy 2026! No, me neither. However, as penance for opening this column with such a laughable statement, please find below excitable descriptions of some new punk and hardcore releases which induce in me a confused form of happiness, in spite of their efforts to do otherwise.

Marrowbone of Dublin first shared their debut demo three years ago; new versions of its three songs feature, alongside six more, on a self-titled cassette album released by Tapes Of Wrath. Without whom I might have bypassed this entirely, or assumed ‘Marrowbone’…

The post Straight Hedge! Noel Gardner Reviews Punk & HC for January appeared first on The Quietus.

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The musician was 26 years old

Matt Kwasiniewski-Kelvin, photo via Wikimedia Commons

Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, a founding member of Black Midi, has died aged 26.

Black Midi’s label Rough Trade shared the news via social media, where they said the following:

“It is with deep sadness that we as a family regret to inform you that Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin has died after a long battle with his mental health.

“A talented musician and a kind, loving young man finally succumbed; despite all efforts. Matt was 26 years old. He will always be loved.

“Please take a moment to check in with your loved ones so we can stop this happening to our young men.”

Kwasniewski-Kelvin formed Black Midi with Geordie Greep, Cameron Picton and Morgan Simpson in 2017,…

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The Sleaford Mods frontman discusses life and creativity with his friend, the film maker and occasional director of music videos. Main image: Paul Johnson

Music writers. Who needs ’em? We recently had the opportunity to get film director Ben Wheatley together with Jason Williamson, of Sleaford Mods, so we left them to interview one another with no interference from us.

After starting out in advertising, Ben Wheatley’s first feature film was the low-budget crime drama Down Terrace (2009). Subsequently, he has released another nine features, including cult black comedy Sightseers (2012), the extraordinary English Civil War-set horror A Field In England (2013) and the big-budget, bigger-shark blockbuster Meg 2: The Trench (2023). His indie science fiction thriller BULK, starring Sam Riley, and…

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Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick

Tragic Magic

The Louisiana-born vocalist and ambient music composer joins forces with California-based avant-garde harpist for an album of great depth and elemental force

Tragic Magic by Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick

I am listening to this album from what can only be described as a sea room on the furthest edge of Cape Cornwall in mid-December where it feels as if the horizon is tipping toward you. As the dawn begins to break, I press play while a beacon flashes in the distance like a small candle. It might be the sea air, but as the track ‘Perpetual Adoration’ glides into the room, Lattimore’s harp seems to pluck out the icy strokes of the waves and Julianna Barwick’s…

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In the first pod of 2026, John Doran outlines the meaning of David Lynch’s masterpiece to a previously confused Luke Turner

Screenshot

Hay no banda! There is no band… just two fine looking gentlemen of a certain age resplendent in their seasonal knitwear. John and Luke start 2026 with a resolution to be optimistic and positive in outlook from this point onwards. And all things considered – given the spiritually crushing subject matter at hand – they are fairly good to their word on the first Low Culture Podcast of the year. Mulholland Drive is a David Lynch neo-noir/black-comedy horror take on a romantic tragedy, nestled inside a metaphysical satire of Hollywood, built from the wreckage of an abandoned TV show pilot. It was…

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Catch up with everything we wrote about in the last two months of 2025

As is now traditional on tQ, we combine our round-ups of the last two months of the year into one playlist and feature, to make sure that they don’t get lost in the barrage of material relating to our end of year round-ups of the best albums, tracks, reissues etc and columns of the past 12 months. This means that our Subscriber and Subscriber Plus tier members get a bumper pack of stuff to listen to in the gooch, the gulch, the interregnum, the purgatory, or whatever it is you want to call the odd gap between Christmas and New Year. The playlist, as ever made up…

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Veteran DIY rockers celebrate 23 years in the game with new LP Heaven Was Wild, out next February

“There is a cosmic force at play with this band!” Hey Colossus – never doing anything the easy way – have just announced their new album on Christmas Day, via a mini documentary, streaming above, figuring everyone would otherwise just be sitting on their hands with little else to occupy them.

The short film was shot at their recent weekend of four London gigs in October and during their recording session for Heaven Was Wild in Bruton, Devon. The album pre-sale goes live on New Year’s Day and will be released on 27 February.

Putting the ‘sex’ back into sextet, this album combines…

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It’s a seasonal special for the final antidote to the algorithm of 2025, as guides us through melancholic Medieval, rousing Baroque and stolen carols

King Alfonso instructs musicians to play for Mary and Jesus, from the Cantigas de Santa Maria

A December afternoon, and I’m watching the afternoon sky turn from light to dark grey to black. An overgrown holly bush waves vigorously at me through the window. It is a stark backdrop, but one softened by an ancient magic from my speakers as I take a deep dive into my favourite early Christmas Carols. By this I mean ‘early’ as in properly ancient, rather than from the seasonal pop classics of the 80s or 90s (although I have a lot of…

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