Anna Högberg Attack

Ensamseglaren

With dual drummers and a wall of guitar noise, the Swedish artist’s revived 12-piece ensemble proves a formidable force

Ensamseglaren by Anna Högberg Attack

Over two sides of an LP, Ensamseglaren takes us along paths of genteel jazz, intriguing experimentation, thunderous doom, and brassy sighs capable of breaking your heart. With her 12-strong ensemble, reassembled after a five-year hiatus in order to help work through the grief of losing her father (the lonely sailor to whom the album title alludes), Anna Högberg has transcended any clichés about getting the old band back together. Their collective expression, their artistry, their simply being with one another, proves itself to be a viable method for processing the chest-hollowing feeling of parental loss.

‘Ensamseglaren /…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/anna-hogberg-attack-ensamseglaren-review/

Tortoise

Touch

Chicago post-rock pioneers return with their first album in nearly a decade, but have they lost the ease with which they once melded disparate styles and transgressed sonic boundaries?

Touch by Tortoise

Tortoise are a rare epoch-defining band whose innovations were born not out of ambition, but more from the fact that they were all good friends who loved wildly different forms of music and saw no contradiction in doing so. It was their openness to trying different things and synthesizing different sonic elements that helped make their sound so unique, but the community-forward spirit of the band – a product of their city of Chicago, where musicians are always working together and leaving their hang-ups about genre distinctions at the door…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/tortoise-touch-review/

Plus! We have a chat with founder Graeme Hopper about the connections made between New Weird Sunderland and the rest of the world

Over the past few years, Sunderland’s Boundaries Festival has quickly gained a justified reputation as one of the best places at which to encounter the UK’s DIY underground – the best of New Weird Britain (you can read our review of the 2021 instalment here). This year’s festival takes place on 21 and 22 November, and features Quietus favourites including Aja Ireland, Rhodri Davies, Sly & The Family Drone, Felicia Atkinson, Dawn Terry (pictured) and many more – full details of this year’s line-up can be found here. Founder Graeme Hopper describes running Boundaries as “a labour of…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/boundaries-festival-unveils-full-line-up/

Finn Cliff Hodges heads to Bologna and witnesses the likes of Rainy Miller and Acid Arab channelling the radical hope of the Italian city’s heritage

Acid Arab by Riccardo Giori

With red-tiled rooftops, red-clay buildings and a red heart, Bologna is aptly known as ‘La Rossa’, or the ‘Red City’. A hub of counter-culture, Bologna’s political roots are entrenched in Italian left-wing values. At the start of October, the country came to a standstill as strikes and demonstrations protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza spread countrywide, so it feels fitting that ROBOT festival’s sixteenth edition, called Dream On, provides a platform for expressions of solidarity with Palestine, alongside a more general atmosphere of unity and common purpose throughout the weekend. Who better…

The post Red City Reverberations: Highlights from the ROBOT Festival appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/live-reviews/red-city-reverberations-highlights-from-the-robot-festival/

Läuten der Seele

Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Überresten

Würzburg native Christian Schoppik takes the listener to some dark and disturbing places, shivering with static and sampled voices

Läuten der Seele – Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Überresten by World of Echo

Among its various claims to noteworthiness, Würzburg in northern Bavaria has a historic association with Richard Wagner: he was appointed chorusmaster of the municipal theatre in 1833 and wrote his first performed opera, Die Feen (‘the Fairies’) while living there. The city of 130,000 on the banks of the Main is also the birthplace of Dallas Mavericks power forward Dirk Nowitzki, heralded by many as the great European basketball player of all time.

Yet to students of ambient spookiness suffused in Teutonic foreboding, Würzburg has…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/lauten-der-seele-unterhaltungen-mit-larven-und-uberresten-review/

Thirty-five years after they burned slow and bright, Galaxie 500 remain one of indie rock’s most quietly untouchable constellations. In conversation with Dean Wareham, Naomi Yang and Damon Krukowski, Brian Coney provides ten points of entry to the dimmer recesses of their back catalogue

Galaxie 500 could lay claim to being the finest three-piece of all time, not through force or flash but by making the gossamer monumental. The line-up was skeletal as it was supreme: guitarist and vocalist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski, and bassist and vocalist Naomi Yang. Across just three studio albums – 1988’s Today, the following year’s On Fire and 1990’s This Is Our Music – they crystallised the indie rock dream in a form that seemed…

The post The Strange World Of… Galaxie 500 Rarities appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/strange-world-of/galaxie-500-best-music/

Claire Biddles speaks to the Polish percussion powerhouse ahead of an appearance at Unsound New York

Portrait by Kazimierz Ździebło

Repercussions by KAKUHAN & Adam Golebiewski

Polish percussionist Adam Golebiewski is a prolific collaborator with boundless musical curiosity. With his sculptural approach to the drums, he’s worked with underground musicians including Kevin Drumm, Thurston Moore, Yoko Ono and Mats Gustafsson. His latest release with Japanese electroacoustic duo KAKUHAN stems from an improvised performance at Unsound festival in 2023 – a common trajectory for Golebiewski’s music. “I like to leave a trace when I play with people,” he explains of making recordings after collaborative performances. “Sometimes the best stuff has the shortest life, so I want to make a document of it.”

This particular document, Repercussions,…

The post Almost Endless Possibilities: Adam Golebiewski Interviewed appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/adam-golebiewski-interview/

Jaša Bužinel reflects on the importance of outside recognition and the influence of industry-fed dogmas on the success of aspiring artists, and reviews releases covering devilish UKG, Swedish minimal tech, bubbly deep house from Japan and more

XEXA

While reviewing the latest DJ Babatr release, I pondered on how important outside recognition is for an artist’s confidence. I imagined myself as a young artist, and wondered how tutorials on ‘how to make it’ would shape my expectations of being discovered. Industry-fed dogmas have had a massive effect on how people approach music-making. Some young artists influenced by this content have an ingrained belief that if your stats do not improve immediately, you should give up.Is it really true that you cannot put…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/electronic/hyperspecific-electronic-music-for-october-reviewed-by-jasa-buzinel/

Ben Graham confesses his love for early U2, and implores us to remember them before they became the biggest band in the world. This feature was first published in 2010

I’m no big fan of the band U2 became. When I was at school they represented everything I wanted to kick against: that smug black-and-white Joshua Tree poster, pinned to the wall of the fifth-form lounge, exuded carefully contrived and paid-for faux-authenticity that was supposed to represent some pinnacle of sophisticated musical taste among the bum-licking swots who lounged there (as opposed to the carefree oiks kicking balls about and practicing their bad breakdance moves in the cold Yorkshire drizzle outside).

And yet, I dimly – guiltily, secretly – remembered that there…

The post Adolescent Awkwardness: U2’s Boy turns 45 appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/u2-boy-anniversary/

Rafael Toral

Traveling Light

The Portuguese guitarist and ambient composer takes a suite of jazz standards into strange new territory

Traveling Light by Rafael Toral

Portuguese guitarist Rafael Toral has never been the type to call a lot of attention to himself. Despite releasing some of the most exceptional ambient albums of the 90s and early 00s, he’s always remained an artist strictly for the heads, never quite receiving the following that contemporaries such as his former MIMEO bandmate Christian Fennesz enjoyed. His retreat from ambient guitar soundscapes into the ever-insular world of electroacoustic improvised music, with his Space Quartet group, only further solidified this.

But last year, when comrade Jim O’Rourke relaunched his Moikai label, their very first release was Toral’s return to longform…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/rafael-toral-traveling-light-review/