As the Gallaghers megatour rolls back into the UK, Ed Gillett examines how they fit into the current febrile and nostalgia-driven political climate – and asks what aspects of it they helped usher in

Oasis live – Big Brother Recordings

It’s high summer in the middle of the decade. An increasingly unpopular and authoritarian government languishes in the polls, England put four past the Netherlands in the group stage of the Euros, and Oasis dominate the headlines after playing the biggest gigs of their career. The year is 2025, but you might be forgiven if you mistook it for 1996.

From Blitz-themed street parties to reminiscing about proper binmen, the romanticisation of our imagined former glories has long been one of Britain’s favourite…

The post Why Oasis’ Reunion is the Perfect Soundtrack to Britain in 2025 appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/oasis-reunion-gigs-uk-politics-nostalgia-reform/

Lamin Fofana

Works In Metal

The Sierra Leonean artist welds and solders his sonic materials on an album inspired by the writings of activist and Surrealist Suzanne Césaire

Works In Metal by Lamin Fofana

Works in Metal is alchemic in its offering as Lamin Fofana’s pursuit of difficult meanings come to the fore yet again. Fofana sets about the arduous process of reworking and reshaping metals, seeking long-awaited transcendence from what writer, teacher, scholar, anti-colonial, feminist activist and Surrealist Suzanne Césaire refers to as the “sordid contemporary antinomies: Whites-Blacks, Europeans-Africans, civilized-savage”. Works in Metal seeks to destroy such paradoxes and damning self-beliefs sonically through sound archives, field recordings and unique production methods as a tribute to Césaire’s prophetic writing.

‘Arc’s Blues Flame’, the album’s opener,…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/lamin-fofana-works-in-metal-review/

In this first and only book dedicated to Gojira, journalist and author Jean-Charles Desgroux looks back on the seven studio albums and thirty-year career of France’s biggest metal band

Gojira in New York, 2016, credit Gabrielle Duplantier

With their single ‘Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)’, Gojira delivered one of the best, if not the most insane, performances of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Most people had never heard of them. That evening, Gojira set death metal ablaze in front of the Conciergerie, carried by the lyrical voice of mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti. The French Revolution resounded under the roaring chords of the band with Marie-Antoinette beheaded in the front row.

A rare bright light on the mainstream scene. The feat finally…

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source https://thequietus.com/culture/books/ah-ca-ira-gojira-the-french-wild-children-of-metal/

Begun in 2007 and finished towards the end of last year by a dedicated group of late frontman Tim Smith’s closest comrades, Cardiacs’ LSD is a triumph of creativity and friendship over adversity, and a testament to the enduring uniqueness of Smith’s artistic vision, says Sean Kitching

Arriving 26 years since Cardiacs’ last studio album and five years since the death of singer and principal songwriter Tim Smith, the circumstances behind LSD’s completion mark it apart from most other posthumous releases. One analogy might be Leonard Cohen’s final album, Thanks For The Dance, which featured new songs based on late period sketches by Cohen and was completed by his son Adam, although the gestation times and end results could hardly be…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/reissue-of-the-week/cardiacs-lsd-review/

Microcorps

Clear Vortex Chamber

Accompanied by pals Elvin Brandhi, Phew, Justin K Broadrick, Karl D’Silva, and Karl O’Connor, the latest from Alexander Tucker merges the digital with the tangible, the futuristic with the ancient, ritual with freedom

CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER by Microcorps

In early September in a basement room in Oxford Street’s underbelly, sandwiched between conversations about fogous and creeps, Alexander Tucker sat and strummed an acoustic guitar. For those more familiar with his Nonexistent, Brood X Cycles, or Microcorps output, the notion of him fingering a fretboard might appear quite novel. But this is the Alexander Tucker who wailed on banjos and violins during his early 21st century work and moved in similar circles to Jackie-O Motherfucker. That evening, Tucker united these supposedly…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/microcorps-clear-vortex-chamber/

Loraine James, Nadine Shah, Kelela and Black Country, New Road are among the early supporters of the No Music For Genocide initiative

Screenshot

More than 400 artists and record labels, based around the world, have signed up to a new boycott campaign aimed at Israel.

The new initiative, No Music For Genocide, is encouraging musicians and labels to remove their music “from apartheid Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank”. Its chief goal is to encourage musicians to contact the record labels and distributors that they work with in order to have their output geo-blocked on streaming platforms in Israel.

Once those geo-block requests have been honoured, artists and record labels can contact No Music For…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/more-than-400-artists-and-record-labels-sign-up-to-israel-boycott-campaign/

The experimental music and arts space was evicted from its previous Old Paradise Yard premises last year

London venue IKLECTIK has found a new home in Peckham.

The team behind the experimental music and arts space shared the news on Instagram this week, revealing that they will be taking over a gig space at Peckham Levels from next month. They will have control of the premises for a 13-month residency project.

The new iteration of the venue will open with a free-to-attend launch party on October 26. The lineup is yet to be announced.

“This new hub will deepen our mission,” IKLECTIK’s team said on Instagram. “Bringing together underground culture, emerging voices and more renowned artists to collaborate, experiment and reimagine futures. Over the…

The post London Venue IKLECTIK Finds New Space in Peckham appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/london-venue-iklectik-finds-new-space-in-peckham/

The two artists made the track together after gaining access to the instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique

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Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore have teamed up on a first-time collaborative track, ‘Perpetual Adoration’.

Offering the first glimpse of a full-length record from the pair, which will be announced at a later date, the new song was made within the walls of Philharmonie de Paris, after the two artists were given access to the historic instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique.

Lattimore selected an Érard double movement harp (France, 1873) and Barwick played a Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5 analog synthesiser (USA, circa 1975) on the track., and both took inspiration from a visit to Basilica of Sacré Cœur de Montmartre.

In a…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/julianna-barwick-and-mary-lattimore-collaborate-on-new-track-perpetual-adoration/

The Bologna festival’s 16th edition gets underway next month

Seefeel

Italian festival ROBOT has shared the full lineup for its 2025 edition.

Seefeel are set to premiere a new audiovisual live show at the Bologna event, while Lucy Railton and Felícia Atkinson will also present their recent solo albums. Among the other final additions to the bill are Safety Trance, Antonina Nowacka, JASSS, Tayahana and Crystallmess.

They join the previously announced likes of Alessandro Cortini, DJ Haram, Lorenzo Senni, Sarah Davachi, Ela Minus, Rival Consoles, Rainy Miller and Hatis Noit on the lineup for this year’s festival.

ROBOT will take place from October 9 to 11, 2025. Find more information here.
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The post Seefeel, Lucy Railton and More Complete 2025 Lineup for ROBOT appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/seefeel-lucy-railton-and-more-complete-2025-lineup-for-robot/

A final posthumous release from the Mika Vainio finds rich beauty, deep in the windswept sublime of the late Finnish producer’s sometimes harsh digital soundscapes

Mika Vainio, Berlin 2016 © Camille Blake

“Does it annoy you that people today find electronic voices ugly?” Björk asks Mikä Vainio, hanging out in his studio in the 1997 BBC TV documentary Modern Minimalists. “It’s a pity that many people just cannot in a way relate with them,” ponders the Finnish musician. “Some of them are ugly for me as well, but quite many are interesting and beautiful as well.”

Much of Vainio’s work, including his recordings with Pan Sonic and as Ø, explores the tension between beauty and ugliness. Across his life and career there are…

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source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/album-of-the-week/o-sysivalo-review/