In an exclusive extract from Tom Hagler’s new book River of Words, the Quietus presents an archive interview between Mitchell and TV presenter Richard Skinner from the BBC’s Saturday Live back in 1983

Joni was in the middle of her world tour, having played in Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Concertgoers in Sydney reported how she’d altered the lyrics to ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ to support the campaign against the Franklin Dam. It was the country’s biggest environmental movement to date and would succeed in halting the project in Tasmania just a few months later.

In this interview with Richard Skinner, Joni says the description of her as a singer-songwriter is redundant, given everyone now wrote their own material, specifically referring to Adam…

The post The Coffee House World: Joni Mitchell at the BBC appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/culture/books/the-coffee-house-world-joni-mitchell-at-the-bbc/

20 years ago this week, J.G. Ballard published his final novel Kingdom Come. In 2026, it feels like he was prophesying the United Kingdom of today, a country in which racism has been institutionalised and the quiet bit is now being shouted out loud. Lous Pattinson returns to the bleakest of Ballard’s late-period works and asks whether it’s too late to heed the book’s warnings

Photo by Matt Brown via Wikimedia Commons

“Violent? Here, in leafy Surrey? The consumer paradise? It’s hard to believe. Still, you can’t miss the banners and flags, the men in St George’s shirts.”

Twenty years ago, J.G. Ballard published what would be his final novel, Kingdom Come. Once a transgressive outlier of British science fiction, by the…

The post The Suburbs Dream of Violence: J.G. Ballard’s Kingdom Come & England’s Slide towards Fascism  appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/ballard-kingdom-come-anniversary/

The EU brought in new fees for small packages this summer, raising the cost of sending items such as vinyl and merchandise to people based around Europe

UK Music and the Association of Independent Music (AIM) have issued a joint statement calling on the UK Government to tackle new fees for exporting items to the European Union (EU).

At the start of July, the EU introduced a flat customs duty of €3 per small package which, alongside mail handling fees, has heavily increased the cost of buying products like vinyl and merchandise for fans based around Europe. These duties only applied to items valued at over €150 before the recent changes.

In their statement, UK Music chief executive Tom Kiehl and AIM deputy…

The post UK Music Industry Organisations Call on Government to Tackle EU Export Fees appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/uk-music-industry-organisations-call-on-government-to-tackle-eu-export-fees/

The nine-track record is available digitally for free

Photo by Diara Sow

Loraine James has released a surprise new album, titled It’s Nothing Personal..

Comprised of nine tracks, the new record follows Detached From The Rest Of You, an album that James put out on Hyperdub earlier this year. It can be purchased digitally for free via Bandcamp, while a CD edition is also available to buy there too.

It’s Nothing Personal. leans heavily into the glitchier elements of James’ sound, folding in elements of IDM, grime, breakcore and drum & bass. You can listen to the full LP below.

It’s Nothing Personal. is out now on Warp Publishing.

It’s Nothing Personal. by Loraine James
…

The post Loraine James Releases Album, ‘It’s Nothing Personal.’, on Bandcamp appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/loraine-james-releases-album-its-nothing-personal-on-bandcamp/

It was made in collaboration with Alan Turing biographer Andrew Hodges, and encompasses songs, spoken world, and electronic and orchestral music

Photo by Eva Pentel

Pet Shop Boys are set to release a new album next month, titled A Man From The Future and made in collaboration with Alan Turing biographer Andrew Hodges.

Spanning eight tracks, the new LP takes in electronic and orchestral music, as well as spoken word. It explores eight significant chapters in the life and death of Turing, the influential computer scientist who was arrested and prosecuted in 1952 due to archaic homophobic laws, ultimately leading to his suicide two years later.

Alongside music and lyrics by Pet Shop Boys, the album features narration by actress Juliet Stevenson, which…

The post Pet Shop Boys Detail New Album, ‘A Man From The Future’ appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/pet-shop-boys-detail-new-album-a-man-from-the-future/

On the 50th anniversary reissue of Mort Garson’s Mother Earth’s Plantasia, a cult classic attempt to communicate with plants via Moog noodles, Joe Muggs selects 10 more examples of musicians plugging themselves into the green stuff

Detail from the front cover of Mort Garson’s Mother Earth’s Plantasia

The fields are barren, glaciers are melting, whole landscapes are burning – it’s not looking good out there, is it? It’s little wonder, given all of this, that there is a real shared cultural sense of yearning for green shoots, for a little bit of hope, for a sense that we still have some connection to and understanding of a natural world that isn’t completely out of kilter and out of control. 

It feels like the…

The post The Strange World of… Music Made By and For Plants appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/strange-world-of/music-made-for-and-by-plants-mort-garson/

It was captured across three shows that the band played at London’s Roundhouse in December 2014

Manic Street Preachers have announced a new live album, Holy Bible Live.

It centres around three shows that the band played at London’s Roundhouse in December 2014, which saw them play their classic 1994 album The Holy Bible in full for the first – and possibly last – time to mark its 20th anniversary. The recordings on The Holy Bible Live were mixed by audio engineer Dave Eringa in the months following the shows, but not released until now.

The album will be released across vinyl, CD and digital formats, while there will also be a CD and BluRay package, in which the live album is set to Kieran…

The post Manic Street Preachers Announce New Live Album, ‘Holy Bible Live’ appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/manic-street-preachers-announce-new-live-album-holy-bible-live/

Arab Strap

Half-Told Tales

Aidan Moffat and Malcom Middleton go big with an album of disco-inflected rock and stadium-filling tunes, but it’s the smaller, more vulnerable moments that make their music special, finds Zara Hedderman

Half-Told Tales by Arab Strap

To name an album filled with fourteen hyper-detailed narratives, Half-Told Tales is something of a misnomer. If anything, a hint of vagueness wouldn’t go amiss – see the pungent: “He examines his excretions, the brown piss and yellow shit,” in ‘Gape’. Perhaps it’s Celtic modesty creeping in. And yet, fans of Arab Strap will be well-versed in knowing nothing is done in half measures when Aidan Moffat and Malcom Middleton have something to say in their always inventive, immersive and undeniable material. As with…

The post Arab Strap – Half-Told Tales appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/arab-strap-half-told-tales-review/

Hidden In Pieces Live At The Royal Albert Hall includes a cover of Björk’s ‘Hyperballad’

Yeah Yeah Yeahs have released a live album, Hidden In Pieces Live At The Royal Albert Hall.

Recorded at London’s Royal Albert Hall in June 2025, the album features live versions of 12 tracks from across the band’s back catalogue, including classics like ‘Maps’ and ‘Zero’, in addition to a cover of Björk’s ‘Hyperballad’. It also takes in recordings captured in San Diego, Chicago and New York during their intimate 25th anniversary theatre tour in 2025.

Announcing the release, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O said the tour “was born out of a need to commune with our band and fan family in 2025, after the election. In the past, YYYs haven’t…

The post Yeah Yeah Yeahs Release Live Album and Short Film appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/yeah-yeah-yeahs-release-live-album-and-short-film/

Directed by Caroline Catz, Art Sex Music doesn’t yet have a release date

A new feature documentary on the life and work of Cosey Fanni Tutti, Art Sex Music, has finished production ahead of a currently unannounced release date sometime in the future.

Directed by Caroline Catz and produced by Andy Starke, the film is based on Fanni Tutti’s 2017 memoir, which was also titled Art Sex Music. As Deadline reports, it will trace her upbringing in Hull, early work with COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle, and her later solo material and collaborations with partner Chris Carter.

The film tells the story of Fanni Tutti’s life through personal archives, covering decades of diaries, costumes, photographs, visuals, artwork and more. It also takes a…

The post New Feature Documentary on Cosey Fanni Tutti Finishes Production appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/new-feature-documentary-on-cosey-fanni-tutti-finishes-production/