In an exclusive extract from his new book for Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3, author Pete Crighton explores the backdrop to the making of the Athens, Georgia band’s mainstream breakthrough

Not only was the fuse not burned out, the B-52s were about to take flight again, reaching heights the band had never soared to.

In the afermath of Ricky’s death and the failure of Bouncing Of the Satellites, the B-52s weren’t busy for the frst time in a very long while. There was no tour to do, and the band did very little press and promotional appearances to support their last album with Ricky. No one expected a new album or single from the band, and there was no record label pressure.

So, they took…

The post Follow Your Bliss: How Cosmic Thing Became the B-52s’ Horniest Record in Years appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/culture/books/follow-your-bliss-how-cosmic-thing-became-the-b-52s-horniest-record-in-years/

Right to the end David Bowie – fierce, smart, autodidact – was uniquely creative, with lessons still to impart, says Jonathan Wright

To adapt a line from ‘Lazarus’, wasn’t that just like him? Which is to say that, when David Bowie’s death from liver cancer was announced on Sunday 10 January 2016, two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar, only his family and closest friends knew he had been ill. Bowie, ever adept at shaping media narratives, had deftly managed the news of his own passing.

I remember the Monday that followed, filled with tributes, as being imbued with a melancholy glow, a heightened sense that something far more significant than the death of a rock & roll star…

The post Boxset of the Week: David Bowie’s I Can’t Give Everything Away [2002-2016] appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/reissue-of-the-week/david-bowie-final-box-set-review/

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Anna Mahtani tracks the revival of a long neglected language, and the diverse music it has inspired across southern France and beyond

Cocanha

Growing up in the South of France, Occitan and its music was never far away. From the lively bands at night markets, to odd posters advertising language classes I never dared to take, this not-quite-dead-yet language is a staple of rural French, Italian, and Spanish culture. Originating from vulgar Latin, its name comes from the union of the Occitan ‘òc’, meaning yes, and ‘aquitanus’, the region in the south west of France in which it was spoken. For centuries, troubadours spoke the langue d’Oc and used their tunes to sing the first…

The post Organic Intelligence XLVIII: The Multinational Music of Occitanie appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/subscriber-area/organic-intelligence/organic-intelligence-xlviii-the-multinational-music-of-occitanie/

Baxter Dury

Allbarone

Backed up by super producer Paul Epworth, the latest from Dury Jr finds the singer at his rawest – and perhaps most exposed

Allbarone by Baxter Dury

The self-proclaimed Nylon Panther is back and this time he’s shown up with a wingman. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s worked with an electronically-inclined accomplice, with 2022’s ‘Baxter (These Are My Friends)’ with Fred Again opening him up to a younger audience, while several forays with French touch pioneer Étienne de Crécy endeared him yet further to the French, who no doubt recognise some faint similitude between him and the late Parisian lounge lizard Serge Gainsbourg. This time around, Grammy and Academy Award winning record producer Paul Epworth is at the controls, and…

The post Baxter Dury – Allbarone appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/baxter-dury-allbarone-review/

KAVARI and Laura Ortman are also on the bill for the Latvian festival

Skaņu Mežs has shared the complete lineup for its 2025 event.

Among the final artists added to the bill for the Riga-based festival is SHAPE+ act R3YWYA, which is the noise-based moniker of Latvian Evija Ābrama. She will be bringing her eco-acoustic, improvisation-based sound to the event’s opening day on October 3.

Also newly added to the lineup are KAVARI; Laura Ortman; John Butcher & Bill Nace; and Matthew Biederman & Pierce Warnecke (with a piece specially commissioned by Skaņu Mežs).

They join the previously announced likes of These New Puritans; Shabaka Hutchings & Hamid Drake; Joan La Barbara; Sega Bodega; Fatboi Sharif; Kilbourne; and Muqata’a on the lineup for the…

The post Skaņu Mežs Announces 2025 Lineup Featuring SHAPE+ Artist R3YWYA appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/skanu-mezs-announces-2025-lineup-featuring-shape-artist-r3ywya/

Subscribers will now be able to listen to music in up to 24-bit and 44.1 kHz FLAC quality

Spotify is rolling out lossless audio to its Premium subscribers.

The streaming platform will start offering tracks in up to 24-bit and 44.1 kilohertz (kHz) FLAC audio quality from today (September 10), with various different nations getting the feature in the coming weeks. Spotify’s audio quality has long been mocked as poor in the past.

“The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers,” said vice president of subscriptions Gustav Gyllenhammar, announcing the news. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritises quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always…

The post Spotify Adds Lossless Audio for Premium Users appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/spotify-adds-lossless-audio-for-premium-users/

It features Earl Sweatshirt, Pink Siifu, Quelle Chris and more

Armand Hammer, the duo of billy woods and ELUCID, have a new album on the way, made entirely with producer The Alchemist.

Spanning 14 tracks, Mercy takes in guest vocals from Earl Sweatshirt, Pink Siifu, Quelle Chris, Cleo Reed, Kapwani and Silka. It’s Armand Hammer’s second album with The Alchemist, following 2021’s Haram.

The new record, a press release said, is “made out of blood and empire, children’s laughter, unpaid parking tickets and unkept secrets”. It follows 2023’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, as well as the two rapper’s recent solo albums: woods’ GOLLIWOG, released this past May, and ELUCID’s Revelator, released late last year.

Backwoodz Studioz will release Mercy on November 7, 2025.
…

The post Armand Hammer Reveal New Album with The Alchemist, ‘Mercy’ appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/armand-hammer-reveal-new-album-with-the-alchemist-mercy/

Maruja

Pain to Power

Early EPs and live shows by the Mancunian indie rock band were full of visceral noise and elemental force, but for George Francis Lee, their debut album just doesn’t live up to their initial promise

The first time I saw Maruja I lost a tooth, which is exactly the kind of bodily harm I yearn for from upcoming bands’ shows. From the moment I heard the spasming sax against harsh walls of noise rock, I was a fan. No, an ardent defender. “Thank God,” I told anyone who’d listen, “Manchester finally has a band doing something new.” I waited nervously to see if this palpably hazardous energy could jump from their independently released EPs and stick the landing on…

The post Maruja – Pain to Power appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/maruja-pain-to-power/

At first blush the floor-friendly latest album from the Canadian purveyors of ‘gay church folk’ sounds a far cry from their early records, but for Claire Sawers there’s a clear throughline in the bittersweet sentiment, the soaring melodies and the sheer euphoria of the record’s yearning for transcendence

Photo credit: Max Zerrahn

The best description of The Hidden Cameras might just be from a leather jacketed fan, vox popped after one of their shows in 2002. You see him in Music Is My Boyfriend, the 2023 documentary about the early days of the beloved Toronto music collective. “Oh they’re great!”, he gushes, eyes widening. “They’re like Peter, Paul and Mary . . . and Mary . . . and Mary and Mary…

The post A Different Man: Bronto by The Hidden Cameras appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/album-of-the-week/bronto-the-hidden-cameras-review/

RP Boo and Piotr Kurek are also on the bill for the two-week event

Unsound has shared the first wave of acts playing its New York City event this October into November.

Taking place across a 13-day period, the programming will be split mainly across two venues: Progress Works and the Lincoln Center.

The festival will feature a new show from John Cale, dubbed ‘Steam On Glass – evolving sound clouds’, which is set to explore noise, improv and experimentation while tracing the artist’s New York City lineage. He will showcase his vast discography of songs as part of the performance. Support for that performance will come from Heinali and vocalist Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko, who released the album Гільдеґарда (Hildergard) via Unsound’s label earlier this year.

Lucrecia…

The post John Cale, Lucrecia Dalt and More to Play This Year’s Unsound NYC appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/john-cale-lucrecia-dalt-and-more-to-play-this-years-unsound-nyc/