The sharp-dressed man of letters and music takes us through his life in 13 tracks, from formative punk singles to the epicentre of Acid House, via encounters with Steve Albini, The Stone Roses, a pre-fame Fontaines and more

Photo by Bernie McAllistar / Argyll Images

John Robb has been a polymathic presence in British music since the beginning. Emerging in late-70s Blackpool as the bassist and frontman of essential post punk and noise outfit The Membranes, he was also forging a parallel career as a writer and music chronicler from the off, first publishing his own fanzine, Rox, before breaking into ZigZag, Sounds (where he was the first to interview Nirvana), Melody Maker and more.

That second strand then saw him set up…

The post The Ultimate Statement: John Robb’s Favourite Singles appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/interviews/bakers-dozen/john-robb-bakers-dozen-singles-interview-punk-rock/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=john-robb-bakers-dozen-singles-interview-punk-rock

On his new album, Maramfa Musick Pro, the 27-year-old South African producer bypasses the polished globalism of modern club music to deliver a raw, ancestral, and intensely localised masterpiece

Over the years, the global taxonomy of dance music has been utterly rewritten by South Africa. The slick, mid-tempo luxury of Amapiano and the dark, bruising minimalism of Gqom have migrated from the townships of Johannesburg and Durban to the most exclusive clubs in London, New York, and Ibiza. These genres have become highly polished export products, designed for massive streaming numbers and international festival stages. To assuredly understand the true, beating heart of South African electronic music, it takes one to occasionally leave the cosmopolitan centres behind and travel north, into…

The post Maramfa Musick Pro: Serokolo 7 Resurrects the Frenetic Pulse of Mapanta appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/album-of-the-week/maramfa-musick-pro-serokolo-7-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=maramfa-musick-pro-serokolo-7-review

Bali Gamelan Sound

Topeng Semar Pegulingan

Agustín Oscar Rissotti’s recordings of Indonesian music capture the ritual context often stripped from Western gamelan releases

Topeng Semar Pegulingan by Bali Gamelan Sound

The musicological study of Bali that Canadian-US composer Colin McPhee and his colleague Lou Harrison undertook during the 1930s is usually seen as critical in bringing gamelan to the West. However, the infatuation of European practitioners with the traditional Indonesian percussive form and its shimmering layers of interlocking patterns reaches at least half a century further into the past.

Alex Ross’s 2007 book The Rest Is Noise, for instance, recounts Claude Debussy’s writings from 1889. During a visit to the Paris Universal Exposition, the story goes, the French composer was left transfixed by the “minimal…

The post Bali Gamelan Sound – Topeng Semar Pegulingan appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/bali-gamelan-sound-topeng-semar-pegulingan-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bali-gamelan-sound-topeng-semar-pegulingan-review

In this month’s subscriber essay, Spark biographer James Bailey explores her bleak masterpiece of a life’s descent into an “anguished shriek of bloody despair”, making comparisons with “giallo horror at its grisliest”.

In a department store somewhere in northern Europe, a young woman named Lise is trying on a dress. The garment is garish, its pattern featuring a psychedelic clash of geometric shapes and vivid colours. Yet Lise seems delighted with her choice. “That’s my dress”, she announces happily to the shop assistant: “Lovely colours”. The assistant tells her that she agrees; the fabric of the dress, she adds enthusiastically, has been “specially treated” so that it won’t pick up stains. In an instant, the cool air of the fitting room…

The post Low Culture Essay: James Bailey on The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/subscriber-area/low-culture-essay/james-bailey-on-the-drivers-seat-by-muriel-spark/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=james-bailey-on-the-drivers-seat-by-muriel-spark

The 18-track record is out next month

Boards Of Canada have shared details of a new album, titled Inferno.

Spanning 18 tracks, it arrives 13 years on from the Scottish duo’s last LP, Tomorrow’s Harvest. You can watch a brief video teaser for the record below.

Its announcement follows on from a recent teaser campaign that saw mysterious VHS tapes mailed out to fans, and posters go up in different cities. Last Thursday (16 April), they shared their first piece of music in 13 years, ‘Tape 05’.

Warp Records will release Inferno on 29 May 2026.

…

The post Boards Of Canada Detail New Album, ‘Inferno’ appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/news/boards-of-canada-announce-new-album-inferno/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boards-of-canada-announce-new-album-inferno

Tanya Donelly and Chris Brokaw

The Undone Is Done Again

The former Belly/Throwing Muses vocalist joins guitarist for Come and Codeine for a suite of yuletide medieval madrigals

The Undone is Done Again by Tanya Donelly and Chris Brokaw

Wassail! A blithe yule to you and yours. Tanya Donelly and Chris Brokaw have come together to bring some festive medieval cheer and melancholy to your April. The Undone Is Done Again is a startlingly bare four track E.P. of Latin madrigals that have been passed down through the centuries. Recreating ancient ballads is the kind of niche behaviour that keeps reenactment societies in business, though when it’s Tanya Donelly singing, it’s impossible to not sit up and take notice.

Donelly’s effortless, lilting vocals brought an…

The post Tanya Donelly and Chris Brokaw – The Undone Is Done Again appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/tanya-donelly-and-chris-brokaw-the-undone-is-done-again-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tanya-donelly-and-chris-brokaw-the-undone-is-done-again-review

In the mid-90s Tricky was the future of music. Toby Manning looks back to his second album and asks, What Happened?

A mid-90s critical truism was invoked in Nearly God, that Adrian Thaws, aka Tricky, was the future of music. In so-titling his unofficial second album, Tricky was both mocking and magnifying his reputation as a one-man British Wu-Tang Clan, squaring up to his trip hop peers, not least old muckers Massive Attack. Instead, not only did Tricky piss away his potential but, in place of his pioneering, futuristic hip hop – or trip hop generally – British music would be dominated by Britpop’s retro banalities and dance-pop’s escapism, while hip hop remained, until grime, a near purely American phenomenon. 

It’s worth restating,…

The post The Vanishing Twin: Tricky’s Nearly God turns 30 appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/nearly-god-tricky-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nearly-god-tricky-review

Gnod

Chronicles Of Gnowt Vol.1

The first in a planned trilogy sees Gnod expand into uncharted territory while still remaining, unmistakably, Gnod

Chronicles of Gnowt (Vol 1) by Gnod

The volumes of music referenced in the title of Gnod’s latest dispatch are slated to total three, all of them drawn from just shy of a week in the studio. In many ways, this Salford-originated experimental group are different – in personnel, setup, lifestyle – from their beginnings, two decades ago this year, but by no means comprehensively so, and this sort of nose-to-tail approach to serving up their recording sessions is reminiscent of when there’d be a new Gnod release practically every other month.

Moreover, on the evidence of Chronicles Of Gnowt Vol.1 there’s no…

The post Gnod – Chronicles Of Gnowt Vol.1 appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/gnod-chronicles-of-gnowt-vol-1-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gnod-chronicles-of-gnowt-vol-1-review

Noel Gardner detects plenty of dub at the core of this month’s New Weird Britain selections, from bareknuckle nightmare fuel techno to gloopy audio microdramas

Zara

Overarching themes don’t tend to be a facet of these columns, because the New Weird British music in them is loosely tied together, and so am I. Even so, some months certain motifs reappear in the selected releases to the point where it feels like the subconscious is trying to say something. In the first NWB of 2026 it was improvisation and in this, the second, it’s dub – a technique / aesthetic / culture which, like improv, is embedded in more music than anyone realises, including the given artists.

No question that John Howes, a Mancunian…

The post New Weird Britain in Review for April by Noel Gardner appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/new-weird-britain/new-weird-britain-guide-april-2026-remy-solar-zara-falling-cat-problem/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-weird-britain-guide-april-2026-remy-solar-zara-falling-cat-problem

Nine Inch Noize

Nine Inch Noize

Nine Inch Nails team up with German-Iranian DJ Boyz Noize for an album of festival thumpers and pulse-rate pumpers

Nine Inch Nails are no stranger to dark industrial music, experimentalism, and the tricky graft to situate these genres within an ever-flippant popular culture. But on their latest project, Coachellaphane-wrapped supergroup called Nine Inch Noize, which features German-Iranian DJ Boyz Noize and Mariqueen Mandig, it’s hard to tell if Trent Reznor and Attitcus Ross have misjudged it all a bit, giving into the consumerism that their music has always managed to mediate.

Nine Inch Nails have always been a revolving door in spirit and have invariably managed to cover lots of musical ground without ever spreading themselves too thin….

The post Nine Inch Noize – Nine Inch Noize appeared first on The Quietus.

source https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/nine-inch-noize-nine-inch-noize-nine-inch-nails-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nine-inch-noize-nine-inch-noize-nine-inch-nails-review