Once a year, a small German town mutates into a huge, baffling and refreshingly odd outdoor party. From asparagus to bus stops, Richard Foster gets to grips with the strange mythology of Haldern Pop

“But it looks so small…” Indeed it does. Shorn of its huge main stage and the paraphernalia needed to cater to five thousand festival goers each August, the field where Haldern Pop is staged is nothing more than what it is for the rest of the year, a riding field for the Association of Saint George. An icy March wind sweeps through the open fields and bites at our knuckles as we cycle back to Haldern.

Back in this ancient Niederrheinische village, the scene of heavy fighting in…

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50 years on, Joe Banks examines the point at which everything started to go wrong for Black Sabbath… even though they were still getting it right. This feature was originally published on 7/6/2015

At this point, we’re pretty much all agreed that Black Sabbath are one of our most important bands, up there with The Beatles and Kraftwerk in terms of their radical re-shaping of popular music’s sonic landscape. But it wasn’t always this way.

When I first began listening to Sabbath at the start of the 80s, their reputation was in the doldrums. For the ‘serious’ music press, they were a decrepit metal band fit only for council estate longhairs and denim-clad adolescents. Even Kerrang! were sniffy about them, the prevailing…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/at-breaking-point-black-sabbaths-sabotage-revisited/

Jasamine White-Gluz, aka No Joy, tells Claire Biddles about how a move to rural Quebec inspired the shift to multi-faceted maximalism that defines her new album Bugland

Photo by Samuel Fournier

“I wanted to make something that sounds natural and unnatural at the same time,” says Jasamine White-Gluz of No Joy, whose fifth album Bugland is inspired by the chaos and excess of nature, and a recent move from Montreal to rural Quebec. ”There’s a trope where you move to the country and your music becomes folk or more organic sounding, but for me it was the opposite,” she explains. “I was like, plug everything in, run it through lots of things. It was so much more maximalist, just because that was…

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source https://thequietus.com/interviews/no-joy-bugland-interview-fire-toolz/

Reign In Blood, South Of Heaven and Seasons In The Abyss form a trio of records that revolutionised twentieth-century heavy metal. Dan Franklin makes the case. All photographs by Maria Jefferis

Three Album Run is a tQ series where we explore the best unbroken run of LPs in different genres. This month it’s twentieth century heavy metal but if you want to suggest a genre for a future essay please email John@theQuietus.com under the heading Three Album Run. The full rules are at the foot of this feature.

In the spring of 1998, when I was sixteen years old, I rented a bike for the day during a family holiday on the North Devon coast. I cycled on the Tarka Trail from…

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source https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/slayer-best-albums/

MC Yallah & Debmaster

Gaudencia

A second full-length with French producer Debmaster, sees MC Yallah stretches out into new realms of possibility

Gaudencia by MC Yallah & Debmaster

There are a few times through Gaudencia, Ugandan hip-hop artist Yallah Gaudencia Mbidde’s latest fiery collaboration with French producer Debmaster, where you might be hit with a thought: “Who else would sound as good rapping over this?” These are layered, unruly beats, caked in more dirt and detritus than anything we heard on their last project, 2023’s Yallah Beibe. There are strong grooves laced into them, but the rhythms are often skewed or slippery. MC Yallah speeds through them, finding new pockets to thrive in. Her delivery is addictive, at once smooth and acrobatic. It sounds…

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John Quin hears rumblings from deep beneath the earth at this year’s Triennial, with works by Dorothy Cross, Emeka Ogboh, Cooking Sections, Hanna Tuulikki, and others

Hanna Tuulikki, Performance at Denge Sound Mirrors for Love (Warbler Remix), 2025. Photo by Matt Rowe. Courtesy of the Artist.

The Open Golf Championship and the Portrush crowd in Antrim gasp in astonishment after Rory McIlroy hits his second shot at the par 4 11th. Bizarrely, he’s unearthed a hidden second ball that pops up like a benign bounding mine. What lies under the ground beneath our feet in this Weird British Isles of ours, this and its palimpsest of histories, its deep time, is the major curatorial concern in this stimulating new iteration of the…

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source https://thequietus.com/culture/art/folkestone-triennial-emeka-ogboh-dorothy-cross-cooking-sections-hanna-tuulikki-review/

They follow Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu in turning their back on the streaming platform due to military investments made by its CEO

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have pulled almost their entire extensive back catalogue from Spotify.

The prolific Australian band first pointed to a potential move away from the streaming platform when taking to Instagram this week to promote the release of a new demos collection. Writing on social media, they told fans the release was out “everywhere except Spotify (fuck Spotify)”. They followed that up with a further statement shared in an Instagram Story, in which they confirmed that they opposed investments in military technology by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.

The band wrote: “Hello friends. A PSA to those unaware:…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/king-gizzard-the-lizard-wizard-become-latest-act-to-pull-music-from-spotify/

The movie hits cinemas in September

An official trailer for the long-awaited sequel to 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap has been shared online.

The two-minute clip, which comes ahead of the movie arriving in cinemas on September 12, features appearances from Paul McCartney, Elton John, Questlove and others. It also depicts director Rob Reiner reprising his role as director Martin “Marty” Di Bergi, and Spinal Tap’s band members played by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer also taking up their roles once again.

In the film, the three actors play ageing versions of their original characters: Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls. It follows them as they, amid playing in insignificant bands, aim to come together for one more gig.

The…

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The band have followed Deerhoof’s lead in protesting military investments made by the company’s chief executive, Daniel Ek

Xiu Xiu are removing their music from Spotify.

“It is taking longer than we had hoped due to procedurally complications but will be completed soon,” the band said in a statement revealing their decision to pull their output from the streaming platform. “Thanks for the support and patience.”

Going more in-depth about why they were removing their music from the streaming service, they said: “Spotify uses music money to invest in AI war drones.” In addition to being the the co-founder and chief executive of Spotify, Daniel Ek is the founder of an investment fund called Prima Materia, which recently reportedly led a new round of investment in…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/xiu-xiu-to-pull-music-from-spotify/

The ban set by the government means they have been forced to cancel their appearance at Budapest’s Sziget Festival

Kneecap have been banned from entering Hungary for three years, government spokesman Zoltán Kovács has revealed on X.

Outlining the reasons for the ban, Kovacs said the Irish rappers had “repeatedly engaged in antisemitic hate speech supporting terrorism and terrorist groups”. He also said that the trio’s planned performance at Budapest’s Sziget Festival, which has now been cancelled, “posed a national security threat”.

Responding to the ban, Kneecap apologised to their fans who would no longer be able to see the play live at Sziget, and described the country’s government, led by Viktor Orbán, as “authoritarian”. They also called out his decision to host Israeli leader Benjamin…

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source https://thequietus.com/news/kneecap-banned-from-entering-hungary/