In the first edition of a new series exploring underground and left-field music from North America, Natalie Marlin delivers an insider’s guide to the frantic, uninhibited and queer-driven energy of the Minneapolis and Saint Paul underground, and picks out five essential new releases from the cities’ most exciting artists

Pointless Animal, photo by Ella Smith

“What’s the etiquette for taking off your top here?” a transfemme friend asks me toward the end of a DIY bill at her first night out at Minneapolis’s Seward Cafe.

I look around the courtyard, where at least half a dozen trans women have already foregone their shirts and bared their breasts to combat the sweltering summer heat. I shrug and say, “People do it.”

So goes a…

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$ilkMoney

Who Waters The Wilting Giving Tree Once The Leaves Dry Up And Fruits No Longer Bear?

A concept album inspired by Shel Silverstein’s children’s book, The Giving Tree, proves the former Divine Council rapper still has plenty to say

WHO WATERS THE WILTING GIVING TREE ONCE THE LEAVES DRY UP AND FRUITS NO LONGER BEAR? by $ilkMoney

If $ilkMoney truly doesn’t give fuck about this rap shit, then this is not how to prove it. “Never make it seem like you’re trying too hard,” has always been one the mantras of the former Divine Council member, but he almost contravened it by noticeably aiming to make his debut on Lex Records his best album yet. Emphasis on “almost”: the sentence-long, wacky song titles;…

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Billy Childish, Valentina Magaletti, Coby Sey and more feature on innovative covers album

Irish label Diet Of Worms have this week released The Sky Was A Mouth Again, an album in solidarity with, and raising funds for, the people of Palestine. No cobbled together thing, it features a fascinating run of covers of 1955 garage rock classic ‘Louie Louie’ by Richard Dawson, Charles Hayward, Elias Rønnenfelt of Iceage, Valentina Magaletti in collaboration with Conrad Standish, and many more – you can see the full list below. Gavin Duffy, who has organised the compilation, explains the thinking behind getting so many artists to cover just the one song. “The Sky Was A Mouth Again grew out of a fascination with how one song…

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Various Artists

For Gaza With Love Vol. 1

Benefit compilation for the PalMed Academy in Gaza features new music from Rich Dawson, Belle and Sebastian, and others

For Gaza With Love Vol I by For Gaza With Love Vol I

For Gaza With Love Vol. 1 is a well-put-together new charity compilation featuring artists as diverse as Richard Dawson, Belle & Sebastian and Pefkin aka Gayle Brogan (whose slowly-unfolding hymnal ‘Premonitions’ is worthy of the cover charge alone). And that’s before we’ve got to the cause. Curated by the Yorkshire-based musician and composer Aby Vulliamy, who also contributes the moving, thought-provoking ‘Because of Us’, the collection aims to raise funds for the PalMed Academy in Gaza, an organisation which is trying to raise the…

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The Black Sabbath frontman was 76

Ozzy Osbourne at Villa Park by Ross Halfin

Ozzy Osbourne, sonic pioneer and frontman of Black Sabbath, has died. The Osbourne family issued a short statement, saying “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time. Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis”. Osbourne died just weeks after what was billed as his final concert at Villa Park in Birmingham, where Sabbath and Ozzy solo were joined by the likes of Anthrax, Slayer and Mastodon to celebrate the life and influence…

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Aaron Turner – Sumac frontman and guest star on the new album from the mighty Pharaoh Overlord – tells tQ what his parallel career in tattooing has taught him about humility and human connection

Photo by Pon

“The hurdy-gurdy roars like an elephant!” declared none other than Ritchie Blackmore to me a few years ago, a statement that I dismissed with a highly patronising “Sure it does, Ritchie” at the time. Having recently listened to Pharoah Overlord’s bewitching new album Louhi, though, I realise now that Blackmore was completely right. Played and produced with respect and care, as it is on Louhi, the hurdy-gurdy sounds monstrous, a demonic drone that matches the heaviest guitars with ease.

Another compelling reason to listen to Louhi…

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From the close-knit DIY underground to the centuries-old choral singing embedded in national identity, in his latest guide to the music of Central and Eastern Europe Jakub Knera turns his eye to Estonia

Ajukaja and Mart Avi, photo by Alana Proosa

What comes to mind when I consider Estonian music in 2025? Tommy Cash, choral singing, and Arvo Pärt. 

Cash recorded Estonia’s most popular song of the year. Representing his country at Eurovision, he acknowledged that ‘Espresso Macchiato’ wasn’t his typical style, but that it was crafted deliberately for the show’s format – playfully funny and cringeworthy too, something that resonated with viewers. It’s not the first time Estonia has chosen an artist from the indie scene for the contest – last year it…

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Xeeland

Master Builder

Jason Stoll, of Sex Swing and Bonnacons Of Doom, makes an apt soundtrack for the quaking concrete of brutalist buildings

Master Builder by Xeeland

In the fertile atmosphere of the 1960s, a genre emerged in Germany that borrowed from the electronic, hypnotic, repetitive, and psychedelic trends of the time – albeit in a rough style that some might consider typically German. This genre, dubbed ‘Krautrock’ by the British music press, influenced not only rock musicians but artists across other genres as well. Thousands of miles westward, in the United States, another trend known as ‘drone music’ developed built on sustained low-frequency repetitions that created a meditative effect, a feature naturally found in many Asian and Middle Eastern instruments. Imagine these two…

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Darran Anderson argues that Elliott Smith’s untimely death created a distorting prism through which his entire back catalogue is now seen, especially his stunning eponymous record

There’s an idea circulating in theoretical physics that suggests the Big Bang birthed two universes – ours, with time moving forwards, and a ‘mirror universe’ where time flows backwards. As is so often the case, science fiction got there first in trying to imagine what a reversed existence would look like (Philip K. Dick’s Counter-Clock World for instance). At first, it seems a revelatory conceit that turns all of our norms (cause and effect, ageing, eating, procreating etc) on their head and allows us to see them afresh. Yet, it quickly exhausts itself and even when…

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Wevie Stonder

Sure Beats Living

Fifteen years after their last record, the plunderphonic Skam Records still have the capacity to surprise and delight, finds Jon Buckland

Sure Beats Living by Wevie Stonder

Slumped on a post-pub sofa at the turn of the twenty-first century, I flicked on the TV and promptly set about recovering my jaw from its new place of residence on the floor. I had tuned into the inaugural episode of Chris Morris’ Jam which, if you haven’t had the pleasure, is about as pitch black as humour can get without being a great hoovering void roaring right back into your face.

Before Jam, there was Blue Jam. A radio show of woozy electronics, surreal monologues, and cut-up snippets of sound designed to…

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