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The Quietus

@thequietus.com

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Black Sky Thinking since 2008. Help support independent cultural journalism & get perks by becoming a tQ subscriber here: https://steadyhq.com/thequietus

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The Quietus @thequietus.com · Jul 7

It's here! The Quietus Albums of the Year So Far 2025.

What's at Number One? How many have you heard?

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@normanrecords.com

Quietus Albums of the Year So Far 2025 graphic. Composite image made of several of the top ranking artists.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 21m

"On the cover there's a Jackson Pollock painting, and I thought that was a perfect thing. It really seemed that Pollock was trying to reinvent what painting was, so Ornette was doing a similar thing in a musical sense."

#RonMael of #Sparks on #OrnetteColeman: Free Jazz...

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Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation album cover

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 3h

'Tide Pools functions as an auditory ecosystem, a whole world for the imagination to run rampant and play with for 45 textured minutes, when the tide goes out until gravity pulls you back for your next listen.'

Pulse Emitter - Tide Pools

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Pulse Emitter - Tide Pools album cover. Computer strategy game style top-downwards view illustration of buildings surrounded by water.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 5h

The Cairo trio of Maurice Louca, Sam Shalabi and Alan Bishop leave the maps behind, heading off into an uncharted sonic territory between post-improvisation, contemporary folk and electronica

The Dwarfs of East Agouza - Sasquatch Landslide

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The Dwarfs of East Agouza - Sasquatch Landslide album cover. Image of an industrial power plant with flames across it an a ripped patch, collage style.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 7h

The implacable Ron Mael talks Jeremy Allen through his 13 favourite albums, from fiery free jazz to cutting edge J-pop, via militant hip hop and Bach

#RonMael of #Sparks’ Favourite Albums

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The Quietus @thequietus.com · 9h

'It warns of an impending future, of the age of automation gone horribly wrong. When humans are deemed superfluous, tossed aside, and our new mechanical overlords party all night long to artificially intelligent dance music...'

SickElixir by #Blawan is tQ's Album of the Week

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SickElixir by Blawan album cover. A closely knit group of pigeons with coloured feathers.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 22h

Daryl Worthington heads to Riga in Latvia for the annual Skaņu Mežs festival, at which he's immersed in a bath of "deviant and defiant" music and art

Seven Highlights From Skaņu Mežs 2025

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The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

I think the writer of the piece is quite down on some of Prince's later output. I don't agree with him but then I'm not a huge Prince fan - more someone who recognises he was a total genius but feels a lot of his music isn't for me.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

'Dirty Mind is a reminder that once upon a time, Prince saw music as a boundless, constraint-free orgy of creativity...'

Many Happy Returns to #Prince’s Dirty Mind, which turns 45 today!

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Prince - Dirty Mind album cover. The artist wearing only a jacket, underpants and a bandana around his neck.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

'In the vein of music by composers of the New York School, like Morton Feldman, John Cage, or Christian Wolff, the album also has deep collaboration at its heart, an interest in group dynamics and the ways an ensemble comes together and falls apart'

#MarkFell - Psychic Resynthesis

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Mark Fell - Psychic Resynthesis album cover. A yellow skull bathed on orange, with a number 23 stuck to its forehead.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Tim Burrows steps into the outer reaches of the music scene of his Essex seaside hometown and tries to get back before the tide turns

Organic Intelligence XLIX: Southend (Avant) Rock

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The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on Blue Peter (black and white still).

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

Daniel Dylan Wray argues that the depiction of Steel City life in a little-known 1995 film acts as a "companion and contrast piece" to Pulp's commercial breakthrough, released the same year

How #Sheffield Film Tales From A Hard City set the Scene for #Pulp’s Different Class

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Black and white photograph with three young people in it. One is wearing a baseball cap and a bandana over his mouth.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

They're not even my favourite 40th band... and there are many post-punk bands I prefer. I realise that they're probably the most popular American post-punk band of course. You made me re-read the article... I hope you're pleased with yourself!

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

How patronising ("Bless your heart"). I'm not feeling insulted though, as I didn't write the piece :-) Remain In Light is the only Talking Heads album I like all the way through personally. The others have some great songs but also ones I don't care for at all. I prefer ...Bush of Ghosts though.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

Their fourth album may have been born under punches, and may still raise questions over its authorship for the band’s exceptional rhythm section – but it hangs together perfectly, and it never seems to age.

Many Happy Returns to #TalkingHeads' Remain In Light, which turns 45 today

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Talking Heads - Remain in Light album cover. Four band members with their faces blocked out in red.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 1d

Our Strange World Of #Soulwax article is now accompanied by a curated playlist of essential tracks that define their career

Join the Quietus Subscriber Plus tier for access (to this plus many more perks)

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Soulwax - Leave the Story Untold album cover. a plastered brick wall with some scruffy trainers hanging in the top left corner.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 2d

Beverly Glenn-Copeland is releasing a new album, Laughter In Summer.

Two new singles from the record have been released. You can listen to both here:

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Beverly Glenn-Copeland - Laughter In Summer album cover. The artist's hand picking a pink rose.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 2d

'If Hicks McTaggart does make it back home again, it won’t be to the same America he left, “to a country not yet gone Fascist”. Given the current state of the country, this naturally seems like a comment on the United States today'

#ThomasPynchon’s Shadow Ticket Reviewed

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Thomas Pynchon's Shadow Ticket (Large Print) American cover. A 30s street scene with lettering above.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 2d

'Working instinctively, the duo eschewed guitars altogether on All Systems Are Lying, creating a record that bounces between paranoid synth-rock (‘Gimme A Reason’), glittering disco (‘Run Free’) and the noodling techno-funk of the title track.'

The Strange World Of… #Soulwax

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Soulwax - All Systems Are Lying album cover. A human hand with a butterfly perched on top of it.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 2d

'Richard Ashcroft is as much the Scott Walker of Britpop as David Baddiel is the Spike Milligan of comedy is the new rock ‘n’ roll. You’d think someone who is a million different people from one day to the next would have more than a couple of ideas'

#RichardAshcroft - Lovin’ You

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Richard Ashcroft - Lovin’ You album cover. Photograph of a beach at sunset with Ashcroft silhouetted in the foreground with his arm and guitar raised aloft.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 2d

'If #DutchUncles built their reputation on angular pop exuberance, Richards’ debut long-player re-roots him in a more contemplative, exploratory soil: part electronic meditation, part modern classical suite, part intimate diary.'

Robin Richards - Taproots

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Robin Richards - Taproots album cover. Collage comprised of mosaic like pieces of a green painting.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 2d

The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965, one of #MilesDavis’ most mythical live albums, is getting a new reissue.

The updated release gives a new lease of live to an album that has been out of print for three decades.

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Miles Davis - The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965 reissue. Ten pieces of vinyl and the box they come in.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 2d

"This is a famous wedding song. I wanted the listener to feel that they were in the middle of a celebration with the musicians playing around them and a gathering of people dancing and clapping."

‘Kulun’ from Mulatu Plays Mulatu (2025) - The Strange World of #MulatuAstatke

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Mulatu Plays Mulatu (2025) album cover. A portrait of the artist in the centre of the image with many small black and white drawings in the surrounding margins.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 3d

'Such was the obscurity of French underground music in the UK and USA that when Stapleton listed some of these prizes on his Nurse With Wound list years later, they were widely assumed to be mischievous inventions.'

Michel Faber on Situationism and the French Rock Underground

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Black and white image of French protesters and police from some time in the 1970s.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 3d

Poised to release their first Soulwax album in seven years, Stephen and David Dewaele talk Gemma Samways through their tenure at the forefront of the rock dance crossover.

The Strange World Of… #Soulwax

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Soulwax, portrait by Nadine Fraczkowski. The duo pictured in a night time street.

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 3d

'Ten years on from their acclaimed debut, the Southend-on-Sea post-punk quintet sound spookier than ever. While not exactly demonstrating a great deal of innovation, Mountain View is still a spectacularly enjoyable album to spend time with.'

The Plan - Mountain View

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The Plan - Mountain View album cover. A colourful naive painting of a mountain view scene.