We’re celebrating 50 editions of Below The Radar, our regular subscriber only compilation of experimental underground music. Volume 50 is a bumper edition, featuring tracks by by Blood of Aza, Ponyclub Tartiflette, Female Wizard, Tanat Teeradakorn, and many more. www.thewire.co.uk/audio/btr/

in a stunning victory, Donald Trump has forced the Iranian government to profit tens of billions of dollars a year against their will

Below The Radar 50! Print & digital subscribers of The Wire can now stream and download the latest bumper edition of Below The Radar - our regular subscriber compilation of underground music, featuring 27 tracks, by ans m, E The Artist, and many more. www.thewire.co.uk/audio/btr/be...

Loved this film! Not especially original but a fun extension of the Cheech & Chong/Harold & Kumar lineage.

Such terrific songwriting on this album. Credit to bassist Owen Biddles for his production too, full of ear-ticking detail. Love the distinctive blend of Difford & Tilbrook’s voices on this track.

“People who don’t find farts funny will find less happiness in their lives but still the same amount of farts”

Sickened by how many people think it's funny that Netflix has a show called Detective Hole

Fuuuuuuuck can we please stop TALKING about this guy

Shout out to anyone chuntering today.

Recent entities

For @bandcamp.com, I wrote about Cluster (and Kluster and Harmonia and Brian Eno). daily.bandcamp.com/lists/cluste...

it would be cool if any one place people congregate online wasn't heinously evil and psychically poisonous and also broken

my big take about the last week of discourse is I've found just about everyone annoying, including myself. This isn't good for us as individuals and it isn't good for any hope building a popular front. Whatever the solution winds up being, micro-blogging won't save us.

I keep seeing "all authors use AI, the real issue is they're being forced to be sneaky about it" headlines. Full stop No. This is a lie peddled for normalization. It's schoolyard-level pressure tactics "C'mon, all the cool kids are already doing it. We won't tell. It's fine. We're on your side."

AI is utterly tainted, at this stage in the game it's just bad PR to mention it. It's like trying to sell sausage by making the advert all about grinding up pigs.

I maintain that Perverse was ahead of its time (nu rave was basically a reheat of what JJ were aiming for but without the songwriting smarts) and unfairly maligned on release.

As others have said... if you say, "well, I don't use generative AI to write, just as a collaborative editor," you just aren't qualified to be a writer. You're also just plain foolish given that editing like writing is a creative act and one that requires the full concentration of the human brain.

a cool thing about "cd's" is you push one button and it plays an entire album of music ad free and then (unless you request otherwise) it just stops and awaits further instruction. a very elegant system.

around highways

The consequences of "spite" candy! (Art from The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954: Vol. 2 by Charles M. Schulz) https://ow.ly/mp9550YCIaI

As ever, there are fools who want to ride the next wave, any wave, even one made of garbage, and will project fallacies as fact to help them do it.

#np Let There Be Doom 2003 by Various Artists (Southern Lord)

Never buying any book by this fucking clown. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Listen back to last night's edition of The Wire's weekly radio show on Resonance FM and Resonance Extra, which was hosted by Chris Bohn and featured tracks by badbluebirdz, Lao Dan Chicago Quartet, Albert Ayler Quintet, Bettina Koster and more www.thewire.co.uk/audio/on-air...

The introduction of yer actual human characters feels… distracting. But I’m still interested.

Fuck YES I love this show.

I wrote a guide to Henry Kaiser, guitarist. erickbradshaw.substack.com/p/a-bakers-d...

Tonight I intend to watch Shin Ultraman which I hope to be slightly shorter and less uhhhh “meetings based” than Shin Godzilla.

Stream a selection of tracks from releases we listened to during the making of our May 2026 issue www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks...

Enjoyed all the singles from o/i so far. Suspect I might prefer the complete album to i/o but we’ll see.

Tonight on Resonance FM & Resonance Extra, Chris Bohn hosts Adventures In Sound And Music, playing tracks by Albert Ayler Quintet, Black Nile, and Lucy Liyou (pictured) + a special tribute to Mania D/Malaria!’s singer/saxophonist, Bettina Koester. Tune in from 9pm BST extra.resonance.fm/schedule

pines, double ramp, new york, 1978

The least interesting aspect of the film?!? Ugh.

I wrote a book — and I didn't use AI! I just love weirdo, low-budget horror movies and I love video stores, so I did a crap-load of research about them and then I wrote about them. The book is called HAND-HELD HELL. It's now back in print from @terrorvisionvids.bsky.social!

Hey, did you know the new issue of @thewiremagazine.bsky.social is out today? There's a cover story on Sunn O))) that's definitely worth reading, and I wrote a feature on bassist Jaîr-Rohm Parker Wells and reviewed albums by Harriet Tubman, JK Flesh, Dark Sky Burial and Tomos Williams.

Having a sucky week like me? Dive into the new @thewiremagazine.bsky.social for comfort! I reviewed 🔥 new albums by dälek (@ipecac.com), Darsombra, Squarepusher and Gnod (@rocketrecordings.bsky.social), as well as Alexander Hacke's autobiography and the 2026 edition of Ljubljana's MENT festival.

Stunning looking new @thewiremagazine.bsky.social out! Inside I reviewed a new BEAM SPLITTER album and a couple of concerts involving the brilliant Emilie Škrijelj & Tom Malmendier. And! Interview with Delphine Dora by @miloshroch.bsky.social I’m excited to read. And! the mighty SUNN 0)))!!!!

Mighty Sunn O))) hailing from the freshly printed Wire. I wrote a piece on otherworldly Delphine Dora, a French composer and pianist with a labyrinthine catalogue of dreamworks. As always, you can find more exciting stuff inside, including Irmin Schmidt taking the Invisible Jukebox test. Go dig!

THAT COVER

I wrote the Noise, Industrial, and Beyond column this issue.

I think a LOT of people are under the impression that Bluesky was started after Elon bought Twitter and its main purpose was to be a full replacement for Twitter minus Elon. Although that isn't true it did gain the majority of its users that way so it's sort of had to meet them halfway, grudgingly

Dust off those robes, folks!

I’ve become fascinated with the work of Eater’s Andy Blade since hearing his brilliant 2025 solo album Tiny Specks In A Huge Abyss. An unusual songwriter. There’s an interesting archival release of his collaboration with The Damned’s Brian James on the way.

Hello dear reader, My new album, THE CONFUSER is out on July 24 on Tiny Ghost Records. It’s a rockin’ affair, with a few ballads for romantic waltzing & a dystopian psychedelic rant. Guaranteed to float your chimes & ring your boat! Available now for pre-order here: linktr.ee/robynhitchco...

“I Am This Thing” is a commercial for human life (or mine at least) harvested directly from my brain and delivered to your ears, farm-to-table: enjoy! ffm.to/bx57oxq

Issue 507. Out tomorrow. On newsstands from Thursday. www.thewire.co.uk/home/

Prog 473 I love this! It looks like a nineties club flyer for a rave night. The cover has also made me have The Beatles 'Rain' going around my head for the past hour, which is obviously a good thing.

No Kings in Utqiaġvik (Barrow) Alaska!

Yeowell / Hart