A sound like a tiger, thrashing in the water.

Just got my beautiful tape deck fixed… Fela, Fall, Duma, Heads, Bulbils, Shit & Shine celebration.

Hen Ogledd talk us through musical influences on astounding new album Discombobulated (the results are compiled into a playlist exclusively for tQ Subscriber Plus tier members) Guest Playlist: Hen Ogledd buff.ly/GlYRqdn

Just suddenly remembered that this is my favourite Jesus & Mary Chain song for some reason... youtu.be/ZX1xIcUsCXk?...

There's too much ambient music. Things would improve if ambient musicians had to produce a symphonic power metal LP, a Carnatic grindcore ballet or a jazz fusion opera in F# Phrygian once every 5 years, just to show they can (cf The Straight Story) before being allowed to fire up the reverb again.

For The Guardian, I’ve written about how I missed the human romance amidst the topographical in the music of Einstürzende Neubauten (also features @jahduran.bsky.social on Wolf Eyes’ Stabbed In The Face, the special song he shares with his partner Maria 🖤) www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

Good afternoon new and old romantics... Did I ever tell you about how 'our song' (for my gf & I) is 'Stabbed in the Face' by Wolf Eyes? Well here I am in the Guardian, holding forth... www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

HOLLA!

[to the tune of Hava Nagila] vauxhall agila vauxhall agila vauxhall agila your grandma'a car

'Not since the beamed-in provocations of early Devo had a band mapped the psychic rot of the suburbs with such forensic, scorched-earth focus.' Reissue of the Week: Sex Mad by Nomeansno buff.ly/9TZokPB

Anyway- subscribe to The Quietus. It’s a jewel in our cultural landscape. thequietus.com/subscribers/

Hugely enjoyable early morning due to waking up to a new Quietus podcast from @jahduran.bsky.social and @luketurner.bsky.social rambling on about Missy Elliot. Makes a change from all the Cold War audiobooks I’m listening to at the moment.

This is modulating the cut off resonance of my filter tbh.

Reform politicians are happy to throw insults from a distance. But when it comes to debating their ideas? No show. Richard Tice pulled out. Farage won’t face me. Now their candidate in Gorton & Denton has ducked our candidate Hannah Spencer. Vote Green.

Consider this for a moment ; Bez Streeting

Really interesting piece here from John Quin examining the extreme toxicity of a film that a lot of men – myself included, for full disclosure – love or have loved watching.

One of the things I adore about metal culture (and have written about) is stumbling across things like this, where it's almost impossible to know whether this is serious or a joke, intentional or naive, brilliant or terrible. I don't think I will ever get tired of it. youtu.be/5515PpSyLFc?...

Kelman powerhouse and well-dressed Quietus writer (are there any other kind?) Wayne Gooderham takes to the stage...

As the death toll in Iran reaches unimaginable proportions it's important that the anti-imperialist hard left not be allowed to hijack protests. We speak to Iranian artists and musicians about their experiences thanks to the dictatorship. thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

'Throughout the project was an idea of 'retracing the journey of the banjo from West Africa to the plantation in the Caribbean, to the American South.' "It feels really significant to re-establish the connection to that instrument and where it comes from." Folk Music for Winter buff.ly/faSJA4o

Little happy face. Base Notes paperback has landed in the office. It’s out in the shops this week. Published by @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social. Signed / dedicated copies are now available to order @forumbooks.bsky.social Over and out x www.forumbooksshop.com/product/base...

I absolutely love this record shop, so it was a pleasure to present the MAXIMUM POWER of THE SWORD versus THE WIZARD on the Quietus today. Dare ye enter the crypt?

Neu Xylitol! thequietus.com/news/xylitol...

Featuring the likes of MPTL Microplastics, Dry Cleaning, The Soft Pink Truth, Craven Faults, Qasu, Peaches, Jane Weaver, Zu, Sleaford Mods, Lightning Bolt, Megadeth, Thundercat, Bruce Springsteen, Robyn and Shackleton... The January Subscriber Playlist is Here! buff.ly/IRzXbJV

Just bought this book on vibes… which, after recommendations here and f2f, remains as good a system any. Straight to the top of my ’will read after handing in the MS of my own book’ pile. @stuhennigan.bsky.social

That Leonard Cohen T-shirt but it says: "Jello Biafra Was Right" on it.

Following the Orkney Library & Archive in the hope they one day depict 'We Didn't Start The Fire' in its entirety via book covers.

I saw the rain dirty valley you saw Brigadoon I saw the croissant you saw the whole of Sassoon #NationalCroissantDay

My new book Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers, and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984-94 is out in June on @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social . It's a love letter to the music of my youth and a flashback to the most exciting time of my writing life. Pre-order geni.us/StillInADream

Alice Coltrane's PTAH, THE EL DAOUD (Impulse, 1970) in an episode of M*A*S*H

I 😍 the music of Toumani Diabaté and this introduction to his (mainly vocal-free) work is top notch.

Mordor she wrote #LibraryShelfieDay

With music venues in crisis, does celebrating them as places where bands appeared on the way to fame overshadow their true purpose as the places in which music is played for the sake of communal joy? #ThePortal: Independent Venue Week in the UK buff.ly/RiFvoRS

Remembering Sly Dunbar, the drummer who helped steer reggae and worked globally with everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Grace Jones. Words by @wrongtom.bsky.social thequietus.com/news/remembe...

Back once again with some renegade plaster. I'm DJing for TOTS at one of the last ever gigs at Corsica. YES.

This piece is just fabulous. Kudos to @thelineofbestfit.com & Sophie Leigh Walker. If you're an authentic Northern-born prole you can feel your hackles rising at the description of housing as being like bad teeth, but speaking as someone who lived in DeGray Street LOL, fair play...

Recently I asked Drew Daniel of Matmos /Soft Pink Truth to consider a question: what good is making music while the world slides inexorably into disaster. In response he wrote an essay for tQ that should be of great interest to anyone creating art in the face of global events. 🔗in🧵...

For everyone who asked where the MPTL Microplastics album was: here it is… a print called Sod In Heaven (with dl code)

This is the last call for the "Ah, but…" people. Applications will be closing soon www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

MPTL Microplastics absolutely slayed last night, formidable support from ‘John Shuttleworth’s Ween’ Daltons Fen but massive props to awesome DREAM SLUGS! I am Team Slugs! No photos at gigs so here’s a picture of a pomegranate looking real fukken sexy.

This is fantastic; best ’new’ novel I’ve read in a long while. An atemporal, partially interlacing cosmic pattern created from vignettes relating to disparate people living in an obscure lower Silesian town, an easily-worn philosophy and dream diary which is staggeringly poetic. (One can only… 1/2

MPTL Microplastics, Daltons Fen, Doom Club, Ellis Berwick, Melanie Moof and yrs truly at the Windmill Brixton tonight... all for the price of a fancy pint! See you there! thequietus.com/news/mptl-mi...

Dispassionately, this is a great film.

'The idea of decadence is at the heart of Station to Station. It’s a pre-punk album, not just chronologically, but in recognising the hollow, bloated state of the rock aristocracy of which Bowie was a part' David Bowie's Station To Station turns 50 today! buff.ly/2ce2c6W

It's Robert E Howard's celestial / hyperborean birthday today... 120 years young! Here's the mighty Stewart Lee, paying tribute to Howard's finest creation: Conan the Existentialist. thequietus.com/culture/book...

But the stakes are rising. With rumours of a Westminster by-election in Gorton and local by-elections already happening, we need to be ready. Please help us raise £10,000 by next Friday to fund organisers, materials and rapid response in key areas. secure.hopenothate.org.uk/page/184951/...