The Quietus Radio

Opening Season 2 of gear-talk podcast Nuts And Bolts, improviser and sound artist Andrea Parkins chats with host Jessica Sligter about synths, pre- and post-sampler life, glitchy Goldberg machines, and more.

Andrea Parkins has traded New York for Europe, and is an established part of the improvised music scene on both ends of the ocean. With a background not only in improvised music but also art school, Parkins also makes installations and compositions. A force of nature, combining performance, technology and traditional instruments seamlessly.

Nuts And Bolts is hosted and made by Jessica Sligter, co-produced by Anne Gerd Grimsby Haarr, with soundtechnical advice by Bridget Ferrill. This episode was supported by NOPA and FoFoGoFo.

Photography by Mark Poucher 

Welcome to The Best Of Times podcast brought you by Lush and The Quietus. The Best Of Times is a new podcast show presented by writer and broadcaster John Doran and over the coming months he will be talking to people about some of the best and worst times they have been through, and in the process, find out how these experiences have made them who they are today. The podcast is produced and engineered by Andrew Paine and co-produced by Matthew Shaw. The theme music is by Oh The Gilt.

EPISODE ONE: The Best Of Times… with Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods

Jason is one half of the electronic punk band Sleaford Mods, along with Andrew Fearn. He started making this inimitable brand of music in 2007, which felt like it was just in time for the banking crisis and the band went on to capture the zeitgeist as it exists at street level. Sleaford Mods have become the true poet laureates of broken, austerity, Brexit Britain. They are just about to release their 11th album, Eaton Alive.

Neil Tennant joins Michael Bracewell at EartH in Dalston to discuss his new collection of lyrics, ‘One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem’, in front of a sold-out audience.

In a wide-ranging conversation they discuss the lyrics that made Pet Shop Boys one of the most successful pop groups in British musical history, with over 50 million records sold over a 13 album and 30 year career. The conversation ranges from the personal to the political as it includes the terrible impact of the AIDS crisis, what makes good pop music, the inspiration gleaned from the former Soviet bloc, and the songs Tennant is most proud of. One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem is out now on Faber.

For the last episode of Season 1 of Nuts And Bolts, our podcast dedicated to female* musicans and their gear, Norwegian artist Susanna talks to host Jessica Sligter about recording, doing it yourself, and more.

Something of an institution in her homeland of Norway, American songwriter Bonnie Prince Billy recently covered Susanna’s entire 2007 album Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos, released as Wolf Of The Cosmos. Susanna’s work is focused, elegant and gloomy, as her most recent releases, Go Dig My Grave and Triangle, confirm again.

Nuts And Bolts is hosted and made by Jessica Sligter, and co-produced by Anne Gerd Grimsby Haarr and Susanne Christensen.

Gear-talk podcast Nuts And Bolts is back with a third episode, where host Jessica Sligter meets with sound artist and improviser Danishta Rivero from Oakland, California. From Venezuelan folk to metal, Rivero’s work brings her gear and her voice together in a visceral, noisy expression, in bands like Las Sucias! and VoiceHandler. This episode of Nuts And Bolts doesn’t play – be ready to get exposed to the bear bones of sound and synthesis!

Nuts And Bolts is created, hosted, edited and mixed by Jessica Sligter, co-produced by Anne Gerd Grimsby Haarr and Susanne Christensen. Technical advice by Ragnhild Nelvik Bruseth. Nuts And Bolts is supported by the Norwegian Arts Council.

More excellent new music and passable chat with Luke and John.

Nuts And Bolts’ Jessica Sligter meets with bass-player and poet Guro Skumsnes Moe, Octobass player and frontperson of the band MoE.

Nuts and Bolts is a show produced externally by Jessica Sligter and will expose the gear-secrets of some of your favourite female* artists. The first episode features Jessica talking to Jenny Hval. Produced with funding from the Norwegian Arts Council.

This week the Quietus Hour brings you news that we’re going to be launching a whole host of new programmes that you’ll be able to listen to on our Mixcloud page, and subscribe to via iTunes. Alongside information on Hyperspecific, Anna’s Alphabet and Nuts & Bolts, the Quietus Hour this week features the best new music and passable chat from your hosts John Doran and Luke Turner. We’ve brand-new, some barely-heard music from Apostille, Mouse On Mars, Pregoblin, Jockstrap, Miss Red, FLAME 1 aka The Bug vs Burial and an exclusive fifteen minute monster by GNOD. Also on the show are Black Eyed Peas and Janelle Monae PLUS the real reason why the NME went down as a print publication and advice on how best to deal with your trousers.

With Luke and John away, The Quietus Hour is taken over by Louise Brown talking to Rob Halford from Judas Priest about their upcoming tour and the announcement of Glenn Tipton semi-retiring from the band.

Today’s guest on this very special edition of The Quietus Hour is Matt Johnson of The The. John Doran, Mighty Seb White and Al Overdrive set up office for the afternoon round at his London gaff and, over a very nice cup of white tea, we put the world to rights.

While listening to tracks from the Radio Cineola: Trilogy box set Matt talks about his uneasy relationship with celebrity, working with Johnny Marr, the new The The album he’s just started writing and how he feels about taking his group back to the Royal Albert Hall. We were joined unexpectedly by the Los Angeles based poet John Tottenham and found time to ask Matt a lot of your questions.

For the first time since the Inaugural Day Of Radio, Luke Turner and John Doran are reunited once more on the radio – together in scleretic dreams, both attending the non-stop neurotic cabaret, in tune with the OCD Soundsystem etc. – bound by the adhesive of passable chat and excellent new music. The Mighty Seb White has concocted a fiendish new segment from the show – The Chorus Interuptus – where he plays our hapless hosts snippets from CDs plucked from tQ’s postbag… without telling them who the artists are. On the chat roulette wheel this week – does John’s new beard make him look like Noel Edmunds and we say a tearful goodbye to Wild Beasts? Music this week comes from Kelela, Electric Wizard, Zimpel/Ziolek, Wild Beasts, Saz’iso, Snapped Ankles, James Holden and P!OFF

Friend of the Quietus Hannah Peel pops into tQHQ for a cup of tea and a chat about Barnsely-based cosmic explorer Mary Casio, the challenges of combining brass with synths and chooses all of today’s records inspired by the Cassini Probe’s death dive into the atmosphere of Saturn. With music by Jo Meek and The Blue Men, Moondog, Hawkwind, Cluster, OMD, Avro Pärt, Edward Artemiev, Tontos Expanding Head Band, plus a track from her new album.

Pinch punch – the first of the month… Last Friday was the start of September, and John and Luke were joined in tQHQ by Barry The Barber and Todd The Dog.

Abandoning their usual tack of bringing you the best in new music, they picked a selection of ABCs (anthems, bangers, classics) which remind them of the history of the site. During the show John also had his haircut (but thankfully not like Phil Oakey) by Barry The Barber and the music came from Hey Colossus, Blacknecks, Erasure, LCD Soundsystem, The Ex, Gazelle Twin, Destroyer, NOMEANSNO, Kelala, Turbonegro, The Chromatics, Double S & Wiley, some madness to do with rollercoasters that Seb chose, Ibibio Sound Machine, Gravenhurst and of course The Fall.

This show was just one of many on (what will hopefully be) the inaugural Quietus Day Of Radio. Thanks to everyone who was part of this 12 hour epic – especially Seb and Iain… we spent the whole period celebrating the best in underground, DIY and global music. We were also joined by Saul of Fat White Family, Nadine Shah, Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi and the Last Skeptic, it’s no surprise we ended up trending on Twitter. And that’s before we get to the mind expanding exploration of Japanese psych and foghorns by Jennifer Lucy-Allan; a trip round the extreme metal fringes of India with Pavan & Pravin Mukhi (aka Foreign Beggars); Ruth Barnes (The Other Woman) and Piney Gir playing indie, folk and exotica; the heroic and inimitable Lone Taxidermist, not to mention appearances from all the Quietus staffers.

So even though it was the site’s ninth birthday on Friday you might be forgiven for wondering why our celebratory mood has been tempered with anxiety – like Edvard Munch’s The Scream in a party hat. This is because we’re currently unlikely to make our tenth birthday – or even the end of the year – without some financial assistance from you, dear reader – and apologies if you’ve already read this once this week but it really bears repeating – we’re facing closure.

I have to say that I think it’s absolutely crazy given we are Europe’s biggest, fully independent music and culture website, reaching an annual audience of millions all over the globe, with a constant supply of high quality articles and content by some of the best writers in the game, and yet again this month we’ll be having a whip round, reaching down the back of the sofa, taking the hammer to the piggy bank, emptying the penny jar and selling the prized vinyl on Discogs, just so we can make the rent.

Because online magazines tend to be overly reliant on banner advertising (something we’re working on a solution to behind the scenes) and we’re not venture capital/ rich parent/ tax loss funded, we are being absolutely hammered by the recent catastrophic 90% drop off in online ad spend – not to mention the all-too-predictable chicanery by monolithic money hoovering digital monopolies such as Google and Facebook, which has amounted to an arsenic cherry on the cyanide birthday cake this year.

If it helps you to visualise the problem, imagine an egg that a seven year old has painted the face of Jarvis Cocker onto. Now that you have conjured this image into being, picture a cyberman on shore leave pissed up at last orders. Now picture the cyberman – with a semi on and a heart full of hatred – punching the Jarvis egg with all of his terrible might. Do you see the problem?

Now, undoubtedly, there will be some among you who cry: “Why should we care? What good are music magazines in this day and age when everything’s already online?” This is a completely fair point, to which I have a simple response: “Have you found any music via the Quietus over the last 12 months?” And if the answer is yes, just give us a fiver if you can afford it (please don’t give us money if you’re from a low income family, still at school, a struggling student, on benefits, or an elderly person burning books to stay warm – all we ask from you is that you just keep on reading the site and telling your mates about us) and then, karma willing, we’ll be around to bring you more incredible music next year.

Sisters and brothers – the belligerent cyberman of digital media destruction (with his tumescent, spiky, flame-throwing, rust-encrusted cyberpenis of woe) is bearing down on us with flailing fists and eyes full of hatred, threatening to bash us permanently into the fizzing void and you are our only hope. Currently only you can stop humpty Jarvis Cocker being punched into street omelette by a bright silver bastard stinking of Stella and frothing at the perfectly rectangular mouth while his mates shout, “Leave it Brian – he’s not worth it.” Please donate the cost of a pint/ glass of wine/ fancy sandwich to keep us going for another month. And if you’re rich, give us more.

Keep on watching this slot – we have more shows going up this week. Tell your mates. Tell your nan.

John Doran, tQ (Editorial) Editor

Over the past few weeks The Quietus has been lucky enough to see Liars play live three times, at the Visions Festival, Green Man and last night at Rough Trade East, where Angus Andrew and his new bandmates managed to conjure a special energy that transported us somewhere weird of their own making – it was as if we weren’t in a shop.

After 15 years of operation the new Liars album TFCF is the first Andrew has made on his own, and it stands out as one of the finest in a remarkable set that few of their peers have come close to. On this week’s Quietus Hour, Angus Andrew speaks to Luke Turner about 10 tracks that shaped the record, and gives insights into its creation out in a remote part of the Australian bush. He discusses how the sound of nature made it into every track on TFCF, the move from LA to his homeland, the separation from Aaron Hemphill… and why he’s taken to wearing a wedding dress onstage.

Subscribe to The Quietus Hour podcast here for all our past episodes including specials with the likes of Thurston Moore, Shirley Collins, Cosey Fanni Tutti, John Lydon, Gary Numan and more. Liars return to the UK this autumn including a date at Heaven in London on October 27th and Newcastle’s Boiler Shop on October 29th.

With John and Luke both preoccupied with their radio show, it once again befell staff writer Paddy Clarke to take up the Quietus Hour mantel for our coverage of this year’s Green Man Festival.

Our resident festival-goer reports from a wet but glorious weekend in the Brecon Beacons, spent in the finest of company. There’s also a perfect plethora of music from the weekend’s best performers, including Shirley Collins, PJ Harvey, Grumbling Fur, British Sea Power, Madonnatron, Richard Dawson, Liars and more.

Diolch yn fawr gwyrdd!

Our guest this week is none other than Mr James Endeacott who claims his CV contains one thing and one thing only – that he is very good at running round being James Endeacott. More impartial observers might say that actually, on top of this no doubt very valuable skill, he was also an original member of Loop, worked at Rough Trade, set up 1965 records, A&R’d the Strokes and The Libertines (settle down at the back there) and, last but not least, is an all-round good person and friend of this website. As always on The Quietus Hour Special, the guest chooses all of the music and this time the sonic treats come from Japan, Soft Cell, David Bowie, The Outcasts, Leonard Cohen, Don Cherry, The Mode, The Flatworms and Zor Beyler. The chat comes quick and fast regarding Bowie-related near death experiences in Northern pubs and why anyone with any sense should really hate the music business (but also, at the end of the day, not hate it as well). WARNING: may contain traces of middle aged men getting emotional about Marc Almond.

Thanks as always to producer Mighty Seb White and Todd The Dog.

John Doran had such a great time at this year’s Supernormal Festival held at Brazier’s Park, Oxfordshire, (reflecting similarly good times at Supersonic, Fat Out and Milhoes de Festa earlier this year) that he felt he had to “quack on about it” on air with partner in crime, Luke Turner as the basis of this week’s Quietus Hour. Not content with simply saying, ‘I had a very nice goat curry and watched Aggressive Perfector play to ten people’, he has instead insisted on summoning up a spurious and ill-defined concept: New Weird Britain. But there lies the fun. What does New Weird Britain mean? Where are the boundaries? What genres does it include? Do you have any suggestions dear reader/ listener/ viewer? New weird British musical treats come from Cattle, Perc, Tweedle, Aja Ireland, Roger Robinson, Lone Taxidermist, Valve, Total Leatherette, Kemper Norton, UKAEA and Teleplasmiste. Thanks to Mighty Seb White the producer and Todd The Dog.

Today’s guest on The Quietus Hour episode 45 is none other than, long time favourite of the website, Mr Gary Numan. Currently back in Europe for a UK tour, he took time out to drop into tQHQ to play us some of his favourite records (not to mention some of his own tracks) and discuss his 22nd album – Savage: Songs From A Broken World. In a long and frank chat he talked to tQ editor, John Doran about his long planned sci-fi novel, how he wants his kids to follow in his footsteps, the differences (and similarities) between heavy drug use and piloting stunt planes and what he shares in common with Tupac Shakur.

Back once again like renegade plasterers, John and Luke are reunited on the wireless in the white hot cauldron of torpor, ennui and vague anxiety that is The Quietus Hour. The dynamic duo fall even further down a wormhole of implausible chat with subjects including why Mods are no good at fighting with pirates at sea, producer Seb’s convincing impression of Ayrton Senna when he’s behind the wheel, our best Persuader to date, the return of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and the latest updates on Barry The Barber, before asking, ‘Where have all the negative reviews gone?’ All of today’s music is drawn from the length and breadth of our recent Albums Of The Year So Far chart including bangers from Bargou08, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Endon, Richard Dawson, SZA, Harriet Brown, Algiers and British Sea Power.

This week we’re chuffed to welcome Cosey Fanni Tutti down from rural Norfolk to our exhaust-basted urban HQ for the latest special edition of The Quietus Hour. Luke Turner recently worked with Cosey curating live events around the COUM Transmissions exhibition at Hull City Of Culture, and today he picks up the threads to talk about both that and the reception to her recently-published memoir ‘Art Sex Music’.

Nine songs chosen by Cosey (taking in The Small Faces, Nico and the Velvet Underground to Leonard Cohen and Imogen Heap to Gazelle Twin) chart her life through hazy days in 1960s Hull via Throbbing Gristle and Chris and Cosey to the present as we chat about, well, art, sex and music.

For some reason Glastonbury Festival have given The Quietus a press pass. John and Luke are too old for it now, so we’ve sent staff writer Patrick Clarke to go for us.

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Listen to this show with full songs, and all other shows on our radio page: http://radio.thequietus.com

On a record-breakingly hot day Daniel O’Sullivan popped into tQHQ with what he describes as “musical air-conditioning” – nine terrific pieces of music to fan the breeze of righteousness over body & soul. As our regular readers will well know, Daniel is half of our long-time favourites Grumbling Fur, part of Ulver, Æthenor and Laniakea, and currently at the heart of This Is Not This Heat. Despite all that he’s found time to release a solo album of mind-vibration pop music, Veld.

As ever with O’Sullivan’s work the music takes its power from a tricksy refusal to be pinned down – something very much seen in the nine songs he brought in to play here. They stretch from Gaelic meditations on death to Duke Ellington and the fuzzed euphoria of Lungfish, This Heat’s ‘Cenotaph’ and the too-overlooked Judee Sill. Tune in for all of that plus conversation on inspiration, spirituality and his various musical projects. Thanks to Kathryn de la Rosa for production duties.

They exist all around the United Kingdom, clinging on to the edges of our towns and cities like limpets. Made up of intricate streets, short culdesacs, pedestrian alleyways, and detached houses dotted around patches of green, they have names like Jersey Farm and Bowthorpe, and millions of us live in them. But these housing estates, constructed largely with private finance over the past 20 or so years, are not discussed or explored in the same way that you might find with the endless rows of the suburbs built in the 1930s, or post-war brutalist estates. Until now, that is. William Doyle (FKA East India Youth) has been developing Your Wilderness Revisited, a multimedia art project looking at these little-recognised places in our landscape. Doyle came on to The Quietus Hour to discuss the project and play some music from it, alongside some of the music that inspired him, from Pet Shop Boys to Ray Charles via Laurel Halo and Perc to Pete Seeger.

We’ve got Tim Burgess along for a Quietus Hour Special this week, The Charlatans frontman heading in to a very warm tQHQ to discuss his band’s new album Different Days and play some of his current favourite music. Tune in for chat about the new Charlatans record, what Tim thinks of the new Twin Peaks, why Sleaford Mods are ace and his love of the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Beaver & Krause, Factory Floor, Frank Ocean and The Fall. And if you’ve ever wondered who makes the best cup of tea out of Johnny Marr and Paul Weller, then wonder no more. Remember that for all The Quietus Hour specials, featuring the likes of Shirley Collins, John Lydon, Regis, Stewart Lee and Warren Ellis all you need to do is subscribe to our iTunes podcast. Special thanks as ever to producer Seb White and Kathryn De La Rosa.

John Doran and Luke Turner are back with unsolicited “medical advice,” wedding blather, and talk of the evolution of drummers’ physiques. They also play some of their favourite new music from Circle, Pasteur Lappe, Nadine Shah, Gnod, MXLX, Madonnatron and Re-TROS. Producer Seb White makes a song choice and an oratorically majestic on air appearance in our new segment The White Stuff. This episode also sees the return of Persuader, whose hotline you can call at 020 33 93 63 95.

On this week’s Quietus Hour Special it’s Luke Turner’s great pleasure to take the hirsute and sharp Bad Seeds violinist, multi-instrumentalist and arranger down into a dark and concrete Soho basement for a chat about Nick Cave & his band’s life and work. This week The Bad Seeds release Lovely Creatures, a new career-spanning anthology of classics and lesser-known tracks, and we take Warren through a choice selection of songs. Starting with the time that Ellis managed to miss seeing the Birthday Party’s final tour because he fell asleep pissed outside the gig, we discuss Ellis’ gradual progression from fan through his joining in the mid-1990s right up until the present day via Grinderman and his soundtrack work – discover how a pair of shorts made from flour bags and an early cheeky musical suggestion to Nick Cave cemented his position in one of our very favourite bands. Subscribe to The Quietus Hour podcast here. Thanks to our producer Seb White, The Social for the use of their basement bar and Natalie Quesnel for sorting it all out.

Today’s Quietus Hour Special is brought to you by John Doran who has the pleasure of talking to Thurston Moore. The rock musician, free improviser, serial collaborator, independent publisher, poet and righteous dude met up with us in Ladbroke Grove to talk about his great new solo album Rock N Roll Consciousness, Buddhism, noise cassettes, near death experiences in Stockholm and hanging out with My Bloody Valentine and the Mary Chain in the 1980s. Thurston has chosen all of the music for the show, including deep cuts from Boredoms, Trash Kit, Menstruation Sisters, Sick Llama, Ela Orleans, Bridget Hayden, Bruce Russell, 16 Bitch Pile Up and Lasse Marhaug. Thanks, as always to the Mighty Seb White and the good folk at Caroline International for providing the studio.

Last month, The Quietus travelled to Hull for the final weekend of events that we programmed with Cosey Fanni Tutti and Cabinet Gallery to run alongside the COUM Transmissions retrospective at the Humber Street Gallery. Anthony Child AKA Tony Surgeon played a vivid soundtrack to a recontextualised and edited version of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls and Carter Tutti Void closed things beautifully with one of their most intense and perfect sets. Earlier in the day we set up a temporary Quietus Hour Studio in the gallery café to produce a special edition of our wireless programme and podcast devoted to COUM and its legacy. Tune into the show to hear to Luke and John speak to Cosey, Hull City Of Culture’s Sam Hunt and Sophie Coletta about the exhibition, as well as some passable chat on JDo’s former Hull home, including Dead Bod the infamous graffiti seagull. As Todd the dog barks in the background we play music from the COUM diaspora, including Throbbing Gristle, Chris & Cosey, Coil, Carter Tutti Void and Psychic TV. Thanks to our producer Seb White and all at Hull City Of Culture 2017. Subscribe to The Quietus Hour Podcast on iTunes here.

John was joined in at Quietus HQ by poet, author, musician and dapper gent about town Mr Roger Robinson for our latest radio show and podcast. Roger chose some wicked music ranging from the most skeletal and rattling of dub to some absolutely whacked out psychedelic folk via Sleaford Mods and John Martyn. The pair talked at length about best practices when it comes to writing, why it’s important to defend your turkey to the death, bare knuckle boxing in restaurants in South London and the joys/perils of visiting “the bat cave”. And if you do absolutely nothing else today make sure you make time to listen to Roger Reading his piece ‘6 Dan’, which kicks off at about 22 minutes…

Continuing in our series of having extra-special guests to co-host our weekly podcast/ radio show/ Facebook Live cast/ omni-directional brain dump, this week John Doran is joined by none-other than Mr John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. On the release of his limited edition box set of collected lyrics, Mr Rotten’s Songbook, we joined him on the balcony of his Chelsea Harbour hotel to talk about taking a holiday in Berlin with the Pistols where he heard the first stirrings of techno and the more personal and traumatic nature of PiL. On top of this, the pair talked about the music he has made with Time Zone and Leftfield, while Lydon holds court about his relationship with his mum and dad, how he will miss the Queen when she’s gone, the idea of Calexit, why it’s time for Arsene Wenger to take an extended holiday in the sun and why he still hates his teachers.

A combination of consumptive illness, the psychedelic mania brought on by a zero carb diet and a case of the giddy aunts triggered by the reappearance of the sun means that Luke Turner and John Doran’s chat is even less passable and coherent than normal. Their gibbering careens through a bizarre landscape populated by the mad black magic monks of Tilburg, why a turd in an icecream cone is not necessarily art and the bum dungeon/underlit dancefloor split… the finest of all the splits. They also ask the question that everyone’s been thinking but not dared voice: which music magazine has the hardest writers. Thankfully the show features great new music by the likes of Jane Weaver, Darren Hayman, Cairo Liberation Front ft. Al Lover, Fixmer/McCarthy, Desperate Journalist, Oxbow, Umoja and the Magnetic Fields. We were also blessed by the diva-like panting of Todd The Dog. (With apologies to everyone John insulted because he was carb-deprived and thanks to producer Mighty Seb White.)

We hope you’ll forgive us for neglecting the airwaves for a while – science might say that you can’t pass germs through technology, but we’d not have wanted to put you at risk from whatever vulgar little virus it was that knocked John and Luke sideways for weeks. In The Quietus Hour episode 31 we’ll make up for our absence with some of our favourite music including Spoek Mathambo, Jane Weaver, HMLTD, Sleaford Mods and $hit & $hine, not to mention a world exclusive by Father John Misty plus a look back at this weekend’s celebrations of the 60th birthday of Mark E Smith. We also cast a gimlet eye over the pressing news issues of the day and ask have you seen anything weirder in 2017 than a pig having sex with a tree?

Today’s guest on this special edition of The Quietus Hour podcast is writer David Keenan.

David has been, at various times, an independent record label boss, a contributor to The Wire and Melody Maker, the author of England’s Hidden Reverse, a musician, a record store owner and a published poet. Well, he can now add novelist to the list, as this week sees the publication of his debut for Faber, This Is Memorial Device.

It is a singular novel – and one of the best we’ve read at TQHQ in the last year. It’s frequently hilarious and touching, while also being an uncomfortably precise portrait of the often inward looking world of underground music fandom, that has its own distinct voice while also echoing David Foster Wallace, the Irvine Welsh of Trainspotting and Alan Warner.

The action of the novel is set in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, in the early 80s and is told from the point of view of several characters in and around the mythical post punk band, Memorial Device.

David talks about the genesis of his novel, the problems of forming a band with only mannequins as members and gives us the insider’s view of the night his former band 18 Wheeler supported Oasis at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in 1993. But not only that he picks all of the music which stretches from Felt to Whitehouse via an Italian punk band called Tampax.

Jings, crivens and help ma Boab! It’s horrible in London and it’s horrible in the rest of the world, so John and Luke attempt to take your mind off things with some awesome music and (admittedly) inane chatter. This week’s hot topics are whether John’s plan to wax himself all over so he looks as slick as an eel is hot or horrible; the deleterious gravitational and atmospheric effects the Calder Valley has on one’s poached egg game; why beef rather than drugs is the required fuel for a floatation tank visit; nostalgia for the days when a man could wear a lustrous beard with no moral qualms; and the mathematical madness of the doomed Donald Crowhurst. The fine, fine music this week comes from the Honeydrippers, Rose Elinor Dougall, Les Amazones d’Afrique, Duke Garwood, ADULT., Anohni, PINS, Roger Robinson, Moonlandingz and Jakuzi. Thanks to Mighty Seb White, Todd The Dog and Maria, not forgetting Ben, Adele, Amy, Mal and everyone in Hebden.

IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT!

Back once again like renegade mummers, John and Luke slump into your shell likes with passable chat and red hot new music. And this week’s pressing topics for our hapless pair are albums that make you pull a mucky face, the problems of going to watch a band with a rude name when your parents ask, uncanny valleys in the South Downs and the ongoing issue of the pair’s lusty and sonorous snoring. But most importantly it is now time for John to visit a clothes shop to buy a new outfit, something he only undertakes once every other year. Please advise him on what his clothes, shoes and hat for the 2017/2018 period should look like by leaving suggestions in the comments section below. Please be aware that his budget is more St Helens Tontine Market than Saville Row. Featuring the best in new (and old) music from Moonlandingz, Childish Gambino, Aquaserge, Pinch & Sherwood, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Ibibio Sound Machine, Can, Wire and GNOD.

Last week Quietus co-editor Luke Turner had the great pleasure of travelling down to the ancient town of Lewes, East Sussex to speak to the great Shirley Collins for a Quietus Hour Special. We visited Shirley’s cottage to have a brew (she makes an excellent brew) and discuss and listen to nine songs of her choosing. In her front room, recently used to record 2016-highlight album Lodestar, we talked about that record and her return to song, why Morris dancing and the English folk tradition are derided and neglected at our peril, her friendship with Lodestar-collaborators Cyclobe and some of the musicians she’s picked, the racism she encountered in the American south while collecting music with Alan Lomax and her fears for the future.

We also talked about the wonderful landscape of the Sussex Downs and the uncanny presence that lurks within its folds, the great Sussex folk hero Bob Copper, and why songs are always good when sung by a handsome man.

Recently when Luke and John were in Krakow for Unsound, NTS radio kindly invited them to present their show The Quietus Hour live from the festival. When asked who, among all of the musicians, DJs and producers appearing that week, they would like to interview for the show, Matmos were top of their wish list.

Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt are already responsible for one of tQ’s favourite albums of the year in the shape of Ultimate Care II, which came out on Thrill Jockey and is based on the cycle of a washing machine using just samples from their own appliance. But the couple were in Krakow to perform three ‘episodes’ from Robert Ashley’s “opera for TV”, Perfect Lives, which was a clear highlight of the week, in a festival packed to the brim with intelligent and exciting programming.

Martin and Drew came in to talk about this fascinating show and kindly tolerated Luke and John’s pork and caffeine-addled gibbering and sub-par line of questioning… and they also brought in a fine selection of musical oddities for your sonic delectation.

In this edition of our radio programme we’ve got a Middle Eastern stormer from Kalbata to open up before great tracks by Solange, Membranes remixed by the Manics, Shirley Collins, Betty Harris, Mutado Pintado, Zsa Zsa Sapien and Admirals Hard interspersed with John and Luke making themselves look preposterously out of touch and old as they chat about their younger years wearing ladies’ blouses, how awful the Home Counties were in the 1990s, the joy of Southend, the awful idiocy of #properindieforthelads and Liam Gallagher, Simon Cowell flashing his tiny todger but the far bigger and better ones we’ve seen in rock PLUS exclusives from Bon Iver and the aforementioned Liam G. AND! Will we play someone a track of their dreams for THE PERSUADER?!

Simon Reynolds is generally held to be one of the world’s best music writers – not least by us at the Quietus – so we’re very happy that he’s the special guest on our radio show/ podcast this week. Following on from such great books as Energy Flash and Rip It Up And Start Again he has written Shock And Awe: Glam Rock And It’s Legacy which is out on Faber & Faber.

Simon joined John Doran at tQHQ yesterday morning for a breakfast chat about the genre – a chat which turned out to be very enjoyable and informative despite the very early hour occasionally playing havoc with the presenter’s higher brain functionality. (Who the hell is Oliver Wilde when he’s at home?) The former Melody Maker heavyweight, who now lives and works in the US, selected all the music for the show – a mix of deep cuts by famous bands, all out bangers and junk shop glam rarities; and the pair discussed such artists as David Bowie, Gary Glitter, Suzi Quatro, Lady Gaga, Marc Bolan, Japan and Roxy Music, as well as class, gender and Brian Eno’s collapsed lung.

“BACK. We knew we shouldn’ta left you. Without some strong chat to step to…”

John and Luke are back together at tQHQ and are blazing a trail across the sky like nuclear powered trifle of chat blasted from a cannon of despondency and insomnia. Today, the notionally dynamic duo play tracks by Cakes Da Killa, Peaches, Grumbling Fur, NOMEANSNO, Laughing Len Cohen, Skinny Girl Diet, Innercity Ensemble, Rats On Rafts, Acid Arab, Sleaford Mods and much much more. Emboldened by coffee the pair talk about the woes of being a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman, Richard Foster’s mum’s recipe for corned beef hash, why Michel Houellebecq is the Morrissey of literature and the joys of the Russian and Turkish saunas in York Hall, Bethnal Green.

Fancy choosing a tune for next week’s show? Phone up our Persuader hotline on 020 33 93 63 95

Karl O’Connor had to ring up before coming on The Quietus Hour to check that it was OK to wear shorts on the hottest September day for decades. We said that was fine, as Luke Turner was in his best EBM cut-offs and DM boots look to go with Regis’ musical choices: nine incredibly formative tracks from his teenage years in the West Midlands during the early 80s. To a soundtrack of Nitzer Ebb, Foetus, Cabaret Voltaire, Matt Johnson, DAF, Dave Ball with Genesis P*Orridge, Nikki Sudden, Einsturzende Neubauten and the wonderful Fad Gadget they indulge in passable chat about how techno never made sense until Karl heard Jeff Mills, doing things your own way, Thee Temple Of Psychick Youth, and listening to German records with spanking grot mags in a tiny bedroom lit by nicked traffic lights.

Luke and John broadcasted from a boggy field in the beautiful Brecon Beacons in Wales on Green Man Festival radio. This is Sunday’s show (2 of 2).

Luke and John broadcasted from a boggy field in the beautiful Brecon Beacons in Wales on Green Man Festival radio. This is Saturday’s show.

After a triumphant weekend at Green Man Festival together, John and Luke are back for the first time since June. Talking about Green Man and the future – the question of the day is: On a hot day, does ice cream make you hotter or colder?

It’s a double banger of a Quietus Hour week to celebrate our eight birthday and launch of the new podcast version of our weekly selection of the best new music accompanied by passable chat. We’ve had the special edition where Stewart Lee came in to speak to John Doran about new book Content Provider, some of the music he’s listening to currently, and The Fall (obvs).

On the second Quietus Hour of the week, Luke Turner is joined by William Doyle, FKA East India Youth, to play choice new and slightly less new belters from the likes of Katie Gately, a Rick Holland collaboration with Chrononautz, the Kamaru Celina Band, Death In Vegas rejiggled by Chris & Cosey, Jenny Hval, The Comet Is Coming, Piano Wire, Gaika, Blanck Mass and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. PLUS! Who is this stranger ringing from across the borders in The Persuader?!

You can subscribe to The Quietus Hour podcast via iTunes here.

This week The Quietus is celebrating its eighth birthday as a fully independent music and culture website…. Cheers! Luke will have a pint of flat, room temperature Thadeus Marsh-Hermit’s Brain Cleaver porter in a pewter tankard poured by a gender fluid bar person naked bar for a roll of clingfilm and John would gladly take a well-mashed mug of rooibos and barrel-aged goat sweat tea poured straight from the hollowed out skull of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There hasn’t been any time for celebrating for anyone who works at tQHQ however as we’re all preparing for the big changes which are afoot here… but more on that before the end of the year.

In the meantime we’re very happy to be launching a new podcast for The Quietus Hour, with the first special bonus episode featuring the one and only Stewart Lee. When the comedian and writer visited tQHQ recently we only gave him one instruction: ‘Pick nine songs – no theme, no rationale, doesn’t matter how obscure, how popular or how radio unfriendly, the choice is entirely yours.’ Between the clutch of tracks that he chose – which range from a 1950s field recording of a Roma child singing about boats to a live recording of The Fall playing heavier and more frenziedly than The Stooges – Lee talks at length to tQ editor John Doran.

The pair discuss his new prose anthology for Faber Content Provider, getting spiked with acid at a mid-80s Cornish rock festival, his relationship with Shirley Collins, what it feels like to have your writing critiqued by operatives for Communist regimes, his new Brexit-inspired stand up show, what the meaning of vitriol of under the line commentary really signifies, destroying Simple Minds LPs with power tools, releasing Edward Lear-inspired drone poetry on vinyl and how free jazz makes his children cry.

If you want to listen to the show with full versions of the songs intact, you can do via Mixcloud.

Thanks as always to producer Seb White.

This show of chat and new music has been brought to you by sleep deprivation and coconut water.

Brilliant brand new music and Threads-grade chat from Natalie Sharp and John Doran.

Luke Turner is on a saturnine sabbatical so Lone Taxidermist Natalie Sharp steps into his comfortable brogues to co-present an hour of new music and, frankly, barely passable chat with John Doran. Exclusives from Gazelle Twin and Noura Mint Seymali, not to mention new music from Melt Yourself Down, Islam Chipsy and Pearson Sound.

PERSUADE US to play your current favourite song. Leave a voicemail on 020 33 93 63 95. (Remember to say who you are, what song you want and WHY. Calls charged at your normal access rate.)

Watch out, people, John’s back on the coffee and we recorded this show after a double-barrelled-cafetiere staff meeting. AIEEEE! So the chat is, it’s fair to say, a lot more chaotic than our usual ribald, reasoned discourse as we get stuck into important issues like bat hunting, moving house, mouse piss, going on tour with thirsty rock groups and the EU referendum. Along the way we even save a popular arts cinema from vandalism by agreeing to someone’s PERSUADER request. All that and music by Grumbling Fur, Molly Nilsson, Bruxa Maria, Arab Strap and Metamono PLUS we’ve got two exclusive bangers by Flowdan and Factory Floor. OOOOF!

If you’d like to request a song for the next show, please leave a voicemail on 020 33 93 63 95 and try to persuade us to play your favourite song.

Orange juice drinking contests at pre-school parties, Keith Chegwin in the sauna, why England has transcended useful satire, Orville The Chicken and other issues are discussed alongside brilliant new music from around the globe.

John arrived at this week’s Quietus Hour recording with a bag of coffee so high-end it came in a packaging made of two eco-friendly materials. With that in mind, we decided to go for a two coffee show and opened with a pair of appropriately momentous bangers by Sex Swing and Robert Hood’s Floorplan. OOOF!

As well as more new music by Jenny Hval, Denis Sulta and The Invisible we’ve got a classic overlooked track by The Units, some Family Atlantica and some Adrian Sherwood, not to mention our usual look at the important music news of the day and The Persuader. Plus, Stone Roses fans – a real treat for you in an exclusive live clip from their recent surprise show in Halifax.

This week The Quietus Hour begins with a John Doran who isn’t quite as he seems. What is that high-pitched voice, the sound of innocence? On this week’s programme we bring you some of our favourite new music from Darren Hayman, Factory Floor, Nails, Loose Meat, Cats Eyes, Warmduscher, Novelist, Miss Red and Cats Eyes, as well as the usual look at the pertinent news reports of the moment AND The Persuader.

Plus corned-beef-grade chat about the things that might lurk behind that mysterious third door that always seems to be in rooms in budget hotel chains. Remember that we’re now live streaming the recording of these programmes via The Quietus’ facebook page – go and like that to have us appearing in your lives every Wednesday around lunchtime, whether you want us there or not.

We’re back once again with The Quietus Hour of the best new music and the chat in between. As you’ll be able to tell by LISTENING IN we’re now broadcasting the show live via Facebook via, which you can find on the official Quietus page. Here you get a warts and all behind the scenes nothing hidden view of tQHQ as we record the programme and decide what to waffle on about between the songs.

This week we’ve new things from Flowdan, ABC, Die Krupps, Zyna Hel, DVA, Wild Beasts, Jessy Lanza, Goat and 47SOUL so basically everything from noisy grime to industrial and R&B via Scandi prog, Palestinian Dabke and randy lads from Kendal. Don’t say we’re not good to you…

We’re back with another episode of The Quietus Hour, John Doran and Luke Turner’s new programme showcasing the best in new music interspersed with what our social media wizard Karl Smith tweets is “passable chat”. We did a live stream of the show via The Quietus’ Facebook (we’ll be doing this every show now so do go and like our page to watch) but here’s the full HQ version on Mixcloud.

This week we discuss hair like the pair of vain eejits we are, and bring you music from the Super Furry Animals, Meatraffle, Happy Meals, Skepta, My Disco, Apothek, Marissa Nadler, Odio Sem Valor and Beyond The Wizards Sleeve. We also look at the pertinent music news of the day and THE PERSUADER… will some one have called 020 33 93 63 95 and convinced us to play them a tune? Remember, next week that could be you. Ring in! Ding ding!

Now then. That’ll teach us to be cocky, won’t it? Just when we though that The Quietus Hour was gliding forth smoothly with a four week run of programmes everything went to hell in pieces on a handcart. Our producer Seb was violently attacked by a bus and both Luke and John got ill, which means we missed a week. Apologies. To make up for this cock-up we’ve hit on the idea of live streaming every episode of The Quietus Hour via our Facebook page. We did this yesterday, with 100s tuning in to watch the show in real time and low quality, extra chat between the songs.

For those of you listening to this HQ Mixcloud version, you get the full fat new music music. We’ve also got The Persuader – will someone who’s called 020 3393 6395 be able to persuade us to play a song? (ring for next week) a look at the important music news, and will we have found another cover of D’ya Think I’m Sexy?

The Quietus’ Hour radio programme reaches four weeks as John and Luke bring you some of their favourite new music, along with something old in the form of the great, departed Prince. There’s music from the Fire! Orchestra, Anonhi, Patience, Vanishing Twin, Theodore Nemy and Young Greatness PLUS Grindmother, your finest in pensioner grindcore. Plus!

We explore the pertinent issues in music news, such as what happens to Donald Trump’s hair in the event of an anaconda face-sitting, ask which song can be played at both a 40 and a five-year-old’s birthday party, discuss the strange home and collection of of Charles Paget Wade, recall our JAZZ SHAME, and see if anyone has managed to persuade us to play them a song.

Next week, this could be you – just dial 020 3393 6395 and persuade John and Luke to play you a tune. A TUNE, we say.

On this week’s The Quietus hour we’ve a new slot called Persuasion, whereby we want YOU to get in touch with us to cajole us into playing a song you’re particularly loving at the moment. Full details if you listen in, but if you’re a lazy swine here’s the basics – you can call 020 3393 6395 and leave a message persuading us to play a song of your choice on the next show.

John gives details of what is and isn’t expecting on the show, along with a new analysis of the latest in music news and our first film review slot.

There’s also the best new music from Daniel Patrick Quinn, Selvhenter, Gaika, Eva Bowen, Xiu Xiu doing Twin Peaks and Marissa Nadler, plus a new life-saver Velvet Underground cover by Brian Eno, ANOTHER cover of Do You Think I’m Sexy, Coil and Barıs Manco & Kurtalan Ekspre.

That’s not to mention the chat you love on Luke’s battles with woodpeckers in Epping Forest, England’s Hidden Reverse, brutal piratical death methods and Spencer’s new record shop in Margate.

Could it be? COULD IT BE? We have made two consecutive episodes of The Quietus Radio Hour with nothing going wrong? Electromagnetic pulse detonation between typing this and the show going live notwithstanding, it seems we might have. On this week’s programme we play new music from Tom Cohen, Underworld and PJ Harvey’s stunning new album (this week’s Lead Review) alongside tracks from Jackie Lynn, Fumaça Preta, Yossarians and Susso.

We’ve also got a 1980 Turkish disco cover of ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’! AND speaking of having the horn, Luke discusses a weekend spent blowing Celtic instruments up in Scotland and why Romans hate free jazz, and there’s more sausage-plated chat on John’s failing memory, Laibach, and Wayne The Fireman’s four course pizza meal.

Oh yeah, and we reveal the modern-day ‘Stairway To Heaven’.

As has become an annual tradition at tQHQ, we have decided to start a weekly radio show, called The Quietus Hour, dedicated to bringing you the best in new music. Thanks to the organisational skills of our former producer the Noble Paul Noble and the liquid skills of our current producer, Seb White, here is our first show of this year, with *crosses both fingers behind back, faces north and stands on one leg* each consecutive show to go out live on a Wednesday afternoon.

Quietus editors John Doran and Luke Turner surf a cresting wave of liquid chat for sixty minutes peppered with new music by ILL, Arabrot, Anna Meredith, Kiran Leonard, Jessy Lanza, Zayn and Fat White Family; not to mention copper bottomed exclusives by Billy Childish, Knifeworld and the first ever airing of the Gary Numan/John Foxx collaboration ‘Talk (Are You Listening To Me?)’.

Pour yourself a cup of chai and pull up a pouffe – it’s going to be luxurious.