The Portal

From The Fall to Octavia E Butler in This Week's Archive Dive

Another trip down into the stygian depths of tQ’s archive has brought up some fine treats this week. We’ve a Strange World Of Julius Eastman, Baker’s Dozens from Suzi Quatro and Bootsy Collins, Wire’s Graham Lewis on the Master Musicians of Joujouka, David Lloyd discussing the actually-iconic-for-once V for Vendetta mask, David Toop on Dr John, and Crystal Fighters on the cultural heritage of the Basque Country. Oh we also realised we’ve not included The Fall in one of these for a while, which was remiss of us, so please find below a fantastic long read on how the group entered one of their many purple patches in 1980. With Trump pushing the global economy off the top diving board, we’d thought we’d dig out our Low Culture Podcast about Octavia E Butler’s Parable Of The Sower, the first book in her bleak but worryingly prescient series of novels about the collapse of the USA that featured a president who achieves power with the slogan Make America Great Again.