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Catch up on our latest writing.
Anniversary
The Fall’s Perverted By Language Revisited 40 Years On
On its 40th anniversary, Eden Tizard explores The Fall’s Perverted By Language, an album where Mark E. Smith turns his focus to the suburbs and its inhabitants. A key record in The Fall saga, featuring a group at a crossroads, on the hunt for a new mode of attack
Columns of the Year
Spool’s Out: The Best Cassettes Of 2023
After the cassette celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2023, Daryl Worthington looks back on a year where it reinforced its role as pivotal to the present of underground music. From deep-fake ecosystems to post-sense Dictaphone freakouts, dolphin impersonations, and cutting edge beats
Black Sky Thinking
Why Elton John’s Watford FC Chairmanship Was His Finest Hour
Lifelong Watford FC fan Keith Kahn-Harris looks at Elton John's time as chairman of the club, his friendship with Graham Taylor, and asks why the music industry couldn’t offer the megastar the solace that football could. Images all courtesy Alan Cozzi Archive & Watford FC
Black Sky Thinking
Spotify Wrapped & Apple Music Replay Vie To Be The “John Lewis Ad” Of Streaming
The streaming services have become locked into an arms race to see who can own the end of year reveal, says Eamonn Forde. It's just that the artists who are, arguably, being badly treated and the listeners who foot the bill are the ones doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to branding and marketing
Reissue of the Week
Reissue Of The Week: Khanate’s Things Viral
At the beginning of the millennium, Khanate created a twisted and challenging new form of sonic torment. Dan Franklin revisits the band’s reissued back catalogue and explores the harrowing context of their existence. CW: contains graphic discussion of torture and war crimes
Reissue of the Week
Earthly Delights: Unpacking Donovan’s A Gift From A Flower To A Garden Boxset
As the state51 Conspiracy reissue Donovan's double-album box set on mono vinyl, Ben Graham looks back at the artist's most ambitious statement and finds a post-psychedelic message that's still relevant today
Album of the Week
Memories Of Sound: Esz Kodesz By Cut The Sky
Now based in Kraków, the new trio from MultiTraction Orchestra’s Alex Roth, with clarinettist Wacław Zimpel and drummer Hubert Zemler, proves a heady blast of electronics, field recording and wild collective improvisation summoning a rich seam of emotion and solidarity
New Weird Britain
New Weird Britain In Review For November By Noel Gardner
The return of Creation Rebel, the long-awaited full release of a 90s video game soundtrack classic, a pleasingly non-literal tribute to The Wicker Man and more all feature in your latest guide to the world of New Weird Britain
Black Sky Thinking
An Ungraspable Intelligence: Bird Song In The Time Of Collapse
Referencing two new albums, the compilation Synthetic Bird Music and Kate Carr's A Field Guide To Phantasmic Birds, plus Daphne du Maurier's avian horror and one of England's oldest documented songs, Summer Is Icumen In, Daryl Worthington asks how the rich interlinked history of bird song and human music has changed over the centuries and what it now means in a time of climate crisis
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