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Illuminating treasured cultural artefacts
In this month's subscriber only Low Culture essay, Tom Howells reappraises the first three series of River Cottage and finds a Dorset of esoteric rites, ecstatic natural beauty, eldritch haunting, racist gentry and brutal rural pathos, plus a little bit of food
In our monthly subscriber-only essay, writer Paul Flynn describes being handed a flyer for an unusual literary event which acts as a madeleine, casting him back to the 1980s, and a sexual and sonic awakening. Home page image: detail from the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt photographed by the author
In our monthly subscriber-only essay Daniel Spicer has a Proustian rush listening to Elvis Presley's career concluding single Way Down, is reminded of the fragility of existence and is catapulted back into a childhood of ageing teds, biker gangs and wyrd Cornish magic...
In our monthly subscribers only essay, Kat Lister discusses how finishing her first book and a year of being locked down alone steered her towards buying a typewriter, only to discover these machines are going through something of a reversal of fortunes. Homepage photograph: the author's portrait of her own Olivetti Valentine
It seems odd to argue that a member of one of the most celebrated rock bands of all time, the Velvet Underground, is under-appreciated, says Daniel Dylan Wray in this subscriber only essay, until you consider just how absent he is from conversations about popular music
Viz is more than just a very funny comic to long time fan Noel Gardner. But the extent to which it's a vehicle for incisive, leftwing satirical commentary, he says in this subscriber only essay, is something that's open to debate...
Back in the days when terrifying viral pandemics were still confined to the fiction section, says Ross McIndo, The Last Of Us found a way to tug at our heartstrings while it clawed at our insides. **Contains spoilers** Screengrabs courtesy of Naughty Dog
Lucio Battisti was a huge star at home in Italy but he tended to be regarded as a teenybopper abroad (despite once being David Bowie's favourite singer). It is time this view is questioned, says David McKenna, so we can start celebrating him as the godfather of Italian spiritual cosmic fusion
Trudging through the inverted worlds of Staten Island, Putney and Prestwich come a crew of rappers, a poet/ engraver and a dyspetic singer, says Tom Ellen. They steel themselves against the disappointment of the surface world - the feeling of 'Is this it?' - by doodling on the maps of their cities, adding monsters and demons, gods and angels, hidden passageways and secret portals.
Slint’s Spiderland is regularly cited as one of the most important albums of the last 30 years, yet its shadowy twin The For Carnation remains defiantly under the radar. Joe Banks makes the case for its re-evaluation while pondering the evolution of post-rock
It doesn't matter how much you love his solo work, Roxy Music were twice the band after Brian Eno left the fold, says Jeremy Allen in the latest instalment of our lockdown essay series. All photographs from Roxy Music Archive