The Portal
The Portal: Some tQ Highlights of 2025
We thought we’d send out the final incarnation of The Portal archive dive with a selection of our favourite articles that have run on the site over the last 12 months, from our investigation into the countercultural influence on the new wave of fascism, why you’ve got the heroes and villains of The Good Life all wrong, the story behind the sleng teng riddim, Ozzy Osborne and the supposed imperfections of the human body in heavy metal, Patti Smith’s Horses revisited, what’s going on (despite everything) in New York City, the strange joy of Doomscrolling, an interview with John Glacier, and why Can wrote the ultimate three album run in Krautrock. Over the course of the winter break we’ll be featuring more of our favourite articles of 2025 on our Bluesky and Instagram socials channels. Many thanks to you all for reading the site over the past 12 months, we’ll be back with freshened ears in mid-January 2026.
Black Sky Thinking
Three Album Run: How Krautrock Never Bettered Can’s Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi & Future Days
Darran Anderson sifts through all of the glorious rubble of German experimental music, psychedelic rock, avant funk and elektronische of the late 1960s onwards to hail an unbeatable trinity. All photographs by Maria Jefferis
Black Sky Thinking
The Countercultural Figures who Helped Give Birth to the Neo-Nazi Terrorist Networks of Today
The academic author and political analyst Spencer Sunshine has uncovered disturbing evidence that links musicians Boyd Rice and Nikolas Schreck, writer Michael Moynihan and publisher Adam Parfrey to the current explosion in neo-Nazi terrorism. CW: discussion of racism, anti-semitism, murder, violent assault & child sexual abuse
Black Sky Thinking
Confronting & Celebrating the Limits of the Body: Black Sabbath Live at Villa Park
Keith Kahn-Harris argues that the Back To The Beginning show highlighted the pivotal role that the imperfections of the body play in metal. Live photographs courtesy of Ross Halfin. With thanks to Jasmine Hazel Shadrack
The Quietus International
North American Music: tQ in New York City, by Maxelle Talena
New York isn’t dead, says Maxelle Talena in the latest of tQ’s dispatches from the North American underground. It’s being killed. From jumpstyle to hardcore punk, from hip hop to garage rock (for those who can’t afford a garage), she introduces five key artists keeping the flame alive
Things I Have Learned
Kevin Lee Kharas of Real Lies on the Joys of Doomscrolling
People say doomscrolling is tearing apart the social fabric – and they're probably right – but, says Kevin Lee Kharas of Real Lies, it's a problem he's learning to like. Here, he tells us what it's taught him about life and people
A Quietus Interview
The Model is You: An Interview with John Glacier
As she releases a new deluxe edition of Like A Ribbon, one of the year's finest albums, boundary-pushing East London rapper, producer and poet John Glacier speaks to Claire Biddles about childhood poems on the failure of humanity, the enduring influence of Hackney, disability, self-advocacy, grime and more
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