In this week’s incarnation of The Portal we’re celebrating David Thomas of Pere Ubu, who sadly passed away last week, with three archive articles: reflections on 1978 album Modern Dance, a Strange World guide through their discography, and an interview with the great man himself from 2013. Over the weekend it emerged that Alexander Hacke, whose bass playing had done so much to define the sound of Einstürzende Neubauten, had quit the group – below you’ll find him talking to Jeremy Allen about his solo career, from drunken country and western to an album inspired by the joys of Blackpool. Also this weekend hundreds of people took part in a watery trespass asserting the right to swim in the UK’s waters, so we’ve dug up Gary Budden’s Black Sky Thinking advocating for this form of civil disobedience. We’ve also got Tanya Donnelly’s favourite albums in the Baker’s Dozen, how The Wicker Man relates to Brexit Britain, and Bill Brewster’s Organic Intelligence on the Balearic sounds of Scandinavia.
Jeremy Allen talks to the Einstürzende Neubauten mainstay about early forays into electronic and industrial as well as drunken country and western plus an album inspired by the joys of Blackpool. All photographs courtesy Alexander Hacke
Following a flurry of Fleetwood Mac activity this year, Quietus writers Colm McAuliffe, Jonny Mugwump, Joseph Burnett, Chad Parkhill, Taylor Parkes, Matthew Lindsay and Craig Terlino seek out their finest tracks that were never hit singles
Last week a group of London punks staged a gig on the Thames foreshore in a defiant statement of public rights over our land. Gary Budden argues that they're in a fine tradition stretching back through the ramblers of the Kinder Scout trespass and the 17th century Diggers - and that is a tradition we need to uphold.
With Brexit looming on the horizon like a, well, a massive wicker man, writer Adam Scovell, author of the forthcoming book Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful And Things Strange, looks back at Robin Hardy's 1973 cult classic and finds surprising parallels between it and our current political predicament
Get your sauna logs and loosely fitting tiny towels at the ready as we head to Scandinavia for this month’s Organic Intelligence subscriber exclusive, in which Bill Brewster guides you through the Balearic sounds of Scandinavia