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As cultural publications around the world continue to collapse due to advertising revenues running dry, we’re ever more reliant on direct support from you to continue bringing you the best writing there is..

Exceptional art deserves exceptional insight from thoughtful critics. By supporting The Quietus, not only do you help us keep the number of ads on site to a minimum and the lights on at the great server farm in the cloud, you ensure we can continue to pay our brilliant writers.

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Monthly Playlist

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Monthly Spotify, Apple Music & Tidal playlists rounding up the music we’ve been writing about on the site.

Recent Monthly Playlist

tQ’s Exclusive Monthly Round-Up Playlist: August 2024

Here's everything we've covered at The Quietus this month, compiled for the listening pleasure of tQ's subscribers

tQ’s Exclusive Monthly Round-Up Playlist: July 2024

Here's everything we've covered at The Quietus this month, compiled for the listening pleasure of tQ's subscribers

The Best Albums of 2024 So Far – Exclusive Subscriber Playlists

Get your ears round hours of music here!

tQ’s Exclusive Monthly Round-Up Playlist: June 2024

Here's everything we've covered at The Quietus this month, compiled for the listening pleasure of tQ's subscribers

tQ’s Exclusive Monthly Round-Up Playlist: May 2024

The best of the month in which we were reborn!
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Low Culture Podcast

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The Quietus founders & editors Luke & John discussing an essential album, book, telly series or film each month

Recent Low Culture Podcast

Low Culture Podcast: Terence Davies’ Of Time And The City

In this this month's subscriber podcast, John Doran and Luke Turner head to the North West to discuss Terence Davies’ portrait of the city he grew up in

Low Culture Podcast: The Fall’s Perverted By Language

This month, Quietus readers and subscribers decide which Fall album Luke Turner and John Doran should discuss – tune in below or via your podcast feed

Low Culture Podcast: Eurythmics’ 1984 Soundtrack

We love it when our subscribers send in suggestions of things for us to talk about – but do we love what they’re suggesting? Is Eurythmics’ soundtrack to the 1984 film 1984 doubleplusgood or does it send John Doran into his own personal Room 101? Find out here.

Low Culture Podcast: Beau Travail

In this month's subscriber podcast John Doran and Luke Turner discuss Claire Denis' 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail

Low Culture Podcast: Sprigs Of Time (78s From The EMI Archive)

This week we celebrate the new Quietus with a compilation released right back when we started, and that inspired a lot of what the site became.
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Low Culture Essays

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An exclusive monthly long read on a cultural artefact by some of our favourite writers.

Recent Low Culture Essays

The Low Culture Essay: Skye Butchard on the BBC’s 1981 The Lord Of The Rings Adaptation

In this month's essay, Skye Butchard remembers their dad's collection of cassettes on which he recorded the 1981 radio version of Tolkien's classic to reflect on memory, archiving, and how familial relationships and loss are intrinsically bound up with the culture we share.

The Velvet Underground Live In 1969 At 50

Half a century after the release of one of the all-time great live albums, John Doran argues that the Velvet Underground only really hit their true peak after they lost Nico, Warhol and Cale. This feature was first published on 2 April 2020

Low Culture Essay: Jim Gibson on Better Things and Rural Poverty

In this month's essay, Jim Gibson unpicks the cultural myths of the idyllic British countryside as he reflects on Duane Hopkins' 2008 film Better Things in the context of his own life in a rural working class community

Low Culture Essay: John Doran on 16oz Japanese Raw Selvedge Indigo Denim

In the latest subscriber exclusive Low Culture Essay, John Doran reflects on class, craft and the risk of a flashed or crushed testicle in his life-long relationship with the denim trouser.

Low Culture Essay: Manu Ekanayake On Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

In this month's subscriber essay, Manu Ekanayake revisits the BBC adaptation of John Le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to explore ideas of Englishness and patriotism corrupted by the Establishment and private school system (note – contains spoilers!)

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Organic Intelligence Newsletter

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A monthly newsletter deep dive into the fantastic but neglected music of a time, scene or place.

Recent Organic Intelligence Newsletter

Organic Intelligence XXXVI: Under-the-Radar Italian Pulp Film Soundtracks

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Mat Colegate goes deep into the bloody realm of Italian schlock scores – Goblin! Libra! Daniele Pattuchi! The soundtrack to that film about PCP maddened animals attacking Frankfurt!

Organic Intelligence XXXV: Soak in Hellish Spas – Noise in mid-2020s Tokyo

In the latest antidote to the algorithm that is the Organic Intelligence newsletter, Miranda Remington guides you through the hectic sounds of Tokyo's wildly diverse and noisy underground

Organic Intelligence XXXIV: Tromsø Techno

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Jeremy Allen takes us up to the far north of Norway and the emergence of the country’s techno scene

Organic Intelligence XXXIII: South African 3-step

3-step is a new evolution within South African dance music, writes Skye Butchard in the latest instalment of our antidote to the algorithm

Organic Intelligence XXXII: Hong Kong Lo-Fi & Dreampop Today

Following her visit to the Clockenflap Festival, Irina Shtreis looks at a new wave of Hong Kong artists reinterpreting Cantopop
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Music Downloads

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Exclusive Quietus-commissioned music from the most exciting artists working today.

Recent Music Downloads

tQ Subscriber Release: Nurse With Wound

Steve Stapleton has been helming the surreal and riotous psychedelic industrial experimental unit NWW for 45 years now. John Doran and Russell Cuzner look at their new release available to only tQ subscribers today and examine what makes them special

tQ Subscriber Release: Thee Alcoholics

Thee Alcoholics' Rhys Llewellyn speaks to Julian Marszalek about their eviscerating new live-in-the-studio session now available for Quietus subscribers, and out on vinyl in November

tQ Subscriber Release: Hitiloma & Nat Sharp

J.R. Moores speaks to Mark Pilkington and DORANBOT-3000 (in place of our own John Doran) of Hitiloma about this month's tQ subscribers release – a collaboration with the mighty Nat Sharp recorded live at this year's Acid Horse

The Quietus Subscriber Release Bonus Essay: William Doyle on how to Make Touring Work

We've done something a little different this month and asked William Doyle to accompany his fantastic stripped-down release of three of his own songs and three covers with an essay about how he makes touring work financially – this is free to read to non subscribers too.

tQ Subscriber Release: Xylitol Remix Sculpture & Vice-Versa

As they release remixes of each other's work exclusively for tQ subscribers, Alex Rigotti speaks to Catherine Backhouse, aka Xylitol, and Sculpture's Dan Hayhurst
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Our journalism is funded by our readers. Become a subscriber today to help champion our writing, plus enjoy bonus essays, podcasts, playlists and music downloads.

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