Noel Gardner

New Weird Britain In Review For January By Noel Gardner

The selections Noel Gardner has made from the UK DIY underground this month are so good they have started to dissolve the very concept of time

New Weird Britain: The UK’s Best Underground Music Of 2021

Straight Hedge! The Best Punk Of 2021

Noel Gardner looks back over 2021 and selects ten albums from his tQ column, plus another ten that got away

Straight Hedge! Noel Gardner Reviews Punk & HC For November

Back once again like a renegade Manfred Mann, Noel Gardner spends his time "squelching in the batshit shitpit" just so he can back epistles from the punk rock front line. Home page photo: Shooting Daggers

Organic Intelligence II: UK Breakcore

Our second ever Organic Intelligence newsletter sees Noel Gardner rep for the short lived but much missed UK breakcore

New Weird Britain In Review For October By Noel Gardner

Noel Gardner unearths some East Sussex noise, the world's first modular acoustic synth, RAF early warning techno, and other odd gems from the British DIY underground

Reissue Of The Week: Tresor 30

A new compilation celebrating 30 years of the essential Tresor Records is an immense undertaking, combining classic tracks from the Berlin label’s back catalogue and new specially recorded music

Straight Hedge! Noel Gardner Reviews Punk & HC For September

Noel Gardner once again scales the filth ridden summits and strolls the verdant valley floors of international punk rock. Home page photograph Neon Christ live by Chuck Gill

Reissue Of The Week: Cameroon Garage Funk Reviewed

Through the 1970s there was a church in Cameroon where funk bands would go to record music into a single, exquisitely placed microphone. Noel Gardner studies the results on Analog Africa's latest

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Creamer

Ren Schofield's new grot-coated offering is the sound of him tilting back to a rock sensibility, writes Noel Gardner

New Weird Britain In Review For August By Noel Gardner

Noel Gardner romps through Summer with a veritable NWB greatest hits... Home page photo: Lucy Railton and Kit Downes by Cristina Marx/Photomusic

The Rebel

Remember Your Failure In The Cave

Lo-fi it may be, but Ben Wallers' latest outing as The Rebel has enough wit and absurdism to make anyone feel pleasantly queasy, finds Noel Gardner

Orchestra Of Constant Distress

Concerns

Sweden's Orchestra Of Constant Distress return with their fourth album of pitch black noise rock

Straight Hedge! Noel Gardner Reviews Punk & HC For July

Noel Gardner is back with another month's worth of punk, hardcore, oi &c. from around the globe. Home page image: Porvenir Oscuro

Manni Dee

A Low Level Love

Joined by the voice of Chris Liberator, techno stalwart Manni Dee continues to bang with considerable vim and vigour, finds Noel Gardner

New Weird Britain In Review For June By Noel Gardner

Noel Gardner marks the middle of the year with a solstice selection of wyrd music from the UK DIY underground. Main photograph: Ahrkh

Straight Hedge! Noel Gardner Reviews Punk & HC For May

Noel Gardner is back with all of your punk, HC, oi, crust & power violence needs for Spring. Home page photograph: Silent

Colin Webster

vs Amp

Playing his sax through Fender Twin and Bassman amplifiers, Sex Swing and Dead Neanderthals collaborator Colin Webster provides a thrilling journey for Noel Gardner

New Weird Britain In Review For April By Noel Gardner

From a read along sci-fi Italo/prog epic to rebooted darkside rave and juke via earthy Cornish analogue electronics, Noel Gardner is back once again with more tantalising sounds from the UK sonic fringes

The Strange World Of… Rudimentary Peni

Forty years since their debut, and with their first new music in over a decade released this month, Noel Gardner meanders through the opaque history of these UK punk icons. Home page art: 'Crucified Mite' by Nick Blinko

MXLX

Nebula Rasa

A towering release from Bristol maximalist Matt Loveridge, finds Noel Gardner

La Ola Interior: Spanish Ambient & Acid Exoticism 1983–1990

Various

Oily weirdouts and rustic psychedelia from Spain's 1980s synth electronic proves a treat for Noel Gardner

Straight Hedge! Noel Gardner Reviews Punk & HC For March

Rimming disasters, Cockney piano and countryfied garage rock expectorations... Noel Gardner probes the boundaries of punk rock once again

Les Conches Velasques

Celebración Del Trance Profano

With adaptions of Moroccan and Spanish folk music and soaring guitar-playing by Thomas House of Sweet Williams, Concepción's Les Conches Velasques have come up with something very special indeed, finds Noel Gardner

Counterflow States: An Interview With Helena Celle

Glaswegian musical polymath Kay Logan has lit up early 2021 by releasing what might be her most extraordinary work to date – including, under the Helena Celle pseudonym, an hour-long piece for April’s lockdown edition of her home city’s experimental festival Counterflows. She waxes theoretical to Noel Gardner

New Weird Britain In Review For February By Noel Gardner

Noel Gardner's first New Weird Britain column for 2021 looks at what it means to be an international artist currently trapped in London/ Britain by the pandemic and what this means for their practice

Divide And Dissolve

Gas Lit

The new Divide and Dissolve album may be pitched at fans of James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison, but – whisper it – it is also *a really good sludge record*, finds Noel Gardner

Straight Hedge! Noel Gardner Reviews Punk & HC For January

Noel Gardner opens the first instalment of this column for 2021 by taking a look at current punk acts "whose lyrics and outlook are for and about the Black community". Home page photograph of Twisted Thing

Gumph! Viz As Left Wing Satirical Magazine By Noel Gardner

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...

Noel’s Straight Hedge: The Best Punk & HC Of 2020

Noel Gardner marks a full decade of reportage from the claret pumping edge of punk rock, HC, oi, crust &c. by bringing you his prime cuts from 2020

Robert Hood

Mirror Man

The maestro returns with an album by turns gloriously ambient and unabashedly pounding, finds Noel Gardner

New Weird Britain: The Best Of 2020

In the first of our end of year columns, Noel Gardner casts his eye back over 12 months of highs and lows in the fertile UK DIY underground, and selects 20 transmissions you need to hear