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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: April 2024

Here's a playlist of 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: March 2024

Here's a playlist of 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: February 2024

Here's a playlist of 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: January 2024

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

tQ’s Albums Of The Year 2023: Subscriber-Exclusive Nine Hour Playlists

Your exclusive epic playlists are here!
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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: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

This month we tuck in our napkins for an encounter with Peter Greenaway's captivating yet grim 1988 film starring Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren.

Low Culture Podcast: Fairport Convention’s Liege & Lief

In this month’s subscriber podcast John Doran and Luke Turner discuss a record that caused a seismic shift in British music and, despite mining an ancient tradition, remains entirely relevant today

Low Culture Podcast: Octavia E Butler’s Parable Of The Sower

In February's edition of our subscriber podcast John Doran and Luke Turner investigate Octavia E Butler's prescient 1993 novel Parable Of The Sower (and have a chat about Depeche Mode and the new Fargo)

The Low Culture Podcast: Nico’s The Marble Index

In the first subscriber-only Low Culture podcast of 2023, John and Luke go deep into the bleak midwinter of Nico’s masterpiece, The Marble Index.

Low Culture Podcast: Acid Horsing & Reflections On 2023

In this month's subscriber podcast, John and Luke look back on highlights of 2023, including a weekend with a Wiltshire Acid Horse
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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

Low Culture Essay: Natasha Carthew on the Elephant Fayre

As festival season approaches, writer, memoirist and founder of the Class Festival of literature Natasha Carthew looks back to the 1980s and reflects on the influence of the anarchic Elephant Fayre on her life and work. Images courtesy of Port Eliot / Michael Barrett

Low Culture Essay: Jimmy Martin On Ministry’s With Sympathy

In this month’s Low Culture Essay, Jimmy Martin revisits Ministry’s much-maligned synth pop debut With Sympathy and asks, with the distance of 40 years, if it’s actually Al Jourgensen’s finest work

Jude Rogers On Charlotte Sometimes (A Book, A Cure Song, A Life)

In this month's Low Culture essay, Jude Rogers reflects on Penelope Farmer's novel Charlotte Sometimes, its influence on The Cure, and how it captures the fraught time between childhood and adolescence that we perhaps never leave

Low Culture Essay: Will Burns On 90s Skate VHS Soundtracks

In this month’s subscriber-exclusive essay, poet and novelist Will Burns argues that skateboarding is close to dancing as he reflects on how the soundtracks of grainy DIY VHS films opened his musical mind

Low Culture Essay: Eamonn Forde On The Harrods Princess Di & Dodi Statue

Each year, Eamonn Forde would make a Christmas pilgrimage to "London's greatest tourist attraction", the statue to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed at Harrods. In this month's Low Culture Essay, he mourns its loss, and reflects on the nature of its art
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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 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

Organic Intelligence XXXI: The Pre-Trip Hop Bristol Underground

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Jonathan Wright takes us on a trip to the fertile underground of 1980s Bristol. Photo of The Wild Bunch by @beezerphotos

Organic Intelligence XXX: The Baader Meinhof Bum Dungeon

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Luke Turner heads back a decade to a riotous and fruity moment where techno got the horn, and decided to have a massive laugh

Organic Intelligence XXIX: Dope-fiend Greek Rebetika

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Daniel Spicer boils up a pot of ironwort and heads back a century for a wonderful guide to the drug-blasted music of urban Greece in the 1920s and 30s

Organic Intelligence XXVIII: Iceland Before The Sugarcubes

A slight jiggle around this month as we release tQ’s Low Podcast next week and bring you the latest antidote to the algorithm – Irina Shtreis on the experimental punk rumblings of late 70s and early 80s Iceland.
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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: 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

tQ Subscriber Release: Shovel Dance Collective

As they release a new live recording exclusively to tQ subscribers, Shovel Dance Collective speak to Patrick Clarke about the “density of human culture, death, and life”

tQ Subscriber Release: New Sonic Rites With Runesine

Rúnesine pen a special text for tQ on the historical and magical currents running through their new release Futhorc: New Sonic Rites For The Old English Rune Poem, released exclusively for tQ subscribers

Abandoned Hell: An Interview With Reigns

Tim and Roo Farthing speak to Sean Kitching about their latest release as Reigns, Dead Centre, available now exclusively for Quietus Sound + Vision subscribers

The Wonder Of Yew: Sealionwoman Interviewed

Kitty Whitelaw and Tye McGivern of Sealionwoman speak to Alastair Shuttleworth about their crushing, yew tree-inspired second album, available exclusively for Quietus subscribers.

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