iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

"I wake up with another throat infection. The Bittersweet Symphony get-up is inappropriate for the mountains in February, but it’s all I’ve brought with. I wanted to remain in character – method Ashcroft..." An extract from Lias Saoudi's Tears Of The Patriarch buff.ly/ctSEkpU

Colour photograph of Lias Saoudi standing on a street with a mountain in the distance and nearby buildings coloured a faded yellow.

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'Franco-Iranian artist Hassan K. had Iran very much on his mind during the creation of Gharbzadeh. Its clash of styles therefore feels deliberate and pointed, but it’s also thrillingly energetic.' Hassan K - Gharbzadeh #FrenchMusic for September buff.ly/2qaF2Q3

Hassan K - Gharbzadeh album cover. Colourful illustration of a stylised indoor courtyard where cloaked figures sit on patterned rugs to share tea, play a lute, and tend cats and small animals around a central fountain, framed by arched niche windows and decorative tiles.

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'The challenge was no longer how to remain young and dangerous, but how to remain relevant when those far off days had become a memory. In that respect, Blah Blah Blah is almost perversely mature' #IggyPop's Blah Blah Blah at 40 buff.ly/grTTcfL

Iggy Pop's Blah Blah Blah cassette variant cover.

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"I went through my life really, and just chose the albums that meant something to me then, at the time that I bought them." Vince Clarke Of #Erasure’s Favourite Albums #ThePortal: Your Weekly Quietus Archive Dive buff.ly/DhCbSKx

Close up of Vince Clarke's head against an off-white background.

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Back after a decade with a new, career-best album, A.C. Williams and Alex Townend open up to Bernie Brooks about their hiatus and subsequent return to Vision Fortune Honesty is the Best Policy: Vision Fortune Interviewed @gringorecords.bsky.social buff.ly/cGsRHh3

Black and white 'passport shaped' photographs of the three members of the band Vision Fortune.

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'Perhaps others had a different reaction, but I was relieved to find that Elastica’s big announcement was just a reissue of their first album, rather than anything that might chip away at their amber-frozen existence.' Reissue of the Week: Elastica’s Debut Album buff.ly/MaRHU89

Elastica’s Debut Album cover. Black and white photograph of the band, stood against a brick wall with their name in cursive red script above.

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'Sundfør recorded this album live in a Norwegian church with just her voice and the accompaniment of a pipe organ—her voice more than a match for its room-shaking timbre.' Susanne Sundfør - Revelations of Divine Love @bellaunion.bsky.social buff.ly/IINgbeq

Colour photograph of a close up of Susanne Sundfør's face, slightly tilted towards the right hand side of the image, with some blurry foliage in the background.

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#PopolVuh’s soundtrack to #WernerHerzog’s 1974 film The Great Ecstasy Of Woodcarver Steiner is getting a long-awaited official release You can listen to ‘Dream Of Flight’ here: buff.ly/07kpwFa

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'Apocalypse was doomed to be received as PE Lite: a good record, but disappointing fare from a band who’d previously made overachieving seem de rigeur. An understandable reaction – but it was wrong.' #PublicEnemy's Apocalypse 91 The Enemy Strikes Black turns 35 today buff.ly/UYNVV0x

Apocalypse 91 The Enemy Strikes Black album cover with Japanese Obi strip.

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The Flaming Lips are reissuing their 2006 album At War With The Mystics to mark its 20th anniversary You can listen to one of the reissue’s bonus tracks, ‘The Sound Of Failure (2 Demos) here: buff.ly/jrmIF3o

Colour photograph of The Flaming Lips, partially undressing from their colourful onstage costumes with some sand dunes in the background.

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September is always when things get into gear after the quiet music summer – as you’ll be able to hear in over four hours of fantastic music in the Subscriber-exclusive playlist Access all this instantly, first month free, by becoming a Subscriber or Subscriber Plus tier member: buff.ly/Pzhbel3

Quietus September 2026 graphic. A kind of sprite composed of a ceramic drinking jug and bowl with a face and a spear in its hand.

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R.I.P. Cronos of #Venom (aka Conrad Lant) buff.ly/KxziY4E

Black and white photograph of the band Venom.

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'On an intriguingly hard-to-pin-down debut, members of The Umlauts and caroline find scrappy joy in dissonant chaos mixed with cinematic grandeur.' Curbside Lambsear - Put Rings On All My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands buff.ly/ihWZdys

Curbside Lambsear - Put Rings On All My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands album cover. Ornamental sidewalk planting of silvery, fuzzy plant with pale lavender flower spikes arching toward the pavement, backed by grasses and weeds, with white handwritten scribbles visible on the pavement.

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'Apocalypse was the record the group had been building up to. But its messages were their most controversial and the presentation of them the most risky the band had yet attempted...' Many Happy Returns to #PublicEnemy's Apocalypse 91 The Enemy Strikes Black, which turns 35 today! buff.ly/UYNVV0x

Public Enemy's Apocalypse 91 The Enemy Strikes Black album cover.

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Absence makes the art grow bolder says Will Ainsley about Archives, which sounds like Chiastic Slide-era Autechre reimagining the Wicker Man soundtrack Vanishing Twin’s Archives is tQ's Album of the Week buff.ly/NyCjmtb

Vanishing Twin’s Archives album cover. An off-white border surrounding a rectangular beige panel decorated with abstract shapes in blue ink/ watercolour.

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'In 2014 Lias Saoudi and his brother Yaz travelled to North Africa to recreate the ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ for an experimental Fat White Family single about circumcision...' An extract from Tears Of The Patriarch @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social buff.ly/ctSEkpU

Black and white photograph of Lias Saoudi, with his right hand clasping his forehead.

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Kali Malone has released a new song, titled ‘My Eve My Dawn’—the second track to be shared from forthcoming album Burning Song You can listen to it here: buff.ly/xBraJGx

Kali Malone - Burning Song album cover. Black and white photograph of the artist putting wood on to a fire on a beach.

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Mogwai have teamed up with Iggy Pop for a new track, ‘Underground’ Watch a video for it here: @rockactionrecords.scot @mogwai.scot buff.ly/n2U5UwL

Black and white photograph of the band Mogwai.

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#Stevie Wonder has shared an EP of previously unreleased tracks that were recorded during the studio sessions for 1976 album Songs In The Key Of Life You can listen to Songs In The Key Of Life: The EP here: buff.ly/YZgfT6z

Black and white photograph of Stevie Wonder, wearing a wide brimmed hat and dark glasses.

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David Sylvian has shared details of a new album, The Distance Between The Killer And The Killing buff.ly/6JyKuhz

Colour photograph of David Sylvian, wearing a red jacket, and his silver hair long.

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'Ram-raiding – for the first and only time – the UK Top 10 singles charts, Blah Blah Blah wasn’t just a comeback but a recalibration—and it might also be David Bowie’s most effective statement of the 1980s...' #IggyPop's Blah Blah Blah at 40 buff.ly/grTTcfL

ggy Pop's Blah Blah Blah album cover. Iggy posing in jeans and a black t-shirt against a white background with the album title written in light great and also teal blue. Version with Japanese Obi strip.

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'Much of what they tried to warn against three decades ago has now come to pass in even more nightmarish forms and after re-activating in 2014, Test Dept have found their moment...' The Strange World Of… Test Dept #ThePortal: Your Weekly Quietus Archive Dive buff.ly/Sc0W5am

Test Dept - Terra Firma album cover. A blue heraldic lion leaping across a textured red, gold, and blue distressed background with a radiating sun-face near its head.

Test Dept The Unacceptable Face of Freedom album cover. A faceless human figure made of thick, cracked red-orange paint saluting against a black background.

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'They make the Dingerbeat’s fusion with Occitan folk and Pakistani devotional singing sound so unforced that it’s perhaps easy at first to overlook how singular La Raive is.' Brama - La Raive #FrenchMusic for September buff.ly/2qaF2Q3

Brama - La Raive album cover. Hand-painted, playful three-line typographic artwork of sculptural, brushstroke letters with organic, plant-like forms in green, purple and blue, outlined in neon pink against a textured turquoise background.

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Ahead of her new album which touches on the fear, power and ecstasy of childbirth, the Norwegian musician explains her fierce interest in a Medieval English anchoress Susanne Sundfør on Julian of Norwich buff.ly/Wuvop99

Colour head and shoulders photograph of Susanne Sundfør, in a raincoat with some tree foliage in the background.

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"[the music industry is] essentially a gangster business. An opportunity to exploit artists and make loads of money. I feel like the more I learn about it, the more I understand about how artists have been consistently shafted.” An Interview with Hang Linton buff.ly/v1Ml7ad

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'Have you ever heard a song for the first time and felt a shiver run so deep it took the floor with it? That, for me, is the first seconds of Pugnello, and it hardly relents from there.' Gilla Band - Pugnello @roughtraderecords.bsky.social buff.ly/KobqzPM

Gilla Band - Pugnello album cover. Abstract image with layered horizontal paint streaks in yellow, white, and blue across a black background.

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#Erasure will release their 20th studio LP, Radio!! Radio!! on 12 March 2027 You can listen to lead track ‘Wings Of Love’ here: @muterecords.bsky.social buff.ly/H9Xpyd4

Colour photograph of the duo Erasure, sat at a table with a light hanging above them and net curtains through which an outside space is visible as a backdrop.

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#KimDeal is releasing a live album and concert film, Live At The Barbican You can watch the seven-minute trailer here: @4ad.com buff.ly/JOoAeQz

Colour still of Kim Deal performing, with a reddish orange tint to the image.

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Feared and monitored by the British establishment, tailed across East Germany by the Stasi, sponsored by the condemned Greater London Council and regularly hosted by British Rail... The Strange World Of… Test Dept #ThePortal: Your Weekly Quietus Archive Dive buff.ly/Sc0W5am

Black and white photograph of Test Department performing.

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'What I imagine Gio Escobar’s band Standing On The Corner might sound like were he from Wisconsin, owing as much to, say, Guided by Voices as SoTC might to Dipset.' Gash - At Least You Know What You’re Laughing At buff.ly/rENXjOr

Gash - At Least You Know What You’re Laughing At album cover. Colour photograph of a grubby looking bathroom with a small black rectangle pasted over part of the window.

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'Having spent the previous decade lauded as rock & roll’s most compelling survivor, Iggy Pop found himself, improbably, with a hit album on his hands...' Many Happy Returns to Iggy Pop's Blah Blah Blah, which turns 40 today! buff.ly/grTTcfL

Iggy Pop's Blah Blah Blah album cover. Iggy posing in jeans and a black t-shirt against a white background with the album title written in light great and also teal blue.

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David McKenna considers the relationship between regionalism and nationalism, and reviews essential new records, from a mutant club masterpiece to a brilliant prog pop swansong, via Sourdure, Brama and more Rockfort! #FrenchMusic for September buff.ly/2qaF2Q3

Colour photograph of the band Brama against an orange backdrop.

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'There’s an enjoyable Whack-A-Mole-ish quality to the arrangements on Cooked, where instruments surface then vanish: fitful double bass takes the place of twelve-string guitar, hushed ambient textures replace jazz skronk.' Oren Ambarchi - Cooked buff.ly/BE4MJUv

Oren Ambarchi - Cooked album cover. Sequin-covered, toy animal head with large round eyes, overlaid by bold white title "COOKED", and artist name at the top.

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'Jane’s Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies, Flaming Lips and the Lemonheads all had roots that stretched way back before 1991 but were awarded a seat at the top commercial table after Nirvana opened it up.' 1991 and how Grunge Forced Metal to Grow up buff.ly/riq2nbQ

The Flaming Lips – Oh My Gawd!!!...The Flaming Lips album cover. Trippy montage of skulls, part of the Earth, crucifixes, flowers etc.

Pixies - Come On Pilgrim EP cover. Rear view of a bald man with a very hairy back.

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“It was dusk when he was awoken by a fearful scream. He had never heard such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears..." Anna Mahtani on how modernist culture revolutionised Silent Hill 2 and gaming buff.ly/fCxyJF3

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'While others find in it astonishing range, a gamut of styles and emotions which saw both Prince and Elton John rate it as the greatest album ever made, it’s also an inconsistent, puzzling flawed album...' #StevieWonder's Songs In The Key Of Life turns 50 today buff.ly/zD17vVM

Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key of Life album cover with concentric orange-to-yellow torn-paper rings drawing the eye to a small sketched, sunglasses-wearing face at the centre. Japanese Obi strip version.

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'The Road‘s man is weak and vulnerable. His body is failing, his mind is wracked with doubt; he is overwhelmed by his emotions, bursting into tears of anguish and anger. He sees no future. We know him well...' Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Tradition of Apocalypse buff.ly/ttDnAgx

Cormac McCarthy - The Road, Folio Society edition hardback with black and red illustration of a wrecked landscape across the front and back.

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Ahead of their appearance at Decolonise Fest, fiercely DIY punk Hang Linton tells Emily Wilson about distrust of a gangster-infested music industry and the double-edged sword of building a social media fanbase An Interview with Hang Linton buff.ly/v1Ml7ad

Colour photograph of Hang Linton, stood in a field of flowers, holding a freshly picked bunch.

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'In 2022, it became apparent that a larger facility was needed to handle the influx of visitors to the memorial stone, and a full Cliff Burton Museum was opened. There is no equivalent museum for heavy metal’s other lost heroes...' The Legacy of #CliffBurton buff.ly/EGRd3ix

Inside The Cliff Burton Museum, by Tom Johansson.

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'Wonder was 26 when Songs In The Key Of Life was released—at that point, he was absolutely on top of the world, the greatest soulman on earth whose magnificence overshadowed even rock and pop' Many Happy Returns to #StevieWonder's Songs In The Key Of Life, which turns 50 today! buff.ly/zD17vVM

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