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The Quietus Albums of the Year 2025 (In Association with Norman Records)
Here are our favourite albums of the last 12 months, as voted for by tQ staff, columnists and core writers
Hey Colossus Announce 15th Album via Short Film
Veteran DIY rockers celebrate 23 years in the game with new LP Heaven Was Wild, out next February
Organic Intelligence LI: Laura Cannell’s Guide to Early-ish Christmas Music
It's a seasonal special for the final antidote to the algorithm of 2025, as guides us through melancholic Medieval, rousing Baroque and stolen carols
Conversational Improvisational: Stewart Lee & EarthBall get Free
EarthBall's Outside Over There is one of this year's best albums. Because it opens with a sample of Stewart Lee talking about pear cider, it felt only right to introduce both parties for a feature. But then a breakdown in communication led to a gloriously unexpected meditation on the nature of improvisation...
Music of the Month(s): The Best Albums and Tracks of November and December 2025
Our final round-up from 2025 is the best from November and December, as selected by tQ's listmas-addled staffers
Mark S. Williamson
folklore, facts and fables 6: three days to find out
A charming record pays tribute to cult TV archeological programme Time Team
Why Reports of the Death of UK Nightlife are Greatly Exaggerated
From venue closures to VAT, conversations around the UK’s beleaguered nightlife sector have struck a singularly gloomy tone for more than a decade. But has that pessimism become part of the problem? Ed Gillett asks whether our eulogies for the late-night scene have outlived their usefulness.
Reviews
Review Columns
Spool’s Out: Cassette Reviews for November by Daryl Worthington
From radical dance music to triumphant, intricately layered synth pop and a levitating collaboration between a Ugandan embaire ensemble and a Japanese dub producer, Daryl Worthington finds rays of joy on cassette to blast away the impending winter entropy this November
Baker’s Dozen
Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives
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News
Been Around The World: The Magical Odyssey Of The Avalanches’ Since I Left You
A concept album that transcended its concept, a stealth mix-CD, global disco, sampledelic exotica, yacht rock by other means: the Australian group’s debut was many things, writes David Bennun - and above all it was, and remains, a joy. This article was first published in 2020
The Portal
Explore 15 Years Of Cultural Wayfinding
Each week we conjure up a miscellany of tQ writing from the mists of time for you. Most often random. Sometimes themed. Always enthralling.
Explore The PortalThe Model is You: An Interview with John Glacier
As she releases a new deluxe edition of Like A Ribbon, one of the year's finest albums, boundary-pushing East London rapper, producer and poet John Glacier speaks to Claire Biddles about childhood poems on the failure of humanity, the enduring influence of Hackney, disability, self-advocacy, grime and more
Culture
Schattenfroh: A Fable About Totalitarianism Written in Brain-Fluid
An interview with the book’s author Michael Lentz and its translator, Max Lawton, about the German cult novel Schattenfroh, a bizarre and troubling novel for our bizarre and troubling times, and its timely appearance in an English-language edition
The Lodger In Me: Bid from The Monochrome Set on the Aneurysm that Changed His Life
In an exclusive extract from his new book, Strange Young Alien, the founder member and principal songwriter of the Monochrome Set discusses the ruptured cerebral aneurysm that changed the way he thought about music and the creative process
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