When Einstürzende Neubauten formed in West Berlin 44 years ago, few would have predicted the speed-fuelled, metal-bashing industrial pioneers would be easing into their fifth decade by releasing their most coherent yet varied body of work so far. Frontman Blixa Bargeld tells Wesley Doyle how biological determinism, public improvisation and feather boas all fed into its creation
When Aug Stone explored a rumour he’d heard about “Nick Cave’s Bar”, he found a joint where Blixa Bargeld bartended, bizarre performance art took place, and the drugs meant everyone kept drinking long into the morning
In the second instalment of this undeniably consummate column, Quietus staff pick their favourite albums, EPs, tracks and reissues of the month, shining a light on things we've not managed to cover on the site and nodding toward a handful of the best of what's already been reviewed
Amid a whirlwind of drug use, chaotic live shows and within-band animosity, The Birthday Party juddered to a halt in 1983. Daniel Dylan Wray traces the story of the band's messy dissolution, and of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' phoenix-like emergence the following year with From Her To Eternity. Interviews with Mick Harvey, Flood, Jim Thirlwell, Barry Adamson, Nick Launey, Chris Bohn, Henry Rollins, Jessamy Calkin and Hugo Race
With a flurry of recent activity, including reissues and the promise of a book, Duncan Seaman talks to Jowe Head, Biggles Books and Phones Sportsman, as well as Geoff Travis of Rough Trade about the cult DIY band. Home page band portrait by Caroline Kraabel
Michael Chapman's is a remarkable tale: a singer/guitarist veteran of the '60s who last decade connected with US artists such as Thurston Moore and Jack Rose and started making beautiful and exploratory, improvisational music. Ahead of his performance at Supernormal Festival, he tells Russ Slater about staring at woodpiles and why he hates being called 'folk'
In this lost interview from 2009, Rhys Chatham talks to David Moats about doom metal, gentrification and drum & bass as a collaboration between him and Charlemagne Palestine comes to St. John's Church in Hackney on Thursday as part of William Basinski and Art Assembly's Arcadia series
Jeremy Allen interviews Carla Bruni in Paris about her new album French Touch, but politics is strictly interdict. “I wish good luck to Mr and Mrs Trump, I wish good luck to Mr and Mrs Macron, and I don’t care, do you understand?”
Ahead of their Quietus Social show in support of Alexander Tucker, Eden Tizard speaks to Gentle Stranger about audience responses, the dialogue between a musician and non-musician approach, and their own post-clown ethos. Pictures by Daniel Gatenio
The transportive, ritualistic drones of London's Anji Cheung conjure up portals to uncanny other worlds, heavy with the thrill of the unknown. Ahead of her performance at Supernormal this weekend, she meets Jimmy Martin to discuss a fascination with the occult, and how Throbbing Gristle and Coil have inspired her music's trips into inner space
With her latest record Six just released through Thrill Jockey, Thalia Zedek speaks to Nick Hutchings about immersing herself totally in music in recent years, last year's acclaimed album Via, and reanimating her Come project with Chris Brokaw