Ben Graham

Notions of Decadence: Half a Century of Bowie’s Station To Station

Ben Graham takes a detailed look at the decadent path trod by David Bowie during the creation of Station To Station

Adolescent Awkwardness: U2’s Boy turns 45

Ben Graham confesses his love for early U2, and implores us to remember them before they became the biggest band in the world. This feature was first published in 2010

Gonna Make You The Biggest Star This World Has Ever Seen: Hot Chocolate’s Cicero Park at 50

Hot Chocolate’s debut album presents a dark and edgy vision at odds with the band’s later reputation as MOR balladeers and purveyors of feelgood funk-lite, writes Ben Graham

Earthly Delights: Unpacking Donovan’s A Gift From A Flower To A Garden Boxset

As the state51 Conspiracy reissue Donovan's double-album box set on mono vinyl, Ben Graham looks back at the artist's most ambitious statement and finds a post-psychedelic message that's still relevant today

Are We There Yet? Abstract Concrete Interviewed

Charles Hayward and Agathe Max, two-fifths of experimental supergroup Abstract Concrete, talk to Ben Graham about creative evolution, learning to work with melody and structure, and saying goodbye to rock & roll. All portraits by Lewis Hayward

A Gorgeous Haunting: Tom Ravenscroft’s Favourite Records

From 90s grunge and hip hop to contemporary ambient electronica, DJ Tom Ravenscroft tells Ben Graham about the 13 albums that give him the most listening pleasure, and developing his own musical interest away from the influence of his dad, the late John Peel. Tom Ravenscroft image courtesy of the BBC.

Organs Of Ecstasy: Ben Chasny’s Favourite Albums

Questing experimental guitar hero Ben Chasny, aka Six Organs Of Admittance, tells Ben Graham about 13 records that influenced his playing and shaped his worldview, from psychedelic Japanese noise rock to American Primitive acoustic fingerpicking

Reissue Of The Week: Felt’s Gold Mine Trash & Bubblegum Perfume

From fiercely puritanical post-punk aesthetes to open-minded artistic explorers: across two career-spanning compilations, Felt present a unique interpretation of a decade they professed to despise, writes Ben Graham

Odditorium Festival Of The Weird Confirms Return For 2022

tQ's John Doran is among the guests at the Brighton event in May, alongside Ronald Hutton and a new play about Derek Jarman

Cinema As Enema: Butthole Surfers On Film

Ben Graham looks at the Texas band’s onscreen appearances, from the notorious Bar-B-Que Movie to an incendiary appearance on The Larry Sanders Show, and concludes that show business was in their blood all along

Pulling At The Threads: Katie Gately’s Favourite Albums

On the release of her new album, Loom, the Brooklyn musician and sound artist talks about the records that have weaved their way through her life, from Joy Division to Joanna Newsom, Philip Glass to Low and This Heat

Unquiet Spirits: Ifriqiyya Electrique Interviewed

With Laylet el Booree - one of tQ's albums of the year so far - Ifriqiyya Electrique have fused industrial post punk and techno with the traditional Banga music of the Tunisian desert to brilliant effect. But as instigator Francois Cambuzat tells Ben Graham, they still fear it could all be a dreadful mistake

Spaceship

Outcrops

Jim Jones And The Righteous Mind

COLLECTIV

Jim Jones And the Righteous Mind play heavy lounge on Keith Richards' old guitar

A Self-Willed Mythology: The Lives Of Scott Walker

Ben Graham marks the passing of Scott Walker by looking back at a career in which the man born Noel Scott Engel created one of the great mythic figures in musical history

The Size Of The Ocean: Suzanne Ciani interviewed

Suzanne Ciani is an important and innovative figure in the history of electronic music, being one of the first owners and users of the Buchla modular synthesizer. Ahead of her appearance at Terraforma festival she talks to Ben Graham about the importance of spirituality in her practice

Things Learned At: Fort Process

A 19th-century sea fort east of Brighton becomes home, for one day, to some exceptional sound art and experimental music

Fort Process Festival Returns

Fort Process festival organisers Lost Property guide us through the third edition of the experimental sound and art festival

Harmonic Worlds: Colin Newman’s 13 Favourite Albums

The Immersion, Wire and Githead founder member chooses a list that goes from minimalism to maximalism, via Steve Reich, LFO and Todd Rundgren, and tells Ben Graham how Britpop was rubbish but The Beatles have never sounded better

LIVE REPORT: Matana Roberts & Kelly Jayne Jones

US saxophonist and composer Matana Roberts and UK sound artist Kelly Jayne Jones play the first show from the Outlands National Experimental Music Touring Network at Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion

The Quest For The Grail: Rat Scabies Favourite Albums

The former Damned drummer tells Ben Graham about seeing bands at the Orchid Ballroom in Purley, the appeal of repetition and variety in music, and how The Damned nearly got their own Monkees-style TV show

Dismantled King Back On His Throne: The Strange World Of… Lawrence

Ben Graham meets the Felt, Denim and Go-Kart Mozart singer to talk pop dreams, the pursuit of fame, accidentally inventing indie and laying down the blueprint for Britpop, via ten key points in a varied and unique body of work. Homepage photo by PP Hartnett

An Invitation To The Dance: Lewes Psychedelic Festival

Ben Graham trips out to the South Downs and finds psychedelia as alive and amorphous as ever.

Circuit Des Yeux

Reaching For Indigo

From singer, musician and artist Haley Fohr, a very modern record rooted in the avant-garde music of 50 years ago.

Escape-Ism

Introduction To Escape-Ism

The debut release from a new Ian Svenonius project, full of imagination, revolution and the jerky dirty urge to dance.

It’s A Silk Sash Bash: Suzi Quatro’s 13 Favourite Albums

The one-time Leather Tuscadero talks to Ben Graham about the records that changed her life, plus breaking down barriers, seeking new challenges and being snubbed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Finding The Connection: Laetitia Sadier’s Favourite Albums

Laetitia Sadier takes Ben Graham on a transformative journey via the power of music, with 13 records from Manchester to Rio De Janeiro, Toulouse to Chicago and beyond

Oddfellow’s Casino

Oh, Sealand

Alan Moore And Coil-Themed Night For Brighton Festival

Iain Sinclair, Viv Albertine and more also confirmed for series of Odditorium events. Photo courtesy of Joe Brown

A Shark In Jet’s Clothing: Reclaiming Blondie’s Radical Roots

As Blondie prepare to release their 11th album Pollinator, Ben Graham talks to Debbie Harry and Chris Stein about Warhol, William Burroughs, the need for a focussed opposition to Trump and why Debbie wishes she'd been even more outrageous back in the day

The Day Of The Locust: Paul Leary Of The Butthole Surfers Interviewed

Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary talks to Ben Graham about the making of the band's classic 1987 album, Locust Abortion Technician, and how its traumatic closing track was actually influenced by a Carly Simon Bond theme

INTERVIEW: The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Jim Reid

Jim Reid discusses the band's long-awaited new album and the surprising reality of the band's continued existence