L&Q Weekly
Katy Perry gets stuck in a ball, Beyoncé gets stuck in a flying car, Deerhoof quit Spotify, and a man sues WhatsApp with good reason
Supported by Ghostly International
Track of the Week
Alex G’s tenth album is gearing up to be his big one. Having released his most recent records through indie king Domino, last month he announced his signing of a big major album deal with Sony/RCA for Headlights, which will be out 18 July. News came with a track called ‘Afterlife’ – the kind of soft-rock pop that would fill stadiums in the ’80s, played by men who looked like window cleaners – and this week we’ve been given ‘June Guitar’: something for the campfire or back porch, not a million miles away from upstate New Yorkers Woods. There’s an accordion hook and Alex G sounds like a 100-year-old man thinking about his life. Hopefully the rest of Headlights keeps him on this kind of a roll. Listen here
Submitting to the sprawl of Glastonbury
[At Glastonbury] the doubts were kept at bay, it all just washed over me. Actually, I rather enjoyed my hot dog in the rain on Thursday night. And I really needed that kefir and moment of peaceful shade in the Healing Fields on Sunday. Maybe I’m losing my edge… Continue reading
The Drift: the best in weird and experimental music
In the fifth edition of The Drift, we will be celebrating the myriad possibilities of stringed instruments. Be that the furious guitar virtuosity of Cyrus Pireh or the frenetic bass of Norberto Lobo, the unholy sounds emanating from Hildur Guðnadóttir’s halldorophone or Sary Moussa’s versatile saz, these five albums will demonstrate the limitless potential at the end of the fretboard. Continue reading
The Best Albums of the Year so far
Loud And Quiet has never put together a midway AOTY list before. Don’t they ruin the surprise of end-of-year lists? Aren’t people living for that kind of climax right now? How we’ve preserved that high here is by a.) not preferentially numbering our 20 favourite albums of the year so far, and b.) by asking 10 L&Q writers to select their favourite 2 records from the first half of 2025. Fortunately, the entire team has excellent and varied taste. Continue reading
Albums for your diary announced this week
For Those I Love – Carving the Stone (8 August, September Recordings): Irish producer David Balfe will finally follow up his 2021 self-titled debut that combined lyrical spoken word with post-club electronics. ‘No Scheme’ sets the scene for more 4am reflections on the trappings of modern life.
Rumour of the Week: Man to sue Meta over Glastonbury weekend WhatsApp glitch
A 36-year-old graphic designer is said to be suing Meta after a WhatsApp glitch made it impossible for him to mute a group of friends who were all at Glastonbury without him. John Scellan had made peace with the fact that the rest of his ‘Bazzle Dazzle’ group would be at the festival whilst he was at home in Sussex, figuring, “I’ll turn off notifications and stand in a dark cupboard for 5 days to deal with my FOMO like a grownup.” To Scellan’s horror, muting ‘Bazzle Dazzle’ didn’t work due to an unexpected glitch with the famous messaging app. By 10 PM on the first day of the festival he had reportedly already received 228 messages, many of which read, “Mandela bar in 20?”, “Slash then food”, or “Poppers and pops”, which was clearly a new joke that he would never be able to feel a part of. An emotional Scellan has spoken about his attempts to reinstall the app to see if it would allow him to mute the group, but it seemed that the only way to prevent “Phil Jupitus spotted at the Park” from buzzing into his Samsung Galaxy at 3am was to leave ‘Bazzle Dazzle’ altogether – the last thing he wanted to do, even after his recurring response of “sounds shit lads ;-P” stopped receiving crying-laughing emojis after the third time he sent it. Scellan is seeking £2.5 million in damages.
Wrap this up
There has to come a point when you’ve got to feel for Katy Perry. Unfortunately for her, I think we’ve now passed through that point and into a realm of laughing again. Her world tour ended this week with her getting stuck inside a giant metal hamster ball that was meant to fly around the arena. Oh Katy! Just try to not touch anything for a bit.
For Beyoncé it was a flying Cadillac that malfunctioned, at her show in Houston. No one laughed at that one, because it was Beyoncé up there for God’s sake! And it did look genuinely terrifying.
Alt. rock legends Deerhoof have pulled their music from Spotify after learning that Daniel Ek is also the chairman of a German military tech company currently pumping $700 million into the development of AI weapons, stating: “We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech.” Their full statement is here.
