TQ Zine # 12 & # 13: Belated Happy Birthday!

Life’s been too busy lately with family, work and studies so I had no time to make a happy birthday post about TQ, so now I’m posting something about both latest issues. Last month TQ Zine marked its first anniversary with #12 celebrating it with a 3-cdr compilation of artists making tracks inspired by three previous issue covers. This is over 3 hours of noise, ambient, and experimental sounds. I haven’t been able to pay full attention to the music, but through two listens I have discovered some new stuff which I might have read about before but didn’t get around to listening to, plus tracks by artists I had already heard. The tracks I particularly distinguished are: an amazing jazzy ambient track by Chlorine (must hear more from them), a cacophonous reed and guitar detuning jam with surreal lyrics from Chow Mwng (congrats for making a track with lyrics for a cover), beautiful floating droney ambient from Ghost Signs, vocal drone and throat singing by James Worse, throbbing and reverberating subterranean drone by Joined By Wire, an amazing combination of early Swans, Skullflower and My Bloody Valentine by Penance Stare (must find out more), this blog’s favorite Posset making a great number poem, organ and string drone by The Daughters of Conceptual Sex Death, and the absolutely best discovery of recent months called Möbius, a vocal ambient drone duo from Newcastle offering an AMAZING witch invocation drone that I can’t stop listening to. How the fuck did these people elude my drone radar? Thank you TQ for ceaselessly teaching me about good music. The content of # 12 is filled with descriptions of the tracks’ recording processes by the artists themselves, and is complete with Rob Hayler’s essay on the origins and characteristics of the No-Audience Underground. Check out the full compilation here.

#13 is a heartfelt tribute to John Peel with accounts of getting to know him or recording Peel Sessions by various artists, and a truly warming comic about him, plus some reviews. I have to say that not having grown up in the UK or the English-speaking world in general I never had the chance to really listen to him during his lifetime, although I had read lots about him through magazine about psychedelic rock as a child. But as I grew up and I became obsessed with grindcore and crust punk I read about his promotion of heroes of my adolescence like Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, and I realize how important it was for someone like him to exist in the established media. This issue is accompanied by a DVD of the documentary Republic about the city of Blyth being voted worst town in England in 1992. I was very intrigued about this doc when I read about a few months ago, but I still haven’t watched it, but looking forward to it.

Next issue seems to have another good offer for its subscribers, namely a Posset cd, which is reason enough for someone to subscribe promptly.

For info about TQ go here.