Pooh Sticks

MPTL Microplastics' 'Sod In Heaven' The sound of sneering sugar zoomies. tQ26.H.1 - Ignore.

France's 'Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts' You are a dog on your favourite rug in Bethnal Green. Three of your attendant humans have found that place to scratch. The one that makes your hind leg spasm rhythmically. tQ26.H.2 - Buy.

Guttersnipe's 'Extinction Burst!' Art-rock which sounds like the band are course-correcting their failing instruments while being shouted and screamed at from a tiled vocal booth. tQ26.H.3 - Ignore.

Squarepusher's 'Kammerkonzert' You sense the on-screen palette changing and wonder what it has to do with the score from the orchestra pit. You don't really feel anything. The lights come up. There's only one other person. Their head lolls. tQ26.H.4 - Ignore.

Nuhara's 'Rama' You are a hawk on the wing, hunting something on the edge of your ability. The silent dives, the furious noise of encounter. The taste of failure, the explosion of success. This is the music. tQ26.H.5 - Buy.

Quiet Light's 'Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2' Such perfect pop falling down a wall of perfect noise. tQ26.H.6 - Buy.

Tara Clerkin Trio's 'Somewhere Good' A rare foray into positive emotions of wholesome warmth without falling to twee, cute or zany. Genuine and lovely. tQ26.H.7 - Explore.

Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy's 'Dying Is The Internet' Nothing feels normal at a prayer call dubstep rave. And you love it. tQ26.H.8 - Buy.

Wendy Eisenberg's 'Wendy Eisenberg' A country folk exploration of personal pasts from the perspective of a happier present. There's a sweet optimism born from the shift, a distance from history which anticipates the unstated future. tQ26.H.9 - Explore.

The Heads' 'Yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell' Lazy, autumn afternoon, psychedelic rock which demands a wing back chair, a valve headphone amp and some variety of cognitive enhancement. tQ26.H.10 - Ignore.

Underscores' 'U' As if the seersucker fabric of aughts-time dance floors were folded onto eighties' pastel cotton pop and machine hemmed together with the zigzag stitching of modern production. Striking patchworked hyperpop. tQ26.H.11 - Ignore.

My New Band Believe's 'My New Band Believe' Despite the soft folk genre, there is an enormous amount of busyness on display in both the ideas and execution. tQ26.H.12 - Ignore.

Boards Of Canada's 'Inferno' You are walking through a busy mall, SSRI ambience giving you a muted response. You can hear the true horror of moderate concern in others' clipped words. It would be terrifying if it wasn't so normal. tQ26.H.13 - Buy.

One Leg One Eye's 'Crone' The reverb of nocturnal isolation amplifies the drone of unseen movements until the crier makes it very clear whose side you are on and the noise begins to crush your head with its ominous beauty. tQ26.H.14 - Explore.

Cocanha's 'Flame Folclòre' It's tempting to conflate language and genre into insular political statement... which is a category error when the music is as inviting and warm as crackling embers. tQ26.H.15 - Buy.

Deafkids' 'Cicatrizes Do Futuro' Try as Deafkids might to convince you that the world is falling apart, you aren't really paying attention because you're too busy staying upright in an abandoned warehouse's basement mosh pit. tQ26.H.16 - Buy.

Sunn O)))'s 'Sunn O)))' A change in recording technique brings an more airy, natural sound which makes room for the found sounds of nature surrounding the sessions. Beautiful at the right amplitude. tQ26.H.17 - Explore.

Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti's 'Almost Waking' There's an unusual, for Orcutt, sense of purpose to be found in his second album of 2026. One could idly wonder if the collaborations created either accountability or reason. tQ26.H.18 - Ignore.

Dry Cleaning's 'Secret Love' Observational anthropology covering the detail of western middle-class suburban anxiety is rarely this beautiful. tQ26.H.19 - Buy.

PVA's 'No More LIke This' Three a.m. at the breakfast bar talking over the night. Four a.m. at the open fridge door slow dancing the present. tQ26.H.20 - Buy.

Xaviersobased's 'Xavier' A catalytic shift, less so for the artist, more for the industry. Resolutely exploratory and musical art-rap posted under a well-funded major label promotion. So why cling to whinging misogyny? tQ26.H.21 - Explore.

Horse Lords' 'Demand To Be Taken To Heaven Alive!' Horse Lords continue their meticulous research into microtonal, polyrhythmic art-jazz, eschewing fripperies of the flesh to concentrate fully on challenging the intellectual basis of music theory. tQ26.H.22 - Ignore.

Hyper Gal's 'Our Hyper' You are on a fairground ride. It's going faster than rated. You hear another bolt fizz through the air. The attendants are chant rapping at you through a clipping amp. They aren't reassuring. tQ26.H.23 - Explore.

ABADIR's 'The Primitivist' A harum-scarum tumble through Middle Eastern music traditions plants its feet on clubland dance floors in heroic landing pose. It's faster, showier and a whole lot more fun than anything you've heard before. tQ26.H.24 - Ignore.

Joshua Chuquimia Crampton's 'Anata' It's not just the guitars. Everything on this album sounds like it's being sculpted with a chainsaw. tQ26.H.25 - Ignore.

Foetus' 'Halt' A state of the world address which ends with an introspective glance at Thirlwell's own life and decisions. It's wrapped as a bombastic movie soundtrack which leans toward Bond and westerns. tQ26.H.26 - Ignore.

EarthBall's 'Actual Earth Music: Volume 3 & 4' Art noise jazz as a vehicle for sonic oppression is certainly one way to improvise a couple of live sets. tQ26.H.27 - Ignore.

Gnod's 'Chronicles Of Gnowt (Vol. 1)' An evolution, using the ominous dread of John Murphy's production to create a darker, more introspective descent into tranced focus. tQ26.H.28 - Ignore.

Build Buildings & Molly Gochman's 'Continuum' Somewhere in deep space, Dewey carefully tends the greenhouse hived off from the Valley Forge. He plays this album to the plants. tQ26.H.29 - Ignore.

YHWH Nailgun's 'Magazine' A singer at the edge of VO2max and distressed found sounds, which include, perhaps, wedding bells and warehouse sleds, are wrapped into short, spiky math rock art things. tQ26.H.30 - Ignore.

Irmin Schmidt's 'Requiem' You sit. By a beaver dam in Vermont or falling snowmelt in Moiwa. Birdsong and frog chitter. Rain speaks its poem of thunking drip and pink noise. Your fondness for those who fell is in the memories they gave. tQ26.H.31 - Buy.

Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir's 'Skinweeper' Three acts where you circle snatches of disquiet, emerge onto the cavort of bio-industrial predation, and dissolve into its being where, as one, you await the next traveller, your preferences subsumed. tQ26.H.32 - Ignore.

Sideshow's 'Tigray Funk' You wake in a full room, someone laughs "hey" and others hail your red eye; voices wooozy, discussing politics, the night before, reasons to change, parables from home, beats snagging concentration. tQ26.H.33 - Buy.

Neurosis' 'An Undying Love For A Burning World' A soundtrack for this remarkable age of extremes, in which we seek to excise everyone left of the upper hinge, while trying to destroy the virtues that hinge depends on. tQ26.H.34 - Ignore.

Juni Habel's 'Evergreen In Your Mind' A pretty sadness; beautiful folk from another century describing age old conundrums that stem from from desires involving others. tQ26.H.35 - Explore.

Kristen Gallerneaux's 'Life Day' A celebration of the sun risen from the darkest night; birdsong and gamelan, tape hiss and crickets, squeeze box and squeals. The vibrancy given to mortality deferred. tQ26.H.36 - Buy.

Bad Mothers Union's 'Sore Losers' You are sat on a beer whiffy couch in the rehearsal room above a pub. It's hard to hear your mate so you lapse into a nodding reverie for afternoons lost to rolling psychedelic jams. tQ26.H.37 - Buy.

K Wata's 'Give U Space' Sonically, this the kind of dub that feels like being under a weighted blanket on a comfy sofa while reading a book... the book is about reconciling your flooding love for an ebbing partner. tQ26.H.38 - Buy.

Happy 18th Birthday to @thequietus.com. tQ have provided me with so much joy over the years and you should all subscribe. Also go to a Sly and the Family Drone gig because they're lovely and the bond they create with the audience is magical.

FRANTX's 'IDUTYDU' It's certainly frantic... perhaps an exercise in over-communication following some miscommunication trauma. Like an Ableton snow globe. tQ26.H.39 - Ignore.

Pat Thomas & XT's 'Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)*' Live recordings of the kind of jazz you need formal training to appreciate. The Zurich synths intrigue while the London recording's audience dog is having a whale of a time. tQ26.H.40 - Ignore.

Kim Gordon's 'PLAY ME' Guitars kennelled, synths given their head, sloganeering couplets cued to ape doom scrolling the concerns of microblogged social politics. It's all quite upsetting. tQ26.H.41 - Ignore.

By Storm's 'My Ghosts Go Ghost' This starts with a eulogy for a fallen friend, then expands into accompanied poetry and beatless rap without ever leaving the mood. Like a sober wake. tQ26.H.42 - Ignore.

Remy Solar's 'Heavy Terrain' Yes, it's heavy; it's dub. There's so much mass here that you feel beatless aspects of funk and dnb as relief work in the vibration of the floor around you. Despite that power its manipulation is airy and precise. tQ26.H.43 - Buy.

Zahn's 'Purpur' A solid rhythm section chugs down the middle lane like a truck on a motorway. Twiddly prog guitar becomes a two-stroke bike buzzing around the implacable lorry. A destination of sorts is reached. tQ26.H.44 - Ignore.

Dialect's 'Full Serpent' Sunday afternoon on a sun-drenched sofa with a lazy dog and an over-filled roast beef and horseradish sandwich. tQ26.H.45 - Buy.

Aja Ireland's 'Moult Mouth' High-drama industrial techno - more baudy cabaret than vampire sex-club. tQ26.H.46 - Ignore.

Kartas' 'Lado H' Brazilian arty jazz-rock born from a desire to reflect the watery landscape of Piraí. It's very serious. tQ26.H.47 - Ignore.

Phillip Golub's 'Partisan Ship' Having maxed out discernible count in the note wars, this jazz clamour adds noise synth to provide another axis to climb. tQ26.H.48 - Ignore.

Converge's 'Love Is Not Enough' High-trebel, high-cadence hardcore punk breaks the rage at "Gilded Cage" to show something a little more personal and the whole thing becomes more about us than object. tQ26.H.49 - Ignore.