Patrick Clarke

Liverpool, London

Culture Journalist at Freelance

Acting ed @theQuietus // My book Bedsit Land: The Strange Worlds Of Soft Cell is out now! // Will write for £££ and DJ for cheap // bi

Articles

Radical Traditional: Folk Music for Spring, by Patrick Clarke

1 week ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

It’s a point I’ve made often in this column, but once again for those at the back: there is really no such thing as a folk ‘revival’. The term implies a cycle of death and rebirth, where in reality folk music is a constant thing, albeit constantly shifting – like that old idea of a river as both permanent in status and ever-changing in make-up.
Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of April 2025

1 week ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

I’m penning this introduction to our latest best of the month chart beneath the blazing heat of May Day. It’s a date that I’ve noticed is being marked more and more within the music scene – I’ve had three nights in a row, in fact, of excellent live shows themed in equal parts around the date’s folkloric significance and its symobolism in the fight for workers’ rights that have pulsated with a sense of communal energy.
Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of April 2025

1 week ago | buff.ly | Patrick Clarke

I’m penning this introduction to our latest best of the month chart beneath the blazing heat of May Day. It’s a date that I’ve noticed is being marked more and more within the music scene – I’ve had three nights in a row, in fact, of excellent live shows themed in equal parts around the date’s folkloric significance and its symobolism in the fight for workers’ rights that have pulsated with a sense of communal energy.
tQ's Exclusive Monthly Round-Up Playlist: April 2025

2 weeks ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

As part of your many, many perks for becoming a Quietus subscriber, we’re compiling a specially-curated, playlist for our readers every month.
tQ Subscriber Release: Ex-Agent

2 weeks ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

Never did we think it could get this bad. Alongside the frankly evil cost of living, prohibitively expensive rehearsal spaces, and the fact that even finding a grassroots venue in which to make strange noise can be an arduous task, it is a very bleak time to be a young band in the UK. And yet, against all odds, a wave of ambitious, genre-bending guitar music is sweeping the land.
No Repeats: Tunde Adebimpe’s Favourite Albums

2 weeks ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

Lately, Tunde Adebimpe’s been thinking a lot about mixtapes. “They’re pretty much how I got into music, these mixtapes full of lots of different kinds of music that my friends would give me,” the TV On The Radio singer says. “And when this record started coming together, it felt like a mixtape.” Adebimpe’s referring to Thee Black Boltz, his debut solo album.
No Repeats: Tunde Adebimpe’s Favourite Albums

2 weeks ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

I kind of defaulted to Ege Bamyesi out of all their records, because I listened to that one the most, but can we just talk about Can generally? Again, a band who are just about the idea of permutation, and how expansive you can make something you want to do, and ego-less, in a sense. They were rock stars, and when Damo Suzuki was fronting they had this person who was free-wheeling poetry over it, and it all hung together really well.
No Repeats: Tunde Adebimpe’s Favourite Albums

2 weeks ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

There was a record shop in Williamsburg called Earwax and it was one of those shops like Kim’s Video where you could ask the person working there for recommendations, and they would begrudgingly show you something, like, “I don’t know if you’re cool enough to listen to this, but maybe…” And this was one of those situations. The guy there was always really super-kind, the facade fell away as soon as I was like, “No, show me the weird shit, I want to hear all that”. So he gave this to me.
No Repeats: Tunde Adebimpe’s Favourite Albums

2 weeks ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

Daniel Kessler from Interpol, who’s a really good friend, an old friend, was the person who fully introduced me to electronic music. And he was the first person who asked me, “Have you ever heard Aphex Twin?” No, I hadn’t heard him. And it was definitely a sort of Nirvana moment, when I was just like, “What the fuck is that?
Ben Chasny and Norberto Lobo on New Carlos Paredes-Inspired Collaboration

2 weeks ago | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke

In Teatro Micaelense – a gorgeous theatre at the heart of Ponta Delgada, the capital of Portugal’s Azores archipelago – Ben Chasny sits stage right and unspools deep, resonant arpeggios on his acoustic guitar. He’s leaning forward, slightly off his chair, fixed in concentration, and his glance flicks back and forth between his instrument and his collaborator, Norberto Lobo.