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Plus: Carly Rae Jepsen on motherhood, stardom and her horniest album ever

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Fri 18 Sept 2026
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Picks of the week

‘I toured with a hole in my brain. I don’t regret a thing’

Punk duo Lambrini Girls on fighting extreme times with extreme measures

Their debut stormed the charts and wowed Iggy Pop, but health crises threatened to derail the Brighton duo. Now they’re back, taking aim at the manosphere, fascism and the ruling class
Lambrini Girls duo pose in dark, edgy outfits in a derelict industrial room
Carly Rae Jepsen, in a black leather coat, poses with one leg on a red plastic chair
‘I’ve never been more terrified!’
Carly Rae Jepsen on motherhood, stardom and her horniest album ever
The singer Beck sits in a sunlit diner wearing a tweed jacket and sunglasses
The reader interview
Beck: ‘What does a devil’s haircut look like? Anything with a lot of architecture and wild flights of fancy’
A Spiral Tribe rave in Paris, 1993.
‘Very authoritarian, very brutal’
Three decades after the UK’s anti-rave crackdown, why is France doing the same?
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Reviews

The musician Beabadoobee, her hair in a streaked mullet, in the back of an open flatbed truck.
Alexis Petridis's album of the week
Beabadoobee: Pylon – voice of a generation’s surprisingly relatable rampage through rock star rage
Musicians performing live
Global album of the month
Baka Beyond: Sing the World Awake – powerful Cameroonian vocals burst through fussy arrangements
Lorely Rodriguez AKA Empress Of sitting sideways on a cream armchair, wearing leather trousers
Empress Of
Dream House – a tender and openhearted rebirth after wildfires razed her house
David Bowie in 1965, aged 19, when he went as Davie Jones.
David Bowie
The Shel Talmy Recordings – these unheard 60s tunes are actually pretty flimsy
Beck sits in a lamplit bar, wearing a white suit with a chessboard on a neighbouring table
Beck
Ride Lonesome – stunning end to the heartache trilogy of Sea Change and Morning Phase
A singer performs with a microphone, legs apart, in front of screens showing his image
Film review
Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? – Jarvis Cocker’s wit and warmth upstage the hits
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Make a Feast out of anything

The Feast app: your most useful kitchen utensil
Get inspired with more than 7,000 recipes from our world-class cooks and smart, exclusive features to make cooking a breeze.

 

Spotlight

quote  Ed Sheeran wants to stay out of politics. By quitting his tour, his support acts have exposed the hollowness of neutrality

Laura Snapes
By standing behind support act Macklemore, who was removed from the tour for his vocal support of Palestine, these artists are demonstrating the self-sacrifice necessary to stand against those crushing free speech
Ed Sheeran and Macklemore smile at each other on stage during a concert performance
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Classical

Sacconi Quartet perform on stage before an audience
quote  The secret of Mozart’s genius unlocked – has a teenager succeeded where generations of musicologists have failed?
Tom Service
Braxton & 100Tubatet At World Financial Center PlazaAmerican Jazz and Avant-Garde musician and composer Anthony Braxton (left center, in all black) conducts his group, 100Tubatet, in the World Premiere of his 'Composition No. 19 for 100 Tubas' as part of the Bang On A Can marathon at the World Financial Center Plaza, New York, New York, June 4, 2006. (Photo by Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images)
It’s going to be a blast
Why 100 tubas are heading for a garden in Haddington
Opus13 press publicity portrait
Album review
Opus13: Mendelssohn and Grieg – an assured and distinctive debut