Cul de Sac has been played on NTS in shows including China Social Club, featured first on 17 December 2017. Songs played include China Gate, Gamelan Collage and Death Kit Train.

Cul de Sac formed in 1990 in Boston, Massachusetts, taking their name from a Roman Polanski film. Led by guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Glenn Jones, Cul de Sac's music is primarily instrumental - although vocals from Boston folk legend Dredd Foole graced the bands debut album - drawing inspiration from sources such as 1960s psychedelia, surf-rock, Middle Eastern folk music, krautrock, John Fahey and American primitivism folk music, free jazz, and the more industrial elements of the avant-garde.

Cul de Sac have been classified by many as a post-rock band - the term was coined for group by writer Simon Reynolds for the music of bands like Cul de Sac, Stereolab, and Bark Psychosis - but Jones has expressed some discomfort with the term, preferring that Cul de Sac's music be viewed on its own terms, rather than as part of a specific genre. Nevertheless, Simon Reynold's own description describes post-rock as "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and powerchords," a description that applies well to Cul de Sac, albeit more to a way of approaching music than to a particular style.

Jones has stated that Cul de Sac is the most "musically satisfying" group he's been involved with, a group that is the "closest to being the band I'd dreamed of forming. It allows me to combine my love of open-tuned guitar, played fingerstyle, with my love for electronics and noise, all placed within a rhythmic rock framework."

Cul de Sac have collaborated with legendary guitarist John Fahey and with Can singer Damo Suzuki, caught the ears of Lou Reed, (". . . there's a group called Cul de Sac - very ambient, very cool." - Lou Reed, Interviewed in Mojo) and composed the soundtrack to the 2002 Roger Corman film "The Strangler's Wife."

The band continues to release music, perform, and tour.