Features

The key tracks by the scene's finest bands

I spent a chunk of the weekend reading Bad Monkey, the new novel by Carl Hiaasen - one America's great crime writers. After a rather fallow period recently, the book feels very much like Hiaasen is back to full strength.

From Uncut’s July 2008 issue (Take 134): the group’s songwriter and frontman talks us through his mighty back catalogue

We only interviewed Elmore Leonard once in Uncut. This was around the release of Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino’s adaptation of Leonard’s novel Rum Punch; coincidentally, Leonard also had a new novel out at the same time, Cuba Libre.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still reeling from final episodes of Top Of The Lake and Southcliffe on television over the weekend. Both, I suppose, had a loose thematic link - they were studies of tragedy in small communities - and I think in the end I preferred Southcliffe’s open-endedness to Top Of The Lake’s flurry of final act revelations; but that said, they were both brilliant TV, easily among the best things I've seen this year.

As anniversaries go, you might presume that Morrissey hasn't much wanted to throw a party to celebrate his quarter century as a solo artist. After all, his year has been blighted by ongoing health problems - bleeding ulcer, Barrett's esophagus and double pneumonia, food poisoning - and a number of crippling tour cancellations, the most recent due to lack of funding, all of which has led him to note glumly, “the future is suddenly absent.”

There comes a moment during the trailer for Spike Jonze’s new film, Her, where Joaquin Phoenix turns to the object of his affections and says, “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

In this week’s archive feature, from our August 2012 issue (Take 183), Uncut is granted a rare audience with the remarkable Young, busier than ever. To be discussed: the return of Crazy Horse, Americana and what would become Psychedelic Pill; his autobiography; his new movie; Archives; his family. What motivates an inexhaustible genius? “I spend money as soon as I get it…” Story: Jaan Uhelszki

No sooner has one Mark Kozelek album turned up than, ridiculously, another one is announced. www.caldoverderecords.com claims another Sun Kil Moon album is due January 14 next year, also featuring Steve Shelley, Jen Wood, Will Oldham and Owen Ashworth. In even less a shock, it promises that Kozelek “sings about his childhood years and his life today.”

First of all this week, let me quickly plug our most recent Ultimate Music Guide, which is dedicated to Depeche Mode. As with previous specials in the Ultimate Music Guide series on David Bowie, the Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul Weller, The Clash, Nick Cave, The Kinks, U2, REM and The Smiths – all of which you can order online at www.uncut.co.uk/store or order digitally at www.uncut.co.uk/download – Depeche Mode – The Ultimate Music Guide features brand new reviews of all Depeche’s albums, written by a stellar team of Uncut scribes, plus a ton of vintage interviews from the archives of Melody Maker and NME, reprinted for the first time in years and covering the whole of the band’s career from their first stirrings in deepest Basildon in the early 80s. Depeche Mode – The Ultimate Music Guide is on sale now.