Features

It seems like much longer than a year since Cat Power’s “Jukebox” album was released; one of those January albums, maybe, that are unfairly forgotten when the end-of-year accounting is done. A handy reminder, though, comes with this lovely six-track EP of covers, culled from the same sessions, that acts as a kind of book-end to the year.

I was thinking the other day about live albums, specifically those ones where crowd noise takes over: things, I guess, like Suicide’s “23 Minutes Over Brussels” and that “Black Sabbath Riot” record that came out a few years ago (was it something to do with Alec Empire? I can’t remember).

Guitar tech Leif Bodnarchuk spills the beans

Yes yes I know it's only a couple of days since the last one, but I have an interview to prepare for in an hour or so, and yesterday's post brought a bunch of stuff we should probably talk about, or at least flag up, now. Namely. . .

I’ve written about this guy Babe, Terror before here, but he emailed me about a new track he’d posted the other day, and I think it might be his best one yet.

Today: Uncut presents musical director Javier Mas' view of Cohen on the road

A good day for the world, then. Not sure whether this week’s Uncut playlist really reflects the global mood, though I did bring in “Attica Blues” to play this morning. A bunch of unprepossessing-looking indie promos don’t really cut it on a day like this.

A slightly tenuous connection, but it’s odd to think that, when the record I blogged about yesterday, “Brighten The Corners”, first came out, Damon Albarn was at the height of his Pavement phase. I remember going to see Pavement in Oxford on that tour (“Westie Can Drum”, “The Killing Moon”. . .) and Albarn was there with Justine Frischmann, looking conspicuously inconspicuous in a baseball cap pulled down low.

When promos of the latest deluxe Pavement reissue – “Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed”, no less – turned up last week, it struck me that perhaps, in 12 months’ time, we might just be talking about a Pavement comeback being one of the key reunions of 2009.

Uncut presents extended transcripts with those on the road with the icon