Features

“I think I’ll go on ’til I drop!”

A couple of press releases appeared in my inbox over the last few days, both announcing the surprising return of two increasingly elusive filmmakers.

I guess, since Uncut's end-of-year issue goes to the printers today, we should formally declare open season on Best Of 2014 speculation, if you're that way inclined. Our writers' charts fished up 401 new albums from the year worth voting for, and coalesced into a pretty eclectic Top 75, I think.

Around the turn of the millennium, Jeff Tweedy merrily nurtured a reputation as a contrarian. How best could a man, sanctified as the archetype of what was once called alt-country, confound his fans? With antsy powerpop? Radio static? Fifteen-minute ambient noise jams? The recruitment of a fiendish avant-jazzer to take over on lead guitar? A song for a Spongebob Squarepants movie?

“I’m always experimenting… Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it”

In haste this week, as we're finishing our end-of-year review issue and our next Ultimate Music Guide (on Paul McCartney, I can reveal), I've just completed writing up an interview with one of 2014's key figures, and I have a review of this 4CD Wilco retrospective to file as soon as possible.

The cosmology of Christopher Nolan's new film, Interstellar, offers an instructive analogy for the career of the director himself.

I had the good fortune to speak to Ry Cooder for the issue of Uncut that's just come off sale (quick plug: you can read all about the new issue here).

At the moment, I'm compiling our films of the 2014 for the end of year issue. By sheer coincidence, one of the films I'm most looking forward to for next year is Inherent Vice. In case you're not up to speed on it, this is Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel - a Seventies-set noir about a stoner Private Investigator, Larry "Doc" Sportello, who's investigating the disappearance of a former girlfriend.

The band explain how they created their opulent, psychedelic masterpiece, A Kiss In The Dreamhouse