Features

Her studio secrets revealed! “There were no rules or barriers, it was just pure creativity…”

It's a satisfyingly busy time for music films at the moment. The excellent Nick Cave documentary, 20,000 Days On Earth, is upon us; following swiftly in its wake are biopics of James Brown and Jimi Hendrix.

Some logical excitement here this week about the impending Leonard Cohen and Aphex Twin albums; in the event you've missed it these past couple of days, you can hear Cohen's superb "Almost Like The Blues" further down this blog.

Last year, Warp Records embarked on a campaign for Boards Of Canada's "Tomorrow's Harvest" comeback that was notable for its obtuseness. Unmarked 12-inches were hidden in record stores, strings of numbers and inexplicable broadcasts were strewn enigmatically across the internet. At one point, I recall some talk of red moons and feverish online triangulations pointing to a bookshop near Edinburgh as the centre of the universe. It was all fun, and the album at the end of it all was great, but perhaps it wandered a little off course as it went on.

“Thank you, Boston,” deadpans Thurston Moore as the audience at tonight’s gig show their appreciation for “Speak To The Wild”. Of course, we’re in east London – Dalston to be precise, at Café Oto, which has become a regular hang out for Moore since he moved up the road to Stoke Newington.

As The Kinks prepare to release a deluxe edition of Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One, packaged with soundtrack Percy, we take a trip back to Uncut’s November 2007 issue (Take 126), where Ray Davies talks Uncut through some of the best albums he’s made in his long career. “My songwriting has been my ally through life,” Davies muses, “because I ain’t got much else.” Words: Nick Hasted

This is the full text of my interview with Hurray For The Riff Raff in New Orleans, that appeared in the print edition of Uncut a couple of months ago. I've added a lot of music to listen to as you read; not just by Alynda and the Riff Raff, but by some of the other New Orleans musicians who are critical to the story.

Another issue in the bag yesterday, which'll be in UK shops on August 26, and which features, if you're in the mood for guessing games, someone who's never been on our cover before.

As you've hopefully seen now, this month's issue of Uncut has a revealing piece about Richard & Linda Thompson's "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight", timed to tie in with that great album's 40th anniversary and its vinyl reissue, plus a burst of Thompson activity that includes a show at the End Of The Road Festival at the end of the month. "It is what it is and I like what it is," he calls the album in the piece, somewhat self-effacingly, "and there's a lot of stuff out there that I've done that I like less. That being said, it sold about 30 copies."

Sad news this morning about the death of Robin Williams, aged 63. Of course, Williams had been a dynamic and prolific screen presence since the late 1970s, from early contributions to The Richard Pryor Show to his sitcom breakthrough in Mork & Mindy and beyond into a hugely successful film career. In tribute, we've compiled below 10 clips that we hope do justice to his prodigious talents.