Features

Pavement frontman and solo artist Malkmus is releasing a new album, Wig Out At Jagbags, with his band, The Jicks, on January 6, 2014. Here, though, is a classic archive feature from our September 2011 issue (Take 172), in which the guitarist and songwriter answers questions from fans and celebrity admirers including Graham Coxon, Nigel Godrich, Avey Tare, Stewart Lee and Scrabble enthusiast Giles Brandreth. Prepare for confessions about ripping off The Fall, horse-racing and a pubic-hair-eating contest… Interview: John Lewis ___________________

To get to the Clyde Auditorium - the 3,000-seat venue crouched on the riverbank beside the SECC, which Glaswegians only ever refer to as The Armadillo - you have to traverse a long, wormy, weather-beaten covered walkway that bridges a motorway.

Moving swiftly through another craven plug for our Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide, a mostly decent list this week, with a few strong new entries from Rosanne Cash, Africa Express, Matt Baldwin, and Thee Oh Sees, plus a welcome expanded reissue from Hiss Golden Messenger.

You are, I guess, never finished with Neil Young. A few weeks ago, as we were wrapping up an Uncut Ultimate Music Guide special dedicated to him, the news came through that Young was moving on again. Just as we thought we’d put together a comprehensive survey of all his recorded work, another Archives Performance Series release crept onto the schedules.

In an archive piece taken from Uncut’s January 2005 issue (Take 92), we look back at Dylan in 1975, when he turned the crisis of a deteriorating relationship into one of rock’s most compelling dramas. This is the story of Blood On The Tracks, the album that marked the demise of Dylan’s marriage – and his artistic rebirth. Words: Nick Hasted

Yesterday I posted an interview here with Cian Nugent that prompted a Twitter conversation about other records which operate in the fairly narrow space between Television’s “Marquee Moon” and Fairport Convention’s “A Sailor’s Life”. This morning I’ve collated all the suggestions into a Youtube playlist, which should keep you elevated for an hour or two.

Cian Nugent & The Cosmos’ “Born With The Caul” is one of my favourite albums of the year, as I tried to explain as part of this blog from a month or so back. The album came out this week, anyhow, so I thought it was worth posting this Q&A with Cian here. Some really nice stuff on his influences, especially…

Apologies for the frustrating gaps that appear in this week’s playlist. A lot of 2014 releases arriving in the office now, some of which haven’t been officially announced. As a consequence I have to keep their identities suppressed for the time being; I’ll try and fill in the missing words once these albums are formally unveiled.

Last year, I interviewed the film director Peter Strickland about Berberian Sound Studio, his tribute to the Heath Robinson-style endeavours of analogue sound designers. Strickland and I chatted about the influences for his main character, a tweedy sound engineer called Gilderoy; Strickland mentioned pioneering figures like Adam Bohman, Vernon Elliott and Basil Kirchin.

With Hawkwind and Motörhead both touring the UK this month (November 2013), we take a look at the story of the only Top Three single ever recorded entirely on LSD. Lemmy, Dave Brock, Nik Turner and more tell the tale of “Silver Machine”: drugs, insanity and a “Chuck Berry riff played backwards”… From Uncut's September 2007 issue (Take 124). Interview: Paul Moody __________________