Features

Belle And Sebastian at End Of The Road 2013 - review Eels at End Of The Road 2013 – review Parquet Courts at End Of The Road 2013 – review Ethan Johns at End Of The Road 2013 - review Mike Heron & Trembling Bells at End Of The Road 2013 – review William Tyler at End Of The Road 2013 - review When David Byrne and Annie Clark got together to make an album you wouldn't necessarily have imagined they'd be united by brass - especially the kind of brass parts that can only be described as 'fidgety'.

Belle And Sebastian at End Of The Road 2013 - review Eels at End Of The Road 2013 – review David Byrne & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2013 – review Ethan Johns at End Of The Road 2013 - review Mike Heron & Trembling Bells at End Of The Road 2013 – review William Tyler at End Of The Road 2013 - review This time last year they were unknowns self-releasing their Light Up Gold album in a limited run, but now New York/Texas indie-punks Parquet Courts are packing out the Big Top tent at End Of The Road.

Belle And Sebastian at End Of The Road 2013 - review Parquet Courts at End Of The Road 2013 - review David Byrne & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2013 - review Ethan Johns at End Of The Road 2013 - review Mike Heron & Trembling Bells at End Of The Road 2013 – review William Tyler at End Of The Road 2013 - review "Look what we brought you!" shouts E. "A motherfucking wonderful glorious double-rainbow!"

Shane Carruth’s Primer was one of those debuts that appeared to come out of nowhere, much like David Lynch’s Eraserhead or Darren Aronofsky’s π.

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.”