Features

For this week’s archive feature, we delve back into Uncut’s July 2011 issue (Take 170) – just before the release of Bon Iver’s second album – to find Vernon sunning himself in California, consorting with Kanye and shaping up as “the Neil Young of our generation”. What happened? “For Emma… is the past,” he says. “This is the present, and it’s more colourful and inviting.” Words: Alastair McKay

It seems as if a month doesn’t go by without the release of a new Ben Wheatley film. I'm exaggerating, of course, but Wheatley is certainly becoming one of Britain’s most prolific film makers, with four full-length features since 2009 – as well as two series of Johnny Vegas’ sitcom, Ideal – under his belt.

Another week, another new issue to plug: after last week’s launch of our Nick Cave Ultimate Music Guide, I should flag up that this month’s Uncut goes on sale in the UK tomorrow, featuring Boards Of Canada, The Source Family, Mississippi Records, These New Puritans, Mark Kozelek, Thee Oh Sees and the “Origins Of American Primitive Guitar” alongside the marquee names.

A couple of months ago, I was staying with an old friend, whose teenage daughter was heading out to an ‘80s movie all-nighter. Before she went, she listed what they were going to watch; Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – the kind of John Hughes films that are now routinely used as exemplars of that decade. Her father and I were talking, and we realised we hadn’t actually seen any of them.

Uncut contributor Damon Wise is at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Here's his first look review of the new Coen brothers film, set in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s: Inside Llewyn Davis...

Before the doors of the Dome Studio Theatre even open tonight (Saturday, May 18), there's an excited queue stretching most of the way down the street. Not surprising considering one of the most hyped groups of this year, Irish band The Strypes, are first on the bill.

While last night's Club Uncut at Brighton's Great Escape festival hosted bands with a definite Americana bent, Friday (May 17) sees the invasion of US-based (or -inspired) garage-rockers.

There are many delights on offer in David Bowie – Five Years, the BBC’s terrific new documentary focussing on five critical periods in Bowie’s career. Here’s a longhaired Bowie, sporting a natty fedora, at Andy Warhol’s Factory in 1971, miming being disembowelled. And here he is on The Dick Cavett Show in 1974, wearing a dark blue shirt, tartan tie and brown trousers, twirling a cane while he performs “Footstompin”, a cut that eventually became “Fame”.

Another year, another three days of fantastic music at Brighton's Dome Studio Theatre, curated by Uncut, as part of The Great Escape – this year promises perhaps the most high-energy lineup yet at Club Uncut, with highlights over the weekend including Mikal Cronin, White Fence and Allah-Las. But first, Thursday (May 16) sees Phosphorescent headlining.

Playing the Daft Punk album this morning (it’s streaming on iTunes if you haven’t found it yet), which is quite interesting. Bits of it are astonishing, I’d say (“Get Lucky” of course, “Contact”, “Giorgio By Moroder” especially). I am finding it hard, though, to completely sign up to a record that intermittently reminds me of Christopher Cross record. Evidently, I still carry traces of ‘80s indie militancy.