Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD
All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in…
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1 MINT MILE
Sunbreaking
Silkworm’s Tim Midyett returns with the second Mint Mile album, Roughrider, mixing up the sounds of his old band with the ragged swing of Pavement and Crazy Horse, and some gorgeous chamber accompaniment.
2 JESSICA PRATT
World On A String
Here In The Pitch, the long-awaited follow-up to 2019’s Quiet Signs, is our Album Of The Month on page XX. Here’s a highlight of this seductive, velveteen folk record, with Pratt’s strummed nylon-string acoustic and echoing voice gradually joined by a haze of Mellotron synths, keys and sparse drums. Truly magical.
3 MICHAEL HEAD & THE RED ELASTIC BAND
Ambrosia
Another masterclass in songwriting here from Michael Head, and a highlight of his new album Loophole, produced once again by Bill Ryder-Jones. Following 2017’s Adios Senor Pussycat and 2022’s Dear Scott, he’s on a roll, and has even found time to pen a memoir, Ciao Ciao Bambino.
4 KHRUANGBIN
Pon Pón
Laura Lee, Mark Speer and DJ Johnson have distilled their potent sound down to its essence on their new album A La Sala. It’s a retro-tinged exploration of the globe’s most funkily psychedelic sounds, with the result going down as smoothly as a sunset cocktail.
5 GOSPELBRACH
Nothin’ But A Fool
Brent Rademaker is well-known for his work with the brilliant Beachwood Sparks, but for the last decade he’s led this artful Californian troupe. New LP Wiggle Your Fingers is touted as the band’s final album, so best get onto their classic Paisley Underground sounds before it’s too late.
6 SCOTT H BIRHAM
Death Don’t Have No Mercy
‘The Dirty Old One Man Band’ from Texas has been making roots records a little under the radar for a while now – but with The One & Only Scott H Biram he deserves to be far better known. Here he is weaving a bluesy spell with just an old classical guitar.
7 PYE CORNER AUDIO
Counting The Hours
Martin Jenkins habitually releases a host of records on different labels, and his albums on Ghost Box always seem to be his strangest and most conceptual: The Endless Echo, then, examines the nature of time in claustrophobic, ominous style, drum machines, drone clusters and synth arpeggios painting a widescreen, dystopian picture.
8 ARAB STRAP
You’re Not There
Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton return, reassuringly, as bitter and scathing as ever on their new album I’m Totally Fine With It 👍 Don’t Give A Fuck Anymore 👍. Building on 2021’s As Days Get Dark, it’s a brilliant amalgam of dark electronica, raging post-rock and wickedly funny spoken-word.
9 BIG|BRAVE
Canon In Canon
It’s hard to believe this Quebec trio started as a folk group, such is the ferocious noise they create now. On their seventh album, A Chaos Of Flowers, their sound is closest to latter-day Low, crushing distortion mingling with minimalist, hushed melodies.
10 ARTHUR MELO
Saídas
Though still in his twenties, this singer, guitarist and songwriter from the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte looks back to his country’s pop music of the ’70s. This track, a highlight of his latest album Mirantes Emocionais, pays tribute to his hero Caetano Veloso with a swooning ballad that wouldn’t have been out of place on 1972’s Transa.
11 IRON & WINE
All In Good Time (feat. Fiona Apple)
Sam Beam is back, and this time he’s brought Fiona Apple along to help: this cut comes from his new album Light Verse, just the latest in his impressive catalogue. Beam talks Uncut through his records in our Album By Album feature this issue.
12 JAMES ELKINGTON & NATHAN SALSBURG
Death Wishes To Kill
The two guitarists are often found working together, but their new album All Gist marks their first duo record since 2015’s Ambsace. It’s an entrancing, varied record, their interlocking picking occasionally joined by additional textures, such as the strings and percussion that surface here.
13 POKEY LAFARGE
Sister André
The artist born Andrew Heissler has been spreading his old-time good news for almost 20 years now, and this fine track from his new LP Rhumba Country is another example of his way with updating the sounds of yesteryear: ragtime, gospel, blues, country and rock’n’roll.
14 AMEN DUNES
Boys
Now resident in Woodstock, New York, Damon McMahon has expanded his outsider folk sound with harsh electronics and some avant-rock grit on Death Jokes. Check out the end of “Boys” and you’ll hear manipulated samples taken from all manner of sources, a consistent feature of the album.
15 CAMERA OBSCURE
We’re Going To Make It In A Man’s World
It’s been over a decade since Tracyanne Campbell and co last released an album, but Look To the East, Look To The West is a fitting return. The Glaswegians don’t mess with the formula too much, and the result is an autumnal, bittersweet blast of melody, with heartbreak and disappointment not far behind.