Features

Allah-Las on their way, praise the Lord!

You catch us on a pretty busy day, deadlines fast approaching for our last issue of 2012. That’s the one, of course, that traditionally carries our end-of-year lists of best albums, reissues, films, DVDs and books. This means we’ve all been recently asked to nominate our personal Top 20s, from which John has been compiling the definitive countdown, the full list to be published when he’s finished his painstaking calculations in the Uncut that comes out at the end of November.

“I’m Your Man: The Biography Of Leonard Cohen”

As you might expect of a book about Leonard Cohen, Sylvie Simmons spends a fair proportion of I’m Your Man writing about love, faith, depression, finance, and the demands and consolations of poetry and women. Mostly, though, the focus of this hefty and thorough book is Leonard Cohen’s charm: about how an exceptionally gifted artist has seduced most everyone who has come into contact with him, through the course of an uncommonly eventful life.

Brian Eno, “Lux”

If you've ever suspected that Brian Eno's enduring reputation as an avant-garde genius is more mythical than actual, his discography from the past few years makes for a satisfying read.

The 44th Uncut Playlist Of 2012

That pretending-not-to-be-annoyed-by-the-Mercurys morning of the year. But as way of distraction, here’s this week’s rather late office playlist.

Brian Eno – the doctor will see you now

Eno’s sublime new album, Lux, is reviewed in the current issue of Uncut (December 2012, Take 187) – so we’re delving back to December 2010’s issue to meet the time-travelling conceptualist himself, a man who’s into ecstatic food cults, Music For Maternity Wards – and trying to remember his own past. “One of the big driving forces for Roxy Music,” he says, “was that we hated hippies…” Words: Stephen Troussé _______________________

Jessica Pratt: “Jessica Pratt”

As the first song of Jessica Pratt’s first album begins, you could be forgiven for believing it was a private press folk album from the early ‘70s. The work of a lost canyon comrade of Linda Perhacs, perhaps, or the implausibly lovely efforts of a “Blue” disciple from some one-horse town in the mid-west.

The 43rd Uncut Playlist Of 2012

Most important things first: apparently www.neilyoung.com will be streaming the whole of “Psychedelic Pill” today. Once you’ve had a listen, let me know what you think.

Six Organs Of Admittance/Red River Dialect/Colossal Yes, Dalston Birthdays, October 22, 2012

Usual excuses about too much work to do (currently: a forthcoming Ultimate Music Guide on The Kinks, and the dark mathematics of Uncut’s end-of-year charts, as well as the rest of the next issue) mean that I failed yesterday to write a review of the Six Organs Of Admittance show at Birthdays in Dalston.

Beasts Of The Southern Wild

In 2009, Uncut spoke to The Wire’s creator David Simon, shortly before the broadcast of his follow-up series, Treme. The show was set during the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, a city that Simon felt had effectively been abandoned by the rest of America since the storm. “The only thing that brought this city back was the people who understand its unique culture and who participate in that culture refused to give that up,” he told us.

Peter Gabriel: “You could feel the horror…”

The current issue of Uncut features a review of the lavish reissue of Peter Gabriel’s groundbreaking So album – to accompany that, it seemed like a perfect time to republish this great interview with the man himself, from Uncut’s July 2007 issue (Take 122). Gabriel joins Uncut for a look at his glorious career, and at those remarkable costumes… “You could feel the horror,” he remembers. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is exciting!’” Words: David Cavanagh ____________________
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