Features

While I’ve been rather excitedly banging on this year about the return to active filmmaking of the class of 1990something – Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Whit Stillman, Todd Solondz – I should, in all fairness, spend a few moments on the new film by Rian Johnson, a veteran of the class of 2000something.

Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips answers your questions in An Audience With… in this month's new issue of Uncut, out now. In this week's archive feature we head back to our June 2008 issue (Take 133), to find the band's frontman looking back over their back catalogue, taking in Vaseline, drug addiction, union picket lines, the religious right and nothing short of the collapse of civilisation. “My agenda is to go somewhere where we’ve never been before…" Interview: Jaan Uhelszki –––––––––––––––––––––––––

I don’t have any more information on the new Bob Dylan album, Tempest, following last week’s newsletter and blog on Friday confirming the track listing, so apologies to all the readers who have written in, hungry for further details about the record. The absence of anything further I can tell you at the moment about Tempest gives me, however, the opportunity to briefly sing the praises of Lawless, the new movie from director John Hillcoat and Nick Cave, who’s written the screenplay, as he did for The Proposition, Hillcoat’s savage outback Western.

A distinct late ‘80s/early ‘90s feel to the list this week, with generally good new releases in here from Bob Mould, Mark Eitzel and Sebadoh. Couple of other things to flag up, though.

Been talking for a while now about how I think Six Organs Of Admittance’s “Ascent” is one of the best albums of 2012, and I’ve finally written about it at length in the new issue of Uncut. Anyhow, Ben Chasny responded to a bunch of questions I sent over with a characteristic diligence, and I figured it was worth posting the whole exchange here. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

There’s a feature in the new issue of Uncut by Andy Gill on the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, where he gets to see a couple of extended shows in Cleveland, and I can’t recall the last time I felt so jealous of one of our writers.

One terrible absence from this week’s playlist is, of course, Bob Dylan’s “Tempest”, which Allan heard a while back. If you haven’t read his preview yet, please check it out here. Some fairly lively discussion in the comments thread, too.

Don’t spread it about, but, yes, I’ve heard the new Dylan album. And four or five tracks in, what I was thinking was: how much better is this thing going to get?

One encouraging thread in movies this year has been the return of filmmakers of a Nineties vintage. Wes Anderson, Whit Stillman and Todd Solondz have all returned, successfully, from their various sabbaticals. Potentially topping them all, we now have sight of the imminent return of Paul Thomas Anderson, with his first film since 2007's There Will Be Blood, called The Master.

Coming into work on the bus this morning, it occurred to me that the Christopher Nolan film I most wanted to watch again was Insomnia. I remember it being the least tricksy of Nolan’s films; a sharp, intelligent thriller, heavy on style and atmosphere, which seemed less concerned with the kind of ingenious puzzles and narrative twists that the director deployed in Memento, The Prestige and Inception.