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Neil Young releases ‘lost’ album Summer Songs

Matt Doria
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Neil Young releases ‘lost’ album Summer Songs
Neil Young gave fans of his Archives project an extra-special Christmas gift this year, dropping the eight-track Summer Songs record that he first teased last month. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Neil Young & The Crazy Horse – Barn revi...

Neil Young gave fans of his Archives project an extra-special Christmas gift this year, dropping the eight-track Summer Songs record that he first teased last month.

The archival album was initially recorded in 1987, tracked at the Broken Arrow Ranch in Redwood City, California. It’s unclear who Young made the album with – if anyone – but every instrument played on it was played by Young himself. The version released on Saturday (December 25) was produced by the Volume Dealers and mastered by Tim Mulligan.

Take a listen to Summer Songs in its entirety below:

As seasoned fans will note, most of the tracks on Summer Songs would eventually pop up elsewhere in Young’s discography. “American Dream”, for example, made it to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s titular ’88 record (as did “Name Of Love”).

“Someday”, “Wrecking Ball” and “Hangin’ On A Limb” all appear on 1989’s Freedom, while “One Of These Days” went to Harvest Moon in ’92, and “For The Love Of Man” appeared on Young’s 2012 album with Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill.

As Young noted with the record’s announcement, however, many of the lyrics featured on these demos “are significantly different from their subsequent master album releases”, with tracks sporting “several completely new and unheard verses”.

Summer Songs comes as the first chapter of Neil Young Archives Volume III. The second volume of the project was issued last year, covering unreleased music recorded between 1972 and ’76. Among the records shared was Homegrown, which – made up of recordings from ’74 and ’75 – languished as an unheard album for decades before its release in June 2020.

Karen Dalton: In My Own Time

Stephen Deusner
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Karen Dalton: In My Own Time
It’s a small miracle this film exists. In October 2018, a fire destroyed the Woodstock home of folk guitarist Peter Walker and with it the entire archive of his old friend Karen Dalton – her journals, handwritten lyrics, poetry and artwork. The loss is incalculable, but fortunately, just months ...

It’s a small miracle this film exists. In October 2018, a fire destroyed the Woodstock home of folk guitarist Peter Walker and with it the entire archive of his old friend Karen Dalton – her journals, handwritten lyrics, poetry and artwork. The loss is incalculable, but fortunately, just months before, he’d had everything digitised, allowing directors Richard Peete and Robert Yapkowitz to draw from these artifacts and paint the clearest picture yet of this mysterious and troubled – yet oddly influential – artist.

A free spirit from Oklahoma who had two kids and two ex-husbands by the time she turned 20, Dalton left the Midwest and arrived in New York City at the start of the folk revival. She stood out thanks to her fluid picking style and especially her stunning voice: in timbre it recalls Billie Holiday, but in phrasing and cadence it suggests no-one other than Dalton. The black-and-white footage of her early Greenwich Village performances is a highlight in the film, showing how she rearranged old, familar songs to sound fresh. Eschewing the populism associated with folk music at the time, Dalton sang everything as though it held some personal confession unique to her life. Her peers were awed, especially Bob Dylan (who thought she was the female Woody Guthrie).

Dalton was ambivalent about a career in music. On one hand, she wanted the attention and affirmation, not to mention the financial security, and she envied the success of her Village peers. On the other hand, she was unwilling to pursue an audience or make any kind of concession to the industry. She didn’t release her debut, It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You Best, until 1969, long after folk had been thoroughly revived and mutated into folk-rock. Her follow-up, 1971’s In My Own Time, updated her sound with a small country band, but she felt it was impersonal and unrepresentative. (It’s not!) A thankless gig opening for Santana effectively ended her career. “The joy of it escaped her,” recalls Hunt Middleton, her boyfriend during that time.

Dalton had always been a casual drug user, but she quickly graduated to harder drugs in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving her homeless and forgotten. She died of Aids in 1993, with Walker caring for her in her final days. To its credit, the documentary offers no personal redemption, no deathbed revelation, nothing to suggest her story is anything but a tragedy. In fact, it might undersell the magnitude of her critical reassessment in the 2000s, when a series of reissues introduced her to a new generation of artists (including Angel Olsen, who reads from her journals). She emerges with all of her contradictions intact: confident in herself as an artist, relatably conflicted as a human being.

Bush Tetras – Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best Of the Bush Tetras

Lisa-Marie Ferla
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Bush Tetras – Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best Of the Bush Tetras
When Bush Tetras drummer Dee Pop died unexpectedly in October, plans were already well underway for this career-spanning retrospective. Confirming they would press ahead, bandmates Pat Place and Cynthia Sley noted that much of what went into Rhythm And Paranoia came from Pop’s own collection: the ...

When Bush Tetras drummer Dee Pop died unexpectedly in October, plans were already well underway for this career-spanning retrospective. Confirming they would press ahead, bandmates Pat Place and Cynthia Sley noted that much of what went into Rhythm And Paranoia came from Pop’s own collection: the band’s most passionate historian, he kept an archive of their recordings and supplied many of the flyers and photos reproduced in an accompanying book.

Formed in 1979, Bush Tetras emerged from the no-wave scene in New York: they were contemporaries of Lydia Lunch and Sonic Youth, and Place had played guitar in The Contortions. They split up a few years later with three 7” singles and an EP, produced by Topper Headon of The Clash, to their name. Reforming temporarily in the late 1990s, they released Beauty Lies, their debut album, and recorded another which, as a casualty of the sale of PolyGram, was put on ice until 2012. They have reconvened sporadically ever since, first raising money when ill health forced original bassist Laura Kennedy to quit the band and then later, after her death, recording a brace of new EPs.

Rhythm And Paranoia tracks each incarnation of the band, from debut single “Too Many Creeps” to 2019’s “There Is A Hum”. The former, perhaps their best-known track, could have been written last week, Sley’s opening chant of “I just don’t wanna go out in the streets no more” a dispiriting precursor to the latest wave of weaponised misogyny and debates over women’s safety. The song is lauded by a new generation of punks in a series of ‘micro-essays’ that accompany the boxset: Victoria Ruiz, of Sub Pop’s Downtown Boys, describes its repetitive “it’s the worst” refrain as “both a sword and a shield” in the way it both rages and affirms – the same could be said of Place’s jagged riff and Pop’s propulsive drumming.

Presented chronologically, the collection shows a band always evolving, but never unrecognisably so. Early B-sides “Snakes Crawl” and “Punch Drunk” eschew melody yet remain irresistible ear-worms thanks to Pop’s infectious grooves, a focus on rhythm which, by 1981’s Rituals EP, channels Talking Heads and The B-52s (sneers Sley, “you can’t be funky if you haven’t got a soul”). Though a muddy live cover of John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey”, culled from a Stiff Records compilation, is probably one for completists only.

But elsewhere among the rarities are some real treats, including an alternative version of Beauty Lies track “Mr Lovesong”, from Pop’s own archives. The drummer’s preferred take, it’s as raw and brutal as their best, but with soulful backing vocals by Darlene Love and Nona Hendryx of Labelle, the album’s producer. It’s just one example
of Bush Tetras’ determination to do things their own way.

Bola Sete – Samba in Seattle : Live at the Penthouse

Nigel Williamson
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Bola Sete – Samba in Seattle : Live at the Penthouse
In the pantheon of guitar gods, from Delta blues sliders and ferocious rock gunslingers to fingerpicking folk stylists and bold American primitives, the gentle maestros of the Brazilian nylon-stringed acoustic (violão in Portuguese) too often get forgotten. The likes of Joao Gilberto, Luiz Bonfa an...

In the pantheon of guitar gods, from Delta blues sliders and ferocious rock gunslingers to fingerpicking folk stylists and bold American primitives, the gentle maestros of the Brazilian nylon-stringed acoustic (violão in Portuguese) too often get forgotten. The likes of Joao Gilberto, Luiz Bonfa and Heitor Villa-Lobos all deserve recognition, but perhaps the finest of them all was Bola Sete. John Fahey called him his “favourite guitar player” and signed him to his Takoma label, while Carlos Santana likened him to a nylon-stringed Hendrix and said to hear him play was to be in the presence of “something multi-dimensionally divine”.

You can hear what both of them meant on these three generous discs of previously unreleased live recordings, made between 1966–68 during his annual visits to Seattle’s Penthouse club.

Bola Sete was born Djama De Andrade in Rio in 1923 and took his stage name from the black seven ball in when he became the only non-white musician in his first professional jazz ensemble. Classically trained, his early guitar heroes were , and , whose influence he combined with the traditional samba and bossa rhythms of Brazil. He made his first recordings for EMI’s Brazilian imprint Odeon in the mid-1950s before he left the country of his birth in 1959. He never returned before his death from lung cancer in California in 1987. Settling in the US, he played in hotels in New York and San Francisco, where he was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie, who took him on tour and got him a showcase at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

These trio recordings with Sebastião Neto on double bass and Paulinho Magalhães on drums capture him at a crossroads. His next studio album, 1970’s Working On A Groovy Thing, boasted a more expansive production and instrumentation with pop and rock covers and has since provided much sample fodder for hip-hop. Here, however, he’s still in classic 1960s acoustic instrumental bossa/samba/jazz mode, mixing his own compositions with Brazilian standards by Jobim, Bonfa, Villa Lobos and Marcus Valle plus weightless covers of Johnny Mandel’s “The Shadow Of Your Smile” and Duke Ellington’s “Satin Doll”. The virtuosic precision is self-evident in his mix of rhythmic chording and breath-taking soloing. Yet it’s the mood he creates which is every bit as striking as his technical skill, as he takes an over-familiar tune such as “Garota de Ipanema” (The Girl From Ipanema) and, with his imaginative improvisations, makes you feel you’re hearing it with new ears.

Fahey once said that Bola Sete’s music came from a time “when people were closer to themselves, God and each other”. It oozes forth on these recordings from every scintillating note.

Uncut’s Best Music Books Of 2021

Uncut
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Uncut’s Best Music Books Of 2021
10 Chaise Longue Baxter Dury (Corsair, £17) Not unlike Ian Dury’s nuanced musical portrait of his own father, “My Old Man”, Chaise Longue fathoms Baxter Dury’s complicated upbringing in the company of his dad and minder Pete Rush, a “six-foot-seven malodorous giant” better known a...

10 Chaise Longue Baxter Dury
(Corsair, £17)

Not unlike Ian Dury’s nuanced musical portrait of his own father, “My Old Man”, Chaise Longue fathoms Baxter Dury’s complicated upbringing in the company of his dad and minder Pete Rush, a “six-foot-seven malodorous giant” better known as the Sulphate Strangler. “There was no school, there were no rules about drinking, there was no dinner,” Baxter writes. No boots, no clean panties.

9 Beeswing Richard Thompson
(Faber, £20)

Not a soul-barer by nature, Richard Thompson inches a tiny way out of his shell to give his account of his years with Fairport Convention and working as a duo with his first wife Linda. The narrative is familiar, but his accounts of the car crash that killed his girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn and Fairport drummer Martin Lamble, as well as his relationship with Nick Drake, offer brief glimpses into Thompson’s inner world.

8 Bunnyman Will Sergeant
(Constable, £20)

Julian Cope’s breathless Head On remains the most exciting pre-history of the second Mersey boom, but Echo & The Bunnymen guitarist Sergeant’s more autumn-toned take on his formative years offers a fine counterpoint, as he and Bowie nut Ian “The Duke” McCulloch reinvent themselves as psychedelic troubadours. It ends just before the Bunnymen sign their first recording contract; roll on volume two.

7 Nina Simone’s Gum Warren Ellis
(Faber, £20)

A glorious piece of object fetishism, this joyful volume documents how the Nick Cave sideman and Dirty Three maestro elevated a piece of chewing gum stuck to a piano in the course of Nina Simone’s triumphant 1999 gig at the Meltdown festival into a near-sacred artefact. Marvel as Ellis’ collection of eccentric personal mementos morphs into a celebration of the intangible wonder of music.

6 A Furious Devotion: The Authorised Story of Shane MacGowan Richard Balls
(Omnibus, £20)

Informed by a series of conversations the author had with the head Pogue, A Furious Devotion presents a profoundly sobering portrait of the boy genius turned raggle-taggle punk tearaway. Friends, family members and his first English teacher bear witness to his brilliance and uncontrollable self-destructive urges.

5 You Are Beautiful And You Are Alone: The Biography Of Nico Jennifer Otter Bickerdike (Faber, £20)

Nettled that Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico was continually written off as a heroin-addicted hanger-on, Jennifer Otter Bickerdike responded with this superbly researched biography. Nico’s solo work remains unfathomable – John Cale said 1968’s The Marble Index was not “a record you listen to; it’s a hole you fall into” – but here at least is a solid sense of a person behind the icon.

4 Last Chance Texaco Rickie Lee Jones
(Grove, £20)

“I was living a life enchanted by impossible connections, narrow escapes, and the perfect timing of curiously strong coincidence,” writes RLJ of her sudden ascent from Tom Waits hanger-on to global sensation with 1979 radio staple “Chuck E’s In Love”. Her drive-it-like-you-stole-it memoir eases around the jagged curves of her life with a pleasing bemusement and a stylish tilt of the beret.

3 Rememberings Sinéad O’Connor
(Sandycove, £20)

Simultaneously tough and horribly vulnerable, O’Connor’s scattershot version of her life story explains with disarming good humour some of the contrary drives that led her to shave her head, tear up a picture of the Pope on live TV and – more recently – retrain as
an end-of-life health assistant. Ridiculed and mistreated in her prime, she says her piece with admirable eloquence.

2 Excavate! The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall Edited by Bob Stanley and Tessa Norton
(Faber, £25)

A collection of ephemera and essays, this book strives to pin down the mightiest post-punk phenomenon. There’s plenty of egghead insight, but nothing more uncanny than when Mark E Smith appears undiluted. In one of the must-see homemade press releases for his earliest records, he sums up his art perfectly: “Maybe Johnny Cash’d sound like this if they’d kept him in San Quentin.”

1 From Manchester With Love: The Life And Opinions of Tony Wilson Paul Morley
(Faber, £20)

“Oh, that was amazing,” Anthony Wilson told his first wife Lindsay Reade after being hailed with phlegm, abuse and beer as he introduced bands at Manchester punk venue Electric Circus in 1977, a true-to-form response from a man his protégé-turned-biographer Paul Morley describes as “a genius” who would also “do anything to get attention”. A dizzying, digressive tour de force, From Manchester With Love mapped Wilson’s stoned adventures in TV, music and city planning against a backdrop of feuds and broken marriages. It also showed how his idealistic ventures and ego trips led to the success of Joy Division and the Happy Mondays, the founding of the pivotal Haçienda nightclub and – ultimately – the reinvention of a whole city.

Uncut’s Best Films Of 2021

Uncut
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Uncut’s Best Films Of 2021
20 Dune Director: Denis Villeneuve Frank Herbert’s space epic returned to cinema, sleeker and saner than David Lynch’s version, although you still wonder what lurid extravaganza Alejandro Jodorowsky would have made of it. By contrast, Denis Villeneuve treated the material with stately, hyp...

20 Dune
Director: Denis Villeneuve

Frank Herbert’s space epic returned to cinema, sleeker and saner than David Lynch’s version, although you still wonder what lurid extravaganza Alejandro Jodorowsky would have made of it. By contrast, Denis Villeneuve treated the material with stately, hyper-grandiose sobriety. It still felt like the intro to a bigger film, but Charlotte Rampling, Rebecca Ferguson and Timothée Chalamet contributed gravitas to sway your scepticism, while Patrice Vermette’s designs were dazzling.

19 The Power Of The Dog
Director: Jane Campion

Campion returned with a modern western that unpicks the male codes of a genre. Based on Thomas Savage’s superb, long-overlooked novel, it starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons as rancher brothers, whose lifestyle changes when one brother’s new wife (Kirsten Dunst) moves in with her decidedly unmacho son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Shot in New Zealand, this was a magnificent landscape film that also mapped dark inner territory.

18 Quo Vadis, Aida?
Director: Jasmila Žbanić

Set in 1995, this Oscar-nominated war drama from Bosnian writer-director Žbanić was about a schoolteacher working as a translator for the United Nations in Srebrenica and trying to save her family when her city was taken over by the Serbian army. Jasna Djuricić gave an animated performance as a heroine of action and conscience and compassion, counterpointing what Žbanić showed as the shocking ineffectualness of the United Nations command.

17 Promising Young Woman
Director: Emerald Fennell

This black comedy deserved attention for its ruthless gender polemic. Carey Mulligan plays a woman on a mission, testing men’s propensity to abuse and confronting enablers in positions of power. Writer-director Fennell scored this reputation-making hit between gigs as showrunner on Killing Eve and writer on Lloyd-Webber’s Cinderella.

16 No Time To Die
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga

Daniel Craig’s Bond finally returned, but not for long – taking his leave of the role in a movie that worked some radical twists on the legend. This was the most earnest 007 outing in a while – a Bond in search of closure! – but it had intelligence, energy and daring and was worth it just for Ana de Armas stealing the show in a Cuban fight number.

15 The Many Saints Of Newark
Director: Alan Taylor

Many were divided on this belated prequel to TV’s The Sopranos, but it had all the ingredients to signify authenticity – including direction by series regular Alan Taylor, a script co-written by originator David Chase and a winning lead by Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James, playing a young, up-and-coming Tony Soprano. Ray Liotta made up for his recent rarity by playing twin Moltisanti brothers.

14 Last Night in Soho
Director: Edgar Wright

The best film ever to be named after a number by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Detective mystery, ghost story and retro pop musical, this dazzlingly executed paean to the glitzy, murky past of London’s once-bohemian hotspot pitched Anya Taylor-Joy
and Thomasin McKenzie as alter egos in different eras, in a film that felt like Absolute Beginners and Polanski’s Repulsion colliding in a glare of neon.

13 Censor
Director: Prano Bailey-Bond

A British meta-chiller that looked back to the Video Nasty moral panic. Enid worked as a censor at a thinly veiled BBFC, trimming horror films’ grislier moments but fascinated by their extremes – and haunted by the disappearance of her sister. Fully paid-up genre buff Prano Bailey-Bond makes an inventive debut, with Niahm Algar hitting an unsettling note as Enid, while – as a cut-price schlock merchant – Michael Smiley was sublimely slimy.

12 Judas And The Black Messiah
Director: Shaka King

This depiction of a notorious episode in modern American history starred Daniel Kaluuya as Black Panther militant Fred Hampton and Lakeith Stanfield as William O’Neal, recruited by the FBI to infiltrate Hampton’s circle. Recounting a story that has renewed urgency in the Black Lives Matter era, this compellingly evoked its era, while the two leads were terrific, playing men who are both opponents and brothers in arms.

11 Annette
Director: Leos Carax

French cinema’s most elusive auteur returned with a sumptuous fantasy, co-written and scored by Sparks’ Ron and Russell Mael. It elicited every reaction from ecstasy to infuriation, via pure bewilderment. The story of a doomed showbiz couple and their very strange daughter, it may not have been the finest hour of either Carax, Sparks, Marion Cotillard or Adam Driver, but taken all together, it was undeniably, extravagantly one of a kind.

10 The French Dispatch
Director: Wes Anderson

Some feel that a little Wes goes a long way, and this one went a very long way indeed – from Liberty, Kansas, to Paris, or rather the imaginary town of Ennui-sur-Blasé. Anderson celebrated all things Gallic and the vintage years of the New Yorker in an all-star fantasy that took his OCD sensibility into the realms of wild overload. No-one else could conceivably have attempted it, though.

9 New Order
Director: Michel Franco

Previously downbeat Mexican director Franco upped his game with this intense, confrontational drama that imagined a popular uprising in Mexico and its ruthless quashing by the establishment. Executed with an icy rigour worthy of Michael Haneke, New Order was widely attacked in its native country and elsewhere, but offered a chilly vision of precarious privilege and social collapse that was just crying out to be remade in Beverly Hills.

8 Gunda
Director: Viktor Kossakovsky

The year’s best pig film, not to be confused with Nicolas Cage vehicle Pig. This was a depiction of life through porcine eyes, a portrait of a sow and her litter (plus the odd cow and some intrepid chickens). Russian documentarist Kossakovsky placed a roaming camera at ground level to offer a view of four-legged life that was poetic but totally unsentimental – and quietly revealing about the drama of animal emotions.

7 A Cop Movie
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios

A documentary that was not what it seemed, this introduced us to Mexico City police officers Teresa and Montoya – professional and romantic partners – and recreated the ins and outs of their daily beat. Then the fourth wall is whisked away as we met the actors who play them. Slippery but revealing and dazzling in its stylistic pastiche, with echoes of Scorsese, Serpico – even the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” video.

6 The Sparks Brothers
Director: Edgar Wright

The Mael brothers returned with their second entry in our poll, here whipping off their masks to explore one of the longest, strangest adventures in pop history – mapping their progress from late-’60s art experiment, through ’70s stardom, to their current rebirth as revered doyens of hyper-literate wit. Whether discussing their transatlantic glory or the years of outsiderdom, the Maels mixed dry humour with candour in one of pop’s smartest, most celebratory documentaries.

5 Karen Dalton: In My Own Time
Director: Robert Yapkowitz, Richard Peete

A few years ago, the world at last began to catch up with the extraordinary voice and career of a neglected folk original and a central figure in the early-’60s New York music scene. This documentary portrait puts the seal on Dalton’s rediscovery, with Nick Cave among those paying tribute to a voice like no other and Angel Olsen reading from Dalton’s diaries.

4 Nomadland
Director: Chloé Zhao

After her superb The Rider – and before pumping up on Marvel steroids to direct Eternals – Chloé Zhao offered a poetic vision of American crisis, with Frances McDormand as a woman leaving her hometown to join the armies of mobile-home nomads searching for work. A contemporary Grapes Of Wrath, it was as close as screen drama gets to documentary, with McDormand joined by a host of real-life American travellers memorably playing themselves.

3 First Cow
Director: Kelly Reichardt

The poet of low-key US realism (Certain Women, Old Joy), Reichardt delved into the past to offer a melancholic-comic vignette of early American capitalism, as two drifters in 19th-century Oregon teamed up to make a living selling hot cakes – using stolen milk from the first cow in the territory. Starring Orion Lee and John Magaro – plus a magisterially pompous Toby Jones – it was 2021’s most tender male love story.

2 The Velvet Underground
Director: Todd Haynes

After Velvet Goldmine and Dylan fantasy I’m Not There, Haynes offered a documentary that places New York’s greatest in the context of a tempestuous ’60s art scene – the world of Warhol and musical experimenters like La Monte Young. We learned a lot about Lou Reed’s painful, prickly youth, but it’s also very much John Cale’s film – plus you got the legendary “The Ostrich” in its full deranged glory.

1 Summer Of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Director: QuestLove

Many suspected that in 2021 cinema would limp back ruefully, energies depleted, from lockdown. It couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Damage was done, yes, and it still remains to be seen whether theatrical releasing can rally after a year in which we all got morbidly locked in our streaming habits. After all, Tenet didn’t – despite hopeful predictions – save the box office in 2020. But it looks as if No Time To Die, Dune, even the critically unloved Venom: Let There Be Carnage might now be doing just that.

Then there was the cornucopia of films premiered at festivals: Berlin, Cannes and Venice offered their best editions in years, and that was just the European events. A-list auteurs like Jane Campion (The Power Of The Dog), Paolo Sorrentino (The Hand Of God), Paul Verhoeven (Benedetta) and Leos Carax (Annette) were all on aggressive form, although no-one was quite as aggressive as French breakthrough star Julia Ducournau, whose surprise Cannes Palme d’Or winner Titane proved that midnight-movie outrage could conquer the respectable red carpet. It was also a vintage year for music documentary, with titles on Karen Dalton, Sparks, The Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin – and the fact that four music titles have made this Top 20 perhaps signals how much we’ve missed live music.

Nothing captured the live experience like Summer Of Soul, in which Amir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots revives the magic of a long-overlooked event once famed as the “Black Woodstock”. Archive footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival features electrifying performances by, among others, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly & The Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson and The Chambers Brothers. The film was a vital celebration of music and of political consciousness, but it was also an all-out sartorial fiesta, epitomised by the Afro-psychedelic threads of The Fifth Dimension. It’s been acclaimed as one of the best concert movies ever and watching it – especially with a live audience – felt as close as you could get to being there. In 2021, little could have felt more welcome, or necessary.

R.E.M.’s Peter Buck recalls his stolen favourite guitar being retrieved by a Finnish biker gang

Will Richards
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R.E.M.’s Peter Buck recalls his stolen favourite guitar being retrieved by a Finnish biker gang
R.E.M.'s Peter Buck has recalled how his favourite guitar was stolen by an associate of the band, only to be returned by a Finnish biker gang. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Michael Stipe and Mike Mills reveal the secrets of R.E.M.’s “El...

R.E.M.’s Peter Buck has recalled how his favourite guitar was stolen by an associate of the band, only to be returned by a Finnish biker gang.

Buck has been synonymous with Rickenbacker guitars across his career with R.E.M. and beyond, and speaks in the December 22 edition of the Daily Express about the iconic guitar brand, sharing a story about his favourite guitar.

In the new interview, conducted ahead of the release of new book Rickenbacker Guitars: Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fireglo by Martin and Paul Kelly, Buck revealed that his beloved Rickenbacker Jetglo 360, which he played on every single R.E.M. album, was kidnapped by an associate of the band’s during a 2008 gig in Finland.

“It was an inside job and I was furious,” Buck said, revealing that the associate had held the guitar for $1million ransom.

Going on to explain how the guitar found its way back to his possession, with help from a local biker gang, the guitarist said: “While our legal team were working it out, some fearsome fellows were riding around on motorbikes, explaining to people we thought connected to the theft, ‘Somebody knows something and we’re going to find out.'”

R.E.M.
R.E.M. in 1996. Image: Christopher Bilheimer

Buck’s story continued: “We explained to the idiot who stole the guitar, ‘If you “find” this guitar, you get to be the good guy and you can have €10,000. But if you press on, that’s extortion and you’ll get up to 30 years in prison.’

“He took the €10,000,” Buck remembered. “When I got [the guitar] back, I felt bad about that black Ricky for a few days. I had to play it and sweat on it again, as I’d been thinking, ‘Some real scumbag has held this for a week.'”

When reunited with his guitar in 2008, Buck didn’t reveal the true reason behind the kidnapping and subsequent return, but said it was returned by an “anonymous source,” adding: “It’s great to have it back in my hands.”

R.E.M.’s manager Bertis Downs added: “We were always hopeful it would turn up, and thanks to the efforts of a lot of people, we are thrilled to have it back in Peter’s possession. We are grateful and very happy that it worked out this way.”

Elsewhere, R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe has confirmed that the band will never reunite. During an interview with radio station WNYC to discuss the new Velvet Underground tribute compilation, Stipe responded to a 2019 Rolling Stone article that speculated over the likelihood of R.E.M. reforming, describing it as “wishful thinking at best”.

“We will never reunite. We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together. We don’t really need that, and I’m really happy that we just have the legacy of the 32 years of work that we have,” he told All Of It host Alison Stewart.

Watch Carole King and James Taylor live in new documentary trailer

Matthew Neale
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Watch Carole King and James Taylor live in new documentary trailer
A new concert documentary, Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name, will showcase the two musical icons as they perform a section of hits from their respective back catalogues, as well as interviews exploring their career – watch the first trailer below. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller ...

A new concert documentary, Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name, will showcase the two musical icons as they perform a section of hits from their respective back catalogues, as well as interviews exploring their career – watch the first trailer below.

The concert documentary will feature setlist highlights from King and Taylor’s 2010 “Troubadour” reunion tour, including “You’ve Got A Friend”, “It’s Too Late”, and “Sweet Baby James”.

The trailer also shows performances of “So Far Away” and “Fire and Rain” from King and Taylor respectively. Joint live shows from 1970 and 2007, including previously unseen footage, will provide additional live material.

Directed by Frank Marshall and commissioned by CNN Films and HBO Max, the show also includes footage of the pair being interviewed in July 2021 at the Southern New Hampshire University Arena in Manchester.

The documentary explores the story behind King and Taylor’s friendship, as well as detailing a number of song stories, including “You’ve Got a Friend”.

Taylor explained that he first heard King play the then new song – which she said “purely came through me” – at soundcheck before their debut Troubadour show together in 2010, and details how he came to cover it. Additional commentary comes from Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, and Lee Sklar, as well as musician and producer Peter Asher.

Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name will premiere on January 2 at 9pm Eastern Time in the US (2am GMT) via CNN and will livestream via CNNgo. It will be available on demand from January 3 – 9 via cable and satellite providers, CNNgo, and CNN mobile apps. There is currently no information for audiences streaming from the UK.

You can watch the trailer here via Rolling Stone.

ZZ Top sell publishing rights and back catalogue for undisclosed fee

Elizabeth Aubrey
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ZZ Top sell publishing rights and back catalogue for undisclosed fee
ZZ Top have sold all their publishing rights and back catalogue for an undisclosed fee. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: ZZ Top – Album By Album The group have sold both to BMG and investment firm KKR. While financial details for the dea...

ZZ Top have sold all their publishing rights and back catalogue for an undisclosed fee.

The group have sold both to BMG and investment firm KKR.

While financial details for the deal were not disclosed, it’s expected to have attracted a multi-million dollar deal with the group having sold over 50million albums.

The deal will cover all the “music interests” of ZZ Top. The group’s manager, Carl Stubner said in a statement: “We are proud to continue working with and expand our long-standing relationship with BMG. This new deal ensures ZZ Top’s remarkable legacy will endure for generations to come.”

BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch added: “This deal is a testament to the success, staying power and continuing musical relevance of ZZ Top, but also to the power of our partnership with KKR.

“This agreement furthers our vision of providing artists and songwriters not just a financial exit, but also a vehicle committed to respecting and treasuring their artistry.”

This year, BMG have acquired the rights to the back catalogues of Mick Fleetwood, Tina Turner and Mötley Crüe.

Other artists who have sold their rights elsewhere include Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

Back in July, ZZ Top‘s Billy Gibbons confirmed that the band will continue on following the death of Dusty Hill.

“We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX,” remaining ZZ Top members Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard said in a statement in July.

“We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top’. We will forever be connected to that ‘Blues Shuffle in C.’”

They added: “You will be missed greatly, amigo.”

The Marvelettes singer Wanda Young has died, aged 78

Matt Doria
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The Marvelettes singer Wanda Young has died, aged 78
Wanda Young, a former lead singer of the classic R&B group The Marvelettes, has died at age 78. Her passing was confirmed on Friday (December 17) by former Motown labelmate Claudette Robinson (of The Miracles), who posted on Instagram: “A very sad day for our [Motown] family and music fans ...

Wanda Young, a former lead singer of the classic R&B group The Marvelettes, has died at age 78.

Her passing was confirmed on Friday (December 17) by former Motown labelmate Claudette Robinson (of The Miracles), who posted on Instagram: “A very sad day for our [Motown] family and music fans all over the world. Wanda was a star on Earth and now she is a star in Heaven. Put on some Marvelettes and turn it up.”

No cause of death has been made public at the time of writing.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the Classic Motown label wrote: “We are so saddened by the news of Wanda Young of the Marvelettes passing. What an impact she has had on the world of Classic Motown and the lives of so many. Her legacy will continue to live on.”

Born in Michigan on August 9, 1943, Young grew up with aspirations to become a nurse. However after founding member Georgia Dobbins left The Marvelettes (then called The Marvels) in 1961, Young was recruited by co-singer Gladys Horton – who herself passed away in 2011 – to audition for the role. She was successful, and helped the group make their mainstream breakthrough with “Hey Mr. Postman”.

The song was an immediate hit for The Marvelettes (and later The Beatles, then The Carpenters), becoming Motown’s first Number One single in the later months of 1961. It held the top spot on the Billboard R&B Chart for seven weeks.

Young’s singing role in the band was split with Horton, who often took the lead on their radio singles. The pair would duet on some tracks – such as hits like “Locking Up My Heart” and “Too Many Fish In The Sea” – and Young made her solo lead debut on a single in 1964 with “You’re My Remedy”.

Although not as successful as much of their prior catalogue, it paved the way for Young to sing on the 1965 dance hit “I’ll Keep Holding On”, galvanising her as The Marvelettes’ full-time lead vocalist. Among the group’s biggest singles under her lead was “Don’t Mess With Bill”, a million-selling soul tune that peaked at Number Seven on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Marvelettes formally disbanded in 1970, although the following year, Motown released Young’s solo album with the title The Return Of The Marvelettes. Young’s former bandmates refused to be involved, and in 1972, the singer parted ways with Motown and went on a lengthy hiatus from recording.

The group’s legacy refused to wane, though – in 1995, The Marvelettes were inducted into The Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s Hall Of Fame. In 2004, they were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall Of Fame.

In a 1999 interview with Goldmine, Stevie Wonder made note of Young’s caring nature: “[She] would always tell me when she thought I was eating too much candy,” he joked. “I wish kids today could have the same kind of caring expressed and shown to them.”

Kate Bush backs pay rise for NHS staff in Christmas message

Ali Shutler
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Kate Bush backs pay rise for NHS staff in Christmas message
Kate Bush has thanked frontline staff and NHS workers for everything they’ve done over the coronavirus pandemic in a new Christmas message. She has also called for a pay rise for doctors and nurses. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Inside Kat...

Kate Bush has thanked frontline staff and NHS workers for everything they’ve done over the coronavirus pandemic in a new Christmas message. She has also called for a pay rise for doctors and nurses.

In a post on her website titled ‘A Christmas Message’, Bush wrote: “With nearly two years of COVID, are any of us the same people we were before? It’s left everyone confused and uncertain of the future.”

She went on to say that “it’s been a terrible time of loss for so many. I want to say a big thank you to all the people on the front line and in the NHS. I have such huge respect for all the nurses and doctors who’ve already been working flat out for nearly two years.”

“These caring people are showing such extraordinary acts of kindness to others. Let’s hope they get the pay rises they rightly deserve.”

Elsewhere in the post Bush described seeing a Goldcrest, the smallest bird in Europe, for only the second time in her life. “It made my day,” she wrote. “In these strange times, I really hope you can get the chance to stop for a moment and feel nature around you.”

Uncut’s Best Reissues & Compilations Of 2021

Uncut
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Uncut’s Best Reissues & Compilations Of 2021
30 SUPERGRASS In It For The Money Remastered Expanded ECHO/BMG The Oxford quartet’s terrific second album returned on plush double vinyl, but also as a deluxe set featuring a host of previously unheard extras. Among the highlights were the power-driving “Charles II” and the smoky, Cant...

30 SUPERGRASS
In It For The Money Remastered Expanded
ECHO/BMG

The Oxford quartet’s terrific second album returned on plush double vinyl, but also as a deluxe set featuring a host of previously unheard extras. Among the highlights were the power-driving “Charles II” and the smoky, Canterbury psychedelia of “Silver Lining”, fascinating early versions of album tracks such as “It’s Not Me” and “Late In The Day”, and a set of live tracks that captured the manic propulsion of Live At Leeds.

29 VARIOUS ARTISTS
Edo Funk Explosion Vol 1
ANALOG AFRICA

This essential collection documented the sounds emanating from Joromi Studio in Benin City, in Nigeria’s Edo State, during the ’80s – and in particular the pioneering work of Joromi’s founder Victor Uwaifo alongside Akaba Man and Osayomore Joseph. Their fusion of traditional rhythms, highlife horns and funk, along with cheesy keyboards and flashes of psychedelia, made Edo Funk Explosion one of the year’s most vibrant and revelatory finds.

28 NANCY SINATRA
Start Walkin’: 1965–1976
LIGHT IN THE ATTIC

A supreme collection of Sinatra’s first decade, the best of which only seems to shine brighter as the years go by. “Bang Bang” and “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” open the set, of course, but there are some lesser-known treasures to explore too: from the early “So Long Babe” and the hallucinogenic grandeur of Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood’s “Arkansas Coal (Suite)” to 1972’s post-Lee “Machine Gun Kelly”. Throughout, Sinatra inhabits each song to perfection.

27 JOHN LENNON
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: The Ultimate Collection
CAPITOL/UMC

In its most expansive form, this lavish boxset of Lennon’s first proper solo album is a fascinating deep dive into his writing and recording process; his warm studio chats with Ringo are especially captivating. Best of all, though, are the complete sessions for Yoko Ono’s own Plastic Ono Band, tucked away on Blu-ray in all their future-shock savagery, with Lennon, Ono, Starr and Klaus Voormann inventing myriad genres as they jam at Abbey Road.

26 ROGER WEBB
Bartleby: Original Soundtrack Recording
TRUNK RECORDS

Jonny Trunk celebrated his silver jubilee by doing what he does best: rescuing a fruity library-funk gem from obscurity. If you’d only heard Roger Webb’s soundtrack to the long-forgotten 1972 British film adaptation of Herman Melville’s famous short story, you might conclude that Bartleby was a suave turtlenecked PI rather than a stubborn clerk – although there were also moments of lush, Midnight Cowboy-esque poignancy.

25 THE FALL
Live At St Helen’s Technical College, 1981
CASTLE FACE

In keeping with their prolific output, The Fall have never been short on live albums, ranging from the good, the bad and ugly – here, though, rescued from bootleg status by Marc Riley and Castle Face, was one of the greatest. Released on LP+7”, Live At St Helen’s… captures a crucial, magical period in the group’s history, with furious, super-tight cuts from Dragnet, Grotesque and Slates, and even a taste of the following year’s classic Hex Enduction Hour.

24 NIRVANA
Songlife 1967–71
MADFISH

An Irish-Greek duo plunging cape-deep into Swinging London, Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos made some of the most imaginative psychedelic pop of the era, even if they only really troubled the charts with the bombastic “Rainbow Chaser”. Songlife compiles their delicate, delirious work, from 1967’s orchestral concept album The Story Of Simon Simopath to ’72’s bizarrely Vegas-y Songs Of Love And Praise. Enticingly, the package includes Secrets, a collection of previously unheard and fleshed-out demos.

23 RADIOHEAD
Kid A Mnesia
XL

Twenty-one years after its release confounded (some) critics, the game-changing Kid A officially entered the ‘deluxe reissue’ canon alongside its slightly more congenial twin, Amnesiac. The bonus disc dredged up evanescent near-classic “If You Say The Word” and some fascinating alternate versions – including another piece in the lifelong Radiohead puzzle that is “True Love Waits”.

22 COME
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
FIRE

Welcome retouch of a grunge-era highlight, more dirty churning blues than angsty alt.rock, led by Thalia Zedek’s throaty rasp and penchant for addictively doleful melodies informed by Eastern European folk and film noir. A second disc of ‘Wrong Sides’ offered the gloriously pummelling “Car” and covers of X and Swell Maps.

21 WHIPPING BOY
Heartworm
NEEDLE MYTHOLOGY

The Dublin band’s second album fell between the cracks when it was originally released in 1995 – it just wasn’t Britpop enough, it seems. Given a second lease of life, however, Heartworm’s core strengths came into focus: it’s a brooding, powerful record, driven by Fearghal McKee’s bleak vignettes about characters on the brink, while the music – somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Bends-era Radiohead – remained vividly intense.

20 PASTOR TL BARRETT
I Shall Wear A Crown
NUMERO GROUP

A Baptist pastor by his early twenties, this Chicago gospel musician, often joined by his 45-piece Youth For Christ Choir, has experienced a belated global fame in recent years. This 5LP box collected four of his albums, each imbued with irresistibly soulful grooves and socially conscious lyrics, plus a set of rarities – listen to his take on “The Lord’s Prayer” and marvel at how it can have taken the world so long to catch up.

19 DAVID BOWIE
Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001)
PARLOPHONE/ISO

The big news in this fifth boxset of Bowie’s catalogue albums was the inclusion of Toy – his abandoned album from 2001, featuring re-recordings of material from his pre-fame years. Around Toy, the set helped map Bowie’s way back after his career foundered at the end of the ’80s. At the other end of his career, meanwhile, The Width Of A Circle box illuminated The Man Who Sold The World for its 50th anniversary.

18 NEIL YOUNG
Carnegie Hall 1970
REPRISE

After the Archives 2 motherlode last year, 2021 was relatively quiet for Neil Young. Aside from two Crazy Horse projects – one old (Way Down In The Rust Bucket) and one new (Barn) – he also launched his latest archival strand, the Official Bootleg Series, beginning with this vaunted concert recorded not long after the After The Goldrush sessions. Although Young has already released live material from this period, Carnegie Hall had its own distinctive vibe.

17 THE REPLACEMENTS
Sorry Ma, ForgotcTo Take Out The Trash Deluxe Edition
RHINO

This 40th-anniversary set captured the birth of the ’Mats in all its messy glory. Not quite punk, not quite rock, Sorry Ma… was groundbreaking for the way in which it brought the band’s gifts for speed, melody and humour together in one exuberant package. Outtakes, demos, live and even an alternative version helped underscore the indomitable brilliance of Westerberg and co as they began their ascent.

16 JAPAN
Quiet Life Deluxe Edition
BMG

A giant leap forward, in 1979, for David Sylvian’s glam futurists, Quiet Life found Japan finally defining their sound – the opiated chic of late period Roxy, the haunting abstractions of Bowie’s Low and The Velvet Underground’s noir glamour. Emboldened, Japan maximalised their Quiet Life achievements on Gentlemen Take Polaroids and the fearlessly ambitious Tin Drum. This edition complied assorted 7” and 12” remixes and a live set – but Quiet Life itself is testament enough.

15 GANG OF FOUR
77 – 81
MATADOR

While the unexpected death of guitarist Andy Gill in early 2020 put an end to one chapter of this questing punk-funk group’s history, the impressive boxset 77–81 chronicled another. There was the pivotal Entertainment and Solid Gold, both remastered, a singles LP and a live 1980 gig, plus a cassette of 26 unheard demos and outtakes. Their fight never seemed more vital, or more exciting to listen to.

14 JOHN COLTRANE
A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle
IMPULSE!

Like all masterpieces, A Love Supreme feels a bit like a sacred text carved in stone. But for the ever-restless Coltrane it was just a brief stop on the way to somewhere else. On the rare occasions it was revisited live – as on this astonishing discovery from late 1965 – it was in a radically different form: stormier, wilder, and with the addition of a significant new collaborator, the free spirit Pharoah Sanders.

13 SUN RA
Lanquidity Definitive Edition
STRUT

Sun Ra’s sprawling discography can seem daunting, but this 1978 effort would be a good place to start. Lanquidity is his mellowest and most accessible offering, but there’s still plenty of trademark celestial roaming. This ‘Definitive Edition’ added an entire album of alternate versions, including four extra minutes of the luscious “That’s How I Feel”.

12 THE WHO
Sell Out Super Deluxe Edition
UMC/POLYDOR

Maximalised mod! This hefty package celebrates The Who’s 1967 pop-art experiment, capturing the band as they transition from power pop to rock opera. Alongside various mono and stereo mixes and studio offcuts, a fifth disc collects Pete Townshend’s scratchy, awkward solo demos, locating the source of Townshend’s increasingly ambitious plans for the band as his own creative powers fully come into focus.

11 FAUST
1971–1974
BUREAU B

Faust’s always been tricky to get a handle on Faust, krautrock’s surreal tricksters, as happy with cut-up musique concrète as tender balladry, often within the same song. 1971–1974 collects their prime-era work, from the self-titled debut to Faust IV, throwing in extra tracks and a whole unreleased album, Punkt, for good measure. The box might not unlock the collective’s inherent mystery, but it certainly presents an incredible, endlessly fascinating body of work.

10 VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
The Charisma Years 1970–1978
VIRGIN

Light on unheard material, but heavy in almost every other way, this CD boxset compiled the unique work of Peter Hammill’s band in their first iteration. From early prog folk to the supremely ambitious Pawn Hearts, then onwards with the driving, stripped-down Godbluff, The Charisma Years collected a labyrinthine world in which to get lost. Difficult, perhaps, but worth the trip.

9 SPIRITUALIZED
Lazer Guided Melodies
FAT POSSUM

Clearing the decks for a new album in February, Jason Pierce reissued Spiritualized’s first four albums in deluxe vinyl editions with new artwork, giving us the chance to wallow afresh. And while Ladies And Gentlemen… and Let It Come Down remain his most staggering realisations of ambition over ability, it was all there on the band’s 1992 debut of sublime gospel-drone and garage-rock absolution.

8 THE BEATLES
Let It Be Special Edition
APPLE CORPS LTD/CAPITOL/UME

As with its original 1970 release, this reissue of The Beatles’ swan song proved to be too big for just an album: it came accompanied by Peter Jackson’s three-part documentary and a coffee-table book. This box set drilled down deep into the music, via remixes, rehearsal tapes and jams. What they often reveal is a band trying to figure out a musical future; that they didn’t shouldn’t eclipse the frequent brilliance on display here.

7 BOB DYLAN
Springtime In New York: The Bootleg Series, Vol 16 (1980-1985)
COLUMBIA/LEGACY

Amidst his Shadow Kingdom livestream, an Uncut covers CD and his 80th birthday, the Bard Of Hibbing also found time to mark the 30th anniversary of his storied archival programme. This instalment shed light on Dylan’s maligned ’80s – the period from Shot Of Love, Infidels and Empire Burlesque, in other words – via revelatory outtakes and new mixes. Another essential Bootleg release, then.

6 GEORGE HARRISON
All Things Must Pass: 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition
CAPITOL/UME

It wasn’t de-Spectorised, exactly, but the fog did lift a little on this box celebrating arguably the greatest Beatle solo LP. Harrison’s vocals are clearer than ever on these many-layered (and, indeed, many) songs of devotion, desire and pain, while the extra discs elevate folky, soulful and jammy session highlights from bootleg hiss to hi-fi enlightenment. A deep set for a deep album – even if its remixing has proved controversial for those enamoured by the murky original.

5 LAURA NYRO
American Dreamer
MADFISH

Lavish 8CD boxset that finally allowed the extraordinarily talented – but all-too-often overlooked – singer-songwriter to take her rightful place at the top table between Aretha and Joni. There were riches everywhere, from the soulful opulence of Gonna Take A Miracle to the stripped-back bluesy longing of New York Tendaberry, plus a disc of rarities, live tracks and fascinating demos.

4 ALICE COLTRANE
Kirtan: Turiya Sings
IMPULSE! /UME

A companion piece to Luaka Bop’s 2017 compilation The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, Kirtan: Turiya Sings collects Coltane’s ashram consciousness-expanding recordings. Here the concentration is on solo songs, stripped of the strings and synthesisers from their original incarnations, leaving just Coltrane’s voice and her Wurlitzer organ. The beauty of Coltrane’s work, and the way she could transform a personal system of belief into the highest accessible art, remains striking.

3 JONI MITCHELL
The Reprise Albums 1968–1971
RHINO

An album as beloved as Blue deserved two Golden Jubilee releases. In June, a vinyl box brought together Mitchell’s first four studio albums, followed in October by Archives Vol 2: The Reprise Years (1968–1971). It’s hard to top Blue, of course, but this second release yielded a trove of home recordings and live cuts, fleshing out Mitchell’s working processes and contextualising her performance skills during this critical period.

2 THE BEACH BOYS
Feel Flows The Sunflower And Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971
CAPITOL/UME

This weighty boxset uncovered the full extent of a wonderfully fertile transitional period for “America’s Top Surfin’ Group” as they rose to meet the challenges of the ’70s. Across five CDs, these live cuts, outtakes, demos, alternate mixes and isolated backing tracks demonstrated the full extent of The Beach Boys’ endeavours at a critical point in their history.

1 CAN
Live In Stuttgart 1975
SPOON/MUTE

For a band whose legendary propulsion derived from the almost telepathic interplay between its four main instrumentalists, it’s odd that an official single-show Can live album has never existed… until now. Live In Stuttgart 1975 is just the beginning of a whole Can Live series, for which we can thank bootlegger extraordinaire Andrew Hall, who recorded many Can shows in the mid-’70s with AKG mics concealed up the sleeves of his dufflecoat; when the band eventually rumbled this practice, rather than kick him out they invited him up to the sound console for improved fidelity. Sometimes Holger Czukay would even send Hall his own mixing desk recordings, including this one from Stuttgart’s Gustav-Siegle-Haus on Halloween night 1975.

Buffed up by Irmin Schmidt and long-time Can sound engineer René Tinner, the contents are a revelation – somewhat familiar but also brand new. Is that the “Vitamin C” drum shuffle? The bassline from “Mushroom”?  A snatch of “Dizzy Dizzy”? A faint premonition of “I Want More”? All those suggestions seem to quickly crest and fade within the music’s relentless tide, and pretty soon it makes a lot more sense to stop playing spot the riff and just go with the flow (motion). “Zwei” is loosely based on parts of “Bel Air” from Future Days, emphasising the divergence between Can the studio band – who would regularly splice together sections from various different jams – and Can the live band, who would keep forcefully excavating the same idea in a more direct and muscular fashion. On record, Michael Karoli’s wailing guitar heroics are sometimes buried in (or edited out of) the mix, whereas here he’s given free rein to spray all over the canvas. And while Jaki Liebzeit’s rhythmic stamina was previously evident only in glimpses, on Stuttgart 75 you get the full picture as he rattles on unrelentingly for the full 90 minutes.

Some of the drum patterns he conjures up are almost superhuman, but he never stops to bask in applause; a quick breath, then onward towards the horizon. The next instalment of the series is Live In Brighton 1975, due for release in December. Occurring just three weeks after Stuttgart, the set is almost completely different. For Can fans – which these days seems to mean everyone with more than a passing interest in music – the journey is just beginning…

Uncut’s Best New Albums Of 2021

Uncut
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Uncut’s Best New Albums Of 2021
50 LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM Lindsey Buckingham REPRISE Delayed by health problems, a global pandemic and more, the guitarist and singer’s first solo album in a decade didn’t disappoint when it finally arrived this autumn. These 10 compact songs were pure distilled Buckingham, written, produced...

50 LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
Lindsey Buckingham
REPRISE

Delayed by health problems, a global pandemic and more, the guitarist and singer’s first solo album in a decade didn’t disappoint when it finally arrived this autumn. These 10 compact songs were pure distilled Buckingham, written, produced and played entirely on his own, including surprises on the loop-based “Swan Song” and drifting, quasi-ambient closer “Dancing”, plus some modern classics such as REM-ish first single “I Don’t Mind”.

49 SUNBURNED
HAND OF THE MAN Pick A Day To Die
THREE LOBED

Their first proper album in a decade found the Massachusetts freak-folk collective on blistering form, flipping between pastoral reveries, acid nightmares and surging motorik jams on which they invited us to “feel the midnight”, “taste the campfire” and “do a Baltic salt therapy”. And for those still on the fence, the climactic “Prix Fixe” came with a bonus cascade of cosmic riffage from one J Mascis.

48 DAVID CROSBY
For Free
BMG

Crosby’s autumnal productivity continued apace as he approached his 80th birthday in August: For Free was his fifth album in seven years. His co-conspirators included his multi-instrumentalist/producer son James Raymond and their Sky Trails Band, plus a handful of esteemed guests including Michael McDonald and Donald Fagen. The album was full of personal reflection and jazz phrasing, which doubtless would have pleased the younger version of Crosby – who resurfaced this year on CSNY’s 50th-anniversary edition of Déjà Vu.

47 ELEPHANT9
Arrival Of The New Elders
RUNE GRAMMOFON

This Norwegian jazz-rock trio achieved a kind of telepathic abandon on this, their pulsating 10th record. In the mix of Ståle Storløkken’s keyboards, Nikolai Eilertsen’s bass and Torstein Lofthus’s drums there were echoes of electric Miles and Soft Machine, the grooves of krautrock and even of Air’s featherlight intrepidness, from the synth arpeggios of the title track and the Rhodes explorations of “Throughout The Worlds” to the eerie chillout of the closing “Solar Song”.

46 ISRAEL NASH
Topaz
LOOSE

From his homemade studio deep in Texas Hill Country, Nash continued to map the contours of cosmic country on this, his sixth album. The strength of Topaz lay in Nash’s ability to juggle the personal with the political, finding a natural space for reflection during a tumultuous time: “My heart is a canyon/The flashing flood won’t drown you out”, he sang on “Canyonheart”. Elsewhere, his rich stew of soul, gospel, psychedelia and folk provided suitably uplifting accompaniment.

45 BOBBY GILLESPIE & JEHNNY BETH
Utopian Ashes
SONY

In between writing his memoir and overseeing the 30th-anniversary release of Screamadelica, Gillespie reunited with the rest of Primal Scream and Savages’ Jehnny Beth for this duets album, heavily flavoured by the ‘love hurts’ strain of country rock. Hearing the Scream showcase a rootsier sound was a delight, while Gillespie found a new songwriting well to draw from, railing less against the military industrial complex and instead contemplating more intimate dramas, ably abetted by Beth.

44 RHIANNON GIDDENS WITH FRANCESCO TURRISI
They’re Calling Me Home
NONESUCH

Giddens and Italian percussionist Turrisi revisited the chemistry that made 2019’s There Is No Other so special on this varied collection, recorded in lockdown in Ireland. The range of material that Giddens turned her hand to was astonishing: from Monteverdi pieces and folk songs to Italian lullabies, bluegrass staples and modern songs from the Democratic Republic Of Congo, all beautifully adapted and given new life.

43 MY MORNING JACKET
My Morning Jacket
ATO

After six years of various solo ventures, the Kentucky quintet returned to what the opening track here confirmed was the “Regularly Scheduled Programming”: big-hearted, reverbed-soaked cosmic American rock, full of unashamedly classic riffs and hopeful sentiments. “There is more to life than what’s yours and what’s mine,” crooned Jim James. “Oh, I wish everyone could agree…”

42 FAYE WEBSTER
I Know I’m Funny Ha Ha
SECRETLY CANADIAN

In 2020, Webster’s track “Better Distractions” made it onto Barack Obama’s end-of-year playlist, setting a high bar for this, the fourth album by Atlantan singer-songwriter, photographer and yo-yo enthusiast. As it transpired, I Know I’m Funny Ha Ha lived up to expectations, with Webster channelling urban country, warm ’70s soul, gutsy classic rock and introspective indie-pop while delivering perfect vignettes about life, love and heartbreak.

41 DAMON ALBARN
The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows
TRANSGRESSIVE

Started in Iceland but soaked in English melancholy, Albarn’s second proper solo album was a quiet, delicate and reflective affair, finding inspiration in such disparate subjects as the North Star, the 19th-century English poet John Clare and a local cormorant, as well as a tribute to his fallen collaborator, Tony Allen. The music was steeped in minor-chord atmospherics – but, reassuringly, Albarn found hope amid the bleak, drizzly landscape the songs inhabit.

40 STURGILL SIMPSON
The Ballad Of Dood & Juanita
HIGH TOP MOUNTAIN RECORDS

Following two albums of bluegrass takes of his own songs, Simpson gave us a concept album about the sharp-shooting Dood – “the son of a mountain miner and a Shawnee maid” – as he searches for his kidnapped love during the American Civil War. The story
may feel ripped from an RKO western, but Simpson leans into it, while the lively mix of traditional mountain music, gospel and cowboy crooning vividly brought his storytelling to life.

39 SQUID
Bright Green Field
WARP

Emerging from the same unkempt, overthought milieu as Black Country, New Road and Black Midi, this Brighton-formed quintet’s debut album attempted to fuse dance-punk, jazz, noise and deadpan Ballardian narratives to predictably volatile effect. “Don’t push me in!” yelled singing drummer Ollie Judge, as if attempting to resist being consumed by the thrilling vortex of his own band’s music. Too late!

38 MADLIB
Sound Ancestors
MADLIB INVAZION

Now that modern hip-hop is no longer built on loops of old records, sampledelia has become a bit of a lost art. But Mablib is one of its true masters, whether it’s digging deeper into the crates to pull out the obscurest lo-fi soul and private press psych nuggets, or placing something more familiar – an unexpected glint of Young Marble Giants, say – in a fresh new context. Overseen by Four Tet, Sound Ancestors was a supple and surprisingly emotional hymn to the joys of musical discovery.

37 DEAN WAREHAM
I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor Of LA
DOUBLE FEATURE

There is a thin line between elegant slackerdom and not really doing anything of note – and for most of the 21st century, the former Galaxie 500 and Luna frontman was in danger of tipping over it. But without abandoning his indolent approach, Wareham’s third solo album felt like a return to form, packed with casually brilliant tunes, terrifically wry lyrics, a Scott Walker cover… and even a withering anti-war song.

36 ARAB STRAP
As Days Get Dark
ROCK ACTION

Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton’s return after 16 years gave them a No 1 in Scotland and a Top 15 position in the UK. It wasn’t just nostalgia behind this success, though, for As Days Get Dark was one of their finest records, updating their microscopic, bleak and sometimes hilarious examinations of life and masculinity for the present day, and their own middle age. Of the highlights, “The Turning Of Our Bones” was ominous digital post-rock, while “Another Clockwork”.

35 JOHN MURRY
The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes
SUBMARINE CAT

Murry was on fine form on his third solo album, his songs processing trauma and existential pain in his customary wry, unflinching style. What made it stand out from his previous work (aside from the cover of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World”, of course) were the soundscapes woven by Murry and producer John Parish, shrouding the songs in burnt-out, glitchy electronics and shards of grizzled sound.

34 COURTNEY BARNETT
Things Take Time, Take Time
MARATHON ARTISTS

If 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel was an extension of Barnett’s 2015 debut album, her third album instead marked a significant progression. Recorded quickly in Sydney with collaborator Stella Mozgawa, Things Take Time… was an organic, loose delight, driven by vintage drum machines and keyboards. Crucially, these textures left space for some of Barnett’s deepest and most concise songs yet, from the existential observations of “Rae Street” through to the profound simplicity of “Oh The Night”.

33 CHUCK JOHNSON
The Cinder Grove
VIN DU SELECT QUALITITE

One of the key artists to feature on our Ambient America compilation CD from earlier this year, the pioneering pedal steel guitarist made inventive use of space on this quietly mournful album. A fine follow-up to 2017’s fluid Balsams, the restorative serenity of The Cinder Grove proved deeply nourishing during 2021’s more tumultuous moments.

32 THE HOLD STEADY
Open Door Policy
POSITIVE JAMS/THIRTY TIGERS

Returning with their own record label, Craig Finn and co released their most melodramatic concept album yet: blue-collar opera, if you like. Guests including Stuart Bogie and Cassandra Jenkins (more from her later) appear across these 10 songs, which range in style from the glam groove of “Hanover Camera” to the brass-assisted riffing of “Family Farm”. Ultimately, though, it’s all classic Hold Steady: evocative, euphoric.

31 ROBERT PLANT & ALISON KRAUSS
Raise The Roof
ROUNDER RECORDS

The peripatetic Plant finally returned from his lengthy sojourn along the Timbuktu-Aberystwyth borders to reunite with Krauss on this sequel to their celebrated Raising Sand. Little had changed, pleasingly, in the 14 years since the original. This was yet another commendably low-key foray into American roots music, via covers of songs by Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, the Everly Brothers, Calexico and more.

30 TEENAGE FANCLUB
Endless Arcade
PIAS

Following the departure of Gerry Love in 2018, the remaining songwriting team of Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley carried on doing what they do best. Their 10th studio album continued to mine familiar themes – the end of love; stoicism in the face of emotional catastrophe; the importance of joy – with great craft. Breezy, minor- key melodies abound, and with the addition of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s Euros Childs, they have found a kindred spirit.

29 STEVE GUNN
Other You
MATADOR

On which Steve Gunn’s journey from folk fingerpicker to indie singer-songwriter became more of a deliciously languid feedback loop. Expertly produced by Rob Schnapf, Other You’s guitar lines seemed to melt and merge into each other as if on a dub record, while Gunn’s voice, making a virtue of its limitations, has never sounded more beatifically reassuring.

28 RYLEY WALKER
Course In Fable
HUSKY PANTS

In the year that Genesis set off on their farewell tour, Ryley Walker outed himself as their biggest fan, stuffing his inquisitive post-folk-rock with all manner of deft tempo shifts and trap-door melodies. The lyrics may have initially seemed impenetrable – what the dickens is “A Lenticular Slap”? – but gradually revealed the self-reproving worldview of a wise jester on a quixotic search for the meaning of life… and on “Rang Dizzy”, perhaps even finding it.

27 ARLO PARKS
Collapsed In Sunbeams
TRANSGRESSIVE

This debut collection of “bedroom indie pop” made quite the stir this year, with West London’s Anaïs Marinho even picking up the Mercury Prize. The mood was hazy, the instruments as soft and unassuming as Parks’ voice and her moody, imagistic songwriting. “Hope” was the jazzy smash, “Bluish” a sampledelic trip-hop cut, while “Black Dog” mixed beats with nylon-string guitar and an arresting reference to Robert Smith’s eye makeup.

26 PAUL WELLER
Fat Pop (Volume 1)
POLYDOR

Recorded mostly during lockdown last spring and then completed at his Black Barn studio when the lifting of restrictions allowed his regular band to reconvene, Fat Pop (Volume 1) was Weller’s personal antidote to the pandemic. The result was (mostly) soothing cosmic soul: “Can you see the good things in your life?” he asked on “Cobweb/Connections”, drawing deep sustenance from the miracle of music.

25 JANE WEAVER
Flock
FIRE

The conceptual, cosmic frameworks that have characterised Weaver’s work for the last decade or so were thrown out on her ninth album – what was left were 10 accessibly weird and lyrically personal songs, and perhaps the best LP of her career. There was a new groove at work too, as demonstrated by the Funkadelic haze of “The Revolution Of Super Visions”, the hip-hop strut of “Sunset Dreams” (inspired by her kids’ favoured music) and the closing, exultant house of “Solarised”.

24 VALERIE JUNE
The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers
FANTASY

When Valerie June first arrived, the Memphis singer-songwriter offered a charmed take on country-folk blues. Her latest, meanwhile, shows how far she has travelled since: The Moon And Stars… drew on Fela Kuti, Sun Ra, Memphis soul and pedal steel, while songs were littered with meditations, proverbs and birdsong. That June sustained such celestial heights is a testament to this powerfully, elegantly subversive album.

23 ST VINCENT
Daddy’s Home
LOMA VISTA

At once her most theatrical album and her most personal, Daddy’s Home found Annie Clark dissecting her father’s release from prison over music in thrall to Lou Reed, Bowie and Steely Dan. While Clark’s image and themes evoked the drama and trauma of Warhol’s Superstars, the songs, many of them crafted with regular collaborator Jack Antonoff, continued her winning streak: especially the sitar-funk of “Down And Out Downtown”, the Wurlitzer swirl of “Live In The Dream”, and the “Morning Train” sashay of “My Baby Wants A Baby”.

22 THE CORAL
Coral Island
RUN ON RECORDS

The seaside might be a relatively niche subject in rock music, but for The Coral it formed the basis of an entire double album. Their 10th used an imagined funfair isle, long past its prime, as a springboard for character study and to examine a certain strand of English life. The results evoked everything from The Village Green Preservation Society to Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, the songs driven by a gently psychedelic jangle and an autumnal wistfulness.

21 LITTLE SIMZ
Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
AGE 101 MUSIC/AWAL

The Londoner’s fourth album continued her impressive tightrope walk between accessibility and experimentation, with producer Inflo providing cinematic string, horn and choir arrangements. Across 19 tracks and interludes, this lush, ambitious record examined life as a black woman in the modern world with humour, fire and poetry. That Simz released it on her own label, hitting No 4 in the UK, was proof of her independence and enviable drive.

20 MODERN NATURE
Island Of Noise
BELLA UNION

Jack Cooper may consider himself a “jazz imposter” but curiosity continues to push this former indie straggler forward. On the shimmering Island Of Noise, loosely based on The Tempest, his lines were coloured in expressively by the likes of free-music veteran Evan Parker and Modern Nature’s very own MVP, saxophonist Jeff Tobias. To underline its ambition, the album is only available as a deluxe boxset on which Cooper’s vision is augmented by various writers, poets, illustrators and (yes!) fungi experts.

19 JOHN GRANT
Boy From Michigan
BELLA UNION

An examination of America – and specifically his youth in Buchanan, Michigan – from the vantage point of his adopted home of Iceland, Grant’s fifth solo album was an epic, kaleidoscopic masterpiece. Amid the retro synth sludge marshalled by producer Cate Le Bon, Grant tackled toxic masculinity (“The Rusty Bull”), youthful regrets (“Mike And Julie”) and the rise of Trump (“The Only Baby”). The result was impressive: personal, political and transcendent.

18 HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER
Quietly Blowing It
MERGE

The first of two Hiss albums from 2021 – the second, O Come All Ye Faithful, arrives in December – found Mike Taylor musing on themes of love, loss and despair. But while written at the start of the pandemic, this collection of rootsy, soulful country rockers was more gentle reflection than rousing state-of-the-world address: “Up with the mountains, down with the system”, he sang on “Way Back In The Way Back”.

17 DRY CLEANING
New Long Leg
4AD

It’s tough to do something new in the indie guitar/bass/drums format, but this London quartet managed it; their garagey riffs underpinned the sublime, often hilarious non sequiturs of vocalist Florence Shaw, as much Diane Morgan as Jarvis Cocker. The highlights are irresistible, from the Antiques Roadshow-referencing “John Wick” to the Smiths-y melancholy of “Her Hippo”: “An electrician stuck his finger in the plug hole and shouted, ‘Yabba!’”

16 SLEAFORD MODS
Spare Ribs
ROUGH TRADE

January’s Spare Ribs found Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn busting out of their own self-imposed constraints with a flurry of electro grooves. The result was a distillation of their ethos rather than a dilution, the likes of “Mork N Mindy” and “I Don’t Rate You” connecting with a wider audience than ever. At Spare Ribs’ heart, of course, was Williamson’s ranting, raving wordplay, this time taking on Dominic Cummings, Covid and dodgy Wi-Fi.

15 MOGWAI
As The Love Continues
ROCK ACTION

A quarter-century into a gloriously uncompromising career, Glasgow’s finest were finally rewarded for their consistent skyscraping excellence with a UK No 1 album. Yes, there was a ‘proper song’ in the form of “Ritchie Sacramento”, but essentially this was Mogwai honing their craft to a fine point: more anthemic, more poignant, more overpowering. If anyone can moisten your eyes with a lolloping post-rock instrumental called “Pat Stains”, it’s Mogwai.

14 SAINT ETIENNE
I’ve Been Trying To Tell You
HEAVENLY

Recorded remotely with composer and musician Augustin Bousfield, Saint Etienne’s 10th LP was a concept album examining the late ’90s, that strangely unreal time before 9/11 changed the feel of the era. Each song, then, was built around a transformed sample from the period, from Natalie Imbruglia’s “Beauty On The Fire” on the haunting “Pond House” to the Lightning Seeds’ “Joy” on “Penlop”. As much art project or cultural investigation as pop music, I’ve Been Trying… was a multi-layered, fascinating treasure.

13 MDOU MOCTAR
Afrique Victime
MATADOR

Agadez, Niger’s renowned guitar hero, Mahamadou Souleymane, finally unleashed his magnum opus this year. There was no showboating on these nine tracks, but Souleymane’s skills shone brightly, channelling Van Halen, Prince and Jimi Hendrix on a mix of hectic rock riffing, acoustic odysseys and even some electronic experimentation. There have been a host of Tuareg talents over the decades, but Mdou Moctar is proving himself to be right up there with the best.

12 SONS OF KEMET
Black To The Future
IMPULSE!

Sons Of Kemet are usually characterised as the most fiery and political of Shabaka Hutchings’ bands, but their fourth album was as much a celebration as a protest. Exemplifying how Hutchings, tuba player Theon Cross and their peers have shaken up the UK jazz scene, this mostly sounded like soca, dancehall or grime, played by a brass band, with hardcore punk ferocity.

11 LANA DEL REY
Chemtrails Over The Country Club
INTERSCOPE

Following 2019’s all-conquering Norman Fucking Rockwell, Lana Del Rey’s strikingly assured seventh continued to explore familiar themes of fame, love and loneliness. But this time, she had an added sense of wanderlust: “I’m ready to leave LA and I want you to come”, she sang on “Let Me Love You Like A Woman”. A gorgeous cover of Joni’s “For Free” – accompanied by Weyes Blood and Zella Day – showed where she was heading.

10 RICHARD DAWSON & CIRCLE
Henki
WEIRD WORLD

A concept album about ancient plants created in collaboration with a group of Finnish kraut-metallers could have gone either way; but Henki proved to be a bona fide success rather than just an amusing curio. Circle and Dawson’s mighty, exploratory music – Iron Maiden jamming with The Incredible String Band and Neu! – was one draw, but even better were the poignant lyrics weaving together history, myth and botany.

9 BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD
For The First Time
NINJA TUNE

An auspicious debut from the Cambridge septet who billed themselves on “Science Fair” as “the world’s second-best Slint tribute act”. With heartbreaking self-awareness, they pushed against Gen Z anguish with music that was by turns menacing, beautiful, haywire and serene. While Isaac Wood’s spooked, reference-heavy rants grabbed the attention, it was often Lewis Evans’ sax or Georgia Ellery’s violin that did the emotional heavy lifting. What’s more, their second album is due in February – and it’s even better.

8 THE WAR ON DRUGS
I Don’t Live Here Anymore
ATLANTIC

Adam Granduciel has successfully patented his brand of kosmiche Americana – a hybrid of drive-time classicism and motorik insistence – but for The War On Drugs’ fifth LP, the impressionistic, romanticised qualities of their earlier albums have been replaced by more personal searching: “What have I been running from?” he wonders on opener “Living Proof”.

7 CASSANDRA JENKINS
An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
BA DA BING!

Cassandra Jenkins was only in Purple Mountains for four days before David Berman tragically took his own life. But the experience would prove transformational, giving eternal side-woman Jenkins the confidence to strike out alone. Berman would surely have been proud of her debut’s brilliantly self-deprecating opening line – “I’m a three-legged dog/Working with what I’ve got” – and from there it meandered towards a revelatory kind of jazz-folk bliss.

6 AROOJ AFTAB
Vulture Prince
NEW AMSTERDAM

Appearing as if by magic in the deep doldrums of early 2021, Arooj Aftab’s ravishing third album fulfilled a need for reflection and escapism. It masterfully combined the Pakistani folksong of her childhood with spiritual jazz, blues and neo-classical stillness, introducing us to a compelling new voice. Even if you didn’t manage to get a whiff of the accompanying Vulture Prince perfume oil – a blend of clary sage, stonefruit, nagarmotha and more – the album provided sensory stimulation enough.

5 SAULT
Nine
FOREVER LIVING ORIGINALS

After four albums in two years, 2021 was relatively quiet for the anonymous neo-soul collective. But their one release of the year still cut gracefully through the noise; zooming in from than the headline issues addressed so impressively by Black Is and Rise, Nine was a celebration/critique of London life, most poignantly highlighting the mental health issues caused by tough inner-city living. The gaze was unflinching, the music always uplifting.

4 LOW
Hey What
SUB POP

After blowing their sound apart on 2018’s stunning Double Negative, there was clearly no going back for the Duluth slowcore survivors. But whereas that previous album sometimes buried the searing signature harmonies of Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk in digital sludge as a metaphor for the increasing ugliness of our times, Hey What pushed them right back up in the mix: a jaw-dropping, joyous assault.

3 NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS
Carnage
GOLIATH

“I’m the balcony man”, declared Nick Cave, providing his own unique perspective on lockdown isolation, “when everything is ordinary until it’s not”. As we’ve already l earned, his response to dark times is to keep pushing on in search of some strange beauty, found here even in reduced circumstances via Warren Ellis’s cut-up orchestral stabs and waves of startling electronic noise. As Cave mused sagely at the album’s end, “What doesn’t kill you makes you crazier”.

2 FLOATING POINTS, PHAROAH SANDERS & THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Promises
LUAKA BOP

Pharoah Sanders’ influence seems to loom larger by the year, so kudos to Sam Shepherd, AKA Floating Points, for actually securing a collaboration from the great man. Yet despite this impressive coup – not to mention the presence of the LSO – Promises was an exercise in restraint and ever-so-gradual release, built on a quizzical seven-note keyboard motif over which Sanders did his magnificently mellifluous thing, carving out a unique and crucial meditative space.

1 THE WEATHER STATION
Ignorance
FAT POSSUM

Despite yet another year of upheaval, good music has provided a balm for troubled times. And as our poll attests, the richness and possibilities of a vast musical world endure. Our end-of-year list includes old friends like Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, Low, Courtney Barnett and St Vincent, returning heroes such as Robert Plant, David Crosby and Teenage Fanclub as well as a welcome batch of new faces: Arooj Aftab, Faye Webster, Black Country, New Road, Mdou Moctar, Valerie June, Chuck Johnson, Arlo Parks, Dry Cleaning, Little Simz and more.

One record this year, though, has stayed with us longer than most. When we gifted subscribers a unique Weather Station career sampler at the start of the year, we were able to help bring into focus Tamara Lindeman’s creative leaps as a songwriter; but perhaps nothing could quite prepare us for the stunning new heights she reached on January’s Ignorance. Like many of her fellow artists in our poll, Lindeman has grappled with ways to address deeply personal issues while also exploring global concerns. Ignorance found a perfect balance, where shimmering breakup songs doubled as a call to arms for the natural world. Was she talking about a former lover on “Separated”, or did lines like “my stupid desire to heal every rift, every cut” take on a more cosmic quality when viewed through the prism of climate change?

As it opened, “Robber” could have been about personal intrusion – a burglary, perhaps, or a metaphor for an emotionally abusive relationship – before revealing itself to be about the dark forces taking control in the name of populism. Such a lyrical sweep was not uncommon in Lindeman’s writing. “Atlantic” began with Lindeman “with a glass of wine in my hand”, enjoying the view: “‘My God,’ I thought, ‘My God, what a sunset!’”

She is breathless, floored by wonder. But everything is not all right: “I should really know better than to read the headlines”. Musically, too, Ignorance marked a progression. Lindeman has evolved over the past decade from spare solo recordings into ambitious full-band accompaniment. The songs – mostly piano-based – were full of layered keyboards, subtle electronic shadings, the occasional clarinet or sax, and her own arrangements for a string quartet. Richer textures, but no luxury studio sheen or indulgence: the expanded resources were deployed with the care and rigour that characterised her previous use of humbler tools. In its quiet, wise way, Ignorance was an outstanding piece of work.

Watch Thom Yorke play The Smile’s “Free In The Knowledge” at Royal Albert Hall

Will Richards
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Watch Thom Yorke play The Smile’s “Free In The Knowledge” at Royal Albert Hall
Pro-shoot footage has emerged of Thom Yorke playing The Smile’s song "Free In The Knowledge" at the Royal Albert Hall – see it below. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Jonny Greenwood on his film scoring career: “Getting access to an orche...

Pro-shoot footage has emerged of Thom Yorke playing The Smile’s song “Free In The Knowledge” at the Royal Albert Hall – see it below.

Back in October, Yorke played his only post-COVID gig to date in London, as part of the Letters Live event.

During the solo show, he performed “Free In The Knowledge”, a song previously only heard as part of a rehearsal from The Smile shared on Instagram earlier this month.

Ahead of the performance, as captured in the video below, Yorke dedicated the song to his fellow UK musicians, and poked fun at Rishi Sunak’s notorious call for artists to retrain in other disciplines during the pandemic.

He told the crowd: “I’m a British musician and I was told during the pandemic, along with all British musicians, that we should consider retraining. And then after, uh, when we actually finally left, they told us we didn’t really need to tour anymore anyway, did we? Around Europe.

“So perhaps I’m one of a dying breed, who knows? I want to perform a song that I wrote with my new band the Smile during that period to all my fellow UK musicians. It’s called ‘Free In The Knowledge’.”

Watch it below:

The Smile is Yorke and Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood, together with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner. The group were first unveiled at this year’s Glastonbury live-stream event in May, and surprised fans with a practice session on social media on their Instagram Live on December 2.

Radiohead, meanwhile, recently re-released Kid A and Amnesiac together as a joint collection together in celebration of the albums’ 20th anniversaries, alongside an album titled Kid Amnesiae, consisting of unreleased material that didn’t make the final cut during the recording sessions of those two albums.

Watch Paul Weller make a surprise appearance during Ocean Colour Scene’s London show

Tom Skinner
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Watch Paul Weller make a surprise appearance during Ocean Colour Scene’s London show
Paul Weller made a surprise appearance during Ocean Colour Scene's show in London Sunday night – check out the fan-shot footage below. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Paul Weller: “Suddenly I was this star. I hated all the attention” T...

Paul Weller made a surprise appearance during Ocean Colour Scene’s show in London Sunday night – check out the fan-shot footage below.

The group joined Weller on tour back in the early ’90s, with their guitarist Steve Cradock going on to play in the former Jam frontman’s solo band. Singer Simon Fowler, meanwhile, contributed to The Modfather’s second record Wild Wood (1993).

Weller also wrote the track “For Dancers Only”, which appears on Ocean Colour Scene’s 2007 album On The Leyline.

The band are currently out on the road in the UK and made a stop-off at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, London Sunday evening (December 19).

Towards the end of the main set, Ocean Colour Scene enlisted Weller to assist on “The Circle” and “Travellers Tune” from the albums Moseley Shoals (1996) and Marchin’ Already (1997) respectively. The musician played and sang on the former LP.

Ocean Colour Scene are next due to play the O2 Academy in Birmingham on Wednesday (December 22). Their 2021 UK tour will wrap up at the O2 Victoria Warehouse this Thursday (23).

Weller’s guest appearance came after the musician was forced to cancel his remaining shows of the year due to contracting coronavirus. He’d been out on the road in support of his 2021 full-length, Fat Pop (Volume 1).

“I was so, so disappointed to not be able to finish the rest of the shows,” Weller wrote on social media “I caught the dreaded COVID so that was that!”

He continued: “I hope we can reschedule the shows for next year. This tour was so great, we loved every show, it was so great to be out again and playing. Great set, band and crowd!

“I hope we can do it again next year. Let us hope for a better year ahead – Happy Holidays. Keep the faith, Love PW.”

Paul Weller is set to resume touring in the UK in March, with dates continuing through to the end of April. Last week he announced new outdoor concerts for summer 2022.

Shane MacGowan announces new art book, The Eternal Buzz And The Crock Of Gold

Tom Skinner
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Shane MacGowan announces new art book, The Eternal Buzz And The Crock Of Gold
Shane MacGowan has announced his first-ever art book, The Eternal Buzz And The Crock Of Gold. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan review Set for release in April, the former Pogues frontman's upcom...

Shane MacGowan has announced his first-ever art book, The Eternal Buzz And The Crock Of Gold.

Set for release in April, the former Pogues frontman’s upcoming art folio book will be limited to 1,000 copies. You can pre-order it from here now.

The Eternal Buzz… will feature sketches, paintings, self-portraits and playful character studies alongside handwritten lyrics, stories, photographs and abstract snippets dating back to MacGowan’s childhood and through six decades of punk and Irish revelry.

Additionally, it’ll boast photographs that capture candid moments between the singer and his bandmates on tour, personal pictures at home and nights out with celebrities including Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Pete Doherty, Kate Moss, Bryan Adams and Daniel Day-Lewis.

The book, which is described as “a labour of love” for MacGowan, was curated by his wife and collaborator Victoria Mary Clarke, edited by Paul Trainer and includes forewords by Johnny Depp and art critic Waldemar Januszczak.

“I was always into drawing and painting, and I used to do all sorts of things, hurlers, IRA men, teenage punks hanging around in cafes, you name it…” MacGowan explained in a statement.

“When I was about 11 or 12 I got heavily into studying history of art and looking at old paintings and modern paintings, I knew a lot about art. It’s one of the only O Levels I got, was in art.

“I did the album cover for The Pope’s album Crock of Gold and I designed the Pogues first album cover, Red Roses For Me. And I more or less designed the second album If I Should Fall From Grace With God.”

He continued: “In terms of my materials, I like pastels but I don’t really think about it. I’ll paint or draw on anything, with anything. I like more or less everyone from Fra Angelico and Giotto to the latest, like Caravaggio was the last of the Renaissance, before it went into Expressionism.

“I love Cezanne, Gauguin, Monet, Manet. I love the Irish impressionists, Lavery, Jack B Yeats, Brendan Fitzpatrick. The 20th century impressionists who painted the period of Ireland fighting for its freedom. I like Max Ernst, the surrealists, Dali, Chagall… God there’s millions of them.”

 

Victoria Mary Clarke said: “When we were making The Crock of Gold documentary, Julien Temple wanted some of Shane’s drawings so I asked my mum to have a look and see if she had any. She sent me a bin bag full of drawings and lyrics that I had asked her to look after 25 years ago, we didn’t even know it existed, it was miraculous, like finding a crock of gold!

“His art brings back lots of very funny and often hideous memories of different stages in our life together, a lot of his drawings have been done on my shopping lists and my own diaries, and on things like sick bags and hotel note-pads, airline sick bags and recording studio sheets, and diaries, so it is easy to know exactly when they were made.”

She added: “I love the way that the drawings and notes and scraps of stories provide an insight into Shane’s songs, it is like walking into his studio and seeing everything that was happening in his mind. The illustrations are like a visual tapestry of the inner workings of his creative process.  I feel very privileged and very excited to be able to share them with the world in a book, especially for people who love the songs.”

Johnny Depp, who collects MacGowan’s art, writes in a foreword for The Eternal Buzz…: “It’s rare for a creative genius like Shane to have one avenue of output. Such an incendiary talent is likely to have a multitude of facilities whereby his talent might infiltrate the atmosphere and change the climate as we know it.

“And so, revealed here, is Shane’s propensity for the wild, for the absurd, for the political, for the beautiful, all funnelled and threaded through the needle of his pen. But, this time, not via the tool of language. Instead, Shane’s visual acuity will take the lead here. His visions will speak for themselves.

“Sometimes they will invoke wonder, sometimes they might appear decidedly threatening, but, regardless of medium, his work will always be full of poetry – a bit like the great man, and my great friend, himself; the artist, Shane MacGowan.”

Brian May catches COVID-19 at birthday party: “I made a mistake”

Will Richards
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Brian May catches COVID-19 at birthday party: “I made a mistake”
Queen's Brian May has revealed that he has tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a birthday party, saying that he "made a mistake". ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut Taking to Instagram in a pair of video messages named 'Life After The Double Red Lin...

Queen’s Brian May has revealed that he has tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a birthday party, saying that he “made a mistake”.

Taking to Instagram in a pair of video messages named ‘Life After The Double Red Line’ – related to the sign given on a positive COVID test – May revealed how he and his wife Anita Dobson attended a party of a number of friends, believing they were “in a safe bubble”.

“It’s kind of ironic for me,” he added, having been “incredibly careful” over the pandemic to avoid infection. May said he is feeling “truly horrible” after the positive test, calling it “the worst flu you can imagine”.

“Yep. The shocking day finally came for me. The dreaded double red line,” he wrote on Instagram with a photo of his positive lateral flow test. “And yes – definitely NO sympathy please – it has been a truly horrible few days, but I’m OK. And I will tell the tale.”

He added: “PLEASE take extra care out there, good folks. This thing is incredibly transmissible. You really do NOT want it messing up YOUR Christmas.”

In the video message, May added: “Last Saturday we decided we would go to a birthday lunch and we thought, well this is the last social function we would go to – not that we go to many anyway, we’ll chance it, everybody’s going to be triple-jabbed, everybody’s going to be with one of these things [a lateral flow test] which says you’ll be negative on the morning.

“It seemed to be set up very safely, but of course you kind of know you’re taking a risk and so we all went to the party,” he added, saying that, “in retrospect, perhaps we made the wrong decision.

“It seemed like a safe situation. You have your negative tests, so what could possibly go wrong?” he added. “The new variant seems to be so incredibly transmissible that I’m not even sure that would have been safe – this thing is spreading at such an alarming rate.”

Following the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant new restrictions have been imposed upon the UK.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the government would not be “closing hospitality or stopping parties” while urging the public to take caution when attending social and nightlife events.

Elsewhere, May recently defended himself after criticism over recent comments regarding the trans community, saying his words were “subtly twisted” by a journalist.

May was criticised for slamming the BRIT Awards’ removal of gendered awards, and saying that Queen would have had to have a transgender member to be successful now.

“It’s a decision that has been made without enough thought. A lot of things work quite well and can be left alone,” May told The Mirror at ITV’s Palooza event in London last month (November 23).

Taking to Instagram a week later (November 28) he clarified his comments and said that he was the victim of “predatory Press hacks” who made him seem “unfriendly to trans people”.

UTFO frontman Kangol Kid has died aged 55

Anna Rose
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UTFO frontman Kangol Kid has died aged 55
Kangol Kid – frontman and co-founder of hip hop outfit UTFO – has died aged 55 after a ten-month battle with colon cancer. As reported by HipHopDX, veteran New York promoter Van Silk (who is also undergoing treatment for the same cancer) confirmed the news in a text to the outlet. "I'm hea...

Kangol Kid – frontman and co-founder of hip hop outfit UTFO – has died aged 55 after a ten-month battle with colon cancer.

As reported by HipHopDX, veteran New York promoter Van Silk (who is also undergoing treatment for the same cancer) confirmed the news in a text to the outlet.

“I’m hearing Kangol passed,” he said on December 18. “I was on with Mix Master Ice last night. Trying to find out.”

Minutes later he returned with: “RIP KANGOL KID. He passed at 3:02 a.m. My prayers go out to my brother who fought a battle of colon cancer at Stage 4.

“Early on, we discussed our fight with this disease because my fight with colon cancer is stage 2. He told me it had spread in October. I encourage all to get your prostate and colon checked. May my brother Kangol Rest In Heaven.”

Kangol was diagnosed with cancer back in February, beginning chemotherapy immediately and undergoing an initial surgery in March to remove 10 centimetres of his colon.

In October, Kangol shared he had been hospitalised again and required surgery. “Things have become, and are becoming a little more difficult than imagined,” he wrote in an Instagram post at the time. “I’ve been admitted again for complications related to my condition. Thank you to those who have been instrumental in my latest ordeal.”

The artist’s death comes only two weeks after LL Cool J – who sampled the UTFO single “Leader of the Pack” for his Bigger and Deffer cut Get Down in 1987 – visited him in the hospital, Kangol having posted a photo to Instagram on November 30 of the pair alongside the caption “Need I say more????”.

“I stepped out of the recovery room and was greeted by this guy. Maybe you’ve heard of him???,” the caption continued. “[LL Cool J] visited me and elevated my healing energies in ways doctors can never duplicate.”

LL Cool J posted a tribute to the late artist on his Instragram. “Too much to say… one day. Rest in power Kangol. Love you big bro,” he wrote alongside a video of Kid.

Born Shaun Fequiere in Brooklyn, New York, Kangol is credited as being one of the first Haitian-American hip hop stars. He began his career as a B-Boy with his dance partner Doctor Ice (Fred Reeves). Kangol lent his skills to fellow New York crew Whodini, appearing in their “Freaks Come Out At Night” music video.

Kangol eventually went on to form UTFO in 1983 with Doctor Ice, Mix Master Ice and Educated Rapper, the latter who died in June 2017.

The outfit’s breakout song was 1984’s “Roxanne Roxanne”, noted as being one of the best diss tracks in the scene after a then-14-year-old Roxanne Shanté from nearby Queens, New York, assumed the song’s character and responded to UTFO with a diss. Ultimately, the exchange would become The Roxanne Wars, marked as one of hip hop’s first diss wars.

UTFO released four Top 200-charting LPs throughout the 1980s, including their 1985 self-titled debut, “Skeezer Pleezer”, “Lethal” and “Doin’ It!”.

Tributes to Kangol have poured in on social media, with many noting the significant contributions Kangol made to hip hop culture.

Diamond D, of the Diggin’ In The Crates Crew (D.I.T.C.), reflected on Kangol’s contributions in an Instagram post. “Sleep in Peace Legend,” he wrote. “Those of us who remember when ‘Roxanne Roxanne’ 1st dropped can tell you how HUGE that one song was and how fast it blew up In the streets. Part of that reason was its authenticity because it sounded like a park jam with MCs spittin over big beat. Salute Kangol rest in power.”

Other industry contemporaries have offered their condolences – see all tributes below.

The Eagles: “I came to look at bands as young businesses”

Nick Hasted
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The Eagles: “I came to look at bands as young businesses”
February 1972. For these four Americans more used to the temperate Californian climate, London in the depths of winter was not the most propitious place to be. But the intense cold was not the only thing the Eagles had to contend with while they recorded their debut album at Olympic Studios. As guit...

February 1972. For these four Americans more used to the temperate Californian climate, London in the depths of winter was not the most propitious place to be. But the intense cold was not the only thing the Eagles had to contend with while they recorded their debut album at Olympic Studios. As guitarist Bernie Leadon recalls, “We’re really close to getting this one cut – ‘Just one more, come on guys!’ We get it, the final note is struck, and right as that ring-out decayed into nothing, the power went off. The machines all stopped. We went into the control room, because the talkback had cut out. Our producer Glyn Johns said, ‘Well, we’ll just have to listen to it tomorrow…’ It was a blackout, due to the strikes.” Viewed from a distance of 50 years, the irony of the situation is not lost on Leadon.

Here they were, recording laid-back, sun-baked country-rock while crisp layers of frost lay thick on the ground outside the studio and Britain was in the grip of a miners’ strike, causing electricity shortages and power cuts. The album they recorded – including “Take It Easy”, “Witchy Woman” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” – helped define Southern California’s sound during the early ’70s – yet the temperature in their rented Maida Vale digs rarely rose above zero. Hell might not have frozen over, but the pipes almost certainly did. “It was a huge culture shock,” recalls Don Henley. “Trying to find Mexican food in London… and the burgers were horrible!”

At this point, Leadon and his compadres Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Randy Meisner had only been together six months. Many bands in a similar predicament would perhaps have called it a day. But the Eagles were already well advanced with their masterplan – which had led them to chilly London in the first place, specifically to work with Johns, whose track record – The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who – was unimpeachable. “We weren’t perfectionists,” Henley argues. “We did strive for excellence, and that’s two different things. We just tried to make that Eagles record good. I just want to do the best I can do.”

The four men had been in acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful bands before. This time, they left nothing to chance. As Leadon confirms, “We asked ourselves, ‘What was our MO? What are we doing here?’ We wanted it all. Why not? We wanted artistic success, the approval of our peers, commercial success and to be well paid. We had what we called the LCD Show – Lowest Common Denominator. We rehearsed so that if two guys have flu and two of the others aren’t speaking, most of the audience wouldn’t know. I came to look at bands as entrepreneurial, young businesses. Consistency and discipline is a lot of how we succeeded.”

Consistency? Discipline? These qualities stood the Eagles in great stead – then, as now. Fifty years on, the Eagles will play a run of UK and European shows, including Hyde Park this summer. Only Henley now remains from the original lineup. But in the winter of 1972, for all their uncommon planning and professionalism, the four original Eagles were a happy and united group, with a delicate balance of talent. “They were all equally important,” acknowledges Glyn Johns. “Henley’s strongest contribution was his voice. The same with Frey. Bernie Leadon was great on banjo and guitar, and Randy Meisner was a fine bass player, with a voice of extraordinary range. What I was dealing with was those four people. Without any one of them, it wouldn’t have been the same.”

Neil Young won’t tour until COVID-19 is “beat”

Ali Shutler
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Neil Young won’t tour until COVID-19 is “beat”
Neil Young has said he won’t return to touring until COVID-19 is “beat”. ORDER NOW: Paul Weller is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Neil Young & The Crazy Horse – Barn review Speaking on The Howard Stern Show, Young confirmed that people won't see him “p...

Neil Young has said he won’t return to touring until COVID-19 is “beat”.

Speaking on The Howard Stern Show, Young confirmed that people won’t see him “playing to a bunch of people with no masks on,” and said he won’t be touring until the pandemic is over. “I don’t care if I’m the only one who doesn’t do it,” he said.

Elsewhere he went on to criticise anti-vaxxers. “People are not being realistic and they’re not being scientific. If we followed the rules of science, and everybody got vaccinated, We’d have a lot better chance,” he said.

Young then said how thankful he was that “we might be able to beat this. There’s no reason why we can’t. If we came together, we could take care of this. And I have confidence that we can.

“We got a lot of smart people in the world with a lot of great ideas. And the more love there is in the world, the more we’re gonna hear those ideas. We’re gonna make this happen,” he added. Check out the interview below:

In August, Young called on promoters to cancel “super-spreader” COVID-era gigs.

“The big promoters, if they had the awareness, could stop these shows,” Young wrote in the blog post. “Live Nation, AEG, and the other big promoters could shut this down if they could just forget about making money for a while.”

In December, Young released his 41st studio album (and 14th with long-serving band Crazy Horse) Barn.

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