The Who frontman Roger Daltrey has criticised The Rolling Stones, calling them "a mediocre pub band".
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut
READ MORE: Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to The Rolling Stones
In a new interview with the...
The Whofrontman Roger Daltrey has criticised The Rolling Stones, calling them “a mediocre pub band”.
In a new interview with the Coda Collection, Daltrey reflected on The Who’s history, and was asked about their contemporaries, including the Stones and Led Zeppelin.
When discussing the Stones, Daltrey first took the opportunity to praise frontman Mick Jagger, saying: “You’ve got to take your hat off to him. He’s the number one rock ‘n’ roll performer.”
Going on to discuss the band’s musicianship, he added: “But as a band, if you were outside a pub and you heard that music coming out of a pub some night, you’d think, ‘Well, that’s a mediocre pub band!'”
Roger Daltrey (Picture: Press)
Daltrey follows Paul McCartney in recently criticising the music of The Rolling Stones, with the Beatles legend recently calling Jagger and co. “a blues cover band”.
McCartney said: “I’m not sure I should say it, but they’re a blues cover band, that’s sort of what the Stones are. I think our net was cast a bit wider than theirs.”
Roger Daltrey is currently on a solo UK tour, with the shows consisting of “a unique mix of music and conversation that is built around Roger’s musical journey”.
See the remaining tour dates below:
NOVEMBER 2021
15 – Palladium, London
17 – Brighton Centre, Brighton
19 – Cliffs Pavilion, Southend
21 – New Theatre, Oxford
24 – SEC Armadillo, Glasgow
26 – O2 City Hall, Newcastle
29 – Empire, Liverpool
DECEMBER 2021
1 – Guildhall, Portsmouth
2 – International Centre, Bournemouth
PJ Harvey has announced a new narrative poem titled Orlam.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut
READ MORE: PJ Harvey: “She’s an auteur… she knows what she wants”
The singer-songwriter wrote on her official website that the book...
PJ Harvey has announced a new narrative poem titled Orlam.
The singer-songwriter wrote on her official website that the book is “the product of six years’ intense writing”, confirming a publication date of April 28, 2022. You can pre-order it from here.
Orlam is described as “a beautiful and profound narrative poem set in a magic realist version of the West Country” and “a remarkable coming-of-age tale”.
An official listing reads: “Orlam follows Ira and the inhabitants of Underwhelem month-by-month through the last year of her childhood innocence. The result is a poem-sequence of light and shadow – suffused with hints of violence, sexual confusion and perversion, the oppression of family, but also ecstatic moments in sunlit clearings, song and bawdy humour.
“The broad theme is ultimately one of love – carried by Ira’s personal Christ, the constantly bleeding soldier-ghost Wyman-Elvis, who bears The Word’: Love Me Tender.”
A special collector’s edition of Orlam will arrive next October. You can see Harvey’s announcement tweet below and read the full blog post here.
Orlam, a beautiful and profound narrative poem set in a magic realist version of the West Country by PJ Harvey, will be published in @picadorbooks hardback in April 2022, with a special collector’s edition following in October 2022 https://t.co/VexgsV6m9Wpic.twitter.com/l7HMBGbpAQ
The celebrated artist’s discography was the subject of a comprehensive reissue campaign by UMC/Island and Beggars, who aimed to “celebrate every aspect of Harvey’s recording career and afford a comprehensive and exciting look at the evolution of one of the most singular and extraordinary artists of modern times”.
PJ Harvey released her latest studio album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, back in 2016.
Damon Albarn delivered a live performance of "Darkness To Light" on US TV last week – you can watch the video below.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut
READ MORE: Damon Albarn: “Change is necessary”
The Blur and Gorillaz front...
Damon Albarn delivered a live performance of “Darkness To Light” on US TV last week – you can watch the video below.
Filmed in black-and-white, the moody clip sees Albarn perform under a spotlight in a large studio space alongside his band. The musicians pre-recorded the clip in another location, rather than appearing live at the New York City set as is customary.
Tune in here:
Last week, Albarn also played a special piano-led set for BBC Radio 2. The ‘Sofa Session’ included a melancholic cover of The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me”, as well as a reinterpretation of Blur’s “Beetlebum”.
Damon Albarn will showcase The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows next month on a ‘Special Piano Tour’, which includes intimate concerts in York, Norwich, Newcastle, Glasgow and Coventry.
A new documentary on the making of Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers' 1994 album Wildflowers has been shared.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut
READ MORE: Mike Campbell remembers Tom Petty: “He was committed to being great”
Tom Pe...
Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free – The Making of Wildflowers, which you can watch below, is based around a collection of 16mm archives that weren’t discovered until last year.
It follows the late icon from 1993 to 1995 during the making of his landmark album, which was produced by Rick Rubin and features new interviews with Heartbreakers guitarist and album co-producer Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench and more.
The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in March before winning the festival’s coveted Audience Award as well as the prize for Best Documentary Film at the Boulder Film Festival a few months later.
Meanwhile, a special 25th anniversary version of Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers’ soundtrack album for Edward Burns’ 1996 film She’s The One was released over the summer, with four previously unheard songs included.
The unreleased tracks included “One Of Life’s Little Mysteries”, written by Tom Petty; “Thirteen Days”, a JJ Cale cover; “105 Degrees”, another Petty original; and “French Disconnection”, an instrumental in the same vein as those on the original album. An extended version of “Supernatural Radio” was also included.
Tom Petty’s widow Dana Petty said of the album: “These songs are extremely special. I am grateful this record is getting the recognition it deserves. The remix Ryan Ulyate did sounds amazing, and the unreleased gems are a lovely bonus. Annakim, Adria, and I took a lot of time finding artwork that reflects the mood of the album.
“I think we finally achieved that with Alia Penner’s work. It is surreal and beautiful, just like life during that time.”
For more than 20 years, Damon Albarn seems to have been desperate to escape the suffocatingly restrictive straitjacket of Britpop and engage with a wider world. There have been collaborations with musicians from Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Syria, Japan, Cuba and Iceland; charity projects in the Democrat...
For more than 20 years, Damon Albarn seems to have been desperate to escape the suffocatingly restrictive straitjacket of Britpop and engage with a wider world. There have been collaborations with musicians from Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Syria, Japan, Cuba and Iceland; charity projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Chinese operas commissioned in Paris; hook-ups with everyone fromBobby Womack to Lou Reed, from De La Soul to Erykah Badu.
As a routine example of Albarn’s rootless cosmopolitanism, his second solo LP – and his 28th album, or thereabouts, as a leader across sundry outfits – was commissioned by a festival in Lyon and started in Iceland, taking inspiration from the house Albarn built outside Reykjavík 20 years ago. “I always wanted to get a small chamber orchestra and play the outlines of what I could see from my window,” he says, referring to Mount Esja and the Snaefellsjökull volcano and glacier. But, after some early sessions with an Icelandic string ensemble, the pandemic halted the project in early 2020. Albarn returned to England for lockdown, completing the album at his home studio in Devon with help from his long-term guitarist Simon Tong and his music director and saxophonist Mike Smith. What started as an expansive, symphonic project started to take on the dimensions of a home-studio creation, a clatter of antique drumboxes and multi-tracked instruments. And, for all its exotic genesis, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows is soaked in a peculiar English melancholy.
Albarn has often explored notions of Britishness. On the whimsically tacky seaside postcards of Blur’s Parklife the feeling was almost celebratory; in his opera Dr Dee he attempted to reclaim a magickal, transgressive Olde England that seemed to chime with the multicultural optimism of the 2012 London Olympics; by the time of The Good, The Bad & The Queen’s 2018 album Merrie Land the mood was one of despair – a chaotic, woozy eulogy for a post-Brexit Britain. On The Nearer The Fountain…, even when he is ostensibly singing about Iceland, the bleak, drizzly, isolated island he depicts sounds more like Britain than anywhere else.
On The Cormorant – an atmospheric, aqueous piece based around a digital rumba rhythm and a ragged tapestry of Wurlitzer electric pianos and FX-laden guitars – he sings about being “imprisoned on this island” over a tangle of mysterious chords that never quite resolve. Royal Morning Blue started life as a lyric about a storm that eclipsed any view of a mountain from Albarn’s bedroom window –a poetic allusion to how snow can cause
an enormous volcanic mountain range to “put on robes and disappear” – but the song’s insistent Casiotone drum machine, parping baritone saxes, rambunctious piano and spectral guitar start to sound like an examination of the end of empire.
Darkness Into Light is a deliciously sad 6/8 ballad about the Arctic winter in which “Crushed satellites dance/In silent conga” but, even here, the arrangement resembles a twisted piece of British glam rock, like early Human Leaguecovering Showaddywaddy. In all these songs there are references to “particles” – plague-carrying germs spreading around the world. There are also several instrumentals that sound like something out of Bowie’s Berlin trilogy: the throbbing, Eno-esque minimalism of Esja, the bleary, Low-style majesty of Giraffe Trumpet Sea, and the discordant, industrial drones and tenor sax freakouts of “Combustion”.
Even the title track, a eulogy to Tony Allen, the Nigerian drummer and mentor who anchored several of Albarn’s lineups over the last two decades, comes in the form of a reworked verse by the 19th-century English poet John Clare. “It’s fruitless for me to mourn you, but who can help mourning?” sings Albarn. “To think of life that did laugh on your face in the beautiful past”. Not only are Clare’s 200-year-old words appropriate for his grief, but Albarn clearly feels some kinship with Clare, the “Northamptonshire peasant poet” who railed against the Industrial Revolution, who romanticised a lost England, who was driven mad by the ecological damage wrought upon the land where he grew up.
Yet there is hope, both thematically and melodically. Albarn’s non-Blur, non-Gorillaz projects are often the receptacle for his least catchy songs –there aren’t many themes from Wonder.land or Monkey that even his biggest fans hum in the shower – but this album ends on two strong melodies that introduce joy to the project. Polaris is a reference to the North Star, a navigation source for seafaring folk in the North Atlantic, and its clockwork tango beat and arena-friendly singalong tune seems to affirm a faith in humanity’s collective spirit. Best of all is the closer Particles, one of Albarn’s finest melodies, a woozy, drumless ballad based around a pretty Wurlitzer electric piano riff and a creepy electronic drone that gives the song a hymn-like quality. The “particles” to which he refers in earlier songs as potentially dangerous materials are now signs of happiness. “I have cried for you darling, are you coming back to me/For the particles are joyous as they alight
on your skin”.
When Paul “Top Dollar” Major promises to “go full condor” in Admonitions’ opener The Offender, he doesn’t need to explain what he means. Besides recasting Endless Boogie’s sexagenarian frontman as an ’80s action-movie hero about to open a can of whup-ass, the line serves as a handy d...
When Paul “Top Dollar” Major promises to “go full condor” in Admonitions’ opener The Offender, he doesn’t need to explain what he means. Besides recasting Endless Boogie’s sexagenarian frontman as an ’80s action-movie hero about to open a can of whup-ass, the line serves as a handy description for the many moments when he and his bandmates launch out of their signature motorik-choogle groove, spread their ragged wings and soar toward the sun. A gesture that seems majestic, foolhardy and potentially a little ridiculous, it’s fundamental to the mission this ragtag crew set for themselves every time they’ve jammed on stage or in a studio in their almost 25 years together.
It’s hardly surprising to learn they toyed with the idea of calling the new album Full Condor before opting for something that doesn’t evoke images of a shirtless Chuck Norris quite so strongly. Endless Boogie nevertheless achieve full flight on Admonitions with the same regularity as they have on each of their four preceding studio albums, starting with 2008’s Focus Level. They’ve done the same throughout the generous trove of limited-run releases like 2020’s The Gathered And Scattered, a 4LP set of rehearsal recordings dating back to the first years after the band was formed in Brooklyn by friends with various connections to Matador Records and to the vinyl-collector circles in which Major has long been a revered figure.
Yet Admonitions also sees them head toward untravelled patches of sky. While The Offender and Jim Tully are primo 20-minute-plus showcases of Endless Boogie’s original AC/DC-meets-Neu! formulation, other songs – like Bad Call, a punchy piece of pub-rock raunch – prove they can be more economical, too. Elsewhere, Kurt Vileadds special sauce to the mesmerising Counterfeiter; and the more ominous vibe of Admonitions’ final side is equally suggestive of Endless Boogie’s eagerness to not just go full condor but full everything else, too.
This welcome expansion of the band’s greasy ethos may be inevitable given the pandemic’s impact on their usual just-crank-it-out ways of working. The seven songs on Admonitions are principally drawn from two spates of sessions in New York and Sweden shortly before their tour plans for Australia and Europe went out the window in the spring of 2020. The lockdown limbo gave guitarist and de facto leader Jesper Eklow more time to tinker with what they had in the can. Whatever adjustments he made didn’t obscure the raw energy of the longest of the new tracks. While The Offender delivers the requisite supply of grinding riffage and Major’s trademark squalls and growls, it’s Jim Tully – named after a tough-guy writer who was a hero to Hemingway – where they make their full ascension as the mid-song gear shift prompts fiery exchanges between Major and guest guitarist Matt Sweeney. Both tracks should also assuage the fears of any fans who fretted about the more sluggish nature of 2017’s Vibe Killer.
The resurgence of the old fires are even clearer on Admonitions’ shorter tracks, which, since we’re talking about Endless Boogie, may still near the 10-minute mark. Disposable Thumbs sees them happily double down on a groove that’s two parts Bo Diddley to one part Klaus Dinger. Bad Call is even more fun: a tight, Flamin’ Groovies-worthy rocker with lyrics railing against the sin of serving meat on skewers (“Mama don’t like that city chicken/’Cause it comes on a stick!”). Consisting of a jam excerpt reworked by Kurt Vile, Counterfeiter strikes a pleasing balance between the band’s usual drive and attack with their Philly pal’s more languid sensibility.
The biggest surprise arrives in the finale, at which point the wilder energy of the preceding three sides dissipates into a cloud of murk and menace. In The Conversation, unsettling snatches of dialogue (“Antisocial behaviour? What’s that?”) are set against a hollowed-out dirge by Eklow and drummer Harry Druzd. Despite the cheeky title of Eklow’s solo piece that concludes Admonitions, The Incompetent Villains Of 1968 is even creepier, marked as it is by a sense of desolation that evokes the ultra-minimalist metal of Earth’s Sub Pop recordings. To hear Endless Boogie’s psych-blues-boogie stripped and shorn of its ferocity is oddly poignant in what it suggests about the impact of isolation on a band who have always taken such evident delight in each other’s company.
Even so, Admonitions remains a fiery testament to Endless Boogie’s creative rejuvenation. And while this instalment of the saga may end with that imaginary action hero looking like a far cry from his usual condor self, don’t be fooled – he’s just saving it for the sequel.
Looking back, there have always been clues. The Stones’ Stray Cat Blues, with its 15-year-old protagonist. Ted Nugent’s Jailbait. Iggy Pop’s Look Away – the lyrics referencing the relationship between teenage model Sable Starr and the New York Dolls’ Johnny Thunders. There are “countles...
Looking back, there have always been clues. The Stones’ Stray Cat Blues, with its 15-year-old protagonist. Ted Nugent’s Jailbait. Iggy Pop’s Look Away – the lyrics referencing the relationship between teenage model Sable Starr and the New York Dolls’Johnny Thunders. There are “countless” instances of what Runaways co-founder and songwriter Kari Krome calls “little girl songs”. So many, she says, that “it’s become a thing that’s normalised”.
The music industry has yet to experience a #MeToo movement of the size and scale of that which hit Hollywood and other industries in 2017. For Krome and the other women interviewed in Look Away, this normalisation is partly to blame. Of the stories that anchor director Sophie Cunningham’s narrative, none are new – Cunningham told Sky News that “money and power” prevented her from sharing allegations made by other women. But the bleak, brutal way in which they are presented would, one hopes, give encouragement to others who feel ready to come forward.
Cunningham’s primary focus is on teenage girls preyed upon by older male rock stars during the ’70s and ’80s – and, strikingly, the infrastructure that supported them. There’s Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco on Sunset Boulevard, which had no door policy and “looked like Oz” to the young Kari Krome. There’s the roadie who shrugs his shoulders, says nobody was checking ID – and, by the way, his time with the band ended in “a drug addiction and a divorce”. The manager who giggles as she recalls hiding a musician from the police in her house and arranging settlement of a contested assault charge: “I did what managers do.”
Julia Holcomb never wanted to share her story. Her name appeared in a supermarket tabloid after Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler named her in a memoir. She met Tyler when she was 16 and the singer, enamoured, sought legal guardianship so he was able to cross state lines with the teenager when on tour. Holcomb, now a devout Catholic and anti-abortion advocate, sounds almost wistful as she recalls their first night together: “All we could see was each other,” she remembers. “We talked ’til about 3am.”
They were, after all, just girls, says Jackie Fuchs. The former Runaways bassist, who has alleged that she was raped by the band’s manager Kim Fowley at a New Year’s Eve party when she was 16, is clear that her teenage bandmates and friends should not be held accountable for the attack. The blame, she says, lies only with Fowley and two other adult men present, all of whom are now dead. Fuchs keeps her description of the attack brief, refusing to identify as a victim or perform for an imagined media audience who “feed off watching women cry talking about their sexual assault”.
Signing off with a demand for the industry’s day of reckoning, Fuchs takes aim at the bystanders. “What happened to me was not rock’n’roll at all,” she says. “And it wasn’t OK.”
While property prices make even the Soho of the 1990s a distant memory, the district in its older bohemian prime really is a long-lost Atlantis. But it resurfaces vividly in Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, a cinematic séance with the spirits of the West End’s bygone glory. A love song to ’...
While property prices make even the Soho of the 1990s a distant memory, the district in its older bohemian prime really is a long-lost Atlantis. But it resurfaces vividly in Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, a cinematic séance with the spirits of the West End’s bygone glory. A love song to ’60s fashion, pop and glamour – while peeling back the dust covers over a squalid past – Last Night is a ghost story about a retro-loving ingénue, Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), who comes to the big city to study fashion. Alienated, anxious and alone, she is haunted by visions of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), an aspiring singer in the 1960s who falls in with a dashing king of clubland (Matt Smith). Sharing Sandie’s adventures as she sleeps, Eloise soon discovers the grubbier side of London’s brilliant parade.
This dizzily imaginative film feels like the best of Julien Temple’s Absolute Beginners infused with the nightmare spirit of Roman Polanski’s 1965 chiller Repulsion. It’s dazzlingly executed, visual trickery turning Eloise and Sandie into mirror-image sisters as they swirl around Piccadilly’s nightspots. McKenzie and Taylor-Joy gel superbly as yin/yang sisters under the skin; the narrative twists deviously; and the film makes canny use of those authentic icons of ’60s Britain, Rita Tushingham, Terence Stamp and the late Diana Rigg. Scripted by Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, this is also a sharp post-#MeToo vision, reminding us that the ’60s sexual revolution was also a field day for the old predators who had always considered showbiz their feeding ground. It’s a bit too ghoul-heavy in its final stretch, but overall, this is an exhilarating, inventive blast of the past. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich – the film is named after one of their songs – would be proud.
Damon Albarn's new solo album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows, goes on sale today. In this interview - an edited version of which appeared in the December 2021 issue of Uncut - Albarn discusses the late, great Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, cormorants, solar flares and an abandone...
Damon Albarn‘s new solo album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows, goes on sale today. In this interview – an edited version of which appeared in the December 2021 issue of Uncut – Albarn discusses the late, great Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, cormorants, solar flares and an abandoned cruise ship…
UNCUT: How much did the project change when you switched recording from Iceland to the UK in early 2020?
DAMON ALBARN: It was originally commissioned as an orchestral project so we brought some musicians over to Iceland and set up in my house, looking out at the view with the mountain Esja and we literally started playing what we saw, the landscape, the line of the mountain, the weather coming in, it came together that way. We had a tour planned, with shows in Reykjavík and all over Europe when the pandemic hit, that’s when I went back to the music and the songs emerged and an album took shape.
Do you regard John Clare as a bit of a hero? The first time I’d heard of him was when I read a column a few years ago in the Guardian by George Monbiot about John Clare as a revolutionary working class proto-environmentalist…
It was actually my mum who introduced me to him. She said, ‘I think you’ll like this guy, he’s got this very interesting history. He’s a working-class poet in the 19th century, who was very into nature and allusions… and then he had this period where he checked himself into a retreat, because of mental health problems.’ So he always fascinated me and I always really enjoyed reading his poems. And this particular poem really struck a chord with me, especially after my dear friend Tony Allen passed away last year. I started looking at the poem in the context of what I was doing, as opposed to just this beautiful line which inspired me when I was looking out of my window up in Iceland. This was always going to be the tune that set the tone of the record. The track “The Nearer The Fountain More Pure The Stream Flow”s is an adaptation of a poem by John Clare called Love And Memory, but the title of the song and the album is taken from a line in the poem.
How much of an influence is the Devon countryside on this album?
One track on the album, “The Cormorant” is probably my favourite thing I’ve ever done. I recorded it just as a vocal, sitting on a beach, watching this cormorant, who comes at about 4.30 every day when the sea’s calm enough to do a bit of fishing. It always does it the same way: it starts one end, goes that way and then comes back. It’s never any other way. Sometimes it’s accompanied by a couple of seals, and it’s just a lovely thing that happens at the same time every day, and I’ve got to know them. And there’s this buoy near my place on the South Coast, over the years, I’ve slowly summoned the courage to swim out to it – because I’ve always been scared of deep water. The buoy is called Ebony Rose, which is named after the boat whose lobster pot is attached to it. And the first time I swam out there, it really was something I had to overcome. So I started swimming out regularly every day to this buoy during lockdown – but the currents are very unpredictable, because where I live, the English Channel directly meets the Atlantic. I’ve had a few scary moments when I’ve made it out there and then, ‘Right, I’m going to start swimming back now,’ and then, ‘Oh, this is going well,’ but then I look back and I haven’t moved – it’s still right behind me. So, it’s about this beach that’s been part of my life for 25 years. For a little while, there was a cruise ship that was parked out and it had lights on at night and I just sort of imagined it being the last party on Earth out there. The point is – I think – that if you look at the same space for long enough, it reveals everything.
The idea of “particles” seems to be a recurring motif throughout the album’s lyrics. What are these “particles”?
Particles starts from a moment I had where I went outside in Iceland and it was just a beautiful, clear November or December night, and I closed my eyes and I went, “Oh, I really wish the Northern Lights would appear” and I opened my eyes, and there they were! It was one of those ridiculous moments. But prior to that, I had been on the plane, going up there, and I sat next to this lovely little, very small woman, an American woman, and she started talking to me. She was a rabbi from Winnipeg and we had a fantastic conversation. I said, ‘Why are you coming up here?’ and she said, ‘I’m trying to escape the particles.’ I asked her what she meant and she said, ‘Well, they’re coming for us, they’re on their way, and there’s nothing we can do about it – so I’m coming up here to try and get away from them.’ Then we started talking about Trump and she said, ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry about the particles. They’re here to stir stuff up, like Trump, he’s here to mess stuff up. In himself, he’s of no value, but he’ll stir stuff up and positive stuff will come out of that.’ So I suppose I sort of meditated on that idea of particles. I wanted to understand more about why we have Northern Lights. I found out that the phenomenon of the Northern Lights is solar winds that come at certain times, from solar flares, and the moment that they hit the Earth’s atmosphere, they die, but you get this chemical reaction – an atomic reaction – which results in this incredible spectacle. And that seemed to me an important note to end on. If change is necessary, and sometimes devastating, we have to try and pull back and wait for beauty to follow. We’re all in fear of particles, we’re all wearing masks to avoid other people’s particles, and pass our own particles, but, you know, they are joyous nonetheless, because anything where change happens is necessary and part of the what the universe is all about, those kind of extremes.
Tell us about the idea of the album being made on an abandoned cruise ship…
As the refrain on “Darkness To Light” came together it acquired this sort of strange energy. It’s like the return of the empty cruise ship that I was imagining in “The Cormorant”. Simon Tong, Mike Smith and me – we were the band playing on the empty cruise ship, and that’s one of the songs we’re playing on it.
Do you regard this as a mournful record?
It’s not a morbid record, but it’s definitely aware of mortality.
The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows is available from Transgressive Records
Jarvis Cocker and Riton have shared a new collaboration based around climate change and billed as "the world's first sustainable banger" – listen to "Let's Stick Around" below.
ORDER NOW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE REVIEW OF 2021 FEATURE IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT
The song arrives to mar...
Jarvis Cocker and Riton have shared a new collaboration based around climate change and billed as “the world’s first sustainable banger” – listen to “Let’s Stick Around” below.
The song arrives to mark the end of the COP26 climate change conference, which has seen world leaders converging in Glasgow over the past month to tackle the environmental issues facing the planet.
“’Let’s Stick Around’ is the world’s first sustainable banger,” Cocker said of the song, with Riton adding: “I’m really excited this track is coming out during COP26. Jarv has been one of the most influential and distinctive artists to come from the UK, it’s wicked to work with him.
“We all need to be more conscious of the carbon emissions we create in our lives and I hope ‘Let’s Stick Around’ can help raise awareness.”
Listen to “Let’s Stick Around” below:
Leading up to and during the COP26 conference, a number of musicians have been urging leaders to create green new policies to tackle climate change.
Brian Eno recently spoke about Coldplay and The 1975‘s efforts to tackle climate change, while calling for “a revolution” in the wider music industry’s approach.
After Coldplay vowed to look at more “environmentally beneficial” ways of touring in 2019, they recently announced details of an eco-friendly world tour for 2022.
The ever-prolific Nick Cave is entering into the world of children's publishing, having written and illustrated his very own children's book.
ORDER NOW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE REVIEW OF 2021 FEATURE IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT
READ MORE: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on new B-Sides &...
The ever-prolific Nick Cave is entering into the world of children’s publishing, having written and illustrated his very own children’s book.
The Little Thing, available for pre-order now and due to ship on November 15, was initially written for Cave‘s three-year-old neighbour, Esme.
“It is the tale of a little thing that goes on an epic adventure to discover the true nature of its identity,” Cave said of the book in a statement on his website.
“‘What am I?’ asks The Little Thing. Along the way it meets cast of diverse characters including a tomato, a toilet roll, a showerhead, a cupcake, and a corn on the cob, that guide The Little Thing toward its final joyous realisation.”
The Little Thing front cover. Credit: Nick Cave/Cave Things
Purchase of the book also comes with a free download of The Little Thing ‘talking book’, which is narrated by Cave and features music from both Cave and Bad Seeds member Warren Ellis.
Jack White has announced two new studio albums, both of which will arrive in 2022.
ORDER NOW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE REVIEW OF 2021 FEATURE IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT
READ MORE: Jack White: “I knew Boarding House Reach would be divisive”
The former White Stripes frontman returne...
Jack White has announced two new studio albums, both of which will arrive in 2022.
The former White Stripes frontman returned last month with“Taking Me Back”, his first solo single in three years. It followed the 2018 record Boarding House Reach.
Yesterday (November 11) White confirmed that he will release his fourth album Fear Of The Dawn on April 8 ahead of its follow-up, Entering Heaven Alive, arriving on July 22. You can pre-order them in various formats here.
The first album features “Taking Me Back”, with its 12-song tracklist also including the cuts “The White Raven”, “Into The Twilight”, “Dusk”, “That Was Then (This Is Now)” and “Morning, Noon And Night”.
Entering Heaven Alive comprises 11 tracks, with titles such as “A Tip From You To Me”, “Love Is Selfish”, “If I Die Tomorrow”, “Please God, Don’t Tell Anyone” and “Taking Me Back (Gently)”.
You can see the tracklists and official artwork below:
1. “Taking Me Back”
2. “Fear Of The Dawn”
3. “The White Raven”
4. “Hi-De-Ho (W/ Q-TIP)”
5. “Eosophobia”
6. “Into The Twilight”
7. “Dusk”
8. “What’s The Trick?”
9. “That Was Then (This Is Now)”
10. “Eosophobia (Reprise)”
11. “Morning, Noon And Night”
12. “Shedding My Velvet”
Entering Heaven Alive:
1. “A Tip From You To Me”
2. “All Along The Way”
3. “Help Me Along”
4. “Love Is Selfish”
5. “I’ve Got You Surrounded (With My Love)”
6. “Queen Of The Bees”
7. “A Tree On Fire From Within”
8. “If I Die Tomorrow”
9. “Please God, Don’t Tell Anyone”
10. “A Madman From Manhattan”
11. “Taking Me Back (Gently)”
To mark the announcement, White has shared the self-directed official video for “Taking Me Back” – watch it below.
According to a press release, White has been busy writing and recording new music over the past few years – resulting in “two entirely different albums” that are “each defined by different inspirations, different themes [and] different moods”.
Back in September, White delivered a surprise performance on a London rooftop to celebrate the opening of a new Third Man Records store in the capital. Prior to the roof appearance, the musician played in the blue basement of the Soho shop.
The new issue of Uncut – in shops from today and also available to buy online by clicking here – features Bruce Springsteen on the cover, along with typically illuminating interviews with the likes of Jason Isbell, Jonny Greenwood, Ryley Walker and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss.
HAVE A COP...
But the bulk of this bumper issue is devoted to our Review Of 2021, in which we reveal the 75 best new albums, the 50 best archive releases, the 20 best films and 10 best music books of the year, as voted for by Uncut’s staff and contributors.
We speak to many of the artists whose terrific music helped us make sense of another strange and disorientating year, including The Weather Station, Mogwai, Yasmin Williams, Cassandra Jenkins and John Murry.
The Coral take their fabulous recent album Coral Island as a jumping-off point to look back at their entire discography, while The Beach Boys reflect on how the release of the complete Sunflower / Surf’s Up sessions has shed new light on an underrated period of their career. Plus Irmin Schmidt reveals what’s next in Can’s revelatory Live Series.
You can read more about the January 2022 issue of Uncut here, and buy your copy direct from us here.
Bruce Springsteen performed four acoustic tracks at this year’s Stand Up For Heroes benefit gig on Monday night (November 8).
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the Review Of 2021 feature in Uncut’s January 2022 issue
Performing at Alice Tully Hall in New York, The Boss performed "I’ll ...
Bruce Springsteenperformed four acoustic tracks at this year’s Stand Up For Heroes benefit gig on Monday night (November 8).
Performing at Alice Tully Hall in New York, The Boss performed “I’ll Work For Your Love” from 2007’s Magic, the title track from last year’s Letter To You album, and classic tracks “Hungry Heart” and “Dancing In The Dark”.
Running since 2007, Stand Up For Heroes is an annual gig that benefits the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which supports charities and runs programs benefitting US veterans.
The show has been a regular event for Springsteen for many years, supporting US war veterans, with the 2020 edition being broadcast as a virtual event as he performed from an empty New Jersey bar.
The legendary songwriter shared the bill with comedians like Jon Stewart, Jim Gaffigan, and Nikki Glaser, and told a few crude jokes of his own between songs – you can watch the performance below.
Here's @springsteen's full set from Stand Up for Heroes tonight.
Last week (November 3) it was revealed that Springsteen is reportedly in talks to sell his recorded catalogue to Sony Music.
According to sources (via Billboard), the deal between The Boss and the US global music company is almost complete. The musician is also looking to sell off his publishing catalogue.
It’s said that Springsteen has set his sights on upwards of $350million (£256.5million) for both the publishing and recorded masters.
Khruangbin have announced a UK and European tour for 2022 – you can find all the details below.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the Review Of 2021 feature in Uncut’s January 2022 issue
The Texas trio will hit the road next spring in support of their third album Mordechai, which came ou...
Khruangbin have announced a UK and European tour for 2022 – you can find all the details below.
The Texas trio will hit the road next spring in support of their third album Mordechai, which came out in June 2020. Tickets go on general sale here at 9am GMT this Friday (November 12).
Kicking off in Paris on April 4, the stint also includes headline performances in Zurich, Cologne, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
Khruangbin are scheduled to make their UK return on April 14 when they’ll play Alexandra Palace in London. Gigs will then follow at the O2 Academy in Glasgow (April 15) and the O2 Apollo in Manchester (April 16).
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Sinéad O'Connor have been announced as headliners of Ireland's All Together Now Festival next year.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the Review Of 2021 feature in Uncut’s January 2022 issue
READ MORE: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on new B-Sides & Ra...
The multi-day festival, which has been cancelled the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, is set to take place across July 29-31, 2022 at Curraghmore House in County Waterford, Ireland.
Groove Armada and Underworld will headline alongside Cave and O’Connor. Other names on the line-up include: Jungle, Shame, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, Denise Chaila, Girl Band, Ghostpoet, SHERELLE and more. See the full list below.
“We can’t wait to welcome festival-goers and music lovers back after three long years,” organisers said in a statement. “We thank those of you who have continually supported us. Without you, the festival would not be possible. Our team has and will continue to work tirelessly to create a special festival for our return.
“Festivals are places of escape, discovery, and celebration. They give us the space to dance, laugh, sing, and give us all a sense of belonging and togetherness, something we are longing to get back to.”
The All Together Now added: “We have plenty up our sleeves, but for now, we are incredibly excited to announce our music line-up.”
We can’t wait to welcome all you festival-goers and music lovers back after three long years to #ATN22. ??
Remaining tickets for All Together Now 2022 go ON SALE on Thursday, November 18th at 8 AM, sign-up via link in our bio. pic.twitter.com/ss3I6iSmgh
Tickets bought for 2020’s cancelled event are still valid. Remaining tickets go on sale at 8am on November 18 – get them here.
Sinéad O’Connor‘s appearance comes after she confirmed her retirement from the music industry, weeks after making similar claims and later retracting them.
The Irish singer said on social media that she had been in “two minds” about retiring, but confirmed that she will now begin a new career as a writer.
“This is to announce that having been in two minds about retiring I have now, in consultation with my medical team, and on their advice, decided to go ahead and retire so that I may now focus on my new career as a writer,” wrote O’Connor.
Meanwhile, Nick Cave has opened up about moving to Los Angeles because Brighton became “too sad” following his son’s death.
Arthur Cave died aged 15 after he fell from a cliff in Ovingdean, East Sussex in 2015. Nick first spoke of the tragedy during One More Time With Feeling, the 2016 film that delved into “the deeply personal circumstances surrounding the making of Skeleton Tree.”
For the latest entry into his fan Q&A site Red Hand Files, Cave was asked why he decided to move away from his home in Brighton. In response, the musician spoke of revisiting the Bad Seeds track “Heart That Kills You”, which he said was “clearly written after Arthur’s death”.
The biopic of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, Midas Man, has shut down mid-shoot.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the Review Of 2021 feature in Uncut’s January 2022 issue
READ MORE: How The Beatles became movie stars: “They were quite skilled in the process of making films”
The fo...
The biopic of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, Midas Man, has shut down mid-shoot.
The forthcoming film has hit a snag as director Jonas Akerlund is “taking a break” from the shoot and could be “unlikely to return”, according to Deadline.
Midas Man will tell the story of Epstein, the Liverpudlian record shop manager who signed the biggest band of all time. Epstein also discovered other popular acts including Cilla Black,Billy J Kramer, Gerry And The Pacemakers, and helped promote acts including Jimi Hendrix.
“The director of Midas Man Jonas Akerlund is taking a break from the film,” a quote from the production reads.
“Until some matters become clearer, we are not able to add any further comment to this statement. In the meantime, we can confirm that filming of Midas Man will continue in London in November before breaking for Christmas. Filming will restart in early January in Los Angeles.”
Akerlund’s departure reportedly concerns other work commitments as opposed to health issues – the filmmaker’s team is yet to respond for comment.
The filmmaker is best known for his work on Madonna‘s Grammy-winning music video for “Ray Of Light”, and has also worked with artists including Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Rammstein and The Prodigy.
Earlier this year, The Queen’s Gambit actor Jacob Fortune-Lloyd was confirmed to play Epstein in the film. He previously played chess prodigy and journalist Townes in the Netflix miniseries.
“I’m in Nashville, I’m close to home,” Jason Isbell tells Uncut. “But I just finished my residency at the Ryman Auditorium last night, so I haven’t driven out to the house yet. We did eight shows. The openers were amazing, the audiences were great and my voice held up. So yeah, a huge su...
“I’m in Nashville, I’m close to home,” Jason Isbell tells Uncut. “But I just finished my residency at the Ryman Auditorium last night, so I haven’t driven out to the house yet. We did eight shows. The openers were amazing, the audiences were great and my voice held up. So yeah, a huge success!”
Isbell has other reasons to celebrate. He’s just released Georgia Blue – a covers album of songs by Georgia artists ranging from REMto the Allmans,Otis Redding to Cat Power. Recorded to celebrate the state’s contribution to ousting Donald Trump by turning Democrat blue, its proceeds will benefit civil rights groups including Black Voters Matter. As you might imagine, the guest artists Isbell invited to join him and his band The 400 Unit on the record are suitably diverse, with ex-Black Crowe Steve Gorman alongside Adia Victoria and self-described “gay sober Christian”Julien Baker. Like Isbell’s own songwriting, first in the Drive-By Truckers and then in the searching character studies and confessionals of his solo records, they paint a nuanced, modern picture of the American South.
Fresh from the Ryman shows, Isbell is also naturally thrilled to be touring again. “Last fall we did a few shows where everybody was in pods and socially distanced, which was better than nothing,” he says. “But to actually play regular venues in almost regular ways was pure pleasure. I started requiring a Covid test or vaccine cards and had some arguments about that.” He’s unperturbed by the anti-vaxxer outrage. “Most of them would never have come to one of my shows in the first place. But the people who did were really excited to be able to see a show and feel relatively safe.”
This taste of musical freedom follows months under lockdown with his family. “We were pretty much in the house for a year,” he says. “We had probably the best version of a quarantine lockdown situation that you could have, but it was still really emotionally taxing on all of us.” Isbell characteristically dealt with his lockdown blues by heading out to his barn and making a fearsome electric racket. “Yeah, I played guitar a lot,” he laughs. “We’ve got a six-year-old daughter, so I spent a lot of time with her. I also spent a lot of time with guitars, with really loud amps. That was good for me.
It wasn’t the same as playing with my band, but it was in a lot of ways the same as I was when I was 14 years old. Back to being a teenager wishing I could be in a rock band going on tour? That’s not so bad. Playing the guitar always has been the most obvious outlet for me.”
Members of R.E.M., Yo La Tengo and the dB’s came together over the weekend to pay tribute to Big Star.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen is on the cover of Uncut’s January 2022 issue
READ MORE: Michael Stipe and Mike Mills reveal the secrets of R.E.M.’s “Electrolite”
The group of mus...
The group of musicians – which included R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, the dB’s’ Chris Stamey, Skylar Gudasz, Brett Harris, Charles Cleaver, Crispin Cloe and original Big Star drummer Jody Stephens – gathered at St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn on Sunday night (November 7) to play a concert celebrating the Memphis band.
The self-described “one-of-a-kind acoustic, orchestrated performance” follows a series of tribute concerts in 2016, which featured some of the same musicians, surrounding Big Star’s never-completed third album.
The setlist for the Brooklyn show included “September Gurls”, “Back Of A Car”, “In The Street” and many other classics from the acclaimed band.
In R.E.M. news, Michael Stipe has put an end to any suggestions that the band could reunite, insisting that the group’s break-up 10 years ago was permanent.
During an interview with radio station WNYC to discuss a recent 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.
Meanwhile, Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, who’s also played with Big Star and R.E.M., has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women. He has denied the allegations.
The Posies, the Washington power-pop band he co-founded 35 years ago, are “in the process of breaking up” as a result of the allegations, Stringfellow’s former bandmates say.
Beach House have announced the release of a new album called Once Twice Melody as well as a spring UK and European tour.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen is on the cover of Uncut’s January 2022 issue
The Baltimore duo – comprised of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally – last released a full-l...
Beach House have announced the release of a new album called Once Twice Melody as well as a spring UK and European tour.
The Baltimore duo – comprised of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally – last released a full-length record in 2018 with 7. Their forthcoming eighth studio album will arrive on February 18 via Bella Union. It comes after Scally confirmed in September that a new record was on the way.
Produced entirely by Beach House themselves, Once Twice Melody was mixed by Alan Moulder, Caesar Edmunds, Trevor Spencer, and Dave Fridmann. It was recorded at studios in Cannon Falls, Los Angeles and Baltimore.
Ahead of the 18-track LP’s physical release, Once Twice Melody will be presented in four chapters with lyric animations for each song. The first four-song chapter will be available on all streaming services at midnight EST on November 10. You can pre-order/pre-save the album here.
Hello out there ❤️ We are very happy to announce our new album: ONCE TWICE MELODY.
It’s an 18 song double album and we are releasing it in 4 Chapters over the next 4 months. Chapter One comes out tonight at Midnight (EST) ??????? https://t.co/VoU5MTnq4hpic.twitter.com/CH4vz1tzly
Chapter 2: December 8, 2021 5. “Runaway” 6. “ESP” 7. “New Romance” 8. “Over And Over”
Chapter 3: January 19, 2022 9. “Sunset” 10. “Only You Know” 11. “Another Go Around” 12. “Masquerade” 13. “Illusion Of Forever”
Chapter 4 (full album release): February 18, 2022 14. “Finale” 15. “The Bells” 16. “Hurts To Love” 17. “Many Nights” 18. “Modern Love Stories”
Beach House perform live, 2019. Credit: Getty Images
In addition to the album, Beach House have also announced a UK and European tour set to kick off in Dublin on May 21, taking in Glasgow, Manchester and London. It will finish in Copenhagen on June 9. The dates sit in the middle of a North American tour.
Tickets go on sale on November 19 at 10am local time here – see the UK and European dates below.
May 2021
21 – The National Stadium, Dublin
23 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
24 – Manchester Academy, Manchester
26 – O2 Academy Brixton, London
28 – De Roma, Antwerp
30 – Ancienne Belgique, Brussels
31 – L’Olympia, Paris
June 2021
2 – Paloma, Nimes
4 – Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona
7 – Carlswerk Victoria, Cologne
8 – Columbiahalle, Berlin
9 – Falkoner Centre, Copenhagen
Beach House are already scheduled to perform at next summer’s Primavera Sound in Barcelona. They appear on the stellar line-up alongside the likes ofThe Strokes, TameImpala and Lorde.
Beach House will take to the stage on the first of two Primavera weekends in June 2022.
Earlier this year, the duo provided the soundtrack to a new short film called Marin’s Dreams.
