Last one of the year, then, and my last one for Uncut, since I’ll be leaving the magazine today. Housekeeping: I’ve updated my 2017 albums list with a few late discoveries; and a few more new 2018 things have snuck in here, especially the next Prana Crafter tape. Also my final Uncut will be on s...
Last one of the year, then, and my last one for Uncut, since I’ll be leaving the magazine today. Housekeeping: I’ve updated my 2017 albums list with a few late discoveries; and a few more new 2018 things have snuck in here, especially the next Prana Crafter tape. Also my final Uncut will be on sale mid-January, and I can promise that those of you who’ve stuck with this playlist may well be interested in the free CD Tom’s compiled to go with it; I’m very proud of it, as I have been of most things we’ve done in my time here.
Thanks for all your support over such a long time, and all my best wishes for the season. You can probably guess how this is going to end…
Led Zeppelin will celebrate 50 years since the band's formation by collaborating with London's Reel Art Press on an official illustrated book.
The band revealed the news via their social media:
https://twitter.com/ledzeppelin/status/943889451377344512
"Led Zeppelin are pleased to announce that Ji...
Led Zeppelin will celebrate 50 years since the band’s formation by collaborating with London’s Reel Art Press on an official illustrated book.
The band revealed the news via their social media:
Led Zeppelin are pleased to announce that Jimmy Page, Robert Plant & John Paul Jones are collaborating with @ReelArtPress to publish the official illustrated book celebrating 50 years since the formation of the group.
“Led Zeppelin are pleased to announce that Jimmy Page, Robert Plant & John Paul Jones are collaborating with @ReelArtPress to publish the official illustrated book celebrating 50 years since the formation of the group.
“Coming 2018.
“For updates visit http://reelartpress.com”
Page admitted in a recent interview that plans were afoot to mark the band’s anniversary next year, saying: “There’ll be Led Zeppelin product coming out, for sure, that people haven’t heard, because I’m working on that. Next year will be the 50th year, so there’s all manner of surprises coming out.”
Jonny Greenwood’s score to Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, Phantom Thread, is getting a release in the New Year.
The soundtrack will be available digitally on January 12; the CD will be available February 9 and the vinyl will be available on April 21 to correspond with Record Store Day.
The s...
Jonny Greenwood’s score to Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, Phantom Thread, is getting a release in the New Year.
The soundtrack will be available digitally on January 12; the CD will be available February 9 and the vinyl will be available on April 21 to correspond with Record Store Day.
The soundtrack includes eighteen compositions by Greenwood and has been nominated for a Golden Globe. It was recorded in London with a sixty-member string orchestra conducted by Robert Ziegler. Phantom Thread is available to preorder from the Nonesuch Store, along with an instant download of the album track “House Of Woodcock”.
Aside from the Golden Globe nomination, the Phantom Thread soundtrack’s many other accolades to date include the Best Score prizes from film critics’ associations in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, and St. Louis.
Anderson and Greenwood’s previous collaborations include the soundtrack for Academy Award–winning There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), and Inherent Vice (2014), all released by Nonesuch.
30 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
Radiator
BMG
If SFA’s first album showed their breezy way with classic indie-rock tropes, its follow-up, Radiator, revealed the real extent of their ambitions. The 20th-anniversary deluxe edition covered the whole gamut – prog, powerpop, techno and beyond – chucking...
30 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS Radiator BMG
If SFA’s first album showed their breezy way with classic indie-rock tropes, its follow-up, Radiator, revealed the real extent of their ambitions. The 20th-anniversary deluxe edition covered the whole gamut – prog, powerpop, techno and beyond – chucking in the outstanding “Ice Hockey Hair” EP and a daft rave cover of “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side”.
_________________________
29 THE REPLACEMENTS For Sale: Live at Maxwell’s 1986 RHINO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJE5t-cWFVs
A characteristically messy phase in the ’Mats’ career – just after the breakthrough of Tim, just before Bob Stinson was fired – was revisited on this evocative live set. Westerberg and co’s attempt to play Sweet’s “Fox On The Run” – a song they clearly did not know – captured the unruly spirit of proceedings; a masterclass in turning rock’n’roll sloppiness into something romantic and even noble.
Rhino’s ongoing, exhaustive Ramones project again rendered one of their brisk classics into an unlikely epic – hence a remastered version and a thunderous new mix of the whole album, plus extra discs featuring outtakes and a ’77 CBGB’s show. Glue, mental illness, horror movies were par for the course, but here was where Joey’s cute, romantic streak came to the fore, too.
_________________________
27 JON HASSELL Fourth World Volume Two: Dream Theory In Malaya TAK:TIL
Hassell’s heavily processed trumpet tone became a signal of the exotic and unearthly through the late ’70s and ’80s, as he took on
a role as the art/ambient scene’s Miles Davis. Two albums with Brian Eno cemented his reputation; this second, from 1981, also featuring kindred spirits Daniel Lanois and Michael Brook. Reissue the pre-Eno albums next, please!
_________________________
26 LIFT TO EXPERIENCE The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads MUTE
Reuniting just in time for the apocalypse they predicted back in 2001, perhaps, Texas’ Lift To Experience restaged their sole album at shows in 2016, prefacing this deluxe reissue. Critically, the whole Biblical space-rock masterpiece was remixed to the greater satisfaction of Josh Pearson and his bandmates. A debut album and fiery Peel session completed the tale of a band whose time, finally, was now.
_________________________
25 UNDERWORLD Beaucoup Fish UMC
Overshadowed a little by its predecessors – Second Toughest In The Infants and Dubnobasswithmyheadman – on release in 1999, the third album of Underworld’s techno phase may well have aged the best of all of them. Here was reliably encyclopaedic evidence, the original prog-disco marvels augmented by a deluxe boxload of remixes.
_________________________
24 THE SMITHS The Queen Is Dead WARNER BROS
With Morrissey’s latest comeback a familiar combination of average music and problematic politics, it was a comfort to return to the third Smiths album, now complemented by a hearty 1986 concert (Craig Gannon on second guitar), B-sides and demos, plus the unedited version of the still-thrilling title track. “All those people, all those lives/Where are they now?”
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23 VARIOUS ARTISTS Soul Of A Nation SOUL JAZZ
As usual with Soul Jazz comps, the subtitle told the whole story: “Afro-Centric Visions In The Age Of Black Power: Underground Jazz, Street Funk & The Roots of Rap 1964-79”. And as ever, their superb curatorial skills mixed canonical picks (Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”) with deep cuts from Phil Cohran, Horace Tapscott and Phil Ranelin. A soundtrack to the superb Tate Modern exhibition of the same name.
_________________________
22 TONY CONRAD Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain SUPERIOR VIADUCT
To rock fans, Conrad was mostly known as a pre-Velvets cohort of John Cale. In other circles, however, the musician and filmmaker (who died in 2016) was revered as an avant-garde superstar, and this previously unreleased soundtrack performance was greeted as a holy grail of minimalism: an unyielding 90-minute violin drone, reminiscent of Conrad’s collaboration with Faust, Outside The Dream Syndicate.
_________________________
21 MIDORI TAKADA Through The Looking Glass PALTO FLATS/WRWTFWW
Another minimalist gem unearthed in 2017, the Japanese composer’s Through The Looking Glass was a more approachable work than that of Conrad: a polyrhythmic Asian response to Steve Reich and Terry Riley, on which Takada overdubbed herself playing everything from a marimba to a Coke bottle. The missing link between Olivier Messiaen and Boards Of Canada?
50
THE XX
I See You
YOUNG TURKS
The XX might have patented a shy, minimalist take on dance music that became a ubiquitous British sound over the past decade. But there was always a chance, not least as their imitators multiplied, that it would become a creative cul-de-sac. Hence this more expansive...
50
THE XX I See You
YOUNG TURKS
The XX might have patented a shy, minimalist take on dance music that became a ubiquitous British sound over the past decade. But there was always a chance, not least as their imitators multiplied, that it would become a creative cul-de-sac. Hence this more expansive, brighter third album, which expanded the trio’s remit – Hall & Oates samples! – and shook off some of the goth cobwebs, without losing any of their understated charm.
49
MICHAEL HEAD AND THE RED ELASTIC BAND Adios Senor Pussycat
VIOLETTE
While the bandnames – The Pale Fountains, Shack, The Strands – changed over the last four decades, much about Mick Head’s music remained heroically consistent. His first album in 11 years was another beauty, all hallucinatory social realism and ringing jangles in the great tradition of The Byrds and Love. Another useful piece of evidence, in fact, to argue that this Liverpool street poet is one of the era’s finest British singer-songwriters.
48
LINDSTRØM It’s All Right Between Us As It Is
SMALLTOWN SUPERSOUND
Last spotted collaborating with Todd Rundgren on 2015’s Runddans, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s fourth solo album showcased the Norwegian maestro’s ability to keep stretching the parameters of electro-disco. Amidst the pop bangers and prog extrapolations of techno, there was also a creepy extra dimension manifested on “Bungl (Like A Ghost)”. Jenny Hval, whose own Blood Bitch featured prominently in the 2016 Uncut Albums Of The Year list, provided the necessarily uncanny vocals.
47
POND The Weather
MARATHON ARTISTS
Very much following the trajectory of their old friends Tame Impala (whose Kevin Parker produced The Weather), Perth’s Pond moved away from heavier jams towards a shinier kind of pop music for their seventh and most successful album. The psychedelic otherness remained, though, not least on the two-part epic “Edge Of The World”, which tackled Australian colonial privilege while channelling the apocalyptic grandeur of Diamond Dogs.
46
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE Hug Of Thunder
CITY SLANG A good year for the extended Broken Social Scene family also saw Feist’s Pleasure charting in our Top 75. Bigger plaudits, though, were directed to BSS themselves, as Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning and their myriad collaborators reconvened for a first album in seven years. As the title suggested, a rousing communitarian spirit dominated – and one whose warmth contrasted sharply with the ironies attempted in 2017 by the most famous of BSS’ descendants, Arcade Fire.
45
SPOON Hot Thoughts
MATADOR
Another North American indie-rock institution, whose admirable singularity and persistence paid dividends in 2017. The Austin quartet’s ninth, co-produced by Dave Fridmann, was again remarkable for refining Spoon’s long-nurtured USPs: concision, groove and unwavering focus. Notable too, though, was a poignant influence coming more than ever to the fore. As Britt Daniel told Uncut, “Bowie is, to put it bluntly, the guy I’ve ripped off the most.”
44
JAKE XERXES FUSSELL What In The Natural World
PARADISE OF BACHELORS At once scholarly and swinging, Fussell’s second album was a roistering investigation of the traditions of the South-Eastern States. The son of folklorists, Fussell’s song selections were compelling: Child Ballads, Duke Ellington tunes, an obscure, absurdist country blues called “Have You Ever Seen Peaches Growing On A Sweet Potato Vine?” Easygoing virtuosity – co-conspirators included Nathan Salsburg and Nathan Bowles – and an idiosyncratic character ensured, too, that everything felt much more like a party than a historical re-enactment.
43
TRIO DA KALI & KRONOS QUARTET Ladilikan
WORLD CIRCUIT
As Africa Express’ take on “In C” and the chamber recitals of Toumani Diabaté proved, traditional Malian music and Western classical traditions can make serendipitous bedfellows. The latest evidence came on Ladilikan, twinning as it did the ever-adventurous Kronos strings with a group led by the extraordinary singer, Hawa Diabaté. Amidst harmonious culture clashes, Diabaté even added gospel hues to her griot technique – never more so than on the title track, her radical rewrite of an old Mahalia Jackson tune.
42
THUNDERCAT Drunk
BRAINFEEDER
A formidable jazz bassist, Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner is also an eclectic collaborator. One of his old associates, Kendrick Lamar, turned up on this slick, freaky and inventive display of virtuosity, as did Pharrell Williams, electronica auteur Flying Lotus and Bruner’s actual cat. Surreal pride of place, though, went to Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins, honeyed tones intact, on the outstanding soft-rock jam, “Let Me Show You”.
41
FLEET FOXES Crack-Up
NONESUCH
Back from hiatus at Columbia University, Robin Pecknold reactivated Fleet Foxes; now, an open-hearted corrective to the antics of their former drummer, Father John Misty. Time away had not dimmed Pecknold’s ear for a ravishing harmony. It had, though, widened his scope and ambition, as multi-part songs – play “I Am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar”! – were augmented by all manner of filigree esoterica. Unabashedly earnest, not a little pretentious and still quite, quite lovely.
To celebrate the Velvet Underground’s 50th anniversary, Verve Records/UMe is releasing The Velvet Underground, a limited-edition career-spanning box that collects all four of the band’s studio albums, Nico’s debut LP, Chelsea Girl, and a reconstruction of the fabled “lost” 1969 album, maki...
To celebrate the Velvet Underground’s 50th anniversary, Verve Records/UMe is releasing The Velvet Underground, a limited-edition career-spanning box that collects all four of the band’s studio albums, Nico’s debut LP, Chelsea Girl, and a reconstruction of the fabled “lost” 1969 album, making it available on vinyl for the first time.
The six albums housed in a special black slipcase will be pressed on 180-gram black vinyl and feature stereo mixes and meticulously reproduced original cover art. The box will also include an exclusive 48-page booklet, featuring vintage photos, lyrics and a new foreword penned by Moe Tucker. Limited to 1000 copies worldwide, the box set will be released February 23.
The set features:
The Velvet Underground and Nico (March 1967) Side One
1. Sunday Morning
2. I’m Waiting For The Man
3. Femme Fatale
4. Venus In Furs
5. Run Run Run
6. All Tomorrow’s Parties
Side Two
1. Heroin
2. There She Goes Again
3. I’ll Be Your Mirror
4. The Black Angel’s Death Song
5. European Son
Nico: Chelsea Girl (October 1967) Side One
1. The Fairest of the Seasons
2. These Days
3. Little Sister
4. Winter Song
5. It Was A Pleasure Then
Side Two
1. Chelsea Girls
2. I’ll Keep It With Mine
3. Somewhere There’s a Feather
4. Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
5. Eulogy To Lenny Bruce
White Light/White Heat (January 1968) Side One
1. White Light/White Heat
2. The Gift
3. Lady Godiva’s Operation
4. There She Comes Now
Side Two
1. I Heard Her Call My Name
2. Sister Ray
The Velvet Underground (March 1969) Side One
1. Candy Says
2. What Goes On
3. Some Kinda Love
4. Pale Blue Eyes
5. Jesus
Side Two
1. Beginning To See The Light
2. I’m Set Free
3. That’s The Story Of My Life
4. The Murder Mystery
5. After Hours
1969 (recorded May – October 1969) Side One
1. Foggy Notion (original 1969 mix)
2. One Of The Days (2014 mix)
3. Lisa Says (2014 mix)
4. I’m Sticking With You (original 1969 mix)
5. Andy’s Chest (original 1969 mix)
Side Two
1. I Can’t Stand It (2014 mix)
2. She’s My Best Friend (original 1969 mix)
3. We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together (2014 mix)
4. I’m Gonna Move Right In (original 1969 mix)
5. Ferryboat Bill (original 1969 mix)
Side Three
1. Coney Island Steeplechase (2014 mix)
2. Ocean (original 1969 mix)
3. Rock & Roll (original 1969 mix)
4. Ride Into The Sun (2014 mix)
Side Four – Bonus Tracks
1. Hey Mr. Rain (version one)
2. Guess I’m Falling In Love instrumental version)
3. Temptation Inside Your Heart (original mix)
4. Stephanie Says (original mix)
5. Hey Mr. Rain (version two)
6. Beginning To See The Light (early version)
Loaded (November 1970) Side One
1. Who Loves The Sun
2. Sweet Jane
3. Rock & Roll
4. Cool It Down
5. New Age
Side Two
1. Head Held High
2. Lonesome Cowboy Bill
3. I Found A Reason
4. Train Round The Bend
5. Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
The new issue of Uncut, dated February 2018, is out on December 21, and features Britain’s great lost venues, Keith Richards, Buffalo Springfield and our 2018 albums preview.
Our lost venues feature is on the cover, and inside, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, Pete Townshend and more recall 50 beloved ho...
The new issue of Uncut, dated February 2018, is out on December 21, and features Britain’s great lost venues, Keith Richards, Buffalo Springfield and our 2018 albums preview.
Our lost venues feature is on the cover, and inside, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, Pete Townshend and more recall 50 beloved hotspots large and small – from The Silver Thread Hotel in Paisley to Cornwall’s Folk Cottage.
“I feel for new bands,” explains Davies. “There’s nowhere for them to learn their trade. The 100 Club is the last of that type of venue left. There aren’t many places where a musician is allowed to be bad; they have to be programmed and efficient.”
In a new interview, Keith Richards looks back at The Rolling Stones‘ ’60s BBC sessions and forward to the group’s next tour and plans for 2018 – “I think there’s a tour in the works,” he tells Uncut. “I miss the old joint.”
Richie Furay tells the story of Buffalo Springfield, a band of five exceptional talents – Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Bruce Palmer, Dewey Martin and Furay. “We thought we had no competition but The Beatles,” he explains. “We had the songs, we had the singers, we had the talent. We just didn’t have someone to help hold us together.”
In our 2018 albums preview, Paul Weller, Father John Misty, Kim Deal, My Bloody Valentine, Josh Pearson and many more discuss their upcoming releases for the year ahead. “I’ve been getting a little bit more reflective,” says Weller. “But not for too long.”
Also in the new issue, Michael McDonald answers your questions, The Sweet recall the making of 1973’s “Block Buster!” and Jim White looks back on his work with Dirty Three, Cat Power, Smog, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Xylouris White.
This Is The Kit‘s Kate Stables lets us in on the records that have shaped her life, while we pay tribute to Malcolm Young and hear from the Fabs’ barber Leslie Cavendish, and Boubacar Traoré, in our front section.
In our extensive reviews section, we take a look at new releases from Neil Young, HC McEntire, No Age, First Aid Kit, Tune-Yards and more, and archival offerings from Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Roy Harper, Willie Nelson, The Durutti Column and Stack Waddy. Live, we catch The Hold Steady and Rhiannon Giddens, while in books we take on Liner Notes by Loudon Wainwright III, and Clinton Heylin on Bob Dylan‘s gospel years; in films, we review the life stories of Eric Clapton and Suggs, and DVD & Blu-ray goodies including Twin Peaks and a Hansa Studios doc.
Our free CD, The New Year Starts Here!, features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including cuts by HC McEntire, No Age, Roy Harper, Xylouris White, Calexico, Lankum, Stick In The Wheel and Tyler Childers.
The new Uncut, dated February 2018, is in shops from December 21.
The new issue of Uncut, dated February 2018, is out on December 21, and features Britain's great lost venues, Keith Richards, Buffalo Springfield and our 2018 albums preview.
Our lost venues feature is on the cover, and inside, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, Pete Townshend and more recall 50 beloved hots...
The new issue of Uncut, dated February 2018, is out on December 21, and features Britain’s great lost venues, Keith Richards, Buffalo Springfield and our 2018 albums preview.
Our lost venues feature is on the cover, and inside, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, Pete Townshend and more recall 50 beloved hotspots large and small – from The Silver Thread Hotel in Paisley to Cornwall’s Folk Cottage.
“I feel for new bands,” explains Davies. “There’s nowhere for them to learn their trade. The 100 Club is the last of that type of venue left. There aren’t many places where a musician is allowed to be bad; they have to be programmed and efficient.”
In a new interview, Keith Richards looks back at The Rolling Stones‘ ’60s BBC sessions and forward to the group’s next tour and plans for 2018 – “I think there’s a tour in the works,” he tells Uncut. “I miss the old joint.”
Richie Furay tells the story of Buffalo Springfield, a band of five exceptional talents – Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Bruce Palmer, Dewey Martin and Furay. “We thought we had no competition but The Beatles,” he explains. “We had the songs, we had the singers, we had the talent. We just didn’t have someone to help hold us together.”
In our 2018 albums preview, Paul Weller, Father John Misty, Kim Deal, My Bloody Valentine, Josh Pearson and many more discuss their upcoming releases for the year ahead. “I’ve been getting a little bit more reflective,” says Weller. “But not for too long.”
Also in the new issue, Michael McDonald answers your questions, The Sweet recall the making of 1973’s “Block Buster!” and Jim White looks back on his work with Dirty Three, Cat Power, Smog, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Xylouris White.
This Is The Kit‘s Kate Stables lets us in on the records that have shaped her life, while we pay tribute to Malcolm Young and hear from the Fabs’ barber Leslie Cavendish, and Boubacar Traoré, in our front section.
In our extensive reviews section, we take a look at new releases from Neil Young, HC McEntire, No Age, First Aid Kit, Tune-Yards and more, and archival offerings from Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Roy Harper, Willie Nelson, The Durutti Column and Stack Waddy. Live, we catch The Hold Steady and Rhiannon Giddens, while in books we take on Liner Notes by Loudon Wainwright III, and Clinton Heylin on Bob Dylan‘s gospel years; in films, we review the life stories of Eric Clapton and Suggs, and DVD & Blu-ray goodies including Twin Peaks and a Hansa Studios doc.
Our free CD, The New Year Starts Here!, features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including cuts by HC McEntire, No Age, Roy Harper, Xylouris White, Calexico, Lankum, Stick In The Wheel and Tyler Childers.
The new Uncut, dated February 2018, is in shops from December 21.
While other pioneers of progressive rock play cruise ships, split into rival factions or think about retiring, King Crimson seem shockingly active these days. Currently touring North America for the second time this year, they’ve released two recent live albums (Live In Chicago and the Japan-only ...
While other pioneers of progressive rock play cruise ships, split into rival factions or think about retiring, King Crimson seem shockingly active these days. Currently touring North America for the second time this year, they’ve released two recent live albums (Live In Chicago and the Japan-only Live In Vienna) as well as an EP (Heroes – Live In Europe) and the latest instalment in their ongoing ‘tour box’ series, The Elements Of King Crimson. Onstage in cities like Raleigh and Newark, their eight-piece line-up goes deep into the back catalogue.
They play, oddly enough, a lot of the music on Sailors’ Tales, a lavish-looking 27-disc boxset (21CD/2DVD/4Blu-Ray) that focuses on the years 1970–2. This was a troubled period when Crimson lost crucial personnel, leaving Robert Fripp and lyricist Pete Sinfield with the name, the determination and the vision – just about – to create three albums with ad hoc line-ups and guest musicians. In The Wake Of Poseidon, Lizard and Islands rubbed shoulders with jazz, chamber-rock and the avant-garde (and appear here in their 2009–10 Steven Wilson remix versions), but were soon forgotten when Fripp, in autumn ’72, put together the ferocious, free-improvising Wetton-Bruford-Muir-Cross line-up that made Larks’ Tongues In Aspic.
Although the Poseidon, Lizard and Islands discs all contain bonus tracks and outtakes, the boxset’s primary focus is on live material. Over a dozen concerts from 1971–2 are included, four of which are previously unreleased. The remainder have been available over the years through the King Crimson Collectors’ Club or as downloads via Fripp’s website. For the majority of Sailors’ Tales, then, we’re in the ribald, raucous company of singer-bassist Raymond (Boz) Burrell, drummer Ian Wallace and sax/flautist Mel Collins. The stage is set for powerhouse drumming, uncertain jazz, thick peasoupers of gothic Mellotron and gales of nervous laughter. “We’d now like to render ‘In The Court Of The Crimson King’,” Burrell tells an audience in Frankfurt. Render it unconscious with a severely good kicking, he means.
Like a ballet in hobnail boots, this line-up of Crimson certainly belched some crude masculinity into Fripp’s cultivated, effete, elaborately English music. Wallace is a heavy-hitting brute. Burrell, a future co-founder of Bad Company, applies his gruff voice to Sinfield’s flowery poetry – imagine Hawkwind-era Lemmy singing Samuel Taylor Coleridge – while Fripp, playing his guitar like a demon, doubles on Mellotron to give the illusion of a fifth member. They may not be adept at the music’s filigree embroidery, but they know how to make a right old racket. The seesawing sturm und drang of “Cirkus” (from Lizard) is a nightly highlight, as is “Sailor’s Tale” (Islands), a storm-tossed instrumental that Collins, clearly a Pharoah Sanders fan, approaches with all the glee of a free-jazz open goal. “Groon”, an old B-side, becomes a blistering skronk-sax blowout incorporating a 12-minute drum solo. “Improv”, a 27-minute piece that they play at the Marquee in August ’71, sees Fripp drop a few tantalising hints towards “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part One”, but is mostly utter pandemonium, if you like that sort of thing. As for “The Devil’s Triangle”, an ominous bolero march from Poseidon, those random whooshes and bleeps come from Sinfield’s VCS3 synthesiser, which he operates from the mixing desk, and sound like he’s aiming gunfire over the audience’s heads while trying to tune a shortwave radio. At the opposite end of the prog-rock spectrum, however, Collins puts down his tenor sax, picks up his flute and becomes a man transformed. His playing on “Cadence And Cascade” every night is like a fawn admiring its reflection in a brook.
The sound of the ’71 gigs is gritty and realistic, and often mixed in stereo. But there’s a noticeable drop in quality when the ’72 gigs start (on disc 10) in Wilmington, Delaware. These are cassette recordings, very rough and bootleggy. It’s the kind of distorted sound that made Crimson’s American record label baulk at releasing Earthbound (disc 18), a ’72 live album that angered and disappointed fans in the UK even at a budget price. It’s possible to get used to the sonic sludge, of course, and appreciate the gigs for their historical value; but several tracks on discs 10–16 and 26–27 cut out unexpectedly, or begin in mid-performance, depending on whether the band’s soundman has remembered to put a tape in the machine.
By the time of that February–March US tour, Crimson had grown in confidence, introducing a lewd groove or two into their repertoire (“Ladies Of The Road”) and even inserting a boogie shuffle in the middle of “Cirkus”. By April, though, they were defunct, merely three more names added by Fripp to the growing ranks of the Crimson departed. Burrell became a stadium rocker with Bad Co. Wallace was hired by Bob Dylan to play drums on Street-Legal. Collins, after four decades as one of rock’s most in-demand session men, rejoined Crimson in 2013 and has been reacquainting his tenor sax with “Cirkus”, “Sailor’s Tale” and more. For those listeners who intend to go the full distance with Sailors’ Tales, Collins – along with Fripp himself – will surely emerge as the boxset’s heroic figure. The ’71–’72 band is not over-fondly remembered by aficionados, perhaps, but it enabled King Crimson to get from B to C, and from D to E, and from there to wherever they are now.
Here, for your consideration, is Uncut's list of the 20 Best Films Of 2018. If you're interested in the administrative aspect of this list, it was voted for by a shadowy cabal of Uncut staffers, writers and a few trusted confidants. It broadly dovetails with my own personal Top 20, though I think th...
Here, for your consideration, is Uncut’s list of the 20 Best Films Of 2018. If you’re interested in the administrative aspect of this list, it was voted for by a shadowy cabal of Uncut staffers, writers and a few trusted confidants. It broadly dovetails with my own personal Top 20, though I think the film that’s stuck with me most throughout the year is the Good Time. And, in case you were wondering — no, we didn’t include Twin Peaks, because that’s a TV series not a film.
Much to look forward in the year ahead, by the way, starting with Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. But more about that nearer the time…
A new Bob Dylan compilation tied around the recent play Girl From The North Country has been announced.
Due on January 12 from Sony Music, the 2 CD set, The Music Which Inspired Girl From The North Country, comprises the original Dylan recordings of songs selected by writer/director Conor McPherson...
A new Bob Dylan compilation tied around the recent play Girl From The North Country has been announced.
Due on January 12 from Sony Music, the 2 CD set, The Music Which Inspired Girl From The North Country, comprises the original Dylan recordings of songs selected by writer/director Conor McPherson for his play.
The compilation follows the release of the Original London Cast Recording of Girl From The North Country, which is available now on CD and vinyl.
Girl From The North Country transfers to London’s Noël Coward Theatre on December 29.
The tracklisting is:
CD1 Sign On The Window [from ‘New Morning’, 1970] Went To See The Gypsy [from ‘New Morning’, 1970] Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love) [from ‘Empire Burlesque, 1985] Slow Train [from ‘Slow Train Coming’, 1979] License To Kill [from ‘Infidels’, 1983] Ballad Of A Thin Man [from ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, 1965] I Want You [from ‘Blonde On Blonde’, 1966] Blind Willie McTell [from ‘The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991’] Like A Rolling Stone [from ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, 1965] Make You Feel My Love [from ‘Time Out Of Mind’, 1997] You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere [from ‘Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II’, 1971] Jokerman [from ‘Infidels’, 1983] Sweetheart Like You [from ‘Infidels’, 1983]
CD2 True Love Tends To Forget [from ‘Street-Legal’, 1978] Girl From The North Country [from ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’, 1963] Hurricane [from ‘Desire’, 1975] All Along The Watchtower [from ‘John Wesley Harding’, 1967] Idiot Wind [from ‘Blood On The Tracks’, 1975] Lay Down Your Weary Tune [from ‘Biograph’, 1985] Duquesne Whistle [from ‘Tempest’, 2012] Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power) [from ‘Street-Legal’, 1978] Is Your Love In Vain? [from ‘Street-Legal’, 1978] Lay, Lady, Lay [from ‘Nashville Skyline’, 1969] Forever Young [from ‘Planet Waves’, 1974] My Back Pages [from ‘Another Side Of Bob Dylan’, 1964]
A small market town in North Nottinghamshire did not seem much of a musical hotspot in 1980. But when I bought Adam & The Ants’ Kings Of The Wild Frontier at the end of the year, the smallprint in the Catalogue that came with it revealed a slightly different story. On March 16, 1978, it transp...
A small market town in North Nottinghamshire did not seem much of a musical hotspot in 1980. But when I bought Adam & The Ants’ Kings Of The Wild Frontier at the end of the year, the smallprint in the Catalogue that came with it revealed a slightly different story. On March 16, 1978, it transpired, the Ants had played my local venue, Retford Porterhouse. Soon enough, I would discover that the Porterhouse was a place where gangs from the mining villages would come to fight on a Friday night, and where live bookings would mostly devolve into alternating visits from Doctor & The Medics and Guana Batz. But like so many other unpretentious clubs up and down Britain, the Porterhouse had its own discreet claims to fame, its own unexpected mythology.
The list of shows in the Ants’ Catalogue now reads as a litany of quondam rock landmarks: Middlesbrough Rock Garden and London Lyceum; Bishop’s Stortford Civic Hall and The Marquee Club. It’s a world that we revisit, with much affection, in the new issue of Uncut, on sale in the UK this Thursday (though subscribers may already have their copies). Our cover story is on the Great Lost Venues of the UK, and the stories about these eccentrically-run, hygienically-dubious dancehalls and backrooms are vivid, and our thanks go out to The Rolling Stones, The Who, Suede, The Damned, The Specials and many more musicians, managers, promoters and punters who shared their memories with us.
More poignant still, we discover the fates of these storied venues. Where once there were vibrant and unpredictable incubators of talent, now there are Irish theme pubs, luxury flats, swimsuit shops and old people’s homes. Grouped together, a picture emerges of an abandoned network; a live circuit that no longer exists, to the incalculable detriment of music in this country. “I feel for new bands, there’s nowhere for them to learn their trade,” Ray Davies tells us. “There aren’t many places where a musician is allowed to be bad.”
Elsewhere in the new issue we have an exclusive chat with Keith Richards. Richie Furay walks us through the brief and seismic story of Buffalo Springfield. There are interviews with Michael McDonald, The Sweet, Richard Hell, Jim White and This Is The Kit, and reviews of HC McEntire, First Aid Kit, Tune-Yards, Neil Young, Roy Harper, Willie Nelson, Fela Kuti, The Hold Steady and Rhiannon Giddens. Plus you’ll find the definitive guide to 2018’s key albums, featuring Jack White, Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, Johnny Marr, Father John Misty, The Breeders and My Bloody Valentine.
Plenty, hopefully, to see you through the season and up to speed for a brave new year. See you down Redcar Jazz Club!
A Rare Cheese, Podgy The Bear and The Ballad Of Jock And Yono? Join us on a seasonal journey through the lost BEATLES Christmas singles – a tale that involves surreal pantos, long-suffering fan club secretaries, unhinged experiments and Kenny Everett. And which tells, in a strange new way, how Joh...
A Rare Cheese, Podgy The Bear and The Ballad Of Jock And Yono? Join us on a seasonal journey through the lost BEATLES Christmas singles – a tale that involves surreal pantos, long-suffering fan club secretaries, unhinged experiments and Kenny Everett. And which tells, in a strange new way, how John, Paul, George and Ringo charmed the world with their in-jokes and irreverence, and how they slowly fell apart, while keeping up a festive front. Words: John Robinson
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For The Beatles, Christmas didn’t just come once a year – in December 1963, it arrived on no fewer than 30 separate occasions. A few weeks earlier, the group had lined up behind a barricade and shaken hands with fans at a convention in Wimbledon. Now, at shows supported by Cilla Black, The Fourmost and Billy J Kramer, they proved to be the gift that kept on giving.
Rather than a pure rock’n’roll event, the two-shows-a-night, 16-night stand that their manager Brian Epstein arranged for them at London’s Finsbury Park Astoria in December was all about displaying Beatle-related versatility at the festive season. NEMS Enterprises, newly moved to the capital, was not, after all, solely The Beatles’ management office, but an outfit that nurtured the careers of a wide roster of talent. Nor, in turn, were these simply pop stars – they were personalities, rounded entertainers, such as you might see on television.
“We didn’t just play the songs,” remembers Billy Hatton from The Fourmost. “The Beatles did some routines, we did some of our impersonations – to prove the versatility of the Liverpool fellers.”
As conceived by their director, Peter Yolland, the shows were “to change the concept of the pantomime”. In practice, they were a difficult fusion of theatre and rock’n’roll. The sets were wobbly, and the glittering performers’ rostrums so unstable they occasionally cut the power cables. Into this chaos then periodically emerged The Beatles, performing sketches in advance of their closing 30-minute set. The one sketch everyone remembers was one in which John Lennon (as the villainous “Sir Jasper”) tied a helpless damsel (George Harrison) to the railroad tracks.
“It was obvious it was the first time The Beatles had done anything like that, but they did it well,” remembers Peter Langford from The Barron Knights, who were on the bill backing Cilla and compère Rolf Harris. “The crowd could see the movements. But because of the screams it was impossible to hear what was going on.”
Screams, however, were inevitable. The Christmas shows rounded off a year that had seen Beatlemania spark with the August release of “She Loves You”, and catch light with the band’s October appearance on Sunday Night At The London Palladium. By the time John Lennon had told rich guests at the Royal Variety Performance to rattle their jewellery in early November, the phenomenon was out of control.
For Brian Epstein, whose theatrical ambitions led him to produce Alan Plater’s play Smashing Day, and even to buy a London theatre, the Saville, the Christmas shows were a vindication of his belief not just in The Beatles, but in a certain type of Beatles, positioned at the very heart of the mainstream.
He had seen the characterful, showbiz-appropriate charmers under the scowling leather-clad rockers, and now delighted in revealing them to the world. Wobbling scenery, screams, Rolf Harris and all, the Christmas shows (another followed in 1964) allowed Beatles fans to have as full an experience of the band’s characters as possible. They also showed the wisdom in Epstein’s central conviction: if he added professionalism to their abundant charm, nobody would be able to resist them.
“When they first started out their humour was very insular,” says Billy Hatton. “They used to have jokes, but they were in-jokes. They broadened it out – they were trying to improve themselves.”
It would not always be practical for them to play Christmas shows, but reaching out to their fans at this time of year would always be a responsibility The Beatles took seriously. Even when there was barely a Beatles to do so.
Nearly time to wrap up the year now, but I’m still fishing out more recommendations for my end of year albums list: this week including SZA, Delia Gonzalez and Prana Crafter. Elsewhere here: two righteous sets from my beloved Hiss Golden Messenger; Psychic Temple covering Curtis; Chris Dave, and m...
Nearly time to wrap up the year now, but I’m still fishing out more recommendations for my end of year albums list: this week including SZA, Delia Gonzalez and Prana Crafter. Elsewhere here: two righteous sets from my beloved Hiss Golden Messenger; Psychic Temple covering Curtis; Chris Dave, and many others from D’Angelo’s band, going it alone; Jack White’s tantalising collage; and a fantastic new one from Sunwatchers.
Jarvis Cocker and Iggy Pop have recorded a version of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' "Red Right Hand".
The song appears as the theme tune to the Peaky Blinders TV series.
Their version featured in this week’s episode, broadcasted last night on the BBC, and it is available on all digital platforms n...
Jarvis Cocker and Iggy Pop have recorded a version of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds‘ “Red Right Hand“.
The song appears as the theme tune to the Peaky Blinders TV series.
Their version featured in this week’s episode, broadcasted last night on the BBC, and it is available on all digital platforms now.
David Byrne has announced an upcoming solo tour – his first in nine years.
He will be performing a small number of shows on the American East Coast and South America, as well as European festivals including Inmusic in Croatia and Roskilde, Denmark.
A number of new songs, as well as more familiar...
David Byrne has announced an upcoming solo tour – his first in nine years.
He will be performing a small number of shows on the American East Coast and South America, as well as European festivals including Inmusic in Croatia and Roskilde, Denmark.
A number of new songs, as well as more familiar tunes, will hit the setlist.
“I’m excited. This is the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense, so fingers crossed,” he wrote on Twitter.
A small # of east coast shows! We’ll be doing some new songs, & many others that will, I assume, be familiar. I’m excited. This is the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense, so fingers crossed. Info @ https://t.co/B8YgcnekRvpic.twitter.com/ehQ41X1MyD
The musician also detailed an ambitious visual approach for the show, centred on his band using mobile instruments.
“With everyone mobile, I realized the stage could be completely clear. If we could have the monitors in our ears, the amps off-stage and the lights up high, then we had the possibility of a completely empty space,” he told Brooklyn Vegan.
He then revealed the difficulty in hiding the “people and gear” around the stage, initially considering drapes before settling on lightweight chains.
“It takes color beautifully. Not only does it take color, one can cast shadows on the chain,” he said.
David Byrne’s tour dates below:
March 3: Red Bank, NJ, USA – Count Basie Theatre
March 4: Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA – F.M. Kirby Center For The Performing Art
March 6: Buffalo, NY, USA – Center For The Arts
March 7: Hershey, PA, USA – Hershey Theatre
March 9: Waterbury, CT, USA – Palace Theater
March 10: Kingston, NY, USA – Ulster Performing Arts Center
March 16: Santiago, Chile – Lollapalooza Chile
March 18 Buenos Aires, Argentina – Lollapalooza Argentina
June 25: Zagreb, Croatia – Inmusic Festival
July 06: Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival
Jack White has released a a four-minute collage containing new music.
Titled “Servings And Portions From My Boarding House Reach”, the clip mixes vocal lines, guitar riffs and beats with other sonic textures.
You can watch the film below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QClzlZTXj4Y
The Janua...
Jack White has released a a four-minute collage containing new music.
Titled “Servings And Portions From My Boarding House Reach”, the clip mixes vocal lines, guitar riffs and beats with other sonic textures.
Forty years ago next month, a very weird debut single was released, against the better judgment of the record company, EMI. The executives were keen on "James And The Cold Gun" as the best way to launch their new prodigy. Kate Bush, though, had other ideas.
“I felt that to actually get your name ...
Forty years ago next month, a very weird debut single was released, against the better judgment of the record company, EMI. The executives were keen on “James And The Cold Gun” as the best way to launch their new prodigy. Kate Bush, though, had other ideas.
“I felt that to actually get your name anywhere, you’ve got to do something that is unusual,” she told Melody Maker’s Harry Doherty, “because there’s so much good music around and it’s all in a similar vein.” “Wuthering Heights”, by most measures, was not much like the other good music around in 1978. It was a world away from punk, though its antic, non-conformist spirit would gain the admiration of prime iconoclasts like John Lydon. It made sense to both prog and pop fans, but occupied a hitherto unexplored interzone somewhere between the two extremes. The effect was remarkable and, it seemed, not a little unhinged. Even in the volatile charts of the 1970s, success felt like a long shot.
And yet, of course, “Wuthering Heights” went to Number One, and Kate Bush immediately disproved those who believed that its ravishing eccentricities were the hallmarks of a one-hit wonder. Over 40 years, Bush’s music has become a cornerstone of the British canon: idiosyncratic, potent, proudly beyond fashion or expectation.
We celebrate these 40 years in a deluxe, updated version of our Ultimate Music Guide to Kate Bush, out in the UK on Thursday (but available now in our online shop). It’s the usual deal: forensic and revealing essays on every one of her albums contributed by Uncut’s finest writers, alongside a host of interviews we’ve taken from the archives of NME and Melody Maker. They show an artist who slowly gains the confidence to assert herself and – very slowly – gains the respect of the press. But also one whose idiosyncratic vision, and whose determination to bring that vision to fruition, has been there right from the start.
In the autumn of 1980, a rather excited Melody Maker journalist found himself in a Munich TV studio, watching Bush perform “Babushka” while she danced enthusiastically with a double bass. Like many male writers drawn into the presence of Bush at that time, there’s a certain vigour to his descriptions which doesn’t come across awfully well.
Nevertheless, once the show was over, the interview with Bush is fascinating. She talks about wanting to tour again, about the books and films that have influenced her, about the permeable lines between confession and fiction. “I rarely write purely personal songs from experience,” she says. “I worry about being too indulgent and giving too much away.” A little later, she is discussing the specifics of “Army Dreamers”, sung from the perspective of a mother mourning a son killed in action. “I seem to link on to mothers rather well,” she admits. “I find it fascinating about mothers, that there’s something in there, a kind of maternal passion which is there all the time, even when they’re talking about cheese sandwiches. Sometimes it can be very possessive, sometimes it’s very real.”
Even at her most elliptical, there is a clarity and consistency to Kate Bush which, looking back, seems a lot more obvious now than it might have done at the time. Latterly, for instance, the maternal fortitude implied in 1980 has become an explicit part of the most recent phase of her career, culminating in Before The Dawn – a theatrical spectacular inspired by her son Bertie McIntosh, and a showcase of his talents as a “very talented actor and beautiful singer,” as his mother wrote in her programme notes.
This, then, is the story of Kate Bush, a genius on her own remarkable trajectory. “There are always so many voices telling me what to do that you can’t listen to them,” she told another Melody Maker journalist in 1985. “All I ever do is listen to the little voices inside me. I don’t want to disappoint the little voices that have been so good to me…”
Johnny Marr and Maxine Peake have collaborated on a new project, which sets Peake’s spoken word performances to Marr’s instrumental soundscapes. The first taster of the project comes with the lead track "The Priest", which is out now.
"The Priest" is based upon the characters that Joe Gallagher...
Johnny Marr and Maxine Peake have collaborated on a new project, which sets Peake’s spoken word performances to Marr’s instrumental soundscapes. The first taster of the project comes with the lead track “The Priest“, which is out now.
“The Priest” is based upon the characters that Joe Gallagher met on the streets in the first few days after becoming homeless in Edinburgh. Gallagher wrote a diary of his experiences for the Big Issue under the pseudonym James Campbell when he first became homeless in May 2015 and continued until he found a new home in March 2016.
“I wanted to do something different and I thought of asking Maxine to collaborate having been a fan of her work,” says Marr. “We started a creative process that clicked and culminated in ‘The Priest’, a song and short film inspired by a facet of modern life as we see it and feel it.”
The accompanying short film for the track was filmed in Manchester and features Molly Windsor, who recently alongside Peake in the BBC drama Three Girls.
Johnny Marr is due to release his third solo album in spring 2018.
Some live albums document a tour. Others are souvenirs of a single, magnetic performance. And then there are others, like a Tim Buckley album issued in 1994 by the LA-based Manifesto label, that seem to chronicle not so much an event as an essence. Connecting us to the voice and vision of a long-...
Some live albums document a tour. Others are souvenirs of a single, magnetic performance. And then there are others, like a Tim Buckley album issued in 1994 by the LA-based Manifesto label, that seem to chronicle not so much an event as an essence. Connecting us to the voice and vision of a long-departed cult hero, Live At The Troubadour 1969 shone a light on two September evenings when Buckley forged new directions in folk-jazz at a West Hollywood nightclub. Receiving some good reviews, the album joined two prior live releases, Peel Sessions and Dream Letter: Live In London 1968, in his posthumous catalogue.
Buckley would have turned 70 this year, a poignant anniversary that evidently prompted Manifesto – run by Evan Cohen, a nephew of Buckley’s former manager Herb – to have another rummage in its archives. Venice Mating Call and Greetings From West Hollywood have been assembled from the same shows as Live At The Troubadour, drawing on five sets that Buckley performed over two nights (four before an audience, one a rehearsal) and repeating none of the versions that made up the 1994 album. Between them, Venice Mating Call and Greetings From West Hollywood add about two hours and 45 minutes of unreleased material to what’s out there.
Buckley, just 22 when these gigs took place, was about to make his fourth and final album for Jac Holzman’s Elektra label. Launched as a folk-rocker in 1966, he now viewed himself primarily as a jazz singer, which may be one reason why these albums often occupy a similar meditative headspace to Astral Weeks; rather than racing to the point, Buckley turns single words and individual syllables into lingering, probing ecstasies. Indeed, he’s transported within seconds of strumming his first chord on “Buzzin’ Fly”, the opening song on both albums, and immediately can be heard humming to himself, squealing, yelping, moaning sensually and – on Venice Mating Call – happily whistling.
The albums take somewhat different routes, offering alternative views of roughly the same setlist, before they really start to cook around track five or six. Venice Mating Call, a two-disc set, achieves take-off on “Gypsy Woman”, from Buckley’s then-current album Happy Sad. Lee Underwood, his lead guitarist, switches to electric piano and a groove starts up. Rolling and pulsing like Bitches Brew, it withdraws into a long percussion-only section, whereupon another groove gets going and Underwood returns to his guitar. Throughout all the changes, a delirious Buckley seems hellbent on locating every note in his four-octave range in whichever order he sees fit. It’s an astounding feat of singing. Really, the producers of The Voice should send an MP3 of “Gypsy Woman” to every applicant and tell them to try again in 10 years.
A similar epiphany, meanwhile, occurs in “Nobody Walkin’” on Greetings From West Hollywood. After a discouraging start (“Sounds horrible,” Buckley mutters), it soon livens up (“Yeah! All night long!”) and – again – Buckley rhapsodises and free-associates while his band play a Bitches Brew electric piano groove for a head-nodding 12 minutes. This is some pretty advanced stuff for the Troubadour crowd. Miles Davis had recorded Bitches Brew in New York only a fortnight earlier, and nobody outside Columbia Records would hear any of it until the following March.
Not every song on these sets will send people scurrying to check the recording dates of groundbreaking jazz-rock records. A lot of Buckley’s music is easy to lie back and luxuriate in. No Mingus or Dolphy expertise is needed to appreciate the sweet, swoony words and serene tempo of “Blue Melody”, for instance. But it’s telling that, with Happy Sad not even two months old, Buckley was already previewing the next album he would make (Lorca) and the one after that (Blue Afternoon), while pointedly ignoring the one that had won him his plaudits in the first place (Goodbye And Hello).
Spread across the second disc of Venice Mating Call are the five songs from Lorca – a formidable, fanbase-polarising step into the unknown that even the avowedly pro-artist Holzman found hard to swallow. Its title track, not yet saturated in that eerie pipe organ, is performed on a marimba and lacks the scary drama of the studio version.
Other tracks, however, are fully formed. Literally so in the case of “Driftin’”, which, give or take a bit of EQing, is revealed to be the same eight minutes of music that appears on Lorca’s second side. It gets a great reception, too. How ironic to hear Buckley’s fans in 1969 warmly applauding an album that would alienate so many of them when it came out in 1970.
Attractively presented and well recorded, Venice Mating Call and Greetings From West Hollywood will be lapped up by Buckley completists and should appeal to casual fans of Happy Sad and Blue Afternoon. Issuing this music as two separate 1CD and 2CD packages does seem an unnecessarily pedantic way of making it available, though, especially as the sets duplicate two songs (“Blue Melody” and “Chase The Blues Away”) and share identical sleevenotes. Wouldn’t an all-embracing 3CD release have been a more sensible idea? But then, if everything in the world made sense, Tim Buckley would still be alive.
