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This month in Uncut

Tom Pinnock
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This month in Uncut
The 101 Weirdest Albums, Ryan Adams, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Grandaddy all feature in the issue of Uncut, dated March 2017, and out now. Uncut's list of the 101 Weirdest Albums Of All Time is on the cover, and inside we uncover the strangest albums ever created, from Lucifer, The Shaggs and M...

The 101 Weirdest Albums, Ryan Adams, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Grandaddy all feature in the issue of Uncut, dated March 2017, and out now.

Uncut‘s list of the 101 Weirdest Albums Of All Time is on the cover, and inside we uncover the strangest albums ever created, from Lucifer, The Shaggs and Magma to Sonic Youth, Pink Floyd and The Beatles.

“Chaos is the operative word,” writes Rob Mitchum of our Number One spot, “as the rapid-fire songs follow dream logic and pull ears in opposing directions: whimsical and depraved, polished and crude, lush and abrasive, hard rock and showtunes…”

Elsewhere in the issue, Ryan Adams reflects on the latest chapter of his extraordinary career, and his new album, Prisoner. ““I should’ve been having a really horrible time,” he tells Uncut of this most unusual divorce album, “but instead I was having the best time!”

In one of his last ever interviews, the late Greg Lake, along with Carl Palmer and manager Stewart Young tells Uncut the full story of Emerson Lake & Palmer‘s “Fanfare For The Common Man”, from jamming around one microphone in Switzerland to touring – and then having to dismiss – an entire orchestra.

Grandaddy mainman Jason Lytle also takes us through his finest recorded works, explaining how he wrote and recorded albums such as The Sophtware Slump, Under The Western Freeway, Sumday and the band’s new record, Last Place. “I wanted to avoid being the manager of a McDonald’s more than anything else,” he says.

Four decades after the “Spiral Scratch” EP, the Buzzcocks recall their punk-rock revolution, while John Waters looks back on an eventful life: “I guess I’m the Bob Hope of punk,” he says. “I always felt more comfortable in the punk world even than in the gay world – the punk world was always downright gay, anyway.”

Uncut also heads up to the wilds of Northumberland to hear all about Michael Chapman‘s 50 years as a professional musician. The restless maverick’s story takes in everything from a rock’n’roll band dressed as teddy bears to the Black Panthers, with walk-on parts for Mick Ronson, John Martyn, Nick Drake and ELP. “I have,” he admits, “a very low boredom threshold…”

Also in the issue, Uncut pays tribute to Status Quo‘s Rick Parfitt, alongside George Michael, Greg Lake and The Beatles’ first manager Allan Williams, while St Paul & The Broken Bones reveal their music that has shaped their lives.

Our mammoth reviews section looks at new albums from Tinariwen, Dirty Projectors, Strand Of Oaks, Son Volt and Rhiannon Giddens, and archive releases from the likes of Lift To Experience, Cream and New Order, while we also check out DVDs and films on Ray Davies and Arcade Fire, and the latest books. In our live section, we check out Paul Weller and Robert Wyatt, out of retirement for a benefit show.

This issue’s free CD, Tune In!, includes great new tracks from Six Organs Of Admittance, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Duke Garwood, Tim Darcy, The Necks, Strand Of Oaks, Tinariwen and Jens Lekman.

The new Uncut is out now.

Revealed! Uncut’s 101 Weirdest Records

John Mulvey
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Revealed! Uncut’s 101 Weirdest Records
The new issue of Uncut is out this Thursday, and features our capricious but hopefully mind-expanding list of 101 truly weird records. You’ll easily spot the cover – it’s the psychedelic rendering of Captain Beefheart, very much the patron saint of this sort of thing. What, though, was the fi...

The new issue of Uncut is out this Thursday, and features our capricious but hopefully mind-expanding list of 101 truly weird records. You’ll easily spot the cover – it’s the psychedelic rendering of Captain Beefheart, very much the patron saint of this sort of thing.

What, though, was the first weird record you owned? For me, it was probably Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman”, an uncanny avant-garde performance piece that somehow landed at Number Two in the British charts of October 1981, only kept off the top spot by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin’s version of “It’s My Party”. 1981, it transpires, was an unusual year for hit singles, with a proliferation of creepy, sometimes racist novelty records – “Shaddap You Face”, “Japanese Boy”, “The Birdie Song” – stealing at least some of the limelight from the insurgent forces of new romantics and post-punkers. Even in this quixotic climate, though, it may have been a mistake to take “O Superman” to the school disco.

Thirty-six years on, better schooled in the ways of minimalism and the downtown New York firmament, owner of a few Robert Ashley records, Anderson’s hit doesn’t sound nearly as odd to me. When trying to comprehend weirdness, context counts for a lot: how mindbending must Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band have sounded on June 1, 1967, compared with how it sounds today, part of the very fabric of our culture?

In this special issue of Uncut, our writers have dug deep into their collections to come up with a list of 101 albums that sound enduringly weird – that have the capacity to surprise, subvert and freak out in most any context. There is Trout Mask Replica, of course, alongside albums recorded clandestinely inside the Taj Majal, ones by the reincarnation of Pope Adrian, a Chilean with a singing nose, and a wide range of North American frogs, as well as many of Uncut’s more prominent artists at their most unhinged. The Beatles make an appearance, but not with an album that you might automatically think of…

Elsewhere, we have one of Greg Lake’s last interviews (as part of an Emerson, Lake & Palmer feature), chats with Ryan Adams, John Waters (no stranger to weirdness himself, of course), the reconstituted Grandaddy, and the Buzzcocks. There’s an extensive report on Paul Weller, Robert Wyatt and Danny Thompson’s supergroup, and Rhiannon Giddens, Son Volt, Strand Of Oaks, Dirty Projectors, New Order and Cream in the reviews section. On this month’s CD, we have Tinariwen, Lift To Experience (remixed!), The Feelies, Jens Lekman, Six Organs Of Admittance, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and, a proud moment for me, The Necks among the 15 key new tracks.

Finally, and maybe best of all, Tom Pinnock headed north, to within striking distance of Hadrian’s Wall, to visit Michael Chapman at home. The resulting piece includes some of the ripest yarns I’ve heard in a while: I’ll not spoil the John Martyn story here, but there’s a good bit where Chapman retires for three days, then finds himself, implausibly, supporting ELP. “There was nothing bigger,” he tells Tom. “Still didn’t get any fucking money. And every night they’d ask me, ‘Can you play five minutes less?’”

The Beatles’ technology “wizard” Magic Alex dies aged 74

Tom Pinnock
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The Beatles’ technology “wizard” Magic Alex dies aged 74
The Beatles' technology "wizard" Yanni 'John' Alexis Mardas – better known as Magic Alex – has died at the age of 74. Athens-born Mardas was appointed head of the group's Apple Electronics division in 1968, appeared in the Magical Mystery Tour film, and accompanied the band to the Maharishi Ma...

The Beatles‘ technology “wizard” Yanni ‘John’ Alexis Mardas – better known as Magic Alex – has died at the age of 74.

Athens-born Mardas was appointed head of the group’s Apple Electronics division in 1968, appeared in the Magical Mystery Tour film, and accompanied the band to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram at Rishikesh in India.

Originally taken on after John Lennon‘s appreciation of the light machines he’d constructed for The Rolling Stones in 1967, Mardas was later asked to construct a 72-track studio for The Beatles in the basement of the Apple HQ on Savile Row. It was designed but never completed after the group’s new manager Allen Klein shut down much of the Apple Corps venture.

Mardas claimed to have invented items such as an electronic camera, and ‘the composing typewriter’, a voice recognition device.

After Apple Corps, he founded a number of companies that specialised in bulletproof vests, armoured cars and night vision equipment, selling some of these to figures such as King Hussein of Jordan.

Mardas died at home in Athens’ Kolonaki district.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

 

Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie to release “really amazing” duets album

Tom Pinnock
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0
Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie to release “really amazing” duets album
Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie are to release their first album as a duo, reportedly titled Buckingham McVie, in May. The Fleetwood Mac pair have collaborated on all the album's songs, while the recordings feature contributions from their bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. Speaking t...

Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie are to release their first album as a duo, reportedly titled Buckingham McVie, in May.

The Fleetwood Mac pair have collaborated on all the album’s songs, while the recordings feature contributions from their bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.

Speaking to the LA Times, Christine McVie shed light on the creation of the album, saying: “We’ve always written well together, Lindsey and I, and this has just spiralled into something really amazing that we’ve done between us.”

Guitarist Buckingham provided demos of the music, before keyboardist McVie turned them into finished songs. “It was just pieces with no wording,” she explains, “so I put melody and lyrics on some of his material.”

“That was a first,” says Buckingham. “She would write lyrics and maybe paraphrase the melody – and come up with something far better than what I would have done if I’d taken it down the road myself.

“All these years we’ve had this rapport, but we’d never really thought about doing a duet album before.”

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

The Human League – A Very British Synthesizer Group

Stephen Dalton
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The Human League – A Very British Synthesizer Group
Despite a career spanning almost 40 years, The Human League will always be defined by their radiant first decade, a journey from Bowie-endorsed synth-punk outsiders to multi-million-selling electro-pop superstars. This sumptuously repackaged and remastered anthology, spreading 47 tracks across tripl...

Despite a career spanning almost 40 years, The Human League will always be defined by their radiant first decade, a journey from Bowie-endorsed synth-punk outsiders to multi-million-selling electro-pop superstars. This sumptuously repackaged and remastered anthology, spreading 47 tracks across triple CDs or vinyl discs, is inevitably stronger on the early years. But each chapter contains hidden gems and bizarre plot twists that defy the kind of cosy, reductive narrative seen in BBC Four retro-pop documentaries.

Taken in totality, A Very British Synthesizer Group chronicles the remarkable saga of a band who have endured despite their self-confessed limitations as musicians, despite multiple lineup changes, despite breakups and breakdowns and career slumps. They scored worldwide hits, including UK and US Number Ones, but remain firmly rooted in Sheffield. Even today, after selling 20 million albums, there is something of the blunt-talking, emphatically northern, working-class autodidact about Philip Oakey, Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley. This attractive quality has propelled them to sublime peaks of bloody-minded pop genius and extreme nadirs of naffness. Sometimes within the same song.

When computer operators Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh formed Britain’s first all-electronic band in 1977, initially under the achingly apt name The Future, they recruited Oakey as singer more for his striking looks than his vocal abilities. The nascent League forged a vivid post-industrial sound that distilled Kraftwerk and Kubrick, Bowie and Ballard into brilliantly weird dystopian electro-glam singles like “Being Boiled” and “Empire State Human”. They also paid skewed homage to their cult rock heroes with starkly rebooted synth versions of Mick Ronson’s post-glam classic “Only After Dark” and Iggy Pop’s zombie-punk prowler “Nightclubbing”. All are included here.

When internal tensions split the band in 1980, Oakey was left without main songwriters Ware and Marsh. In the face of critical hostility and mounting debts, the singer hastily recruited teenage schoolfriends Sulley and Catherall from the dancefloor of Sheffield’s Crazy Daisy nightclub and a new multi-vocalist incarnation of the Human League was born. Working with techno-savvy producer Martin Rushent, the band finally realised Oakey’s populist electric dreams with their 1981 album Dare, a hit-packed triple-platinum smash and still a beloved high-water mark of British synthpop.

From the scowling, totalitarian hedonism of “The Sound Of The Crowd” to the cat-meowing synths of “Love Action”, the hits of Dare still sound both instantly accessible and gloriously eccentric. Initially opposed as a single release by Oakey, the blockbuster “Don’t You Want Me” is now enshrined as one of Britain’s unofficial national anthems, and one of the most rousingly bitter songs ever to top the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

The League followed Dare with a run of mainstream hits, reaching Number Two with both the silky synthetic Motown of “Mirror Man” and the stern but catchy “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”. Next came an audacious detour to Minneapolis to work with platinum-plated R&B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Famous for their collaborations with Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson and Prince, the duo’s hands-on perfectionist methods created studio tension and uneven music. But while the boxy mid-Atlantic synth-funk of “I Need Your Love” now sound bloodless and dated, the sumptuous love ballad “Human” remains a left-field League classic, earning the band their second US Number One.

The League scored their last Top Ten single to date, the lightweight but agreeably effusive “Tell Me When”, in 1995. Sidelined by Britpop and major-label politics in the late 1990s, the band have spent most of the last 20 years as an indie act, chiefly surviving as live performers. Even so, their most recent album Credo, released in 2011, was a partial return to their Yorkshire futurist roots. Produced by Sheffield retro-synth fetishists I, Monster, disco-tronic tracks like “Night People” and “Sky” marry vintage analogue noises with contemporary electro signifiers. Brash but fun.

The deluxe boxset of A Very British Synthesizer Group comes with a hardcover book, photos, memorabilia and an extra DVD featuring all the band’s videos and BBC appearances. Oakey’s ever-changing, asymmetrical hairstyles provide much amusement here. But of course, the serious fan-bait in this package lies with the 25 previously unreleased tracks, mostly demos and remixes.

Inevitably, the early electronic material holds the most interest, unadorned analogue sketches that often have more warmth and texture than their official versions. A case in point is a dry run for “The Path Of Least Resistance”, where Oakey’s soulful crooning sounds more grainy and emotive than the deadpan foghorn bellow that later became his signature. “No Time”, a prototype for the 1979 track “The World Before Last”, is a spine-tingling experiment in spoken-word sci-fi storytelling, while an embryonic version of the 1984 single “Louise”, conceived as a “sequel” story for the doomed lovers in “Don’t You Want Me”, also has a relaxed, rueful tenderness lacking in its anodyne studio sister.

Sprawled across 40 years of highs and lows, A Very British Synthesizer Group is inevitably bumpy in quality, but still rich in pleasant surprises, and shot through with the bloody-minded punk genius that defines so much music from the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire. Buried treasures from a national treasure.

Q&A
PHILIP OAKEY
At the start, were The Human League an experimental band or a pop group?
We certainly were at least half an experimental band. We were a bit split because, really, we were a prog band. We loved Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator, but we always liked pop music too. When Martyn Ware told me at school that he liked Slade, it was like slapping me in the face! You didn’t admit you liked chart bands if you liked prog. But we did like pop. At the same time as hoping we would be like Can or Neu!, we also sneakily wanted to have hits.

You rarely repeated yourself musically. Was that deliberate?
We had a policy that as soon as we’d done Dare, we wanted to do something different. Right from the start, we used The Beatles as a model, and The Beatles never came out with a single where you went: ‘oh yeah, they’ve done Hey Jude again’. We wanted every single to not look like we were trying to emulate the last big hit.

You still live in Sheffield. Did you never consider moving to London?
No. We weren’t really tempted by London. We weren’t particularly impressed with what a lot of people think is enjoyment there. They think you can only be happy in a place where Kate Moss turns up or something. We didn’t ever really believe that. We almost thought it was a bit shallow to want to be in that gang.

Do you still consider yourself a punk? A futurist? A pop star?
More than anything, I considered myself a democrat until recently. But I’ve been a bit shaken by the Brexit stuff. I’m a TV news fiend, but I’ve more or less stopped watching now because we seem to be in some strange Pol Pot era where people want to do punk voting.
INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DALTON

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Ty Segall: “My new album is a refresher moment – there’s no spin”

Tom Pinnock
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Ty Segall: “My new album is a refresher moment – there’s no spin”
Ty Segall discusses his new, self-titled album in the current issue of Uncut (dated February 2017), describing it as a "refresher moment". The Californian guitarist, singer and drummer also takes us through his finest albums to date, including 2010's Melted, 2012's Twins and 2014's Manipulator. "I...

Ty Segall discusses his new, self-titled album in the current issue of Uncut (dated February 2017), describing it as a “refresher moment”.

The Californian guitarist, singer and drummer also takes us through his finest albums to date, including 2010’s Melted, 2012’s Twins and 2014’s Manipulator.

“It felt good to do another self-titled album as a refresher moment,” Segall explains, “especially after [2016’s] Emotional Mugger. This record doesn’t have a spin – Mugger was a super-sketchy concept record thing, Manipulator was like ‘I wanna do the cleanest, shiniest glam rock record’… They all have a thing, and the thing for this record was that I recorded it live with a band.

“There’s a couple of overdubs, but that’s a band playing. It’s the same idea as [2012’s Ty Segall Band album] Slaughterhouse, but with my songs. Emmett Kelly’s on guitar, we got [Mikal] Cronin on bass, Charles is on the drums now, and my friend Ben Boye is playing piano and Wurlitzer, and I’m on guitar and singing. That’s gonna be the band for the indefinite future, as well.

“As for the jam on [epic album track] ‘Warm Hands’, I love the Grateful Dead. I know a lot of people don’t like them, but everyone in the band now is a heavy Deadhead.”

Ty Segall is released by Drag City on January 27.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

 

Roger Waters previews new album with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich

Michael Bonner
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Roger Waters previews new album with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich
Roger Waters has treated fans a look inside the recording of his upcoming album. Waters has posted a video of himself playing guitar in the studio with producer Nigel Godrich, as well as a photo of the pair together. See below. https://www.instagram.com/p/BPI50TfA1SX/ https://www.instagram.com/p/...

Roger Waters has treated fans a look inside the recording of his upcoming album.

Waters has posted a video of himself playing guitar in the studio with producer Nigel Godrich, as well as a photo of the pair together. See below.

View this post on Instagram

back to work! ? @deadskinboy

A post shared by Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) on

View this post on Instagram

yeah! ?@deadskinboy

A post shared by Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) on

Waters last rock album was 1992’s Amused To Death, though in 2005 he released Ça Ira, a three-act opera.

The album is due in May, ahead of a new tour, Us + Them, which is scheduled to begin on May 26 in St. Louis and wrap up October 28 in Vancouver, covering more than 40 dates in 36 cities.

“We are going to take a new show on the road, the content is very secret,” said Waters. “It’ll be a mixture of stuff from my long career, stuff from my years with Pink Floyd, some new things. Probably 75% of it will be old material and 25% will be new, but it will be all connected by a general theme. It will be a cool show, I promise you. It’ll be spectacular like all my shows have been.”

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Hear David Crosby’s new protest song, “Capitol”

Michael Bonner
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Hear David Crosby’s new protest song, “Capitol”
David Crosby has posted a new song, "Capitol". Crosby confirmed on Twitter he was working on "a new song about our shameful US. Congress" on January 10. https://twitter.com/thedavidcrosby/status/819024879844372480 The song was mixed on January 11 and uploaded onto Soundcloud earlier today (Januar...

David Crosby has posted a new song, “Capitol“.

Crosby confirmed on Twitter he was working on “a new song about our shameful US. Congress” on January 10.

The song was mixed on January 11 and uploaded onto Soundcloud earlier today (January 13).

As promised, the song addresses corruption within the American Congress:

“They’ll ignore the Constitution and hide behind the scenes
Anything to stay a part of the machine
And you think to yourself, this is where it happens
They run the whole damn thing from here”

https://soundcloud.com/jamesjraymond/david-crosby-capitol

The musicians on the song are:

David Crosby – vocals
Andrew Ford – bass
Steve Tavaglione – soprano saxophone/EWI
Greg Leisz – pedal steel guitar
James Raymond – piano/synths/drum programming
Steve Postell – acoustic guitar
Dean Parks – electric guitar
Steve DiStanislao – drums

Produced by James Raymond
Recorded by Dan Garcia and James Raymond
Mixed by Dan Garcia

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

The Second Uncut Playlist Of 2017

John Mulvey
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The Second Uncut Playlist Of 2017
Very happy, this week, to be able to include part of William Basinski’s gorgeous elegy for David Bowie, which serendipitously dropped last weekend amidst all the more headline-grabbing anniversary tributes. Also here: something new from Alasdair Roberts (always a pleasure); that amazing Elliott S...

Very happy, this week, to be able to include part of William Basinski’s gorgeous elegy for David Bowie, which serendipitously dropped last weekend amidst all the more headline-grabbing anniversary tributes.

Also here: something new from Alasdair Roberts (always a pleasure); that amazing Elliott Smith find again; the latest Awesome Tapes discovery; Rhiannon Giddens; the increasingly rewarding “Hired Hands” comp; and an interesting project from Randy Adams, where he spent one day a month, for a year, improvising on his guitar, and his now posted the epic results on Bandcamp. He bills it as “a reaction to the current ‘American Primitive’ guitar scene embodied by such artists as Glenn Jones, Daniel Bachman and Jack Rose.” Pushed for a reference point, James Blackshaw might not be a bad one: have a listen, anyway.

Follow me on Twitter @JohnRMulvey

1 William Basinski – A Shadow In Time (Temporary Residence)

2 Rhiannon Giddens – Freedom Highway (Nonesuch)

3 Various Artists – The Hired Hands: A Tribute To Bruce Langhorne (Scissor Tail/Bandcamp)

4 Awa Poulo – Poulo Warali (Awesome Tapes From Africa)

5 Elliott Smith – I Figured You Out (Kill Rock Stars)

6 Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Navigator (ATO)

7 Matt Jencik – Weird Times (Hands In The Dark)

8 Philip Lewin – Am I Really Here All Alone? (Tompkins Square)

9 Jesus And Mary Chain – Damage And Joy (Warner Bros)

10 Duke Garwood – Garden Of Ashes (Heavenly)

11 Alasdair Roberts – Pangs (Drag City)

12 The Shins – Heartworms (Aural Apothecary/Columbia)

13 Sheer Mag – Compilation LP (Static Shock)

14 Randy Adams – Invoking The Muse (Bandcamp)

15 Brokeback – Illinois River Valley Blues (Thrill Jockey)

Grateful Dead exclusive! Hear an unreleased live version of “Cream Puff War”

Michael Bonner
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Grateful Dead exclusive! Hear an unreleased live version of “Cream Puff War”
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Grateful Dead's debut album, the band will launch a special album reissue series in January that will include two-disc deluxe editions and limited edition vinyl picture disc versions of all the group’s studio and live albums. Proceedings kick off on Januar...

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Grateful Dead‘s debut album, the band will launch a special album reissue series in January that will include two-disc deluxe editions and limited edition vinyl picture disc versions of all the group’s studio and live albums.

Proceedings kick off on January 20 with the release of a deluxe edition of their self-titled debut. To coincide with this momentous event, we’re delighted to carry exclusive track premiere from the album’s second disc of additional material.

It’s a live version of “Cream Puff War“, recorded during the Vancouver Trips Festival at P.N.E. Garden Auditorium on July 29, 1966.

Disc One: Original Album, Newly Remastered
“The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)”
“Beat It On Down The Line”
“Good Morning Little School Girl”
“Cold Rain & Snow”
“Sitting On Top Of The World”
“Cream Puff War”
“Morning Dew”
“New, New Minglewood Blues”
“Viola Lee Blues”

Disc Two: P.N.E. Garden Auditorium, Vancouver, BC, Canada July 29, 1966
“Standing On The Corner”
“I Know You Rider”
“Next Time You See Me”
“Sitting On Top of The World”
“You Don’t Have To Ask”
“Big Boss Man”
“Stealin’”
“Cardboard Cowboy”
“Baby Blue”
“Cream Puff War”
“Viola Lee Blues”
“Beat It On Down The Line”
“Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”
July 30, 1966
“Cold, Rain and Snow”
“One Kind Favor”
“Hey Little One”
“New, New Minglewood Blues”

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Manchester By The Sea

Michael Bonner
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Manchester By The Sea
Casey Affleck has made a long career playing pinched, taciturn characters; men brought down by abject disappointments, humiliations and indignities. There is Jesse James’ assassin, Robert Ford, murderous sheriff Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me, the wronged outlaw in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. In...

Casey Affleck has made a long career playing pinched, taciturn characters; men brought down by abject disappointments, humiliations and indignities. There is Jesse James’ assassin, Robert Ford, murderous sheriff Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me, the wronged outlaw in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. In Manchester By The Sea – the latest film from Kenneth Lonergan – we get a chance to see just how he got from there to here.

Lonergan’s film finds Affleck’s Lee Chandler working as a janitor in Boston when he learns his elder brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has suffered a heart attack. Returning to his hometown of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, he finds his brother has died and he is legal guardian of his teenage nephew, Patrick (Ben O’Brien). Lee has a past in Manchester – “a horrible mistake”, which casts a long shadow. He wrestles with his dysfunctional family in the past and struggles to find the best way to raise Patrick in the present.

Cutting back and forth between the two timelines, Lonergan reveals the close sibling ties between Lee and Joe. We see Lee in more carefree days; and understand, perhaps, that the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood and not well suited to some men. There is a strong performance from Michelle Williams – which takes place largely in flashback – as Lee’s fiery wife.

Intriguingly, Matt Damon was originally committed to play Lee and also direct Lonegran’s screenplay. Damon would have brought different beats to the role – but Affleck offers a strong, committed performance. Lonergan’s film has the same qualities as an early Springsteen song – a narrative filled with a haunting, pervasive sadness, filled with guilt and loss.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

In praise of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry

Michael Bonner
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In praise of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry
"I have no feeling of time," Alejandro Jodorowsky told me in 2015. "I have been living in Paris almost 100 lives. To me, there are a lot of Alejandro Jodorowskys who died. And then I am reborn. Everything is changing. You, me, the universe. Everything is changing. To be old doesn’t exist. Inside, ...

“I have no feeling of time,” Alejandro Jodorowsky told me in 2015. “I have been living in Paris almost 100 lives. To me, there are a lot of Alejandro Jodorowskys who died. And then I am reborn. Everything is changing. You, me, the universe. Everything is changing. To be old doesn’t exist. Inside, I am the same. In order not to get old, I don’t see myself in the mirror.”

We were talking ahead of the release of The Dance Of Reality – the Chilean director’s first film in 22 years. “It’s about my life,” he told me. On paper, you could broadly describe it as an autobiographical drama about Jodorowsky’s boyhood in the remote Chilean fishing port of Tocopilla during the 1930s, dominated by his tyrannical father. But, this being a Jodoroswky joint, it was dotted with phantasmagorical conceits, including torture, political assassination, a novelty dog show, dentistry without anesthetic and a female lead who sings her dialogue.

The Dance Of Reality – and its follow-up, Endless Poetry – might not have been made were it not for a typical Jodorowsky cosmic unfolding of events. In 2010, he was reunited after 30 years with Michel Seydoux, Jodorowsky’s producer on his famously ill-fated attempt to film Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel, Dune. Seydoux bankrolled The Dance Of Reality but Endless Poetry has been partly crowd-funded. In this film, the adolescent Alejandro and his parents leave Tocopilla for Santiago de Chile, where a cousin initiates him in the city’s artistic commune; sex, art and poetry beckon.

Those who know Jodorowsky principally as the mastermind behind psychedelic Westerns El Topo or The Holy Mountain will perhaps be surprised by the warmth and charm of his two most recent films. Certainly, while Endless Poetry is not without its trademark Jodorowsky surrealism – there are melancholic dwarves, intercessions from the real Jodorowsky and black clad stage hands moving sets around – its weirdness is reined in, favouring instead a sincerity and quite possibly even sentimentality. In one scene, the real Jodorowsky exorts his manqué son: “Life has no meaning! It’s just meant to be lived! Live!”

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Hear Slowdive’s first new song for 22 years, “Star Roving”

Michael Bonner
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Hear Slowdive’s first new song for 22 years, “Star Roving”
Slowdive have released their first new song in over two decades, "Star Roving". The single is their first new material since 1995’s Pygmalion. It will be released via Dead Oceans. Singer Neil Halstead says that the song is part of “a bunch of new tracks we’ve been working on and it feels as ...

Slowdive have released their first new song in over two decades, “Star Roving“.

The single is their first new material since 1995’s Pygmalion. It will be released via Dead Oceans.

Singer Neil Halstead says that the song is part of “a bunch of new tracks we’ve been working on and it feels as fun, and as relevant playing together now as it did when we first started.”

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Lloyd Cole announces 1988 – 1996 box set

Michael Bonner
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Lloyd Cole announces 1988 – 1996 box set
Lloyd Cole has announced details of a new box set, Lloyd Cole In New York - Collected Recordings 1988-1996. The set arrives on March 17 through Polydor/UMC and features all four solo albums Cole released on the Polydor and Fontana labels between 1988 and 1996 (Lloyd Cole, Don’t Get Weird On Me Ba...

Lloyd Cole has announced details of a new box set, Lloyd Cole In New York – Collected Recordings 1988-1996.

The set arrives on March 17 through Polydor/UMC and features all four solo albums Cole released on the Polydor and Fontana labels between 1988 and 1996 (Lloyd Cole, Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe, Bad Vibes and Love Story) plus Smile If You Want To, the ‘unreleased’ fifth album, and Demos ‘89-‘94, 20 recordings from home and studio made public for this release.

The box also includes a hardback book featuring new interviews with Cole and musicians, producers and collaborators and a rare selection of photos from the period plus a poster and postcards.

You can pre-order the set by clicking here.

Cole has also announced tour dates for March/April:

MARCH
20 WORTHING St Paul’s
21 EXETER Phoenix
23 LEAMINGTON SPA The Assembly
26 LOWESTOFT The Aquarium
27 SHEFFIELD City Hall Ballroom
29 WAKEFIELD Unity Works
30 SOUTHPORT The Atkinson
31 SALE Waterside

APRIL
1 POCKLINGTON Arts Centre
3 PRESTON Guild Hall
4 BURY The Met
6 INVERNESS Eden Court
7 ABERDEEN The Lemon Tree
8 DUNDEE The Gardyne Theatre
9 GREENOCK The Albany
11 GLASGOW Oran Mor
12 GLASGOW Oran Mor

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Bruce Springsteen’s archive is headed to Monmouth University

Michael Bonner
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Bruce Springsteen’s archive is headed to Monmouth University
Bruce Springsteen's personal archive - a collection of writings, photographs and artefacts cumulated from throughout his life - is to be stored at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. The New York Times reports that the university will establish the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Ce...

Bruce Springsteen‘s personal archive – a collection of writings, photographs and artefacts cumulated from throughout his life – is to be stored at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

The New York Times reports that the university will establish the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music, which would promote the legacy of Springsteen and other artists including Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson.

“The establishment of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music celebrates and reinforces the Jersey Shore’s legacy in the history of American music, while providing a truly transformative experience for our students,” Paul R. Brown, the university’s president, said in a statement.

Monmouth is already the home of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection — around 35,000 items compiled in part by fans.

Last year, Bob Dylan’s archives were acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation for a group of institutions in Oklahoma, including the University of Tulsa, for an estimated $15m – $20m (£10m – £14m).

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Ask John Mayall

Michael Bonner
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Ask John Mayall
With a new studio album, Talk About That, and a European tour due coming up, John Mayall will be answering your questions as part of our regular An Audience With… feature. So is there anything you’d like us to ask the legendary guitarist? Eric Clapton lived with John for a while. What was he l...

With a new studio album, Talk About That, and a European tour due coming up, John Mayall will be answering your questions as part of our regular An Audience With… feature.

So is there anything you’d like us to ask the legendary guitarist?

Eric Clapton lived with John for a while. What was he like as a housemate?
What does he remember of his stint in the army?
What makes a good guitar player?

Send up your questions by noon, Friday, January 20 to uncutaudiencewith@timeinc.com.

The best questions, and John’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine.

Talk About That is released on January 27 through Forty Below Records; you can find John’s upcoming tour dates by clicking here

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

La La Land

Michael Bonner
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La La Land
There’s a scene in Damien Chazelle’s razzle-dazzle musical La La Land where Mia, an aspiring actress, reads her one-woman play to her boyfriend Sebastian a jazz pianist. “It feels really nostalgic to me,” she says. “Are people going to like it?” Flippantly, he replies, “Fuck ‘em.” ...

There’s a scene in Damien Chazelle’s razzle-dazzle musical La La Land where Mia, an aspiring actress, reads her one-woman play to her boyfriend Sebastian a jazz pianist. “It feels really nostalgic to me,” she says. “Are people going to like it?” Flippantly, he replies, “Fuck ‘em.”

As with much of Chazelle’s handsome genre renovation, this is a knowing exchange. La La Land is a blissful love-letter to a golden age of Hollywood movies, full of big emotions and unselfconsciously joyous romantic ideals. Characters burst into song during big old dance numbers that wouldn’t look out of place in an RKO musical. There are mobile phones and drum machines – but although no one quite swings off a lamppost in the rain, to all intents and purposes, this is 1952. In La La Land, old fleapits are preferable venues for dates – where better to watch a classic movie, after all? – while Sebastian has to choose between pursuing his dream of opening a modest jazz venue (good) versus making a ton of cash with an old pal’s immensely popular fusion band (bad). There is a scene set inside the Griffith Observatory high atop the hills of Los Angeles where Sebastian and Mia kiss, dance and fly.

As his leads, Chazelle casts Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. It is easy to see why this is their third collaboration together: they zing like a Hawks double act. Gosling strikes a good balance between rueful and wise-cracking; Stone brims with wit and intelligence. An early scene, where Mia bumps into Sebastian at a pool party where – humiliatingly – he is making ends meet playing keytar in a tacky Eighties’ covers band, is heroically funny.

Chazelle follows the short, sharp shock of Whiplash with something a little fizzier, but by no means is La La Land throwaway. For all its bounce, Chazelle takes a shrewd and focused view of nostalgia: Sebastian and Mia chat Bringing Up Baby, Casablana, Notorious and Rebel Without A Cause. At one point, Sebastian asks, “Why do you say ‘romantic’ like it’s a dirty word?”

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Buzzcocks announce 40th anniversary reissue of Spiral Scratch EP

Michael Bonner
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Buzzcocks announce 40th anniversary reissue of Spiral Scratch EP
Buzzcocks are reissuing their debut EP, Spiral Scratch, to coincide with its 40th anniversary. They will also reissue Plus Time’s Up, a bootleg of the band’s first-ever studio recording session. They will also both be collected in Buzzcocks (mk.1) Box, which will also include reprinted photogra...

Buzzcocks are reissuing their debut EP, Spiral Scratch, to coincide with its 40th anniversary.

They will also reissue Plus Time’s Up, a bootleg of the band’s first-ever studio recording session. They will also both be collected in Buzzcocks (mk.1) Box, which will also include reprinted photographs, concert flyers, pins, and a reimagined print of Manchester punk fanzine, Shy Talk.

Spiral Scratch will be reissued on January 27 via Domino on 7″ and as a digital download. Time’s Up and the Buzzcocks (mk.1) Box both available from Domino on March 10.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Introducing… Leonard Cohen: The Ultimate Music Guide

John Mulvey
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Introducing… Leonard Cohen: The Ultimate Music Guide
When the news broke of his death, on November 10 last year, we had just begun working on an Ultimate Music Guide to Leonard Cohen (on sale this Thursday, but available now from our online shop), emboldened by the brilliance of “You Want It Darker”. Cohen’s passing should not have been a surpr...

When the news broke of his death, on November 10 last year, we had just begun working on an Ultimate Music Guide to Leonard Cohen (on sale this Thursday, but available now from our online shop), emboldened by the brilliance of “You Want It Darker”.

Cohen’s passing should not have been a surprise, in the great scheme of things. Here, after all, was a man of 82 who had recently suggested to the New Yorker’s editor that he was operating in the proximity of death. There was work to complete, Cohen told David Remnick, but, he said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs… Maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

Cohen’s epical endurance, his talent for standing at a remove from the march of time, nevertheless meant that the announcement of his actual death still came as a kind of shock. For nearly 50 years, this uncommonly gracious man had confounded expectations of what a singer-songwriter might look and sound like, of what he might sing about. There is a clichéd expectation that certain feted musicians will choose a path of self-destruction, and Cohen undoubtedly had moments when he found himself on that trajectory. Writing about Songs Of Love And Hate in a new piece for this Ultimate Music Guide, David Cavanagh portrays, “A brilliant madman on the precipice of disaster… Maybe, if you told him he had 45 more years of life and work ahead of him, it would be no surprise if he buckled and shook until his laughter turned into a scream.”

There would be further traumatic episodes, among them a legendary – if not notably successful – spell in the company of Phil Spector. Mostly, though, the story of Leonard Cohen is one of a great artist ruefully trying to make some sense of the mysteries of life and love; trying to persevere on a quest towards transcendence, with caveats.

It’s this quest that our latest Ultimate Music Guide seeks to understand and illuminate. Within its pages, you’ll find many interviews from the archives of NME, Melody Maker and Uncut, notable for their unusual levels of perception and wit, plus in-depth new reviews of every Leonard Cohen album, book and volume of poetry. What emerges is a complete portrait of a man who started and finished his career as too old for this sort of thing, by most measures, but whose maturity and poetic insight enabled him to loom, benignly, over nearly every single one of his peers. He is, indefinitely, your man.

Kaia Kater – Nine Pin

Michael Bonner
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Kaia Kater – Nine Pin
In cultural terms, Appalachia is often used to signify music from a specific area of the American South, namely the slanted trail through the Virginias, Kentucky and North Carolina. Less well acknowledged is the fact that the Appalachian Mountains extend north into the eastern lip of Canada, an area...

In cultural terms, Appalachia is often used to signify music from a specific area of the American South, namely the slanted trail through the Virginias, Kentucky and North Carolina. Less well acknowledged is the fact that the Appalachian Mountains extend north into the eastern lip of Canada, an area that includes Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec. This geological belt has doubled as a musical one down the years, an exchange route that’s allowed folk ballads and traditional songs to pass back and forth across territorial lines.

The most striking new addition to this rich heritage is 23-year-old Kaia Kater. Born in Quebec to a Canadian mother and Caribbean father, Kater grew up listening to a broad range of styles – American rap, hip-hop, folk, soul – before devoting herself to the study of Appalachian music at college in West Virginia. Roots music runs particularly deep in the family, her fascination with old-time songs partly fostered by her mother’s directorship of Folk Music Canada, a job which has seen her captain the Ottawa and Winnipeg folk festivals.

Kater’s love of idiomatic rural music was neatly displayed on last year’s Sorrow Bound, a debut that blended new and traditional elements into an artfully understated whole. Its promise has now been fulfilled, in emphatic fashion, by Nine Pin, an extraordinary piece of work that posits Kater as a major new voice in folk-roots music. It’s a record that’s near-perfectly weighted between her rich, sorrowful tenor, clawhammer banjo-playing and a judicious use of brass and harmonies. And one made all the more remarkable considering that it was recorded in a single day during a winter break from college.

On one level, Kater belongs to the same lineage as people like Elizabeth Cotten, Alice Gerrard and Jean Ritchie, artists who expanded the province of women in the male-dominated environs of blues, folk and country. But she’s a modernist in the style of Gillian Welch or Rhiannon Giddens too, using traditional forms as infinitely malleable source material from which to shape something vivid and original. Her low gospel tones and fearless approach also align her to Nina Simone, a key influence both creatively and thematically.

This is most evident on the majestic “Rising Down”, a strident commentary on Black Lives Matter and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. “I am meat for the taking, in this town/But in my home, in my home/There are kings and queens and blessings”, Kater sings over a bony banjo line. The discreet swell of a trumpet, courtesy of Caleb Hamilton (a salient presence throughout), serves to underline the message of solidarity: “Your gun, your gun/Is a symbol of my lynching/But I won’t run, I won’t run/I will stand with my people, as one”. In its own quiet way, the song is a powerful corollary to Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”.

Kater is a diarist of the lost and forsaken. “Paradise Fell”, her voice and banjo softly shaded with brass, backing harmonies and the electric guitar of co-producer Chris Bartos, addresses what it means to be a lonely soul in a new city, conceived as a belated companion to John Hartford’s mid-’70s gem, “In Tall Buildings”. The same theme informs “Harlem’s Little Blackbird”, a song made all the more hypnotic by being entirely centred around Kater’s voice and the foot percussion of Katharine Manor. It is also, surely, a tribute of sorts to 1920s Broadway sensation Florence Mills, the black starlet and passionate campaigner for equality, whose signature tune was “I’m A Little Blackbird Looking For A Bluebird”.

The caressive timbre of Kater’s vocals are offset by the sparsity of these arrangements. It’s a persuasively disquieting trade-off that feeds into the subject matter of the songs. She isn’t averse to a romantic ballad, for instance, but they often detail the kind of love that strays into dark and dangerous obsession. The beguiling “Saint Elizabeth”, a gothic tale about a sinful rogue infatuated with an angelic woman, never suggests a happy ending. “Can’t you hear me calling from beneath?” she sings, stalked by the muffled harmony of Joey Landreth. “With blackened frozen feet/White roses all around/And covered on the ground”. Like most everything on Nine Pin, it’s a strangely seductive proposal.

Q&A
KAIA KATER
Why does Appalachian music appeal to you so much?
I’ve been fascinated by narrative stories for a long time, especially ones that deal with violence or apocalyptic notions. The dichotomy of describing ugly or terrifying events with poetic language is amazing to me. There’s a stark, gothic element to a lot of Appalachian ballads that’s truly incredible. I studied Appalachian music and dance in West Virginia for four years, and was consistently fascinated by old baptist songs, or songs about labour and death, or murder ballads. There’s a depth to the music that seems to be so easily and quickly overlooked.

“Rising Down” is a key song here…
It was specifically written to reflect what I felt as a person of colour in America. I wanted to make a statement about Black Lives Matter and the horrors and injustices that black people face every day. Racism is not only a state of mind, but a base system through which America operates. It’s the prison-industry complex, forced ghettoisation, the repealing of the Voting Rights Act, the segregated school systems, the unchecked police brutality.

What were the advantages of recording the album in a single day?
My producer Chris Bartos came up with the idea to get a really tight band together, get a bunch of rehearsals in and do live takes. It was challenging, but I think it forced us to make some very good decisions about the sound we wanted and the aesthetic of the record. We were in and out of that studio in eight hours.
INTERVIEW: ROB HUGHES

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

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