James Murphy has revealed more about his New York 'Subway Symphony'.
The LCD Soundsystem creator is planning to fit out all the New York subway system turnstiles "to make music", with each station featuring a unique sound.
Murphy is planning to have the first of his turnstiles installed by the en...
James Murphy has revealed more about his New York ‘Subway Symphony’.
The LCD Soundsystem creator is planning to fit out all the New York subway system turnstiles “to make music”, with each station featuring a unique sound.
Murphy is planning to have the first of his turnstiles installed by the end of the summer this year. Watch a video announcing the project below.
In a press release, Murphy said: “New York City is a beautiful, one-of-a-kind place, and the people who are willing to do what it takes to live here – deal with the crowds and the commotion and the noise – deserve a little sonic gift like this. I want to turn the cacophony of the subway into unique pieces of music. It might seem like a small thing, but that’s exactly the point. This is such an easy way to make this great place I call home even greater.”
However, there is still some doubt whether the project will go ahead, with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority telling the Gothamist: “We have heard from him, and as we’ve told him many times, we cannot do it… The tones are an ADA element for the visually impaired, and we won’t mess with them – much less take turnstiles out of service and risk disabling them for an art project. (It would be a very cool project, don’t get me wrong, but we can’t mess with turnstiles that handle 6 million customers a day for it.) As a condition of filming in the subway, we made them acknowledge that we can’t and won’t do it.”
Ride have announced a UK tour, set to place in October 2015.
The gigs will celebrate 25 years since the release of their influential debut album, Nowhere.
The album was originally released on October 15, 1990 – 25 years to the day that the reunited shoegazers play Liverpool's O2 Academy – and ...
Ride have announced a UK tour, set to place in October 2015.
The gigs will celebrate 25 years since the release of their influential debut album, Nowhere.
The album was originally released on October 15, 1990 – 25 years to the day that the reunited shoegazers play Liverpool’s O2 Academy – and featured fan favourites such as “Seagull”, “Polar Bear” and “Vapour Trail”.
Ride reunited earlier this year, with their first large gig taking place at California’s Coachella festival.
At the end of May, the group headlined London’s Roundhouse, their first full show in the capital for decades.
The band will play:
Leeds O2 Academy (October 11) London O2 Academy Brixton (14) Liverpool O2 Academy (15) Bristol Anson Rooms (17) Newcastle O2 Academy (18) Edinburgh Corn Exchange (19) Nottingham Rock City (21) Birmingham Institute (22)
In the four years since My Morning Jacket’s last record, 2011’s excellent Circuital, the Louisville band’s singer, songwriter and spirit-guide Jim James has assumed a more visible, perhaps even vaguely statesmanlike status in the landscape of American music.
In 2013 James released his first s...
In the four years since My Morning Jacket’s last record, 2011’s excellent Circuital, the Louisville band’s singer, songwriter and spirit-guide Jim James has assumed a more visible, perhaps even vaguely statesmanlike status in the landscape of American music.
In 2013 James released his first solo album, Regions Of Light And Sound Of God, to widespread acclaim. Late last year he was one of the select group of musicians – among them Elvis Costello and Rhiannon Giddens – handpicked by T-Bone Burnett to bring the ‘new’ Basement Tapes project, Lost On The River, to fruition. James has, in effect, undergone a promotion up the ranks, from Championship contender to mid-table Premiership mainstay.
Such shifts in the internal dynamic of a band can often prove troublesome, but My Morning Jacket’s seventh studio album betrays no tell-tale signs of disharmony. The exact opposite, in fact. Recorded at Stinson Beach, a remote idyll an hour north of San Francisco, The Waterfall turns easily like the seasons: from light to dark, soft to heavy, from heady psych and heavy prog to 80s MTV-rock, fluting country, steamy R&B and soul. Through it all runs an ingrained psychedelic streak which is organic rather than synthetic, James and Co tripping out on the glory of a sunset, a beach at dawn, a mile-high mountain view.
The sense of California seeping through the pores and into the bones of this music is at its strongest on “Like A River”. With its skipping acoustic guitar figure, skittish rhythm and cascading harmonies redolent of The Byrds’ “Renaissance Fair”, it mainlines its vibe direct from Monterey. On “Spring (Among The Living)”, James emerges, as though reborn, from a hard winter – “Didn’t think I’d make it” – with a driving slab of pastoral psych rock. Harnessing a weighty but soulful groove, after six minutes it climaxes in the kind of high-stakes vocal sparring which wouldn’t sound out of place on Let It Bleed.
The Waterfall is, then, perfectly attuned to its immediate surroundings, but it also seeks to channel a more all-encompassing spirit. Long beholden to TM and the mysteries of the Universe with a capital U, James tells Uncut that the album was propelled by the feeling that, cosmically, “one chapter has ended, the page has been turned to start the next one, but nothing has been written down yet”. This is the message of surging opener “Believe (Nobody Knows)”, the words revelling in the promise of the coming flux, the music falling somewhere between the rush of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” and the cheap but potent thrill of Journey’s “Any Way You Want It”.
Several other songs draw unironically on classic rock motifs of the 70s and 80s. “Big Decisions” is an almost perfect retro-rock confection, with its crunching power-pop riff and huge, radio-friendly chorus. Perhaps honouring the fact that Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was recorded down the road in Sausalito, “In Its Infancy” bounces between sleek, sunshine-y pop and more rhythmically complex blues-rock, as though it were a cut-and-shut experiment in welding together “Dreams” and “The Chain”. “Compound Fracture” and “Thin Line” are embedded in plush R&B, nodding to Hall & Oates, the Isley Brothers and Bowie’s Young Americans. Lounging on a warm sound bed of analogue synths and fuzzy guitars, James’s ever-adaptable voice slinks around appealingly in falsetto.
It’s not all cosmic, slightly woolly theorizing. The album’s two most straightforward, unabashed musical moments are also the most lyrically direct, and reserved for affairs of the heart. “Get The Point” is a beautifully unaffected back-porch twinkle. Over supple finger picking, slide guitar and pattering drums, James’s intimate vocal bids a warm but firm farewell to a lover. The sentiment finds a bookend in the closing “Only Memories Remain”, another goodbye song in which “the names and places have all been changed, but the identity remains the same.” A sparse, soulful slow-burn, James channels Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” over the lush, unhurried groove, clipped guitar lines and bittersweet strings.
Like the nine tracks which precede it, the song’s component parts are both reassuringly familiar yet never less than distinctive. It may be entirely fanciful to suggest that The Waterfall soundtracks the shift from one great cultural age to the next, but it does possess a beguiling Janus-like quality, at once looking to the past and gazing into the future with open-hearted warmth and curiosity.
Q&A JIM JAMES You could easily have called the album From Stinson Beach…
We try to switch it up every time we make a record. Do it somewhere different, and get the vibe of the place into the record. Stinson Beach was like living on another planet. I felt like it was on the moon. Everything is so grand, you feel like you’re jutting out into space. There are giant redwood trees, you’re right next to the ocean, you can climb up to the top of a mountain and watch the sunset on the beach. Every day we were really impacted by the power of the air, it felt special to us. We spent two months there – living, playing and recording. There was no rush, no pressure to complete it. It was real free and fun.
Style-wise, this record is more eclectic than ever.
Music is freedom. It’s there for every occasion, and the idea of limiting your musical experience is, to me, absurd. You’re always growing and learning, and hopefully you don’t repeat the same mistakes – at least make different mistakes, and make them with good intentions. At the end of day for us, we’re having so much fun doing it, I really don’t care what other people’s opinions are. Who fucking cares?
Your personal profile is higher than ever. Does that impact on the band?
We have a pretty free and open environment where we’re encouraged to do whatever we want to do while the band isn’t working. It enables everyone to explore stuff and get their ya-yas out, and when we come back together it’s always a warm feeling of comfort and togetherness and home. We really value the freedom that we have. It creates more of a bond.
INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Meanwhile, the July 2015 issue of Uncut is in shops now – featuring the Rolling Stones, 13th Floor Elevators, Jim O’Rourke, Ringo Starr and more!
Pete Townshend's Classic Quadrophenia album has been excluded from the Official UK Classical Chart.
According to a statement, Townshend’s ‘symphonised’ version of The Who’s album has sold enough copies needed to secure the No.1 position in the Classical Charts.
However, the orchestral rec...
Pete Townshend‘s Classic Quadrophenia album has been excluded from the Official UK Classical Chart.
According to a statement, Townshend’s ‘symphonised’ version of The Who’s album has sold enough copies needed to secure the No.1 position in the Classical Charts.
However, the orchestral record has not been accepted into the Classical Chart, due to the fact that the original material is rock music.
The album, which was released on Monday, has reached No. 32 in the UK Official Album Chart.
On discovering his exclusion from the Classical Chart last week, Townshend expressed his disappointment:
“So musical snobbery in the “classical” elite is still alive & kicking then? F**k ’em. There’s a huge team behind this album, entirely rooted in the practical world of recorded classical music, who deserve better than this petty slap-down. I know I’m a rock dinosaur and I’m happy to be one, but the team on Classic Quadrophenia are all young, creative and brilliant.”
Despite the work being disallowed from the UK Classical Chart, Townshend hopes Classic Quadrophenia will go on to become a regular part of the orchestral repertoire and boost attendance at classical concerts:
“A lot of major symphony orchestras are in trouble because their audience is getting old and the younger audiences prefer softer stuff, such as film soundtrack music,” he explains. “I think that Quadrophenia would reinvigorate their audiences and bring in people who might not otherwise go to see a symphony orchestra perform without lights and fireworks and a movie screen.”
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Meanwhile, the July 2015 issue of Uncut is in shops now – featuring the Rolling Stones, 13th Floor Elevators, Jim O’Rourke, Ringo Starr and more!
Van Morrison has released a statement following the news that he has been awarded an knighthood in the Queen's birthday honors.
His knighthood has been granted for "services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland".
In a statement on his website, Morrison wrote, "Throughout my car...
Van Morrison has released a statement following the news that he has been awarded an knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honors.
His knighthood has been granted for “services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland”.
In a statement on his website, Morrison wrote, “Throughout my career I have always preferred to let my music speak for me and it is a huge honour to now have that body of work recognised in this way. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the fans who have supported me on my musical journey.”
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Meanwhile, the July 2015 issue of Uncut is in shops now – featuring the Rolling Stones, 13th Floor Elevators, Jim O’Rourke, Ringo Starr and more!
Sufjan Stevens has premiered a previously unreleased track, "Harsh Noise".
The track was composed for a collaborative music project, One Night Stand, arranged by cellist Gasper Claus. The event took place in Brooklin in 2012, and featured artists including Stevens and The National’s Bryce Dessner...
Sufjan Stevens has premiered a previously unreleased track, “Harsh Noise“.
The track was composed for a collaborative music project, One Night Stand, arranged by cellist Gasper Claus. The event took place in Brooklin in 2012, and featured artists including Stevens and The National’s Bryce Dessner and members of The Men.
“Harsh Noise” will appear on a new double-LP document of the night which will be available June 30 as a limited edition double-LP, called One Night Stand, through Microcultures.
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Meanwhile, the July 2015 issue of Uncut is in shops now – featuring the Rolling Stones, 13th Floor Elevators, Jim O’Rourke, Ringo Starr and more!
Ginger Baker has criticised Led Zeppelin - in particular drummer John Bonham - in a new interview with Forbes.
Asked whether he considered Zeppelin to be a good band who came up in Cream's wake, Baker explained, "Jimmy's [Page] a good player. I don’t think Led Zeppelin filled the void that Cream ...
Ginger Baker has criticised Led Zeppelin – in particular drummer John Bonham – in a new interview with Forbes.
Asked whether he considered Zeppelin to be a good band who came up in Cream’s wake, Baker explained, “Jimmy’s [Page] a good player. I don’t think Led Zeppelin filled the void that Cream left, but they made a lot of money. I probably like about five percent of what they did – a couple of things were really cool. What I don’t like is the heavy bish-bash, jing-bap, jing-bash bullshit.”
Asked for his thoughts on John Bonham, Baker said “Years ago, John said, ‘There are two drummers in rock and roll, Ginger Baker and me’. There’s no way John was anywhere near what I am. He wasn’t a musician. A lot of people don’t realize I studied. I can write music. I used to write big band parts in 1960, ’61. I felt that if I was a drummer, I needed to learn to read drum music. I was so good at side reading, a guy in one of the big bands told me to get two books. I studied them at the same time. One was about the rules of basic harmony, the other how to break them all [laughs].”
Baker also voiced strong criticisms of heavy metal, calling it “incredibly repulsive”.
““I’ve seen where Cream is sort of held responsible for the birth of heavy metal. These people that dress up in spandex trousers with all the extraordinary makeup – I find it incredibly repulsive, always have. I’ve seen where Cream is sort of held responsible for the birth of heavy metal. Well, I would definitely go for aborting [laughs].
“I loathe and detest heavy metal. I think it is an abortion. A lot of these guys come up and say, ‘Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums’. They don’t seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment – and painful. I suffered on stage because of that [high amplifier] volume crap. I didn’t like it then, and like it even less now.”
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Meanwhile, the July 2015 issue of Uncut is in shops now – featuring the Rolling Stones, 13th Floor Elevators, Jim O’Rourke, Ringo Starr and more!
Beck has released a new single, "Dreams", his first new material since 2014's Grammy-winning Morning Phase.
In an interview on Los Angeles radio station Alt.98.7, Beck confirmed the song would appear on his forthcoming album.
Speaking about the album, Beck said, “It started out as a heavy garag...
Beck has released a new single, “Dreams“, his first new material since 2014’s Grammy-winning Morning Phase.
Back in our December 2013 issue (Take 199), the Uncut team took on the emotional task of compiling a Top 50 of the most powerful, confessional singer-songwriter albums. From Tim Hardin 1 to Once I Was An Eagle (in chronological order, that is)... are you ready to be heartbroken?
____________________...
Back in our December 2013 issue (Take 199), the Uncut team took on the emotional task of compiling a Top 50 of the most powerful, confessional singer-songwriter albums. From Tim Hardin 1 to Once I Was An Eagle (in chronological order, that is)… are you ready to be heartbroken?
________________________
1 Tim Hardin Tim Hardin 1 (Verve Forecast, 1966)
Either courageously or compulsively, the gifted but tormented Hardin held up a mirror to his psyche in a series of revealing songs on his first album. “Reason To Believe”, “How Can We Hang On To A Dream?” and “Misty Roses”, addressed to Susan Morss, the muse of many of his best songs, expose Hardin’s startling vulnerability. In “Reason…”, he confronts her, shattered by alleged betrayal (“Knowing that you lied, straight-faced while I cried”) before admitting he still “look[s] to find a reason to believe” in the romantic ideal she’s ruined for him. And lurking behind the near-whispered tenderness of “Misty Roses” is a suffocating possessiveness (“Too soft to touch/But too lovely to leave alone”).
____________________________ 2 Leonard Cohen Songs Of Leonard Cohen (Columbia, 1967)
A key album for any singer-songwriter intent on turning real life experiences into song, Cohen’s debut is scattered with names, places and events explicitly drawn from his first 33 years. “Suzanne” recalls his ritualistic – and platonic – meetings in Montreal with Suzanne Verdal, while the titular woman of “So Long, Marianne” is Marianne Jensen, his lover and muse for much of the ’60s. “Sisters Of Mercy”, which dramatises a night spent with two women in an Edmonton hotel room, is the first of countless Cohen songs seeking spiritual salvation from a sensual encounter. His songs turned inward to much darker effect on Songs Of Love And Hate, but his debut album set the standard.
____________________________ 3 Laura Nyro New York Tendaberry (Columbia, 1969)
Nyro’s previous album, Eli And The Thirteenth Confession, provided rich pickings for other artists looking for hit singles (The 5th Dimension’s “Stoned Soul Picnic”, Three Dog Night’s “Eli’s Coming”) but there weren’t as many takers for this starker, more personal set. A devastating account of emotional turmoil, the album reflects her own experiences in New York. “You Don’t Love Me When I Cry”, “The Man Who Sends Me Home” and “Sweet Lovin’ Baby” are first-person confessionals. In other songs, the New York streets, buildings and people provide a backdrop to her innermost thoughts (“Gibsom Street”, “Mercy On Broadway”, the latter sampling the sound of gunfire).
____________________________ 4 Al Stewart Love Chronicles (CBS, 1969)
Stewart’s second album is often name-checked as the first time the word “fuck” appeared in a pop song, and is also notable for the calibre of its session players (Jimmy Page, Richard Thompson and others from Fairport Convention). The centrepiece, though, is the 18-minute title track, a frequently uncomfortable autobiography in which he catalogues the highs and lows of his romantic endeavours; losing his virginity in a Bournemouth park, encounters with groupies, searching for ’60s permissiveness (“beer cans and parties, debs and arties…”), bouts of self-loathing, and ultimately finding true love in the last three verses. “You Should Have Listened To Al” picks over the bones of another doomed affair, but in a lighter, wittier tone (“she left me the keys and a dozen LPs”).
____________________________ 5 Dory Previn On My Way To Where (Mediarts/United Artists, 1970)
Dory Previn had more cause for confession than most. Raised in a strict Roman Catholic household by an alcoholic mother and violent father, the collapse of her marriage to composer-conductor André Previn led to mental breakdown, electro-shock therapy and an intensive bout of self-analysis. All of which provided the raw ammunition for solo debut, On My Way To Where. The most striking song was “Beware Of Young Girls”, a fragrant lullaby with lyrics that served as a bitter swipe at actress Mia Farrow, with whom her husband had begun an affair two years previously. Meanwhile, “With My Daddy In The Attic” and “I Ain’t His Child” were disturbing pieces of barely veiled autobiography.
Richard Thompson discusses his latest album, recorded with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, in the new issue of Uncut, dated July 2015 and out now.
The singer-songwriter and guitarist reveals what it was like being produced by Tweedy on Still, and discusses his sometimes critical attitude towards his back cata...
Richard Thompson discusses his latest album, recorded with Wilco‘s Jeff Tweedy, in the new issue of Uncut, dated July 2015 and out now.
The singer-songwriter and guitarist reveals what it was like being produced by Tweedy on Still, and discusses his sometimes critical attitude towards his back catalogue.
“I don’t think you have to be a perfectionist to be unsatisfied with what you do,” he replies when asked about his previous work.
“I really do think I do some good stuff – I have a certain amount of self-belief, but I know I am capable of being mediocre, too.
“It’s something you have to ask yourself all the time: how am I doing? I am not good at being commercial; I am not good at being Brian Wilson or The Traveling Wilburys.”
OK so I'm going to refrain from adding those annoying [REDACTED] entries into the playlist from now on, after some justifiable ridicule last week. I can, though, unveil one album that I've been evasive about for a while: The Arcs' "Yours, Dreamily," which is by some distance my favourite Dan Auerbac...
OK so I’m going to refrain from adding those annoying [REDACTED] entries into the playlist from now on, after some justifiable ridicule last week. I can, though, unveil one album that I’ve been evasive about for a while: The Arcs’ “Yours, Dreamily,” which is by some distance my favourite Dan Auerbach project since the Dr John album.
Elsewhere I can massively recommend this Phil Cook album, which I would glibly suggest fills a slot as this year’s “Lateness Of Dancers”; glibly because Cook has been a critical part of the Hiss Golden Messenger family these past few years (you can hear him on the new live set, below), besides being one-third of Megafaun and working on a bunch more of my favourite recent albums by Frazey Ford, Matthew E White and the Justin Vernon-fronted Shouting Matches. “Southland Mission” has a lot of Ry Cooder and The Staples Singers about it, and I suspect I’ll be banging on about it all summer.
Also Angel Deradoorian, once of Dirty Projectors, has finally followed up her amazing “Mind Raft” EP from God knows how long ago; and some heroic Twitter activity yesterday, following my request for info about Phish, brought “Down With Disease” to my attention. Fellow Phish neophytes should at least try to tough out the first five minutes or so: after that, it gets surprisingly rewarding.
Yesterday I hit 5,000 followers on Twitter, and the whole Phish escalation was a great example of what a rewarding community it can be. Someone suggested I celebrate by posting a Best Of 2015: Halftime Report, which struck me as an excellent idea. I’ll try and do that early next week. Until then, thanks, as ever, for reading.
A songwriter, painter, essayist and thriller writer, Tom Russell could never be described as unambitious. Among his exceptional back catalogue of driving country, folk and sand-speckled Tex-Mex ballads, Russell has released a couple of albums – The Man From God Knows Where (1999) and Hotwalker (20...
A songwriter, painter, essayist and thriller writer, Tom Russell could never be described as unambitious. Among his exceptional back catalogue of driving country, folk and sand-speckled Tex-Mex ballads, Russell has released a couple of albums – The Man From God Knows Where (1999) and Hotwalker (2005) – which used a combination of original compositions, spoken word, guest voices, refrains and folk recordings to explore aspects of America’s past. Rose Of Roscrea completes this cinematic trio, telling the story of an Irish vagabond on the loose in the America West, chased by sheriffs and dreams of home, as he flits from Mexico to Canada through prairie, prison and fairground. This is Russell’s take on how the West was won by “Irish drunks, ex-slaves and Mexicans”.
It is an epic tale, a blend of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Bertolt Brecht, Cormac McCarthy and Louis L’Amour, thick with references to American history, music and myth as well as a John Ford-style appreciation of the Old Country. The roll call of guest stars is immense – contributors include Johnny Cash, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Guy Clark, Gretchen Peters, Augie Meyers, Walt Whitman, Joe Ely, Tex Ritter, Leadbelly – some dredged from old recordings, others singing or speaking to fill out the story. Snippets of traditional songs (“St James Hospital”, “Sam Hall”, “Ain’t No More Cane On The Brazos”, “The Unfortunate Rake”) add atmosphere and provide context for 25 or so original compositions.
Russell is a hell of a songwriter, and here are several fantastic examples of his craft: “Johnny Behind The Deuce”, a rollicking country anthem; “Rose Of Roscrae”, a gloriously sentimental Irish ballad; “He Wasn’t A Bad Kid, When He Was Sober”, a brilliant rocker; the southern boogie of “Doin’ Hard Time In Texas”; and the gospel love song “Resurrection Mountain”. All told, it’s an awful lot to listen to, sprawling over two albums and featuring so many locations and characters it can be hard to keep track of what’s happening. But the scope is majestic, the ambition outrageous and the music magnificent. A unique accomplishment.
Beck might be about to release new music.
The artist has reportedly been working on a new album, the follow-up to his Grammy-winning Morning Phase. Now, he has taken to Twitter to post what appears to be the artwork for an upcoming release, "Dreams".
It is unclear whether this is simply a new trac...
Beck might be about to release new music.
The artist has reportedly been working on a new album, the follow-up to his Grammy-winning Morning Phase. Now, he has taken to Twitter to post what appears to be the artwork for an upcoming release, “Dreams“.
It is unclear whether this is simply a new track or something more substantial, such as a full-length album.
However, Kyle Smith – the musical director of the Pittsburgh radio station WYEP – has Tweeted to announce that the station will air a new Beck song on Monday (June 15, 2015).
Motörhead have released a new song, "Thunder & Lightning".
The track is taken from their forthcoming new album, Bad Magic.
The album is due for release on August 28, 2015 through UDR Music/Motörhead Records, with a 40th anniversary tour to follow.
Bad Magic is the band’s 22nd studio albu...
Motörhead have released a new song, “Thunder & Lightning“.
The track is taken from their forthcoming new album, Bad Magic.
The album is due for release on August 28, 2015 through UDR Music/Motörhead Records, with a 40th anniversary tour to follow.
Bad Magic is the band’s 22nd studio album, recorded with producer Cameron Webb.
The albums contains a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil” while Queen’s Brian May guests on “The Devil”.
Sitting on a Los Angeles hillside in 1967, trying to make sense of the world as it spun out of control before his eyes, Arthur Lee eventually came to a dazed conclusion, of sorts. “Life goes on here day after day,” he sang in “The Red Telephone”. “I don't know if I'm living or if I'm suppo...
Sitting on a Los Angeles hillside in 1967, trying to make sense of the world as it spun out of control before his eyes, Arthur Lee eventually came to a dazed conclusion, of sorts. “Life goes on here day after day,” he sang in “The Red Telephone”. “I don’t know if I’m living or if I’m supposed to be/ Sometimes my life is so eerie.”
A quarter of a century later, on the corner of Clarence and Mount Pleasant in Liverpool, it seems Mick Head – a preternaturally gifted, rather errant songwriter – had a similar epiphany. Head had been introduced to Arthur Lee in 1992 when an enterprising French promoter, Stephane Bismuth, hired Head’s band, Shack, to fill in for Love on a series of live dates. Now, in 1993, Head was in a studio with windows that allowed him a panoramic view of Liverpool; the perfect place to create music that invested the often harsh realities of everyday life with an unlikely romantic ambience. Here, perhaps, the world could become magical.
Head’s career, not for the first or last time, was in a bit of a mess. His first band, The Pale Fountains, had been hamstrung by the aesthetics and politics of the 1980s music business, and his second band, Shack, appeared to have gone the same way. One album, Zilch, had come out in 1988, with good songs compromised by a flashily unsympathetic production. A follow-up, Waterpistol, had been recorded in 1991 but remained in limbo (it would sneak out on a German indie label, Marina, to great acclaim and traditionally negligible sales, in 1995).
Bismuth, though, was one of a group of fanatics who saw beyond Head’s reputation as an erratic commercial pariah. To this small but vociferous cabal, Mick Head was a psychedelic visionary, a songwriter who could relocate the dreams and possibilities suggested by Love, The Byrds and Tim Buckley to his own Liverpool streets. Shack and The Pale Fountains’ recordings had mostly been blighted by major label expediencies, but Bismuth had a better idea: let Head and his latest band make a record at their own idiosyncratic pace, free of any pressure.
The band was called The Strands, though to most people it looked pretty much like Shack, featuring as it did Mick Head and his younger brother John, a diffident guitar virtuoso who was also, tentatively, proving himself to be a useful songwriter. The Magical World Of The Strands took two years to record, and another two to be released, by which time the Heads had returned to the Shack brand name and become embroiled in further major label shenanigans. Since then, there have been a handful of fine albums, each accompanied with bold claims (Noel Gallagher, never the most discreet salesman, released 2006’s Corner Of Miles And Gil on his Sour Mash label) and corresponding disinterest from the wider listening public.
It’s the sort of hard-luck legend loved by obsessive music fans, not least music critics. But while Head seems unfussed by his relative obscurity, it is still hard to accept that a masterpiece like The Magical World Of The Strands remains so marginal. This summer, the latest attempt to manoeuvre it into the canon is being launched, with a slightly expanded reissue of the original record, and a second album, The Olde World, that gathers up ten lost songs and alternate versions from the original sessions.
If anything, The Magical World has improved with age. In the mid-‘90s, there was an imperative to position Head as bruised guru to a generation of British rock classicists, exemplified by the Gallaghers and Richard Ashcroft. Head shared a certain romanticism that was rooted in but transcended the working-class North-West of the country, and his study of old records was just as thorough and unabashed. He was not, though, a writer of anthems, his songwriting mostly too feathery, too evanescent for blokey singalongs.
The closest he came on The Magical World was a rueful and brilliant song about his heroin addiction called “X Hits The Spot”, which articulated a difficult choice that he had made – essentially, drugs instead of a relationship – and its consequences: coming round to discover he had sold all his furniture to stay high. The chorus is punchy, emphatic, memorable. The verses, though, are more typical of The Magical World: words come in breathless, jazzy flurries, Head appropriating Lee’s trick of squeezing two or three extra words into a line to create a sense of babbling discombobulation.
Acoustic reveries predominate. “Queen Matilda”, in particular, seems to fill an emotional vacuum with opiate visions, where the “fish float by in gravity”. Sometimes, the invocations of lost love take on a rustic air, as if Head were hallucinating a John Constable landscape outside the studio window rather than the Liverpool streets. “It’s Harvest Time”, announces one Byrds-esque raga. “Hocken’s Hay”, banjo to the fore, is jaunty in a brackish, uncanny way. Away from the LA canyons, beyond the 1960s, few artists have conjured up a cosmically-adjusted renaissance fair with such verve; note how John Head, the patient straight man, cuts through the reveries with stinging electric solos on “And Luna” and “Glynys And Jaqui”. John’s exasperation finds a melancholy outlet on his own song, “Loaded Man”, easy to read as an open letter to his brother. “Do you think? Do you feel?” he asks plaintively, his voice sweeter and less husky than that of Mick, “Do you know where you are? Or where you’ve been?”
In 2015, Mick Head is perhaps more aware of where he’s been – though, as our Q&A reveals, his timeframes and concerns can still be a little sketchy: if nothing else the reissue of The Magical World Of The Strands means that Head will actually own a copy of his finest album. The release strategy of its beguiling companion piece, however, is a little curious. The Olde World features a string quartet instrumental version of the keynote love song, “Something Like You”; three unreleased songs (the raggedy, swaggering “Poor Jill”, a hazy coda to “Fontilan” called “Wrapped Up In Honour”, and the clangourous title track, pronounced “Oldie World”, closer in beat spirit to the Waterpistol sessions); and two early versions of songs that would turn up on Shack records a decade later (“Lizzie Mullally” and the brilliant, jazz-inflected “Fin, Sophie, Bobby And Lance”). All good stuff, but it nevertheless feels more like Disc Two of a deluxe edition rather than a standalone album.
Head’s labyrinthine path through the 1990s meant that The Strands never actually played live, something he intends to remedy this year, even if his brother seems unlikely to be involved. Characteristically, Mick Head has another group now, The Red Elastic Band, whose two records reveal a miraculously unsullied vision. Names and labels change, years are lost for one reason or other, but Michael Head is still writing songs about Liverpool, under the spell of Love. “You know I’ve been waiting for you/Keep me waiting for you/Keep me hanging on,” he sang on 2013’s “Lucinda Byre”, the eternal street poet-mystic. The name of the EP from which it came? “Artorius Revisited”, in honour of Arthur Lee.
Ornette Coleman has died aged 85.
He suffered a cardiac arrest at home in Manhattan, according to The New York Times.
One of the major innovators of the free jazz movement, Coleman's debut album, Something Else!!!!, was recorded with trumpeter Don Cherry, drummer Billy Higgins, bassist Don Payne...
Ornette Coleman has died aged 85.
He suffered a cardiac arrest at home in Manhattan, according to The New York Times.
One of the major innovators of the free jazz movement, Coleman’s debut album, Something Else!!!!, was recorded with trumpeter Don Cherry, drummer Billy Higgins, bassist Don Payne and pianist Walter Norris.
A year later, he recorded his breakthrough album, The Shape Of Jazz To Come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxUXu8GmUC8
Coleman’s work outside jazz led to several interesting collaborations. He played twice with the Grateful Dead while Jerry Garcia played guitar on Coleman’s 1988 album, Virgin Beauty. Coleman additionally collaborated with Pat Metheny.
Coleman also appeared on Lou Reed‘s 2003 album, The Raven. Reed said, “I had Ornette Coleman play on my song ‘Guilty‘. He did seven versions – all different and all amazing and wondrous.” Four of those versions are available to stream on Reed’s website.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KehkiTw_BI0
Coleman won the Pulitzer Prize for music for his 2007 album Sound Grammar; that same year he received a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
In 1983, Coleman’s hometown of Fort Worth, Texas declared September 29th as “Ornette Coleman Day”.
His last album, 2014’s New Vocabulary, was another collaboration, this time with young NYC musicians, Jordan McLean (trumpet), Amir Ziv (drums), and Adam Holzman (piano).
King Crimson have added new dates to their UK tour in September.
The band have second nights in Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh to their itinerary.
In 2013, Uncut broke the news of the band's return to active service.
The current line-up is: Gavin Harrison (drums), Bill Rieflin (drums), Pat ...
King Crimson have added new dates to their UK tour in September.
The band have second nights in Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh to their itinerary.
In 2013, Uncut broke the news of the band’s return to active service.
The current line-up is: Gavin Harrison (drums), Bill Rieflin (drums), Pat Mastelotto (drums), Tony Levin (bass and vocals), Mel Collins (Sax, flute), Jakko Jakszyk (guitar, vocals) and Robert Fripp (guitar).
August 31: Friars, Aylesbury Waterside Theatre September 1: Friars, Aylesbury Waterside Theatre September 3: St.David’s Hall, Cardiff September 5: Dome Concert Hall, Brighton September 7: Hackney Empire, London September 8: Hackney Empire, London September 11: Lowry, Manchester September 14: Symphony Hall, Birmingham September 17: Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Morrissey has claimed that "I officially died for nine minutes."
In an interview with Alternative Nation, he cites a 2013 incident on tour in South America, where he was hospitalised and forced to cancel a series of dates.
Asked what places he's looking forward to visiting on his upcoming American...
Morrissey has claimed that “I officially died for nine minutes.”
In an interview with Alternative Nation, he cites a 2013 incident on tour in South America, where he was hospitalised and forced to cancel a series of dates.
Asked what places he’s looking forward to visiting on his upcoming American tour, the singer replied: “I’m also always excited to be in South America, even though the last visit to Peru gave me food poisoning and I officially died for nine minutes. That was fun?”
Elsewhere in the interview, Morrissey voices his criticisms of Barack Obama, saying: “Obama has mystified me because he doesn’t appear to support black people when they need it most. Ferguson being an obvious example. If Michael Brown had instead been one of Obama’s daughters, I don’t think Obama would be insisting that the nation support the so-called security forces! How can they be called security forces if they make the people feel insecure? Obama seems to be white inside.”
Neil Young has debuted another new track from his forthcoming album, The Monsanto Years.
"Wolf Moon" features Young and Promise Of The Real; the accompanying video was shot at the Teatro Theater in Oxnard, California, where the album was recorded.
Last month, the band released a video for "A Rock ...
Neil Young has debuted another new track from his forthcoming album, The Monsanto Years.
“Wolf Moon” features Young and Promise Of The Real; the accompanying video was shot at the Teatro Theater in Oxnard, California, where the album was recorded.
One of my favourite records of the year so far has been the self-titled debut album by The Deslondes, a New Orleans band who mix a certain rowdy take on country with the R&B heritage of their hometown. I recently sent over a bunch of questions for them, and received these very thorough and fasci...
One of my favourite records of the year so far has been the self-titled debut album by The Deslondes, a New Orleans band who mix a certain rowdy take on country with the R&B heritage of their hometown. I recently sent over a bunch of questions for them, and received these very thorough and fascinating answers: the five-piece operate as a democracy, with four of them (Sam Doores, Riley Downing, Cameron Snyder and Dan Cutler) sharing lead duties, and consequently they shared responses, too (only fiddler/steel man John James Tourville opted out)…
Can you tell us a bit about the Deslondes’ history? I mentioned you in my Hurray For The Riff Raff feature last year, but I guess a lot of people will be unfamiliar with you and your music…
SAM DOORES: We’re fibe musicians who all write, sing and play multiple instruments. We’ve all played in different formations together over the years: Broken Wing Routine (Cameron and myself) The Longtime Goners (John James and Cameron), Hurray for the Riff Raff (Dan Cutler, Cameron, and myself), and most notably – The Tumbleweeds (Riley, Dan, Myself) … which is the project that would evolve into The Deslondes. As The Tumbleweeds we toured with and as members of Hurray For The Riff Raff for years before John James and Cameron joined the group- that’s when it really felt like it had all come together, so we changed our name to ‘The Deslondes’ – named after the street I live on in the Lower 9th ward where the band was first formed, rehearsed, wrote and recorded. Deslonde St is across the canal and a little outside the hustle and bustle of the city – it’s a peaceful and creative place to be – more a state of mind than a street.
RILEY DOWNING: The Deslondes came about after the Tumbleweeds had been together for a few years and had some line-up additions and a name change. We mostly all met at the Woody Guthrie folk fest when we were younger, except for JJ, he came to New Orleans with just a banjo when I first met him. He ended up learning any instrument you could hand him and quickly became an in-demand multi-instrumentalist filling in the gaps.
CAMERON SNYDER: We met over the years as part of a country scene that connects musicians all across the country. There are many great musicians and songwriters forming and reforming bands, and we’ve benefited from this revolving cast of talented characters. Though we’ve all been, and are, part of various musical projects, I think we’d all agree it felt pretty magical when this lineup came together. Our personalities and musical commitments complement each other. Everyone adds their own flavour, and it just feels right to play together.
The New Orleans R&B flavour seems stronger on this album than on the Tumbleweeds record. How easy has it been to integrate your country and R&B influences?… Or do you think that maybe R&B and Country music are much closer than most people normally assume?
SAM: Yes, I do think both styles are more closely connected than most folks assume. It’s been a pretty seamless transition for us. It’s hard to spend a lot of time in New Orleans without its rhythms and history rubbing off on you. So much of our favourite R&B and rock’n’roll was born here. Louisiana also has such a rich history of country music – it’s only natural that the two would mingle.
RILEY: I don’t think it was hard to integrate them, there’s always been a mixing of genres with a lot of musicians down there. If you listen to an Ernie K Doe song like “I Have Cried My Last Tear” you hear that New Orleans R&B sound, but if you play it on an acoustic guitar it flows just like an old country song. There is definitely a style and sound that is NOLA R&B but a lot of those guys grew up in the country and you can hear it in their words.
CAMERON: A lot has changed since the Tumbleweeds album (The Deslondes’ former moniker). John James and myself joined the band and added our own influences. But the relationship between country and R&B is part of a much bigger story. There’s a long history of songs being shared between country and R&B artists. Jimmie Rodgers, the father of country music, played with Louis Armstrong, who later recorded a country album; Fats Domino covered Hank Williams; Professor Longhair, Sam Cooke and Al Green all covered country songs. Maybe the most obvious example is Ray Charles’ “Modern Sounds In Country And Western,” an album that’s been hugely influential for some of us. These genres are so closely related musically; historically, the distinction between country and R&B was based on race rather than differences in the music itself.
Some people would accuse our scene of producing music that’s anachronistic, or call us throwbacks. But country, R&B, blues and jazz have been interacting and producing new forms for decades. Nothing’s completely new; nothing’s completely old either. That’s how music forms are born: influences come together, diverge for a while, and then recombine. The current Americana scene is just another moment of influences converging. Given that, our music is too varied to be a straight throwback. Our blend of country and R&B is influenced by all the styles American music came into contact with along the way: reggae, hip-hop, Cuban music, punk, you name it.
DAN CUTLER: I’d say we have a very interesting story for people that are interested in band stories. There are even some life-altering coincidences in there. It is a long story with lots of details, though. It can be summed up as a band of disparate (or desperate) parts that came together and grew up in New Orleans. With more than a little help from our musical friends, of which there are too many to list off for this interview.
