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Nick Cave announces solo tour for spring 2015

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Nick Cave announces solo tour for spring 2015
Nick Cave has announced a solo European tour for spring 2015. As well as dates in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Spain and Russia, the singer will also perform five UK shows at the start of the run in April. Cave's UK dates will be in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Gateshead, Nottingham and Lond...

Nick Cave has announced a solo European tour for spring 2015.

As well as dates in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Spain and Russia, the singer will also perform five UK shows at the start of the run in April. Cave’s UK dates will be in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Gateshead, Nottingham and London.

Although the shows are billed as solo outings, Cave will be joined by a backing band comprised of long-term Bad Seeds collaborator Warren Ellis, and Martyn Casey, Thomas Wydler and Barry Adamson – who are all either current or former members of the Bad Seeds too.

Speaking of the tour, Cave has stated, “The aim is to try to create a unique show – something special and out of the ordinary”.

Tickets are available now, click here to buy.

Nick Cave’s UK dates are as follows:

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (April 26)

Edinburgh Playhouse (28)

Gateshead Sage (29)

Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (30)

London Royal Albert Hall (May 3)

20,000 Days, a film documenting a day in the life of the singer was recently given a full cinema release.

The film documents Cave in Brighton going about his daily routine and features appearances from Kylie Minogue and Ray Winstone as well as large amounts of footage of the frontman working alongside Ellis in the studio.

Photo: Sam Jones

Introducing… Elvis Costello: The Ultimate Music Guide

John Mulvey
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Introducing… Elvis Costello: The Ultimate Music Guide

In June 1977, Allan Jones of the Melody Maker took a familiar route to the offices of Stiff Records in West London. His appointment, that day, was with a notably irascible young singer-songwriter from Hounslow. In the course of a frequently startling interview, the man who had chosen to call himself Elvis Costello railed against pretty much everything he could think of, beginning a sequence of encounters that would be among the sharpest and most volatile to appear in the music press over the next few years. "I don't want any of that rock’n’roll rubbish," Costello told Jones, with a bile and urgency that matched the rhythms of his music. "I don't want to go cruising in Hollywood or hang out at all the star parties… Too much rock has cut itself off from people. It's become like ballet or something. Ballet is only for people who can afford to go and see it. It's not for anybody else. You don't get ballet going on in your local pub. "There's a lot of rock music that's become exclusive and it's of no use to anyone. Least of all me. Music has to get to people. In the heart, in the head. I don't care where, as long as it fucking gets them." Thirty-seven years later, it is easy to throw such words back in the face of Elvis Costello, enlightened polymath, trusted cohort of rock's A-list, from Paul McCartney on down, and, of course, composer of the odd ballet score. Nevertheless, while his modes of attack may change, Costello still has the ability to get to people, in the heart and in the head. Uncut's latest Ultimate Music Guide, just arrived in UK shops, is a strong illustration of that talent, and a 60th birthday celebration of one of the most smart, questing and quotable rock craftsmen that Britain has ever produced. In our new Ultimate Music Guide, then, you'll find Costello going into battle with the British rock press, as some of his finest historical skirmishes are reprinted in full. You'll also find incisive new reviews of every Costello album to date, with fresh perspectives on some of those less garlanded entries in the daunting EC canon - including that ballet piece, "Il Sogno". At 60, Costello remains as adventurous as ever. Just as the issue was going to press, a copy of Lost In The River: The New Basement Tapes turned up in the Uncut office, with Costello playing a leading role in the creative development of a bunch of lost Bob Dylan lyrics. It's a perfect fit for Costello, as a scholar of musical history and the art of songwriting, who can draw on an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and turn it to his own, richly characterful ends. "There are still people who want everything I've done documented and explained," he complained to Allan Jones in 1989. "Like I say, it's all in the past... none of it means a damn. You can't go digging around forever in the past. It's history. Let it go. It's what I'm doing now that counts. That's what I want people to realise." We do. But first, it's hard to begrudge us a dig through one of rock's most auspicious careers. You can order a copy of Ultimate Music Guide: Elvis Costello here, Download from Zinio or Download onto other devices. Our aim, rest assured, remains true… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

In June 1977, Allan Jones of the Melody Maker took a familiar route to the offices of Stiff Records in West London. His appointment, that day, was with a notably irascible young singer-songwriter from Hounslow. In the course of a frequently startling interview, the man who had chosen to call himself Elvis Costello railed against pretty much everything he could think of, beginning a sequence of encounters that would be among the sharpest and most volatile to appear in the music press over the next few years.

“I don’t want any of that rock’n’roll rubbish,” Costello told Jones, with a bile and urgency that matched the rhythms of his music. “I don’t want to go cruising in Hollywood or hang out at all the star parties… Too much rock has cut itself off from people. It’s become like ballet or something. Ballet is only for people who can afford to go and see it. It’s not for anybody else. You don’t get ballet going on in your local pub.

“There’s a lot of rock music that’s become exclusive and it’s of no use to anyone. Least of all me. Music has to get to people. In the heart, in the head. I don’t care where, as long as it fucking gets them.”

Thirty-seven years later, it is easy to throw such words back in the face of Elvis Costello, enlightened polymath, trusted cohort of rock’s A-list, from Paul McCartney on down, and, of course, composer of the odd ballet score. Nevertheless, while his modes of attack may change, Costello still has the ability to get to people, in the heart and in the head. Uncut’s latest Ultimate Music Guide, just arrived in UK shops, is a strong illustration of that talent, and a 60th birthday celebration of one of the most smart, questing and quotable rock craftsmen that Britain has ever produced.

In our new Ultimate Music Guide, then, you’ll find Costello going into battle with the British rock press, as some of his finest historical skirmishes are reprinted in full. You’ll also find incisive new reviews of every Costello album to date, with fresh perspectives on some of those less garlanded entries in the daunting EC canon – including that ballet piece, “Il Sogno”.

At 60, Costello remains as adventurous as ever. Just as the issue was going to press, a copy of Lost In The River: The New Basement Tapes turned up in the Uncut office, with Costello playing a leading role in the creative development of a bunch of lost Bob Dylan lyrics. It’s a perfect fit for Costello, as a scholar of musical history and the art of songwriting, who can draw on an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and turn it to his own, richly characterful ends.

“There are still people who want everything I’ve done documented and explained,” he complained to Allan Jones in 1989. “Like I say, it’s all in the past… none of it means a damn. You can’t go digging around forever in the past. It’s history. Let it go. It’s what I’m doing now that counts. That’s what I want people to realise.”

We do. But first, it’s hard to begrudge us a dig through one of rock’s most auspicious careers. You can order a copy of Ultimate Music Guide: Elvis Costello here, Download from Zinio or Download onto other devices. Our aim, rest assured, remains true…

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

Robert Plant – lullaby and The Ceaseless Roar

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Robert Plant – lullaby and The Ceaseless Roar

Daring and masterful: late-flowering Plant blooms anew... Robert Plant may well wonder why he couldn’t make a solo album of this quality a decade or so back. There was nothing awry about, say, 1993‘s Fate of Nations or 2002’s covers-heavy Dreamland, but they are dwarfed by what he and his current band, The Sensational Space Shifters, have created here, a record that deftly aligns the chakras of Plant’s storied career while also being a bold act of reinvention. If the album’s component parts are long-standing Plant obsessions – R&B, Elvis, West Coast psychedelia, North African blues – he’s never put them together with such panache. As sole producer he has an able lieutenant in guitarist and world-fusion pioneer Justin Adams, with whom he has previously worked, and who sprays lullaby with a dazzling array of fretboards, sometimes big sparkly rock guitars, at others sinuous African blues lines. Adams’ long-standing musical partner, Gambian griot Juldeh Camara, adds ritti, a one string violin and kologo, a four string lute. At first lullaby sounds like a world album, steeped in the North African flavours that first seduced Plant back in the 1970s and which he explored with Jimmy Page in the 1990s, but its eleven tracks morph constantly between styles. Folk ballad “Poor Howard” becomes Bo Diddley taken back to Africa, Plant whooping up old time R&B while lute and ritti dance in response. “House of Love” is a power ballad seemingly penned under the spell of Roy Orbison, albeit given a middle eight of swaying mid-Eastern strings, and elsewhere come touches of trance, dub and ripples of Zeppelin bombast. Plant sings with a restraint and precision that was probably beyond him before he teamed up with Alison Krauss for Raising Sand in 2007, an experience he has described as a singing lesson, and which has left him with the realisation that sometimes less really is more. Sand’s Americana renewed Plant’s career, with 2010’s Band Of Joy a safe follow-on, but there are few echoes of those albums here. Opener “Little Maggie” may be an antique American folk song but it arrives in gleeful African guise, plucked out on banjo and Adams’ tehardan, while Plant sings eerily against the beat, fading in and out as the track turns first into acoustic drum and bass before shape-shifting again into electro-trance. Astonishing. “Rainbow”, the first single, likewise has Plant singing across a rhythm wanged out on ritti , swooping between a falsetto coo (carrying echoes of The Four Seasons’ “Rag Doll”!) and dreamy promises to “be your rainbow after the storm”. “Pocketful of Golden” and “Embrace Another Fall” maintain the mood with their cavernous production – Plant’s lyrics are elusive throughout – moving from the former’s psych-rock flavours into the latter’s hypnotic mid-eastern strings and an entrancing guest spot from female singer??. “Turn It Up” is also full of surprises, from its oblique time signature to the urban angst of its lyrics, at first muttered sullenly before the track bursts into gnarly blues guitar and a trademark Plant moan. Robert isn’t happy. He’s “lost inside America…blinded by the neon, the righteous and the might…stuck inside the radio – turn it on and LET ME OUT!” A great interlude, hand-stitched for radio, which can never resist a song about itself. If there are echoes of mumbling early Elvis on “Turn It Up”, then the King’s influence is even more evident on “A Stolen Kiss”, a sombre piano ballad with a tender, wounded vocal that borrows Presley’s operatic tropes (at some points you half expect Robert to croon “Are You Lonesome Tonight”). There’s no doubting Plant’s sincerity, however. This is a naked, heartfelt meditation on love that “waits for no-one...it’s cool and elusive and so hard to find.” As days slip away, Plant finds “true love in the ceaseless roar” (available in the shell on the album’s cover). Changing the mood is “Somebody There”. The most conventional rock piece here, it opens in a blaze of spangled guitars before Plant, with a Wordsworthian nod to his boyhood sense of wonder, ascends “mountains where dreams turn to gold”to gambol in ”the fields of plenty”. Its tone of air-punching affirmation finds release in a squall of psych guitars (The Byrds, they live!) before the song marches out, leaving you to wonder who that ‘someone’ might be. “House of Love” is high grade epic pop. At another stage of Plant’s career it might have been noisier and rockier, but here Plant the producer reaches for the tense, noirish mood of Spectoresque US pop, setting doomy surf guitar against nervous strings while he emotes regret and resolve in murky echo, punctuating his ruminations on loss and an uncertain future with a killer chorus: “When I think about it now/I watched the house of love burn down”. There’s no triumph here, just quiet dignity and, in that almost conversational hook line, puzzlement. The mysteriously titled “Up On The Hollow Hill (Understanding Arthur)” lifts us into the realm of Plant the seeker and shaman. “All I crave is the love that never dies,” he intimates, his vocals hovering above Tuareg guitars and the clattering sticks of ceremonial Native American dance. Whatever Robert is channelling it’s potent stuff – there’s only one Arthur who sleeps beneath a hollow hill after all – and the playing warps beautifully as the hillside visions fade like mist. Extending the fire-dancing ambience is the drum fest of “Arbaden (Maggie’s Baby”), an urgent semaphore of beats and riffs with Camara chanting in Fulani and snatches of “Little Maggie”reverberating in the mix. Robert Plant in dub? Believe it. While Plant justly gives fulsome praise to his musicians, all of them playing at the top of their game, the spirit that permeates lullaby is his. Beyond the clever production and judicious musical blend is a sensibility and a voice and songs that find Plant still on his quest, still grappling with the intricacies of love, still seduced by distant, misty mountains. His uniqueness has never been more apparent. Neil Spencer Q&A ROBERT PLANT You’re having a lot of fun with the Sensational Space Shifters, aren’t you? There’s no real boundary to where we can and cannot go, there are cues within the songs and yet the contributors are all the players. It’s not like a band where there’s a guitarist and a bass player and a drummer and a singer. It’s like the give and take and the exchange between Skin [Tyson; guitar] and Justin [Adams; guitar], it’s magnificent. And Johnny Baggott [keyboards]… And then you’ve got this rhythm section moving around with Billy [Fuller; bass] and Dave [Smith; drums]. I am in a real, real excitement zone with these guys. Do you still feel the need to prove yourself intellectually and musically? Oh, not to prove it. You can’t bluff it, you can’t fake it, you can’t talk it up. You’ve just got to live it out. That’s the thing about it all, really. I’m not asking anybody to get into the groove of what we do, we just do it. Of course, I’m never gonna be everybody’s favourite. I don’t do things in the way that everybody would probably like it. The folk songs, like “Little Maggie” and “Poor Howard”, sound very far-removed from their traditional roots…. I think what it is, is that we as musicians, at this point in time and hopefully for a good time to come, we have a partnership which brings in a lot of creativity from all sides. That allows me to be the kind of sorcerer’s apprentice in way, waving my enthusiasm around if you’ll excuse the pun, and just melding it. It’s like running around with a soldering iron and bringing this, that, there… Let’s try and nuance that into… So what’s the strategy with this album? I think basically what I’m doing is, I’m going round the entire flying horse and making sure that everything works properly. The flying horse being…? Just the idea of being able to ride through all these events, properly. It’s setting a course through a period of time ahead. Which, because of the artistic capacity, because of all the playability, and all the humour and all that – we’ve got a work situation that is spectacular. So then what? By bringing all these different influences together and having something substantial to say – obviously, I’m writing the lyrics. Some of it probably isn’t particularly stuff I probably should be saying, but it’s enough for me to know I haven’t wasted my time. I’m not singing about, you know, getting old. It’s not Harvest Moon. It’s just like, “Pssht, this is how it is on this song; this is how I feel today.” In a year’s time I’ll be totally different. I’m intrigued to know what you think you shouldn’t be singing about. First of all, obviously not the clichés. If you listen to amazing lyricists… Dylan’s sort of cloak and dagger lyric, beautiful. Just when you think it’s so simple, you realise that he’s got something going down. I wanted to find out how many wives he’d got at one point. I nearly got close to it as well. How did you find out? I asked a lot of people who knew him. I just wanted to know where things come from, you know. Where does it all come from? Do you have any favourite songs on the album? No not really, I mean it’s too early to say. Last night I was at home, having to approve the test pressing. I played the three sides of vinyl – I hadn’t played it for about a month, ‘cos I wanna believe it. I don’t wanna flog it to death. Where do you think this album fits in the broader body of your work? It’s right up at the sharp end at the moment because I’m still absorbing it as a listener. As I said, last night I was listening to the final to approve the actual cut, and I went, “Wow.” The textures and the interplays, it’s all I ever could have wanted to be around. I mean, to be a part of it, that in itself is a great achievement. To love hearing what your mates are doing. Is it difficult for you to go back and listen to your own music? No, no, I enjoy it. In isolation, the changes are interesting and the intentions are always strong and powerful. I mean I don’t put anything out that I don’t have 110 per cent passion for. Otherwise I’ve got plenty of other things I could do, you know, with my life. I’ve always been open to anybody musically. Otherwise I wouldn’t have sung on all these other records. Bobby Gillespie calls me every 18 months for a harmonica and a Primal Scream track, “OK? Come round.” Here I come… [Scottish accent?] “Oh could you do a bit ‘o the vocal on there, just do the low vocal there if ye can, don’ worry ah’ll send you a copy o’ the record.” Right the way through time it’s been like that. I love it. Hey, we’ll see how it all pans out in the end. INTERVIEW: MICHAEL BONNER

Daring and masterful: late-flowering Plant blooms anew…

Robert Plant may well wonder why he couldn’t make a solo album of this quality a decade or so back. There was nothing awry about, say, 1993‘s Fate of Nations or 2002’s covers-heavy Dreamland, but they are dwarfed by what he and his current band, The Sensational Space Shifters, have created here, a record that deftly aligns the chakras of Plant’s storied career while also being a bold act of reinvention.

If the album’s component parts are long-standing Plant obsessions – R&B, Elvis, West Coast psychedelia, North African blues – he’s never put them together with such panache. As sole producer he has an able lieutenant in guitarist and world-fusion pioneer Justin Adams, with whom he has previously worked, and who sprays lullaby with a dazzling array of fretboards, sometimes big sparkly rock guitars, at others sinuous African blues lines. Adams’ long-standing musical partner, Gambian griot Juldeh Camara, adds ritti, a one string violin and kologo, a four string lute.

At first lullaby sounds like a world album, steeped in the North African flavours that first seduced Plant back in the 1970s and which he explored with Jimmy Page in the 1990s, but its eleven tracks morph constantly between styles. Folk ballad “Poor Howard” becomes Bo Diddley taken back to Africa, Plant whooping up old time R&B while lute and ritti dance in response. “House of Love” is a power ballad seemingly penned under the spell of Roy Orbison, albeit given a middle eight of swaying mid-Eastern strings, and elsewhere come touches of trance, dub and ripples of Zeppelin bombast. Plant sings with a restraint and precision that was probably beyond him before he teamed up with Alison Krauss for Raising Sand in 2007, an experience he has described as a singing lesson, and which has left him with the realisation that sometimes less really is more.

Sand’s Americana renewed Plant’s career, with 2010’s Band Of Joy a safe follow-on, but there are few echoes of those albums here. Opener “Little Maggie” may be an antique American folk song but it arrives in gleeful African guise, plucked out on banjo and Adams’ tehardan, while Plant sings eerily against the beat, fading in and out as the track turns first into acoustic drum and bass before shape-shifting again into electro-trance. Astonishing.

“Rainbow”, the first single, likewise has Plant singing across a rhythm wanged out on ritti , swooping between a falsetto coo (carrying echoes of The Four Seasons’ “Rag Doll”!) and dreamy promises to “be your rainbow after the storm”. “Pocketful of Golden” and “Embrace Another Fall” maintain the mood with their cavernous production – Plant’s lyrics are elusive throughout – moving from the former’s psych-rock flavours into the latter’s hypnotic mid-eastern strings and an entrancing guest spot from female singer??.

“Turn It Up” is also full of surprises, from its oblique time signature to the urban angst of its lyrics, at first muttered sullenly before the track bursts into gnarly blues guitar and a trademark Plant moan. Robert isn’t happy. He’s “lost inside America…blinded by the neon, the righteous and the might…stuck inside the radio – turn it on and LET ME OUT!” A great interlude, hand-stitched for radio, which can never resist a song about itself.

If there are echoes of mumbling early Elvis on “Turn It Up”, then the King’s influence is even more evident on “A Stolen Kiss”, a sombre piano ballad with a tender, wounded vocal that borrows Presley’s operatic tropes (at some points you half expect Robert to croon “Are You Lonesome Tonight”). There’s no doubting Plant’s sincerity, however. This is a naked, heartfelt meditation on love that “waits for no-one…it’s cool and elusive and so hard to find.” As days slip away, Plant finds “true love in the ceaseless roar” (available in the shell on the album’s cover).

Changing the mood is “Somebody There”. The most conventional rock piece here, it opens in a blaze of spangled guitars before Plant, with a Wordsworthian nod to his boyhood sense of wonder, ascends “mountains where dreams turn to gold”to gambol in ”the fields of plenty”. Its tone of air-punching affirmation finds release in a squall of psych guitars (The Byrds, they live!) before the song marches out, leaving you to wonder who that ‘someone’ might be.

“House of Love” is high grade epic pop. At another stage of Plant’s career it might have been noisier and rockier, but here Plant the producer reaches for the tense, noirish mood of Spectoresque US pop, setting doomy surf guitar against nervous strings while he emotes regret and resolve in murky echo, punctuating his ruminations on loss and an uncertain future with a killer chorus: “When I think about it now/I watched the house of love burn down”. There’s no triumph here, just quiet dignity and, in that almost conversational hook line, puzzlement.

The mysteriously titled “Up On The Hollow Hill (Understanding Arthur)” lifts us into the realm of Plant the seeker and shaman. “All I crave is the love that never dies,” he intimates, his vocals hovering above Tuareg guitars and the clattering sticks of ceremonial Native American dance. Whatever Robert is channelling it’s potent stuff – there’s only one Arthur who sleeps beneath a hollow hill after all – and the playing warps beautifully as the hillside visions fade like mist.

Extending the fire-dancing ambience is the drum fest of “Arbaden (Maggie’s Baby”), an urgent semaphore of beats and riffs with Camara chanting in Fulani and snatches of “Little Maggie”reverberating in the mix. Robert Plant in dub? Believe it.

While Plant justly gives fulsome praise to his musicians, all of them playing at the top of their game, the spirit that permeates lullaby is his. Beyond the clever production and judicious musical blend is a sensibility and a voice and songs that find Plant still on his quest, still grappling with the intricacies of love, still seduced by distant, misty mountains. His uniqueness has never been more apparent.

Neil Spencer

Q&A

ROBERT PLANT

You’re having a lot of fun with the Sensational Space Shifters, aren’t you?

There’s no real boundary to where we can and cannot go, there are cues within the songs and yet the contributors are all the players. It’s not like a band where there’s a guitarist and a bass player and a drummer and a singer. It’s like the give and take and the exchange between Skin [Tyson; guitar] and Justin [Adams; guitar], it’s magnificent. And Johnny Baggott [keyboards]… And then you’ve got this rhythm section moving around with Billy [Fuller; bass] and Dave [Smith; drums]. I am in a real, real excitement zone with these guys.

Do you still feel the need to prove yourself intellectually and musically?

Oh, not to prove it. You can’t bluff it, you can’t fake it, you can’t talk it up. You’ve just got to live it out. That’s the thing about it all, really. I’m not asking anybody to get into the groove of what we do, we just do it. Of course, I’m never gonna be everybody’s favourite. I don’t do things in the way that everybody would probably like it.

The folk songs, like “Little Maggie” and “Poor Howard”, sound very far-removed from their traditional roots….

I think what it is, is that we as musicians, at this point in time and hopefully for a good time to come, we have a partnership which brings in a lot of creativity from all sides. That allows me to be the kind of sorcerer’s apprentice in way, waving my enthusiasm around if you’ll excuse the pun, and just melding it. It’s like running around with a soldering iron and bringing this, that, there… Let’s try and nuance that into…

So what’s the strategy with this album?

I think basically what I’m doing is, I’m going round the entire flying horse and making sure that everything works properly.

The flying horse being…?

Just the idea of being able to ride through all these events, properly. It’s setting a course through a period of time ahead. Which, because of the artistic capacity, because of all the playability, and all the humour and all that – we’ve got a work situation that is spectacular. So then what? By bringing all these different influences together and having something substantial to say – obviously, I’m writing the lyrics. Some of it probably isn’t particularly stuff I probably should be saying, but it’s enough for me to know I haven’t wasted my time. I’m not singing about, you know, getting old. It’s not Harvest Moon. It’s just like, “Pssht, this is how it is on this song; this is how I feel today.” In a year’s time I’ll be totally different.

I’m intrigued to know what you think you shouldn’t be singing about.

First of all, obviously not the clichés. If you listen to amazing lyricists… Dylan’s sort of cloak and dagger lyric, beautiful. Just when you think it’s so simple, you realise that he’s got something going down. I wanted to find out how many wives he’d got at one point. I nearly got close to it as well.

How did you find out?

I asked a lot of people who knew him. I just wanted to know where things come from, you know. Where does it all come from?

Do you have any favourite songs on the album?

No not really, I mean it’s too early to say. Last night I was at home, having to approve the test pressing. I played the three sides of vinyl – I hadn’t played it for about a month, ‘cos I wanna believe it. I don’t wanna flog it to death.

Where do you think this album fits in the broader body of your work?

It’s right up at the sharp end at the moment because I’m still absorbing it as a listener. As I said, last night I was listening to the final to approve the actual cut, and I went, “Wow.” The textures and the interplays, it’s all I ever could have wanted to be around. I mean, to be a part of it, that in itself is a great achievement. To love hearing what your mates are doing.

Is it difficult for you to go back and listen to your own music?

No, no, I enjoy it. In isolation, the changes are interesting and the intentions are always strong and powerful. I mean I don’t put anything out that I don’t have 110 per cent passion for. Otherwise I’ve got plenty of other things I could do, you know, with my life. I’ve always been open to anybody musically. Otherwise I wouldn’t have sung on all these other records. Bobby Gillespie calls me every 18 months for a harmonica and a Primal Scream track, “OK? Come round.” Here I come… [Scottish accent?] “Oh could you do a bit ‘o the vocal on there, just do the low vocal there if ye can, don’ worry ah’ll send you a copy o’ the record.” Right the way through time it’s been like that. I love it. Hey, we’ll see how it all pans out in the end.

INTERVIEW: MICHAEL BONNER

The Kinks – Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One/Percy

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The Kinks – Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One/Percy

They were there first – again. Man vs record business, the opera... By the time Ray Davies wrote the songs that made up Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One, it was as if he couldn’t stop himself thinking in broader, conceptual terms. His muse seemed to take an idea and run so far with it that song after song poured forth on a particular theme – an expansion process paralleled by the way his band’s LP titles had grown into mission statements: The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, followed by Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire). Disgruntled by the comparatively poor sales of those albums, and by the way that the Arthur TV pop-opera project had been held up so long by business problems (before being cancelled) that The Who’s Tommy leapfrogged it to be hailed as the first “rock opera”, Davies’ new batch of material was driven by disaffection with the music business. While not exactly an opera, it loosely follows the callow newcomers of “The Contenders” as they contend with publishers, agents and the industry’s arcane accounting system, before ultimately taking solace, on “Got To Be Free”, in personal freedom and ethical purity, by opting to “stand up straight, let everybody see I ain’t nobody’s slave”. It’s a journey mapped out across varied musical terrain, from the good-timey jugband feel of publishers’ domain “Denmark Street”, through the music-hall mock-jollity of “The Moneygoround” – still the most acidly accurate summation of showbiz financial finagling – to the chunky riffing of “Powerman”, the eventual realisation of the gulf separating artists from businessmen. While the album was being recorded, keyboardist John Gosling was added to the band lineup, and his piano and organ bring depth and texture to songs like “Get Back In Line”, a session-man’s plaint at the power wielded over his career by the Musician’s Union, and “Top Of The Pops”. The latter, ostensibly a celebration of how “life is so easy when your record’s hot”, is cunningly undercut by a darker tone. The very riff itself seems drenched in cynical disillusion, while the concluding churchy organ greeting the agent’s declaration, “Your record’s just got to number one – and you know what this means?/It means you can make some real money!”, sounds like a bitter revelation. Short and sweet, “The Moneygoround” packs more useful information into two minutes than a course of seminars about how industry types carve their undeserved percentages from a writer’s income, seasoning reality with regret (“I thought they were my friends… I can’t believe I was so green”). The album’s two hit singles, though, were only tangentially connected to the album concept. One of the most accomplished examples of Davies’ witty wordplay, the gender-bender tale “Lola” was set to a tangy timbre of unison National steel and Martin acoustic guitars, fattened with piano, maracas and classic Kinks guitar/bass/drums chug. Ironically, in view of the lyric change required to get BBC airplay, one of the outtakes included here finds Davies singing not “C-O-L-A, cola”, but “I hate Coca-Cola” – though whether that would have circumvented the Beeb’s prohibition on advertising remains doubtful. Adding tack piano to the National steel for another distinctive timbre, “Apeman” again showcases Davies’ neatly crafted lyricism, while its theme of hankering after a simpler, prelapsarian state is taken up in songs written for the following year’s film soundtrack Percy, paired here with Lola Versus Powerman…. “God’s Children” boasts a similar back-to-the-garden sentiment as “Apeman”, but not as amusingly, its blend of piano, strings and ringing guitar arpeggios irresistibly recalling The Byrds of “Turn Turn Turn”. But the standout track is the beautiful, melancholy ballad “The Way Love Used To Be”, which again finds the narrator wistfully hankering after lost innocence. Elsewhere, “Completely” is a slow blues boogie instrumental in Fleetwood Mac style, and “Dreams” an escapist fantasy, while “Just Friends” employs harpsichord and strings behind Davies’ caricature British croon. Among the various alternative versions and remixes, the only actual Lola… outtakes are “Anytime”, a maudlin reassurance of support in plodding “Hey Jude” manner, and the swaggering, Bolan-esque boogie “The Good Life”, with promises of “wine, women and song, if you sign on the dotted line”. In this context, its concluding message that “if this is civilisation, I’d rather be uncivilised” offers another link cementing the anti-modernist spirit linking these two undervalued entries in the Kinks Kanon. Andy Gill Q+A Ray Davies Was “Lola” the first time you used the National steel guitar? Yes. On “Lola”, I wanted an intro similar to what we used on “Dedicated Follower Of Fashion”, which was two Fender acoustic guitars and Dave’s electric guitar; so I went down to Shaftesbury Avenue and bought a Martin guitar, and this National guitar that I got for £80, then double-tracked the Martin, and double-tracked the National – that’s what got that sound. That album was one of the earliest expressions of disaffection with the music business. What was your experience? We had three managers who led us to believe we were signing the best deal possible, but it was a young industry in Britain, and people would take advantage of you. We just wanted to make a record, and a three-single deal with Pye was the only deal available. We were going to be dropped before the third single, which was “You Really Got Me”. Lola Versus Powerman… was made during a transitional period for The Kinks, when John Gosling joined. What was the intention behind that? The bass end of the keyboard is really quintessential on all those early Kinks records, but we didn’t have a keyboard player on tour until John Gosling joined during the Lola… album. We got an unusually effective combination of music-hall piano and National steel on several tracks, including “Apeman”, which was recorded after the album was finished. At the time, I intended it to be something powerful and dominating, after “Lola” had caused people to ask, “What’s this group about?” Did you get started on the rumoured Volume Two of Lola Versus Powerman…? Yes. Lola Versus Powerman… was good versus evil, obviously, and in Volume Two, I sketched out how you become your worst nightmare, how the good man goes so far he becomes the evil person he always fought against. But we had to do another tour, we had the RCA deal, and we had other recording projects that we had to work towards, and it got lost, unfortunately. Were the songs on Percy specifically written for the film, or did you have them already in the bag? Again, it was a masterpiece of mismanagement! “Lola” had been a worldwide hit, and America was crying out for us to go back there, but our managers decided it would be nice if we did the soundtrack to a film! There were a few songs already written, like “The Way Love Used To Be”, but most of it was done to fit the themes of the film. INTERVIEW: ANDY GILL Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

They were there first – again. Man vs record business, the opera…

By the time Ray Davies wrote the songs that made up Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One, it was as if he couldn’t stop himself thinking in broader, conceptual terms. His muse seemed to take an idea and run so far with it that song after song poured forth on a particular theme – an expansion process paralleled by the way his band’s LP titles had grown into mission statements: The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, followed by Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire).

Disgruntled by the comparatively poor sales of those albums, and by the way that the Arthur TV pop-opera project had been held up so long by business problems (before being cancelled) that The Who’s Tommy leapfrogged it to be hailed as the first “rock opera”, Davies’ new batch of material was driven by disaffection with the music business. While not exactly an opera, it loosely follows the callow newcomers of “The Contenders” as they contend with publishers, agents and the industry’s arcane accounting system, before ultimately taking solace, on “Got To Be Free”, in personal freedom and ethical purity, by opting to “stand up straight, let everybody see I ain’t nobody’s slave”.

It’s a journey mapped out across varied musical terrain, from the good-timey jugband feel of publishers’ domain “Denmark Street”, through the music-hall mock-jollity of “The Moneygoround” – still the most acidly accurate summation of showbiz financial finagling – to the chunky riffing of “Powerman”, the eventual realisation of the gulf separating artists from businessmen. While the album was being recorded, keyboardist John Gosling was added to the band lineup, and his piano and organ bring depth and texture to songs like “Get Back In Line”, a session-man’s plaint at the power wielded over his career by the Musician’s Union, and “Top Of The Pops”.

The latter, ostensibly a celebration of how “life is so easy when your record’s hot”, is cunningly undercut by a darker tone. The

very riff itself seems drenched in cynical disillusion, while the concluding churchy organ greeting the agent’s declaration, “Your record’s just got to number one – and you know what this means?/It means you can make some real money!”, sounds like a bitter revelation.

Short and sweet, “The Moneygoround” packs more useful information into two minutes than a course of seminars about how industry types carve their undeserved percentages from a writer’s income, seasoning reality with regret (“I thought they were my friends… I can’t believe I was so green”). The album’s two hit singles, though, were only tangentially connected to the album concept. One of the most accomplished examples of Davies’ witty wordplay, the gender-bender tale “Lola” was set to a tangy timbre of unison National steel and Martin acoustic guitars, fattened with piano, maracas and classic Kinks guitar/bass/drums chug. Ironically, in view of the lyric change required to get BBC airplay, one of the outtakes included here finds Davies singing not “C-O-L-A, cola”, but “I hate Coca-Cola” – though whether that would have circumvented the Beeb’s prohibition on advertising remains doubtful.

Adding tack piano to the National steel for another distinctive timbre, “Apeman” again showcases Davies’ neatly crafted lyricism, while its theme of hankering after a simpler, prelapsarian state is taken up in songs written for the following year’s film soundtrack Percy, paired here with Lola Versus Powerman…. “God’s Children” boasts a similar back-to-the-garden sentiment as “Apeman”, but not as amusingly, its blend of piano, strings and ringing guitar arpeggios irresistibly recalling The Byrds of “Turn Turn Turn”. But the standout track is the beautiful, melancholy ballad “The Way Love Used To Be”, which again finds the narrator wistfully hankering after lost innocence. Elsewhere, “Completely” is a slow blues boogie instrumental in Fleetwood Mac style, and “Dreams” an escapist fantasy, while “Just Friends” employs harpsichord and strings behind Davies’ caricature British croon.

Among the various alternative versions and remixes, the only actual Lola… outtakes are “Anytime”, a maudlin reassurance of support in plodding “Hey Jude” manner, and the swaggering, Bolan-esque boogie “The Good Life”, with promises of “wine, women and song, if you sign on the dotted line”. In this context, its concluding message that “if this is civilisation, I’d rather be uncivilised” offers another link cementing the anti-modernist spirit linking these two undervalued entries in the Kinks Kanon.

Andy Gill

Q+A

Ray Davies

Was “Lola” the first time you used the National steel guitar?

Yes. On “Lola”, I wanted an intro similar to what we used on “Dedicated Follower Of Fashion”, which was two Fender acoustic guitars and Dave’s electric guitar; so I went down to Shaftesbury Avenue and bought a Martin guitar, and this National guitar that I got for £80, then double-tracked the Martin, and double-tracked the National – that’s what got that sound.

That album was one of the earliest expressions of disaffection with the music business. What was your experience?

We had three managers who led us to believe we were signing the best deal possible, but it was a young industry in Britain, and people would take advantage of you. We just wanted to make a record, and a three-single deal with Pye was the only deal available. We were going to be dropped before the third single, which was “You Really Got Me”.

Lola Versus Powerman… was made during a transitional period for The Kinks, when John Gosling joined. What was the intention behind that?

The bass end of the keyboard is really quintessential on all those early Kinks records, but we didn’t have a keyboard player on tour until John Gosling joined during the Lola… album. We got an unusually effective combination of music-hall piano and National steel on several tracks, including “Apeman”, which was recorded after the album was finished. At the time, I intended it to be something powerful and dominating, after “Lola” had caused people to ask, “What’s this group about?”

Did you get started on the rumoured Volume Two of Lola Versus Powerman…?

Yes. Lola Versus Powerman… was good versus evil, obviously, and in Volume Two, I sketched out how you become your worst nightmare, how the good man goes so far he becomes the evil person he always fought against. But we had to do another tour, we had the RCA deal, and we had other recording projects that we had to work towards, and it got lost, unfortunately.

Were the songs on Percy specifically written for the film, or did you have them already in the bag?

Again, it was a masterpiece of mismanagement! “Lola” had been a worldwide hit, and America was crying out for us to go back there, but our managers decided it would be nice if we did the soundtrack to a film! There were a few songs already written, like “The Way Love Used To Be”, but most of it was done to fit the themes of the film.

INTERVIEW: ANDY GILL

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Reviewed! Thom Yorke, “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”

John Mulvey
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0
Reviewed! Thom Yorke, “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”

Instant albums do not, as a rule, encourage reflection. There is surprise, sometimes indignation, a social media flame war, a lot of static about delivery systems. Once the 38 minutes of, say, Thom Yorke's "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" have passed, it can all suddenly be over. What happens next? Maybe you write about it, then play it again and don’t write about it. Or maybe you live with an album for a conceptually inconceivable 66 hours and gradually put some thoughts into order: about the environmental possibilities of Thom Yorke's music, perhaps; about the mythical promise of electronica; about radically different ideas of what ambition means. The first useful thing to say about this second Yorke solo album (third if you count Atoms For Peace as an at least quasi-solo venture, I guess) is that it encourages reflection. "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" reveals its riches incrementally, as music fundamentally unsuited to snap judgments. At first, there doesn’t seems to be a huge amount going on beyond the phases and wobbles of modern electronic, theoretically danceable music, cycling around beneath Yorke's familiar repertoire of treated, forlorn exhortations. If you follow Yorke's regular "office charts" at www.radiohead.co.uk/deadairspace (the most recent sample: Caribou, Luke Abboutt, Nathan Fake, The Dead Kennedys), it feels predictable: nebulous Night Bus sadness; Our Tune requests on Rinse FM. This one's for the special alienated person in your life... Living with "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" for the weekend - not playing anything else, in fact - its usefulness begins to emerge. Many of these tracks are the kind that make radical shifts according to the balance of situation, volume, mood and so. "There Is No Ice (For My Drink)" (one for the self-elected barkeepers there) works as distantly itchy ambience, with slow-moving melodic tones - a little reminiscent of the way Autechre seed tectonic prettiness beneath their beat science - discreetly coming to the fore. Louder, it's the bass frequencies which are most resonant, sprung moves learned in some way from dubstep. In headphones, the micro-detailing of the whole endeavour becomes clear: a brilliant exercise in syncopation and dislocation; buffeted by dub; scattered with digitised babble that adds texture and a hint of emotion without the burden of explicit meaning. These are the pleasures of "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes", an album whose mood is so consistent (as, perhaps, was the underrated "King Of Limbs") that it can be hard to remember where one track ends and another begins. The distrait piano doodles at the end of "There Is No Ice" are gradually overwhelmed by a tiny chorale, part mosquitoes, part banshees, that runs into "Pink Section" before another fractured piano study drifts into something akin to focus. Radical gear shifts are rare, and the polyrhythmic drive of "AMOK" has been disabled. While Atoms For Peace and the last live manifestation of Radiohead both featured two drummers/percussionists, "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" is built on the slightest of gestures. "Cymbal Rush", "The Eraser"'s closing track, is a likely precursor, and the finale here, "Nose Grows Some", is propelled by mere glitches, like an old Pole or Alva Noto record, like something from a Mille Plateaux "Clicks + Cuts" comp from around the turn of the millennium. Not for the first time (cf "Videotape"), it sees Yorke ending an album with the vaguest, unshowiest kind of resolution. Mostly, this is lovely, clever and subtly involving music. In particular, "Interference" and "The Mother Lode" feature some of Yorke's best music of the last decade. The former has one of those rapturous, yearning melodies, articulated in the most minimal strokes, that Yorke has been finessing since "Pyramid Song" (ie "Codex", "Nude", the track which precedes "Interference", "Guess Again"), with the anthemic potential scrupulously blown out, and a hint of Boards Of Canada in the warped tones. "The Mother Lode", meanwhile, finds Yorke at his most soulful, riding a skipped two-step that. Like all of "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes", it privileges a certain elegance over aggression. Both, too, are object lessons in how apparently sketchy tunes can, soon enough, be truly insidious. It is, then, a notably tasteful album, though that certainly shouldn’t be taken as a criticism. And while plenty of attention has been paid to how Yorke's means of dissemination differs from that of U2, it's the aesthetic chasm between the two that’s more striking, once the downloading's been done. The business strategy behind "Songs Of Innocence" might have been predicated on an assumption that those who hate U2 couldn’t hate them any more than they already do. But it also betrays a phenomenally needy band, who still appear fixated on being the most commercially powerful rock or pop band in the world (@petepaphides was very good discussing this on Twitter after the U2/Apple clusterfuck). For those who remain uncharmed, outside the otherwise gargantuan target market, it's not a particularly edifying spectacle. At some point over the weekend, though, it occurred to me that "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" is every bit as needy an album as "Songs Of Innocence", with a desire to be seen as a piece of work outside mainstream culture that might be far from vulgar, but is every bit as neurotic. The anti-corporate rhetoric embedded in the Bittorrent launch, and the deal with Bittorrent itself, is only the most visible aspect of that desire. Once you've purchased "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes", it reveals that Yorke has now manoeuvred himself further away than ever from the expediencies of stadium rock; a self-conscious radical who can still sell over 100,000 downloads in 24 hours. Behind every lovingly-bent note of "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes", there's an anxiety to be seen as forward-thinking, as disdainful of old rock codes, as blazing new territory, even though many of the musical antecedents here - Burial, say - date from the best part of a decade ago. If it weren’t such a terrific piece of work, you can see how "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" could be quite an irritating one. But perhaps these are caveats borne of over-analysis, when Yorke's music, for all its inherent calculation, works so well in intuitive, environmental ways. It's playing again now, and it's a very satisfying album to write to. Maybe we should talk again in a week or so? Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

Instant albums do not, as a rule, encourage reflection. There is surprise, sometimes indignation, a social media flame war, a lot of static about delivery systems. Once the 38 minutes of, say, Thom Yorke’s “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” have passed, it can all suddenly be over. What happens next?

Maybe you write about it, then play it again and don’t write about it. Or maybe you live with an album for a conceptually inconceivable 66 hours and gradually put some thoughts into order: about the environmental possibilities of Thom Yorke’s music, perhaps; about the mythical promise of electronica; about radically different ideas of what ambition means.

The first useful thing to say about this second Yorke solo album (third if you count Atoms For Peace as an at least quasi-solo venture, I guess) is that it encourages reflection. “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” reveals its riches incrementally, as music fundamentally unsuited to snap judgments. At first, there doesn’t seems to be a huge amount going on beyond the phases and wobbles of modern electronic, theoretically danceable music, cycling around beneath Yorke’s familiar repertoire of treated, forlorn exhortations. If you follow Yorke’s regular “office charts” at www.radiohead.co.uk/deadairspace (the most recent sample: Caribou, Luke Abboutt, Nathan Fake, The Dead Kennedys), it feels predictable: nebulous Night Bus sadness; Our Tune requests on Rinse FM. This one’s for the special alienated person in your life…

Living with “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” for the weekend – not playing anything else, in fact – its usefulness begins to emerge. Many of these tracks are the kind that make radical shifts according to the balance of situation, volume, mood and so. “There Is No Ice (For My Drink)” (one for the self-elected barkeepers there) works as distantly itchy ambience, with slow-moving melodic tones – a little reminiscent of the way Autechre seed tectonic prettiness beneath their beat science – discreetly coming to the fore. Louder, it’s the bass frequencies which are most resonant, sprung moves learned in some way from dubstep. In headphones, the micro-detailing of the whole endeavour becomes clear: a brilliant exercise in syncopation and dislocation; buffeted by dub; scattered with digitised babble that adds texture and a hint of emotion without the burden of explicit meaning.

These are the pleasures of “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”, an album whose mood is so consistent (as, perhaps, was the underrated “King Of Limbs”) that it can be hard to remember where one track ends and another begins. The distrait piano doodles at the end of “There Is No Ice” are gradually overwhelmed by a tiny chorale, part mosquitoes, part banshees, that runs into “Pink Section” before another fractured piano study drifts into something akin to focus.

Radical gear shifts are rare, and the polyrhythmic drive of “AMOK” has been disabled. While Atoms For Peace and the last live manifestation of Radiohead both featured two drummers/percussionists, “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” is built on the slightest of gestures. “Cymbal Rush”, “The Eraser”‘s closing track, is a likely precursor, and the finale here, “Nose Grows Some”, is propelled by mere glitches, like an old Pole or Alva Noto record, like something from a Mille Plateaux “Clicks + Cuts” comp from around the turn of the millennium. Not for the first time (cf “Videotape”), it sees Yorke ending an album with the vaguest, unshowiest kind of resolution.

Mostly, this is lovely, clever and subtly involving music. In particular, “Interference” and “The Mother Lode” feature some of Yorke’s best music of the last decade. The former has one of those rapturous, yearning melodies, articulated in the most minimal strokes, that Yorke has been finessing since “Pyramid Song” (ie “Codex”, “Nude”, the track which precedes “Interference”, “Guess Again”), with the anthemic potential scrupulously blown out, and a hint of Boards Of Canada in the warped tones. “The Mother Lode”, meanwhile, finds Yorke at his most soulful, riding a skipped two-step that. Like all of “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”, it privileges a certain elegance over aggression. Both, too, are object lessons in how apparently sketchy tunes can, soon enough, be truly insidious.

It is, then, a notably tasteful album, though that certainly shouldn’t be taken as a criticism. And while plenty of attention has been paid to how Yorke’s means of dissemination differs from that of U2, it’s the aesthetic chasm between the two that’s more striking, once the downloading’s been done. The business strategy behind “Songs Of Innocence” might have been predicated on an assumption that those who hate U2 couldn’t hate them any more than they already do. But it also betrays a phenomenally needy band, who still appear fixated on being the most commercially powerful rock or pop band in the world (@petepaphides was very good discussing this on Twitter after the U2/Apple clusterfuck).

For those who remain uncharmed, outside the otherwise gargantuan target market, it’s not a particularly edifying spectacle. At some point over the weekend, though, it occurred to me that “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” is every bit as needy an album as “Songs Of Innocence”, with a desire to be seen as a piece of work outside mainstream culture that might be far from vulgar, but is every bit as neurotic. The anti-corporate rhetoric embedded in the Bittorrent launch, and the deal with Bittorrent itself, is only the most visible aspect of that desire.

Once you’ve purchased “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”, it reveals that Yorke has now manoeuvred himself further away than ever from the expediencies of stadium rock; a self-conscious radical who can still sell over 100,000 downloads in 24 hours. Behind every lovingly-bent note of “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”, there’s an anxiety to be seen as forward-thinking, as disdainful of old rock codes, as blazing new territory, even though many of the musical antecedents here – Burial, say – date from the best part of a decade ago.

If it weren’t such a terrific piece of work, you can see how “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” could be quite an irritating one. But perhaps these are caveats borne of over-analysis, when Yorke’s music, for all its inherent calculation, works so well in intuitive, environmental ways. It’s playing again now, and it’s a very satisfying album to write to. Maybe we should talk again in a week or so?

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

Watch star-studded Tweedy video for “Low Key”

Uncut
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0
Watch star-studded Tweedy video for “Low Key”

Steve Albini, Mavis Staples and Conan O'Brien are among the guest stars in the new video for "Low Key" from Tweedy, the new project from Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. Click below to watch the video, which was directed by actor Nick Offerman from Parks And Recreation. Other guest stars in the video include Melissa McCarthy, Andy Richter, Chance the Rapper and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche The song features on the album Sukierae, a collaboration with Tweedy's son Spencer who drums on the release. The video sees the pair acting as door to door salesmen, trying to shift copies of the album on the streets of their native Chicago. Offerman told The Wall Street Journal that he and Jeff Tweedy remained in contact since Tweedy made a cameo on Parks And Recreation last year. "Getting to work with the two of them and getting to see their rapport as father and son, as well as bandmates, was really quite heartwarming," he said. "I left that weekend with a pretty solid crush on both of them." Sukierae was released earlier this month and is made up of 20 tracks. Wilco released their latest album The Whole Love in 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29YGcuRk3mM Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Steve Albini, Mavis Staples and Conan O’Brien are among the guest stars in the new video for “Low Key” from Tweedy, the new project from Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.

Click below to watch the video, which was directed by actor Nick Offerman from Parks And Recreation.

Other guest stars in the video include Melissa McCarthy, Andy Richter, Chance the Rapper and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche

The song features on the album Sukierae, a collaboration with Tweedy’s son Spencer who drums on the release.

The video sees the pair acting as door to door salesmen, trying to shift copies of the album on the streets of their native Chicago.

Offerman told The Wall Street Journal that he and Jeff Tweedy remained in contact since Tweedy made a cameo on Parks And Recreation last year. “Getting to work with the two of them and getting to see their rapport as father and son, as well as bandmates, was really quite heartwarming,” he said. “I left that weekend with a pretty solid crush on both of them.”

Sukierae was released earlier this month and is made up of 20 tracks.

Wilco released their latest album The Whole Love in 2011.

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Joanna Newsom to narrate Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, Inherent Vice

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Joanna Newsom to narrate Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, Inherent Vice
Joanna Newsom is to narrate Inherent Vice, the new film from director Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson's film is based on a 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon; Newsom's involvement was originally revealed last year, however a report in The New York Times confirms Newsom will play Sortilège; an "earth-godd...

Joanna Newsom is to narrate Inherent Vice, the new film from director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Anderson’s film is based on a 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon; Newsom’s involvement was originally revealed last year, however a report in The New York Times confirms Newsom will play Sortilège; an “earth-goddess-like” character.

The film is Anderson’s first since 2012’s The Master.

Inherent Vice follows private investigator Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquim Phoenix) working in 1970’s Los Angeles. It co-stars Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin and Owen Wilson.

It is the first feature film adapted from a novel by Pynchon. The film is scheduled to be released on December 12, 2014.

You can watch Pynchon narrate a promo video for the novel below.

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Read Neil Young’s setlist for his Harvest The Hope benefit concert

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Read Neil Young’s setlist for his Harvest The Hope benefit concert
Neil Young played a benefit concert on Saturday September 27 to raise funds for Bold Nebraska, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Cowboy & Indian Alliance. The concert took place at Tanderup Farm, Neligh, Nebraska, on the route of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The project wo...

Neil Young played a benefit concert on Saturday September 27 to raise funds for Bold Nebraska, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Cowboy & Indian Alliance.

The concert took place at Tanderup Farm, Neligh, Nebraska, on the route of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The project would bring diluted bitumen from Alberta to refineries in the Gulf Coast and cross land sacred to the First Nations people.

Willie Nelson also performed. Young – who played acoustic guitar, electric guitar, pump organ, harmonica, vocals – was backed by a band consisting of Lukas Nelson (electric guitar), Anthony LoGerfo (drums, vocals), Tato Melgar (percussion), Corey McCormick (bass) and Micah Nelson (electric guitar).

Among the 10 song set, Young played were “This Is Your Land” with Willie Nelson, and his new song, “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?”.

You can read the full setlist below, courtesy of Thrasher’s Wheat.

Last week, Young’s record label Reprise confirmed that he would release a new album, Storeytone, in November.

Neil Young played:

This Land Is Your Land (electric guitar; guests with Willie Nelson)

Comes A Time (acoustic guitar)

Mother Earth (pump organ)

Heart Of Gold (acoustic guitar)

Pocahontas (acoustic guitar)

Country Home (electric guitar; accompanied by Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real)

Mansion On The Hill (electric guitar; accompanied by Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real)

Homegrown (electric guitar; accompanied by Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real)

Down By The River (electric guitar; accompanied by Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real)

Who’s Gonna Stand Up? (electric guitar; accompanied by Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real)

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

David Gilmour: “The new Pink Floyd album is a tribute to Rick Wright”

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David Gilmour: “The new Pink Floyd album is a tribute to Rick Wright”

Uncut charts the creation of Pink Floyd’s new album, The Endless River, in the cover story of our new issue, dated November 2014 and out now. We uncover the record’s extraordinary journey, from vintage organ jams in the Royal Albert Hall to present-day goings-on in London recording studios and a houseboat on the Thames. “It is a tribute to Rick Wright,” acknowledges Gilmour. “I mean, to me… it’s very evocative and emotional in a lot of moments and certainly listening to all the stuff made me regret his passing all over again, and this is the last chance someone will get to hear him just playing along with us in that way that he did.” The album is released on November 10, and has been produced by Phil Manzanera, Youth and Andy Jackson. The new issue of Uncut is out now.

Uncut charts the creation of Pink Floyd’s new album, The Endless River, in the cover story of our new issue, dated November 2014 and out now.

We uncover the record’s extraordinary journey, from vintage organ jams in the Royal Albert Hall to present-day goings-on in London recording studios and a houseboat on the Thames.

“It is a tribute to Rick Wright,” acknowledges Gilmour. “I mean, to me… it’s very evocative and emotional in a lot of moments and certainly listening to all the stuff made me regret his passing all over again, and this is the last chance someone will get to hear him just playing along with us in that way that he did.”

The album is released on November 10, and has been produced by Phil Manzanera, Youth and Andy Jackson.

The new issue of Uncut is out now.

Thom Yorke releases new album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes

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Thom Yorke releases new album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes
Thom Yorke has released a new album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. The album is available to download using BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file sharing software. In a statement co-authored with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Yorke wrote, “As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to ...

Thom Yorke has released a new album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes.

The album is available to download using BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file sharing software.

In a statement co-authored with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Yorke wrote, “As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record. The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files. The files can be anything, but in this case is an ‘album’.”

Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is Yorke’s second solo album, following 2006’s The Eraser.

You can hear the opening track, “A Brain In A Bottle“, below.

The album, which costs $6, can be bought here.

It is also available on deluxe edition white vinyl, available from here.

The tracklisting for Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is:

A Brain In A Bottle

Guess Again!

Interference

The Mother Lode

Truth Ray

There Is No Ice (For My Drink)

Pink Section

Nose Grows Some

The Who reveal new song ‘Be Lucky’ – listen

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The Who reveal new song ‘Be Lucky’ – listen
The Who have revealed 'Be Lucky', their first new song in eight years – click below to listen. The song sees the band reference both AC/DC and Daft Punk in their lyrics, with a robot style auto-tune effect used after the line about the French duo. 'Be Lucky' appears on forthcoming compilation a...

The Who have revealed ‘Be Lucky’, their first new song in eight years – click below to listen.

The song sees the band reference both AC/DC and Daft Punk in their lyrics, with a robot style auto-tune effect used after the line about the French duo. ‘Be Lucky’ appears on forthcoming compilation album ‘Who Hits 50’ and is their first new material since 2006 album ‘Endless Wire’. The track was recorded with bassist Pino Pallodino, Zak Starkey on drums, and keyboard-player Mick Talbot.

Later this year The Who will embark on their 50th anniversary tour. The nine-date tour, dubbed ‘The Who Hits 50’, will encompass songs dating back to the band’s original name of The High Numbers. Starting in November, it features hits and songs which guitarist Pete Townshend described as “hits, picks, mixes and misses”.

The Who will play:

Glasgow SSE Hydro (November 30)

Leeds First Direct Arena (December 2)

Nottingham Capital FM Arena (5)

Birmingham NIA (7)

Newcastle Metro Arena (9)

Liverpool Echo Arena (11)

Manchester Phones 4u Arena (13)

Cardiff Motorpoint (15)

London O2 (17)



The Who – Be Lucky by IvorTheEngineDriver

AC/DC – the true adventures of Bon Scott

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AC/DC – the true adventures of Bon Scott
We look back at the life of AC/DC's former frontman Bon Scott in this piece taken from Uncut's December 2013 issue (Take 199). A street poet who’d been inside for ‘carnal knowledge’? A teenybop idol and hippy seer? A tearaway who swam with jellyfish and rode motorbikes naked? “A fantastic gu...

The band shared a house in a seedy area of Melbourne that quickly became a mecca for party animals. Shenanigans found their way into Scott’s lyrics – comic-book tales of sex and excess, like “Whole Lotta Rosie”, about a Tasmanian groupie, or “Big Balls”, with its touching refrain “bollocks, knackers, bollocks, knackers”. Although AC/DC’s approach was to never take themselves too seriously, Scott excelled at writing about being in a band, capturing frustrated ambition on breakthrough single, December 1975’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll)” – one of the few rock songs to feature a bagpipe solo. “Bon was a street poet – he described it as ‘toilet wall’ poetry,” says Browning. “That was unknown. They signed a singer and got a lyricist, as well.”

When bassist Mark Evans joined in March ’75, AC/DC were a band in transition. “We did TNT, Dirty Deeds… and Let There Be Rock in the space of 15 months, and there was a big change in that time,” he says. “When I joined they wanted me to wear a red satin suit. I said, ‘If my mates see me they’ll punch the crap out of me!’ Malcolm was keen on T.Rex and took us to see The Glitter Band. We all liked Slade. Later, we got more into Free and the Stones. Bon was nuts about Alex Harvey.”

AC/DC were regulars on Australian TV’s Countdown – one appearance in 1975 saw them play “Baby, Please Don’t Go” with Scott dressed as a schoolgirl. “We attracted teenage girls at an all-age show or skinheads in a pub,” says Evans. “We didn’t find our real audience until we went to London [in 1976] and began playing to guys with long hair and denim.”

The band broke attendance records during a residency at the Marquee. In 1977, Let There Be Rock reached the UK Top 20, and AC/DC spent their time between Europe and Australia, with trips to the US in an attempt to crack the market. Bon was still drinking heavily, though other temptations were available.

“I never saw Bon take hard drugs but he did OD in Australia,” confirms Evans. “He didn’t take hard drugs on a regular basis but he dabbled. It put the wind up [co-producers] George [Young] and Harry [Vanda]. They’d spent a long time round Stevie Wright and he had a shocking time with heroin.”

All the same, Scott remained a valued part of the songwriting team. “Malcolm and Angus had the ideas,” explains Evans of the albums he cut with the band. “Songs were written in the studio between Malcolm, Angus and Bon. We’d spend a week on backing tracks, then a week on vocals and guitar solos.”

In 1979, Tony Platt was asked to mix AC/DC’s seventh album, Highway To Hell. At the time, Young and Vanda had relinquished production duties and sessions for the LP took place under the auspices of ‘Mutt’ Lange at Roundhouse Studios in London. “They wanted a solid English rock sound,” explains Platt. “I’d worked with Led Zep, The Who and Free, so I was used to highly proficient bands that lived hard but also worked very hard. The record was made on tea and B&H. The first time I met them, Bon made me a cup of tea. He was superb. When he sang, you believed him. The Youngs ran the band, but Bon was allowed to plough his own furrow. There were stories about him disappearing at the end of one gig and reappearing just in time for the soundcheck at the next. Malcolm once told me, ‘The thing with Bon is, it doesn’t matter what he does, he always turns up.’ You got the impression he was resilient.” Highway To Hell was AC/DC’s biggest album so far. It reached the Top 10 in the UK. Even better, it made No 17 in the US. The band planned to head to the Bahamas to record the follow-up. Bon Scott’s moment had finally arrived.

_________________________

On February 20, 1980, Scott was found dead. He had spent the previous evening drinking heavily in the Music Machine, a club in Camden Town. “I saw the guys in Sydney and I was taken aback,” says Evans, who left the band in 1977. “They’d been hit really hard, but the way they conducted themselves and got on with it, I have the utmost respect.” After some deliberation, AC/DC replaced Scott with Brian Johnson, who Scott had once recommended to the band. Johnson’s first job was to record Back In Black – with title, cover and opening funereal bell conceived in tribute to Scott. It went to No 1. “The band had done so much hard work and earned a lot of respect,” explains Evans. “They were primed to go. It all made sense.” The tragedy was that Scott wasn’t around to enjoy it. “Bon had amazing charisma,” says John Bisset.

“A lot of musicians are arrogant and negative, Bon didn’t have an ounce of that. He was well-equipped to handle fame. He should have gone on for a long time.” Mark Evans agrees, “Everyone loved him. He was a gentleman, fun-loving, great to be around. The public persona was this crazy guy, but that was only part of it. What hastened his departure is that he felt a responsibility to be Bon Scott, to live the rock’n’roll lifestyle he sang about.”

Photo: Chris Capstick/Rex

Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks: “Christine McVie has got 16 years of pent-up poetry”

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Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks: “Christine McVie has got 16 years of pent-up poetry”
Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks reveals more about the future of the band in the new issue of Uncut, dated November 2014 (Take 210) and out now. As well as discussing the group's plans for next year, Nicks explains why she thinks Christine McVie has decided to rejoin them, after originally retiring ...

Fleetwood Mac‘s Stevie Nicks reveals more about the future of the band in the new issue of Uncut, dated November 2014 (Take 210) and out now.

As well as discussing the group’s plans for next year, Nicks explains why she thinks Christine McVie has decided to rejoin them, after originally retiring in 1998.

“I don’t know what Chris has written [since she left], but she’s an amazing writer and she’s probably got 16 years of pent-up poetry,” says Nicks. “That’s probably why she started to think: ‘Why the hell am I out here in this castle, 40 miles outside of London, gardening and cooking? I’m a rock star.’

“So I think she just got up one day and thought: ‘This is crazy – I’m going back to work.’

“I’m just glad she’s back. I’ve missed her very much.”

The new issue of Uncut is out now.

The Changes

Uncut
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The Changes

Transmission from the weird lost world of British children’s TV.... It’s early evening, just another day in the eternal boredom of British summer. In the front room of their terraced house, a schoolgirl does her homework while mother knits and father sits smoking his pipe. A television flickers quietly. Almost time for dinner. Suddenly, a weird, piercing, pulsing noise begins. Face contorted, dad lurches to his feet, grabs a heavy metal ashtray. Then, swinging it like an axe, he starts smashing the TV to pieces, grunting, pipe still clenched between his teeth. The girl and her mother look on. Their limbs spasm. Their faces shudder as though their heads might explode. The migraine noise screams on around them. Now, they are all on their knees in the kitchen, lost in an animalistic family fit, tearing apart the cooker, the Hoover, the fridge. Outside, it continues, the street filled with their maddened, rioting neighbours, throwing TVs from windows, burning cars. Destroying everything. Everyday folks in a sudden unexplained orgy of violence against domestic appliances. Some smoking pipes. It’s a Ballardian scene that would not be out of place in some early-David Cronenberg sci-horror. But we’re far from the realm of late-night cult movies here. In fact, we’re in our living room, and it’s teatime. The sequence is the mind-meltingly unsettling opening to The Changes, a BBC children’s drama that went out on Mondays at 5.20pm in early 1975. It tends to be the only part of the 10-part series people remember, if they remember it at all. But what follows is equally strange, as, following the cataclysm of The Noise, our schoolgirl heroine Nicky Gore (the pensive Victoria Williams) is left alone in a silent Britain that has strangely rejected electricity and modernity – pylons and their “bad wires” become sinister markers in the landscape – and returned to the fields for a new dark age, superstition, witch hunts and all. At one point, she is sentenced to be stoned to death. Cannily adapted from a trilogy of novels by Peter Dickinson, The Changes bears striking similarities to another bleak BBC series from the same year – Survivors, by Dalek creator Terry Nation. Both present a Britain where the cities have been abandoned and feudal fascist groups enthusiastically spring up among the hedgerows, as though the seeds were always there, waiting. But The Changes gives a magickal Arthurian twist to the post-apocalyptic futureshock. After nine episodes more or less realistically exploring what life in a fallen agrarian Britain run by self-appointed fanatics might be like, the final explanation for everything that has been going on is truly mad, rooted deep in gnarly national mythology. In this, the series is emblematic of that feverish strain of weirded-out British children’s TV that blossomed like a fungus across the late-1960s and 1970s, then withered away in the early-1980s, never to be seen again. The likes of Children Of The Stones, The Owl Service and semi-Satanic/ Nigel Kneale-influenced Dr Who stories such as “The Daemons”. Dabbling in the occult, green pagan vibes and trippy psyche sci-fi, these were the kids’ TV counterpart to the British folk-horror cinema cycle that briefly flourished in the same period in films like The Wicker Man, Blood On Satan’s Claw and Kneale’s The Witches. All seemed to come bubbling up out of the landscape and divine currents then mingling in the air – the back to nature movement, in both its idealism and bullying militancy; the attractions and dangers of denying progress; ITV scare documentaries about suburban devil cults. Back then, when kids were much more likely to be out playing by themselves, it was easy to turn the corner of some derelict lane and find yourself in the cover of a Dennis Wheatley novel. Adapted by writer-producer Anna Home, the woman who brought everything from Jackanory through Grange Hill to Teletubbies into our lives, The Changes doesn’t have Children Of The Stones’s psychedelic narrative ambition, nor its present-day hauntological cult following. But, arriving on the heels of the candlelit nights and Government-imposed powercuts of 1974’s Three-Day-Week, it was more urgent about reflecting contemporary social concerns. Home excises some of Dickinson’s weirder touches – notably a morphine-addict wizard – but marshals the scattered events of his trilogy into a compelling parable positively crawling with the anxieties of its age. Alongside societal breakdown and ecological fears come religious fundamentalism, sexism and racism; broadcast when National Front marches were making the headlines, the only reasonable people Nicky meets are a band of Sikhs, dubbed “the devil’s children” by the superstitious white folks. Home’s ending, too, seems wilfully ambiguous: when, finally, machines start running again and the roads fill up with traffic belching pollution, it’s hard to tell whether this is supposed to be a happy outcome. The Changes attempted something unimaginable in children’s TV today: it actually tried to disturb children, in order to make them think. These days, kid’s TV drama seems preoccupied more with encouraging children to consume. That’s the truly disturbing thing. EXTRAS: Lovely booklet, 1983 public information film about the experience of British Asians, stills gallery. 8/10 Damien Love Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Transmission from the weird lost world of British children’s TV….

It’s early evening, just another day in the eternal boredom of British summer. In the front room of their terraced house, a schoolgirl does her homework while mother knits and father sits smoking his pipe. A television flickers quietly. Almost time for dinner.

Suddenly, a weird, piercing, pulsing noise begins. Face contorted, dad lurches to his feet, grabs a heavy metal ashtray. Then, swinging it like an axe, he starts smashing the TV to pieces, grunting, pipe still clenched between his teeth. The girl and her mother look on. Their limbs spasm. Their faces shudder as though their heads might explode. The migraine noise screams on around them. Now, they are all on their knees in the kitchen, lost in an animalistic family fit, tearing apart the cooker, the Hoover, the fridge.

Outside, it continues, the street filled with their maddened, rioting neighbours, throwing TVs from windows, burning cars. Destroying everything.

Everyday folks in a sudden unexplained orgy of violence against domestic appliances. Some smoking pipes. It’s a Ballardian scene that would not be out of place in some early-David Cronenberg sci-horror.

But we’re far from the realm of late-night cult movies here. In fact, we’re in our living room, and it’s teatime. The sequence is the mind-meltingly unsettling opening to The Changes, a BBC children’s drama that went out on Mondays at 5.20pm in early 1975. It tends to be the only part of the 10-part series people remember, if they remember it at all.

But what follows is equally strange, as, following the cataclysm of The Noise, our schoolgirl heroine Nicky Gore (the pensive Victoria Williams) is left alone in a silent Britain that has strangely rejected electricity and modernity – pylons and their “bad wires” become sinister markers in the landscape – and returned to the fields for a new dark age, superstition, witch hunts and all. At one point, she is sentenced to be stoned to death.

Cannily adapted from a trilogy of novels by Peter Dickinson, The Changes bears striking similarities to another bleak BBC series from the same year – Survivors, by Dalek creator Terry Nation. Both present a Britain where the cities have been abandoned and feudal fascist groups enthusiastically spring up among the hedgerows, as though the seeds were always there, waiting.

But The Changes gives a magickal Arthurian twist to the post-apocalyptic futureshock. After nine episodes more or less realistically exploring what life in a fallen agrarian Britain run by self-appointed fanatics might be like, the final explanation for everything that has been going on is truly mad, rooted deep in gnarly national mythology.

In this, the series is emblematic of that feverish strain of weirded-out British children’s TV that blossomed like a fungus across the late-1960s and 1970s, then withered away in the early-1980s, never to be seen again. The likes of Children Of The Stones, The Owl Service and semi-Satanic/ Nigel Kneale-influenced Dr Who stories such as “The Daemons”. Dabbling in the occult, green pagan vibes and trippy psyche sci-fi, these were the kids’ TV counterpart to the British folk-horror cinema cycle that briefly flourished in the same period in films like The Wicker Man, Blood On Satan’s Claw and Kneale’s The Witches.

All seemed to come bubbling up out of the landscape and divine currents then mingling in the air – the back to nature movement, in both its idealism and bullying militancy; the attractions and dangers of denying progress; ITV scare documentaries about suburban devil cults. Back then, when kids were much more likely to be out playing by themselves, it was easy to turn the corner of some derelict lane and find yourself in the cover of a Dennis Wheatley novel.

Adapted by writer-producer Anna Home, the woman who brought everything from Jackanory through Grange Hill to Teletubbies into our lives, The Changes doesn’t have Children Of The Stones’s psychedelic narrative ambition, nor its present-day hauntological cult following. But, arriving on the heels of the candlelit nights and Government-imposed powercuts of 1974’s Three-Day-Week, it was more urgent about reflecting contemporary social concerns.

Home excises some of Dickinson’s weirder touches – notably a morphine-addict wizard – but marshals the scattered events of his trilogy into a compelling parable positively crawling with the anxieties of its age.

Alongside societal breakdown and ecological fears come religious fundamentalism, sexism and racism; broadcast when National Front marches were making the headlines, the only reasonable people Nicky meets are a band of Sikhs, dubbed “the devil’s children” by the superstitious white folks. Home’s ending, too, seems wilfully ambiguous: when, finally, machines start running again and the roads fill up with traffic belching pollution, it’s hard to tell whether this is supposed to be a happy outcome.

The Changes attempted something unimaginable in children’s TV today: it actually tried to disturb children, in order to make them think. These days, kid’s TV drama seems preoccupied more with encouraging children to consume. That’s the truly disturbing thing.

EXTRAS: Lovely booklet, 1983 public information film about the experience of British Asians, stills gallery.

8/10

Damien Love

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

The 36th Uncut Playlist Of 2014

John Mulvey
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The 36th Uncut Playlist Of 2014

No point in messing about this week: scroll down to hear new music from, among others, Neil Young, Cool Ghouls, Bryan Ferry, Frazey Ford, Kendrick Lamar, Joan Shelley and the extremely promising D.D. Dumbo, plus a couple of amazing full gigs from Hiss Golden Messenger and a Purling Hiss/Spacin' supersession, both courtesy of the invaluable www.nyctaper.com. And also stick with the Beatles art experiment by Rutherford Chang: 100 old copies of "The White Album" is quite something, gradually, especially if you've a taste for stuff like MBV and Fennesz… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Cool Ghouls - A Swirling Fire Burning Through The Rye (Empty Cellar) 2 Neil Young - Who's Gonna Stand Up (solo, Crazy Horse and orchestral versions) (Reprise) 3 Shellac - Dude Incredible (Touch & Go) 4 Thompson - Family (Concord) 5 [REDACTED] 6 Robert Wyatt - Different Every Time: Benign Dictatorships (Domino) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHCSMT1Q1OY 7 Various Artists - New Orleans Soul: The Original Sound of New Orleans Soul 1960-76 (Soul Jazz) 8 Hiss Golden Messenger - September 18, 2014 Rough Trade NYC (www.nyctaper.com) 9 Ariel Kalma - An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings: 1972 - 1979) (RVNG INTL) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7RMs9OduI0 10 Perfume Genius - Too Bright (Caroline) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7OSSUwPVM4 11 Loscil - Sea Island (Kranky) 12 Kendrick Lamar - I (Top Dawg) 13 Rutherford Chang/The Beatles - The White Album: Side 1 x 100 12 James Last - Non Stop Dancing 1973 (Polydor) 13 [REDACTED] 14 Lee Ranaldo & The Dust - Acoustic Dust (El Segell Del Primavera) 15 D.D Dumbo - Tropical Oceans (4AD) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgtO9mCAIHo 16 Joan Shelley - Electric Ursa (No Quarter) 17 Kassé Mady Diabaté - Kiriké (No Format!) 18 The Young Sinclairs - This Is The Young Sinclairs (Ample Play) 19 Gazelle Twin - Unflesh (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray) 20 Steve Gunn - Way Out Weather (Paradise Of Bachelors) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckSY12Dmw8Q 21 Frazey Ford - Indian Ocean (Nettwerk) 22 Rumer - Into Colour (Atlantic) 23 Fugazi - First Demo (Dischord) 24 Spacin’ & Purling Hiss - September 5, 2014 Hopscotch Music Festival, Tir na Nog, Raleigh, NC (www.nyctaper.com) 25 Anthony D'Amato - The Shipwreck From The Shore (New West) 26 Bryan Ferry - Avonmore (BMG) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiicVWYh_v4

No point in messing about this week: scroll down to hear new music from, among others, Neil Young, Cool Ghouls, Bryan Ferry, Frazey Ford, Kendrick Lamar, Joan Shelley and the extremely promising D.D. Dumbo, plus a couple of amazing full gigs from Hiss Golden Messenger and a Purling Hiss/Spacin’ supersession, both courtesy of the invaluable www.nyctaper.com.

And also stick with the Beatles art experiment by Rutherford Chang: 100 old copies of “The White Album” is quite something, gradually, especially if you’ve a taste for stuff like MBV and Fennesz…

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

1 Cool Ghouls – A Swirling Fire Burning Through The Rye (Empty Cellar)

2 Neil Young – Who’s Gonna Stand Up (solo, Crazy Horse and orchestral versions) (Reprise)

3 Shellac – Dude Incredible (Touch & Go)

4 Thompson – Family (Concord)

5 [REDACTED]

6 Robert Wyatt – Different Every Time: Benign Dictatorships (Domino)

7 Various Artists – New Orleans Soul: The Original Sound of New Orleans Soul 1960-76 (Soul Jazz)

8 Hiss Golden Messenger – September 18, 2014 Rough Trade NYC (www.nyctaper.com)

9 Ariel Kalma – An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings: 1972 – 1979) (RVNG INTL)

10 Perfume Genius – Too Bright (Caroline)

11 Loscil – Sea Island (Kranky)

12 Kendrick Lamar – I (Top Dawg)

13 Rutherford Chang/The Beatles – The White Album: Side 1 x 100

12 James Last – Non Stop Dancing 1973 (Polydor)

13 [REDACTED]

14 Lee Ranaldo & The Dust – Acoustic Dust (El Segell Del Primavera)

15 D.D Dumbo – Tropical Oceans (4AD)

16 Joan Shelley – Electric Ursa (No Quarter)

17 Kassé Mady Diabaté – Kiriké (No Format!)

18 The Young Sinclairs – This Is The Young Sinclairs (Ample Play)

19 Gazelle Twin – Unflesh (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)

20 Steve Gunn – Way Out Weather (Paradise Of Bachelors)

21 Frazey Ford – Indian Ocean (Nettwerk)

22 Rumer – Into Colour (Atlantic)

23 Fugazi – First Demo (Dischord)

24 Spacin’ & Purling Hiss – September 5, 2014 Hopscotch Music Festival, Tir na Nog, Raleigh, NC (www.nyctaper.com)

25 Anthony D’Amato – The Shipwreck From The Shore (New West)

26 Bryan Ferry – Avonmore (BMG)

Bruce Springsteen to release first seven albums in newly remastered box set

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Bruce Springsteen to release first seven albums in newly remastered box set
Bruce Springsteen is to release a new box set that compiles his first seven albums. Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 will be remastered by respected engineers Bob Ludwig and Toby Scott, in conjunction with the artist himself. The albums have been newly transferred from orig...

Bruce Springsteen is to release a new box set that compiles his first seven albums.

Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 will be remastered by respected engineers Bob Ludwig and Toby Scott, in conjunction with the artist himself.

The albums have been newly transferred from original analogue masters using the Plangent Process playback system.

The set will also feature a 60-page book featuring vintage press clippings, photos and other memorabilia from the first 11 years of Springsteen’s recording career.

It is scheduled for release on November 17.

Included will be much of the work that has come to define Springsteen’s music, including 1973 debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Born To Run, and Nebraska.

The collection will be available to purchase on CD, vinyl or digital download.

None of the seven records have been remastered on vinyl before.

Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)*

The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle (1973)*

Born To Run (1975)

Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)

The River (1980)*

Nebraska (1982)*

Born In The U.S.A. (1984)*

*denotes first time remastered on CD

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Watch Laura Marling cover Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” with songwriter Eddie Berman

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Watch Laura Marling cover Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” with songwriter Eddie Berman
Laura Marling has covered Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" with singer songwriter Eddie Berman. Click below to watch the pair's rendition of the classic track, which will feature on Berman's forthcoming new album Polyhymnia, which is out October 21. The video was recorded at Kingsize North Studi...

Laura Marling has covered Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” with singer songwriter Eddie Berman.

Click below to watch the pair’s rendition of the classic track, which will feature on Berman’s forthcoming new album Polyhymnia, which is out October 21.

The video was recorded at Kingsize North Studios in Los Angeles.

The pair have previously covered Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark”.

Earlier this year Marling covered Townes Van Zandt’s “Colorado Girl” for the eTown programme on US radio station NPR.

Laura Marling released her fourth album, Once I Was An Eagle, in May 2013, reaching Number Three on the Official UK Albums Chart – her highest position to date.

A new album is due in the new year.

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Neil Young confirms November release date for Storeytone album

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Neil Young confirms November release date for Storeytone album
Neil Young has confirmed that his new album, Storeytone, will be released in November. The news came via a press release from his record company, Reprise, who also released on their official Soundcloud three versions of Young's new song, "Who's Gonna Stand Up?". The versions - live with Crazy Hors...

Neil Young has confirmed that his new album, Storeytone, will be released in November.

The news came via a press release from his record company, Reprise, who also released on their official Soundcloud three versions of Young’s new song, “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?“.

The versions – live with Crazy Horse, orchestral and acoustic – had originally been streaming on Young’s website. The

The song was originally performed at a Crazy Horse UK show this summer – read Uncut‘s review here – and more recently part of Young’s solo acoustic set at Farm Aid on September 13, at Walnut Creek Amphitheater in Raleigh North Carolina.

Young also recorded the track backed by a 92-piece symphony and choir.

The press release promises more information about Storeytone to be announced soon.

Live version with Crazy Horse:

Orchestral version:

Solo Acoustic version:

The BFI London Film Festival 2014: Music Films Preview!

Michael Bonner
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The BFI London Film Festival 2014: Music Films Preview!
Björk, Nas, the French House music scene and a beguiling tribute to the work of Alan Lomax are among the highlights of this year's BFI London Film Festival. Watch the trailers below. I hope you'll be aware by now, but the 58th BFI London Film Festival kicks off on October 9. Running through to O...

Björk, Nas, the French House music scene and a beguiling tribute to the work of Alan Lomax are among the highlights of this year’s BFI London Film Festival. Watch the trailers below.

I hope you’ll be aware by now, but the 58th BFI London Film Festival kicks off on October 9. Running through to October 20, there’s a lot of strong movies in the line-up – Peter Strickland’s The Duke Of Burgundy, Brad Pitt’s Fury, The White Haired Witch Of Lunar Kingdom, The Salvation and a restored print of Robert Altman‘s Come Back To The Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

But, of course, as ever there’s also a rich seam of music films in evidence at the festival. And below, here’s trailers for my five recommendations. By the way, you can find more general information about this year’s festival by clicking here. But I’ve embedded specific links to each of the individual films below.

The 78 Project Movie

Taking their cue from Alan Lomax, Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright traveled America recording record today’s musicians on 1930s technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAEEWi0-spw

Click here for screening details.

Björk: Biophilia Live

Peter Strickland has a busy Festival: his drama, The Duke Of Burgundy, starring Borgen’s Sidse Babett Knudsen, is in the festival’s Official Competition. He also has this, an extraordinary document of Björk’s live Biophilia experience.

Click here for screening details.

Eden

The French do coming-of-age dramas better than anyone; especially those set against strong cultural backdrops. Here, Mia Hansen-Løve – director of Father Of My Children – gives us a snapshot of French youth set during the French House music scene that spawned Daft Punk and many others.

Click here for screening details.

Keep On Keepin’ On

One of the last of the true greats, trumpeter Clark Terry has played with everyone from Duke Ellington to Miles Davis; in Alan Hicks’ debut documentary, we witness his evolving friendship with blind protégé Justin Kauflin.

Click here for screening details.

Nas: Time is Illmatic

Absorbing documentary on Nas’ 1994 album, Illmatic, tracing his trajectory from New York’s Queensbridge projects to high-level rapper.

Click here for screening details.

Pink Floyd release short trailer for new album ‘The Endless River’ – watch

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Pink Floyd release short trailer for new album ‘The Endless River’ – watch
Pink Floyd have released a 30-second teaser trailer for their upcoming album 'The Endless River'. Click below to watch. The clip was posted via the band's various social media outlets and features a short, guitar-heavy audio snippet. The Endless River' – which will be Pink Floyd's first album i...

Pink Floyd have released a 30-second teaser trailer for their upcoming album ‘The Endless River’. Click below to watch.

The clip was posted via the band’s various social media outlets and features a short, guitar-heavy audio snippet. The Endless River’ – which will be Pink Floyd’s first album in 20 years – is due for release on November 10.

You can read about The Endless River in this month’s Uncut, in shops now.

In addition to the record’s cover art and tracklisting, which were released earlier this week, the group published a statement via their website, revealing that the LP will include music recorded with multi-instrumentalist Richard Wright, who died in 2008 aged 65.

“The Endless River is a tribute to Rick Wright, whose keyboards are at the heart of the Pink Floyd sound,” read the statement. “It is a mainly instrumental album with one song, ‘Louder Than Words’, (with new lyrics by Polly Samson), arranged across four sides and produced by David Gilmour, Phil Manzanera, Youth and Andy Jackson.”

The record will not feature original Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, who left the band in 1985. Speaking last year, drummer Nick Mason revealed that he would be interested in a full band reunion, but was not certain it will ever materialise.

“I would do it… I’m ready to go,” he said when asked about the prospects of a reunion. “I’m packed, I have my drum kit, a suitcase and a wash bag by my front door ready for it when I ever get the call. But I’m not holding my breath.”

‘The Endless River’ tracklisting is:

‘Things Left Unsaid’

‘It’s What We Do’

‘Ebb And Flow’

‘Sum’

‘Skins’

‘Unsung’

‘Anisina’

‘The Lost Art Of Conversation’

‘On Noodle Street’

‘Night Light’

‘Allons-y (1)’

‘Autumn’68’

‘Allons-y (2)’

‘Talkin’ Hawkin”

‘Calling’

‘Eyes To Pearls’

‘Surfacing’

‘Louder Than Words’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHtlwQNVQeo

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