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Bob Dylan’s next archive release is…

Michael Bonner
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Bob Dylan’s next archive release is…
Bob Dylan's next archival release is The Complete Budokan 1978, which is released by Columbia Records and Legacy Recording on Friday, November 17. ORDER NOW: Tom Waits is on the cover of the latest UNCUT The deluxe box set celebrates Dylan's 1978 world concert tour and the 45th anniversary ...

Bob Dylan‘s next archival release is The Complete Budokan 1978, which is released by Columbia Records and Legacy Recording on Friday, November 17.

The deluxe box set celebrates Dylan’s 1978 world concert tour and the 45th anniversary of hisfirst concert appearances in Japan.

The Complete Budokan 1978 presents two full shows originally recorded on 24-channel multitrack analog tapes at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan Hall on February 28 and March 1, 1978.

It includes 36 previously unreleased Dylan performances – and you can hear a previously unreleased performance of “The Man In Me” from The Complete Budokan 1978 here.

The Complete Budokan 1978 will be available in 4CD, 8LP (Japan only) and digitally. Also available is Bob Dylan – Another Budokan 1978, a 2-album, highlight edition featuring 16 unreleased tracks from the box set.

You can pre-order here.

The Complete Budokan 1978
4-CD Deluxe Box
Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan – February 28, 1978
CD1
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall*　
Repossession Blues*
Mr. Tambourine Man*
I Threw It All Away*
Shelter From The Storm
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Girl From The North Country*
Ballad Of A Thin Man*
Maggie’s Farm*
To Ramona*
Like A Rolling Stone*
I Shall Be Released*
Is Your Love In Vain? *
Going, Going, Gone*

CD2
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) *
Blowin’ In The Wind*
Just Like A Woman*
Oh, Sister*
Simple Twist Of Fate
You’re A Big Girl Now*
All Along The Watchtower*
I Want You*
All I Really Want To Do*
Tomorrow Is A Long Time*
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Band introductions*
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Forever Young
The Times They Are A-Changin’

Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan – March 1, 1978
CD3
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall*
Love Her With A Feeling*
Mr. Tambourine Man
I Threw It All Away*
Love Minus Zero/No Limit*
Shelter From The Storm*
Girl From The North Country*
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Maggie’s Farm
One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)
Like A Rolling Stone
I Shall Be Released
Is Your Love In Vain?
Going, Going, Gone

CD4
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) *
Blowin’ In The Wind
Just Like A Woman
Oh, Sister
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) *
You’re A Big Girl Now*
All Along The Watchtower
I Want You
All I Really Want To Do
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
The Man In Me*
Band introductions*
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)*
Forever Young*
The Times They Are A-Changin’*

*Previously Unreleased

The Complete Budokan 1978
8-LP Deluxe Box
Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan – February 28, 1978
LP1 – Side A
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall*　
Repossession Blues*
Mr. Tambourine Man*
I Threw It All Away*

LP1 – Side B
Shelter From The Storm
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Girl From The North Country*
Ballad Of A Thin Man*

LP2 – Side A
Maggie’s Farm*
To Ramona*
Like A Rolling Stone*

LP2 – Side B
I Shall Be Released*
Is Your Love In Vain? *
Going, Going, Gone*

LP3 – Side A
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) *
Blowin’ In The Wind*
Just Like A Woman*
Oh, Sister*

LP3 – Side B
Simple Twist Of Fate
You’re A Big Girl Now*
All Along The Watchtower*
I Want You*

LP4 – Side A
All I Really Want To Do*
Tomorrow Is A Long Time*
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Band introductions*

LP4 – Side B
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Forever Young
The Times They Are A-Changin’

Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan – March 1, 1978
LP5 – Side A
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall*
Love Her With A Feeling*
Mr. Tambourine Man
I Threw It All Away*

LP5 – Side B
Love Minus Zero/No Limit*
Shelter From The Storm*
Girl From The North Country*
Ballad Of A Thin Man

LP6 – Side A
Maggie’s Farm
One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)
Like A Rolling Stone

LP6 – Side B
I Shall Be Released
Is Your Love In Vain?
Going, Going, Gone

LP7 – Side A
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) *
Blowin’ In The Wind
Just Like A Woman
Oh, Sister

LP7 – Side B
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) *
You’re A Big Girl Now*
All Along The Watchtower
I Want You

LP8 – Side A
All I Really Want To Do
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
The Man In Me*
Band introductions*

LP8 – Side B
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) *
Forever Young*
The Times They Are A-Changin’*

*Previously Unreleased

Another Budokan 1978
2-LP with Gatefold Sleeve
All Tracks Previously Unreleased
Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan – February 28, 1978
LP1 – Side A
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall　
Repossession Blues
Ballad Of A Thin Man
To Ramona

LP1 – Side B
Like A Rolling Stone
Blowin’ In The Wind
All Along The Watchtower
Tomorrow Is A Long Time

Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan – March 1, 1978
LP2 – Side A
Love Her With A Feeling
I Threw It All Away
Girl From The North Country
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)

LP2 – Side B
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
You’re A Big Girl Now
The Man In Me
Forever Young

20 minutes with The Rolling Stones

Michael Bonner
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20 minutes with The Rolling Stones
It is mid-afternoon in Hackney, East London. Since before noon, a chunk of Mare Street next to the Hackney Empire has been cordoned off. There are news crews setting up opposite a specially constructed raised platform by the backstage door, a camera crane hovers in mid-air and a crowd of onlookers g...

It is mid-afternoon in Hackney, East London. Since before noon, a chunk of Mare Street next to the Hackney Empire has been cordoned off. There are news crews setting up opposite a specially constructed raised platform by the backstage door, a camera crane hovers in mid-air and a crowd of onlookers gather expectantly. It could be a crime scene, but the truth is no less dramatic. We are here for the unveiling of Hackney Diamonds – the Rolling Stones’ first album of original material since 2005.

The launch itself has been teased for a few weeks, since a cryptic advert appeared last month in The Hackney Gazette for “Hackney Diamonds, specialists in glass repair, opening September 2023…” The ad was followed a week or so later by a snippet of a song called “Angry” which appeared on a website… that didn’t quite load properly. Shortly after, some more conventional digital messaging appeared – fancy computer-generated artwork on the Stones’ socials promising “A new Stones era. Worldwide September 6th”, accompanied by a YouTube clip of Jimmy Fallon receiving a summons to Hackney via a call on his ’70s-style rotary “Stones phone”. Yesterday, Jagger and Fallon were pictured sitting in The Old Ship pub next to the Empire, reading copies of local free paper, The Hackney Citizen – presumably before jumping on a 38 bus up to Dalston for an ocakbasi.

As album campaigns go, it’s far more relaxed and confident than the usual hoopla around these kinds of launches. Jagger, you suspect, rather enjoyed the global furore caused by a half-page ad in a local London paper. It leads us, anyway, to today and the goings-on at the Hackney Empire. A press conference, livestreamed on Youtube, with Fallon in conversation with Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood.

What to make of such a thing? Ostensibly, it provided an opportunity for Fallon to deliver some excellent impressions of Jagger while also revealing the album’s full tracklisting ahead of plan. The band, meanwhile, showcase an easy chemistry – they’re pros, of course – with Jagger at his most charming. The Q&A lasts 20 minutes – including bows – about as long as a side of vinyl.

But for all the laughs, there are some revelations. Decked out in smart black suits (a hat and shades for Keith, of course), they share prospective album titles, which included Hit And Run and Smash And Grab, before they settled on Hackney Diamonds. “When you get your windscreen broken on a Saturday night and all the bits go on the street, those are Hackney diamonds,” explains Jagger. Slang aside, it appears to be a wry, Jagger-esque witticism. The diamond/stone gag aside, Hackney is far from the Stones’ usual haunts. From one end of their career, it is the other side of the river to Dartford, while these days you assume that the Stones are more comfortably at home in Chelsea or Kensington than the pavements of E1. But perhaps Jagger recognises something in Hackney’s gentrification that – at least on a romantic level – reflects his band’s own transition from scruffy miscreants to upwardly mobile suburban rockers.

Speculation aside, Jagger is suitably droll when Fallon asks why it’s been 18 years since A Bigger Bang, the last Stones album of new material. “We’ve been lazy,” he deadpans. “Then we decided to put a deadline. We had a chat and decided to make this record at Christmas and finish it by Valentine’s Day… We went into the studio in December, cut 23 tracks, finished it off on January and mixed it in February.”

Jagger and Richards wrote “Angry” in Jamaica – “the first song to stick out,” says Keith – then Wood joined in New York, recruited producer Andrew Watt and recorded the album in Los Angeles. They recorded 23 songs, of which 12 made it to Hacnkey Diamonds.

Meanwhile, two songs, “Mess It Up” and “Live By The Sword”, feature Charlie Watts, from sessions recorded in 2019. The latter also features Bill Wyman – his first time on a Stones track since the band’s 2011 cover of Dylan’s “Watching The River Flow” for the Ian Stewart tribute album, Boogie 4 Stu.

Another song, “Dreamy Skies”, is about Jagger “trying to get away from it all”; “Tell Me Straight” features lead vocals from Richards; “Sweet Sounds Of Heaven” is a gospel song that features Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga. “You’ve never been to church in your life,” Richards ribs Jagger.

The conversation quickly expands to include the absence of Watts (“ever since Charlie’s gone, it’s different”), playing festival shows during daylight hours (“imagine playing ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ at 8 o’clock”), whether or not they can play darts (spoilers: they can’t) and Wood’s extra-curricular guitar playing (more recently, with Van Morrison). Needless to say, it’s all good fun.

After Fallon’s Q&A, we get to see the video for “Angry”, which finds the actress Sydney Sweeney being driven around Los Angeles while billboards display historic Stones images (Mick Taylor eras onwards) that have been animated, as if the band are singing this new song. It’s a clever device, although one might like to see a little more mono Stones – though how they’d stand up in the California sun is anyone’s guess.

We’ll finish, however, with Jagger’s memories of The Rolling Stones’ very first press conference for their debut album: a very different experience to today’s shebang. “Keith and I were in a pub on Denmark Street. We had the album and there were two journalists, one from the NME and one from the Melody Maker. We bought them a pint of beer, said, ‘Here’s our album, give it a listen.’ Then we went out and that was it. There were no photos, nothing. The reviews were mixed, but it sold well…”

And if anyone’s interested, here’s the tracklisting for Hackney Diamonds as revealed by Fallon:

Angry
Get Close
Dependng On You
Bite My Head Off
Whole Wide World
Dreamy Skies
Mess It Up
Live By The Sword
Driving Me Too Hard
Tell Me Straight
Sweet Sounds Of Heaven
Rolling Stone Blues

Hackney Diamonds is out October 20 via Universal and you can pre-order a copy here.

Acetone announce box set, I’m still waiting.

Michael Bonner
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Acetone announce box set, I’m still waiting.
Acetone will release I’m still waiting. on November 17 via New West Records. You can hear a previously unreleased demo of "No Need Swim" from the box set below. https://youtu.be/3W-1yfx0-a4?si=1grIor7tr8O3Yw4p Formed in 1991, Acetone consisted of Mark Lightcap on guitar and vocals, Richie...

Acetone will release I’m still waiting. on November 17 via New West Records.

You can hear a previously unreleased demo of “No Need Swim” from the box set below.

Formed in 1991, Acetone consisted of Mark Lightcap on guitar and vocals, Richie Lee on bass and vocals and Steve Hadley on drums. The band disbanded after Lee committed suicide on July 23, 2001, aged 34. A book about the band, Hadley Lee Lightcap, is highly recommended.

The 11-album box set includes their full-length studio albums: Cindy (1993), If You Only Knew (1995), Acetone (1997), and York Blvd. (2000). The collection also includes their debut EP, Acetone (1993), the mini-album, I Guess I Would (1995), and the nine-song bonus album, Prime Cuts. Spanning 63 total tracks, I’m still waiting. features eight previously unreleased recordings.

All of the full-length albums have been expanded to double album housed in gatefold jackets, and If You Only Knew is available on vinyl for the first time ever. Additionally, the Acetone album features the band’s original mix, previously available only on rare first pressings, and is pessed on crystal clear vinyl.

The set also includes a 60-page, full-colour book featuring never-before-seen photos and extensive liner notes written by Spiritualized‘s Jason Pierce and Drew Daniel of Matmos and the Soft Pink Truth.

You can watch an unboxing of the set here:

Says Mark Lightcap, “It’s amazing to me how much love there is for Acetone out in the world, especially considering how few records we actually sold at the time. That love, unrequited as the catalog moldered in record company vaults, has now been fully consummated in the form of this box set. Infinite gratitude to New West for pulling out all the stops on this project. Records that were squeezed onto one disc in the vinyl-as-an-afterthought 90s have all mushroomed into doubles, and I can truthfully say that it’s like hearing them for the first time. With really beautiful liner notes by our pals Drew Daniel and Jason Pierce, and a bonus LP of personal favorite, unreleased recordings from the band’s own vault, this thing is the mother lode for Acetone fans. Salut!”

The box set is available to pre-order here.

Acetone EP:
I’m Gone 

For A Few Dollars More
D.F.B
Cindy

Cindy:
Come On
Pinch
Sundown
Chills
Endless Summer
Louise
Don’t Cry
No Need Swim
Barefoot On Sunday

I Guess I Would:
Juanita
The Late John Garfield Blues
I Guess I Would
Sometimes You Just Can’t Win
All For The Love Of A Girl
How Sweet I Roamed
Border Lord

If You Only Knew:
If You Only Knew
I Don’t Really Care
In The Light
I’ve Enjoyed As Much Of This As I Can Stand
The Final Say
When You’re Gone
Hound Dog
99
What I See
Nothing At All
Esque
Always Late

Acetone:
Every Kiss
All The Time
Germs
Might As Well
Shobud
All You Know
Good Life
Dee
Waltz
Another Minute
So Slow
Chew

York Blvd.:
Things Are Gonna Be Alright
Wonderful World
19
Vibrato
Like I Told Yoou
It’s A Lie
Bonds
One Drop
Vaccination
Stray

Prime Cuts:
O.I.E (If You Only Knew outtake)
Shaker (York Blvd. outtake) *
Nobody Home (demo) *
Vibrato (demo) *
Nothing At All (live on CJAM 99.1 FM) *
No Need Swim (demo) *
Cindy (live at the Lizard Lounge, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 30, 1998) *
York Blvd. (rehearsal tape) *
She Belongs To Me (rehearsal tape) *

* previously unreleased

Watch a video for The Rolling Stones’ new song, “Angry”

Sam Richards
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Watch a video for The Rolling Stones’ new song, “Angry”
In a press conference today at London's Hackney Empire, The Rolling Stones confirmed that their new album Hackney Diamonds would be released by Universal on October 20. It will be their first album of new studio material since 2005's A Bigger Bang. ORDER NOW: Tom Waits is on the cover of the lat...

In a press conference today at London’s Hackney Empire, The Rolling Stones confirmed that their new album Hackney Diamonds would be released by Universal on October 20. It will be their first album of new studio material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang.

ORDER NOW: Tom Waits is on the cover of the latest UNCUT

Watch a video for the first single “Angry” below, directed by Francois Rousselet and starring Sydney Sweeney.

Hackney Diamonds was recorded in various locations around the world, including Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles; Metropolis Studios, London; Sanctuary Studios, Nassau, Bahamas; Electric Lady Studios, New York; and The Hit Factory/Germano Studios, also in New York. It’s produced by Andrew Watt, who’s previously worked with Pearl Jam, Iggy Pop and Elton John.

You can pre-order the album here, including a special limited ‘Carnaby red’ vinyl edition, available exclusively from The Rolling Stones’ official store. Uncut were in attendance at the Hackney Empire press conference, full report to follow…

Nirvana’s In Utero to be reissued as 8-LP Super Deluxe boxset

Sam Richards
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Nirvana’s In Utero to be reissued as 8-LP Super Deluxe boxset
The 30th anniversary of Nirvana's In Utero this autumn will be marked by a raft of multi-format reissues, released on October 27 by Geffen/UMe. The three Super Deluxe Edition releases (8-LP, 5-CD and digital) include two full In Utero-era concerts – from Los Angeles in 1993 and the band’s fi...

The 30th anniversary of Nirvana’s In Utero this autumn will be marked by a raft of multi-format reissues, released on October 27 by Geffen/UMe.

The three Super Deluxe Edition releases (8-LP, 5-CD and digital) include two full In Utero-era concerts – from Los Angeles in 1993 and the band’s final Seattle performance in 1994 – as well as six bonus live tracks from Rome, Springfield and New York, all reconstructed from stereo soundboard tapes by Bleach producer Jack Endino.

ORDER NOW: Tom Waits is on the cover of the latest UNCUT

In Utero’s original 12 songs, along with five bonus tracks and B-sides, have been newly remastered from the analogue master stereo tapes by Bob Weston, who assisted Steve Albini as the only other engineer at the original sessions.

The physical Super Deluxe sets also include a 48-page hardcover book with unreleased photos; a 20-page newly designed fanzine; a Los Angeles tour poster lithograph; replicas of the 1993 record store promo angel mobile; three gig fliers; two ticket stubs for Los Angeles and Seattle; an all-access tour laminate; and four cloth sticky tour backstage passes.

To peruse to the full tracklistings of all the various In Utero editions, as well as to pre-order and pre-save, go here.

Uncut’s Ultimate End Of The Road Festival 2023 Round-Up!

Uncut
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Uncut’s Ultimate End Of The Road Festival 2023 Round-Up!
So we’re just about back from another excellent yet at Larmer Tree Gardens. End Of The Road just keeps getting better – with amazing performances from a huge array of brilliant artists to the packed-out crowds at the Uncut Q&As. Huge thanks to Tom Pinnock, Sam Richards and Mark Beaumont for r...

So we’re just about back from another excellent yet at Larmer Tree Gardens. End Of The Road just keeps getting better – with amazing performances from a huge array of brilliant artists to the packed-out crowds at the Uncut Q&As.

Huge thanks to Tom Pinnock, Sam Richards and Mark Beaumont for representing Uncut so strongly down in Larmer Tree Gardens.

And now, for your convenience, here’s a round up of all our EOTR 2023 blogs… Fill your boots!

We’re off to End Of The Road Festival 2023

Wiltshire joy! End Of The Road co-founder Simon Taffe picks six new acts to seek out at this year’s festival

Wilco, Deerhoof: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 1

Angel Olsen, The Mary Wallopers: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2

Angeline Morrison Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Cass McCombs: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2

75 Dollar Bill Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 3

Arooj Aftab, Dungen, Wet Leg: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 3

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4

Ezra Furman, Caitlin Rose: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4

Things we spotted at End Of The Road 2023

Fatoumata Diawara, King Gizzard: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4

Fatoumata Diawara, King Gizzard: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4

Sam Richards
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Fatoumata Diawara, King Gizzard: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4
“I don’t think we’ve ever played this early in the day before,” muses Konnor Whitney, kicking off Sunday’s proceedings on the Boat stage. But no matter that the crisp, urbane choogle of his band Whitney K is more suited to 2am than 2pm; he seems like the kind of guy who gets straight down ...

“I don’t think we’ve ever played this early in the day before,” muses Konnor Whitney, kicking off Sunday’s proceedings on the Boat stage. But no matter that the crisp, urbane choogle of his band Whitney K is more suited to 2am than 2pm; he seems like the kind of guy who gets straight down to business with the minimum of fuss. One of their best songs sounds a bit like “Sultans Of Swing,” so obviously it’s simply called “Dire Straits”. It’s also full of great lines. “Shouldn’t have bet on rock’n’roll / To save your soul,” Whitney observes drolly in the chorus. Too late!

It’s a family affair on the Garden Stage with Joan Shelley appearing alongside her husband, the equally talented Nathan Salsburg. They hope that their infant daughter may soon be able to join them too, but for now they tell her favourite joke on her behalf (“a duck walks a bar…”). It’s a touching moment in a set full of them, not least when Shelley instigates a gentle singalong to “Like The Thunder”. “I was turned off by Pete Seeger singalongs when I was a kid because they were meant to change the world and didn’t,” she reveals. “But then I realised they can be really good for you.” And she’s not wrong.

Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy may be the most aptly named band at the festival. The colourful Ghanaian troupe deal in infectious, uptempo, gospel-infused Afrobeat – with a side order of reggae – complete with a potent brass section and funky synth solos. Oho himself is a relentlessly upbeat presence and by the end of an exhilarating set, he’s made himself several hundred new friends.

Staying in that part of the world, Fatoumata Diawara is a fine ambassador for West African music in all its many forms. Highlife, Afrobeat, desert blues… Diawara (and her terrific band) can do it all, and in a variety of extravagant headgear. Her ‘magic hour’ set on the Woods Stage is pure bliss.

And finally, the big blowout we’d all been hoping for. “Weathered festival friends!” roars King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie, looking suitably crazed in dungaree shorts, no shirt. “Let’s give it one last launch.”

There’s no denying that the Gizz are now a bona fide phenomenon, turning a whole new generation onto the joys of gnarly psychedelic rock. If there is still a whiff of wackiness about them – that name, those mullets – it’s instantly dispelled by a stupendous salvo of face-melting prog-funk brilliance. These boys can really play, but it’s not just pyrotechnics; there’s an unexpected soulfulness at times, particularly when the band’s secret weapon, keyboardist Ambrose Kenny-Smith, unleashes his bluesy croon. In general, the first portion of the set is a lot more Allman Brothers than you might expect.

Obviously that’s followed by an intriguing electropop diversion and a daft ode to a favourite dog. And then, “Time to get heavy!” as recent thrash metal homage “Gila Monster” unleashes absolute pandemonium. The crowdsurfers pour over the barriers in torrents, some barely into their teens, others old enough to know better. But in a lovely touch, a friend of the band hands each of them a breadstick as they are bundled back into the throng. This moment nicely reflects the band’s mission: to play intense, heavy music but with zero aggression, only pure joy and love. Like almost everything else at this incredible festival, it’s a genuinely life-affirming experience.

Catch up with all of Uncut’s coverage of End Of The Road 2023 here.

Things we spotted at End Of The Road 2023

Sam Richards
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Things we spotted at End Of The Road 2023
A sad goodbye to the Turkish grill / funk-and-disco area. But an enthusiastic hello to the new ‘Craft Bar’ serving Britain’s finest ales to a classic Heavenly Social soundtrack… ORDER NOW: Tom Waits is on the cover of the latest UNCUT People getting surprisingly competitive over the...

A sad goodbye to the Turkish grill / funk-and-disco area. But an enthusiastic hello to the new ‘Craft Bar’ serving Britain’s finest ales to a classic Heavenly Social soundtrack…

People getting surprisingly competitive over the marble race in the woods (“Well obviously you won, your marble was more aerodynamic”)…

A packed karaoke tent going crazy as a festival-goer called Gemma performed a pitch-perfect rendition of Boyz II Men’s – of course – “End Of The Road”…

All the guests at the Uncut Q&As being fascinated by the sheep right behind the stage. They even inspired 75 Dollar Bill’s Rick Brown to ask the audience for their recommendations for English sheep cheeses…

The fella in a camping chair, stubbornly filling out the Times crossword as the chaos of Avalanche Kaito unfolded around him…

The most appropriate of the many retro football shirts spotted while wandering through the woods? Nottingham Forest, natch…

The peacocks looking distinctly unimpressed by all the people in giant bird heads invading their manor…

Respect to the roadie who was forced to spend the entirety of Oren Ambarchi’s set crouched down behind a malfunctioning Leslie speaker, rotating it by hand…

Someone pulling out a skipping rope on the dancefloor at The Boat stage…

Deep in the woods, a luminous mushroom grotto soundtracked by a nursery rhyme rendition of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”…

The lad in wedding drag discovering tequila for the very first time: “You’re actually meant to drink this stuff?”…

Yes, some folks really did lug a full-size white chaise longue into the moshpit during Wet Leg’s set, before dancing on it as triumphantly as you’d expect…

Say, for instance, you’ve just got engaged at End Of The Road. To celebrate, which song would you request the DJ plays? That’s right, “Zombie” by The Cranberries…

Every crowdsurfer at King Gizzard’s show being rewarded with a breadstick…

Catch up with all of Uncut’s coverage of End Of The Road 2023 here.

Ezra Furman, Caitlin Rose: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4

Mark Beaumont
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Ezra Furman, Caitlin Rose: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4
Brooklyn’s Geese don’t have walk-on music – they finish a ramshackle soundcheck in the Big Top and just, well, crack on – but if they did it should probably consist of the announcement “previously on Rock Music…”. Hitting the stage early on the final day, their 45-minute set is a valia...

Brooklyn’s Geese don’t have walk-on music – they finish a ramshackle soundcheck in the Big Top and just, well, crack on – but if they did it should probably consist of the announcement “previously on Rock Music…”. Hitting the stage early on the final day, their 45-minute set is a valiant attempt to summarise the entire history of alternative music.

A minute or two of psych-blues unexpectedly gives way to some weightless indie arpeggios and David Byrne hooks, then howling soul. “Disco” flits at will between Seattle grunge and New York garage rock, like a collaboration no-one ever previously conceived between Pearl Jam and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. There is a country rock rebel song, an alt-country pop lark called “Cowboy Nudes” about dancing around a submerged NYC, and it all descends into an experimental jazz drawl with singer Cameron Winter intoning “Jesus Christ” ahead of a screamcore finale. Up to speed? Then we’ll proceed.

She too may seem to lose her mind at times – when asking the crowd to scream out their favourite Muppet, for instance, or when dedicating a song to a party clown called Jingles she remembers from childhood – but Caitlin Rose provides a reassuring Garden Stage set. “I buried my head in the sand for ten years and you’re all still here,” the Nashville singer exclaims (her 2022 album Cazimi arrived after a nine-year gap), and her songs return sounding luxuriantly upholstered and cushioned. Between thumping country rattlers like new track “Nobody’s Sweetheart”, she deploys beautifully tranquilised balladry in “Blameless” and “Pink Champagne”, the latter perfect accompaniment to the rather magical sight of a motor-glider sailing above the stage.

Allah-Las are similarly comforting, but with Geese’s flashback mindset. Their gentle retro rock revisits and recasts all manner of the alternative’s more languid moments, be it The Byrds guesting with The La’s (“Tell Me (What’s On Your Mind)”, a psych-beat Kinks (“Had It All”) or the brighter acoustic bits of Pixies’ latest album Doggerel (“Sandy”). There are tracks resembling REM playing a laid-back “La Bamba”, and when frontman Miles Michaud hands vocal duties to his more baritoned bandmates – on, say, “The Stuff” – they even start sounding like The Velvet Underground had they hung around long enough to become a new wave band.

Any particularly chill vibes they summon are swiftly dissipated upon the arrival of Ezra Furman. Edgy, intense and suffering severe shaky hand syndrome, she storms and lurches across the Garden Stage with “catharsis coursing through me”. Though a song like “Train Comes Through”, from her brilliant latest album All Of Us Flames, is subtly cast here, the energy is typically febrile and rammed with drama.

“These are our songs of love and war,” Furman declares. On the battle-front assemble Morricone funeral anthem “Throne”, ferocious radio rocker “Suck The Blood From My Wound” and fightback anthem “Lilac And Black”, introduced with a quivering yell of “Trans power!” In matters of love, she shimmies exuberantly through the graceful electronics of “Point Me Toward The Real”, a tentative tale of post-institution uncertainty, delivers an “I Saw The Truth Undressing” that sounds blown by galactic winds and unleashes drone bombs on a prom night slow-dance on “Dressed In Black”, “one of those destroy-the-world teenage love songs”.

“There’s no plans but this,” she explains of this last foreseeable gig, and goes out all rock guns blazing: a crazed cover of Patti Smith’s “Gloria” and a final boogie-rock freakout on “What Can You Do But Rock’n’Roll”. It may not be in such a literal a sense as most Reading & Leeds weekends, but End Of The Road 2023 undoubtedly goes up in …Flames.

Catch up with all of Uncut’s coverage of End Of The Road 2023 here.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4

Mark Beaumont
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King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 4
“It’s the end of the road for us,” King Gizzard guitarist Joey Walker reveals in the opening minutes of Uncut’s final – and the 2023 festival’s busiest - Q&A of the weekend. Not, thankfully, a very public abdication, but a sign of relief at the final show of the current Gizzard tour, bef...

“It’s the end of the road for us,” King Gizzard guitarist Joey Walker reveals in the opening minutes of Uncut’s final – and the 2023 festival’s busiest – Q&A of the weekend. Not, thankfully, a very public abdication, but a sign of relief at the final show of the current Gizzard tour, before a lengthy break to welcome three new children to the “family”.

And so begins a Q&A every bit as bizarre and unpredictable as the Australian rockers’ relentless musical output. Our host – Uncut reviews editor Tom Pinnock – explains that his planned joke about the band releasing a new album since the festival began is scuppered by the fact that they actually have: the 40-song, five-hour Live In Chicago ’23. “We did three nights and it’s all three nights back-to-back on one album,” says Stu Mackenzie. “It was actually an ultra-dramatic set of shows, it was fucked up. Every day should have been cancelled, but it kind of made it super fun and we did weird shit.” His explanation for the crankiness of some of the audio? “It rained on the hard drive.”

Things – very briefly – get serious as Pinnock presses the band on the demise-of-humanity themes of their most recent studio album PetroDragonic Apocalypse. “It’s just real,” says Mackenzie. “Sorry to ruin the party. But you just replace climate change with a dragon. I think we’re going down with a bang. We’ll just have fun on the way down.”

He also discusses their forthcoming 25th studio record in eleven years, touted as the yang to PetroDragon…’s yin. “When we made Petro… we thought we’d do this super heavy thing and also do this beautiful electronic record and find some way to make them the same world.”

Before long, though, he’s openly admitting to modelling King Gizzard’s career on The Grateful Dead (“I’m a psychopathic hippie”), and once questions are thrown open to the floor, any semblance of order swiftly deteriorates. One fur-drenched “fan” called King Mink asks them where they got various items of clothing before admitting he has no idea who they are. Another introduces them to the baby they “signed” while she was still in the womb. A third asks for a name for their band, prompting Walker to scroll through the hundreds he’s been collecting on his phone. Rejecting Thai Seagull, Side Salad and Abraham Linkedin, the band are eventually dubbed Colostomy Bag. Watch this pouch.

One fan draws gasps by asking when standard rock band wrangling will inevitably split the band. “In the earlier iteration of Giz,” says Mackenzie, “when we first started doing it and were literally struggling to eat, we thought we’d do this until it just becomes absurd and then we’ll get a job. It felt like a very distant far-out possibility that we could be doing it as long as we are now. That felt like some freakish chance. So to still be doing it now is amazing. I hope we can do it forever.” Whatever the weekend’s marquee message, some roads don’t have to end.

Catch up with all of Uncut’s coverage of End Of The Road 2023 here.

Arooj Aftab, Dungen, Wet Leg: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 3

Sam Richards
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Arooj Aftab, Dungen, Wet Leg: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 3
Having been lulled into a false sense of serenity by the lush cello-driven shoegaze of Mabe Fratte and the sonorous Irish folk of John Francis Flynn, the Garden Stage is about to be jolted into life. Avalanche Kaito are billed as a Belgian-Burkinabé avant-punk trio, although it’s only the first p...

Having been lulled into a false sense of serenity by the lush cello-driven shoegaze of Mabe Fratte and the sonorous Irish folk of John Francis Flynn, the Garden Stage is about to be jolted into life. Avalanche Kaito are billed as a Belgian-Burkinabé avant-punk trio, although it’s only the first part of that equation that’s initially visible on-stage: two seasoned art-rock dudes locking into an angular Afro-punk groove. Then suddenly they stop, and a loud voice hollers from deep in the crowd. Frontman Kaito Winse is here after all – he’s just decided to start the set in the audience (evidently he knows this is a band worth watching). Wince eventually finds his way onto the stage, engaging the crowd in gruff call-and-response chants while also playing a mean peul flute. Invigorating.

Caroline have been coming to End Of The Road since they were teenagers and are visibly thrilled to be playing on “the best stage ever”. But that doesn’t mean they’re here to people-please. After a 30-minute soundcheck, the Sussex troupe proceed to play their stunning deconstructed chamber-folk at an agonisingly glacial pace, soon losing at least half of the large crowd who’ve initially gathered to watch them. “When are they going to finish warming up?” wonders one wag on his way out. Unperturbed, Caroline continue to make the slowest, quietest noise that eight people could conceivably conjure up together. Those who do remain are completely entranced – and when the band dedicate a Low cover to the late Mimi Parker, there isn’t a dry eye in the field.

“Hi, we’re Oasis!” yells Rhian Teasdale of Saturday’s not-so-secret guests Wet Leg. But frankly, even if the Gallagher brothers had decided to reform and launch their comeback here on the Dorset/Wiltshire borders, they’d struggle to beat the frenzied reception that greets Wet Leg’s arrival. Quickly proving that they’re much more than one-hit wonders, every song is a joyous sing-aloud riposte to whoever’s twisting your melon this week. And when they do finally play that song, the place goes bananas – not least the people who’ve lugged an actual fucking chaise longue into the moshpit.

Dungen have been kicking around for more than 20 years now, to the point where we’re in danger of taking them for granted. But a terrific set on the Boat stage is a timely reminder of their brilliance. By every available metric – quality of guitar tone, length of flute solo, thickness of cardigan – they are the greatest band at this festival. To call them psych-rockers feels too reductive given the agility of their prog-funk rhythms, the splendour of their three-part harmonies, their dense organ-driven groove. Endearingly, they are also very Swedish, bickering about whether signature song “Ta Det Lugnt” translates as “take it easy” or “chill the fuck out” – a directive that could be aimed at guitarist Reine Fiske who slams his instrument down at the end of a storming set, perhaps frustrated at not receiving due recognition for some of the most blistering solos ever played by a man in a knitted tank top.

Not many festivals would dare to put a drum-less ambient jazz trio at the top of the bill, but Arooj Aftab is simply too good not to be headlining the Garden Stage. Back with her original trio of double bassist Petros Klampanis and (heavily pregnant) harpist Maeve Gilchrist, the spell they weave together is mesmerising and at times almost unbearably beautiful. Thankfully Aftab is quick to puncture any pretentiousness with her usual withering New York humour, instructing the photographers to “make me look hot” and complaining that the roses she usually throws to crowd have been sent “to some other fucking stage!” There are new songs too, which bodes well for that hotly anticipated Vulture Prince follow-up.

Aftab lauds her fellow bandmates’ musical skills as “almost offensive” while defining her own role in proceedings as merely “drinking red wine and talking shit”. She’s right about the first bit, but couldn’t be more wrong about the second; Aftab is simply the greatest singer that most of us will ever see outside of an opera house or an Elizabeth Frazer gig. Even as silent discos and late-night secret punk shows call, you’d be happy for her to keep singing “Mohabbat” forever.

Catch up with all of Uncut’s coverage of End Of The Road 2023 here.

75 Dollar Bill Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 3

Mark Beaumont
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75 Dollar Bill Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 3
The Dire Straits influence on 75 Dollar Bill’s freeform desert jazz is, to be fair, subtle at best. “Mark Knopfler is in every guitar player’s top five in Mauritania,” guitarist Che Chen told Tom Pinnock during the second of End Of The Road’s Uncut Q&A sessions at the Talking Heads stage, ...

The Dire Straits influence on 75 Dollar Bill’s freeform desert jazz is, to be fair, subtle at best. “Mark Knopfler is in every guitar player’s top five in Mauritania,” guitarist Che Chen told Tom Pinnock during the second of End Of The Road’s Uncut Q&A sessions at the Talking Heads stage, considering the lessons he learned in the West African country during his eleven days under the Moorish guitar tutorage of Jheich Ould Chighaly in 2013.

“I got a crash course in the Moorish modal system,” he explained. “Ten years later I’m still digesting the things that I saw and learned there. It’s an important touchstone for the way I play guitar.”

His percussionist bandmate Rick Brown was keen to stress that the band’s influences stretched far beyond Mauritanian styles, let alone the “Money For Nothing” riff. “The minimalist composers of the ‘70s, free jazz musicians, soul jazz musicians and Afro-Caribbean rhythms,” he said, “all of those things are important to one of both of us.” And so it would prove, as the pair wove liquid guitar and exotic polyrhythm into dream-like extended passages during their early evening Boat Stage set.

The duo arrived at the Q&A – delayed but unflustered – fresh from two nights at Dalston’s Café Oto, one of which, by chance, saw them play with baritone saxophonist Cheryl Kingan, who had appeared on 2019’s I Was Real album. Having played there as a duo after US shows as a ten-piece band (best exemplified by 2020’s Live At Tubby’s release, Brown argued), discussion naturally turned to their formation on the New York underground scene of 2012, where Brown became a regular at Chen’s shows with his experimental band True Primes. “People didn’t like us,” Chen joked, “so if you turned up repeatedly at our gigs you were pretty conspicuous.”

Brown immediately saw in Chen a musician with the skill and vision worthy of accompanying a crate he’d found in the street. “I’d found this five-pieces-of-plywood crate on the street in New York years before,” he said. “I didn’t play it very much but I knew when I hit it with my fist it made this nice ‘boom’ sound that I liked and it was open in the back so I could put stuff in it and it didn’t take up too much space. [Chen] heard it and thought ‘these ideas I have with guitar might work with that thing’.”

The box, Brown explained, has “mutated along the decades. The one I’m playing tonight has bits of wood from Italy, Norway and some of the original stuff. It’s all hybridised.” And Brown himself has done some mutating too. Pinnock steered him towards a few choice reminiscences of moving to NYC at the height of the CBGBs punk period, diving into the no wave scene inspired by Pere Ubu and running into a young Sonic Youth.

“I played in a band at the Speed Trials,” he explained. “It was a few-day festival in downtown New York, The Fall were a part of that, Swans and some other bands including Sonic Youth.” You need to write a book, Pinnock urged. “I’m a very slow writer – I’m working on it,” Brown grinned, then corrected himself. “I’m planning on working on it.”

Catch up with all of Uncut’s coverage of End Of The Road 2023 here.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Cass McCombs: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2

Sam Richards
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Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Cass McCombs: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2
Sylvie are demob-happy. It’s the last date of a long European tour and as soon as they exit stage right, they’re “going to a spa to get back massages”. But if they’re feeling ragged and worn-out, you’d never tell. Now a seven-piece, complete with pedal steel, their ’70s Laurel Canyon h...

Sylvie are demob-happy. It’s the last date of a long European tour and as soon as they exit stage right, they’re “going to a spa to get back massages”. But if they’re feeling ragged and worn-out, you’d never tell. Now a seven-piece, complete with pedal steel, their ’70s Laurel Canyon homages are pristine and note-perfect. Bandleader Ben Schwab formed Sylvie partly to pay tribute to his dad’s sunshine pop band Mad Anthony, who never made it out of their garage back in the day. Here, they give one of his old songs the audience it deserves, alongside a stunning rendition of their own instant classic “Falls On Me”.

A quick detour via the sylvan harmonies and box-of-wine anecdotes of Lilo on the Piano Stage brings us to the loquacious art-rock racket of Blue Bendy in the Folly. They’re one of those groups where each member looks – and sometimes plays – like they’re in completely different bands. But in a good way, obviously. In his long coat and baseball cap, singer/ranter Arthur Nolan holds forth in the grand tradition of wayward indie bards like Gerard Langley and Julian Cope. Even if the finer details of his wry declamations are often lost in the chaos, you’re behind him all the way.

Post-rock party band Horse Lords are two chaps in smart shirts and slacks, a shaggy haired saxophonist/percussionist and a drummer resembling Garth from Wayne’s World. One tune starts with what sounds like the piano riff from Happy Mondays’ “Step On” before mutating into a manic Celtic jig. In 7/4 time. Others come on like Trout Mask Replica (the !!! remix). People don’t quite know how to dance to it, but they dance anyway. Tremendous stuff.

Sessa brings a touch of Brazilian flair to the Talking Heads stage, playing solo and acoustic save for an occasional female vocalist. In true bossa nova style, his songs present as urbane and breezy, but passionate currents whirl beneath. At the end of a starkly brilliant version of Helene Smith’s southern soul swooner “I Am Controlled By Your Love”, he resorts to swatting his guitar wildly before composing himself for one final, beautiful chord.

It’s a similar scene at the Garden Stage, where Cass McCombs responds to a somewhat restless early-evening crowd by seeming to play more softly, more intently, forcing you to really lean in and listen. You’re rewarded with picaresque tales of Greek goddesses and “a tremendous harmonica player whose name now escapes me”, as well as gorgeously restrained all-timers like “County Line”. But eventually the sleeping volcano must explode: towards the of set, without warning, McCombs and his band unleash a three-minute torrent of noisy Electric Miles weirdness – no lyrics required.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra are determined not to play a clichéd festival headline set: no guests, no gimmicks, just Ruban Nielson and his supremely tight four-piece band, silhouetted against their own band logo. For all the apparent worldliness detailed in songs like “Multi-Love”, there is an appealing vulnerability to Nielson’s voice; he’s the kid stumbling into the adult’s party, both perturbed and fascinated by what he finds. This innocent quality even pervades crisp upbeat numbers like “Hunnybee” and “Can’t Keep Checking My Phone” (which is easy enough, given there’s no reception here anyway – and, hey, there’s a near-full moon to gawp at instead).

But for the full Peter Pan experience, look no further than Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, the space cadets who never grew up. It’s hard to hang on to your idealism, but by reaching back to the pre-rock era for inspiration, the duo have come up with something totally fresh and life-affirming. They cleave closely to the tracklisting of last year’s excellent Reset, but have begun to toy with the songs a little more, teasing out moments of pure, uncomplicated euphoria, accompanied by primary-coloured visuals and retina-scorching strobes. Who needs a rave tent?

Angeline Morrison Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2

Mark Beaumont
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Angeline Morrison Q&A: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2
Fingers gently sweeping an autoharp, on the Talking Heads stage Angeline Morrison sings her haunting untold stories. “Mad-Haired Moll O’Bedlam”, sentenced to the sanitorium for raising her voice at a policeman. The victims of the port town race riots in the wake of WWI. The plantation slaves l...

Fingers gently sweeping an autoharp, on the Talking Heads stage Angeline Morrison sings her haunting untold stories. “Mad-Haired Moll O’Bedlam”, sentenced to the sanitorium for raising her voice at a policeman. The victims of the port town race riots in the wake of WWI. The plantation slaves lured to England by the promise of money, land and the African queen they were told ruled the country.

All tracks are from her recent album The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs Of Black British Experience, which formed the basis of the first of the weekend’s Uncut Q&A sessions on the same stage just an hour earlier. “It’s a re-storying of Britain’s lost and forgotten black ancestors, who have been here for over 2,000 years, since Roman times at least, but who seem to be missing from the folk and traditional songs of these islands,” she told host Tom Pinnock.

Morrison’s immersive journey and research into their stories made for a fascinating, eye-opening and often moving discussion. Talk began on the track “Unknown African Boy (D. 1830)” which Morrison recently performed solo on Later… With Jools Holland, about “a child whose estimated age was around eight years of age who was washed ashore when a slave ship was wrecked off the Isles of Scilly.”

“I went to the grave,” Morrison said, “it was so emotional. The story really broke my heart – he was a child and he should have been having fun and playing with his friends and instead was abducted and trafficked halfway across the world destined for a life of torture and an early death by drowning. I wanted to honour that. When it’s a child involved it highlights the bigger picture.”

Discussion moved on to “The Beautiful Spotted Black Boy”, based on the early 19th Century story of George Alexander Gratton, trafficked form St Vincent’s by circus entrepreneur John Richardson at the age of four or five because his vitiligo would have made him a popular exhibit in European freak shows as one of what were called “the spotted children”. “He was bought for a thousand guineas and exhibited around the country,” Morrison explained, “and John Richardson was said to have absolutely adored this boy and loved him as his own child.” When he died, she said, Richardson bankrupted himself building a brick mausoleum to protect the child’s valuable body. “He’s said to have died from a broken heart shortly afterwards and is buried with the child. It’s abhorrent, with notes of ‘ooh’.”

That these stories had been “airbrushed out” of Britain’s folk traditions, Morrison argued, reflected the invisible nature of so many black Britons throughout history. “So many of these black ancestors weren’t officially recorded,” she said. “Unless you had a birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate or an official burial in a church, you weren’t recorded. So there’s going to be more than we’re able to count.”

Her next album, she revealed, would be about the art of alchemy: “each song will be a meditation on one of the alchemical stages”. Has she mastered the power of alchemy, Pinnock asked? “It’s a little early to say,” she chuckled. “I’m getting there.”

Angel Olsen, The Mary Wallopers: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2

Mark Beaumont
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Angel Olsen, The Mary Wallopers: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 2
“Tonight we shall burn in hell,” yells a bloke called Joe as a DJ in a fisherman’s hat and his saxophonist sidekick jog on the spot to some rabid electronic post-ska. A minute ago, everyone was bobbing at the knees to the cabaret drop-down section of a piece of skittering jazz rock that couldn...

“Tonight we shall burn in hell,” yells a bloke called Joe as a DJ in a fisherman’s hat and his saxophonist sidekick jog on the spot to some rabid electronic post-ska. A minute ago, everyone was bobbing at the knees to the cabaret drop-down section of a piece of skittering jazz rock that couldn’t be more South London if it had inadequate transport options. This is Fat Dog, freshly signed to Domino and kicking off EOTR Day 2 in customarily esoteric fashion.

Across at the main Woods stage, Brooklyn’s Say She She – named as a tribute to Chic for reasons which swiftly become apparent – are spinning and sync-dancing through a sort of psychedelic disco funk they call discodelia, caught in the exact midpoint between ‘60s psych soul and ‘70s funk where it’s acceptable to sing lines like “be my lover on an astral plane”.

Mid-afternoon at the Talking Heads stage, Angeline Morrison bewitches a crowd perched on hay-bail pews with her haunting folk laments on domestic violence, her supernatural bond to her late grandfather and several sorry tales of slavery, racism and maltreatment from her recent album The Sorrow Songs: Folk Tales Of Black British Experience.

They might share a folk tradition but there could barely be a sharper clash of vibes all day than that between Morrison and The Mary Wallopers on the idyllic Garden Stage. “We all have fleas and we’re proud of it!” they yell, bantering wildly between crazed traditional jigs, reels and yarns celebrating Cork’s red-light district and rich people going to hell. The key signifier? “If you have brand name underwear, you’re fucking rich.” They too boast their fair share of historical social commentary; one battle ballad confronts the warmongering rich while The Dubliners’ “Building Up And Tearing England Down” tackles the Irish “navvy” struggle. But we’re moved here in a very different manner; whirled by the elbow rather than hurled by the heartstrings.

By nightfall, exuberance burnt, a chill descends. “You staying warm?” Angel Olsen asks the Garden Stage crowd as she wraps her country quilt across its shoulders. Hers are opulent Americana songs of big-sky drama and romance; alt-country with an Oppenheimer co-write, Lana writ large.

Accompanied by a string duo, occasional harpsichord and sensitive band, the ghostly melodies of “Give It Up” are imbued with strident emotion, “Unfucktheworld” becomes a devastated waltz. Yet for all the Lynchian haze and sumptuous sadness shrouding her music – she even closes with an impassioned if somewhat tongue-in-cheek cover of Badfinger’s “Without You” – there is also plenty of hope on show. “Sister” balloons with sonic optimism and “Shut Up Kiss Me”, the 2016 hit she craftily introduces as “a song I wrote last night”, catches much of its infectious joy from it sheer determination for love. “We’ve got two more songs,” she says towards the end, “amazing, I love freezing!” But her audience, tonight, burn in heaven.

Jaimie Branch – Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((World War))

Ana Gavrilovska
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Jaimie Branch – Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((World War))
The contemporary jazz world was stunned by the untimely death of avant-garde trumpeter and composer Jaimie Branch when she passed away last August at the age of 39. Branch was fierce and thrilling, a trailblazer known for her uncompromising, politically infused jazz and distinct style of composition...

The contemporary jazz world was stunned by the untimely death of avant-garde trumpeter and composer Jaimie Branch when she passed away last August at the age of 39. Branch was fierce and thrilling, a trailblazer known for her uncompromising, politically infused jazz and distinct style of composition. Her work deftly occupied a zone of creative music that could just as easily be termed punk-jazz. She was a busy collaborator too, leaving her uniquely dynamic mark on a swath of albums in a variety of settings, most notably in the experimental electro-jazz duo Anteloper. But it’s her music with the Fly Or Die band that really propelled her to the position of one of contemporary jazz’s most compelling artists. Now, her final album with her main ensemble is ready to be heard by the rest of the world.

Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((World War)) consists of nine songs composed by Branch and then recorded in April 2022 with Fly Or Die (cellist Lester St Louis, bassist Jason Ajemian and drummer Chad Taylor) during her residency at the Bemis Centre for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska. When Branch died, the album was in a nearly completed state. Her family members, bandmates and other collaborators convened to make the final tweaks and add the finishing touches. What should have been the next step in Branch’s innovative career became a tragically beautiful final document that captured an artist cresting a peak.

Surprisingly lush and melodically expansive, the album opens with the electro-gospel “Aurora Rising”, clocking in just under two minutes before resolving precisely into the instantly catchy groove of “Borealis Dancing”, a track that sounds just like its title feels. With steady rhythmic grooves augmented by the sweet melancholy of strings, this song would be right at home on Joe Henderson’s 1974 album The Elements.

She may have been known most for her fiery trumpet, but Branch’s voice was just as vital to her composition and performance. She leaned into it on this album, bringing it front and centre on the incendiary “Burning Grey”. Her perceptive gaze is turned to our crumbling world, the words an exhortation not to forget to fight and urgent reminder that the future lives inside us. The music grooves and swings, tipping towards the sublime tension of cacophony that marks the best free jazz. “Burning Grey” is potent and electrifying, furiously reflective of the depth of love that powers a revolutionary spirit.

That mix of anger and love is just as clearly present on “Take Back The World”, a song that exemplifies Branch’s political point of view. Her voice is front and centre here too, a passionate howl that proves she could have easily led a hardcore band. But she takes the song in a different direction, manipulating her voice to create a psychedelic effect that feels like time dilating, stressing the urgency of her message.

One of the more unexpected (if you never saw Fly Or Die perform, that is) choices is “The Mountain”, a sparse reimagining of the Meat Puppets’ “Comin’ Down”. The original song is country-inflected grunge and the cover here preserves the country influence, stripping the music down even further to Ajemian’s upright bass paired with his and Branch’s voices, concluding with a trumpet solo.

The fun-loving side of Branch is present too, not just in the communal vibes that animate her music but also in the literal components. Look at the credits and you’ll notice she has one for “happy apple”, the Fisher Price toy with an apple face and chimes inside. You hear them most clearly at the end of the album on “World War ((Reprise))”, a sonic coda that sparkles and cries, drawing from all the elements that made Branch’s music soar, down to the playful possibility found within a child’s toy.

Fly Or Die… is many things, but above all it seems to be about the simple act of paying attention. In a political sense, sure, but also to the pleasure of connection, drawing a direct link between empowerment and enjoyment, action and emotion. It’s entirely fitting, then, that the album is dedicated to the lovers and the fighters who live to make the world a more compassionate and generous place. In a world without Branch, her voice reaches us from beyond with a simple but powerful plea to take care of the planet and each other.

Hiss Golden Messenger – Jump For Joy

Nick Hasted
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Hiss Golden Messenger – Jump For Joy
Hiss Golden Messenger’s music reflects faith in an open-armed notion of divinity. This is seen most clearly in a similarly open idea of rock’n’roll rooted in the American South’s soil and spirit, and deepened during Hiss lynchpin MC Taylor’s wonderstruck wanderings across America. But when...

Hiss Golden Messenger’s music reflects faith in an open-armed notion of divinity. This is seen most clearly in a similarly open idea of rock’n’roll rooted in the American South’s soil and spirit, and deepened during Hiss lynchpin MC Taylor’s wonderstruck wanderings across America. But when all that was shut down by the pandemic, their ninth full album, 2021’s Quietly Blowing It, instead absorbed Taylor’s bewilderment, and his country’s chaos. “People often look at Hiss songs like beacons of hope,” he considers, “but those [Covid] years of uncertainty tested my capacity for it. Mentally I went about as low as I could go, and on Quietly Blowing It I can hear how low I was. In its tempo and type of self-reflection, it feels like the last record I can make like that.”

The Sounding Joy: Hiss Golden Messenger Meets Revelators On South Robinson Street (2021), with Spacebomb/Bonny Light Horseman bassist Cameron Ralston, was what Taylor dubs an “instrumental, grooving, cacophonous, free jazz record”, shaking off both his previous album’s heaviness and rigid musical boundaries. Going back on the road with Hiss in 2022, and feeling his returning audience’s hunger, he then began writing songs around a teenage alter ego, Michael Crow, reaching back as he did so to his original musical fervour.

Jump For Joy is the loose-limbed, exuberant result, a Hiss Golden Messenger record designed to close the gap with his recent slew of live albums, and let us dance our troubles away. It’s hardly Hiss Goes Disco, but Americana, too often neutered into an almost literary form, here resumes its bodily origins. Gospel, funk and soul, Memphis and New Orleans flit through highly personal Southern rock, played by the live Hiss band with easy generosity. Little Feat are enduring Taylor influences, exemplars, he says, in meshing “ferocious groove and writing that is smart and deep”. So this music rolls: guitars arrive on the title track like a helping hand, and slide-guitar on “The Wondering” slyly slips in with a wink.

“God, I’m only 16,” Taylor murmurs on “Jesus I’m Bored”, over the drums’ railway chug, heading steadily out of his teenage town. “I want to be something/Can you give me a sign?” The autobiography continues with “The Wondering”, as Michael Crow housebreaks and hunts experience, and Hammond organ shimmers. Here and in “Feeling Eternal”, “I Saw The New Day In The World” and the blinding light and cleansing rock of “Sunset On The Faders”’, there’s a sense of daily, cosmic wonder which the singer is innately part of.

“Woke up this morning, my God I’m feeling happy,” he declares like an anti-blues singer during “Shinbone”’s bright, blissful funk, further enquiring: “Taking chances… If you lose it all, can you love what’s left?” Continuing on from the Revelators album, Taylor is laying down weighty cares, and falling back into the flow of life. Songwriting itself is central to this change, as “The Wondering” pines for the simplest truth: “Let me write just one verse that doesn’t feel like persuasion…”

Taylor has observed a similar shift in perspective in peers across numerous spheres since the pandemic, a recalibrating of what really matters akin to a near-death experience. “I’ve spent decades choosing to put music first, missing weddings and my beloved grandmother’s funeral because I was on the road,” he states. “I’m just not going to be doing that any more.” Hiss Golden Messenger albums have always wrestled with faith, struggling to glean God in Taylor’s North Carolina home. Now one of his most lovely, nakedly autobiographical songs, “My Old Friends”, finds “something to believe in” in longtime compadres, as he returns from his troubadour trials to declare his love. The bass ambles, and slide and acoustic guitars make gossamer harmony, forging a melody that might have fallen off Harvest, or a Cat Stevens record. “My transgressions/May I forgive, the way I’ve been forgiven,” Taylor incidentally prays, pausing lyrically afterwards, as if waiting to be answered.

Jump For Joy is a panoramic, magical reverie on the sometimes hard gift of a life in American music. “I wanted to trace my life as a devotee of music, and as a wandering soul,” Taylor agrees. “And I am finding a lot of solace in this idea that I’m living the life that I dreamed about as a teenager – being footloose in America, and able to create poetic things.” In catastrophe’s slipstream, Hiss Golden Messenger have decided to count their blessings.

Uncut’s New Music Playlist for September 2023

Michael Bonner
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Uncut’s New Music Playlist for September 2023
You'll have hopefully noticed by now that End Of The Road is on this weekend - Tom, Sam and Mark are on site covering the festival for Uncut - which promises a ton of great things. You can read today's first EOTR report over here, where Wilco sound like they delivered another excellent headline set....

You’ll have hopefully noticed by now that End Of The Road is on this weekend – Tom, Sam and Mark are on site covering the festival for Uncut – which promises a ton of great things. You can read today’s first EOTR report over here, where Wilco sound like they delivered another excellent headline set. Having seen them in Spain a few weeks ago – more on that in next month’s Uncut – I’m reminded, not for the first time, that they’re probably my favourite live band of the last 15 years or so.

But in the meantime, if you’re not going to End Of The Road, please take solace in our latest Playlist – the usual mix of new stuff including Ty, Devendra, Handsome Family, Andy Bell, Beirut and some lanquid, experimental soundscaping from Istanbul-born Berke Can Özcan in cahoots with our favourite Norwegian trumpet mastermind, Arve Henriksen

1
TY SEGALL
“Void”
[DRAG CITY]

2
JEFFREY MARTIN
“There Is A Treasure”
[LOOSE]

3
BEIRUT
“So Many Plans”
[POMPEII]

4
BERKE CAN ÖZCAN FEATURING ARVE HENRIKSEN & JONAH PARZEN-JOHNSON
“Snake Behind Valley”
[OMNI SOUND]

5
DEVENDRA BANHART
“Nun”
[MEXICAN SUMMER]

6
HENRY PARKER
“In The Valley”
[TOMPKINS SQUARE]

7
THE HANDSOME FAMILY
“The King Of Everything”
[LOOSE]

8
OTTO WILLBERG
“Reap What Thou Sow”
[BLACK TRUFFLE]

9
JEREMIAH CHU
“In Electric Time”
[INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM]

10
PYE CORNER AUDIO
“FtrTrx”
[self-released]

11
ISRAEL NASH
“Can’t Stop”
[LOOSE]

12
ROBERT FINLEY
“You Got It (And I Need It)”
[EASY EYE SOUND]

13
ANDY BELL & MASAL
“Hallogallo”
[SONIC CATHEDRAL]

14
THE MARY WALLOPERS
“The Blarney Stone”
[BC Records]

Wilco, Deerhoof: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 1

Mark Beaumont
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Wilco, Deerhoof: End Of The Road 2023 – Day 1
“This must be the largest audience we’ve ever played for,” grins Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier, peering out at End Of The Road’s sizeable early-doors crowd, dampened but not disheartened by Thursday’s insidious drizzle. Just the sort of meeting of minds that EOTR was made for. An band of p...

“This must be the largest audience we’ve ever played for,” grins Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier, peering out at End Of The Road’s sizeable early-doors crowd, dampened but not disheartened by Thursday’s insidious drizzle. Just the sort of meeting of minds that EOTR was made for. An band of possibly selective appeal – such are their disjointed songs of math-rock virtuosity, blasts of beastly riffs and delicate Björk-meets-Yoko vocals about death and onions – playing to an attentive crowd of sonic aficionados hungry for a challenge.

It’s what has, over its 17 years, made EOTR Britain’s most refined, exploratory and cultured festival; a place the devoted flock to whatever the line-up, an arthouse Glastonbury. And Deerhoof, like Khruangbin last year, act as a means to become re-accustomed to its values.

Stretches of angular post-rock and looping, hypnotic chorus-pedal guitar lines drift from the stage, stilted and chopped to the degree that they often trip over themselves and land face first in a drum solo (occasionally accompanied by a bout of death-themed poetry). Singer Satomi Matsuzaki does can-can kicks in a green party dress, singing about seeing too many seagulls and growing tomatoes from dead onions. At points they go full Townshend, invent crank metal chanson (“L’Amour Stories”), or just muck about for a laugh. As they segue their math-rock version of the Knight Rider theme into Eddie Grant’s “Electric Avenue”, anyone following along online might assume the wags have got at Setlist.fm again.

It’s been a year of boutique festivals shooting their bolt early – Spiritualized headlined the Thursday night of Green Man, for example – and EOTR wholeheartedly joins in. Wilco top the first night’s limited bill, with Jeff Tweedy in grateful mood, the band quicksilver of motion. Into the gentle Americana of “Handshake Drugs” swoop squealing, hawk-like guitars; over the indie rock regret of “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” grows an avant-garde clatter and clamour reflecting the turmoil of the vindictive mind.

Slow-burn alt-country ventures into the cosmic are a speciality. “Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull” moves from bristling folk self-flagellation – Tweedy lyrically beating himself with sticks and stabbing himself with a penknife – into a scorching segment that could be a lap around the afterlife. The languid “Impossible Germany” becomes a storm in Austin. The gorgeous country folk of “Misunderstood” builds to a chest-pounding finale, Tweedy bawling “Nothing! Nothing!” in anguished rock staccato. A howl from the precipice.

After so much atmosphere-building, it’s refreshing when the set shifts into a simpler lane, “Jesus, Etc” sinking into its sweet country pop melody and the beat pop of “Dawned On Me” coming on like alt-country’s answer to – oh yes – “Alright” by Supergrass. “Gonna play some country music for you,” Tweedy says, strapping on an acoustic guitar for the honky-tonk-ish “Falling Apart (Right Now)”, “that what you’ve been waiting for?” If it is, we’re only briefly indulged: before long, “Shot In The Arm” is making chemtrails across the Nashville skyline. Consider EOTR 2023’s gates not so much open as comprehensively breached.

We’re off to End Of The Road Festival 2023

Michael Bonner
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We’re off to End Of The Road Festival 2023
Bags packed, toothbrush ready, weather forecast checked... and we're off to this year's End Of The Road festival. You can read our daily coverage of the festival on this site throughout this weekend. As well as headliners like Wilco and Angel Olsen, we'll be digging The Mary Wallopers, Arooj Afta...

Bags packed, toothbrush ready, weather forecast checked… and we’re off to this year’s End Of The Road festival.

You can read our daily coverage of the festival on this site throughout this weekend. As well as headliners like Wilco and Angel Olsen, we’ll be digging The Mary Wallopers, Arooj Aftab, Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Joan Shelley, Sam Burton and a host more.

As well as reporting from around the festival, we’re also holding the Uncut Q&As each day, where Tom Pinnock will be chatting to some very special guests on the Talking Heads stage:

Angeline Morrison: Talking Heads, Friday, 16:00 – 16:45

75 Dollar Bill: Talking Heads, Saturday, 16:00 – 16:45

King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: Talking Heads, Sunday, 16:00 – 16:45

All in all, it’s a very busy weekend for Uncut and we can’t wait for the gates to open.

See you down the front!

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