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The Rolling Stones release six documentaries and films on Facebook

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The Rolling Stones release six documentaries and films on Facebook
The Rolling Stones have made some of their classic documentaries and concert films available to stream on their Facebook page. Six films can now be rented, including last year’s Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live, the career-spanning documentary Crossfire Hurricane and Live At The Checkerboard...

The Rolling Stones have made some of their classic documentaries and concert films available to stream on their Facebook page.

Six films can now be rented, including last year’s Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live, the career-spanning documentary Crossfire Hurricane and Live At The Checkerboard, filmed in 1981.

The films, which can be watched by going to the Stones’ Facebook page, are:

Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live

Crossfire Hurricane

Ladies & Gentlemen… The Rolling Stones

Some Girls

Stones In Exile

Live At The Checkerboard

The Australian and New Zealand leg of the band’s On Fire tour is due to kick off on October 25 in Adelaide, Australia. The band were originally scheduled to perform there in March, but were forced to postpone the dates due to the unexpected death of Jagger’s long-term girlfriend, L’Wren Scott.

A Most Wanted Man and God’s Pocket: some thoughts on Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final films

Michael Bonner
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A Most Wanted Man and God’s Pocket: some thoughts on Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final films

The last major works by one of Hollywood's greatest modern actors. It’s been a good year for spies. The BBC have given two further outings to Bill Nighy’s elegantly crumpled Johnny Worricker as well as the gnomic utterances of Stephen Rea and his fellow spooks in A Honourable Woman. A Most Wanted Man, however, comes laced with an extra level of pathos: it is the last leading role Philip Seymour Hoffman filmed before his death in February this year (although there are two further Hunger Games instalments still to come). A Most Wanted Man brings together Hoffman with a strong supporting cast including Willem Dafoe, Robin Penn, Rachel McAdams and Daniel Brühl. The source material, too, is robust: it’s based on a 2008 novel by John Le Carré about the densely-layered counterespionage business in present day Hamburg. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX-psY7w84E Incidentally, A Most Wanted Man arrives on the heels of God’s Pocket, which you might still find in a few cinemas. As with A Most Wanted Man, it’s also based on an early novel, this one by Pete Dexter, whose credits include Paris Trout, Mulholland Falls and The Paperboy. On the strength of this adaptation, it feels like a minor work for Dexter, though debuting director John Slattery (Mad Men’s Roger Sterling) has certainly assembled a staunch cast of actorly actors: aside from Hoffman, there’s John Turturro, Richard Jenkins, Christina Hendricks and Eddie Marsan, who portray denizens in a scuffed working class neighbourhood of South Philadelphia. Hoffman plays a thieving meat supplier who has to arrange the funeral of his despicable stepson after the boy is killed at a construction site. Slattery aims for scudded naturalism - a cinematic approximation of a Bruce Springsteen song - though it never quite hangs together successfully. I’m reminded of Out Of The Furnace from earlier this year: another high-calibre ensemble cast engaged in a story about blue collar crime that also failed to ignite. It’s worth watching for the performances – which is pretty much the case of A Most Wanted Man as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qBfeRrF1nM In this le Carré adaptation, Hoffman plays Günther Bachmann, a German intelligence officer investigating the trail left by an escaped Turkish prisoner – a devout Muslim – who has arrived in the city to claim his late father’s inheritance from a German bank for purposes unknown. Bachmann is a post-9/11 iteration of George Smiley, an inscrutable long-game player. Unlike the composed Smiley, however, Bachmann is a dishevelled figure who smokes and drinks heavily. Hoffman’s work could be extremely variable: he was prone to ham, especially in films like Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. But he’s good here, certainly, mostly because Hoffman responds to the overwhelmingly downbeat atmosphere of Le Carré’s material and dials down his performance accordingly. Of course, Le Carré has a successful track record on film – memorably, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, The Constant Gardener and most recently, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. All of these have understandably had to work hard to pare back Le Carré’s dense, labyrinthine plots; largely with great success. But here, for all it’s acting merits, A Most Wanted Man is a rather shapeless film. Much of the responsibility for that lies with Anton Corbijn. Cobijn is consummate stylist, as Control and The American proved (although, admittedly, for the former he was basically drawing on his own pre-established photographic template). While he is strong on mood – the colour palette is steely blue and muted gold – but he still has much to learn about pacing and marshalling narrative. For all its rich storyline and high level acting, A Most Wanted Man is a bit boring. A Most Wanted Man opens in UK cinemas on September 12

The last major works by one of Hollywood’s greatest modern actors.

It’s been a good year for spies. The BBC have given two further outings to Bill Nighy’s elegantly crumpled Johnny Worricker as well as the gnomic utterances of Stephen Rea and his fellow spooks in A Honourable Woman. A Most Wanted Man, however, comes laced with an extra level of pathos: it is the last leading role Philip Seymour Hoffman filmed before his death in February this year (although there are two further Hunger Games instalments still to come). A Most Wanted Man brings together Hoffman with a strong supporting cast including Willem Dafoe, Robin Penn, Rachel McAdams and Daniel Brühl. The source material, too, is robust: it’s based on a 2008 novel by John Le Carré about the densely-layered counterespionage business in present day Hamburg.

Incidentally, A Most Wanted Man arrives on the heels of God’s Pocket, which you might still find in a few cinemas. As with A Most Wanted Man, it’s also based on an early novel, this one by Pete Dexter, whose credits include Paris Trout, Mulholland Falls and The Paperboy. On the strength of this adaptation, it feels like a minor work for Dexter, though debuting director John Slattery (Mad Men’s Roger Sterling) has certainly assembled a staunch cast of actorly actors: aside from Hoffman, there’s John Turturro, Richard Jenkins, Christina Hendricks and Eddie Marsan, who portray denizens in a scuffed working class neighbourhood of South Philadelphia. Hoffman plays a thieving meat supplier who has to arrange the funeral of his despicable stepson after the boy is killed at a construction site. Slattery aims for scudded naturalism – a cinematic approximation of a Bruce Springsteen song – though it never quite hangs together successfully. I’m reminded of Out Of The Furnace from earlier this year: another high-calibre ensemble cast engaged in a story about blue collar crime that also failed to ignite. It’s worth watching for the performances – which is pretty much the case of A Most Wanted Man as well.

In this le Carré adaptation, Hoffman plays Günther Bachmann, a German intelligence officer investigating the trail left by an escaped Turkish prisoner – a devout Muslim – who has arrived in the city to claim his late father’s inheritance from a German bank for purposes unknown. Bachmann is a post-9/11 iteration of George Smiley, an inscrutable long-game player. Unlike the composed Smiley, however, Bachmann is a dishevelled figure who smokes and drinks heavily. Hoffman’s work could be extremely variable: he was prone to ham, especially in films like Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. But he’s good here, certainly, mostly because Hoffman responds to the overwhelmingly downbeat atmosphere of Le Carré’s material and dials down his performance accordingly. Of course, Le Carré has a successful track record on film – memorably, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, The Constant Gardener and most recently, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. All of these have understandably had to work hard to pare back Le Carré’s dense, labyrinthine plots; largely with great success.

But here, for all it’s acting merits, A Most Wanted Man is a rather shapeless film. Much of the responsibility for that lies with Anton Corbijn. Cobijn is consummate stylist, as Control and The American proved (although, admittedly, for the former he was basically drawing on his own pre-established photographic template). While he is strong on mood – the colour palette is steely blue and muted gold – but he still has much to learn about pacing and marshalling narrative. For all its rich storyline and high level acting, A Most Wanted Man is a bit boring.

A Most Wanted Man opens in UK cinemas on September 12

Cold Specks – Neuroplasticity

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Cold Specks – Neuroplasticity

Bigger, bolder second by brooding Canadian... “Neuroplasticity” is a term which relates to the brain’s ability to evolve when faced with new behaviour, environments, stimuli or trauma. According to Al Spx, the 26-year-old Canadian singer and songwriter who broods, bristles and snarls behind the soubriquet Cold Specks, she chose it as the title of her second album to honour “a creative rewiring process. It implies an aesthetic change.” Which, after prolonged immersion in this rather remarkable record, seems about right. Neuroplasticity is the follow-up to Cold Specks’ 2012 debut, I Predict A Graceful Expulsion, and bears the same relation to that album as an abstract oil painting does to an accomplished sketch. ...Expulsion placed Spx’s core sources – old spirituals, delta blues, southern soul, Alan Lomax field recordings – into an overly-polite gothic-folk setting of carefully plucked guitars, soft piano, keening violins and primal rhythm. It’s a lovely record, but it could have offered more bite and daring. Past songs like “When The City Lights Dim” suggested that Spx could turn her hand to vaguely anthemic radio-friendly fare, but in the event she has travelled to the other extreme. While I Predict A Graceful Expulsion was recorded in less than a fortnight, Neuroplasticity was stitched together over a period of six months. That time was clearly not spent applying commercial polish, but instead building a bigger, bolder musical framework to give full vent to her extraordinary voice – two parts Patti Smith, one part Tom Waits, one part Macy Gray – and unbendingly bleak world view. The dark, churning soundscapes on Neuroplasticity frequently approach the kind of fever-pitch of confrontational intensity which bears comparison with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, combined with the tribal kick of 80s Kate Bush. “A Quiet Chill” has the same irresistible pulse as “The Big Sky”, while “A Formal Invitation”, with its bat-shit rhythm and layered, multi-octave backing vocals, has the edge-of-madness feel familiar from The Dreaming. At other times Spx feels like a kindred spirit to notorious margin-hangers like Diamanda Galas and Swans. It seems entirely fitting that Michael Gira guests on two songs, his light-swallowing rasp intoning “hung, drawn, quartered” on “Exit Plan”, and adding an added layer of lupine menace to the album’s pitch-black highlight, “Season Of Doubt”. Even here, Spx out-glooms her co-vocalist, signing off with the promise that she possesses “an unrelenting desire to fall apart.” The results suggest a spectral Odetta covering late Talk Talk, a bewitching tapestry made up of uncomfortable silence, broken piano chords and forlorn trumpet, the latter courtesy of young American jazzer Ambrose Akinmusire, whose contributions prove to be one of the album’s most engaging new textures. His squealing horn lines skid all over opener “A Broken Memory”, as well as “Old Knives”, which pledges kinship to The Cure’s Faith, with its slow-hanging guitar arpeggios and funereal drum tattoo. Spx’s use of traditional black American sources is less overt but remains in evidence. Avant-garde jazz notwithstanding, “A Broken Memory” is a bleached machine-gospel stomp. “Absisto” is built on a blues drone, stretched and distorted over a bass-heavy rhythm, beautiful and sinister at the same time. “Living Signs” is clipped gothic funk, with a lyric – “I did not intend to raise the dead” – which evokes images of vine-covered New Orleans graveyards. There are other connective threads to Spx’s past work. “Change Of Command”, a lithe construction of fluid guitar lines and an almost-pop melody, recalls “Hector” from her debut. The gentle, undulating “Exit Plan” also returns to the calmer waters of ...Expulsion, at least until the peace is, somewhat inevitably, shattered by eruptions of sonic turbulence. Spx, who now lives in London, wrote much of this record in a remote cottage during a winter escape to the West Country, and the penetrating chill is tangible. Neuroplasticity is an unrelenting ride, but there’s something heroic about its unwavering commitment to its nightmare visions. On “A Quiet Chill” Spx growls “I remain unshakeable”. Every note of this compelling album backs her up. Graeme Thomson Q&A AL SPX, COLD SPECKS What changed between ...Expulsion and Neuroplasticity? My first album was a deeply personal folk record, and it became difficult performing those songs over two years. I felt like a bad actress and I wanted to change that. I made a conscious decision to make a more playful album with a much more expansive sound. “Playful” isn’t necessarily the first word I’d use! Sonically it’s playful. Lyrically and thematically it’s still incredibly dark. I don’t know how to write in other ways, I’ve come to accept it. Why did you go to the West Country to write? It was winter in London, miserable, and a friend had a cottage available for a few weeks. I had a couple of flat mates in London I just needed to get rid of! I definitely need to be alone to be comfortable with fully exploring sound. I don’t like to make errors in front of people, so I isolate myself. How did Michael Gira come on board? I couldn’t sing as low as he does! Luckily for me he was a fan and agreed to do it. He was kind and gracious throughout the entire process. I’m a very big fan of his, so it was a great pleasure. INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON

Bigger, bolder second by brooding Canadian…

“Neuroplasticity” is a term which relates to the brain’s ability to evolve when faced with new behaviour, environments, stimuli or trauma. According to Al Spx, the 26-year-old Canadian singer and songwriter who broods, bristles and snarls behind the soubriquet Cold Specks, she chose it as the title of her second album to honour “a creative rewiring process. It implies an aesthetic change.”

Which, after prolonged immersion in this rather remarkable record, seems about right. Neuroplasticity is the follow-up to Cold Specks’ 2012 debut, I Predict A Graceful Expulsion, and bears the same relation to that album as an abstract oil painting does to an accomplished sketch. …Expulsion placed Spx’s core sources – old spirituals, delta blues, southern soul, Alan Lomax field recordings – into an overly-polite gothic-folk setting of carefully plucked guitars, soft piano, keening violins and primal rhythm. It’s a lovely record, but it could have offered more bite and daring.

Past songs like “When The City Lights Dim” suggested that Spx could turn her hand to vaguely anthemic radio-friendly fare, but in the event she has travelled to the other extreme. While I Predict A Graceful Expulsion was recorded in less than a fortnight, Neuroplasticity was stitched together over a period of six months. That time was clearly not spent applying commercial polish, but instead building a bigger, bolder musical framework to give full vent to her extraordinary voice – two parts Patti Smith, one part Tom Waits, one part Macy Gray – and unbendingly bleak world view.

The dark, churning soundscapes on Neuroplasticity frequently approach the kind of fever-pitch of confrontational intensity which bears comparison with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, combined with the tribal kick of 80s Kate Bush. “A Quiet Chill” has the same irresistible pulse as “The Big Sky”, while “A Formal Invitation”, with its bat-shit rhythm and layered, multi-octave backing vocals, has the edge-of-madness feel familiar from The Dreaming.

At other times Spx feels like a kindred spirit to notorious margin-hangers like Diamanda Galas and Swans. It seems entirely fitting that Michael Gira guests on two songs, his light-swallowing rasp intoning “hung, drawn, quartered” on “Exit Plan”, and adding an added layer of lupine menace to the album’s pitch-black highlight, “Season Of Doubt”. Even here, Spx out-glooms her co-vocalist, signing off with the promise that she possesses “an unrelenting desire to fall apart.”

The results suggest a spectral Odetta covering late Talk Talk, a bewitching tapestry made up of uncomfortable silence, broken piano chords and forlorn trumpet, the latter courtesy of young American jazzer Ambrose Akinmusire, whose contributions prove to be one of the album’s most engaging new textures. His squealing horn lines skid all over opener “A Broken Memory”, as well as “Old Knives”, which pledges kinship to The Cure’s Faith, with its slow-hanging guitar arpeggios and funereal drum tattoo.

Spx’s use of traditional black American sources is less overt but remains in evidence. Avant-garde jazz notwithstanding, “A Broken Memory” is a bleached machine-gospel stomp. “Absisto” is built on a blues drone, stretched and distorted over a bass-heavy rhythm, beautiful and sinister at the same time. “Living Signs” is clipped gothic funk, with a lyric – “I did not intend to raise the dead” – which evokes images of vine-covered New Orleans graveyards. There are other connective threads to Spx’s past work. “Change Of Command”, a lithe construction of fluid guitar lines and an almost-pop melody, recalls “Hector” from her debut. The gentle, undulating “Exit Plan” also returns to the calmer waters of …Expulsion, at least until the peace is, somewhat inevitably, shattered by eruptions of sonic turbulence.

Spx, who now lives in London, wrote much of this record in a remote cottage during a winter escape to the West Country, and the penetrating chill is tangible. Neuroplasticity is an unrelenting ride, but there’s something heroic about its unwavering commitment to its nightmare visions. On “A Quiet Chill” Spx growls “I remain unshakeable”. Every note of this compelling album backs her up.

Graeme Thomson

Q&A

AL SPX, COLD SPECKS

What changed between …Expulsion and Neuroplasticity?

My first album was a deeply personal folk record, and it became difficult performing those songs over two years. I felt like a bad actress and I wanted to change that. I made a conscious decision to make a more playful album with a much more expansive sound.

“Playful” isn’t necessarily the first word I’d use!

Sonically it’s playful. Lyrically and thematically it’s still incredibly dark. I don’t know how to write in other ways, I’ve come to accept it.

Why did you go to the West Country to write?

It was winter in London, miserable, and a friend had a cottage available for a few weeks. I had a couple of flat mates in London I just needed to get rid of! I definitely need to be alone to be comfortable with fully exploring sound. I don’t like to make errors in front of people, so I isolate myself.

How did Michael Gira come on board?

I couldn’t sing as low as he does! Luckily for me he was a fan and agreed to do it. He was kind and gracious throughout the entire process. I’m a very big fan of his, so it was a great pleasure.

INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON

Phil Selway: “now feels right” time to start recording new Radiohead album

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Phil Selway: “now feels right” time to start recording new Radiohead album

Radiohead drummer Phil Selway has said that now is the right time to start working on the band's new album, though he has "no idea" what it will sound like. The band will regroup to start work on the follow-up to 2011's The King Of Limbs in September, as has been previously confirmed. In an interview in this week's NME about his forthcoming new solo album Weatherhouse, which will be released on October 6, Selway is asked whether he can make any predictions as to what a new Radiohead album may end up sounding like. "I have absolutely no idea," he says. "And that's what keeps us all there until the end." "We are starting again in about a month's time. We've decided that now feels right to start making music and we've got the first week booked in together so we'll see how it goes," he adds. Earlier this week, Radiohead updated their PolyFauna app with new music and visuals.

Radiohead drummer Phil Selway has said that now is the right time to start working on the band’s new album, though he has “no idea” what it will sound like.

The band will regroup to start work on the follow-up to 2011’s The King Of Limbs in September, as has been previously confirmed.

In an interview in this week’s NME about his forthcoming new solo album Weatherhouse, which will be released on October 6, Selway is asked whether he can make any predictions as to what a new Radiohead album may end up sounding like. “I have absolutely no idea,” he says. “And that’s what keeps us all there until the end.”

“We are starting again in about a month’s time. We’ve decided that now feels right to start making music and we’ve got the first week booked in together so we’ll see how it goes,” he adds.

Earlier this week, Radiohead updated their PolyFauna app with new music and visuals.

Sleater-Kinney to release career-spanning vinyl boxset in October

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Sleater-Kinney to release career-spanning vinyl boxset in October
Sleater-Kinney are to release their entire discography in a seven-album boxset. Sub Pop Records will put out Start Together on October 20. The release will be limited to 3,000 copies and will contain remastered versions of all seven of the band's albums on coloured vinyl as well as a hardback book...

Sleater-Kinney are to release their entire discography in a seven-album boxset.

Sub Pop Records will put out Start Together on October 20. The release will be limited to 3,000 copies and will contain remastered versions of all seven of the band’s albums on coloured vinyl as well as a hardback book featuring never-before-seen images of the band.

The remastered albums will be released individually on CD and black vinyl on the same day. All of the albums are available digitally from today (September 2).

Sleater-Kinney released seven albums between 1995-2005 with their self-titled debut album being followed by Call The Doctor, Dig Me Out, The Hot Rock, All Hands On The Bad One and One Beat. The band’s most recent album, The Woods, was released in 2005.

Sleater-Kinney members Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss (along with REM’s Peter Buck) joined Pearl Jam onstage at their Moda Center concert in Portland in November 2013, where they covered Neil Young‘s “Rockin’ In The Free World”.

Speaking after that gig, Brownstein hinted at a reunion, saying that she felt the band had “more to say”.

Sleater-Kinney went on indefinite hiatus in 2006 with Brownstein going on to form Wild Flag with the band’s drummer Janet Weiss as well as write and star in US TV show Portlandia.

New Order sign to Mute Records for new album

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New Order sign to Mute Records for new album
New Order have signed with long-standing independent label Mute Records. The Manchester band have announced their next record will be released by Mute, though no further details on what will be their tenth studio album have been announced. However, label founder Daniel Miller has revealed that he h...

New Order have signed with long-standing independent label Mute Records.

The Manchester band have announced their next record will be released by Mute, though no further details on what will be their tenth studio album have been announced. However, label founder Daniel Miller has revealed that he heard some new material prior to signing the group.

“This is an exciting new chapter for both Mute and New Order and I feel privileged to be working with artists with such a long, creative and successful history,” said Miller in a statement. “When the possibility of us working together first came up, I was invited to hear some of the new material and immediately had no doubts whatsoever that Mute would be the right home for New Order. We’ve already had a number of creative conversations, and I am looking towards an exciting future.”

“New Order are delighted to be signing to Mute,” added the band. “We couldn’t imagine a better place to be than working with Daniel Miller and his team. Mute has a superb roster of artists and a history that complements our own. In many ways joining the label feels like we are coming home, returning to our independent roots.”

Mute was established in 1978. The label has since released music by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Wire, Depeche Mode, Goldfrapp and Erasure, among many others.

Hear Elvis Costello’s “New Basement Tapes” track, with lyrics by Bob Dylan

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Hear Elvis Costello’s “New Basement Tapes” track, with lyrics by Bob Dylan

A second track, " Married To My Hack", has been released from the forthcoming Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes project. The album features lyrics that Dylan wrote while recording the original Basement Tapes in 1967 that have been put to music by Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James, T Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford. The second song from these sessions, "Married To My Hack" is sung by Elvis Costello and accompanied by an animated video that overlays abstract cartoons and Dylan's original hand-written lyrics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74cnDr64vNE Click here to watch the video for "Nothing To It", the first song from the New Basement Tapes sessions. Dylan himself is also due to release The Complete Basement Tapes. You can read our story about that here. Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is released on November 11 across a variety of different formats. A digital edition is available for preorder on iTunes and Amazon now. The album will be released as deluxe and standard CD editions, as well as a 180-gram virgin-vinyl two-disc set. A limited-edition box set of the album includes the deluxe CD, the 180-gram virgin-vinyl two-disc set, six photographic portraits of the artists, five prints of the newly discovered Bob Dylan handwritten lyrics, an album cover lithograph and the deluxe digital album. You can read an interview with T Bone Burnett here. The tracklisting for the deluxe edition of Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is: Down On The Bottom Married To My Hack Kansas City Spanish Mary Liberty Street Nothing To It Golden Tom – Silver Judas When I Get My Hands On You Duncan and Jimmy Florida Key Hidee Hidee Ho #11 Lost On The River #12 Stranger Card Shark Quick Like A Flash Hidee Hidee Ho #16 Diamond Ring The Whistle Is Blowing Six Months in Kansas City (Liberty Street) Lost On The River #20

A second track, “ Married To My Hack“, has been released from the forthcoming Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes project.

The album features lyrics that Dylan wrote while recording the original Basement Tapes in 1967 that have been put to music by Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James, T Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford.

The second song from these sessions, “Married To My Hack” is sung by Elvis Costello and accompanied by an animated video that overlays abstract cartoons and Dylan’s original hand-written lyrics.

Click here to watch the video for “Nothing To It“, the first song from the New Basement Tapes sessions.

Dylan himself is also due to release The Complete Basement Tapes. You can read our story about that here.

Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is released on November 11 across a variety of different formats.

A digital edition is available for preorder on iTunes and Amazon now.

The album will be released as deluxe and standard CD editions, as well as a 180-gram virgin-vinyl two-disc set.

A limited-edition box set of the album includes the deluxe CD, the 180-gram virgin-vinyl two-disc set, six photographic portraits of the artists, five prints of the newly discovered Bob Dylan handwritten lyrics, an album cover lithograph and the deluxe digital album.

You can read an interview with T Bone Burnett here.

The tracklisting for the deluxe edition of Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is:

Down On The Bottom

Married To My Hack

Kansas City

Spanish Mary

Liberty Street

Nothing To It

Golden Tom – Silver Judas

When I Get My Hands On You

Duncan and Jimmy

Florida Key

Hidee Hidee Ho #11

Lost On The River #12

Stranger

Card Shark

Quick Like A Flash

Hidee Hidee Ho #16

Diamond Ring

The Whistle Is Blowing

Six Months in Kansas City (Liberty Street)

Lost On The River #20

George Harrison box set due for release

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George Harrison box set due for release

A box set of George Harrison's first six solo albums will be released on September 22. The albums will be released in a box set called George Harrison: The Apple Years 1968 - 75 and they will also be available separately. The albums have been digitally remastered from the original analogue masters for CD and digital release. They are available now for preorder, both individually in digipaks and together within the deluxe, eight-disc boxed edition. The new box features an exclusive DVD with several video pieces, including a new seven-minute film with previously unreleased footage. The Apple Years box also includes a book with an introduction by Dhani Harrison, new essays and rare and previously unpublished images. The tracklisting for George Harrison: The Apple Years 1968-75 is: Wonderwall Music * Electronic Sound All Things Must Pass [2-CD] Living In The Material World * Dark Horse * Extra Texture (Read All About It) * * denotes newly added bonus track or tracks DVD [exclusive to The Apple Years box set] • George Harrison - The Apple Years Feature (2014) [7:27] • All Things Must Pass (bonus feature in 2001 album package) [8:03] • The Concert for Bangladesh EPK (2005) [6:03] • Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) (video from Live In Japan, 1991) [3:43] • Miss O’Dell (alternative version from 2006 deluxe edition of Living In The Material World) [2:31] • Sue Me Sue You Blues (acoustic demo version from 2006 deluxe edition of Living In The Material World) [3:04] • Living In The Material World (feature from 2006 deluxe edition of Living In The Material World) [3:34] • Ding Dong, Ding Dong (original promo video, 1974) [3:46] • Dark Horse (original promotional clip, 1974) [:30] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL21-rtHnp8

A box set of George Harrison‘s first six solo albums will be released on September 22.

The albums will be released in a box set called George Harrison: The Apple Years 1968 – 75 and they will also be available separately.

The albums have been digitally remastered from the original analogue masters for CD and digital release.

They are available now for preorder, both individually in digipaks and together within the deluxe, eight-disc boxed edition.

The new box features an exclusive DVD with several video pieces, including a new seven-minute film with previously unreleased footage.

The Apple Years box also includes a book with an introduction by Dhani Harrison, new essays and rare and previously unpublished images.

The tracklisting for George Harrison: The Apple Years 1968-75 is:

Wonderwall Music *

Electronic Sound

All Things Must Pass [2-CD]

Living In The Material World *

Dark Horse *

Extra Texture (Read All About It) *

* denotes newly added bonus track or tracks

DVD [exclusive to The Apple Years box set]

• George Harrison – The Apple Years Feature (2014) [7:27]

• All Things Must Pass (bonus feature in 2001 album package) [8:03]

• The Concert for Bangladesh EPK (2005) [6:03]

• Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) (video from Live In Japan, 1991) [3:43]

• Miss O’Dell (alternative version from 2006 deluxe edition of Living In The Material World) [2:31]

• Sue Me Sue You Blues (acoustic demo version from 2006 deluxe edition of Living In The Material World) [3:04]

• Living In The Material World (feature from 2006 deluxe edition of Living In The Material World) [3:34]

• Ding Dong, Ding Dong (original promo video, 1974) [3:46]

• Dark Horse (original promotional clip, 1974) [:30]

Morrissey – Introducing Morrissey

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Morrissey – Introducing Morrissey

First time on DVD for 1995 concert film... In 1995, when this concert film was recorded, Morrissey needed no introduction, but the title of this film is more than just a wry nod to the manners of old rock’n’roll. The tour featured material from Vauxhall and I and Your Arsenal, both of which now stand as highpoints in the singer’s career. Your Arsenal (with Mick Ronson producing) was a creative rebirth, mixing the rude electricity of glam with the guttural logic of rockabilly. Vauxhall and I (with Steve Lillywhite at the helm) was more conventional, but did underline a point which many had been reluctant to accept: Morrissey didn’t need The Smiths. He could do it on his own. Or at least, on his own, with Boz Boorer leading the band. Nineteen years later, these two shows (7-8 February, from Sheffield City Hall and Blackpool Winter Gardens) seem like classic Morrissey. There is nothing tentative about them. He is, it’s true, an idiosyncratic frontman, a self-parodist locked in the cocoon of his own desires, but there’s stubborn beauty in his performance. After a handsome introductory video of an oik wandering through monochrome London and encountering Morrissey flyposting bills for the Angelic Upstarts, the band - (Boorer (guitar) Alain Whyte (guitar), Gary Day (bass) and Spencer Cobrin (drums) - launch into “Billy Budd”. Morrissey is dressed in a sports jacket, pinstriped white shirt, and baggy jeans. He waves a tambourine. He looks, as always, like a geography teacher on the rampage in 1963. Director James O’Brien shoots the film in a rough and ready fashion, often from the eye-level of the crowd, which captures the energy of the performance, and neatly highlights one of the great contradictions of Morrissey during this period. As a writer, he was concerned with alienated youth, some of them right-wing. He was exploring alienation, and the allure of the crowd. The alienation part wasn’t new. Neither was the fascination with lads. But still, there is something particularly piquant about the way Morrissey documents edge the hard- of laddish behaviour in a manner that is simultaneously camp and knowing. He sings about kids lost to the far right in “National Front Disco”, and hooligans in “We’ll Let You Know” (“we will descend, on anyone unable to defend themselves”) and finds himself cheered to rafters with football chants, which seem to celebrate and ignore his playful homoeroticism. There are a couple of lulls. The cover of “Moon River” is funereal, and “Jack The Ripper” is a bit stodgy. But the show closes powerfully with “Boxers”, “Now My Heart is Full” and “Speedway”. The film ends with a montage of stage invasions. Morrissey’s fans hug him like they want to squeeze the life out of him. He looks quite pleased with that. ALASTAIR McKAY

First time on DVD for 1995 concert film…

In 1995, when this concert film was recorded, Morrissey needed no introduction, but the title of this film is more than just a wry nod to the manners of old rock’n’roll. The tour featured material from Vauxhall and I and Your Arsenal, both of which now stand as highpoints in the singer’s career. Your Arsenal (with Mick Ronson producing) was a creative rebirth, mixing the rude electricity of glam with the guttural logic of rockabilly. Vauxhall and I (with Steve Lillywhite at the helm) was more conventional, but did underline a point which many had been reluctant to accept: Morrissey didn’t need The Smiths. He could do it on his own. Or at least, on his own, with Boz Boorer leading the band.

Nineteen years later, these two shows (7-8 February, from Sheffield City Hall and Blackpool Winter Gardens) seem like classic Morrissey. There is nothing tentative about them. He is, it’s true, an idiosyncratic frontman, a self-parodist locked in the cocoon of his own desires, but there’s stubborn beauty in his performance. After a handsome introductory video of an oik wandering through monochrome London and encountering Morrissey flyposting bills for the Angelic Upstarts, the band – (Boorer (guitar) Alain Whyte (guitar), Gary Day (bass) and Spencer Cobrin (drums) – launch into “Billy Budd”. Morrissey is dressed in a sports jacket, pinstriped white shirt, and baggy jeans. He waves a tambourine. He looks, as always, like a geography teacher on the rampage in 1963.

Director James O’Brien shoots the film in a rough and ready fashion, often from the eye-level of the crowd, which captures the energy of the performance, and neatly highlights one of the great contradictions of Morrissey during this period. As a writer, he was concerned with alienated youth, some of them right-wing. He was exploring alienation, and the allure of the crowd. The alienation part wasn’t new. Neither was the fascination with lads. But still, there is something particularly piquant about the way Morrissey documents edge the hard- of laddish behaviour in a manner that is simultaneously camp and knowing. He sings about kids lost to the far right in “National Front Disco”, and hooligans in “We’ll Let You Know” (“we will descend, on anyone unable to defend themselves”) and finds himself cheered to rafters with football chants, which seem to celebrate and ignore his playful homoeroticism.

There are a couple of lulls. The cover of “Moon River” is funereal, and “Jack The Ripper” is a bit stodgy. But the show closes powerfully with “Boxers”, “Now My Heart is Full” and “Speedway”. The film ends with a montage of stage invasions. Morrissey’s fans hug him like they want to squeeze the life out of him. He looks quite pleased with that.

ALASTAIR McKAY

Ryan Adams streams new album online

Uncut
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Ryan Adams streams new album online
Ryan Adams is streaming his new, self-titled album online ahead of its official release. Adams will release his new album on September 8. The LP was produced by Adams at his Pax-Am Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles. It follows 2011's Ashes & Fire and will feature recent single "Gimme Something...

Ryan Adams is streaming his new, self-titled album online ahead of its official release.

Adams will release his new album on September 8. The LP was produced by Adams at his Pax-Am Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles. It follows 2011’s Ashes & Fire and will feature recent single “Gimme Something Good”. The album can be streamed in full via NPR.

Speaking to Uncut, Adams explained how smoking pot revitalised his health and his recent songwriting.

“More and more, it liberated me,” says Adams. “I made a point of smoking pot – at first it was vaporising – every day, and not getting baked at all, just taking a hit or two to bring everything down, and an hour later go into my world.

“Dude, it fuckin’ saved my ass. It reignited how fun it was to play guitar, and then those songs started to descend on me, slowly but surely.”

Later this month (September), Adams will play three UK gigs, starting at London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on September 19, before shows in Manchester and Glasgow.

Ryan Adams plays:

London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire (September 19)

Manchester Albert Hall (24)

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (25)

Some more thoughts on Kate Bush and Alice Gerrard

John Mulvey
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0
Some more thoughts on Kate Bush and Alice Gerrard

On Sunday, Kate Bush inadvertently staged a one-woman assault on the British charts. This week, 11 records in the Official UK Albums Chart are by Bush – not bad, really, for a woman who has only really released nine new studio albums in the past 36 years. Apart from airlifting an unusual amount of decent music into the charts, the Bush invasion was also eloquent and gratifying proof that the wider world really did care about her comeback; that the blanket coverage was not merely an indulgence of besotted and fortunate media types of a certain age. In case you missed it last week, I was one of those fortunate media types of a certain age who saw Kate Bush’s Before The Dawn spectacle at Hammersmith Apollo last week: the media focus may have moved on, but the shows continue for a few weeks yet, and we’re very interested to hear your reports – please email me at uncut_feedback@ipcmedia.com and we’ll print a few of them in the next issue of Uncut. In the meantime, here again is my review of the second Before The Dawn show, and a couple more good Uncut reads on Bush: "This girl is very, very tough..." The untold story of Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love and Album By Album: Kate Bush's closest collaborators talk us through her greatest records. That should keep you going. Anyhow, for the past few weeks, I’ve been very taken with an album by another female singer making an unexpected comeback. Alice Gerrard is an 80-year-old bluegrass singer based in North Carolina, and, a few months ago, I was alerted to the fact that she was back in action by MC Taylor, the busy frontman of Hiss Golden Messenger, who’s produced her next album. "She’s a riot, man, talk about a wanderer," Taylor told me. "She’s in her 80s now, and she’s still going on tours and sleeping on people’s couches. She’s a pretty small lady, and she wears triple XL fleece sweatshirts and ripped up sweatpants and oversized Crocs. I'm like, ‘Alice, what? You’re dressed like a seven-year-old boy right now.’ She just doesn’t care. She’s an amazing person.” In the 1960s and '70s, Gerrard and her duetting accomplice Hazel Dickens (1935-2011) made a series of stark, striking folk recordings that were compiled on the aptly-titled 1996 comp, Pioneering Women Of Bluegrass. While Dickens sang high and forlorn, Gerrard (married at the time to Mike Seeger) was a deeper, darker, more austere presence. Listen, for instance, to her take on Bill Monroe's "The One I Love Is Gone", which transcends conventional country melancholy and moves into a more spectral zone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0bMYj7okM It is this atmosphere which pervades the start of Gerrard's new album, Follow The Music. The traditional "Bear Me Away" begins with a low viola drone, closer to John Cale than orthodox folk, and Gerrard incanting a dirge of unnerving potency. The intensity is sustained through the weird folk of Gerrard's own "Strange Land" but, gradually, the album becomes warmer and more relaxed, if still somewhat gothic in tone. Gillian Welch is revealed as a strong descendant, while the brackish invention of the playing (by members of the extended Hiss Golden Messenger family, mostly) sometimes recalls the instrumental flights of fellow Piedmont adventurers the Black Twig Pickers. Follow The Music was conceived by accident, when Taylor was chatting on the phone to Tompkins Square head Josh Rosenthal, just as Gerrard was paying one of her regular visits to scan pictures in Taylor's office at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina ("She has the most insane fucking photo collection, like a photo of Clarence White backstage at a Byrds show in 1971"). Recorded in a barn, the prevailing vibes might appear homely and convivial. But it's the gravity of these songs and timbres which are most resonant and enduring - the intimations of ancient doom that led Emmylou Harris to recently note, "She is the real deal with the right stuff. She hasn't forgotten where country music came from." Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey Picture Credit: Ken McKay/REX

On Sunday, Kate Bush inadvertently staged a one-woman assault on the British charts. This week, 11 records in the Official UK Albums Chart are by Bush – not bad, really, for a woman who has only really released nine new studio albums in the past 36 years.

Apart from airlifting an unusual amount of decent music into the charts, the Bush invasion was also eloquent and gratifying proof that the wider world really did care about her comeback; that the blanket coverage was not merely an indulgence of besotted and fortunate media types of a certain age. In case you missed it last week, I was one of those fortunate media types of a certain age who saw Kate Bush’s Before The Dawn spectacle at Hammersmith Apollo last week: the media focus may have moved on, but the shows continue for a few weeks yet, and we’re very interested to hear your reports – please email me at uncut_feedback@ipcmedia.com and we’ll print a few of them in the next issue of Uncut.

In the meantime, here again is my review of the second Before The Dawn show, and a couple more good Uncut reads on Bush: “This girl is very, very tough…” The untold story of Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love and Album By Album: Kate Bush’s closest collaborators talk us through her greatest records. That should keep you going.

Anyhow, for the past few weeks, I’ve been very taken with an album by another female singer making an unexpected comeback. Alice Gerrard is an 80-year-old bluegrass singer based in North Carolina, and, a few months ago, I was alerted to the fact that she was back in action by MC Taylor, the busy frontman of Hiss Golden Messenger, who’s produced her next album.

“She’s a riot, man, talk about a wanderer,” Taylor told me. “She’s in her 80s now, and she’s still going on tours and sleeping on people’s couches. She’s a pretty small lady, and she wears triple XL fleece sweatshirts and ripped up sweatpants and oversized Crocs. I’m like, ‘Alice, what? You’re dressed like a seven-year-old boy right now.’ She just doesn’t care. She’s an amazing person.”

In the 1960s and ’70s, Gerrard and her duetting accomplice Hazel Dickens (1935-2011) made a series of stark, striking folk recordings that were compiled on the aptly-titled 1996 comp, Pioneering Women Of Bluegrass. While Dickens sang high and forlorn, Gerrard (married at the time to Mike Seeger) was a deeper, darker, more austere presence. Listen, for instance, to her take on Bill Monroe’s “The One I Love Is Gone”, which transcends conventional country melancholy and moves into a more spectral zone.

It is this atmosphere which pervades the start of Gerrard’s new album, Follow The Music. The traditional “Bear Me Away” begins with a low viola drone, closer to John Cale than orthodox folk, and Gerrard incanting a dirge of unnerving potency. The intensity is sustained through the weird folk of Gerrard’s own “Strange Land” but, gradually, the album becomes warmer and more relaxed, if still somewhat gothic in tone. Gillian Welch is revealed as a strong descendant, while the brackish invention of the playing (by members of the extended Hiss Golden Messenger family, mostly) sometimes recalls the instrumental flights of fellow Piedmont adventurers the Black Twig Pickers.

Follow The Music was conceived by accident, when Taylor was chatting on the phone to Tompkins Square head Josh Rosenthal, just as Gerrard was paying one of her regular visits to scan pictures in Taylor’s office at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (“She has the most insane fucking photo collection, like a photo of Clarence White backstage at a Byrds show in 1971”). Recorded in a barn, the prevailing vibes might appear homely and convivial. But it’s the gravity of these songs and timbres which are most resonant and enduring – the intimations of ancient doom that led Emmylou Harris to recently note, “She is the real deal with the right stuff. She hasn’t forgotten where country music came from.”

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

Picture Credit: Ken McKay/REX

Listen – Prince debuts two new songs

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Listen – Prince debuts two new songs
Prince has released a song from each of the two albums he is set to release on September 29. As previously reported, Prince will release his 34th solo LP Art Official Age on the same day his new band 3rd Eye Girl drop their first album Plectrum Electrum. Scroll down to hear "U KNOW", taken from Ar...

Prince has released a song from each of the two albums he is set to release on September 29.

As previously reported, Prince will release his 34th solo LP Art Official Age on the same day his new band 3rd Eye Girl drop their first album Plectrum Electrum.

Scroll down to hear “U KNOW“, taken from Art Official Age and Plectrum Electrum album track “WHITECAPS“.

The Plectrum Electrum track listing is:

WOW

PRETZELBODYLOGIC

AINTTURNINROUND

PLECTRUMELECTRUM

WHITECAPS

FIXURLIFEUP

BOYTROUBLE

STOPTHISTRAIN

ANOTHERLOVE

TICTACTOE

MARZ

FUNKNROLL

The track listing for Art Official Age is:

ART OFFICIAL CAGE

CLOUDS

BREAKDOWN

THE GOLD STANDARD

U KNOW

BREAKFAST CAN WAIT

THIS COULD BE US

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE

affirmation I & II

WAY BACK HOME

FUNKNROLL

TIME

affirmation III

Exclusive! Hear the Grateful Dead perform “Eyes Of The World” live in 1990

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Exclusive! Hear the Grateful Dead perform “Eyes Of The World” live in 1990

Over the last few weeks, Uncut has been streaming tracks from the Grateful Dead's forthcoming 23-disc boxed set. The set commemorates the band's three week tour across North America in 1990 to celebrate their 25th anniversary. The tour has already been partly documented in the 2012 box set, Spring 1990. Now the band are releasing a 23-disc boxed set that covers eight complete shows, all previously unreleased, from this historic tour, titled Spring 1990 (The Other One). Among the dates they played a show at Nassau Coliseum on March 29, 1990 where they were joined by Branford Marsalis. The show will be included in the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and as a stand-alone 3CD release, Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990. Scroll down to hear the Dead and Marsalis play "Eyes Of The World" live from the March, 29 1990 show at Nassau Coliseum. You can find our other exclusive Grateful Dead streams by clicking here to listen to "Bird Song" and here to listen to "The Wheel". Both the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 will be available through Rhino Records from September 8. You can pre-order Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 here.

Over the last few weeks, Uncut has been streaming tracks from the Grateful Dead‘s forthcoming 23-disc boxed set.

The set commemorates the band’s three week tour across North America in 1990 to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

The tour has already been partly documented in the 2012 box set, Spring 1990.

Now the band are releasing a 23-disc boxed set that covers eight complete shows, all previously unreleased, from this historic tour, titled Spring 1990 (The Other One).

Among the dates they played a show at Nassau Coliseum on March 29, 1990 where they were joined by Branford Marsalis. The show will be included in the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and as a stand-alone 3CD release, Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990.

Scroll down to hear the Dead and Marsalis play “Eyes Of The World” live from the March, 29 1990 show at Nassau Coliseum.

You can find our other exclusive Grateful Dead streams by clicking here to listen to “Bird Song” and here to listen to “The Wheel“.

Both the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 will be available through Rhino Records from September 8.

You can pre-order Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 here.

Radiohead update official app with new music

Uncut
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Radiohead update official app with new music
Radiohead have updated their official PolyFauna app with new music. The app was first unveiled this February, with imagery from the band's The King Of Limbs album used throughout. However, as Rolling Stone report, as of September 1, the app features new artwork as well as new music. Thom Yorke hin...

Radiohead have updated their official PolyFauna app with new music.

The app was first unveiled this February, with imagery from the band’s The King Of Limbs album used throughout. However, as Rolling Stone report, as of September 1, the app features new artwork as well as new music.

Thom Yorke hinted at the updates over the weekend when he posted a number of images on his Twitter account.

The new music could provide clues as to what the next Radiohead album will sound like. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood recently confirmed that the band will begin rehearsing and recording again this month, having previously said that the band are a “slow moving animal.”

Billy Joe Shaver – Long In The Tooth

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Billy Joe Shaver – Long In The Tooth

“The record’s about me...”; first in six years from country songwriting legend... Brash, feisty, and rambunctious at 75—one would expect nothing less from Outlaw Country’s prodigal son. Indeed, decades after the songwriting well’s run dry for just about all his peers, Shaver is still putting pen to paper, churning out the gems. And Long In The Tooth, in reality his first full set of secular studio originals since 2005's The Real Deal, has its share. Old friend Willie Nelson is on board, sharing vocals, bashing contemporary country, and toying with their renegade mythology, on opener "Hard to Be an Outlaw." Leon Russell and Tony Joe White also guest, but it's Shaver's voice, in places more ragged and undisciplined than ever—spirited shall we say—and songwriting that holds the spotlight. With Nashville-style balladry sparring with swampy rockers, up-tempo bluegrass giving way to barroom bashers, ...Tooth plays like a Shaver career sampler, borrowing styles from all over the place. The bravado of the title track might be both the most absurd and most irritating cut of his storied career; the gentle sway of "I'll Love You As Much As I Can" is its polar opposite, a soppy country/pop crooner from the hillbilly playlists of Eisenhower's America. Between these extremes lie the album’s most sublime moments. "Sunbeam Special" reminisces on his 1950s Texas childhood over a careening, amped-up banjo/fiddle arrangement. Border-ballad narrative "American Me" mixes personal romance and American arrogance to disastrous outcomes. "Music City USA" melds history and autobiography, appropriating Johnny Cash's boom-chicka-boom, shades of a long-lost Kris Kristofferson hit circa 1970. Beyond the bluster, at the top of the heap, are songs without much to do at all with Billy Joe Shaver: "Checkers and Chess," a splendid, succinct commentary on class; and "The Git Go," melodic echoes of Mickey Newbury's "I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)," a haunting, burning, world-weary tour de force on the ways of the world. Luke Torn

“The record’s about me…”; first in six years from country songwriting legend…

Brash, feisty, and rambunctious at 75—one would expect nothing less from Outlaw Country’s prodigal son. Indeed, decades after the songwriting well’s run dry for just about all his peers, Shaver is still putting pen to paper, churning out the gems. And Long In The Tooth, in reality his first full set of secular studio originals since 2005’s The Real Deal, has its share.

Old friend Willie Nelson is on board, sharing vocals, bashing contemporary country, and toying with their renegade mythology, on opener “Hard to Be an Outlaw.” Leon Russell and Tony Joe White also guest, but it’s Shaver’s voice, in places more ragged and undisciplined than ever—spirited shall we say—and songwriting that holds the spotlight. With Nashville-style balladry sparring with swampy rockers, up-tempo bluegrass giving way to barroom bashers, …Tooth plays like a Shaver career sampler, borrowing styles from all over the place.

The bravado of the title track might be both the most absurd and most irritating cut of his storied career; the gentle sway of “I’ll Love You As Much As I Can” is its polar opposite, a soppy country/pop crooner from the hillbilly playlists of Eisenhower’s America. Between these extremes lie the album’s most sublime moments. “Sunbeam Special” reminisces on his 1950s Texas childhood over a careening, amped-up banjo/fiddle arrangement. Border-ballad narrative “American Me” mixes personal romance and American arrogance to disastrous outcomes. “Music City USA” melds history and autobiography, appropriating Johnny Cash’s boom-chicka-boom, shades of a long-lost Kris Kristofferson hit circa 1970.

Beyond the bluster, at the top of the heap, are songs without much to do at all with Billy Joe Shaver: “Checkers and Chess,” a splendid, succinct commentary on class; and “The Git Go,” melodic echoes of Mickey Newbury’s “I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” a haunting, burning, world-weary tour de force on the ways of the world.

Luke Torn

Neil Young reportedly to release new album, Storytone, in November

Uncut
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Neil Young reportedly to release new album, Storytone, in November
Neil Young is reportedly to release a new album, called Storytone, in November. Photographs have recently appeared on social media indicating that Neil Young is back in the recording studio. Now, according to a post on the official website of Chris Walden, a German-born composer and arranger linke...

Neil Young is reportedly to release a new album, called Storytone, in November.

Photographs have recently appeared on social media indicating that Neil Young is back in the recording studio.

Now, according to a post on the official website of Chris Walden, a German-born composer and arranger linked to Young’s latest sessions, the album has been given a name and release date.

Walden’s ‘Recent projects’ list:

Upcoming Neil Young album “Storytone” (out Nov.4)

There has been no official confirmation from Young’s record label.

Kate Bush becomes the first female artist in UK history to have eight simultaneous Top 40 albums

Uncut
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Kate Bush becomes the first female artist in UK history to have eight simultaneous Top 40 albums
Kate Bush has become the first female artist in UK history to have eight albums in the Top 40 at the same time. The singer has broken the record previously held by Madonna after seeing a surge in sales as her Before The Dawn residency kicked off this week at London's Eventim Hammersmith Apollo. Ma...

Kate Bush has become the first female artist in UK history to have eight albums in the Top 40 at the same time.

The singer has broken the record previously held by Madonna after seeing a surge in sales as her Before The Dawn residency kicked off this week at London’s Eventim Hammersmith Apollo. Madonna had previously had three albums in the Top 40 in 1987.

Eight of Bush’s 11 entries in the Top 75 in this week’s Official UK Albums Chart have made it into the Top 40, including Hounds Of Love, ‘he Kick Inside, 50 Words For Snow and Lionheart, reports the Official Charts Company. The only artists to have had more records simultaneously in the Top 40 are now Elvis, who had 12 LPs in the upper echelons of the charts after his death in 1977, and The Beatles, 11 of whose 2009 reissues achieved the same feat.

You can read the Uncut review of Bush’s show on August 27 at Hammersmith Odeon here.

Richard Thompson & Tinariwen at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Tom Pinnock
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0
Richard Thompson & Tinariwen at End Of The Road 2014 – review
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Along with his incredible guitar skills, his unique voice and his timeless songs, one of the more amazing things about Richard Thompson is his transformation from shy, downbeat young man to comfortable onstage showman in his more mature years.

During his hour-long solo set on the Garden Stage, he cracks jokes about Catholic sex, Donald Trump and beating Yes in this summer’s album charts, even inviting the audience to sing along on “Johnny’s Far Away” with the old saying “I’ve suffered for my art, now it’s your turn.”

Most of the set is taken from his recent Acoustic Classics LP, with highlights including “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight”, a solemn “Walking On A Wire”, the more recent “Needle And Thread”, which features some mind-bending guitar work, and the crowd favourites “Beeswing” and “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”.

Later on the same stage, and again featuring some mercurial guitar lines, Tinariwen return to End Of The Road, having played a more acoustic set on the larger Woods Stage in 2011. The picturesque intimacy of the Garden Stage suits them better, the trees surrounding the area illuminated in the dark with hues of green and purple.

Tonight’s electric set is also better suited to a festival set, with the sinuous lead lines and bass guitar sparking dancing and clapping (even if some of the rhythms are a bit tricky for those of us untrained in African music). It’s particularly fantastic to see the shorter of the group’s two singers, effectively a kind of Tuareg hype man, shimmying up to the crowd and throwing shapes.

Tom Pinnock

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 – review

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Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Gruff Rhys at End Of The Road 2014 – review

The Flaming Lips at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Yo La Tengo at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Follow Tom on Twitter for more End Of The Road coverage: www.twitter.com/thomaspinnock

Yo La Tengo’s two sets at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Tom Pinnock
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0
Yo La Tengo’s two sets at End Of The Road 2014 – review
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 - review British Sea Power at End Of The Road 2014 - review Connan Mockasin & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2014 - review Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 - review Gruff Rhys at End Of The Road 2014 - review The Flamin...

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 – review

British Sea Power at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Connan Mockasin & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Gruff Rhys at End Of The Road 2014 – review

The Flaming Lips at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Richard Thompson & Tinariwen at End Of The Road 2014 – review

End Of The Road festival-goers were today (Sunday) treated to two very different sets by Hoboken’s finest, Yo La Tengo, currently celebrating their 30th anniversary.

In the afternoon, Ira, Georgia and James commandeered the ornate 1895 Singing Theatre at Larmer Tree Gardens to stage their Freewheeling Yo La Tengo set, a quiet performance that featured Q&As from the crowd and some surprising covers.

So, as well as answering questions about the band’s favourite subjects at school (Georgia: “the rest period”), the best group ever (The Clean, according to Ira) and their happiest memories (James went for hour 14 of a massive Simpsons marathon), we got versions of Donovan’s “Season Of The Witch” and a Half Japanese track, along with minimal, hushed versions of their own “Autumn Sweater” and “Little Eyes”.

Less hushed and minimal is the group’s afternoon set on the Woods Stage, which features far less chat and far more feedback.

Aside from “Tom Courtenay”, the band skirt their more recognisable songs in favour of some deeper cuts, many showing off their noisier side. “Ohm” is laced with feedback, Ira Kaplan whirling his Jazzmaster around his head, and their customary cover of The Beach Boys’ “Little Honda” tonight lasts for nearly 10 minutes if you include its free noise middle section.

Some of Yo La Tengo’s quieter side is again shown, though, with tender renditions of “I’ll Be Around”, “The Summer”, a new arrangement of “Big Day Coming”, this time in a jauntier folk style, and the closing “Our Way To Fall”.

Yo La Tengo played:

[The Freewheeling set]

The Point Of It

Season Of The Witch

Satellite

[Half Japanese song]

Autumn Sweater

Little Eyes

[The Woods Stage set]

Shaker

Before We Run

Super Kiwi

Stockholm Syndrome

Season Of The Shark

Big Day Coming

The Summer

I’ll Be Around

Double Dare

Tom Courtenay

Ohm

Little Honda

Our Way To Fall

Tom Pinnock

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 – review

British Sea Power at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Connan Mockasin & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Gruff Rhys at End Of The Road 2014 – review

The Flaming Lips at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Richard Thompson & Tinariwen at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Follow Tom on Twitter for more End Of The Road coverage: www.twitter.com/thomaspinnock

The Flaming Lips at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Tom Pinnock
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The Flaming Lips at End Of The Road 2014 – review
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 - review British Sea Power at End Of The Road 2014 - review Connan Mockasin & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2014 - review Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 - review Gruff Rhys at End Of The Road 2014 - review Yo La Teng...

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 – review

British Sea Power at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Connan Mockasin & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Gruff Rhys at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Yo La Tengo at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Richard Thompson & Tinariwen at End Of The Road 2014 – review

As far as spectacles go, The Flaming Lips still go that extra mile. Their headline set on the Woods Stage at End Of The Road tonight (Saturday) is the most colourful and psychedelic I’ve ever seen at the festival, perhaps ever seen full-stop.

We’re talking a veritable vomiting of colour, in the harshest and most pixellated manner. Super-bright screens filled with exploding neon colours. People dressed in giant inflatable alien suits, with one as a giant star. Confetti cannons. Wayne Coyne on a huge platform surrounded on three sides by screens, or Wayne Coyne in his famous ball, scampering out over the audience.

With such a lot of visual elements, it’s not surprising that some of the songs pass by without leaving much impression. Of course, “She Don’t Use Jelly”, “A Spoonful Weighs A Ton”, “Race For The Prize” and “The WAND” are fantastic, strange anthems that would still work if played in a basement lit by a single bulb, but others don’t fare so well.

“Look… The Sun Is Rising” and their cover of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” wouldn’t have been missed, while stone-cold classics “Yoshimi…” and “Do You Realize??” are played in slightly different arrangements – the band probably think they’re more anthemic and emotional, but the quieter intros and greater dynamics leave them a little flat.

Still, despite their shortcomings, Coyne and co really do know how to put on a senses-stunning celebration.

Tom Pinnock

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 – review

British Sea Power at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Connan Mockasin & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Gruff Rhys at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Yo La Tengo at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Richard Thompson & Tinariwen at End Of The Road 2014 – review

Follow Tom on Twitter for more End Of The Road coverage: www.twitter.com/thomaspinnock

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