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Presenting Dancing Days: the free, 15-track CD available with Uncut’s April 2023 issue

Uncut
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Presenting Dancing Days: the free, 15-track CD available with Uncut’s April 2023 issue
All copies of Uncut's April 2022 issue come with a free, 15-track CD – Dancing Days. HAVE A COPY OF UNCUT SENT DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR The CD is the latest in our new music samplers, bringing together 15 tracks from artists who you can read about elsewhere in the issue - either in our bulging re...

All copies of Uncut’s April 2022 issue come with a free, 15-track CD – Dancing Days.

HAVE A COPY OF UNCUT SENT DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR

The CD is the latest in our new music samplers, bringing together 15 tracks from artists who you can read about elsewhere in the issue – either in our bulging reviews pages or among the features.

The CD is free with all copies of Uncut – both in the UK and overseas.

Here, then, is your guys to Dancing Days…

1 JANA HORN
Leaving Him
Our CD opens with this hushed, hypnotic ballad from the Texan’s new album. “I wrote it with some women in my life in mind,” she tells us. “I had this daydream that they would get out of their situations with men. It’s a song of wishful thinking.” Read more on p60.

2 SHANA CLEVELAND
A Ghost
What’s always made La Luz intriguing is the dark undertow to their short, lo-fi surf jams. For her second solo album, Cleveland has embraced those quieter, eerier qualities – ably demonstrated on this beguiling song about a spectral guest seeking to “come through” and connect with the living.

3 MAC DeMARCO
Crescent City
These instrumental recordings were made while on a road trip around America last year. Built on a loping rhythm and gentle chord progressions, the languid momentum of “Crescent City” evokes travel through wide-open spaces taken at a gentle pace.

4 LONNIE HOLLEY
Oh Me Oh My (with Michael Stipe)
This graceful, atmospheric song finds the American one-off divining deep miracles in his grandmother’s love for a favourite hymn. “‘Oh me, oh my’ has been a statement, whether or not we’ll have to translate it from different languages, that’s probably been spoken all over the world,” explains Holley.

5 ROBERT FORSTER
Tender Years
Forster’s homage to Karin Bäumler, his wife – “Her beauty has not withered” – has inevitably assumed unintentional pathos since her diagnosis with ovarian cancer after most of Forster’s new album, The Candle And The Flame, was written. Forster’s nimble melodies and spry lyrics endure; sustenance during difficult times.

6 STEVE MASON
The People Say
Mason’s latest is a typically warm and unfussy affair, bathed in open-hearted melodies and buoyed along by chiming guitars and uplifting piano chords. Essentially, “The People Say” reinforces a sense of a continuum in Mason’s work, as if the same stuff has been flowing out of him, with barely perceptible shifts in quality, for almost 25 years.

7 BILLY VALENTINE
Home Is Where The Hatred Is
During the ’70s and ’80s, Valentine worked as a songwriter for hire and, as one half of the Valentine Brothers, wrote and recorded “Money’s Too Tight (To Mention)”. Valentine returns to his roots for his latest, excellent album covering the likes of Stevie Wonder, Eddie Kendricks and, on this song, Gil Scott-Heron.

8 EDDIE CHACON
Step By Step
Another returning veteran: in this instance, Eddie Chacon, formerly of ’80s neo-soul duo Charles & Eddie. This languorous, jazz-flecked confessional “reflects my own journey”, Chacon explains to Uncut. “It’s about slowly breaking through your own self-imposed limitations and following your heart.”

9 UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA
Layla
Although the song’s title may raise an eyebrow, Ruban Nielson’s loose, sun-dappled ode to escape – “Let’s get out of this broken place” – is in fact a tribute to his uncle. “He is mostly credited with inventing the Hawaiian style of reggae,” says Nielson. “My brother Kody [who co-wrote the song] and I tried to figure out a way to think about that style and pay tribute to it, but in a new way.”

10 ROGÊ
Pra Vida
Having emigrated to LA, Rio de Janeiro native Roger José Cury returns with his swinging but scuffed-up take on Brazilian soul. Arthur Verocai’s strings swell and acoustic rhythms dominate, while Rogê’s undoubted charisma bursts through on this uplifting and forward-looking track.

11 MAX JURY
Real World
The latest endeavour from Iowa’s Max Jury is more of the polished Americana-soul-country terrain he’s been navigating since his 2016 debut. This comes with a pleasingly Floydian whoosh, though the influence of Gram Parsons and Randy Newman is never far away in the scheme of things.

12 THE VEILS
Bullfighter (Hand Of God)
The first sign of activity from Finn Andrews and his rapscallious compatriots since they appeared in the 2017 Twin Peaks revival – Andrews broke his wrist, necessitating a lengthy hiatus. This raucous track channels some of the tent-revival theatrics of early Bad Seeds, but Finn’s own indomitable character emerges, bruised by not bowed, from within the sound and fury.

13 THE LONG RYDERS
Seasons Change
The beloved Paisley Underground veterans are at their wonderful Byrdsian best with this open-hearted tribute to their enduring friendships. “It came from us thinking about how much we mean to each other, having been a band for so long and finding each other again relatively recently,” they tell us.

14 THE HOLD STEADY
Sixers
A taster for The Hold Steady’s forthcoming album, The Price Of Progress. “She ordered me a Newcastle and handed me a Marlboro…” begins Finn, spinning a wry, hardboiled yarn about rock bands that unfolds against a typically rumbustious backdrop. “She said, ‘We’re gonna do a show at the Pyramids…’”

15 LONDON BREW
Miles Chases New Voodoo In The Church – Single Edit
We close this month’s CD in electric fashion with the cream of British jazz heads – including Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia, Theon Cross and Tom Skinner – who’ve recast Miles’ Bitches Brew with predictably powerful results. Much like Uncut, this succeeds in finding fresh insights on great artists.

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Inside the new Uncut: Led Zeppelin, David Crosby, Nina Simone, Nuggets and more!

Michael Bonner
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Inside the new Uncut: Led Zeppelin, David Crosby, Nina Simone, Nuggets and more!
Speaking to David Crosby in 2016, I asked him whether, looking back at his career through the prism of 50-plus years, he thought it had all been worth it. “Totally,” he told me. “Love it. I just wish I’d done more music and less drugs. I regret the time I wasted being wasted, that I could ha...

Speaking to David Crosby in 2016, I asked him whether, looking back at his career through the prism of 50-plus years, he thought it had all been worth it. “Totally,” he told me. “Love it. I just wish I’d done more music and less drugs. I regret the time I wasted being wasted, that I could have spent making more music.”

Of course, Crosby experienced bad times – especially during the 1980s and ’90s – but if there’s one takeaway from his discography it’s that great music can provide nourishment during profoundly difficult periods. For Crosby, that involved creating an album as breathtaking as If I Could Only Remember My Name in the aftermath of deep, personal tragedy. But latterly, as his fine run of solo albums since 2014’s Croz illustrated, he was able to reinvigorate and sustain his singular solo career after a 21-year gap.

I’ve spent most of this last week or so listening to the PERRO sessions – the bootleg recordings from If I Could Only Remember My Name – where Crosby was joined by a gang of friends and accomplices who constituted the cream of the West Coast music scene. It’s perhaps my favourite set of Crosby recordings, not because the songs are there – a lot of it is quite baked – but because the warmth and the vibe are sweet and seductive. For our tribute to Croz, we’ve revisited many of our own encounters with him from down the years, letting him tell his own colourful tale first-hand.

What else? Our first Led Zeppelin cover story for a decade digs deep into the band’s momentous 1973: a year in which they comprehensively shattered box-office records and rewrote the blueprint for rock’n’roll tours. For this piece, Peter Watts has even tracked down a handful of eyewitnesses and collaborators who’ve never been interviewed before about their experiences working with Zeppelin. It does feel like an untold story.

There’s a lot more, of course – Nina Simone, Nuggets, Paul Weller, Mark Eitzel, Faust, The Roches – as well as emerging artists like Jana Horn, Lonnie Holley, Elijah McLaughlin, Andrew Wasylyk and more. As ever, we strive to join the dots between the music of previous decades and the music that’s being made now.

Finally, I’d like to draw your attention to this month’s Feedback, which includes the best letter we’ve ever printed in Uncut…

Uncut – April 2023

Uncut
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Uncut – April 2023
HAVE A COPY SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOME Led Zeppelin, David Crosby, Nina Simone, Paul Weller, Mark Eitzel, The Roches, Pulp, Faust, Jana Horn, Jeff Beck, Willie Nelson and Chuck D all feature in the new Uncut, dated April 2023 and in UK shops from January 12 or available to buy online now. This i...

HAVE A COPY SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOME

Led Zeppelin, David Crosby, Nina Simone, Paul Weller, Mark Eitzel, The Roches, Pulp, Faust, Jana Horn, Jeff Beck, Willie Nelson and Chuck D all feature in the new Uncut, dated April 2023 and in UK shops from January 12 or available to buy online now. This issue comes with an exclusive free 15-track CD of the month’s best new music.

LED ZEPPELIN: Heavy band, heavy year. By 1973, Led Zeppelin were on their way to becoming the biggest rock’n’roll band in the world. Embarking on an American tour to promote their new album Houses Of The Holy, they shattered box office records, rewriting the blueprint for rock’n’roll tours as they went. Peter Watts climbs aboard the Starship to hear tales of glorious, transcendent music – but also unsolved robberies, giant mirrorballs, cake fights during John Bonham’s 25th birthday party and motorbike rides down hotel corridors. “As the venues got bigger, they got better,” recalls one confidant. “They blasted you into the middle of next week.”

OUR FREE CD! DANCING DAYS: 15 tracks of the month’s best new music, starring Lonnie Holley, Robert Forster, Shana Cleveland, Steve Mason, The Long Ryders, The Hold Steady, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Mac DeMarco and more…

This issue of Uncut is available to buy by clicking here – with FREE delivery to the UK and reduced delivery charges for the rest of the world.

Inside the issue, you’ll find:

DAVID CROSBY: With the passing of David Crosby, we’ve lost one of the talismanic figures from music’s fecund 1960s and ’70s. Blessed with an unmistakable voice and bewitching harmonic gifts – not to mention a fiercely opinionated temperament – Crosby was a fearless, forward-thinking songwriter who survived bust-ups, freakouts, addiction and prison to enjoy a miraculous final act. In tribute, we revisit Uncut’s candid interviews with the mercurial, musical outlaw, drawing on his own words to tell his incredible story.

NINA SIMONE: From jazz superstar to civil rights activist and beyond, Nina Simone’s 1960s were a dazzling, defiant decade of profound transition and accomplishment. On the eve of what would have been Simone’s 90th birthday, we chart her journey from Greenwich Village folk clubs to her ascension as the High Priestess of Soul. “She was able to pull down a kind of psychic energy,” hears Stephen Deusner.

NUGGETS: Over 50 years on from its release, Nuggets remains one of the most influential and beloved compilation albums of all time. But what of the bands who appeared on Lenny Kaye’s original anthology? Nick Hasted tracks down 10 of the Original Artyfacts to discover what happened next. Stand by for stories of Beatles tour supports, getting high with Gram Parsons, exploding stages and JFK conspiracies told to us by… a messianic rabbi, a car dealer and a building contractor among others. “We played hard, people danced hard and everybody drank beer,” remembers one former bowl-haired mysterioso. “We rock’n’rolled ’til the crack of dawn.”

PAUL WELLER: Paul Weller reflects on his remarkable life in music in a new book, Magic: A Journal Of Song. In this exclusive extract, Weller revisits the inspiring early days of his ascent to mod magnificence with The Jam: “Folk music in its truest sense…”

JEFF BECK: The guitarist’s guitarist, remembered by his former Yardbirds bandmates.

MARK EITZEL: The former American Music Club mainman talks musicals, mushrooms, Lou Reed and why he’d tell his younger self “to get my fucking head out of my own fucking ass”

THE ROCHES: The making of “Hammond Song”. Comes with added Robert Fripp.

FAUST: The complex musical history of the German experimentalists.

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from Lonnie Holley, The Long Ryders, Shana Cleveland, Chip Taylor and more, and archival releases from Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach, The Strokes, Dave Brubeck, and others. We catch Lucinda Williams and The Delgados live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World and This Is Sparklehorse; while in books there’s Karen Carpenter and Lou Reed‘s Tai Chi revelations!

Our front section, meanwhile, features Pulp, United States Of America, Willie Nelson and Andrew Waslyk while, at the end of the magazine, Chuck D shares his life in music.

You can pick up a copy of Uncut in all good supermarkets and newsagents. Or you can order a copy direct from us…

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

We’re New Here – Mary Elizabeth Remington

Peter Watts
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We’re New Here – Mary Elizabeth Remington
Itinerant Big Thief associate channels “the magic of nature”, in our MARCH 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. When Mary Elizabeth Remington was seeking a housemate while studying in Boston in 2010, she was excited to hear about “this really cool girl who played the guitar and went ...

Itinerant Big Thief associate channels “the magic of nature”, in our MARCH 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

When Mary Elizabeth Remington was seeking a housemate while studying in Boston in 2010, she was excited to hear about “this really cool girl who played the guitar and went to Berklee”. That “cool girl” turned out to be future Big Thief Adrianne Lenker and the pair’s ongoing friendship informs Remington’s wonderful debut LP In Embudo.

It was recorded in the New Mexico hamlet that gives the album its name, with Remington’s husky voice and gospel melodies combining with Lenker’s rippling guitar, as well as contributions from Big Thief drummer James Krivchenia and multi-instrumentalist Mat Davidson of Twain. It’s intimate and warm, with shades of Nick Drake and a sense of the spiritual. “Recording was pretty chill, I have to say,” says Remington.

“We were on the river, drinking delicious coffee, cigarettes in the sun, feet in the dirt and being with a group of people who were enjoying working together. I felt I was fulfilling my destiny. We were in a dreamland and could bask in these songs.”

Remington, “a closet singer since forever”, wrote the songs between 2008 and 2019, often composing by singing vocal melodies to herself while working solitary jobs in New Hampshire, Texas and California – her past careers include stone-carving and farming. Raised in a log cabin in rural Massachusetts, nature is an ever-present theme in her music, from the soaring “Fire”, inspired by West Coast wildfires, through to the Irish folk of “Water Song”, which opens with the sound of a rainstorm.

“It felt the elements were right there with us,” she marvels. “The night we did ‘Water Song’ was the only day it rained the whole time. I believe that nature has a voice and that is very much part of who I am. I grew up in the country, I feel connected to the earth, so if
in any way my songs can translate some of the magic of nature, that would be amazing.”

Remington’s deep voice combines beautifully with Lenker on minimalist duets like “Dresser Hill”, while “Mary Mary” finds the pair breaking into giggles at a fluffed lyric. That highlights the delicate intimacy of the recording as well as the friendship between Remington and Lenker. “I love singing with Adrianne,” says Remington. “When she first moved in with me in Boston, we had a connection through singing. It felt amazing to be admired and to admire somebody else and be able to sing together. That feeling of making music with somebody, harmonising, it’s so magical. Adrianne told me I had to record my songs and she’s really helped me make this happen in a way that isn’t forceful. It’s very casual – she has left it up to me, so it’s my record and my songs.”

Remington now lives in the town of Ware on the Swift River in Massachusetts, where she works as a ceramic artist and teacher at a cultural centre. “These songs have always been a little secret thing, but I am already excited about getting my next record done,” she reveals. “They are all written from vocal melodies. It might start with a whistle, a melodic riff, then I find some words. With art, there’s a lot to give, but there is a lot to receive too. If I am depleted, the best prescription is a walk in the woods and you can sit under a tree in nonsensical awareness. There’s no other option for me.”

Mary Elizabeth Remington’s In Embudo is out February 10.

New Paul McCartney documentary Man On The Run to explore post-Beatles life

Ali Shutler
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New Paul McCartney documentary Man On The Run to explore post-Beatles life
A new Paul McCartney documentary exploring the musician’s life following the breakup of The Beatles has been announced. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Introducing the Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to Paul McCartney Man On The Run is set ...

A new Paul McCartney documentary exploring the musician’s life following the breakup of The Beatles has been announced.

Man On The Run is set to be directed by filmmaker Morgan Neville and will draw on “unprecedented access to a never-before-seen archive of Paul and Linda’s home videos and photos, as well as new interviews,” to chronicle the time between The Beatles’ breakup and the rise of Wings in the ‘70s.

According to a press release, Man On The Run will serve as “the definitive document of Paul’s emergence from the dissolution of the world’s biggest band and his triumphant creation of a second decade of musical milestones — a brilliant and prolific stretch.”

“As a lifelong obsessive of all things McCartney, I’ve always felt that the 1970s were the great under-examined part of his story,” said Neville in a statement. “I’m thrilled to have the chance to explore and reappraise this crucial moment in a great artist’s life and work.”

Morgan Neville earned an Academy Award for 2013 documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, which explored celebrated backing singers and recently helmed the Anthony Bourdain retrospective, Roadrunner.

“I was too young to buy Beatles records when they came out, but I could buy Wings records, and I loved them. To me, the story of what happened to Paul McCartney in the wake of The Beatles when he had to rediscover himself is the story that has never been told,” Neville said, announcing the project.

“When Universal called me about this, it took me about three seconds to say I have to do this. It’s the kind of thing I think I’ve been training for since I was 10 years old.”

Last month, a lost McCartney song featuring Jeff Beck was discovered. The track was recorded in 1994 and features a spoken pro-environmentalist message recorded by Beck.

Hear Peter Gabriel’s new track, “The Court”

Michael Bonner
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Hear Peter Gabriel’s new track, “The Court”
Peter Gabriel has released the Dark-Side Mix of "The Court", the second song from his forthcoming album, i/o. Released to coincide with this month’s full moon, you can hear "The Court" below. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut https://www.youtube.c...

Peter Gabriel has released the Dark-Side Mix of “The Court“, the second song from his forthcoming album, i/o.

Released to coincide with this month’s full moon, you can hear “The Court” below.

Written and produced by Gabriel, “The Court” was recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and The Beehive in London, and features contributions from Brian Eno alongside Tony Levin, David Rhodes and Manu Katché, as well as backing vocals from Gabriel’s daughter Melanie. The orchestral arrangement is by John Metcalfe with Gabriel and was recorded at British Grove Studios in London.

“I had this idea for ‘the court will rise’ chorus, so it became a free-form, impressionistic lyric that connected to justice, but there’s a sense of urgency there,” says Gabriel. “A lot of life is a struggle between order and chaos and in some senses the justice or legal system is something that we impose to try and bring some element of order to the chaos. That’s often abused, it’s often unfair and discriminatory but at the same time it’s probably an essential part of a civilised society. But we do need to think sometimes about how that is actually realised and employed.”

Just like the previous song “Panopticom“, “The Court” will come with differing mix approaches from Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix), Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos In-Side Mix.

“I quite like this idea of the multiple mix approach because for most artists it’s the process, not the product, that is most important,” says Gabriel. “In some ways, I’m trying to open up the process a little more for those that are interested.”

The cover for “The Court” depicts the ritual installation Lifting the Curse by Tim Shaw. “Tim Shaw is a great artist whose work is powerful, political and shamanistic,” says Gabriel. “He has often dealt with tough themes such as war and torture. He grew up in Belfast so experienced the fear and reality of seeing violence around him, which I am sure must have made a deep impression.”

“I don’t know why that particular image was chosen for this track,” says Shaw. “But thinking about it, it could be that when you look at the figure perhaps it stands there to be accused, judged and in this case it’s burnt as a punishment process that takes place.”

As well as new music, Gabriel will tour later this year.

i/o The Tour – Europe 2023

Thursday, May 18: TAURON Arena, Krakow, Poland
Saturday, May 20: Verona Arena, Verona, Italy
Sunday, May 21: Mediolanum Arena, Milan, Italy
Tuesday, May 23: AccorHotels Arena, Paris, France
Wednesday, May 24: Stade Pierre-Mauroy, Lille, France
Friday, May 26: Waldbuehne, Berlin, Germany
Sunday, May 28: Koenigsplatz, Munich, Germany
Tuesday, May 30: Royal Arena, Copenhagen, Denmark
Wednesday, May 31: Avicii Arena, Stockholm, Sweden
Friday, June 2: Koengen, Bergen, Norway
Monday, June 5: Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tuesday, June 6: Sportpaleis, Antwerp, Belgium
Thursday, June 8: Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland
Saturday, June 10: Lanxess Arena, Cologne, Germany
Monday, June 12: Barclays Arena, Hamburg, Germany
Tuesday, June 13: Festhalle, Frankfurt, Germany
Thursday, June 15: Arkea Arena, Bordeaux, France
Saturday, June 17: Utilita Arena, Birmingham, UK
Monday, June 19: The O2, London, UK
Thursday, June 22: OVO Hydro, Glasgow, UK
Friday, June 23: AO Arena, Manchester, UK
Sunday, June 25: 3Arena, Dublin, Ireland

The 1st Uncut New Music Playlist Of 2023

Michael Bonner
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The 1st Uncut New Music Playlist Of 2023
Slightly later than I'd like, but welcome to our first playlist of 2023. I guess one advantage to having this a little delayed is there's more to include - so hopefully you'll find plenty of new music to your tastes. You'll notice that I've included two tracks by Brown Spirits, a trio from Australia...

Slightly later than I’d like, but welcome to our first playlist of 2023. I guess one advantage to having this a little delayed is there’s more to include – so hopefully you’ll find plenty of new music to your tastes. You’ll notice that I’ve included two tracks by Brown Spirits, a trio from Australia who are channeling Can and Hawkwind vibes. So far, they’re released two rare-as-hens-teeth 7″s on Soul Jazz. I gather there’s an album coming, so I’ll let you know more on that as and when.

Otherwise, it’s a welcome return to the playlist for Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble and North Americans back – we’ve previewed new tracks from both of them on this site recently. I’ve been playing both of their new albums for a while and they provided plenty of spiritual sustenance during a particularly long and wearying January. I’ve also included Kassi Valazza‘s “Watching Planes Go By”, which some of you may recognise from our current Sounds Of The New West Volume 6 covermount – she’s terrific, in a Paisley Underground meets Jefferson Airplane way, and you can be sure to read more about her very soon in Uncut.

Lots of other great stuff besides – Sam Burton, Trees Speak, Steve Gunn & David Moore, so without further do: dig in!

BROWN SPIRITS
“Space Race”
[Soul Jazz]

BROWN SPIRITS
“Dead End Exits”
[Soul Jazz]

NORTH AMERICANS
“Classic Water”
[Third Man Records]

JANA HORN
“After All This Time”
[No Quarter]

ROB MAZUREK – EXPLODING STAR ORCHESTRA
“Future Shaman”
[International Anthem]

ELIJAH MCLAUGHLIN ENSEMBLE
“Headwaters”
[Astral Spirits]

KASSI VALAZZA
“Watching Planes Go By”
[Loose]

SISSOKO SEGAL PARISIEN PEIRANI
“Banja”
[NØ FØRMAT!]

STEVE GUNN & DAVID MOORE
“Over The Dune”
[RVNG INTL]

ROSE CITY BAND
“Chasing Rainbows”
[Thrill Jockey]

TREES SPEAK
“Sospetto”
[Sounds Of The Universe]

BOBBY LEE
“Reds For a Blue Planet”
[Tompkins Square]

SAM BURTON
“Maria”
[Partisan]

BOYGENIUS
“$20”
[Interscope]

Hear North Americans latest open-sky marvel, “Classic Water”

Michael Bonner
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Hear North Americans latest open-sky marvel, “Classic Water”
North Americans return with "Classic Water" - the first track from their new album, Long Cool World. You can hear "Classic Water" below. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83-JtdGJiqg&themeRefresh=1 Initially a ...

North Americans return with “Classic Water” – the first track from their new album, Long Cool World.

You can hear “Classic Water” below.

Initially a solo project for guitarist Patrick McDermott, North Americans became a duo with the addition of pedal-steel player Barry Walker Jr. Regular readers of Uncut will remember the inclusion of the North Americans’ track “American Dipper” on our acclaimed 2021 CD compilation, Sounds Of The New West Presents… Ambient Americana.

This latest open-sky marvel finds McDermott’s languid acoustic fretwork accompanied by Walker Jr’s ravishing pedal steel.

The follow up to 2020’s Roped In, Long Cool World is released on April 7, 2023 via Third Man Records. Click here to pre-order.

Send us your questions for Captain Sensible!

Sam Richards
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Send us your questions for Captain Sensible!
The Damned have announced that their new album Darkadelic – their first since 2018's Evil Spirits – will be released by EarMusic on April 28. The album was recorded by the current line-up of Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible, Paul Gray and Monty Oxymoron, with William Granville-Taylor replacing Pinc...

The Damned have announced that their new album Darkadelic – their first since 2018’s Evil Spirits – will be released by EarMusic on April 28. The album was recorded by the current line-up of Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible, Paul Gray and Monty Oxymoron, with William Granville-Taylor replacing Pinch on drums.

You can pre-order Darkadelic here and watch a video for lead single “The Invisible Man” below:

The punk survivors have also just added a second Alexandra Palace date to their upcoming European tour running throughout March and April – you can buy tickets for that and peruse the rest of their dates here.

But first! The band’s irrepressible bassist-turned-guitarist Captain Sensible has kindly submitted to a gentle grilling from you, the Uncut readers, for our next Audience With interview. So what would you like to ask a beret-sporting, chart-topping, flower-dispensing punk legend? Send your questions to audiencewith@www.uncut.co.uk by Monday (Feb 6) and Captain will answer the best ones in a future issue of Uncut.

Robert Forster – The Candle And The Flame

Pete Paphides
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Robert Forster – The Candle And The Flame
In 2006, following the death of his Go-Betweens foil and best friend Grant McLennan, Robert Forster stopped making music and, for a time, chose to write about it instead. A book, The 10 Rules Of Rock And Roll, collected the essays he wrote for Australian publication The Monthly – and introducing t...

In 2006, following the death of his Go-Betweens foil and best friend Grant McLennan, Robert Forster stopped making music and, for a time, chose to write about it instead. A book, The 10 Rules Of Rock And Roll, collected the essays he wrote for Australian publication The Monthly – and introducing the collection was the list of commandments with which it shared its title. In the fourth of these rock rules, Forster declared, “Being a rock star is a 24-hour-a-day job.”

You’re reminded of this edict when you watch the video for “Tender Years”, the second song on Forster’s eighth solo album. In the kitchen of the Brisbane house he shares with his wife Karin Bäumler, we see Forster miming to the song as he commences his daily breakfast ritual, making muesli for himself and Bäumler. And because being a rock star is a 24-hour-a-day job, it’s a performance to which he absolutely commits, ensuring he’s chopped the papaya in time to pick up his air guitar for the solo.

This is Forster in excelsis. A rock star happy in captivity, singing a sustained rapture to the woman he met 33 years ago, just as the first incarnation of his old band was imploding. “Her beauty has not withered,” he sings, “from her entrance in Chapter One”. Like much of what surrounds it, there’s a prophetic patina to what you hear – prophetic because almost all of The Candle… was written before Bäumler was diagnosed with ovarian cancer – news that would necessitate a course of chemotherapy and the agonising uncertainty that goes with that.

Perhaps the most startling moment of prescience comes with the spare, sunlit reassurances of “It’s Only Poison”, which see Forster urging his subject to keep their spirit strong in the belief that they will outrun any immediate challenges: “You won’t need a doctor / You won’t need a chef / You’re far from over and you can heal yourself”. But it’s there also in the jut-jawed repetition of the line which gives “There’s A Reason To Live” its name, and it’s in “The Roads”, a pencil-sketch of the byways that wreath the Bavarian landscape of Bäumler’s upbringing. That’s her violin arrangement you can hear on the song, and it makes all the difference between a great song and one that quietly steals the breath from your lungs.

In fact, only six words of the entire record were written in the wake of Bäumler’s diagnosis, and they form the entire lyric of “She’s A Fighter”, written during one of the impromptu domestic jams undertaken by the couple in order to distract from an outcome over which they had no control. Also featured here, and throughout the album, is Forster’s son, Louis. After three albums with his own band The Goon Sax, Louis’s guitar chops now arguably surpass those of his father – and the flame thrower attack he brings to the song gives it a purposefulness perhaps unmatched in Forster’s own canon since 1978, when he channeled the spirit of Patti Smith’s “Gloria” in a suburban library and called it “Karen”.

Between the enduring juvenilia of those earliest recordings and this one lies the arc of a lifetime. And much of Forster’s best writing is now an attempt to find the essence that unites him with the 15-year-old who picked up a guitar for the first time. In latter years, he’s done it by taking a lead from Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and perhaps Bill Callahan too, jettisoning ornamentation in pursuit of the raw fundaments – and the same can be said of some most affecting moments on here: the ticket stub to a long-forgotten show found in an old pocket on “There’s A Reason To Live” or “I Don’t Do Drugs I Do Time”, which sees Forster holding up the contact sheet of memory to the light of melody and conjuring a freewheeling folk-pop wonder in the process.

But it’s an approach which truly strikes songwriting gold right at the end of The Candle And The Flame. Grant McLennan was still only 24 when he delivered “Cattle And Cane”, his arrestingly cinematic collage of early childhood, and the song that continues to define him. Now here’s Forster, 65, on “When I Was A Young Man”: reflecting on the pop cultural lava that he couldn’t have possibly known would harden to form the landscape of his musical world. In your mind’s eye, father and son sit on stools stage left, plenty of space for the parade of ghosts summoned by references to the young Lou Reed, David Bowie, Tom Verlaine and David Byrne.

If you had to pare “When I Was A Young Man” down to a single bullet point, what you might be left with is an 11th rule of rock’n’roll: “Understand, at all times, that you didn’t choose this life; it chose you. And years later, when called upon to do so, that’s the story your work will tell.” Both here and on the eight songs that precede it, it’s one that Robert Forster tells in tongues of disbelief and gratitude. The sound of a man, entering his third act, still in service to the teenage dreams that prompted him to pick up a guitar in the first place. And as we all know, teenage dreams are hard to beat.

The Waeve – The Waeve

Wyndham Wallace
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The Waeve – The Waeve
It was December 2020 when Rose Elinor Dougall suggested she and Graham Coxon should write a song together, ostensibly for her fourth solo album. They’d met only briefly since Dougall was a Pipette and, huddling for a smoke outside a socially distanced benefit for victims of that summer’s Beirut ...

It was December 2020 when Rose Elinor Dougall suggested she and Graham Coxon should write a song together, ostensibly for her fourth solo album. They’d met only briefly since Dougall was a Pipette and, huddling for a smoke outside a socially distanced benefit for victims of that summer’s Beirut warehouse explosion, they had little idea that within two years they’d make their first album together, even less a baby.

Under normal circumstances, this brief encounter might have led nowhere, but, with another lockdown looming, time was in generous supply, and both were at a crossroads, personally and creatively. They began exchanging messages, testing each other’s musical boundaries, and, with common ground established, convened a month later amid the pandemic’s renewed desolation, beginning their collaboration soon afterwards. It took mere weeks to realise these meetings weren’t about a single song; they were about forming a band, on equal terms. And make no mistake: The Waeve is a band.

They illustrate this powerfully with opener “Can I Call You”, on which the individual hallmarks of Dougall’s and Coxon’s best work collide, then ignite. Dougall emerges first, seductively if pensively, to a doomy piano and submerged percussion, but once a synth starts pulsing with the urgency of Radiohead’s “Ful Stop” the song takes off with motorik efficiency, Coxon’s guitar wailing like Robert Fripp’s on Bowie’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). They’re stopped in their tracks by multi-tracked blasts of a saxophone which has been squeaking in the background for quite some time, before, within moments, they’re casting spells in a gobby sprechgesang suited to this re-energised gallop. Then, abruptly, the tune slams to a halt.

Similar tensions dominate The Waeve, shared values blurring what might otherwise be familiar, jarring styles. Indeed, given how Dougall specialises in ornate but soberly sophisticated pop and Coxon in, well, whatever takes his fancy, tension is its lifeblood. Trade-offs are rarely sanctioned, with this instead again about testing boundaries. So,
if the mood’s often ‘tasteful’ – a pejorative word previously used flippantly by Coxon to describe Dougall’s tastes – that’s never such that refined classiness can’t accommodate more mischievous tendencies.

Their contrasting inclinations thus rub off on one another throughout, with their vocals notably displaying unanticipated qualities. The longest track, “Undine” – whose strings anchor a journey in and out of a swelling storm of burbling synths and ugly guitars – brings out a hitherto rarely heard sensitivity in Coxon, as does the sedate “Over And Over” (think Lambchop’s “Nashville Parent”), while he’s uncommonly assertive on “Drowning”, at least once its velveteen waltz has been overcome by a saturated malevolence. Dougall, too – as on “Can I Call You” – is tougher than ever amid “Someone Up There”’s determined post-punk, while “All Along”’s expanding folk-rock provokes a conspicuously unworldly innocence.

Furthermore, Dougall’s academic desire for subtle complexity finds common ground with Coxon’s unpretentious disposition in their restless, Radiohead-like quest for unpredictability. It was she who, despite her antipathy to his beloved Van Der Graaf Generator, encouraged his use of saxophone, and it’s as vital here – squawking through “Kill Me Again”, lending the lovely “Sleepwalking” an early Roxy Music edginess, reinforcing “All Along”s growing menace with sinister drones – as his guitars, whether they’re providing cultured licks on “Over And Over” or going all Thin Lizzy on “Sleepwalking”.

Coxon and Dougall combine forces, in other words, willing one another to take risks, basking in the ensuing, revelatory freedom, and studiously avoiding the temptations of what Lee Hazlewood called “girl boy songs”, with their narratives, double entendres and subversive stereotypes. There’s certainly no “Leather And Lace” here, and only one ‘traditional’ duet, the polished, doo-wop flavoured, out-of-character closer, “You’re All I Want To Know”, whose “I ain’t letting you go-woah-woah-woah” motif is as likely to draw comparisons with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John as Patsy Cline. To be fair, neither’s terribly close.

It’s tempting to search for clues to Coxon and Dougall’s romance, especially given this happy ending. But The Waeve is shot through instead with disintegrating relationships, glimpses of a mythic England, battles of instinct over intellect, and questions over the ties that bind us (and otherwise). If there’s one overarching theme, it’s merely to take back control, one way or another. Far better, then, to focus on the ambitiously structured, lovingly arranged nature of these unhurriedly crafted songs full of bona fide thrills, unexpected twists, and an elegant but never gratuitous grandeur. Ironically, the only thing likely to hold back The Waeve is parenthood.

How pedal steel upstart Spencer Cullum discovered bold new directions

Tom Pinnock
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How pedal steel upstart Spencer Cullum discovered bold new directions
From Romford to East Nashville, SPENCER CULLUM has taken a peripatetic journey from pedal steel to pastoral psychedelia. Tom Pinnock chats with collaborators along with the sonic upstart as he propels in bold new directions. “It’s more about gradually trying to find my identity…” in the late...

From Romford to East Nashville, SPENCER CULLUM has taken a peripatetic journey from pedal steel to pastoral psychedelia. Tom Pinnock chats with collaborators along with the sonic upstart as he propels in bold new directions. “It’s more about gradually trying to find my identity…” in the latest issue of Uncut magazine – in UK shops from Thursday, January 12 and available to buy from our online store.

“I’m not the biggest fan of Vegas,” says Spencer Cullum, hunched over his laptop high in a hotel over Nevada’s Sin City. “I’ve already seen two vehicles on fire from my window. One of them was a party bus in flames at 4am, right near a gas station! Downtown here is just crazy.”

Cullum, born and bred in Romford, Essex, is about to release his second album, Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 2, a sublime set of eccentric folk and psychedelic exploration. Such music, however, doesn’t get your name in lights in Las Vegas alongside Adele and Penn & Teller: so right now Cullum is here as the pedal steel player for country blockbuster Miranda Lambert.

“She writes great songs,” he explains, “and she lets me play what I want, but it’s still bizarre, these massive crowds. It’s nice playing for a female country artist, though, because the crowd doesn’t go into that ‘bro country’ territory that seems to be taking over America.”

“It is a bit of an anomaly, isn’t it, Spencer in Las Vegas!” laughs BJ Cole, pedal steel maestro and something of a mentor to Cullum. “An ongoing gig with somebody like Miranda means you don’t have to look around for work too much – you can relax and do your own thing.”

Most of the time, then, Nashville-based Cullum is playing country music, but over the last few years he’s branched out with his more eccentric Coin Collection project. On their self-titled album and its follow-up, due in April, Cullum explores the pastoral psychedelia of Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers, and the more austere folk-rock of Fairport Convention, with a naïve and easy-going charm.

“This whole phase of my music is new to me,” he explains. “Writing songs with lyrics and doing – I don’t even like saying it! – the singer-songwriter thing, still feels uncomfortable. But I like that feeling of fear… I’ve had a lot of help from really good singer-songwriters in Nashville, like Andrew Combs and Caitlin Rose.”

Collaboration is key to the Coin Collection records, and Cullum has assembled a group of likeminded souls in East Nashville: Americana artists keen to explore stranger sounds away from their own careers and the pressures of the city’s ‘country machine’.

“Spencer is a magnet,” says Caitlin Rose. “There aren’t many people doing what he’s doing in Nashville, but there’s people who understand it. Sometimes I think Spencer is like this weird time-travelling spirit; I think that’s why a lot of what he does feels authentic. He’s not apeing anything, it’s more that he just embodies [the feel of classic records].”

PICK UP THE NEW ISSUE OF UNCUT TO READ THE FULL STORY

Peter Hook says Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination could be “olive branch” amid New Order row

Charlotte Krol
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Peter Hook says Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination could be “olive branch” amid New Order row
Peter Hook has said that Joy Division and New Order's joint nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year could be an "olive branch" for his estranged bandmates. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: New Order – Low Life (Definitive ...

Peter Hook has said that Joy Division and New Order’s joint nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year could be an “olive branch” for his estranged bandmates.

Nominees for the Class of 2023 were revealed earlier this week, with Kate Bush, Missy Elliott, Cyndi Lauper, Rage Against The Machine, George Michael and The White Stripes among some of the big names in line for potential induction.

Joy Division and New Order were nominated jointly. It stems from the fact that the former band’s guitarist/keyboardist Bernard Sumner, drummer Stephen Morris and bassist Hook regrouped as the latter in the wake of the death of their vocalist, Ian Curtis, in 1980.

Other bands with similar evolutions have been inducted jointly into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame previously, including Small Faces and Faces in 2012.

black and white photograph of New Order performing live in 1985
New Order perform live in 1985. Image: Geoff Campbell

Speaking to Billboard about the joint Joy Division/New Order nomination, Hook said that the nod “made me smile all day”, and may well offer the “olive branch that we may need to end the injustices”.

Those “injustices” Hook alluded to relates to a fall-out more than a decade ago when Sumner, Morris and New Order keyboardist/guitarist Gillian Gilbert reformed without him (Hook left the band in 2007) after a four-year hiatus in 2011. There was also an earlier row over royalties.

A lawsuit over royalties was later settled out of court. Hook said that the musicians “still haven’t spoken, personally in 11 years. We’re still fighting hammer and tong, tooth and nail… I think we’re going for the record for the longest group fallout in history. It’s very tragic.

“It will be a difficult awards ceremony if we get there, but as my wife said we’ve got to rise above these things… and be nice and be courteous and think the best.

“Maybe this is the olive branch that we may need to end the injustices that were done with New Order in the end. It’s a very strange position to be in but, y’know, we’re not the first group that’s been ostracised by each other, and we won’t be the last,” he added.

Ian Curtis
Joy Division. Image: Kevin Cummins

Hook spoke further about his pride at being nominated. “To be honest with you, we were always against this sort of thing when we started,” he said.

“It was the old punk thing – we hope we die before we get old and destroy all the old musicians, etc. etc. and what rubbish awards ceremonies are. Then all of a sudden you get one, and as you get older you realise… yeah, it’s a wonderful thing. I’m humbled, I really am. It’s nice, and it’s fun to be appreciated.

“I will be rooting for us. Ever since we started as Warsaw, I’ve always felt great competition towards other bands. You want to do better than them, you want to achieve something. So this really appeals to me.”

Joy Division have been eligible for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since 2004 and New Order since 2006. Acts become eligible for 25 years after the release of a debut album.

Hook added to Billboard he’s happy about the joint nod. “It feels OK to me,” he said. “It was an odd thing. Joy Division was such a wonderful, powerful entity, and it was so sad the way it ended. But the three of us – Bernie, Stephen and I – got real strength from starting New Order together.

“We started [Joy Division] after seeing the Sex Pistols, and we’ve been banging our heads against walls and doors and kicking them down musically since then. We were always the square peg in a round hole as Joy Division and very much a square peg in a round hole as New Order. [The Rock Hall] is a hell of an accolade, but my God, I think either band has earned it. We are definitely up there without a shadow of a doubt.”

The Class of 2023 will be announced in May and the induction ceremonies will take place this autumn.

Peter Hook
Peter Hook. Image: Derick Smith

Hook has been leading his band, Peter Hook & The Light, for more than a decade in which he also performs Joy Division and New Order albums in full. He kicks off a UK tour in April, playing both of Joy Division’s albums (Unknown Pleasures and Closer), a variety of New Order songs, and the Substance compilations from both bands.

New Order, meanwhile, recently announced plans to play this year’s South By Southwest Music Festival (SXSW) along with four other shows in the US.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kick off first tour in six years

Emma Wilkes
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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kick off first tour in six years
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off their first tour in six years with a mammoth 28-song set in Tampa, Florida on February 1. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut Opening with "No Surrender", Springsteen and the band ran through some of their...

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off their first tour in six years with a mammoth 28-song set in Tampa, Florida on February 1.

Opening with “No Surrender”, Springsteen and the band ran through some of their greatest hits alongside newer material from their 2020 album Letter To You over the course of almost three hours.

The set included a seven-song encore where they wheeled out tracks including “Born To Run”, “Rosalita”, “Dancing In The Dark” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” before Springsteen gave an acoustic solo performance of “I’ll See You In My Dreams”.

You can check out fan-filmed footage of the gig as well as the full setlist below.

Setlist:

“No Surrender”
“Ghosts”
“Prove It All Night”
“Letter To You”
“The Promised Land”
“Out In The Street”
“Candy’s Room”
“Kitty’s Back”
“Brilliant Disguise”
“Nightshift”
“Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)”
“The E Street Shuffle”
“Johnny 99”
“Last Man Standing” (live debut)
“House of A Thousand Guitars”
“Backstreets”
“Because The Night”
“She’s The One”
“Wrecking Ball”
“The Rising”
“Badlands”

Encore:
“Burnin’ Train” (live debut)
“Born to Run”
“Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”
“Glory Days”
“Dancing in the Dark”
“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
“I’ll See You in My Dreams” (solo)

The US leg of the tour will continue until April before Springsteen and the E Street Band move on to Europe. They will be playing four UK dates in total, in Edinburgh, Birmingham and two shows in London as part of the BST Hyde Park series. You can see the full list of UK and European dates below.

APRIL
28 – Barcelona, Estadi Olímpic

MAY
5, 7 – Dublin, RDS Arena
13 – Paris, La Défense Arena
18 – Ferrara, Parco Urbano G. Bassani
21 – Rome, Circo Massimo
25 – Amsterdam, Johan Cruijff Arena
30 – Edinburgh, BT Murrayfield Stadium

JUNE
11 – Landgraaf, Megaland
13 – Zurich, Stadion Letzigrund
16 – Birmingham, Villa Park
21 – Düsseldorf, Merkur Spiel Arena
24, Monday 26 – Gothenburg, Ullevi
30 – Oslo, Voldsløkka

JULY
6, 8 – London, BST Hyde Park
11, 13 – Copenhagen, Parken
15 – Hamburg, Volksparkstadion
18 – Vienna, Ernst Happel Stadion
23 – Munich, Olympiastadion
25 – Monza, Prato della Gerascia, Autodromo di Monza

We’re New Here – Gaye Su Akyol

Nick Hasted
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We’re New Here – Gaye Su Akyol
Turkish psych dervish who wants her listeners to do more than just dance, in our FEBRUARY 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. Growing up watching Xena, Gaye Su Akyol has become Anatolian rock’s warrior princess, armoured in lavish silver costumes as she leads her band of gold-masked mus...

Turkish psych dervish who wants her listeners to do more than just dance, in our FEBRUARY 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

Growing up watching Xena, Gaye Su Akyol has become Anatolian rock’s warrior princess, armoured in lavish silver costumes as she leads her band of gold-masked musicians towards the outer limits of Turkish psychedelia, collecting fans including Iggy Pop along the way. She is also playfully sexual and queer-supportive, pushing the boundaries of acceptable female behaviour in Erdogan’s Turkey. The cover of her fourth album, Anadolu Ejderi, casts her as the titular Anatolian Dragon, with a serpent’s tongue in a burning world.

Uncut meets Akyol in her apartment in Kadıköy, the Istanbul neighbourhood on the Bosphorus’s Asian side which has become a secular, bohemian redoubt from Erdogan’s reach. It’s a home filled with the passions of this artist’s daughter, from Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu’s Anatolian folkloric prints to an Iggy action doll. We talk in the music room where Anadolu Ejderi’s vocals were taped. The album’s a decisive move forward from the
surf-inflected dreamworld of its 2018 predecessor, İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir, encompassing psychedelic dance bangers and “Biz Ne Zaman Düşman Olduk”, a spectral, trip-hoppy ballad. “I don’t care about genres,” Akyol explains, “I’m thinking about Turkish psychedelia with African beats.”

Though steeped in Anatolian rock’s liberated golden age – prior to its crushing in 1980’s military coup – Akyol prefers the future to the past. “There were retro-futuristic ideas in Turkish psychedelic records in the ’70s too,” she insists. “You can see it in Barış Manço’s album 2023 [made in 1975]”. Akyol’s own lyrics reflect her fascination with quantum theories, where past, present and future coexist.

Anatolian rock is experiencing a global revival now, reflected in the Grammy-winning success of the Netherlands-based Altın Gün. Akyol, though, warns that new bands need to respect the music’s embattled soul. “One of the bands who just cover the old songs said, ‘We are not political, we’re just trying to make people dance,’” she snorts. “Go and make disco music, come on! This is not the right place. You can see the political events from songs which were written in the ’60s and ’70s. There was a deep culture then, very real music combining the tradition of the Anatolian region’s original poets with rock. Musicians like Cem Keraca had to leave their mother country for making this music – first to jail, then Germany. Now you are taking their songs to make people dance at festivals. I don’t respect that.” Akyol is equally resistant to being labelled a world music star: “I hate that. Hunting cultures is so colonial and ugly.”

Akyol’s western influences include Nirvana, first heard when she was nine. “They showed me a door that I never knew existed,” she says. “And it magically opened, and I was inside.” The late Mark Sandman’s band Morphine were equally revelatory. “Morphine was the biggest inspiration for my music,” she considers. “They were authentic, dark and jazzy, sounding like something from another planet. I can see the real pain of the world in their music.” A collaboration with Morphine saxophonist Dana Colley is ongoing.

Anadolu Ejderi’s final track, “İçinde Uyanıyoruz Hakikatin” (“We Are Waking Up In Reality”), is a huskily sung, haunting hellscape of Istanbul’s woes, identifying with Syd Barrett and Brian Jones, two dissolute rock stars who flamed out. By contrast, Akyol is fearlessly facing her future.

Gaye Su Akyol’s Anadolu Ejderi is out now.

Siouxsie Sioux announces more 2023 European comeback shows

Emma Wilkes
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Siouxsie Sioux announces more 2023 European comeback shows
Siouxsie Sioux has announced three further European comeback shows for later this year. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Siouxsie & The Banshees on their imperial phase in the ’80s: “We pushed ourselves beyond the realm of safety” ...

Siouxsie Sioux has announced three further European comeback shows for later this year.

The Siouxsie & The Banshees frontwoman confirmed her live return just before Christmas, with her first live performance in the UK for a decade set to take place at Latitude Festival in July. Sioux will be headlining the BBC Sounds stage.

Now, Sioux has announced three live dates in Europe in the spring. She will be playing in Brussels on May 3 and Amsterdam on May 4 before finishing off in Milan on May 7. Tickets will go on sale this Friday (February 3) – you can buy yours here and see the full list of dates below.

Sioux will make her live return to the US for her first performance there in 15 years later that month, where she’s set to play Cruel World Festival in California on May 20 [via BrooklynVegan].

Sioux’s last live performance was for Yoko Ono’s Meltdown festival, which was held at London’s Royal Festival Hall. At the time she performed an unprecedented two sold-out shows and surprised fans with an unannounced, full rendition of Siouxsie & The Banshees’ 1980 album Kaleidoscope alongside hit songs including “Face to Face” and “Here Comes That Day”.

Sioux had several UK Top 10 singles with The Banshees, including “Hong Kong Garden”, “Happy House” and “Peek-a-Boo”. The band released 11 albums between 1976 and 1996.

They disbanded in 1996, later briefly reuniting in 2002. Sioux then formed The Creatures with The Banshees drummer Budgie, releasing four albums between 1981 and 2005. The singer then shared her debut solo album, Mantaray, in 2007. Her last solo music was the single “Love Crime”, which was released in 2015 and written for the finale of the TV series Hannibal.

Siouxsie Sioux will play the following European tour dates:

MAY

3 – Brussels, Belgium – AB
4 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
7 – Milan, Italy – Teatro Degli Arcimboldi

Patti Smith pens heartfelt Tom Verlaine tribute: “There was no one like Tom”

Hollie Geraghty
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Patti Smith pens heartfelt Tom Verlaine tribute: “There was no one like Tom”
Patti Smith has paid tribute to late Television frontman Tom Verlaine in a new essay. The singer, guitarist and songwriter died last weekend (January 28), aged 73, following a "brief illness". His passing was confirmed by Jesse Paris Smith (daughter of Patti) in a press release, which said Ve...

Patti Smith has paid tribute to late Television frontman Tom Verlaine in a new essay.

The singer, guitarist and songwriter died last weekend (January 28), aged 73, following a “brief illness”.

His passing was confirmed by Jesse Paris Smith (daughter of Patti) in a press release, which said Verlaine “died peacefully in New York City” while “surrounded by close friends”.

News of his death was followed by tributes from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Tim Burgess, Primal Scream and more.

Posting a tribute on Instagram this weekend, Patti Smith, who previously dated and collaborated with Verlaine, wrote: “This is a time when all seemed possible. Farewell Tom, aloft the Omega.”

The singer-songwriter has now paid fresh tribute to the late musician with an essay in the New Yorker, recalling his creative process of “exquisite torment”.

“He awoke to the sound of water dripping into a rusted sink,” she began, recalling how he “lay shuddering, riveted by flickering movements of aliens and angels as the words and melodies of [debut album] Marquee Moon were formed, drop by drop, note by note, from a state of calm yet sinister excitement.

“He was Tom Verlaine, and that was his process: exquisite torment.”

The singer went on to explain that the musician lived 28 minutes from where she was raised, but they never crossed paths.

“We could easily have sauntered into the same Wawa on the Wilmington-South Jersey border in search of Yoo-hoo or Tastykakes,” Smith continued. “We might have met, two black sheep, on some rural stretch, each carrying books of the poetry of French Symbolists—but we didn’t.

Tom Verlaine of Television. Image: Steve Thorne via Redferns
Tom Verlaine of Television. Image: Steve Thorne via Redferns

“That was, until Easter night, April 14, 1974. Lenny Kaye and I took a rare taxi ride from the Ziegfeld Theatre after seeing the première of “Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones,” straight down to the Bowery to see a new band called Television.”

She added: “What we saw that night was kin, our future, a perfect merging of poetry and rock and roll. As I watched Tom play, I thought, Had I been a boy, I would’ve been him.”

Smith explained that she would see Television whenever they played, “mostly to see Tom, with his pale blue eyes and swanlike neck”.

“He bowed his head, gripping his Jazzmaster, releasing billowing clouds, strange alleyways populated with tiny men, a murder of crows, and the cries of bluebirds rushing through a replica of space. All transmuted through his long fingers, all but strangling the neck of his guitar.”

The pair grew closer, she continued, recalling that each other’s bookcases were “nearly identical, even those by authors difficult to find”.

“He was angelic yet slightly demonic, a cartoon character with the grace of a dervish. I knew him then,” she continued.

“There was no one like Tom. He possessed the child’s gift of transforming a drop of water into a poem that somehow begat music. In his last days, he had the selfless support of devoted friends. Having no children, he welcomed the love he received from my daughter, Jesse, and my son, Jackson.

“In his final hours, watching him sleep, I travelled backward in time. We were in the apartment, and he cut my hair, and some pieces stuck out this way and that, so he called me Winghead. In the years to follow, simply Wing. Even when we got older, always Wing. And he, the boy who never grew up, aloft the Omega, a golden filament in the vibrant violet light.”

Wilco, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Angel Olsen, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and more for End Of The Road Festival 2023

Michael Bonner
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Wilco, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Angel Olsen, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and more for End Of The Road Festival 2023
End Of The Road Festival have announced the full line-up for this year’s festival. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Future Islands, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Wilco are revealed as this year's headliners. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut Joining...

End Of The Road Festival have announced the full line-up for this year’s festival.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Future Islands, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Wilco are revealed as this year’s headliners.

Joining them at End Of The Road’s home in the Larmer Tree Gardens from August 31 – September 3 are Angel Olsen, Arooj Aftab, Cass McCombs, Joan Shelley, Ezra Furman, Horse Lords, Greentea Peng, Mary Elizabeth Remington, Oren Ambarchi, Nina Nastasia, Sam Burton, The Mary Wallopers, Caitlin Rose and many more.

This sounds like all your favourite Uncut artists on one festival bill – so we’re absolutely delighted to once again be partnering with End Of The Road.

If you’ve not already picked up tickets, the good news is that limited tickets are still available for the festival, which you can buy by clicking here.

And while you’re digesting today’s announcement, here’s a handy round up of all our coverage from the 2022 festival.

The full line-up for End Of The Road 2023 is:

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD
FUTURE ISLANDS
WILCO
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA
ANGEL OLSEN
EZRA FURMAN
AROOJ AFTAB
GREENTEA PENG
OVERMONO
KOKOROKO
CASS MCCOMBS
BIIG PIIG
LEE FIELDS
YEULE
DUNGEN
JOAN SHELLEY
CAITLIN ROSE
THE MARY WALLOPERS
FLOHIO
THE MURLOCS
CAROLINE
BAR ITALIA
KOKOKO!
DANIEL NORGREN
PVA
OKAY KAYA
YUNÉ PINKU
CHARLEY CROCKETT
GEESE
MOIN
NINA NASTASIA
SWEET BABOO
JOHN FRANCIS FLYNN
THE ANCHORESS
HIGH VIS
ULRIKA SPACEK
RUNNNER
MACIE STEWART
SAY SHE SHE
LIME GARDEN
YOT CLUB
ALOGTE OHO & HIS SOUNDS OF JOY
BIG|BRAVE
OREN AMBARCHI
PERSONAL TRAINER
PANIC SHACK
MC YALLAH & DEBMASTER
LOUIS CULTURE
SAM BURTON
MASTER PEACE
GENA ROSE BRUCE
KATY KIRBY
THEY HATE CHANGE
MARINA ALLEN
INDIGO SPARKE
HORSE LORDS
INFINITY KNIVES & BRIAN ENNALS
WHITNEY K
DIVIDE AND DISSOLVE
MABE FRATTI
SAINT JUDE
ADWAITH
FRIENDSHIP
FLOODLIGHTS
FAT DOG
GRETEL HÄNLYN
LAURA JEAN
AVALANCHE KAITO
WUNDERHORSE
MADMADMAD
THE COURETTES
LAUNDROMAT
SIMON JOYNER
CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD
DIVORCE
BLUE BENDY
HEARTWORMS
7EBRA
JON MCKIEL
JULIA REIDY
CINDER WELL
MARY ELIZABETH REMINGTON
CVC
TEKE::TEKE
MF TOMLINSON
DONNA THOMPSON
ANGELINE MORRISON
DELILUM
SYSTEM EXCLUSIVE
SCOTT LAVENE
TAPIR!
URSA MAJOR MOVING GROUP
THE PRIZE
THREE SPOONS
JOYFULTALK
OCTOBER BABY

Never-before-heard music by Jeff Beck and Paul McCartney discovered in archive

Emma Wilkes
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Never-before-heard music by Jeff Beck and Paul McCartney discovered in archive
A lost song written by Jeff Beck and Paul McCartney has been discovered in the latter's archive. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut ORDER NOW: Paul McCartney – Ultimate Music Guide The track was recorded in 1994 and features a spoken pro-environmenta...

A lost song written by Jeff Beck and Paul McCartney has been discovered in the latter’s archive.

The track was recorded in 1994 and features a spoken pro-environmentalist message recorded by Beck, which opens with him asking: “Why are they cutting down the rainforest?” The message was later used in a US 13-part radio series presented and created by Paul called Oobu Joobu. The show featured rehearsals, demos, unreleased recordings, conversations and cameos from many of McCartney’s friends, and highlighted campaigns o issues he felt were important, such as vegetarianism.

McCartney would go on to found Meat-Free Mondays with his daughters Mary and Stella in 2009, encouraging people to think about the environmental impacts of their food.

Beck died on January 10 at the age of 78 after suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis. which led McCartney to begin thinking about the studio time they had shared almost thirty years ago. This led Paul’s team to rediscover the never-before-heard track.

Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck in 1976. Image: Watal Asanuma / Shinko Music / Getty Images

“With the sad passing of Jeff Beck – a good friend of mine, and a great, great guitar player – it reminded me of the time we worked together many years ago on a campaign for vegetarianism,” McCartney said via a press release. “It’s great guitar playing, ’cause it’s Jeff!”

Elsewhere, producer Rick Rubin recently heaped praise on McCartney for his skills as a bassist and songwriter.

“I thought about how everything I’ve seen, Beatles-related, is either about the songwriting or Beatlemania,” Rubin told the magazine. “Paul McCartney the bass player, or Paul McCartney the musician, because he plays everything – that’s a little story told.

“You just think of him as Beatle Paul, yet in my opinion, he is the best of all bass players, he’s number one.”

Björk announces 2023 European Cornucopia tour

Elizabeth Aubrey
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Björk announces 2023 European Cornucopia tour
Björk has announced details of an upcoming Cornucopia tour in Europe later this year. ORDER NOW: Curtis Mayfield is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Björk: “I wanted to land on planet Earth” The Icelandic musician first premiered the show in a New York residency ...

Björk has announced details of an upcoming Cornucopia tour in Europe later this year.

The Icelandic musician first premiered the show in a New York residency featuring a 50-person choir and the flute group Viibra.

“Cornucopia was always intended to be a world for both Utopia and the album after that, which is now out there called Fossora” she wrote in a statement. “i am truly excited to premier those 2 worlds colliding, this autumn in southern Europe.”

You can get tickets for the shows here from February 3 and check out the full list of dates below:

Björk 2023 Tour Dates:

SEPTEMBER
1 — Lisbon, PT – Altice Arena
4 — Madrid, ES – WiZink Centre
08 — Paris, FR – Accor Arena
12 — Milan, IT – Mediolanum Forum
16 — Prague, CZ – O2 Arena
19 — Vienna, AT – Wiener Stadthalle
23 — Bologna, IT – Unipol Arena

NOVEMBER
18 — Krakow, PL – Tauron Arena
21 — Hamburg, DE – Barclays Arena
24 — Leipzig, DE – Quarterback Immobilien Arena
28 — Zurich, CH – Hallenstadion

DECEMBER
2 — Nantes, FR – Zénith
5 — Bordeaux, FR – Arkéa Arena

Last week, Björk shared details of her upcoming performance at this year’s Coachella, revealing that her set will feature a local orchestra and span her three-decade discography.

“We are so excited to bring Björk orkestral to [Coachella], the singer wrote on Twitter (January 25). “We will bring on the stage a local orkestra and play arrangements from 30 years”. The announcement was accompanied by the dates Björk is due to perform at Coachella, which are slated across the festival’s two weekends on April 16 and April 23.

Spanning the singer’s 10-album catalogue, it will include songs from latest album Forrossa.

Björk’s orchestral set will mark her first appearance at Coachella since 2007 when she headlined the Californian event alongside Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Rage Against The Machine. For this year’s line-up, the singer is billed beneath Frank Ocean, who will headline Coachella 2023 with Bad Bunny and BLACKPINK.

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