A nice list again this week, with a terrific new White Denim album arriving late yesterday afternoon. Checking up on “D”, I discovered, somewhat belatedly, that White Denim had actually released an album last autumn. “Last Day Of Summer” is avalailable to download from the White Denim website, and I can totally recommend that one, too. Before we get to the list, though, a quick plug. For the past couple of months or so, I’ve spent a fair amount of time up to my neck in the archives, putting together Uncut’s latest Ultimate Music Guide. This time, our subject is The Who, which means that, after reading innumerable confessional interviews with him, I feel like I’ve been on extended secondment in Pete Townshend’s psyche. An interesting place to visit, but you possibly wouldn’t want to live there… Anyhow, the very best interviews, along with new reviews of every Who record and film by Uncut’s current roster of writers, have made the cut for this special issue, on sale now for £5.99. Advert over. 1 The Master Musicians Of Bukkake – Totem 3 (Important) 2 Battles – Gloss Drop (Warp) 3 Cath & Phil Tyler – Dumb Supper (MIE) 4 Tibetan Buddhist Rites From The Monasteries Of Bhutan (Sub Rosa) 5 Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky) 6 Alain Johannes – Spark (Rekords Rekords) 7 Neville Skelly – Poet & The Dreamer (Setanta) 8 The Feelies – Here Before (Bar None) 9 Carlton Melton – Country Ways (Mid-To-Late) 10 Booker T Jones – The Road From Memphis (Anti-) 11 Africa HiTech – 93 Million Miles (Warp) 12 This week’s obligatory mystery record 13 White Denim – D (Downtown) 14 White Denim – Last Day Of Summer (whitedenimmusic.com) 15 Alex Turner – Submarine (Domino)
Strokes stream ‘Angles’ online
The Strokes are streaming their new album ‘Angles’ online in full.
The album is available to hear at their official website, Thestrokes.com, now.
‘Angles’ is Julian Casablancas and co’s fourth album, and is set to be released officially on Monday (March 21).
The New York five-piece have said that recording sessions for the album were far from easy. Guitarist Nick Valensi recently spoke about the process, branding it “awful”.
The band played their first gig of 2011, in Las Vegas, on Saturday (12).
The tracklisting of ‘Angles’ is:
‘Machu Picchu’
‘Under Cover of Darkness’
‘Two Kinds of Happiness’
‘You’re So Right’
‘Taken For A Fool’
‘Games’
‘Call Me Back’
‘Gratisfaction’
‘Metabolism’
‘Life Is Simple In The Moonlight’
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Arctic Monkeys: ‘Suck It And See’ is a poppier LP than ‘Humbug’
Arctic Monkeys‘ Matt Helders has told NME that the band’s new album ‘Suck It And See’ is “more poppy” than their last effort.
The album, out on June 6, was produced by James Ford at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. It features 12 new songs including ‘Brick By Brick’, which was recently released online.
Helders said that it was a more accessible effort than 2009’s ‘Humbug’.
“Some of the songs are a bit more instant,” he explained. “A bit more poppy, certainly than ’Humbug’ was.”
He added: “It’s enjoyable for us and the listener. And it’s maybe a bit more easy going. Not easy listening, but with a few poppier tunes. But in an interesting way.”
The sticksman claimed that on ‘Suck It And See’ the Sheffield band had a strong vision of where they were going musically.
“With ‘Humbug’ we recorded 25 songs and narrowed it down afterwards,” he said. “This time we had a clear idea of where we were going before we even went to the studio.”
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Manics’ Nicky Wire to publish his first book in November
Manic Street Preachers‘ bassist Nicky Wire is set to release his first book in November.
The book features Polaroid photos Wire has collected from the last 20 years and is called Death Of The Polaroid: A Manics Family Album’. It will come out on November 11.
For the release Wire has catalogued the Welsh band’s history, with photographs from their early days in Blackwood through to the present day.
In a video interview, which you can watch by scrolling down and clicking below, Wire described the book as “a family album of the Manic Street Preachers“.
The book will be the first of two Wire will be releasing via a deal he’s signed with the Faber publishing house.
Nicky Wire introduces Death Of The Polaroid: A Manics Family Album from FaberBooks on Vimeo.
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Colin Stetson: “New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges”
One of those serendipitous music/environment moments this morning. As I was walking down Stamford Hill in a thickish mist, Colin Stetson’s fathomlessly deep saxophone came looming out of my headphones like a foghorn This is one of the first things you hear on “New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges”, a pretty unusual and excellent record that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. Stetson is, predominantly, a sax player based in Montreal, who has played in the past with an eclectic CVful of musicians including Tom Waits, Bon Iver, Lou Reed, David Bowie, LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire and TV On The Radio. On “New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges”, he plays more or less alone, save a couple of vocal interventions from Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden. The backroom is also strong: Shahzad Ismaily , who I last saw playing bass with Will Oldham, co-produces; Efrim Menuck from Godspeed is involved, possibly engineering; and the mix is done by Ben Frost (never been that wild about his solo work, but he's involved in the excellent new Tim Hecker album, too). You’ll be hard-pressed, though, to accept much of this is a solo album recorded in real time, without overdubs. I’ve read a little about how Stetson achieved his dense, multi-faceted sound using a bunch of strategically placed microphones, body percussion and what I guess boils down to radical technique; a lot of circular breathing and so on. Nevertheless, these unnerving flurries, these grimy geometric rages, are baffling and astounding in their intricacy. Plenty of reviewers have mentioned Peter Brotzmann and Evan Parker in relation to Stetson, and while he’s clearly schooled in some seriously avant-garde jazz, “New History Warfare” rarely sounds much, to me at least, like a jazz record. More often, grasping for analogues, I find myself reaching beyond jazz, and beyond saxophones, too. There are a good few moments here – say, when “From No Part Of Me Could I Summon A Voice” flows into the Anderson-voiced “A Dream Of Water” – which remind me a lot more of systems music, of Philip Glass soundtracks especially. The presence of Anderson increases the general feel of old downtown New York experimentation, but there’s often a melancholy airiness that somehow calls to mind Arthur Russell. Then there are other tracks, like “Judges”, posssessed of a heaviness and cyclical intensity, that mean I fill my notebook with names like Alexander Tucker, Plastikman (“Red Horses (Judges 2)”, too, has an insistent, brutal pummelling that oddly correlates with techno) and even the Neil Young of “Le Noise”, with its fizzing afterburn to every note. Maybe a few of you have heard this and can help me out trying to articulate what’s going on here? I’d be really interested, too, if anyone has seen Stetson play solo live: I imagine it’d be some spectacle.
One of those serendipitous music/environment moments this morning. As I was walking down Stamford Hill in a thickish mist, Colin Stetson’s fathomlessly deep saxophone came looming out of my headphones like a foghorn This is one of the first things you hear on “New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges”, a pretty unusual and excellent record that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while.
The Master Musicians Of Bukkake: “Totem 3”
Not a record I’ve pulled down from the shelves in a while, but this weekend I was inspired to locate a handsome set called “Tibetan Buddhist Rites From The Monasteries Of Bhutan”. The motivation, I guess, was a certain preoccupation with “Totem 3” by The Master Musicians Of Bukkake, and its predecessor “Totem 2”. I first came across the Master Musicians around the time of their “Visible Sign Of The Invisible Order”, a set which made pretty blatant their friendships and affinities with The Sun City Girls. Like that other significant and eclectic band from the Pacific Northwest, the Master Musicians had clearly absorbed and reprocessed – and continue to do so – a vast range of generally ritualistic music from all over the globe. The spirit of the whole endeavour remains, half a decade on, very much of a piece with that of the Sun City Girls, too; at once devotional and irreverent. The unravelling “Totem” trilogy (full disclosure: I’ve not heard the first part) is dedicated to the Bishop brothers and the late Charles Gocher, and there are a bunch of specific parallels with the last SCG album, “Funeral Mariachi”, not least what I suspect is a newish addition to their exotic portfolio: Touareg blues on “Prophecy Of The White Camel/Namoutarre”. Alan Bishop plays on “Totem 3”. You get the impression a bunch of Tinariwen albums may have been circulating in the Seattle underground music community of late, since the last Earth album (Randall Dunn produces “Totem 3”) flagged up a connection, too. The Master Musicians are more explicit, though, and more obviously successful at adding a heavy Northwest hum to the snaking blues patterns. Like “Funeral Mariachi”, too, there’s a stately Morricone trip, in the shape of “6,000 Years Of Darkness”, though much of the album has a cinematic feel, right up to the closing John Carpenter homage of “Failed Future” (the Master Musicians have the candour, incidentally, to reference the Carpenter and Touareg influences in their press notes). The Tibetan rituals, meanwhile, were provoked by the expansively ominous opener, “Bardo Sidpa”, very much a continuation of “Totem 2” (though the Anatolian/Mediterranean vibes of that set are played down here). As ever with this sort of thing, I feel a faint discomfort when profound spiritual music is appropriated for other purposes, not least a certain subversive otherness. But there’s a seriousness and care with the way the Master Musicians Of Bukkake draw on and deploy such intense music; not for the first time, I can’t help suspecting that the pranksterish titillation of their name doesn’t do their frequently superb music many favours.
Not a record I’ve pulled down from the shelves in a while, but this weekend I was inspired to locate a handsome set called “Tibetan Buddhist Rites From The Monasteries Of Bhutan”. The motivation, I guess, was a certain preoccupation with “Totem 3” by The Master Musicians Of Bukkake, and its predecessor “Totem 2”.
SUBMARINE
Directed by Richard Ayoade
Starring Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Paddy Considine
As his 16th birthday fast approaches, Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) has two objectives in mind – both of which come burdened with their own particular set of problems. Firstly, he wants to save his parents’ failing marriage. His mother, Jill (Sally Hawkins), has grown tired of his father, Lloyd (Noah Taylor), a marine biologist who’s recently been made redundant from the Open University and is slipping into a fug of depression. Jill, Oliver learns, may well harbour illicit feelings for self-improvement guru Graham (Paddy Considine), an ex-boyfriend from her past who’s recently moved in next door.
Further – Oliver also plans to lose his virginity before he turns 16. And to Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige), a moody, enigmatic pyromaniac whose bright red duffle coat calls to mind the murderous dwarf who stalked Donald Sutherland through Venice in Don’t Look Now. Oliver is prone to flights of high fantasy. He colourfully imagines, for instance, that his death will send the whole of his native Wales tail-spinning into a state of inconsolable grief. His early courtship with Jordana is presented as grainy Super 8 footage, as if Oliver is remembering it from years hence. He wonders, too, what his life would be like if it were a film; a pertinent digression for a story that’s filtered entirely through Oliver’s vision.
Submarine is the feature debut of Richard Ayoade – best known, of course, for playing Moss in The IT Crowd, but whose resumé also includes directing promos and a live DVD for the Arctic Monkeys. Ayoade lets the film move at a gentle pace, while its idiosyncratic charms often brings to mind Rushmore, Harold And Maude, or perhaps the youthful exploits of Adrian Mole.
There’s props, certainly, due to Craig Roberts, who makes Oliver a likeable narrator. “Her mouth tasted of milk, Polo mints and Dunhill International,” he sighs on voiceover when he first kisses Jordana; yet, later, he lets her down through an act of extraordinary cowardice. Surrounding Oliver is a flawed though mostly believable set of supporting characters. A particular highlight is Noah Taylor as Oliver’s father: a softly spoken man preoccupied by his own internalised struggles against depression. “I know you think I’m very boring,” he tells Oliver during a heart-to-heart chat about Jordana, “but once I ripped my vest off in front of a woman, and it was very effective. It produced a very atavistic response.”
Less convincing, though, is Paddy Considine, whose would-be seducer Graham is too broadly comedic in a film that works best as a series of low-key vignettes. A folksy, acoustic soundtrack by Alex Turner adds an extra layer of warmth.
Michael Bonner
QUEEN – THE FIRST FIVE ALBUMS
In his book Follow The Music, Jac Holzman of Elektra Records remembers first hearing Queen (whom he would sign for America, while EMI marketed them in Britain) on reels of 10-inch demo tape. “It was so beautifully recorded and performed; everything was there, like a perfectly cut diamond landing on your desk… [It was] like the purest ice cream poured over a real rock’n’roll foundation.” Holzman sent a memo round his staff, saying he’d heard the future of pop music. It was 1973. Every rock critic in the world would have laughed at him. Some people still laugh at Queen. Silly, overblown cod-opera. Tacky as a Katie Price wedding or a trompe l’œil in a lottery winner’s lavatory. But Queen, dismissed in 1973 as a poor man’s Zeppelin riding the coat-tails of glam, battered sceptical Britain into submission by means of tenacity, eccentric singles and stagecraft. They flaunted flash like Liberace in a mink-trimmed smoking-jacket. They approached each record with the obsessiveness of true madmen. They thought ‘over the top’ was a criticism meaning ‘not going far enough’. There has never been a People’s Band like them. Once, long ago, their albums were pored over in school corridors with gasps of excitement, like Goodies annuals or the latest Rothmans Football Yearbook. Queen (1973, ****) and Queen II (1974, ***) threw you into a fantasy world of ogres, lepers, white and black queens and giant rats. Ghoulish, sinister, they had excellent ack-ack guitar riffs from Brian May, phased to hell, which redesigned Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” for a “Ballroom Blitz” generation. The other trump card up their sleeve was their lip-smacking, candy-coated clusters of vocal harmonies, including helium-like screams from drummer Roger Taylor, which squirted sugar and marzipan everywhere as if Queen were building their music to the specifications of a cake. In many people’s eyes, and I’m proud to be one of them, the first five Queen albums, released here in new remastered editions with five extra tracks apiece, are the best they made in a 20-year career. Guitarist May, in particular, is an absolute revelation if you haven’t heard this stuff in a while. “Keep Yourself Alive”, “Liar”, “Great King Rat” and “Father To Son” are full to bursting with crackerjack axemanship; you can hear the deceptively mild-mannered young astrophysicist impatiently trying to leapfrog Page, Iommi, Blackmore and the other exalted gods of the ’70s. May’s magnificent “Brighton Rock”, which opens Sheer Heart Attack (1974, ****), has a headphone-orgasmic middle section where his guitars engage in a tense gun battle (or is it a mating ritual?) across the stereo picture. His equally superb “Now I’m Here”, on the same album, is like plutonium Chuck Berry fed through the Blue Öyster Cult mincer. And notice his sublime ‘miaow’ preceding “playful as a pussycat” on “Killer Queen”. What a talented boy. Sheer Heart Attack was a leap forward for Queen. It had a thrilling sense of lunacy: any kind of music was permissible as long as it was executed to perfection. Always an outstanding vocal group, Queen annexed unimaginable new territories by combining the butteriness of The Beach Boys, the close-harmony expertise of barbershop, the multi-octave hyperbole of The Sweet and the razzmatazz of Broadway. The sort of album that follows a blue-streak rocker (“Stone Cold Crazy”) with a lullaby (“Dear Friends”), and knows how to spit-shine its spats and dude up its shirtfront (“Killer Queen”), Sheer Heart Attack was a sign that Queen had grown too mature for gauche little fantasy yarns about ancient lands. It was still a hard rock album, and was filed as one in teenage record collections, but hindsight suggests its camp humour, filigree detail and lust for variety were closer to Sparks and Todd Rundgren than to Budgie and Bad Company. If Sheer Heart Attack revealed Queen’s taste for adventure, A Night At The Opera (1975, *****) proved there was no limit to their capabilities. The title, borrowed from the Marx Brothers’ screwball masterpiece, justified the maniacally paced proceedings within, and just as you were getting accustomed to some agreeably evil riff, along would come an authentic recreation of Edwardian music hall, or a George Formby-esque ukulele tune, or some 1920s flapper jazz. As if confirming that its mission was to go further than Sheer Heart Attack in every way, it began with “Death On Two Legs”, a vitriolic valedictory letter to their former manager, which outstripped a similar lyric on Sheer Heart Attack (“Flick Of The Wrist”) by urging the poor wretch to commit suicide. Containing not one but two monumental epics (“Bohemian Rhapsody”, “The Prophet’s Song”), and gorging on grandiose gestures galore, A Night At The Opera secured itself instant classic status. Its sister album A Day At The Races (1976, ***), considered by some to be its equal, disappointed a lot of us at the time. Diversity or not, nothing on it compared to Bismillah and the Wise Man. Queen’s singles no longer rocked –“Somebody To Love” was like something you’d hear on The Black And White Minstrel Show – and it was time to go searching for new heroes. Queen’s albums have been reissued over the years (and had bonus tracks included on the 1991 Hollywood CD editions), but these new remasters are recommended if you own the Hollywoods or the 1993-1994 EMI versions, as they sound much cleaner and more in-focus, with just the right amount of bass and no migraine-inducing compression. Of the 25 extra tracks, 15 were available for preview as Uncut went to press – which unfortunately didn’t include the eight-minute version of “Liar”, from a 1975 Hammersmith Odeon concert, that has been added to the debut album. “Now I’m Here” (from the same gig), appended to Sheer Heart Attack, is pretty hot, and it’s nice to hear the BBC radio recordings of “Flick Of The Wrist” and “Tenement Funster”. Do be aware, however, that some of the extras are merely vocal-free backing tracks, which may be of marginal interest only. Unless, that is, you are planning a career as a Freddie Mercury impersonator and need to get some practice in. DAVID CAVANAGH Q+A Brian May Why the move from EMI to Island Records? There were lots of legal ramblings, but basically it’s a fresh start for us. Island have been terrific to deal with. We appreciate that they’ve taken a lot of care with these recordings and made an effort to make these CDs sound good. What’s different this time? We were never very happy with the CD releases, and we wanted more control. So we’ve been hard at work with our technical chaps, remastering everything, and I’ve been very much involved in the whole process. I was just working on that last night, funnily enough. The exciting thing for me is that we’re trying to get them to sound more like the vinyl experience – something with punch and depth. That means going back to basics, really looking at how the sound is produced. I’m quite excited about how they look as well. And there are bonus tracks. What new material have you dredged up? My favourite gem is the original acetate which has on it all the demos we made prior to signing with Trident in the very beginning. This was just after we’d split up our earlier band, Smile. Nobody has ever heard these recordings before – I think I’m the owner of the only acetate in the world! These are five songs recorded with the idea of impressing record companies, done very quickly with an engineer called Louis Austin in what was to become De Lane Lea Studios. All of these songs ended up on the first album but in completely different forms. It includes a version of “Keep Yourself Alive”, which is something very special. You’re hearing Queen before anybody touched us or tried to mould us. And personally I find that rather warming, that we can rescue something so ancient and so significant in our history. INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS
In his book Follow The Music, Jac Holzman of Elektra Records remembers first hearing Queen (whom he would sign for America, while EMI marketed them in Britain) on reels of 10-inch demo tape. “It was so beautifully recorded and performed; everything was there, like a perfectly cut diamond landing on your desk… [It was] like the purest ice cream poured over a real rock’n’roll foundation.” Holzman sent a memo round his staff, saying he’d heard the future of pop music. It was 1973. Every rock critic in the world would have laughed at him.
Some people still laugh at Queen. Silly, overblown cod-opera. Tacky as a Katie Price wedding or a trompe l’œil in a lottery winner’s lavatory. But Queen, dismissed in 1973 as a poor man’s Zeppelin riding the coat-tails of glam, battered sceptical Britain into submission by means of tenacity, eccentric singles and stagecraft. They flaunted flash like Liberace in a mink-trimmed smoking-jacket. They approached each record with the obsessiveness of true madmen. They thought ‘over the top’ was a criticism meaning ‘not going far enough’. There has never been a People’s Band like them.
Once, long ago, their albums were pored over in school corridors with gasps of excitement, like Goodies annuals or the latest Rothmans Football Yearbook. Queen (1973, ****) and Queen II (1974, ***) threw you into a fantasy world of ogres, lepers, white and black queens and giant rats. Ghoulish, sinister, they had excellent ack-ack guitar riffs from Brian May, phased to hell, which redesigned Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” for a “Ballroom Blitz” generation. The other trump card up their sleeve was their lip-smacking, candy-coated clusters of vocal harmonies, including helium-like screams from drummer Roger Taylor, which squirted sugar and marzipan everywhere as if Queen were building their music to the specifications of a cake.
In many people’s eyes, and I’m proud to be one of them, the first five Queen albums, released here in new remastered editions with five extra tracks apiece, are the best they made in a 20-year career. Guitarist May, in particular, is an absolute revelation if you haven’t heard this stuff in a while. “Keep Yourself Alive”, “Liar”, “Great King Rat” and “Father To Son” are full to bursting with crackerjack axemanship; you can hear the deceptively mild-mannered young astrophysicist impatiently trying to leapfrog Page, Iommi, Blackmore and the other exalted gods of the ’70s. May’s magnificent “Brighton Rock”, which opens Sheer Heart Attack (1974, ****), has a headphone-orgasmic middle section where his guitars engage in a tense gun battle (or is it a mating ritual?) across the stereo picture. His equally superb “Now I’m Here”, on the same album, is like plutonium Chuck Berry fed through the Blue Öyster Cult mincer. And notice his sublime ‘miaow’ preceding “playful as a pussycat” on “Killer Queen”. What a talented boy.
Sheer Heart Attack was a leap forward for Queen. It had a thrilling sense of lunacy: any kind of music was permissible as long as it was executed to perfection. Always an outstanding vocal group, Queen annexed unimaginable new territories by combining the butteriness of The Beach Boys, the close-harmony expertise of barbershop, the multi-octave hyperbole of The Sweet and the razzmatazz of Broadway. The sort of album that follows a blue-streak rocker (“Stone Cold Crazy”) with a lullaby (“Dear Friends”), and knows how to spit-shine its spats and dude up its shirtfront (“Killer Queen”), Sheer Heart Attack was a sign that Queen had grown too mature for gauche little fantasy yarns about ancient lands. It was still a hard rock album, and was filed as one in teenage record collections, but hindsight suggests its camp humour, filigree detail and lust for variety were closer to Sparks and Todd Rundgren than to Budgie and Bad Company.
If Sheer Heart Attack revealed Queen’s taste for adventure, A Night At The Opera (1975, *****) proved there was no limit to their capabilities. The title, borrowed from the Marx Brothers’ screwball masterpiece, justified the maniacally paced proceedings within, and just as you were getting accustomed to some agreeably evil riff, along would come an authentic recreation of Edwardian music hall, or a George Formby-esque ukulele tune, or some 1920s flapper jazz. As if confirming that its mission was to go further than Sheer Heart Attack in every way, it began with “Death On Two Legs”, a vitriolic valedictory letter to their former manager, which outstripped a similar lyric on Sheer Heart Attack (“Flick Of The Wrist”) by urging the poor wretch to commit suicide. Containing not one but two monumental epics (“Bohemian Rhapsody”, “The Prophet’s Song”), and gorging on grandiose gestures galore, A Night At The Opera secured itself instant classic status. Its sister album A Day At The Races (1976, ***), considered by some to be its equal, disappointed a lot of us at the time. Diversity or not, nothing on it compared to Bismillah and the Wise Man. Queen’s singles no longer rocked –“Somebody To Love” was like something you’d hear on The Black And White Minstrel Show – and it was time to go searching for new heroes.
Queen’s albums have been reissued over the years (and had bonus tracks included on the 1991 Hollywood CD editions), but these new remasters are recommended if you own the Hollywoods or the 1993-1994 EMI versions, as they sound much cleaner and more in-focus, with just the right amount of bass and no migraine-inducing compression. Of the 25 extra tracks, 15 were available for preview as Uncut went to press – which unfortunately didn’t include the eight-minute version of “Liar”, from a 1975 Hammersmith Odeon concert, that has been added to the debut album. “Now I’m Here” (from the same gig), appended to Sheer Heart Attack, is pretty hot, and it’s nice to hear the BBC radio recordings of “Flick Of The Wrist” and “Tenement Funster”. Do be aware, however, that some of the extras are merely vocal-free backing tracks, which may be of marginal interest only. Unless, that is, you are planning a career as a Freddie Mercury impersonator and need to get some practice in.
DAVID CAVANAGH
Q+A Brian May
Why the move from EMI to Island Records?
There were lots of legal ramblings, but basically it’s a fresh start for us. Island have been terrific to deal with. We appreciate that they’ve taken a lot of care with these recordings and made an effort to make these CDs sound good.
What’s different this time?
We were never very happy with the CD releases, and we wanted more control. So we’ve been hard at work with our technical chaps, remastering everything, and I’ve been very much involved in the whole process. I was just working on that last night, funnily enough. The exciting thing for me is that we’re trying to get them to sound more like the vinyl experience – something with punch and depth. That means going back to basics, really looking at how the sound is produced. I’m quite excited about how they look as well. And there are bonus tracks.
What new material have you dredged up?
My favourite gem is the original acetate which has on it all the demos we made prior to signing with Trident in the very beginning. This was just after we’d split up our earlier band, Smile. Nobody has ever heard these recordings before – I think I’m the owner of the only acetate in the world! These are five songs recorded with the idea of impressing record companies, done very quickly with an engineer called Louis Austin in what was to become De Lane Lea Studios. All of these songs ended up on the first album but in completely different forms. It includes a version of “Keep Yourself Alive”, which is something very special. You’re hearing Queen before anybody touched us or tried to mould us. And personally I find that rather warming, that we can rescue something so ancient and so significant in our history.
INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS
PRIMAL SCREAM – SCREAMADELICA
Twenty years since Primal Scream released the cornerstone album not just of their career, but of that musical era. It’s a testament to its force that we feel it only came out, if not last week then, say, this century (and a testament to the band that they’re still with us, and still making new records while the blazered drabs of Britpop have been recycling their already recycled past on hits tours for years). The other fun thing about Screamadelica is how unlikely it would have seemed to anyone in 1987 or so that, of all the bands in the world to produce this extraordinary, rambling, brilliant record, it would have been Primal Scream. In their early years, the Scream were an archetypal Creation band; they started making twee jangle pop (“Leave me alone!” whimpers Bobby Gillespie on their C86 track, “Velocity Girl”) and then morphed into a leather-trousered, Stones-referencing, but still twee, indie rock band, boxfresh to tour with The Wishing Stones or The Weather Prophets. But then the drugs changed and it made sense to hire DJ Andrew Weatherall to remix “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have”, a Beggars Banquety cut from Primal Scream. Weatherall threw out all but one of Gillespie’s vocal lines, added the loping beat of the era and some sampled Peter Fonda dialogue, and invented baggy, Madchester and indie acid dance rock, all on one 12” single. And Primal Scream, instead of being furious, called it “Loaded” and ran with it. “Loaded” unlocked Primal Scream; it gave them the keys to what became Screamadelica. As an album, Screamadelica reads like a record collection (and the brilliance of Bobby Gillespie, as well as being his Achilles’ heel, is that he is always led by his record collection). The Stones are in there, in the souped-up Sympathy of “Movin’ On Up”. Roky Erickson’s there, in “Step Inside This House”. There’s dub in Jah Wobble’s megabass. Acid house leaks through everything, as does acid, and house. “Come Together”’s gospel house behemoth sits next to “Damaged”’s comedown country rock. On paper, it sounds like a calculated effort to be different and eclectic, but it worked, well enough to lift the Scream into another dimension (and easily enough to let C86 contemporaries The Soup Dragons bolt The Rolling Stones’ “I’m Free” onto a baggy wagon and have a proper indie dance hit.) If anything, 20 years on, Screamadelica sounds even more effective. Gillespie never lacked confidence as a frontman, but often the gap between his imagined rock star persona and the skinny, vocally askew reality wasn’t convincing; here, his apparent belief that he is channelling Mick Jagger, Gram Parsons, Sun Ra, Roky Erickson and King Tubby all at the same time is backed up by the aural evidence. And the band are more than equal to the task. From the perfect Stones riffing to the immaculate spacy passages. The production, much of it from Andrew Weatherall, is light and heavy all at the same time. Weatherall was, naturally, on the bus when Primal Scream toured Screamadelica, as much part of the Scream gang as any musician or dealer. I interviewed Gillespie around this time, and saw them play one of their best shows, most notably throwing “Hey Bulldog” into the set (that record collection is never wrong) and treated Northampton College of Further Education or wherever it was like the Fillmore East. That show isn’t here, but a pretty excellent one from LA is, as well as the “Dixie Narco” EP and an entire planet of remixes, some of which are excellent and some of which verge on the trainspotterly. You will have no pangs of conscience letting your family starve when you update a CD you already have; this is a superior version of the original, even though the promo videos on the DVD seem to have been copied off a VCR from the sale bin at Alan McGee’s local newsagents. Primal Scream went on after Screamadelica to embrace even more influences, from Can and Neu! to punk and hardcore. Before Screamadelica they were virtually a genre tribute act; after Screamadelica, they could do – and they’re still doing – everything. They are no nostalgia band, and this sense of the future comes entirely from Screamadelica. Meanwhile, in 2011, Screamadelica’s variety, imagination and, in a strange way, generosity continue to astonish. DAVID QUANTICK Q+A BOBBY GILLESPIE What shaped the album? We only saw it as an album towards the end. It was just a series of singles, b-sides and remixes. But there were three things that shaped it. First was getting a hit with “Loaded” – that gave us tons of confidence. Second,Andrew [Innes] got us to buy an Akai sampler after seeing Andy Weatherall with one. Third was building our tiny studio in Hackney. Do you ever listen to your old stuff? I try not to. When we started rehearsing for the Screamadelica tour, I listened to the LP for the first time! I now recall writing “Damaged” after seeing MBV at ULU, making “I’m Coming Down” after playing lots of Pharoah Sanders, and “Higher Than The Sun” after playing African Dub by Joe Gibbs over and over. How important were drugs to the album? You never get anything done on acid or E, it’s a fucking disaster. I remember [keyboard player Martin] Duffy coming in for a session, tripping. He ended up lying on his back, pissing into the air. “I’m pissing into the sun, man!” I’ll tell you a secret. I was so wasted on “Slip Inside This House” that I didn’t sing on it. It’s Robert Young’s voice on there! INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS
Twenty years since Primal Scream released the cornerstone album not just of their career, but of that musical era. It’s a testament to its force that we feel it only came out, if not last week then, say, this century (and a testament to the band that they’re still with us, and still making new records while the blazered drabs of Britpop have been recycling their already recycled past on hits tours for years). The other fun thing about Screamadelica is how unlikely it would have seemed to anyone in 1987 or so that, of all the bands in the world to produce this extraordinary, rambling, brilliant record, it would have been Primal Scream.
In their early years, the Scream were an archetypal Creation band; they started making twee jangle pop (“Leave me alone!” whimpers Bobby Gillespie on their C86 track, “Velocity Girl”) and then morphed into a leather-trousered, Stones-referencing, but still twee, indie rock band, boxfresh to tour with The Wishing Stones or The Weather Prophets.
But then the drugs changed and it made sense to hire DJ Andrew Weatherall to remix “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have”, a Beggars Banquety cut from Primal Scream. Weatherall threw out all but one of Gillespie’s vocal lines, added the loping beat of the era and some sampled Peter Fonda dialogue, and invented baggy, Madchester and indie acid dance rock, all on one 12” single. And Primal Scream, instead of being furious, called it “Loaded” and ran with it. “Loaded” unlocked Primal Scream; it gave them the keys to what became Screamadelica.
As an album, Screamadelica reads like a record collection (and the brilliance of Bobby Gillespie, as well as being his Achilles’ heel, is that he is always led by his record collection). The Stones are in there, in the souped-up Sympathy of “Movin’ On Up”. Roky Erickson’s there, in “Step Inside This House”. There’s dub in Jah Wobble’s megabass. Acid house leaks through everything, as does acid, and house. “Come Together”’s gospel house behemoth sits next to “Damaged”’s comedown country rock. On paper, it sounds like a calculated effort to be different and eclectic, but it worked, well enough to lift the Scream into another dimension (and easily enough to let C86 contemporaries The Soup Dragons bolt The Rolling Stones’ “I’m Free” onto a baggy wagon and have a proper indie dance hit.)
If anything, 20 years on, Screamadelica sounds even more effective. Gillespie never lacked confidence as a frontman, but often the gap between his imagined rock star persona and the skinny, vocally askew reality wasn’t convincing; here, his apparent belief that he is channelling Mick Jagger, Gram Parsons, Sun Ra, Roky Erickson and King Tubby all at the same time is backed up by the aural evidence. And the band are more than equal to the task. From the perfect Stones riffing to the immaculate spacy passages. The production, much of it from Andrew Weatherall, is light and heavy all at the same time.
Weatherall was, naturally, on the bus when Primal Scream toured Screamadelica, as much part of the Scream gang as any musician or dealer. I interviewed Gillespie around this time, and saw them play one of their best shows, most notably throwing “Hey Bulldog” into the set (that record collection is never wrong) and treated Northampton College of Further Education or wherever it was like the Fillmore East. That show isn’t here, but a pretty excellent one from LA is, as well as the “Dixie Narco” EP and an entire planet of remixes, some of which are excellent and some of which verge on the trainspotterly. You will have no pangs of conscience letting your family starve when you update a CD you already have; this is a superior version of the original, even though the promo videos on the DVD seem to have been copied off a VCR from the sale bin at Alan McGee’s local newsagents.
Primal Scream went on after Screamadelica to embrace even more influences, from Can and Neu! to punk and hardcore. Before Screamadelica they were virtually a genre tribute act; after Screamadelica, they could do – and they’re still doing – everything. They are no nostalgia band, and this sense of the future comes entirely from Screamadelica. Meanwhile, in 2011, Screamadelica’s variety, imagination and, in a strange way, generosity continue to astonish.
DAVID QUANTICK
Q+A BOBBY GILLESPIE
What shaped the album?
We only saw it as an album towards the end. It was just a series of singles, b-sides and remixes. But there were three things that shaped it. First was getting a hit with “Loaded” – that gave us tons of confidence. Second,Andrew [Innes] got us to buy an Akai sampler after seeing Andy Weatherall with one. Third was building our tiny studio in Hackney.
Do you ever listen to your old stuff?
I try not to. When we started rehearsing for the Screamadelica tour, I listened to the LP for the first time! I now recall writing “Damaged” after seeing MBV at ULU, making “I’m Coming Down” after playing lots of Pharoah Sanders, and “Higher Than The Sun” after playing African Dub by Joe Gibbs over and over.
How important were drugs to the album?
You never get anything done on acid or E, it’s a fucking disaster. I remember [keyboard player Martin] Duffy coming in for a session, tripping. He ended up lying on his back, pissing into the air. “I’m pissing into the sun, man!” I’ll tell you a secret. I was so wasted on “Slip Inside This House” that I didn’t sing on it. It’s Robert Young’s voice on there!
INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS
Peter Buck explains REM’s reluctance to tour new album
REM‘s Peter Buck has explained why the band are so reluctant to tour their new album ‘Collapse Into Now’.
The record came out on Monday (March 7), but the US veterans have said that fans are unlikely to see them take it on the road.
Now Buck has explained that the nature of album sales strategies and not wanting to “repeat” themselves is the cause of their reluctance.
“We’ll just see what happens,” he told Beatweak. “But it does seem like we’ve toured a lot in the last eight or ten years. To some degree it felt like we’d just been doing kind of the same thing we did last time. You just don’t really want to repeat yourself in that way.”
He added: “In this era in which albums don’t tend to sell well regardless, the lack of touring isn’t a concern. I’m not really sure that touring sells records. What sells records anymore? It seems like less and less people are buying albums, so do what you want.”
Although REM haven’t been gearing up tour plans, they have been working on new video projects. They are set to unveil new videos directed by stars including James Franco and Sam Taylor-Wood to accompany ‘Collapse Into Now’ songs soon.
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Arctic Monkeys name new album ‘Suck It And See’
Arctic Monkeys have named their new album ‘Suck It And See’, and will release it on June 6.
The album, their fourth, was produced by James Ford at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. It features 12 new songs including ‘Brick By Brick’, which was leaked onto the internet last week.
The album will be the Sheffield band’s first since 2009’s ‘Humbug’, which Simian Mobile Disco man Ford also did some production work on, alongside Queens Of The Stone Age‘s Josh Homme.
It will arrive just before the band’s Sheffield Don Valley Bowl gigs, set for June 10 and 11.
The tracklisting of ‘Suck It And See’ is:
‘She’s Thunderstorms’
‘Black Treacle’
‘Brick By Brick’
‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’
‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’
‘Library Pictures’
‘All My Own Stunts’
‘Reckless Serenade’
‘Piledriver Waltz’
‘Love Is A Laserquest’
‘Suck It And See’
‘That’s Where You’re Wrong’
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
The Strokes’ Nick Valensi: ‘Making ‘Angles’ was awful’
The Strokes‘ Nick Valensi has described the recording process for the band’s new album ‘Angles’ as “awful”.
The returning New York five-piece have made no secret of the tension during sessions for their long-awaited fourth album. Now Valensi has said he is refusing to record their next one in a similar way.
“I won’t do the next album we make like this,” he told Pitchfork.com. “No way. It was awful – just awful. Working in a fractured way, not having a singer there.”
Valensi was referring to band sessions at which singer Julian Casablancas was absent, instead recording his vocals alone away from the rest of the group.
“I’d show up certain days and do guitar takes by myself, just me and the engineer,” the guitarist added. “Some of the third album [2006’s ‘First Impressions Of Earth’] was done that way, but at least we were on the same page about what the arrangements and parts were.
“75 per cent of this album felt like it was done together and the rest of it was left hanging, like some of us were picking up the scraps and trying to finish a puzzle together.”
He added that the follow-up to ‘Angles’ wouldn’t be long in the pipeline. “I feel like we have a better album in us,” he said, “and it’s going to come out soon.”
‘Angles’ is out on March 21. The band recently debuted ‘Life Is Simple In The Moonlight’, a song from the record, on US TV.
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Gorillaz to release ‘The Fall’ physically in April
Gorillaz' album 'The Fall' is set to come out on CD, vinyl and paid-for download in April. Damon Albarn's band gave the album away as a free download to fanclub members last December. It was recorded on an iPad by Albarn and produced by Stephen Sedgwick. It will now be released on 180g vinyl on April 16, for Record Store Day. The CD release will follow on April 18 and it will also be available as a paid-for download from the same date. Albarn said of the album, which he recorded on the band's 2010 US tour: "I did it because there's a lot of time that you just spend staring at walls, essentially. And it was a fantastic way of doing it. I found working in the day, whether it's in the hotel or in the venue, was a brilliant way of keeping myself well." The tracklisting of 'The Fall' is: 'Phoner To Arizona' 'Revolving Doors' 'HillBilly Man' 'Detroit' 'Shy-town' 'Little Pink Plastic Bags' 'The Joplin Spider' 'The Parish Of Space Dust' 'The Snake In Dallas' 'Amarillo' 'The Speak It Mountains' 'Aspen Forest' 'Bobby In Phoenix' 'California And The Slipping Of The Sun' 'Seattle Yodel' Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk. Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Gorillaz‘ album ‘The Fall’ is set to come out on CD, vinyl and paid-for download in April.
Damon Albarn‘s band gave the album away as a free download to fanclub members last December. It was recorded on an iPad by Albarn and produced by Stephen Sedgwick.
It will now be released on 180g vinyl on April 16, for Record Store Day. The CD release will follow on April 18 and it will also be available as a paid-for download from the same date.
Albarn said of the album, which he recorded on the band’s 2010 US tour: “I did it because there’s a lot of time that you just spend staring at walls, essentially. And it was a fantastic way of doing it. I found working in the day, whether it’s in the hotel or in the venue, was a brilliant way of keeping myself well.”
The tracklisting of ‘The Fall’ is:
‘Phoner To Arizona’
‘Revolving Doors’
‘HillBilly Man’
‘Detroit’
‘Shy-town’
‘Little Pink Plastic Bags’
‘The Joplin Spider’
‘The Parish Of Space Dust’
‘The Snake In Dallas’
‘Amarillo’
‘The Speak It Mountains’
‘Aspen Forest’
‘Bobby In Phoenix’
‘California And The Slipping Of The Sun’
‘Seattle Yodel’
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Gruff Rhys, St Etienne added to Truck Festival line up
Gruff Rhys and Bellowhead will headline this year's Truck festival. Other acts confirmed for the July 22-24 bash at Hill Farm, Steventon include Fixers, St Etienne, Johnny Flynn and John Grant. See Thisistruck.com for more information. The line up, so far, for Truck 2011 is: Gruff Rhys Bellowhead Saint Etienne Johnny Flynn John Grant The Duke & The King Cherry Ghost Fixers Trophy Wife Jonquil Chad Valley Caitlin Rose Marques Toliver Treefight For Sunlight Marcus Foster Jonny Richmond Fontaine Dreaming Spires Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk. Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Gruff Rhys and Bellowhead will headline this year’s Truck festival.
Other acts confirmed for the July 22-24 bash at Hill Farm, Steventon include Fixers, St Etienne, Johnny Flynn and John Grant.
See Thisistruck.com for more information.
The line up, so far, for Truck 2011 is:
Gruff Rhys
Bellowhead
Saint Etienne
Johnny Flynn
John Grant
The Duke & The King
Cherry Ghost
Fixers
Trophy Wife
Jonquil
Chad Valley
Caitlin Rose
Marques Toliver
Treefight For Sunlight
Marcus Foster
Jonny
Richmond Fontaine
Dreaming Spires
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Bob Dylan to headline London Feis festival
Bob Dylan is set to headline the first London Feis festival this June. Celebrating Irish music and culture, the event takes place in London's Finsbury Park on June 18, with more acts set to be added to the bill soon. Organiser Vince Power explained that he had booked Dylan on an "exclusive" deal, meaning that the show will be his only UK appearance this year. "Announcing Bob Dylan for an exclusive UK performance means that the first year will be one to remember," Power said. The festival will feature three stages. See Londonfeis.com for more information. Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk. Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Bob Dylan is set to headline the first London Feis festival this June.
Celebrating Irish music and culture, the event takes place in London‘s Finsbury Park on June 18, with more acts set to be added to the bill soon.
Organiser Vince Power explained that he had booked Dylan on an “exclusive” deal, meaning that the show will be his only UK appearance this year.
“Announcing Bob Dylan for an exclusive UK performance means that the first year will be one to remember,” Power said.
The festival will feature three stages. See Londonfeis.com for more information.
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
The Ninth Uncut Playlist Of 2011
After whingeing about the last couple of playlists, I think there’s a lot more good stuff arrived for this week’s effort. Check this lot out: espeically new ones from Mountains and The Master Musicians Of Bukkake (really can’t wait for the spam that name’s going to attract), and a bunch of awesome Purling Hiss records that I’m indebted to Miles for playing to me. One admin thing, though: our Twitter feed went off on Monday, so some of you may have missed that day’s blog. Here’s the link; it’s on D Charles Speer & The Helix’s “Leaving The Commonwealth” and Chris Forsyth’s “Paranoid Cat”, among other things. 1 Psychedelic Horseshit – Laced (FatCat) 2 Mountains – Air Museum (Thrill Jockey) 3 Black Eagle Child – Lobelia (Preservation) 4 Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde (Domino) 5 Mercury Rev – Deserter’s Songs: Deluxe Edition (V2) 6 Dennis Coffey – Dennis Coffey (Strut) 7 Purling Hiss – Purling Hiss (Permanent) 8 Wild Beasts – Smother (Domino) 9 Michael Chapman – Fully Qualified Survivor (Light In The Attic) 10 Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact (4AD) 11 Panda Bear – Tomboy (Paw Tracks) 12 New Mystery Record 13 The Master Musicians Of Bukkake – Totem 3 (Important) 14 Implodes – Black Earth (Kranky) 15 The Zombies – Breathe Out, Breathe In (Red House) 16 Purling Hiss – Public Service Announcement (Woodsist) 17 The Feelies – Here Before (Bar None) 18 White Denim – Anvil Everything (whitedenimmusic.com) 19 Purling Hiss – Hissteria (Richie)
After whingeing about the last couple of playlists, I think there’s a lot more good stuff arrived for this week’s effort.
Paul Weller to support Kings Of Leon at Hyde Park gig
Paul Weller is to play support slots at Kings Of Leon‘s Hyde Park shows in London this summer.
The former Jam man will support the Nashville rockers on June 22 and 23. The gigs are set to be his last two shows of the year.
White Lies and Zac Brown Band are also set to play support slots at the outdoor gigs.
Kings Of Leon are currently out of gigging action while drummer Nathan Followill recovers from surgery, having suffered a torn bicep. The sticksman was told to rest for three months following the January surgery, meaning he should be fit and well in time for the UK shows.
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Spiritualized announce Royal Albert Hall gig
Spiritualized are to play a one-off gig at London‘s Royal Albert Hall in October.
The band, who are currently working on the follow-up to 2008’s ‘Songs In A&E’ album, will play the venue on October 11.
The show is being billed as a career-spanning set.
In 2009 and 2010 the band performed the entirety of their 1997 album ‘Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space’ at selected gigs.
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
AC/DC to release live DVD
AC/DC are set to release a live DVD this spring.
‘AC/DC Live At River Plate’, out on May 9, features footage taken at the band’s three shows in Buenos Aires‘ River Plate Stadium in December 2009. They played to nearly 200,000 people over the three nights.
The release will also be available on Blu-Ray.
Last month the band said that they will be taking a lengthy break after the DVD comes out.
The tracklisting for ‘AC/DC Live At River Plate’ is:
‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Train’
‘Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be’
‘Back In Black’
‘Big Jack’
‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’
‘Shot Down In Flames’
‘Thunderstruck’
‘Black Ice’
‘The Jack’
‘Hells Bells’
‘Shoot To Thrill’
‘War Machine’
‘Dog Eat Dog’
‘You Shook Me All Night Long’
‘T.N.T.’
‘Whole Lotta Rosie’
‘Let There Be Rock’
‘Highway To Hell’
‘For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)’
Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
Uncut have teamed up with Sonic Editions to curate a number of limited-edition framed iconic rock photographs, featuring the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and The Clash. View the full collection here.
Panda Bear: “Tomboy”
Listening to “Tomboy” on the way to work this morning, I started thinking about how Radiohead and Panda Bear have both played the internet these past few weeks/months. I read a very good piece yesterday by Stephen Troussé, that’ll be in the next print edition of Uncut, about “The King Of Limbs” and what he calls “the re-enchantment of the album release.” Not wanting to steal all Stephen’s thunder or ideas, but he does talk a lot about Radiohead Week and the communal anticipation/gratification that came with “The King Of Limbs”’ release plot, a kind of modern upgrade of old-fashioned, pre-internet, pre-leak frenzy. Panda Bear, though, has taken the opposite route with “Tomboy”, stretching the frenzy out over the best part of a year, exploiting the internet to present a kind of work in perpetual progress: playing the songs live, so that putative versions fill up Youtube; releasing most of the tracks as singles; repeatedly pushing the album release date back; then remixing the lot with Sonic Boom. Rather than a rapid surprise, it’s an epic tease – and Noah Lennox’s dense, elusive music is as suited as any to be showcased in a state of constant flux. For more assiduous followers, I guess the actual arrival of “Tomboy” as a finished piece of work might be something of an anticlimax. But it’s evidence of my quaint attachment to albums over tracks that, fannishness notwithstanding, I haven’t felt compelled to keep up with the singles and leaks over the past few months. Apologies in advance, then, that I’m not in a position to compare these final, Sonic Boom-assisted versions with the earlier takes. In comparison to “Person Pitch”, though, the loops and samples have been much stripped back. This is still fanatically textured music, but the unsteadily shifting layers are closer to those of the Animal Collective rather than any of Lennox’s previous solo records: the glittering timelag accumulation of the lovely “Surfer’s Hymn”, for instance – Terry Riley re-upholsters “Pet Sounds”, glibly – would’ve sat pretty comfortably just after midway through “Merriweather Post Pavilion”. Both Riley and The Beach Boys are reflex critical responses to Animal Collective and especially Panda Bear projects, of course. But more than ever, the latter seems glaringly pertinent: even if, on the waterlogged schaffel of “Slow Motion”, it occurs to me that Lennox is tonally closer to pinched Al Jardine than to Brian Wilson. “Last Night At The Jetty”, “Benfica”, and “Friendship Bracelet”, again, feel like “Pet Sounds” songs dropped into a contemporary echo chamber. If some of AC/PB work has previously been easy to characterise as in some way infantilised, many of these songs capture a tentative, melancholy sweetness on the cusp of maturity; an age of pop defined so poignantly by Wilson. Which reminds me: Lennox has never been involved in a poppier record. Beneath the trademark amniotic sloshing, there’s a melodic clarity and directness that’s more pronounced than ever, unmediated by Avey Tare’s more jarring aesthetic (must revisit his solo album, while I think about it). And for all their deference to adjusted ‘80s pop, it’s hard to think of one of Animal Collective’s chillwave/hypnagogic descendants – save Ariel Pink – who can be quite so accessible while at the same time synthesising such a pervasive air of dislocation, of otherness. If there’s a caveat it may be that, in spite of all their innovations and pleasures, I suspect that there may soon come a time when Lennox and Animal Collective’s aerated schtick might start sounding a little played out to me. Not just yet, though. Belying its public gestation, “Tomboy” feels like an impeccably constructed and complete album experience. But a clutch of songs still stand out as some of Lennox’s very best: “Scheherezade”, devotional ambient minimalism that feels like a technological upgrade of something from “Young Prayer”; and two relative bangers, “Afterburner” and the title track, which both harbour a sort of pulsating urgency, a saturated delirium, while somehow managing to keep the air of dazed solipsism that binds the album together. If you’ve been following the singles thus far, let me know how this tallies…
Listening to “Tomboy” on the way to work this morning, I started thinking about how Radiohead and Panda Bear have both played the internet these past few weeks/months. I read a very good piece yesterday by Stephen Troussé, that’ll be in the next print edition of Uncut, about “The King Of Limbs” and what he calls “the re-enchantment of the album release.”
