Lots to get stuck into this week, though I think it’s worth drawing special attention to the superb William Tyler EP and, in the week the Pixies announce a newish album, a pointedly excellent Kim Deal track with Morgan Nagler.
Being a bit of a broken record here: a proliferation of Hurray For The Riff Raff albums this week, since I’m writing a review of the fantastic “Small Town Heroes” at the moment. Plenty of new stuff as well, though, at least some of it recommended, with strong reference to Toumani Diabaté and his son Sidiki’s kora duets, and to the tantalising extract from a Fennesz album that’s being explicitly pitched as the follow-up to “Endless Summer”…
Another song this week from what’s rapidly shaping up to be one of my favourite 2014 albums, Hurray For The Riff-Raff’s “Small Town Heroes”. Have a look, too, at the trailer for Lance Bangs’ Slint documentary, “Breadcrumb Trail”, which is the music film I’ve enjoyed most since the Source Family doc.
Reading a magazine this morning, I noticed that there are a bunch of tribute shows to Elliott Smith coming up; ostensibly I guess to commemorate the fact that, horrifyingly, the tenth anniversary of his death is coming up in a couple of months.
From Uncut's September 2002 issue: In one of the most revealing interviews of his career, Bruce Springsteen talks exclusively to Adam Sweeting about his new album, The Rising, much of which was written in the aftermath of September 11, and which reunites him with the E Street Band for their first studio album since Born In The USA.
For this week’s archive feature, we delve back into Uncut’s July 2011 issue (Take 170) – just before the release of Bon Iver’s second album – to find Vernon sunning himself in California, consorting with Kanye and shaping up as “the Neil Young of our generation”. What happened? “For Emma… is the past,” he says. “This is the present, and it’s more colourful and inviting.” Words: Alastair McKay
