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Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Toast

Michael Bonner
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Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Toast
In 2000, Neil Young and Crazy Horse took up residence at Toast – a recording studio on San Francisco’s Mission Street. Awaiting overdue renovation, the district itself was in poor condition. The back door at Toast opened onto a view of derelict buildings; aside from a doughnut shop on the corner...

In 2000, Neil Young and Crazy Horse took up residence at Toast – a recording studio on San Francisco’s Mission Street. Awaiting overdue renovation, the district itself was in poor condition. The back door at Toast opened onto a view of derelict buildings; aside from a doughnut shop on the corner, their only neighbours were rats and the squatters. Inside Toast, the vibe was undetermined. As Young wrote in his memoir Special Deluxe, there were “some serious problems with my marriage” (to his then-wife Pegi).

Instead of arriving at the sessions as usual with a handful of songs ready to go, Young apparently spent much of his time at Toast sitting on the studio floor, scribbling onto yellow pads, while the Horse watched TV and struggled to comprehend Toast’s lack of essential kitchenware. “Everything seemed temporary, even Crazy Horse,” Young wrote in Special Deluxe. “Although we had some great moments [in the studio] and the music was soulful, it wasn’t happy or settled.”

Taking a break, the band headed to South America for shows in Brazil and Argentina before returning to San Francisco, reinvigorated. This renewed spirit did not endure, however. “Eventually I gave up and abandoned the album,” Young wrote. “I was not happy with it, or maybe I was just generally unhappy. I don’t know. It was a very desolate album, very sad and unanswered.”

Instead, Young convened with Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro and Booker T & The MGs to record a new album, Are You Passionate?, that included a handful of songs leftover from Toast. Meanwhile, Toast itself disappeared from sight, its existence never officially revealed until 2008. Since then, it has become part of a tantalising parallel history of Young’s activities stretching back through decades, alongside Chrome Dreams, Oceanside/Countryside, Island In The Sun and Times Square. Young’s interest in releasing these ‘lost’ albums as part of his ongoing Archives series seems to rise and fall depending on a series of complex internal algorithms.

Toast fell on and off the schedules, until he started talking seriously about it – notably to Uncut – when he reactivated Crazy Horse for Americana and Psychedelic Pill in 2012. Whatever we might think about Young’s capricious career swerves, he tends to work methodically within the fixed parameters of each project; so once his focus shifted away from Crazy Horse at the end of the Alchemy Tour, his interest in Toast waned. With the latest incarnation of Crazy Horse currently active, Toast has finally arrived. And what a magnificent album it is.

Considering Young ditched Toast because its “down and almost out” vibes were too intense, it might seem strange that he chose to revisit three of its saddest songs almost immediately on Are You Passionate?. “Quit”, “How Ya Doin’?” (rechristened “Mr Disappointment”) and “Boom Boom Boom” (“She’s A Healer”) all share what Young described as the “foggy, blue and desolate” mood indicative of the Toast sessions. But evidently there was something about this murky emotional territory that resonated. Re-recording them without Crazy Horse, away from San Francisco and in the company of some new musicians might have brought Young some distance. But irrespective of location or personnel, these are bleak songs.

“I know I treated you bad/But I’m doin’ the best I can”, he sings on “Quit”, continuing with the self-recrimination on “How Ya Doin’?”: “I’m taking the blame myself/For livin’ my life in a shell”. Seasoned Neil watchers may conclude that this emotional turbulence eventually peaks with “Ramada Inn” – Psychedelic Pill’s uncharacteristically nuanced and coherent narrative about a long-term relationship on its last legs.

The good news is, the Toast versions are superior to the …Passionate? recordings. Among the most conspicuous changes is Young’s decision to sing “How Ya Doin’?”, a move more suited to the song’s wistful temperament than the semi-spoken growl on “Mr Disappointment”. It’s funny, comparing the Toast and Are You Passionate? versions side by side, because for all their peerless credentials as a soul band, Booker T & The MGs don’t go anywhere near as deep with Neil as Crazy Horse. On Toast, the Horse give Young plenty of space – “a big fat sad sound” – which allows him to move freely through the songs, one minute ringing a suitably lachrymose solo out of Old Back on “How Ya Doin’?” the next locking into a subdued but funky experimental groove on “Boom Boom Boom”.

At 13 minutes, “Boom Boom Boom” is the longest song on Toast – although less immediately expansive than a classic Horse jam, it’s nevertheless equally compelling. Backed by a cyclical rhythm laid down by Ralph Molina’s drums and Billy Talbot’s bass, instruments appear and disappear – there’s a cluster of piano notes here, a guitar solo there, a lone trumpet, what might even be a gong at one point. Young sings an octave higher, too, rising to meet Pegi and Astrid Young’s backing vocals as the three of them circle around the song’s haunting refrain, “There ain’t no way I’m gonna let the good times go”.

A more vigorous reminder of the Horse’s core strengths arrives with “Goin’ Home”, with Young howling heroically into the void, buffeted by Ralph’s pounding drums and Poncho’s powerchords. Another of Young’s fabled historical epics, it moves back and forth from Custer’s Last Stand to the present day until time telescopes in on itself and “Battle drums were pounding/All around her car”. I’m pretty sure it’s the same take as on …Passionate?, but it seems sharper here.

Of Toast’s three unreleased songs, “Standing In The Light Of Love” and “Gateway Of Love” debuted on the 2001 EuroTour, while “Timberline” remains unheard. “Standing In The Light Of Love” finds Young and the Horse in stomping head-to-head communion, playing in tight proximity to one another. Based around a Deep Purple-ish riff and cranky delivery from Young, its mood is one of vigorous defiance – “I don’t want to get personal/Or have you put me on the spot”. “Gateway Of Love” features several hairy and expansive solos from Young as well as an unexpected bossa nova beat evidently inspired by their South American trip. The song offers up a telling insight: “If I could just live my life/As easy as a song /I’d wake up someday/And the pain will all be gone”.

For someone often given to cryptic pronouncements and everyday surrealism, this is Young, disarmingly direct. But for every one flash of candour, there’s a “Timberline” not far behind. Writing on Archives, Young explains that the song is about “a religious guy who just lost his job. He’s turning on Jesus. He can’t cut any more trees. He’s a logger.” Here, the Horse deliver Toast’s liveliest number, driven by crunching chords and a wild, joyous backbeat from Ralph. A pump organ adds nuance. The chorus consists of Young and Crazy Horse yelling “Timberline!” repeatedly. For all the apparent bad fog of loneliness, it sounds like some fun took place on Mission Street, after all.

Viewed as part of Young and Crazy Horse’s run of albums that began with 1990’s Ragged Glory, Toast feels conceptually closer to Sleeps With Angels and Broken Arrow – albums that dealt squarely with loss. Musically, however, Toast inhabits a space somewhere between all three. There are rowdy barn-raisers, but also melodic, meditative grooves and strange, insidious songs. It’s an album of almost fragile beauty, intense loneliness and raging storms. Not for the last time, Crazy Horse took Neil Young somewhere he wasn’t expecting. It’s just a shame it’s taken us so long to get there too.

Gwenno – Tresor

Emily Mackay
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Gwenno – Tresor
“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes,” said the French director Agnes Varda in 2009. Varda is one of many artists, musicians and filmmakers from around the world who inspired Tresor, the third album by the Cornish-speaking Welsh psychonaut Gwenno Saunders – and that quote is particu...

“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes,” said the French director Agnes Varda in 2009. Varda is one of many artists, musicians and filmmakers from around the world who inspired Tresor, the third album by the Cornish-speaking Welsh psychonaut Gwenno Saunders – and that quote is particularly beloved to a musician dedicated to mapping out the intersection of land, heritage, identity and potential.

Like Gwenno’s last album, Le Kov, Tresor is written mostly in Cornish – a language she learned as an infant from her father, the Cornish poet Tim Saunders; her socialist-choir-singing mother made sure she was equally fluent in Welsh. Le Kov imagined a cosmopolitan city of modern-day myth, raised from beneath the waves like the revived Cornish tongue itself; Tresor now journeys inward, into an inner life lived through Cornish.

To Gwenno, Cornish is not some exotic linguistic treasure, but the language of her childhood, of family, of imagination. She’s now teaching it to her son, and the songs on Tresor explore instinct, the unconscious and belonging. It’s a dreamier, gentler album than Le Kov or her Welsh-language debut, Y Dydd Olaf, leaning further into spectral electronic textures on tracks like “Keltek” and “Kan Me”.

The softer sounds are animated by the fresh creative energy Gwenno has found in the feminine on the likes of “Anima”, fuzzy psych-rock with medieval leanings and a sinuous melody. Surrealist imagery hangs in the hazy air: a black horse, a shell, a woman’s torso, a ball of fire. “Duwes po Eva/Ow sevel a’th rag”, Saunders sings: “Is it a Goddess or Eve stood in front of you?”

Sometimes the mystical archetypes of womanhood – the mother, the womb, the instinctual, the nurturing – can be limiting, but on this exploratory, visionary record, co-produced by Saunders and her partner and collaborator Rhys Edwards, it doesn’t feel that way. On the languid title track – a musical fairy mound piled with layers of vocals, synth, piano and marimba – Gwenno asks (in Cornish): “Do you want a crown upon your head and a woman at your feet?/Do I want to fill a room with all of my will and feel ashamed?” She wonders at the power of ineluctable instinct amid the drifting ghost’s dream that is “Men An Toll” – named for a set of holed, round, Freudian-field-day standing stones near Penzance – yet on opener “An Stevel Nowydh”, with a backbone of chiming indie, she’s less instinctual, more analytical as she airily interrogates existence: “Is the total lack of meaning an inevitable part of being?”

If Cornish is the language of internal philosophical enquiry, then the language of politics, for Gwenno, is Welsh; a supporter of independence, she tackles hypocrisy and individualism dressed in nationalism’s clothing in “NYCAW” (whose title refers to an old anti-holiday-home slogan, “Nid Yr Cymru Ar Werth”, or “Wales is not for sale”). Sardonic, taunting post-punk with lovely, liquid gothic guitar flourishing under the thrum, it bemoans the commercialisation of Welsh identity. When it comes to community, she asserts, “the only thing that matters is love”.

Wales, Cornwall and lands beyond are concretely present in the found sounds that add a richness of detail throughout, from the eldritch creak of a gate leading to an iron-age settlement on Anglesey to the strings of a hotel-room piano in Vienna. And while this is the first album Gwenno has written while actually in Cornwall – in St Ives, paid tribute to by the closing track, “Porth Ia” (its Cornish name) – it maintains a polyglot conversation with global influences from Swedish artist Monica Sjöö to American hippie adventurer Eden Ahbez, never giving in to easy authenticity or essentialism. On the driving, sultry “Ardamm”, she addresses critics of her new position as a Welsh-born figurehead of the Cornish language (record numbers signed up to Cornish courses after the release of Le Kov). How long, she asks, will they wait to take the lead themselves? “Ple ‘ma dha vammyeth?” (“Where is your mother tongue?”)

Yet the medium is no longer the message here; though the meaning of Tresor can’t really be divorced from the language in which it is written, it is not about Cornish, but in it. Tresor’s inner landscape, both local and global, invites us to consider what vistas and future paths we might form from our own jumbled heritages and where it is we might find ourselves. Among the last sounds heard on “Porth Ia” are the bells of Santa Maria Della Salute in Venice during the 2019 floods. “I want you to know”, Gwenno sings, “that when you arrive I will be here”.

Martin Courtney – Magic Sign

Jon Dale
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Martin Courtney – Magic Sign
It’s been seven years since Martin Courtney’s first solo album, the subtle delight of 2015’s Many Moons. Since then, he’s shepherded his group, Real Estate, through two more albums – In Mind (2017) and The Main Thing (2020) – and last year’s Half A Human EP. Change is incremental with...

It’s been seven years since Martin Courtney’s first solo album, the subtle delight of 2015’s Many Moons. Since then, he’s shepherded his group, Real Estate, through two more albums – In Mind (2017) and The Main Thing (2020) – and last year’s Half A Human EP. Change is incremental with a group like Real Estate, and the coordinates for the songs Courtney writes haven’t changed hugely over the 15-or-so years he’s been making music: while the production might be tighter, more robust, his melodies still sit as gently within the landscape of sound he sculpts as they did on the first, self-titled Real Estate album, back in 2009.

That’s not to understate the art of Martin Courtney’s songwriting, though there is something understated about this most artful of songwriters. He’s what we might call a “chiseller” – someone who quietly, determinedly works away at the same area with similar tools but unearths gems at a surprising rate. Not exactly one to hide his influences, on Magic Sign, you can still hear trace elements of the listening Courtney might have done in his teens and twenties – you could hazard a guess at Felt, The Feelies, The Clientele, The Byrds – and the influence of the groups that Real Estate came up with, like his friends in Woods.

What makes Magic Sign such unceasingly pleasant company, then, is the way it weaves this constellation of influence and artfulness into 10 songs that are lighter than air, deceptively simple, yet cumulatively, surprisingly moving. This might be, in part, down to its genesis story, with Courtney caught in lockdown, the early stages of the Covid pandemic, writing towards potential futures: “In my mind, I had this idea that I was making an album that would hopefully come out in a more optimistic, post-pandemic world,” he reflects. That this ended up not quite being the case doesn’t diminish its powers, though it does suggest why, on occasion, the pacific wisdom of Magic Sign’s surfaces can feel slightly out of place.

That sense of temporal displacement – and of writing towards times-to-come – could well be why, paradoxically, much of Magic Sign peddles in nostalgia and wistfulness, as though the only way Courtney can process a less claustrophobic future is to flick through the pages of his past. On “Corncob”, he’s driving around the suburbs in his late teens with friends, finding the unexpected deep under the mulch of the everyday: “Twenty minutes from your house, there are places you don’t know”; “Merlin” slips back in time a few decades, with Courtney caught up in reverie, “in the basement of my mind… on a bike in 1999.”

Courtney specialises in documenting the detritus of daily life, the moments glimpsed and somehow stored in personal memory; caught in autumn light, preserved in amber, these are recollections of “fleeting hours”, shifting weather systems, the play of the sun’s rays. Sensitive to the sensuousness of language, his lyrics seem to revel in the simple beauty of passing observation, from the revolving cellar door of “Merlin” to the pinecone held by the protagonist, sat in the back seat of the car, of “Time To Go”. They fit his melodies neatly, too, and he seems particularly attenuated to the way the sound of words sits just so within his songs.

Some of the loveliest songs on Magic Sign inhabit a strange space, where Courtney’s roots in indie-pop are elevated by surprising interjections – see, for example, the pedal and lap steel that lend “Living Rooms” and “Terrestrial” a country-flecked air. You can also hear touches of country-rock in the descending melody that opens “Exit Music”, though it quickly spins on its heels and resolves to something closer to ’80s major-label power-pop. Jangling guitars are ever-present across Magic Sign, as befits Courtney’s pedigree, but the glistening production allows them to glint and speckle, webs of melody fractalised by sunshine.

Listening through Magic Sign, though, it’s striking how often the songs hint at stasis and absence; the characters that populate the songs are paused in reflection or drifting just out of our line of sight. Architectures are bare, like the “vacant house by the sea” in “Outcome”; the next song, “Sailboat”, plays out “in a silent house”, where “ghosts are in the walls”; on “Shoes”, “we throw our sighs in vacant shoes”; “every other house is empty” in the daytime drift of “Time To Go”. It’s a situation, and a state of mind, that Courtney is particularly adept at exploring: lost to the moment, sliding in and out of focus, uncertain and vacated.

Listen to a previously unheard demo version of Blondie’s “Go Through It”

Charlotte Krol
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Listen to a previously unheard demo version of Blondie’s “Go Through It”
Blondie have shared a previously unheard demo version of "Go Through It", formerly known as "I Love You Honey, Give Me A Beer". ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut The demo, which features on the band's upcoming box set Against the Odds: 1974 – 1982, hears...

Blondie have shared a previously unheard demo version of “Go Through It”, formerly known as “I Love You Honey, Give Me A Beer”.

The demo, which features on the band’s upcoming box set Against the Odds: 1974 – 1982, hears frontperson Debbie Harry singing different lyrics to the version (“Go Through It”) that was released on the band’s fifth album Autoamerican (1980).

“Go Through It” also features mariachi horns, unlike the demo, and as Rolling Stone notes, “I Love You Honey…” was possibly written to be included on the soundtrack for the 1980 movie Roadie.

Blondie: Against the Odds: 1974 – 1982 arrives on August 26 via UMC and The Numero Group (pre-order here), and boasts 124 tracks – 36 of which were previously unreleased – alongside remasters of original analog tapes that were cut to vinyl at London’s famous Abbey Road Studios.

The Super Deluxe Collectors’ Edition contains Blondie’s first six albums – Blondie (1976), Plastic Letters (1977), Parallel Lines (1978), Eat To The Beat (1979), Autoamerican (1980) and The Hunter (1982) – as well as bonus tracks including a previously unheard recording of “Moonlight Drive”. You can listen to that track below.

The release includes extensive liner notes by Erin Osmon; track-by-track commentary from frontwoman Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Nigel Harrison, Frank Infante and Gary Valentine; essays by producers Mike Chapman, Richard Gottehrer and Ken Shipley; a 120-page illustrated discography; and hundreds of period photographs.

For nearly two decades the bulk of Blondie’s audio and visual archive sat inside guitarist Stein’s barn outside Woodstock, New York. Now, the work has been collated into the band’s first official box set.

Harry said in a statement: “It really is a treat to see how far we have come when I listen to these early attempts to capture our ideas on relatively primitive equipment. Fortunately the essence of being in a band in the early ’70s held some of the anti-social, counter culture energies of the groups that were the influencers of the ’60s.

“I am excited about this special collection. When I listen to these old tracks, it puts me there like I am a time traveler. As bad as it was sometimes, it was also equally as good. No regrets. More music.”

Bob Dylan’s ‘Ionic Original’ re-recording of “Blowin’ In The Wind” sells for £1.48million

Charlotte Krol
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Bob Dylan’s ‘Ionic Original’ re-recording of “Blowin’ In The Wind” sells for £1.48million
A one-of-a-kind re-recording of Bob Dylan singing his 1963 classic "Blowin’ In The Wind" has sold at auction for £1.48million ($1.78million). ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: A look back at Bob Dylan’s landmark debut album The re-record...

A one-of-a-kind re-recording of Bob Dylan singing his 1963 classic “Blowin’ In The Wind” has sold at auction for £1.48million ($1.78million).

The re-recording, which sits on a one-of-one Ionic Original format disc, has marked the first time in 60 years that Dylan has re-recorded the song that was written in 1962 and released as part of the 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

Thursday’s (July 7) live bidding at Christie’s in London topped out at £1.2million, reports Variety, but an official release sent out by the auction house cited the higher price including commissions.

The price was well over the estimate the auction house had posted for the recording, which was in the range of £600,000 ($716,000) to £1million pounds ($1.19million).

Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan. Image: Harry Scott / Redferns

First announced in April by producer T Bone Burnett, the Ionic Original format used for the re-recorded Dylan track is “lacquer painted onto an aluminum disc, with a spiral etched into it by music. This painting, however, has the additional quality of containing that music, which can be heard by putting a stylus into the spiral and spinning it”.

Burnett has touted the new high fidelity format as “the pinnacle of recorded sound. It is archival quality. It is future-proof. It is one of one”.

Julien Baker shares emotive new single “Guthrie” and announces B-Sides EP

Ellie Robinson
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Julien Baker shares emotive new single “Guthrie” and announces B-Sides EP
Julien Baker has announced a three-track EP of outtakes from her recent third album, Little Oblivion, alongside the release of an emotive new single titled "Guthrie". ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Julien Baker – Little Oblivions review ...

Julien Baker has announced a three-track EP of outtakes from her recent third album, Little Oblivion, alongside the release of an emotive new single titled “Guthrie”.

The EP, titled B-Sides, will arrive on July 21 via Matador (pre-save it here), coinciding with the first date of her joint US tour with Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten.

The record features three songs that were recorded during the studio sessions for Little Oblivions but didn’t make the cut for the album’s final tracklist. Despite not suiting the album, though, Baker said on Instagram that she “really like[s “Guthrie”] in its own right”.

Listen to “Guthrie” below, then check out the cover art and tracklist for the B-Sides EP:

B-Sides EP tracklist:

01. “Guthrie”
02. “Vanishing Point”
03. “Mental Math”

In the year-and-a-half since then Baker has shared collaborations with the likes of Fucked Up and The Ophelias, and contributed to a compilation album to raise money for the National Network of Abortion Funds.

She’s also released a Little Oblivions remix EP, covered a Smashing Pumpkins song for a seven-inch split with Van Etten, and teamed up with Tom Morello and Nandi Bushell for the Afghan charity single “God Help Us All”.

Nick Cave wants your footage for “ambitious” new Seven Psalms film

Tom Skinner
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Nick Cave wants your footage for “ambitious” new Seven Psalms film
Nick Cave is requesting footage from fans for an upcoming collaborative film to accompany his recent Seven Psalms project. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on new B-Sides & Rarities compilation: “You can’t...

Nick Cave is requesting footage from fans for an upcoming collaborative film to accompany his recent Seven Psalms project.

Released last week, the collection comprises seven spoken word cuts set to music that was created in collaboration with Warren Ellis as well as a concluding 12-minute piece, “Psalm Instrumental”.

The record, which was produced by Cave alongside Luis Almau, came together during the sessions for Nick Cave & Warren Ellis’ 2021 studio album Carnage.

“While in lockdown I wrote a number of psalms, or small, sacred songs—one a day for a week,” Nick Cave explained in a statement.

“The seven psalms are presented as one long meditation—on faith, rage, love, grief, mercy, sex and praise. A veiled, contemplative offering borne of an uncertain time. I hope you like it.”

Now, Cave is looking to collect a range of fan-shot footage for a collaborative Seven Psalms film that will serve as “a kind of spiritual portrait of the world at this time”. A press release described the project as “an ambitious idea with a small budget”.

The musician has asked for short phone clips (two minutes in length or less) that “mean something” to the fan, such as “selfie portraits, miracles of nature and natural disaster, the sacred and profane”.

“It could be footage of the person you love, video you shot at a protest, or something ordinary that you find beautiful. Themes could be mercy, anger, splendour, grief, solitude, yearning, revelation [or] glory.”

Those who want to contribute to the Seven Psalms film are required to submit their videos to psalms@nickcave.com before July 26. The clips need to be in a landscape, 720p MP4 format.

Back in May, Nick Cave released the film This Much I Know To Be True which centres around the creative relationship between Cave and his Bad Seeds bandmate and longtime collaborator Warren Ellis.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds played their first show in four years last month as part of the band’s 2022 summer tour.

Watch an upgraded version of David Bowie’s Top Of The Pops performance of “Starman”

Will Richards
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Watch an upgraded version of David Bowie’s Top Of The Pops performance of “Starman”
An upgraded version of David Bowie's 1972 performance of "Starman" on Top Of The Pops has been shared to mark its 50th anniversary. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: David Bowie’s contemporaries on lost album Toy: “We always felt that they w...

An upgraded version of David Bowie’s 1972 performance of “Starman” on Top Of The Pops has been shared to mark its 50th anniversary.

On July 6, 1972, Bowie made his debut on the legendary TV show, performing his early single and putting in one of the most lauded TV performances ever.

After audio of “Starman (Top Of The Pops Version, 2022 Mix)”, a version of the song recorded for the performance, was shared last month to mark the 50th anniversary of the late icon’s fifth studio album, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, the upgraded video has now also been shared.

Of the performance, BBC Radio 6Music’s Marc Riley said: “There’s no doubt that Bowie’s appearance on Top Of The Pops was a pivotal moment in British musical history. Like the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in ’76, his performance lit the touchpaper for thousands of kids who up till then had struggled to find a catalyst in their lives.”

Watch the new version of the performance below.

In celebration of its half century birthday, Parlophone Records released a limited-edition, half-speed vinyl reissue of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars that came out last month (June 17).

In 1972, the Musicians Union rules stated that to appear on Top Of The Pops the artist must re-record their track and – in this case – sing live over the top.

This previously unreleased version of “Starman” takes the backing track (recorded at London’s Trident Studios) and backing vocals, featuring a one-off Bowie ad-lib “Hey Brown Cow”, recorded for the show.

“Starman (Top Of The Pops Version, 2022 Mix)” was created by Ziggy Stardust co-producer Ken Scott earlier this year from the BBC’s original multi-tracks.

Carlos Santana collapses from heat exhaustion during performance in Michigan

Ellie Robinson
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Carlos Santana collapses from heat exhaustion during performance in Michigan
Carlos Santana collapsed onstage during his concert in Michigan on Tuesday night (July 5). In a statement provided by Santana's management, it was confirmed that the iconic rocker had collapsed as a result of heat exhaustion and dehydration. He was transported from the venue – the outdoor Pine...

Carlos Santana collapsed onstage during his concert in Michigan on Tuesday night (July 5).

In a statement provided by Santana’s management, it was confirmed that the iconic rocker had collapsed as a result of heat exhaustion and dehydration. He was transported from the venue – the outdoor Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston – to the emergency department at McLaren Clarkston, where it’s said he is “doing well”.

According to people that attended the Michigan show, Santana was immediately attended to by medical personnel, who treated him onstage. According to Fox2 Detroit reporter Roop Raj, fans at the show were “asked to pray for [Santana] because of a ‘serious medical’ issue”.

Variety reports that Santana passed out during his set, but appeared to regain consciousness quickly. In a video posted from the crowd, he can be seen waving to fans as he’s carried backstage.

As a result of the incident, the next show on Santana’s current North American tour – which was slated to go down Wednesday (July 6) at The Pavilion at Star Lake in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania – has been postponed. A new date is yet to be confirmed, however Live Nation are expected to make an announcement imminently.

Manic Street Preachers share playlist of “new and lost recordings”

Tom Skinner
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Manic Street Preachers share playlist of “new and lost recordings”
Manic Street Preachers have shared a new playlist focussing on the cover versions they've recorded over the course of their career – listen below. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut Titled Sleep Next To Plastic, the 37-track collection consists of lost re...

Manic Street Preachers have shared a new playlist focussing on the cover versions they’ve recorded over the course of their career – listen below.

Titled Sleep Next To Plastic, the 37-track collection consists of lost recordings, B-sides and album tracks. Fifteen of the cuts were previously unavailable through official streaming platforms – including the band’s recent spin on Madonna’s ‘Borderline’.

The Manics first aired their rendition of the pop icon’s 1983 song during a performance at the BBC 6 Music Festival in March. James Dean Bradfield and co later revealed that they’d recorded the rendition because they “enjoyed playing it live so much”.

“Borderline” was tracked by the band at their Door To The River studio especially for the new playlist, which also includes versions of Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, “In Between Days” by The Cure (Live at the BBC) and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses (Live at Cardiff Castle).

“Cover versions have always offered us a chance to pay direct, public tribute to records we grew up obsessing over, be that C86 bands or artists as diverse as Madonna, John Cale and Paul Robeson,” the Manics said in a statement.

“Collectively, these covers are a heartfelt musical tribute to our formative influences.” You can listen to Sleep Next To Plastic in full above.

Last November, the Welsh group shared a playlist of duets they’d recorded between 1992 and 2021.

Manic Street Preachers released their most recent studio album, The Ultra Vivid Lament, last September.

Manics fans are now eagerly awaiting news of the band’s long-mooted 20th anniversary reissue of their divisive 2001 album Know Your Enemy, as well as bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire’s “jazz-meets-C86” solo album.

Ride’s Andy Bell shares new cover of Pentangle’s “Light Flight”

Will Richards
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Ride’s Andy Bell shares new cover of Pentangle’s “Light Flight”
Ride's Andy Bell has shared a new cover of Pentangle's "Light Flight" as a B-side for a new single – check it out below. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Andy Bell – Flicker review The track comes as part of a new single called "Lifeline...

Ride’s Andy Bell has shared a new cover of Pentangle’s “Light Flight” as a B-side for a new single – check it out below.

The track comes as part of a new single called “Lifeline”, which appears on Bell’s recent solo album Flicker.

Discussing “Lifeline”, the former Oasis member said: “In my opinion it’s important to be there for people we love who have gone down rabbit holes, ready to accept them when they come back.

“I hope and want to believe that they will be back from the wilderness at some point.”

Listen to “Lifeline” and the cover of “Light Flight” below.

Flicker followed Bell’s 2020 solo debut The View From Halfway Down and was released on February 11 via Sonic Cathedral.

Speaking about Flicker, Bell explained in a statement: “When I think about Flicker, I see it as closure. Most literally, on a half-finished project from over six years ago, but also on a much bigger timescale.

“Some of these songs date back to the ’90s and the cognitive dissonance of writing brand new lyrics over songs that are 20-plus years old makes it feel like it is, almost literally, me exchanging ideas with my younger self.”

“The ‘flicker’ I’m talking about in the lyrics of “Something Like Love” is that flame that makes a person who they are,” Bell said of the track. “I wanted to find that in myself, so I went back to the teenage me – a technique I learned in therapy and have been doing ever since – and got some advice on how to live and be happy in the 2020s.

““The View From Halfway Down” was about turning 50 during a time of introspection; Flicker is about gathering the tools to equip myself mentally for life in 2022 and beyond – post-pandemic, post-Brexit, post-truth.”

Ride are also reissuing their early albums and EPs to mark the 30th anniversary of their debut album.

The announcement came ahead of Ride’s 2022 Nowhere 30th anniversary UK headline tour, which took place earlier this year.

“This new album has given us a chance to create some new (but old school) Ride artwork, in conjunction with the team at Wichita, which we are pretty pleased with,” Bell said.

Osees’ John Dwyer: “I’m like the mythical shark that has to keep moving”

Sam Richards
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Osees’ John Dwyer: “I’m like the mythical shark that has to keep moving”
“What the fuck is going on?/Human life is not that long” (Osees, “Funeral Solution”) Given that he’s currently averaging four album releases a year, it’s probably no surprise to learn that John Dwyer barrels through life on a faster speed setting than everyone else. “Let’s get som...

“What the fuck is going on?/Human life is not that long” (Osees, “Funeral Solution”)

Given that he’s currently averaging four album releases a year, it’s probably no surprise to learn that John Dwyer barrels through life on a faster speed setting than everyone else. “Let’s get something to eat,” he declares, striding out into Brixton rush-hour traffic in search of a restaurant he doesn’t yet know exists. Dwyer walks and talks like he records: quickly, and with purpose. He doesn’t miss a beat when an over-eager young fan accosts him at the crossing to ask for musical recommendations (brilliantly, he tells them to go and listen to “The Kettle” by Colosseum). Deploying the highly tuned cultural antennae that have allowed him to surf – and often direct – the currents of 21st-century underground rock, within minutes he’s seated in a booth at one of South London’s hippest noodle joints, slurping on a hearty bowl of ramen while simultaneously attempting to shut down a threatened leak of Osees’ new album.

Dwyer, of course, is not just the band’s frontman, bandleader, chief songwriter and garrulous spokesman – he’s also their manager and label boss. “Oh yeah, I’m a total control freak,” he grins, wiping the ramen broth from his moustache. “I like doing it and by a process of elimination I found out I was pretty good at it. I had no formal training in any of this shit – I’ve lied my way into every job I’ve ever had. Even the guitar I learned by falling ass-backwards into it.”

Ass-backwards or not, Dwyer has spent the last couple of decades building Osees – and the excellent Castle Face label he co-founded, initially just to release their records – into a veritable psychedelic cottage industry. Back at the turn of the century, OCS (as they were styled on their first releases) were just a weird home-recording diversion for Dwyer from his main bands Coachwhips and Pink & Brown. But when their journeys both fizzled out, he realised that in order to continue making the type of music he wanted in the way he wanted, he’d have to assume total control. “Luckily, my guys, I think, realise the amount of work I do makes it a little bit easier on them. We have a good socialist system of payment going, but they don’t have to do things like pay for hotels or book the shows. I’m essentially managing everything because I like doing it. I’m good at it, but I also like controlling! So it’s a little win-win all round.”

“John is generous and protective as a bandmate, and so fun to be around,” says Brigid Dawson, a key Osees contributor for more than 10 years and still a member of the Castle Face family. “He runs a tight ship and expects you to play to the best of your abilities, which makes the band tight and the music better. Getting to play in such a great band – I feel very lucky.”

Neil Young and Crazy Horse preview Toast album with single “Timberline”

Will Richards
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Neil Young and Crazy Horse preview Toast album with single “Timberline”
Neil Young and Crazy Horse have shared a first preview of their upcoming album Toast – listen to "Timberline" below. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Neil Young – Official Bootleg Series: Royce Hall, 1971/Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 1971/Ci...

Neil Young and Crazy Horse have shared a first preview of their upcoming album Toast – listen to “Timberline” below.

The album was originally recorded by Young and the band in 2001 before being shelved. It was then finally announced for a July 8 release date earlier this year.

Young revealed his plans to drop Toast – named for the San Francisco studio in which it was minted – in a post shared to his blog, the Neil Young Archives. Though that post has since been deleted, Toast is locked in for release on Friday (July 8) via Reprise. CD and vinyl pre-orders are available from Young’s webstore, The Greedy Hand, with a sell describing the record as “heavy and distressed, brimming with electrifying tension”.

Saying that the album was “so sad at the time that I couldn’t put it out,” Young added of “Timberline”: “The scene changes to a religious guy who just lost his job. He’s turning on Jesus. He can’t cut any more trees. He’s a logger.”

Listen to “Timberline” below.

According to Young, Toast is “an album that stands on its own in [his] collection”. He cited the record’s melancholic tone as a reason why it never left the studio, explaining in last May’s aforementioned blog post: “Unlike any other, Toast was so sad that I couldn’t put it out. I just skipped it and went on to do another album in its place. I couldn’t handle it at that time. 2001.”

He went on to say that the record was “about a relationship”, chronicling a particularly bleak point in its dissolution. He continued: “There is a time in many relationships that go bad, a time long before the break up, where it dawns on one of the people, maybe both, that it’s over. This was that time.

“The sound is murky and dark, but not in a bad way. Fat. From the first note, you can feel the sadness that permeates the recording… These songs paint a landscape where time doesn’t matter – because everything is going south. A lady is lost in her car. The dark city surrounds her – past present and future. It’s a scary place. You be the judge.”

Elsewhere, Young has announced his plans to release Noise & Flowers, a live album and film compiled from material recorded during his most recent tour of Europe and the UK.

Young embarked on the nine-date run with Promise Of The Real as his backing band, taking in four shows in Germany – as well as one each in Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, England and Ireland – across July of 2019. The album and film will feature recordings from all of the shows; the CD and two-disc vinyl release will sport 14 tracks, but it’s unclear if the film (which was co-directed by Bernard Shakey and DH Lovelife) contains the same content.

Both iterations of the release will land on August 5 via Warner Records, with pre-orders available here.

Yesterday (July 4), the music of Crosby, Stills and Nash returned to Spotify after the musicians initially removed all of their music earlier this year in solidarity with Young.

Hüsker Dü bassist Greg Norton diagnosed with cancer, friends launch GoFundMe page

Alex Gallagher
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Hüsker Dü bassist Greg Norton diagnosed with cancer, friends launch GoFundMe page
Former Hüsker Dü bassist Greg Norton has been diagnosed with cancer, the musician has disclosed on social media. "At the beginning of June, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer," Norton wrote in a post on Facebook last Friday (July 1). "My doctors at the Mayo Clinic believe I have excellent odd...

Former Hüsker Dü bassist Greg Norton has been diagnosed with cancer, the musician has disclosed on social media.

“At the beginning of June, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer,” Norton wrote in a post on Facebook last Friday (July 1). “My doctors at the Mayo Clinic believe I have excellent odds, but we need to get in right away and move forward with treatment and surgery.”

Norton went on to say that his band, UltraBomb, has cancelled planned tour dates in the UK and would be postponing North American dates, in order to allow him “time to recover and return in full force”.

Friends of Norton have launched a GoFundMe campaign to assist with his medical costs. They hope to reach a goal of $30,000 – at the time of writing, the campaign has reached its goal and exceeded $46,000.

“We can’t imagine the stress and anxiety he and his family must be going through. One thing that’s for sure, though, is that the cost of treatment in the United States is eyewatering,” a statement on the page reads. “We want to help alleviate some of that pressure.”

Norton formed Hüsker Dü alongside Bob Mould and Grant Hart in 1979. Along with Mould and Hart, he remained in the band until its dissolution in 1988 and played on all six of their studio albums, from 1983’s Everything Falls Apart to 1987’s Warehouse: Songs and Stories. In 2017, Hart died of complications from liver cancer, aged 56.

Norton’s new band, UltraBomb, also features Finny McConnell of The Mahons and Jamie Oliver of U.K. Subs. In Norton’s Facebook post, he reveals they will be releasing their debut album on July 15 via DCJam and will be performing one show, at the Hook and Ladder in Minneapolis, the following evening.

Stereolab announce 2022 UK and EU tour dates

Arusa Qureshi
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Stereolab announce 2022 UK and EU tour dates
Stereolab have announced a new run of UK and European dates, which will take place in October, November and December this year. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Stereolab, Kikagaku Moyo: End Of The Road Festival 2021 – Day 1 The band will ...

Stereolab have announced a new run of UK and European dates, which will take place in October, November and December this year.

The band will begin their tour in Paris at La Gaité Lyrique on October 26, after their extensive US tour finishes up in North Carolina. The Paris show is followed by dates in Lisbon, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin and more.

They head to the UK on November 24, where they’re due to play Concorde 2 in Brighton, with shows in Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow shortly after.

The tour culminates with a takeover of both stages at EartH in London on December 3, where the band will be be joined by four other acts that are still to be announced.

Afterwards, Tim, Laetitia and Martin will be playing disks in the main room until 3am for the UltraDisco. All attendees of the UltraDisco will also receive a Duophonic Super 45s gift.

Tickets for all dates will be on sale from Friday, July 8 at 10am BST – see full dates below and find tickets here.

The tour announcement follows on from the recent news that the fifth instalment of the group’s Switched On reissue campaign would be released on September 2. Pulse of the Early Brain [Switched On Volume 5] is out via Warp Records and Duophonic UHF Disks and can be pre-ordered herehere.

The previous instalment of the Switched On series was 2021’s Electrically Possessed. It included rarities, outtakes and non-album tracks including “The First Of The Microbe Hunters”, unreleased outtakes from the Mars Audiac Quintet and Dots And Loops sessions, and a track called “Dimension M2”, which was first released in 2005 on the Disko Cabine compilation.

Stereolab also recently released “Robot Riot” from Pulse of the Early Brain [Switched On Volume 5], which was originally written for a sculpture made by Charles Long – an artist that the band had previously collaborated with on 1995’s Music For The Amorphous Body Study Center project.

Sessa: “We have to find a way to survive, to make people feel pleasure”

Allison Hussey
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Sessa: “We have to find a way to survive, to make people feel pleasure”
When Sergio Sayeg showed up in Joel Stones’ Tropicália in Furs record shop around 2007, it seemed like a fluke. Stones had seen the angular young man with a big cloud of dark hair around Manhattan’s East Village for weeks. But the stranger’s interest in the Brazilian-specific vinyl haven quic...

When Sergio Sayeg showed up in Joel Stones’ Tropicália in Furs record shop around 2007, it seemed like a fluke. Stones had seen the angular young man with a big cloud of dark hair around Manhattan’s East Village for weeks. But the stranger’s interest in the Brazilian-specific vinyl haven quickly revealed itself as soon as he started speaking, his English rounded with the distinctive full-bodied lilt of a Brazilian accent. The teenage Sayeg became a regular  in the store, absorbing its contents – songs, discographies, track lists, liner notes, credits – like a sponge. Stones’ record shop would turn out to be a gravitational force for Sayeg, who’s now on his second Tropicália-indebted album under the name Sessa. His time there as a clerk and a customer changed his relationship with music forever, giving him a portal that hurtled him into the rest of his life.

“You soak in, like, what’s a song? When do the drums come in? How should they sound?” Sayeg recalls, pulling apart a sweet, puffy brioche croissant in the sunny front window of a small Portuguese café in Jersey City. On stage and off, Sayeg dresses himself in striking vintage clothes that vaguely recall the 1960s-era psychedelia that seeps into his music. Though Stones calls Sayeg “a little Bob Dylan”, the mysterious Minnesotan would never be seen in such bold attire. Bob’s loss, really.

Fifteen years after he first stepped into Stones’ shop, Sayeg is nearing the end of a United States tour opening for the freewheeling Turkish psych-folk band Altin Gün. At the Music Hall of Williamsburg the night before we meet – the second of two sold-out shows there – the 33-year-old sat hunched over his honey-coloured acoustic guitar on a late April evening. He introduced songs from his second album, Estrela Acesa, carrying a soothing, radiant energy. The project’s title, in Portuguese, means “burning star”.

Sayeg made the record at the home studio of his São Paulo friend Biel Basile on Ilhabela – “beautiful island” – located about 200km southeast of São Paulo. There, the pair built the album’s rhythmic foundation from a beachside locale. But Sayeg’s journey toward being an ascendant steward of one of Brazil’s beloved musical exports began well before he ever stepped across the threshold of an enticingly named record store with a guitar in the window.

Now 33, Sayeg doesn’t remember when or where he came by the nickname Sessa. He uses the title as a mononym for a full band, where he’s joined by singers and a drummer. Sayeg grew up in the very small enclave of São Paulo’s Sephardic Jewish community. “I don’t think people that attend synagogue would say, ‘Oh, this is a music place,’” Sayeg recalls. “It is very musical. But it’s just chance.”

Pink Floyd are finally releasing their 2018 remaster of Animals

Ellie Robinson
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Pink Floyd are finally releasing their 2018 remaster of Animals
Four years after it was initially due to come out, Pink Floyd will release a remastered version of their 10th studio album, 1977’s Animals, this September. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut  Dubbed the ‘2018 Remix’ edition of Animals, the album will...

Four years after it was initially due to come out, Pink Floyd will release a remastered version of their 10th studio album, 1977’s Animals, this September.

Dubbed the ‘2018 Remix’ edition of Animals, the album will land on September 16 via Sony. The physical release will include both standard CD and SACD formats, 12-inch vinyl and Blu-Ray. A deluxe edition – slated to ship on October 7 – will include the vinyl, CD and Blu-Ray, plus an exclusive DVD and 32-page book. Pre-orders for all of the versions can be found here.

The selling point for this release is an entirely new mix of Animals, reworked into 5.1 Stereo by legendary sound engineer James Guthrie. On the Blu-Ray and DVD releases, this will be paired with the original 1977 mix. It also sports new artwork by Aubrey “Po” Powell, who was a partner of the original cover’s artist, Storm Thorgerson, as a member of the London-based collective Hipgnosis.

In a statement shared on social media, Pink Floyd explained that Powell took new photos of the building pictured on the Animals cover – the Battersea Power Station on the south bank of the River Thames – during recent conversion work, adding to the narrative behind the album’s concept.

Powell himself said: “With the original 1977 album cover being such an iconic piece of stand-alone art, I had the chance to update it, which was a rather daunting task, but Hipgnosis took the opportunity to re photograph the image to reflect a changing world, and by using modern digital colouring techniques I kept Pink Floyd’s rather bleak message of moral decay using the Orwellian themes of animals, the pig ‘Algie’, faithful to the message of the album.”

Have a look at the cover art for the ‘2018 Remix’ edition of Animals – as well as the band’s full statement on its release – below:

As implied by its name, the ‘2018 Remix’ edition of Animals was finalised four years ago, just after the album celebrated its 40th anniversary. Plans to release it then were axed because of a feud between guitarist David Gilmour and ex-bassist Roger Waters, which reportedly stemmed from a dispute over the album’s newly re-written liner notes.

Waters wrote four of the album’s five songs entirely by himself, while he and Gilmour collaborated (and shared lead vocals) on the track “Dogs”. Last June, Waters wrote in a blog post that Gilmour refused to authorise the new release unless the liner notes, written by journalist Mark Blake, were scrapped from its packaging. “[Gilmour] does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes,” Waters said, “but he wants that history to remain secret.”

It’s unknown whether those liner notes will indeed appear on the ‘2018 Remix’ edition of Animals, but they are already publicly accessible – when he shared the above claims of Gilmour’s dissatisfaction with them, Waters posted them to his website.

Meanwhile, last week saw Pink Floyd announce a physical release for their Ukraine benefit single “Hey Hey Rise Up”, which marked the band’s first new song in 25 years when it arrived digitally in April. In the UK, Europe and selected other markets, a seven-inch vinyl and CD single will be available on July 15. It will be released on August 3 in Japan, while in North America, Canada, Australia and Mexico, it will arrive on October 21.

The B-side will feature a reworked version of “A Great Day For Freedom”, from Pink Floyd’s 1994 album The Division Bell, reimagined by David Gilmour based on the original tapes for the track.

Authorised biography of The Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts announced

Arusa Qureshi
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Authorised biography of The Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts announced
An official biography of Charlie Watts, authorised by both The Rolling Stones and Watts' family, has been announced. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Kurt Vile, Cat Power and more dig deep into the genius of The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main ...

An official biography of Charlie Watts, authorised by both The Rolling Stones and Watts’ family, has been announced.

Charlie’s Good Tonight: The Authorised Biography of Charlie Watts is due to be released on September 15 in the UK and October 11 in the US, according to Rolling Stone. The book features forewords from both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, plus a prelude from the band’s former manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham.

The longtime Rolling Stones drummer died at the age of 80 last August prompting a huge outpouring of tributes from the music world and beyond.

His surviving bandmates reflected on the “huge loss” in September last year before later dedicating their first show of 2021 to Watts.

The new biography has been written by author-broadcaster Paul Sexton and includes new interviews with Jagger, Richards, and Ronnie Wood, as well as friends, family and collaborators.

“Our dear friend Charlie Watts was not just a fantastic drummer but a wonderful person,” the Rolling Stones said in a statement. “He was funny and generous and a man of great taste and we miss him terribly. It’s great that his family have authorized this official biography by Paul Sexton, who’s been writing and broadcasting about Charlie and the band for many years.”

Sexton added: “One of Charlie’s good friends said to me that he was a very easy man to love. Having had the pleasure of his company on so many occasions over the course of more than a quarter of a century, that’s a sentiment I echo wholeheartedly. To be able, with the help and encouragement of those who knew him best, to draw on my time with this unique man and his fellow Rolling Stones to write his authorized biography, is a thrill and an honor.”

The Stones’ SIXTY UK and European anniversary tour kicked off in Madrid on June 1. At that show, they delivered the first-ever live performance of their 1966 single ‘Out Of Time’ and delivered a tribute to Watts.

Filling his spot on the SIXTY tour is session drummer Steve Jordan, who the band confirmed in March would record parts for their upcoming 24th album.

The Stones postponed two gigs on the tour in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Bern, Switzerland due to Jagger’s ill health, resuming in Milan on June 21. The band are due to play the second of their BST Hyde Park shows on July 3, with Sam Fender and Courtney Barnett on support.

Kendrick Lamar announces Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers vinyl release

Tom Disalvo
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Kendrick Lamar announces Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers vinyl release
Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is officially set for release on vinyl. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Kendrick Lamar – Mr Morale & The Big Steppers review The rapper first announced the record's existence on Th...

Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is officially set for release on vinyl.

The rapper first announced the record’s existence on Thursday (June 30), and made it available for pre-order Friday (June 1). Orders will begin to roll out from August 26.

The gatefold release includes the entirety of the double-disc album, which spans 18 songs over 73 minutes. The records will be available in both regular black and exclusive gold-brown pressings.

The vinyl rollout comes weeks after the digital release of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, which hit streaming services on May 13. The project marked Lamar’s fifth studio album, and first solo full-length since 2017’s DAMN (which earned the rapper a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018).

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers also marks Lamar’s final album release under Top Dawg Entertainment, which he signed to in 2005. Since then, Top Dawg has distributed all of the rapper’s studio albums including 2011’s Section.80, 2012’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly.

More recently, Lamar curated and produced Black Panther: The Album for the 2018 film of the same name, and last year featured on Terrence Martin’s Drones alongside Ty Dolla $ign, James Fauntleroy and Snoop Dogg.

Kendrick Lamar – Mr Morale & The Big Steppers

Stephen Deusner
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Kendrick Lamar – Mr Morale & The Big Steppers
Kendrick Lamar is one of the finest instrumentalists of his era, although his instrument happens to be his own voice. On previous albums but especially on his latest, Mr Morale & The Big Steppers, he raps in many modes, varying his pitching and flow on nearly every song, switching up his cadence...

Kendrick Lamar is one of the finest instrumentalists of his era, although his instrument happens to be his own voice. On previous albums but especially on his latest, Mr Morale & The Big Steppers, he raps in many modes, varying his pitching and flow on nearly every song, switching up his cadence as though changing his identity. He sounds impossibly nimble and declarative on opener “United In Grief”, even as he warns the listener, “I’ve been goin’ through something/Be afraid”. He goes low and legato on “Crown”, then spry and playful on “N95”. He uses short, choppy lines on “Count Me Out” to unsettle the listener, then delivers “Auntie Diaries” in a near whisper, as though drawing you closer to tell you a secret. The album is a remarkable series of disruptive transformations.

Lamar isn’t the only rapper who bends his flow into so many different shapes, but few others pull it off so dramatically or so eloquently, and almost no-one achieves the same emotional payoff. It heightened the tension of his 2012 breakthrough, good kid, M.A.A.D. City, and made 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly one of the best albums of the decade, a bursting-at-the-seams concept album that positioned Lamar as an heir to Marvin Gaye, Chuck D and George Clinton, among others. He synthesises a startling range of sounds and styles, but it’s all in service to his vocals. Because he often sounds like he’s rapping to himself, externalising his internal monologue, these different deliveries reveal an artist wrestling with his demons in real time. He unleashes them (or they unleash themselves) to tell deeply intricate stories of black experiences in America and to further complicate narratives that might have become too pat, too predictable.

Mr Morale & The Big Steppers is a sprawling double album. How sprawling? The excellent, Marvin Gaye-sampling first single, “The Heart Pt 5”, doesn’t even appear on the tracklist, crowded out by a storyline with multiple framing devices, intersecting subplot and a full choir of collaborators. That means there are more Kendricks speaking to us and few of them have very many fucks to give. There is the Kendrick who has become a cultural institution, who became the only rapper and the rare pop artist to win a Pulitzer Prize, and who has already inspired several books and academic studies. He bobs and weaves with supreme vocal agility and uses Duval Timothy’s avant-garde piano chords as a foil on “Crown”. On “United In Grief”, he questions everything – sexism, commercialism and even hip-hop as a vehicle for examining those issues – over a pulsating drum line that pushes the song along at a reckless pace. It’s a bracing introduction to a thorny album.

And then there is the Kendrick who is suspicious of that kind of recognition and applause. These sections are often caustic in their antagonism. “I am not for the faint of heart”, he declares on “Worldwide Steppers”, and on “Savior” he admonishes the listener: “Kendrick made you think about it, but he is not your savior”. It can be incredibly compelling, but it can also be tiresome: Kendrick’s biggest moment comes on “We Cry Together”, as he and Zola actor Taylour Paige argue violently over a sample from Florence + The Machine’s “June”. It’s ugly, but self-consciously ugly, theatrically ugly – a humourless take on Otis Redding and Carla Thomas’s “Tramp” – and its points about toxic masculinity and black feminism parrot rather than question received wisdom.

By far the most compelling persona on Mr Morale & The Big Steppers is the Kendrick who is trying to make sense of the horrors of his own family, who raps about incest and recrimination in a sober flow. On “Auntie Diaries” he recounts the stories of two transgendered family members, and while he deadnames them and gratuitously repeats a certain homophobic slur, he does so in order to examine his relationship with them and to trace the evolution of his own thinking – from dumb schoolyard taunts to acceptance and admiration. The heart of this dense album, however, is “Mother I Sober”, about false accusations of sexual abuse that divided his family for generation. It hinges on a lovely, deeply sympathetic chorus sung by Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, as Lamar tells the story
with forensic focus. He tries to forgive those who once refused to believe him, even as he chastises himself for profiting off his own trauma (“traded in my tears for a Range Rover”).

It’s a tour de force, almost but not quite as revelatory as “DUCKWORTH”, a similar family saga off 2017’s DAMN. And the best moment is when the strings swell and Lamar’s voice changes. As his careful, stoical flow morphs into a more emphatic, even triumphant exultation, one Kendrick gives way to another Kendrick: “As I set free all you abusers,
this is transformation!”

There are so many more Kendricks on Mr Morale & The Big Steppers: some oddball versions of himself that pop up only for two lines or resist any easy understanding of their motives. And they all converge on closer “Mirror”, with its cinematic strings and stuttering beat. “My demons is off the leash for a moshpit”, he exclaims, noting the irony of working through private issues in a public form. He raps to figure it all out, to impose order on a chaotic world: “Sorry I didn’t save the world, my friend”, he raps with a hard-won clarity and perspective. “I was too busy buildin’ mine again”.

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