Mother love bone

The first set of Zappa’s mammoth series of reissues is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut, dated October 2012, and in shops now. To accompany David Cavanagh’s in-depth, three-page examination of the dozen re-releases, here’s a feature from November 2010’s Uncut (Take 162), in which members of the guitarist and composer’s various bands recall the madness and precision that went into some of his most important works. Interviews: John Lewis __________________________

Graham Coxon’s new album A+E is reviewed in the latest Uncut (May 2012, Take 180), out now – so we thought we’d revisit the last time the guitarist featured in our pages. In 2009, John Robinson met the guitarist at his Camden home to find out about his folk-infused solo album The Spinning Top, and hear all about the little matter of his old band’s reunion… Picture: Essy Syad

Neil Young called Time Fades Away his “worst album”, but this most elusive release is also one of his most important

4CD box set charting the ascendance of the blues’ most distinctive voice. O-wooo!

In the second week of May, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings drove from Los Angeles to Nashvillle. The journey took 31 hours, and Welch filmed a small portion of it on her iPhone. The clip is framed by an open car window, and outside you can see the flooded Mississippi stretching away from the edge of the road to the horizon: a new inland sea for the beleaguered American South.

There’s something a little daunting about writing on the subject of the Black Twig Pickers: an awareness, I guess, that I’m dealing with a world of knowledge and experience that comically exceeds my own. There’s a quote on their website which reads innocuously enough: “Exciting old-time music at its finest.” But it comes from some evidently specialist publication called Bluegrass Unlimited: the Black Twigs might attract dabblers in old-time music, but they privilege, understandably, those who know what they’re talking about.

Anti-climactic third album from the warrior queen of radical cheek...

Quietly excellent indie-folk alchemy, inspired by the Quebec wilderness...

This year’s Academy Award nominations have just been announced. No great surprises, I see – plenty for The Hurt Locker, Up In The Air and **whisper it** Avatar in the big categories. But it’s certainly grand to see the likes of Kathryn Bigelow, Jeremy Renner, Jeff Bridges, Michael Haneke and Jacques Audiard in there, at any rate. Anyway, here’s what’s what in the key categories, with my take on the nominations, for what it’s worth.

Andy Serkis' portrayal of Ian Dury earns him a Leading Actor nomination