Davis miles

Plenty of discussion on last week’s Neil Young blog, and also, more fractiously, over at Thrasher’s Wheat, about the value/usefulness/etc of “Archives”.

Twin EPs on one disc from the vagabond trumpeter, exploring Mexican brass and lofi synthpop

As the year comes to an end, I’m putting the finishing touches to a Wild Mercury Sound Top 75 of 2008, which I’ll post here sometime next week. In the meantime, you can muck about with the Uncut hivemind’s 50 favourites by visiting our Rate The Albums feature: let’s make an effort to hype the Endless Boogie album up the charts, people (even though they had to cancel last week’s London show due to some kind of visa problem).

Over the past year or so, the Drag City label have quietly embarked on a series of reissues whose provenance is so obscure that I’ve briefly suspected them of being exquisite fakes: my favourite reissue of this year, Suarasama’s “Fajar Di Atas Awan” from Sumatra; the incredible Gary Higgins album; JT IV and so on.

Today: Guitarist Robben Ford talks about making Under The Red Sky

Part 4 of Uncut's Tell Tale Signs special

First thing today: the arrival of our new issue means I can finally mention the Uncut Music Award business we’ve been plotting for the past few months. Please have a look at our new dedicated blog, and let us know what you like the look of on the longlist.

In the next few months, Domino are planning a big reissue series of the Robert Wyatt back catalogue, and the arrival of the first batch the other week compelled me to dust down this interview transcript from the summer of 2007. I visited Wyatt at home in Louth, a little before the marvellous “Comicopera” was released. An edited version of the interview appeared in Uncut last year but, if you’ll excuse my indulgence, I thought the whole thing was worth putting out there. An incredible man, I think.

A lovely morning here in London, as the newly expanded version of “Kind Of Blue” makes for a perfect start to the day. I imagine you may have seen this by now, but if not, please check out Ben Kingsley doing Minor Threat. That’s Ben Kingsley doing Minor Threat, and watching it doesn’t make the concept any more assimilable.

Outtakes and unreleased live recordings shine new light on the angels and demons at war in a 40-year career