Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2016 i UNCUT

LISTS, AS MANY readers will testify, are often the last resort of the publishing scoundrel. Over the history of Uncut, we’ve tried to avoid packing the magazine with the sort of Top 100s whose main purpose, it can seem, is to be merely contentious for contention’s sake. Without coming across as too sycophantic, we generally believe that Uncut readers are above such strategic provocations. That said, there is something to be said for a list which has a certain usefulness, and which can stimulate an intelligent debate not just about the history of the music we love, but about the way our perception of that history changes over the years. In that spirit, this month we’re pleased to unveil Uncut’s first survey of what we – or at least the…

WHEN Bernard Butler left Suede, it brought a premature end to the most exciting British songwriting duo since Morrissey and Marr. Even now, Anderson wonders what might have been. “It plagues me, it keeps me up at night. We can never go back to that moment where he left and carry on, because everything is different. And that’s so sad. We sort of tried that with The Tears, but it’s impossible, we are different people and it can never happen. “It tortures me that I was stupid enough to let Bernard go. No disrespect to Neil or Richard, we became a different band, and I have a lot of respect for all of them, but Suede Mk I was very special. Could we have gone further left field that…

ON JUNE 1, 1974, the new issue of NME published something it called “100 Great Albums Of Our Time”. Jethro Tull’s Stand Up, released five years earlier, just scraped into the Top 50. Further down the list, there were entries for Country Joe & The Fish, the Steve Miller Band and Johnny Winter. Astral Weeks languished poetically at No 63. The apotheosis of rock’s ambition remained Sgt Pepper. Forty-two years later, the general narrative looks familiar, but the story seems to have been told from a slightly different perspective. It is those nuanced shifts that, in part, have inspired us to put together Uncut’s first Greatest Albums list. For this Top 200, we enlisted 59 writers and editors, many of whom had either contributed to or been inspired by the…

Jason Anderson Roxy Music – Roxy Music James Brown The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street Ed Beale Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks Mark Bentley David Bowie – Station To Station Stuart Berman The Stooges – Fun House Michael Bonner The Velvet Underground – Loaded David Cavanagh Pink Floyd – The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn Michael Chapman Cardiacs – On Land And In The Sea Chris Charlesworth The Who – Live At Leeds Andrew Collins Gang Of Four – Entertainment! Leonie Cooper The Streets – Original Pirate Material Jon Dale The Pastels – Illumination Stephen Dalton David Bowie –…

PETER SAVILLE IS “part of the family”, says Bernard Sumner, one of the founders of Factory Records alongside Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus and Martin Hannett. Though he had effectively retired from designing sleeves, Saville was tempted back for Music Complete . The result is a striking cover in a style dubbed “Techno Tudor”, with crisscrossing black lines framing Mondrian-style colour patchworks. “I knew they were revisiting electronics,” Saville explains. “Responding to this I began by looking at circuitry and technical system grids. Ironically among these references I found I had half-timbered patterns of Tudor architecture, classic examples of which are in Cheshire – the ambivalence of which completed the circuit.” “Have you noticed that the black lines bow slightly?” Sumner asks. “His concept is Techno Tudor, and…

“I AM REALLY quite the opposite of lazy,” Michael Rother assures us. “I’ve been so busy and getting busier…” Despite not having released a new album since 2004, the Hamburg-born guitarist has rediscovered the joys of playing live over the past decade, taking the fruits of his influential, futuristic work with Neu!, Harmonia, Brian Eno and as a solo artist to fans around the world. Putting together Harmonia’s lavish 2015 boxset and the Neu! ’86 album at home in the rural Lower Saxony village of Forst has kept him occupied, too. “I’ve sort of lost interest in releasing new music,” this once studio-bound artist admits. “Instead, I now try to add a creative element when I play live. Maybe I am approaching Klaus Dinger’s idea, as I enjoy being in…

AFRICAINE 808 Basar GOLF CHANNEL No-nonsense fun from German Afro-house duo As one half of Kompakt Records’ Closer Musik, Dirk Leyers helped define the sleek, urbane sound of ’00s minimal techno. Now he’s teamed up with African pop specialist DJ Nomad for a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin project, combining their two areas of expertise. Tracks such as “Ngoni” and “Balla Balla”, which mix West African instrumentation with acid squiggles and chugging disco-house rhythms, are obvious but effective. It’s certainly not a high-concept hybrid; “The Lord Is A Woman” even chucks a country gospel chant into the equation. Basar is marred by a couple of misguided forays into coffee-table trip-hop, but when Africaine 808 aim for the dancefloor, they usually hit the spot. SAM RICHARDS FEDERICO ALBANESE The Blue Hour BERLIN CLASSICS Modest, crepuscular…

Philip Larkin was the somewhat unlikely catalyst for Spilt Milk , the latest album from Pete Astor. “I was reading something where Larkin says he has to write the poems he can write, not the ones he should ,” explains Astor. “And while it would be way cooler if I could make a record like Grimes or Metronomy, I just do what I do: guitar, bass and drums. It’s being what I am.” Doing what he does best means that Astor has returned to making gloriously wonky indie-pop after immersing himself in electronica with The Wisdom of Harry and, with Ellis Island Sound, experimental soundscapes. But while Spilt Milk feels like a more sanguine extension of…

“Influences? Our holy trinity is Link Wray, Screaming Jay Hawkins and Hound Dog Taylor, with Skip James, John Lee Hooker and Blind Willie Taylor waiting at the gates,” says Pedro de Dios Barceló (aka “Perico”), of Andalusian dirty blues agitators Guadalupe Plata. Perico fronts this formidable Spanish trio, alongside Carlos “Jimena” Quesada on drums and Francisco “Paco Luis” Martos Sanchez on washtub and electric bass. Their crossroads music has the devil in it: roiling rockabilly bristling with references to supernatural invocation and “duendes” – which translates either as a magic charm, or some kind of goblin. They have a strong live reputation – which the UK can experience later this year – and enjoy a strong following in their homeland and across the Atlantic. “Latin American folk music has always…

“This is still a mystery for us,” claims Ana Perrote of Hinds, who started life in 2009 as a covers duo – formed with fellow guitarist and co-singer Carlotta Cosials – called Stolen Girlfriends Club. They changed their name to Deers when they started writing their own material and later expanded to a quartet. “We are really music lovers as listeners,” Perrote explains, “so when we managed to write our own songs, we could create more music that we liked, and it felt great to do it.” No surprise, given the ebullient and candidly expressive nature of their sound. Says Perrote of garage rock and punk, “it sounds so raw and sincere, so pure. We love music that talks about feelings and it’s one of the only genres where I…

How do you balance your activism with your music? I’m trying to build bridges and bring people together. The Traveller defines how I feel about the planet – that, despite its many problems, there is a lot of inspiration and hope. Do you see yourself as a traveller, someone on a journey? We are a nomadic people. As a performer I first left home 40 years ago and I’ve been travelling ever since. When you travel, you learn about the different corners of life and you discover that humanity is beautiful: different faces, cultures, colours, sounds. You realise that the planet is a very big gift, in spite of the man-made horrors. What made you want to work with Johan Hugo, who comes from a very…

Ivory Tower 1984, FRONTIER/ZIPPO A melancholy reflection on emotional isolation, written by original bass player Barry Shank, the tune began as a homage to the Beau Brummels’ “Laugh Laugh”. Sung here by Stephen McCarthy with assistance from Gene Clark, it’s a gorgeous evocation of the spirit of The Byrds, with Griffin doing the honours on the 12-string guitar. Looking For Lewis And Clark 1985, ISLAND It might have been a hit if the label had pressed enough copies. The song, which namechecks two legendary American explorers, also nods to Tim Hardin and Gram Parsons, and includes a musical quote from “Louie, Louie”. “ When Tim gets to Heaven ,” Griffin sings, “ I hope he tells Gram about The Long Ryders and just who I am…

As we get stuck into 2016, February sees a host of albums to get excited about. Animal Collective return with their 10th album, Painting With , assisted by the likes of John Cale and Colin Stetson, while Elton John’s Wonderful Crazy Night and Yoko Ono’s Yes, I’m A Witch Too – a set of remixes and collaborations with the likes of Sparks and Death Cab For Cutie – are also imminent. Tim Gane, formerly of Stereolab, returns with his instrumental, propulsive trio Cavern Of Anti-Matter and their Void Beats/Invocation Trex LP, while singer-songwriter Josephine Foster follows up 2013’s I’m A Dreamer with her new No More Lamps In The…

Reviewed this month... The Zapple Diaries: The Rise And Fall Of The Last Beatles Label Barry Miles PETER OWEN The Record Store Of The Mind Josh Rosenthal TOMPKINS SQUARE BARRY MILES packs a lot into the relatively modest 250 pages of The Zapple Diaries. The book’s ostensibly about the label that Paul McCartney asked Miles to run as an offshoot of Apple, a showcase for the avant-garde and wildly unpredictable, freaky sounds and far-out concepts, esoteric projects with no obvious commercial potential. It’s also, however, a vivid account of The Beatles’ final floundering, fatal tensions growing between them as their empire crumbled, their giddy ambitions for Apple undone by their cluelessness, gullibility, complete lack of business sense. Brian Epstein may have made something of their dreams for Apple. But Epstein…

SUEDE NUDE, 1993 Thrilling, luminescent, tumescent debut packed with swooping singles and high-rise melodrama. DOG MAN STAR NUDE, 1994 Disintegration, misery and gloom, inspired by Hollywood and real life. Suede’s gothic classic. COMING UP NUDE, 1996 A party album that saw Suede accidentally re-engage with guitar pop. SCI-FI LULLABIES NUDE, 1997 Fine selection of B-sides from a band that wrote some of the best around. Combine with Singles (COLUMBIA, 2003), which rounded-up hits and occasional misses. HEAD MUSIC EPIC, 1999 Unfairly maligned, electronica-tinged and drug-plagued, with several superb songs. A NEW MORNING EPIC, 2002 Disengaged swansong, despite strong moments such as “Positivity”. BLOODSPORTS SUEDE, 2013 A taut return to form – diligent, intense and sometimes excellent. NIGHT THOUGHTS SUEDE, 2016 Dense, immersive melodrama about nocturnal terrors.…

“I’ve watched so-called New Order and Tom Chapman is miming to my bass on tape… It’s the Milli Vanilli of bass.” NME , 2012 “When we got to New Order we were still a great table, we just had a bit of a wonky leg. We kept shoving a beer mat under it, which was Gillian, but as we all know when you shove a beer mat under a table it eventually wobbles loose again doesn’t it?” SPOOK MAGAZINE , 2013 “Tom Chapman really is a session musician. But they’re sending him out doing interviews, which I don’t think is being fair to the fans. And it was particularly annoying for me when I found out he was signing New Order records. I don’t think that’s…

A COUPLE OF years back, Savages pasted up notes around concert venues at which they were playing, requesting that the audience not take photos of their live performance. “Our goal is to discover better ways of living and experiencing music”, it read, and of course they were ridiculed by some for their efforts: who were this band of women, with their all-black wardrobe, to tell music lovers how to enjoy themselves? To take oneself too seriously is to set oneself up for a fall. But what if you don’t stumble? The music assembled on Savages’ second LP, Adore Life – 10 taut, white-knuckle songs about love, desire, fear, fucking and self-actualisation – takes itself very seriously indeed. In doing so, though, it succeeds in shucking off superficial comparison points, reaching…

Kept busy running landmark Scottish indie label Chemikal Underground and associated studio Chem19 with her former Delgados bandmates, Emma Pollock has taken the best part of six years to come up with her third album. Named after her one-time family home, In Search Of Harperfield was recorded against a backdrop of her parents’ failing health; her mother died in February. “I’m increasingly aware of how childhood comes back to meet you when a parent dies, which is where a lot of this record comes from,” she tells Uncut . A winter-toned descendent of The Delgados’ orchestrally inclined 2000 tour de force, The Great Eastern , its youthful recollections and sobering adult meditations are lent an unusual weight on “Dark Skies”,…

How symbolic is Highway 20 for you? I grew up travelling around everywhere when I was little, so that road was a big part of my childhood. I have a strong connection to the place, plus Highway 20 is in that region of the South where a lot of the old blues guys are from. It’s part of the whole thread that runs through American music. Was “If Love Could Kill” a hard song to write? Yes, I wrote that about the Alzheimer’s that killed my dad. The initial inspiration came during one of the last times I was with him. He suddenly said, “I can’t write poetry anymore.” For him, it was like saying he could no longer walk or see. I just broke down and started sobbing. Sorry,…

“It probably seems like we disappear,” says Doug McCombs of the seven-year gap between Tortoise albums. But the bassist – who co-founded the band with fellow veterans of Chicago’s indie-rock scene in 1990 – notes that the post-rock pioneers haven’t been sluggish since 2009’s Beacons Of Ancestorship . Tortoise’s workload has included a city-commissioned suite celebrating Chicago’s jazz and improv communities. Much of that music fed into The Catatrophist , which was recorded over the past four years between the players’ other commitments. As is typical for Tortoise, the new songs took unexpected trajectories. “When we start these albums we usually don’t have the slightest idea what we’ll end up with,” says McCombs. Most startling of all is The Catastrophist’s…

As a listener, can you tell the difference between a record where everything’s multi-tracked and one where there’s a live band? The energy is completely different between an overdub and a live record. I think they both have pros and cons, and I for the most part can tell the difference as a listener. Did Eddy Grant invent glam rock with “Diversion”, the Equals track that you cover here? I’m presuming that it was recorded pre-Ziggy, pre-Roxy… I think that a lot of people invented glam collectively. The Equals played a part. Alice Cooper’s Pretties For You , Bowie and Ronson’s Man Who Sold The World -era material, Marc Bolan… However, Eddy Grant’s “Diversion”, to me, is a punk song. Your guitar…

WHAT WAS YOUR plan for the box? We want The Long Ryders to be acknowledged as a very important link in the chain. When we came out it was all Haircut 100 and A Flock Of Seagulls. It was synth pop and watered-down dance music that was in the way. We were really the first and almost only band of our ilk doing this crazy wedding of punk ethos and country and western attitude. In just a few years bands we inspired were everywhere: Uncle Tupelo and The Black Crowes – who were Mr Crowe’s Garden, an opening act for us – the list goes on. Did you feel like you were in a wilderness back then? In the early days we weren’t that distinct, and we had this idea…

Buck Owens You’re For Me CAPITOL, 1962 This second studio LP marks the start of Owens’ distinctive Bakersfield sound, driven by the crisp thump of drummer Wayne ‘Moose’ Stone and the twin Telecasters of Owens and Don Rich. “I wanted to sound like a locomotive comin’ through the front room,” said Buck later. Buck Owens And His Buckaroos I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail CAPITOL, 1965 Arguably his finest hour. Inspired by an Esso gas station sign, the title track became a signature tune and prime exemplar of Bakersfield honky-tonk. Hard-twanging guitars rule, though Owens shows himself to be a great tenor, too. Buck Owens And His Buckaroos Carnegie Hall Concert CAPITOL, 1966 What better setting than the Carnegie Hall for the Buckaroos to deliver a febrile set that…

THE REVENANT Director Alejandro Iñárritu Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy Opens January 15 Cert 15 8/10 SPOTLIGHT Director Tom McCarthy Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo Opens January 29 Cert 15 8/10 TRUMBO Director Jay Roach Starring Bryan Cranston, Louis CK Opens February 5 Cert 15 7/10 FUTURE SHOCK! THE STORY OF 2000AD Director Paul Goodwin Starring Pat Mills, Grant Morrison Opens now Cert 15 6/10 BONE TOMAHAWK Director S Craig Zahler Starring Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins Opens February 19 Cert 18 6/10…

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN has dropped news of a new record: “The project I’ve been working on is more of a solo project,” he told SiriusXM’s E Street Radio… BLONDIE are working with Franz Ferdinand producer John Congleton on a curated project that will find them recording songs written specially for them by artists including Johnny Marr… LORETTA LYNN returns in March with Full Circle , her first album of new material in more than 10 years. Guests include Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello… SCRITTI POLITTI will also unveil their first new album since 2006’s White Bread Black Beer … PRIMAL SCREAM release their 11th studio album, Chaosmosis , on March 18 on the band’s First International label… ELTON JOHN reteams with producer…

The Isle Of Wight Festival may be associated with the last rites of hippydom, but this year’s has something of an iconoclastic subtext. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of punk between June 9-12, the bill will feature Iggy Pop, Buzzcocks, The Damned, Adam Ant and The Godfathers, plus some whippersnappers called The Sex Pissed Dolls. In less revolutionary spirit, Faithless, Stereophonics and Queen will be headlining. Beatles tourists with a taste for something more ambitious than a trek round Liverpool might consider a trip to the forest outside Rishikesh in India, where the band’s meditation retreat has reopened. In other Fab news, Ringo Starr has auctioned off his copy of the ‘White Album’ – numbered 0000001 – for $790,000. At the same sale, a 1963 Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl drumkit, used…

MARGO PRICE Midwest Farmer’s Daughter THIRD MAN A vivid and rollicking new voice out of Nashville, who invokes Dolly Parton, honky-tonks and vintage country-funk. CHRIS FORSYTH & THE SOLAR MOTEL BAND The Rarity Of Experience NO QUARTER Two discs of incantatory jams navigating the interzone between Television, folk and math-rock. A take on Richard Thompson’s “Calvary Cross” is a brave highlight. CAVERN OF ANTI-MATTER Void Beats/Invocation Trex DUOPHONIC Tim Gane revisits the percolating grooves of his Stereolab heyday, with help from friends including Sonic Boom and Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Painting With DOMINO Miss last month’s world premiere of AC’s 10th album over the tannoys at Baltimore Airport? Fear not: a full release of their most accessible set since Merriweather Post Pavilion comes in February.…

BRETT ANDERSON sips his tea – black, bag in – and reflects on his band’s deep connection with London. “This whole area, Kensington, played a real role in early Suede,” he notes. “Justine [Frischmann] and I lived in a flat on Hornton Street. We always went to a place called The Muffin Man, a little English tea room. We spent a lot of time there, talking about what we thought Suede should be, about culture and music. I thought we could go there for a cup of tea,” he says, before admitting he isn’t keen on braving the November drizzle again. Today, Anderson cuts a composed figure, even if he is still croaky following two nights to showcase Suede’s new album, Night Thoughts, at the Roundhouse, in the band’s old…

SUEDE conceived Night Thoughts as a complete piece, “this soundtrack to a non-existent film”, says Codling. When it was finished they decided it needed an accompanying movie. Roger Sargent, the director, first photographed Suede for NME in 1993. “I snuck up on stage at Glastonbury when I was on hallucinogenics,” he recalls. When Sargent listened to the album, “it rang bells: having kids, your parents getting older. It’s a new world of fear.” Sargent’s completed film consists of a sequence of short scenes that respond to the music and tell the story of a man’s mental disintegration. It’s dark, beautiful and full of vomit. “It was exploring ideas of loss and family,” says Sargent. “This could be anybody’s life. If the wrong…

BERNARD SUMNER is only half joking when he describes New Order’s current label, Mute, as “a successful version of Factory”. But there are some obvious parallels between these two indie institutions and their figureheads, Tony Wilson and Daniel Miller. “I’ve always been a big fan of New Order and I was very close to all the Factory people,” Miller says. “I don’t know how hands-on Tony was, maybe he never went to the studio.” “Daniel is more hands-on,” confirms Sumner. “Tony was a catalyst. He was interested in the creative side, too, but it would always be a fleeting visit: ‘I can’t stay long darling, let’s have a listen… yes it’s wonderful, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ And then he’d probably drop some bad financial news in the last second before…

FIERY FURNACES Gallowsbird’s Bark ROUGH TRADE, 2003 A debut of 16 jilted melodies soldered together from blues, honky tonk, psych, pop and noise. The brash lyrics and delivery are confrontational and odd, yet the inventive rattle was charming enough to make them critical darlings – until it became clear they were capable of far weirder things. FIERY FURNACES I’m Going Away THRILL JOCKEY, 2009 The Furnaces’ eighth album, before going on hiatus, is the most approachable. Eleanor was back in charge of lyrics for the first time since Gallowsbird’s Bar k: spurred by her spiky delivery, her dissolute characters hopped between barroom romps, vamping piano and doowopping ballads. ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER Last Summer MERGE, 2011 Friedberger’s debut solo LP reflects on summer 2000, when she moved to…

Why did you decide to do M:FANS ? For a long time I didn’t want to think about Music For A New Society . People were coming up at gigs asking why it wasn’t [ in print ], and I was trying to figure out a different way of presenting it. We did it in Aarhus, grew the arrangements a little bit, then went back in the studio. A nice surprise was finding some tracks that had never been released, like “Back To The End”. I was very happy to find that. I had completely forgotten about it. Some people will feel it’s sacrilegious… I’m ready! I’m not ashamed. All the strains and the tensions of the original are still there,…

The record is all about love, relationships, sex… Around our first record, we made a statement that we were not going to write love songs, as there were other topics more pressing to us at the time. But this LP is all about love, and its nuances. There’s a shameful side – the dark corners, forbidden thoughts. But also the hope, joy, freedom. Intensity has always been key for us, so the first question was how do we talk about love, while keeping the intensity? You can find it by playing loud, and fast, looking for an anger or violence. But you can also find it by opening your heart and putting out something so vulnerable that someone could take it and kill you. It’s interesting you chose an electronic…

It’s been an age since we last heard from Loretta Lynn. (left) . Thankfully, March sees the release of Full Circle , a belated follow-up to 2004’s Jack White-produced Van Lear Rose . Recorded at the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee (and helmed by Patsy Lynn Russell and John Carter Cash), the album is finely weighted between originals, traditional folk/gospel tunes and new renditions of old classics like “Fist City” and “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven”. Elvis Costello duets on “Everything It Takes”, while Willie Nelson shares vocals on “Lay Me Down”. A new documentary, Loretta Lynn: Still A Mountain Girl , is due around the same time. Look out, too, for Lola…

The passing of Lhasa de Sela somehow marks The Waiting Room . What are your abiding memories of Lhasa, and do you feel her presence informs the album in other, less direct ways than her appearance on “Hey Lucinda”? Lhasa was a great friend and a kind of musical soul mate. And, of course, a great singer. For me, the hardest thing about being a singer is to be believable, and I believed every syllable she sang. If I ever have doubts in the validity of my own voice, I say to myself, “Lhasa de Sela said I was one of her favourite singers – so fuck you!” How does improvisation function for Tindersticks? I sense it ignited much of the material on this album. Because our…

Six Organs Of Admittance Asleep On The Floodplain DRAG CITY, 2011 This is a good example of the unique territory Chasny has staked out through his fine guitar-playing as Six Organs Of Admittance. It combines psych drone with folk picking and bluesy rambles that always sound weirdly otherworldly. 2005’s School Of The Flower covers similar ground, while 2012’s Ascent is a heavier variation on this theme. Comets On Fire Blue Cathedral SUB POP, 2004 Comets On Fire had already released two albums – including the magnificent Field Recordings From The Sun – when Chasny joined as back up to Ethan Miller, making the sound denser and richer. Blue Cathedral is space rock…

“I wanted this project to be a genuine collaboration,” says James Yorkston of Everything Sacred , “not just me with a few pals thrown in for variation. It’s a luxury for me playing with such great musicians.” He and Jon Thorne have been working together for years; Yorkston met Suhail Yusuf Khan, meanwhile, backstage at a festival. “The instruments sounded good together and I asked him to join me onstage there and then.” Thorne brings to the trio an element of Danny Thompson, a jazz fluidity underpinning the songs, while the instrumental passages are occasionally reminiscent of Codona or Anouar Brahem. Yorkston, though, says there’s no plan: “We just arrive in a room and make some noise.” These noises began in “endless” jamming. Lal Waterson’s “Song For…

Girls Can Tell MERGE, 2001 Holed up in Jim Eno’s cramped Austin studio with engineer/ co-producer Mike McCarthy, the band configured their sound on “Everything Hits At Once”, the opening track of their fourth album, spare, propulsive, brainy, detailed with craftsman-like precision and wry, self-effacing humour. The basis of their blueprint is the groove, set down by Eno’s Charlie Watts-style behind-the-beat momentum. Kill The Moonlight MERGE, 2002 This stands as Spoon’s distilled less-is-more breakthrough, with its stripped-down, amped-up Beatleisms and percolating rhythms, encapsulated by the captivating hard-times anthem “The Way We Get By”, with its Plastic Ono piano doubling the beat. Plinking piano and hand percussion power standout “Small Stakes” and every other track on the LP, which Daniel described as “a complex tambourine record”. Transference MERGE, 2010 Their most…

Alan Vega PVC/ZE RECORDS, 1980 There’s an element of conceptual reframing on Vega’s first solo LP, which preserves all of the singer’s peculiarities, but replaces the instrumental backing that Martin Rev provided for Suicide with spartan rockabilly rhythms. It works brilliantly, largely because Vega always sings like a shower-stall King, grunting and growling his way through the gestures of the form in a fog of reverb. Collision Drive CELLULOID, 1981 This fierce set offers a honing of Vega’s solo sound, even reprising “Ghost Rider” from the Suicide debut, but with a rockabilly pulse. Vega’s love of minimalist repetition means that a song such as “I Believe” is little more than a phrase, but still scratches at artistic extremes, while closer “Viet Vet” is a phlegmy, aggressive hymn to pain. Saturn…

THE DANISH GIRL OPENS JANUARY 1 This real-life drama stars Eddie Redmayne as a pioneering transgender surgery recipient; Tom Hooper ( The King’s Speech ) is the director. JOY OPENS JANUARY 1 David O Russell’s female empowerment yarn stars Jennifer Lawrence as a housewife who becomes a successful entrepreneur. Bradley Cooper co-stars. LE MÉPRIS OPENS JANUARY 1 Brigitte Bardot, Fritz Lang and Jack Palance star in Godard’s melancholic meditation on filmmaking. Reissued in a new print. THE HATEFUL EIGHT OPENS JANUARY 8 Eight ruffians are forced to shelter together from a blizzard in Tarantino’s latest. But who is going to survive? Expect some swearing. CREED OPENS JANUARY 15 Rocky is back! Again! Wearing a hat! This time he’s on the other side of the ropes, training the son…

ALLEN TOUSSAINT New Orleans R’n’B, funk and soul legend ( 1938-2015) IT’S A MEASURE of his impact on New Orleans music that Allen Toussaint’s death was likened to that of Elvis by the producer of the city’s annual jazz festival. “I was in Memphis the day Elvis died,” said Quint Davis. “It was like biblical Passover, everyone felt it personally. On the New Orleans scale, it’s a little like that. A part of everybody here is lost.” As songwriter, arranger, producer, pianist and solo artist, Toussaint was a pre-eminent figure in New Orleans’ transition from old-school R’n’B to modern funk and soul, propelling the city’s distinctive sound on to the international stage. He wrote hits for Lee Dorsey, Otis Redding, Aaron Neville, Glen Campbell and The Pointer Sisters, to name…

The song that got me into bass Jet Harris & Tony Meehan Diamonds 1963 The Shadows’ bassist and drummer did this instrumental piece – the top line was played on the bass, and in the middle there was a drum solo. I’d never heard anything like it. I was quite taken by the whole thing and I used to practise on pots and pans to see if I could figure the whole thing out. It lodged the idea that the bass could be more than just this thing in the background, just playing along with the root notes. A pioneering soul/rock mix Sly & The Family Stone There’s A Riot Goin’ On 1971 This was a real turning point in terms of everything I thought about what soul music was…