Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2020 #272 i UNCUT

AT the end of a momentous and perplexing year, it is comforting to keep a few certainties close at hand. The return of favourites such as Wilco, Lambchop, Bill Callahan and Bon Iver over the course of the last 12 months, for instance, has provided a degree of reassurance. It’s also heartening to see the variety and quality of music made by emerging artists in our world. You’ll find many of these faces – familiar as well as fresh – in our Top 75 new albums list. I’m not going to divulge much about the chart here – or the results of our other polls for best archive releases and best films. I can tell you, though, that 41 contributors voted this year, for 379 different new releases and 175…

1 Happens To The Heart2 Moving On3 The Night Of Santiago4 Thanks For The Dance5 It’s Torn6 The Goal7 Puppets8 The Hills9 Listen To The Hummingbird Produced by: Adam Cohen (with Patrick Watson on “The Hills”) Personnel include: Leonard Cohen (voice), Adam Cohen (guitar, synth, vocals), Michael Chaves (guitars, bass, drums), Daniel Lanois (piano, guitar effects, vocals), Zac Rae (keys, synth, vibes, zither, perc), Javier Más (guitar, Spanish laúd), Avi Avital (mandolin), Beck (guitar, jew’s harp), Carlos de Jacoba (guitar), Richard Reed Parry, Mishka Stein (bass), Matt Chamberlain (drums, perc), Jamie Thompson (drums), Pietro Amato (horns), Jason Sharp (sax), Patrick Watson (synth), Larry Goldings (piano, flute), Dustin O’Halloran (piano), Patrick Leonard (piano), Rob Humphreys (perc), Stewart Cole (trumpet, flugelhorn, clarinet, synth), Sharon Robinson (perc, vocals), Jennifer Warnes (vocals), Maika van…

JASON ALDEAN 9 BROKEN BOW 4/10 Nashville megastar persists with profitable formula Jason Aldean is not the first to have named his ninth album “9”: Public Image Ltd did it back in 1989. There, however, similarities between Aldean and PiL end. 9 evinces little inclination to dispense with the template that has borne Aldean to umpty-platinum status. As ever, there’s a vexing sense that beneath the big-hatted bluster, there’s a fine old-school country record struggling for breath. Opening track “Tattoos & Tequila” is emblematic – a neatly wry lyrical conceit (“Tattoos to remember/ Tequilas to forget”) deluged by the high-octane hokum of mainstream country radio production. Not for the last time on 9, what could have been a decent George Jones-ish ballad is reduced to a series of cues for…

1 Taj Mahal: “Your Mind Is On Vacation” 2 Robbie Fulks: “My Brain” 3 Jackson Browne: “If You Live” 4 The Tippo All Stars featuring Fiona Apple: “Your Molecular Structure” 5 Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite: “Nightclub” 6 Chrissie Hynde: “Stop This World” 7 Iggy Pop: “If You’re Going To The City” 8 Bonnie Raitt: “Everybody’s Crying Mercy” 9 Loudon Wainwright III: “Every Since The World Ended” 10 Richard Thompson: “Parchman Farm” 11 Peter Case: “I Don’t Worry About A Thing” 12 Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin: “Wild Man On The Loose” 13 Anything Mose!: “The Way Of The World” 14 Frank Black: “Numbers On Paper” 15 Amy Allison & Elvis Costello: “Monsters Of The Id”…

The first three Craven Faults releases appear plotted as a trilogy of sorts. Did you change your approach with this album? Although inspiration is continuous and diverse, and I try to vary methodology to avoid routine, there was no great change in how I approached the individual tracks. The only difference is I wanted the album to have a flow and work as a whole. This influenced the choice of tracks but not how they were constructed. How long has this release been in the works? I understand some pieces have been re-worked and reedited over time... It was mostly recorded over the past couple of years. “Slack Sley & Temple” is from early 2016 but the organ drones are taken from a recording I’d made a fewyears earlier. Some…

AMERICAN FOOTBALL Year One Demos POLYVINYL 7/10 Previously unreleased demos for diehards American Football’s 1999 full-length debut is a pinnacle of second-wave emo, a fusion of math rock, jazz and tender lyrics. Known for soft guitar textures and Mike Kinsella’s earnest singing, these Illinois college students have become an unlikely point of interest for younger generations: before a 2014 deluxe reissue, copies of original CD and vinyl pressings would fetch more than $100 on Discogs. The four demos that comprise this limited-edition 12in were recorded to two-track in May 1997, and reveal the earliest creative ambition of a group who claim they had no career plans. The signature trumpet line on “The Summer Ends” is missing here, while “For Sure” hums alongside a drum machine as drummer Steve Lamos plays…

SURRENDER  1 Music: Response 2 Under The Influence 3 Out Of Control 4 Orange Wedge 5 Let Forever Be 6 The Sunshine Underground 7 Asleep From Day 8 Got Glint? 9 Hey Boy Hey Girl 10 Surrender 11 Dream On THE SECRET PSYCHEDELIC MIXES  1 Hey Boy Hey Girl 2 Let Forever Be 3 Out Of Control 4 Flashback 5 Dream On B-SIDES AND REMIXES  1 Flashback 2 Scale 3 The Diamond Sky 4 Studio K 5 Power Move 6 Enjoyed 7 Electronic Battle Weapon 4 8 Out Of Control (Sasha club mix) 9 Music: Response (Gentleman Thief mix) 10 Music: Response (Futureshock Main Response) 11 Hey Boy Hey Girl (Soulwax remix)…

Do you have a favourite set? It keeps changing as there are so many good bits from each one. Jimi and I first mixed Band Of Gypsys at a little studio in New York. It was all pretty cool and then it came to the inevitable Buddy Miles interminable jam and I looked at Jimi and he had his head on the console muttering “Shut the fuck up, Buddy.” Buddy was perfect for Jimi as he was one of the world’s best fatback drummers. Rhythmically, he was a machine, but there was that unfortunate other part of it where he was excessive with his vocal jams. Was that a challenge for Jimi? He loved Buddy because Buddy made him laugh. And the drumming part of it was cool. Without that…

“I’D been in Canada and traded my electric guitar for an acoustic. In Canada, I hooked up with people who played in a folky sort of style. People were playing Gordon Lightfoot songs; Ian & Sylvia were big. It was happening to me in Canada and by a different route it was happening to David. The softer approach – a less American approach. When I got in touch with him, he said, straightaway, ‘Come on down.’ His guitarist in Turquoise was going back to heavy metal and he said, ‘Have you got an acoustic? Come down, I’ll show you what I’m doing.’ And it was brilliant for me: picking and singing harmony. Hermione [Farthingale] was there and they’d been singing harmony, so I stuck another harmony on and that was…

UNCUT: Can you tell us about the previously unreleased tracks included here? ADAMS: Through the campaign that started with Spying Through A Keyhole earlier in the year and concluded with Conversation Piece, there are around 30 recordings that were previously unreleased. That’s not including The ‘Mercury’ Demos which had their first official release in June and are now included in this set, along with the tracks from Spying Through A Keyhole and the Clareville Grove Demos. There are notes on every song in the accompanying 120-page book. Fans will appreciate tracks they had heard of but hadn’t actually heard such as “April’s Tooth Of Gold”, “The Reverend Raymond Brown”, “Mother Grey”, “Goodbye 3d (Threepenny) Joe”, “Angel Angel Grubby Face” - titles that were known about but in most instances had…

“THAT’S exciting news,” says Rhiannon Giddens on hearing of There Is No Other’s placing in Uncut’s 2019 Best Albums poll. “I’m a little tired at the moment though, it’s kind of been an intense time…” She isn’t kidding. 2019 began with the world premiere of Lucy Negro Redux, a ballet featuring Giddens’ first ever theatrical score, swiftly followed by all-women project Songs Of Our Native Daughters. Then came the exquisite There Is No Other, recorded with Francesco Turrisi, which feels like a culmination of everything she’s been working towards. The conservatory-trained Giddens made her reputation alongside Dom Flemons and Justin Robinson in Carolina Chocolate Drops, a project rooted in black string-band tradition, before going solo in 2014. “Within the prevailing narrative of music,” she states, acknowledging a fast-moving career drawn…

4% PANTOMINE – WITH RICHARD MANUEL CAHOOTS - THE BAND (CAPITOL, 1971) Morrison and The Band were Woodstock  neighbours. This boozy blow-out was written with Robbie Robertson on the morning that it was recorded and nailed in two rowdy takes. “Oh Richard!” roars Van. “I can’t understand, who the Fool is, and who’s the Joker?” ONE IRISH ROVER – WITH BOB DYLAN ARENA: ONE IRISH ROVER (BBC 2, 1991) On June 29, 1989, Morrison and Dylan lugged their acoustic guitars up Philopappos Hill in Athens. With the Acropolis as a backdrop, they performed “Foreign Window”, “Crazy Love” and a ragged but touching version of “One Irish Rover”. Check it out on YouTube. WHENEVER GOD SHINES HIS LIGHT – WITH CLIFF RICHARD AVALON SUNSET (POLYDOR, 1989) Astonishingly, this is the  song…

10 IT GETS ME HOME, THIS CURVING TRACK: OBJECTS AND ESSAYS Ian Penman FITZCARRALDO Incapable of dumbing down, Penman had NME readers reaching for their dictionaries in the post-punk years. He retains the same daunting intelligence in this essay collection, which featured a fine take on mod, a gloomy assessment of James Brown and a sublime meditation on Frank Sinatra. Challenging, but worth it. 9 YEAR OF THE MONKEY Patti Smith BLOOMSBURY Another metaphysical ramble in the vein of her 2015 outing M Train, Year Of The Monkey was a walking tour through the protopunk poet’s 70th year, punctuated by moody photographs, delicious breakfasts and foreboding visions. One way or another, those horses are still running wild. 8 CRUEL TO BE KIND: THE LIFE & MUSIC…

SUNN O))) The Roundhouse, London, October 28 Music for the masses! Elemental drone-rockers host another compelling ceremony FISTS punch the air as the amps start their infernal groan and Sunn O))) take to a stage wreathed in dry ice and lit in blue and red. Or do they? At first it’s difficult to see anything in the gloom. Then we spy cowled figures – first two, then later three, four, five, moving with the studied grace of butoh dancers. Sunn O)))’s sense of epic rock theatre has always guided their live performances, but if anything, recently they’ve amped it up. Guitars are raised in holy supplication before a henge of roaring amplifiers, arms gesticulate and beckon down curses from the sky. At one point, a trombone is held aloft as…

I first saw Ginger drumming with Dick Heckstall-Smith’s band in 1961. I loved his playing, which was influenced by Elvin Jones and various African drum cultures – it was certainly a very original style for the time. When Cream started, Ginger was the one who phoned me up and asked me to work with them. I tried to write with him but it didn’t work out, the chemistry wasn’t quite there. He loved his heroin at the time, of course. He was also the world’s worst driver. I remember him picking me up from the actual White Room, just off Baker Street, and driving to Neasden in what seemed to be about 10 minutes. It was terrifying! I worked with him recently for a ‘Cream Acoustic’ project, which is coming…

FIONA APPLE Extraordinary Machine EPIC, 2005 This record came to me at a really crucial moment in life, when you’re on the threshold between listening to Top 40 radio and what your parents like, and figuring out what speaks to you as an individual. I heard the title track when I was 13, at my first boyfriend’s house. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I have never heard anything like this before.’ I hadn’t really paid that much attention to lyrics before, it was all about melodies and sounds for me, but some of the lines just punched out at me. I was like, ‘How does someone come up with that? Where does that even come from?’ It suddenly opened up this world of, ‘Oh, songwriting is a real thing.’ FIONA APPLE…

THE closing track of 1988’s Falling Up, “Am I Really Marcel?” may have been the closest Kevin Ayers got to writing an autobiography. “I’m naturally lazy but what can I do?” he sang. “I was born in the wrong place and the wrong time too.” Shooting At The Moon: The Collected Lyrics Of Kevin Ayers maps out the life of the greatest underachiever of London’s psychedelic underground in songs, personal photographs, handwritten notes and recipes for various fish dishes rescued from the carrier bags of personal memorabilia found in his house following his sudden death in 2013, aged 68. His daughter, singer-songwriter Galen Ayers, has curated this scattershot retrospective; and if it is an incomplete picture of a complicated man, his dissolute life makes it a minor miracle that so…

YORKSTON/THORNE/KHAN Navarasa: Nine Emotions DOMINO Third album of inspired fireside fusions, as Sufi devotionals transform  magically into Scottish folk songs. FRAZEY FORD “The Kids Are Having None Of It” ARTS & CRAFTS Auspicious return from the country-soul singer, her dreamy vocals carrying a razor-sharp message: “The likes of you should never hold the wheel.” SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE Companion Rises DRAG CITY Chicago avant-rock stalwart Ben Chasny alights on a potent new formula: brambly guitars meet cosmic distortion on an album of haunting “sci-folk” ballads. AOIFE NESSA FRANCES Land Of No Junction BASIN ROCK Poised, atmospheric indie-folk – think Joan Shelley meets Beach House – from  a promising new Dublin artist in cahoots with Cian Nugent. DESTROYER Have We Met DEAD OCEANS “Calling all cars/The palace has a moss problem”…

SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN COLUMBIA, 1967 Cohen’s timeless debut is still one highlight of his career, and the free-flowing poetry of “Master Song” is echoed in Thanks For The Dance’s skillful opener, “Happens To The Heart”. Elsewhere, the violent imagery of “Puppets” brings to mind the earthy, vivid likes of his debut’s “Stories Of The Street”. 10/10 RECENT SONGS COLUMBIA, 1979 A return to a more stripped-down style of production after Phil Spector’s work on 1977’s Death Of A Ladies Man, Recent Songs added evocative international touches to his spare fingerpicking – a mariachi band here, a gypsy fiddle or an oud there – not unlike the global textures on Thanks For The Dance. 7/10 YOU WANT IT DARKER COLUMBIA, 2016 The final album Cohen shepherded to completion in his…

1 Hyperlife 2 Uneventful Days 3 Saw Lightning 4 Die Waiting 5 Chemical 6 See Through 7 Hyperspace 8 Stratosphere 9 Dark Places 10 Star 11 Everlasting Nothing Produced by: Beck and Pharrell Williams (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11), Beck and Cole MGN (4), Beck and Greg Kurstin (6), Beck (8), Paul Epworth and Beck (10) Additional production: David Greenbaum (1, 2, 7, 8, 9) Recorded at: Beck’s house, Los Angeles; Conway Recording Studios, Los Angeles; The Church Studios, London Personnel include: Beck Hansen (vocals, keys, piano, gtrs, slide gtr, harmonica), Pharrell Williams (keys, drums), Roger Manning Jr (keys, bk vocals), Cole MGN (bass, gtr, drums, keys), Sky Ferreira (vocals), Alex Lily (bk vocals), Brent Paschke (gtr), Greg Kurstin (drums, bass, synths, keys), Terrell Hines, Chris Martin (vocals),…

G Stands For Go-Betweens: Volume 2 – 1985–1989 DOMINO N 1982, like fellow Australians The Birthday Party before them, and A-ha the very same year, Brisbane’s The Go-Betweens relocated to London to seek wider fame and fortune. By 1985, with neither a “Release The Bats” nor a “Take On Me” to their name, both still eluded them. Their third album, 1984’s Spring Hill Fair, had disappointed group and critics alike, and as they formulated their next move, they found themselves instead hunting high and low for their fourth label. What arrived over the next three years, however, cemented Robert Forster’s and Grant McLennan’s reputations, as this follow-up to 2015’s exhaustive look at the first years of their career demonstrates. With 129 tracks – three increasingly impeccable albums on vinyl, five…

SPYING THROUGH A KEYHOLE PARLOPHONE, 2019 A snapshot of Bowie’s 1968, when he’s still  hoping for another shot with Deram, featuring home demos of “Space Oddity”, “In The Heat Of The Morning”, “London Bye Ta-Ta” plus unreleased songs “Mother Grey” and “Angel Angel Grubby Face”. These tracks give a taste of what an immediate follow-up to 1967’s David Bowie might have sounded like. Released here on 7”, they all appear on Conversation Piece alongside other tracks, previously unreleased, from the era. CLAREVILLE GROVE DEMOS PARLOPHONE, 2019 Another set of home demos on 7” vinyl, this time featuring Bowie and Hutch’s post-Feathers duo. “Space  Oddity” has moved on apace since the initial demos, and there are almost final versions of “An Occasional Dream”, “Let Me Sleep Beside You” plus “Lover To…

TERRY Hall turned 60 this year. “It means I got my Freedom Pass from Transport For London,” he says with a grin. “I bloody love travelling around London on buses, and I plan to fully abuse this pass as much as I can. I also bloody love being 60. I’ve wanted to be 60 since I was in my twenties. I’ve always thought I’d make my best music in the years between 60 and 70.” Hall has been able to put this notion to the test during 2019. The Specials started the year with their first ever No 1 album, Encore, and continued with an 80-date world tour, including a homecoming in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral. Los Angeles even named May 29 ‘The Specials Day’ in the city. Not…

50 SHANA CLEVELAND Night Of The Worm Moon HARDLY ART Its title inspired by Sun Ra’s The Night Of The Purple Moon, the second solo LP from the La Luz singer and guitarist moulded the interstellar jazz auteur’s cosmic bent to her own fingerpicked acoustic guitar. As wonky chord sequences echoed Syd Barrett’s solo work, and pedal steel and synths provided an eerie, psychedelic air, Cleveland sang of grief, dreams and nameless terrors in the Californian darkness. 49 STEPHEN MALKMUS Groove Denied DOMINO While last year’s Sparkle Hard was Malkmus’s most accessible effort to date, here the songwriter explored his more outré interests with this basement electronic album. Despite a troubled gestation, Groove Denied turned out to be a laidback triumph: its laptop production was hazily…

30 REM Monster 25th Anniversary CRAFT Perhaps REM’s most divisive album got a full remix this year courtesy of producer Scott Litt. Once a heavy, glammy return to rock after the lighter textures of Automatic For The People, the new Monster was now a little more in keeping with its predecessors, for better and for worse. Those keen to discover more about this period could also delve into a world of demos. 29 PETER LAUGHNER Peter Laughner SMOG VEIL RECORDS This vital, 56-track retrospective assembled home and rehearsal recordings, live cuts and radio appearances by Laughner, an important American catalyst, best known for his work with Rocket From The Tombs and Pere Ubu. The mix of covers (Dylan, Reed, Television) and originals illustrate his development and his fixations.…

“I’M current,” says Van Morrison in a tone that brooks little argument. “I’m always current.” More than half a century since he recorded John Lee Hooker’s “Don’t Look Back” with Them in 1965, Morrison remains admirably true to its central thesis that “you cannot live on in the past”. At 74, he’s still pushing forward, a natural law unto himself. Speaking to Uncut from Los Angeles, he appears remarkably upbeat. While “Days Gone By”, the final song on his frequently terrific new album, Three Chords And The Truth, laments the fact that critics simply cannot resist throwing old quotes back in his face – “They tried to stitch me up with so many words I said so long ago/But we were all so young and foolish then” – he’s a…

MARRIAGE STORY Director Noah Baumbach Starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver Opens November 15 Cert 15 8/10 SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME Director Mike Figgis Starring Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards Opens November 26 Cert TBC 7/10 KNIVES OUT Director Rian Johnson Starring Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis Opens November 29 Cert 12A 9/10 MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN Director Ed Norton Starring Ed Norton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw Opens December 6 Cert 15 8/10 HONEY BOY Director Alma Har’el Starring Shia LaBeouf, Noah Jupe Opens December 6 Cert 15 6/10…

“There were some great bits we didn’t have room for – we even had a recording of his voice before it changed”NICOLE LONDON, PRODUCER “IF anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change,” said Miles Davis. It’s a fitting quote to kick off Miles Davis: The Birth Of The Cool – a cradle-to-grave journey through the life of an artist who changed the course of music several times. In two hours, veteran documentary maker Stanley Nelson whizzes through 65 years in the life of the self-styled Prince Of Darkness: from East St Louis to 52nd Street, via heroin and coke addiction, gruelling throat and hip operations, and troubled relationships with women – all accompanied by that haunted, Harmon-muted trumpet. The filmmakers interviewed more than 150 people, including…

Commemorating 40 years since Unknown Pleasures, the latest in our Ultimate Music Guide series covers both Joy Division and New Order. Stephen Morris introduces an issue blending insightful new reviews with entertaining archive features, as the accidental pop pioneers venture from Manchester to Ibiza and beyond. It’s in UK shops now… Following on Nov 22, adjust your heartbeat to 9/8 time for our Ultimate Genre Guide to the golden age of UK Progressive Rock. Genesis, King Crimson, Caravan and many more join a hearty celebration of flute solos and side-long suites… This month, cutting-edge Chicago label International Anthem mounts something of a takeover of the EFG London Jazz Festival. Inventive drummer Makaya McCraven plays Village Underground (Nov 19), spiritual jazz soothsayer Angel Bat Dawid is at Kings Place (Nov 16),…

Do you think Hyperspace defies the expectations of what people might anticipate from a Beck/ Pharrell match-up? I thought it would be a little more beat-driven and uptempo, but it’s more introspective and layered. On the very first day we worked together, he was like, “You’re a singer-songwriter – you need to do a singer-songwriter record.” I went in just happy to do anything, so I was like, “That’s great!” I’ve made so many albums and so much music where I was pushing my own agenda and following my own thought process, so there’s something beautiful about having someone like Pharrell hold up a mirror to your music and say, “This is what I think it is.” So I just went with it. Do you think perhaps he curbed some…

What were the recording sessions like for this? It didn’t really  take too long, or an awful lot of thought. It didn’t take more than a day for each song, and that includes the mixing too. We just had one mic, a couple of synthesisers, one guitar amp, a couple of guitars. For us it was just a bit of fun, but people seem to really like it – you can agonise over something for months and months, but it doesn’t always have the same impact as something done this way. Your take on Nico’s “Sixty Forty” is a highlight – why did you go for that track? I was reading this really good Nico book, The Life And Lies Of An Icon by Richard Witts, recently, so I was…

What did you want this tribute to convey about your father? That he was unique. That he absorbed and merged a lot of what he heard and made his own sound. That he defied categorisation and stayed completely true to himself. It wouldn’t have been possible for him to do it any other way. And he never sought the spotlight – the whole thing kind of embarrassed him. What kind of encouragement did your father give you when you started to play your own music? He told me I had an original sound and a unique voice. And he also said: make sure you get paid. Don’t go overseas without a contract. Get really good musicians. Don’t settle for less. Why did you want to cover “Monsters Of The Id”?…

Recorded by: Craven Faults Produced at: home studio, Yorkshire Equipment used: MU System Modular synthesiser, Great British Spring Reverb, Farfisa Professional Organ, Orban 111B Dual Spring Reverb, Korg ES50 Lambda Synthesiser Pioneer, SR-202 Spring Reverb, Elka Sidekick 32 Drum Machine, Roland RE-201 Space Echo, Sequential Circuits Drumtraks Drum Machine, Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo, Location Recordings Echoplex EP4, Revox B77 Tape Recorde, Watkins Copicat, EMT 140 Plate Reverb, Eventide H3000 D/SE Ultra-Harmonizer…

GRANT McLENNAN Horsebreaker Star BEGGARS BANQUET, 1994 McLennan’s third was a 24-track double whose  polished Americana sound – courtesy of REM-approved producer John Keane – deserved, but stopped short of, commercial success. “Open Your Eyes” was one big hook, “Simone & Perry” could have been Crowded House, while an easy-going cover of Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad Of Easy Rider” was drenched in pedal steel and “Coming Up For Air” added fiddle. 7/10 THE GO-BETWEENS The Friends Of Rachel Worth CIRCUS, 2000 Twelve years after their split, Forster and McLennan reunited,  with former colleagues replaced by Sleater-Kinney. If McLennan’s sprightly “Going Blind” and Forster’s riff-heavy “German Farmhouse” sounded as that alliance might suggest, “The Clock” offered a muscular revision of early styles, while “Magic In Here” displayed their 1988 swansong’s sensitivity. Paeans…

Going solo was a big step. What do you remember about that time? I’d been hanging around with a lot of people back where I live. People had been making records and I’d been in other people’s environments, but I hadn’t imagined myself taking on anything where it’s just got my name on it. Being in a band like Led Zep was tremendous – but also quite frustrating because you were in it and it was a democracy. It worked when it worked, and it didn’t work when it didn’t work. But to suddenly be completely free to fail was a totally different mindset altogether. And magnificent because of it. Zeppelin had been an albums band; but with “Big Log” you had a proper hit single… It was all new…

What was the fundamental purpose of Surrender ? We didn’t start  with a defined purpose. We generally find the purpose in the making of the record. After Dig Your Own Hole, we knew we’d taken a certain sound and feeling to the furthest point we could. Surrender had to be something very different. I think their respective covers signify something: Dig… was monochrome and focused, Kate Gibb’s Surrender artwork was a kaleidoscopic explosion of ideas. It feels representative of a widescreen/technicolor sound, a release. Maybe each of our records has aimed for the same kind of feeling – we’re just looking for different ways to express it. If you could rewind, is there anything you’d do differently? No. The music is a moment we’re capturing, expressing something we feel at…

Songs For Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts SONY LEGACY 9/10 Hendrix’s four shows with the Band Of Gypsys get a full release, “warts and all”… By Peter Watts GIVEN the importance of live shows to the Jimi Hendrix story, it seems fitting that he should have Gun: The Fillmore East First Show. Despite this piecemeal history, this box debuts eight previously unreleased tracks. Another three are appearing on CD/LP for the first time and several others can be heard for the first time in their unedited form. Most importantly, the box gives us four distinct but related sets to enjoy pretty much in their entirety, showing the way bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles were finessing songs live as Jimi improvised a post-Experience direction. You can hear why…

“GOING back to these tapes is like time travel. When you open them up, it’s all very real again. Half the people on the recordings are dead – but suddenly they are alive, they are 21 years old, and so am I. This album, Space Oddity, is my early life with David Bowie in London mapped out. I can remember what we did on certain days. I can even remember what we had for lunch… “We recorded at Trident in St Anne’s Court in Soho. We would usually start around midday and go on until late evening. We’d get lunch at a vegetarian place just off Carnaby Street called Cranks, or we’d go to this café on the corner of St Anne’s Court and Wardour Street. They made the best…

“ANGIE was the best thing to happen to him. She had balls. She made him leave Ken Pitt and then before Tony Defries came along she did all the work. She got David to put himself out a bit more. He was always very mild-mannered, a real English gentleman, and quite shy. Angie spoke on his behalf and made appointments with the labels. She’d tell them what was needed, and when we needed a touring band she managed to get a record deal for Hype that gave us guitar, amps, PA system, a van and Roger the roadie. “Angie was the oil. She deserves more credit for that. They had an open relationship, so infidelity was never a problem, but things went sour. Angie wanted more attention for herself and…

75 SESSA Grandeza BOILED RECORDS 74 BETTER OBLIVION COMMUNITY CENTER Better Oblivion Community Center DEAD OCEANS 73 EX HEX It’s Real MERGE 72 SANDRO PERRI Soft Landing CONSTELLATION 71 THE WHO Who POLYDOR 70 VAN MORRISON Three Chords And The Truth CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL/EXILE 69 SAMPA THE GREAT Return NINJA TUNE ON THIS MONTH’S CD 68 RUSTIN MAN Drift Code DOMINO 67 DEERHUNTER Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? 4AD 66 SNAPPED ANKLES Stunning Luxury LEAF 65 THE DELINES Imperial DÉCOR/EL CORTEZ 64 PYE CORNER AUDIO Hollow Earth GHOST BOX 63 ALTIN GÜN Gece GLITTERBEAT 62 GRUFF RHYS Pang! ROUGH TRADE 61 THE BLACK KEYS “Let’s Rock” NONESUCH 60 SOLANGE When I Get Home COLUMBIA 59 SUNN O))) Life Metal SOUTHERN LORD 58 EZRA FURMAN Twelve Nudes BELLA UNION 57 JAKE XERXES…

“My transition into a domesticated human was kind of remarkable to myself” FROM the garden of a rented house in Austin, Texas – his own home, a few blocks away, is currently being decorated – perennial outsider Bill Callahan is recuperating from the shock of having just headlined Hammersmith Apollo, one of the biggest venues he’s ever played. “I’m always surprised that anyone comes,” he says hesitantly, the modesty clearly not a put-on. “When you get to a venue, you do the soundcheck, you might go for a walk, and then you come into the separate artist entrance which is usually in a back alley. The theatre’s been empty all day, and then you come out on stage and suddenly there’s people there – a lot of people!” Callahan admits…

IN November 2018, something odd happened in Van Land. A recording appeared on iTunes of the so-called Catacombs Tapes, a semi-mythical bootleg of a club gig Morrison played in Boston in August 1968, featuring many songs from Astral Weeks, which had not yet been recorded. The music appeared for a few hours before vanishing again – though not before being widely bootlegged. Morrison can now shed light on what was going on. “That was a gig I did in a dive in Boston with a couple of guys, a flute player and a bass player,” he says. “Peter Wolf of the J Geils Band was there, and he recorded it on his tape recorder. He held onto this for what, almost 50 years. Then eventually Peter wanted to do something…