Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 #280 i UNCUT

IT’S been almost a decade since REM split, during which time Michael Stipe has published two books of photography, written some film music (for 2013’s The Cold Lands), premiered two audio/visual works at Moogfest and produced a Fischerspooner album, as well as growing – and trimming down again – a very large beard. Finally, he’s back to singing actual songs, the kinds of fathomless, ambiguous songs on which REM’s reputation was forged. Two solo tracks – “Your Capricious Soul” and “Drive To The Ocean” – emerged late last year and early this, both raising funds for environmental causes. And in June, Stipe fronted a new track from Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon’s open-ended Big Red Machine project, “No Time For Love Like Now”. Here, he reveals more about his upcoming…

“I WASN’T mad, you know. Sorry to disappoint anyone, but that’s just one of the myths about this record that needs dispelling.” Kevin Rowland is resigned to the fact that most of the time he’ll spend promoting the forthcoming reissue of his 1999 solo album My Beauty will be taken up putting the record straight. A collection of cover versions inspired by his struggles with drugs and depression, its contents were overlooked by many who were taken aback by the “controversial” sleeve image – the singer in a ballgown and stockings. “The world’s moved on a hell of a lot in the last 20 years and a guy in a dress really isn’t such a big deal any more, but some of the attacks on me in the press back…

“The producer said, ‘You’ll have to play an encore because it looks like we’re going to have a riot!’” ARCHIE Shepp’s musical output is defined by a single-minded pursuit of the ‘new thing’, so it’s perhaps not so surprising to discover that, at the age of 82, he’s just released a hip-hop record. Ocean Bridges pairs his restless sax lines with the taut grooves of a band centred around DJ/drummer Damu The Fudgemunk and the conscious rapping of Shepp’s nephew Jason Moore, aka Raw Poetic. For Shepp it’s an entirely natural move. “I consider myself one of the creators of that style,” he says, not unreasonably. “I infused a number of my works with poetry and I’m glad to see that it’s evolved. [After me] there were groups like The…

1 The Merry Golden Tree 2 Rolling In The Dew 3 The Christmas Song 4 Locked In Ice 5 Wondrous Love 6 Barbara Allen 7 Canadee-i-o 8 Sweet Greens And Blues 9 Tell Me True 10 Whitsun Dance 11 Orange In Bloom 12 Crowlink Produced by: Ian Kearey Recorded at: Metway Studios, Brighton Personnel include: Shirley Collins (vocals), Ian Kearey (guitars, bass, ukulele, ‘The Instrument’, mandolin, percussion), Pete Cooper (fiddle), Dave Arthur (banjo, spoons, harmonica, melodeon), Pip Barnes (guitar), Ossian Brown (hurdygurdy), Nathan Salsburg (guitar), Matthew Shaw (harmonium, electric piano, Moog synthesiser, field recording)…

Vibration 2 Hey Lover 3 Soulful & Unique 4 Shadows Of The East 5 Sunflowers 6 Gravity 7 Solace 8 African Sounds Produced by: Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad Recorded at: Linear Labs Studios, Los Angeles, California February 2019 Personnel:›Roy Ayers (vibraphone), Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad (bass guitar, guitars, Fender Rhodes, synths, piano, clavinet, flute, alto saxophone, Mellotron, vibraphone), Greg Paul (drums and percussion), Phil Ranelin (trombone), Wendell Harrison (tenor saxophone), Elgin Clark, Anitra Castleberry, Loren Oden, Joi Gilliam, Saudia Yasmein (vocals)…

2 Hard On Everyone 3 Birds On A Feeder 4 Simple Math 5 Options Open 6 Feelings Fade 7 Fools Ride 8 Ashes To Ashes 9 Who Rescued Who 10 Take It With You Produced by: Jim Bryson, Ian Fitchuk and Kathleen Edwards Recorded at: Moxe, White Creek, Tennessee; North Of Princess Studios, Kingston, Ontario; Fixed Hinge, Stittsville, Ontario Personnel includes: Kathleen Edwards (vocals, acoustic and electric guitars), Peter Von Althen (drums, percussion), Darcy Yates (bass guitar), Gord Tough (electric and slide guitars), Blair Horgan (electric guitar), Jill Andrews (backing vocals), Jim Bryson (acoustic and electric guitars, organ, piano, banjo), Aaron Goldstein (pedal steel), Ian Fitchuk (piano, Wurlitzer)…

SONGS: OHIA Didn’t It Rain SECRETLY CANADIAN, 2002 Jason Molina drove from Chicago to Philadelphia to record his sixth Songs: Ohia  album with producer Edan Cohen. Steeped in gospel sentiment if not gospel music – the title is a reference to Sister Rosetta Tharpe – it’s among his finest collections of songs, all enlivened by contributions from his frequent duet partner Jennie Benford and lap steel wizard Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner. 9/10 SONGS: OHIA The Magnolia Electric Co SECRETLY CANADIAN, 2003 A pivotal album for Molina: after several albums of austere indie folk songs, he assembled  a semi-permanent backing band to flesh out his lyrics with sturdy Midwestern country-rock arrangements (and a beautiful cover by William Schaff). His voice sounds lively in this rowdier setting, which adds some light to the…

How was this tape unearthed after all these years? James Cassily, a sound engineer from Michigan, recorded some of the bands at Goose Lake. Cassily passed away a few years ago and his wife decided to sell the family farmhouse in rural Michigan. Josh Rogers, their son, went to go help clean out the house and he found some boxes, one of which just said “Goose Lake”. That box had a bunch of recordings from the festival — and The Stooges was one of them. About three years ago, Josh reached out to Third Man. Tell us about your first listen to this piece of rock history. It was perfect. I had it cranked in my office, super loud. And within five minutes of turning it on, Jack [ White…

1 Oh My Lover 2 O Stella 3 Dress 4 Victory 5 Happy And Bleeding 6 Sheela-Na-Gig 7 Hair 8 Joe 9 Plants And Rags 10 Fountain 11 Water DRY Produced by: Head, PJ Harvey, Mark Vernon Recorded at: The Icehouse, Yeovil, Somerset Personnel:PJ Harvey (vocals, guitar, violin), Stephen Vaughan (bass), Rob Ellis (drums, vocals, harmonium), Mike Paine (guitar), Ian Olliver (bass), Ben Groenevelt (double bass), Chas Dickie (cello) DRY – THE DEMOS Produced by: PJ Harvey Personnel: PJ Harvey (vocals, guitar), Mike Paine (additional guitar on “Fountain” and “Water”), Tom Rickman (cello on “Dress”), Lisa Comer (additional vocals on “Oh My Lover”), Stephen Allen (vocals on “Victory”)…

EMBRYONIC WARNER BROS, 2009 Ditching the accessibility of At War With The Mystics , the group embrace jamming on sprawling, droning album. Coyne’s mainly on bass, Karen O and MGMT guest, and the vibes are very Can and Bitches Brew . 8/10 THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS BELLA UNION, 2012 These collected collaborations with  yoko Ono, Ke$, Cave are a mixed bag; Bon Iver team-up “Ashes In The Air”, in particular, is a distorted, silly delight. 6/10 THE TERROR BELLA UNION, 2013 This dark, slightly unforgiving listen was a brave move for the group.  singles as an believes will be seen as an underrated classic in the future. 7/10 MILEY CYRUS MILEY CYRUS & HER DEAD PETZ RCA/SMILEY MILEY, 2015 Featuring Coyne Lips as co-producers, this decidedly messy…

THE time between Starsailor and 1973’s Greetings From LA is a fairly mysterious one for Buckley fans – where did he disappear to? Some say that he was Sly Stone’s chauffeur for a time, or that he earned a living as a taxi driver. He also turned his hand to acting, appearing in director Victor Stoloff’s 1973 film Why? , alongside OJ Simpson, and making a cameo in James Frawley’s The Christian Licorice Store , its title from a lyric in Buckley’s “Pleasant Street”. But over much of that time, he was also intensely focused on the music he was making with his Starsailor Band. The group went through a number of lineups, but it’s final grouping of Buckley, Maury Baker, Glenn Ferris and Emmett Chapman took the music furthest…

PETER GABRIEL ( AKA CAR) CHARISMA, 1977 The plague-pit squelches of “Moribund The Burgermeister welcomed the Genesis faithful, but Gabriel’s solo debut revelled in stylistic emancipation: stadium rock, barbershop ragtime, grandiose flamenco, smoky blues. An orchestral torrent, “Here Comes The Flood” epitomised the record’s vaunting ambitions, while the weightless folk of “Solsbury Hill” embodied Gabriel’s jubilation at escaping the Genesis machine. PETER GABRIEL (AKA SCRATCH) CHARISMA,1978 Embracing producer Robert Fripp’s audio vérité vision, Gabriel dovetailed with new wave and Bowie’s Berlin thanks to Scratch’s stark modernism and metallic edges; songs of paranoia, fear, warfare and suicide. Echoing Dury’s urban funk, Television’s high-wire urgency and The Clash’s sunless reggae, Scratch set Gabriel in step with the rhythm of the times. PETER GABRIEL (AKA MELT) CHARISMA, 1980 No ground, no metal. The…

“MAGAZINES were beginning to show interest in the ‘pop star at home’ type of feature. The general response from the band was, ‘No way, I don’t want some strange photographer coming into my place!’ But in that process it came up that why didn’t I shoot a set of pictures of each of them and then the press office would supply them to any magazines who wanted them; all they’d have to do is spend a day with a friend of theirs who happened to have a camera. I don’t think Andrew [Loog Oldham] thought the at-home set-up was particularly in keeping with the image of the band that he had been promoting, but he recognised that the band were achieving a certain level of fame and this was part…

THE MODERN LOVERS BESERKLEY,1976 The legendary debut, pooled from ahead-of-their-time demos recorded for Warners and A&M in 1972. Much of Richman’s legend rests here: “Roadrunner”, “Pablo Picasso”, “She Cracked”, “Hospital”, “Someone I Care About”. JONATHAN SINGS! SIRE,1983 Rapturous, articulate and polished, Richman’s fifth outing is probably his most commercial. Highlights include the irrepressible “That Summer Feeling” and “You’re The One For Me”, extolling the thrill of romance. I, JONATHAN ROUNDER,1992 Quite possibly his solo masterpiece, his backing band a model of restraint as Richman considers his past (“Twilight In Boston”), hails key inspirations (“Velvet Underground”) and shakes loose in style (“I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar”). NOT SO MUCH TO BE LOVED AS TO LOVE VAPOR,2004 French and Italian-language songs jostle for room next to…

SWEET AND DANDY BEVERLEY, 1969 killer 45s have been re-recorded numerous , Dandy captures many of them in their original raw splendour, produced by Lesley Kong for his Beverley label at Dynamic Sounds. The title track later stole the show in The Harder They Come . 8/10 FUNKY KINGSTON MANGO, 1975 A peerless slice of Afro-centric reggaefied soul-funk. The 1972 Dragon LP is the original, but the 1975 US version is a more satisfying listen. Blending tracks from the ’72 album and its follow-up, In The Dark , alongside “Pressure Drop”, it includes a customised version of John Denver’s “Country Roads” andasearing“Louie Louie”. 9/10 REGGAE GOT SOUL ISLAND, 1976 A more conventional stroll down the rocksteady road, enlivened by standouts such as “Rastaman” and “True Love Is Hard To Find”.…

FAMILY ROMANCE, LLC Directed by Werner Herzog Starring Yuichi Ichii, Mahiro Tanimoto Streaming from July 3 6/10 PROXIMA Directed by Alice Winocour Starring Eva Green, Matt Dillon Opens July 31 8/10 THE TRAITOR Directed by Marco Bellocchio Starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Maria Fernanda Cândido Opens July 24 7/10 COINCOIN AND THE EXTRA› HUMANS Directed by Bruno Dumont Starring Bernard Pruvost, Alane Delhaye Streaming from July 24 8/10 LAST AND FIRST MEN Directed by Jóhann Jóhannsson Starring Tilda Swinton Streaming from July 30 9/10…

THE BAND NORTHERN LIGHTS – SOUTHERN CROSS CAPITOL,1975 The Band are one of my favourite groups, and it was hard for me to choose between this album and the one known as ‘the brown album’. I just have such a lot of memories of where I was in my life when I first heard this record – I think I played it every day for a year in 1975! I had a year to go in high school, and I would sit out on the porch and listen to it from the record player in the next room. I couldn’t get enough of it. About 1,000 years later when I was touring in Australia for the first time, I remember rediscovering it again because of the Southern Cross connection. THE…

MY earliest memories of REM are probably from when I was 13 or 14, when my sister was obsessed with Lifes Rich Pageant – she used to listen to “Fall On Me” on repeat. Then when Automatic For The People came out, that was when they had a huge influence on the music I was writing. That’swhen I started to really actively be influenced and kind of obsessed with REM. I jokingly refer to Michael’s voice as ’The Stipe’. It has a very vulnerable quaver that’s very subtle, a particular inflection you can hear on certain words. He doesn’t always do it – he has different characters that he can bring out – but he does it on “No Time For Love Like Now” quite a bit. He’s very invested…

BILL CALLAHAN Gold Record DRAG CITY  “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash…” After the unusually open …Sheepskin Vest , the mask goes back on – but the sense of an intimate audience with  the master remains. AFEL BOCOUM Lindé WORLD CIRCUIT Buoyant fourth solo album from the Mali Music and Africa Express regular. Features Tony Allen, reggae trombonist Vin Gordon, and Joan As Police Woman on violin… SUN RA ARKESTRA Swirling STRUT Beatific reworkings of 12 Sun Ra favourites – plus one Marshall Allen-penned newie – from the evergreen cosmic adventurers. DENT MAY Late Checkout CARPARK  His magnificent ukulele now upgraded to the full Van Dyke Parks, this is loner pop classicism at its magnificent, multicolour best. SARAH DAVACHI Cantus, Descant LATE MUSIC  Stunning double-album of spiritually…

1 The Soul Singer 2 (You’ve Got To) Kiss A Frog Or Two 3 Low Down In The Broom 4 Dennis Hopper 5 Freak Street 6 Sticky Fingers 7 Why Should I Love You? 8 The Golden Work 9 My Wanderings In The Weary Land 10 Postcard From The Celtic Dreamtime 11 Good Luck, Seeker 12 Beauty In Repetition 13 Everchanging 14 The Land of Sunset Produced by: Puck Fingers and Brother Paul Recorded at: Puck Towers, Dublin and Ocean Soul, Nashville. Additional recording at The Bunker, Welwyn Garden City; Camden & Cauldron, Dublin; Olympic, London; Sawmills, Cornwall; Electric Landlady, London; Number 72, London; and on the road in Japan, Europe and North America. Field recordings and FX made in New York, Tokyo, Dublin and Oxford Personnel includes: Mike Scott,…

How did the Jazz Is Dead label come about? ASM: A friend of ours, Andrew Lojero, is a concert promoter in LA. Together with Adam Block, he runs a series called Arts Don’t Sleep. They were having challenges promoting concerts with jazz artists, and asking me and Adrian “why are they not coming out? Jazz is dead, man!” So the whole idea was to take these jazz events and sell them to a crowd who wouldn’t normally identify with jazz. Me, Andrew, Adrian and Adam went through our dream list of artists, American and Brazilian, who we’d love to host. Roy Ayers was pretty much at the top of that list. What drew you to Roy’smusic? ASM: His music has a soulful vibration. I know he uses that word a…

What got you writing music again? I give Maren Morris some credit for that. She reached out to say she was a fan of mine from my early records, and would I consider writing with her. I went to Nashville for a few days and did this writing session, and it ended up being the spark that I needed. What does ‘total freedom’ mean to you? My original working title for the album was ‘Quitsville’, but Ian pushed me away from that. It’s really funny that the title comes from the song “Birds On A Feeder”. Not long after I wrote it, I got into a relationship with someone who ended up being an emotionally abusive person. When I finally realised what I was dealing with, I did it feeling…

The Electric Prunes REPRISE, 1967 “Free-form garage music” was their  self-genre, Prunes made good on that promise with their self-titled debut. Some lovely melancholy moments here, like the drifting “Onie”, but the real magic is in their fuzz-blasted anti-anthems, like the exhilarating “Get Me To The World On Time”. The Bo Diddley beat was rarely trippier. 7/10 Underground REPRISE, 1967 One better and one weirder, Underground features some of  the Prunes’ most lasting songs – the cheap thrills of “The Great Banana Hoax”; “Dr Do-Good”’s wah-fuzz meltdown, which sounds like the tapes have been left out in the sun to warp and buckle. In deepest Rugby, Spacemen 3 were listening – compare and contrast both groups’ “Big City”… 8/10 Mass In F Minor REPRISE, 1968 With their manager getting David…

“I’M very slow finishing things!” admits Peter Gabriel. It is June and Gabriel is in London, updating Uncut on the status of his new record. He hasn’t released an album’s worth of new material since 2002’s Up, which begs the question: can we expect one any time soon? “There’s a big backlog of unfinished ideas,” he reveals. “But I’m now getting enough lyrics done – which is often where I slow down. I’m looking forward to getting an album out.” Gabriel has hardly been idle, of course. Since Up, there have been two covers albums – 2010’s Scratch My Back and 2013’s And I’ll Scratch Yours – as well as 2011’s New Blood, where he revisited older tracks from his own catalogue, along with three full tours. His outlet for…

BIRDY CHARISMA, 1985 His first Lanois collaboration saw Gabriel reworking several of his previous songs into instrumental interludes for Alan Parker’s post-Vietnam drama. PASSION: MUSIC FOR THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST REAL WORLD, 1989 Gathering giants of global culture onto his soundtrack for The Passion Of The Christ , Gabriel created a breakthrough landmark for world music, among his most respected records. OVO REAL WORLD, 2000 Tasked with soundtracking the Millennium Dome show, Gabriel handed an hour of glacial paeans and mechanised funk to a galaxy of guest vocalists. But, with “Father, Son”, he stole the most poignant five minutes of the new millennium for himself. LONG WALK HOME: MUSIC FROM THE RABBIT› PROOF FENCE REAL WORLD, 2002 Got a film about the Aboriginal struggle that needs scoring? Who you…

THE summer of 1973 was supposed to be The Modern Lovers’ decisive moment. In August, the quartet found themselves supporting Tower Of Power at San Bernardino’s Swing Auditorium, as part of a showcase for potential record company suitors. Anticipating something akin to the boisterous party mood of the headliners, the crowd were instead subjected to Jonathan Richman’s odd, dissonant songs about auto signs, Cubist painters and being straight. It didn’t go well. “As we came on, everyone in the audience was yelling, ‘Rock’n’roll! Rock’n’roll!’” recalls keyboardist Jerry Harrison. “And there we were, doing stuff like ‘Hospital’ – ‘When you get out of the hospital/Let me back into your life.’ It didn’t quite measure up to what they were expecting, so they reacted fairly violently towards us.” Bassist Ernie Brooks remembers:…

“IS a good day,” pronounces Frederick “Toots” Hibbert breezily, calling Uncut from his studio in Kingston. “Is good here all the time.” It’s precisely the kind of blunt positivity we’ve come to expect from the man who has been fronting the mighty Maytals for the best part of 60 years, a man whose songs – vibrant, righteous, urgent, joyful – are synonymous with the golden age of Jamaican music. Alongside Jimmy Cliff and Desmond Dekker, Hibbert was part of reggae’s first international wave. The youngest son of a Baptist minister, he grew up singing gospel in his father’s church choir. With its echoes of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Ray Charles, his soulful voice is one of music’s most evocative sounds, encompassing all the sweetness and sweat of his homeland,…

“DAVID told me that it was going to be sung by Bob Dylan originally,” says Rick Wakeman, “but for various reasons it didn’t work out – so David did it in the end.” Dylan’s loss was certainly Bowie’s gain, with “Absolute Beginners” now justifiably regarded as one of the Dame’s finest singles of the ’80s. In typical Bowie fashion, this eight-minute song was laid down impressively quickly, mostly recorded on the same day as the Live Aid collaboration with Mick Jagger, “Dancing In The Street”. “It was a one-off,” says co-producer Clive Langer. “It wasn’t part of a sound that he had before or after. It was one of his good ones, and we worked very hard to make sure that we didn’t let it down.” Enlisted by director Julien…

Bravo! As they celebrate 25 years of recording, we present the Ultimate Music Guide to one of the world’s most adventurous and self-examining bands – Wilco. From the ramshackle dramas of Uncle Tupelo to the eclectic, Grammy-winning rock of A Ghost Is Born … and beyond. The secret of their success? As Jeff Tweedy confides in our exclusive intro, “The lineup became more stable as I became more stable…” In shops now. The Neal Casal Music Foundation has been created to honour the memory of the late guitarist, raising money for mental health organisations and to provide instruments to schools. Make a donation to the Kickstarter fund to receive a 30-song tribute album, Highway Butterfly: The Songs Of Neal Casal , featuring the likes of Lucinda Williams, Jonathan Wilson, Phil…

BIRDSOFMAYA Ready To Howl RICHIE,2010 Polizze’s journey began with this Philly trio, who made three long-players of rawer-than-raw  garage punk and neanderthal hard rock and continue as a sporadic live concern. Framed as a soundtrack to a feature film of the same name following a debauched lost weekend, second LP Ready To Howl hinges on two 20-minute-plus tracks, “Porch Dude” and “Heavy On Sunday”, that blaze with freeform intensity. 7/10 PURLING HISS Water On Mars DRAG CITY, 2013 For his third album, Polizze grew Purling Hiss from a solo project into a power trio, recruiting drummer Mike Sneeringer and bassist Kiel Everett and signing to Drag City. Co-produced by The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel, Water On Mars pulled back the scuzz somewhat, Polizze’s drawled lyrics and firecracker leads affectionately…

How did you approach the making of this album? The whole process of going into a studio this time was really good for me. There was no rush – we were able to take it easy, because it’s the only way I can do it really, and spend enough time on each song to make sure it’s as good as it can be. Ian [ Kearey ] was always layering the songs, putting extra instruments on, so that gave me time to just sit and listen to it. I’ve known everyone in the Lodestar Band for so many years now, and they all know what they’re doing, they all love the music. I feel very fortunate that I’m surrounded by these people, and also to be with Domino, who really…

1 I Don’t Belong 2 Love Is The Main Thing 3 Televised Mind 4 A Lucid Dream 5 You Said 6 Oh Such A Spring 7 A Hero’s Death 8 Living In America 9 I Was Not Born 10 Sunny 11 No Produced by: Dan Carey Recorded at: Mr Dan’s, London Personnel: Grian Chatten (vocals, tambourine, tribal tom), Conor Deegan (bass, Bass Vi, backing vocals, piano, Nashville guitar), Carlos O’Connell (guitar, celeste), Conor Curley (guitar, backing vocals), Tom Coll (drums, tambourine), Raven Bush (strings)…

You appear to be having a great deal of fun. Did you ever baulk at using humour in songs like “Dennis Hopper”? I often made up joke songs as a teenager and young bandleader, and since I worked out how to do it in my “official” music on ‘Hank’ and ‘And A Bang On The Ear’ back in 1988, I’ve carried on. I hope you caught the “Get yourself on the outside of this, mate, it’ll blow yer mind” joke in the third chorus of ‘…Hopper’ in the right-hand speaker. Can you tell me more about Dion Fortune, whose words you share? She was a British mystical author active between the 1920s and ’40s. I love her way with words, and they taught me a lot over the years. She…

AUGUSTUS PABLO Ancient Harmonies VP RECORDS 8/10 Four key albums from reggae’s melodica maestro repackaged SOMEWHERE between a pump organ and a harmonica, the melodica is a strange and often derided instrument. Invented by Hohner in the 1950s, Steve Reich conferred a degree of respectability by composing for it and Damon Albarn overcame initial ridicule to make the instrument’s eerie wheeze an integral part of the sound of Gorillaz. Yet nobody has used the melodica more effectively than Augustus Pablo, whose dubby soundscapes have made his name almost synonymous with the instrument. Born in Jamaica in 1954, he started out playing the church organ at Kingston College School, where the West Indian Test bowler Michael Holding was a classmate. He became fascinated by the melodica after a schoolgirl lent him…

IT’S come to be considered one of Buckley’s most enduring songs, but strangely enough “Song To The Siren” wasn’t even debuted on record by its co-writer – that honour went to Pat Boone, who covered the song on his 1969 album, Departure. It’s also been covered by everyone from Sinéad O’Connor to George Michael. It took more than a decade for “Song To The Siren” to begin its slow yet inexorable rise to classic status, largely thanks to the efforts of 4AD boss Ivo Watts-Russell and his musical collective This Mortal Coil. Their debut 45 from 1983, a cover of Modern English’s “Sixteen Days”, was backed with a minimal, gestural cover of “Song To The Siren”, sung beautifully by the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser, lightly framed by guitar from Robin…

PLAYS LIVE CHARISMA, 1983 Monkey makeup and mania – Plays Live captures the feverish energy of Gabriel’s solo  coming of age over Melt and Security . SECRET WORLD LIVE REAL WORLD/ VIRGIN, 1994 The Secret World Tour was an exercise in theatrical set-pieces, and its accompanying album embodied the dramatic largesse of Us and its various indulgences. LIVE BLOOD REAL WORLD, 2012 Recorded over two nights at the Hammersmith Apollo, Live Blood expanded on the back-catalogue orchestrations of New Blood to include the likes of “Biko”, more whisper than scream. BACK TO FRONT: LIVE IN LONDON REAL WORLD, 2014 With its menacing praying mantis lighting pods, the This Way Up Tour of 1987 was among the most striking rock shows ever staged. So Gabriel recreated it in 2013, adorning a…

COVER versions have been on Tanya Donnely’s mind a lot of late. After receiving requests on social media she’s attempted some, and posted the results on her Bandcamp page in aid of Boston venues struggling, like so many globally, to stay afloat during the extended inactivity forced on them by lockdown. There’s also her most recent album, made with longtime local associates the Parkington Sisters, in which she interprets eight very well-known songs from the canon and succeeds by applying deep thought to them, in finding a personal way in, and making them her own. It’s a contemplative process she’s familiar with. For over 30 years, beginning with Throwing Muses, via The Breeders and with her own group Belly, Tanya’s mode has been personal reflection: all animated by her insistent,…

PRIOR to working on 2018’s SA! together, Richman and Jerry Harrison began discussing the possibility of releasing every take from The Modern Lovers’ 1972 demo sessions with John Cale (Warner Bros) and Allan Mason (A&M). “Some of them have no vocals,” Harrison explains. “When he was listening back to them, Jonathan said he really loved the modulating interplay between his guitar-playing and my keyboard, which he hadn’t noticed so much on the vocal tracks. He thought it was really quite extraordinary.” Ex-bassist Ernie Brooks, also privy to the tapes, is similarly excited by the prospect of an official release. “There’s some really good versions that have never been heard before,” he says. “And I have a few oddities, like Jonathan playing electric guitar before The Modern Lovers were formed and…

THE Maytals opened for The Who in arenas and stadiums on the first leg of the band’s mammoth North American tour at the tail end of 1975. It proved a tough assignment. Reviewing the Houston show, Rolling Stone reported that the group “left a less knowledgeable audience confused by their mixture of reggae and R&B. Some sort of preparation for this greatest of all reggae singers is in order.” The lack of preparation, says Hibbert, was the precise problem. “The first time I toured with The Who they were booing me – ‘Boo! Boo! Boo!’ – because they didn’t advertise that I was going to sing with The Who. In those days, they wanted to give The Maytals as a surprise for the audience – but we got the surprise,…

Written by: David Bowie Personnel: David Bowie (vocals), Kevin Armstrong (guitar), Matthew Seligman (bass), Rick Wakeman (piano), Neil Conti (drums), Steve Nieve (keyboards), Luis Jardim (percussion), Mac Gollehon & John Thirkell (trumpet), Don Weller, Gary Barnacle, Paul “Shilts” Weimar, Willie Garnett, Andy Mackintosh, Gordon Murphy (saxophone), Janet Armstrong (backing vocals) Produced By: David Bowie, Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley Recorded at: Westside, London Released: March 3, 1986 Chart Peak: UK 2; US 53…

ROCKFIELD: THE STUDIO ON THE FARM BBC IPLAYER 8/10 Rocking out in a rustic setting BROTHERS Kingsley and Charles Ward began their south Wales recording enterprise in the 1960s with a potato loft soundproofed by pig feedbags, but by the following decade it was state-of-the-art and the ideal location for musicians wishing to get it together in the country. Rockfield was, they claim, the UK’s first residential studio, and as the great and the good testify in Hannah Berryman’s documentary it’s been a place of retreat, creativity, and occasionally collapse. It’s where Robert Plant holed up after the death of John Bonham to chart a solo path (“I was a walking cliché… free to fail”), where Kingsley played frisbee with Brian May while Freddie Mercury toiled over “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and…