Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i UNCUT

WHEN Let It Be finally returns to circulation in June on Disney+, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg is eager to see how his long-lost Beatles film is received by a contemporary audience. Originally released in May 1970, it became what he describes as “collateral damage” in the band’s break-up. The reissue arrives in very different circumstances, after the huge success of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, which was created using Lindsay-Hogg’s original footage. It’s a climate that he hopes will allow people to see Let It Be in a new light. “This is a film that hasn’t been seen by most people for 50 years, so it’s totally out of a time capsule,” he says. “Peter Jackson always liked Let It Be and saw it for what it is. He understands that Get…

PORTISHEAD Dummy GO! BEAT, 1994 The songs that made up Portishead’s Mercury Prizewinning debut sampled, scratched and looped distressed vinyl and mingled it with the band’s original compositions. The result was an introspective and avant-garde blues, threaded with hip-hop, jazz and dub. 10/10 BETH GIBBONS & RUSTIN MAN Out Of Season 2002 Working with Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (using the pseudonym Rustin Man), Gibbons revealed a range of musical influences that extended far beyond Portishead’s palette and into the folk and jazz worlds occupied by artists such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and Nick Drake. 9/10 BETH GIBBONS & THE POLISH NATIONAL RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Henryk Gorecki: Symphony No 3 DOMINO, 2019 Gibbons collaborated with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra for this interpretation of Gorecki’s 1976 composition. The…

This album is constructed from Einstürzende Neubauten’s in-concert improvisations. Is it harder to work with language in that context? Yes, it’s harder. At the very beginning of the band, everything was improvised. The lyrics were always improvised too. In that way, they rarely ever made it beyond the format of a skeleton. It will be an improvisation around a formula, or two formulas. Maybe you’ll be lucky, and some inspiration will come into play, some divine inspiration. Your working-through of ideas of language on the album is fascinating. Language is one of the themes. By the time that I was working on the album, I could not really see the bigger picture. It is only now that I sit back in interviews to talk about it, I have realised there…

What drew you and Willie to the border as a theme? I wouldn’t say I began this record with a particular theme in mind. In every record I produce I start out trying to find the very best songs which I believe fits Willie’s vocal style and usually a theme will emerge and the album will begin to take its own shape. How lengthy a process was choosing the songs by other people? Once I put the word out on the street here in Nashville that I was about to begin a new record with Willie, songs started coming in. I was attending a lunch meeting for the Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame one day. Also attending were Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin. I asked them if they had a…

There’s a lot about Big Wave that suggests the album was written during an unhappy period of your life. Is that reading too much into the songs? Not at all. When I started writing these songs, I wanted to dive into a shadow growing inside me. I felt an urge to dig into corners of my soul, to find out what was in there. I realised I had been unhappy for a long time and needed to make some changes in my life. Did the new songs demand a new sound or were you ready to try something new anyway? I needed a change. I had found my safe and happy place with Hardcore From The Heart. Big Wave asked me to put myself in the unknown, outside of my safety…

Detroit 1969-1977 DEMON 8/10 BORN of Eddie Holland’s conviction that he, his brother Brian and their fellow songwriter and producer Lamont Dozier were not getting a fair share of the proceeds from the global success of Berry Gordy Jr’s Motown company in the 1960s, the Invictus and Hot Wax labels made some glorious music as that decade shaded into the next. The elder Holland set up their labels when the trio were still in dispute with Motown. As Dozier wrote in his autobiography, the lawsuits and countersuits went on for years – “long, complicated and unpleasant”. It was the sourest possible ending to a story that had helped to shape Gordy’s Sound of Young America. Not until 1971, when their contracts expired, were the three free to work for their…

Ghana Special 2: Electronic Highlife & Afro Sounds In The Diaspora, 1980-93 SOUNDWAY 7/10 ONE of West Africa’s most enduring and adaptable signature sounds, Ghanaian “highlife” music has long sent its supple rhythms and lilting melodies, cycling guitar lines and brassy big-band arrangements rippling out across the globe, where it merged with jazz, disco, funk and reggae. This so-called “diaspora loop” effect entered a prolific new chapter in the 1980s, when thousands of Ghanaian musicians emigrated in search of better opportunities, driven out by the repressive regime and restrictive economic policies of military junta leader Jerry Rawlings. Most of these exiles headed for Britain and Germany, where they first encountered synthesisers and drum machines, forging the Afro-pean fusion sound later branded “burger highlife”. The “burger” derives from the German word…

SINCE joining Belle & Sebastian on vocals and cello while still studying music at Strathclyde University, Isobel Campbell has followed her passion to some fascinating places. Even before jumping ship from B&S – during the early days, Campbell and bandleader Stuart Murdoch were a couple, which complicated an already tricky dynamic – she made two solo records as The Gentle Waves. In the years since, she has followed with albums of jazz standards and traditional folk tunes, three acclaimed collaborations with post-grunge American grizzly Mark Lanegan and a diverse collection of solo material – the latest of which, Bow To Love, is one of her best. Campbell’s catalogue offers strength in diversity, even if the artist herself is sometimes left confused. “I wonder if anyone does this feature and goes,…

“THE first time we played America, we had this real connection to the audience,” says Neil Halstead. Even after their absence, Slowdive have returned to discover that this connection has gone from strength to strength. “Genres that I was into when I was younger, like punk, can be one-dimensional, just angry,” says Beach Fossils’ Dustin Payseur. “Slowdive can feel romantic and sexy, but hopeful and a bit defeated at the same time. That’s what real life is.” Slowdive proved a common element among Beach Fossils’ peer group – bands like Wild Nothing and DiiV. “Everyone was pulling different elements to create their own sound,” Payseur says, “pairing it with a Stereolab influence, or folk.” DiiV’s Ben Newman agrees: “You see elements of their music everywhere, like American Football and the…

THE ALPHA BAND SPARK IN THE DARK ARISTA, 1977 Still hot off Rolling Thunder, heads bursting with ideas, Burnett and co-conspirators hit stride on their second album, with border songs, ballads, and a Ringo Starr-powered take on Dylan’s “You Angel You”. 7/10 LOS LOBOS HOW WILL THE WOLF SURVIVE? SLASH/WARNER BROTHERS, 1984 With their Tejano take on early rock’n’roll, this Los Angeles-based crew spoke a language the Texas-bred Burnett understood perfectly. The result branded Burnett an A-list producer. 9/10 ELVIS COSTELLO KING OF AMERICA COLUMBIA, 1986 Born of his Coward Brothers duo with Burnett, this pivot is a career highpoint for Costello, foregrounding acoustic instruments and shuffling personnel between Attractions and American music legends. 9/10 T BONE BURNETT T BONE BURNETT DOT, 1986 After three Alpha Band LPs and his…

TWIN INFINITIVES DRAG CITY, 1990 After a ramshackle 1988 debut, the Trux unpack their first great visionary work, a double album sprawl of densely layered noise-rock, driven by fractured rhythms, feral guitar riffs and vocals that nudge the pain barrier. 9/10 UNTITLED DRAG CITY/DOMINO, 1992 A first real dalliance with conventional song, albeit of the fiendishly diseased variety. Their early preoccupations feed into “Hallucination” and the captivating “Junkie Nurse”, while “Sun On The Run” owes much to Cale-era VU. 8/10 CATS AND DOGS DRAG CITY/DOMINO, 1993 Herrema and Hagerty break with Trux protocol by heading up a five-piece band, sharpening their scuzz-rock tendencies into something fiercely elemental. “The Flag” and “Hot And Cold Skulls” quickly became fan favourites. 9/10 THANK YOU VIRGIN, 1995 Produced by the legendary David Briggs, the…

TOM WAITS AND KATHLEEN BRENNAN Brennan was a script analyst on Francis Ford Coppola’s One From The Heart – for which Waits was composing the score – when she met her future husband. He subsequently dedicated his 1980 song “Jersey Girl” to her, and by the time he released Rain Dogs five years later, her name was starting to appear on his records. Having introduced Waits to Captain Beefheart, Brennan is credited with his move towards sonic experimentation. “She doesn’t like the limelight,” he explained in 1999, “but she’s an incandescent presence on all the songs we work on together.” BRETT AND RENNIE SPARKS The two halves of The Handsome Family were an item for five years before they embarked on a collaboration that has so far yielded 11 albums.…

THE presence of Rick Wright on “Luck and Strange” is the latest posthumous appearance from the Floyd’s talismanic keyboard player. Following Wright’s untimely death on September 15, 2008, aged only 65, Gilmour has continued to honour the closeness forged between the two bandmates during their many decades together. When Gilmour assumed stewardship of the Floyd in 1985, for instance, among his first tasks was to bring the absent Wright back into the fold. Even after Pink Floyd went on hiatus after The Division Bell Tour finished in October 1994, Wright continued to work with Gilmour – playing on his 2006 album On An Island and the subsequent tour, where “Echoes” was a highlight of the set. “They had a great time,” Floyd’s long-term engineer Andy Jackson told Uncut in 2014.…

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NEZOUH RELEASED MAY 3 A 14-year-old girl has to choose between staying with her father in war-torn Damascus or following her dreams in this prize-winning film from Syrian director Soudade Kaadan. LOVE LIES BLEEDING RELEASED MAY 3 Kristin Stewart and Katy O’Brien star as 1980s bodybuilders in Rose Glass’s much anticipated follow-up to her devastating 2022 debut Saint Maud. STING RELEASED MAY 3 A family find themselves in a desperate fight with a ravenous pet spider in this new horror movie from Australian writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner. OUR MOTHERS (NUESTRA MADRES) RELEASED MAY 10 A young researcher, documenting the crimes of his country’s civil war, believes he might have found a lead that will guide him to his own father, in this debut from Guatamalen director César Díaz. THE STRANGERS RELEASED…

DAVID Bernz’s preface to Chopping Wood: Thoughts & Stories Of A Legendary American Folksinger contains a health warning. The book, he notes, is not a biography of Pete Seeger. Neither is it designed to be read at a single sitting. It is “a collection of thoughts and stories that escaped from the different corners of Pete’s mind” which, taken together, give a picture of how the man spoke and thought. As Seeger saw himself as a storyteller there is another cautious note: “The book is not intended to be one hundred per cent historically accurate.” The Seeger who emerges from this haphazard process is a man of forthright opinions and deep curiosity, though it might have helped if Bernz – a family friend who first heard Seeger’s tales while driving…

STEVE HARLEY Cockney Rebel captain (1951-2024) STEVE Harley’s biggest hit may never have happened had his band not walked out on him. After a successful 1974 tour, three members of Cockney Rebel demanded more say in the songwriting. Harley, who’d written everything thus far, stood firm. When the dissenters quit, he swiftly put together a new lineup and poured his sense of betrayal into the scornful lyrics of “Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)”. The single topped the UK charts and sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide. It proved the high point of a career that had already been eventful. Born Stephen Nice in Deptford, Harley spent much of his formative years receiving treatment for polio. One hospital stay, in 1963, coincided with his first exposure to Bob…

HOW TO ENTER The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by David Gilmour. When you’ve worked out what it is, email your answer to: competitions@uncut.co.uk. The first correct entry picked at random will win a prize. Closing date: Thursday, May 23, 2024. This competition is only open to European residents. CLUES ACROSS 1 The Cure’s eighth album brought about their breakup (14) 8 Green Day song that aptly opens with “This is a public service announcement” (7) 9 “I’ve walked and I’ve _______ on six crooked highways” from Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” (7) 11+21D “I say you don’t know, you say you don’t know”, 2004 (4-2-3) 12 Primal Scream do cheek differently (4-3) 16 Perhaps it was me, Ted, who named this…

RICH RUTH Water Still Flows THIRD MAN Cosmic jazz-rock therapist returns to heal our psychic wounds. Now with added Sunn O)))-style heaviosity! AROOJ AFTAB Night Reign VERVE Looser, earthier – but equally stunning – follow-up to the peerless Vulture Prince. Amid the ghazals and jazz standards, there’s a Moor Mother rap and a song called “Whiskey”. ROBYN HITCHCOCK “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” TINY GHOST Former Egyptian returns to the source. From an album of stripped-back psych-pop covers to accompany his new coming-of-age memoir, 1967: How I Got There And Why I Never Left. DIRTY THREE Love Changes Everything BELLA UNION First album in over a decade from Ellis, Turner and White’s beloved instrumental trio, chiselling their way out of the underworld towards somewhere genuinely euphoric. HUUN-HUUR-TU, CARMEN RIZZO &…

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BARRY ADAMSON Cut To Black BARRY ADAMSON INCORPORATED 7/10 Soundtrack king returns in a Cave-ian style Adamson’s first LP in seven years comes after he briefly rejoined the Bad Seeds for a US tour, and the influence of Nick Cave’s poetic mastery looms strongly over this song cycle. It’s particularly evident on the big-swinging “Amen White Jesus”, the epic 6/8 ballad “Please Don’t Call On Me” (narrated by Satan) and the stomping neo-Motown of “The Last Words Of Sam Cooke”, which recounts Cooke’s 1964 murder (and may be the only pop song to contain the word “licentious”). But it’s the subtle sonic references to Adamson’s fellow film-score kings like Morricone, John Barry and Lalo Schifrin that help to transform these mini movies. JOHN LEWIS OREN AMBARCHI/JOHAN BERTHLING/ANDREAS WERLIN Ghosted II…

DAVID GRUBBS The Spectrum Between DRAG CITY, 2000 Grubbs explores more conventional song structures on his fourth solo album but it’s not all mellow acoustic numbers. His inclination for the experimental comes through loud and clear on the drony majesty of “Stanwell Perpetual”, while the guitar charm of “Gloriette” harks back to the spiralling sounds of Gastr. 8/10 JIM O’ROURKE Simple Songs DRAG CITY, 2015 O’Rourke’s run of singer-songwriter albums for Drag City are all remarkable expressions of his facility with traditional songcraft, but this orchestral masterpiece (arriving nearly 14 years after his previous singer-songwriter album) could be the peak. All gorgeous arrangements and wry lyrics, O’Rourke is in symphonic pop genius mode, akin to Van Dyke Parks. 9/10 THE UNDERFLOW Instant Opaque Evening BLUE CHOPSTICKS, 2021 Grubbs’ trio with…

MARVIN GAYE Can I Get A Witness TAMLA, 1963 The key to the Motown Sound was the early infusion of gospel music’s fervour, beautifully captured by Holland, Dozier and Holland on this 12-bar blues in which, goaded by Johnny Griffi th’s pounding piano chords and Benny Benjamin’s huge backbeat, Marvin Gaye was decisively coaxed away from his ambition to become a cabaret crooner. 9/10 THE SUPREMES Stop! In The Name Of Love MOTOWN, 1965 “Where Did Our Love Go” and “Baby Love” had established the successful template, but this – the fourth of the Supremes’ 12 US No 1s – was the pinnacle of their collaboration. A swirling, almost psychedelic organ noise prefaced the introduction – “Stop!” – that gave the cue for a piece of unforgettably dramatic choreography. 9/10…

THE first time Mdou Moctar heard electronic drums, he thought they sounded like a war breaking out. The towering guitarist was nine years old. He and his friends were killing time outside the school gates in Arlit, a dusty mining town in the north of Niger, best known for producing enough uranium to power a decent chunk of the French national power grid. It was there that Moctar first picked up the sound that would soon come to obsess him: the rat-a-tat of the drums and the high, pure wail of an electric guitar. “When I was far away, I thought the drummer was playing a beat and then someone was firing a gun, you get what I mean?” he remembers, awe in his voice and fire in his eyes.…

FEBRUARY 16, 2024. Backstage at the Brighton Dome, Slowdive are preparing to take the stage for the first date of their UK tour. But first, there’s some star-spotting to be done. Neil Halstead – the band’s main writer, guitarist and co-singer – peers at a framed photograph of Pink Floyd hanging on the dressing room wall, commemorating the live debut of The Dark Side Of The Moon here in January 1972. “Oh, Pink Floyd played here,” he announces to the rest of the room. “Fantastic!” At the same moment, Halstead’s four-year-old son Albert wanders past, alongside guitarist Christian Savill’s teenage daughter and her excited schoolmates. It’s a contented, middle-aged scene. “When we were doing the band from 18 to 23, we pretty much lived together for six years,” Halstead says.…

ONE afternoon in the late ’70s, Eddy Grant was making the regular pilgrimage from his home in North London to the Black Theatre of Brixton when he noticed the name of the market street next to Brixton tube station: Electric Avenue, so called because it was the first shopping street to be lit by electric light. ‘That’ll make a great title for a song one day,’ he thought, filing it away for future reference. The name resurfaced a few years later, when Grant was in desperate need of new songs. His stash of lyrics and tapes had gone missing when he moved from London to Barbados and now his record company were getting impatient. Working with engineer Frank Aggarat at his new Blue Wave Studio, Grant turned the street name…

“I remember the first time I saw Royal Trux, at Maxwell’s in New Jersey, and how Jennifer didn’t fucking move. She was wearing a Raiders jacket and the only thing moving was the smoke from her crazy 120mm cigarette, with Neil and the band roaring next to her. They made a huge impression on me. At Drag City, I ended up being their publicist for Accelerator [1998] and Veterans Of Disorder [1999]. I already knew they were geniuses who’d ridden the crazy weird hype wave on a major label and proven every point at that stage. And they were legendary eccentrics. It was kind of understood that Neil wasn’t going to talk too much. He hated having to do press, but with me he was fucking cool as shit, and…

“IT’S getting on for 40 years since I first worked with David in Pink Floyd. My first bonding moment with him was in a hotel room in Philadelphia, when we sat on a bed and played ‘I Can’t Breathe Anymore’ from his first solo album. Getting to know ‘The Piper’s Call’ on this new album made me realise how much we’ve both changed. He had to go from being a respected musician to suddenly becoming a rock star at the age of 41. And he was not comfortable with it. “It’s been fascinating to witness the shift in perspective that started with ‘High Hopes’, which is the first Pink Floyd song that seems to be saying, ‘Hang on! For a minute there, it was all OK!’ David’s solo albums from…

Royal Albert Hall, London, March 24 IT’S been a long and impressive stint, but tonight, at 80, Roger Daltrey is stepping back from Teenage Cancer Trust. Powered by 24 years of Albert Hall benefit gigs, the charity has founded 28 specialist UK wards (plus 15 in the US) to provide sympathetic sanctuaries for young cancer patients during treatment, a cause pursued with the single-minded stubbornness characterising Daltrey’s music endeavours. Introducing this all-star farewell show, he deflects attention to the charity’s “unsung heroes”. Still the personal ovations come, notably during a video tribute when Paul McCartney bashes out a 10-second new number, “Thank You Roger” (“one of the best songs I’ve ever written!”), and Steve Coogan in Partridge mode rhapsodises about The Who (“The Kinks for welders”). On stage, Robert Plant…

BOSE QUIETCOMFORT ULTRA EARBUDS Price £300 ONE day, Bose is going to release a pair of true wireless noise-cancelling earbuds that don’t absolutely blow everyone away with their sound quality and ability to deal with all external sonic distractions. Today is not that day, though – because the QC Ultra Earbuds sound superb and cancel noise like you wouldn’t believe. At a glance, there’s not much to differentiate these buds from the QuietComfort II model they replaced. The finish is a little more upmarket, yes, with tiny adjustments to the way they fit. But broadly speaking, it’s business as usual. That’s true of the control options too: you still get some very reliable touch surfaces along with one of the best control apps around, Bose Music. Once you start listening,…

BOB DYLAN Highway 61 Revisited COLUMBIA, 1965 My grandparents had these neighbours who were getting rid of a ton of records, which are still among some of my most cherished albums. On the same day, I got Out Of Our Heads by the Stones, Wild Honey by The Beach Boys, and some others. But of those, Highway 61 Revisited has just been a constant for me. You can imagine being seven or eight years old and trying to make sense of it… It was raw, kinda sloppy even, but that voice singing those words blew my mind open. It was forbidding and inscrutable, but also compelling. He’s singing about Rimbaud, which opened my mind to literature and poetry. That kind of thing was edifying to my songwriting later on, for…

“TIME seems to operate on a different level in Cornwall,” says singer-songwriter Daisy Rickman. “It feels like another rhythm of life and I guess it opens up different spheres, musically. Growing up by the sea has had a huge influence on my creativity. It’s a very wild, magical place.” Raised in Mousehole, Rickman is one of several artists currently spearheading what amounts to a new Cornish folk resurgence. Her latest album Howl (Cornish for ‘sun’) is a celestial homage to the seasonal cycles, centred around fingerpicked guitar, experimental folk drones and Rickman’s low, Nicoesque voice. As with 2022’s equally exquisite Donsya a’n Loryow (Dance Of The Moons), it’s an entirely self-performed, home-recorded affair. A multi-disciplinary artist – she’s also a painter, photographer and filmmaker – Rickman cites Anne Briggs, Bert…

It’s now 30 years since the passing of Kurt Cobain, whose life and musical legacy we celebrate in the Ultimate Music Guide to Nirvana. Featuring in-depth reviews of every album, comprehensive interviews with Dave, Krist and Steve Albini, plus a new piece on the band’s earliest days, it’s in shops now or available from shop.kelsey.co.uk/uncut… Nirvana also feature heavily in our latest Ultimate Record Collection guide to The 500 Greatest Albums Of The 1990s… Ranked!, alongside REM, Pulp, Blur, Björk, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley and many more. Boasting a righteous and insightful introductory interview with Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, it’s also out now from the same places… Another permutation of ex-Fall members – in this case Marc Riley, Craig Scanlon and the Hanley brothers – have reconvened in order…

“We wanted a group without hierarchy, where nothing is forbidden” FOR a few years now, Irmin Schmidt has been the conscientious curator of the Can legacy – a role that has taken on added poignancy since the recent passing of Damo Suzuki, leaving keyboardist Schmidt as the last surviving member of the classic early-’70s lineup. The current series of Can live albums has been a revelation, charting a fiery alternate history of the band to complement their revered studio catalogue. But following the release later this year of two 1977 UK sets from Aston and Keele universities, Schmidt is minded to reseal the archive for good. “I think it’s enough,” he says simply. “There is quite a lot out from Can. These live records for me, they keep the standard…

Big Wave GRAND CANYON 9/10 Big Wave starts with a big bang. A track called “The Cord” that in a little over three pummelling minutes upends most available notions of what to expect from a Joana Serrat record, the song ending with its chorus repeated by a voice like something lifted from the soundtrack of a low-budget ’80s horror film involving demonic possession. Disconcerting isn’t quite the word, but it will have to do. The precocious Catalan singer-songwriter’s first couple of albums – The Relief Sessions (2012) and Dear Grand Canyon (2014) – mostly mixed handsome fingerpicking folk and country-rock. Tracks like “Flowers On The Hillside”, “The Blizzard” and “So Clear”, meanwhile, essayed a kind of dreampop that recalled quintessential shoegazers Slowdive, whose Neil Halstead was a guest on 2016’s…

WHEN ex-Blasters founder Dave Alvin returned to live performance in 2022, after prolonged treatment for cancer, he chose Jimmie Dale Gilmore as his touring partner. He and the renowned Flatlander have now made good on 2018’s terrific Downey To Lubbock by cutting a follow-up, TexiCali YEP ROC­. Out in late June, the album serves as a psycho-geographical road trip across the States, sharing musical influences and memories – from Terry Allen and Butch Hancock to Brownie McGhee – on songs like “Borderland”, “Southwest Chief” and “Down The 285”. Another comeback welcome is afforded Beachwood Sparks, who’ve reunited after a 10-year break to bring us Across The River Of Stars (CURATION) in July. The West Coast trio enlisted The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson as producer, shaping a bunch of psychedelic country gems that…

You’ve described this as the “best” Decemberists album… COLIN MELOY: I’m so in the midst of it that I don’t necessarily have a feel for what a “good” Decemberists record is. But there was a point during the recording process where I was looking at the material that we had amassed and feeling confident that it was the best thing that we’ve done. That’s the thing that keeps you going. The band really cut loose on some of these songs. Was it an easy recording process? We had a bit of a false start: we wanted to play around with no actual record in mind, while also toying with the idea of producing ourselves. But while everybody felt excited by the fragments of songs in the moment, it wasn’t particularly…

Are there similarities between your music-making process and your day job as a psychoanalyst? When I was younger, it felt like a sort of irreconcilable split. But now I see that they inform each other really nicely, because both are about process, and the unexpected. The intention is really important, and then when you set out with this intention, unexpected things arise. Your previous work has tended towards the psychedelic, but Soft Power seems more rooted in the everyday… Well, I think the everyday is psychedelic! It’s just a matter of framing. When I think of music that’s almost self-consciously quotidian, I think of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, but they’re absolutely psychedelic, because they reframe the everyday as anything but. And I’d say the same about a lot of German…

AIR Moon Safari (reissue, 1998) PARLOPHONE/WARNER MUSIC 9/10 Remaster with rarities for downtempo landmark At a time when a lot of electronica seemed to be proudly displaying its determination to stare into the emotional and aesthetic abyss, the debut album from this Versailles pair seduced like two stargazers’ sweet dreams. One might have expected the vocoder revival, which Air surely helped kickstart with a record predating Cher’s Auto-Tuned “Believe”, to have long ago sunk back into anachronism by now, but the way Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel use it to weave space-age pop tapestries here is timelessly beautiful, like the sci-fi soundtrack to a future that will always be tantalisingly out of reach. Extras8/10: A nine-track rarities disc, highlights including “Dirty Hiroshima”, showcasing a more brooding makeover of the main…

What did you think of Rolling Stone and other publications centring so heavily on the Hendrix comparisons? I felt what we were doing was something unique, and that can make it difficult to pin down. It’s not always easy to find helpful reference points when writing about music, so I suppose it was fair enough because Hendrix undoubtedly was a big influence. Did going solo feel like a release from Procol Harum’s more baroque prog-rock stylings? Towards the end I was coming up with a lot of guitar music, and so leaving had to happen due to the momentum of my own creativity. I felt the bass, drums and guitar format was the best vehicle for what I wanted to do. The power trio can be challenging but is perfect…

JIMI HENDRIX Moctar is often compared to the American guitar great and with good reason. They share a virtuoso talent with their instruments and Moctar finds particular inspiration in live recordings like 1970’s Band Of Gypsys. “For me, when I listen to Jimi Hendrix I’m reminded of artists like Tinariwen or Abdallah Oumbadougou,” says Moctar. “Guitar music is like an ocean, you know, and when it touches you it reminds you of other things. It’s because of that, I love him. He sings and he plays at the same time, and that’s our style.” EDDIE VAN HALEN It was in Portland, Oregon that Moctar first heard Van Halen, while visiting the city for a screening of his 2015 film Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai. He was taken aback by the originality…

DIRE STRAITS VERTIGO/WARNER BROS, 1978 While the startling “Sultans Of Swing” launched the band, the quieter, slower tracks on Dire Straits’ self-titled debut – notably “Water Of Love” and “Wild West End” – paved the way for Knopfler’s 21st-century work. 8/10 MAKING MOVIES VERTIGO/WARNER BROS, 1980 Arguably DS’s finest record, their third album begins with “Tunnel Of Love”, a Springsteen-meets-Television epic that finds Knopfler exploring his continuing fascination with fairgrounds and carnivals, in this case the Spanish City in Whitley Bay. It’s followed by “Romeo And Juliet”, his first great ballad. 9/10 LOCAL HERO OST VERTIGO/WARNER BROS, 1983 Knopfler’s first soundtrack remains a stellar piece of work: a stately, breezy, vaguely Celtic album, halfway between Eno’s Apollo… and Clannad. “Freeway Flyer” delights in fuzz-drenched rockabilly, while the closing “Going Home:…

WHEN Slowdive were asked to play Barcelona’s Primavera Festival on May 30, 2014, it signalled one of rock’s most unlikely second acts. “We were all in shock that we were doing it,” says Neil Halstead. “We did a few gigs leading up to it, but nothing on that scale.” “Oh God, I was so nervous before we went on stage,” says Rachel Goswell. “When the Slowdive backdrop came down, the audience roared and we stood there looking at each other. That was when the penny dropped – this really is fucking serious. I will never forget that feeling. There were so many people there, all the cameras, it was all new to us. I came off stage and burst into tears, overwhelmed with emotion, just thinking, ‘Oh, I can’t forget…

THE Adams Morgan neighbourhood has long been a hip enclave of Washington DC. During the ’60s, the local psychedelic scene converged at the Ambassador Theatre, which hosted shows by such luminaries as Jimi Hendrix, Moby Grape and The Fugs. East Coast hardcore punk exploded here a decade or so later, resulting in Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Henry Rollins and more. It is also where Jennifer Herrema first encountered Neil Hagerty. “It was 1985, I was 15 at the time and went to see his band, Jet Boys Of The North West, playing in a bar,” recalls Herrema. “He just wasn’t like anybody else I’d ever seen. Watching Neil on guitar, he was in a class of one, just being his own thing. As someone who never knew exactly where I…

HOARD Directed by Luna Carmoon Starring Saura Lightfoot-Leon, Joseph Quinn, Hayley Squires Opens May 17 Cert 15 9/10 LA CHIMERA Directed by Alice Rohrwacher Starring Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato, Isabella Rossellini Opens May 10 Cert 15 8/10 SLOW Directed by Marija Kavtaradze Starring Greta Grinevičiūte, Kęstutis Cicėnas Opens May 24 Cert To be confirmed 8/10 TIGER STRIPES Directed by Amanda Nell Eu Starring Zafreen Zairizal, Deena Ezral, Piqa, Shaheizy Sam Opens May 17 Cert To be confirmed 7/10 BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY Directed by Elene Naveriani Starring Eka Chavleishvili, Temiko Chichinadze Opens May 3 Cert To be confirmed 8/10…

The Ultimate Record Collection ranks the 500 Greatest Albums of the decade, as voted for by Uncut’s team of experts SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Order online at shop.kelsey.co.uk/UCP624RC Call 01959 543 747*** and quote ref: UCP624RC SCAN ME TERMS AND CONDITIONS UK Direct Debit and Continuous Credit Card offer only. *Pay £33.80 every six months and save £55.90 in a full year if you do not cancel. Savings based on the standard Basic Annual Rate of £123.50 which includes the cover price (£6.75) plus Kelsey Media’s standard packing and postage price per single issue (£2.75) for one full year (13 issues). Offer ends June 30, 2024. Your subscription will start with the next available issue and you will receive 6 issues in your first 6 months. Prices correct at time of print…

ONE OF THESE DISCS As the May issue of Uncut (Take 325) was delivered to me this morning, I was reminded to fulfil my promise to myself that I would write to thank your colleague Tom Pinnock for his impeccable work in compiling the covermount CD that came with the April issue of Uncut (Take 324) – One Of These Days. It was a belter! Every track was a standout in its own way, but the sequencing was just perfect. It felt like a strong, cohesive selection that took the listener on a bit of a journey, and I loved it. As a producer and presenter of a weekly music-based show on my local radio station, I try to do the same for any listeners who might be adventurous enough…