Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2016 i UNCUT

I GUESS MANY of us often turn to music as a consolatory balm, especially in times when chaos and anxiety engulf either our personal spaces or the broader world beyond. If you’re in need of that sort of thing this month – and given the past few weeks, I’d be surprised if you weren’t – it’s hugely heartening to welcome back Teenage Fanclub into these pages. The Fanclub’s music has soundtracked many good times I’ve had these past 25 years, and the way they’ve grown up with their audience, while retaining the ability to convey such warmth and joy in their music, is more cherishable than ever. “In your twenties and thirties, you fear middle age, you fear becoming older,” Gerry Love tells Michael Bonner for a lovely, in-depth feature…

 HERE IS A song on Aaron Neville’s new album, Apache, called “Stompin’ Ground” in which the 75-year-old singer pays tribute to his home town. “It’s like a testimony of New Orleans,” he explains. The song namechecks many of the people who helped or inspired Neville at the start of his career, from Mac Rebennack and James Booker to – who else? – his illustrious family. “There’s Big Chief Jolly, that’s my uncle Jolly with the Wild Tchoupitoulas. Ratty Chin? That’s my brother Cyril. Art The Mighty Row is my brother Art. Horn Man is my brother Charles. And I’m Apache Red. “I told a friend that I wanted a tattoo. We sat on the porch and he put it in with two sewing needles wrapped around a matchstick” “When I…

WHAT GOES AROUND comes around: just as Shelter Records’ Denny Cordell mentored Mudcrutch back in 1975, Tom Petty is guiding the fortunes of LA rock’n’roll band, The Shelters. The band emerged from the remains of Automatik Slim, which featured Petty’s stepson Dylan on vocals. When the band broke up in 2013, guitarists Chase Simpson and Josh Jove decided to keep working together. “Tom was so supportive of us, even after Dylan left the band,” says Simpson. “So when Josh and I had written a few good songs, we showed them to Tom. He said, ‘Why don’t we cut a track?’” “I didn’t do it ’cos they were friends of my son,” says Petty. “I saw this spark between Chase and Josh. They were so talented, but beyond that, it was…

THE IBIZAN INFLUENCE on British pop culture wasn’t restricted to dance music. In the late 1980s, indie bands began to fuse rock with dance, inspired by their friendship with Ibizan-influence DJs and their experiences in UK clubs inspired by the Balearic scene. This quickly came to be known as baggy, and its hippy roots were unmistakable. In Spain, José Padilla noticed what was going on. “It happened quickly... people dressed loose with colours and beads – the hippy thing come home.” Most prominent were Happy Mondays, who discovered house music and E at the Haçienda’s Ibizan-style Hot night. They dug the drugs and hedonism, filtering it through their street sense to invent what became known as Madchester. In 1990, the band recorded their video for “Step On” in Sitges, the…

Dawn Harms is a classically trained violinist who plays with the San Francisco Orchestra, and has appeared on three Waits albums. She is also his cousin. So what’s it like having Tom round for tea? “Tom is my first cousin: our mothers were sisters. We’re a close knit family. He’s 11 years older than me, but later in life I’ve played on three of his albums. We talk about family stuff; you get all your ideas from where you came from. Tom has the voice of my grandfather, who always sang Grace. Tom would say, ‘Do I sound like grandpa?’ He was almost imitating our grandpa, with the growly voice, as that’s what he heard, growing up. He loved that sound. “I’m close to his sisters, and they all came…

“I WAS PRETTY into tarot at one time. I do it every year or so now. I should get back into it, it’s fun. It’s a parlour game, it should be fun, but people go to the tarot thinking that it’s ‘the word of the wheel’, you know – I think that’s crazy. Because essentially it was this Italian card game for royalty to amuse themselves, then it got hijacked [ by the occult ] – thanks, Aleister Crowley… There are so many different readings or card layouts you can do – three-card, five-card, seven-card, Celtic cross, this and that, horseshoe, blah blah blah, inverted, reversed, all these different things. But I know people who read the tarot, and they read a book like it’s strict rules, as…

“WE MET HIM briefly in 1989, backstage at a solo show at Glasgow Tech. We then played in New Orleans in ’92 and he came to the show. I’ve heard him say that, in us, he saw himself as a young guy as well as a young musician. Alex was one of those guys who’d either like you or he wouldn’t. But we just hit it off and did some shows with him. He had great stories and he was an amazing guitar player. He told us about him and Dennis Wilson hanging out with Charles Manson. Manson came down to breakfast one morning, looked at Alex and growled, ‘You! Go and get the milk.’ I can just see Alex smoking a fag, looking over to him and saying, ‘Don’t…

AGES AND AGES Something To Ruin PARTISAN A different perspective on Portlandia On this concept album lamenting how an influx of corporate dollars is robbing their fair city of its soul, Portland band Ages And Ages smartly and artfully enwrap Tim Perry’s message songs in beguiling packages. Burbling electronic grooves, strummed acoustics and whistling synths carry along subtly insistent boy-girl harmonies, with the result that Something To Ruin flows as placidly as the Willamette River, bookended by syncopated thematic setup “They Want More” and the guardedly hopeful denouement “As It Is”. At the album’s centre are the conjoined “All Of My Enemies” and “Cascadia Waving Back”, wherein a swelling chorale seamlessly segues into a Paul Simon-style polyrhythmic rave-up. Protest songs have rarely been delivered more rapturously. BUD SCOPPA THE AMAZING…

“I think diversity of feel in a record is something that used to be much more prevalent in the ’60s and ’70s,” says Arc Iris leader Josie Adams. “I like the way those records are shaped to take you on a journey more in the way a book might take you on a journey than in the way a reality TV show would.” The journey on Moon Saloon is most definitely in the non-Big Brother category. Freely incorporating bluegrass, Tin Pan Alley, Tropicália and Laurel Canyon folk-pop, Adams’ vision is impressively diverse even when her background is taken into account. Adams studied classical composition before her six-year stint in The Low Anthem. Though clarinet remains the multi-instrumentalist’s first love, she plays guitar, piano and trumpet, too.…

San Francisco-based Cool Ghouls certainly have one foot in the tradition of their home town, making slightly cosmic garage rock, but they resist being labelled as retro. “Retro is such a funny term,” says guitarist Ryan Wong, “It’s for the lazy at best.” Their third album, Animal Races , had modest ambitions, to be the band’s best, “plus add some pedal steel”. It was recorded by Sub Pop veteran Kelley Stoltz: “a magician in the studio. At one point there was a fog machine, coloured lights and a disco ball all running while we recorded.” The band’s name was borrowed from a live encounter with George Clinton – “his greeting as he’s coming out of the spaceship” – and Wong suggests that the Ghouls’ own live…

Morgan Delt is something of a mystery figure, recording under a pseudonym and working in solitude even though the West Coast psych of his second album, Phase Zero , fits neatly alongside the current Californian scene. “I don’t go out much and feel pretty disconnected from any kind of scene,” says Delt, who maintains a day job as a graphic designer. “I’m committed to keep exploring the solo thing. It still feels like a new frontier to me, and I find it more interesting than following the same old rock band path.” Delt’s music is trippy and layered, reflecting both California’s landscape and its propensity for self-analysis. His 2014 self-titled debut received sufficient acclaim for Phase Zero to be released by Sub…

IT’S A SMALL moment, but a telling one: nearly two minutes into “More Than Ever”, a fraught song about love gone horrifically and perhaps therefore hilariously wrong, Lydia Loveless lets out a chuckle, a short, sharp exhalation of breath, before delivering the next line, “But if self-control is what you want, I’d have to break all of my fingers off.” It’s a wonderfully unscripted moment, nothing likely to appear in the lyrics sheet for her third album, Real, but that sly “huh” carries as much meaning as the actual words: that Loveless has seen love go bad before, that she is no stranger to a sexual desire that ignores reason and self-preservation, that she can find some humour in her failings, that she’d remove every last digit if that’s what…

TRACKLIST 1 Snowblind 2 Horses On A Stick 3 Lullaby 4 St Nicholas Hall 5 Three Ravens 6 Raider 7 One More Time 8 Rapture 9 Charity 10 Farewell Aldebaran Previously unissued bonus tracks: 11 Merry-Go-Round (“Horses On A Stick” instrumental demo) 12 Charity (instrumental demo) 13 Zanzibar (“Farewell Aldebaran” instrumental demo) 14 Moods For Cellos (“Three Ravens” instrumental demo) 15 Divers Asleep (“Rapture” instrumental demo) ON JUNE 16, 1969, Frank Zappa’s wonderfully outré Straight label released two characteristically leftfield albums. One was Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. The other was Judy Henske and Jerry Yester’s Farewell Aldebaran. Which of them sounded more strangely unsettling and defiantly unsellable was a close run thing. Yet Trout Mask Replica went on to become canonically revered as one…

Gal Costa PHILIPS, 1969 Following her key role in 1968’s landmark Tropicália comp, Gal Costa’s solo debut features a terrific bunch of songs by her Tropicalismo comrades. It features inspired guests slots from Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso’s deathless ballad, “Baby”, and magnificent Veloso/Gil co-write “Divino, Maravilhoso”. Gal PHILIPS, 1969 Costa’s second self-titled LP of ’69 amps up Lanny Gordin’s skronky, Hendrix-style guitars and the eccentric arrangements of Rogerio Duprat. Two Jorge Ben tunes stand out: the heavy, panglobal exotica of “Tuareg” and the aggressive bossa nova “País Tropical”. Arcane freakbeat aficionados, meanwhile, will enjoy Gilberto Gil-penned wig-outs such as “Cultura E Civilização”. Recanto UNIVERSAL, 2012 In 1967, Costa cut a lush bossa nova collection, Domingo , as a duet with Caetano Veloso: 45…

BORN TO BE BLUE Director Robert Budreau Starring EthanHawke, Carmen Ejogo Opened July 25 Cert 15 JULIETA Director Pedro Almodóvar Starring Emma Suárez, Adriana Ugarte Opens August 26 Cert 15 WIENER-DOG Director Todd Solondz Starring Danny DeVito, Greta Gerwig Opens August 12 Cert 15 GARY NUMAN: ANDROID IN LA LA LAND Directors Steve Read, Rob Alexander Starring Gary Numan, Gemma Numan Opens August 19 Cert 15 JIM: THE JAMES FOLEY STORY Director Brian Oakes Starring James Foley, Michael Foley Opens Out now Cert 15…

“The enormity hit me and I trailed off, leaving the audience to take over the singing” BILLY BRAGG A MONTH AFTER the referendum that saw the UK vote to leave the EU, clarity about how the decision will affect British life remains in fairly short supply. What it means for the nation’s music industry pales in comparison to its potential consequences for the NHS, immigration, and human rights, but there is great uncertainty about its potential effect on touring bands, vinyl manufacturing and copyright law. The exigency of the overall decision, however, is entirely clear. “This is much bigger in terms of impact than the miner’s strike, more akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall,” says Billy Bragg. “Everything has or will be changed.” Bragg was running his Left…

Van Morrison’s 36th album, Keep Me Singing , is due on September 30, and features what looks very likely to be his latest vituperative broadside at poor innocent hacks, “The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword”. A UK tour begins on October 30 at Bluesfest, The O2, London. This month’s clutch of exciting rock documentary announcements includes Marvin, What’s Going On? , in which the makers of Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans tell the story of Gaye’s 1971 classic. Keith Richards Ð The Origin Of The Species , meanwhile, finds the irrepressible guitarist revisiting the post-war world he evoked so memorably in Life . Julien Temple directs, for BBC2. No Kim Deal,…

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER Heart Like A Levee/Vestapol MERGE Not one but two new albums from the beloved sages of North Carolina: one pushing further into ravishing country-funk territory; the other an intimate acoustic set that recalls Bad Debt . DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS Surrender Under Protest ATO A thrilling and urgent advance warning, courtesy of Mike Cooley, of the 11th Truckers album, American Band ; perhaps their most political set to date. JAMILA WOODS Breadcrumbs (Featuring Donnie Trumpet) CLOSEDSESSIONS A fine new Chicago singer cooks up some cosmic, jazzy R&B in the style of Erykah Badu, and throws in a Stereolab sample for good luck. PJ HARVEY Guilty ISLAND As the expansive Peej troupe set off on live manoeuvres, another rabble-rousing anthem from the Somerset House…

TOM PETTY CAME to success in a very roundabout way. During his induction into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in New York in early June, Petty explains that, even today – having spent the best part of three decades refining back-to-basics American rock – he still considers himself to be an outsider. “I’m sorta the rock’n’roll white trash section of the show,” he deadpans from the podium of the Marriott Marquis Ballroom. Tonight, Petty is in illustrious company. His fellow inductees include Lionel Richie, Elvis Costello, Nile Rodgers and posthumously, Marvin Gaye. Petty is suitably dressed for the occasion, sporting a military-cut black tuxedo, a black silk shirt and a thin purple cravat. He is inaugurated by his friend Roger McGuinn and although the tone of the event is light…

1 It’s not about being the best guitarist; it’s about being the guitarist who is most believable in the room where the narrative is supposed to be taking place. He picks musicians who can grasp his theatrical concept. 2 As a band leader, Tom is very centred on the groove and timing. If that’s right, everything will flow from that. 3 If you don’t understand the intention, then basically you’re lost. What it breaks down to is your believability in the narrative. If it takes place in Singapore, or some weird bar, or a German constructivist painting, it has to sound like it. It’s largely a literary skill. 4 It’s also a lot to do with reverb and echo and space, and knowing the history of recording. Does it sound…

A 2003 7/10 McCombs’ ramshackle, charming debut. Immersed in reverb, he sings of predatory mosquitos and “an Eldridge Cleaver forgery” , while stating “I want to be famous for falling in love” on opener “I Went To The Hospital”. DROPPING THE WRIT 2007 9/10 By his third album, McCombs had mastered the full range of his voice, swooping into gorgeous falsetto on “That’s That”, backed by layers of guitars, keyboards and mandolins. Something of a precursor to the Technicolor Mangy Love . WIT’S END 2011 9/10 Containing perhaps McCombs’ best-known song, “County Line”, Wit’s End is a gothic delight, inhabited by lonely dolls, tired minstrels and tarot references. “If I’m alive or dead I…

A NOTED CINÉASTE and a formidable composer, it is perhaps a surprise that Scott Walker has not found himself scoring more movies in his five-decade career. But then, as we have learned over these last few years, Scott does what Scott wants. Since his plunge into the avant-garde abyss with 1995’s bleakly gothic Tilt, he has periodically turned his solitary, uncompromising art in the service of the screen. There was the score to the 1999 French romantic drama, Pola X, and perhaps more shockingly, given his recent trajectory, “Only Myself To Blame” – a David Arnold-orchestrated cut from Bond outing The World Is Not Enough that hinted that the Scott Walker of the mid-1960s, that debonair balladeer refining the language of love and heartbreak, might not be lost forever. But…

Tell Ed Harcourt his new album, Furnaces , sounds rather like he’s come busting out of the traps, waving his fist at the sky, and he laughs heartily. “I think it comes from the responsibility of being a father,” he says, “and, because of our general sensory and information overload, the darker aspects of the world can seep in quite easily. And that forms an equal measure of anger and sense of injustice, and maybe a slight anxiety about the future.” Song titles like “The World Is On Fire” and “Immoral” signal this unease, which is delivered via a saturnine, groovily gnarly sound that recalls The The and NIN and is in large part due to Flood’s production. “ The Downward Spiral is one…

As a vocalist, how do you get in the right headspace to convey the complex emotions in these songs? I wish I could say I was capable of routines. In the past, I was too eager to get as much shit done in one day as possible, but now I realise if I want to sound my best, I need to sleep more and actually focus on my voice. Maybe this isn’t news to a lot of artists. Also, Throat Coat tea. And good-luck American flag bandanas. You’ve been gradually moving away from alt. country… I’d say it’s a natural progression. I go back and forth so constantly with what I like to play. It’s a mood thing. I was just in a very poppy headspace. Right now I’m a…

What was the guiding principle with this album? We have been letting the songs take us where they will. A lot of the songwriting was driven by endless horrible acts in the world perforated by moments of beauty. We wrote a lot of this album as a band, so it has a sort of togetherness maybe less present in previous releases. What are the benefits of recording with two drummers? You get a full stereo atmosphere. Dan and Ryan couldn’t be more different as drummers yet they complement each other nicely, so everything falls into place when we get in the studio. We have practised a lot and written a lot – it’s been a fruitful year in that respect. There are some surprisingly mellow songs on the album… I…

How did the album title come about? Judy Henske: I was really sick. I had a high fever and my brain went to a whole other place. I was lying on a mattress on the floor and all there was for me to see was a bookcase with my set of Encyclopaedia Britannica . I pulled out the volume for ‘A’ and there was an entry on Aldebaran. It’s a red star. If you lived on a planet next to it, when the sun rose it would fill the whole sky. That was so scary. I wasn’t playing with a full deck! Why did the record fail to sell – was it too alien even for those weird times? JH: My mother, when I sent a copy…

When Jon Hopkins started recording his debut album in 1999, he’d only just turned 20. He’d recently left his first job – as a jobbing keyboard player in Imogen Heap’s touring band – and signed to an ambient music label, Just Music. “I didn’t like any of the chill-out tracks or relaxation records I’d heard,” he says. “I was helping a friend, Mick Lister, write songs at the time, which is why a lot of this album sounds like straight-up pop songs, with a verse, chorus and bridge. But, instead of a singer, I’d play the lead line on a synth. It’s why the album still has a particular sound that still resonates.” Through his friend, Leo Abrahams, Hopkins started working with Brian Eno. “It’s ironic that the title track…

JIMI HENDRIX/ BAND OF GYPSYS Machine Gun (Fillmore East, first set, December 31, 1969) Hendrix’s new formation (Jimi, plus Buddy Miles on drums and Billy Cox on bass) played four sets over two days to welcome in the new decade. Miles and Betty were in attendance for the first set, when Betty’s pals Emmaretta Marks and Jeanette Jacobs (from girl group The Cake) sing back ups to “Machine Gun” (NB: 4’45” – woah). Miles’ favourite Jimi song. MILES DAVIS Guinnevere (The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, 1998) Betty’s influence on Miles extended from the title of Bitches Brew (Miles wanted to call it Witches Brew ), to the content. This ace 21-minute take on the CSN tune exemplifies the hip confluence around the…

Tamam Shud (the name, Persian for “the end”, refers to a famous Australian unsolved murder) formed as a surf band, but by the time they cut their debut, Evolution , in 1968, they’d mutated into a psych-rockers. The waves were still central, though – Evolution began as the OST to a surf film by Paul Witzig. “It was cut live in the studio, watching footage on screen,” says guitarist Lindsay Bjerre. “This went more quickly than expected so Paul said, ‘Why not use the last hour to record whatever you like?’ We decided to keep the live theme going and do a demo of originals.” The band were keen surfers, so enjoyed the chance to soundtrack Witzig’s influential doc about the rise of…

IN 1969, the filmmaker Philip Trevelyan was introduced to the Page family. The father – a widower known locally as “Oily Page” – had worked in aircraft engineering, but at the time Trevelyan met him, lived with his four grownup children in a wood in Sussex, without electricity or running water. The Pages became the subject of Trevelyan’s documentary, The Moon & The Sledgehammer, released in 1971, that has since quietly assumed cult status. An influence on filmmakers ranging from Nick Broomfield to Andrew Kotting, Trevelyan’s film has finally been restored and given a full release on DVD, overseen by Katy MacMillan, former wife of producer Jimmy Vaughan. This edition of The Moon & The Sledgehammer coincides with the BFI’s release of Alan Clarke’s Penda’s Fenn (1974) and Peter Hall’s…

SID & NANCY OPENS AUGUST 5 Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb are those guys, as directed by Alex Cox. Remastered and back in cinemas for its 30th anniversary. SUICIDE SQUAD OPENS AUGUST 5 More comic book team-ups – this time it’s the turn of the baddies, led by Jared Leto’s Joker and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. PETE’S DRAGON OPENS AUGUST 12 Disney exhume their modest 1977 live action/ animated comedy and CGI it up; Bryce Dallas Howard and Robert Redford are no match for Jim Dale and Mickey Rooney. ASTERIX AND OBELIX – MANSION OF THE GODS OPENS AUGUST 19 Animated adaptation of Goscinny & Uderzo’s ’73 story, with Asterix & co clashing with Caesar over Britain’s access to the Single Market. COSMOS OPENS AUGUST 19 Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawskin’s…

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING FOR YOU One of the many reasons I enjoy Uncut is the Big Brother Effect. Back when I was growing up in the early ’70s, it always seemed that the friends with the coolest taste in (and broadest knowledge of) music were those who had older brothers with established record collections and disposable incomes. Lacking a big brother of my own, I came to rely on the music press to broaden my horizons. The weekly Sounds newspaper was my guide until it was destroyed by Garry Bushell, after which nothing quite did the job until Uncut came along. Your recent piece on the early days of The Small Faces [Uncut, August 2016] ticked all the big brother boxes, covering a timeframe when my own musical tastes…

TO THOSE WHO remember Arab Strap, the reissue of the Falkirk duo’s “The First Big Weekend” will be a poignant reminder of a time and place. The lyrics – more of a diary entry than a song – tell of watching Euro ’96, of dancing and of cheese dreams, all rushing towards the not-quite-joyous line, “went out for the weekend, it for lasted for ever, high with our friends, it’s officially summer.” The 2016 remix, by Julian Corrie (aka Miaoux Miaoux) is bright and contemporary. “Getting pished with your friends at the weekend’s never gonna go out of fashion,” says Strap frontman Aidan Moffat. “The only thing missing is instant media. If you stuck in a reference to mobiles and Snapchat it would be pretty much the same thing. The…

“I MET TOM 40 years ago. I was getting ready to do an album called Thunderbyrd for Columbia Records. I had most of the material written, but I wanted a couple of outside songs to fill it out. My manager was over in the corner playing records and tapes. I didn’t know what he was putting on, because I couldn’t see him from where I was. He put on ‘American Girl’ and I loved it. I said, ‘Wow, that vocal sounds familiar!’ I asked him, ‘ When did I record that? ‘ I was teasing him really. He told me it was Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. I told my manager, ‘I love what I’m hearing. I want to meet him.’ “We met the next day and we played the…

MORE PINK FLOYD EMI, 1969 Floyd’s soundtrack for Barbet Shroeder’s Ibiza-set film about the souring of the hippy dream was the first Floyd album without Syd Barrett. Contains some of Floyd’s heavier songs (“The Nile Song”), but also Arabic/ Mediterranean touches (“Cirrus Minor”) and ambient noise that would in some ways pre-empt Ibiza chill-out music of the ’80s. “FORMENTERA LADY” KING CRIMSON ISLAND, 1971 The 10-minute opening track on Crimson’s Islands album, “Formentera Lady” was lyricist Pete Sinfield’s tribute to the island paradise. A drifting, dreamy atmosphere carries evocative lyrics about “Houses iced in whitewash” and “crumpled sun-baked stony road” . In return, the island renamed one of their streets Carrer De King Crimson. GOOD MORNING! DAEVID ALLEN &…

Eulogised on the album Swordfishtrombones’ exquisite fragment, “Johnsburg, Illinois”, titled after her place of birth, Waits’ wife of 35 years, Kathleen Brennan, is his spotlight-shy muse, co-writer and co-producer. In his own inimitable description, she is “Shiksa Goddess and trapeze artist. All of that. She can fix the truck… That’s who you wanna go in the woods with, right? Somebody who finishes your sentences for you.” Waits’ collaborators confirm that Brennan is integral to every part of his creative process. “The person he trusts the most – is this going in the right direction? Is this going to fly? – is Kathleen,” says Stephen Hodges. “She’s so bright, and she does help him flesh out the stories on some songs. They are a good team.” “She’s…

“CASS SHUNS THE spotlight, but he ends up being the centre of attention because of all of those great songs that he writes. The idea for the Skiffle Players was for it to be mostly traditional folk songs, but Cass’ songs are every bit as good as most trad folk songs, and they mix really well. Whenever we were working in the studio, he just showed up with multiple stacks of lyrics. He writes so much that you could pull out a piece of paper in the middle of a stack, and it can be a song that he’s written and never even played before for anyone. The depths of material that guy is sitting on, and constantly working on, is staggering. It’s quite an honour for me to play…

AUTUMN MARKS A decade since Natasha Khan released her debut as Bat For Lashes, the twilit heartbreak of Fur And Gold. Looking back is hard, she says, “because I feel I’ve changed so much since.” She’s transformed over the course of her four albums and one EP: from hippy earth child to blonde-bobbed night prowler Pearl on 2009’s Two Suns; she appeared naked on the cover of 2012’s The Haunted Man, an exploration of her ancestral roots, and reappeared as a headbanging dervish as singer of Sexwitch, a psychedelic covers excursion with young loon-wearers Toy. Although known as a synth-pop artist, Khan is an accomplished (Ivor Novello-winning) songwriter evoking both Karen Carpenter and Scott Walker. The Bride is her strongest set yet, a conceptual reckoning about the need for personal…

A CATHOLIC EDUCATION PAPERHOUSE, 1990 7/10 The amiable, grungy riffs of “Everything Flows” are not entirely representative of the debut from ‘the Bellshill Beatles’. There’s the charming “Every Picture I Paint”, sludgy “Heavy Metal II” and sunny pop “Too Involved”. THE KING CREATION, 1991 6/10 Recorded during the Bandwagonesque sessions with Don Fleming, The King included covers (Madonna, Pink Floyd) and experimental jams. Dismissed as contractual duty to Matador, this is still an intriguing stopgap between fuzzy beginnings and future hooks. BANDWAGONESQUE CREATION, 1991 9/10 A run of ‘hits’ – “The Concept”, “What You Do To Me”, “Star Sign” – found the band honing riffs and, on Fleming’s advice, blending harmonies. The humour is strong and the tone cohesive. Big in the…

MARK EITZEL 60 Watt Silver Lining WARNER BROS, 1996 Eitzel’s confessional spiels are a plain influence on songs like “Funny Thing She Said”. “I just fell in love with that guy’s music,” says Walker. “I love that record. He has a conversational approach which sounds like a guy at the end of a bar losing his mind at 2am. It’s painfully personal, even if it’s embarrassing, and I like that approach.” SUN KIL MOON April CALDO VERDE, 2008 Mark Kozelek’s Noughties music had most impact on Walker: a 2008 Chicago Sun Kil Moon show remains one of Walker’s favourite ever concerts. His keyboard player Ben Boye is currently touring with Kozelek in the latest incarnation. “I went from adoring this guy and opening up for him, to having a friend…

What’s the difference between the Avalanches of 2000 and the Avalanches of 2016? We are more self-assured and more prepared to let the music be what it wants to be. At some point, Wildflower took on a momentum all of its own and seemed determined to be much dreamier and trippier record than Since I Left You . Less groove-oriented. We were happy to let it go where it needed to go, and when it came to the final track selection we were prepared to leave some uptempo songs off the record if that benefited the album as a whole. Jonathan Donahue’s contributions are especially strong. How did each of them shape up in the studio? Jonathan was a dream to work with,…

How did the orchestral sessions proceed? The studio orchestra conducted in a week of sessions at Angel Studios in June 2015 was made up of London’s finest freelance professional players, each hand-picked for their stamina, musical energy and commitment. Many of these musicians have worked with Scott Walker on previous projects and are trusted by him to deliver on the extreme demands he makes of their instruments. The strings numbered 24 violins, eight violas, 10 cellos and four double-basses and were led by Paul Willey. The brass comprised six bass trombones, five French horns and five trumpets, with certain players doubling on flugelhorns and tenor trombones as well, and were led by John Barclay. Everything was fully notated and scored for this huge orchestra to perform. What happened to the…

A busy month for new releases, September sees the return of several Uncut favourites. The 10th studio effort by Johnny Dowd (left) , Execute American Folklore pitches his gnarly rasp against the gentler tones of Anna Coogan on a batch of free-roaming tunes bound by beatboxes and noisy synths. The Handsome Family, aka Brett and Rennie Sparks, New Mexico’s finest purveyors of Western gothic, are back with the reassuringly creepy/lovely Unseen . Expect songs about blackjack players, spirit-seeking vacuum tubes and impossibly small horses. Not to be outdone, Drive-By Truckers celebrate their 20th anniversary with their 11th LP, American Band . Patterson Hood says that he and Mike Cooley have chosen…

How did you hook up with producer John Congleton? We loved a lot of his recent work, with St Vincent, Swans, John Grant, Blondie et al , and we were surprised when he approached us. It’s not every day you’re contacted by a big-name, Grammy-winning producer! He wanted us to sound more spontaneous, to leave mistakes in, to sound like a band making a mess. He had a very Texan, no-bullshit approach. English feyness and intellectualism don’t count for much in Texas. Your previous albums have always come with a bit of a reading list. This album less so… On “He The Colossus”, there’s a glancing reference to TS Eliot’s line in “The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock”: “Shall I part my hair behind?/Do…

“The Moles is freedom,” says Richard Davies. “It is a technique of superimposing almost anything onto the name, like a spy who specialises in disguises. It can be a different band per song, or a different band within particular songs.” The Moles’ name has now existed more than a quarter of a century, since Davies founded the group in his native Sydney. A cultish aura around it has lasted just as long, sufficient to justify 2014’s Flashbacks & Dream Sequences retrospective. Davies has not been idle in the decades that have passed since the last new Moles material: he has recorded solo, and as part of Cosmos and Cardinal, aside from his day job as a trial attorney in Massachusetts. But the new Moles album, he…

Twin sisters Jófríður and Ásthildur Ákadóttir have been making music together since childhood, forming their lo-fi avant-folk band Pascal Pinon at 14. Now on their third album, Sundur , these spine-tingling siblings grew up among Iceland’s close-knit creative community, working with friends including Sigur Rós producer Alex Somers. “People support and encourage each other,” Jófríður says of her native land. “Music and art have a domino effect, ideas travel and evolve, and they thrive very well in supportive communities.” A central theme of Sundur is separation, reflecting a period when the twins were divided geographically for the first time, with Ásthildur studying classical piano in Amsterdam while Jófríður toured the world with her other band, Samaris. Increasingly committed to other projects, they…

David West describes himself as “a late bloomer in the music domain”. His first band was Orgy Of The Undead, launched as a solo trash-punk project in his early twenties, after his parents generously bought him a four-track. “The music certainly gave the impression of somebody much younger, though,” he says wryly. In the decade since, West has played in a boggling number of different bands (he’s currently a member of Anglophile popsters Rat Columns, plus two others), across manifold genres and admits that “it feels strange indeed” to be releasing music under his own name. “I never thought I would be the kinda guy who put his own name on his record,” adds the roving Western Australia native, who now lives in NYC, “but… here I am.” New album…

SYR 2: Slaapkamers Met Slagroom SYR, 1997 With each sleeve featuring a different language and colour scheme, the band’s run of releases on their SYR label allowed them to experiment away from the commercial expectations of Geffen. This second EP (blue, Dutch) features three scorched instrumentals that became more conventional songs on 1998’s A Thousand Leaves . SYR 3: Invito Al Cielo SYR, 1998 Teaming up with Chicagoan polymath Jim O’Rourke (who’d join the band for real four years later), the group pursued extended free noise on their third SYR release (grey, Esperanto). It’s difficult, certainly, but strangely meditative, with the 29-minute “Radio-Amatoroj” combining O’Rourke’s cicada-like electronics with a steadily building flood of guitar noise. SYR 9: Simon Werner A Disparu SYR, 2011 The final new…

While September in the film industry is sometimes termed a ‘dump month’, a time when studios can get rid of their expected failures, it’s very much a bumper month for quality releases in the music world. This year, we’re getting promising returns from Devendra Banhart, with his excellent ninth album Ape In Pink Marble , Teenage Fanclub, with the very fine Here , and Drive-By Truckers and their strident 11th record, American Band ; meanwhile, Pixies will release their first proper album since 1991’s Trompe Le Monde , Head Carrier . In a rootsier vein, Billy Bragg teams up with Joe Henry for Shine A Light , while Nathan Bowles, collaborator with…

My gateway to punk Misfits Misfits CAROLINE, 1986 I heard this in the early ’90s when I was 11 or 12. Bands like the Misfits and The Cramps marked my first explorations into discovering DIY or punk music, and more experimental stuff. It also ties into that first rebellious time where you start sneaking cigarettes outside and smoking weed. I was a huge horror movie fan and Misfits fit right into that, so I loved this right away – I liked the escapist approach the lyrics had, more so than the “real” things other punk bands sang about. A huge songwriting inspiration The Incredible String Band Wee Tam ELEKTRA, 1968 They remain one of my favourite bands still, and Robin Williamson is one of my favourite singers. The Hangman’s Beautiful…