Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i UNCUT

“The songs I’m feeling right now, they want that raw energy” “THIS is my man cave,” says Mike Campbell, showing Uncut around his home studio. He’s being a little modest – not many man caves have hosted the likes of Tom Petty, Del Shannon and Roy Orbison, although the place he calls Hocus Pocus Recorders retains Campbell’s very personal sense of charming chaos. “Here’s my piano, signed by Little Richard,” he says, swinging the camera around. “This is the drum room, all set up and ready to go. Rickenbacker bass there in the background. Guitars everywhere, of course. It’s great for somebody like me who’s always writing. If I want to record, I don’t have to worry about setting up the mics – I just turn ’em on and go.…

Jake Xerxes Fussell PARADISE OF BACHELORS, 2015 Fussell initially came to PoB’s attention with a proposal for a compilation of Choctaw fiddle music that grew out of his college folklore studies. But blown away by his own playing, they hooked him up with William Tyler to make a startlingly fresh collection of ancient folk blues. 8/10 What In The Natural World PARADISE OF BACHELORS, 2017 On his second album, JXF spread his wings, expanding from the confines of Southern traditional music to cover tunes by Duke Ellington, Jimmy Driftwood and – oblivious to the existence of The Byrds’ take – a version of “Bells Of Rhymney”. 8/10 Good And Green Again PARADISE OF BACHELORS, 2022 Fussell hooked up with English fingerpicker James Elkington and secured a guest spot from Bonnie…

When did you first hear Milton Nascimento’s music? It was at a party I held for a group of Brazilian friends in the early 2000s. One of them put on Native Dancer, the 1975 album Milton made with Wayne Shorter. I still get chills thinking about it now. I thought, “How could I have not known about this before?” How did you first meet Milton? It was through Herbie Hancock. Milton agreed to duet on the song “Apple Blossom” on my 2010 album Chamber Music Society. We appeared together at the Rock In Rio festival in 2011, and ever since then I’ve visited him whenever I’m in Rio. In 2022, Milton’s son suggested out of the blue that I produce a record for his father. I was sideswiped. If ever…

STILL boasting three members of their classic Mark II lineup, Deep Purple are proving by far the most durable of British rock’s early-’70s behemoths. On their 23rd studio album, =1, they reprise the classic Purple sound, centred around an imitable guitar-organ blend now driven by Don Airey, who replaced the late Jon Lord in 2002. “He was Jon Lord’s biggest fan,” says founding drummer Ian Paice. “Without Jon, he might have still been studying classical piano.” Meanwhile, Belfast guitarist Simon McBride, who replaced American Steve Morse in 2022, is credited with adding punch to the new album’s sound. “American guitarists have a groove,” Paice reasons. “British guitarists are great at riffs.” As for the curious titles of both the album and galloping lead single “Portable Door”, Paice grins: “Only Ian…

Decoration Day NEW WEST, 2003 The first album with Jason Isbell features his title track, a wrenching blood feud narrative that’s one of his greatest songs; Hood’s gentle “My Sweet Annette,” a tale of romantic betrayal set in the ’30s, is likewise among his best. The Isbell golden era continued with 2004’s The Dirty South. 9/10 Brighter Than Creation’s Dark NEW WEST, 2008 Recorded after an acoustic tour, this deceptively dialled-down set opens on “Two Daughters And A Wife,” an aching Hood number about a mass murder. Shonna Tucker steps up to fill Isbell’s shoes as third singer-songwriter, adding new colours. A country pivot grown even more impressive with time. 8/10 American Band ATO, 2016 Released weeks before Donald Trump was elected US president, this pointed set proved to be…

BAD BRAINS I And I (reissue, 1986) BAD BRAINS/ORG 8/10 Landmark punk-metal fourth from DC Rastas Bad Brains pioneered hardcore with the pummelling speed and precision of 1980’s “Pay To Cum”, splintered its fundamentalism with their equal faith in reggae, and helped lead black rock’s resurgence. Chops forged in a prehistory playing jazz-rock allowed them to repeatedly shuck punk straitjackets, and here they slowed the mayhem they’d helped spark, introducing metal and funk to the American underground. A template for Faith No More’s breakthrough sound is laid in passing, as the sludgy “Intro” drags the tempo into Sabbath’s doomy realm, before the title track revs up and back down, the tension between hardcore and metal’s culturally opposed approaches suggesting a new paradigm. “House Of Suffering” finds frontman HR’s resistant passion…

The All Seeing Eye BLUE NOTE, 1966 His ninth album as leader features a stellar line-up, including Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter. Shorter is at the peak of his post-bop game with music that is tight and adventurous all at once. He’s already exploring the metaphysical too, as the album was meant to depict the meaning of life. 9/10 Adam’s Apple BLUE NOTE, 1967 The mid- ’60s were a bountiful period for Shorter, with his very next album earning its place in the canon on the basis of “Footprints”, a composition of his that went on to become a modern jazz standard. The catchy title track and some introspective ballads round out the excellence. 9/10 Emanon BLUE NOTE, 2018 His final release for Blue Note, this sprawling three-disc set…

WHEN Johnny Echols thinks of his former school friend and bandmate Arthur Lee, his memory often flashes back to his mid-’60s pomp, when the band Lee led dominated the stage of the Whisky A Go Go, in the heart of Love’s Los Angeles. “The Whisky was home to us, our crowd was there,” Echols remembers. “We’d play four shows a night, six days a week. Then a matinee on Sundays. Arthur loved attention, so it could be the middle of June and he’d be wearing a fur coat, with one shoe and these coloured glasses. He had a reputation for being different. People would just come to see what he was going to do next. It gave us an aura of unpredictability.” It is fitting, then, that Echols chose to…

CALMING SIGNALS SELF-RELEASED, 2019 Much as Eno’s Another Green World – a huge influence on Ruth’s debut – represents the bridge between Eno’s pop career and his experiments with ambient music, so Calming Signals transitions Ruth away from the Kansas Bible Company towards New Age, spiritual jazz and minimalist pieces. 8/10 I SURVIVED, IT’S OVER THIRD MAN, 2022 Building on Calming Signals’ “Carrying It Around”, Ruth’s second album pushes deeper into consciousness-expanding music. The resulting invocations merged cosmic grooves with euphoric jazz trance, especially on “Heavy And Earthbound” where saxophonist Sam Que was given freedom to let rip. 8/10 WATER STILL FLOWS THIRD MAN, 2024 Sumptuous psychedelic rapture, as Ruth expands his horizons further, with Mikaela Davis’s astral harp and Jared Selner’s skronky, ecstatic sax vying against doom guitar drones…

WISH SOMEONE WOULD CARE IMPERIAL, 1964 Thomas’s debut LP includes the heartrending title track, “Time Is On My Side” and “Break-a-Way” (later a Tracey Ullman smash). The arrangements are subtly majestic. 9/10 IN BETWEEN TEARS FUNGUS, 1973 Swamp Dogg remodels Thomas as a psychedelic deep soul matriarch, with Duane Allman adding Southern rock guitar to the Muscle Shoals sessions. 8/10 IRMA THOMAS SINGS BANDY, 1979 Compilation of Thomas’s early Minit sides with Allen Toussaint. Definitive New Orleans arrangements complement immaculately soulful vocals. 10/10 THE NEW RULES ROUNDER, 1986 A significant comeback, only lightly updating R&B fundamentals for the mid-’80s, and setting a template for greater Thomas music to come. 7/10 SOMETHING GOOD: THE MUSCLE SHOALS SESSIONS MCA/CHESS, 1990 Delayed, definitive account of the 1967 recordings, with Dan Penn and Spooner…

“I DID some art dealing for a while and I’ve still got a lot of paintings and drawings that I bought when you could buy them. You can’t now. I’ve got Chagall and Dufy and Man Ray and Dalí, mostly drawings. You never know with Dalí though, because he’s the most forged artist in the world, but it’s got good provenance. I’m thinking of selling them all because I can’t be bothered any more – the insurance is more trouble than it’s worth. I’m just not attached to them. I have a little thing that looks like a Japanese netsuke, but it’s from a Kinder Egg. It was my grandson Zak’s when he was a little boy, and that’s the only thing I really love.”…

ORDER TODAY! JULY 2024 COVER STORY Joni Mitchell INSIDE Kraftwerk • Stevie Nicks • John Cale • Steve Albini • Grateful Dead JUNE 2024 COVER STORY David Gilmour INSIDE Slowdive • Mark Knopfler • Royal Trux • T Bone Burnett • Mdou Moctar MAY 2024 COVER STORY David Bowie INSIDE The Black Keys & Beck • Vini Reilly • St Vincent • Richard Thompson APRIL 2024 COVER STORY Pink Floyd INSIDE The Beach Boys • REM • Townes Van Zandt • Adrianne Lenker • JAMC MARCH 2024 COVER STORY Talking Heads INSIDE Kim Gordon • The Waterboys • John Fahey • Phosphorescent • Mud FEBRUARY 2024 COVER STORY Neil Young INSIDE Shane MacGowan • The La’s • Hurray For The Riff Raff • Martin Carthy JANUARY 2024 COVER STORY Keith…

KINDS OF KINDNESS Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos Starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley Opens June 28 Cert To be confirmed 8/10 CHUCK CHUCK BABY Directed by Janis Pugh Starring Annabel Scholey, Louise Brealey, Sorcha Cusack Opens July 19 Cert To be confirmed 8/10 CROSSING Directed by Levan Akin Starring Mzia Arabuli, Lucas Kankava, Deniz Dumanli Opens July 19 Cert 15 7/10 THE NATURE OF LOVE Directed by Monia Chokri Starring Magalie Lépine Blondeau, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Francis-William Rhéaume Opens July 5 Cert To be confirmed 7/10 UNICORNS Directed by Sally El Hosaini, James Krishna Floyd Starring Ben Hardy, Jason Patel, Hannah Onslow Opens July 5 Cert To be confirmed 6/10…

HALFWAY through the first episode of this intense four-part Stax documentary, Booker T sits at a piano and plays a set of unfamiliar chords. He explains how, as a teenager, he tinkered with those chords, adding minor to offset major and playing with rhythm and tempo. Suddenly he is playing “Green Onions”, the breakout hit by Booker T & The MG’s and one of the songs that put the Memphis label on the map. It’s a jaw-dropping scene that shows how the keyboardist’s musical curiosity, encouraged by the culture of the label, allowed him to create one of the most famous riffs of the 1960s. Stax: Soulsville USA is full of moments like this one, which allow viewers to hear familiar songs with fresh ears. In the third episode, director…

THE ongoing controversy about artificial intelligence in the creative arts rose to a pitch with recent news surrounding Steve Marriott. Friends, family and fellow musicians are outraged by Cleopatra Records’ proposal, in conjunction with the late singer’s estate, to release ‘new’ recordings of unfinished demos using AI-generated vocals. “My dad certainly would’ve told them where to shove it,” says daughter Mollie Marriott. “When it comes to human expression, that’s not where AI belongs at all. It’s terrifying. No machine will ever recreate my dad’s songs.” Steve Marriott died in a house fire in 1991, aged 44, leaving no will. His estate automatically passed to his widow, Toni, leaving the rest of his family with no legal say in its administration. So far, various leading rockers have joined together in opposition…

WILCO Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP DBPM “Ice tumblin’ in my plastic glass/Shouldn’t I be doing something?” Tweedy and co celebrate summer in all its guilty, indolent glory. JOHNNY BLUE SKIES Passage Du Desir HIGH TOP MOUNTAIN RECORDS Sturgill Simpson’s soulful new alter-ego proves adept at everything from heart-tugging epics to knockabout, scooter-riding capers. KRONONAUT Krononaut II PALOMINO When he’s not producing James or playing guitar for Brian Eno, Leo Abrahams makes mesmeric space-jazz with drummer Martin France. Out there, but also in here. TINDERSTICKS Soft Tissue CITY SLANG Stuart Staples’ crew at their best: tentative hip-shakers and (dark night of the) soul serenades, heavily freighted with exquisite sadness. ANDREW COMBS Dream Pictures LOOSE Spencer Cullum adds occasional pedal steel to this masterclass in songwriting economy, chasing a golden country-soul…

FREE CD WITH EVERY ISSUE SUBSCRIBE NOW SHOP.KELSEY.CO.UK/UCP724 Call 01959 543 747** and quote ref: UCP724 SCAN ME TERMS AND CONDITIONS UK Direct Debit and Continuous Credit Card offer only. *3 issues for £5 is a trial price on an Uncut subscription. After your first 3 issues, you will pay £33.80 every six months. Offer ends 31st August 2024. Your subscription will start with the next available issue after your first payment is received. Uncut is published 13 times per year. If you decide to cancel your subscription we will put a stop to any further payments being taken and will send the remaining issues you have paid for. Prices correct at time of print and subject to change. As part of your subscription you will receive the free weekly…

A LILY Saru l-Qamar PHANTOM LIMB 8/10 Exquisite electronic tapestries woven from traditional Maltese folk music After various intermittent releases on other labels, James Vella – the founder of Brighton-based experimental imprint Phantom Limb – finally comes home with this latest iteration of his shape-shifting musical alter ego A Lily. Rooted in Vella’s family heritage, Saru l-Qamar is an inspired fusion of ambient folktronica and the Maltese “ghana” tradition of poetic narratives sung in the island nation’s unique Semitic language, which draws on Arabic, Italian and English. Interweaving antique archive recordings with 21st-century sonics, sepia-tinted beauties like the radiant “Tħallinix” and the gently hypnotic “Kemm Nixtieq Li Qed” are swamped in dreamy delay and haunting analogue nostalgia. STEPHEN DALTON ACTRESS Statik SMALLTOWN SUPERSOUND 7/10 Absorbing 10th from UK techno doyen…

“I’VE been travelling all my life in search of whatever I find,” says Joe Ely. “Revisiting some of my studio files, I noticed there were a lot of songs I’d written on the road about travelling.” The West Texan legend has now collated several decades’ worth of ideas for Driven To Drive (RACK ’EM RECORDS/THIRTY TIGERS), due in August. Joining him are accordionist Joel Guzman and fiddler Richard Bowden, amongst others, while Bruce Springsteen guests on “Odds Of The Blues”, inspired by an after-hours joint in Lubbock. Steep Canyon Rangers return in late August with their first in-concert offering, Live At Greenfield Lake (YEP ROC). Recorded on home turf at an amphitheatre in Wilmington, North Carolina, it finds the bluegrass sextet on fine form, showcasing killer harmonies and dextrous musical…

Your album title translates as “Feel Like You Don’t Know”. Does that express your real outlook? Yeah, I am a very confused person in general. I always doubt my own opinion. It was the overall feeling when we were starting to make this album. Who knows if it’s a really positive feeling to have in your everyday life? But it’s good to have this sensation of not knowing, because it gives you some flexibility of thought. This album feels quite polished and pop… I was really working very closely with Hector as a producer and arranger. He came with some ideas of compositions that were more pop, and some that were super-experimental. I was feeling it was a fun idea to create a groovy record, which is what gives it…

You don’t live in the landscapes that your music evokes. Does that make it easier to be imaginative? JONATHAN GREGG: Bob now lives in Florida, and Pat and I are scattered about. But our musical landscapes vary widely, and don’t depend on being in or depicting any particular place. BOB HOLMES: All three of us have done a lot of travelling. But the sound SUSS is known for – the American West or the wide-open spaces of the plains – is more an evocation of the styles of music people associate with those landscapes. Morricone did not live in the American Southwest. Sons Of The Pioneers did not live on a ranch. Bill Monroe did not live in Kentucky. And country music is rarely made any more by people who…

From Where I Stand: The Black Experience In Country Music (reissue, 1998) WARNER MUSIC NASHVILLE 8/10 ONE of the first stars of what became the Grand Ole Opry was a black harmonica virtuoso named DeFord Bailey, who could make the instrument sound like every oily, chugging mechanism on a speeding locomotive. “Pan American Blues”, from 1927, may be the ultimate showcase for his feats of ventriloquism, and it made him a star on the radio and eventually on TV. Bailey helped define the Opry as the premiere showcase for country music, but he was fired in 1941, either for breaking a song-publishing deal or for being black, depending on who’s telling the story. Bailey’s sad tale has come up a lot lately, especially after Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter stoked the debate…

GEORGE WALLACE: This unprecedented collection of Arthur Lee/Love recordings were made during the last 15 years of his life – from 1990 until Arthur’s final studio recording, in the summer of 2005. In a Memphis hospital in 2006, after a long battle against leukaemia, Arthur gave his wife, Diane, two CDs he’d compiled and asked her if she would oversee the release of the songs after he was gone. Arthur Lee Is Love Just To Remind You is comprised of the songs that Arthur put on the CDs. Sourced from Arthur’s trove of tapes, the music covers his wide-ranging taste and adeptness, from Forever Changes-style, haunting strings and brass-adorned productions, to Arthur at the piano, playing Ray Charles-inspired licks and singing with glorious, soulful abandon. Baby Lemonade, who Arthur anointed…

TIM HECKER Sometime during the pandemic I got really into Tim Hecker. Particularly his albums Harmony In Ultraviolet and Ravedeath 1972. He blurs the lines between experimental and ambient, creating extremely active and visceral soundscapes that are a huge inspiration. ASHRA TEMPEL/MANUEL GOTTSCHING Gottsching’s playing and productions embody a trance-like quality I find myself chasing. Ashra’s New Age Of Earth and Gottsching’s E2-E4 are huge touchstones for my musical palette, no matter what I am working on. SUNN 0))) Of all the drone/doom metal acts that inspired me while working on Water Still Flows, Sunn 0))) showcases the most primal, minimal version of the genre. The guitars and amps are recorded immaculately too – it feels like your head is pressed up against the amplifier. CRYPTOPSY On tour in late…

LOU BARLOW contains multitudes. He began his musical journey as a member of Boston’s teenage hardcore band Deep Wound with J Mascis, with whom he then went on to form Dinosaur Jr. Leaving the band after three albums following a bust-up with Mascis, Barlow devised lo-fi home recording projects Sentridoh and Sebadoh, until the latter evolved into an influential ’90s indie-rock band. A modest and self-deprecating character, Barlow says acclaim came as a surprise. “I’ve never felt like people really wanted Sebadoh,” he says. “It was kind of like we forced the issue. At the peak of Sebadoh’s success, he formed alt.folk duo The Folk Implosion, who briefly flirted with the Top 40, before finally releasing records under his own name. Ahead of a new Folk Implosion album, Walk Thru…

“MY husband Steve was an agent, so I’ve met a lot of people through him. Jeanne Moreau, she was fantastic. What was she like? Oh, you know, she was Jeanne Moreau! A very smart, talented woman, very French, very enigmatic. She had terrific presence – in a restaurant people would stare. I knew Peter O’Toole very well; he was very like John Grant, such a clever man, there was nothing he didn’t know. And such fun. Steve handled Clint Eastwood too, all these people, so I got to meet them as well. You don’t think of it at the time, but it was incredible to spend time with them. Nobody reads a book in Hollywood, so I used to sometimes write synopses for them and say a movie is about…

A GUY started showing up dressed in a neat suit with a Lucha Libre–style wrestling mask. This was Arturo Vega, a Mexican artist who was living in a big loft right around the corner from CBGB’s on Second Street. Artie had a great aesthetic. He was the first one I ever saw leave toys in their clear plastic packaging and then hang them like artworks. He had a way of narrowing focus on an everyday object until it became something bigger. A series of large paintings of supermarket-food-price ads were an homage to Andy but also something more stripped down and raw. He did a series of brightly coloured swastikas that became a statement about the cheerful embrace of evil. Arturo quickly befriended the Ramones and they all hit it…

WHEN John Lennon entered New York’s Record Plant studios in August 1973, he had to prove himself all over again. His last album, Some Time In New York City, had been critically panned for its ragged, rock ’n’ political sloganeering. At the same time, he was under surveillance from the FBI, while US immigration authorities were trying to deport him because of his anti-war activism. At home, his relationship with Yoko Ono had hit a rocky patch. A sorely needed reset came with Mind Games – an album that he enthusiastically described as “Imagine with balls”, but whose subtle beauty soon became mired in the continued chaos surrounding Lennon. “I grew up listening to it without realising it had to some degree been overlooked when it came out,” says Sean…

“AISUMASEN (I’M SORRY)” (ELEMENTAL MIX) This pared-down mix places greater focus on Lennon’s beautiful vocal, backed by Ken Ascher’s organ and subtle swashes of pedal steel by Sneaky Pete. An intense, moving mix of one of Lennon’s most personal songs. “TIGHT A$” (OUTTAKE) A good-natured jam, brilliantly performed by a group of musicians who demonstrate an intuitive grasp of the material and their own individual roles in forging a collective sound. “MEAT CITY” (ELEMENTS MIX) The Elements Mixes zero in on a single musical element, in this case the rhythm section: check Gordon Edwards’ bass and the frantic twin drummer-sound of Jim Keltner and Rick Marotta. “BRING ON THE LUCIE (FREDA PEEPLE)” (RAW STUDIO MIX) A live-in-the-studio mix sees the Plastic U.F.Ono Band deliver an unvarnished version of one of…

SUBSCRIBE NOW SHOP.KELSEY.CO.UK/UCP624US Call toll free 1 888 777 0275** and quote ref: UCP624US TERMS AND CONDITIONS *North America Continuous Credit Card offer only. *3 issues for $10 is a trial price on an Uncut subscription. The actual price you pay may vary based on the US$ / UK£ exchange rate on the day you order your subscription and any exchange commission fee applied by your card provider. After your first 3 issues, you will pay the equivalent of UK£49.99 every six months converted in to $US using the exchange rate on the day of the transaction. Offer ends 31st October 2024. Your subscription will start with the next available issue after your first payment is received. Uncut is published 13 times per year. If you decide to cancel your…

ROSE RELEASED JUNE 28 The Killing’s Sofie Gråbøl and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev team up for a road-trip movie featuring sisters, mental illness and unconditional love. WHAT REMAINS RELEASE JULY 5 Fine artist Ran Huang makes his feature debut with this Scandi-noir loosely based on the story of Sweden’s most notorious serial killer, starring Andrea Riseborough and Stellan Skarsgård. HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS RELEASED JULY 5 The spirit of silent slapstick is revived in this winningly daft curio about an applejack salesman on a mission to become America’s greatest fur trapper. SLEEP RELEASED JULY 5 A pregnant woman becomes worried when her husband’s sleeping sleep-talking escalates to grotesque behaviour in this comic thriller from Korean director Jason Yu. DESPICABLE ME 4 RELEASED JULY 5 Will…

IN Ted Kessler’s To Ease My Troubled Mind, the reader has their work cut out keeping up with the shifting identities of Wild Billy Childish. It is not the real name of the garage-punk pioneer of the Medway sound, nor that of the outsider artist who became an overnight success after 40 years when one of his paintings sold for £163,800. Childish is a punk rock moniker, given to him by his friend “Button Nose” Steve Simmons. If he hadn’t become Childish, Billy might have been stuck with the rather less exciting pseudonym Gus Claudius, though he can also be found at various times and in particular circumstances representing himself as Jack Ketch, Sir Quentin Gaydish, Gus Honeybum, “Danger” Bill Henderson or Corporal Kunt. Childish’s building society account is held…

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DENNIS THOMPSON MC5’s hard-hitting drummer (1948–2024) DENNIS Thompson attributed his uncompromising style to MC5’s formative days on the local dance-party scene in 1960s Detroit. “The drums weren’t mic’d, but the amps were cranked on 10,” he explained to the Detroit Free Press. “They were drowning me out… I had to play as powerfully as I could to break through that wall of sound.” Nicknamed ‘Machine Gun’ thanks to his explosive approach, Thompson helped power the MC5’s ascent from noisy covers band to proto-punk agitators, aligning themselves to socio-political causes and appearing regularly at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, site of 1969’s incendiary debut, Kick Out The Jams. Recalling the two-night stand that yielded the album, Thompson told Uncut in 2007: “I played harder than I ever played in my life… Both nights…

HOW TO ENTER The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by John Lennon. 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, July 18, 2024. This competition is only open to European residents. CLUES ACROSS 1 Album by The Fall. There’s a clue there somewhere if you can work it out (9) 6 “Washed away out of sight like ____ in the rain”, Del Amitri (4) 10 “I know a girl with the ______ _____/She’s got enough, she’s got too much”, 2004 (6-5) 11+14A A single mistake made by Pink Floyd during A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (3-4) 12+15A Woo. Charming Franz Ferdinand getting personal (4-2-3) 14 (See…

SIMON & GARFUNKEL Sounds Of Silence COLUMBIA, 1966 One day, my first-grade teacher, Mrs Robertson – not Robinson! – said, “Hey, I’m gonna put on this record and I want everybody to sing along.” And she passed out lyrics to “The Sound Of Silence”. I didn’t know what the words meant, but it was heavy: “Hello darkness, my old friend…” I remember the hair standing up on my neck. We were church-going folks, but I never felt the spirit moving through me the way that I did singing along with my friends to that song. I almost see it as the moment when I was really introduced to music. I go back to that song probably at least once a year. Usually it’s a moment when I’m by myself, so…

Look what you made us do! Just in time for the UK leg of The Eras Tour, the latest addition to our Ultimate Record Collection series celebrates Bon Iver and The National’s most famous collaborator, Taylor Swift. Covering every album and every single, as well as the definitive Taylor timeline, it’s in shops now – or you can order direct from us at shop.kelsey.co.uk/uncut… Also available now from the same places is the massive, 172-page Definitive Edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac. Featuring a great, long-lost Stevie Nicks interview, it also explores each album in depth, detailing every step of the band’s journey to multi-million-selling greatness, solo careers and reformations. Don’t stop!… MC5’s fourth album, Heavy Lifting – 53 years in the making – will finally be…

Why look back to your debut? Our first album was just about making music in a room with no intentions of it ever being heard or played live. It was an escape from the music we were making in other aspects of our lives. We knew we could never recreate that same vibe, but we could take some aspects and apply them to our new record. You’ve said that touring led to Beak> losing its identity… We had been playing festivals for years around the world, which was great, but we had become quite a loud, uptempo, festival version of ourselves. That was never our intention when we began, so it was time to have a long hard look at ourselves and start again. What was the idea behind “Hungry…

Early Daze REPRISE 7/10 ‘‘HERE we go. Rolling, take one. What’s the name of this, Neil?” Off-mic, on the other side of studio glass, you can just about catch the reply: “‘Down By The River’.” Of this track – shortly to be better-known as the nine-minute finale of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young’s first album with Crazy Horse – it can be said that all concerned got it pretty much right the first time. Young’s epic murder ballad allows one of the greatest rock’n’roll bands to properly flex, Crazy Horse’s ominous rumble preceding the eruption of Young’s guitar solo – which, like many since, prompts wonderment at how much Young can wring from a single, repeatedly squeezed note. The rest of the excruciatingly titled Early Daze, a collection…

THE late summer release schedule still has some surprises in store, not least the return of Sturgill Simpson under his soulful alterego Johnny Blue Skies. There are new albums by Jon Hopkins, MJ Lenderman, Melt-Banana, Ray LaMontagne and Meshell Ndegeocello, plus we’ll finally be able to bring you those deep dives into Fontaines DC’s Romance and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ Wild God. Archive-wise, we’ll examine boxsets from The Police and Fairport Convention, as well as deluxe reissues of landmark albums by Oasis, War, Beastie Boys and MarkLanegan. EMAIL TOM.PINNOCK@KELSEY.CO.UK…

ON the 10th floor of the Universal office building in London’s King’s Cross, Uncut watches as Simon Hilton – who has worked with Yoko since 2002 and as creative director works alongside Ono and Sean Ono Lennon on the reissue series – opens the Mind Games Super Deluxe Box and starts taking out the contents. He still hasn’t finished 45 minutes later. The box takes the form of a 13” Perspex cube, within which fans will find a further nine boxes containing all manner of music and paraphernalia exploring different facets of the Mind Games story, from I-Ching coins to artefacts from Nutopia, including a folded white flag and brass plaque. The creative team riffed on the two words of the album title – “mind” and “games” – to produce…

“I REMEMBER John showing me a collage at the Dakota one day. He had it on the mantel, about the size of an album cover. I remember being surprised he had used a photo I had taken of Yoko around the time of Approximately Infinite Universe for a possible album cover. John used it without telling me, putting it on the side so Yoko looked like a mountain. In the foreground was this Polaroid that May took of John with a suitcase. He cut that out and glued it on the board with the mountains and the sky and the sun and the moon. “John made a lot of collages. He would cut up magazines and put them together in different ways. He made a ton of these but because…