Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i UNCUT

JAMES Blackshaw may be best known to Uncut readers as a talented guitarist and composer of exquisite instrumental music, but it’s his culinary skills that are paying the bills right now. Blackshaw and his wife currently run a Japanese pop-up restaurant called Sumisu Ramen, based inside Stooge Coffee in Hastings. “I make ramen and gyoza, basically,” he explains. “We do two evenings at the moment but it’s building up. So, food!” As career moves go, it’s certainly a left-turn. Between 2003 and 2015, Blackshaw built a reputation as one of Britain’s most eloquent solo guitarists, releasing 12 increasingly complex and gorgeous albums and collaborating with the likes of Current 93’s David Tibet and Swans’ Michael Gira. But little has been heard from him since then. Until last month that is,…

MODERN NATURE No Fixed Point In Space BELLA UNION Jack Cooper takes what he’s learned from hanging with the free jazz crowd – or observing birds in flight – and sets his quietly ecstatic folksongs free on the breeze. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE “Defeat” DOMINO Gripping 22-minute odyssey that begins like a Renaissance hymn with “serpents circling the fountain” and ends with wobbly declarations of cosmic solidarity. THE BREEDERS “Go Man Go” 4AD A tangy 6/8 surf nugget unearthed for the upcoming 30th Anniversary Edition of Last Splash. Co-written by Black Francis! SALLY ANNE MORGAN Carrying THRILL JOCKEY Third solo album from the sometime Black Twig Picker and co-owner of Weaverville’s Leveller Brewing Co. Expect hoppy trad folk with a modern, citrusy finish. APHEX TWIN “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” WARP On which…

“I came over to England dressed as a glam kid and went home as a punk rocker” IT’S a relief to learn that Joan Jett still loves rock’n’roll. Currently on tour supporting Bryan Adams with her trusty band the Blackhearts, Jett confirms, “It’s a good energy. The audiences seem to like the new songs. We’re having fun as a band: smiling, laughing, exactly what it’s supposed to be.” The new songs are from a six-track EP called “Mindsets”, a collection of uniformly uplifting rockers specifically designed to keep spirits high. “It’s a tumultuous time in world history,” she observes. “You notice the different ways that people deal with things. Some people want normalcy so bad, just to be able to go out and have a drink with their friends, even…

You’ve referred to the Universal Broadcasting System as a messenger behind your music. Can you tell us a bit about what you mean? In short, I believe that ideas have sentience, that they are looking for a willing partner to make them manifest. A willing creative partner is someone who keeps their skills sharpened – for a musician this means keeping up with studies, daily practice, exploring new modalities of music, so that when the call comes, you are ready. “Africa Calling” is described as a tribute to your West African heritage. For those of us from the African diaspora, so much knowledge of our lineage was taken when slavery became big business in the transatlantic slave trade. When writing “Africa Calling”, I was never presented with ‘words’ as we know…

I SEE A DARKNESS DOMINO, 1999 A solitary record and Oldham’s first using the BPB handle, offering cover for the more emotionally direct expression that’s since characterised him. Johnny Cash covered the strikingly spare title track (with Oldham on backup vocals) in 2000; more surprisingly, avant flamenco-pop sensation Rosalía did the same on her 2017 debut album. 9/10 WOLFROY GOES TO TOWN DOMINO, 2011 Shahzad Ismaily, Emmett Kelly and Angel Olsen step up on a sparsely arranged set that throws back to BPB’s debut, after a string of more fulsome LPs – there’s little here apart from acoustic guitar and bass. The line “As boys we fucked each other/As men we lie and smile” (from “New Tibet”) points to complex subject matter. 8/10 I MADE A PLACE DOMINO, 2019 Oldham…

In “My Old Friends”, “Things ain’t too serious”, is a sentiment that flows through Jump For Joy. As well as looking back, there’s a sense of letting go. Yeah, there is. There’s a willingness to just recognise that we are having fun, and intending to make people happy, and to take them away and lift them for the record’s duration, despite some of the darkness in the songs. We’re going to be playing these songs to rooms full of people, so let’s give them something to move to, not just think about. There’s a sense of moving through America again on this record, after a couple of years when you couldn’t. That’s right. If this record has a Rosetta Stone, in terms of emotion and that sense of movement and a…

THE WOODS BAND The Woods Band CHERRY RED, 1971 Irish folk couple Gay and Terry Woods joined a post-Fairport Ashley Hutchings as part of the first ever Steeleye Span lineup that recorded the Hark! The Village Wait LP. After a falling out, they left to form their own band, fusing grassy country rock with Irish traditional instruments such as mandola, concertina, autoharp, dulcimer, bodhran and harpsichord. 8/10 TÍR NA NÓG A Tear And A Smile CHRYSALIS, 1972 The duo of Leo O’Kelly and Sonny Condell got together in Dublin in 1969 and over the next few years combined their love of classical music and Nick Drake. The second of their three early ’70s LPs was produced, string section and all, by Bill Leader, and its acoustic songs gain a keen…

THESS Charles Van Damme had a long if chequered history. A pre-war passenger ferry for San Francisco Bay, the distinctive wheelhouse boat later served as a navy vessel, a floating Chinese restaurant and a celebrity diner whose clients included Kirk Douglas, James Stewart and Noël Coward. By late 1966, docked in the harbour mud of Sausalito, it was an all-night club called the Ark where local up-and-coming bands hung out – none more intriguing than Moby Grape. “The Ark was our rehearsal space, then we’d play all through the night,” says drummer Don Stevenson. “There’d be us, the Buffalo Springfield, Janis Joplin with Big Brother And The Holding Company, Lee Michaels. All kinds of people gravitated there, they’d come over from the Fillmore and the Avalon after hours. It was…

“MY favorite Elliott Smith song is a version of ‘True Love’. I was talking about this yesterday and my sister reminded me that in 2001, when he died, I had printed out hundreds of pictures of Elliott Smith and put them in everyone’s Yearbooks. ‘Rest in peace, Elliott.’ I was a fan at the end of his life and the end of his career, when he was recording From A Basement On The Hill. There’s a website called Sweet Adeline that was the centre of Elliott Smith fandom at the time. People would upload bootlegs of the shows he was playing in 2000, 2001 – solo, I think, where he had really long hair and braids. He was playing a version of ‘True Love’ that had had different lyrics. ‘She…

“HE’S a very special guy. Meeting him for the first time was something! It was in an apartment in Paris in 2009 – they were looking for a new manager, and each potential manager had to do an interview with the band. So I met them, and this apartment was so smoky! Ibrahim was lying down and drinking tea and we talked together, but Ibrahim is not a big talker. So I just talked about myself and about my passion for music. And he just stood up, put his hand on my head, and said, ‘OK, this is him.’ And that was it! It was strange. “Ibrahim always says he doesn’t want to be the leader. But his charisma makes him the leader, even if he doesn’t want to be.…

IN 2015, Dylan Jones invited “the poet of queer darkness” to accept a bauble at the GQ Man Of The Year Awards. Surprisingly, given he was in fragile health and not renowned for his susceptibility to flattery, Lou Reed turned up and made a speech affirming his belief in rock’n’roll. “I’m a graduate of Warhol University,” he said “and I believe in the power of punk. And I believe – to this day – I want to blow it up.” Reed died 54 days later, leaving behind a contested myth in which the irascible bastard of his public persona is held in check by the warm testimonies of his close confidants. “Lou was the heartthrob,” says publicist and Ramones manager Danny Fields, in Jones’ Loaded: The Life (And Afterlife) Of…

ROGER MILLER Story And Songs From Robin Hood DISNEYLAND, 1973 This was the first record I was obsessed with. I can still vividly remember being five or six and lying down in front of our green and blue polka dot record player and lifting the needle to hear “Whistle Stop” again and again. I’m pretty sure I skipped over “Love” at the beginning of side B – I wasn’t ready. In those days, pre-video cassette, I’d only seen the movie once or twice, but I heard Roger Miller tell the story and sing the songs hundreds of times. This album did a lot for me in retrospect: I learned I can’t whistle, and I discovered I loved story songs and songs where animals talk. STEVIE WONDER Songs In The Key…

Whole lotta reading! The latest Ultimate Music Guide celebrates the forthcoming 50th anniversary of AC/DC with brand new reviews of every album, as well as the pick of Angus and company’s encounters with the press. Includes the story of Back In Black – bells, birds, invasive crabs and all. It’s in UK shops on July 20 or available to buy direct from us at shop.kelsey.co.uk/Uncut… Also this month, we release the bats in our Ultimate Genre Guide to classic Goth rock. Siouxsie! Bauhaus! Cave! Sisters! Cure! And other artists who dislike exclamation marks… all scrutinised by Uncut experts, in the name of chronicling an influential movement. The coffin lid opens on July 24… Greg Dulli’s Twilight Singers will issue a comprehensive 13-LP box set via One Little Independent in October.…

1 BLUR St Charles Square Messrs Albarn, Coxon, James and Rowntree return with the second track from their new album, The Ballad Of Darren, and it’s a spiky, Scary Monsters behemoth that’s been opening all their recent gigs – and appears here in its first ever physical release. …Darren is our Album Of The Month, reviewed on page 16 with a Q&A from Graham. 2 CUT WORMS Don’t Fade Out Brooklyn-based Max Clarke has been making music as Cut Worms for a while, but his new self-titled LP is his best yet: 10 tracks of vintage garage-folk filtered through modern sensibilities. Here’s the lovely, melancholic opening cut. 3 BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND Stand Anthem The Ones Ahead is Glenn-Copeland’s first album since the Canada-based artist was rediscovered and showered with long-deserved acclaim.…

You recorded the album in England. How does the old country feel to you now, after decades in LA? I don’t recognise the cities, it’s a mess, I can’t cope with the traffic, the smog, the filth. But my entire career is based on my country of origin. “Hawaii” has parallels with “Death Disco”, doesn’t it? Yes. They are different approaches to death. “Death Disco” was written in screaming agony, as my mother was dying in hospital. At first I was shellshocked. I knew she was going to die, I just couldn’t accept it. “Hawaii” is more accepting. It’s a more joyful song. I cannot allow self-pity in this. My mum and dad would turn in their graves if I did. There is no Edgar Allan Poe in me. “Car Chase”…

Why were you keen to work with Chris Weisman on this album? What struck me about his songs was hearing something familiar and comforting in them, but that was always delivered with subversive energy. There was something a little sour about it, even though there was a sweetness to it as well. Is making a duo record a way of deflecting some of the intense personal scrutiny that might come with making a pure solo record? I think so. It’s also maybe to do with an audience’s perception of what a solo record is: there’s this assumption that all the lyrics have to be about my life and my feelings. I find that notion, historically, has led me to songs that I tire of pretty quickly. I still think [the…

“ANDY was so prolific, he was the songwriter in the group when we started. Then one of the roadies said to me, ‘You want to write, Colin, because otherwise you’ll miss out.’ But Andy managed to get all his bad ones out of the way, out of the public eye, while I was still struggling to find my feet as a writer. He was very supportive in the early days – well, until I had a hit… That’s the way it goes! “I’ve been writing with Steve Porcaro from Toto recently. I’ve never written with anybody else before, but I think I’m acquiring a taste for it. I’ve got a studio at home, just outside Swindon, and I’m a bit of a magpie – I’ve picked up some nice gear,…

MOBY GRAPE (COLUMBIA, 1967) The unassailable debut, aglow with multi-part harmonies and three-way guitar arrangements. Forgoing the trippiness of many of their Bay Area peers, the Grape instead aim for a sophisticated upgrade on The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. WOW/GRAPE JAM (COLUMBIA, 1968) Uneven, but also sporadically brilliant, featuring two Mosley essentials (“Bitter Wind” and “Rose Coloured Eyes”), plus Stevenson’s fan favourite “Murder In My Heart For The Judge”. Disc two comprises loose jams with Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield and others. MOBY GRAPE ’69 (COLUMBIA, 1969) A bittersweet, mostly folk - and country-flavoured batch, with Lewis on particularly striking form: “I Am Not Willing”; “If You Can’t Learn From My Mistakes”. Spence was gone, but the band’s inclusion of his nakedly confessional “Seeing” is a masterstroke. 20 GRANITE CREEK (REPRISE,…

OREN Ambarchi’s future path was defined by a serendipitous mix-up in his grandfather’s Sydney junkshop. Taking home what he thought was a copy of Iron Maiden’s Number Of The Beast, the record inside turned out to be Miles Davis’s even more nefarious Live-Evil. “I was really confused,” recalls Ambarchi. “The music was just bizarre. To my ears it sounded completely chaotic and didn’t make any sense. But I stuck with it, and became really obsessed with [Davis’s] music from that point onwards. It opened the door to a lot of things.” Not only did his grandad’s shop inculcate an early love of freaky sounds, it provided the tools for Ambarchi’s first sonic investigations: “I was bringing home effect pedals and reel-to-reel machines, so I started fooling around with that stuff…

“RONNIE Lane’s life was never straightforward,” says Slim Chance’s Charlie Hart. “You can tell his story in so many different ways, ranging from disaster – multiple sclerosis, breakups and whatever tragedies – to great achievements and incredible songs. How he influenced people and what fun he was. All the different elements – spiritualism and Meher Baba, his bass-playing, the caravans, the travellers…” There is, indeed, a lot to unpack in Ronnie Lane’s life. His reputation was made as bassist of Small Faces, whose songwriting partnership with Steve Marriott produced treasures like “Itchycoo Park”, “Tin Soldier”, “Afterglow” and “Lazy Sunday”. By the decade’s end, his creativity had extended into the Faces, where he brought heartbreak (“Debris”) and wry romance (“Ooh La La”) to their goodtime rock’n’roll. But superstardom was never quite…

SAVE £24 ON THE SHOP PRICE* AND RECEIVE… • FREE 124-page Ultimate Music Guide to Kate Bush• FREE CD every issue• FREE Exclusive subscriber-only CD once a year**• FREE delivery direct to your door UNCUT is the spiritual home of great music, a place where readers the world over can share our passion for the finest sounds of the last 60 years – old and new, beloved and obscure. Each issue is packed full of revelatory encounters with our greatest heroes, trailblazers and newcomers from across a multitude of genres, lavishly illustrated with iconic photography, while our comprehensive reviews pages guide readers through the month’s best releases. Our free CD – available with every copy – is your guaranteed soundtrack to the month ahead. Join us, where music matters. 5…

ASTEROID CITY Directed by Wes Anderson Starring Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks Opened June 23 Cert 12a 7/10 L’IMMENSITÀ Directed by Emanuele Crialese Starring Luana Giuliani, Penélope Cruz, Vincenzo Amato Opens August 11 Cert 12 8/10 PARIS MEMORIES Directed by Alice Winocour Starring Virginie Efira, Benoît Magimel, Grégoire Colin Opens August 4 Cert 15 7/10 LIE WITH ME Directed by Olivier Peyon Starring Guillaume de Tonquédec, Victor Belmondo, Guilaine Londez Opens August 18 Cert 15 7/10 MEDUSA Directed by Anita Rocha da Silveira Starring Mari Oliveira, Lara Tremouroux, Joana Medeiros Opens July 14 Cert 15 7/10…

TONY McPHEE The Groundhogs’ formidable skipper (1944–2023) LIKE many who came of age during the ’60s, Tony McPhee was charged by the electric spirit of the blues. His great epiphany was witnessing Cyril Davies All-Stars at London’s Marquee in 1963, after which he changed his band’s name from The Dollar Bills to The Groundhogs, in honour of a John Lee Hooker track. Within a year they were backing Hooker on both his UK tour and in the studio. Support slots with Little Walter, Jimmy Reed and Champion Jack Dupree did little to suggest that McPhee and The Groundhogs were anything other than blues purists, compounded by 1968 debut Scratching The Surface. But their re-emergence as a power trio for the following year’s cannily titled Blues Obituary signalled the onset of…

UNCUT PRESENTS This exclusive, 5-track CD sampler includes a new song “Here In Baker” Valley Of Heart’s Delight by Margo Cilker is released by Loose Music on September 15 GET 3 ISSUES FOR £9 AND SAVE £24 OFF THE SHOP PRICE* Subscribe by July 25 to receive the exclusive subscriber-only CD with the October issue** Subscribe online at shop.kelsey.co.uk/UCP923CD Or call 01959 543 747 and quote ref: UCP923CD Hotline open: Monday to Friday 8.30am – 5.30pm. Calls charged at your standard network rate. Terms and conditions: *Savings based on the standard cover price of £6.50 for one full year (12 issues). UK Direct Debit offer only. You will pay £14.99 every three months following your first term. Offer ends 25th July 2023. For offers outside the UK visit shop.kelsey.co.uk/uncut-magazine. Your…

BLUR Modern Life Is Rubbish PARLOPHONE, 1993 Blur’s second album – and their breakthrough – saw Albarn’s writing focus around observational, character-driven pieces while Coxon’s musical palette (already very advanced) took off into stratospheric realms. Side 2, particularly, is where the magic happens: “Blue Jeans”, “Miss America” and “Oily Water” signpost future experiments. 8/10 BLUR 13 PARLOPHONE, 1999 Written in the aftermath of Albarn’s break-up from his long-term partner Justine Frischmann, Blur’s sixth album found Albarn grieving openly about the split. Bookended by two heartbroken ballads “Tender” and “No Distance Left To Run”, elsewhere songs like “1992” and “Battle” enacted the emotional drama within. 9/10 DAMON ALBARN Everyday Robots PARLOPHONE, 2014 The songwriter’s solo debut proper was his most personal statement; a journey through the past from his Leytonstone roots…

Is the cover a deliberate tribute to the late ’60s/early ’70s country/soul era? Oh, for sure. If we’re going to go for it, let’s go for it. And it’s a great vinyl cover. As much as I never want to see my face that big in my living room. What time-scale have these songs been written over? About 14 years. I’m not a particularly prolific songwriter. It’s not like I’m writing reams and reams of things, and 80 per cent of it is staying in notebooks to get burned after my death. These songs have come from different places in my life, but when I put them all together, they had a vibe. It’s me playing around with styles and sentiments and having fun with songwriting, which is not necessarily…

AFRICAN HEAD CHARGE A Trip To Bolgatanga U-SOUND 8/10 Psychedelic dub ensemble return for their first album in 12 years Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah’s project – with Adrian Sherwood, as ever, on the controls – returns for another voyage into the woozy world of psychedelic dub. Inspired by Noah’s current hometown in north Ghana, from the opening “A Bad Attitude”, the record is teeming with distinctive percussive flurries and chanting specific to local tribes. However, merged with Sherwood’s unique production – such as on the spacey, electronic dub of “I Chant Too” – it results in a genuinely unique concoction of styles. This is a ceaselessly unpredictable and eclectic record that manages to sound as traditional as it does experimental. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY DOT ALLISON Consciousology SONIC CATHEDRAL 8/10 One Dove…

SEPTEMBER is already shaping up to be a special month. Following up 2021’s sublime Pohorylle, Uncut favourite Margo Cilker unveils Valley Of Heart’s Delight (LOOSE). An extended homage to her place of birth, the Santa Clara Valley in California, the album examines how family, nature and tradition attempt to co-exist. Pohorylle producer Sera Cahoone returns to head up Cilker’s regular team, while guests include Richmond Fontaine’s Paul Brainard (pedal steel/guitar) and Mary Gauthier’s fiddle player, Annie Staninec. Trusted labelmates The Handsome Family, now celebrating their 30th anniversary as a musical duo, are back too. Eleventh effort Hollow finds Brett and Rennie Sparks immersing themselves in “the natural world at the edges of the man-made… lush with leaves and shadows and echoing with occult mystery.” The Albuquerque-based couple offer a typically diverse…

Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You DOMINO 8/10 “CHANGE is a constant and so I am constantly changing”, sings Will Oldham on the first track of his new album. It’s an existential truism that also works as a reminder to listeners – don’t expect any repeat performances. However securely coupled to country, folk and Southern Americana his music may be, Oldham, who adopted the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy alias in 1998, is a protean modernist. So, alongside the album of Merle Haggard covers and multiple recordings with Emmett Kelly’s Cairo Gang, his résumé includes two shapeshifting LPs made with fellow “wolf” Matt Sweeney and last year’s collaboration with Bill Callahan on Blind Date Party, a spirited double that includes such unlikely covers as “Deacon Blue” and Billie Eilish’s “Wish You Were Gay”.…

THE BYRDS Byrds CHERRY RED 6/10 Patchy 1973 reunion album back in print It must have given David Crosby some satisfaction that six years after McGuinn and Hillman kicked him out of The Byrds, he became the kingpin on the album that reunited the band’s original lineup for the first time since Gene Clark’s departure in 1966. The result was a record that sounded more like a CSNY tribute, with Crosby’s shimmering version of “Laughing” from his solo debut and his impassioned take on Joni Mitchell’s “For Free” as the highlights. Hillman’s “Things Will Be Better” and “Borrowing Time” sound like Manassas outtakes, and Clark sings tame versions of Neil Young’s “Cowgirl In The Sand” and “(See the Sky) About To Rain”. As for McGuinn, he’s so not the band…

BON IVER For Emma, Forever Ago JAGJGUWAR, 2007 Arguably one the most influential albums of the 20th century, Justin Vernon’s debut as Bon Iver is a sombre, aching meditation on heartbreak and loneliness, refining some of the vocal and songwriting techniques he devised in DeYarmond Edison. 10/10 MEGAFAUN Gather Form & Fly HOMETAPES, 2009 The band’s second album perfects their mix of folk songcraft and experimental noise, alternating lovely moments like the Deadhead elegy “The Fade” with noisy excursions such as “Impressions Of The Past”. 9/10 BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA I’ll Find A Way SONY MASTERWORKS, 2013 Justin Vernon produced this moving album by the longrunning gospel group, with Phil Cook serving as bandleader. The standout is the march “I Am Not Waiting Anymore”, written by Edison collaborator Christopher Porterfield…

“I ALWAYS get a bit pissed off when people say, ‘Oh, you wear John Lennon specs…’, because I had them before him! He only really started on the set of How I Won The War in late ’66, because they were supposed to be wartime-issue glasses. He liked the look of them so much he had them made in his prescription. I’ve been wearing this style since – hold on – 1957! If Lennon was wearing glasses then, he was wearing Buddy Holly glasses, which were much cooler then. If you had these glasses in 1957 you were so uncool – ‘National Health specs?!’ But they don’t make them much any more, so I’m in the shit now.”…

AROUND 2005/06, Moby Grape started recording a new studio album, sparked by a chance encounter between Jerry Miller and John Mellencamp’s drummer, Dane Clark, a huge Grape fan. “We ended up with The Real Potato,” explains Don Stevenson. “It has myself, Jerry, Peter, Skip’s son, Omar, Kenny Vaughan from Tennessee, plus Dane and Jon E Gee from Mellencamp. All the songs are Moby Grape originals and it’s a really powerful album.” A mixture of new and old songs, the Clark-produced set includes early live favourite “Dark Magic” (the Grape’s most overtly psychedelic moment), Skip Spence outtake “Rounder” and Miller’s latterday mover “Runnin’ The Train”. Bootleg copies have changed hands over the years, though sound quality is variable. Lewis doesn’t foresee any official release for The Real Potato anytime soon, “due…

HEATMISER Dead Air FRONTIER, 1993 The Portland band’s debut, with Smith sharing songwriting and frontman duties with Neil Gust. It’s no lost treasure, but these REM-meets-Fugazi cuts are still worth a listen. 6/10 ELLIOTT SMITH Roman Candle CAVITY SEARCH, 1994 Recorded in a Portland basement, Smith’s first solo album is a brief but unforgettable debut. Hushed and fragile in its delivery, violent and despairing in its content, it’s the blueprint for everything to come. 8/10 HEATMISER Cop And Speeder FRONTIER, 1994 The group’s second is a moodier and stronger eff ort, with Smith’s raging “Bastard John” and quieter “Antonio Carlos Jobim” converging to some extent with his solo work. 7/10 ELLIOTT SMITH Elliott Smith KILL ROCK STARS, 1995 Perhaps Smith’s darkest eff ort, this spectral collection of lightly picked acoustic…

ITCHYCOO PARK Small Faces (single, 1967) With its ecstatic chorus and innovative phasing, this evocative slice of childhood summer was lifted from the old hymn “God Be In My Head”. GREEN CIRCLES Small Faces – Small Faces (1967) Lane takes lead vocals on this experimental psych-pop gem that reflects his growing fascination with Eastern mysticism: “He wanted all the world to be/As free as he so they could see…” SONG OF A BAKER Small Faces – Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake(1968) Supposedly inspired by a book of Sufi wisdom passed on by Pete Townshend, Lane fronts a mini-masterpiece of hard-rocking psychedelia. STONE Faces – First Step (1970) A gorgeous country-blues meditation on reincarnation, which took on suitably different, folksier form when recut for Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance five years later. OOH…

Imperious return of a post-punk icon IT begins with a blast of perfumed intoxication, the voluptuous string swirls of “Aquarium” from Saint-Saëns’ Carnival Of The Animals booming out across a cavernous hall. In this year’s most feverishly anticipated rock comeback, Susan Janet Ballion has emerged from Garbo-esque semi-retirement for an extensive run of international shows, her first in a decade. At 65, in a chic ice-blue trouser suit and streaked hair, Siouxsie remains lean, angular and elegant. Squint a little and it could be 1985, when she last played this same venue, with the Banshees. Tonight is actually a double comeback, as Siouxsie is spearheading relaunch celebrations for this landmark Wolverhampton concert hall following an eight-year makeover that reportedly cost over £38 million. “This is a fantastic venue,” the singer…

Email letters@uncut.co.uk. Or tweet us at twitter.com/uncutmagazine THANK CHRIST FOR THE ’HOGS With the sad passing of Tony McPhee, it brings to mind one of the best gigs I ever attended, at the ripe old age of 17, down on a sixth-form trip from the North to London in October 1976. A few of us ‘hairies’ managed to slip away from our college minders at the B&B and head up west to queue for The Groundhogs at the Marquee on Wardour Street. Already tipsy and bedazzled by the squalor of Soho, we wide-eyed underage greenhorns entered this dark hole of legend and there enjoyed the loudest, sweatiest experience of our young lives, as the trio belted out a long and exciting set, topped off with “Cherry Red” of course! The…

HOW TO ENTER The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by Kate Bush. 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: Wednesday, August 9, 2023. This competition is only open to European residents. CLUES ACROSS 1 You’re saying that you want someone else to do a version of your hit? OK, you’re The Boss (5-2) 5 Alvvays album with a different beer, luv (4-3) 9 Bluesman who was born McKinley Morganfield in 1913 (5-6) 10 Tiffany concert includes an Interpol number (3) 11 Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine was one of their compilation albums (5) 13 Could The Byrds not think what to name this double album? (8)…