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“Alone” and the return of The Cure

Michael Bonner
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“Alone” and the return of The Cure

In amidst the billowing synthesisers and windswept guitars, here’s a couple of lines where Robert Smith in “Alone” – The Cure’s first new single for 16 years – sings about “a boy and girl / who dream the world is nothing / but a dream”. In some respects, it’s not too much of a stretch to see The Cure as Robert Smith’s own dream world – a self-sufficient fiefdom which operates on his own terms, largely without external influence. Musically, The Cure always been skilled at conjuring up their own hermetically-sealed musical environments, but this is also a band who have existed for almost a third of their lifetime purely as a live entity, away from the endless album > tour > album > tour routines familiar to most bands, admirably pursuing their own agenda, however mysterious that might sometimes appear.

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Take, for example, new music, which Smith has been teasing sporadically since 2014, when he announced 4:14 Scream – the follow-up to the band’s 2008 album, 4:13 Dream. Since then, they played two new songs “It Can Never Be The Same” and “Step Into The Light” at the Smith-curated Meltdown festival in 2019. All that shifted slightly in 2022, when Smith finally revealed the title of a new Cure album – Songs Of A Lost World – while six new songs appeared in the band’s setlists during their 2023/24 world tour.

“Alone” arrives – at last! – after a teaser campaign running for these last few weeks, including a new website for the album and a snippet of the track. For those who have waited 16 years for this, “Alone” is reassuringly The Cure. The closest reference point is the stately “Plainsong”, the opening track from their 1989 masterpiece Disintegration, which was similarly borne along on widescreen synth washes and found Smith wide-eyed in the face of apocalyptic drama. Here, “the fire burned out to ash and the stars / grown dim with tears” recalls “the fire is almost cold / And there’s nothing left to burn” from Bloodflowers’ “39”, but while that track seemed more about Smith’s own anxieties that his creative wellspring was running dry as he neared 40, “Alone” has a much grander sweep: “This is the end of every song we sing,” no less.

As the opening track for Songs Of The Lost World, it finds Smith setting out his stall for the rest of the album. Windwept, asking questions, fearing the worst, this is very much Robert Smith and The Cure we can welcome back.

Songs Of A Lost World is released on November 1 by Fiction/Polydor on 1LP, 2LP, marble vinyl, cassette, CD, deluxe CD/Blu-ray with Atmos mix. Pre-order here.

The The – Ensoulment

Daniel Dylan Wray
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The The – Ensoulment
Buy Ensoulment here

The The’s excellent 1983 album, Soul Mining, captured a feeling of deep, pronounced, soul searching like few other debuts have managed. Nearly 40 years on from that record Matt Johnson found himself engaging in a similar form of intense reflection and contemplation, as he navigated getting over a serious illness, grappling with the pandemic, dealing with grief and witnessing a rapidly changing world as AI boomed. It’s been 24 years since The The’s last studio album, with Johnson largely retreating into soundtrack work in the intervening years, but after a surprise return single in 2017 and the band’s first tour in 17 years, a full comeback was put into place.  

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During the making of this album, Johnson found himself reflecting on the current state of the world, which he called “fascinating” yet also “strange, inverted and hallucinogenic”. These are all feelings that have found their way onto Ensoulment, an album that tackles many of life’s big questions, topics and subjects – albeit one that is at its strongest when it steps back from those and offers up something more personal.

Tracks such as “I Want To Wake Up With You” – a slow-burn piano-based number which unfurls with an almost smokey jazz bar groove – is as tender as it is mournful and longing, with the production rich, warm and enveloping in tone. This continues on album highlight “Risin’ Above The Need” as Johnson purrs, over an almost soul groove, “I’m searching in the mirror for who I have become.” This is before it reaches its chorus via the titular refrain, which sparkles gloriously as Barrie Cadogan’s beautiful guitar melody glides underneath Johnson’s resonant yet uplifting, and quietly triumphant, vocal delivery.

When Johnson tackles bigger, broader, societal and political issues, though, things don’t quite hit with the same punch, clarity or warmth. “Cognitive Dissident” is clumsy, heavy-handed and very on-the-nose lyrically with themes around authoritarianism, control and herd mentality. Given Johnson’s spreading of conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and Covid during lockdown, it’s hard not to read certain lyrics here – “The consensus? Created/Reality? Curated” or “the unthinkable is now thinkable/The poison? It’s drinkable” – through a similar kind of truther lens.

Similarly, “Kissing The Ring Of POTUS” is pretty hard work as it reels off lines like “a psychopathic superpower spies from the sky, transmitting viruses into the mind’s eye”.  Yet Johnson’s voice sounds great on tracks like this, and he glides around the words with real deftness, grace and skill. It’s just a shame about some of those words: “Zen And The Art Of Dating” sets out to be about finding human connection in a world of superficial encounters, but ultimately it’s just a very cringe depiction of life on dating apps. At times it’s difficult to ascertain whether it’s intended to be ironic or sincere, but lines like “breasts are yearning, loins are burning” fail on both counts.

It’s when Johnson looks inwards that he produces his most stirring work. “Where Do We Go When We Die?” is a beautiful tribute to his late father that wrestles with life after death, while pondering the cycles and meanings to be found in life while experiencing grief. There’s more emotional weight carried in the two lines he sings about taking his father’s clothes and books to the charity shop than can be found in any of the state of the world addresses heard elsewhere on the record.

“I Hope You Remember (The Things I Can’t Forget)” unfolds with an almost Tom Waits-like shuffle, with Cadogan’s snaking guitar lines matching the woozy percussion. Johnson leans into a slightly more gruff voice too, as he imagines a world on the brink but dives deep into the comfort of nostalgia, basking in the scent of his grandmother’s perfume and the engulfing haze of old tobacco smoke. It’s these kinds of moments and details that are needed to lift the album up from the bleakness and paranoid leanings.

Historically, The The have always been a difficult band to label. Over the years, they’ve hovered around art-rock, synth-pop, post-punk and new wave yet they’ve never really belonged to any of them. On Ensouled, things feel equally as tricky to nail down, but generally things are slower and less musically direct, and so you have an amalgamation of alt.rock, leftfield folk, pop, jazz and touches of electronica. However, while stylistically varied, it can feel a little lacking in variety and dynamism at times, as it very much sits in mid-tempo mode for much of the 12 tracks, the sprightly pop of their early period rarely appearing. Johnson feels nicely in sync with his band though, who possess both precision and personality in their playing.

Regardless of a few wrong turns, it’s wonderful to have such a natural songwriting talent as Johnson back on record again. It’s just a shame he doesn’t always seem to realise that the most interesting soul he could mine here is his own.

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Harold Budd, Elizabeth Frazer, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde – The Moon And The Melodies (reissue, 1986)

Stephen Troussé
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Harold Budd, Elizabeth Frazer, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde – The Moon And The Melodies (reissue, 1986)
Buy The Moon And The Melodies here

There is something characteristically perverse about the fact that the Cocteau Twins’ greatest hits aren’t credited to them. In their lifetime, their biggest single was their uncanny, half-million selling, independent-chart-topping cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song To The Siren”, released under the aegis of 4AD boss Ivo Watts-Russell’s This Mortal Coil project. Since the group’s demise in 1997 the song that has risen to the top of the streaming stats is, remarkably, “Sea, Swallow Me”; never a single when it was released at the tail-end of 1986, yet currently racking over 100 millions plays on Spotify alone, and officially credited to Harold Budd, Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde.

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This collaboration was almost an afterthought. A production company had floated the idea for a TV series that fostered pan-genre collaborations – metalheads and reggae rhythm sections, rockers and dance producers (such cross-fertilisation would ultimately lead to 4AD’s biggest hit, MARRS’ “Pump Up the Volume”). The documentary got bogged down in development purgatory, but the idea stuck with Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde, who hooked up with LA-based ambient composer and pianist Harold Budd.

The Cocteaus were by then coming nicely to the boil, insulated from commercial expectations, enjoying the creative freedoms of having their own studio in distinctly un-ethereal North Acton. They seemed perfectly at liberty to follow their whims: from sundry EPs (Aikea-Guinea, Tiny Dynamine, Echoes in a Shallow Bay and Love’s Easy Tears in 1985-86 alone), a greatest hits compilation (The Pink Opaque) and a nominally “acoustic album” featuring just Robin and Liz, the gorgeous iridescent ice-floes of Victorialand.

But the collaboration wasn’t completely out of the blue. The Cocteaus had met Brian Eno in 1984 with a view to him producing Treasure. In one of rock history’s great missed opportunities he demurred, but the encounter was suggestive of the ways that various mid-’80s worlds were converging. Having begun somewhere deep in Siouxsieverse, orbiting the planet Juju, by 1985, with Victorialand, the Cocteaus had drifted to a becalmed latitude on the fringes of New Age. Budd meanwhile had begun his own musical journey much earlier, in the late ’50s cool jazz worlds of Chet Baker and Pharoah Sanders, voyaging through the late ’60s negative zone of John Cage and Morton Feldman, before washing up on the beach of Enoverse with 1978’s Pavilion Of Dreams.

It was an encounter that could only have happened in the mid-’80s on a label like 4AD. There was much talk at the time of how sampling was making possible hitherto unimaginable culture clashes (the now quaint “This Is Crush Collision!” by Age Of Chance was typical of the time). By contrast, The Moon And The Melodies is a gentle drift, a snow crash, the sound of two musical universes passing softly through each other like clouds of perfume.

The exchange was like a subtle shift of specific gravities. On The Pearl, Eno had set Budd’s piano in a pellucid green world, the air humming and the streams alive with bright fish. Here, on a track like “Memory Gongs” the cavernous reverb of Robin Guthrie’s production transplants Budd somewhere altogether more sinister – it’s like a grand piano playing Satie onboard the Nostromo as Riley enters sleep stasis at the end of Alien. Budd himself fades discretely into the background of more conventionally Liz-focused grottoes like “Eyes Are Mosaics”, while “The Ghost Has No Name”, featuring the saxophone of Dif Juz’s Richard Thomas and some fretless bass from Simon Raymonde, feels like it might have calved from the lazy-calm glacier of Victorialand.

Within the larger cartography of the Cocteau discography, The Moon And The Melodies is a curious but charming backwater, overshadowed by the more obvious peaks of Blue Bell Knoll and Heaven Or Las Vegas. Within Budd’s discography it’s arguably important as the first step on the more fully collaborative Guthrie/Budd projects including After The Night Falls/Before The Day Breaks (2007) and Bordeaux/Winter Garden (2011).

So how to explain the freak breakout success of “Sea Swallow Me”? Is it simply an algorithmic glitch, like the one that resurrected Pavement B-side “Harness Your Hopes”? Is it down to the way the opening bars have become a jingle for emo TikTokkers (Jane Schoenbrun’s phantasmagoric film I Saw The TV Glow is arguably a 100-minute elaboration of this vibe). Or is it simply the most accessible portal into the rich and strange world of the Cocteau Twins?

Brian Eno was fond at the time of talking of his work as research and development, as opposed to the General Motors mass production lines of Pink Floyd or U2. You might see The Moon And The Melodies perhaps as one of the R&D seed projects that eventually led to the formation of Peaceful Piano, the limpid, ever-growing playlist that now rules from the heart of the Spotify world. It’s testament to the enduring artistry of Budd, Fraser, Guthrie and Raymonde, that it continues to sound as magically mysterious as ever, whatever its shifting context.

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Remember His Name

Rob Hughes
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Remember His Name

Critically panned on release in 1971, David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name is now rightly acknowledged as a masterpiece, its hallucinatory psych-folk emblematic of the shifting West Coast spirit of the times. “I didn’t hear it until about ten or fifteen years ago,” admits The Waterboys’ Mike Scott. “But I loved its spontaneity. It captures a moment of freedom and stoned optimism.”

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This October, Scott will take his place alongside a number of artists – Hothouse Flowers’ Liam Ó Maonlaí, Kris Drever and The Staves – for the first ever live performance of Crosby’s signature solo album as part of Llais, Cardiff’s annual international arts festival. “If I Could Only Remember My Name holds a special place in my heart,” says musician and arranger Kate St John, who devised the concept and will lead the accompanying band. “I’ve had the idea of realising this for years and have been playing around with ideas in my head. I’m not interested in a slavish reproduction, I want to throw it open to the singers and the band and for us to channel the spirit of the music. I want to recreate that feeling, to make it a kind of happening.”

The band will include guitarists Neill MacColl and Robbie McIntosh, Ed Harcourt on keyboards and three backing vocalists: St John, Margo Buchanan and Michelle Willis, Crosby’s latter-day collaborator in the Lighthouse Band. The whole thing is very much attuned to the essence of the original album sessions, which saw Crosby joined by a host of friends: Jerry Garcia, Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and various members of Jefferson Airplane and Santana.

It was a particularly difficult time for Crosby, grieving the death of girlfriend Christine Hinton in a car crash and self-medicating heavily as a result. “Even though it’s clearly a snapshot into a deeply personal time, a kind of reflection of grief and recovery, it’s also extremely collaborative,” notes The Staves’ Camilla Staveley-Taylor, for whom Crosby/CSNY are a formative presence. “You can feel that he’s surrounded by a bunch of people who are helping him heal through making that music. So I think it’s really fitting that the Llais show is going to be collaborative too.”

The second half of the gig will draw from Crosby’s time with The Byrds, CSN and his later solo works, with St John promising “some hidden gems”. Most recently involved in orchestrating segments of the Nick Drake celebration at London’s Albert Hall, St John is keen to “have all or most of the singers on stage all the time, singing together and on each other’s songs. I picked the singers carefully. It’s so important to get that right when shaping the soul of a show.”

Meanwhile, the cross-generational appeal of Crosby, who passed away in January 2023, continues to endure. Staveley-Taylor recalls how she and her sister/bandmate Jess “were in New York about ten years ago, in the audience for Jimmy Fallon’s TV show. Crosby was playing and we ended up bumping into him backstage. He was very cool and charming. I don’t get starstruck easily, but it felt like I was outside my body a little. It was like meeting Gandalf!” Mike Scott never met Croz, but sees him as something of a touchstone: “I liked his headstrong personality. He sang better than ever in his last years, wrote beautifully, was soulful, made music with younger people, and honoured his own younger self without shame or surrender while moving forward. A wonderful example of how to age well creatively.”

If I Could Only Remember My Name: The Music Of David Crosby takes place at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff on October 11 as part of Llais Festival; click here for more details

We’re New Here – Thee Sacred Souls

Johnny Sharp
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We’re New Here – Thee Sacred Souls

“The quality just feels timeless – it helps you feel good, helps you perform with so much more energy.” Frontman Josh Lane is talking about the stylish vintage clothes that characterise the look of Thee Sacred Souls, but he could just as easily be talking about their music, an irresistible brand of righteous, sun-blessed soul that consciously rekindles a classic ’60s and 70s R’n’B sound. “Absolutely,” he concurs. “It’s all part of the same package.”

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Since forming in 2019 and signing to New York soul and funk label Daptone after only their second show, they’ve built up a keen following from touring with the likes of St Paul & The Broken Bones, Belle & Sebastian and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Nightsweats. Their forthcoming second album Got A Story To Tell promises to further cement their reputation as standard-bearers for classic American soul.

The sound of Thee Sacred Souls, so marinated in quality that it could have been preserved in oak casks, evolved after drummer Alex Garcia and bassist Sal Samano hooked up with Lane via social media and jammed in a garage while sharing their love for lesser-known soul 45s by acts such as the Fabulous Performers and the Dream Team. Lane in turn brought his own passion for Northern Soul and more mainstream voices such as Al Green and Marvin Gaye to bear, the latter of whom are clearly echoed in his resonant, higher-register vocal style.

Early on, Lane also brought a conscious lyrical element to songs such as “Give Us Justice” – an early college radio hit for the band written amid the Black Lives Matter movement in tribute to victims of police brutality such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. That topical awareness has since matured into a more broadly defiant, positivist worldview heard on new songs such as “Love Is The Way” and “One And The Same”.

“It baffles me that values so basic and true still bypass the powers that be,” says Lane. “I’m trying to say, regardless of state lines or tradition or culture, we’re all connected. Music is one powerful force that unites us, and reminds us of that.”

He condemns the resurgence of a “patriarchal, imperialist mindset, all about conquering and dominating.” Resistance against such power structures fuels the new album’s opening song and lead single “Lucid Girl”. As Lane explains,

“in a lucid dream, the dreamer isn’t held down by the dream. A lucid girl is someone who lives in this patriarchal society that we’ve all been birthed into, but doesn’t allow it to hold them down. It’s inspired by a lot of strong women in my life, whether it’s authors that I really enjoy like Bell Hooks, or activists like Angela Davis, or my Mom.”

The message lands all the more powerfully coming wrapped in Thee Sacred Souls’ lovingly crafted sound. Lane is quick to credit the role of Daptone label boss Gabriel Roth, who also produced Got A Story To Tell. “Gabe is an amazing producer and engineer, and he gets such a great sound from using just analogue gear,” Lane enthuses. “The label feels like a family, one that really respects and reveres the soul tradition and helps us to do the same.  We feel blessed for that connection, to play a small part in the long story of soul.”

Got A Story To Tell is released by Daptone on October 4

Watch Neil Young play 1977’s “Hey Babe” live for the first time

Michael Bonner
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Watch Neil Young play 1977’s “Hey Babe” live for the first time

Neil Young played “Hey Babe” live for the first time on September 24, 2024 at the Capitol Theatre, Portchester, New York.

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The song originally appeared on Young’s 1977 album American Stars ‘N Bars, while a previously unreleased version of the song appeared more recently on Archives Vol. III (1976 – 1987).

Young has recently been playing with a ‘new’ band, The Chrome Hearts, comprising guitarist Micah Nelson, bassist Corey McCormick, drummer Anthony LoGerfo and Spooner Oldham on keyboards. McCormick and LoGerfo are also members of Promise Of The Real, with whom Young has often collaborated since 2015’s The Monsanto Years, along with Nelson. Oldham, of course, is a veteran of many of Young’s campaigns since 1978’s Comes A Time.

Young debuted The Chrome Hearts at Farm Aid on September 21. It was his first live appearance since he curtailed Crazy Horse‘s recent Love Earth Tour in May due to illness.

Young is next expected to appear at the Harvest Moon – A Gathering event on October 5 at Lake Hughes in California on a bill that also includes Stephen Stills.

Meanwhile, Young is due to induct Oldham into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame this Friday, September 27.

The Cure to release new track “Alone” later this week

Michael Bonner
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The Cure to release new track “Alone” later this week

The Cure have announced the release of “Alone“, the first track taken from their forthcoming album, Songs Of A Lost World.

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“Alone” will debut on Mary Anne Hobbs‘s BBC Radio 6Music show on September 26, between 10.30am and 1pm GMT. Further details about the album will also be revealed that day.

Click here to pre-save “Alone”. Songs Of A Lost World is the first album of new Cure music since 4:13 Dream in 2008.

Art Garfunkel announces covers album with his son, Art Garfunkel Jr

Sam Richards
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Art Garfunkel announces covers album with his son, Art Garfunkel Jr

Art Garfunkel and Art Garfunkel Jr have announced their first album together. Father And Son, a “selection of personal favourites from the last century” will be released by BMG on November 8.

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Listen to their “modern orchestral” version of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” below:

“‘Time After Time’ is one of my all-time favourites from the ’80s,” says Garfunkel Jr. “It’s a song that fits perfectly on this album – because it also deals with our relationship, this unique bond between my father and me. From one generation to the next, it’s about time passing, about passing on the baton, but here we are working together in the studio… and thus begins the next cycle, as my father takes this exciting next step with me.”

“It felt like a dream. It was simply quite wonderful. I love working with him,” adds Garfunkel Sr. “I like to say my son is a better singer than I am. I mean, I’m pretty good… but he is better.”

Peruse the tracklisting for Father And Son below and pre-order here.

Blue Moon
Vincent
Blackbird
Old Friends
Time After Time
Once In A While
I Won’t Let You Down
Let It be Me
Nature Boy
You Belong To Me
Here Comes the Rain Again
Father and Son

Watch a video for Bon Iver’s new song, “S P E Y S I D E”

Sam Richards
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Watch a video for Bon Iver’s new song, “S P E Y S I D E”

Justin Vernon has announced that his SABLE EP – the first new Bon Iver record in more than five years – will be released by Jagjaguwar on October 18.

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According to the press release, SABLE is “Emerging from a slow-burning breakdown – possibly done with music, thinking increasingly about the process of healing… a space for Vernon to unpack the darkness, pressure and anxiety that amounted to one of the most trying periods of his life.”

The three songs on SABLE, written from 2020-2023, were recorded at April Base in Wisconsin, produced by Justin Vernon and Jim-E Stack.

Watch a video for the track “S P E Y S I D E” below, directed by Erinn Springer, and pre-order SABLE here.

Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide: The Beatles, Definitive edition

John Robinson
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Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide: The Beatles, Definitive edition

The Fabber four!

Hello hello!

Close to the Beatles, subject of our latest 172-page Ultimate Music Guide but never so close as to lose objectivity, the late British rock ‘n’ roller Tony Sheridan had a succinct take on the band’s formative two years in Hamburg. “It wasn’t sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll,” he told me some years ago. “It was music, music, music.”

We have become accustomed to the idea that the German language has an accurate way of describing every situation, and so it proves here. What Sheridan recalled about his encounters with the band between 1960 and 1962 he described as an extension of wohngemeinschaft  – a kind of shared living. 

As Tony explained it, this extended beyond the generally horrible accommodation the Hamburg bands lived in, but also a more philosophical sharing of resources. So enthused were the bands about their pursuit – in a time when musicians were considered a kind of reviled social underclass – that they shared resources, knowledge, even group members, all in the name of their wider mission.

Could this be the first flowering of the musical questing, the inclusiveness and open-mindedness that we think of when we think of the Beatles? If it’s not an idea to rule on, it’s a warm feeling that you’ll be able to trace throughout this new definitive edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to the Beatles. 

Access all areas doesn’t really have the same sort of meaning today as it did when NME’s news editor Chris Hutchins spent the afternoon on a boat listening to the new Bob Dylan album with the Rolling Stones, before joining the Beatles backstage at Shea stadium. That’s just a flavour of the refreshing openness which underpins the band’s dealings with the press, which you’ll find in the archive features included here. 

Even when the band are in dispute with each other, John Lennon is still receiving callers from the world’s reporters to explain his position on peace, Yoko, and of course the Beatles.  Of Paul’s many innovations, his retreat from the spotlight and subsequent ownership of the narrative to announce his first solo record seems particularly striking – it’s one of the few times a Beatle broke new ground in the press without a journalist being present.  He did something similar in 2023, busting his own record company embargo by announcing the imminent arrival of “Now And Then”, the “last Beatles song”.

Alongside these archival pieces, Uncut’s writers have made their own insightful trips inside the Beatles’ music, to chart the band’s recorded course from “1-2-3-4!” “…the love you make”. We bring things right up to date with a deep look at the new Giles Martin remixes of Revolver, Sgt Pepper, The White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be. There’s a review of the Get Back series, in which Peter Jackson has given a deeper insight into the band’s legendary studio sessions of January 1969 beyond that in the Let It Be film.

Very much as they were in their lifetime, over 60 years on from Beatlemania the band are much as they were: finding new ways to help us look afresh at things we thought we already knew very well indeed. Enjoy the magazine, you can get yours here. Fancy a hardback edition? It’s here.

George Harrison’s Living In The Material World due for super deluxe release

Michael Bonner
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George Harrison’s Living In The Material World due for super deluxe release
Pre-order the Super Deluxe Edition here

George Harrison’s second solo album, Living In The Material World, is receiving a belated 50th anniversary release on November 15, via Dark Horse Records/BMG.

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Living in the Material World 50th Anniversary Edition will be available in a variety of physical and digital formats including a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set, limited to 5,000 copies.

The Super Deluxe Edition box set features the album on 2LP (180g) and 2CD, which includes the newly remixed original album and a bonus disc containing 12 previously unreleased early renditions of every song on the main album. Additionally, the set includes a Blu-Ray of all album tracks and previously unreleased tracks in Dolby Atmos, and an exclusive 7” single of the never-before-heard recording of “Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)” featuring Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko from The Band, alongside Ringo Starr.  

The box set contains a beautiful 60-page hardcover book curated by Olivia Harrison and Rachel Cooper, with unseen imagery and memorabilia from the era, handwritten lyrics, studio notes, and tape box images. Also included is a 12-page Recording Notes booklet, drawing from original Living in the Material World production notes, photographs, and reel-to-reel session tapes housed in the George Harrison Archive.

longside the super deluxe format, the album will also be available on 2LP and 2CD Deluxe Editions, both of which pair new mixes of the original album with session outtakes. The 2LP Deluxe Edition will be presented in a gatefold sleeve with a 12-page booklet, while the 2CD Deluxe Edition comes in a Clamshell Box with two printed wallets, a 20-page booklet and a poster.

The main album will also be offered individually as a 1CD, 1LP, and limited edition 1LP colour vinyl exclusive available from the official George Harrison online store (Purple Colour Vinyl).

SUPER DELUXE TRACKLISTING:

LP1/CD Disc 1

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) (2024 Mix) 

Sue Me, Sue You Blues (2024 Mix) 

The Light That Has Lighted the World (2024 Mix) 

Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long (2024 Mix) 

Who Can See It (2024 Mix) 

Living in the Material World (2024 Mix) 

The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord) (2024 Mix) 

Be Here Now (2024 Mix) 

Try Some Buy Some (2024 Mix) 

The Day the World Gets ‘Round (2024 Mix) 

That Is All (2024 Mix)

LP2/CD Disc 2

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) (Take 18; Acoustic Version) 

Sue Me, Sue You Blues (Take 5) 

The Light That Has Lighted the World (Take 13) 

Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long (Take 49; Acoustic Version) 

Who Can See It (Take 93) 

Living in the Material World (Take 31) 

The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord) (Take 3) 

Be Here Now (Take 8) 

Try Some Buy Some (Alternative Version) 

The Day the World Gets ‘Round (Take 22; Acoustic Version) 

That Is All (Take 24) 

Miss O’Dell (2024 Mix) 

Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond) *CD Only

7″ Single

Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)

Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond) [Instrumental]

Blu-Ray

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) (2024 Mix) 

Sue Me, Sue You Blues (2024 Mix) 

The Light That Has Lighted the World (2024 Mix) 

Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long (2024 Mix) 

Who Can See It (2024 Mix) 

Living in the Material World (2024 Mix) 

The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord) (2024 Mix) 

Be Here Now (2024 Mix) 

Try Some Buy Some (2024 Mix) 

The Day the World Gets ‘Round (2024 Mix) 

That Is All (2024 Mix) 

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) (Take 18; Acoustic Version) 

Sue Me, Sue You Blues (Take 5) 

The Light That Has Lighted the World (Take 13) 

Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long (Take 49; Acoustic Version) 

Who Can See It (Take 93) 

Living in the Material World (Take 31) 

The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord) (Take 3) 

Be Here Now (Take 8) 

Try Some Buy Some (Alternative Version) 

The Day the World Gets ‘Round (Take 22; Acoustic Version) 

That Is All (Take 24) 

Miss O’Dell (2024 Mix) 

Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)

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Matt Berry announces new studio album, Heard Noises

Michael Bonner
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Matt Berry announces new studio album, Heard Noises

Matt Berry has announced a new album, Heard Noises, which is coming on January 24, 2025 from Acid Jazz Records. You can hear “I Gotta Limit (Feat. Kitty Liv)”, from the album, below.

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He is joined by long-time collaborator, neo-progressive drummer Craig Blundell, and guests including Pokerface’s Natasha Lyonne and back with Matt is The Shins/Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson (acoustic guitar, autoharp and backing vocals on ‘Why On Fire?’, ‘To Live For What Once Was’ and ‘Snakes That Slide’), Phil Scraggs (lap steel guitar on ‘To Live For What Once Was’ and ‘Snakes That Slide’), Rosie McDermott (vocals on ‘Sky High’) and the S. Club 60s Choir featuring Berry’s mother.

An Acid Jazz exclusive gatefold-sleeve psychedelic swirl colour vinyl is available to pre-order here.

The tracklisting is:

Side One

  1. Why On Fire?
  2. Silver Rings
  3. Interlude
  4. Be Alarmed
  5. I Gotta Limit (featuring Kitty Liv)
  6. Wedding Photo Stranger
  7. Stay On The Ground

Side Two

  1. I Entered As I Came (featuring Natasha Lyonne)
  2. There Are Monsters
  3. To Live For What Once Was
  4. Canada Dry
  5. The Snakes Will Slide
  6. Interlude 2
  7. Sky High

I Entered As I Came (featuring Natasha Lyonne)

  1. There Are Monsters
  2. To Live For What Once Was
  3. Canada Dry
  4. The Snakes Will Slide
  5. Interlude 2
  6. Sky High

Super deluxe edition of Talking Heads: 77 unveiled

Sam Richards
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Super deluxe edition of Talking Heads: 77 unveiled
Pre-order 77 here

On November 8, Rhino will release a Super Deluxe Edition of Talking Heads’ landmark debut, featuring a number of rarities and previously unreleased tracks – including a live set captured at CBGB, New York, on October 10, 1977.

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A 4xLP + 4×7” boxset of Talking Heads: 77 is available exclusively here, which includes the remastered original album, one LP of rare and previously unreleased demos and outtakes, and a double LP of Live At CBGB, New York, NY, Oct. 10, 1977. An 80-page hardcover book features never-before-seen photos, fliers, artwork, and liner notes personally penned by each member of the band – Tina Weymouth, David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison – plus recording engineer Ed Stasium.

Standard 2xLP and 3xCD + Blu-Ray versions of the album will also be available.

Listen to a rare acoustic version of “Psycho Killer” below, featuring Arthur Russell on cello.

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Hear Father John Misty’s epic new track, “Screamland”

Michael Bonner
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Hear Father John Misty’s epic new track, “Screamland”

Josh Tillman has released a new track, “Screamland“, which is taken from Father John Misty‘s upcoming new album, Mahashmashana, which will be released on November 22 in the UK & Europe via Bella Union and Sub Pop for the rest world. 

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“Screamland” features Alan Sparhawk from Low on guitar and a striking string arrangement written by Drew Erickson. Watch the official “Screamland” video directed by Estefania Kröl below.

The tracklisting for Mahashmashana is:

Mahashmashana

She Cleans Up

Josh Tillman and The Accidental Dose

Mental Health

Screamland

Being You

I Guess Time Makes Fools of Us All

Summer’s Gone

The album is available to pre-order here.

Mahashmashana has been produced by Josh Tillman and Drew Erickson and executive produced by Jonathan Wilson.

Elvis Costello announces King Of America & Other Realms

Michael Bonner
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Elvis Costello announces King Of America & Other Realms

Elvis Costello has announced King Of America & Other Realms, a new box set exploring his US adventures and his longtime creative partnership with T Bone Burnett. 

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The six-disc Super Deluxe Edition box set is released on November 1 via UMe. You can pre-order a copy here.

It comes with a newly self-penned 35-page essay illustrated with numerous rare and never-before-seen photos in a 57-page booklet. The discs are housed in a 12” x 11.5” box.

In addition to the Super Deluxe Edition box set, King Of America & Other Realms will also be available on 2CD with the new 2024 remaster of the album on CD1 and highlights from the box set on CD2, including studio recordings, demos and live recordings. The new remaster of King Of America will be available separately on both 140-gram black vinyl as well as limited edition 140-gram gold nugget colour vinyl, exclusively via ElvisCostello.com, uDiscover Music and Sound of Vinyl.

It begins with a remaster of King Of America. Disc 2 features Costello’s solo demos from 1985. Disc 3 features a never-before-released concert, recorded on January 27, 1987 at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Disc 4, 5 and 6 spans the studio albums Costello recorded in America – Spike (1989, Hollywood and New Orleans), The Delivery Man (2004, Oxford, Miss.), The River In Reverse (2006, Hollywood and New Orleans), Momofuku (2008, Los Angeles), Secret, Profane & Sugarcane (2009, Nashville), National Ransom (2010, Los Angeles and Nashville) and Look Now (2018, Hollywood, New York City) – woven together with a slew of previously unreleased demos, outtakes and live recordings.

KING OF AMERICA & OTHER REALMS SUPER DELUXE EDITION TRACKLISTING

DISC 1 – KING OF AMERICA (2024 REMASTER)
1. Brilliant Mistake
2. Lovable
3. Our Little Angel
4. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
5. Glitter Gulch
6. Indoor Fireworks
7. Little Palaces
8. I’ll Wear It Proudly
9. American Without Tears
10. Eisenhower Blues
11. Poisoned Rose
12. The Big Light
13. Jack Of All Parades
14. Suit Of Lights
15. Sleep Of The Just

DISC 2 – LE ROI SANS SABOTS
Demos, Outtakes & Other Realms
1. The People’s Limousine – The Coward Brothers
2. Next Time Round *
3. Deportee *
4. Brilliant Mistake (First Draft) *
5. Suffering Face 
6. Poisoned Rose
7. Jack Of All Parades 
8. Sleep Of The Just *
9. Blue Chair *
10. I Hope You’re Happy Now 
11. I’ll Wear It Proudly  
12. Indoor Fireworks 
13. Having It All 
14. Shoes Without Heels *
15. King Of Confidence 
16. They’ll Never Take Her Love From Me – The Coward Brothers
17. American Without Tears No. 2 (Twilight Version)

DISC 3 – KINGS OF AMERICA LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL
Royal Albert Hall 27th January 1987
1. The Big Light *
2. Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line *
3. Our Little Angel *
4. It Tears Me Up *
5. I’ll Wear It Proudly *
6. Lovable *
7. Riverboat *
8. Sally Sue Brown/36-22-36 *
9. American Without Tears *
10. Brilliant Mistake *
11. What Would I Do Without You *
12. Your Mind Is On Vacation /Your Funeral, My Trial *
13. Pouring Water On A Drowning Man *
14. Payday *
15. That’s How You Got Killed Before *
16. Sleep Of The Just *
17. True Love Ways *

DISC 4 – IL PRINCIPE DI NEW ORLEANS E LE MARCHESE DEL MISSISSIPPI
1. There’s A Story In Your Voice – with Lucinda Williams
2. Country Darkness
3. The Delivery Man
4. Nothing Clings Like Ivy
5. Heart Shaped Bruise – with Emmylou Harris (Live At The Hi-Tone, Memphis) **
6. Bedlam (Live At Montreal Jazz) **
7. Either Side Of The Same Town
8. Wonder Woman
9. In Another Room 
10. The Monkey * – Rehearsal with Dave Bartholomew & The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
11. Monkey To Man
12. Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
13. Clown Strike (Live At Montreal Jazz) **
14. Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further?
15. The River In Reverse
16. The Greatest Love – from Treme *
17. Ascension Day

DISC 5 – EL PRÍNCIPE DEL PURGATORIO
1. Stations Of The Cross
2. Quick Like A Flash (Previously Unreleased) *
3. Sulphur To Sugarcane
4. Red Cotton
5. Lost On The River #12
6. A Slow Drag With Josephine
7. I Felt The Chill
8. Complicated Shadows (Cashbox Version)
9. She’s Pulling Out The Pin
10. Condemned Man (Demo) *
11. Hidden Shame
12. Red Wicked Wine – with Dr. Ralph Stanley
13. The Scarlet Tide – with Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings (Live at the Grand Ole Opry) *
14. One Bell Ringing
15. Bullets For The New Born King
16. All These Strangers
17. For More Tears (Demo) *
18. You Hung The Moon

DISC 6 – DER HERZOG DES RAMPENLICHT
1. Stella Hurt
2. Mr. Feathers
3. Under Lime
4. Jimmie Standing In The Rain
5. Down Among The Wines And Spirits
6. Dr. Watson, I Presume
7. Church Underground (Demo) *
8. A Voice In The Dark
9. April 5th – with Rosanne Cash & Kris Kristofferson
10. Indoor Fireworks (Memphis Magnetic Version) *
11. That’s Not The Part Of Him You’re Leaving – with Larkin Poe *
12. Brilliant Mistake/Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (Cape Fear Version) *
13. That Day Is Done – with The Fairfield Four

* previously unreleased
** first-ever audio release

Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor

Jason Anderson
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Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor
Buy My Method Actor here

There have yet to be reports of Nilüfer Yanya refusing to answer to her own name, terrifying production assistants, or exhibiting any of the demanding off-camera behaviour once expected of Marlon Brando, Daniel Day-Lewis and other master thespians. Nevertheless, the notion of the method actor is a potent one for the London singer-songwriter. She’s spoken of the kinship she feels with these counterparts’ determination to ground performances in personal experiences and memories of trauma, essentially re-living those emotions in order to lend authenticity and urgency to present-day expressions. She sees her songs as a potential means to do the same.

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Another anxiety well-known to actors – or, indeed, to anyone who spends too much time on social media – surfaces throughout her third album as she captures and ponders instances of slippage between the versions of herself that are public and private, and of transitions between earlier, younger selves and who she is in the now. She often expresses a measure of uncertainty about what constitutes “my new costume” as she calls it in “Method Actor“, along with the worry expressed in “Binding” that “I’m hardly here.” Such lyrics lend additional resonance to My Method Actor‘s cover image of Yanya perched on a bathroom counter, straining to get a look at herself in the mirror over her shoulder, as if looking for some reassurance that she’s present and accounted for.

But however often and astutely Yanya express her fears as she considers those thorny questions of self and identity, the music itself demonstrates a rather sturdier constitution as the work of an artist whose confidence continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Adventurous, affecting, yet boasting the same immediacy that made its two predecessors so satisfying, My Method Actor feels exactly like what it wants to be.

Extending the close collaboration with musician, co-writer and producer Will Archer that began on her 2019 debut Miss Universe and continued with much of 2022’s Painless, Yanya demonstrates an appealing eagerness to depart from the more familiar indie-rock conventions of earlier releases and experiment with more densely textured arrangements. There’s a roughening-up of some of the softer edges, along with a greater integration of electronic and discordant elements within the folk and pop structures that have been fundamental to her work since breakouts like 2017’s “Plant Food” EP.

Even with the burlier, more guitar-forward songs at the new album’s onset, she pushes beyond terrain that may now seem overly trammeled by the many post-millennials bent on rewriting “Last Nite” or retooling “Cannonball” and “Divine Hammer” for their own purposes. (To be fair to Gen Z’s preeminent purveyor of Breeders revivalism, Olivia Rodrigo acknowledged her debt by inviting the Deal sisters to join her on tour.) Instead, Yanya and Archer delight in pushing levels into the red, smearing the most intense moments of “Like I Say (I Runaway)” and “Method Actor” with Kevin Shields-worthy levels of fuzz and distortion. A nervier quality emerges in the rhythms underpinning the songs too, as the skittish beats under “Keep On Dancing” accentuate the feelings of agitation and doubt she conveys throughout the lyrics (“until you smile I’m fucking miserable“).

A plaintive plea from a character desperate to feel something other than damaged and hollow, “Binding” evokes Elliott Smith at his most delicate and desolate. At the same time, it also marks the album’s shift toward the alternately dreamy and steely electronic soul that was Archer’s forte when he was recording under the moniker of Slime. Likewise, the blend of yearning and resignation in Yanya’s oft-multi-tracked voice in “Mutations” and “Ready For Sun (Touch)” highlights the correlation between My Method Actor‘s most melancholy passages and Tracey Thorn‘s haunted-dancefloor balladry for Massive Attack and post-“Missing” Everything But The Girl. The melancholy mood extends through “Call It Love” and “Faith’s Late“, though Yanya and Archer maintain the prevailing air of unpredictability by equipping the former with Robert Fripp-like curlicues of heavily processed guitar and augmenting the latter with an achingly gorgeous, string-laden coda.

And even though My Method Actor‘s own later stages are somewhat hampered by a uniformity of pace and vibe – a flaw it shares with the otherwise sterling Painless – “Made Out Of Memory” and “Just A Western” prove that the knack for warm-hearted melodicism Yanya established on Miss Universe remains very much intact. Indeed, for all the dark corners of her ever-changing self she avidly explores, the intrinsic brightness and irrepressible energies in her songwriting continues to enrich the experience of accompanying her.

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Nick Lowe – Indoor Safari

Allan Jones
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Nick Lowe – Indoor Safari
Buy Indoor Safari here

When Nick Lowe toured America to promote Quality Street, his 2013 album of Christmas songs, his backing band was Yep Roc labelmates Los Straitjackets, retro rockers whose own albums suggested they hadn’t heard any new music since about 1965, their records awash with twanging instrumental rock’n’roll, rockabilly, surf music, teen ballads, some Tex-Mex and country. Nick, meanwhile, had been reversing into tomorrow, to borrow an old Stiff sales slogan, for most of his career, plausibly even earlier. They were a perfect musical match. And what a spectacle they offered! Four burly Americans in black hitman suits festooned with gold Aztec medallions, each sporting a lurid Mexican wrestling mask. The dapper Nick out front in crisp white shirt and black slacks, relaxed as a Rat Pack crooner at a poolside matinee.

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Over the decade Nick’s been touring with Los Straitjackets, there have been occasional forays into the studio, tracks recorded on the hoof, wherever they happened to be, released as singles and EPs. Nine of the 12 songs on Indoor Safari are taken from those sessions, the original tracks either remixed or re-recorded with Los Straitjackets. There are three previously unreleased songs, two originals and a cover. Which makes Indoor Safari in the disappointed opinion of some fans less a new Nick album, his first in over a decade, than a compilation – you could hardly call it a ‘greatest hits’ set. It’s a fair point, but eventually irrelevant. Whatever the provenance of these songs, Indoor Safari is marvellous, by any reasonable critical metric a glorious confection.

The album opens with “Went To A Party”, a new song, if that isn’t an odd way to describe a track that makes you think of the flickering black and white ghosts of American teenagers jiving on American Bandstand to a group of surly teenagers straight out of the garage who go on to become The Kingsmen or someone like them. Elsewhere, you might listen to swashbuckling rockabilly rave-up “Tokyo Bay”, outright rocker “Love Starvation” or the wry, sultry country soul of “Don’t Be Nice To Me” and think Indoor Safari maybe returns Nick to the kind of songwriting – hip, humorous, full of hooks – that preceded the so-called Brentford Trilogy, the three albums of confessional introspection that reintroduced Nick as a mature country crooner. There’s certainly a relaxed groove to a lot of these tunes, but their nonchalance shouldn’t be mistaken for flippancy. There are moments here as heart-stricken as anything on The Impossible Bird, Dig My Mood or The Convincer.

Nick in some of these songs is often lonely, even in a crowd; haunted by lost loves, lost time. Listening to, say, “Blue On Blue” or “Different Kind Of Blue” (a new song based on a Convincer demo) you imagine Nick like someone in a Sinatra song, something from In The Wee Small Hours, walking deserted pre-dawn streets, the last bars closing, stopping under a streetlamp, hat tilted back on his head, tie loose, smoking a cigarette in the sodium glow. Possibly whistling. “Trombone”, meanwhile, is the saddest song ever written about a valve instrument.

Like the deceptively chipper “Crying Inside”, they’re evocative of a time when confronted by any adversity – love, war, a bad day at the office – you were meant to put on what used to be called a “brave face”. They hark back therefore to a certain kind of songwriting when stoicism and discretion prevailed. This was before a generation of early-’70s singer-songwriters flooded the market with confession and ostentatious soul-baring. It’s appropriate then that so much of the music here similarly has a period quality, evocative of a time not so much of innocence as reticence. “Jet Pac Boomerang”, another new song, is a classic example of Nick’s abiding affection for pre-Beatles pop, the kind The Beatles and the groups that followed them erased and replaced. The song ends with a quote from “Please Please Me” that works poignantly as a link between a vanishing musical era and what came next.

There are two covers. “A Quiet Place” is a lustrous, soulful take on a 1964 track by Garnett Mimms & The Enchanters, suggested by Nick’s son, Roy. “Raincoat In The River”, recorded by Nick in 2019, was popularised by a breezy Ricky Nelson. Nick leans more into the 1961 version by R&B singer Sammy Turner, produced by Phil Spector, tackling the song with real panache over a wall of Los Straitjackets twang. What a treasure he is.

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Lone Justice for all!

Robert Ham
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Lone Justice for all!
Order Viva Lone Justice here

“People are saying it’s the first new Lone Justice record in 40 years, and I’m like… is it?” says Maria McKee, the band’s firebrand vocalist. The answer is both yes and no. While the group hasn’t released a proper full-length since 1986’s Shelter, upcoming album Viva Lone Justice isn’t technically new. McKee recorded the bulk of the material with ex-bandmates Marvin Etzioni and Don Heffington as demos for her 1992 solo effort You Gotta Sin To Get Saved. Dusting off those tapes in the wake of Heffington’s passing in 2021, Etzioni encouraged McKee to turn the sessions into a new solo album. Instead, she suggested they reach out to another former bandmate, guitarist Ryan Hedgecock, to add overdubs and release it under the Lone Justice name.

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Viva Lone Justice is a rollicking, eclectic ride that puts hillbilly country stomp alongside shimmery folk, barrelhouse blues and a faithfully ripping cover of The Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks”, recorded in honour of Feargal Sharkey who scored his only No 1 single in 1985 with the McKee-composed “A Good Heart”.

“I didn’t do anything,” McKee says of the finished album. “Marvin called me one day and said, ‘It’s done.’ I was completely blown away. It really has this wild energy. This is like fire.”

“This is the closest thing to what our original vision was for a Lone Justice record,” adds Hedgecock. “When we were playing at [famed Hollywood country venue] the Palomino, we’d go from a George Jones song into a Jimi Hendrix song. Nothing else that’s ever been out there has been reflective of the band.”

When Hedgecock and McKee started Lone Justice in 1982, both were becoming soured on the punk and rockabilly scenes in their native LA, finding fresh inspiration in the recordings of George Jones and Rose Maddox. “We just went further back,” says McKee. “There was no way to be subversive any more because punk was everywhere. So going back to the roots of everything was our way of being rebels.”

With McKee’s powerful voice and their rowdy live shows, Lone Justice’s star rose quickly. Before they knew it, the group was being praised by Dolly Parton and finding themselves in the studio with Bob Dylan to record his song, “Go ‘Way Little Boy”. The session was memorably contentious. “I was a brat and he was a brat,” remembers McKee. “I was fearless, and he loved me for it. I was one of the only people he liked because I hated him. He was so sick of everybody kissing his ass. He kept sending me out to sing the song over and over and over again. He was like, ‘You’re doing it all wrong.’ So finally I just did a Bob Dylan impression. When I did, he gave me this wink and said, ‘I knew you had it in you.’”

Although they toured with U2 and Tom Petty, neither of Lone Justice’s two albums were wildly successful and the band soon fell apart. That’s not to say they have been completely overlooked. The past few years have seen the release of various archival recordings and, in 2022, Lone Justice were included in an exhibit honouring the LA scene at the Country Music Hall Of Fame. “I was completely blindsided by it,” says McKee. “I went to Beverly Hills High and grew up in a very bohemian, not very Country & Western household. How are these bratty kids allowed to be part of this legacy?”

Could Viva Lone Justice be the beginning of a new chapter for this storied band? McKee pours cold water on the idea of live shows, saying, “I just don’t think it’s on the cards at the moment.” However, according to Etzioni, this may not be their final release: “I might have some other tapes that could turn into another Lone Justice album. Stay tuned to this channel.”

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Introducing the new Uncut: The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Michael Kiwanuka, a free 15-track CD and more

Michael Bonner
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Introducing the new Uncut: The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Michael Kiwanuka, a free 15-track CD and more

One of my last jobs on this issue has been proofing our field report from the End Of The Road festival, which Uncut was proudly involved with again this year. I’m hard-pressed to find another festival which reflects so much of what we do here at Uncut – mixing familiar names (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Slowdive, Lankum, Yo La Tengo) with upcoming faces (Kassi Valazza, Sanam, Florence Adooni, Snõõper) across a variety of genres and styles.

THE BEATLES, JONI MITCHELL, VAN MORRISON, MICHAEL KIWANUKA AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE!

By way of evidence, please look no further than this issue of Uncut. Among many highlights, Laura Barton profiles the remarkable redemption story of Christopher Owens, the former frontman with indie-rock classicists Girls, and whose new album I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is one of my favourite records of the year so far. Elsewhere, I’m very happy to have found time to write a feature on psychedelic drone outsiders Spacemen 3, who according to one admirer, were nothing less than “the greatest English band of the late ’80s”. There’s more, of course – Van Morrison, Michael Kiwanuka, Peter Perrett as well as Steve Cropper, Suede, the Lijadu Sisters, Chuck Prophet and a rare meeting of minds between Gruff Rhys and Bill Ryder-Jones.

Back to End Of The Road quickly, and I leave you with a quote from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, who was there, she said, to provide “sonic balm to aid the evolution of Earth’s traumatised civilizations”. It would be a lofty claim if we suggested that the very copy of Uncut that you now hold in your hands will help heal the collective strife of nations. It is, though, something to aspire to, at the very least.

All this and The Beatles, too.

Uncut – November 2024

Uncut Staff
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Uncut – November 2024

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

THE BEATLES: With a new boxset collecting the Fabs’ ’64 US LPs, eyewitnesses and contemporaries relive the mania of the British Invasion. “In music, there is The Beatles and then there is everybody else…”

VAN MORRISON: The Celtic soul guru on jamming with The Band, recording with Cliff, why he no longer performs “Brown Eyed Girl”, old songs and new arrangements, Veedon Fleece at 50, the nature of creativity and more. “I am nostalgic. But it’s my nostalgia, you know…”

MICHAEL KIWANUKA: Drawing inspiration from Gene Clark and “obsessed” with David Gilmour’s guitar phrasing, the Mercury Prize winner is once again upping the stakes with his consciousness-raising, widescreen soul party. “You’ve gotta keep speaking up,”

PETER PERRETT: Clean and healthy, the Only One is on a career roll with The Cleansing – a gloriously ambitious and death-defying double that’s his third album in seven years. “I have a mantra: each day we survive is a revolutionary act!”

SPACEMEN 3: Psychedelic outsiders on the ’80s UK indie scene, they were on the cusp of success before combusting spectacularly. “We were a pretty dysfunctional group of people. We recognised that in each other.”

CHRISTOPHER OWENS: The former Girls frontman reflects on his journey back from heartbreak and loss to find catharsis in a powerful new album. “You find yourself going from the best place in your life to the worst.”

AN AUDIENCE WITH… STEVE CROPPER: The Stax legend talks Memphis water, John Belushi on acid and Friday night “schwimps” with Eddie Floyd.

THE MAKING OF “THE WILD ONES” BY SUEDE: As Dog Man Star took shape, a ray of shining romantic beauty shone through a crack in the stormclouds.

ALBUM BY ALBUM WITH THE LIJADU SISTERS: Merging Afrobeat with jazz, rock and disco, the Nigerian siblings made waves sonically and socially.

MY LIFE IN MUSIC WITH SIMON RAYMONDE: The Cocteau Twin turned Bella Union label boss itemises his aural treasures

REVIEWED: Laura Marling, Bright Eyes, Anna Butterss, Fat Dog, Wayne Graham, Geordie Greep, Naima Bock, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan & The Band, Kevin Ayers, Dorothy Ashby, End Of The Road Festival, PJ Harvey, Lush, ’70s reggae, Neneh Cherry and more

PLUS: Farewell Catherine Ribeiro and Alain Delon, David Bowie, Gruff Rhys vs Bill Ryder-Jones, Doc’n Roll festival, Chuck Prophet, King Hannah and… rock’s holy relics!

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