Johnny Marr and Maxine Peake have collaborated on a new project, which sets Peake’s spoken word performances to Marr’s instrumental soundscapes. The first taster of the project comes with the lead track “The Priest“, which is out now.

“The Priest” is based upon the characters that Joe Gallagher met on the streets in the first few days after becoming homeless in Edinburgh. Gallagher wrote a diary of his experiences for the Big Issue under the pseudonym James Campbell when he first became homeless in May 2015 and continued until he found a new home in March 2016.

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“I wanted to do something different and I thought of asking Maxine to collaborate having been a fan of her work,” says Marr. “We started a creative process that clicked and culminated in ‘The Priest’, a song and short film inspired by a facet of modern life as we see it and feel it.”

The accompanying short film for the track was filmed in Manchester and features Molly Windsor, who recently alongside Peake in the BBC drama Three Girls.

Johnny Marr is due to release his third solo album in spring 2018.

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The January 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Bruce Springsteen on the cover. We also celebrate the best of the last 12 months with our Ultimate Review Of 2017 – featuring the best albums, reissues, films and books of the year. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with LCD Soundsystem, Bjork, The Weather Station, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Mavis Staples and more. Our free 15 track-CD celebrates the best music from 2017.