First off, a quick announcement that our latest Uncut Ultimate Music Guide will be out next week, dedicated this time to Radiohead. I'll write more about that soon, but in the meantime, while I'm finishing the next issue of Uncut itself, please dig in to the assembled tunes below.
A belated happy new year, everyone; I trust the new issue of Uncut, with David Bowie on the cover, is easing you into 2015 in a relatively optimistic way. Not least, of course, because there's a hefty preview of some of the next 12 months' key albums, with plenty of quotes from the artists involved; Paul Weller, New Order, Laura Marling, My Morning Jacket, Matt White, Alabama Shakes, The Pop Group, Giorgio Moroder and so on.
I guess, since Uncut's end-of-year issue goes to the printers today, we should formally declare open season on Best Of 2014 speculation, if you're that way inclined. Our writers' charts fished up 401 new albums from the year worth voting for, and coalesced into a pretty eclectic Top 75, I think.
Listening dominated by The Necks this week, and a couple of sets I bought from them at the show on Monday night (Read my review of The Necks live at Café Oto here…). But as you'll see, some significant action elsewhere on the playlist. Play ball!
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1 Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes (Bittorrent!)
Echo And The Bunnymen have almost finished their new album.
Writing on their Facebook page, the band revealed their new studio LP is "nearing completion", adding that a European tour in support of the record has already been booked. They wrote:
The banana’s back. Not before time. Late last year, Lou Reed’s reputation suffered a serious blow when his ill-fated collaboration with Metallica met with hostility not witnessed since Metal Machine Music. He even had death threats. This 45th anniversary edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico is a timely reminder (if one is needed) that Reed at his best had few peers and no equals, and that his writer’s eye – literate, probing, explicit – was unflinching right from the start. He was always hardcore.
