At once terminally forbidding and inexhaustibly alluring, Nico’s The Marble Index belongs among those ultra-modernist works that stand aside from their art without regard for the consequences. Like James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake or Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, it seems destined to offer an eternal challenge even to those who choose to fall under its obscure spell. This latest reissue, coupled with Desertshore, its successor/sibling, demonstrates that five and a half decades have failed to dent a vital component of its greatness: an obstinate refusal to explain itself or to succumb to the pattern whereby the avant-garde is absorbed and neutralised by the mainstream. There may never come a time when The Marble Index will not be avant-garde.
After Nico’s departure from The Velvet Underground in 1967 and the baroque-folk mish-mash of her debut solo album, Chelsea Girl, it represented a complete self-reinvention, jettisoning not just the reliance on other (male) songwriters but the version of the look of a classic ’60s blonde – the Berlin to Catherine Deneuve’s Paris or Julie Christie’s London – that had brought her work as a model and the attention of lovers from Alain Delon to Brian Jones.
Time spent with Jim Morrison, whom she seems to have met while in Jones’s company at the Monterey Pop Festival, persuaded her to begin writing songs, their lyrics – mostly in her second language – influenced by the Romantic and Symbolist poets. With The Marble Index, its title borrowed from a line by Wordsworth, she emerged as, in the words of Leonard Cohen, one of the few “really original talents in the whole racket”.
Nico’s admirers have always heard the music they want to hear. For the majority of them, that’s the anti-glamour of a massively indifferent Gothic existentialism with its roots in the bombed-out despair of wartime Berlin, nurtured in a darkly glittering artistic milieu and fueled by dangerous drugs. Jac Holzman, who signed her to his label in 1968, remembered Frazier Mohawk (formerly Barry Friedman), the man he commissioned to produce her Elektra album, saying that her songs weren’t something you listened to but a hole you fell into.
Holzman hadn’t liked Chelsea Girl but he liked what he heard now: “Nico had a fine contralto voice and a vibrato that pulsed softly but rapidly. Most vibrato bothered me. Hers didn’t.” Curiously, he heard in her music an echo of Jean Ritchie, the dulcimer-playing folk singer from Kentucky’s Cumberland mountains whose own debut album had been the label’s second release, back in 1952.
Holzman and Mohawk hired John Cale, her former Velvets colleague and another ex-lover, to arrange and play on The Marble Index, giving him only four days in a Los Angeles studio but free rein to surround Nico’s songs and the drone of her portable harmonium with all the instruments and effects that took his fancy. From the melting music box of the 59-second instrumental opener, “Prelude”, and the silvery dissonances of the following “Lawns Of Dawn”, the sound-pictures proceed to “Frozen Warnings”, where Cale’s layered violas sound as though their strings are being vibrated by a chill wind from the steppes, and “Evening Of Light”, in which his clanging bells and jagged bowed bass accentuate the imperturbability of Nico’s delivery.
There are two extra tracks on a limited seven-inch, both first heard on a 1991 reissue. The first is the gorgeous “Roses In The Snow”, a folk song from a different world, ebbing and flowing in some strange half-light. The second is “Nibelungen”, its title referencing a German epic poem from the 12th century. Here Nico’s voice is heard by itself, providing evidence in her tone, phrasing and vibrato of the expressive control she had acquired. Given that the original release of The Marble Index contained a mere 31 minutes of music, it’s mildly astonishing that room wasn’t found for these two exquisite tracks. But then Nico generally knew what she wanted, and the original eight-song album certainly conveys a sense of distilled perfection. Mohawk later claimed the credit for that, suggesting that he and the engineer had edited it down in the final mix to what he thought was enough for any listener to take on.
Its startlingly plain black and white cover, using a bleached-out Guy Webster portrait photograph in which the singer’s helmet of dark hair and emphatic cheekbones frame an expression of enigmatic challenge, could hardly have demonstrated a clearer break from her previous publicity shots. In itself it suggests a lack of compromise and the absence of a desire to ingratiate.
While happy to have it on his label alongside such other cutting-edge artists as Love, The Doors and Tim Buckley, Holzman showed no interest in a follow-up to an album that had sold only a handful of copies. For the next couple of years Nico drifted between New York, London and Paris, beginning intense relationships with the film director Philippe Garrel and with heroin, the latter influencing much of the rest of her life. But in 1970 the producer Joe Boyd, now working for Warner Brothers in Los Angeles after starting the careers of Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and others in the UK, persuaded his boss, Mo Ostin, to let him put Nico and Cale back together for a reprise.
The result was Desertshore, recorded in London: a more lyrical, less shocking album, but one full of Cale’s imagination as well as songs inspired by Brian Jones (“Janitor Of Lunacy”), Andy Warhol (“The Falconer”), her recently deceased mother (“Mütterlein”) and Ari Delon, her eight-year-old son (“My Only Child”). Ari himself is heard singing “Le Petit Chevalier”, from one of Garrel’s films. In a sign of Nico’s increasing skill and ambition, some of the songs even have second sections.
This time, Cale’s classical training is more in evidence. The medieval trumpets that decorate “Mütterlein” and “All That Is My Own” are the most startlingly vivid instrumental touch, contrasted by an angelic choir and a piano that rumbles like a bombing raid on the former and by what sounds like music for a Felliniesque carnival on the latter, which also features Nico’s soft-spoken recitative, a contrast with her powerful singing. “My Only Child” is performed mostly a cappella by Nico with a small choir. There is a stark pathos in the piano ballad “Afraid”, which contains the line – “you are beautiful and you are alone” – that provided the title for a recent biography by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike.
Like its immediate predecessor, Desertshore enjoyed negligible commercial success – certainly not enough to persuade Warner Brothers to offer her another album. Neither did it achieve the same critical status, although some listeners found it easier to appreciate, touched by the feelings of loss and regret that come through much more clearly than the emotions so opaquely expressed in The Marble Index.
There would be a final part of what turned out to be the Nico/Cale trilogy: The End, recorded for Island in 1974 and containing the version of The Doors’ title track with which she paid homage to Morrison, under whose influence, during their affair in 1967, she had begun to write the songs that refashioned her image, deepened her mystery and secured her legend. With The Marble Index and Desertshore, it forms a sequence unlike anything else in popular music, unclassifiable and inimitable but the inspiration for much that followed.
Bliss it was to be alive in 1990, but to be young was very heaven. When Ride first stormed out of the gates in that shoegaze spring, they had an irresistible coltish energy to them. The presiding eminences of the time (My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, House Of Love and The Stone Roses) had all already been around the block a few times, and made their youthful missteps away from the public eye. But the Oxford four-piece emerged blinking into the immediate glare of public acclaim, knocking out immaculate EP after EP like a teenage Robbie Fowler racking up the hat-tricks. No second thoughts, no calculation, just the sheer thrill of a moment they seized quite brilliantly.
Did the immediacy of the rise overwhelm them? In retrospect they seem like a classic case of a band that stalled on The Difficult Third Album. They were keen to move on from the movement that threatened to define them (driving “Leave Them All Behind” into the Top 10 was a swaggering statement of intent), uncertain of exactly where to chart their course, and swept up in the gathering Oasis storm that briefly raised and then capsized their label.
Thirty years later, Ride are undoubtedly on a more even keel. Since the reunion in 2014 they’ve successfully launched two well-received albums, reconnected with a burgeoning audience and stylishly updated their signature sound without pandering to the whims of TikTok. But is a third album any easier the second time around? Is the point of the band – nostalgia fix for the festival circuit, or more urgent, ongoing artistic concern – still at stake?
What’s clear is that, in contrast to 1994’s Carnival Of Light, Ride are very much on the same page. From its title on, Interplay reminds us that they were always a terrific, a four-piece without any dead wood. Not only did they have fringes, tunes and chops of Mark Gardener and Andy Bell (Andy serving time as the bassist in Oasis, although presumably welcomed by his bank manager, still feels like something of a musical indignity, like a Grand National winner giving rides to kids on Skegness beach). But in Steve Queralt and Loz Colbert they had a genuinely useful rhythm section. You can count the number of distinctive British indie drummers on the fingers of one hand, but from the moment they released “Dreams Burn Down” it was clear that Loz was in that company.
It kicks off with “Peace Sign”, quite shamelessly aimed at the festival moshpits. Just as The Byrds were able to make Dylan palatable for Top 40 radio, Ride were somehow able to translate the sublime roar of My Bloody Valentine into toothsome pop songs (they can still pull it off as they show on the delicious “Portland Rocks”). Here it feels like they’ve perfected the same trick for The War On Drugs. It’s quite a trick, somehow distilling all the epic yearning of an Adam Granduciel album into a pealing, effervescent four-minute anthem.
For the rest of Interplay, Ride are very much searching for The Big Sound, a kind of widescreen ’80s ambition they were too indie cool to acknowledge back when they started out. They’ve talked about the example of Tears For Fears and the U2 of The Unforgettable Fire. But there’s a hefty amount of New Order (the touching, twangling “Last Frontier”) and Depeche Mode (on the hurtling “I Came To See The Wreck”) in there too, as though Ride are deliberately drawing upon bands who’ve shown how it’s possible to mature and thrive into their fourth and even fifth decades together.
The heart of the record, sequenced as though to open Side Two of a vinyl album, is “Last Night I Went Somewhere To Dream”. It’s a tune that began as an almost throwaway Loz riff, but grew into what feels like a manifesto for the reborn band, a twangling wide-eyed psychedelic reel. The lyrics – always, to be fair, the band’s Achilles’ heel – talk of “the wheel of suffering” turning “with diminishing returns”, but there’s such an unaffected earnest joy in the singing and playing, its reminiscent of The Byrds’ “Going Back”, a heartfelt invocation of uncontrived innocence.
The album closes with “Yesterday Is Only A Song”, a kind of soft and dreamy Pink Floyd coda, except with all the quiet desperation and bitterness replaced with a hard-won acceptance and even optimism. Here and on the best tunes of Interplay, Ride feel wonderfully, unexpectedly, younger than yesterday.
“It was this mixture of total excitement and total fear,” says Oisin Leech of his decision to make a solo album. “I had no idea what was going to happen. But when we’d finished, Steve Gunn turned to me and said: ‘I think you’ve done something special here. There’s not many people making records like this.’”
Produced by Gunn, Cold Sea is Leech’s first venture outside of The Lost Brothers, the folk duo he formed with Mark McCausland in 2008. It finds the singer-songwriter reaching into his ancestral roots for an exquisite set of lambent folk songs that reflect the harsh beauty of his ocean-facing surroundings. Recorded in an old schoolhouse in Malin, at Ireland’s northern tip, Cold Sea maps exile, love, loss and healing via erudite guitar and judicious use of synths and strings. Gunn is a discreet presence too, as are guests M. Ward, Dylan’s upright bassist Tony Garnier and bouzouki veteran Dónal Lunny, co-founder of Planxty and The Bothy Band.
“The album is inspired by that landscape,” says Leech. “My mum and her family come from Donegal, where we made the record. It’s almost like it’s full of longing for travelling from Dublin, where I live, to arrive up north. But even though it’s a majestic place to be, there’s this underlying sadness and darkness that’s part of Irish folk music. A lot of my favourite songwriters – Townes Van Zandt, Fred Neil, Nick Drake – have that sense of melancholy.”
The brooding drama of Cold Sea feels very natural. Leech studied English literature and theatre at Dublin’s Trinity College in the late ’90s, igniting a passion that flares into his art. His songwriting talent first came to the fore in The 747s, the Liverpool-based quartet fronted by Leech during the 2000s. They cut one album – 2006’s Zampano, released the same year as he guested on Arctic Monkeys’ “Baby I’m Yours” – before Leech moved on to The Lost Brothers.
At one point, Leech’s wanderlust took him to Naples, where he’d busk on the street. “If we made enough money, we’d jump the ferry to the island of Procida to go swimming and play football,” he recalls. “I was such a big Joe Strummer fan that the other lads nicknamed me Joey Procida.” Returning to Ireland, Leech kept the name and launched a folk night in Navan.
The Joey Procida Folk Club has since hosted the likes of Gunn, Lisa O’Neill, Andy Irvine and Willy Mason. It also provided the platform for what organically became Cold Sea. “I usually begin the night by playing a couple of songs,” Leech explains. “So I thought I‘d better start writing some, just to play on stage. I ended up spending months writing. I wasn’t on any big mission, but as the songs built up, a friend of mine told me they felt like a new soundworld.”
Gunn was his first choice as producer. Upon hearing a couple of tracks, the American singer-guitarist didn’t need a second invite. “The thing that makes Oisin’s music special is his poetic simplicity,” says Gunn. “Working with him was really inspiring.”
“Steve was a wonderful touchstone,” says Leech, “reassuring my instincts about not overcooking the cake and getting the spacious sound.” It also proved serendipitous. Gunn was also eager to explore familial links to the Donegal area, his great-grandmother having emigrated from there. While The Lost Brothers are still very much a going concern, Leech is revelling in his new creative space. “I’m finding it really fascinating to sit down at the canvas by myself. It’s challenging and rewarding at the same time. These songs are incredibly personal to me. They come from deep within, but I hope other people get something from them too.”
Cold Sea is available now from Outside Music / Tremone Records
Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD
All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in…
Silkworm’s Tim Midyett returns with the second Mint Mile album, Roughrider, mixing up the sounds of his old band with the ragged swing of Pavement and Crazy Horse, and some gorgeous chamber accompaniment.
2 JESSICA PRATT World On A String
Here In The Pitch, the long-awaited follow-up to 2019’s Quiet Signs, is our Album Of The Month on page XX. Here’s a highlight of this seductive, velveteen folk record, with Pratt’s strummed nylon-string acoustic and echoing voice gradually joined by a haze of Mellotron synths, keys and sparse drums. Truly magical.
3 MICHAEL HEAD & THE RED ELASTIC BAND Ambrosia
Another masterclass in songwriting here from Michael Head, and a highlight of his new album Loophole, produced once again by Bill Ryder-Jones. Following 2017’s Adios Senor Pussycat and 2022’s Dear Scott, he’s on a roll, and has even found time to pen a memoir, Ciao Ciao Bambino.
4 KHRUANGBIN Pon Pón
Laura Lee, Mark Speer and DJ Johnson have distilled their potent sound down to its essence on their new album A La Sala. It’s a retro-tinged exploration of the globe’s most funkily psychedelic sounds, with the result going down as smoothly as a sunset cocktail.
5 GOSPELBRACH Nothin’ But A Fool
Brent Rademaker is well-known for his work with the brilliant Beachwood Sparks, but for the last decade he’s led this artful Californian troupe. New LP Wiggle Your Fingers is touted as the band’s final album, so best get onto their classic Paisley Underground sounds before it’s too late.
6 SCOTT H BIRHAM Death Don’t Have No Mercy
‘The Dirty Old One Man Band’ from Texas has been making roots records a little under the radar for a while now – but with The One & Only Scott H Biram he deserves to be far better known. Here he is weaving a bluesy spell with just an old classical guitar.
7 PYE CORNER AUDIO Counting The Hours
Martin Jenkins habitually releases a host of records on different labels, and his albums on Ghost Box always seem to be his strangest and most conceptual: The Endless Echo, then, examines the nature of time in claustrophobic, ominous style, drum machines, drone clusters and synth arpeggios painting a widescreen, dystopian picture.
8 ARAB STRAP You’re Not There
Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton return, reassuringly, as bitter and scathing as ever on their new album I’m Totally Fine With It 👍 Don’t Give A Fuck Anymore 👍. Building on 2021’s As Days Get Dark, it’s a brilliant amalgam of dark electronica, raging post-rock and wickedly funny spoken-word.
9 BIG|BRAVE Canon In Canon
It’s hard to believe this Quebec trio started as a folk group, such is the ferocious noise they create now. On their seventh album, A Chaos Of Flowers, their sound is closest to latter-day Low, crushing distortion mingling with minimalist, hushed melodies.
10 ARTHUR MELO Saídas
Though still in his twenties, this singer, guitarist and songwriter from the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte looks back to his country’s pop music of the ’70s. This track, a highlight of his latest album Mirantes Emocionais, pays tribute to his hero Caetano Veloso with a swooning ballad that wouldn’t have been out of place on 1972’s Transa.
11 IRON & WINE All In Good Time (feat. Fiona Apple)
Sam Beam is back, and this time he’s brought Fiona Apple along to help: this cut comes from his new album Light Verse, just the latest in his impressive catalogue. Beam talks Uncut through his records in our Album By Album feature this issue.
12 JAMES ELKINGTON & NATHAN SALSBURG Death Wishes To Kill
The two guitarists are often found working together, but their new album All Gist marks their first duo record since 2015’s Ambsace. It’s an entrancing, varied record, their interlocking picking occasionally joined by additional textures, such as the strings and percussion that surface here.
13 POKEY LAFARGE Sister André
The artist born Andrew Heissler has been spreading his old-time good news for almost 20 years now, and this fine track from his new LP Rhumba Country is another example of his way with updating the sounds of yesteryear: ragtime, gospel, blues, country and rock’n’roll.
14 AMEN DUNES Boys
Now resident in Woodstock, New York, Damon McMahon has expanded his outsider folk sound with harsh electronics and some avant-rock grit on Death Jokes. Check out the end of “Boys” and you’ll hear manipulated samples taken from all manner of sources, a consistent feature of the album.
15 CAMERA OBSCURE We’re Going To Make It In A Man’s World
It’s been over a decade since Tracyanne Campbell and co last released an album, but Look To the East, Look To The West is a fitting return. The Glaswegians don’t mess with the formula too much, and the result is an autumnal, bittersweet blast of melody, with heartbreak and disappointment not far behind.
It’s almost 60 years since John Sinclair co-founded The Detroit Artists Workshop, hoping to stir up some radical jazz action; a terrific new compilation on Strut is testament to his efforts in that field. But by 1968, Sinclair had achieved greater notoriety as manager of the incendiary rock group MC5, affiliating them with his White Panther Party and proposing a “total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock’n’roll, dope, and fucking in the streets”.
Sinclair spent two years in prison on trumped-up marijuana charges before a freedom rally headlined by John Lennon and Yoko Ono hastened his release. Since then, he’s recorded more than 20 albums of jazzy beat poetry, as well as almost 1,000 shows for Radio Free Amsterdam. But now he’s back in downtown Detroit, feeling glummer than ever about the prospects of cultural revolution.
“They’re bringing in new white people!” he complains. Gentrification? “Call it what you will. Ugliness is what I call it. They aren’t doing anything for the black people who went through years of awfulness. This used to be a dope area, now it’s all white people with big cars. I preferred it when the whores and the dope fiends were here, they had more character!”
What was the first record you heard that made you think that music might be the ideal vehicle for social change?
Phil Lister, via email
No idea. I listened to music to listen to music, I didn’t give a fuck about any of that. I was 14 years old, what did I know about social change? [I liked] Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson. When I was 15, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard came out, rock’n’roll started. I was a kid, I loved it. Everything was changing with the music, you know? It didn’t have any external purpose. Just by virtue of its existence it was changing the world.
As a jazz cat, what first attracted you to the MC5?
Brian Lawson, Dublin
They sounded so good. I saw them on Labor Day Weekend 1966, at the Michigan State Fair. Most shows in those days, the band came on in their matching outfits and their matching hairdos, and they lip-synced to their record. But there was a disc jockey called Jerry Goodwin who brought actual bands into the State Fairgrounds, and that’s when I heard the MC5. I had no intention [of managing them], I just wanted to hear them every time they played – I was a fan.
MC5’s outdoor concert ahead of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was meant to “redirect youth culture and music toward political ends”. How successful do you think that was?
Joe Thomas, Penarth
That wasn’t really the idea; the idea was to play some music. I know it sounds radical, but that was what we were about: playing music and moving people with the music. It was several years later when we got involved in the political aspect, and that was because of the police attacking us for being marijuana addicts. Constantly busting in your house, taking your shit. They made life miserable – they put me in prison twice! Was there a political mission at the outset? No, we were a band. The fact that all other bands don’t do anything except get rich doesn’t make [MC5] less of a band. They wanted to do something, they wanted to make things better, simple as that. I liked what they were doing and I wanted to help them.
What did being a White Panther involve?
Julia McFadden, Cornwall
Putting on a button. It had a white panther on it and it was purple. If you wore one of those, you were a White Panther. If you didn’t, you weren’t. We had no organisation, it was an idea. It wasn’t a political party, it was a hippie commune. What was our mission? To get high, fuck, have a good time, write poetry, make some music, dance. We weren’t bothering anybody. What we did, we went and played and people got ecstatic and had a great time. So they came back the next time and told all their friends.
How did you survive in prison?
Mike Fawcus, via email
How did I survive? I went to bed, I got up in the morning, I had breakfast… Why didn’t I blow my brains out, you mean? I didn’t have a gun! Every moment, millions of people throughout the world are surviving their time in prison. You just get up and go through another day until they let you go, the criminals that have you there.
What did you think of Abbie Hoffman coming on-stage at Woodstock during The Who’s set [to protest your imprisonment]?
Paul, Worthing, via email
I appreciated it. He was trying to help me, he was a good friend of mine. But he was on acid – he didn’t have any idea of what was going on around him. Instead of going out in between the sets, he went out during their set and took the mic away and started talking during their song. I would have blown him off the stage too. I would have beat his ass! You don’t do that.
How did it feel to learn that John Lennon had written a song about you?
Raj Sinhara, via email
It felt good. Not his best song! But I have to thank him for getting me out of prison. I was there for two-and-a-half years and then John Lennon came to Ann Arbor and three days later I was released.
What broke your tight connection with MC5? Why didn’t they headline the Michigan rally for your freedom?
Jaime Guerra, Spain
They fired me! They fired me, Jesse [Brother JC] Crawford and Bob Rudnick [MC5 propagandist] at one meeting. Said they didn’t wanna be like this any more and they didn’t need us. A month later, I was in prison, mostly because of my association with them. So you can imagine how I felt. It was a mistake in my book, but it was obviously something they thought was important to do, ’cause they did it. I thought their second album sounded like The Monkees. That was all produced by Jon Landau, who had the new Monkees, Bruce Springsteen, after that. He tried to make them sound like Bruce Springsteen, when they’re the opposite of Bruce Springsteen. So it was a failure. I never reconciled with the MC5 per se. Wayne Kramer and I are very good friends. He went to prison also, then he understood how I felt. Rob Tyner I never became friends with again, or Fred Smith. I can’t stand Dennis Thompson. The MC5 were a great band, but they let people talk them out of their greatness and they became a mediocre band. Then they sold out without getting paid – you got to really be stupid to do that.
MC5 are often described as ‘proto-punk’. What did you make of the actual punk movement?
Mary O’Keefe, via email
I thought it ate shit like a dog. I hated it, still do. It’s not about music, it’s about getting rich without learning how to play. You listen to The Clash, they sound like The Monkees, they don’t sound like no MC5. “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”, what kind of song is that? The Sex Pistols is just a joke. But they got a million, so it wasn’t so funny. I resent the MC5 being identified as punk rock. We had nothing to do with punks. In our day, a punk was a snivelling, cowardly, lying, rat-fucking motherfucker that told the police on what you were doing. So I didn’t see how they glorified this. Never made sense to me.
In 2019, you became the first person to legally buy marijuana in Michigan. Why was that so important to you?
Adrian McMahon, Sefton, Lancs
Which planet is this person from? I did three years from smoking marijuana. What does it mean to me? What are you talking about? Get on the fucking planet. This is what I fought for for 60 years. When you’re high you do all kinds of interesting shit. High up in the air, you know? You look down on things; you see it better.
What is the next revolution that needs to happen, and have you seen any signs?
Lukas, via email
It’s the same one that still needs to happen, and no, it’s not happening. They need to take the shit away from the capitalists and give people everything they need, like education and healthcare, without any cost to them. Democratic socialism, that’s the revolution we need – the Bernie Sanders revolution. It’s not gonna happen. Can music play a role? Well, music and art can be about whatever you want it to be about. That’s up to the artist. The point of today is that the artists don’t give a fuck. They’re happy with the way things are, as long as they can get paid or get a lot of likes or whatever it is they’re after.
Your poetry albums have employed some interesting musical collaborators. Which current musical artist would you most like to work with?
Alex Dunstan, Norwich
Whoever calls me up! I’m open – my mind is wide open.
On your last album, Beatnik Youth, you reveal that your chosen path – “poet, provocateur” – means that you’re still “living from hand to mouth”. Any regrets?
Oliver Frankel, via email
How can you regret living your chosen path? There’s no room for regret, unless you chose the wrong path.
Gerry Conway, the drummer best known for his work with Fairport Convention and their wider folk-rock circle, has died at the age of 76.
Conway passed away on Saturday (March 29) after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease two years ago.
Born in Norfolk and brought up in London, he formed Eclection with Trevor Lucas in 1968, and through him came to be a member of Fotheringay, Sandy Denny‘s post-Fairport group.
He was also an in-demand session drummer, and in the ’70s performed on albums by Iain Matthews, John Cale, Steeleye Span, Mike McGear, Shelagh McDonald, Al Stewart, Denny and Cat Stewart, his long association with the latter beginning with 1971’s Teaser And The Firecat and running until the singer-songwriter’s retirement at the end of the decade.
In the 1980s he played with Richard Thompson, Jethro Tull and Pentangle – the latter’s Jacqui McShee his long-term partner – before joining Fairport Convention as a permanent member in 1998, a trifling 25 years after he appeared on three songs on their album Rosie. He remained with the group until he became ill in 2022.
In a warm note to “our dear friend and former drummer” on their website, Fairport wrote: “He brought to the band an impeccable understanding of ‘feel’ and comradeship, a unique sense of subtlety and a complete understanding of what was required.”
Simon Nicol also saluted his “dearest drumming pal”: “Wonderfully patient and wise, infuriatingly tardy (!) but always ready and eager to play, and blessed with his own inner calm and solidity, I’m going to miss him more than I can say.”
Grateful Dead have announced the latest instalment in their ongoing reissue programme – a 50th anniversary Deluxe Edition of 1974’s From The Mars Hotel.
Released June 21 by Rhino, this Deluxe Edition is a 3CD and digital set, featuring a remastered edition of the original album enhanced with two demos from the era and a complete, previously unreleased concert from the 1974 tour in support of the album.
Below, you can hear a demo of “Wave That Flag” – the song that became “U.S. Blues“.
And you can pre-order From The Mars Hotel Deluxe Edition by clicking here.
The tracklisting is: Disc 1 U.S. Blues China Doll Unbroken Chain Loose Lucy Scarlet Begonias Pride Of Cucamonga Money Money Ship Of Fools Bonus Tracks China Doll (Demo) Wave That Flag (Demo)
Disc 2 Live From the University of Nevada, Reno, May 12, 1974 Sugaree Mexicali Blues Tennessee Jed Jack Straw Brown-Eyed Women Beat It On Down The Line China Cat Sunflower> I Know You Rider El Paso U.S. Blues Greatest Story Ever Told It Must Have Been The Roses Me And Bobby McGee
Disc 3 Live From the University of Nevada, Reno, May 12, 1974 Deal Around And Around Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo Truckin’> The Other One> Row Jimmy Big River Ship Of Fools Sugar Magnolia
In addition to the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, a remaster of the original album will be released on June 21 as a single 180-gram black vinyl LP, limited edition Neon Pink vinyl, limited edition “Ugly Rumors” custom vinyl exclusive to Dead.net, and a zoetrope picture disc. These variants can be pre-ordered here.
When he sat down to write a biography of Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks, Paul Hanley hit a problem. His enthusiasm for the subject was getting in the way of his objectivity. “I was a massive Buzzcocks fan at the age of 14. It was quite a process to keep stepping back. I thought, ‘A lot of people could write a biography. It’s only me could write about my relationship with the band.’”
As a former drummer with The Fall, Hanley is well-placed to write about one of the most significant Manchester bands. The beauty of Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (And Me), is the way it renders an adult view of Pete Shelley’s genius with teenage enthusiasm. The biographical details of Shelley’s life are present; so is the purity of Hanley’s passion.
Hanley remembers the day Buzzcocks’ first album Another Music In A Different Kitchen came out. Future Fall members Marc Riley, Craig Scanlon and Steve Hanley (Paul’s older brother) went to Virgin’s Manchester branch for a launch event. The shop released balloons. “The idea was that whoever got the one that flew furthest away would win the album. Of course, they all got caught in the trees.” When the trio returned, album in hand, Hanley was waiting by the record player. “I looked at this sleeve and listened to the record and I thought, ‘This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life’. Everything about it. I loved the record. I loved the sleeve. And there was badges! It was the perfect thing for me at 14 years of age. This was gonna be my band.”
Buzzcocks are vital in punk history because they brought the Sex Pistols to Manchester, and demystified the process of releasing records with the Spiral ScratchEP. For the teenage Hanley, there was also the fact that John Maher went to his school, and left at 16 to join Buzzcocks. “I left the same school at 16 to join The Fall. I thought John Maher was the best drummer in the world. I had John Maher, Karl Burns out The Fall, and Steve Morris of Joy Division – three of the best drummers I’ve ever heard in my life and they were within reach.”
With hindsight, Hanley can appreciate that the appeal of Buzzcocks was rooted in Pete Shelley’s ability to channel the emotional intensity of adolescence. “He could sing authentically and put himself in the headspace of a 15, 16 year-old without a hint of condescension. It wasn’t Jilted John. If you look at the Sex Pistols, there’s so much artifice in Johnny Rotten’s persona. And The Clash bouncing around, with this rock’n’ roll sort of thing. [With Buzzcocks] It was just Pete Shelley stood on a stage. You would expect to get a similar kind of vibe if you stood next to him at a bus stop. Which you wouldn’t get with most other bands. I mean, you wouldn’t want to be stood next to Ian Curtis at a bus stop if he behaved like he did on stage, would you? Or Mark E Smith…”
Speaking of which, Hanley’s Fall offshoot band House of All, is about to return with a second album, Continuum, and a UK tour. Hanley promises “more variety of sound” and admits to being amazed at the band’s ability to conjure songs from nothing. “I’m not sure I want to work out how we did it. But I can’t even if I wanted to.”
Sixteen Again is published by Route on April 17; House Of All’s Continuum is released by Tiny Global Productions on April 5
All print copies come with a free CD – Total Blam-Blam!, featuring 15 of the month’s best new music including Khruangbin, Jessica Pratt, James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg, Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band, Arab Strap, Iron & Wine, Camera Obscura and more!
INSIDE THIS MONTH’S UNCUT
DAVID BOWIE: As a new boxset digs deep into Ziggy Stardust, we map the 1972 masterpiece’s secret history with the aid of key players
THE BLACK KEYS MEET BECK: Two decades after they first met, ‘the Beck Keys’ finally get it together in the studio – and tell us all about it!
ST VINCENT: Annie Clark squares up to her demons on her sublime seventh LP
RICHARD THOMPSON: The magic of Big Pink, adventures in the Sahara and imaginary conversations with Sandy Denny
KAMASI WASHINGTON: The reigning king of jazz saxophone: still on a mission to soothe the soul
MYRIAM GENDRON: The enigmatic French-Canadian on her powerful reckoning with loss and grief
AN AUDIENCE WITH… VINI REILLY: The Durutti Column’s reclusive guitar genius on Tony Wilson, Morrissey and kickabouts with Pat Nevin
THE MAKING OF “STORY OF THE BLUES” BY WAH!: How Pete Wylie’s “drinking song” developed into a huge anthem: “When I have an idea, I have it in Cinemascope!”
ALBUM BY ALBUM WITH IRON & WINE: The man behind the stage name, South Carolina songwriter Sam Beam, reviews his back catalogue
MY LIFE IN MUSIC WITH NEIL FINN: Everywhere he goes, the Crowded House chief takes these records with him: “A song doesn’t have to follow a narrative…”
REVIEWED: Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Ian Hunter, Vampire Weekend, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Broadcast, AC/DC, Alice Coltrane, Sister Rosetta Tharp, Microdisney, Arthur Russell, Skip Spence, Echo & The Bunnymen, Air and more
PLUS: Radiohead; Rosanne Cash on Lou Reed; Brett Anderson’s death songbook; Caroline Coon’s punk photos; Alice Russell; introducing Mint Mile…
ONE of my favourite moments of the new David Bowie boxset, covering the birth of Ziggy Stardust, is the demo of “Soul Love” recorded at Haddon Hall in November 1971. The tape has evidently been made for Mick Ronson and, after playing the song through, Bowie leaves a message for his co-conspirator. “I think we should work on that as a single, Mick,” he begins, going on to list ideas for arrangements he has in mind for the song, based around a “heavy, warm sax lineup”. Bowie’s ideas are clear, precise and detailed, revealing a lot about his ability to imagine how a finished song might sound. After this, there’s a pause, then Bowie signs off in the kind of cute parentese he might have used with his then-six-month-old son, Zowie. “Oo-kay? Right ’den.” In the space of just a few moments, we have heard from several different David Bowies: the performer, the composer, the friend. Three months after this charming, intimate recording, another David Bowie came into focus when Ziggy Stardust made his earthly debut on stage at the Toby Jug, a pub off the A3.
A lot has already been written about Bowie’s stellar trajectory during 1971/1972. But for our cover story, Peter Watts has unearthed what feels like a genuinely fresh tale, full of alternate versions, discarded recordings, different tracklistings and paths not taken. You might wonder, then, what might have been had Bowie ended up playing slide guitar on “Starman” – and how that might have looked during that July 6, 1972 Top Of The Pops performance…
There’s plenty more besides, of course. We bring you a hook-up between The Black Keys and Beck, St Vincent, Kamasi Washington, Richard Thompson, a rare encounter with Vini Reilly and I’m honoured to bring you the first major UK music magazine interview with Myriam Gendron, whose beautiful and impeccable songs have a calm, wise grasp of folk traditions.
I’m sure you’ll find a ton of other interesting things squirrelled away inside this month’s issue. So dig in and enjoy. And, as Bowie once said, keep it cool and easy.
John Cale has announced that his new album POPtical Illusion – a swift follow-up to 2023’s acclaimed Mercy – will be released by Double Six / Domino on June 14.
Watch a video for lead single “How We See The Light” below:
In contrast to Mercy’s big cast of collaborators, POPtical Illusion was played mostly by Cale in his Los Angeles studio. The album was co-produced by longtime artistic partner Nita Scott.
POPtical Illusion will be available on 2xLP, CD and digital formats. The Domino Mart pink & mint limited edition vinyl includes a 7″ featuring two exclusive tracks and a paper ‘objet’. Pre-order POPtical Illusionhere and peruse the artwork and tracklisting below:
Actor/director Samantha Morton has formed a new musical duo with producer and XL Recordings boss Richard Russell. Named Sam Morton, their debut album Daffodils & Dirt will be released by XL on June 14.
Watch Morton’s self-directed video for the single “Let’s Walk In The Night”, featuring Alabaster DePlume, below:
Daffodils & Dirt also features guest appearances by Laura Groves, Jack Peñate and Ali Campbell. You can pre-order the album here.
Sam Morton will play their biggest headline show to date at London’s ICA on June 20, tickets here. They will also perform at this year’s End Of The Road, among other festival appearances.
The making of Alan Hull as a songwriter was not sitting hunched over his guitar in his bedroom with only his introspection for company, but the three years he spent working as a trainee nurse in a Tyneside psychiatric institution.
“That’s what changed me and the things I was writing about,” he said of his time working with patients at the St Nicholas hospital in Gosforth in the late 1960s. “It made me think about a lot of things and made the songs go deeper.”
For a while the experience threatened his own equilibrium, but the troubled souls in his care also gave him a “million ideas” and taught him that there are many different ways of looking at the world. Coupled with his own poetic sensibility, a deep compassion for his fellow human beings, a scabrous wit and a righteous pride in his Geordie working-class roots, the result was a flood of songs written between 1966 and early 1970, before he formed Lindisfarne. The band then took its pick of the best, but only scratched the surface of a prodigious songbook that is said to have numbered more than 200 compositions.
Some of Hull’s songs from the period were haunting and ethereal. Others were raucous singalongs. There were tender love sonnets and songs about the long, dark nights of the soul. Compelling story-telling and angry protest took their place alongside hymns to the hell-raising pleasures of boozing and anthems of faith in humanity such as “Clear White Light”, a line from which gives this anthology its title.
Taken in the round, the demo recordings on Singing A Song In The Morning Light represent the early pencil drawings of an artist whom Jerry Gilbert a few years later in an interview in Sounds would describe as a “deep philosopher acutely aware of other people’s reactions and motives”. At the same time, Gilbert noted that Hull was also “a round-the-clock looner who revels in his own madness”. His ability to drink almost anyone in Newcastle under the table was legendary among Tyneside’s musical fraternity and it was not without good reason that the credits on Hull’s 1973 solo debut Pipe Dream read “vocals, guitar, piano, harmonium, Guinness, wine, tequila, Pernod”.
Lindisfarne took his compositions “Lady Eleanor” and “Run For Home” into the Top 10 of the UK singles chart, while other Hull songs recorded by the band such as “Fog On The Tyne” and “We Can Swing Together” have become much-loved folk-rock standards.
While maintaining a parallel solo career, he was still with Lindisfarne when his death from a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 50 robbed us of a unique voice. In line with the wishes expressed in his will, his ashes were scattered in the Tyne and mourners were instructed to wait for a day when the fog was rolling in.
Yet once the fog had cleared, a feeling lingered among his admirers that when the lists of the all-time great songwriters are being compiled, too often Hull is unfairly forgotten. His legacy has not been overlooked by his fellow songwriters, though. Take a look at the BBC’s 2021 documentary Lindisfarne’s Geordie Genius: The Alan Hull Story; presented by fellow Tynesider Sam Fender, in it Hull’s peers queue up to pay fulsome tribute. “I think he’s up there with Richard Thompson and Ray Davies and the really English songwriters,” opines Elvis Costello, who admits to having stolen shamelessly from him. Others to acknowledge Hull’s influence in the film include Dave Stewart, Sting, Mark Knopfler and Peter Gabriel.
The existence of the demo tapes Hull made before forming Lindisfarne has long been known, but over the years only a handful of tracks have seen the light of day on various anthologies and compilations, leaving a total of 77 of the 90 recordings here that have never previously been released.
By the time Hull recorded these demos he had tasted modest success with a Newcastle band called the Chosen Few, with whom he’d recorded two singles for Pye. But when other members of the band went on to form Skip Bifferty, Hull already had a family to support and more reliable employment was required – which was how in 1966 he came to enrol as a trainee psychiatric nurse. At the same time he took to playing solo in local folk clubs, which led to him recording demos of his songs at a studio in Wallsend established by David Wood, whom he knew from his beat group days.
When Hull couldn’t pay for the studio time, Wood became his manager and the pair set up their own folk club in Whitley Bay. One of the bands who played the club were Brethren, who saw themselves as a kind of Geordie version of The Band. They started backing Hull both onstage and on some of his demos, and the band swiftly evolved into Lindisfarne.
Among the demos recorded with Brethren here are ragged takes of future Lindisfarne hits “Lady Eleanor” (inspired by Hull’s obsessive reading of Edgar Allan Poe while on late shifts at the hospital) and “We Can Swing Together”, a rollicking tale of a drug bust at a party on which Hull and his future bandmates manage to sound like a folk-rock version of the Pink Fairies.
There are also a brace of tracks on which he’s backed by Skip Bifferty, including the contrived psych-pop weirdness of “Schizoid Revolution”, clearly inspired by Hull’s experiences as a psychiatric nurse, while various uncredited friends back him on the prog-tinged freak-out “Overstrung At 3am” and the period satire “Arthur McLean Morrison Jones”.
For the rest it’s mostly just Hull and his guitar or piano. There’s a gorgeous solo take on “Dingly Dell”, which became the title track of Lindisfarne’s third album, and a wondrous version of “Winter Song” which wouldn’t have sounded out of place if sung by Robin Williamson on The Incredible String Band’s first album.
Yet, among the previously unknown songs, what’s most striking is the wildly experimental breadth of his writing as he tries on different skins to see what fits. “This Land Is Cold” transplants Woody Guthrie from Oklahoma to Northumbria, while “Go Throw Your Life Away” worships at the shrine of Dylan, using almost the same chord sequence as “Like A Rolling Stone”, over which Hull sings about doing the football pools. Elsewhere there are adventures in giddy surrealism (“Conversation With A Chinese Cat”), memorable love songs (the Beatlesque “Love Lasts Forever”), aching piano ballads (“Spain 67”), political rants (“Better Town”) and gentle lullabies for his kids (“Go To Sleep”).
The performances are for the most part rough and sketchy – they were, after all, recorded merely as demos for publishing purposes and often committed to tape after several hours spent loosening his vocal cords in the pub. Yet at the same time it’s crystal clear that we’re listening to a songwriter learning how to harness his uniquely Geordie iteration of genius.
Pop music used to be the preserve of the autodidacts, the high-school dropouts who taught themselves a few chords on the guitar and worked things out instinctively. The odd classically trained figure would sometimes crop up here and there – a Mick Ronson scribbling string arrangements on the back of a cigarette packet, a Donald Fagen writing out complex extended chords for his session musicians to improvise over, a Sean Moore from the Manic Street Preachers playing the occasional trumpet flourish over a punk track – but, by and large, pop and rock musicians would eschew formal learning and play by ear.
But something odd seemed to happen around the millennium, when an entire sub-genre of classically trained art-rock figures started to emerge across the US and Canada, including the likes of Joanna Newsom, Sufjan Stevens, St Vincent, Owen Pallett, Janelle Monae, Caroline Polachek, Mary Lattimore, Oneohtrix Point Never, Andrew Bird and members of Vampire Weekend, Antony And The Johnsons, Dirty Projectors, The National, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Deerhoof, Battles, Midlake and many more. Where the art school had been the breeding ground for so much British rock music of the 20th century, the 21st saw the music conservatoire producing a peculiar brand of North American pop oddballs.
In many ways, you could see Julia Holter as the apotheosis of this trend. She studied classical piano and composition at the University of Michigan and CalArts, and still teaches at music schools and summer camps. She also makes ultra-literate, conceptual records that are confidently and knowingly recherché. Holter hates seeing music described as cerebral, but she certainly doesn’t seem to wear her highbrow references lightly – there have been albums inspired by Euripides’ Hippolytus and Colette’s Gigi; songs about the medieval romance between Heloise and Abelard; music based on field recordings from antique furniture stores and the temple songs of Buddhist monks; references to the poetry of Sappho and Frank O’Hara; songs inspired by the films of Alain Resnais and Andrei Tarkovsky. She has written a live soundtrack to a 1926 silent film about Joan of Arc with an opera chorus, and used John Cage’s methodology to create music from a 1920s church-club cookbook. She creates dark piano ruminations, upholstered with lavish string arrangements, with nods to everyone from Ligeti to Alice Coltrane. This is a long way from a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom.
Some musicians, from Status Quo to The Fall, Philip Glass to Tinariwen, largely just do one thing really well: they define their own peculiar genre, and do it over and over again. Julia Holter is not that kind of artist. There’s an eternal restlessness about her music, one that flits between different genres, different idioms, wildly varied and wilfully eccentric lineups. Her last album, 2018’s Aviary, was an epic trawl that took us through medieval plainsong, 17th-century madrigals, early classical music, field recordings and snatches of minimalism and free jazz. Such is Holter’s sense of musical confidence, and her control over these elements, that these references never sounded forced, they’re simply elements of her sonic arsenal.
Something In The Room She Moves – started under lockdown, and written and recorded either side of the birth of her daughter in 2020 – is even more varied than Aviary, but it seems to filter out some of Aviary’s transitional elements and instead take us on a voyage that alights on 10 very different and intense soundworlds. It is both poppier – in that there are some immediately appealing grooves – and more self-consciously experimental – in that there are arcane moments of sonic exploration – than anything Holter has ever done.
The poppier moments include “Spinning”, an insistent waltz, set to a thumping glam beat, with lyrics that turn Holter’s abstract poetry into the thrilling nonsense of early rock’n’roll. “What is delicious and what is omniscient/And what is the circular magic I’m visiting,” she coos, over a tangle of woodwind improvisation, fiddly fretless bass and strident synths. “Sun Girl” is wonderfully wobbly and disjointed – Holter conjures up an arresting, summery image by singing wistfully about a sun-obsessed girl who “dreams in golden yellow”, while bassist Dev Hoff sounds like Japan’s Mick Karn jamming with a West African drum troupe, while flautist Maia freaks out like Eric Dolphy over the top.
The title track is a terrific, slow-burning, Kate Bush-style ballad, where Holter recites seemingly abstract lyrics (“if there’s anything I know, I can intuit stucco”), over a warm sonic bath of electric piano, fretless bass, soaring flute and massed synths. “These Morning” is another dreamy, largely drumless ballad set to a complex tangle of Wurlitzer electric piano chords, which gets even better when it slows to an agonising pace as Holter repeats “just lie to me”.
But there are places where Holter is also at her most uncompromisingly experimental. “Meyou” is an a cappella piece where a choir sings a series of simple four-note plainsong-style riffs that alter very slightly each time, the singers constantly twisting the melody a little and employing an ever-widening palette of extended effects, howls and shrieks as the song progresses. “Ocean” is another wordless, self-consciously avant-garde piece, a slice of BBC Radiophonic Workshop-style experimentation where Chris Speed’s clarinet sounds like a swanee whistle slowly soaring over a patchwork of analogue synth drones. The hymn-like “Materia” sets Holter’s cut-glass voice over electric piano: “This version of love I can dwell on in the musing,” she sings, cryptically.
More often than not, the poppy and the experimental co-exist. “Who Brings Me” seems to fuse the Radiophonic-style abstraction – played live on flutes, bowed bass and Fender Rhodes – with a limpid poem of death. “Evening Mood” starts with a gorgeous kaleidoscope of synth voicings and wobbly electronic drones, before settling on a gentle ballad, romantic and unsettling, like Joni Mitchell backed by an ECM band. A woozy recollection of midsummer romance is interrupted by the refrain “daylight hits me” and a wonderfully wayward clarinet solo. Best of all might be “Talking To The Whisper”, a slow-burning seven-minute epic with a maddeningly off-kilter drum loop, a constant Hammond organ drone and a repeated double bass figure. “Love can be shattering,” Holter sings, before the song itself shatters into a Sun Ra-style freak out.
Experimental albums like this can sometimes be more laudable than enjoyable: easier to admire than to love. But there is something about Holter’s approach – her use of dynamics, her muted accompaniment, her sonic balance – that draws the listener in and keeps them beguiled. For a very Californian album, it draws comparisons with two peculiarly English releases – Kate Bush’s The Dreaming and Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom – like them, there is something about this music that is warming, aqueous, immersive and endlessly engaging.
David Bowie‘s 1972 masterpiece The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars lands as a deluxe 5CD and 1 Blu-Ray Audio set, called Rock ‘n’ Roll Star!, on June 14.
As a taster for the box, you can hear the “Ziggy Stardust” demo, recorded by Bowie on vocal and acoustic guitar in March 1971 at Haddon Hall in Beckenham.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! contains 29 unreleased tracks, covers early songwriting demos, recordings from The Arnold Corns, rehearsals at Haddon Hall, BBC sessions, singles, live performances, plus outtakes and alternative versions from the original album recording sessions, which have been newly mixed by original album producer, Ken Scott.
The audio-only Blu-Ray disc features the definitive 2012 remaster of the original Ziggy Stardust album in 96kHz/24bit PCM stereo, plus the album and additional mixes from 2003 in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 as well as the singles, outtakes and alternative versions in 96kHz/24 bit PCM stereo.
The Blu-Ray also includes a version of the Ziggy album called Waiting In The Sky (Before The Starman Come To Earth), taken from Trident Studio tapes dated December 15, 1971, which features an alternative running order and four songs that didn’t make the final album. This will also be available as a limited vinyl LP on April 20, 2024 for Record Store Day. In addition, there is a 1-LP version of Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! compiling the alternative takes and mixes.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! also contains two books. The first is an extensive 112-page book with detailed liner notes, memorabilia, contemporary reviews and articles, rare photographs, as well as brand-new notes and interviews. Accompanying the main book is a 36-page compiled reproduction of Bowie’s personal Ziggy-era notebooks.
And here’s the tracklisting!
*= PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Disc 1
1. So Long 60s (San Francisco Hotel recording) *
2. Hang On To Yourself (early demo) *
3. Lady Stardust (demo)
4. Ziggy Stardust (demo)
5. Star (Aka Stars) (demo) *
6. Soul Love (demo and DB spoken notes) *
7. Starman (demo 1 excerpt) *
8. Starman (demo 2) *
9. Moonage Daydream (The Arnold Corns version)
10. Hang On To Yourself (The Arnold Corns version)
11. Looking For A Friend (The Arnold Corns version – rough mix) *
12. Haddon Hall Rehearsals Segue: Ziggy Stardust / Holy Holy / Soul Love *
13. Star (Aka Stars) (Haddon Hall rehearsal) *
14. Sweet Head (Haddon Hall rehearsal) *
Disc 2
Sounds Of The 70s: John Peel
Session recorded on 11th January, 1972 and broadcast on 28th January, 1972
1. Ziggy Stardust *
2. Queen Bitch *
3. Waiting For The Man *
4. Lady Stardust *
Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris
Session recorded on 18th January, 1972 and broadcast on 7th February, 1972
5. Hang On To Yourself
6. Ziggy Stardust
7. Queen Bitch
8. Waiting For The Man
9. Five Years
Old Grey Whistle Test Performance
Filmed on 7th February, 1972 and broadcast on 8th February, 1972
except ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ which was not broadcast until 1982.
10. Oh! You Pretty Things (take 1)
11. Queen Bitch
12. Five Years
Disc 3
Sounds Of The 70s: John Peel
Session recorded on 16th May, 1972 and broadcast on 23rd May, 1972
1. White Light/White Heat
2. Moonage Daydream
3. Hang On To Yourself
4. Suffragette City
5. Ziggy Stardust
Johnnie Walker Lunchtime Show
Session recorded on 22nd May, 1972 and broadcast from 5th – 9th June, 1972
6. Starman
7. Space Oddity
8. Changes
9. Oh! You Pretty Things
Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris
Session recorded on 23rd May, 1972 and broadcast On 19th June, 1972
10. Andy Warhol
11. Lady Stardust
12. White Light/White Heat
13. Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide
Top Of The Pops Performance
Filmed on 5th July, 1972 and broadcast on 6th July, 1972
14. Starman
Disc 4
1. Round And Round
2. The Supermen (Ziggy session version)
3. Holy Holy (Ziggy session version)
4. Velvet Goldmine (Ziggy session outtake)
5. Starman (original single mix)
6. John, I’m Only Dancing (original single version)
Recorded Live At The Music Hall, Boston.
Recorded on 1st October, 1972
7. The Supermen
8. Changes
9. Life On Mars?
10. My Death *
11. John, I’m Only Dancing
Disc 5
1. Looking For A Friend (The Arnold Corns version 2022 mix) *
2. Hang On To Yourself (early Ziggy session take) *
3. Star (take 5 alternative version) *
4. Lady Stardust (take 1 alternative version) *
5. Shadow Man (Ziggy session version) *
6. The Supermen (Ziggy session version 2023 Mix) *
7. Holy Holy (Ziggy session version alternative mix) *
8. Round And Round (alternative mix)
9. It’s Gonna Rain Again (Ziggy session outtake) *
10. Looking For A Friend (Ziggy session version) *
The five track EP coincides with both World Poetry Day and yesterday’s Spring equinox [March 20].
You can hear “Folk Song” from the EP below.
“Blossom is an extraordinary emotional milestone every year, a moment of illumination and resurgence after the dark winter months,” says Armitage. “Increasingly, we have seen that poetry is resonating with people from across the generations and from many different walks of life, not least when it shades into musical territory and performance. As such, this feels like the right project at the right time, designed to amplify the joy of blossom, encourage people all over the country to feel inspired by nature’s resilience, and to welcome the coming of spring.”
Apart from Armitage, LYR comprise singer-songwriter Richard Walters and multi-instrumentalist and producer Patrick J Pearson.
The Blossomise EP is available to buy or stream on digital platforms here.
LYR will perform Blossomise on a limited tour of four key cities (Plymouth, Coventry, Manchester and Newcastle) that are hosting a variety of creative blossom inspired events as part of the conservation charity’s Blossom Week, April 20 – 28, 2024.
Tickets for the tour are on-sale on the National Trust’s website today. The currently confirmed LYR Blossomiseperformance dates are:
Saturday, April 20 – Plymouth, Market Hall
Sunday, April 21 – Coventry, Charterhouse
Saturday, April 27 – Greater Manchester, Quarry Bank
Back in November, Alan Sparhawk played an emotional set in Utrecht’s Jacobikerk as part of Le Guess Who? festival – his first European show since the death of his wife and Low bandmate Mimi Parker.
Backed by his son Cyrus on bass, Owen Mahon on drums and Dave Carroll (of Trampled By Turtles) on electric banjo, Sparhawk combined songs destined for a future solo album with jams by his and Cyrus’s funk sideline, Derecho Rhythm Section.
Watch Sparhawk and band play “Get High”, “Salvation”, “Impossible Day” and “Want It Back” below:
“When we founded the group,” Can’s Irmin Schmidt once confided to Uncut, “we didn’t know where we will go.” As it turned out, they went places no other band has been, before or since. The Köln outfit were one of the most unique, influential and exhilarating groups in rock, as evidenced by their ongoing programme of live releases from the mid-1970s.
The latest, Live In Paris 1973, is the first in the series to feature the inimitable presence of vocalist Damo Suzuki, who sadly passed away last month, leaving Schmidt as the last surviving member of that 1973 line-up.
The keyboardist has long since been the curator of Can’s legacy, co-authoring 2018’s All Gates Open: The Story Of Can with sometime Uncut writer Rob Young. But he’s also written a great deal of music outside Can, including numerous film and TV soundtracks and an opera based on Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast.
So, what do you want to ask a free-rock titan? Send your questions to audiencewith@uncut.co.uk by Monday (March 25) and Irmin will answer the best ones in a future issue of Uncut.
Whatever you say they are, that’s what they’re not. It’s a natural impulse of any band who have experienced sudden acclaim, and the reductive hype that goes with it, to kick hard against it creatively. Sometimes that’s to the point of commercial self-harm. So when Yard Act’s follow-up to their 2022 debut, the Mercury-nominated, The Overload, is peppered with sardonic self-referential asides, you’re immediately struck by the suspicion that this is their stab at leaving every party that would have them as members. The disagreeable second album, if you will.
“I was hot property once but now the promise has gone,” James Smith sneers on opening track “An Illusion”, and the inward focus continues on the biz-baiting anti-anthem “We Make Hits” (“and if this isn’t a hit, we’ll say it’s ironic”). As if his spiritual uncle and namesake Mark E has been reborn as an acolyte of the Arctic Monkeys, Smith relates, “We know there’s no surprising/Anyone with eyes and ears round here that we’re all gonna sink.”
That’s one of several such barbs, either side of Smith witheringly referring to his own band as “post-punk’s latest poster boys” who “ride on the coattails of the dead”. Yet there remains a vim and vigour about their sound that belies such lyrical pessimism. They’re still enjoying themselves on this rabble-rousing two-fingers to expectations, even if they can’t shake their inner critics: “We just wanna have some fun before we’re sunk/And if that’s the attitude you exude then you know you’re really punk!”
Despite such apparent preoccupation with their own impending demise, Smith insists that during the process of creating Where’s My Utopia?, they managed to forget about “what dickheads will make of album two” (as they put it later on this album), allowing them to make the kind of sounds they always had in their heads but didn’t feel confident enough to on The Overload. The styles hopscotch freely, from the infectious urchin funk of “Dream Job” (think LCD Soundsystem backed by the Blockheads) through the blend of sprechsegang, dub, noise-rock and hip-hop found on “Fizzy Fish”, to the hardcore bluster that closes “Grifter’s Grief” and the echoes of Go-Go’s-style pop evoked by Katy J Pearson’s contribution to “When The Laughter Stops”.
The contrasts are heightened by the production help of Gorillaz drummer Remi Kabaka Jr, and the frequent stylistic handbrake turns also reflect the bipolar mood swings of some tracks and the meandering tales they tell. “Down By The Stream”’s story of teenage misadventure with “cherry cola can bongs” is set to clumsily ebullient, whooping Northern hip-hop, as if Cypress Hill had been relocated to Billinge Lump, but Smith’s admission of bullying triggers a stark swerve into sparse ambient noise and a flashback, where he broods about how he would brutally intimidate his own son if he bullied anyone – thereby continuing the cycle of abuse, of course.
Similarly digressive, in an equally compelling way, is the seven-minute “Blackpool Illuminations”. To sparse acoustic backing, Smith’s monologue about a childhood mishap in a Blackpool B&B segues into a more evocative meditation on teenage wanderlust, gracefully accompanied by subtle strings and bucolic woodwind, which then prove just as apt when the scene turns uncomfortably psychedelic as “the pill kicks in” for our young adventurers.
They can’t allow us to daydream for too long, though: suddenly the fourth wall cracks open, the symphony drops out and a cynical-sounding observer asks, “Are you making this up?” As the backdrop switches to woozy, funereal jazz, Smith explains, “Well, some of it, yeah… I didn’t want to burden anyone with the truth.” Whether it’s fact, fiction or more likely a mixture of both, over gentle folktronica he concludes, in answer to the album title, “I don’t need no Utopia, because the unknown’s the only hope for a brighter future.”
What that holds is hard to say after this unpredictable, freewheeling affair. It may not be fuelled by as many immediate hooks and gnarly grooves as The Overloa, but it’s a bold progression both musically and lyrically. So whether they like it or not, “post-punk’s latest poster boys” might be staying on our walls a while yet.
