One bright Sunday morning, MC Taylor is driving through his patch of North Carolina, past New Hope Creek and the Eno River, over the Chatham County Line and the James Taylor Bridge in Chapel Hill, near the Haw River and the valley that he has meditated upon in song these past few years. Through apparently endless forests, Taylor's destination is Saralyn, a kind of hippy settlement just outside of Pittsboro.
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.
In haste this week, as we're finishing our end-of-year review issue and our next Ultimate Music Guide (on Paul McCartney, I can reveal), I've just completed writing up an interview with one of 2014's key figures, and I have a review of this 4CD Wilco retrospective to file as soon as possible.
While the latest issue of Uncut was turning up in the UK last week, I was a long way from “Basement Tapes” frenzy, on holiday in Athens. I saw all the classical sites, accidentally walked into both a Tino Sehgal performance piece and a NATO delegation, and also, true to form, found time to do a little record shopping.
