A couple of weeks ago on his blog, Ethan Miller announced that, after two years of pre-production for an album with Rick Rubin, Howlin Rain would be releasing a new EP to coincide with their forthcoming European tour.
Having just finished Peter Matthiessen’s book about (among other things) Nepal, “The Snow Leopard”, it’s been quite nice these past few days to perceive cold and snow as a path to spiritual revelation as much as a physical ordeal. Of course, crawling down the A10 on the Number 76 yesterday morning pretty effectively demolished the romance.
Over the next few days, we'll be posting full transcripts of what the Uncut Music Award judges said about each of the shortlisted eight albums. Today we begin with their comments on the eventual winner; Paul Weller's "Wake Up The Nation".
Just to let you all know, we'll be announcing the winner of this year's Uncut Music Award a week today (Tuesday, November 30, that is). The eight shortlisted records being discussed by the judges are:
To be honest, I more or less gave up on The Nectarine No 9 over the last few years of their career. Not sure why: maybe Davy Henderson’s personal interpretation of the obtuse became a bit much. Could be wrong here, because I certainly don’t know the albums well enough to pass real comment, but I suspect he strayed too far into the curmudgeonly.
This week has mostly been about Steve Coogan. The Trip – his BBC series with Rob Brydon – has prompted much discussion here in the Uncut office. As has the return of Coogan’s most famous creation, Alan Partridge – who as I’m sure you know by now is back in a series of short episodes released online.
