Neil Young, Grizzly Bear, Mark E Smith and Sigur Rós all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2017 and out on July 20.
Young is on the cover, and inside we take a revelatory look at the great man’s archives to investigate some of rock’s most legendary lost albums – from Oceanside-Countryside and Chrome Dreams to Times Square, Toast and more – and piece together the alternate discography that Neil fans have been dreaming of for decades.
“Quite often I’ll record things that don’t fit with what I’m doing,” as Young said, “so I just hold onto them for a while…”
Grizzly Bear discuss the creation of their eagerly awaited new album, Painted Ruins, alongside an in-depth review of the record; Christopher Bear and Edward Droste reveal how they made the album, what influence California has had on their current sound, and the New York indie scene of the early 2000s. “Now I go back [to New York] and no-one’s there, a lot of them are here [in California],” says Droste. “It’s funny bumping into Dave Longstreth at the supermarket.”
Uncut also joins Mark E Smith for a few drinks at one of his favourite Manchester pubs to talk about The Fall‘s new album, the city’s architecture, the Vorticists, Welsh people and the problems with many of the group’s former members. “The Fall is like a Nazi organisation,” Smith says…
In our regular ‘album by album’ feature, Sigur Rós take us through their finest work to date, from 1997’s Von to 2013’s Kveikur. “We had to make an album in a swimming pool,” Jónsi Birgisson says of 2002’s (), “with all the technical challenges that poses.” “We probably recorded that three times over!” says Georg Hólm.
We also take a look behind Dennis Wilson‘s wildman persona to find out how the Beach Boy created his masterpiece, Pacific Ocean Blue: “He truly was a soulful dude,” says one key collaborator.
Elsewhere, Nick Lowe invites Uncut over to his pad for a look through his fine career, from pub-rock pioneer and punk auteur to classic songwriter of repute… Plus Ry Cooder and Elvis Costello pay homage: “His geniality may have has been at the cost of his legend.”
Steven Wilson lets us in on eight of his favourite albums, while Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark recall the making of their debut single “Electricity”, with help from sleeve designer Peter Saville and Factory co-founder Lindsay Reade. “We wanted to be Kraftwerk,” says Paul Humphreys, “[but they] had all this incredible gear and we had next to nothing. We couldn’t sound like them, so we ended up sounding like OMD!”
Also, Uncut investigates what Elvis Presley means in 2017, 40 years after his death. Why do new generations worship The Beatles, but rarely Elvis? How’s business for the World’s Greatest Elvis Impersonator? And why are those treasured old records diminishing in value?
Our front section features pieces on Sly Stone, FJ McMahon, KD Lang and Oz magazine, and we introduce new singer-songwriter Angelo De Augustine.
In our huge reviews section, we look at new offerings from Grizzly Bear, Queens Of The Stone Age, Arcade Fire, Randy Newman, The War On Drugs and more, and archival releases from Lal & Mike Waterson, Brian Eno, Prince, The Beach Boys and Super Furry Animals. We catch U2 and Kraftwerk live, and check out the new Morrissey biopic England Is Mine, plus A Ghost Story, and books on The Damned and New York rock’n’roll.
Our free CD, Art Of Gold, features 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including cuts from Randy Newman, Richard Thompson, Iron & Wine, Nick Lowe, Oh Sees, Lal & Mike Waterson, Psychic Temple, FJ McMahon and Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band.
Neil Young, Grizzly Bear, Mark E Smith and Sigur Rós all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2017 and out on July 20.
Young is on the cover, and inside we take a revelatory look at the great man’s archives to investigate some of rock’s most legendary lost albums – from Oceanside-Countryside and Chrome Dreams to Times Square, Toast and more – and piece together the alternate discography that Neil fans have been dreaming of for decades.
“Quite often I’ll record things that don’t fit with what I’m doing,” as Young said, “so I just hold onto them for a while…”
Grizzly Bear discuss the creation of their eagerly awaited new album, Painted Ruins, alongside an in-depth review of the record; Christopher Bear and Edward Droste reveal how they made the album, what influence California has had on their current sound, and the New York indie scene of the early 2000s. “Now I go back [to New York] and no-one’s there, a lot of them are here [in California],” says Droste. “It’s funny bumping into Dave Longstreth at the supermarket.”
Uncut also joins Mark E Smith for a few drinks at one of his favourite Manchester pubs to talk about The Fall‘s new album, the city’s architecture, the Vorticists, Welsh people and the problems with many of the group’s former members. “The Fall is like a Nazi organisation,” Smith says…
In our regular ‘album by album’ feature, Sigur Rós take us through their finest work to date, from 1997’s Von to 2013’s Kveikur. “We had to make an album in a swimming pool,” Jónsi Birgisson says of 2002’s (), “with all the technical challenges that poses.” “We probably recorded that three times over!” says Georg Hólm.
We also take a look behind Dennis Wilson‘s wildman persona to find out how the Beach Boy created his masterpiece, Pacific Ocean Blue: “He truly was a soulful dude,” says one key collaborator.
Elsewhere, Nick Lowe invites Uncut over to his pad for a look through his fine career, from pub-rock pioneer and punk auteur to classic songwriter of repute… Plus Ry Cooder and Elvis Costello pay homage: “His geniality may have has been at the cost of his legend.”
Steven Wilson lets us in on eight of his favourite albums, while Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark recall the making of their debut single “Electricity”, with help from sleeve designer Peter Saville and Factory co-founder Lindsay Reade. “We wanted to be Kraftwerk,” says Paul Humphreys, “[but they] had all this incredible gear and we had next to nothing. We couldn’t sound like them, so we ended up sounding like OMD!”
Also, Uncut investigates what Elvis Presley means in 2017, 40 years after his death. Why do new generations worship The Beatles, but rarely Elvis? How’s business for the World’s Greatest Elvis Impersonator? And why are those treasured old records diminishing in value?
Our front section features pieces on Sly Stone, FJ McMahon, KD Lang and Oz magazine, and we introduce new singer-songwriter Angelo De Augustine.
In our huge reviews section, we look at new offerings from Grizzly Bear, Queens Of The Stone Age, Arcade Fire, Randy Newman, The War On Drugs and more, and archival releases from Lal & Mike Waterson, Brian Eno, Prince, The Beach Boys and Super Furry Animals. We catch U2 and Kraftwerk live, and check out the new Morrissey biopic England Is Mine, plus A Ghost Story, and books on The Damned and New York rock’n’roll.
Our free CD, Art Of Gold, features 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including cuts from Randy Newman, Richard Thompson, Iron & Wine, Nick Lowe, Oh Sees, Lal & Mike Waterson, Psychic Temple, FJ McMahon and Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band.
The 3CD /1LP version contains two different mixes of the album, a remastered version of the original and a new 40th anniversary mix by original engineer/mixer Ed Stasium, along with a second disc of unheard recordings and a third comprising the live show from CBGBs.
The newly remastered original version will also be released as a single CD. Both titles will be available via digital download and streaming as well.
A Deluxe Edition will be produced in a limited and numbered edition of 15,000 copies worldwide and comes packaged in a 12” x 12” hardcover book.
Remastered Original Mix “Glad To See You Go”
“Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment”
“I Remember You”
“Oh Oh I Love Her So”
“Carbona Not Glue”
“Suzy Is A Headbanger”
“Pinhead”
“Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy”
“Swallow My Pride”
“What’s Your Game”
“California Sun”
“Commando”
40th Anniversary Mix
Sundragon Rough Mixes “Glad To See You Go” *
“Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment” *
“I Remember You” *
“Oh Oh I Love Her So” *
“Carbona Not Glue” *
“Suzy Is A Headbanger” *
“Pinhead” *
“Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy” *
“Swallow My Pride” *
“What’s Your Game” *
“California Sun” *
“Commando” *
“You’re Gonna Kill That Girl” *
“You Should Have Never Opened That Door” *
“Babysitter” *
Disc Two: 40th Anniversary Extras:
“Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” (Single Version)
“I Don’t Care” (B-Side Version)
“Babysitter” (UK Album Version)
“Glad To See You Go” (BubbleGum Mix) *
“I Remember You” (Instrumental) *
“Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment” (Forest Hills Mix) *
“Oh Oh I Love Her So” (Soda Machine Mix) *
“Carbona Not Glue” (Queens Mix) *
“Suzy Is A Headbanger” (Geek Mix) *
“Pinhead” (Psychedelic Mix) *
“Pinhead” (Oo-Oo-Gabba-UhUh Mix) *
“Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy” (Bowery Mix) *
“Swallow My Pride” (Instrumental) *
“What’s Your Game” (Sane Mix) *
“California Sun” (Instrumental) *
“Commando” (TV Track) *
“You’re Gonna Kill That Girl” (Doo Wop Mix) *
“You Should Have Never Opened That Door” (Mama Mix) *
Disc Three: Live at CBGB’s April 2, 1977
“I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement” *
“Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” *
“Blitzkrieg Bop” *
“Swallow My Pride” *
“Suzy Is A Headbanger” *
“Teenage Lobotomy” *
“53rd & 3rd” *
“Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy” *
“Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” *
“Let’s Dance” *
“Babysitter” *
“Havana Affair” *
“Listen To My Heart” *
“Oh Oh I Love Her So” *
“California Sun” *
“I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You” *
“Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World” *
“Judy Is A Punk” *
“Pinhead” *
Buried in the green grass of his breakthrough solo hit, “Brown Eyed Girl” – a reflection on a relationship that, even at 21, seems to have happened a painful forever ago – Van Morrison lets out a quiet yelp. “So hard to find my way,” he sings. “Now that I’m all on my own.” His 1967 in essence. While many fellow Brit R&B refugees were enjoying the new possibilities of that gilded psychedelic summer, the former Them frontman was stranded in America, brooding over the release of an embarrassing debut album, panicking about being deported back to Belfast, and worrying that his producer, label boss and mentor Bert Berns had permanently cramped his style.
To make things more fraught, Berns died aged 38 of heart failure on December 30, 1967, leaving Van trapped in a series of onerous contracts, at the whim of Berns’ mob backers and his widow and Bang Records partner Ilene. “I was supposed to go in the office to meet him and the next day I found out he was dead,” the 71-year-old recalls in the sleevenotes to this definitive guide to his annus horribilis. “I was totally shocked; I couldn’t really take it in.”
But for Berns’ belief, Van Morrison might have been sucked back on to the showband circuit that spawned him. Famous for writing “Twist And Shout” and “Hang On Sloopy”, as well as Them’s signature hit, “Here Comes The Night”, the Bronx-born music biz all-rounder offered Van Morrison seemingly his only hope of post-Them fulfilment, inviting him to New York to record eight tracks for his Bang label in March 1967. However, it was an offer with artistic and financial strings attached.
For all its steel-sprung brilliance, “Brown Eyed Girl” echoes the finger-poppin’, clubland R&B that Berns dealt in as an Atlantic staff producer in the early-’60s, and the hotshot session musicians who embellish the deathwatch Beatles of “TB Sheets” hark back to similarly groovy times. “I think it should be freer,” Van Morrison says, his thick Northern Irish accent interrupting a take of “He Ain’t Give You None” on Disc Two, to little effect. His wishes are ignored again on a run through dupes’ confession “Who Drove The Red Sports Car?”: “Why the fade out, man? Why the fade-out? It’s just the beginning!”
His lack of control was underlined after “Brown Eyed Girl” breached the US Top 10; royalties were not forthcoming, and Bang released all the products of those first sessions in an incongruous psychedelic sleeve as Van’s debut album, without his permission. Berns supplied a gauche cosmic sleevenote for Blowin’ Your Mind!, but it was more supper-club filler than mind-expanded killer, Van grumbling 50 years on: “If I’d thought it was an album I’d have approached it a whole different way.”
Under contract, he had to put up, and cut several more songs for Bang later that year – “The Back Room” and early versions of “Madame George” and “Beside You” among them. However, Berns’ production techniques continued to make hackwork of his sophisticated wordplay. “It was, I thought, overproduced,” he writes. “So, it pushed me back into something else, starting again with Astral Weeks… creating more space.”
However, the segue from this first phase of his career to the next was not seamless. After Berns’ demise, it took a reported $75,000 to Ilene Berns, and $20,000 to the mob, to extract him from his Bang deal, while these recordings remained out of his hands, re-emerging at inopportune moments in his career like a bad case of musical shingles. Berns’ publishing company Web IV, meanwhile, demanded 36 new songs before they would let him go; Van complied with stunning bad grace.
Disc Three here details the one-man-and-an-out-of-tune-guitar Contractual Obligation session, Van supplementing the Web IV-administered songs from his late-’67 session with 31 improvised fragments, including a skein of mean-spirited pastiches of Berns’ hits, relentlessly mocking – for a captive audience of his widow and her colleagues – the producer’s Tin Pan Alley inanities and sideline in passé hep-cat talk: “Twist And Shake”, “Jump And Thump”, “Hang On Groovy”. There is also time to rage at Bang’s business practices (“The Big Royalty Check”, “Here Comes Dumb George”, “Blowin’ Your Nose”) , and indulge in mean-spirited whimsy (“Ring Worm”, “Want A Danish” and the immortal “You Say France And I Whistle”). These songs receive their first official acknowledgement with this release (which comes a few months after Ilene Berns’ death), while 50 years on, Van is feeling more generous towards the man who spared him from the cabaret circuit. “Bert Berns was a genius,” he writes. “He was a brilliant songwriter and he had a lot of soul, which you don’t find nowadays.”
Read it out loud. It’s the sound of hell freezing over.
Roger Waters has accused Thom Yorke of “whining” over criticism of Radiohead‘s upcoming gig in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The band are due to play a show in Israel this week [July 19] and the band have faced requests to cancel the gig, with an open letter recently issued by Artists For Palestine UK – and signed by musicians including Roger Waters – asking the group to “think again” about their decision amid an ongoing and widespread cultural boycott of the country.
Waters most recently addressed the Radiohead singer directly on an hour-long Facebook Live talk with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, reports Rolling Stone.
Waters said: “We should observe the picket line. Anybody who’s tempted to do that, like our friends in Radiohead, if only they would actually educate themselves.”
He continued: “I know Thom Yorke’s been whining about how he feels insulted, people are suggesting he doesn’t know what’s going on”.
“Well Thom, you shouldn’t feel insulted because if you did know what’s going on, you would have a conversation with [director] Ken Loach, who’s been begging you to have a conversation, or with me, I begged you, Thom”.
Yorke recently had a Twitter incident with Ken Loach where the director asked the band whether they would “stand with the oppressed or the oppressor”.
Waters then went on to shun Yorke for his lack of communication regarding this issue. “I sent you a number of emails, begging you to have a conversation. As did Brian Eno; you ignored us all, you won’t speak to anyone about anything.”
“So it’s that kind of isolationism that is extremely unhelpful to everybody.”
It’s relatively rare that writing on an album is going to lead you to the metaphoric door of the family home, but Saint Etienne’s ninth album, Home Counties, had this writer remembering dinner table conversations about parents growing up in Surrey – my mother lived in Croydon. Passing mention of some of the album’s song titles – “Whyteleafe” (a village in Tandridge), “Woodhatch” (a suburb of Reigate) – opened the door to all kinds of reminiscence: growing up in a house between the airport and the railway (when the latter was bombed during WWII, the windows all blew out); working at the Coffee Bean, on the high street of Wallington, the first coffee lounge in the home counties; bunking off with friends to catch trad jazz and modern jazz in local halls in Croydon, Sutton and Richmond.
This is all strangely apposite for Saint Etienne, as over the past fifteen years, in particular, they’ve become emotional geographers of London and its surrounds, as interested in the stories of everyday life as they are the larger myths we tell about the cities we both love and hate. While they’ve always been invested in the possibilities of London as an archetypal city of modernist endeavour, around the time of 2002’s Finisterre, the album that morphed into a beautiful, elegiac tribute to the city, co-directed by film makers Paul Kelly and Kieran Evans, that interest seemed to redouble on itself; much of the music and art they’ve been involved with since has seemed, somehow, to hymn the possibilities, latent, actualised or betrayed, of modern London.
With Home Counties, they turn their eye to the ring of counties that cosset London from the rest of Britain, places that the trio know well: Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs grew up in Reigate, Surrey; Sarah Cracknell in Old Windsor, Berkshire. As with much of Saint Etienne’s music, Home Counties works on multiple levels. At times it’s a kaleidoscopic rendering of the quotidian existence of home counties regulars, navigated as much around infrastructure as home life – the brilliantly titled “Train Drivers In Eyeliner”, musically a shuffle and glide across the floor that swoons into a woozy pop refrain, is a re-imagining of the railway network around the listening habits of union members: smart and touching, it’s a slyly socialist gesture that can’t help but feel like cocking a snook at the ongoing dismantling of public services.
Elsewhere, Saint Etienne focus back on what’s made them so great over the decades: an eye to the dance floor, the other eye on the glamorous glory of pop at its finest, fingers thumbing through crates of dusty old records uncovering lost sounds, while casting sideways glances at the music happening on the margins. For Home Counties, this means a clutch of glistening electronic pop gems: the irresistible rush of “Out Of My Mind”, the sturm und drang of “Heather”’s stressed textures, the stealthy sashay of lead single “Magpie Eyes”, which struts into view with a bassline that’s pure Peter Hook.
Indeed, here’s something of the index of possibility to the album’s nineteen songs: from the dream-pop melancholy of “Whyteleafe”, where an office worker clocks in and out of the day-to-day in a ‘municipal dream’, on into the late-night, gilded disco of “Dive”, and the 1960s romance of “Underneath The Apple Tree”, all Motown snares and slapback echo, a Northern Soul blinder of a song, Home Counties might well be the album to play to people who’ve always wondered exactly what Saint Etienne do, and how they manage, somehow, to reanimate so much that’s good about the past of pop music without becoming glib, acritical poptimists.
Most importantly, while they’re often now looking backward, over their collective shoulder – long gone are the acid house dreams of “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” and Foxbase Alpha – their recuperations of a lost Britain are mindful of the dangers of nostalgia, while understanding there’s much of worth to be salvaged from a modernist Britain that was meant to grow out of a collective social contract signed after WWII. That social contract, of course, was ripped apart by decades of Tory rule and the betrayals of New Labour.
Under the shadow of Brexit, then, it’s hard not to hear a song like “Sweet Arcadia” – the album’s breathtaking finale, eight minutes of swoon and surrender, and one of their most expansive, hallucinatory idylls of tone and texture – as being about rather more than just the plotlanders of 1920s and 1930s Essex, an anarchic group who embraced the notion of the ‘makeshift landscape’, living in jerry-rigged railway carriages, converted boats, or improvised cottages. Listening in the now, it’s as much about a dream of a utopia to be, perhaps impossible to reach, but still well worth the striving: an emotional state that Saint Etienne have long understood, and captured in their music.
Q&A
Pete Wiggs
Home Counties is grounded in the geographies of your youth – you were born in Reigate, Surrey…
I’ve got really fond memories of living in a 1960s close – one of our neighbours lived in an architect house with a crazy paved chimney that looked very Brady Bunch, and [there was] another couple, Vera and Norman, who were like a stylish George and Mildred, who called their house Veno. Bob lived nearby and we’d get together in school holidays and weekends – our mums met at the shopping parade that’s in the gatefold of the sleeve.
You’ve mentioned the love-hate relationship with the home counties at the core of the record.
In the ‘80s living in Croydon there was definitely a pervading sense of narrow-mindedness and after-dark violence that wasn’t so evident a short train ride away in London. After initially thinking it drab and boring I grew to love a lot of the architecture – both urban and suburban in Croydon, lots of it has been ruined with pebbledash and the wrong windows.
The album was produced by Shawn Lee – how did you connect with Shawn, and what did he bring to Home Counties?
We first met Shawn when we were spending a lot of time at the Xenomania studios and he was doing a stint there. Sarah wrote “Dive” with Carwyn Ellis and he suggested recording at Shawn’s – we loved the result and were into Shawn’s ‘oeuvre’ as it were and as we’d met already it seemed like a good idea to try some ideas out.
INTERVIEW: JON DALE
Originally published in Uncut’s November 2015 issue (Take 222). Words: Tom Pinnock
“I really was terrible in the beginning,” laughs Linda Ronstadt. “I had no idea what I was doing. It wasn’t until about 1980 that I really started to learn how to sing.”
While the millions of fans who repeatedly sent her ’70s work to the top of the American charts would likely disagree with her humble assessment, Ronstadt’s words are testament to her eagerness to try new things. Over her long career, the Arizona-born singer has tackled a variety of styles, from majestic country-rock songs written by James Taylor, Jackson Browne and her friends in the Eagles, right through to Gilbert & Sullivan operas, jazz standards and Spanish-language mariachi, a reflection of her part-Mexican heritage.
Although the effects of Parkinson’s have left her now unable to sing, Ronstadt has lost none of her deep passion for music. “I’ve been a singer all my life,” she says, “so it’s very odd not to be able to do that. Especially when I go to visit my family, as we always sang together and now we can’t. But I can play music in my head – I’ve got a huge jukebox in my brain.”
______________________________
Silk Purse Capitol, 1970 Following her work with The Stone Poneys and ignored solo debut Hand Sown… Home Grown, Ronstadt went full-on country for her second – heading to Nashville to cut versions of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “Lovesick Blues”.
RONSTADT: I met Kenny Edwards in 1965, and he, Bobby Kimmel and I formed a little group called The Stone Poneys. “Different Drum” was a hit for us. The label wanted me to go solo in the beginning, but I felt it was disloyal, and I wasn’t ready to be a solo artist. Kenny was interested in seeking truth and beauty, so after a couple of years he went off to India on a quest, and I went solo. By 1970, all of us at The Troubadour [in LA] were listening to traditional country, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard. But we were also laminating rock’n’roll over the top. They needed to have a little bit more aggressive interaction, we thought. I liked Merle Haggard but also Chuck Berry, so you try to get them both in there! I went to Nashville to record Silk Purse, but Californian country has a different groove to it. We had much more liberal attitudes on the West Coast. As for the cover, at that time, you didn’t wanna dress straight, you wanted to look funky. I didn’t know what in the world that meant, but I knew funky had something to do with earthiness. So I thought of this character, Moonbeam McSwine, from a cartoon called Li’l Abner – she was always sitting in a pen with pigs, very glamorous but a hillbilly with a ripped skirt and a torn blouse. So I thought I’d do a send-up of Moonbeam McSwine, to out-funk everybody. It was a joke, I figured everybody would know what I was talking about. I don’t know that they did.
______________________________
Linda Ronstadt Capitol, 1972 Her third album, a commercial failure, is now seen as a country-rock classic. And in assembling her backing band, Ronstadt inadvertently put the Eagles together, too…
I had a hand in forming the Eagles, yes! But it was their talent and their mutual interaction that really did it. I asked my friend John Boylan if he’d help me put a band together. So we walked to The Troubadour one Monday night, and heard this band called Shiloh onstage. They were playing my version of “Silver Threads And Golden Needles” exactly off the record, including the guitar solo. So I thought, ‘Maybe I can just hire this band, they already know the arrangements!’ But I had some players already, so we went and asked Don Henley, the drummer in Shiloh, if he’d like to play for my next tour. Then I needed a guitar-player, so I asked Glenn Frey, who used to sing with my boyfriend, JD Souther. When we were on the road, Glenn and Don roomed together, and they each discovered that the other was a good singer and writer, so they started working together. By the end of the tour, they decided to form a band. John suggested Randy Meisner to play bass and I suggested Bernie Leadon, so those four became my band with the idea that they’d go on their own as soon as they got a deal.
There were a lot of great writers around then. California is like a big lens, people would come from other places and California would focus them. A guy like Bernie would come from Florida, or Glenn would come from Michigan, or Don from Texas, and by the time they got to California the Californian sensibility would put its own little spin on things. Then it would be broadcast to the world. Neil Young is another one – I still think he’s one of the best guys that ever came out of rock’n’roll, he’s just brilliant.
Before this album was released, we were in Tennessee doing The Johnny Cash Show. The show took a long time to tape. After we finished, Neil Young said he was gonna go do some recording and asked if I’d come and sing a harmony. James Taylor was on that same show, so he came along to play. He wound up playing
a six-string banjo. We recorded “Heart Of Gold” and “Old Man”. It took us all night – it was dawn and snowing when we came out. My knees were sore because the only way James and I could get on the same mic was for me to kneel and for him to sit down in the chair. If I knelt up and stretched I could just about share a mic with him!
OK, headline news here: the prismatically great new Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith; the surprisingly strong reunion of Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird; essential Link Wray and Joe Henderson/Alice Coltrane reissues; Širom, the third signings to Tak:Til after 75 Dollar Bill and Natural Information Society; and a deep ambient drone from Monty Adkins.
6 Various Artists – ‘ABATWA (The Pygmy): Why Did We Stop Growing Tall?’ (Glitterbeat Records)
7 Marry Waterson & David A Jaycock – Death Had Quicker Wings Than Love (One Little Indian)
8 Various Artists – Soul Of A Nation: Afro-Centric Visions In The Age Of Black Power – Underground Jazz, Street Funk & The Roots Of Rap 1968-79 (Soul Jazz)
9 Mapache – Mapache (Spiritual Pajamas)
10 Zara McFarlane – Arise (Brownwood)
11 Terrace Martin Presents The Pollyseeds – Up & Away (Ropeadope)
12 Psychic Temple – Psychic Temple IV (Joyful Noise)
13 The Waterboys – Out Of All This Blue (BMG)
14 Daphni – Fabric Live 93: Daphni (Fabric)
15 Širom – I Can Be A Clay Snapper (Tak:til)
16 Joe Henderson Featuring Alice Coltrane – Earth (Jazz Dispensary)
17 Protomartyr – Relatives In Descent (Domino)
18 Lee Ranaldo – Electric Trim (Mute)
19 Moses Sumney – Aromanticism (Jagjaguwar)
20 The Clientele – Music For The Age Of Miracles (Tapete)
21 Pep Llopis – Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonautes (Freedom To Spend)
22 Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – The Kid (Western Vinyl)
23 Ka Baird – Sapropelic Pycnic (Drag City)
24 Wand – Plum (Drag City)
25 Monty Adkins – Shadows And Reflections (Cronica)
First mounted as a theatrical event by its four illustrious creator-composers five years ago, Planetarium is a head-spinning musical tribute to the cosmos that might’ve awed even Carl Sagan. In fact, the 75 minutes of music here can feel so overwhelming in scope, they may very well contain every sound in the known universe save for one.
That’s the noise made by the clunky, enormous laser projectors traditionally found inside the celestially themed theatres that inspired the album’s title. True, there’s not much room left over when this music is at its densest, like in the suitably huge-sounding climax of “Jupiter” as Sufjan Stevens’ falsetto dissolves into fragments and bursts of programmed drums slam against a barrage of brass. Yet there’s still a little space if listeners want to imagine the groan of a projector’s motor as the laser tilts toward the dome up above, drawing the moons of Io and Gannymede in bright skinny lines of orange and blue.
Despite the associations the album title invites, it was not the objective of Planetarium’s creators to craft a successor to Gustav Holst’s The Planets or Dark Side Of The Moon as a soundtrack for these special places where schoolkids, astronomy enthusiasts and stoned teenagers gathered to contemplate the great beyond. For one thing, the work was initially devised for a classical concert hall, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw Eindhoven having gotten the project started when it commissioned a piece from Nico Muhly. An acclaimed young composer and sometime arranger for Joanna Newsom and Anohni, Muhly took it as an opportunity to collaborate with Stevens and another close friend: Bryce Dessner, The National’s guitarist and an increasingly accomplished avant-classical composer in his own right. Stevens then brought on James McAlister, his percussionist since the tour for the singer’s 2003 breakthrough Michigan.
After developing the music together (with Stevens handling the lyrics), they enlisted a string quartet and a battalion of trombonists to help them perform the piece in Amsterdam, London, Sydney and Brooklyn in 2012 and 2013 before the foursome returned to their respective endeavours. The new album combines recordings made during that period with later enhancements, tweaks and additions, done with the goal of crafting a standalone work rather than a document of the original live incarnation.
As a result of all that painstaking effort, what might’ve been a one-off footnote in its creators’ careers is often as rich, imaginative and fulfilling as anything in their collective oeuvre. It’s also the most difficult to categorize, the heady swirl of sound encompassing everything from the kitschy flourishes of sci-fi movie soundtracks to prog-rock bombast to new-age ambient drift to propulsive techno. It also represents a successful synthesis of the maximalist aesthetic in many of Dessner and Muhly’s classical ventures and the adventurous pop songcraft that’s Stevens’ forte.
In regards to its singer’s contributions, Planetarium is further evidence that Stevens is at his best when he opts to scale up, not down. As he did on the similarly ambitious state-themed duo of Michigan and Illinois (2005), he hopscotches between a variety of subjects, perspectives and treatments without losing his focus. His principal strategy here is to use the classical myths that ascribed the planets with the properties of gods as springboards for more personal reveries. In the exquisitely dreamy “Venus”, Stevens combines an ode to the goddess of love with his own reminiscing about “Methodist summer camp” and adolescent games of “you show me yours, show you mine”. By contrast, the subject of the stormier “Mars” prompts an apocalyptic vision of endless war and a final test of love’s redemptive powers. (Stevens’ lyrics have rarely been so suffused with the Christian mysticism that’s long been an element in his writing.)
That vast heavenly canvas also serves as a place to project political themes as well as personal ones. In “Earth” – a shape-shifting hymn that, at 15 minutes, virtually counts as a song cycle unto itself — Stevens laments the “paranoia” and “inner anguish” that can make our experience on terra firma seem so small and petty, thereby drawing our eyes and thoughts upward.
It’s this sense of childlike awe at the stars above and the possibilities they represent which Planetarium most strongly evokes with its bold and varied take on the music of the spheres. (Indeed, we’ll be lucky if the year yields another headphone album as sumptuous as this one.) Yet Stevens tempers that awe with a suspicion he shared with the ancient Greeks and Romans. That’s the notion the gods who reside up there are just as flawed as we are.
Q&A
Bryce Dessner
What brought this team together to make Planetarium?
Well, Nico, Sufjan and I have worked together for years, and obviously James has been playing with Sufjan from even before Illinois. Both Sufjan and Nico have been very involved in pretty much all of the National records since 2006 or so. Nico and I also have very classical backgrounds so we do a lot of work together in that area. There was an intention to really collaborate on the composition together and the concept of making a song for each planet was a really great vehicle. I think it’s something Sufjan had wanted to do for a long time — obviously there’s a lot of cosmic mythology in his music to begin with!
Was the work also a chance to delve into this huge swath of space-inspired music? The references run from Gustav Holst to Pink Floyd to ambient techno.
There’s some Isao Tomita ‘70s synth music in there, too. Most of all, we wanted the songs to be good. The project could’ve easily just been an orchestral or avant-garde or ambient piece but the distinguishing thing about this is that there are these beautiful songs which we really feel say something. In terms of the artistic scope, we didn’t curtail it at all — we decided to go all in and let it be this vast piece. So there are these instrumental interludes that feel really composed and also these moments that are more improvised, which we really love. It was always about going further.
INTERVIEW: JASON ANDERSON
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have been busy on their latest soundtrack project, Wind River.
The film is the directorial debut from Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan and stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as they investigate the murder of a teenage girl on the remote Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.
Scroll down to hear “Three Season In Wyoming” from Cave and Ellis’ original score.
“The soundtrack to the beautiful Wind River was first and foremost the incessant wind or the grieving silence of the snow,” Cave and Ellis said, according to Pitchfork. “Amid those elemental forces, we made a kind of ghost score where voices whisper and choirs rise up and die away and electronics throb and pulse.”
The Psychedelic Furs have announced details of ‘The Singles Tour’; their first run of UK shows in five years.
The band’s current line-up is headed by brothers Richard and Tim Butler. Expect to hear “Sister Europe”, “Love My Way”, “Heaven”, “The Ghost In You” and “Pretty In Pink”. The band’s last studio album was 1991’s World Outside.
Tour dates are below.
Friday, September 01 – Glasgow O2 Academy
Saturday, September 02 – Leeds O2 Academy
Sunday, September 03 – Manchester O2 Ritz
Tuesday, September 05 – Birmingham O2 Institute
Wednesday, September 06 – Bristol O2 Academy
Thursday, September 07 – Brighton Concorde 2 SOLD OUT
Saturday, September 09 – London O2 Forum Kentish Town
Sunday, September 10 – Oxford O2 Academy
Monday, September 11 – Norwich UEA
Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith has hinted that the California band could be set to retire.
The drummer, who first joined the band in 1988, was speaking to Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk when he suggested that age could be taking its toll on the band – with Smith, singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea all in their mid-fifties.
“We were riding in a van after a gig and Flea was like, ‘How much longer do you think we should… How do you think we should end this?’”, Smith said.
“I was, like, ‘I don’t know!’ I want to make records, I still love making records, but the touring part… I don’t know if we can continue.”
He added: “I mean, three of us are 54 years old — Anthony, me and Flea. Josh [Klinghoffer, guitarist] is 38 or 39, so he’s a young man. But I don’t know if we can continue to do the long tours — the year, year and a half we normally do. That’s a good question.”
But he also suggested that the band could instead strip back their extensive touring schedule to make time for their families instead.
“We all have families and different things, your priorities shift a little bit. You kinda see that what’s gonna work for you maybe doesn’t necessarily work for other bands”, he said.
“But again, we’re just so grateful that people want to come and see us play, and we love to perform. I don’t know in the future how that’s gonna look.”
The tracklisting has been revealed for David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977 – 1982), the third in a series of box sets spanning David Bowie‘s career from 1969 onwards.
The follow-up to the awarding winning and critically acclaimed David Bowie: Five Years (1969 – 1973) and David Bowie: Who Can I Be Now? (1974 – 1976) will be released on September 29 by Parlophone Records and will contain a brand new remix of the 1979 album Lodger by producer, Tony Visconti.
Released as 11 CDs and across 13 albums – as well as a digital download – the box set features all of the material officially released by Bowie between 1977 and 1982.
It includes the so-called ‘Berlin Trilogy’ of albums on which he collaborated with Visconti and Brian Eno as well as the Baal EP, appearing here for the very first time in its entirety on CD, the Stage live album – appeared in two different formats – and is closed by Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).
The Lodger remix was started with Bowie’s blessing before his passing in January last year. This version of the album will also feature newly ‘remixed’ artwork featuring unseen images from the original cover session from the archive of the Estate of photographer Duffy.
Also exclusive to each box is Re:Call 3, a new compilation featuring remastered contemporary single versions, non-album singles and b-sides, and songs featured on soundtracks. “Beauty And The Beast (extended version)” and “Breaking Glass (Australian single version)” are making their debuts on CD and digitally.
The box sets will be accompanied by a book: 128 pages in the CD box and 84 in the vinyl set.
Re:Call 3 (non-album singles, single versions and b-sides) (remastered) (1CD)*
* Exclusive to ‘A New Career In A New Town (1977-1982)’
And here’s the main CD and vinyl tracklisting:
LOW
Side 1
1. Speed Of Life
2. Breaking Glass
3. What In The World
4. Sound And Vision
5. Always Crashing In The Same Car
6. Be My Wife
7. A New Career In A New Town
Side 2
1. Warszawa
2. Art Decade
3. Weeping Wall
4. Subterraneans
“HEROES”
Side 1
1. Beauty And The Beast
2. Joe The Lion
3. “Heroes”
4. Sons Of The Silent Age
5. Blackout
Side 2
1. V-2 Schneider
2. Sense Of Doubt
3. Moss Garden
4. Neuköln
5. The Secret Life Of Arabia
“HEROES” E.P.
Side 1
1. “Heroes”/”Helden” (German album version)
2. “Helden” (German single version)
Side 2
1. “Heroes”/”Héros” (French album version)
2. “Héros” (French single version)
STAGE (Original)
Side 1
1. Hang On To Yourself
2. Ziggy Stardust
3. Five Years
4. Soul Love
5. Star
Side 2
1. Station To Station
2. Fame
3. TVC 15
Side 3
1. Warszawa
2. Speed Of Life
3. Art Decade
4. Sense Of Doubt
5. Breaking Glass
Side 4
1. “Heroes”
2. What In The World
3. Blackout
4. Beauty And The Beast
STAGE (2017)
Side 1
1. Warszawa
2. “Heroes”
3. What In The World
Side 2
1. Be My Wife
2. The Jean Genie *
3. Blackout
4. Sense Of Doubt
Side 3
1. Speed Of Life
2. Breaking Glass
3. Beauty And The Beast
4. Fame
Side 4
1. Five Years
2. Soul Love
3. Star
4. Hang On To Yourself
5. Ziggy Stardust
6. Suffragette City *
Side 5
1. Art Decade
2. Alabama Song
3. Station To Station
Side 6
1. Stay
2. TVC 15
* Previously unreleased
LODGER
LODGER (2017 Tony Visconti mix)
Side 1
1. Fantastic Voyage
2. African Night Flight
3. Move On
4. Yassassin (Turkish for: Long Live)
5. Red Sails
Side 2
1. D.J.
2. Look Back In Anger
3. Boys Keep Swinging
4. Repetition
5. Red Money
SCARY MONSTERS (AND SUPER CREEPS)
Side 1
1. It’s No Game (Part 1)
2. Up The Hill Backwards
3. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
4. Ashes To Ashes
5. Fashion
Side 2
1. Teenage Wildlife
2. Scream Like A Baby
3. Kingdom Come
4. Because You’re Young
5. It’s No Game (Part 2)
RE:CALL 3
Side 1
1. “Heroes” (single version)
2. Beauty And The Beast (extended version)
3. Breaking Glass (Australian single version)
4. Yassassin (single version)
5. D.J. (single version)
Side 2
1. Alabama Song
2. Space Oddity (1979 version)
3. Ashes To Ashes (single version)
4. Fashion (single version)
5. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (single version)
Side 3
1. Crystal Japan
2. Under Pressure (single version) – Queen and David Bowie
3. Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (soundtrack album version)
4. Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy * – David Bowie and Bing Crosby
* mono
Side 4
Bertolt Brecht’s Baal
1. Baal’s Hymn
2. Remembering Marie A.
3. Ballad Of The Adventurers
4. The Drowned Girl
5. The Dirty Song
The running order for Re:Call 3 CD differs from the vinyl version
1. “Heroes” (single version)
2. Beauty And The Beast (extended version)
3. Breaking Glass (Australian single version)
4. Yassassin (single version)
5. D.J. (single version)
6. Alabama Song
7. Space Oddity (1979 version)
8. Ashes To Ashes (single version)
9. Fashion (single version)
10.Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (single version)
11.Crystal Japan
12.Under Pressure (single version) – Queen and David Bowie
Bertolt Brecht’s Baal
13.Baal’s Hymn
14.Remembering Marie A.
15.Ballad Of The Adventurers
16.The Drowned Girl
17.The Dirty Song
18.Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (soundtrack album version)
19.Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy * – David Bowie and Bing Crosby
* mono
In the late summer of 1972, the Melody Maker’s Richard Williams took a revelatory trip around the record shops and studios of Kingston in the company of Chris Blackwell, from Island Records. Blackwell’s ambition was to find the rawest “real reggae” and expose the rest of the world to its potency, and the project involved visits to Joe Higgs, a Toots & The Maytals session, and the studio owned by a gun-toting figure known as Harry J. There, the pair found a popular local group little-known outside the island.
The group were called The Wailers, absorbed in the recording of “Slave Driver” for the album that would become Catch A Fire. Williams was impressed, and described the frontman Bob Marley as “the Jamaican genius”, as “a virtuoso, on a par with the very finest soul singers… If he could do nothing else he’d still become a singer of world stature.” Catch A Fire, he speculated, “ought to awaken everyone to the power of this island’s music.”
When Williams’ article first appeared in the Melody Maker, six months ahead of the album’s release, one imagines it was greeted by no little scepticism. What looked like hyperbole, however, was soon revealed to be uncanny prescience. Acclaim for Catch A Fire was soon followed by a string of righteous albums, epochal gigs, and even hit singles, which could encompass not only Marley’s uncompromising faith and politics, but also his universalist touch. Here was a rebel whose anthems transcended their cause; a fierce musical puritan whose songwriting genius brought him success far beyond the world of reggae. Not so much the first “third world superstar”, as he was frequently anointed, but a superstar for the ages, in any context.
The Uncut team have provided in-depth reviews of every one of Marley’s albums, creating an invaluable path through one of popular music’s most fiendish discographies. Alongside them, you’ll find vivid Marley interviews that we’ve uncovered in the NME and Melody Maker vaults: Richard Williams’ trailblazing first piece; gripping reportage from Kingston compounds, London exile and American tours; revealing insights into this most charismatic of musicians.
A legend, rooted in reality: here’s the definitive guide to understanding Bob Marley. “Must run home like mind,” he tells the Maker’s Ray Coleman in 1976. “Keep open.”
Van Morrison has announced details of his 37th studio album, Roll With The Punches.
The album consists of original compositions alongside songs by the likes of Bo Diddley, Mose Allison, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Lightnin’ Hopkins.
Roll With The Punches was produced by Van Morrison and includes contributions from Chris Farlowe, Georgie Fame and Jeff Beck.
You can hear “Bring It On Home To Me” below.
Van commented: “From a very early age, I connected with the blues. The thing about the blues is you don’t dissect it – you just do it. I’ve never over-analysed what I do; I just do it. Music has to be about just doing it and that’s the way the blues works – it’s an attitude. I was lucky to have met people who were the real thing – people like John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Witherspoon, Bo Diddley, Little Walter & Mose Allison. I got to hang out with them and absorb what they did. They were people with no ego whatsoever and they helped me learn a lot.”
“The songs on Roll With The Punches – whether I’ve written them or not – they’re performance oriented. Each song is like a story and I’m performing that story. That’s been forgotten over years because people over-analyse things. I was a performer before I started writing songs and I’ve always felt like that’s what I do.”
The tracklising for Roll With The Punches is:
Roll With the Punches (Van Morrison & Don Black) Transformation (Van Morrison) I Can Tell (Bo Diddley & Samuel Bernard Smith) Stormy Monday / Lonely Avenue (Stormy Monday – T-Bone Walker/Lonely Avenue – Doc Pomus) Goin’ To Chicago (Count Basie & Jimmy Rushing) Fame (Van Morrison) Too Much Trouble (Van Morrison) Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke) Ordinary People (Van Morrison) How Far From God (Sister Rosetta Tharpe) Teardrops From My Eyes (Rudy Toombs) Automobile Blues (Lightnin’ Hopkins) Benediction (Mose Allison) Mean Old World (Little Walter) Ride On Josephine (Bo Diddley)
Van Morrison plays a previously announced UK tour in the autumn. The dates are:
November 6: Edinburgh Playhouse
November 7: Glasgow Royal Court
November 12: London Eventim Apollo
November 13: Birmingham Symphony Hall
November 15: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
November 20: Cardiff St. David’s Hall
November 21: Bristol Colston Hall
November 24: Torquay Princess Theatre
November 25: Plymouth Pavilions
December 4: Belfast Europa Hotel
December 5: Belfast Europa Hotel
Steve Van Zandt has announced details of his first major UK tour for 25 years.
The seven-date Soulfire Tour, with his band Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul, begins at London’s Roundhouse on November 4.
The tour follows a handful of European dates last month which included only one UK show in Manchester.
The tour will see Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul celebrate the release of his first album in 15 years, entitled Soulfire.
Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday 14 July and are available at aegpresents.co.uk.
The tour dates are:
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 4: LONDON ROUNDHOUSE
MONDAY NOVEMBER 6: BRISTOL O2 ACADEMY
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 8: LEEDS O2 ACADEMY
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 10: BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12: GLASGOW O2 ACADEMY
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 14: LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 16: NEWCASTLE O2 ACADEMY
Solo success landed late and hard for Chris Stapleton. After years as a jobbing songwriter in Nashville – creating mainstream country hits for the likes of Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Dierks Bentley – he was in his late thirties by the time of 2015 debut, Traveller. The album went double platinum in the US, due in no small part to a duet performance with Justin Timberlake at the CMA Awards that tore the roof off. Stapleton went on to win armfuls of gongs, including two Grammys, as Traveller topped the Billboard charts.
All of which means that its follow-up has plenty to live up to. Thankfully, the first volume of From A Room (a second is due in December) doesn’t disappoint. Stapleton has wisely stuck with the same team that fashioned Traveller, with Nashville’s go-to guy, Dave Cobb, again called on as co-producer. There’s an almost casual, easy-swinging feel to much of Stapleton’s work that goes some way to explaining his popularity, wed to a burly image – big beard, wide hat, voice like an agitated bear – that taps into the outlaw tradition of Waylon Jennings or Tompall Glaser. The jocular air of “Them Stems” is typical, a loping blues (and a corollary to Traveller’s “Might As Well Get Stoned”) that catalogues a doper’s dismay over a no-show dealer. And “Up To No Good Livin’” is a penitent country chugger that might’ve fitted well into George Jones’ songbook, its wayward protagonist having “done a whole lot of shit not permitted by law”.
Yet there’s also a more ruminative side to Stapleton that can be acutely powerful. This is perhaps best expressed on “Either Way”, a despairing acoustic ballad with a soaring vocal that’s enough to halt time in its tracks. “I Was Wrong”, meanwhile, exudes an old-school Southern groove that recalls both Ray Charles and the Eric Clapton of the early ’70s. Indeed, From A Room: Volume One manages to pull off that rare trick of sounding both fresh and familiar, as dauntless as it is consoling.
LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy has revealed that he and David Bowie nearly recorded an album together.
The pair had worked together a few times prior to Bowie’s death. Murphy recorded Bowie’s backing vocals for Arcade Fire‘s “Reflektor” and Murphy remixed Bowie’s The Next Day track “Love Is Lost“. Murphy also later played percussion on Bowie’s final album Blackstar, but has revealed that he was initially meant to have a bigger role.
Speaking to Annie Mac on BBC Radio 1, Murphy said, “He was so gracious and so friendly… I had an email friendship with David Bowie, which one of the weirder, more amazing things.”
Regards his Blackstar role Murphy explained, he “got overwhelmed” when asked by Bowie and Tony Visconti to co-produce the record.
Explaining that he didn’t feel like he “belonged” in that position, Murphy also revealed that there had also been plans to record a collaborative album together. “I reached out to David and said, ‘I’d love to do a record just me and you’,” Murphy explained. “He said, ‘It’s funny you mention that, please look me up when you get back to New York’.” They met up, Murphy says, but Bowie had already started working on what would later become Blackstar.
Listen to the full interview with Murphy here. The Bowie talk begins at the 18:30 mark.
The Beatles‘ Yellow Submarine turns 50 next year and to mark the occasion, the Apple Corporation is authorizing a comic book adaptation of the film.
The comic book has been written and illustrated by incoming MAD Magazine editor Bill Morrison and will be published by Titan Books.
“We’re thrilled to be publishing The Beatles: Yellow Submarine for the 50th Anniversary of this fantastic movie,” Titan publishing director Chris Teather told the Hollywood Reporter. “We can’t wait for Beatles fans to experience this official adaptation.”
In addition to the Yellow Submarine comic adaptation, Titan Merchandise will release a line of Titan’s vinyl collectibles based on the movie. The “All Together Now” collection features two versions of the band, as well as Blue Meanies, the Apple Bonker and the Four-Headed Bulldog.
How Julee Cruise’s haunting and glacial theme song set the tone for David Lynch’s off-kilter TV series. Originally published in Uncut’s June 2017 issue. Words: Tom Pinnock
_____________________________
“Excalibur Sound was the darkest, dingiest place imaginable,” says composer Angelo Badalamenti, recalling the Manhattan studio where he and David Lynch produced much of Twin Peaks’ music. “The lights would flicker, the electricity would go in and out, like something from a David Lynch movie. When we went to see it, there was a terrible odour to the room. It was tiny, the mice were even running around hunchback. But David loved it – he said, ‘This place creates such a beautiful mood for us, Angelo, doesn’t it?’ I said, ‘Well, I guess…’”
From such humble surroundings came a wealth of beautiful and dark music; both for Julee Cruise’s dream-pop masterpiece, 1989’s Floating Into The Night, and for Twin Peaks, Lynch’s maverick TV series, which returns for its third season in May after 26 years away.
Its theme, a glacial ballad driven by electric piano and what sounds like a twanging bass guitar, was an instrumental version of “Falling”, a highlight of Cruise’s album, written and produced by Badalamenti and Lynch after discovering the singer during the making of 1986’s Blue Velvet. “David would say, ‘Julee, imagine you’re whispering to your lover’,” says Cruise today, remembering the sessions. “[At first] I didn’t want to sound like that, though, I didn’t want to show that side of me.”
While Badalamenti, who has just turned 80, has promised Lynch he won’t say anything about the new series – even its theme – he’s keen to stress how important the music of Twin Peaks is to him. “Some of my finest moments have come from my long-term professional association with David Lynch,” he says. “And the music for Twin Peaks is probably the work I’m most proud of. David and I have just an unbelievable relationship… David would verbalise things that he has in mind, pictures in his head, and then I would write music. On ‘Falling’, David set the tone for me, and I understood. That kind of relationship is a marriage made in heaven.”
___________________________
ANGELO BADALAMENTI (songwriting, keyboards): The first time I met Julee was when I had a workshop in Lower Manhattan, for a country show I had written. She was one of the members of the cast.
JULEE CRUISE (vocals): I was a belter. I’d come from Minneapolis, where I was an actor in theatre. My background was French horn and I was really good, but I decided to be an actress. I was always a character actor and a belter – I didn’t feel comfortable singing real soft or real pretty.
BADALAMENTI: When David Lynch and I were looking for an angelic voice for “Mysteries Of Love” [from Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet], I asked Julee if she knew any singers that could sing in that style. She sent up a couple of friends, but they didn’t cut it for me. Julee said, “Maybe I can give it a try.” I said, “Well, I know you as a show singer, a belter.” She said, “I think I can do it,” went home, did a little work, and as soon as she opened her mouth it was love at first sound.
CRUISE: It was the music that led me to that. “Mysteries Of Love” was meant to sound like This Mortal Coil with Liz Fraser, but I didn’t know that. I remember writing out the lyrics, because they were written on a napkin by David. I was horrified [singing so soft] at first. I was showing a side of me that I didn’t want to show, and that’s the beautiful side, the romantic side, so I approached it as a classical musician would.
BADALAMENTI: She did exactly what David and I were looking for, because she sounds like an angel. Once we’d written “Mysteries Of Love”, that started it all. I said to David, “Give me lyrics, you’re a lyric writer, you can do these things.” I’d write music to just about everything he gave me. I remember that “Falling” was simply one of the lyrics. Floating Into The Night was released before Twin Peaks, but David was well into the show and the concept by that point, so as we were doing songs for Julee, I’m sure David had Julee’s cuts in mind [for Twin Peaks].
CRUISE: We just concentrated on getting that sound right, getting those notes right, getting that feeling right. We started with piano and vocal in the office, then went to the studio.
KINNY LANDRUM (keyboards, sampler): “Falling” as a song was completed sometime in the Floating… sessions, which were something like summertime of ’89.
BADALAMENTI: There was nothing pristine about Excalibur Sound, but it was a fantastic place to work. Artie Polhemus, the owner of the studio, was the very best engineer, not only with recording but also with mixing and editing. I had some of the best jazz-oriented musicians in town. They could play anything. Kinny Landrum was a top-notch musician, and I had Vinnie Bell on guitar, who had some of the most unique electronic sounds of the day. On saxophone, Al Regni – we went to Eastman School Of Music together and he’s still my good friend today. Grady Tate is one of the best jazz drummers, I might even say, of all time – he played on virtually everything on Twin Peaks. He had a great sense of humour: once he said, “Every time I do an Angelo and David session, I play in two tempos, slow and reverse.” David thinks music can be so much more beautiful if it’s played slower. Even when I started composing “Laura Palmer’s Theme”, David said, “Oh, Angelo, that’s beautiful, but play it slower, slower…” My God, I really felt like I was playing in reverse! But that, to David, is beautiful.
CRUISE: We recorded for almost a whole year. I was so scared with each new song. We had already set keys for every song, and they’re rather low. But because I brought the head voice in, it sounds higher. First we’d get the main vocal down, then I would sing it again and the second part would be a little softer, and less consonanty, then the third would be barely any consonants at all. I went home with a demo tape every day and thought, ‘This is awful work I’m doing, I sound terrible. The music is so great, but I’m not living up to it.’ So I decided I had no choice but to be myself and show that intimate, quiet beauty that is inside. It just came to life with the musicians, and making it a whole [in the mixes].
LANDRUM: We’d usually work from lead sheets, which had a melody and chords underneath, and we’d do what we thought was right for that particular piece of music. On “Falling”, Grady played some brushes on the cymbal and maybe a little bass drum, then it’s just me and Julee. Angelo may have played, but generally I played the stuff. The electric piano was done with a Yamaha DX7. The strings were generally a combination of a Roland D-550 and a Prophet T8. Angelo loved those ninth-chord suspensions, so the string parts are moving all the time.
BADALAMENTI: The ’50s is David’s world, or at least his world for the projects that he was doing. I’d heard those songs and I knew them, but at that time I was more into the jazz world, hipper things. Certainly, he had a passion for the ’50s, and it complemented his vision because of the mood of that music and of that period.
LANDRUM: When we were doing “Falling”, David says, “You got something that will sound ’50s?” I thought about the obvious things, like triplets in the upper part of the piano, but it didn’t seem right to me. Although the song had low notes in it, it didn’t have a bass part per se. So I said, “I’ve got this twangy Duane Eddy sound on my Emulator II [sampler] – what if I pitch that down in the bass register and play a bass part?” David said, “Let me hear it.” So I added a little amplitude modulation – what you’d call tremolo if it was on a guitar amp – and played ‘bom, bom-bom’, and David said, “That’s it, put it down.” I think it was one take. Floating… was recorded in summer 1989, and then the rest of the music for Twin Peaks was done in early 1990, before the pilot premiered in April. It was a little hectic.
BADALAMENTI: We recorded on two-inch tape, 16-track, and we separated every element. Not only did I get a final mix of what that cue was gonna be, but I did mixes of different variations from that, whether you’ve got a mix of just drums and bass, or drums and bass and vibraphone, etcetera. So you’re giving the editor of the film all sorts of variations on your major themes. If you watch Twin Peaks, there are so many variations on “Laura Palmer’s Theme” and the main title theme, and “Audrey’s Dance”. Every time those characters came back, David wanted to use some motif related to that.
LANDRUM: The very first thing we recorded for the TV show was “Laura Palmer’s Theme”. David was there for that session, and we recorded it in one afternoon. I remember doing overdubs to make “Falling” instrumental – they were done by me overdubbing a French horn part to play the melody on my Emulator II. I remember that because Angelo himself was a French horn player when he went to Eastman, but so was Julee Cruise, which surprised the heck out of me. But neither one of them had their chops up – French horn is one of the harder brass instruments to play, and if you haven’t played it in years, you can’t just pick it up and play it. Maybe we added some more strings, but I think that’s all we did to turn “Falling” into the Twin Peaks theme.
BADALAMENTI: So, all of a sudden, we’ve got Twin Peaks, and David’s in California. Sure enough, when they sent me the first series, David had put in “Falling” under the main title. It just was unreal. He singled that out to use as an instrumental, and the rest is history – especially the first three notes.
LANDRUM: I really don’t know if it was always intended to be the theme. In fact, I was kind of surprised that they were going to use that. Not that the song wasn’t good, but it was a song. It worked fine, though. I always tell people that David Lynch always does stuff on time, in budget – he’s a real pro. He might sort of seem like an ‘artiste’, but he’s a pro.
BADALAMENTI: I had no idea what the network thought of the music, but I guess they were happy, knowing that the audience was happy too! I haven’t listened to Floating Into The Night in so long, but the other day I just lay down on my couch and put on the album. I’ve gotta tell you, every cut on Julee’s album, her vocals, the music, the songs, it’s just so incredibly beautiful. The simplicity and the darkness, and the beauty of “Laura Palmer’s Theme” on Twin Peaks is just something that is remarkable, too.
CRUISE: To me, Floating… is the perfect album from tip to toe. That’s why so many people play it to have a baby, to make love, or to take a bubble bath! It’s become this iconic thing that has lasted forever, and it’s the thing I’m most proud of in my life. It’s everything, it’s the music itself, it’s the musicians, it’s David’s direction – David really is a musician, he just refuses to sing. I’ll say, “David, just go [sings note],” and he refuses to do it, still to this day!
BADALAMENTI: What I’m most proud of is once when I was in London, a woman came up to me and she told me that she had two children: “I’d just like to let you know, both of my children were conceived as your music was playing.” What better compliment? It just knocked me out.
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FACT FILE
Written by: Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch
Produced by: Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch
Performers: Julee Cruise (vocals), Angelo Badalamenti (keyboards), Kinny Landrum (keyboards, synthesiser), Grady Tate (drums)
Recorded at: Excalibur Sound, New York
Released: September 1989 (on Floating Into The Night); September 1990 (on Soundtrack From Twin Peaks); October 1990 (single)
Chart peak: UK 7; US –
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