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“There’s a tendency to think of Nick as some celestial apparition…”

Michael Bonner
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“There’s a tendency to think of Nick as some celestial apparition…”

Nick Drake is on the cover of the current issue of UNCUT. In this extract, we look at how a new biography of the beloved singer-songwriter illuminates his brief but indelible life and music... READ MORE: discover our Nick Drake cover story in full In a small turreted room in Wenlock Priory ...

Nick Drake is on the cover of the current issue of UNCUT. In this extract, we look at how a new biography of the beloved singer-songwriter illuminates his brief but indelible life and music…

In a small turreted room in Wenlock Priory sits a trunk of clothes that belonged to Nick Drake. Gabrielle Drake has owned the prior’s 16th-century private apartments since the 1980s, where she has meticulously and painstakingly restored one room after another. One room, however, has been turned over to her late brother, Nick. Aside from the trunk of his clothes, the plain details of a life are laid bare: boxes with letters, school reports, university essays, bank statements, tax returns, his recording contracts, photo albums and old passports along with posthumous publishing and royalty statements.

Among other sources, including his own new interviews with Drake’s friends and fellow musicians, this material has been of critical importance to author Richard Morton Jack, who has spent five years working on his new biography, Nick Drake – The Life. There, in the turreted room, sifting through the boxes, Morton Jack set out on a detailed archeological survey of Drake’s short life and slender musical career – three albums released between 1969 and 1972 prior to his death in November 1974 aged 26. Sometimes, he discovered, the slightest details could yield unexpected results. “There were small but satisfying bits of puzzle,” Morton Jack tells Uncut. “I’d find a letter from Nick’s grandmother saying, ‘Happy birthday, here’s a cheque for something.’ So I’d think, ‘Ah,that’s how he afforded his new guitar!’ I was able to be absolutely forensic about almost every aspect of his life.”

Morton Jack had previously helped with research for Gabrielle and Cally Calloman, who manages Drake’s musical estate, on 2014’s coffee-table volume, Remembered For A While. Along with essays, tributes and analysis, the book also included previously unseen photographs, family letters and Drake’s father Rodney’s diaries. “It was a really useful accompaniment to a serious fans’ appreciation of Nick’s work and a good way of scratching itches as far as curiosity about his life went,” says Morton Jack. “But I felt that it was a bit of a shame that there wasn’t a proper narrative. I think Cally was a bit resistant to the idea of ‘authorising’ a biography, because that word would carry with it connotations of control and of most importantly of saying this is the one holy scripture on Nick. Gabrielle was resistant to that, too, because she knows better than anyone how baffling and private and inscrutable her brother was.”

Critically, Morton Jack also intended to dispel many of the myths and inaccuracies that have accumulated around Drake – a strategy that clearly gained approval from Gabrielle. Writing in her introduction to The Life, Gabrielle says, “This not an Authorised Biography… But it is true that this is the only biography of my brother that has been written with my blessing.”

Gabrielle’s blessing also unlocked a number of doors that may otherwise have remained firmly shut. “Nick’s London friends have been least communicated with because they’re private individuals who have no desire for self-publicity and who aren’t normally the sort of people that give interviews,” says Morton Jack. “They were happy to invite me to their homes and show me their photo albums – especially Sophia Ryde, who died very sadly during the course of writing the book, but not before she and I had spent a pretty long time together, going over all her memories. That wouldn’t have been possible without Gabrielle’s involvement.”

Morton Jack confirms that there are no great revelations in the book – “‘Oh, my god, he was gay!’ Or, ‘Oh my god, he was on heroin!’ There was nothing like that.” Instead, one of the book’s great achievements is how a strong consensus of opinion builds around Nick’s character. “His friends remember him vividly,” explains Morton Jack. “I tried to include stories, especially ones which involve any sort of physicality with him. Like a box of matches exploding and Nick jumping up into the air. Someone told a story about cutting her arm and Nick being very helpful with finding bandages. Someone else told a story about Nick falling into a roof space and crashing through the ceiling. I felt those stories were worth including. They tethered him to us mere mortals. There’s a tendency to think of Nick as some celestial apparition. He was a normal bloke and most of his friends remember him quite well.

“One of the myths that’s built up around Nick was that he was crippled by stage fright. Literally no-one said that to me in the course of putting the book together. It was more that he thought he was wasting his time performing on stages in front of strangers who were clinking glasses. But he made lists of producers and made a tape, went round and he hustled – not to a huge extent, because he was lucky enough to be picked up quite quickly – but he was willing to do that. I think that says a lot about the kind of person he was.”

Nick Drake: The Life is published by John Murray Press on June 8

We‘re New Here – Damien

Mark Beaumont
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We‘re New Here – Damien

Meet Omen-inspired electronic funk quartet Damien, featuring Low’s Alan Sparhawk and his son Cyrus, in our JULY 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. “I’m finding it difficult to approach music from where Low was,” admits Alan Sparhawk, understandably, following the tragic loss of h...

Meet Omen-inspired electronic funk quartet Damien, featuring Low’s Alan Sparhawk and his son Cyrus, in our JULY 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

“I’m finding it difficult to approach music from where Low was,” admits Alan Sparhawk, understandably, following the tragic loss of his wife and bandmate Mimi Parker to cancer last November. “Whether it’s the songs, or trying to even just imagine ‘What is this? Where am I?’” So rather than inhabiting Low’s headspace, Sparhawk’s current energies are focused on a very different project, fronted by his old friend and Ween covers band cohort Marc Gartman.

After a year’s gestation in Duluth, Minnesota, jamming and recording in Sparhawk’s home studio, Damien emerged in March with a self-titled debut single – a dream-pop love song in Flaming Lips style, inspired by the selfless devotion of the nanny who hangs herself in The Omen declaring, “Damien, it’s all for you”. The macabre undercurrent continues thoughout their first album The Boy Who Drew Cats, half an hour of psychedelic house, electronic funk, Afro-Cuban rhythms and Mario Kart electronics retelling a Japanese fable that Gartman’s father would read him as a child: a boy is cast out of his town for his obsessive love of drawing cats, only to find himself lost in an abandoned church, hiding in a closet. “In the night he hears horrible screaming and ravaging of flesh,” Gartman explains with relish. “He wakes up in the morning and finds that the cats that he drew have come to life and saved him from a giant goblin rat. It always kinda kept with me.”

Damien also features Sparhawk’s son Cyrus on bass, the pair having already honed their chemistry in funk band Derecho. “Having family to still be musical with was a pretty powerful line to have through the last couple of years,” he says. “It’s really great when you’re trying to find the groove, you’re trying to find this elusive thing, because it’s all very unspoken. When you finally go, ‘There it is’… to be able to look across the room and give him a little bit of a grin, it’s a real joy. Mim saw us play a couple of times and she loved it. Her son playing music and having fun with his dad, it was really powerful.”

Sparhawk has found it personally beneficial to explore poppier and more danceable styles, while allowing Gartman to take the lead. “It’s nice to still come to music without it being ‘OK, what do you have to say now?’ There’s an ability to focus on other parts of the music and let it go through you without it having to go through certain gates in your mind.”

He is writing songs again, but doesn’t plan to revive the Low name. “Low was definitely Mim and I,” he says, subdued. “I’m still not sure what I am without Mim. It’s disorienting, and I’m really grateful that I have some ways of still playing music. It sounds kinda like a cliché, but definitely music is saving me. It’s proving to be one of the few things in the universe that I can go to somehow and it’s still just what it is. There’s parts of it that are untouched, but there are also parts that will never be the same. I guess at some point I’ll figure out my place in that, [but] I’m pleasantly surprised at how resilient music is.”

Damien’s The Boy Who Drew Cats is out now on Bandcamp and major streaming platforms.

The Smiths’ bassist Andy Rourke has died aged 59

Michael Bonner
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The Smiths’ bassist Andy Rourke has died aged 59

Andy Rourke, bassist for The Smiths, has died aged 59. Rourke’s death was announced today (May 19) by Johnny Marr on social media. Per Marr’s statement, Rourke died following “a lengthy illness with pancreatic cancer”. Marr also paid tribute to his former bandmate, writing: “Andy wil...

Andy Rourke, bassist for The Smiths, has died aged 59.

Rourke’s death was announced today (May 19) by Johnny Marr on social media. Per Marr’s statement, Rourke died following “a lengthy illness with pancreatic cancer”.

Marr also paid tribute to his former bandmate, writing: “Andy will be remembered as a kind and beautiful soul by those who knew him and as a supremely gifted musician by music fans.”

  • ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut

    • Rourke was best known for being the main bassist for The Smiths between 1982 and 1986, and again from 1986 to 1987. Rourke performed on all four of The Smiths’ studio albums: 1984’s The Smiths, 1985’s Meat Is Murder, 1986’s The Queen Is Dead and 1987’s Strangeways, Here We Come.

    Outside of The Smiths, Rourke also formed and performed with supergroup Freebass alongside New Order’s Peter Hook and the Stone Roses’ Mani. He also recorded with The Pretenders for their 1994 record Last Of The Independents, Killing Joke, and Moondog One with former Oasis guitarist Bonehead.

    Rourke met Marr at the age of 11, with the pair jamming together in the music room at their school. Four years later, after leaving school, Rourke formed The Smiths in Manchester with Marr, Morrissey and drummer Mike Joyce in 1982.

    Following the news of Rourke’s death, several musicians and members of the industry have paid tribute to the late bassist.

    The Smiths producer Stephen Street wrote: “I am so saddened to hear this news! Andy was a superb musician and a lovely guy. I haven’t been able to read any other news about details yet but I send my deepest condolences and thoughts to his friends and family. RIP”.

    Suede bassist Mat Osman wrote: “A total one-off – a rare bassist whose sound you could recognise straight away. I remember so clearly playing that Barbarism break over and over, trying to learn the riff, and marvelling at this steely funk driving the track along.”

Graham Nash – Now

Erin Osmon
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Graham Nash – Now

Legacy artists can sometimes become convinced that the past – and the sounds and lyrical themes that made them famous – should be left in the rearview mirror. Believing their best years, and best songs, are in front of them, such artists become subsumed in reinvention, trendy collaborations or m...

Legacy artists can sometimes become convinced that the past – and the sounds and lyrical themes that made them famous – should be left in the rearview mirror. Believing their best years, and best songs, are in front of them, such artists become subsumed in reinvention, trendy collaborations or mediocrity, which often renders them desperate or tepid. Think Joni Mitchell’s Dog Eat Dog or David Bowie’s Never Let Me Down for prime examples.

At first glance, Graham Nash’s Now hints at these trappings, its title suggesting a preoccupation with the present that may mean so long to the past. In fact, the record doesn’t stray too far from the magic of his wheelhouse. Fans of Crosby, Stills & Nash, and the singer’s first two ’70s solo works – Songs For Beginners and Wild Tales – will recognise this album’s touchstones: namely love, political outrage, seraphic vocal harmonies and a breezy blend of acoustic, electric and steel guitars.

With Now, Nash doesn’t shun his roots, but he does update his propensities for the modern day, singing of current political turmoil, environmental destruction and his love for wife Amy Grantham, 37 years his junior, whom he married in 2019. The artistic geography may be familiar, but the material is fresh.

“I used to think that I would never love again/I used to think that I’d be all on my own”, he sings to open the album, an attention-grabbing misdirect from the thematic core of the first song, “Right Now”. Instead of woe-is-me self-pity, the song turns defiant, thumbing its nose at those who’d wish to steal Nash’s joy or criticise his choices. “Here I am/Still Living my life/Right now”, he proclaims, like an old-growth oak tree weathering a storm. “Right now”, he repeats.

It’s this mix of old and new, and the self-awareness and social responsibility that comes with age, that propels the notion of “now” even as the new songs ring of Nash’s musical history. Fifty-two years ago, on “Chicago”, Nash detailed the violence and racism surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention and the subsequent trial of the Chicago Seven, when Black Panthers leader Bobby Seale was gagged and bound to a chair in the courtroom. Today, with “Golden Idol”, a similarly clear-eyed account of corruption, steered by a tempestuous electric guitar riff instead of a foreboding organ, he aims his pen at the Republican members of congress who’ve sought to diminish the terror of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

The key difference between the two songs is a palpable loss of optimism. Instead of proclaiming that “we can change the world”, he sings of politicians who are bought and paid for by lobbyists. “Tell me why”, he begs throughout, relaying not an artistic desperation, but a deeply human one, an amplification of reasonable Americans’ frustrations with a flawed system and the inaction that keeps it alive.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Threaded through Now is the hope and elation brought on by love, and Nash’s unselfconscious mission to sing of it. If “When It Comes To You” and “Follow Your Heart” are all dripping, adult contemporary-adjacent sentimentality, standout love song “It Feels Like Home” updates the scene he set in 1970 with “Our House”. Its sunny blend of harmonica, acoustic guitar and pedal steel recall Nash’s days in hippie Laurel Canyon, with lyrics that reaffirm his fondness for the refuge of a lover’s company.

“A Better Life”, the album’s second track, also recalls a moment on Songs For Beginners when Nash sings of “Better Days”. But here he updates his historical rumination on broken heartedness to a call for collective action, positing the notion that society has a duty to make better choices for the sake of future generations. A similar historical arc is traced with “Buddy’s Back”, a paean to the rock’n’roll pioneer that doubles as a trip down memory lane, recounting his formation of The Hollies with Allan Clarke.

Given the evident callbacks threaded throughout Now, and the earnestness of an octogenarian in love, cynics might assume Nash is out of ideas. However, there’s a certain bravery in a songwriter knowing his audience, his place in the world and the broader cultural conversation. That he’s been a working musician for more than 60 years and has also avoided ill-fitting collaborations and other discomfiting trends is quite the feat. In making work that continues to challenge oppressive systems and relay his tender feelings, it’s clear Nash is very much alive in the now.

Tinariwen – Amatssou

John Lewis
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Tinariwen – Amatssou

We’ve come to expect protest music to be straightforward, a case of goodies against baddies. In geopolitical terms, protest music means the colonialised against the colonialists, the Global South against the Global North. But the long history of the Tuareg rock band Tinariwen is an object lesson i...

We’ve come to expect protest music to be straightforward, a case of goodies against baddies. In geopolitical terms, protest music means the colonialised against the colonialists, the Global South against the Global North. But the long history of the Tuareg rock band Tinariwen is an object lesson in how messy and complicated rebellion can be. “Crazy things are happening/Incomprehension and confusion/Truth mixed with lies”, croons Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni on their latest album, over a wonderfully complicated 6/8 beat on “Iket Adjen” (Too Many Things).

Tinariwen see themselves as the voice of the Tuareg people who, spread out among several historically hostile countries, have been fighting multiple foes for decades, perhaps centuries. Their enemies include the governments of Mali, Niger, Libya, Algeria, Burkina Faso and Nigeria; the Kremlin-linked Russian mercenaries the Wagner group (hired by Mali’s military to do their dirty work); and the region’s many Salafist fundamentalists, like IS and Boko Haram, who would happily outlaw musicians like Tinariwen.

It means Tinariwen’s default setting is that of perpetual insurgency against pretty much everything. What are Tinariwen rebelling against? To quote Marlon Brando: whaddya got? It’s an outsider position that fits in with the spirit of rock’n’roll. We might not understand what they’re saying in Tamashek – nor might we necessarily support or even understand their cause – but there’s no mistaking the urgency and defiant swagger that pervades their music.

Amatssou translates as “beyond the fear” and this album reflects the increasingly parlous state of the Tuareg people across Saharan Africa. The opening track, “Kek Alghalm” (The World) is a live favourite they’ve performed for years, but one that here sets the mood of militancy. “Why so much silence, all over the world?” sings Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni over a galloping boogie riff. “Only spilt blood, only brave men killed”. The defiant mood continues with “Tenere Den” (The Desert), a piece of country rock that edges into Appalachian folk territory (including a fine fiddle solo from Fats Kaplin), where the desert is described as “white at times, and at other times red with the blood of the martyrs”.

You’d think the mood of militancy would lead to ferocious and uncompromising music. But this is a weirdly approachable album, one where Tinariwen’s desert blues fuses perfectly with American rock guests. They have a long history of collaborations, of course. It was the British producer Justin Adams who helmed their international breakthrough around 20 years ago, and they’ve since recorded with the likes of Warren Ellis, Mark Lanegan, Kurt Vile and Josh Klinghoffer. This album was initially meant to be recorded in the Nashville studio owned by Jack White – one of Tinariwen’s many big-name fans – but this was foiled by Covid and lockdown. Instead, the band set up a makeshift studio in a tent in an Algerian national park (a Unesco World Heritage Site) and were produced remotely by Daniel Lanois.

Where some of Tinariwen’s previous transatlantic collaborations haven’t quite worked, Lanois seems to have the balance right. The Canadian sits in, just as he’s sat in with the likes of U2, Dylan and Peter Gabriel over the years, playing guitars, pedal steel and piano. But his contributions are subtle, and Lanois, along with the other western guests, fits organically into Tinariwen’s desert blues.

The collaborations help even the most furious lyrics slip down nicely. “Arajghyne” (The Traitors) expresses anger about the growing spread of Islamic fundamentalism but, instead of some grimly militant marching song, we have Lanois’s pedal-steel guitar soaring over Alhabib’s fiddly, Johnny Marr-style guitar riffs. Likewise “Jayche Atarak” (Tareq’s Group) is a hymn to a unit who confronted French soldiers and ends with the line “the martyrs will be avenged”. Yet it’s a wonderfully limpid piece, one where Lanois’s pedal steel provides a sighing astral wail that complements the eulogy. Likewise, the opener “Kek Alghalm” sees Wes Corbett’s fiddly bluegrass banjo playing weaving perfectly with Alhousseyni’s grinding blues riffs.

The mood isn’t just fiery electric blues, though. “Ezlan” (Glory) is a soft, shuffling ballad that’s oddly reminiscent of Davey Graham or Pentangle, based around a fingerpicked acoustic guitar riff in 6/8, softened with Fats Kaplin’s sustained fiddle lines. The opening line, “Ezlan a imzad”, translates as “Glory to the violins”, but the instrument, the imzad, to which they’re referring is a one-string bowed fiddle that’s traditionally played only by women. As it happens, there are two imzad interludes here, played by Machar Fatimata. There’s also a female presence on the wonderful final track “Tinde”, where melismatic female voices float over a thunderous waltzing rhythm played on hand drums. It suggests that Tinariwen’s all-boys club is opening up, and all the better for it.

Blur announce new album The Ballad Of Darren with single “The Narcissist”

Andrew Trendell
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Blur announce new album The Ballad Of Darren with single “The Narcissist”

Blur have announced details of a surprise new album The Ballad Of Darren and shared the first single "The Narcissist". Check it out below. ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Graham Coxon on Blur and pop: “It’s a strange, limiting form… but me ...

Blur have announced details of a surprise new album The Ballad Of Darren and shared the first single “The Narcissist”. Check it out below.

Blur first announced their comeback back in November with news of a huge Wembley Stadium show – before going on to reveal a second date at the venue before a run of European festival shows and an intimate UK warm-up tour,  which kicks off in their hometown of Colchester today (Friday May 19).

The band have revealed that the 10-track The Ballad Of Darren will arrive on 21 July via Parlophone, and is available for pre-order here. The band’s first album since 2015’s The Magic Whip comes previewed by the single “The Narcissist” – a moderately-paced bittersweet track reminiscent of the alt-rock leanings of 2003’s “Think Tank”.

The band’s ninth album was produced by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Foals, Depeche Mode) and recorded at Studio 13 in London and Devon. Speaking about the making of the record, the band said that it found them taking a stock of their relationship.

Frontman Damon Albarn described The Ballad Of Darren as “an aftershock record” loaded with “reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now”, while guitarist Graham Coxon said: “The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention. Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job.”

Bassist Alex James, meanwhile, said that “for any long term relationship to last with any meaning you have to be able to surprise each other somehow and somehow we all continue to do that”, and drummer Dave Rowntree commented on how the band found that “it always feels very natural to make music together”.

“With every record we do, the process reveals something new and we develop as a band. We don’t take that for granted,” he added.

The artwork for the album features an image of Gourock lido in Renfrewshire by British photographer Martin Parr, with the story of the image featured in The Guardian in 2014.

Blur – 'The Ballad Of Darren'
Blur – ‘The Ballad Of Darren’

The tracklist for The Ballad Of Darren is:

“The Ballad”
“St Charles Square”
“Barbaric”
“Russian Strings”
“The Everglades (For Leonard)”
“The Narcissist”
“Goodbye Albert”
“Far Away Island”
“Avalon”
“The Heights”

The news of the band’s return came after Albarn previously claimed to NME that the band had been in talks and “had an idea” of how to make their comeback, before Rowntree teased that live activity would be on the cards if all members were “up for it” and Coxon appeared to downplay the chances of a reunion.

Coxon, who recently released his autobiography Verse, Chorus, Monster!, also released the debut album with THE WAEVE, his side-project with former Pipettes member-turned-Mark Ronson collaborator and singer-songwriter Rose Elinor Dougall.

After releasing acclaimed solo album The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows in 2021, Albarn released Cracker Island with Gorillaz in February.

Rowntree, meanwhile, recently shared his debut solo album Radio Songs.

Check out Blur’s upcoming tour dates below, and visit here for tickets and more information.

MAY 2023
Friday 19 – COLCHESTER, Arts Centre
Sunday 21 – EASTBOURNE, Winter Gardens
Friday 26 – WOLVERHAMPTON, Civic at the Halls
Sunday 28 – NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, O2 City Hall
JUNE 2023
Thursday 1 – PRIMAVERA SOUND, Barcelona
Thursday 8 – PRIMAVERA SOUND, Madrid
Saturday 10 – PRIMAVERA PORTO, Portgual
Saturday 24 – MALAHIDE, Malahide Castle & Gardens
Friday 30 – ROSKILDE, Denmark
JULY 2023
Thursday – BEAUREGARD , France
Saturday 8 – LONDON, Wembley Stadium
Sunday 9 – LONDON, Wembley Stadium
Friday 14 – – VILLES CHARRUES, France
Saturday 22 – LUCCA, Lucca Summer Festival, Italy
Sunday 23 – VILLES CHARRUES, France
AUGUST 2023
Tuesday 8 – OKERSE FESTEN, Belgium
Wednesday 9 2023 – ØYA Festival, Norway
Thursday 10-Saturday 12 – WAY OUT WEST Festival, Sweden

Bob Dylan – Shadow Kingdom

Richard Williams
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Bob Dylan – Shadow Kingdom

Over the long arc of Bob Dylan’s career, it becomes easier to discern underlying trends. The relatively recent experience of recording 50-odd standards between 2015 and 2017 -- on Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels and Triplicate – clearly provoked a wholesale reappraisal of his approach to sin...

Over the long arc of Bob Dylan’s career, it becomes easier to discern underlying trends. The relatively recent experience of recording 50-odd standards between 2015 and 2017 — on Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels and Triplicate – clearly provoked a wholesale reappraisal of his approach to singing, while the influence of the loose, fluid instrumental mesh developed on Rough and Rowdy Ways in 2020 could be heard in Shadow Kingdom: The Early Songs of Bob Dylan, the 50-minute show streamed by Veeps.com in July 2021.

Quite a few people felt cheated by the initial incarnation of Shadow Kingdom. Seeing that Veeps.com is a livestreaming platform, they made the reasonable assumption that they were buying tickets for a remote live screening of Dylan’s first public performance since the summer of 2019, taking place a couple of months after his 80th birthday.

When it turned out to be a prepackaged film of a mimed performance to pre-recorded tracks, some were disinclined to admire the skill with which the director, Alma Har’el, created a fictitious Marseilles bar called the Bon Bon Club, populated by a variety of low-lifes filling the place with louche attitude and cigarette smoke, on a Santa Monica sound stage.

Fewer disputed the quality of the music. Dylan’s definition of his own “early songs” turned out to be more elastic than one might have expected, with nothing from his first four albums. But since even the most recent of the 13 selections was already more than 30 years old, their creator might well have been viewing them from a different perspective, while inventing new ways to present them.

The musicians who mimed along with the singer — Alex Burke, Buck Meek, Joshua Crumbly (guitars), Shahzad Ismaily (accordion) and Janie Cowan (upright bass) — were not those who had actually played on the tracks. Dylan had assembled a special group for these recordings, a small drummer-less ensemble of experienced individuals capable of settling into the desired synthesis of the many styles he’s explored over the years (see personnel below), each song carefully considered from a new angle, linked and postscripted by brief but elegantly devised instrumental passages.

Here “When I Paint My Masterpiece” has a lovely jug-band lurch, “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” loses its country lilt but sounds as if was always destined to be mated with the taut riff from Roy Head’s “Treat Her Right”, and “Queen Jane Approximately”, hung against a latticework of accordion and finger-picked guitars, is almost unbearably tender. “Tombstone Blues” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” bear the most obvious influence of Rough and Rowdy Ways, with slow swells of accordion, acoustic guitars and bowed string bass underlining the carefully articulated front-and-centre vocal.

“What Was It You Wanted”, the youngest of the songs (from 1989’s Oh Mercy), gets a similar reconsideration. As the loose weave of instruments adds a new depth to the words of a man reaching back into his life, groping for meaning in a series of questions addressed to his god, it becomes the set’s quiet show-stopper.

1 When I Paint My Masterpiece
2 Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine)
3 Queen Jane Approximately
4 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
5 Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
6 Tombstone Blues
7 To Be Alone With You
8 What Was It You Wanted
9 Forever Young
10 Pledging My Time
11 The Wicked Messenger
12 Watching the River Flow
13 It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
14 Sierra’s Theme

Personnel: Bob Dylan (vocals, harmonica) plus others including Jeff Taylor (accordion), Greg Leisz (pedal steel guitar, mandolin), Tim Pierce, T-Bone Burnett, Ira Ingber (guitars), Don Was (upright bass)

Uncut’s New Music Playlist for May 2023

Sam Richards
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Uncut’s New Music Playlist for May 2023

It's high time we shared with you some of the excellent new music we've been enjoying over the past few weeks – some of which we've written about at length in the new issue of Uncut, in all good newsagents now (or available to buy online here). For your delectation: the swift return of new cou...

It’s high time we shared with you some of the excellent new music we’ve been enjoying over the past few weeks – some of which we’ve written about at length in the new issue of Uncut, in all good newsagents now (or available to buy online here).

For your delectation: the swift return of new country royalty Margo Cilker, a brand new song from rediscovered cult figure Beverly Glenn-Copeland, reassuringly noisy stuff from QOTSA and King Gizzard, a new direction for Low’s Alan Sparhawk (as part of Damien), a Daft Punk rarity, Anohni and Califone back doing what they do best, a terrific Transatlantic powwow between Four Tet and William Tyler, and plenty more besides…

MARGO CILKER
“Lowland Trail”
(Fluff & Gravy)

PRETENDERS
“Let The Sun Come In”
(Parlophone)

BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND
“Africa Calling”
(Transgressive)

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
“Emotion Sickness”
(Matador)

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD
“Gila Monster”
(KGLW)

ANOHNI AND THE JOHNSONS
“It Must Change”
(Rough Trade)

LEYLA McCALLA
“Freedom Is A Constant Struggle”
(Anti-)

BRIGID MAE POWER
“The Waterford Song”
(Fire)

DAMIEN
“Damien”
(Self-released)

CALIFONE
“Ox-Eye”
(Jealous Butcher)

THIS IS THE KIT
“More Change”
(Rough Trade)

GIRL RAY
“Up”
(Moshi Moshi)

RÓISÍN MURPHY
“The Universe”
(Ninja Tune)

DAFT PUNK
“Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo) feat. Julian Casablancas+The Voidz”
(Columbia)

JOHN CARROLL KIRBY
“Oropendola”
(Stones Throw)

BCUC
“Millions Of Us Part 3”
(On The Corner)

KIERAN HEBDEN & WILLIAM TYLER
“Darkness, Darkness”
(Psychic Hotline)

WHITELANDS
“Setting Sun (AR Kane Initiation Dub)”
(Sonic Cathedral)

DELMER DARION
“Half Mile Down (ft. Slaughter Beach, Dog)”
(Practise Music)

NICOLE ATKINS & JIM SCLAVUNOS
“Strange Weather”
(Lowe Amusements)

MAYA ONGAKU
“Something In Morning Rain”
(Guruguru Brain)

BEN CHASNY & RICK TOMLINSON
“Waking Of Insects”
(VOIX)

CHOCOLATE HILLS
“Mermaids”
(Orbscure)

Kate Bush pays tribute to bassist John Giblin, who has died aged 71

Tom Skinner
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Kate Bush pays tribute to bassist John Giblin, who has died aged 71

Kate Bush has shared an emotional tribute to her former bassist John Giblin, who has died at the age of 71. ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Kate Bush on her album The Dreaming: “I wanted to take control of everything” The musician’s dea...

Kate Bush has shared an emotional tribute to her former bassist John Giblin, who has died at the age of 71.

The musician’s death was confirmed in a Facebook post by the band Osibisa, with whom he had recently collaborated.

Giblin passed away last Sunday (May 14) in Cheltenham after “battling illness”, according to the group. The obituary went on to describe him as a “bass guitarist, double bass player, arranger and all-round session musician extraordinaire”.

The musician’s longstanding partnership with Bush began when he played bass on the legendary artist’s 1980 singles “Babooshka” and “Breathing”, both of which appear on her third album Never For Ever.

Additionally, Giblin and Bush contributed bass and backing vocals, respectively, to Peter Gabriel‘s song “No Self Control” that same year.

Giblin would go on to feature on Bush’s records The Sensual World (1989), The Red Shoes (1993), Aerial (2005), Director’s Cut (2011) and 50 Words For Snow (2011).

He was later chosen by Bush to perform in the band for her long-awaited comeback shows at London’s Hammersmith Apollo in 2014. The residency, titled ‘Before The Dawn’, was captured on a live album of the same name.

Paying tribute to Giblin on her official website, Bush wrote: “Everyone loved John. He was a really beautiful man in every sense of the word. Everybody wanted to work with him because he was such a great talent and everyone wanted to be his friend because he was such a wonderful person.

“I loved John so very much. He was one of my very dearest and closest friends for over forty years. We were always there for each other. He was very special. I loved working with him, not just because he was such an extraordinary musician but because he was always huge amounts of fun.”

Bush continued: “We would often laugh so much that we had to just give in to it and sit and roar with laughter for a while. He loved to be pushed in a musical context, and it was really exciting to feel him cross that line and find incredibly gorgeous musical phrases that were only there for him. He would really sing. It was such a joy and an inspiration to see where he could take it.

“We’ve all lost a great man, an unmatchable musician and I’ve lost my very special friend. My world will never be the same again without him. Kate.”

Giblin was born to a musical family in Bellshill, Scotland in 1952. Over the course of his lengthy career, he also worked with the likes of Elton John, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox and Phil Collins, per the obituary shared by Osibisa.

In 1985, Giblin became the bassist in Simple Minds following Derek Forbes’ departure from the group. He made his debut with the band at Live Aid in Philadelphia. Giblin performed with Simple Minds on three albums before returning to his former passion as a studio musician.

“Fellow musicians, family, friends, fans and the studio world in general have lost a truly amazing human being and musician who has certainly left a deep musical legacy and a beautiful imprint for everyone he was involved with,” the obituary continued.

“R.I.P. John, it was a pleasure and a privilege to work with you and we are all going to miss you. There really is a hole in the world with John’s passing.”

Earlier this month, it was announced that Kate Bush will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. The star said in a statement that she was “completely shocked at the news”, adding: “It’s something I just never thought would happen.”

Susanna Hoffs – My Life in Music

Sam Richards
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Susanna Hoffs – My Life in Music

The Bangles frontwoman on the records that lit her eternal flame: “I always think of music as my drug”. Read this and more in our JULY 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. DIONNE WARWICK Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits Part 2 SCEPTER, 1969 When I was growing up, my mother played Di...

The Bangles frontwoman on the records that lit her eternal flame: “I always think of music as my drug”. Read this and more in our JULY 2023 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

DIONNE WARWICK
Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits Part 2
SCEPTER, 1969

When I was growing up, my mother played Dionne Warwick singing Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs on repeat. So for the little girl who loved to sing, the roadmaps of these songs are so important. The melodies are truly extraordinary, the lyrics are so clever and specific, and the delivery is so imbued with heartache, joy, sadness, every possible emotion. It’s a rare synergy between Bert and Hal and Dionne Warwick. Obviously their songs were covered by other people as well, but her voice specifically – the yearning, the vocal tone… and this was likely a one-take performance, with none of the digital, magical things that people do now. Just thinking about that when I sing along to this record, it is extraordinary.

THE BEATLES
Help!
PARLOPHONE, 1965

As a little kid, I saw the movie Help! and that’s how I became obsessed with The Beatles. There’s a funny scene in it where Paul McCartney gets shrunk. He’s naked, and he has to put on a chewing gum wrapper to cover his nakedness. That was really profound as a very young Beatles fan, I was very titillated by that. And I liked the way that their individual personas came through [on this album]. I started to realise there was a distinction between John’s personality and Paul’s personality in particular: Paul was singing about sex, John was singing about heartbreak and loneliness, and George had a more philosophical bent to his approach somehow. And Ringo was just Ringo, being happy!

JONI MITCHELL
Blue
REPRISE, 1971

To my family’s chagrin, I would sing along and try to mimic every swoop and growl and flutey top part. Joni’s ability to emote vocally, I really studied how she did it by training myself to copy her moves. She was really instrumental for me, not only as a writer but as a singer and performer and guitarist and everything. There’s an utterly confessional aspect to her writing, and she’s a master storyteller. That’s not an easy thing to do. Even as a young woman, her lyrics were incredibly sophisticated and her melodies were channelling the emotion – it was in a whole ’nother universe to the usual songwriting formula. So I learned a lot from Joni Mitchell’s records. Blue is a work of art, the whole package.

THE ROLLING STONES
Let It Bleed
DECCA, 1969

I’ll try to remember how I got past The Beatles to the Stones…! I was kind of a late bloomer, quite shy. But during the summer between graduating high school and before I went to university, I had my first romantic experience, with a guitar player who was really into the Stones. I was so much into The Beatles that it was an awakening, because the Stones are a little messier and a little more off the rails. George Martin’s production is so crafted, he was the consummate arranger, whereas with the Stones you feel like you’re in the studio with them. And I love those differences in record-making.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO
The Velvet Underground & Nico
VERVE, 1967

It was a call to action for me in those early days when I was collaborating with David Roback, who went on to do Mazzy Star. We were art students together at UC Berkeley. So that album revolutionised my whole thinking about being an artist, being a musician, because it encompasses so many aspects: the performance art aspect to those early Velvet Underground shows, and the fact that Andy Warhol was involved. I love Nico, I love the haunting quality of her singing. And I love the guitar solos – the solo on “Sunday Morning” is so amazing. Yeah, I just revere that album.

PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION
Purple Rain
WARNER BROS, 1984

I wasn’t familiar with Prince until the Purple Rain album came out. I recall hearing “When Doves Cry” on the radio right around the time that word got to me that Prince really liked The Bangles. It was just astounding to me, the synergy of that moment. I went on to absorb Purple Rain in its entirety and I was transfixed by all of it – the sheer emotion, the songwriting, the everything. It’s an utter masterpiece. Prince was an iconoclast; he was cheeky and mysterious, but also very joyful. As a person, he was sly but enchanting. He was one of those special humans, and I’m so grateful that he gave us the extraordinary gift of “Manic Monday”.

BOB DYLAN
Highway 61 Revisited
COLUMBIA, 1965

Wow, how cool is that cover? The motorcycle T-shirt, the guy with the camera and the striped shirt standing behind him, it’s like something William Eggleston would have taken. It’s such a cohesive album – I’m guessing that it was recorded with the same people in a discrete amount of time. The arrangements are so natural and you feel like you’re in the room with the musicians. In particular, I want to call out the song “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry”. I love that song, and people don’t talk about it enough. It just speaks to me in a uniquely wonderful way. I love the melody and I’m always singing my own harmony. Maybe I should cover it with Matthew Sweet and do my harmony?

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE
Dynamite! The Collection
SONY, 2011

I just love Sly & The Family Stone. I love all the voices, the songwriting, the arrangements, I love that you cannot stop yourself from moving or dancing or at least tapping your foot. Sometimes you can be in a very dark place – you put on music, and like magic, you’re moving your hips, you’re singing, you’re dancing, you’re uplifted. Their music works that way. There’s no way that those musicians weren’t having a blast [in the studio] and it’s like they bottled the joy and they bottled the energy. I always think of music as my drug: if you’re down, it’ll just snap you right out of it.

Susanna Hoffs’ new covers album The Deep End is out now on Baroque Folk Records

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Hear ANOHNI’s new track, “It Must Change”

Michael Bonner
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Hear ANOHNI’s new track, “It Must Change”

ANOHNI and the Johnsons have announced details of a new studio album, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross. The album is released on July 7 on Rough Trade and Secretly Canadian. Ahead of the release, ANOHNI and the Johnsons have shared a lead single, “It Must Change”. ORDER NOW: Nick Dr...

ANOHNI and the Johnsons have announced details of a new studio album, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross. The album is released on July 7 on Rough Trade and Secretly Canadian.

Ahead of the release, ANOHNI and the Johnsons have shared a lead single, “It Must Change”.

Her first LP since 2016’s HOPELESSNESS, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross is ANOHNI’s sixth studio album. It’s been produced by Jimmy Hogarth.

The video, starring British social justice activist Munroe Bergdorf, is directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard.

The tracklisting for My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross is:

It Must Change
Go Ahead
Sliver Of Ice
Can’t
Scapegoat
It’s My Fault
Rest
There Wasn’t Enough
Why Am I Alive Now?
You Be Free

Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture returns to cinemas

Michael Bonner
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Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture returns to cinemas

50 years to the day after he retired Ziggy Stardust onstage at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, David Bowie's famous creation will return to that same stage for one night only. ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut On July 3, 2023, The Eventim Apollo Hammersmith (fo...

50 years to the day after he retired Ziggy Stardust onstage at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, David Bowie‘s famous creation will return to that same stage for one night only.

On July 3, 2023, The Eventim Apollo Hammersmith (formerly the Odeon) will host the global premiere of the newly restored version of D.A. Pennebaker‘s film Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars: The Motion Picture which will also being shown in over 1,000 cinemas worldwide during the month of July.

The Eventim Apollo Hammersmith will host a red-carpet premiere, including an exclusive on-stage conversation with Bowie collaborators and contemporary musicians that will precede the film screening.

This worldwide premiere will allow fans to finally see the complete set that was played on that fateful night for the first time and features the performance of Jeff Beck whose scenes were cut from the original version of the film.

The digital restoration of the new version – in 4K and with 5.1 sound – of the film has been overseen by Frazer Pennebaker.

Tickets go on sale for the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith on May 16 – click here to order. Global cinema tickets available from Thursday, May 18. For details on your participating local cinemas visit www.davidbowie.com

Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig reflects on 10th anniversary of Modern Vampires Of The City

Liberty Dunworth
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Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig reflects on 10th anniversary of Modern Vampires Of The City

Ezra Koenig has reflected upon Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires Of The City album, a decade after it was first released. ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig: “Growing up in the suburbs doesn’t preclude you from ...

Ezra Koenig has reflected upon Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires Of The City album, a decade after it was first released.

The frontman took to social media on May 14 to discuss the impact of the album, and provide fans with an insight into the writing and recording process the band went through at the time.

Released back in 2013, the album was the third full-length LP to be released by the band, and featured fan favourites including “Unbelievers”, “Step” and “Diane Young”. Now, a decade after its launch, Koenig has listed the reasons why he thinks the album “still means something to people”.

“MVOTC is ten years old. Wild. Good occasion to slam a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and reflect,” he began. “Rostam [Batmanglij] and I spent about a year writing and recording this album before we moved into the final phase…

“It was far and away our most ‘studio album,’” he continued. “MVOTC didn’t have songs like ‘A-Punk’ or ‘Cousins’ which began as riffs and started to come to life in the practice room. This is an album of more deliberate composition and detailed, patient recording.”

He also recalled how he felt listening to the instrumental versions of both “Don’t Lie” and ‘Diane Young’ for the first time, writing: “I remember when [Batmanglij] played me the beat for ‘Don’t Lie’ for the first time. That drum pattern and descending chord progression on the organ moved me deeply. I started singing the vocal melody almost immediately.

“I similarly remember hearing his first instrumental of what became the heart of ‘Diane Young’. That music was exciting and it took me a long time to write lyrics that I thought were worthy of it.”

According to Koenig, it was the composition and production from Batmanglij that made the album monumental to their discography, and is the reason why the release “still means something to people ten years later.”

In other Vampire Weekend news, last year frontman Ezra Koenig teamed up with Phoenix to feature on their single “Tonight”, which featured on the French indie band’s 2022 album Alpha Zulu.

Listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s newly released final playlist, which was played at his funeral

Surej Singh
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Listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s newly released final playlist, which was played at his funeral

Ryuichi Sakamoto's management has shared a playlist curated by the late musician and composer, titled ‘Funeral’. ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut On May 15, his management wrote on social media: “We would like to share the playlist Ryuichi has been pri...

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s management has shared a playlist curated by the late musician and composer, titled ‘Funeral’.

On May 15, his management wrote on social media: “We would like to share the playlist Ryuichi has been privately compiling to be played at his own funeral to accompany his passing. He truly was with music until the very end.”

Check out the post below.

The 33-track playlist features some of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s favourite music, including works from Back, Debussy and Ravel, and opens with an 11-minute piece “Haloid Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)” from Sakamoto’s frequent collaborator Alva Noto.

Listen to the playlist below.

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s ‘Funeral’ playlist comes shortly after Milan Records released a newly compiled collection of solo works by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, titled Travesía. The album was curated by Oscar-winning Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, with the album’s title translating to ‘journey’ in Spanish.

The pioneering composer died on March 28, aged 71 after being diagnosed with colon cancer in 2021 and throat cancer in 2014. In late December last year, the lauded composer and founder of the Yellow Magic Orchestra played his final show, a livestreamed concert titled ‘Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022’.

Johnny Marr, Massive Attack and David Bowie’s estate were among those who led tributes to the composer.

Presenting Made to Love Magic: the free, 15-track CD available with Uncut’s July 2023 issue

Uncut
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Presenting Made to Love Magic: the free, 15-track CD available with Uncut’s July 2023 issue

All copies of the July issue of Uncut magazine come with a free, 15-track CD – Made to Love Magic. HAVE A COPY OF UNCUT SENT DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR The CD is the latest in our new music samplers, bringing together 15 tracks in the spirit of this month’s cover star, Nick Drake. The CD is f...

All copies of the July issue of Uncut magazine come with a free, 15-track CD – Made to Love Magic.

HAVE A COPY OF UNCUT SENT DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR

The CD is the latest in our new music samplers, bringing together 15 tracks in the spirit of this month’s cover star, Nick Drake.

The CD is free with all copies of Uncut – both in the UK and overseas.

Uncut July 2023 CD

Here, then, is your guide to Made to Love Magic…

1 JAMES ELKINGTON
Make It Up

We begin with an opener from songwriter and producer James Elkington’s debut, 2017’s Wintres Woma. Of course, it borrows the frantic picking, nimble double bass and speedy percussion from Nick Drake’s “’Cello Song”, but the rest is all Elkington and his own muse.

2 JOAN SHELLEY
Haven

With a low-strung guitar lazily strummed, a short runtime and a plaintive melody, this cut from Shelley’s Like The River Loves The Sea (2019) seems to channel the stark isolation of Pink Moon through the lush fields of Kentucky.

3 DAVID BREWIS
High Time

Far away from his usual work with Field Music, David Brewis’ recent album The Soft Struggles mixes sophisticated songwriting with jazz textures, languid piano, brushed drums, strings and saxophone, much as Drake did on something like Five Leaves Left’s masterful “Saturday Sun”.

4 ADRIANNE LENKER
Womb

This solo cut from the Big Thief songwriter’s 2018 LP abysskiss showcases her firm, metronomic picking style and her love for wild alternate tunings, both attributes she shares with Tanworth-in-Arden’s favourite son.

5 THE DELGADOS
Reasons For Silence (Ed’s Song)

While Motherwell’s finest always had a noisier streak, they loved strings and skyward-fluttering flute from the beginning. Here’s one of Emma Pollock’s songs from 2000’s career-peak The Great Eastern, written in an open tuning and aglow with bittersweet melodies.

6 JUNI HABEL
Drifting Pounds Of The Train

The bucolic, rural feel of much of Drake’s work is captured here by Norwegian singer-songwriter Habel in a piece from her new album, Carvings. Woody, picked acoustic guitar keeps this six-minute song rolling along the tracks, while ambient strings blossom in the background.

7 CASS McCOMBS
Real Life

Though he’s generally an electric guitarist, the bard of the Bay Area occasionally straps on an acoustic: in this hushed highlight from 2019’s Tip Of The Sphere, he’s mixing tabla, droning cello and embers of piano with a pensive gem of a melody.

8 JESSICA PRATT
Greycedes

Pratt’s complex structures and Tropicália-infused chords echo the languorous, sun-dappled harmonies so beloved of Drake on his first two albums. Even so, strange premonitions hover around the fringes of this miniature treasure from the songwriter’s second album, On Your Own Love Again. “Oh, stargazer,” she calls, “gaze for a while…”

9 ELIJAH McLAUGHLIN ENSEMBLE
Interlude

An intermission in the Ensemble’s 2022 record, II, this contemplative instrumental combines McLaughlin’s vibrant picking with buzzing cello, jangling mandolin and an ever-rising air of eeriness.

10 JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ
The Void

While some of 2021’s Local Valley found González experimenting with electronic beats, this track retains his usual hypnotic fingerpicking, rippling across his nylon-stringed guitar as his low, whispered voice unhurriedly weaves a potent spell.

11 JUANA MOLINA
Un Beso Llega

On this track from her 2006 LP, Son, the pioneering Argentinian songwriter gradually layers galloping acoustic arpeggios with loops of serene, velveteen vocals and peeling electronic tones. The textures are more experimental, but there’s an air of Drake’s measured single-mindedness in this epic.

12 JIM GHEDI & TOBY HAY
A Year And A Day

The latest, self-titled album from these British acoustic guitarists often recalls Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, sometimes Davy Graham or Martin Carthy, yet on this piece their light-fingered propulsion and major-key meditations are most recognisably Drake-esque.

13 DANIEL ROSSEN
Unpeopled Space

You Belong There, Rossen’s 2022 solo debut, showcased his singular style: there was his fluid acoustic guitar, of course, and his skills across a range of instruments, but also
an ornate gloom at its heart reminiscent of Drake’s crafted, detached takes on the darker
side of life.

14 SAM AMIDON
Spanish Merchant’s Daughter

A light-footed folk piece from Amidon’s self-titled album, it finds the American songwriter mixing traditional lyrics with lush, jazzy instrumentation, most notably the saxophone that winds its way through his words.

15 ROBYN HITCHCOCK
I Saw Nick Drake

We close with this psychedelic troubadour’s surreal and mournful take on the late songwriter. They could have crossed paths at Cambridge if Hitchcock had been a few years older, but instead he had to meet him in a dream: “I saw Nick Drake/And he was fine…”

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The Pretenders debut new songs during intimate gig at The Great Escape

Elizabeth Aubrey
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The Pretenders debut new songs during intimate gig at The Great Escape

The Pretenders kicked off their intimate UK club tour at The Great Escape festival in Brighton on May 12, debuting some new songs. ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: The Pretenders – Ultimate Music Guide "A Love" and "Domestic Silence" from u...

The Pretenders kicked off their intimate UK club tour at The Great Escape festival in Brighton on May 12, debuting some new songs.

“A Love” and “Domestic Silence” from upcoming new album, Relentless, received their debit ahead of the album release on September 1 via Parlophone. You can pre-order Relentless here.

The upcoming release will mark the band’s 12th full-length LP, and follows on from their 2020 album Hate For Sale.

Fans queued throughout the afternoon in Brighton for a chance to see the band perform in the small setting at The Old Market. The gig ran past curfew, with front woman Chrissie Hynde telling the audience: “Ok, we’re breaking the rules!” before playing “Don’t Get Me Wrong”.

As Hynde left the stage she thanked fans saying: “Thank you very much. We don’t wanna go!”

Check out some footage and pictures of the gig, together with the full set list, below:

 

The Pretenders’ setlist for The Old Market at The Great Escape Festival:

“Losing My Sense Of Taste”
“A Love”
“Turf Accountant Daddy”
“The Adultress”
“Downtown (Akron)”
“The Buzz”
“Domestic Silence”
“Biker”
“Don’t Cut Your Hair”
“Back on the Chain Gang”
“Stop Your Sobbing”
“Cuban Slide”
“Don’t Get Me Wrong”

The Pretenders’ UK & Ireland Intimate Club Shows remaining dates are below; all dates are now sold out.

MAY
13 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
14 – MASH, Cambridge
16 – Cheese & Grain, Frome
17 – The Sugarmill, Stoke
19 – Dolans, Limerick
20 – Cypress Avenue, Cork, Ireland
21 – Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Ireland
23 – Limelight, Belfast, Northern Ireland

According to the band, their new album will represent a snapshot of where they are in 2023, and arrive with the same “impulsiveness” and “attitude” that they captured in previous fan-favourites, including “I’ll Stand By You” and “Back On The Chain Gang”.

“I liked the definition: ‘showing no abatement of intensity,’” Hynde said of the meaning behind the title. “It’s the life of the artist. You never retire. You become relentless.”

The 12-track album marks the second time that The Pretenders have written an album as a collaboration between Hynde and the band’s guitarist James Walbourne, as well as the first to be released via Warner Brothers – Parlophone’s parent record label – since 1999.

“We had developed this method of working remotely and it seemed like we just kept on doing it for this album. This is something that we’ve honed down to an art in the last few years,” Hynde continued, explaining the songwriting process for the LP. “[James Walbourne] always comes up with something I wouldn’t have thought of myself and I love surprises.”

One of these surprises on Relentless will come in the form of a collaboration between the band and Radiohead and The Smile’s Jonny Greenwood, who appears on the album’s closing track “I Think About You Daily”.

Grandaddy announce 20th anniversary box set of Sumday

Elizabeth Aubrey
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Grandaddy announce 20th anniversary box set of Sumday

Grandaddy have unveiled details of a new anniversary boxset to celebrate 20 years of their breakthrough album, Sumday. ORDER NOW: Nick Drake is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump 20th Anniversary Collection review The anniversary release...

Grandaddy have unveiled details of a new anniversary boxset to celebrate 20 years of their breakthrough album, Sumday.

The anniversary release, called Sumday Twunny is a limited edition four LP boxset that will be released on September 1 via Dangerbird. It features a remastered version of the original album in addition to the four-track demos and a set of rarities and B-sides.

The entire Sumday: The Cassette Demos collection is available to stream here now and you can pre-order the anniversary set here.

In a statement about the anniversary collection, Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle said: “After many years of hammering away at writing and recording as Grandaddy, Sumday seems to be the centre of it and where it all peaked. To the journalists we were, ‘On the verge of greatness, underrated, overlooked, unsung.’ It was a tumultuous and exciting time for us for sure. Also very exhausting.

“Revisiting this material and reflecting on those times has been a double edged sword. Bittersweet is an apt word, I suppose. Twenty years after the fact, I’m just grateful to be alive and kicking…celebrating that moment in time by re-releasing the original album, B-sides and extras of that era, and even some raw cassette demos of the album itself a sort of sketchbook/rough draft of the LP in cassette form.

“So be it then. ‘On the verge of greatness, underrated, overlooked, unsung.’ This is what all of that sounds like. I’ll take it.”

Last year, Grandaddy performed a series of UK dates, playing Bexhill-On-Sea, London, Manchester and Glasgow. The band performed their 2000 album The Sophtware Slump, along with other songs from their back catalogue.

Queens Of The Stone Age announce new album – watch the “Emotion Sickness” video

Tom Pinnock
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Queens Of The Stone Age announce new album – watch the “Emotion Sickness” video

Queens Of The Stone Age will release their new album In Times New Roman… on June 16 via Matador. The group have also unveiled the first song to be taken from the record, “Emotion Sickness”, and a Liam Lynch-directed lyric video – watch it below. The album, Queens’ eighth, was produ...

Queens Of The Stone Age will release their new album In Times New Roman… on June 16 via Matador.

The group have also unveiled the first song to be taken from the record, “Emotion Sickness”, and a Liam Lynch-directed lyric video – watch it below.

The album, Queens’ eighth, was produced by the band and primarily recorded and mixed at Josh Homme’s own Pink Duck studios. As on 2017’s Villains, their once shifting lineup consists of long-timers Homme, guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, guitarist and keyboardist Dean Fertita, bassist Michael Shuman and drummer Jon Theodore.

“Feeling a bit out of place, and having difficulty finding music they could relate to,” reads the press release, “the members of QOTSA did as they are wont to do: In Times New Roman… is the sound of a band creating the music its own members want to hear, while giving the rest of us a sonic forum in which to congregate.”

The tracklist for In Times New Roman… is:

“Obscenery”
“Paper Machete”
“Negative Space”
“Time & Place”
“Made To Parade”
“Carnavoyeur”
“What The Peephole Say”
“Sicily”
“Emotion Sickness”
“Straight Jacket Fitting”

Suarasama – Timeline (reissue, 2013)

Ana Gavrilovska
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Suarasama – Timeline (reissue, 2013)

Not all band’s names offer immediate clues to the sound of their music. Yet this couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to North Sumatran band Suarasama, whose moniker is a combination of two Indonesian words: ‘suara’, which means voices or sounds but also opinions, and ‘sama’,...

Not all band’s names offer immediate clues to the sound of their music. Yet this couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to North Sumatran band Suarasama, whose moniker is a combination of two Indonesian words: ‘suara’, which means voices or sounds but also opinions, and ‘sama’, meaning togetherness and equality.

Formed in 1995 by ethnomusicology lecturers Irwansyah Harahap and Rithaony Hutajulu, Suarasama made music that was a joyful exploration of the planet’s many musical forms. Timeline was their second album, originally released in 2013 and now reissued for the first time on vinyl by Drag City. But this commemoration of its 10th anniversary is tempered by loss, as co-founder Harahap, a major creative force of the band who was responsible for all the stringed instrumentation, passed away in 2021 at the age of 60. To revisit Timeline now is not only to consider their music but also to pay tribute to the man behind so much of its spirit and power.

Timeline opens with the instantly gripping “Untukmu Yang Berperang”, a song influenced by a traditional West African folk narrative that depicts the catastrophic losses of war. Hutajulu’s gorgeous voice imbues the song’s anti-war message with profound resonance, a communal groove built by the interweaving of the guitar, woodblock and Malaysian percussion. The instrumentation is relatively simple, yet the result sounds as full as an orchestra.

The duo, especially Harahap, were deeply interested in ritual music of various world traditions, a form that naturally produces repetitive, meditative sounds. This is particularly evident on “Dukkha”, inspired by Mandailing (Sumatran) and Eastern European musical traditions. A drone opens this song and then serves as its spine while plucked strings create a romantic mood. As the music builds, it starts to resemble an English folk song, its whirl evoking children twirling around a maypole. But the spectral drone is ever present, both anchor and connective tissue, the last sound standing as the song comes to an end.

Harahap excelled at numerous stringed instruments: guitar, gambus (a short-necked Malaysian lute), hasapi (a two-stringed Indonesian lute), the Arabic oud and mandolin, to name just a few. This mastery is on display throughout the album, but perhaps most prominent on the titular song, a near-14-minute transcendent odyssey. His playing is furiously elegant, fingers seeming to dance upon the strings with a lightness that belies the complicated rhythmic patterns of the music. Vocals give the song a sense of community and percussive elements keep the beat, but lute-family instruments are the star of the show. The song charts their history through space and time by incorporating various plucked traditions and techniques from around the world. It’s also a showcase for the 10 stringed saz-guitar that Harahap designed himself, an instrument that combines an acoustic guitar with the Turkish saz, a long-necked lute with a round body.

“Sea Fish” is the song that sounds most like you might hear it on one of Drag City’s American releases, all fingerpicked strings and mounting tension. It’s easy to imagine a melancholic man mumbling over the music, but the Indonesian vocals elevate the song to an emotional space beyond sadness, reaching towards a more nuanced emotional experience. “Awesome” is another graceful tour de force on strings, catchy in a way that feels effortless. Indeed, the entire album feels that way, with the clear-headed air that a lifetime of meditation might yield.

The second-longest song on Timeline is “Journey”, 12-and-a-half minutes of lute-playing that can only be described as the sound of a spiral Eschering itself into infinity. While none of the songs slouch (“Awesome” is the shortest, clocking in at just under five minutes), the band is unquestionably at their best when they go long on spun-out jams that never meander.

Timeline ends on a quieter note, with the peaceful – if a little inert, at least in comparison to the rest of the music – folk-pop of “Kita Berbagi (We Share)”. But the music of Suarasama is suffused with peace and hope from its very existence, a comment on the potential and possibility of global human connection in sound and artistic philosophy. As a document of the band’s desire to fuse disparate yet related musical traditions, and as a stunning and pleasurable listen without the need for context, Timeline is profoundly satisfying.

The National – First Two Pages of Frankenstein

Laura Barton
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The National – First Two Pages of Frankenstein

The two songs that frame The National’s ninth album — fragile opener “Once Upon A Poolside” and quiet finale “Send For Me” — govern this remarkable record’s tone. This is not The National in rhapsodic, quick-fire mode; the big choruses and sonic complexities have been dampened dow...

The two songs that frame The National’s ninth album — fragile opener “Once Upon A Poolside” and quiet finale “Send For Me” — govern this remarkable record’s tone.

This is not The National in rhapsodic, quick-fire mode; the big choruses and sonic complexities have been dampened down and even guest turns from big names – Taylor Swift (“The Alcott”), Phoebe Bridgers (“This Isn’t Helping”, “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend”), Sufjan Stevens (“Once Upon A Poolside”) – feel like conversations held between glass.

Instead this is a band subdued and half-submerged – programmed drums keep the music lower, like waist-high water that Matt Berninger’s voice must wade through, as he sings of alienation and detachment, of relationships disintegrating, worlds dismantling.

For all his struggles to write …Frankenstein, this is perhaps the finest lyrical hour of Berninger’s career. There is a tenderness that overrides the wit, a simplicity and carefulness to his lines. In “New Order T-Shirt” particularly, the band have created one of those perfect National numbers: a track built on a melancholic musical loop and propelled by a sweet nostalgia; a love song striking in the precision of its imagery, from black flats to magazine skyscrapers, Kentucky aquariums to blue American Spirits.

Even without the backstory or an understanding of how difficult this record was to make, …Frankenstein is a skilful portrait of what it means to feel disconnected from the joy and urgency of life.

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