There’s a certain grim obligation, whenever tackling Steve Mason’s music, to harp on about The Beta Band’s first three EPs, and the distinctly spotty work which has followed them in the intervening 13 years. It’s a lot harder, though, to try and explain exactly why that initial clutch of songs are so much better.
A bit unusual actually blogging about someone who sits in the same office, but a lovely reissue to start off today: the solitary EP by Apple Boutique, out for the first time on CD and pretty much unavailable since 1987.
I’ve not been hugely interested in much of the end-of-the-decade stuff that’s been appearing over the past few weeks, but this piece by Simon Reynolds at the Guardian is worth a read.
Tony Wadsworth: I loved this album, again it was one of those things where you didn’t know what was going to happen next. It mixed together styles and arrangements that were completely original and unpredictable.
As you can see, plenty of interesting new things have turned up since I last posted a playlist, not least new albums from Jim O’Rourke and, amazingly, Os Mutantes. This week’s problem, though, is the immense distraction of two wonderful-sounding new boxsets from Rhino; one dedicated to Big Star, the other a four-CD set called “LA Nuggets”.
I interviewed Michael Mann for the current issue of UNCUT, ahead of the release of Public Enemies. Call it reader service, but I thought those of you who're interested in such things might like a chance to read the full transcript (it's about 3,200 words, of which we only ran 1,000 in the issue). Anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy.
Apologies for the crass plug, but if you’ve seen the new issue of Uncut, you’ll have seen an amazing picture of Tim Buckley, playing solo to a 35-strong audience at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center in New York.
