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Siouxsie Sioux to headline Latitude Festival

Charlotte Krol
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Siouxsie Sioux to headline Latitude Festival

Siouxsie Sioux is booked to headline Latitude Festival‘s BBC Sounds Stage next year. Sioux will join other headliners, including Pulp, at the Suffolk festival from July 20 - 23, 2023. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut Sioux last played live in 2013 for Y...

Siouxsie Sioux is booked to headline Latitude Festival‘s BBC Sounds Stage next year.

Sioux will join other headliners, including Pulp, at the Suffolk festival from July 20 – 23, 2023.

Sioux last played live in 2013 for Yoko Ono’s Meltdown festival, which was held at London’s Royal Festival Hall. At the time, she performed an unprecedented two sold-out shows built around a full rendition of the Banshees’ 1980 album Kaleidoscope alongside hits including “Israel”, “Arabian Knights”, “Cities In Dust” and “Dear Prudence”.

You can read Uncut’s review from the Meltdown show here.

Latitude Festival Director Melvin Benn said: “What a privilege it is to welcome the iconic Siouxsie to the Latitude Festival. Siouxsie has been an enduring trailblazer and her impact across musical culture is colossal. Uncompromisingly defiant, Siouxsie’s powerful body of work is incomparable. There has never been a live performer like her and there probably never will be!”

Recently, Siouxsie curated a new Banshees’ compilation, All Souls – which brought together classic tracks and rarities into an Autumnal celebration.

Other acts joining Sioux and Pulp at Latitude 2023 include Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, Black Midi, Lightning Seeds and Young Fathers.

We’re New Here – Park Jiha

John Robinson
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We’re New Here – Park Jiha

Korean adventurer Park Jiha on getting new sounds from traditional instruments – and from the air itself on her latest record, The Gleam, previously in our MAY 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. For Park Jiha, a successful gig is literally all about the vibes in the room. This isn’t,...

Korean adventurer Park Jiha on getting new sounds from traditional instruments – and from the air itself on her latest record, The Gleam, previously in our MAY 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

For Park Jiha, a successful gig is literally all about the vibes in the room. This isn’t, in this instance, a kind of woolly shorthand for explaining the subtle relationship between performer and audience. It’s more a technical requirement for Jiha’s music – an entrancing and longform spell of melodies and long tones presented on traditional instruments like the piri (double reed flute), yanggeum (hammered dulcimer) and saenghwang (mouth organ).

“We have a lot of trouble,” Park explains through her husband and interpreter Curtis Cambou, a French DJ and label owner in Seoul. “The instruments are very hard to mic up. The sound is very weak so they need to be amplified, but you get a lot of feedback. Unless you’re playing in a room with reverb it doesn’t sound right. They were supposed to be played in small traditional Korean houses with wooden floors and ceilings.”

Park and her instruments have come a long way. A student of Korean music since she was 13, she has always been interested in extending the boundaries of tradition. After college, she formed a duo called 숨[suːm] with fellow musician Jungmin Seo, and their technical blend of traditional instruments and Park’s songs became a feature of exchange programmes and festivals.

After nine years, Park went solo, sticking with her instrumentation, but drawing inspiration from some of the expansive moods she found in post-classical composers like Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds. “My direction became clearer the further on I went,” she says. Finding the most suitable environment to play and record has since been one of the more demanding features of her work. “I did one concert in an old oil tank. The reverb was something like 6.5 seconds. A real special occasion – you get the imprint of that space.”

By her second LP, 2019’s excellent Philos, in which ambient street noise becomes a feature of the recording, Park had decided to make the arrangement more formal. “I felt it would be more fun if the instruments were recorded in a certain environment, which becomes part of the vibe, the atmosphere of the space it was recorded in.” The music itself, Park says, arrives by a process of intuition, “improvising melodies, textures and details” and is “mostly just pure feelings, finding beautiful sonorities which fit together.” If she feels a track is going somewhere, she “might try and play a bit weirdly with it. I have a lot of unusual techniques. They can bring special elements to some tracks.”

An occasional guest star in Park’s work is the voice. On Philos, she imagined one piece having words, but “a floating vocal, more like an instrument”. This turned into “Easy”, a collaboration with the Lebanese artist Dima El Sayed, in which Park’s serene instrumental composition is juxtaposed with El Sayed’s polemic. The serendipity of the collaboration has encouraged more work with voice: on March 29, she plays in London with writer and performance artist Roy Claire Potter, with whom she was originally paired for a spot on Radio 3’s Late Junction in 2020. Cambou recalls the pair’s original creative meeting. “I was expecting a mess,” he laughs as he recalls trying to understand Potter’s accent, “but it was mind-blowing. Her music is delicate, but they were matching twists and transitions. It was beautiful.”

The success of the meeting was all the more gratifying, since the pair had never previously met. “They were meant to have a rehearsal, but Skype wasn’t working so they didn’t.” Sometimes technology will let you down in ways that music won’t.

Park Jiha’s The Gleam is out now on Tak:Til/Glitterbeat.

Album Previews for 2023

Uncut
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Album Previews for 2023

Please be upstanding for our annual Albums Preview, which this year truffles out many of the goodies you can expect to hear in the coming 12 months. In the latest issue of Uncut - now in UK shops and available to buy from our online store - you'll find news of new albums by the likes of Lucinda Will...

Please be upstanding for our annual Albums Preview, which this year truffles out many of the goodies you can expect to hear in the coming 12 months. In the latest issue of Uncut – now in UK shops and available to buy from our online store – you’ll find news of new albums by the likes of Lucinda Williams, The Damned, Natalie Merchant, The Cure, Graham Nash, the Rolling Stones and more.

Below, you’ll find forthcoming albums from Peter Gabriel, Margo Cilker and Elvis Costello. Call it a preview of our Preview, if you like…

PETER GABRIEL
TITLE: i/o
LABEL: Real World
RELEASE DATE: 2023
At last! Two decades in the planning, the rightful heir to 2002’s Up

Speaking to Uncut in 2020, Peter Gabriel suggested that new music may not be too far away. “Although I’ve been writing a lot, I’ve had various other distractions and other projects, so I’m very slow in actually finishing things,” he admitted. “There’s a big backlog of ideas that are unfinished but I’m now getting enough lyrics done, which is often where I slow down. I’m looking forward to getting an album out.”

Gabriel had been dropping hints about his activities for some time, usually via his social media channels. As far back as 2002, not long before the release of Up, Gabriel announced that another album of fresh songs – tentatively titled I/O – would be released within 18 months. A covers album, various tours, collaborative projects and reissue campaigns have eaten into his schedule since, leaving I/O as unfinished business.

In April 2019, he provided an update to BBC 6 Music. Gabriel explained that he’d taken time off owing to his wife being ill, but was excited to be back making music now that she’d fully recovered. Asked what we might expect in terms of new material, he was careful not to give too much away: “There’s a wide bunch [of songs] in there… I’m also trying to do some simple piano versions of things, which I don’t know is enough to make a whole record or not, but that’s something I’m looking at.”

In 2021, Gabriel revealed he’d recently spent 10 days in the studio with his trusted lineup of Tony Levin, Manu Katché and David Rhodes, during which time they had recorded 17 new songs. Fast forward to summer 2022 when Gabriel disclosed that a final recording session was slated for September.

November 2022 saw a major tour announcement, stating that Gabriel will be playing throughout Europe in the spring of 2023, following by a Stateside trek in the late summer and autumn. Named after the new album, now stylised to i/o, Gabriel declared: “It’s been a while and I am now surrounded by a whole lot of new songs and am excited to be taking them out on the road for a spin. Look forward to seeing you out there.”

While we await news of i/o’s actual content at the time of going to press, various online message boards have been rife with speculation. Gabriel’s most recent studio singles (2016’s “I’m Amazing” and “The Veil”) may or may not make the final cut, but among the other tracks mooted as potential candidates for inclusion are “Silver Screen”, “Just Add Water”, “Funk Bone”, “Lost And Found”, “Chinese Whisper” and the much-bootlegged “Baby Man”.

Whatever the final tracklisting, it will be fascinating to trace the evolution of Gabriel’s songwriting on what amounts to his first studio album of originals in 20 years. “I think you learn all the time if you listen, so I hope I’ve matured as a songwriter,” he told Uncut in 2020. “The actual art of my songwriting is improving… Sometimes the intersection with popular culture may be over when you’re in your mature years, but there can still be lots of interesting material. I see that all the time with other artists, so I hope to have that in my own work.”

MARGO CILKER
TITLE: Unconfirmed
LABEL: Loose
RELEASE DATE: Autumn 2023
Pacific Northwest singer-songwriter builds on 2021’s ravishing Pohorylle

MARGO CILKER: We went back into the studio with a very similar cast of characters to the last one. Sera Cahoone was at the helm again and pulled in some fresh players to spice it up. She had a good idea of who she thought would be a good fit. We kind of streamlined everything that we learned during the making of Pohorylle. We knew what worked, then we went back in with the same approach, with a fresh batch of songs. There’s a couple of new instrumentations, so it’s a little different, but not a huge departure. We wanted to keep the momentum going. There’s some songs that people will recognise, because they’ve been in my live set in the last year as I’ve been touring the UK and throughout the States. So if you’ve been hearing me play solo, you’ll hear these songs with a fleshed-out full band and lush accompaniments. I’ve been playing “Keep It On A Burner”, for example, at every show since I wrote it.

I felt I needed to capture this moment in my career. If anything, I was trying to kind of stay close to where I was when I wrote and recorded my first record. A lot of the songs were written during the pandemic and during the shutdown, after I’d recorded Pohorylle but hadn’t even released it. We recorded the record this spring, when it seemed we were all still feeling the pandemic, when we were all still broken and still not touring as much as we needed or wanted to be, I guess. I was getting back on the road, but the industry has been suffering so much. Because I had the songs, we just decided to go for it. The whole
thing was done in a week. There’s definitely moments where you’ll feel this space of a time where I was grounded and couldn’t go anywhere. So there’s a lot of reminiscing and reflecting on that period, this season of being totally, absolutely, bewilderingly stuck.

Lyrically, I’m still kind of capturing a little of the place I’m living in, exploring those kinds
of things. I don’t know what’s down the road for me, but this is definitely a second go around. We’re looking to release it next fall if everything goes according to plan. I don’t know if I want to show my cards too much at this stage, because I don’t want people to set up expectations. But I think what’s cool about this record is it’s a continuation. It’s really neat that, even though my life got kind of crazier, we were still able to just get in there and do some more of what we did the first time. I think the result is great.

ELVIS COSTELLO
TITLE: Songs Of Bacharach And Costello
LABEL: Unconfirmed
RELEASE DATE: 2023
Four-album set that revisits a favourite collaborator

ELVIS COSTELLO: “It’s Painted From Memory” [1998] and “Taken From Life”, which is a collection of songs that Burt and I wrote over the last 15 years for a proposed Painted From Memory musical. So you’ll hear other people singing a couple of those original songs, but also a bunch of songs that have never been heard before. We’ve compiled them with a couple of the songs from Look Now [2018] and some recordings that were piano/voice explorations of what the songs would sound like if they were sung by other people. We’ve put them all together to create an impression of what it would have been like to have that score.

There’s another disc of live performances of Painted From Memory songs, mostly with Steve Nieve and myself, a couple of them orchestral. Finally, a whole album of Bacharach/David songs, which I thought would be fun to include. This is a love letter to Burt. We went into the studio last September and recorded two songs with Vince Mendoza conducting a 30-piece orchestra. So the bookends for this Taken From Life record are newly recorded. The Imposters and I recorded a third song, in Capitol Studios with an orchestra. It was a few years since we’d worked together, but it didn’t take very long before I’m in the booth and he was on the call-back saying, “Elvis, you’re not singing the right melody.” So I had to be on top of it!

PICK UP THE NEW ISSUE OF UNCUT TO READ THE FULL STORY

We’re New Here – Jeremy Ivey

Stephen Deusner
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We’re New Here – Jeremy Ivey

The Midwest farmer’s daughter’s husband steps into the spotlight – Jeremy Ivey talks about his latest solo effort, Invisible Pictures previously in our APRIL 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. A little jealousy can be good for a marriage, especially one between two songwriters. Jer...

The Midwest farmer’s daughter’s husband steps into the spotlight – Jeremy Ivey talks about his latest solo effort, Invisible Pictures previously in our APRIL 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

A little jealousy can be good for a marriage, especially one between two songwriters. Jeremy Ivey and his wife are always bouncing ideas off each other, always workshopping their latest compositions. “One of us will have a song that needs something, or we’ll have an idea that needs a little help developing, and the other person will chime in,” says the Nashville-based musician. “If something’s really good, the other person will get a little upset… They’ll want to help, because that means they own it, too. I’ve found that to be a constant feature of our collaboration, that little bit of creative jealousy.”

Ivey’s wife, of course, is Margo Price – and they’ve been writing together for more than a decade, longer than either of them have been solo artists. “It’s a lofty idea,” he says, “but we always wanted to be known as a songwriting team,” like Lennon–McCartney or Jagger–Richards. That collaboration shines on “Keep Me High”, a ’70s-styled standout on his new album, Invisible Pictures. All Ivey had was a chorus inspired by their new baby (“I got a new love that lasts forever”). “But I couldn’t think of a second verse, so Margo says, ‘Gimme a crack at that’. She wrote a few lines about someone named Becky who goes down to Florida with her undercover lawyer. Sometimes a song ends up not being about anything, really. Maybe there’s one line in there that’s the whole reason you wrote it. But it has to be interesting.”

After learning to play guitar from a Beatles chord book, Ivey first tried his hand at lyrics when he was 15 years old. “The first song I ever wrote was about Columbine. I read about this student who was killed, and I wrote a song called “Little Mary” from her point of view. It was a topical song, but it was horrible! Still, it made me want to express something about the world.”

That lesson continues to inform his songwriting. After moving to Nashville, he played in a series of local bands, which is how he met Price. Since then, they’ve co-written for all of their solo albums – three apiece, although they’re currently finishing up Price’s fourth. She produced his 2020 album Waiting Out The Storm, which was full of songs about the world their children would inherit. “I have two sides. One is that I want to say something about what’s going on in the world, I want to get people thinking about it. And the other side is that I want people to escape from it. Those two sides are always battling each other.”

By contrast, Invisible Pictures is Ivey’s most introverted collection – but also his most adventurous. Most of these songs came to him during lockdown, after he had spent months fighting off an especially harsh bout of Covid. “I’m borderline diabetic, so I’m super susceptible. It was intense. But I woke up one day and felt better. It was very freeing.” The whole experience redirected his songwriting. “There’s a specific reason why this record is more about myself. I’ve been shut off. I’m not really seeing the world except through a computer screen.”

Eschewing the country-rock that defined his previous records, Invisible Pictures evokes the oddball singer-songwriters of ’70s LA, particularly Randy Newman. The result is perhaps his most revealing statement as a solo artist, even if he admits, “I’m not 100 per cent comfortable in that role. I enjoy it and I always get excited when shows are coming up. But I like writing and recording – those are the two things that always get me going.”

Invisible Pictures is due out on March 11 via Anti-

Composer Angelo Badalamenti, who scored Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and more, dead at 85

Alex Gallagher
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Composer Angelo Badalamenti, who scored Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and more, dead at 85

Angelo Badalamenti, whose compositions considerably shaped the mood of David Lynch films and series including Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, has died at the age of 85. Badalamenti's death was confirmed by multiple relatives of the famed composer, with his niece Frances Badalament...

Angelo Badalamenti, whose compositions considerably shaped the mood of David Lynch films and series including Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, has died at the age of 85.

Badalamenti’s death was confirmed by multiple relatives of the famed composer, with his niece Frances Badalamenti telling The Hollywood Reporter he died of natural causes on Sunday (December 11) surrounded by family, at his home in New Jersey.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1937, Badalamenti began taking piano lessons at a young age, and received his bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music. His early film scoring work included writing music for 1973’s Gordon’s War and 1974’s Law And Disorder, but his major break came when he composed the score and supervised the soundtrack for David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.

The film was the first in a career spent collaborating with Lynch on various other projects, along with frequent Lynch collaborator, singer Julee Cruise. Badalamenti is perhaps best known for working with Lynch on Twin Peaks (and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me), helping define the surreal, otherworldly feel of the mystery series.

While working on the series’ score, Lynch would often describe to Badalamenti the moods and feelings he wanted to create. The series’ signature theme, the “Love Theme From Twin Peaks”, was written in 20 minutes, with Lynch telling Badalamenti: “You just wrote 75 per cent of the score. It’s the mood of the whole piece. It is Twin Peaks.”

In 1991, Badalamenti won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the Twin Peaks theme. He would go on to score Twin Peaks’ 2017 revival, featuring new compositions and material from the original series.

Other collaborations with Lynch included 1990’s Wild At Heart, 1997’s Lost Highway, 1999’s The Straight Story and 2001’s Mulholland Drive. He made small appearances onscreen in a handful of the Lynch films he worked on, including Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.

Outside of his work with Lynch, Badalamenti also worked on the soundtracks for films such as A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and The Wicker Man, and collaborated with a range of other musicians. Artists he worked with over the years include David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, James’ Tim Booth, Orbital, The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan, Pet Shop Boys and Anthrax.

“Tonight I will raise my glass to my beautiful friend, the Bad Angel, Angelo Badalamenti,” Booth wrote on Twitter, remembering his collaborator. “He taught me many things but primarily how to enjoy the recording process. We laughed from the beginning to the end of the record we made together, never had a disagreement. I love him.”

The Smile announce new live album recorded at Montreux Jazz Festival

Alex Gallagher
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The Smile announce new live album recorded at Montreux Jazz Festival

The Smile will release a live album recorded during the band's set at this year's Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: The Smile on their album A Light For Attracting Attention: “Everything moved very fast” ...

The Smile will release a live album recorded during the band’s set at this year’s Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

The Smile At Montreux Jazz Festival captures the trio playing songs from debut album A Light For Attracting Attention, including “You Will Never Work In Television Again”, “The Smoke”, “Pana-vision”, “Free In The Knowledge” and more. The festival took place in July, with the live album featuring eight songs from their set.

The digital-only release will arrive on streaming platforms this Wednesday (December 14), while a concert film of the performed tracks will broadcast on the band’s YouTube channel on Tuesday (December 13) at 8pm GMT/3pm EST. It will be available for just 48 hours, and will also feature footage of the first-ever public performance of new song “Bending Hectic”, written the same day it was debuted.

The Smile – comprised of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood along with Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner – made their debut with a performance for Glastonbury’s Live at Worthy Farm concert video, which streamed in May 2021.

The band’s debut single, “You Will Never Work In Television Again”, was released in January this year. The same month, the band played their first public shows, a trio of gigs at Magazine in London.

After a string of singles including “The Smoke”, “Skrting On The Surface” and “Pana-vision”, The Smile released A Light For Attracting Attention in May of this year.

Since A Light For Attracting Attention arrived, The Smile have debuted numerous new tracks live. In addition to “Hectic Bending” at Montreux, the band also played a song called “Friend Of A Friend” at a gig in Croatia and “Bodies Laughing” during a Berlin show, both in May.

In June, during The Smile’s set at Primavera Sound in Barcelona – which The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas called “the best show I’ve seen in years” – the band performed a new song called “Colours Fly”.

We’re New Here – caroline

Sharon O'Connell
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We’re New Here – caroline

Post-rock meets choral folk from the obsessive London-based octet caroline talk about their self-titled release, previously in our MARCH 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. caroline are a band defined by their difference. As teenagers in East Sussex, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jas...

Post-rock meets choral folk from the obsessive London-based octet caroline talk about their self-titled release, previously in our MARCH 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

caroline are a band defined by their difference. As teenagers in East Sussex, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jasper Llewellyn and guitarist Mike O’Malley were an Appalachian folk covers duo; fast-forward several years and Llewellyn was playing rhythmic post-punk in London with university friend Casper Hughes, when the realisation that they were in a creative cul-de-sac led them to invite O’Malley onboard. They kept expanding, adding various other childhood and uni friends on bass, trumpet, violins, saxophone, flute and clarinet until they became a unique, eight-piece proposition.

Despite evolving in parallel to the south London punk/DIY scene that has produced the likes of Goat Girl and Black Midi, Llewellyn claims that caroline weren’t really aware of it. Instead they focused inward, making a virtue of Hughes’ technical limitations on the guitar. “Casper’s not having a musical background in conventional song structure meant that the containers we were making music inside weren’t verse-chorus,” Llewellyn explains. “Because of that, the parameters were never there. From the start, it set things off down a path of us deciding what we wanted the form to be, and the form became the interesting thing. It was like, if we’re not going to do verse and chorus, then what do we want to do? We can create a different order of priorities.”

caroline’s upcoming eponymous debut – a set of longform compositions rather than conventional songs – is built with almost architectural precision and has a post-rock spareness, making boldly unusual use of space and silence. Their prioritising of tone over melody or the interplay of distance and closeness in their music is especially striking on the oddly poignant cacophony of “Engine (Eavesdropping)” and “Skydiving Onto The Library Roof”, an epic exercise in slow build that suggests Richard Dawson fronting a minimalist chamber orchestra. All the tracks on the album are carefully considered, and Hughes admits that making them takes “a really long time – it’s about finding things we all love and are happy with”.

Most of the songs on caroline were recorded at London’s Total Refreshment Centre and mixed via marathon Zoom sessions with Lankum producer John Murphy. “It just went on and on,” laughs Hughes. “We’d be like, ‘Can you move it up one or two dB?’ Then that would ruin the balance and we’d have to go back. It’s fun – it’s intense problem solving, but we take it to its extreme, I think.”

“We are total perfectionists,” admits Llewellyn. Even before the core trio have taken their songs to the rest of the band, they have been extensively workshopped. “We do a lot of talking – as much as we do playing.” This dedication and obsessive attention to detail is what you might reasonably expect of a band whose members variously work for a political campaigning organisation, teach music in schools, design instruments for players with limited mobility or are studying “the role of improvisation within the ongoing happening of social worlds”. On top of that, Llewellyn makes performance art with an improv element and quite a few of caroline have their own bands and/or play in other friends’ projects.

This paints a picture of an ensemble in all-consuming pursuit of their art, but Hughes says there is no grand plan and their aims, for now at least, are modest: “We just want to keep trying stuff out, pushing our more recent experiments with recording techniques and different sound environments. We don’t have any particular intentions apart from to just carry on being open to the new ideas that come up when we play music together.”

caroline is released by Rough Trade on February 25.

Flaming Lips to perform Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in full on UK tour

Alex Gallagher
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Flaming Lips to perform Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in full on UK tour

The Flaming Lips have added two more UK shows to their 2023 tour, where the US psych-rock band will play their seminal 2002 album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in full to celebrate its 20th anniversary. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: The Flam...

The Flaming Lips have added two more UK shows to their 2023 tour, where the US psych-rock band will play their seminal 2002 album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in full to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Along with their previously announced, sold-out show at London’s Eventim Apollo on April 28, the band will perform at London’s Troxy on April 25, as well as the O2 Apollo in Manchester on April 29. Tickets are on sale now here.

In addition to their UK dates, The Flaming Lips will be playing Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots at North American headline dates in Chicago and Washington in May, as well as their appearance at the Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta, Georgia.

Last month, the band released a 20th anniversary reissue of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Released digitally and a six-CD box set, that version includes 50 previously unreleased tracks, the Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell and Flight Test EPs, plus B-sides, demos, remixes, live versions of tracks, and hard-to-find covers of Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Kylie Minogue songs.

Last year, the band released a Nick Cave covers album titled Where The Viaduct Looms in collaboration with young Canadian musician Nell Smith, performing “Red Right Hand” together on Colbert earlier this year.

Line-up revealed for UK Americana Awards 2023

Michael Bonner
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Line-up revealed for UK Americana Awards 2023

The line-up have been revealed for next year's UK Americana Awards, which take place on January 26 at London's Hackney Empire. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut Confirmed performers including Allison Russell, Passenger, Nickel Creek, Lady Nade, The Hanging St...

The line-up have been revealed for next year’s UK Americana Awards, which take place on January 26 at London’s Hackney Empire.

Confirmed performers including Allison Russell, Passenger, Nickel Creek, Lady Nade, The Hanging Stars, The Heavy Heavy, Ferris and Sylvester, Simeon Hammond Dallas, Elles Bailey and Miko Marks join previously announced artists, Judy Collins and Mike Scott.

In addition, the Awards show will honour Loretta Lynn in a multi-artist tribute.

Meanwhile, Allison Russell will deliver The Keynote Speech at UK Americana Music Week Conference, which takes place between January 23 – 26 in Hackney.

Awards only tickets are available here.

Delegate passes and showcase wristbands are available here.

See a full list of nominees below for the awards show at Hackney Empire.

UK Album of the Year
• Birds That Flew and Ships That Sailed by Passenger (Produced by Mike Rosenberg and Chris Vallejo)
• Blue Hours by Bear’s Den (Produced by Ian Grimble)
• Shining In The Half Light by Elles Bailey (Produced by Dan Weller)
• Superhuman by Ferris and Sylvester (Produced by Ryan Hadlock and Michael Rendall)

International Album Of The Year
• In These Silent Days by Brandi Carlile (produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings)
• Pohorylle by Margo Cilker (produced by Sera Cahoone)
• Raise The Roof by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (produced by T Bone Burnett)
• The Man From Waco by Charley Crockett (produced by Bruce Robison)

UK Song Of The Year
• Car Crash by Hannah White (Written by Hannah White)
• Grace by Marcus Mumford (Written by Blake Mills and Marcus Mumford)
• Make It Romantic by Simeon Hammond Dallas (Written by Simeon Hammond Dallas)
• The Right Place by Danny George Wilson (written by Danny Wilson)

International Song Of The Year
• I Don’t Really Care for You by CMAT (Written by Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson)
• Something in the Orange by Zach Bryan (Written by Zachary Lane Bryan)
• Take It Like A Man by Amanda Shires (Written by Amanda Shires and Lawrence Rothman)
• You’re Not Alone by Allison Russell feat. Brandi Carlile (Written by Allison Russell)

UK Artist Of The Year
• Bear’s Den
• Elles Bailey
• Ferris and Sylvester
• Lady Nade

International Artist of the Year
• Allison Russell
• Brandi Carlile
• Margo Cilker
• The Dead South

UK Instrumentalist of the Year
• Holly Carter
• Joe Coombs
• Joe Wilkins
• Mark Lewis

UK Live Act of the Year
• Beans On Toast
• Elles Bailey
• Ferris & Sylvester
• Holy Moly & The Crackers
• Noble Jacks
• The Heavy, Heavy

Bruce Springsteen – Only the Strong Survive (Covers Vol 1)

Richard Williams
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Bruce Springsteen – Only the Strong Survive (Covers Vol 1)

Listening to Walter Orange and JD Nicholas sing “Nightshift” can still make you cry, 37 years after they recorded the song with their group, the Commodores. The two lead singers each take a verse. Orange begins with the one about Marvin Gaye. Nicholas takes the one about Jackie Wilson. It’s a ...

Listening to Walter Orange and JD Nicholas sing “Nightshift” can still make you cry, 37 years after they recorded the song with their group, the Commodores. The two lead singers each take a verse. Orange begins with the one about Marvin Gaye. Nicholas takes the one about Jackie Wilson. It’s a hymn to a pair of recently departed heroes, quoting from their best-known songs, but it’s not a pastiche. The rich synth textures and the finely detailed percussion are a reminder that this was made in 1985, not 1965. The voices are filled with love and loss. When Orange begins with “Marvin, he was a friend of mine”, it’s more than just a reference to Gaye’s hit version of “Abraham, Martin And John”. It’s a statement of cultural kinship, of brotherhood.

By making “Nightshift” one of the 15 old soul songs he tackles on his new album, Bruce Springsteen is setting himself quite a challenge. In strictly musical terms, he does a decent job of reproducing the original. The rhythm track is convincing, he sings with passion, and there’s a flourish of B3 on the fade that Dennis Lambert, the Commodores’ producer, might wish he’d thought of. But what does such a thing mean in 2022, all those decades after first Elvis recorded Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right Mama” and The Beatles covered Barrett Strong’s “Money”? They were appropriating black music in order to build a platform for their own world-changing means of expression. Does it still work – is it still right – for a famous white singer to present us with his version of black music in quite so straightforwardly imitative a form?

Like many of his contemporaries, Springsteen began his career performing covers, playing black or black-derived songs for a young white audience. A generation was borrowing the syntax and grammar of the music, and the best used it to mould a language of their own. In the bones of almost every song Springsteen ever wrote is the DNA of R&B and soul music, and in a sense it’s honourable of him to want to acknowledge the debt so explicitly. But will the hundreds of thousands who buy his covers album bother to delve back and listen to the 1968 recording of Jerry Butler singing the title song, or William Bell singing “I Forgot To Be Your Lover” that same year? Some might, just as Long John Baldry’s version of “Hoochie Coochie Man”, the Stones’ “Honest I Do” or The Animals’ “I’m Mad Again” certainly led many to the work of Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker in the early ’60s. But we live in a world in which there are still people who can seriously express a preference for Rod Stewart’s perfectly decent cover of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” over the Temptations’ sublime original, suggesting that we might not have come as far as we thought.

The specific motives that led him to record Only The Strong Survive are understandable and legitimate. He wanted to see how his voice worked on this material, detached from the meaning of the songs he writes himself, and to measure himself against a generation of great singers, such as Ben E King (“Don’t Play That Song”), Tyrone Davis (“Turn Back The Hands Of Time”) and the Four Tops’ Levi Stubbs (“7 Rooms Of Gloom”). The homage would be implicit. In the process he might also rediscover the sense of mingled joy and pain that great soul music contains, and with which he infused crowd-stirring songs of his own, so effectively in something like “Hungry Heart”.

Covers were always a feature of his live act, from “When You Walk In The Room” and “Pretty Flamingo”, choices that exposed the roots of his own songwriting in the early touring days, to “Dream Baby Dream” and “Friday On My Mind” – and, of course, the ecstatic encores: “Twist And Shout”, “Quarter To Three” and the Mitch Ryder medley. The new studio album, however, is a sustained exercise in interpretation, a test both for himself and for his audience, who are invited to enjoy the sound of him stepping outside his own myth.

For a certain kind of listener, this is also an invitation to play amateur A&R man, questioning his choices. Why did he select two songs – “Only The Strong Survive” and “Hey Western Union Man” – from the same Jerry Butler album (The Iceman Cometh)? Perhaps he could have been more adventurous: why two songs from William Bell and none from, say, Frederick Knight, Philip Mitchell or Sam Dees? Or Curtis Mayfield, whose “Gypsy Woman” he covered on a tribute album in 1994?

What Springsteen doesn’t do is produce a caricature of soul music. It may be hard for somebody of his level of fame to affect the modesty that characterised many (not all) great soul singers, but for this he can rely on our knowledge of his own personality, in which a frontman’s natural extroversion has never shaded into brashness. If he can’t reproduce the sense Tyrone Davis brought to a song of being a country boy landed in the big city, then he can treat his “Turn Back The Hands Of Time” with proper respect; if he wasn’t raised in the black church, then he can bring restraint and finesse to the pathos of Bell’s “I Forgot To Be Your Lover”.

There are several shades of soul music on show here. “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”, sung by Frankie Valli before the Walker Brothers, is New Jersey’s version of Brill Building orchestral pop-soul. The Supremes’ “Someday We’ll Be Together” is Motown at its sweetest. Both the Butler songs echo the gliding Philly Sound invented by their producers and co-composers, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Adding the responses of the veteran Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave) to “I Forgot To Be Your Lover” and Dobie Gray’s “Soul Days” is a nice touch, evoking and saluting the voices of the past.

Sometimes enthusiasm is not enough. “7 Rooms…” is taken a hair too fast and Stubbs’ majestic agony is beyond Springsteen’s reach. “When She Was My Girl”, the Four Tops’ first hit after leaving Motown, simply isn’t worth the trouble. Over the long fade of “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted”, Springsteen repeats “I’m gonna find my way” as if this were “Backstreets”, making you want to reach for Jimmy Ruffin, who was decidedly less sure about whether he’d ever escape his existential woe. And there are times when, while applauding Springsteen’s attempts to stay faithful to the originals, you wish he’d taken more chances; listening to the rawness of the bluesman Bobby Rush’s 1979 cover of “Hey Western Union Man” might have sent him off in more surprising directions.

But that was not his intention, and it becomes hard to carp when he brings off something as triumphantly as his note-perfect version of Frank Wilson’s “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)”, the zenith of northern soul, a surviving copy of which famously fetched £25,742 at auction in 2009. Singing as though he knows exactly how it felt to be among the dancers at Wigan Casino or Blackpool Mecca, he doesn’t just capture the details – the vibes, the baritone sax, the four-to-the-bar snare drum, the choir – of the recording conjured up in a Los Angeles studio by the producers Hal Davis and Marc Gordon in 1965: he inhabits its spirit.

The Welcome Wagon – Esther

Rob Hughes
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The Welcome Wagon – Esther

Monique Aiuto and her husband, Presbyterian pastor Vito Aiuto, tend to operate by their own clock. Since 2008’s Welcome To…, their arresting debut as The Welcome Wagon, produced by Sufjan Stevens on his own Asthmatic Kitty label, the pair have released just two albums, suggesting that artistic ...

Monique Aiuto and her husband, Presbyterian pastor Vito Aiuto, tend to operate by their own clock. Since 2008’s Welcome To…, their arresting debut as The Welcome Wagon, produced by Sufjan Stevens on his own Asthmatic Kitty label, the pair have released
just two albums, suggesting that artistic inspiration can be a fickle companion.

Much of the impetus for their latest came from Monique’s decision to take up painting again after a decade of inactivity. The collage materials she used were taken from the collection of her late grandmother, Esther, whose readings from the Bible (home-recorded onto cassette during the ’90s) kept her company. As Vito’s tentative new songs gathered shape, with Monique’s accompanying artwork, it became apparent that home, family and faith were the three interlocking themes of what became Esther.

Simplicity is key to the Welcome Wagon sound. Vito’s guitar is gentle and politic, allowing for their voices – either trading leads or paired in intimate harmony – to carry the soft weight of these devotional songs. A winding acoustic pattern forms the basis of “Isaiah, California”, a missive to both their son and the importance of belonging. “In the morning / By the fire / We’re going home”, sings Monique in an almost confidential hush.

Occasional samples of Esther’s voice provide a kind of narrative thread, linking Vito’s originals to sacred hymnals like “Noble Tree” and “Bethlehem, A Noble City”, while “Nunc Dimittis” is a canticle from the Gospel of Luke in traditional Latin. With subtle embellishments of brass, strings and piano, Esther sometimes resembles the work of The Innocence Mission or Stevens himself: charming, understated and often very beautiful. And while a couple of these songs tend to merely drift by, the more muscular “Matthew 7:7” mirrors the unshakeable faith of its central message – essentially, seek and you will find.

Similarly, the sterling “Lebanon” addresses memory and transfiguration via shifting bursts of electric guitar and a resolute drum pulse, sounding not unlike Joy Zipper, another New York-based duo prone to going to ground.

New Order share classic Haçienda performance of “Sunrise”

Tom Skinner
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New Order share classic Haçienda performance of “Sunrise”

New Order have shared a live performance of "Sunrise" from The Haçienda in 1985. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut The song appeared on the Manchester band's third studio album Low-Life, which is set to be repackaged and reissued as a special expanded box-se...

New Order have shared a live performance of “Sunrise” from The Haçienda in 1985.

The song appeared on the Manchester band’s third studio album Low-Life, which is set to be repackaged and reissued as a special expanded box-set on January 27, 2023 (pre-order/pre-save here).

Multiple versions of “Sunrise” will feature in the upcoming collection, including a “writing session recording” and a rough instrumental mix.

There’ll also be live airings of the song from Low-Life-era concerts in Tokyo, Rotterdam, Toronto and Manchester.

The latter performance came as part of a-BBC filmed Whistle Test session at the legendary Haçienda venue. On December 8, New Order released a video of that outing on their official YouTube channel – see it here:

The new Low-Life reissue is due to arrive in LP, 2CD and 2DVD formats, along with a special book.

Also being released are a number of 12-inch singles, including “Shellshock”, “Sub-Culture” and “The Perfect Kiss”. Those limited edition records are available to order now here.

New Order released a special boxset for their seminal second album Power Corruption & Lies in 2020. The 1983 record features the tracks “Blue Monday”, “Age Of Consent” and “Your Silent Face”.

This summer saw New Order embark on a joint North American headline tour with Pet Shop Boys.

The Stranglers drummer Jet Black has died

Damian Jones
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The Stranglers drummer Jet Black has died

The Stranglers drummer Jet Black has died, aged 84. The sticksman, who was born Brian Duffy, was a founding member of the Guildford band and performed with them until 2015. He announced his retirement a few years later due to ill health. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest is...

The Stranglers drummer Jet Black has died, aged 84.

The sticksman, who was born Brian Duffy, was a founding member of the Guildford band and performed with them until 2015. He announced his retirement a few years later due to ill health.

He passed away at his home on Tuesday (December 6) at his country home in Wales. He leaves behind his wife Ava, and his two children Charlotte and Anthony.

Announcing his death on Twitter, the band said: “It is with heavy hearts we announce the passing of our dear friend, colleague and band elder statesman Jet Black. Jet died peacefully at home surrounded by his family. Fond adieu, fly straight JB.”

Bassist and co-frontman JJ Burnel added: “The welcoming committee has doubled. After years of ill health Jet has finally been released. He was a force of nature. An inspiration. The Stranglers would not have been if it wasn’t for him. The most erudite of men. A rebel with many causes. Say hi to [late keyboard player] Dave [Greenfield] for me.”

Baz Warne, the band’s guitarist and co-frontman also expressed his sadness.

He said: “I loved Jet. He took me under his wing over two decades ago and I never really came out from under it. I’m so very sad he’s gone. He hadn’t been too well for a while, but when I spoke to him most recently, three weeks ago, he was laughing and wanting to hear all the news…still interested and involved. It’s been my privilege to have known and worked with him, and to have called him a friend, and I’ll miss him until the end of my days. Rest in peace big man.”

Former frontman Hugh Cornwall who left the band in 1990, also posted a statement on Twitter.

He wrote: “It is with great sadness I have learnt that Jet Black has passed away. We shared a special period of our lives when we strived to become professional musicians. The Stranglers success was founded on his determination and drive. His timing was faultless. All power to him and his legacy.”

When The Stranglers formed in west Surrey in 1974, Black owned a fleet of ice cream vans which the band used as a tour bus during one of their early tours. They also used his shop as their headquarters.

In 2007, the band announced that Black was suffering with heart issues and he took a step back from performing, being temporarily replaced by his drum technician.

He resumed his duties full-time for the band’s tours in 2010 and 2011, but the following year he was taken to hospital after falling ill just before he was due on stage in Oxford. He finally retired after he stopped performing in 2015.

 

Black’s death came over two years keyboardist Dave Greenfield died at the age of 71 after testing positive for COVID-19.

Lana Del Rey announces new album and single “Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd”

Damian Jones
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Lana Del Rey announces new album and single “Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd”

Lana Del Rey has announced her new album Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd and shared the record's title track. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut It comes after the singer-songwriter recently teased her new ninth studio album last week. In ...

Lana Del Rey has announced her new album Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd and shared the record’s title track.

It comes after the singer-songwriter recently teased her new ninth studio album last week. In a snippet of an interview with HOLA TV, the singer said: “I won’t tell you when it’s coming out, but I can tell you I’m making an announcement about it on the seventh, so what do we have, a week? Seven days? I’m very excited.”

Now, details of her new album have arrived with Del Rey sharing the artwork for the record, which you can view below, and the release of March 10, 2023. Fans can pre-order for Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd here.

The singer-songwriter has also shared the title track, which was written by herself and Mike Hermosa. It was produced by Del Rey, Jack Antonoff, Drew Erickson and Zach Dawes.

The singer’s last album Blue Banisters was released in October last year. It followed her March 2021 album, Chemtrails Over The Country Club.

Mostly recently, the singer featured on Taylor Swift’s “Snow On The Beach” from the latter’s new album Midnights, which was released last month. Del Rey also covered Father John Misty’s “Buddy’s Rendezvous” in June this year.

We’re New Here – Eve Adams

Stephen Dalton
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We’re New Here – Eve Adams

LA-based noir songwriter Eve Adams talks about “making something beautiful out of something tragic” on her album Metal Bird, previously in our FEBRUARY 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here. For as long as she can remember, Eve Adams has been drawn to the darkness on the edge of town. In...

LA-based noir songwriter Eve Adams talks about “making something beautiful out of something tragic” on her album Metal Bird, previously in our FEBRUARY 2022 issue of Uncut, available to buy here.

For as long as she can remember, Eve Adams has been drawn to the darkness on the edge of town. In her tender torch songs and fatalistic folk-noir ballads, the singer-songwriter inhabits an intoxicating twilight zone of romantic ruin and dreamy despair. Love is tortuous and fleeting, bluesy heartache just around the corner, and death forever lurking in the shadows.

Growing up between her mother’s family farm in Oklahoma and her father’s LA base, Adams came to music young. “I’ve always loved to sing, since I was a little girl,” she says. “The first song I wrote was when I was around 12 and it was called “I’ve Seen It All”, which I find pretty funny. It’s so incredibly sad and I don’t know where the hell it came from! At that point I hadn’t experienced anything traumatic, I had a great childhood. But even then I was fascinated by the darkness.”

On her latest album, Metal Bird, Adams is processing real grief and loss rather than macabre juvenile yearnings. The title was inspired by the frequent plane journeys the singer undertook during the LP’s gestation, travelling from her then-home in Montreal to deal with a family tragedy in LA. Flying for her came to symbolise the liminal state between life and death. “There is something heart-wrenching about flying,” she offers. “You’re participating in this long history and mythology of mankind’s dream to take to the sky, to overcome the gravity of the earth, to be as free as a bird. That resonated with me at a difficult time.”

Adopting a knowingly retro aesthetic that recalls Lana Del Rey or Julee Cruise at times, Adams conjures up swooning, love-damaged narrators in her songs, who could have stepped out of a vintage film noir. Indeed, she cites Marlene Dietrich’s elusive temptress Concha Pérez in The Devil Is A Woman (1935) and Isabella Rossellini’s tormented femme fatale Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet (1986) as key inspirations. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t really belong in this era. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way nowadays, though – these are hard times.”

This cinematic mood also extends to lustrous monochrome videos and stylish sleeve artwork for Metal Bird, designed by Adams herself. “My music is inspired by visual art and my visual art is inspired by music, so it’s a nice little ouroborus.”

Metal Bird nudges Adams deeper into classic country-folk Americana than her lightly experimental early albums, In Hell (2017) and Candy Colored Doom (2019). “I wrote most of In Hell while I was 18 and 19, and I feel like it was coming from a much darker and sparser place,” she explains. “As I’ve grown and stepped into womanhood, the music has changed with me.”

Long before the family trauma that inspired Metal Bird, Adams was writing songs filled with darkness. Accepting that loss and grief are universal experiences, she says, is strangely consoling. “Death is universal and I have never wanted to shy away from it. I remember when I got my driver’s licence, I started to photograph roadkill. I’d see a dead skunk or deer and have to pull over to take a picture. I’d have this initial feeling of grief, then I’d transform that into an act of remembrance, making something beautiful out of something tragic. People thought I was a freak, ha! Music is the same kind of process for me. It starts with a feeling and becomes a need to turn it into something else, like an alchemist.”

Metal Bird is released digitally by Basin Rock now.

St. Vincent launches new podcast about history of rock music

Charlotte Krol
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St. Vincent launches new podcast about history of rock music

St. Vincent is hosting a new podcast about the history of rock music called History Listen Rock. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: St Vincent – Daddy’s Home review It marks the second time that the musician – real name Annie Clark – has ...

St. Vincent is hosting a new podcast about the history of rock music called History Listen Rock.

It marks the second time that the musician – real name Annie Clark – has hosted a podcast, following on from 2020’s St. Vincent: Words + Music.

The podcast is produced by Audible Inc. and Double Elvis and launches on January 12, 2023.

It aims to explore the history of rock music by spotlighting specific moments within the genre’s evolution.

In a statement [via Clash] Clark said: “It’s been so fun going back through rock history and revisiting some of my favourite artists and songs, including a bunch that don’t get the recognition they should.

“When you put it all together, you can see how history repeats and echoes through generations, how music links the past to the present, artist-to-artist. And some of these stories are absolutely wild.”

Listeners will be treated to deep-dives including the Sex Pistols’ doomed US tour and the moment that Jimi Hendrix and Patti Smith met. Check out a preview below.

Co-Founder of Double Elvis Brady Sadler said: “At Double Elvis, we tell stories about music to entertain and provoke audiences to think differently.

“History Listen will do both of these things by taking listeners on a journey through the historical and cultural progression of music, and we couldn’t be more excited to collaborate with Audible on this groundbreaking series given their history as a true pioneer in spoken-word audio.”

Listen to previously unreleased Sparklehorse song “It Will Never Stop”

Damian Jones
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Listen to previously unreleased Sparklehorse song “It Will Never Stop”

A previously unreleased Sparklehorse song has been shared by the brother of late frontman Mark Linkous. ORDER NOW: Neil Young is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut The track, "It Will Never Stop", was unearthed by Matt Linkous while overseeing his brother's estate and archiving his re...

A previously unreleased Sparklehorse song has been shared by the brother of late frontman Mark Linkous.

The track, “It Will Never Stop”, was unearthed by Matt Linkous while overseeing his brother’s estate and archiving his recordings. The Sparklehorse frontman died by suicide in 2010, at the age of 47.

“Great care has been taken to archive and preserve Mark’s music,” Matt said. “We are very thankful for Mark and the beauty he brought to this world.” You can listen to the track below.

Since Linkous’ passing, unreleased and new tracks have been shared in tribute to the late frontman.

In 2018, PJ Harvey and John Parish shared the song “Sorry For Your Loss” in tribute to Linkous.

Linkous formed Sparklehorse in 1995, and would later collaborate with Harvey and Parish on the 2001 album It’s A Wonderful Life.

A year later, Danger Mouse shared an unreleased track from his project with the late Sparklehorse frontman – 2010’s Dark Night Of The Soul.

The pair worked on the track “Ninjarous” in 2009 alongside rapper MF Doom and The Black Keys‘ Patrick Carney.

“Mark [Linkous] and I worked on a lot of music together,” Danger Mouse previously said. “But it was the song that he and I wrote and recorded with MF DOOM that really resonated with him. It was one of his favourites, so I’m happy to have this opportunity to pay tribute to him by getting it out there.”

Dark Night Of The Soul also featured contributions from the likes of Julian Casablancas, Iggy Pop, and The Flaming Lips. Its visuals were provided by David Lynch.

Meanwhile, a feature-length documentary about Linkous, titled This Is Sparklehorse, was released in October. It was made by UK filmmakers Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass of Bo-Ho Films, and featured Lynch along with Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle and Portishead’s Adrian Utley.

Neil Young: “Have you secured your load correctly?”

Damien Love
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Neil Young: “Have you secured your load correctly?”

NEIL YOUNG is out there in the wilderness, travelling on his bus back towards his Canadian homeland. This literal journey into his past also seems a suitable metaphor for Young’s peripatetic 2022. Over the past 12 months, this most capricious of musicians has hurtled backwards and forwards through...

NEIL YOUNG is out there in the wilderness, travelling on his bus back towards his Canadian homeland. This literal journey into his past also seems a suitable metaphor for Young’s peripatetic 2022. Over the past 12 months, this most capricious of musicians has hurtled backwards and forwards through his history and the present day – from 1970s ‘bootlegs’ via mythic lost albums and powerful new recordings with his doughty lieutenants Crazy Horse before arriving, finally, at a 50th-anniversary edition of his celebrated album Harvest. In this exclusive interview, Young – accompanied by Crazy Horse and producer Rick Rubin – looks back over a prolific year and attempts to make sense of the different, sometimes contradictory Neil Youngs who have emerged along the way. “I got a lot of stuff to clean up,” he tells Damien Love. “I’ve got a big mess that I left behind”, in the latest issue of Uncut magazine – in UK shops from Thursday, December 8 and available to buy from our online store.

Neil Young is out there somewhere. The only problem is, nobody seems to know where. Two minutes before Uncut is due to meet Young on Zoom to talk over his astonishingly productive 2022, there’s a call from his team. “Neil asks can we put it back a little? He’s driving right now.”

No problem. Whereabouts is he?

“Yeah… Not actually sure.”

Some hours later, another of Young’s ground crew struggles heroically – but in vain – to hook up a connection. As various technical options are attempted then aborted, Uncut asks where Neil is right now?

“Uh, East Coast somewhere… I think.”

Eventually, we’re given the number of the phone Young carries in his pocket – a device, as he will later explain, that was fundamental in the creation of his remarkable new album,
World Record, his 42nd studio album and, significantly, the third he’s made in a row now with his most redoubtable collaborators, Crazy Horse. With a sudden quickening of pace, World Record has arrived less than 12 months after their previous album, Barn. In the stubborn on-off partnership that has endured for over half a century – and bears all the scars and passion to prove it – it’s the first time Young has ever gone into the studio with the band three times back-to-back like this.

“Yeah,” nods Horse bass player Billy Talbot when that’s put to him a few days later. He leans forward, raises his eyebrows. “Interesting, huh?”

The number works. Young is finally there, the sounds of the highway swishing by him. But where exactly is he?

“Where I am? I’m in Canada. I’m on my bus, in Canada.”

Not East Coast USA after all, then, but on the road, heading into the mythic landscape of his childhood. Hearing him say it – especially while considering World Record’s cover, which features a striking photograph of his father, the writer Scott Young, in earlier days – instantly brings to mind one of Young’s most fragile and forlorn songs: “Now I’m goin’ back to Canada, on a journey through the past”.

In one way, that’s what much of 2022 has been for Young, as he has continued the herculean project of wrangling his sprawling archive into an order that satisfies him, both at his extraordinary, ever-evolving online repository – neilyoungarchives.com – and via a series of physical releases. This year alone, in addition to making World Record, Young has issued four historical live albums – two from 1971, one from 1974, one from 2019; resurrected 1989’s hair-raisingly brilliant Eldorado EP, a maelstrom of electric guitar originally released only in Japan; and, at long last, revealed Toast, an album he cut with Crazy Horse back in 2000 and then immediately shelved, for clouded reasons. Unveiled 22 years later, it turns out to be one of the most magnificent things they’ve ever done.

“I knew Toast was great,” Young concedes. “I knew it would come out someday.
I mean – we finished it, y’know. We cared enough about it to finish it. So that says something right there. But it just didn’t seem, like, important for it to come out at that time. Or it would have.”

PICK UP THE NEW ISSUE OF UNCUT TO READ THE FULL STORY

Introducing the new Uncut: Neil Young exclusive, Stooges, our essential 2023 Preview and more

Michael Bonner
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Introducing the new Uncut: Neil Young exclusive, Stooges, our essential 2023 Preview and more

In this month’s review of John Cale’s new album, Mercy, Tom makes a good point about the creatively successful third acts enjoyed by many veteran Uncut favourites. Musicians, in other words, who are still making vital and exciting music that fulfils their early artistic promise. Celebrating the ...

In this month’s review of John Cale’s new album, Mercy, Tom makes a good point about the creatively successful third acts enjoyed by many veteran Uncut favourites. Musicians, in other words, who are still making vital and exciting music that fulfils their early artistic promise. Celebrating the evolving stories of artists like Cale is, of course, a critical part of what we do here.

We’ve been following the capricious career swerves of this month’s cover star for Uncut’s entire lifetime – and, as ever, Neil Young doesn’t disappoint this month, as he looks back on a characteristically busy 2022 that included a new album with Crazy Horse, a legendary unreleased record from the vaults and a 50th-anniversary release for one of his most beloved classics. I’d go so far as to claim it’s one of the best interviews we’ve ever run with Neil – stand up, Damien Love – and covers a lot of ground with the kind of depth and focus Young often isn’t always inclined towards. After some comedy gold at the start, involving Neil and modern technology, Damien soon digs into one of the most intriguing aspects of Young’s career.

Writes Damien, “You have to wonder whether juggling so many eras at once, and so many sometimes contradictory versions of Neil Young, he ever finds things blurring together – if echoes from his busy past can sometimes slip through to influence his present.”

“It doesn’t really work like that, I don’t think,” Young replies. “I got a lot of stuff to clean up. I’ve got a big mess that I left behind. I’ve created a lot of unfinished records, unfinished this and that. I now have the time to deal with it, focus on it. But at the same time, anything new takes precedent. Always. Once I start thinking about something new, I drop the old stuff right away and do the new thing.”

It’s a great way to bring to a close a huge year for Uncut. We celebrated our 300th issue (and our 25th birthday) in the spring – milestones for any magazine, especially during these challenging times. So on behalf of myself, John, Marc, Tom, Sam, Mick, Mike, Michael, Phil, Johnny, Lora and Mark, sincere thanks for all your support over the past 12 months. As you’d imagine, we have lots of big plans lined up for 2023 – including a legendary artist making their debut as a cover star next month – and we hope you’ll come along for the ride.

In the meantime, have a peaceful Christmas and New Year. See you in January!

Exclusive! Watch a video for The Wedding Present’s new song, “The Loneliest Time Of Year”

Sam Richards
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Exclusive! Watch a video for The Wedding Present’s new song, “The Loneliest Time Of Year”

A year ago, Uncut brought you the news that The Wedding Present were marking the 30th anniversary of their Hit Parade caper by repeating the feat of releasing a single every month throughout 2022. And having pulled it off once more with aplomb, where else to end but with a traditional seasonal weepi...

A year ago, Uncut brought you the news that The Wedding Present were marking the 30th anniversary of their Hit Parade caper by repeating the feat of releasing a single every month throughout 2022. And having pulled it off once more with aplomb, where else to end but with a traditional seasonal weepie?

Watch the video for “The Loneliest Time Of Year” below:

“Ah, the old ‘Christmas song’,” writes bandleader David Gedge. “To be honest, I’ve kind of been one of those ‘bah, humbug’ types ever since I realised that the only thing we’re really celebrating on 25 December is capitalism! ‘Thanks for the list of stuff you want me to buy for you, here’s a list of stuff I want you to buy for me.’ There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but, for me, one of the most appealing things about the festive season is the way pop songs always seem more poignant when they’re also Christmas songs. It’s all about heightened expectation and disappointment, perhaps.

“I’ve had a go myself a couple of times over the years, of course, and it seemed fitting to have another crack at it for the grand finale of 24 Songs. Hence, ‘The Loneliest Time Of Year’ has a huge, melancholy chorus, sleigh bells, and an appropriately surreal video. The other song on our final 7” of 2022, ‘Memento Mori’, is a perkier affair which was written while I gazed admiringly at the snow-topped Cascade Mountain Range in Washington State.”

“The Loneliest Time Of Year” will be released on Friday December 16. You can buy the 7″ – either individually or as part of the complete box set of all 12 24 Songs singles – by clicking here.

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