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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers to release Live At The Fillmore (1997)

Michael Bonner
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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers to release Live At The Fillmore (1997)

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are releasing a concert album, Live At The Fillmore (1997), on November 25 via Warner Records. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut The album celebrates the band's 20-date residency at the San Francisco venue. The recordings here are t...

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are releasing a concert album, Live At The Fillmore (1997), on November 25 via Warner Records.

The album celebrates the band’s 20-date residency at the San Francisco venue. The recordings here are taken from the last six nights of the run. They features guest appearances by Roger McGuinn and John Lee Hooker, plus plenty of Petty’s between-song banter. Petty was so enthusiastic about the residency that he told the audience at the final show, “We all feel this might be the highpoint of our time together as a group… It’s going to be hard to get us off this stage tonight.”

“Playing the Fillmore in 1997 for a month was one of my favourite experiences as a musician in my whole life,” Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell says. “The band was on fire and we changed the set list every night. The room and the crowd was spiritual … AND … we got to play with some amazing guests. I will always remember those nights with joy and inspiration.”

You can hear “Listen To Her Heart” below:

The album is available to pre-order on a variety of formats – 2 CD, 3 LP, 4 CD deluxe edition, 6 LP deluxe edition and a 6 LP Uber deluxe edition. The Uber is only available from Petty’s website. It contains 58 tracks and comes housed in a replica cymbal rode case. It included a tour patch, a record player slip mat, guitar pics, an embroidered Fillmore House Band baseball hat and assorted memorabilia.

The tracklisting for Live At The Fillmore (1997) os:

3 LP FORMAT

Side 1
1. Pre-show (spoken interlude)
2. Jammin’ Me
3. Listen To Her Heart
4. Around And Around
5. Good Evening (spoken interlude)
6. Lucille
7. Call Me The Breeze
8. Cabin Down Below
9. The Internet, Whatever That Is (spoken interlude)
10. Time is On My Side

Side 2
1. You Don’t Know How It Feels
2. I’d Like To Love You Baby
3. Ain’t No Sunshine
4. Homecoming Queen Intro (spoken interlude)
5. The Date I Had with That Ugly Old Homecoming Queen
6. Bye Bye Johnny

Side 3
1. Did Someone Say Heartbreakers Beach Party? (spoken interlude)
2. Heartbreakers Beach Party
3. Angel Dream
4. The Wild One, Forever
5. American Girl
6. Let’s Hear It For Howie and Scott (spoken interlude)
7. You Really Got Me
8. Runnin’ Down A Dream

Side 4
1. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
2. It’s All Over Now
3. Mr. Roger McGuinn (spoken interlude)
4. It Won’t Be Wrong
5. You Ain’t Going Nowhere
6. Eight Miles High
7. Honey Bee

Side 5
1. John Lee Hooker, Ladies And Gentlemen (spoken interlude)
2. Boogie Chillen
3. Sorry, I’ve Just Broken My Amplifier (spoken interlude)
4. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
5. You Wreck me
6. Shakin’ All Over
7. Free Fallin’

Side 6
1. Mary Jane’s Last Dance
2. Louie Louie
3. Gloria
4. Alright For Now
5. Goodnight (spoken interlude)

6 LP FORMAT
Side 1
1. Pre-show (spoken interlude)
2. Around And Around
3. Jammin’ Me
4. Runnin’ Down A Dream
5. Good Evening (spoken interlude)
6. Lucille
7. Call Me The Breeze

Side 2
1. Cabin Down Below
2. The Internet, Whatever That Is (spoken interlude)
3. Time is On My Side
4. Listen To Her Heart
5. Waitin’ In School
6. Let’s Hear It For Mike (spoken interlude)
7. Slaughter On Tenth Avenue
8. Homecoming Queen Intro (spoken interlude)
9. The Date I Had with That Ugly Old Homecoming Queen

Side 3
1. I Won’t Back Down
2. You Are My Sunshine
3. Ain’t No Sunshine
4. It’s Good To Be King

Side 4
1. Rip It Up
2. You Don’t Know How It Feels
3. I’d Like To Love You Baby
4. Diddy Wah Diddy
5. We Got A Long Way To Go (spoken interlude)
6. Guitar Boogie Shuffle
7. I Want You Back Again

Side 5
1. On The Street Intro (spoken interlude)
2. On The Street
3. California
4. Let’s Hear It For Scott and Howie (spoken interlude)
5. Little Maggie
6. Walls
7. Hip Hugger
8. Friend Of The Devil

Side 6
1. Did Someone Say Heartbreakers Beach Party? (spoken interlude)
2. Heartbreakers Beach Party
3. Angel Dream
4. The Wild One, Forever
5. Even The Losers
6. American Girl
7. You Really Got Me
8. Goldfinger

Side 7
1. Mr. Roger McGuinn (spoken interlude)
2. It Won’t Be Wrong
3. You Ain’t Going Nowhere
4. Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man
5. Eight Miles High
6. Crazy Mama
7. Everyone Loves Benmont (spoken interlude)
8. Green Onions

Side 8
1. High Heel Sneakers
2. John Lee Hooker, Ladies And Gentlemen (spoken interlude)
3. Find My Baby (Locked Up In Love Again)
4. Serves You Right To Suffer
5. Boogie Chillen
6. I Got A Woman

Side 9
1. Sorry, I’ve Just Broken My Amplifier (spoken interlude)
2. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
3. Honey Bee
4. County Farm

Side 10
1. You Wreck Me
2. Shakin’ All Over
3. Free Fallin’
4. Mary Jane’s Last Dance

Side 11
1. Bye Bye Johnny
2. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
3. It’s All Over Now
4. Louie Louie

Side 12
1. Gloria
2. Alright For Now
3. Goodnight (spoken interlude)

The life and times of Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier | 1941 – 2022

Nick Hasted
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The life and times of Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier | 1941 – 2022

When LAMONT DOZIER died on August 8, 2022, we lost one of the chief architects of the Motown sound: a master craftsman who helped define popular music during the 1960s. Here EDDIE HOLLAND pays a moving, in-depth tribute to his friend and former collaborator – taking us from the factory floor at Hi...

When LAMONT DOZIER died on August 8, 2022, we lost one of the chief architects of the Motown sound: a master craftsman who helped define popular music during the 1960s. Here EDDIE HOLLAND pays a moving, in-depth tribute to his friend and former collaborator – taking us from the factory floor at Hitsville USA during Motown’s imperial phase to revelations about more recent plans to revive the Holland-Dozier-Holland partnership. “Lamont, Brian and I were together so long, the relationship we had was beautiful,” he tells Nick Hasted, in the latest issue of Uncut magazine – in UK shops from Thursday, Sept 15 and available to buy from our online store. “I still don’t really want to think about him being gone.”

PLUS: The Four Tops, The Chairmen Of The Board, Mick Hucknall and more salute Dozier’s songwriting genius.

The last time I saw Lamont Dozier was in 2020. He was living in Las Vegas and Barbara, his wife, asked if I would go to a meeting. I was very surprised. I’d been wanting him to do something with Holland-Dozier-Holland again and that’s what he wanted to talk about. Barbara asked if I would consider letting Lamont get involved with a song Brian and I had written. Could we work out an arrangement as Holland-Dozier-Holland again? I said, “Sure.”

You see, when Hitsville was really humming, it was magic. We were on another kind of high. It was almost as if something took over – something stronger than us. For four, five years, we were on a flow. But back there at Motown, I don’t think Holland-Dozier-Holland ever reached their full potential. In fact, we’d only just got started. So I wanted to work on some songs again, do something together. But, somehow, we never really got around to it.

I heard about Lamont’s passing from his brother Reggie. I’m still not over it. Intellectually, I understand he’s not here. But emotionally, I don’t want to accept it. I don’t want him not being here. Lamont, Brian and I were together so long, the relationship we had was beautiful.

Lamont had already started working together with Brian at Motown in 1962. But it was my idea to put them together, with me writing lyrics. Don’t get me wrong, Lamont was a fine writer. But they were so musically fluent, writing lyrics was holding them up. So I said to my brother, “How about I do the lyrics? This way, we could cover a lot of ground real fast.” We worked together like a charm. Matter of fact, we would come up with so many records so often and so fast, I’d say, “My God, is it that easy?” But it wasn’t that it was easy – it’s just that when we were producing records, we were instinctive, uninhibited. We had people coming from New York saying, ‘Wow, do you realise you’ve had this many Top 10 and No 1 records?’ Well, not really. We never talked about how successful we were among ourselves. As competitive as all the writers were at Motown, we always helped each other. The fact is, we were very, very young and we had a certain naïveté. We were just in the mood and the moment. We were doing what we felt, man.

This is the way it worked between Lamont and Brian. Brian was very, very good on melodies. Lamont was too, but sometimes he tended to ask Brian to correct some chord he was looking for. Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get A Witness”, or “Jimmy Mack” by Martha & The Vandellas – those are straight R&B. That is Lamont, not Brian. The first real big song we did on the Vandellas, “Heat Wave” – that was basically Lamont’s melody and production. Lamont was very good at shuffles.

I asked my brother once, “Why does Lamont do those kinds of rhythms?” Nobody can sing that stuff but him and me – I’d have to sing them to translate them to the artists. Brian said, “Ed, let me tell you something. Lamont was a drummer. He still has the rhythms he learned from that.” I said, “Wow! That’s why it’s tricky like that.” It’s the way he syncopates, it’s almost an off-timing thing, that doubles up in a certain beat – bababa-bababa, ba-ba ba-ba.

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

Margo Price announces new album, Strays

Michael Bonner
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Margo Price announces new album, Strays

Margo Price has announced details of her new studio album, Strays. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut The followup to 2020’s That’s How Rumors Get Started, Strays is released on January 13 by Loma Vista Recordings. It's produced by Price and Jonathan Wilson a...

Margo Price has announced details of her new studio album, Strays.

The followup to 2020’s That’s How Rumors Get Started, Strays is released on January 13 by Loma Vista Recordings. It’s produced by Price and Jonathan Wilson and, aside from Price’s band, features guest spots from Sharon Van Etten, Mike Campbell and Lucius.

“I feel this urgency to keep moving, keep creating,” says Price. “You get stuck in the same patterns of thinking, the same loops of addiction. But there comes a point where you just have to say, ‘I’m going to be here, I’m going to enjoy it, and I’m not going to put so much stock into checking the boxes for everyone else.’ I feel more mature in the way that I write now, I’m on more than just a search for large crowds and accolades. I’m trying to find what my soul needs.”

Last month, Price released “Been To The Mountain”, which features on Strays. To whet your whistle further, she’s now released “Change of Heart”, which you can hear below:

You can pre-order Strays by clicking here.

The tracklisting for Strays is:

Been To The Mountain
Light Me Up (ft. Mike Campbell)
Radio (ft. Sharon Van Etten)
Change of Heart
County Road
Time Machine
Hell In The Heartland
Anytime You Call (ft. Lucius)
Lydia
Landfill

Björk: “I wanted to land on planet Earth”

Stephen Troussé
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Björk: “I wanted to land on planet Earth”

Returning to Iceland, BJÖRK found herself putting down roots, reconnecting with her ancestry, losing her mother and becoming a grandmother. The result is Fossora – the final part of her own post-divorce pagan comedy that’s taken her from America, via heaven and hell, back to Reykjavík again. I...

Returning to Iceland, BJÖRK found herself putting down roots, reconnecting with her ancestry, losing her mother and becoming a grandmother. The result is Fossora – the final part of her own post-divorce pagan comedy that’s taken her from America, via heaven and hell, back to Reykjavík again. In the latest issue of Uncut magazine – in UK shops from Thursday, Sept 15 and available to buy from our online store, stand by for revelations involving mushrooms, Icelandic obituary songs, headbanging and “punching dinosaurs in the stomach!” “I just wanted to land on planet Earth and dig my toes into the soil,” she explains to Stephen Troussé.

“The real problem with hiking in Iceland is the weather,” laughs Björk, telling Uncut about the pleasures of walking around her homeland. “To plan any big trips, you really need a gambler mentality. You either go to Las Vegas or you become an Icelandic weather forecaster. In fact, a famous mountain climber recently died out here. He was a veteran of Antarctica and the North Pole, and he went hiking in the Icelandic highlands. He checked the forecast before he set off, was all prepared for his hike, but then the weather went completely bonkers.”

It’s hard to really capture the magnificent gusto and relish with which Björk says the word “bonkers”. But in the best possible way, and without wanting to place her in the kooky pigeonhole writers have been fashioning for over 40 years, it’s her signature word – describing everything from headbanging and Indonesian techno to the networked activity of forest mycelium.

She doesn’t use it in the typical English sense to describe something a bit, you know, wacky or daft. Rather you get the feeling it’s the closest word she can find to render some vast, unknowable, absurd force – a kind of primal Loki trickster spirit – behind all the vital, seething mess and mystery of cosmic, planetary and human behaviour.

In recent years she’s been through her own share of bonkers weather. In addition to the gathering environmental collapse, Covid and economic catastrophe we’ve all endured, on a more personal level she’s had to steer her way through divorce, death and becoming
a grandmother.

On top of that she managed to record a sensational cameo as The Seeress in Robert Eggers’ savage Viking epic The Northman (“Now remember for whom you shed your last teardrop!” she hisses, petrifying even Alexander Skarsgård) and continue her Covid-delayed Björk Orkestral tour, playing with orchestras and choirs from Iceland, America and Europe. Somehow, she’s emerged from it all with Fossora, her 10th solo album since Debut 30 years ago, and a record as bold, brilliant and – yes – bonkers, as anything she’s ever recorded.

PICK UP THE NEW ISSUE OF UNCUT TO READ OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Al-Qasar – Who Are We?

Stephen Dalton
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Al-Qasar – Who Are We?

Enlisting radical US veterans Lee Ranaldo and Jello Biafra, alongside the rising generation of rebel poets, political exiles and roots-rock revolutionaries forged during the Arab Spring, polyglot Parisians Al-Qasar whip up a globalised psych-rock storm on this gutsy debut. The band bill their self-s...

Enlisting radical US veterans Lee Ranaldo and Jello Biafra, alongside the rising generation of rebel poets, political exiles and roots-rock revolutionaries forged during the Arab Spring, polyglot Parisians Al-Qasar whip up a globalised psych-rock storm on this gutsy debut. The band bill their self-styled “Arabian Fuzz” sound as an authentic snapshot of multicultural Paris in 2022: this loosely translates as an agreeably grimy mongrelised mixtape of punk, grunge and garage-rock signifiers interwoven with gnawa, rai and desert blues influences, all overlaid with Arabic and Berber-language lyrics.

Al-Qasar were formed by guitarist and oud player Thomas Attar Bellier, a veteran of various psych and prog-metal bands, and sometime collaborator with feted Middle Eastern artists like Emel Mathlouthi. The project began as a more fluid collective featuring Bellier alongside various friends, mostly poets from the Arab world. They recorded their first EP, Miraj, in Cairo. But as this debut album began to take shape, the lineup solidified into a more traditional rock group based in Paris, fronted by Moroccan vocalist Jaouad El Garouge. Both live and on record, Al-Qasar present as a fairly conservative set-up with drums, bass, guitars, leather jackets, sunglasses and wild facial hair. But there are more experimental post-rock drones and avant-metal textures buried in the mix too, amd a rich array of Middle Eastern and North African instruments like the electric saz, bendir, darbuka and sagat.

Al-Qasar’s earliest rehearsals and live shows took place in Barbès, a grungy, un-gentrified, historically Arab district of Paris. Indeed, they pay tongue-in-cheek tribute to the area here with the doomy, propulsive, swampy track “Barbès Barbès”. Rich in theatrical drama and ironic humour, this lyrical paean to low-rent lives and illicit parties also features feted Franco-Algerian oud player Mehdi Haddab of Speed Caravan fame, whose long list of previous collaborators include legendary rai icon Rachid Taha and Damon Albarn’s Africa Express collective.

Bellier initially contacted Ranaldo through mutual friends with the idea of recording together in Sonic Youth’s New York studio, but Covid got in the way. Instead, the veteran guitar-mangler sent over a mountain of treatments, which feed onto two of the album’s stand-outs. The short opening instrumental “Awtar Al Sharq” is a mood-setting swirl of plucked strings, drones and stormy clatter. But the more muscular, expansive “Awal” is a full-blooded set-piece anthem, with an incantatory Arabic lyric that builds from guttural growl to siren howl, its propulsive overdriven rhythm sounding almost like a Franco-Maghrebian variant of krautrock.

Bellier’s connections to US punk godfather Jello Biafra, as a former member of his sometime backing band Spindrift, also pay off here with “Ya Malak”, a coldly furious rant against political corruption and social inequality laid over a punchy, percussive tangle of strings, drums and strings. Initially sounding fuzzy and remote, then boomingly close, Biafra’s signature blowtorch scorn makes a good match for the spoken-word lyric by Egyptian revolutionary poet Ahmed Fouad Negm, an auspicious vehicle for his debut English translation. “Who are they and who are we?” Biafra howls. “They are the emirs and they are the sultans… they wear the latest fashions, but we live seven in a single room”.

Although Who Are We? is a fairly testosterone-heavy affair, several of the strongest tracks are driven by female vocalists and feminist-slanted messages. Outwardly a romantic song, the percussive, kinetic, feverish “Hobek Thawrat” features Sudanese-American siren Alsarah – aka Sarah Mohamed Abunama-Elgadi, the daughter of political exiles and human rights activists – who clothes her call for revolution back home in the wily ambiguous language of love poetry. Meanwhile, mighty closer “Mal Wa Jamal” showcases Egyptian vocalist Hend Elrawy, who paints an empathetic portrait of sex workers over a bass-throbbing, string-plucking, centrifugal racket that invokes Primal Scream in their future-punk prime.

In places, Al-Qasar still sound like the embryonic work in progress that they are, while Who Are We? is sometimes let down by its oddly staid faith in the bludgeoning moral force of declamatory, sloganeering urchin-rock. Alien beauty, pop glamour and wild new sonic horizons can also be revolutionary voices for change. But there is a healthy spread of sense-rupturing potential and exhilarating skronk here, from the petrochemical protest anthem “Benzine” to the funky, discordant instrumental “Sham System”. Bellier and his gang are not reinventing the wheel, but they are making a potent racket with gusto, passion and cool outlaw swagger.

Marianne Faithfull – Songs of Innocence And Experience, 1965-1995

Alastair McKay
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Marianne Faithfull – Songs of Innocence And Experience, 1965-1995

Throughout her storied life, Marianne Faithfull has been in a tussle with her reputation. Sometimes it looks like a dance. Often, it is more like a fight. Though she’s now revered as an elder stateswoman and a valued collaborator – Warren Ellis is her latest pet – this compilation explores the...

Throughout her storied life, Marianne Faithfull has been in a tussle with her reputation. Sometimes it looks like a dance. Often, it is more like a fight. Though she’s now revered as an elder stateswoman and a valued collaborator – Warren Ellis is her latest pet – this compilation explores the first two acts of Faithfull’s career.

In the clichéd telling of it, Faithfull was manipulated and underestimated, if not exploited, during her pop career, before clambering from the wreckage and finding her own voice. If Faithfull sounded damaged – vocally, she did – the point was underlined. She has dismissed her early recordings as “cheesecake”, though her habitual flintiness has prompted others to diminish her achievements too: in a famously combative interview with Lynn Barber, the journalist tried to extract some small revenge by suggesting that Faithfull was “a singer with one good album”. In which case, why does she continue to fascinate?

The good album in Barber’s reckoning is Broken English. While it’s true that the 1979 LP marked a clear kink in the road and is widely considered to be Faithfull’s masterpiece, it now sounds like a time-stamped product of the new wave era. Those squelching synthesisers go in and out of fashion, but they have a whiff of post-punk cosplay, just as Mark Miller Mundy’s production is identifiably from the Island Records colour chart with its understated insinuations of reggae and roots. What makes the record work is the surprising harshness of Faithfull’s voice colouring the proud alienation of the songs.

The broken English thing is Faithfull, but the album’s title track – here in the 1980 single version – has a lyric which reportedly admonishes Ulrike Meinhof of the terrorist Red Army Faction, though the lyric evinces a more general mood of Cold War world-weariness. The guitar sounds like a bear taking a chainsaw to a barbed wire fence. The actual stand-out from Broken English is “Why’d Ya Do It?”, which is a bit reggae, somewhat rock, a lot Grace Jones (though Jones was still in the business of perfecting her brand of Island ice). “Why’d Ya Do It?” remains an extreme song, with a jealous Faithfull snarling through a litany of sexual grievances (cock-sucking, snatch-spitting, cobwebbed fannies). It’s interesting once, but you wouldn’t want to share a bathroom with it.

This two-disc set spans 1965–95. The title is a neat steal from a book of William Blake’s poems. So what of the cheesecake? What if we ignore the prejudices which came from Faithfull being a symbol of dumb beauty – the “angel with big tits” exploited by Andrew Loog Oldham, the girl in Mick Jagger’s rug – and listen to the songs? They are mannered, certainly. Even Faithfull’s innocence has its duality. The chamber pop songs are very 1960s, while the folk tunes are more knowing in their evocation of olden times.

Faithfull is said to prefer the folkier material, and as a performer she’s smart enough to know that heightened innocence can be chilling. “What Have They Done To The Rain?” adds percussive raindrops to Faithfull’s English rose, and – if you spritz on some sulking – contains the raw ingredients of The Jesus And Mary Chain’s entire career.

Faithfull is less convincing with more famous songs. A live version of “Yesterday” recorded for the BBC Saturday Club doesn’t quite catch the full power of the song’s yearning, and a faintly gothic folk arrangement of Ewan MacColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is closer to Peggy Seeger than Roberta Flack, but remains underpowered.

She has better luck with Donovan and Bert Jansch. A pretty, chaste interpretation of “Sunny Goodge Street” (a previously unreleased take) clears some of the fog from Donovan’s song. “Green Are Your Eyes” (Jansch’s “Courting Blues”) has a chilly simplicity to it. “Love can be broken, though no words are spoken,” she sings, suddenly sounding more than girlish. Then there is “Hier Ou Demain”, a playful collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, written for the TV comedy musical Anna. It represents a path not taken.

The mood switches abruptly with “Sister Morphine”, which Faithfull mostly wrote (while having to fight for her credit). It’s an extraordinary lyric, sung from a hospital bed with the scream of an ambulance in the narrator’s ear. Just as it signalled a darkening of Faithfull’s perspective, it became a kind of Frankenstein, haunting her with its drug-soaked morbidity.

And so we come to the songs of experience. Looking backwards, the shadowy corners of Faithfull’s songbook define her image. “Where did it go to, my youth?” she croaks on “Truth Bitter Truth”, while on Tom Waits’ “Strange Weather” producer Hal Willner repurposes her half-spoken narrative style into the manners of a Kurt Weill cabaret. We know about “The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan” (a slightly odd electro production) and the cabaret phrasing of “Strange Weather”. But listen to the way Faithfull repoints the Ruben Blades/Lou Reed song “Calm Before The Storm”, diffusing the epic pomposity of Blades’ recording, replacing it with a note of chilly resilience. It’s the Marianne Faithfull thing: stay calm, embrace the storm.

Nick Mason recalls the “rough” circumstances Pink Floyd faced when recording Animals

Liberty Dunworth
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Nick Mason recalls the “rough” circumstances Pink Floyd faced when recording Animals

In light of the newly-reissued version of their 1977 album Animals, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has opened up about the technical difficulties the band faced during the recording of the original release. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Introducing...

In light of the newly-reissued version of their 1977 album Animals, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has opened up about the technical difficulties the band faced during the recording of the original release.

In an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock published 15 September, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason recalled how the band struggled to create their tenth studio album Animals – referring to it as the “roughest one” of all their releases.

Promoting the album, which was remixed in 2018 – although has only just been released due to personal conflicts between the members – the drummer told the publication about the struggles the band battled with during the initial recording process.

“I think Animals is interesting. On the technical side of all the albums we’ve made, this was perhaps the roughest one, for all sorts of reasons,” he explains. “It was made at the same time that punk was kicking off, [but also] this was our own studio that had been built on a budget.”

“All of our previous recording had been done at Abbey Road, [where they had] the very, very highest standards,” he continues. “The equipment was good [at our studio] but it was not as good. In some ways, it’s not a bad thing, but in another way, it justifies the remix and the remastering.”

Mason also shares a moment which highlights these difficulties best – recalling how he and Roger Waters accidentally deleted an entire guitar solo when trying to mix the album:

“There was absolutely nothing to stop one of us engineering a guitar solo,” he says. “I have a memory of Roger and me actually supervising a guitar solo of David’s and actually wiping it by mistake… That was again, something you wouldn’t get at Abbey Road.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the drummer also names keyboardist Richard Wright as the most under-appreciated member of Pink Floyd, claiming that other members of the band have noticed how little recognition Wright got for his contributions.

“[As for] what Rick brought to the party…” he states. “We felt over the years that probably Rick is the one who never quite got the appreciation that perhaps he deserved.”

After a four-year delay, the reissue of Animals is out now.

Father John Misty covers Stevie Wonder for new live EP

Tom Skinner
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Father John Misty covers Stevie Wonder for new live EP

Father John Misty has covered Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)" as part of a new live EP. READ MORE: Father John Misty – Chloë and the Next 20th Century review Live At Electric Lady was recorded at the iconic Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, N...

Father John Misty has covered Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)” as part of a new live EP.

Live At Electric Lady was recorded at the iconic Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, New York City back in May. Comprising six tracks, the special collection contains live versions of five songs from FJM’s latest album Chloë And The Next 20th Century.

Closing the EP is Father John Misty’s take on Wonder’s 1972 number “I Believe…”. You can listen to Live At Electric Lady on Spotify below.

Announcing the project on social media, FJM (real name Josh Tillman) shared a series of behind-the-scenes shots of himself and his accompanying string section recording at NYC’s Electric Lady. See those in the Instagram post beneath.

The tracklist for Father John Misty’s Live At Electric Lady EP is as follows:

1. “We Could Be Strangers”
2. “(Everything But) Her Love”
3. “Goodbye Mr. Blue”
4. “Buddy’s Rendezvous”
5. “The Next 20th Century”
6. “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)”

Father John Misty is currently out on the road in North America. He will showcase most recent album on a run of UK and European headline dates in 2023, which includes gigs in London, Gateshead, Glasgow and Manchester.

Last month saw Father John Misty take “Buddy’s Rendezvous” to Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a special performance.

Introducing the new Uncut: Björk, Steely Dan, Lamont Dozier and more

Michael Bonner
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Introducing the new Uncut: Björk, Steely Dan, Lamont Dozier and more

As I write this, most of the Uncut team are somewhere en route to this year’s End Of The Road festival for a busy weekend of live music and our regular Uncut Q&As. While Tom, Sam and Mark get to soak up the festival atmosphere and enjoy many of our favourite artists – from Fleet Foxes and Pixies...

As I write this, most of the Uncut team are somewhere en route to this year’s End Of The Road festival for a busy weekend of live music and our regular Uncut Q&As. While Tom, Sam and Mark get to soak up the festival atmosphere and enjoy many of our favourite artists – from Fleet Foxes and Pixies to The Weather Station, Margo Cilker and Tinariwen – the rest of us are back here, putting the finishing touches to the issue that you now hold in your hands.

One of the happy by-products of this exodus to Larmer Tree Gardens is that I’ve spent some extra time reading through this issue’s albums pages. As usual, there’s a wide array of releases for your delectation, but among my favourite pieces of writing, I’d steer you to Jim Wirth’s funny and insightful review of Bill Callahan’s new album, YTI⅃AƎЯ, and Damien Love’s forensic investigation of the anthology covering Joe Strummer’s years with his final band, the Mescaleros.

We have a particularly strong Karma section this month, too, featuring tales from former Cramps/Gun Club/Bad Seed Kid Congo Powers, the reinvention of Can’s Malcolm Mooney, the return of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and a “how do you do” to Myriam Gendron – whose two beguiling albums to date, Not So Deep As A Well and Ma Délire – Songs Of Love Lost & Found, come with the highest possible recommendations.

There’s plenty more inside. Stephen Troussé’s interview with Björk is one for the ages. Graeme Thomson has rounded up some heads to share their thoughts on Steely Dan’s peerless original run of albums. Graeme has also spoken at length to Herbie Hancock for this month’s issue: this superb interview reads like history unfolding, as Hancock takes us through his memories of some of the 20th century’s most profound musical and cultural revolutions. There’s also a moving and intimate tribute to Lamont Dozier by his former songwriting partner Brian Holland, The Ruts, Cat Power, Aoife Nessa Frances and Ashley Hutchings – who has surprising revelations to share regarding Bob Dylan’s car boot sale buys.

As ever, let us know what you think: letters@www.uncut.co.uk.

Until next month…

Uncut – November 2022

Uncut
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Uncut – November 2022

HAVE A COPY SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOME Björk, Steely Dan, Ashley Hutchings, Herbie Hancock, Aoife Nessa Frances, Cat Power, The Ruts, The Fall, Lamont Dozier, Brian Auger and Brian Eno all feature in the new Uncut, dated November 2022 and in UK shops from September 15 or available to buy online...

HAVE A COPY SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOME

Björk, Steely Dan, Ashley Hutchings, Herbie Hancock, Aoife Nessa Frances, Cat Power, The Ruts, The Fall, Lamont Dozier, Brian Auger and Brian Eno all feature in the new Uncut, dated November 2022 and in UK shops from September 15 or available to buy online now. This issue comes with an exclusive free 15-track CD of the month’s best new music.

BJÖRK: Returning to Iceland, Björk found herself putting down roots, reconnecting with her ancestry, losing her mother and becoming a grandmother. The result is Fossora – the final part of her own post-divorce pagan comedy that’s taken her from America, via heaven and hell, back to Reykjavík again. Stand by for revelations involving mushrooms, Icelandic obituary songs, headbanging and “punching dinosaurs in the stomach!” “I just wanted to land on planet Earth and dig my toes into the soil,” she explains to Stephen Troussé.

OUR FREE CD! BIG TIME SOUNDS: 15 tracks of the month’s best new music

This issue of Uncut is available to buy by clicking here – with FREE delivery to the UK and reduced delivery charges for the rest of the world.

Inside the issue, you’ll find:

HERBIE HANCOCK: From child prodigy to jazz colossus, Herbie Hancock has repeatedly revolutionised music. In a rare audience with the rockit man, he tells Graeme Thomson about his remarkable career, alongside giants including Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, and as a formidable solo artist in his own right. But what keeps this tireless innovator going into his ninth decade? “I like to be ahead of the curve,” he says. “I’m trying to make a curve!”

AOIFE NESSA FRANCES: Depressed and anxious following the release of her remarkable debut album Land Of No Junction in 2020, Dubliner Aoife Nessa Frances headed west to spend lockdown with her father and sisters in County Clare. Reinvigorated by the experience, she’s returned with a dark, dreamy and defiant second album, Protector. “Music is magic,” she tells Stephen Troussé as she leads Uncut through the landscape the record grew out of…

STEELY DAN: Fifty years ago, Can’t Buy A Thrill introduced Steely Dan’s impeccable brand of hipster logic – and the whip-smart songwriting partnership of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. To celebrate, Uncut has assembled a cast of Dan aficionados – including
David Crosby, St Vincent, Paddy McAloon, Aimee Mann, Bruce Hornsby, Joan Wasser and Lloyd Cole – to explore the band’s original run of unimpeachable studio albums. “They’re the American Beatles,” learns Graeme Thomson

LAMONT DOZIER: When Lamont Dozier died on August 8, 2022, we lost one of the chief architects of the Motown sound: a master craftsman who helped define popular music during the 1960s. Here Eddie Holland pays a moving, in-depth tribute to his friend and former collaborator – taking us from the factory floor at Hitsville USA during Motown’s imperial phase to revelations about more recent plans to revive the Holland-Dozier-Holland partnership. “Lamont, Brian and I were together so long, the relationship we had was beautiful,” he tells Nick Hasted. “I still don’t really want to think about him being gone.” Plus The Four Tops, The Chairmen Of The Board, Mick Hucknall and more salute Dozier’s songwriting genius.

CAT POWER: The inimitable Chan Marshall on turning 50, dogs versus cats, the “atrocity” of modern-day America and an encounter with “God Dylan”

THE RUTS: The making of “Babylon’s Burning”.

ASHLEY HUTCHINGS: The guv’nor of three key folk-rock groups guides us through his highlights

JOE STRUMMER: Strummer’s last testament, still testifying.

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from Brian Eno, Courtney Marie Andrews, The Comet Is Coming, The Unthanks and more, and archival releases from Joe Strummer, Pink Floyd, The Cure, and others. We catch the Connect Festival live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are Flux Gourmet, Hallelujah, Strawberry Mansion, The Lost King and Hatching; while in books there’s Stuart Cosgrove and Stuart Braithwaite.

Our front section, meanwhile, features Sun Ra, Kid Congo Powers, Can’s Malcolm Mooney, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 & Myriam Gendron, while, at the end of the magazine, Brian Auger shares his life in music.

You can pick up a copy of Uncut in the usual places, where open. But otherwise, readers all over the world can order a copy from here.

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

Hear Weyes Blood’s new track, “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”

Michael Bonner
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Hear Weyes Blood’s new track, “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”

Weyes Blood - aka Natalie Mering - has revealed details of her new studio album, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow. The follow up to Titanic Rising - Uncut's Album Of The Year in 2019 - the new album is released on November 18 by Sub Pop. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue...

Weyes Blood – aka Natalie Mering – has revealed details of her new studio album, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow.

The follow up to Titanic Rising – Uncut’s Album Of The Year in 2019 – the new album is released on November 18 by Sub Pop.

To mark the announcement, Natalie has released a taste of the album, “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody“, which you can hear below.

The album features guests including Mary Lattimore, Meg Duffy, Daniel Lopatin and Joey Waronker. It’s produced by Mering along with Jonathan Rado.

You can pre-order the album here.

The tracklisting is:

It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody
Children of the Empire
Grapevine
God Turn Me Into a Flower
Hearts Aglow
And in the Darkness
Twin Flame
In Holy Flux
The Worst Is Done
A Given Thing

Daniel Romano’s Outfit – La Luna

Rob Hughes
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Daniel Romano’s Outfit – La Luna

It’s almost impossible to keep track of Daniel Romano. When he’s not publishing collections of poetry or art, the Ontario musician is either recording solo, producing others (most recently Carson McHone’s Still Life) or creating ambient epics under the guise of varianza. To call him prolific f...

It’s almost impossible to keep track of Daniel Romano. When he’s not publishing collections of poetry or art, the Ontario musician is either recording solo, producing others (most recently Carson McHone’s Still Life) or creating ambient epics under the guise of varianza. To call him prolific feels reductive. In 2020 alone, grounded by the pandemic, he released no fewer than eight albums, either solo or fronting Daniel Romano’s Outfit, including an entire reimagining of Bob Dylan’s Infidels.

La Luna might be his most ambitious project to date. A celestial song cycle in 14 chapters, served in two lengthy parts, it’s a modern psychedelic musical that seeks to address the big stuff: spirituality, God, creation, destiny and the like. The music, lyrics and arrangements are all Romano’s, though his Outfit – chiefly McHone, Julianna Riolino, Roddy Rosetti, David Nardi and brother Ian Romano – helps bring them to life in expansive, polyphonic detail. It’s rich in brass, orchestral strings and massed harmonies, with Romano sharing vocal turns with others.

The opening section, “Genuine Light”, is a micro rock opera with shades of Rufus Wainwright and Queen, the choir singing back to Romano at his own urging: “Love is all reality”. And as it moves into something funkier and more trippy, McHone and Riolino trade verses on what feels like some neo-Aquarian dream, rising into an ecstatic chorus that hails divine conception. The search for enlightenment continues, morphing through country and chamber-folk, as Romano reaches into the heavens: “Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the realised soul”.

Thematically, things are no less weighty or bewildering on the 15-minute “Part 2”. Strings billow and fall as we’re introduced to “the cosmic illusion of time”. A quieter passage, mostly just piano and violin, is swept aside by voluminous psych-pop harmonies and horns, ending in a grand finale that wrestles abstract notions of love, death and universal light. An accompanying full-length film, starring Julie Doiron in the lead role, is due this autumn. Let’s hope it’s just as weirdly exhilarating.

Spain release unearthed track – watch the video

Tom Pinnock
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Spain release unearthed track – watch the video

Spain have released a newly unearthed track, "I Lied", as a taster of their upcoming archival release, World Of Blue – watch the video below. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut The album collects five previously unheard tracks from a 1994 session at Los Angeles'...

Spain have released a newly unearthed track, “I Lied”, as a taster of their upcoming archival release, World Of Blue – watch the video below.

The album collects five previously unheard tracks from a 1994 session at Los Angeles‘s Poop Alley Studio, preceding their debut album, 1995’s The Blue Moods Of Spain.

The demos were lost for decades, and only rediscovered last year, when the tapes were baked in Florida by producer Kramer and newly mixed.

“I paid for the session with weed I grew in my closet,” explains Spain’s leader Josh Haden. “We set up and it starting raining. Tom [Grimley] put a microphone outside. For lunch, we’d walk through the alley over to India Sweets and Spices, on Fairfax just north of Pico. After tracking was finished, Petra [Haden] came over and overdubbed violin. There was a cushioned area where I remember sitting during mixdown. There were little stacks of Aphex 16-track tape everywhere.

“I first learned about the blues as a style and artform when I was a teenager, raiding my father’s record collection. One of the things I noticed that elevated the blues over other musical forms, such as punk rock, was the ability to subtly manipulate the apparent message of a song for deeper effect, for example, making a sad song happy, or vice versa. ‘I Lied’ is an attempt at this concept. It starts out as a love song but ends much differently. I love Kramer’s new production, repeating the vocal line at the end, something I’d wish I’d thought of doing back then.”

World Of Blue is released on September 30 through Shimmy-Disc/Joyful Noise.

Siouxsie And The Banshees announce All Souls

Michael Bonner
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Siouxsie And The Banshees announce All Souls

Siouxsie And The Banshees return with All Souls, personally curated by Siouxsie Sioux, which collates classic tracks and rarities. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut Described as "an Autumnal celebration", the tracks have been re-mastered at half speed at Abbey Ro...

Siouxsie And The Banshees return with All Souls, personally curated by Siouxsie Sioux, which collates classic tracks and rarities.

Described as “an Autumnal celebration”, the tracks have been re-mastered at half speed at Abbey Road with Sioux overseeing the process. It’ll be available on limited edition orange vinyl as well as 180g black vinyl and digitally from October 21 via UMe.

The collection features new and unique artwork directed by Sioux.

The tracklisting for All Souls is:

Side A
Fireworks (12” Version) (Single 1982)
Halloween (Juju album 1981)
Supernatural Thing (Arabian Knights single 1981)
El Dia De Los Muertos (Last Beat Of My Heart single 1988)
The Sweetest Chill (Tinderbox album 1986)

Side B
Spellbound (Juju album 1981)
Something Wicked (This Way Comes) (The Killing Jar single 1988)
Rawhead And Bloodybones (Peepshow album 1988)
We Hunger (Hyæna album 1984)
Peek-A-Boo (Peepshow album 1988)

PJ Harvey to release B-sides, demos and rarities box set

Michael Bonner
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PJ Harvey to release B-sides, demos and rarities box set

PJ Harvey's final release in her reissue programme is a 59-track collection, B-Sides, Demos And Rarities, due for release on November 4 through UMe/Island. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut Available as a 6 LP/ 3 CD/ Digital boxset, most of the songs included hav...

PJ Harvey‘s final release in her reissue programme is a 59-track collection, B-Sides, Demos And Rarities, due for release on November 4 through UMe/Island.

Available as a 6 LP/ 3 CD/ Digital boxset, most of the songs included have been previously unavailable physically or digitally, while 14 tracks are either previously unreleased or in previously unreleased versions. The music has been mastered under the guidance of regular PJ Harvey producer John Parish. The box set also features previously unseen archive photography by Harvey’s long-term collaborator, Maria Mochnacz.

The box is available to pre-order here.

Here’s the tracklisting:

3CD
Disc 1

DRY – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
MAN-SIZE – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
MISSED – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
ME-JANE – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
DADDY
LYING IN THE SUN
SOMEBODY’S DOWN, SOMEBODY’S NAME
DARLING BE THERE
MANIAC
ONE TIME TOO MANY
HARDER
NAKED COUSIN
LOSING GROUND
WHO WILL LOVE ME NOW
WHY D’YA GO TO CLEVELAND (previously unreleased)

Disc 2
INSTRUMENTAL #1
THE NORTHWOOD
THE BAY
SWEETER THAN ANYTHING
INSTRUMENTAL #3
THE FASTER I BREATHE THE FURTHER I GO (4 TRACK VERSION)
NINA IN ECSTASY 2
REBECCA
INSTRUMENTAL #2
THIS WICKED TONGUE
MEMPHIS
30
66 PROMISES
AS CLOSE AS THIS
MY OWN PRIVATE REVOLUTION
KICK IT TO THE GROUND (4 TRACK)
THE FALLING
THE PHONE SONG
BOWS & ARROWS
ANGEL
STONE

Disc 3
97°
DANCE
CAT ON THE WALL – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
YOU COME THROUGH – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
UH HUH HER – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
EVOL – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
WAIT
HEAVEN
LIVERPOOL TIDE
THE BIG GUNS CALLED ME BACK AGAIN
THE NIGHTINGALE
SHAKER AAMER
GUILTY – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
I’LL BE WAITING – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
HOMO SAPPY BLUES – DEMO (previously unreleased)
THE AGE OF THE DOLLAR – DEMO (previously unreleased)
THE CAMP
AN ACRE OF LAND
THE CROWDED CELL
THE SANDMAN – DEMO
THE MOTH – DEMO
RED RIGHT HAND

LP Box
LP1 – Side A
DRY – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
MAN-SIZE – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
MISSED – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)

LP1 – Side B
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
ME-JANE – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
DADDY

LP2 – Side A
LYING IN THE SUN
SOMEBODY’S DOWN, SOMEBODY’S NAME
DARLING BE THERE
MANIAC

LP2 – Side B
HARDER
NAKED COUSIN
LOSING GROUND
WHO WILL LOVE ME NOW
WHY D’YA GO TO CLEVELAND (previously unreleased)

LP3 – Side A
INSTRUMENTAL #1
THE NORTHWOOD
THE BAY
SWEETER THAN ANYTHING
INSTRUMENTAL #3
THE FASTER I BREATHE THE FURTHER I GO (4 TRACK VERSION)
NINA IN ECSTASY 2

LP3 – Side B
REBECCA
INSTRUMENTAL #2
THIS WICKED TONGUE
MEMPHIS
30

LP4 – Side A
66 PROMISES
AS CLOSE AS THIS
MY OWN PRIVATE REVOLUTION
KICK IT TO THE GROUND (4 TRACK)

LP4 – Side B
THE FALLING
THE PHONE SONG
BOWS & ARROWS
ANGEL
STONE

LP5 – Side A
97°
DANCE
CAT ON THE WALL – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
YOU COME THROUGH – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
UH HUH HER – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
EVOL – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)

LP5 – Side B
WAIT
HEAVEN
LIVERPOOL TIDE
THE BIG GUNS CALLED ME BACK AGAIN
THE NIGHTINGALE
SHAKER AAMER

LP6 – Side A
GUILTY – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
I’LL BE WAITING – DEMO (previously unreleased demo)
HOMO SAPPY BLUES – DEMO (previously unreleased)
THE AGE OF THE DOLLAR – DEMO (previously unreleased)
THE CAMP

LP6 – Side B
AN ACRE OF LAND
THE CROWDED CELL
THE SANDMAN – DEMO
THE MOTH – DEMO
RED RIGHT HAND

Jimi Hendrix: new live album and book due to mark his 80th birthday

Michael Bonner
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Jimi Hendrix: new live album and book due to mark his 80th birthday

A number of releases are planned to celebrate what would have been Jimi Hendrix' 80th birthday on November 27. First, a live album, Jimi Hendrix Experience Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969, will arrive on November 18 on 2LP vinyl, CD and all digital platforms through Experience Hendrix L.L.C. in...

A number of releases are planned to celebrate what would have been Jimi Hendrix‘ 80th birthday on November 27.

First, a live album, Jimi Hendrix Experience Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969, will arrive on November 18 on 2LP vinyl, CD and all digital platforms through Experience Hendrix L.L.C. in partnership with Sony’s Legacy Recordings.

You can hear an advance track from the album “I Don’t Live Today” below:

The concert – featuring Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding – has never before been released in its entirety. This release has been remixed by longtime Hendrix producer/engineer Eddie Kramer.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 tracklist:

Intro
Tax Free
Foxey Lady
Red House
Spanish Castle Magic
Star Spangled Banner
Purple Haze
I Don’t Live Today
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Sunshine of Your Love
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Meanwhile, also coming out during the month of Hendrix’s 80th birthday is a new book, JIMI, which you can pre-order here.

Due for publication on November 15 by Chronicle Books imprint Chroma, JIMI has been assembled by Janie Hendrix and John McDermott. Highlights include lesser known and never-before-published photographs, personal memorabilia, and tributes from Paul McCartney, Ron Wood, Jeff Beck, Lenny Kravitz, Eric Clapton, Drake, Dave Grohl and more.

Pixies – Ultimate Music Guide

Uncut
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Pixies – Ultimate Music Guide

As they release a great new album, we present the Ultimate Music Guide to the Pixies – and their magnificent sister group The Breeders. From the spectacular breakthrough, through the mounting tensions and split – and the surprising rebirth – this is the full story of an incredibly influentia...

As they release a great new album, we present the Ultimate Music Guide to the Pixies – and their magnificent sister group The Breeders. From the spectacular breakthrough, through the mounting tensions and split – and the surprising rebirth – this is the full story of an incredibly influential art-rock band dynasty.

“You’ll think I’m dead, but I sail away…”

Buy a copy here!

Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to Pixies

John Robinson
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Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to Pixies

BUY THE PIXIES ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE HERE It’s rare enough for a rock group to contain enough talent to sustain one brilliant career –small in number as they were, the Pixies (population: 4) managed in its time to give rise to two. In the mid-1980s, the band came together under modest circumst...

BUY THE PIXIES ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE HERE

It’s rare enough for a rock group to contain enough talent to sustain one brilliant career –small in number as they were, the Pixies (population: 4) managed in its time to give rise to two. In the mid-1980s, the band came together under modest circumstances to become the most challenging and influential cult band of their time.

It was a turbulent ride to the top of independent music, but certainly not an unproductive one. Kim Deal had more creative energy than the Pixies could harness, and her group The Breeders provided an outlet that transcended the status of side-project to become a commercially successful (and wonderfully strange) band in their own right.

As the Pixies get ready to unleash Doggerel, the third album of their post-reformation second phase, our latest Ultimate Music Guide celebrates the explosive talents and artistic triumphs of both bands in 124 pages of in-depth reviews and revelatory archive interviews. No lesser entity than Black Francis himself has stepped up to introduce the magazine, in which he graciously accounts for the band’s birth and subsequent turbulent history.

“It was very much post-punk alternative rock,” the man today known as Charles Thompson says. “We were really starting from scratch in terms of a sound – it was basically whatever songs I came up with, whatever guitar lines he came up with, that was the sound, that was all we had. Kim Deal came over to my apartment – I had a plain canvas army cot that was my couch, one of these stretchers that you see in a gymnasium during a flood – and she sat on it, she was the only person that answered the ad looking for a bass player. I played her all my songs and she said ‘I like them and I’m interested and I don’t have a bass but I’ll borrow one from my sister’. And we were a band.”

Acclaim brought with it an intense touring schedule which placed additional pressure on the faultlines which were already present in the band. When the band split in 1993, Kim focused fully on The Breeders – piloting them on a course which has led to the huge successes of “Cannonball” and The Last Splash, and on a creative path which continues to be rewarding to the present day.

Still, the lure of the original band couldn’t be denied and in 2004, the original Pixies reunited for 10 years of thrilling live performance. New Pixies music would be made, but without Kim. “After we recorded a few songs Kim definitely didn’t want to do more than that so, to her credit, she just gracefully bowed out. She met us at the coffee shop and said ‘I’m finished, I don’t want to do this anymore’.

In an exclusive interview for the issue, the Pixies tell us about their second phase, and the wild inspirations of their latest album, Doggerel.

“Making new Pixies records has been just as rewarding,” writes Charles “…I don’t think our music pales in comparison to what we did before.”

Buy a copy of the magazine here. Missed one in the series? Bundles are available at the same location…

The Beatles unveil Revolver Special Edition

Michael Bonner
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The Beatles unveil Revolver Special Edition

A special edition of Revolver is set to be released next month. ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut It is the latest Beatles album to be re-released as a remixed and expanded deluxe box set following Sgt. Pepper’s in 2017, the ‘White Album’ in 2018, Abbey Roa...

A special edition of Revolver is set to be released next month.

It is the latest Beatles album to be re-released as a remixed and expanded deluxe box set following Sgt. Pepper’s in 2017, the ‘White Album’ in 2018, Abbey Road in 2019 and Let It Be last year.

First released in August 1966, this new configuration includes a range of newly mixed and expanded special edition packages.

All 14 tracks on the original album have been newly mixed by Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell in stereo and Dolby Atmos, while the album’s original mono mix has been sourced from its 1966 mono master tape.

The physical and digital ‘super deluxe’ collections also feature the album’s original mono mix, 28 early takes from the sessions and three home demos. There is also a four-track EP with new stereo mixes and remastered original mono mixes for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain“.

The Revolver special edition will be available in three formats – Super Deluxe, Deluxe and Standard – and will be released on vinyl, CD and digitally. All of the collections will be released on October 28, with pre-order available now.

You can see the full Revolver tracklist, and listen to a new mix of “Taxman“, below.

SUPER DELUXE [5CD + 100-page hardbound book in slipcase | digital audio collection]
CD1: Revolver (New stereo mix)
1: Taxman
2: Eleanor Rigby
3: I’m Only Sleeping
4: Love You To
5: Here, There And Everywhere
6: Yellow Submarine
7: She Said She Said
8: Good Day Sunshine
9: And Your Bird Can Sing
10: For No One
11: Doctor Robert
12: I Want To Tell You
13: Got To Get You Into My Life
14: Tomorrow Never Knows

CD2: Sessions One
1: Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)
2: Tomorrow Never Knows (Mono mix RM 11)
3: Got To Get You Into My Life (First version) – Take 5
4: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) – Unnumbered mix – mono
5: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) – Take 8
6: Love You To (Take 1) – mono
7: Love You To (Unnumbered rehearsal) – mono
8: Love You To (Take 7)
9: Paperback Writer (Takes 1 and 2) – Backing track – mono
10: Rain (Take 5 – Actual speed)
11: Rain (Take 5 – Slowed down for master tape)
12: Doctor Robert (Take 7)
13: And Your Bird Can Sing (First version) – Take 2
14: And Your Bird Can Sing (First version) – Take 2 (giggling)

CD3: Sessions Two
1: And Your Bird Can Sing (Second version) – Take 5
2: Taxman (Take 11)
3: I’m Only Sleeping (Rehearsal fragment) – mono
4: I’m Only Sleeping (Take 2) – mono
5: I’m Only Sleeping (Take 5) – mono
6: I’m Only Sleeping (Mono mix RM1)
7: Eleanor Rigby (Speech before Take 2)
8: Eleanor Rigby (Take 2)
9: For No One (Take 10) – Backing track
10: Yellow Submarine (Songwriting work tape – Part 1) – mono
11: Yellow Submarine (Songwriting work tape – Part 2) – mono
12: Yellow Submarine (Take 4 before sound effects)
13: Yellow Submarine (Highlighted sound effects)
14: I Want To Tell You (Speech and Take 4)
15: Here, There And Everywhere (Take 6)
16: She Said She Said (John’s demo) – mono
17: She Said She Said (Take 15) – Backing track rehearsal

CD4: Revolver (Original mono master)

CD5: Revolver EP
1: Paperback Writer (New stereo mix)
2: Rain (New stereo mix)
3: Paperback Writer (Original mono mix remastered)
4: Rain (Original mono mix remastered)

SUPER DELUXE VINYL [limited edition 4LP+7-inch EP + 100-page hardbound book in slipcase]
LP One: Revolver (New stereo mix)
Side 1
1: Taxman
2: Eleanor Rigby
3: I’m Only Sleeping
4: Love You To
5: Here, There And Everywhere
6: Yellow Submarine
7: She Said She Said

Side 2
1: Good Day Sunshine
2: And Your Bird Can Sing
3: For No One
4: Doctor Robert
5: I Want To Tell You
6: Got To Get You Into My Life
7: Tomorrow Never Knows

LP Two: Sessions One
Side 1
1: Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)
2: Tomorrow Never Knows (Mono mix RM 11)
3: Got To Get You Into My Life (First version) – Take 5
4: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) – Unnumbered mix – mono
5: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) – Take 8
6: Love You To (Take 1) – mono
7: Love You To (Unnumbered rehearsal) – mono

Side 2
1: Love You To (Take 7)
2: Paperback Writer (Takes 1 and 2) – Backing track – mono
3: Rain (Take 5 – Actual speed)
4: Rain (Take 5 – Slowed down for master tape)
5: Doctor Robert (Take 7)
6: And Your Bird Can Sing (First version) – Take 2
7: And Your Bird Can Sing (First version) – Take 2 (giggling)

LP Three: Sessions Two
Side 1
1: And Your Bird Can Sing (Second version) – Take 5
2: Taxman (Take 11)
3: I’m Only Sleeping (Rehearsal fragment) – mono
4: I’m Only Sleeping (Take 2) – mono
5: I’m Only Sleeping (Take 5) – mono
6: I’m Only Sleeping (Mono mix RM1)
7: Eleanor Rigby (Speech before Take 2)
8: Eleanor Rigby (Take 2)

Side 2
1: For No One (Take 10) – Backing track
2: Yellow Submarine (Songwriting work tape – Part 1) – mono
3: Yellow Submarine (Songwriting work tape – Part 2) – mono
4: Yellow Submarine (Take 4 before sound effects)
5: Yellow Submarine (Highlighted sound effects)
6: I Want To Tell You (Speech and Take 4)
7: Here, There And Everywhere (Take 6)
8: She Said She Said (John’s demo) – mono
9: She Said She Said (Take 15) – Backing track rehearsal

LP Four: Revolver (Original mono master)

Revolver EP (7-inch vinyl)
Side 1
1: Paperback Writer (New stereo mix)
2: Rain (New stereo mix)

Side 2
1: Paperback Writer (Original mono mix remastered)
2: Rain (Original mono mix remastered)

DELUXE [2CD in digipak with 40-page booklet]
CD 1: Revolver (New stereo mix)

CD 2: Sessions
1: Paperback Writer (New stereo mix)
2: Rain (New stereo mix)
3: Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)
4: Got To Get You Into My Life (Early mix)
5: Love You To (Take 7)
6: Doctor Robert (Take 7)
7: And Your Bird Can Sing (First version) Take 2
8: Taxman (Take 11)
9: I’m Only Sleeping (Take 2) – mono
10: Eleanor Rigby (Take 2)
11: For No One (Take 10) – Backing track
12: Yellow Submarine (Take 4 before sound effects)
13: I Want To Tell You (Speech and Take 4)
14: Here, There And Everywhere (Take 6)
15: She Said She Said (Take 15) – Backing track rehearsal

STANDARD [1CD | digital | 1LP vinyl | limited edition 1LP picture disc vinyl]
Revolver (New stereo mix)

Kraftwerk: a robot speaks!

Sam Richards
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0
Kraftwerk: a robot speaks!

Karl Bartos on his days in Kraftwerk, the secrets of Kling Klang and Cliff Richard’s hitherto undisclosed influence on New York electro. In the latest issue of Uncut magazine - in UK shops now and available to buy from our online store, he tells Sam Richards more. For a musician synonymous with...

Karl Bartos on his days in Kraftwerk, the secrets of Kling Klang and Cliff Richard’s hitherto undisclosed influence on New York electro. In the latest issue of Uncut magazine – in UK shops now and available to buy from our online store, he tells Sam Richards more.

For a musician synonymous with the interface between music and technology, Karl Bartos’ Hamburg home studio is surprisingly spartan. “I have a piano, a Martin D-28 guitar and a computer,” he reveals. “The core of my old equipment like the MiniMoog and the Arp synthesiser is still there, but they seem to retire now. Usually I go out and record something in the streets.”

Rather than creating his own sounds, Bartos is currently concerned with paying deeper attention to those that already exist around us. “Ambience is really great. I’ve learned a lot from John Cage about that – he said, the great symphony is if you go to a crossroads and listen to the rhythm of the cars. Around here, you hear ships all the time. But basically anything makes a symphony. It’s really a great variety of noises in this world.”

Bartos was always a versatile musician. In his memoir The Sound Of The Machine, recently translated into English, he describes hot-footing it between Kraftwerk’s Kling Kling studio and the orchestra pit at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, while also playing drums in a rock’n’roll band and vibraphone in a jazz quartet. The range of influences that powered minimalist masterpieces like The Man-Machine and Computer World was broader than you think. “I always listen to music as a whole,” says Bartos, settling down to answer your questions. “It’s all the sound of being human.”

Can you describe your feelings the first time you entered Kling Klang studio and played the electronic drums?

– John Densmore, Sunderland
The atmosphere was like what you can read about Andy Warhol’s Factory. It was this big variety of useless things and useful things. In one corner of the room I saw a neon lamp, and so I had this feeling of an art place, not really a musical studio. The first time I went there, we played at a low level. I had these knitting needles in my hand and the sound of them hitting the metal pad was very loud in the room. You can’t really use your technique, if you have a knitting needle! So I get along, and it was OK. But the next time we played full volume, and that makes a difference because then suddenly the sounds were much louder than a normal drum set. The articulation was very low, you had just one boom! But over the years, we developed a style of modulating it through machines, technical effects, and so on. It was an interesting challenge, and it opened my ears to things I knew already. Sly & The Family Stone, they were using a drum machine but I didn’t notice so much because it was deep in the music. What happened with Kraftwerk was the aestheticisation of technology. Like the Eiffel Tower – there’s no facade, it’s just this pure skeleton.

PICK UP THE NEW UNCUT FOR THE FULL STORY

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