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Ringo Starr loses his Beatles’ photo collection

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Ringo Starr loses his Beatles’ photo collection
Ringo Starr has reportedly lost his collection of Beatles' photographs. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Starr - a keen photographer - admitted he had no idea where his own photographs taking during his years with The Beatles are. "I don't know where they are," he told Rolling Stone. "I wish I did. Ther...

Ringo Starr has reportedly lost his collection of Beatles’ photographs.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Starr – a keen photographer – admitted he had no idea where his own photographs taking during his years with The Beatles are.

“I don’t know where they are,” he told Rolling Stone. “I wish I did. There’s been several moves and things happen.”

Previously, Starr unearthed a batch of postcards he’d received from his former bandmates, which were published as Postcards From The Boys in 2004.

“I found a box on my shelf and was like, ‘What the hell is that?'” Starr said. “And it was full of the postcards. At the time we were moving house yet again, and the secretary I had at the time decided to put them all in envelopes and put them in a shoebox. That’s how I found out I still had them. So you never know – one day I may find another box with all my photos.”

Small Faces – Odgens’ Nut Gone Flake: Deluxe Edition

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Small Faces – Odgens’ Nut Gone Flake: Deluxe Edition

Unique '60s classic remastered with added depth and bonus material... Never mind that hoary hypothetical debate about how much greater Sergeant Pepper’s might have been had “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” made the cut. Consider for a moment Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake with The Small Faces’s masterful non-album singles “Itchycoo Park” and “Tin Soldier” stirred into an already potent mix. Comparisons between the two albums are hardly fanciful. Both have conceptual aspirations, although Stan’s search for the moon on Ogdens’ is far more fun than the Fabs’ thin tale of Billy Shears’ troupers. And just as Sergeant Pepper’s dominated the summer of ’67, so The Small Faces’ fourth album bestrode the hottest days of 1968, anchored at number one for six weeks. Almost 45 years later, Ogdens’ has undergone a major structural upgrade. Alongside the band’s other three albums – Small Faces (1966), From The Beginning (1967) and Small Faces (1967) – it now comes in both mono and stereo formats, remastered and fleshed out with unreleased alternate mixes, instrumental versions and early backing tracks. Though the archives have been scoured, few treasures have been unearthed. In the case of the Ogdens’ sessions, legendary lost takes of The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and “(If You’re Feeling) Groovy”, written for PP Arnold, have failed to rematerialise. The most obvious new nugget is the unreleased “Kamikhazi”, a neat instrumental soul groove with a liquid guitar riff, but the remainder are pleasing footnotes, of historical value rather than compelling musical interest. No matter. Remastered to give everything added depth and width, the original album is more than enough. The trippy title track serves as a brief tasting course, previewing the dominant musical themes: dense rhythm, psychedelic excursions, orchestral flourishes and what might be called heavy soul. “Afterglow (Of Your Love)” is bursting with the latter. Underpinned by swirling organ and Kenney Jones’s immense drums, it almost buckles under the weight of its own momentum. Ian McLagan’s “Long Agos And Worlds Apart”, a slight slice of whimsy, sounds undernourished by comparison, but “Rene” is far more robust. The story of a good time girl, it’s all winks and jutting elbows, so finely sketched you can see the stevedores and shore-leavers lining up in the warehouse to sample Rene’s wares. In common with “Lazy Sunday” and “HappyDayToyTown”, the album’s other music-hall numbers, its cartoon naughtiness belies the enormous inventiveness of the music, lyrics and production. Beneath the sauce, Ogdens’ is a deceptively soulful, searching record. The voguish surrealism and theatricality is plugged into earthy humanity. Ronnie Lane’s “Song Of A Baker” finds spiritual reward in simple pleasures. This, too, is the message behind the conceptual second half, telling the tale of everyman Stan’s quest to find the “missing” half of the moon. Comic word-mangler Stanley Unwin weaves between the tracks, dispensing his idiot-savant wisdom. “Happiness Stan” begins as a formal introduction to our hero, all harpsichord, clipped choral vocals and mock-classical trills, before easing into a churning groove which carries over to “Rollin’ Over”, a hard-edged blues-rocker in which Stan promises to “tell everyone that I’m going to find it”. “The Hungry Intruder” is A Quick One-era Who trysting with English-country-garden Beatles, and finds Stan sharing his pie with a super-fly who later transports him – via the phased lunacy of “The Journey” – to Mad John, a bewhiskered cockney renunciant hiding in the woods. Who needs realism? Immortalised in a heavy folk waltz with more than a touch of Spinal Tap around the edges, John reveals to Stan the secret of the moon (it’s there all the time: sometimes you see it, sometimes you can’t), a mantra which doubles as a metaphor for happiness itself. This affirming message is hammered home by the raucously upbeat “HappyDayToyTown”, wrapping up The Small Faces’s first – and last, sadly – great achievement as an album band. Tarted up to accentuate its enduring charms, Ogdens’ feels more than ever like a profound, silly, unique and hugely accomplished work, strong medicine for the head, heart and humerus. Graeme Thomson Q&A KENNEY JONES How did the Stan concept come about? Andrew Oldham sent us off to write songs in these boats on the Thames, near Windsor. We caused havoc on the water, smashing into things, but we had a good old laugh. At the end of the weekend we were sitting by the campfire and someone looked up and saw half of the moon. And that was it. The idea was born, we went off and worked on it. It was very natural. Steve was the Artful Dodger in Oliver! so he had that theatrical side anyway, and we all loved Stanley Unwin. Though our first choice was Spike Milligan! Did working on these reissues bring back memories? I have fantastically fond memories, very emotional ones. It was the greatest band I was ever in. We could have done so much more but we just couldn’t overcome our problems. Presumably some outtakes are still lost? The tapes have been stolen. It’s not our fault, we’re very upset about it. We searched the world and found a lot of stuff in the archives, and we’ve added a lot. We’ve fixed the tinniness, and pulled Ronnie’s bass out more. You realise just what a great player he was, and how melodic. INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON

Unique ’60s classic remastered with added depth and bonus material…

Never mind that hoary hypothetical debate about how much greater Sergeant Pepper’s might have been had “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” made the cut. Consider for a moment Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake with The Small Faces’s masterful non-album singles “Itchycoo Park” and “Tin Soldier” stirred into an already potent mix. Comparisons between the two albums are hardly fanciful. Both have conceptual aspirations, although Stan’s search for the moon on Ogdens’ is far more fun than the Fabs’ thin tale of Billy Shears’ troupers. And just as Sergeant Pepper’s dominated the summer of ’67, so The Small Faces’ fourth album bestrode the hottest days of 1968, anchored at number one for six weeks.

Almost 45 years later, Ogdens’ has undergone a major structural upgrade. Alongside the band’s other three albums – Small Faces (1966), From The Beginning (1967) and Small Faces (1967) – it now comes in both mono and stereo formats, remastered and fleshed out with unreleased alternate mixes, instrumental versions and early backing tracks. Though the archives have been scoured, few treasures have been unearthed. In the case of the Ogdens’ sessions, legendary lost takes of The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and “(If You’re Feeling) Groovy”, written for PP Arnold, have failed to rematerialise. The most obvious new nugget is the unreleased “Kamikhazi”, a neat instrumental soul groove with a liquid guitar riff, but the remainder are pleasing footnotes, of historical value rather than compelling musical interest.

No matter. Remastered to give everything added depth and width, the original album is more than enough. The trippy title track serves as a brief tasting course, previewing the dominant musical themes: dense rhythm, psychedelic excursions, orchestral flourishes and what might be called heavy soul. “Afterglow (Of Your Love)” is bursting with the latter. Underpinned by swirling organ and Kenney Jones’s immense drums, it almost buckles under the weight of its own momentum.

Ian McLagan’s “Long Agos And Worlds Apart”, a slight slice of whimsy, sounds undernourished by comparison, but “Rene” is far more robust. The story of a good time girl, it’s all winks and jutting elbows, so finely sketched you can see the stevedores and shore-leavers lining up in the warehouse to sample Rene’s wares. In common with “Lazy Sunday” and “HappyDayToyTown”, the album’s other music-hall numbers, its cartoon naughtiness belies the enormous inventiveness of the music, lyrics and production.

Beneath the sauce, Ogdens’ is a deceptively soulful, searching record. The voguish surrealism and theatricality is plugged into earthy humanity. Ronnie Lane’s “Song Of A Baker” finds spiritual reward in simple pleasures. This, too, is the message behind the conceptual second half, telling the tale of everyman Stan’s quest to find the “missing” half of the moon.

Comic word-mangler Stanley Unwin weaves between the tracks, dispensing his idiot-savant wisdom. “Happiness Stan” begins as a formal introduction to our hero, all harpsichord, clipped choral vocals and mock-classical trills, before easing into a churning groove which carries over to “Rollin’ Over”, a hard-edged blues-rocker in which Stan promises to “tell everyone that I’m going to find it”. “The Hungry Intruder” is A Quick One-era Who trysting with English-country-garden Beatles, and finds Stan sharing his pie with a super-fly who later transports him – via the phased lunacy of “The Journey” – to Mad John, a bewhiskered cockney renunciant hiding in the woods. Who needs realism? Immortalised in a heavy folk waltz with more than a touch of Spinal Tap around the edges, John reveals to Stan the secret of the moon (it’s there all the time: sometimes you see it, sometimes you can’t), a mantra which doubles as a metaphor for happiness itself.

This affirming message is hammered home by the raucously upbeat “HappyDayToyTown”, wrapping up The Small Faces’s first – and last, sadly – great achievement as an album band. Tarted up to accentuate its enduring charms, Ogdens’ feels more than ever like a profound, silly, unique and hugely accomplished work, strong medicine for the head, heart and humerus.

Graeme Thomson

Q&A

KENNEY JONES

How did the Stan concept come about?

Andrew Oldham sent us off to write songs in these boats on the Thames, near Windsor. We caused havoc on the water, smashing into things, but we had a good old laugh. At the end of the weekend we were sitting by the campfire and someone looked up and saw half of the moon. And that was it. The idea was born, we went off and worked on it. It was very natural. Steve was the Artful Dodger in Oliver! so he had that theatrical side anyway, and we all loved Stanley Unwin. Though our first choice was Spike Milligan!

Did working on these reissues bring back memories?

I have fantastically fond memories, very emotional ones. It was the greatest band I was ever in. We could have done so much more but we just couldn’t overcome our problems.

Presumably some outtakes are still lost?

The tapes have been stolen. It’s not our fault, we’re very upset about it. We searched the world and found a lot of stuff in the archives, and we’ve added a lot. We’ve fixed the tinniness, and pulled Ronnie’s bass out more. You realise just what a great player he was, and how melodic.

INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON

Damon Albarn on “Dr Dee” and his next solo album…

John Mulvey
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0
Damon Albarn on “Dr Dee” and his next solo album…

For the current issue of Uncut, I interviewed Damon Albarn as part of my piece on his “Dr Dee” project (you can read it here). There wasn’t room for all of his answers in the mag, but today’s announcement of extra Blur dates prompted me to post the whole thing here. Once again, I know there’s a lot of sneering and scepticism being targeted at this record, and I certainly didn’t expect to like it all. But I really do think it’s the most interesting thing Albarn’s done since “13”. When you were doing interviews for Dr Dee around the Manchester Festival last year, you talked a lot about it being a work in progress, a work in flux. Does it feel like it’s been completed now that you’ve recorded it? Erm, no, it’s going to change again for the English National Opera. I mean, I’m very much learning as I go, really, and making the transition – well, not a transition, because I’m not abandoning what I’ve done in the past – but making music that works with other people doing it. It’s very different to doing your own thing all the time. So I really feel like I’m in a constant state of flux with it. Some days I think I’m getting the hang of it, others I have no idea what I’m doing. It strikes me that this project in one way feels more collaborative than anything you’ve done, but in another sense you’re more clearly in the spotlight, out of cover, than in some of your other more recent projects Yes, that all kind of evolved because, when it came to do it, I’d been reading and thinking. When I finished the Gorillaz world tour I had to get my head into Renaissance England (laughs) and we had this eight week period in which we had to get it together and workshop the whole thing. And so I realised that, looking into the period, a lot of the ideas John Dee discussed and was very instrumental in developing were closely connected to a lot of the feelings that I had about England. And about history, and about religion. I’m definitely confused. I’m not a believer in the strict sense of the word, but I did keep hearing this word ‘spirit’, and it was connected in a weird way to a more mythical England, right back to the Arthurian stuff, which has had its moments in contemporary rock history, in the ‘70s especially. That line between folk, memory and imagination, that really attracted me, and I realised in the eight weeks that I couldn’t finish it properly, but what I could do was write quite a bit of stuff coming from my heart about how I felt about these strange esoteric subjects; not necessarily nail them, but definitely get the emotion out. And it was a way of saying things that I could never really say in any other context. Some of the coverage last year suggested parallels between Elizabethan England and now (especially “The Marvelous Dream”). It seems to be less about that, and more about drawing patterns and continuities through the long view of English history. Absolutely, it’s what I know about it and how it makes me feel. It’s a tricky place to go, so the only way you can do it is instinctively. But it’s quite methodical, pointing up recurrences with the 1953 coronation and Crowley samples. Crowley seems a very logical parallel as a part mystic/part charlatan character with Edward Kelley. Yeah, exactly, but also the intonation in his voice and Crowley’s is very similar; that sort of otherworldly music that comes into ritual, and it’s the same in the coronation and the wedding and in the golden dawn and religion – it’s all really connected. I suppose what I found very interesting about undertaking this journey was that we’re unaware sometimes of how these things affect us. It strikes me that even though your writing about England as far back as Modern Life was pretty complex – a lot more complex than a lot of people thought – it seems that on this record, even more than The Good, The Bad & The Queen, the ambiguities are unresolved. It’s quite emotional and the easy props of satire and irony are completely taken away. I have to take off my irony shoes when I enter this world, really (laughs), it doesn’t really work like that, it doesn’t hit those kind of chords. But we also get a greater sense of your attachment to England when we listen to this record, even though you’re singing in character. Yeah, that’s why I put my name to it, really, because that’s how I feel. It’s not resolved and I’m still in the middle of whatever it is I’m trying to articulate. This is where it is now, and it will have developed in ten years’ time. The critical line to me is “Give me something of a righteous revival”. It’s interesting you pick that out, because I actually took that out of that song but it didn’t feel balanced, so I put it back in. I’m always really aware of diminishing ritual, and I think the older you get, with kids, you realise you can’t just sit them in front of the computer and tell them to get on with life, they’ve got to have a visceral emotional response to it, it’s part of being a parent, really. My eldest is fascinated with history and kings, and it can be tricky to encourage that while saying ‘I don’t really believe in a monarchy’. It’s a weird thing. I was talking to John Harris about this and we were having a laugh; what am I saying about the monarchy? I’m certainly not pro-monarchy, I’m definitely against the privileged system in this country. But it is part of our history and it does have a magic about it which is an emotional response. That’s part of being English. The balance between a contemporary sound and medieval influences is very effective; the use of kora, and the way you draw on Renaissance music. I guess you were listening to a lot of Tallis, Byrd and Purcell? Yeah predominantly, the stuff that I’ve always put on in private is early church music and plainsong, Hildegarde Von Bingen and stuff like that. This is perilous terrain, for someone who’s mostly known as a rock musician, to start drawing on. I realise that (laughs), it was the only frame that presented itself so I went for it Having studied John Dee so assiduously, do you feel any kinship with him? Erm, well he genuinely was a multi-disciplined polymath, whereas I’m just a musician, I can’t really stretch further than that, so not in that sense. I think the fact that he was prepared to imagine a world that wasn’t necessarily totally physical, I think being a musician you do feel an affinity with that, because what is music, it’s not really anything other than something that comes out of your imagination. I don’t walk around secretly in a skullcap and talk to angels. Within the parameters of being a musician you’re more of a polymath than most; we only have to look at your activities this year with Rocket Juice And The Moon, Bobby Womack, Blur and this to show the range you’re moving across is far greater than most people’s expectations of a musician. It all seems part of the same thing to me, really, I try not to be too self-conscious about it and just get on with it. This work might still be in flux, but the record feels more anchored than something like Rocket Juice - a jamming record. Well Rocket Juice is a jamming record. I mean I didn’t really want to put the song ‘Poison’ on there but Tony and Flea were really into it, because it was something that came out, but it was a complete anomaly really. It was essentially creating a platform for these amazing rhythms to air again really, and a chance for Tony to play with Flea was something that I was happy to facilitate. I just enjoyed literally jamming with them. It’s not a record for people who want songs and stuff, it’s a totally different direction than that. “Apple Carts” and “The Marvelous Dream” feel like the closest you’ve written to Blur songs in a long time. Yeah, at the end of the day that’s what I do, I just sort of muck about with my guitar or on the piano and write songs. The colour that’s put on them is really dependent on what I’m working on at the time. In essence it’s the same process always. It’s strange that scoring them with a kora and a theorbo makes them sound more like Blur songs than scoringwith an analogue synth… Yeah (laughs) I suppose it just goes to show it’s all very closely related. But the kora was easy really, because I wanted to put some sort of hint of the Arabic influence on Elizabethan England, and it was an instrument I was familiar with and it’s also extremely modal. The kora’s best key is D minor and most of Dr Dee is in D minor, in the key of Dee obviously. It’s good to have limitations I find, when you’re doing stuff, trying to make it all work within there. It gives things a stylistic coherence. The sound of the kora has fantastic magical properties. Among the griots of West Africa, if you’re a real master at it, like Toumani Diabaté – and Madou who’s his younger brother – it’s considered the instrument that God speaks through. I wouldn’t dispute that, ‘cos it’s just insanely beautiful. If God is going to have a sound, the kora is as good an instrument as any to voice it. What’s next? For the English National Opera I’m trying to give it a lot more narrative. Dr Dee is going to sing this time, so hopefully it’s going to be a much more finished thing. I’m aspiring to that, and I’ve written quite a lot of extra stuff that isn’t on the record but will be at the Coliseum. Those dates are very close to the Blur shows. Yeah it’s all quite close and I’ve got the Bobby Womack record, which I’ve got to do some gigs for in America. So it’s quite a strange dynamic over the summer, but I’m looking forward to it. And anything else in the pipeline? Well I’m trying to make a solo record really, but it’s proving at the moment difficult to get the time. Hopefully in September I can really get on with that in earnest. Have you got a concept and a strategy for that, or are you just feeling your way? A bit of one. I’ve written quite a lot of stuff for it and I’ve been back to Leytonstone and Colchester quite a bit, but I don’t know whether that’s a true representation of it. I mean, I spent a bit of time in Soweto last summer and I came back really wanting to explore that sort of electronic dancey sound, but I don’t know whether that’s going to happen (laughs). It changes, I’m very random, to be honest with you. I get very excited about stuff and then I explore it and unless it really feels right and I’m emotionally connected with it, I change direction. You have the luxury of being able to park an idea in the studio and move onto something else. Yeah that’s the nice thing. You can do a lot of stuff and then leave it, and then it somehow becomes relevant again later on. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

For the current issue of Uncut, I interviewed Damon Albarn as part of my piece on his “Dr Dee” project (you can read it here). There wasn’t room for all of his answers in the mag, but today’s announcement of extra Blur dates prompted me to post the whole thing here.

Once again, I know there’s a lot of sneering and scepticism being targeted at this record, and I certainly didn’t expect to like it all. But I really do think it’s the most interesting thing Albarn’s done since “13”.

When you were doing interviews for Dr Dee around the Manchester Festival last year, you talked a lot about it being a work in progress, a work in flux. Does it feel like it’s been completed now that you’ve recorded it?

Erm, no, it’s going to change again for the English National Opera. I mean, I’m very much learning as I go, really, and making the transition – well, not a transition, because I’m not abandoning what I’ve done in the past – but making music that works with other people doing it. It’s very different to doing your own thing all the time. So I really feel like I’m in a constant state of flux with it. Some days I think I’m getting the hang of it, others I have no idea what I’m doing.

It strikes me that this project in one way feels more collaborative than anything you’ve done, but in another sense you’re more clearly in the spotlight, out of cover, than in some of your other more recent projects

Yes, that all kind of evolved because, when it came to do it, I’d been reading and thinking. When I finished the Gorillaz world tour I had to get my head into Renaissance England (laughs) and we had this eight week period in which we had to get it together and workshop the whole thing. And so I realised that, looking into the period, a lot of the ideas John Dee discussed and was very instrumental in developing were closely connected to a lot of the feelings that I had about England. And about history, and about religion. I’m definitely confused.

I’m not a believer in the strict sense of the word, but I did keep hearing this word ‘spirit’, and it was connected in a weird way to a more mythical England, right back to the Arthurian stuff, which has had its moments in contemporary rock history, in the ‘70s especially. That line between folk, memory and imagination, that really attracted me, and I realised in the eight weeks that I couldn’t finish it properly, but what I could do was write quite a bit of stuff coming from my heart about how I felt about these strange esoteric subjects; not necessarily nail them, but definitely get the emotion out. And it was a way of saying things that I could never really say in any other context.

Some of the coverage last year suggested parallels between Elizabethan England and now (especially “The Marvelous Dream”). It seems to be less about that, and more about drawing patterns and continuities through the long view of English history.

Absolutely, it’s what I know about it and how it makes me feel. It’s a tricky place to go, so the only way you can do it is instinctively.

But it’s quite methodical, pointing up recurrences with the 1953 coronation and Crowley samples. Crowley seems a very logical parallel as a part mystic/part charlatan character with Edward Kelley.

Yeah, exactly, but also the intonation in his voice and Crowley’s is very similar; that sort of otherworldly music that comes into ritual, and it’s the same in the coronation and the wedding and in the golden dawn and religion – it’s all really connected. I suppose what I found very interesting about undertaking this journey was that we’re unaware sometimes of how these things affect us.

It strikes me that even though your writing about England as far back as Modern Life was pretty complex – a lot more complex than a lot of people thought – it seems that on this record, even more than The Good, The Bad & The Queen, the ambiguities are unresolved. It’s quite emotional and the easy props of satire and irony are completely taken away.

I have to take off my irony shoes when I enter this world, really (laughs), it doesn’t really work like that, it doesn’t hit those kind of chords.

But we also get a greater sense of your attachment to England when we listen to this record, even though you’re singing in character.

Yeah, that’s why I put my name to it, really, because that’s how I feel. It’s not resolved and I’m still in the middle of whatever it is I’m trying to articulate. This is where it is now, and it will have developed in ten years’ time.

The critical line to me is “Give me something of a righteous revival”.

It’s interesting you pick that out, because I actually took that out of that song but it didn’t feel balanced, so I put it back in. I’m always really aware of diminishing ritual, and I think the older you get, with kids, you realise you can’t just sit them in front of the computer and tell them to get on with life, they’ve got to have a visceral emotional response to it, it’s part of being a parent, really.

My eldest is fascinated with history and kings, and it can be tricky to encourage that while saying ‘I don’t really believe in a monarchy’.

It’s a weird thing. I was talking to John Harris about this and we were having a laugh; what am I saying about the monarchy? I’m certainly not pro-monarchy, I’m definitely against the privileged system in this country. But it is part of our history and it does have a magic about it which is an emotional response. That’s part of being English.

The balance between a contemporary sound and medieval influences is very effective; the use of kora, and the way you draw on Renaissance music. I guess you were listening to a lot of Tallis, Byrd and Purcell?

Yeah predominantly, the stuff that I’ve always put on in private is early church music and plainsong, Hildegarde Von Bingen and stuff like that.

This is perilous terrain, for someone who’s mostly known as a rock musician, to start drawing on.

I realise that (laughs), it was the only frame that presented itself so I went for it

Having studied John Dee so assiduously, do you feel any kinship with him?

Erm, well he genuinely was a multi-disciplined polymath, whereas I’m just a musician, I can’t really stretch further than that, so not in that sense. I think the fact that he was prepared to imagine a world that wasn’t necessarily totally physical, I think being a musician you do feel an affinity with that, because what is music, it’s not really anything other than something that comes out of your imagination. I don’t walk around secretly in a skullcap and talk to angels.

Within the parameters of being a musician you’re more of a polymath than most; we only have to look at your activities this year with Rocket Juice And The Moon, Bobby Womack, Blur and this to show the range you’re moving across is far greater than most people’s expectations of a musician.

It all seems part of the same thing to me, really, I try not to be too self-conscious about it and just get on with it.

This work might still be in flux, but the record feels more anchored than something like Rocket Juice – a jamming record.

Well Rocket Juice is a jamming record. I mean I didn’t really want to put the song ‘Poison’ on there but Tony and Flea were really into it, because it was something that came out, but it was a complete anomaly really. It was essentially creating a platform for these amazing rhythms to air again really, and a chance for Tony to play with Flea was something that I was happy to facilitate. I just enjoyed literally jamming with them. It’s not a record for people who want songs and stuff, it’s a totally different direction than that.

“Apple Carts” and “The Marvelous Dream” feel like the closest you’ve written to Blur songs in a long time.

Yeah, at the end of the day that’s what I do, I just sort of muck about with my guitar or on the piano and write songs. The colour that’s put on them is really dependent on what I’m working on at the time. In essence it’s the same process always.

It’s strange that scoring them with a kora and a theorbo makes them sound more like Blur songs than scoringwith an analogue synth…

Yeah (laughs) I suppose it just goes to show it’s all very closely related. But the kora was easy really, because I wanted to put some sort of hint of the Arabic influence on Elizabethan England, and it was an instrument I was familiar with and it’s also extremely modal. The kora’s best key is D minor and most of Dr Dee is in D minor, in the key of Dee obviously. It’s good to have limitations I find, when you’re doing stuff, trying to make it all work within there. It gives things a stylistic coherence.

The sound of the kora has fantastic magical properties.

Among the griots of West Africa, if you’re a real master at it, like Toumani Diabaté – and Madou who’s his younger brother – it’s considered the instrument that God speaks through. I wouldn’t dispute that, ‘cos it’s just insanely beautiful. If God is going to have a sound, the kora is as good an instrument as any to voice it.

What’s next?

For the English National Opera I’m trying to give it a lot more narrative. Dr Dee is going to sing this time, so hopefully it’s going to be a much more finished thing. I’m aspiring to that, and I’ve written quite a lot of extra stuff that isn’t on the record but will be at the Coliseum.

Those dates are very close to the Blur shows.

Yeah it’s all quite close and I’ve got the Bobby Womack record, which I’ve got to do some gigs for in America. So it’s quite a strange dynamic over the summer, but I’m looking forward to it.

And anything else in the pipeline?

Well I’m trying to make a solo record really, but it’s proving at the moment difficult to get the time. Hopefully in September I can really get on with that in earnest.

Have you got a concept and a strategy for that, or are you just feeling your way?

A bit of one. I’ve written quite a lot of stuff for it and I’ve been back to Leytonstone and Colchester quite a bit, but I don’t know whether that’s a true representation of it. I mean, I spent a bit of time in Soweto last summer and I came back really wanting to explore that sort of electronic dancey sound, but I don’t know whether that’s going to happen (laughs). It changes, I’m very random, to be honest with you. I get very excited about stuff and then I explore it and unless it really feels right and I’m emotionally connected with it, I change direction.

You have the luxury of being able to park an idea in the studio and move onto something else.

Yeah that’s the nice thing. You can do a lot of stuff and then leave it, and then it somehow becomes relevant again later on.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

Mick Jagger to perform with Arcade Fire and Foo Fighters on Saturday Night Live?

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Mick Jagger to perform with Arcade Fire and Foo Fighters on Saturday Night Live?
Mick Jagger is set to host US comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live on May 19, and reports are suggesting that he will perform alongside the evening's other musical guests, the Arcade Fire and Foo Fighters. The Rolling Stones frontman has confirmed that he will perform on the show as well as host,...

Mick Jagger is set to host US comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live on May 19, and reports are suggesting that he will perform alongside the evening’s other musical guests, the Arcade Fire and Foo Fighters.

The Rolling Stones frontman has confirmed that he will perform on the show as well as host, but Rolling Stone magazine is stating that he might play with the programme’s fellow musical performers.

Jagger last hosted Saturday Night Live with the rest of The Rolling Stones in 1978. It is thought that he will delve into his band’s back catalogue on the show, in order to kick off their 50th anniversary celebrations.

The Rolling Stones played their first ever gig in London on July 12, 1962, and had been expected to celebrate the half-century landmark by embarking on a world tour later this year, but in March the band revealed that they would be delaying their live shows until 2013.

It was rumoured that health concerns regarding Keith Richards – who said the band were “not ready” to hit the road – were the reason for the delay as there were doubts that he would be able to commit to a full world tour, but the guitarist insisted that playing in 2013 would be a more fitting anniversary. “The Stones always considered ’63 to be 50 years, because Charlie [Watts, drummer] didn’t actually join until January,” he said. “We look upon 2012 as sort of the year of conception, but the birth is next year.”

Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner: “We used to pretend to be Oasis in school assembly”

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Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner: “We used to pretend to be Oasis in school assembly”
Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner has admitted that he and drummer Matt Helders dressed up and pretended to be Oasis in their school assembly. Speaking to Pitchfork, the frontman named Oasis' 1995 album (What's The Story) Morning Glory as one of the LPs which had had the most influence upon him as a teen...

Arctic Monkeys‘ Alex Turner has admitted that he and drummer Matt Helders dressed up and pretended to be Oasis in their school assembly.

Speaking to Pitchfork, the frontman named Oasis’ 1995 album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory as one of the LPs which had had the most influence upon him as a teenager, and revealed that he had performed tracks from the record in front of his peers while brandishing a tennis racquet.

“In the UK, you go from primary school to secondary school at age 11,” he explained. “And when we left primary school, all the kids would form groups and do a performance, like the girls would do a dance to the Spice Girls, or whatever.”

He added: So me and Matt and some of our friends put on ‘Morning Glory’ – we ‘played’ some tennis racquets and pretended to be Oasis. Matt was Liam Gallagher, he had the bucket hat on. I was the bass player.

The singer claimed their tribute act wasn’t well received, however. “We were just standing ther, doing what Oasis did onstage,” he said. “Which was not a great deal. I don’t think we got as good a reaction as the Spice Girls.”

Speaking about why he loved the LP, meanwhile, he said: “With Oasis, it’s just that attitude, like it’s resistant against everything else that’s going on in music. I don’t know if you can fully understand that– it’s like an impulse, innit? Especially at that age, you don’t rationalize, you’re just like, ‘That looks cool.’

“And I feel like that’s the fucking way it should be now, in a way. Guitar music or rock’n’roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it’ll never go away completely. It can’t die because it’s so fundamentally attractive.”

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke: “I can see why The King Of Limbs alienated people”

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Radiohead’s Thom Yorke: “I can see why The King Of Limbs alienated people”
Radiohead's Thom Yorke has said he can see why the band's eighth album The King Of Limbs alienated people. Speaking to Rolling Stone, the singer said of the album, which was released as a download with just a week's notice with no publicity by the band: "It was amazing just to put the record out...

Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke has said he can see why the band’s eighth album The King Of Limbs alienated people.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, the singer said of the album, which was released as a download with just a week’s notice with no publicity by the band:

“It was amazing just to put the record out like that. But then it didn’t feel like it really existed…But that was the consequence of what we chose to do. You can either get upset about it, or say, ‘well, that’s not good enough.'”

He added: “I can see why it’s alienated people. I didn’t realise it was on its own planet.”

The band are currently touring North America in support of the album and will play three UK shows in the autumn at Manchester’s Evening News Arena (October 6), and London’s O2 Arena (October 8 and 9).

Speaking of the drawn-out recording process for the album, Jonny Greenwood added: “The brick walls we tended to hit were when we knew something was great, like ‘Bloom’, but not finished. We knew the song was nearly something. Then Colin had that bass line and Thom started singing. Those things made it a hundred times better. The other stuff was just waiting for the right thing.”

Radiohead have been playing two new songs, “Identikit” and “Cut A Hole”, as part of their recent live set.

The Black Keys documentary will be a ‘buddy movie’

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The Black Keys documentary will be a ‘buddy movie’
The Black Keys' forthcoming documentary will be a "buddy movie" rather than a conventional tour film. Noah Abrams, the director behind the yet-untitled film, has said he had no plans to shoot a straight band documentary and revealed that the movie would be a "buddy movie with perhaps the greatest s...

The Black Keys‘ forthcoming documentary will be a “buddy movie” rather than a conventional tour film.

Noah Abrams, the director behind the yet-untitled film, has said he had no plans to shoot a straight band documentary and revealed that the movie would be a “buddy movie with perhaps the greatest soundtrack of all time”.

The film-maker told Spin: “A lot of music documentaries spend too much time trying to make people cool. I’m fortunate enough to know these guys pretty well and their relationship is pretty incredible and very funny.”

Abrams has been on the road since last summer’s sold-out El Camino world tour dates at Manchester’s O2 Apollo. He has filmed the band as they have traversed the world in support of their latest album.

Praising the duo’s hard-working commitment to their music, Abrams added: “They worked and worked and worked and toured and toured and slept in a van and worked their asses off and now they’re selling out arenas.”

The director will be travelling with the band until their tour winds down in the autumn. He aims to have the documentary wrapped up in time to showcase the movie at next year’s film festivals and hopes for a theatrical release.

He said: “We’ve gotten some amazing footage so far. For as big as these guys are now, they’re still two guys from Akron. The comedy is usually endless with these two.”

Blur announce intimate August UK tour

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Blur announce intimate August UK tour
Blur have announced an intimate UK tour for this August. The Britpop icons will play four shows on the tour, beginning at Margate's Winter Gardens on August 1. They will then play two shows at Wolverhampton's Civic Hall on August 5 and 6, before finishing off at Plymouth's Pavilions on August 7. ...

Blur have announced an intimate UK tour for this August.

The Britpop icons will play four shows on the tour, beginning at Margate’s Winter Gardens on August 1. They will then play two shows at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall on August 5 and 6, before finishing off at Plymouth’s Pavilions on August 7.

The shows will act as a warm-up for the band’s huge outdoor gig at London’s Hyde Park on August 12. That show sees Blur topping a bill that also includes New Order and The Specials. The gig has been put on to coincide with the closing ceremony of the Olympic games.

Along with playing at Hyde Park, Blur are also scheduled to headline Sweden’s Way Out West festival in August.

Blur will also release a career-spanning boxset on July 30 this summer. Titled 21, the collection includes the band’s seven studio albums as well as over 5 hours of previously unreleased material including 65 tracks, rarities, 3 DVDs, a collector’s edition book and special limited edition Seymour 7 inch vinyl.

Blur will play:

Margate Winter Gardens (August 1)

Wolverhampton Civic Hall (5, 6)

Plymouth Pavilions (7)

Read Uncut’s new interview with Damon Albarn here.

Animal Collective name their new album

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Animal Collective name their new album
Animal Collective have revealed that their new studio album will be titled Centipede Hz. The Baltimore electro-psychedelic band will release the album, which is the 10th LP of their career, in September via Domino Records. The band made the announcement via a video on their official website, which...

Animal Collective have revealed that their new studio album will be titled Centipede Hz.

The Baltimore electro-psychedelic band will release the album, which is the 10th LP of their career, in September via Domino Records.

The band made the announcement via a video on their official website, which revealed the record’s title, a September release and a number of song titles.

Songs set to feature on Centipede Hz include “Moonjock”, “Today’s Supernatural”, “Rosie Oh”, “Applesauce”, “Wide Eyed”, “Father Time”, “New Town Burnout”, “Monkey Riches”, “Mercury Man”, “Pulleys” and “Amanita”. To watch the video, head to Myanimalhome.net.

Animal Collective will precede the release of their new album with a two-track single next month. The tracks, which are titled “Gotham” and “Honeycomb”, will be released on June 26 via digital download and on 7” vinyl. It is unknown whether either track will feature on Centipede Hz.

Centipede Hz is the band’s first full-length studio album since their 2009 effort Merriweather Post Pavillion and follows the release in 2010 of the band’s “visual album” ODDSAC.

Club Uncut at The Great Escape – Day Three

Tom Pinnock
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Club Uncut at The Great Escape – Day Three

What better way to kick off the final night of Club Uncut at The Great Escape than with a Brooklyn bar band – or indeed, a bar solo artist, the wily R'n'B raconteur Hans Chew. Joined only by his guitarist Dave 'The Horse' Cavallo (the rest of his band couldn't make it, presumably being less cost-effective…), the pianist performs an enthralling set of his bluesy story songs at the Pavilion Theatre. Chew is perhaps even better in such a stripped-down setting, backed only by Cavallo's stinging Telecaster, allowing the artistry in his songs to shine through. “Queen Of The Damned Blues”, from his debut album, Tennessee & Other Stories…, is one of the highlights of the set – a labyrinthine, Dylan-esque ode to the titular character. “Sitting by the pool/Feeling like a goddamn fool”, Chew wisecracks in one song, while a new track seems to widen the group's harmonic palette. “This one will be on our next record,” he tells the audience. “Unless we write something better before then.” Electronic duo Solar Bears, up next, are quite the opposite of the slow-burning Blanck Mass on Friday; their sound is relentlessly upbeat and compact, their uptempo motorik beats overlaid with sparkling synth arpeggios and whistling oscillators. Though Uncut's Michael Chapman astutely detected the influence of '70s public information film tones of the type coveted by the Ghostbox label, there also appears to be a more recent retro element to Solar Bears' sound – harking back to 1998, perhaps, when Warp was at its trailblazing peak and Orbital were experimenting with darker moods on The Middle Of Nowhere. Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny, perhaps now the biggest act that Uncut's hosting in Brighton this year, take the stage beaming at the large crowd, the singer's bleached-blonde hair piled high and messy, as always. “I just woke up,” she mumbles. Along with Jeans Houghton's impressive voice, hitting every note spot on and warbling like a choirgirl, her band whip up a folk storm, as galloping as a mariachi band and as soulful as Dexy's. The stage banter from the singer-songwriter and her group (consisting of a drummer, violinist, keyboardist, bassist and guitarist/trumpet player) is self-consciously hilarious, too – “I did an interview earlier today, and I told the interviewer I really smelt,” recounts Jeans Houghton. “And she wanted to smell me. What did she say I smelt like?” “Like rotting meat,” replies guitarist Ed Blazey. Another anecdote about a drunk guy wetting himself went down brilliantly with the crowd – but I'm afraid wouldn't work in the cold light of a blog… The group's harmonies throughout are also spot-on and rousing, elevating idiosyncratic lyrics like those on “Atlas” to hymns of celebration. Jeans Houghton ends with her customary closer, the Pogues-recalling stomper “Prick AKA Sean”, its rousing chorus of “fuck off!” echoing through the theatre. The final Club Uncut act of the festival, EMA, stalks onstage in a hooded top, like a boxer, reciting a dramatic monologue about staying up for days strung out on various chemicals, entitled “Fargo”, before showcasing the majority of her songs from Past Life Martyred Saints. Her eclectic songs are rooted variously in noisy '80s guitar-rock and reverb-drenched synth-pop, and appear to be the conduits for Erika M Anderson to exorcise her memories of adolescence and America. For someone whose music needs little embellishment, there are all manner of arm movements and symbolic posturing going on. At times, the visual accompaniment's impressive, such as when Anderson covers herself in a web of fairy lights and the lights go down, but it can get hammy, especially near the climax of the set, where the frontwoman stiffly mimes a gun. EMA's secret weapon is her multi-instrumentalist, however, who uses his electric violin more like a guitar or a synthesiser, conjuring brittle, echoed drones like a dubby John Cale at the beginning of the set, and letting waves of distortion loose later. By the time the epic “California” appears, EMA's intense performance has transported most of the audience into her world, to live out her dirty, tattered American Dream along with her. So a fantastic closing night to Club Uncut's time at The Great Escape. Have a look at the August issue of Uncut (out at the end of June) for a full review of the acts who've graced the Pavilion Theatre. Tom Pinnock Photograph: Richard Johnson

What better way to kick off the final night of Club Uncut at The Great Escape than with a Brooklyn bar band – or indeed, a bar solo artist, the wily R’n’B raconteur Hans Chew.

Joined only by his guitarist Dave ‘The Horse’ Cavallo (the rest of his band couldn’t make it, presumably being less cost-effective…), the pianist performs an enthralling set of his bluesy story songs at the Pavilion Theatre.

Chew is perhaps even better in such a stripped-down setting, backed only by Cavallo’s stinging Telecaster, allowing the artistry in his songs to shine through.

“Queen Of The Damned Blues”, from his debut album, Tennessee & Other Stories…, is one of the highlights of the set – a labyrinthine, Dylan-esque ode to the titular character. “Sitting by the pool/Feeling like a goddamn fool”, Chew wisecracks in one song, while a new track seems to widen the group’s harmonic palette. “This one will be on our next record,” he tells the audience. “Unless we write something better before then.”

Electronic duo Solar Bears, up next, are quite the opposite of the slow-burning Blanck Mass on Friday; their sound is relentlessly upbeat and compact, their uptempo motorik beats overlaid with sparkling synth arpeggios and whistling oscillators.

Though Uncut’s Michael Chapman astutely detected the influence of ’70s public information film tones of the type coveted by the Ghostbox label, there also appears to be a more recent retro element to Solar Bears’ sound – harking back to 1998, perhaps, when Warp was at its trailblazing peak and Orbital were experimenting with darker moods on The Middle Of Nowhere.

Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny, perhaps now the biggest act that Uncut’s hosting in Brighton this year, take the stage beaming at the large crowd, the singer’s bleached-blonde hair piled high and messy, as always. “I just woke up,” she mumbles.

Along with Jeans Houghton’s impressive voice, hitting every note spot on and warbling like a choirgirl, her band whip up a folk storm, as galloping as a mariachi band and as soulful as Dexy’s. The stage banter from the singer-songwriter and her group (consisting of a drummer, violinist, keyboardist, bassist and guitarist/trumpet player) is self-consciously hilarious, too – “I did an interview earlier today, and I told the interviewer I really smelt,” recounts Jeans Houghton. “And she wanted to smell me. What did she say I smelt like?” “Like rotting meat,” replies guitarist Ed Blazey. Another anecdote about a drunk guy wetting himself went down brilliantly with the crowd – but I’m afraid wouldn’t work in the cold light of a blog…

The group’s harmonies throughout are also spot-on and rousing, elevating idiosyncratic lyrics like those on “Atlas” to hymns of celebration. Jeans Houghton ends with her customary closer, the Pogues-recalling stomper “Prick AKA Sean”, its rousing chorus of “fuck off!” echoing through the theatre.

The final Club Uncut act of the festival, EMA, stalks onstage in a hooded top, like a boxer, reciting a dramatic monologue about staying up for days strung out on various chemicals, entitled “Fargo”, before showcasing the majority of her songs from Past Life Martyred Saints.

Her eclectic songs are rooted variously in noisy ’80s guitar-rock and reverb-drenched synth-pop, and appear to be the conduits for Erika M Anderson to exorcise her memories of adolescence and America. For someone whose music needs little embellishment, there are all manner of arm movements and symbolic posturing going on. At times, the visual accompaniment’s impressive, such as when Anderson covers herself in a web of fairy lights and the lights go down, but it can get hammy, especially near the climax of the set, where the frontwoman stiffly mimes a gun.

EMA’s secret weapon is her multi-instrumentalist, however, who uses his electric violin more like a guitar or a synthesiser, conjuring brittle, echoed drones like a dubby John Cale at the beginning of the set, and letting waves of distortion loose later.

By the time the epic “California” appears, EMA’s intense performance has transported most of the audience into her world, to live out her dirty, tattered American Dream along with her.

So a fantastic closing night to Club Uncut’s time at The Great Escape. Have a look at the August issue of Uncut (out at the end of June) for a full review of the acts who’ve graced the Pavilion Theatre.

Tom Pinnock

Photograph: Richard Johnson

Booker T bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn dies

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Booker T bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn dies

Bassist Donald 'Duck' Dunn, who played with Booker T. & the M.G.'s, has died in Tokyo aged 70. The M.G.'s were the house band for STAX records and Dunn can be heard on a number of tracks including Otis Redding's "Respect" and Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign". The bassist had been in the Japanese city to play a series of concerts as part of a STAX show, featuring Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd, and had played two gigs on Saturday night. Cropper posted on his Facebook page that Dunn had died in his sleep this morning (May 13). He wrote: "Today I lost my best friend, the world has lost the best guy and bass player to ever live. Duck Dunn died in his sleep Sunday morning in Tokyo Japan after finishing 2 shows at the Blue Note Night Club." Born in Memphis on November 24, 1941, Dunn was given his nickname by his father as the two watched a Donald Duck cartoon on TV. He began playing the bass guitar when he was 16 and joined Booker T. & the M.G.'s in 1962. Later on in his career, Dunn performed with Neil Young, Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart. He played himself in the original 1980 The Blues Brothers movie, and its sequel Blues Brother 2000 Booker T. & the M.G.'s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and Dunn received a lifetime achievement Grammy award in 2007. Photo: Barry Brecheisen/WireImage/Getty Images

Bassist Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, who played with Booker T. & the M.G.’s, has died in Tokyo aged 70.

The M.G.’s were the house band for STAX records and Dunn can be heard on a number of tracks including Otis Redding’s “Respect” and Albert King’s “Born Under A Bad Sign”.

The bassist had been in the Japanese city to play a series of concerts as part of a STAX show, featuring Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd, and had played two gigs on Saturday night. Cropper posted on his Facebook page that Dunn had died in his sleep this morning (May 13).

He wrote: “Today I lost my best friend, the world has lost the best guy and bass player to ever live. Duck Dunn died in his sleep Sunday morning in Tokyo Japan after finishing 2 shows at the Blue Note Night Club.”

Born in Memphis on November 24, 1941, Dunn was given his nickname by his father as the two watched a Donald Duck cartoon on TV. He began playing the bass guitar when he was 16 and joined Booker T. & the M.G.’s in 1962.

Later on in his career, Dunn performed with Neil Young, Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart. He played himself in the original 1980 The Blues Brothers movie, and its sequel Blues Brother 2000

Booker T. & the M.G.’s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and Dunn received a lifetime achievement Grammy award in 2007.

Photo: Barry Brecheisen/WireImage/Getty Images

Neil Young debuts another new video from his forthcoming album

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Neil Young debuts another new video from his forthcoming album
Neil Young has debuted a second video from his forthcoming album with Crazy Horse, Americana. The video for "Jesus' Chariot (She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain") follows "Oh Susannah", the video for which Young released on May 1. Americana, Young's first album with Crazy Horse since Greendale in ...

Neil Young has debuted a second video from his forthcoming album with Crazy Horse, Americana.

The video for “Jesus’ Chariot (She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain“) follows “Oh Susannah”, the video for which Young released on May 1.

Americana, Young’s first album with Crazy Horse since Greendale in 2003, is set for release on June 5.

Club Uncut at The Great Escape – Day Two

Tom Pinnock
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Club Uncut at The Great Escape – Day Two

The weather has turned out glorious in Brighton on the second day of The Great Escape – but Friday's bill at Club Uncut is of a decidely darker bent. Up first at the Pavilion Theatre tonight are Nashville's The Black Belles (pictured above), Jack White's grungey garage-rock protégées. They released their debut single, “What Can I Do?”, on Third Man in 2010, but have since kept a low-profile, even when sneaking out their debut album late last year. “What Can I Do?” was pretty pagan-gothic (both in its video and sound), but the newer tracks from the group, seemingly always dressed for Halloween in their huge black hats, black lacy dresses and black lipstick, show a wider set of influences – from twangy surf-rock to dirgy Sabbath riffing, from White Stripes garage thrash to Karen O-like growling from frontwoman (and collaborator on White's Blunderbuss) Olivia Jean. Indeed, “Honky Tonk Horror”, the most immediate of the group's songs (and also their new single) appears to showcase all three over the course of its full-pelt three minutes. The band are now a trio following “a recent change in our lineup” (the departure of organist Lil' Boo), but their fuzzed-up, vicious sound still shakes up the Pavilion Theatre on one thrilling short song after another. Blanck Mass perhaps don't know the meaning of the phrase 'short song', though. Benjamin John Power, usually one half of Fuck Buttons, prefers to meander non-stop through a variety of moods during his 45-minute set. He begins with loops of children's babbling, before settling into an extended piece of organ-toned synth drones. The funereal sound has more than a hint of the gothic to it, touching on Tangerine Dream circa Zeit, but also the apparently unchanging soundscapes of Terry Riley and Steve Reich – there's a similar time-distorting element to much of Blanck Mass' set, the dense held drones causing you to lose track of the passing of minutes. At times, it's reminiscent of those massively slowed-down (by around 500%…) Justin Bieber tracks that appeared a couple of years ago, beautifully glacial. Around halfway through the set, Power begins to introduce rhythmic elements into his sound. There are definite echoes of Warp artists from the '90s, such as Autechre in the off-kilter rhythms, and also Boards Of Canada's unsettling vocal samples, spun off into a sea of echo and glitchiness. It was an impressive, if slightly dated-sounding, performance, but it would certainly have packed more of a punch if there had been visuals involved. Luckily, Forest Swords, tonight's headliners, brought along a screen and a projector to go with the onstage duo's spacey electronic textures. A strong dub element is provided by live bass guitar from an additional member, but the tracks sometimes stray into more modern, dubstep-influenced fare, complete with soul vocal samples submerged in harsh digital echo – not unlike the '90s Bristol sound of Tricky or Massive Attack remixed by Burial. In front of the visuals – scratchy black and white footage of dancers, lit-up signs from early-20th-century Paris and Berlin, and other ephemera – the pair weave their slow, steady way, the pace only changing when a bizarre drum and bass break enters without warning, sparking whoops in the spectators keen for some more immediate Friday night thrills. But Forest Swords prefer to keep their elegantly stoned, dark style going rather than give in to the crowd. All power to them. Come back tomorrow for a report on the final night of Club Uncut at The Great Escape. Tom Pinnock Photograph: Richard Johnson

The weather has turned out glorious in Brighton on the second day of The Great Escape – but Friday’s bill at Club Uncut is of a decidely darker bent.

Up first at the Pavilion Theatre tonight are Nashville’s The Black Belles (pictured above), Jack White’s grungey garage-rock protégées. They released their debut single, “What Can I Do?”, on Third Man in 2010, but have since kept a low-profile, even when sneaking out their debut album late last year.

“What Can I Do?” was pretty pagan-gothic (both in its video and sound), but the newer tracks from the group, seemingly always dressed for Halloween in their huge black hats, black lacy dresses and black lipstick, show a wider set of influences – from twangy surf-rock to dirgy Sabbath riffing, from White Stripes garage thrash to Karen O-like growling from frontwoman (and collaborator on White’s Blunderbuss) Olivia Jean. Indeed, “Honky Tonk Horror”, the most immediate of the group’s songs (and also their new single) appears to showcase all three over the course of its full-pelt three minutes.

The band are now a trio following “a recent change in our lineup” (the departure of organist Lil’ Boo), but their fuzzed-up, vicious sound still shakes up the Pavilion Theatre on one thrilling short song after another.

Blanck Mass perhaps don’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘short song’, though. Benjamin John Power, usually one half of Fuck Buttons, prefers to meander non-stop through a variety of moods during his 45-minute set. He begins with loops of children’s babbling, before settling into an extended piece of organ-toned synth drones. The funereal sound has more than a hint of the gothic to it, touching on Tangerine Dream circa Zeit, but also the apparently unchanging soundscapes of Terry Riley and Steve Reich – there’s a similar time-distorting element to much of Blanck Mass’ set, the dense held drones causing you to lose track of the passing of minutes. At times, it’s reminiscent of those massively slowed-down (by around 500%…) Justin Bieber tracks that appeared a couple of years ago, beautifully glacial.

Around halfway through the set, Power begins to introduce rhythmic elements into his sound. There are definite echoes of Warp artists from the ’90s, such as Autechre in the off-kilter rhythms, and also Boards Of Canada’s unsettling vocal samples, spun off into a sea of echo and glitchiness.

It was an impressive, if slightly dated-sounding, performance, but it would certainly have packed more of a punch if there had been visuals involved. Luckily, Forest Swords, tonight’s headliners, brought along a screen and a projector to go with the onstage duo’s spacey electronic textures. A strong dub element is provided by live bass guitar from an additional member, but the tracks sometimes stray into more modern, dubstep-influenced fare, complete with soul vocal samples submerged in harsh digital echo – not unlike the ’90s Bristol sound of Tricky or Massive Attack remixed by Burial.

In front of the visuals – scratchy black and white footage of dancers, lit-up signs from early-20th-century Paris and Berlin, and other ephemera – the pair weave their slow, steady way, the pace only changing when a bizarre drum and bass break enters without warning, sparking whoops in the spectators keen for some more immediate Friday night thrills. But Forest Swords prefer to keep their elegantly stoned, dark style going rather than give in to the crowd. All power to them.

Come back tomorrow for a report on the final night of Club Uncut at The Great Escape.

Tom Pinnock

Photograph: Richard Johnson

Beach House – Bloom

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Beach House – Bloom

The Baltimore duo stitches a blue velvet tapestry... When Beach House released their self-titled debut album in 2006, it was readily embraced by the Pitchfork-reading indie crowd for the duo’s ability to make something otherworldly with the simplest of components. Recorded in a mere day and a half, the album contained nothing more than Alex Scally’s filigreed Stratocaster licks, Victoria Legrand’s evocative vocals and silky organ chordings and the most rudimentary of drum machine. Still, it came off as a provocative amalgam of Mazzy Star’s proto-dream pop and Portishead’s existential eeriness. With 2008’s Devotion and their 2010 breakthrough Teen Dream, Scally and Legrand progressively enriched the recipe, growing more meticulous in crafting their aural sculptures, enlisting producer/engineer Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, TV on the Radio) on the latter album to help them attain the opulence their earlier LPs had hinted at. Meanwhile, the duo’s songs became ever more hooky without distracting from their distinctive atmospherics, and Teen Dream was packed with them: “Norway”, “Zebra”, “Walk In The Park”, “10 Mile Stereo”. No doubt about it, they’d set the bar high for themselves going into album number four. Interestingly, the musical partners (they’re not a couple) have chosen not to try to top what they achieved with Teen Dream on the new Bloom but rather to subsume their poppy tendencies beneath a unifying aural glaze. The duo’s stated intention was to make an album that flows seamlessly, and initial plays give the impression that Bloom is a unified symphonic work with each track forming a particular movement, ambient sounds connecting one movement to the next. But repeated listening gradually reveals the distinct shapes of individual songs. And these are indeed proper songs, complete with crisply rendered verses, choruses and middle eights, delivered elegantly and emphatically by Legrand’s siren-like vocals amid the shimmering aural dreamscapes. Heard individually, tracks like “Myth”, “Wild”, “Troublemaker” and “New Year” resemble nothing less than modern variations on ’60s girl-group pop, specifically suggesting Phil Spector’s wall of sound in the newly emphasized drumming (courtesy of touring drummer Daniel Franz, who now appears to be a full-fledged member of the group) and the stacked, heavily echoed instrumentation, constructed in league with the returning Coady. But these walls feel liquid in their density, like tsunamis in slo-mo. And in due course, chorus hooks as undeniable as those on Teen Dream pop out of the lush sonic overlay like spires and minarets. At this point, it’s clear that Legrand and Scally have created their own cosmology by way of an uncanny knack for transforming the abstract into what feels like flesh and blood. The succinct song titles – also including “Lazuli” (named after an intensely blue semi-precious stone), “The Hours” and “Wishes” – possess an open-ended resonance, suggesting mystery, danger and erotic pleasure, much like the songs themselves. Though she was born in France, Legrand grew up in the US with English as her first language, and while she speaks with no accent whatsoever, her vocals have become increasingly European-sounding, her beguiling, androgynous contralto containing distinct echoes of Nico. Although certain lines come across with a degree of clarity, she’s less interested in the precise enunciation of her lyrics than creating palpable moods with the sound of her voice, and in that respect she’s practically peerless. Though Legrand has had little contact with her uncle, French film composer Michel Legrand, she appears to share a certain sensibility with him. With (i)Bloom(i), Legrand and Scally have played out this notion for all it’s worth, crafting an album that feels very much like the score for an imaginary film – an avant-garde French film, to be precise, an extended nocturne encompassing romance and its aftermath, the inexorable passage of time, and the preciousness of the fleeting moment. Bud Scoppa Q&A Victoria Legrand The artwork for Bloom is very stark... We wanted something simple rather than anything lavish. It’s a photo that we took, something that gave us a feeling and which doesn’t get in the way of the album. It’s about as basic as it goes. How do you and Alex see Bloom as being different from Teen Dream? Something that’s always been very consistent with us is the way that we work together. And that’s has been extremely natural and has kept evolving as our sound becomes more distinct. And as we get older our music is not about the literal things sitting in front of you. It’s about the before, the after, the inside, the effect. Because as you get older there’s so much more complexity and depth, you can feel things more and taste things more. There’s a real beauty in that experience. Over your four albums, you and Alex have developed a really idiosyncratic way with melody. Looking outside of Beach House, who for you are the greats of melody? Oh, there are so many. Roy Orbison is one, and then obviously Elizabeth Fraser is somebody who could make a melody that’s like a crazy planet – it’s insanely visual without you necessarily understanding what the words are. INTERVIEW: LAURA SNAPES

The Baltimore duo stitches a blue velvet tapestry…

When Beach House released their self-titled debut album in 2006, it was readily embraced by the Pitchfork-reading indie crowd for the duo’s ability to make something otherworldly with the simplest of components. Recorded in a mere day and a half, the album contained nothing more than Alex Scally’s filigreed Stratocaster licks, Victoria Legrand’s evocative vocals and silky organ chordings and the most rudimentary of drum machine. Still, it came off as a provocative amalgam of Mazzy Star’s proto-dream pop and Portishead’s existential eeriness.

With 2008’s Devotion and their 2010 breakthrough Teen Dream, Scally and Legrand progressively enriched the recipe, growing more meticulous in crafting their aural sculptures, enlisting producer/engineer Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, TV on the Radio) on the latter album to help them attain the opulence their earlier LPs had hinted at. Meanwhile, the duo’s songs became ever more hooky without distracting from their distinctive atmospherics, and Teen Dream was packed with them: “Norway”, “Zebra”, “Walk In The Park”, “10 Mile Stereo”. No doubt about it, they’d set the bar high for themselves going into album number four.

Interestingly, the musical partners (they’re not a couple) have chosen not to try to top what they achieved with Teen Dream on the new Bloom but rather to subsume their poppy tendencies beneath a unifying aural glaze. The duo’s stated intention was to make an album that flows seamlessly, and initial plays give the impression that Bloom is a unified symphonic work with each track forming a particular movement, ambient sounds connecting one movement to the next.

But repeated listening gradually reveals the distinct shapes of individual songs. And these are indeed proper songs, complete with crisply rendered verses, choruses and middle eights, delivered elegantly and emphatically by Legrand’s siren-like vocals amid the shimmering aural dreamscapes. Heard individually, tracks like “Myth”, “Wild”, “Troublemaker” and “New Year” resemble nothing less than modern variations on ’60s girl-group pop, specifically suggesting Phil Spector’s wall of sound in the newly emphasized drumming (courtesy of touring drummer Daniel Franz, who now appears to be a full-fledged member of the group) and the stacked, heavily echoed instrumentation, constructed in league with the returning Coady. But these walls feel liquid in their density, like tsunamis in slo-mo. And in due course, chorus hooks as undeniable as those on Teen Dream pop out of the lush sonic overlay like spires and minarets.

At this point, it’s clear that Legrand and Scally have created their own cosmology by way of an uncanny knack for transforming the abstract into what feels like flesh and blood. The succinct song titles – also including “Lazuli” (named after an intensely blue semi-precious stone), “The Hours” and “Wishes” – possess an open-ended resonance, suggesting mystery, danger and erotic pleasure, much like the songs themselves. Though she was born in France, Legrand grew up in the US with English as her first language, and while she speaks with no accent whatsoever, her vocals have become increasingly European-sounding, her beguiling, androgynous contralto containing distinct echoes of Nico. Although certain lines come across with a degree of clarity, she’s less interested in the precise enunciation of her lyrics than creating palpable moods with the sound of her voice, and in that respect she’s practically peerless.

Though Legrand has had little contact with her uncle, French film composer Michel Legrand, she appears to share a certain sensibility with him. With (i)Bloom(i), Legrand and Scally have played out this notion for all it’s worth, crafting an album that feels very much like the score for an imaginary film – an avant-garde French film, to be precise, an extended nocturne encompassing romance and its aftermath, the inexorable passage of time, and the preciousness of the fleeting moment.

Bud Scoppa

Q&A

Victoria Legrand

The artwork for Bloom is very stark…

We wanted something simple rather than anything lavish. It’s a photo that we took, something that gave us a feeling and which doesn’t get in the way of the album. It’s about as basic as it goes.

How do you and Alex see Bloom as being different from Teen Dream?

Something that’s always been very consistent with us is the way that we work together. And that’s has been extremely natural and has kept evolving as our sound becomes more distinct. And as we get older our music is not about the literal things sitting in front of you. It’s about the before, the after, the inside, the effect. Because as you get older there’s so much more complexity and depth, you can feel things more and taste things more. There’s a real beauty in that experience.

Over your four albums, you and Alex have developed a really idiosyncratic way with melody. Looking outside of Beach House, who for you are the greats of melody?

Oh, there are so many. Roy Orbison is one, and then obviously Elizabeth Fraser is somebody who could make a melody that’s like a crazy planet – it’s insanely visual without you necessarily understanding what the words are.

INTERVIEW: LAURA SNAPES

The Raid

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The Raid
Relentless! High end Martial Arts action flick... On a technical level, The Raid is a film very much to be admired. Made by Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, it took a year to shoot, so slow and painstaking were the fight scenes to film. And, considering the fights take up about 90% o...

Relentless! High end Martial Arts action flick…

On a technical level, The Raid is a film very much to be admired. Made by Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, it took a year to shoot, so slow and painstaking were the fight scenes to film. And, considering the fights take up about 90% of the film’s 101 minutes, you had to commend Evans’ perseverance. Beyond that, this is basically a genre mash-up – part John Carpenter b-movie, part high concept action thriller, mostly a Martial Arts kick-em-up. The perfect grindhouse film, had this had come out 10 years ago, it would have carried a “Presented By Quentin Tarantino” slug.

Iko Uwais – in real life, a former delivery man for an Indonesian phone company – plays Rama, part of a special forces team assigned to bring down a crime lord holed up on the top floor of a 15-story apartment block in the slums of Jakarta. It’s the kind of heavy shit assignment you imagine Ross Kemp and the Ultimate Force crew deal with every week. The crime lord, Tama, looks a bit like an Asian Harvey Keitel in his Smoke/Blue In The Face Period. “Pushers, gangsters, killers. They all treat him like a god,” we discover. Early on, he shoots some folks, and goes at another one with a hammer. Inside the block, the special forces team are picked off one by one, floor by floor, by Tama’s hardcore dudes.

Complimenting his patient, meticulous filmmaking, Evans shots The Raid in forensically detailed high-definition, so you can see really clearly the damage, say, a fluorescent lighting tube causes when rammed into someone’s neck. It’s inventive, too, and Evans appears sensitive enough to the demands of Silat – his favoured Martial Art – to let Uwais and his other key performer, Yayan Ruhian, do their thing with fists and feet.
Michael Bonner

ZZ Top preview new material on a beer commercial

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ZZ Top preview new material on a beer commercial
ZZ Top have previewed new material on a commercial for American beer, Jeremiah Weed. The advert features the members of the Texan band emerging from inside a giant beer cooler and surprising customers. The advert was shot at Bubba's Country Store in Austin, Texas. The track the band perform, "I'v...

ZZ Top have previewed new material on a commercial for American beer, Jeremiah Weed.

The advert features the members of the Texan band emerging from inside a giant beer cooler and surprising customers. The advert was shot at Bubba’s Country Store in Austin, Texas.

The track the band perform, “I’ve Got To Get Paid”, is the first taster from their forthcoming album, produced by Rick Rubin.

Suede scrap new material and return to studio with mid-90s producer

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Suede scrap new material and return to studio with mid-90s producer
Suede have scrapped the majority of the material their aired at their comeback gigs last year - and have returned to the studio with the man who produced their first four albums. Ed Buller is now helming the album, which will be the reunited Britpop band's first in over a decade. Writing on the ban...

Suede have scrapped the majority of the material their aired at their comeback gigs last year – and have returned to the studio with the man who produced their first four albums.

Ed Buller is now helming the album, which will be the reunited Britpop band’s first in over a decade. Writing on the band’s Facebook page, singer Brett Anderson said that the they had been “merrily chipping away at the huge block of raw stone that is, whisper it, the new Suede album” and posted a picture of them together. He added:

“What does it sound like? Oh! I don’t know, probably like some artist on some drug, engaged in a game of quoits with some other artist on another drug, you can adopt your own journalistic cliche if you haven’t grown up yet.”

Anderson also revealed the titles of some of the new tracks: “Titles? Hmmmm… ‘Sometimes I Feel I’ll Float Away‘, ‘For The Strangers’, ‘It Starts and Ends With You’ amongst others.”

He also said that some of the new material showcased at a gig in December 2011 was been discarded: “The proto-proto-proto type version that we were fumbling around with towards the end of last year is very dead so apart from ‘Sabotage‘, don’t get attached to any of those songs from Russia cos it’s very unlikely anyone will ever hear them again.”

Anderson has previously said that unless the new Suede album was “amazing”, it would never be released.

Buller worked on the band’s 1993 self-titled debut, along with follow-ups Dog Man Star and Coming Up. The band opted to work with producer Steve Osborne and Bruce Lampcov on 1999’s poorly-received Head Music. They split in 2003, the year after the release of their last album A New Morning, which also didn’t feature Buller’s production.

Suede will headline this year’s Hop Farm Festival along with Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel.

LCD Soundsystem film for August UK release

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LCD Soundsystem film for August UK release
LCD Soundsystem's film, Shut Up And Play The Hits, is to be released in the UK this August. Shot on April 2, 2011, at the band's farewell show at New York's Madison Square Garden, the film has been directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and produced by Lucas Ochoa and Thomas Benski of Pulse F...

LCD Soundsystem‘s film, Shut Up And Play The Hits, is to be released in the UK this August.

Shot on April 2, 2011, at the band’s farewell show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the film has been directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and produced by Lucas Ochoa and Thomas Benski of Pulse Films, the same team that directed and produced the Blur documentary No Distance Left To Run.

Recently, former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy revealed that he is currently writing a novel.

Speaking to GQ, Murphy said that he has considered writing under a pseudonym so his work is “considered fairly”. He said: “I’m writing now, actually. A novel. I’m always making things, but whether they turn into something that I’ll consider making a part of the public world is different. I mean, I write songs every day, but only once in a while do they go out into the public sphere.”

He added: “I’m also dubious because as a person who’s known for something else, something that I wrote might get published before it was ready. Maybe I’ll have to send things in under a pseudonym, just so that they’re considered fairly. Editing is no joke.”

Club Uncut at The Great Escape – Day One

Tom Pinnock
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Club Uncut at The Great Escape – Day One

May comes round again, and with it another Great Escape, one of the year's most satisfying festivals – not only because of its setting in Brighton's many beautiful venues, but because we at Uncut are again putting on our own three nights of some of the most interesting new bands around. First up on Thursday, the first night of the festival, come The Sheepdogs, literally packing out the Pavilion Theatre after their recent Rolling Stone cover. Like Neil Young, the group are Canadians in thrall to the United States' musical heritage, in The Sheepdogs' case, that's Southern rock, and its AM radio harmonies, chugging riffs and dual guitar solos. It would be tempting to suggest the band are merely pure pastiche, throwbacks to the early '70s, but the very hairy Sheepdogs do have other qualities on their side – most notably, their super-tight interplay and frontman Ewan Currie, the group's flexible lead singer, lead guitarist and spokesperson. “It's great to be playing here,” he jokes, “somewhere that has made such great music, all the bands we love, like Wet Wet Wet… and Robbie Williams. Love those guys.” Willy Mason, next on, goes for a neater, less hairier style: a dark suit, short haircut and white shirt. After all, the boy wonder of last-decade US folk is a lot older now, and it's been over five years since his last album, second effort When The Ocean Gets Rough. Age does mean that Mason, owner of a gruff, burr-y voice, has finally grown into his dulcet tones, no longer looking like the lost boy inhabited by the ghost of his grandfather. The singer-songwriter, performing solo, adds to The Sheepdogs' large crowd, even receiving some impromptu backing vocals from the audience on 'Save Myself'. The few new songs he previews tonight don't seem to have moved on from his previous work, though, a relief or cause for concern depending on your point of view – for us, it's a good thing that Mason hasn't travelled too far away from his innocent chronicles of emotional and physical journeying. Toy, a strange proposition, follow. Physically resembling The Horrors, with even longer hair and Paisley-er shirts, the five-piece (pictured above) mine the direction the Southend quintet took on their career high, 'Sea Within A Sea', to its motorik extreme. Which is all well and good – The Horrors are now pursuing a looser, baggier sound, and Toy's 'Left Myself Behind', released as their debut single earlier in the year, is a stunning seven-minute opus of pummelling kraut-pop – if it wasn't for the band's history: three of them are refugees from indie landfill also-rans Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong, and while we'd hate to begrudge anyone the chance to change their musical influences, it does make you wonder about their motivations. However, when the songs are as good as second single 'Motoring', though, a metronomic blast with an even more persuasive chorus and propulsive bass, it really does seem churlish to question their commitment to their chosen style. Django Django are the final band on tonight, and draw a large crowd after their appearance on Later… Live With Jools Holland earlier this week. Their performance on the show wasn't their greatest hour, as their brittle, intentionally thin sound definitely suffered from the clean, clear mixing in the TV studio. Onstage, though, with the sound more distorted, echoed and muffled, the four-piece's starched, precise songs are better served. Infused equally with synth-pop burblings courtesy of Trevor Horn-resembling geek Tommy Grace and early rock'n'roll twang from singer and guitarist Vincent Neff, the group perhaps sound most like The Beta Band (funny that, considering drummer David Maclean's older brother is the Beta's John Maclean) or even Simian at times. After 'Introduction' and 'Hail Bop', the greatest showcase for the band's intuitive and spot-on harmonies, something goes wrong with the group's sampler, necessitating a five-minute halt while Grace fumbles around with leads. Such is the goodwill towards the group, though, the crowd give an even bigger reception to the almost-dubby 'Waveforms' once it does finally begin. Almost dubby in feel, and dotted with guttural synth oscillations, it's the highlight of Django Django's slot. By the time their set draws to a close, with 'Default', the song they performed on Later…, near the end, large sections of the crowd are dancing, hands in the air, as if they're at a rave gig – such is the ecstatic mood generated by the group's intoxicating rhythms and keyboard loops. “We're playing tomorrow,” says Neff at the end, “so come and see us!” You get the feeling a lot of tonight's audience will do just that. Do come back tomorrow for the full report on Club Uncut's Friday night at The Great Escape. Tom Pinnock Photograph: Richard Johnson

May comes round again, and with it another Great Escape, one of the year’s most satisfying festivals – not only because of its setting in Brighton’s many beautiful venues, but because we at Uncut are again putting on our own three nights of some of the most interesting new bands around.

First up on Thursday, the first night of the festival, come The Sheepdogs, literally packing out the Pavilion Theatre after their recent Rolling Stone cover. Like Neil Young, the group are Canadians in thrall to the United States’ musical heritage, in The Sheepdogs’ case, that’s Southern rock, and its AM radio harmonies, chugging riffs and dual guitar solos.

It would be tempting to suggest the band are merely pure pastiche, throwbacks to the early ’70s, but the very hairy Sheepdogs do have other qualities on their side – most notably, their super-tight interplay and frontman Ewan Currie, the group’s flexible lead singer, lead guitarist and spokesperson.

“It’s great to be playing here,” he jokes, “somewhere that has made such great music, all the bands we love, like Wet Wet Wet… and Robbie Williams. Love those guys.”

Willy Mason, next on, goes for a neater, less hairier style: a dark suit, short haircut and white shirt. After all, the boy wonder of last-decade US folk is a lot older now, and it’s been over five years since his last album, second effort When The Ocean Gets Rough.

Age does mean that Mason, owner of a gruff, burr-y voice, has finally grown into his dulcet tones, no longer looking like the lost boy inhabited by the ghost of his grandfather.

The singer-songwriter, performing solo, adds to The Sheepdogs’ large crowd, even receiving some impromptu backing vocals from the audience on ‘Save Myself’. The few new songs he previews tonight don’t seem to have moved on from his previous work, though, a relief or cause for concern depending on your point of view – for us, it’s a good thing that Mason hasn’t travelled too far away from his innocent chronicles of emotional and physical journeying.

Toy, a strange proposition, follow. Physically resembling The Horrors, with even longer hair and Paisley-er shirts, the five-piece (pictured above) mine the direction the Southend quintet took on their career high, ‘Sea Within A Sea’, to its motorik extreme.

Which is all well and good – The Horrors are now pursuing a looser, baggier sound, and Toy’s ‘Left Myself Behind’, released as their debut single earlier in the year, is a stunning seven-minute opus of pummelling kraut-pop – if it wasn’t for the band’s history: three of them are refugees from indie landfill also-rans Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong, and while we’d hate to begrudge anyone the chance to change their musical influences, it does make you wonder about their motivations.

However, when the songs are as good as second single ‘Motoring’, though, a metronomic blast with an even more persuasive chorus and propulsive bass, it really does seem churlish to question their commitment to their chosen style.

Django Django are the final band on tonight, and draw a large crowd after their appearance on Later… Live With Jools Holland earlier this week. Their performance on the show wasn’t their greatest hour, as their brittle, intentionally thin sound definitely suffered from the clean, clear mixing in the TV studio. Onstage, though, with the sound more distorted, echoed and muffled, the four-piece’s starched, precise songs are better served. Infused equally with synth-pop burblings courtesy of Trevor Horn-resembling geek Tommy Grace and early rock’n’roll twang from singer and guitarist Vincent Neff, the group perhaps sound most like The Beta Band (funny that, considering drummer David Maclean’s older brother is the Beta’s John Maclean) or even Simian at times.

After ‘Introduction’ and ‘Hail Bop’, the greatest showcase for the band’s intuitive and spot-on harmonies, something goes wrong with the group’s sampler, necessitating a five-minute halt while Grace fumbles around with leads. Such is the goodwill towards the group, though, the crowd give an even bigger reception to the almost-dubby ‘Waveforms’ once it does finally begin. Almost dubby in feel, and dotted with guttural synth oscillations, it’s the highlight of Django Django’s slot.

By the time their set draws to a close, with ‘Default’, the song they performed on Later…, near the end, large sections of the crowd are dancing, hands in the air, as if they’re at a rave gig – such is the ecstatic mood generated by the group’s intoxicating rhythms and keyboard loops.

“We’re playing tomorrow,” says Neff at the end, “so come and see us!” You get the feeling a lot of tonight’s audience will do just that.

Do come back tomorrow for the full report on Club Uncut’s Friday night at The Great Escape.

Tom Pinnock

Photograph: Richard Johnson

Jimi Hendrix’s estate denies biopic is in the works

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Jimi Hendrix’s estate denies biopic is in the works
Jimi Hendrix's estate has denied reports stating that a biographical film about the rock guitarist's life is in pre-production. Earlier this week it was reported that OutKast's Andre 3000 would be portraying Jimi Hendrix in a new Hollywood biopic, titled All Is By My Side. However, Experience Hend...

Jimi Hendrix‘s estate has denied reports stating that a biographical film about the rock guitarist’s life is in pre-production.

Earlier this week it was reported that OutKast’s Andre 3000 would be portraying Jimi Hendrix in a new Hollywood biopic, titled All Is By My Side.

However, Experience Hendrix, LLC has now issued a statement saying that any such film would not be able to go ahead without their full cooperation. The statement, via Billboard, read:

“Experience Hendrix, LLC, the family-owned company entrusted with safeguarding the legacy of Jimi Hendrix and administrator of the Jimi Hendrix music and publishing catalog has made it known many times in the past that no such film, were it to include original music or copyrights created by Jimi Hendrix, can be undertaken without its full participation.”

The new film was apparently set to focus on Hendrix’s period in England over 1966 and 1967 as he created his seminal debut album Are You Experienced and was to be written and directed by John Ridley.

Experience Hendrix, LLC, which is run by Hendrix’s sister Janie, added that they are not totally against a film about Hendrix, but “producing partners would, out of necessity, have to involve the company from the inception of any such film project if it is to include original Jimi Hendrix music or compositions.”

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