The last in our series of transcripts from the judges' discussions: Gillian Welch, "The Harrow And The Harvest". Allan Jones: Her first album for eight years, just her and her partner David Rawlings. It’s a very sparse and unadorned record, but simultaneously just so rich in abundance of detail. There are two tracks in particular, “Tennessee” and “Down Along The Dixie Line”, which approach a rare perfection, I think. Stewart Lee: It’s one of those albums where as soon as it starts you feel as if you’re in safe hands. I like the way the lyrics have original things to say, but at the same time have a relationship with traditional forms, the instrumentation of it. I kind of miss the fact that on her album Time (The Revelator) she started to get into more experimental areas, and I was hoping after such a long lay-off she might have gone further into that territory, that odd meeting place she seemed to be in of borderline avant garde and more traditional country music. It’s hard to make a case for it, in a way, because it’s doing something that already exists, she’s not necessarily breaking new ground. But I think it’s a fantastic record. Nick Stewart: Her last record [Soul Journey] was a thing of rare beauty, and I loved it. So it may surprise you to learn that I found this to be the most disappointing record in our bunch. I wanted so much more from it, I thought it was too sparse, there was something missing for me. I found myself thinking “Is this the best you can come up with?”, I really did. I was quite cross with her. I wanted to be absolutely blown away with some interesting musical ideas and tunes. I’m sorry, but there are not many tunes on this, in my opinion. I’m afraid I was disappointed, but having said that I’ll probably return to it and find I like it more. Mark Cooper: I think she’s one of the best artists on the planet, I love the world she writes about. What she’s doing is almost perverse, I remember somebody years ago describing it as Depression chic. Here’s this smart young couple, now in their early 40s, who’ve imagined this whole world that isn’t really there, but they’ve created this emotional dynamic that you totally believe in. They’ve brought this sort of post-modern art form to bluegrass, or mountain music. I think it still works. She reminds me of Morrissey, bizarrely, because there’s this weird kind of personal doom in her writing and her sense of hard times, you can hear it in “Dark Turn Of Mind”. The way that Morrissey writes religiously for his sense of self-pity, she writes for a similar kind of mindset, and I love her for it. Phil Manzanera: I hadn’t heard any of her previous records, but I think this is a great album. I bought this about two months ago, independently of it being considered for this award, and it’s really stayed with me, it’s got legs. The songs are beautifully crafted, some of them sound like songs you think you’ve known all your life. Tony Wadsworth: She’s one of my favourite artists ever, although I never think of her as a solo artist because I think what David Rawlings brings to the music is equally important. The quality is amazing, they’re the best two-part harmonies since... Richard & Linda Thompson. Linda Thompson: Haha! Tony Wadsworth: It’s interesting that they’ve chosen to go towards this very stripped-down way of working. It’s a remarkable album, you listen to it and ask yourself are these traditional songs that have been around for hundreds of years? They feel very real, and they can do no wrong in my book. Linda Thompson: They’re fantastic. I’ve been listening to Gillian and David for 20 years, and while this is not my favourite record of theirs it’s still better than most people’s best records. I think they are traditional artists, they operate in a framework that is very traditional. He’s a great guitarist, I love his playing, and she sings magnificently. They’re the real deal.

This morning, a look at what the Uncut Music Award judges said about Paul Simon's "So Beautiful Or So What". Allan Jones: For me, this album was a reminder of Paul Simon’s genius, which is often overlooked. He seems to go through periods where his back catalogue is forgotten, his contribution to pop music overlooked, and I think this was a very wise, witty album, musically inventive, a late career masterpiece on a par with anything Dylan’s done at a similar age. Stewart Lee: I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did, it really took me by surprise. For the first three or four tracks I was mentally re-arranging the whole way I was going to vote on these albums, but then I kind of got used to it and felt that it didn’t maintain the initial shock and surprise. I also got bit irked with him in interviews when it came out, saying it was unfair how he hadn’t been recognised in the same way that Bob Dylan has. But it’s a good, grown-up New York record. Nick Stewart: I regard Paul Simon as being up there not just with Bob Dylan but the likes of Rodgers & Hart, I think he’s a fantastic songwriter. Parts of this record are just absolutely glorious. Full marks for it making the Uncut long list in the first place, because could easily have been overlooked. I agree with Stewart, it does wind down a bit after a while, but if it wasn’t by Paul Simon, if it was by Nick Stewart, you’d be hailing it as a masterpiece, but the bar is so high with Paul Simon you can’t help but end up comparing it with Graceland or There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. It made me go back and listen to that stuff again. The man is a genius, and this is a good Paul Simon album – I don’t think it’s a great one. In the context of this award, however, it should feature quite high up. Mark Cooper: I think Paul Simon can do things that no-one else can do. A song like “Questions For The Angels” is like a Wim Wenders movie or something. He can be a Brooklyn wiseguy and a metaphysician at the same time; he’s the ultimate post-modern artist, yet at the heart of that there’s this alienated New York guy searching for the truth. I think this album pulls everything together from his journey, and probably his best record since Graceland. Phil Manzanera: It ticks all the good points you associate with Paul Simon, although by the time I got to the fifth track I felt I’d heard it all before, better versions of each song somewhere else in his back catalogue over the last 40 years. But, as has already been said, it’s probably that bar has been set so high with the amazing songs of his past. I love the playing on it, the way he moves rhythms around, and the musicians he chooses are always the best at what they do – you’ve got to be shit hot to play with Paul Simon. I did enjoy it a lot, actually. Tony Wadsworth: I just think he’s extraordinary. Once I was given the shortlist for this award, I ended up comparing each record to this album to see whether they stood up, and for me none of them did. It is peerless. It’s like Nick was saying, if this was a fresh young artist who’d come from nowhere there would be no question about giving him the award. The craftsmanship, the playing, the experimentation where he’s sampling the old gospel stuff, it’s all amazing. The lyrics are as good as anything Randy Newman does in their conciseness, and they’re very emotional. It’s a guy talking towards the end of his life – some of the songs have actually got God as the narrator, which you might worry about with some people, but not with him. He makes it very amusing, you’re never quite sure who’s god it is. I think it’s an extraordinary piece of work. Linda Thompson: There isn’t a crotchet or a quaver of Paul Simon’s music I don’t know. He’s an extremely underrated guitar player, he’s a fantastic acoustic player. This is a great, great record. It’s hard to be relevant when you’re old, and he’s done so well to remain relevant. He’s very academic, there’s no getting round that, I think he’s much more academic than he is emotional. Tony Wadsworth: But why does he continue to get you right there? Allan Jones: He does, time and time again on this record. Linda Thompson: That’s true, I think he’s finally showing some emotion. And what about his singing, for a man who’s 70? He’s singing so, so well. Mark Cooper: He is right in his sense that he’s underrated, that time hasn’t been quite as fair to his canon as it has to Dylan’s. Allan Jones: I think part of it, crudely put, is that he was never very cool. But he’s totally fascinating. I did an interview with him for an Uncut cover story and he was so articulate about every aspect of his music, but not in a kind of pedestrian way, just totally fucking illuminating. One question I asked him, which was kind of a minor detail, when I transcribed his reply it came to a thousand words, and every sentence was perfectly formed. It was just extraordinary.

Today, the judges get to grips with Radiohead's "The King Of Limbs". Allan Jones: When I first heard this I felt a sense of anti-climax. Up until In Rainbows I was a bit of a Radiohead agnostic, but that record really made an impression on me in a way that this one didn’t immediately. But on returning to it, I now think it’s got some glorious music on it. “Give Up The Ghost”, especially, is one of their finest songs. Stewart Lee: I thought it was the only record on the list that sounded like it could only have been made now, in as much as the things it was drawing on. I don’t think it’s their best. I think everybody admires their retreat from becoming a huge stadium band and trying to find a business model in which they can carry on doing more interesting things. I don’t think it really sounds like a finished thing, it’s more like a sample of what they’re working on at any given time. Nick Stewart: I’ll be brief. I have a real love-hate relationship with this band. Some of the things they do are just fantastic, and some of the things they do are just garbage. There’s more garbage on here than the fantastic. Mark Cooper: There are some bands, I think, that are best listened to like jazz. The best jazz, when you’re in the moment with it and immersed in it, is the best music on the planet. With Radiohead, I don’t find myself wanting to listen to them that music, but when there are times when somebody puts them on and I just thank God they exist. I really admire their musicality, what they’re doing with rhythms and beats, but a bit like with Polly I miss them being rock stars. The commercial gene in me liked OK Computer. If you put together the musicality and the dread and the originality of arrangement but in a killer song it would be awesome. I wish they would harness this adventurousness into something more accessible. Phil Manzanera: I bought this when it came out, and it’s one of the most played Radiohead albums I own. It’s almost like ambient music, I put it on in the morning and get on with my work with it bubbling away in the background. I’ve got no idea what the lyrics are about, they seem irrelevant to me. That’s the only quibble I have with them, that while there are all these other great lyricists out there at the moment they don’t seem to be saying anything to me. Linda Thompson: If you’re saying that you can listen to them as background music, that’s just unbelievably bad! Phil Manzanera: Well, I listen to Miles Davis as background music, I’ve got very high standards! Stewart Lee: Parts of this actually sound like a 1970s Miles Davis record. Phil Manzanera: I agree with what Stewart said earlier, it’s like a slab of what they’re about at this particular moment in time. I think everything about the way they conduct themselves is admirable, but speaking from a guitarist’s point of view, there’s no guitar on this! And they’ve got one of the best bloody guitarists in the world! Tony Wadsworth: Two of them! Nick Stewart: We were talking about Josh T Pearson being on the edge of self-indulgence, but I think this is completely self-indulgent. They haven’t used their assets. Mark Cooper: I don’t agree with that. They may not have used the assets that I like, but I admire the scope of what they do. Tony Wadsworth: Well, there are so many things that they could do, but they tend to keep things down in favour of experimentation in other ways. Stewart’s right, it does sound like a '70s Miles Davis record, that’s what they themselves have been listening to. I think it’s great that they exist, I think it’s great that they’re still making challenging music, and challenging themselves. Every time they go off to make an album they do want to try and reinvent themselves. Having said that, I don’t think there’s been that much of a reinvention since the last record, this is kind of further along that continuum. But there are beautiful sounds in there, I don’t think it’s self-indulgent, I find it very entertaining. But it would be good to get more of Thom Yorke’s beautiful melodic voice coming through. When it does, like on the song “Codex”, it’s like the sun coming out. But there’s a thing about this band, where they shy away from something when it’s starting to get too big. I mean, OK Computer – arguably the three most commercial songs they recorded in those sessions were left off the album, which is extraordinary for album which was relentlessly commercial in itself. They have that gene where when they think they’re getting too accessible they stop, and that’s what brings out their experimental side. Stewart Lee: It’s interesting that what Radiohead seem to be doing is letting you in on the process of their ongoing system of being artists, which makes it seem fairly arbitrary to think of this as an album. Tony Wadsworth: What will be interesting is how this will sound when they take it live, because it will have progressed even more.