First off, a gentle reminder that our excellent new issue of Uncut is in the shops now, featuring a free John Lennon CD and an Ultimate Music Guide sampler to all Lennon’s solo albums. Inside, there’s a ton of typically great stuff, including Blondie, Steve Marriott, Love, Linda Thompson, Irma Thomas, Rich Ruth and Joanna Newsom. Anyway full details about the new Uncut are here, in case you missed them.
As is tradition abound now, I rounded up my favourite albums from so far; specifically releases from January 1 until June 30. I’ve listed them here in order of release – just to be painfully clear, this is very much my personal choice and is in no way representative of the Uncut writers in general…
Bob Dylan changed the set list around for the second show at this year’s Outlaw Festival last night (June 22) at the PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte, North Carolina.
The previous night (June 21) at Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, in Alpharetta, Georgia, Dylan played:
My Babe (Bob on piano) (Little Walter song)
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ (Bob on piano)
Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob on piano)
Little Queenie (Bob on piano) (Chuck Berry song)
Mr Blue (Bob on piano) (DeWayne Blackwell song)
Pay In Blood (Bob on piano)
Cold Cold Heart (Bob on piano) (Hank Williams song)
Early Roman Kings (Bob on piano)
Under The Red Sky (Bob on piano)
Things Have Changed (Bob on piano)
The Fool (Bob on piano) (Naomi Ford and Lee Hazelwood song)
Scarlet Town (Bob on piano)
Long And Wasted Years (Bob on piano)
Night 2 saw a revised set list, with Dylan swapped out eight songs from the previous show, adding in three classics including “Highway 61 Revisited“, “Ballad Of A Thin Man” and “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight“.
Stella Blue (Bob on piano) (Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia song)
Six Days On The Road (Bob on piano) (Dave Dudley song)
Soon After Midnight (Bob on piano and harp)
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob on piano and harp)
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (Bob on piano)
Band Members Bob Dylan – piano Tony Garnier – electric and standup bass Jim Keltner – drums Bob Britt – acoustic guitar, electric guitar Doug Lancio – acoustic guitar, electric guitar
When Willy Vlautin says The Horse is his most autobiographical book, it’s a cause for alarm. As a novelist and songwriter with The Delines and Richmond Fontaine, Vlautin has always mined a deep seam of melancholy. But The Horse’s embrace of bleakness is startling. The story centres on Al, a jobbing songwriter living alone in the high desert in winter, whose depressive isolation is punctured when a blind horse appears outside his shack.
It was inspired by the time Vlautin went camping in central Nevada. “My friend and I were driving out in the middle of nowhere, near a salt flat,” he explains. “There were no trees, not even sagebrush, no water for 20-50 miles, and suddenly there’s this blind horse. It stopped me in my tracks. A couple of days later we came across an old mining claim, and this old shack that you could tell somebody lived in for a while. I was feeling pretty rough anyway. I was like, ‘Man, I think I’m gonna stay here and call it a life.’ My friend laughed at me. That’s where the book started, with those two things, and my own problems with booze and songwriting.”
The underlying theme of the book is compulsion. “I was interested in that idea: what do you do when you can’t quit? You can’t quit writing songs. You can’t quit alcohol. Al’s idea was to hit escape and disappear, which you can do literally by running out into the middle of nowhere. It’s easy to connect the dots on me. I mean, for maybe 20 years, every day when I opened my eyes, I’d say: ‘Would you rather have a Denver omelette or French toast? Or would you rather have a tequila and ice cold beer? My answer would tell me how my day was going to be.”
The more obvious parallel between Vlautin and his troubled hero is the way the story evokes the hardscrabble life of a working musician, firstly around the casino circuit, then with younger musicians in a cowpunk band. Al’s emotional state is tracked in his lyrics, reflecting Vlautin’s unbending belief in the power of song. “My brother had a stereo that could shake our house, it was so loud, and he was always playing records. A friend of his, a really cool guy, came over. I was 11, he was 15. I was a beat-up kid, not the most stable little guy. He said, ‘If you find the right song, you can live inside that song. Just hum it, and you’ll never be alone.’ He didn’t say it quite as romantic as that, maybe. But that’s what I got out of it. When my life got bad, I disappeared into records.”
Around a dozen of the fictional song titles in The Horse have grown into actual songs, a couple of which will feature on the next Delines album, due next January. Vlautin says it’s the group’s most cinematic record, and it includes some upbeat material, at the insistence of singer Amy Boone. “Amy will grab me, and she’ll go, ‘Can you just write me a romantic song where no one gets killed, for fuck’s sake?’ She likes the romance. So it has a few of those.”
“With Fontaine,” he adds, “the only time that I’ve ever seen those guys pissed at me was when I’d bring in eight ballads in a row. They’re like, ‘Eight ballads with no chorus? Could you just write us something catchy and fast?’ But I’ve always loved the big country-soul ballad, so I got to lean into that.”
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If traditional music from Dublin seems to be having its moment in the spotlight – most notably as a result of Lankum’s recent critical and commercial success – it’s only because the world is starting to pay attention. Lily Power, Méabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinéad Lynch have been performing together as Landless for more than a decade, their paths crossing in college, through Dublin’s Sacred Harp traditional singing community and in the clubs that hosted the likes of Lankum and Lisa O’Neill in the early 2010s.
In 2018, they released their debut album Bleaching Bones, an extraordinary, entirely unaccompanied collection of traditional songs, helmed by False Lankum producer John “Spud” Murphy (you may have heard their stunning version of “The Well Below The Valley” on the recent Uncut covermount CD, The Planet That You’re On). Forthcoming follow-up Lúireach, again produced by Murphy, is no less extraordinary, with its careful use of instruments – pump organ, shruti box, fiddle and banjo from Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada, plus Alex Borwick’s trombone on album opener “The Newry Highwayman” – augmenting the four-part harmonies that remain the heart of the work.
“We recorded Bleaching Bones in churches and other interesting spaces, so we chose to leave it like that so that you could hear those acoustics,” says contralto singer Meir. “This one was recorded in the studio, and using other instruments gave it the depth those spaces gave the first album.”
“We’ve found ourselves singing in churches a lot over the years, because it really suits the music,” adds Clinton. “And if there’s an organ there, because I’m a pipe organist, it’s hard to resist playing it.” She uses the instrument to haunting effect on “Death And The Lady”, a supernatural 17th century folk song popularised by Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy.
Another evolution in the quartet’s sound comes from the inclusion of more recent commissions alongside more traditional fare. Of these, “Lúireach Bhríde” (“St Brigid’s Breastplate”) stands out: the lyrics, set to music by Clinton, come from a poem by the Donegal poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin, which was commissioned for the inaugural RTÉ Folk Awards in 2018 and is dedicated to the children born at the Bon Secours Mother And Baby Home for unmarried mothers at Tuam, Galway “The invitation was to reflect on 100 years since women had gotten the vote in Ireland, and the poem is about Brigid and her various powers of healing, smithcraft and poetry,” says Clinton. “The word lúireach by itself can also mean a protective song, or hymn, so it also worked as a standalone album title.”
“We’ve all been singing different traditional songs for a long time, and sometimes what we’ll do is bring one of those to Landless and write harmonies for it,” continues Meir. “‘My Lagan Love’ is one of those for me – a really well-known song I’ve been singing since I was a child, that sounds so different with the harmonies added.”
A particular favourite of the band is another song based on a poem, “The Wounded Hussar” by 18th century Scottish poet Thomas Campbell. “It’s what we call a ‘big’ song in traditional music, it has everything you want from a folk song,” says Power. “We first heard it performed by Rita Gallagher, who’s a big influence on us, and it’s one of the first songs I ever heard Maeve sing.”
Having recorded the album in February 2020 – with babies, house moves and the small matter of a global pandemic getting in the way of their original release plans – the band are taking some time to figure out their next steps after signing to world music label Glitterbeat (Gaye Su Akyol, Altın Gün). “Those guys are super cool,” says Lynch, “and we’re really excited to see what might come up outside of Ireland.”
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“It’s miraculous that we’ve lasted 60 years,” says Mike Love at the start of Disney +’s new Beach Boys documentary. “But the reason we’ve lasted so long is because we’re family.” By my estimation this is the eighth or ninth attempt to bring the group’s story to the screen. It’s hard to say that any of them have been entirely successful. But you possibly need some unholy combination of Paul and Wes Anderson, David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino to really capture the innocence, glee, wonder, grandeur, goofiness, trauma, madness, horror, squalor and grief of this particular peculiar American saga.
With the best of intentions, most recent attempts have joined in the construction of The Holy Cathedral of Brian Wilson. I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times (1995), Endless Harmony (1998), Beautiful Dreamer (2004), Love & Mercy (2014) and Long Promised Road (2021) have each in their own way been dedicated to the sainted psychedelic savant. As Don Was (one of the few insightful talking heads lined up here) says: Phil Spector’s productions felt like they were in black and white, but Brian took pop production into Technicolor.
These stories find some charm in the early home recordings but generally can’t wait to move on to the moment Brian hooks up with LA’s session musician royalty the Wrecking Crew and real writers (lyricists Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks), as if the Wilsons were faintly embarrassing hangers on, not worthy of the sainted elder brother. For all its flaws, The Beach Boys does remind you that there were at various points at least eight other guys in the band, whose voices, talents and personalities contributed to making this weird, dysfunctional, transcendent band more than the sum of its parts.
In particular, in case you had forgotten, it reminds you of the contribution of one Michael Edward Love. Though his litigiousness, self importance and support of Donald Trump haven’t endeared him to everyone, he did after all write the lyrics to “Good Vibrations”, “The Warmth Of The Sun” and “Help Me Rhonda” and his baritone was a key part of the 1960s’ greatest singles run.
In a very wholesome way it reminds you of the similarly significant contributions of Al (for his perfect pitch and suggestion they record “Sloop John B”- though as he admits, if he had produced it, it would have sounded like The Kingston Trio), Carl (the only one of the boys who could hold his own with the Wrecking Crew), Dennis (for embodying the Californian myth, and becoming a significant writer in his own right), Bruce (for gamely stepping in when Glen Campbell took off), and even finds time for the eternally overlooked Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin. Hovering over the family is the domineering, abusive patriarch Murry, heard on eerie studio recordings, attempting to interfere with Brian’s production.
Though some of the guest talking heads are baffling, there are fine contributions from Hal Blaine and Carol Kay on Brian’s growing mastery of the studio. And there are some genuine laugh out loud moments (Al’s deadpan, Ken-like early 1970s realisation: “We were no longer Beach Boys, we were Beach… Men”).
But the omissions are legion: apart from his troubles composing SMILE, Brian’s mental health problems are skirted over and he’s present mostly through archive interviews. Meanwhile Dennis’s involvement with Charles Manson is hurried by and his death isn’t even acknowledged.
Just as he now has the license to the Beach Boys name, this ultimately feels like the Mike Love version of the Beach Boys story. At one point he’s asked about his relationship with Brian. “These days we don’t talk much but if I did I’d tell him that I love him.” His voices cracks, there’s a hint of a tear. “Nothing can erase that.” The film ends with an eerie shot of the surviving members meeting on the beach at Paradise Cove, where they were once photographed for the cover of Surfer Girl. But we don’t get to hear the conversation, don’t get a chance to experience all those voices together one last time. The credits rolls and the final song is, of course, the deathless Mike Love composition “Kokomo”.
Big Wave starts with a big bang. A track called “The Cord” that in a little over three pummelling minutes upends most available notions of what to expect from a Joana Serrat record, the song ending with its chorus repeated by a voice like something lifted from the soundtrack of a low-budget ’80s horror film involving demonic possession or a field recording of a voodoo exorcism. Disconcerting isn’t quite the word, but it will have to do.
The precocious Catalan singer-songwriter’s first couple of albums – The Relief Sessions (2012) and Dear Grand Canyon (2014) – mostly mixed handsome fingerpicking folk and country rock. Tracks like “Flowers On The Hillside”, “The Blizzard” and “So Clear” meanwhile essayed a kind of dreampop that recalled quintessential shoegazers Slowdive, whose Neil Halstead was a guest on 2016’s Cross The Verge, produced like Dear Grand Canyon by early Arcade Fire member Howard Bilerman, who’d been impressed by a demo tape Serrat sent him.
For her next album, she wanted a more expansive sound and found it in Texas, at Israel Nash’s Plum Creek Studios, where she recorded 2017’s Dripping Springs. Nash produced with suitably symphonic panache and plenty of reverb. She was backed by the amazing band Israel had then, and they often sounded like a windswept Crazy Horse behind Serrat’s numinous voice. Guitarist Joey McLellan, now with Midlake, became an important collaborator, providing Serrat’s songs with a sweeping widescreen vivacity and co-producing 2021’s Hardcore From The Heart with Sonic Youth and Kurt Vile engineer Ted Young and Midlake drummer McKenzie Smith at their Redwood studios in Denton, Texas. His swirling soundscapes are essential components of both records that basically were albums of unfettered cosmic Americana, the kind that takes psychedelic flight, an often soaring starlit noise that reminded listeners variously of Crazy Horse, Mazzy Star and Cocteau Twins.
Big Wave, meanwhile, returns Serrat to the solo career she took a detour from on last year’s collaborative Riders Of The Canyon venture with Irish songwriter Matthew McDaid and Catalan musicians Roger Usart and Victor Partido. She went back to Denton to record it at Matt Pence’s Echo Lab studio, Pence producing, with assistance from McClellan, whose signature guitar is again all over the album. Pence has worked previously as a drummer, engineer and producer with Jason Isbell, Centro-Matic, American Music Club and John Grant. There’s much that he brings to the album that’s new to Serrat’s music. He starts by tethering it, harnessing its previous inclination to take off at every opportunity, basically reversing its gravity. A track called “Feathers” on an earlier Serrat album would have been a suitably fluttering thing, a song carried by a sweet melodic breeze or caught by a ruffling thermal; a rising current of air, possibly weightless. The track here called “Feathers” is an otherwise different kind of noise. Brutal, almost. An event horizon of boiling synths, drums going off like artillery in a canyon, writhing guitars. Where once her music was in almost constant ascent, here it plummets, sensationally. The last few minutes of “Freewheel” are like falling down a lift shaft with something very loud by My Bloody Valentine roaring in your ear buds.
There’s distortion and a swarming turbulence to nearly everything here, as unsettling as it is unforgettable. “Sufferer”, “Tight To You” and “The Ocean” are full of submarinal currents, brooding drifts. “Big Lagoons” is one long crescendo. Only “A Dream That Can Last”, the unbearably pretty “Are You Still Here?” and “This House”, Serrat’s bereaved voice set against Jesse Chandler’s grand piano, offer asylum from the general upheaval.
This is a sound largely dictated by the new tone of Serrat’s songs. She’s previously written a lot about love – finding it, enduring it, losing it, whatever – and is clearly no stranger to romantic disappointment. There was something almost ecstatic, however, about songs like “You’re With Me Wherever I Go” and “Take Me Back Where I Belong”, a kind of rapture in the voltage of love gone wrong that you’re tempted to describe as transcendent. These new songs are on the other hand often quite violently distressed, seething at times, angry and accusatory. It’s as if she’s giving voice to a previously muted inner darkness, some deep unhappiness. There are references everywhere to voids, absences, erasures, vanishings, the feeling that every new beginning is merely the prelude to the nothingness around the next corner, dark premonitions that have inspired Serrat’s boldest, most singular album. This is brilliant stuff.
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The August 2024 issue of Uncut is packed full of goodies for the discerning John Lennon fan. As well as our cover story – a deep dive into Lennon’s creative but turbulent 1973/’74 – there’s a stunning Collector’s Cover, a mini Ultimate Music Guide to all Lennon’s solo albums and a unique, ultra-collective CD featuring new mixes, outtakes and more from the upcoming Mind Games deluxe edition box set. Now read on…
This month’s Uncut CD is rather special. Compiled exclusively for us by the John Lennon estate, it features nine songs taken from the deluxe Mind Games boxset. Why nine, you may ask? Nine was Lennon’s favourite number – present in songs like “One After 909” to “Revolution 9” and “#9 Dream” – and Mind Games was recorded during a period when Lennon and Yoko Ono were re-engaging with their interests in esoteric subjects, exploring everything from palmistry to numerology.
The deluxe Mind Games boxset includes brand new mixes, outtakes and audio documentaries that explore the evolution of each song, from piano demos recorded at Lennon’s home in Surrey through recording sessions at New York’s Record Plant to the final master. Before we reveal the tracklisting for our CD, here’s a few words from Mind Games’ producer and creative director Sean Ono Lennon… “Our Uncut CD shows examples of the types of mixes we’ve included. I think listening to these mixes will give you a sense of the broad scope you can expect from the boxsets. From very polished and what I would consider ‘ultimate’ mixes, to raw elements and outtakes.
“We’ve really tried to include everything we possibly can and we’re really looking forward to hearing people’s feedback. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done on an album that has always meant a lot to me personally.”
The Evolution Documentary mixes tell the story of a track from demo to completion. “Mind Games” began as a piano-and-voice demo recorded at Lennon’s home in Ascot, Surrey in 1970, before he returned to the unfinished song ahead of the Mind Games sessions in summer 1973. The Evolution Documentary follows the song from this initial demo and into the studio, where Lennon gives instructions to the band, and Yoko Ono offers observations from the control room. Then we hear the final mix, starting with guitar, piano and vocal as the other familiar elements are finally introduced. “Mind Games” was the sole single from the album, reaching No 18 in America.
2 I’M THE GREATEST
(Ultimate Mix)
Originally written in 1970, Lennon took the title of “I’m The Greatest” from a quote by Muhammad Ali – but wasn’t sure he could get away with singing the phrase himself. He felt it made much better sense, however, when it came from the mouth of Ringo Starr, who was looking for songs for his 1973 album, Ringo. “I’m The Greatest” became the opening track. Lennon’s original reading was a little maudlin and sarcastic, but by May 1973 he was in upbeat mood as he recorded it in LA with Ringo, George Harrison and Klaus Voormann. This Ultimate mix features John’s original guide vocal.
3 AISUMASEN I’M SORRY
(Ultimate Mix)
One of the hidden gems on Mind Games, “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)” was Lennon’s apology to Yoko Ono for some of his recent bad behaviour. It’s a tranquil, hypnotic song, with excellent overdubbed pedal steel by Sneaky Pete Kleinow. This Ultimate mix of “Aisumasen” highlights the craft of the Plastic U.F.Ono Band through Ken Ascher’s subtle piano and a stunning onetake guitar solo from David Spinozza. This underscores Lennon’s pained and plaintive vocal, which is given renewed prominence in the new mix.
4 YOU ARE HERE
(Outtake, Take 5)
The lilting “You Are Here” was another Mind Games song written by Lennon for Yoko Ono. It saw him pursue a theme of two people who are born 3,000 miles apart but defy chance to find each other and fall in love. Possibly one of the finest love songs Lennon ever wrote, this outtake is a stunning 10-minute journey with additional lyrics. It finds the Plastic U.F.Ono Band locked into a slow and steady Latin groove. It feels like a song that never needs to end, something to be played as John and Yoko waltz off together into the sunset.
5 TIGHT A$
(Raw Studio Mix)
One of the two rockers on Mind Games, “Tight A$” is presented in Raw Studio Mix form. This mix provides the chance to hear songs as they were recorded live in the studio, without any effects such as echo and delay. And thus it gives us an idea of what the Plastic U.F.Ono band might have sounded like if they had gone on the road. “Would I have liked to play live?” says bassist Gordon Edwards. “It would have been a smash. Can you imagine how good we would have sounded playing these songs together for a period of weeks? Wow.”
6 BRING ON THE LUCIE FREDA PEEPLE
(Elemental Mix)
The Elemental Mix was conceived by Sean Ono Lennon to provide a more stripped-back, acoustic-style version of the album, with some of the more intense features – notably that of the rhythm section – toned down. These were created at the request of fans, who said they wanted to hear tracks they could listen to when at work without getting too distracted. This funky mix of one of the album’s few political songs puts more focus on the guitar and backing vocals alongside Lennon’s own excellent lead vocal.
7 YOU ARE HERE
(Elements Mix)
This second version of “You Are Here” offers a different way into the song. The Elements Mixes isolate a single musical element from each song – perhaps the bass part from “Intuition”, Ken Ascher’s wild piano on “Out The Blue” or the organ from “Mind Games”. In the case of “You Are Here”, it is Sneaky Pete Kleinow’s pedal steel, which brings much of the exotic vibe to this song about distance and travel. “Sneaky Pete had all these tricks to make strange sounds and John loved Sneaky Pete,” says engineer Dan Barbiero. “He would get all excited when he was coming into the studio.” A mystical, magical ride.
8 OUT THE BLUE
(Elemental Mix)
“Out The Blue” was another song on Mind Games where Lennon expressed wonder and gratitude for finding his wife and soulmate. “Two minds, one destiny”, he sings in a similar line to one from “You Are Here”, before likening Ono to a “UFO” – Lennon would claim to have seen a flying saucer in the sky above New York in 1974. This Elemental Mix cuts to the emotional heart of the song, with Lennon’s raw vocal underwritten by minimal musical backing until Ken Ascher’s piano and David Spinozza’s guitar are introduced for the stellar outro.
9 MEAT CITY
(Evolution Documentary)
At nearly eight minutes long, this Evolution mix of “Meat City” tells a fantastic story. It begins with Lennon’s fumbling home demo, as he hits some fat chords and searches for lyrics, seemingly unaware he is even recording. The mix then drops us into the studio, where the song has already evolved a chunky groove, although the twin drummers – Jim Keltner and Rick Marotta – are still struggling to work out how to play together. Come for the groove, stay for the backing vocalists, who deliver great studio banter before the mix takes us into the finished version of one of the album’s most unrestrained moments.
Decades before Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac were taking relationship lemons, and serving them up to the world as lemonade. Whether it was maintaining continuity against unlikely odds after the departure of their original guiding light Peter Green or turning their personal intrigues into melodic gold with Rumours, the band’s coping strategy became a key marketing point – as the band crested each vicissitude with an outpouring of new songs.
Still, even a band which doesn’t shy away from motivational affirmations (see: “Don’t Stop!” “On With The Show”) might have to acknowledge that the passing of Christine McVie in 2022 likely spells an end to any subsequent reformations of Fleetwood Mac, a band that created spellbinding music for its reliably enormous audiences for over 50 years. Even Mr Resilient himself, Mick Fleetwood, admits these days it would be “a tall order” to do anything as Fleetwood Mac. “…But stranger things have happened.”
It’s the band’s incredible legacy that we celebrate in this 172-page definitive edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac. From our curated selection of classic interviews, you can enjoy a vivid inside track on the band’s saga, its key players and the drama that unfolded around them. As we dive deep into the music, our team of expert writers reveal the evolving Mac sound: from the melancholy blues tones of their earliest triumphs through to the sophisticated pop rock that brought them their greatest successes. In our foldout timeline we take a – literally – sideways journey through the band’s career.
Fleetwood Mac always fought hard to field a winning team, but there was life for its members outside it and we have taken the opportunity in this edition to dig deeper into the solo careers of its members in reviews and interviews. In 2020, Christine McVie looks back humbly on her achievements and decides she’ll soon be shutting up shop, songs-wise. We review the erratic solo work of Peter Green while Rob Hughes tracks down the close associates who would meet him once a month to jam in his front room. We have tea on Lindsey Buckingham’s patio.
Excitingly, we also discover a long-lost conversation with Stevie Nicks. She and her dog Shulamith are being driven to a Fleetwood Mac rehearsal, while we sit rather in awe of her candour and insight. It’s bittersweet conversation to look back on from the viewpoint of 2024. On the one hand, Stevie is out there now playing a well-received solo tour, where she hits her Mac songbook hard. On the other, her tender recollections of Christine McVie’s return to Fleetwood Mac in 2013 only remind us more acutely of her absence now.
“The second people saw she was coming back, the tickets just sold,” Stevie tells us. “I tell her, Chris, it’s all about you – everyone wants to see you. And we’re thrilled. It’s kinda fun to see it through her eyes…”
A new album of unheard recordings by the Pakistani music icon Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan will be released on September 20, 34 years after they were recorded.
The ‘lost album’ — named Chain Of Light — was discovered in the tape archives of Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records, the label that signed Khan in 1989 and released a series of universally acclaimed albums with him throughout the 1990s.
The album is available on CD, standard LP and limited edition LP. You can pre-order the album here.
A feature-length documentary film Ustad will premiere in late 2025
Joined by his eight-strong party of singers and musicians, Chain of Light presents four traditional qawwals (Sufi Islamic devotional songs) — including one which has never been heard before. The recording was made at Real World Studios in April 1990, during the same time he worked on Mustt Mustt with Canadian producer Michael Brook.
Flow Critical Lucidity will be released on Moore’s Daydream Library Series record label on September 20.
The album was arranged at La Becque in Switzerland and recorded at Total Refreshment Studios in London in 2022, and mixed at Hermitage Studios in London with Margo Broom in 2023.
The musicians are:
Vocals, Guitar: Thurston Moore Bass: Deb Googe Electronics: Jon Leidecker Piano, organ, guitar, glockenspiel: James Sedwards Percussion: Jem Doulton Backing vocals: Laetitia Sadier on “Sans Limites” Lyrics: Radieux Radio, except “Shadow”
The tracklisting is:
New In Town Sans Limites Shadow Hypnogram We Get High Rewilding The Diver (Bonus Track Included On A Clear Flexi Disc) – “Isadora (Bedazzled Mix)”
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John Lennon, Blondie, Steve Marriott, Love, Linda Thompson, Joanna Newsom, Irma Thomas, Sebadoh, The Last Poets, Rich Ruth, Mike Campbell, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Pearl Jam, Sebadoh, Drive-By Truckers, Sex Pistols, Stax, Lambchop and more all feature in Uncut‘s August 2024 issue, in UK shops from June 21 or available to buy online now.
All print copies come with a free, ultra-collectable John Lennon CD – featuring nine tracks from the upcoming deluxe Mind Games box set – plusan Ultimate Music Guide sampler to all John Lennon’s solo albums
INSIDE THIS MONTH’S UNCUT:
JOHN LENNON: Amid the turbulence of 1973, the troubled ex-Beatle found creative sustenance in Mind Games – an album steeped in cosmic benevolence, emotional heft, introspection and love. “Its my dad getting back on track,” Sean Ono Lennon tells us
BLONDIE: In an exclusive extract from his memoir Under A Rock, Chris Stein remembers a high life and hard times in NYC: 1974
LOVE: Talismanic guitarist Johnny Echols and more explore the rich legacy of America’s most mercurial band
LINDA THOMPSON: The British folk siren finds new outlets for her creative spirit
IRMA THOMAS: The Soul Queen of New Orleans sets the record straight on the Stones, Otis Redding and Hurricane Katrina
RICH RUTH: The sonic pathfinder blasting cosmic jazz-rock into the future
AN AUDIENCE WITH… MIKE CAMPBELL: On Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and touring Britain in a bread van
THE MAKING OF “WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES” BY THE LAST POETS: How a radical call to arms became one of the earliest influences on hip hop
ALBUM BY ALBUM WITH LOU BARLOW: From Dinosaur Jr to ‘folkcore’!
MY LIFE IN MUSIC WITH JEFF AMENT: The Pearl Jam bassman on the records that really matter to him
REVIEWED: Jake Xerxes Fussell, Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding, Shellac, Deep Purple, Beak>, American Aquarium, Liana Flores, Mabe Fratti, Red Kross, Suss, Drive-By Truckers, Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Louis Armstrong, Wayne Shorter, Stax, Joanna Newsom, Lambchop and more
PLUS: The Sex Pistols go back to Bollocks, Steve Marriott vs AI, Bob Dylan’s unseen 1964, The Cimarons, Chrystabell and… introducing Jacken Elswyth
SO the cat’s finally out of the bag. Welcome to the new issue of Uncut, which I guess you’ll have noticed by now, comes with a very special CD.
Next month sees the release of Mind Games: The Ultimate Edition – a deep dive into John Lennon’s 1973 album overseen by Sean Ono Lennon. We’re honoured to present an exclusive, ultra-collectable nine-track Mind Games CD, curated for us by the John Lennon Estate, full of new mixes that shine fresh light on Lennon’s working practices. We hope you agree, it’s a great way in to the marvellous work done by Sean and his team. “We’ve really tried to include everything we possibly can and we’re really looking forward to hearing people’s feedback,” Sean confides to us. “I’m very proud of the work we’ve done on an album that has always meant a lot to me personally.”
You’ll also find an in-depth exploration of all Lennon’s solo albums in our Ultimate Music Guide sampler, and a terrific cover story from Peter Watts. Of course, there’s more than just ex-Beatles in the mix: Tom Pinnock’s amazing interview with Linda Thompson, Rob Hughes’ piece on the ever-brilliant legacy of Love, Nick Hasted’s catch-up with the feisty Irma Thomas, a celestial trip to Nashville to meet Rich Ruth and Chris Stein on the birth of Blondie. I think if I were flailing around looking for a word to describe this issue it’d be zingy.
Before I go, I hope you’ll all join me in offering congratulations to Tom and Gemma Pinnock on the birth of their son, Nico George Pinnock. Tom’s already showing him how to operate the formidable Album Reviews spreadsheet, so I’m sure you’ll agree that the future of Uncut is in safe hands…
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Opening for a band with a fearsome live reputation in front of 50,000 of their fans could present a challenge as well as an opportunity, but Courtney Barnett strolls on strumming her guitar as if she’s taking everything in her stride. Her slacker cool and sassy, distortion-tinged guitar pop is very well-received by an audience who can surely detect the subtle influence of Foos frontman Dave Grohl’s former band Nirvana.
However, the Australian singer is very much her own woman, and she delivers witty songs about asthma attacks while gardening (“Avant Gardener”) or the realities of fame (“Pedestrian At Best”) as if she might be yelling at someone over a garden fence, were it not for her equally entertaining high-kicking and fret-melting extended guitar solos. “Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you,” she sings, but in this vast space she lets nobody down.
It’s only 18 months since Foo Fighters were coming to terms with what a statement called “the most difficult and most tragic year our band has ever known”, but they hit the stage with a venom that suggests they are determined to recover from the shocking premature death of longstanding drummer Taylor Hawkins. “I’m ready to kick your fucking ass, night two!” yells a very hairy 55-year-old Grohl on the second of their two nights in Manchester.
The sound of this packed cricket ground singing along to ferocious opener “All My Life” makes for a startling introduction to an opening 50 minutes of blistering hard rock. Foo Fighters are no less than eleven songs in – some of their best known hits among them – before the pace finally drops for “My Hero”, its beautifully anthemic chorus providing yet another singsong. “I’ve got 50,000 backing singers,” laughs Grohl. “It’s not fucking Beethoven.”
It isn’t, but while the Foos are yet to enter an orchestral period, the set does veer refreshingly off-piste in places. What Grohl calls “deep cuts shit” ranges from rarely played songs such as “La Dee Da” or “Statues” – which is slightly and beautifully reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’s “Castles Made Of Sand” – to the instrumental “Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners”, written for two Australian Foos fans who were trapped underground.
There’s even a lost treasure, “Unconditional”, unearthed on an old demo cassette and now given the treatment its darkly entrancing melody deserves. With blond-mopped former Devo/Nine Inch Nails drummer Josh Freese bringing machine-gun rolls and relentless energy to the enormous job of replacing Hawkins, big hitters “Monkey Wrench”, “Best Of You” et al make for a triumphant home run. However, some of the show’s later segments acknowledge the loss behind the band’s rebooted emotional power.
Grohl explains that they’re playing the hymnal “Aurora” every night because it was Hawkins’ favourite song, and the combination of the sunset and a sea of twinkling phones give it a haunting backdrop. 2023’s “The Teacher” is both a heartfelt farewell to Grohl’s mother Virginia, who also died in 2022, and a wider acceptance of mortality.
There’s a lovely and tellingly poignant moment when Grohl performs the sublime “Under You” – almost certainly about Hawkins – solo for only the second time. As he reaches the line “Someone said I’ll never see your face again…” he is suddenly unable to sing the rest of the verse, so the crowd do it for him. “Thank you for helping me,” he says, and seems to wipe tears from his face as he sighs, “Man, this is gonna look great on YouTube.”
Setlist All My Life No Son Of Mine Rescued The Pretender Walk Times Like These White Limo La Dee Da This Is A Call Sabotage/Blitzkrieg Bob/Whip It/March Of The Pigs My Hero The Sky Is A Neighbourhood Learn To Fly Arlandia These Days Statues Under You Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners Nothing At All Unconditional Monkey Wrench The Glass Aurora Best Of You Encore The Teacher Everlong
McCartney’s last UK show was at Glastonbury in 2022.
“I’m excited to be ending my year and 2024 tour dates in the UK,” he says. “It’s always such a special feeling to play shows on our home soil. It’s going to be an amazing end to the year. Let’s get set to party. I can’t wait to see you.”
As well as the UK, McCartney has also announced shows in France and Spain, in addition to the tour dates he announced last week for Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Peru.
Here’s the dates…
Tuesday 1st October – Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, URUGUAY
Saturday 5th October – River Plate Stadium, Bueno Aires, ARGENTINA
Sunday 6th October – River Plate Stadium, Bueno Aires, ARGENTINA
Friday 11th October – Estadio Monumental, Santiago, CHILE
Wednesday 23rd October – Mario Alberto Kempes, Cordoba, ARGENTINA
Sunday 27th October – Estadio Nacional, Lima, PERU
Wednesday 4th December – La Defense Arena, Paris, FRANCE
Thursday 5th December – La Defense Arena, Paris, FRANCE
Monday 9th December – Wizink Centre, Madrid, SPAIN
Tuesday 10th December – Wizink Centre, Madrid, SPAIN
Saturday 14th December – Co-op Live, Manchester, UK
It’s been a full six years since Kaia Kater’s last album, the exquisite Grenades, but she appears to have spent the time judiciously. Having undertaken a residency at the Canadian Film Centre, she’s broadened an already impressive skill set by composing TV and movie scores, which, in turn, now feed into the soundscapes of Strange Medicine.
At the same time, the album finds Kater rediscovering the passion for banjo – she spent years studying Appalachian music in West Virginia – that made 2016’s Nine Pin so distinctive. The instrument foregrounds a number of songs here, though as part of larger arrangements that find space for inventive, jazz-like percussion, strings, loops, low-key brass and a smattering of electronica. The effect is often dizzyingly fresh and satisfyingly rich, as Kater explores influences as diverse as the West African kora and minimalist hero Steve Reich. “Fédon”, for instance, with guest Taj Mahal, stretches outwards from core banjo to bring semi-symphonic soul and jazz-blues into its artfully measured mix. “In Montreal” fuses a clawhammer figure to syncopated beats and a delicious Celtic fiddle break. “Mechanics Of The Mind” is a sinuous ensemble piece that manages to sound both musically involved and tastefully understated, feeling all the more powerful for its sense of restraint.
Strange Medicine also runs deep and wide lyrically. These are songs that speak of misogyny, racism, the bloody legacy of colonialism and Kater’s place in the modern world. “The Witch”, featuring Aoife O’Donovan, uses the Salem witch trials to address institutionalised sexism, male perceptions of women and the venting of righteous anger. On “In Montréal”, Kater encounters visions of her former selves in the place of her birth, accompanied by fellow city native Allison Russell. It’s a conflicted portrait, as are “Floodlights” and the lovely “Maker Taker”, both of which examine Kater’s relationship with her own art. “I may not stay valuable/Unless I’m writing verses/And telling tragic stories,” she sings in her low, expressive voice. Whatever the context, Strange Medicine suggests that hers is a talent built to endure.
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Born of Eddie Holland’s conviction that he, his brother Brian and their fellow songwriter and producer Lamont Dozier were not getting a fair share of the proceeds from the global success of Berry Gordy Jr’s Motown company in the 1960s, the Invictus and Hot Wax labels made some glorious music as that decade shaded into the next.
The elder Holland set up their labels when the trio were still in dispute with Motown. As Dozier wrote in his autobiography, the lawsuits and countersuits went on for years – “long, complicated and unpleasant”. It was the sourest possible ending to a story that had helped to shape Gordy’s Sound of Young America. Not until 1971, when their contracts expired, were the three free to work for their own company under their own names.
The more urgent need was to find artists with whom to replicate their Motown success. Edna Wright, Darlene Love’s sister, was brought from LA together with Carolyn Willis and Shelly Clark to become Honey Cone, an update of the Supremes. General Norman Johnson, the former lead singer of the Showmen, whose “It Will Stand” had been a hit in 1961, was recruited as the frontman of the Chairmen of the Board, who became their new Four Tops.
In the Motown days, Lamont had usually come up with the basis of the song and coached the singers while Eddie shaped the melody and lyrics and Brian supervised the studio production. At Invictus, things were less clear-cut. But it was still Dozier who came up with the idea for the Chairmen’s debut, the finger-snapping “Give Me Just A Little More Time”, and persuaded Johnson to abandon the smoother vocal style he’d developed since the days of the Showmen and revert to the rawness of “It Will Stand”, creating a distinctive sound that made it the label’s first significant hit, reaching the top three in the US and the UK in the early weeks of 1970.
It was quickly followed by Freda Payne’s “Band Of Gold”, which stayed at No 1 in the UK for several weeks. This one was closer to the old Motown template: a danceable medium-tempo and a running bassline supporting Payne’s polished, pleading delivery of an intriguingly ambiguous lyric.
Like other Detroit labels before them, the Invictus team were making use of Motown’s session musicians in their off-duty hours, including the bassist James Jamerson. But they were also grooming a cadre of younger players, among them the teenaged guitarist Ray Parker Jr (later to find fame as the creator of the Ghostbusters music) and the members of a local group known as the Politicians, whose young bass guitarist, Roderick “Peanut” Chandler, was groomed as the new Jamerson.
Soon it became clear that the Invictus/Hot Wax sound was moving away from the carefully devised and quality-controlled sheen of the Motown hits towards something less polished and more urgent. The Chairmen of the Board continued on their lilting way with “Everything’s Tuesday” and “Working On A Building Of Love”, but their “Pay To The Piper” – written by General Johnson – was far more aggressive, and the Barrino Brothers’ “I Shall Not Be Moved” was an incandescent slice of gospel-soul.
Moments of social consciousness began to emerge: Payne’s “Bring The Boys Home” conveyed the fervour of anti-Vietnam War protests, Honey Cone’s “Sunday Morning People” attacked the hypocrisy of the pious, and Laura Lee delivered “Women’s Love Rights” as a proud feminist anthem.
The label also succeeded in getting a blue-eyed soul group, Flaming Ember, into the charts with “Westbound No 9”, all fuzz guitar and hoarse lead vocal (by Jerry Plunk, their singing drummer), and a match for anything by the Rascals or Looking Glass.
When the label’s founders stepped forward in the role of artists, Eddie Holland declined to resume the career that stage fright had denied him in his early days as a promising Motown solo artist. Instead it was Brian, on “Don’t Leave Me Starving For Your Love”, and Lamont, on “Why Can’t We Be Lovers”, taking the lead on hits that prepared the way for the boudoir soul to come later in the decade. Brian was also featured on “I’m So Glad”, a guaranteed floor-filler in any era.
What’s missing? Holland-Dozier’s “Slipping Away”, a clavinet-and-phased-strings heartbreaker, is an unaccountable omission. And presumably there are contractual reasons behind the non-appearance of anything from Parliament’s Osmium album, particularly “The Silent Boatman”, a sombre and sublimely bizarre masterpiece in which George Clinton and the British-born songwriter Ruth Copeland brought Scottish bagpipes to bear on Greek myth.
According to Dozier, among the reasons for Invictus’s eventual decline was Eddie’s refusal to sign Clinton’s Funkadelic, Al Green and the Ohio Players when they were available. Soon the newer, fresher sounds of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International label were taking over, and when Lamont broke away to sign an artist contract with ABC/Dunhill, the end was nigh. But if Holland-Dozier-Holland couldn’t build an empire of their own to rival Gordy’s, this set – 68 tracks on four CDs, 55 on the vinyl version – proves that their efforts added something more than a postscript to their matchless Motown legacy.
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Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry reunited for a one-off performance last night (June 14). This was the first time all four members of R.E.M. had performed together in public since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
The occasion was the band’s induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York. The band – who had already appeared together in an interview for CBS Mornings – were introduced by Jason Isbell, who performed a cover of “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)”.
Variety reports, Stipe then delivered a speech: “We are four people who very early on decided that we would own our own masters and we would split our royalties and songwriting credits equally — we were all for one and one for all… Some of those song we recorded turned out good, sometimes great, and what a ride it has been. It truly means the world to us to be recognized for that, and tonight we thank you for this honour.”
The band then performed “Losing My Religion“.
A surprise performance by @remhq last night at their induction into the @SongwritersHOF – Just one song, an acoustic version of "Losing My Religion" – but it was the first time the 4 original members had played together publicly since 2007. More on @CBSMorningspic.twitter.com/XubOAWTOtc
Wasser says, “This song refers to the human race’s seemingly willful move away from ourselves. Away from our interest in listening, in finding commonalities and compassion, communication and love. We seem intent on destroying ourselves. We seem unwilling to share resources. We seem to have turned away from ourselves and in turn each other.”
The track is taken from her upcoming studio album, Lemons, Limes & Orchids, which is released on September 20 viaPIAS. You can pre-order the album here.
Tracklisting for the album is:
The Dream
Full Time-Heist
Back Again
With Hope In My Breath
Long For Ruin
Started Off Free
Remember The Voice
Oh Joan
Lemons, Limes and Orchids
Tribute To Holding On
Safe To Say
Help Is On It’s Way
Lemons, Limes & Orchids is Wasser’s first album since 2021’s The Solution Is Restless made with Tony Allen and Dave Okumu.
Joan As Police Woman also tours from October:
● Thursday October 3rd – Whelans, Dublin
● Friday October 4th – Whelans, Dublin
● Saturday October 5th – St Luke’s, Glasgow
● Sunday October 6th – Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds
● Monday October 7th – Band On The Wall, Manchester
● Wednesday October 9th – Union Chapel, London
● Thursday October 10th – St George’s, Brighton
● Friday October 11th – Llais Festival @ Donald Gordon Theatre, Cardiff
● Sunday October 13th – Bee Flat, Bern
● Monday October 14th – Kaufleuten Club, Zürich
● Thursday October 17th – Santeria, Milan
● Saturday October 19th – Kino, Ebensee
● Sunday October 20th – MeetFactory, Prague
● Monday October 21st – Heimathafen, Berlin
● Tuesday October 22nd – Mojo, Hamburg
● Friday October 25th – Muziekgieterij, Maastricht
● Sunday October 27th – Doornroosje, Nijmegen
● Monday October 28th – Orangerie at Botanique, Brussels
Odyssey is released on September 20 via Concord Jazz.
Says Garcia, “It represents the notion of truly being on your own path, and trying to discard all the outside noise saying you should go this way or that way.”
Odyssey feartures Esperanza Spalding, Richie Seivwright and Georgia Anne Muldrow and is produced by Garcia and returning collaborator Kwes.
The tracklisting for Odyssey is:
Dawn feat. esperanza spalding
Odyssey
Solstice
Set It Free feat. Richie
The Seer
Odyssey (Outerlude)
We Walk In Gold feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow
Water’s Path
Clarity
In Other Words, Living
Clarity (Outerlude)
Triumphance
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