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“I have a friend I’ve never seen/He hides his head inside a dream”

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FEBRUARY 2021

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ELCOME to the final edition of Uncut for 2020. Before we go any further, I’d like to thank everyone on the team for their continued amazing work across all our titles – Marc, John, Tom, Sam, Mick, Michael, Mike, Phil, Kevin, Johnny, Mark and Lora. Looking back across the issues we’ve put out in the past 12 months, the quality of every magazine has, I believe, been of such a high standard that you wouldn’t necessarily think we’d all been working from front rooms, back rooms, spare bedrooms and sheds during a pandemic to bring you regular issues of Uncut and our various one-shots. Sincere thanks also to you, the readers, without whom we wouldn’t be here. Your unfailing loyalty during these challenging times has been amazing. Our subscribers around the world have been especially patient during the inevitable delays caused by disruption to freight services. As a thankyou for bearing with us, next month all our print subscribers will receive a bonus second CD with their copy of Uncut. This is an exclusive five-track sampler featuring The Weather Station – whose new album Ignorance has rarely been off the virtual Uncut office stereo. You can

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On the cover: Neil Young ©Bob Seidemann

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Robert Smith by Javier Bragado/ WireImage

whet your appetite for this free gift via Laura Barton’s interview with The Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman on page 60. What else? Well, for the first time in our 24-year history, we’ve finally got round to compiling a survey of Neil Young’s greatest songs. Or 40 of them, at any rate. For this Herculean task, we’ve convened a panel of Neil’s oldest and closest collaborators – from Crosby and Nash to Crazy Horse, honorary Stray Gators, Promise Of The Real and more besides. The results offer fresh insight into some familiar Young numbers, but critically, also shine a light on deeper cuts. You may find yourselves, as I did, dusting down Re-ac-tor and This Note’s For You after reading the passionate cases put forward for songs from both those albums in our Top 40. You can also find our annual Preview of albums to look forward to over the coming months. About this time last year, we were putting the touches to our 2020 Preview. What a year it’s been. Here’s to a peaceful, happy and healthy 2021 for everyone. Michael Bonner, Editor. Follow me on Twitter @michaelbonner

CONTENTS

4 Instant Karma!

60 The Weather Station

Bob Dylan, Femi and Made Kuti, punk professor Vivien Goldman, Phil Ochs

Tamara Lindeman discusses Ignorance, the first great album of 2021

14 Tom Morello

68 Stevie Wonder

An audience with the RATM guitarist

18 New Albums

The Besnard Lakes, The Avalanches, Barry Gibb, Goat Girl, Farmer Dave & The Wizards Of The West, Jim Ghedi

From the archives: his last published interview. In Cambridge, in March 1971, Melody Maker finds a distracted figure

104 Lives

Tracing his astonishing five-album run between 1972 and 1976

EFG London Jazz Festival, Emmylou Harris

74 Neil Young

109 Books

Gold-plated standards, long jams, forgotten gems… A deep dive into 40 of Shakey’s greatest songs

38 The Archive

100 Syd Barrett

86 Buzzcocks

Leonard Cohen, black women in rock

110 Films Soul, Mank and more 112 DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Nancy Sinatra, Cat Stevens, Evan Parker, Leila, Dave Alvin

The making of “Harmony In My Head”

Delia Derbyshire, Bee Gees, horror shorts

50 2021 Albums Preview

90 Captain Beefheart

114 Not Fade Away Obituaries

Uncut’s guide to 21 of 2021’s key releases, including news of The Cure, Paul Weller, Stevie Nicks, Michael Stipe, Teenage Fanclub, Low, The Rolling Stones…

Blues, roots, ESP and psychreinventions withthe original high plains drifter

116 Letters… Plus the Uncut crossword

96 Cocteau Twins Album By Album

118 My Life In Music Edie Brickell

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FEBRUARY2021•UNCUT•3

ESSENTIAL 2021 PREVIE

THE CURE PAUL WELLER FOO FIGHTERS AND MORE

NEIL

YOUNG 40 GREATEST HIS

SONGS

DAVID CROSBY, GRAHAM NASH R O O & MORE

S D B RRE HIS FINAL TRIP

O U TWI S

SPANGLE MAKERS!

STE I WO D R FUNK SOUL REVOLUTION!

P I BE FHE RT BY THE MAGIC BAND

BU Z O KS HARMONY IN THEIR HEADS

WE H R ST TIO BLUE SKY THINKING

THIS MONTH’S REVELATIONS FROM THE WORLD OF UNCUT

FEATURING... Femi and Made Kuti | Vivien Goldman | Phil Ochs | Lael Neale Sala Santa Cecilia, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, April 4, 2018

Together through life

PaoloBrillohasbeenphotographing BobDylanlivesincethe1980s.Here’s whathe’slearnedfrom30-plusyearsof theNeverEndingTour

PAOLO BRILLO

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OTHING is taken for granted when you go to a Dylan concert,” says Paolo Brillo, “nothing is obvious.” And he would know. Since smuggling his camera into the Arena di Verona in 1984, Brillo has photographed Bob Dylan live more than 60 times, his pictures becoming a fascinating document of the so-called Never Ending Tour as collected in a new book, Bob Dylan: No Such Thing As Forever. For Brillo, capturing the essence of this most inscrutable of artists has become a lifelong quest.

4 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

“I take pictures of a lot of performers and he’s certainly the most difficult to photograph,” says Brillo. “Every concert is a real challenge: low light levels, forests of microphones and suffocating security. But the joys of success certainly outweigh the challenges for me. Dylan’s charisma on stage is unique, no other artist has this talent. It is really exciting to try to capture the magnetism of his gaze in a photo.” Over the years, Brillo has borne witness to gradual evolutions in Dylan’s approach to live performance, as well as a more dramatic volte-face: “Until about 15

years ago he used to change the setlist constantly, sometimes almost completely compared to the previous evening,” he explains. “Whereas in recent years, he’s presented a nearly identical setlist as if his show were a theatrical piece to be faithfully reproduced every night.” Although regularly confounded by Dylan’s refusal to play up for the cameras, Brillo has developed a deep sympathy for his subject. “Despite appearances and rumours, Dylan is a very sensitive person and much more human than many would imagine. His reluctance to give himself to

fans is a way of guarding his privacy which has been threatened since the days he could wander the streets of Greenwich Village in the ’60s.” Right now, the Never Ending Tour is on hold. But Brillo has no doubt that Dylan will be back on the road as soon as the virus permits – and when that happens, he’ll be there, pointing his camera hopefully at the stage. “Every night at a Bob Dylan concert you will observe something wonderful,” he says. It could be a sly ook, a fleeting mile, a harmonica olo, a tear that falls uring ‘Desolation ow’…” AMRICHARDS

ob Dylan: No Such hing As Forever is ut now, published y Red Planet Books

Under the red lights: Villa Manin, Codroipo, Italy , July 8, 1996

“Every night at a Bob Dylan concert you will observe something wonderful”

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 5

Handing on the baton: Femi and (below) Made in the studio

HornsofAfrica: MadeKuti(left) andfatherFemi

Family affair On a Zoom call from Lagos, Femi and Made Kuti explain how they’re continuing the family tradition of funky dissent

MATTHEWRICHARDS;SODI

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T’S not often that you hear a debut album featuring a song that makes unselfconscious reference to “grandpa”. But when the song is as good as “Different Streets” by 25-year-old musician Made Kuti, and the grandpa in question is the legendary Nigerian composer, bandleader and activist Fela Kuti, then that composition probably becomes a lot easier to explain. “Different Streets” is a stirring seven-and-a-half-minute piece of Afrobeat moderne, and one of the cornerstones of Made Kuti’s forthcoming album For(e)ward. Released in tandem with Stop The Hate – the 11th studio album by his father, Femi Kuti – together the two releases form a powerful crossgenerational statement on life in Nigeria today. There, as Femi and Made tell it during a joint Zoom call from Lagos, the people are held in 6 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

check by poor infrastructure, corrupt government and outdated attitudes. Recently there has been a countrywide protest against police brutality. “And now the government seems to want to stop social media,” says Femi. “I don’t think people will sit down for too long and allow corruption, bad government and police brutality to continue. Life is very hard for too many people now.” The Kuti family has an august history of musical innovation and dissent. In addition to his

“My father’s gift to me has been freedom of thought” MADE KUTI

groundbreaking Afrobeat works, Fela in his lifetime declared a republic, was falsely imprisoned, and had his residential/artistic compound destroyed. His legend and influence is large, and the family name remains controversial. For Femi and Made, presenting a united family front is the only way to proceed. “It’s a huge heritage and legacy,” says Femi. “It’s like a relay – I’m handing the baton to him.” A veteran of his father’s band, Made is a respectful recipient of his mantle. Raised in the New Afrika Shrine – the performance space and cultural centre built by Femi in suburban Lagos in 2000 – he grew up watching his father write, rehearse and play, and even physically defend the Shrine from intruders. A serious student of theory and composition, Made attended the Trinity Laban Music School in London (the new name for the relocated Trinity College Of Music, once attended by Fela). While in the UK, he studied classical piano with Juan Jose Rezzuto, who he

credits with introducing him to tonal harmony, jazz and alternative rock. When he returned to Nigeria, Made’s aim was to combine his musical education and his personal history. “My goal was to find a way to put Afrobeat in a contemporary classical setting,” he says. “When I got back to Nigeria I wanted to communicate how I felt about Nigeria and the people. Some of my first encounters when I returned were very difficult, like police harassment. I walk out of my dad’s house and I see the most ridiculous infrastructure. Poverty is everywhere. But the state of mind of the Nigerians is what has bothered me the most. The first song on the album, ‘Free Your Mind’ is about freeing your mind of all the barriers that culture and education have put around us for decades.” Some Nigerians, Made thinks, still get the wrong idea about his illustrious grandfather. Rather than viewing his polemical music as a social critique of life in the 1970s, some misconstrue it as having been a “prophecy” of how bad things are for Nigerians now. Rather than wrestling with the Kuti legacy, though, Femi and Made instead seem liberated by it. “My father’s gift to me has been freedom of thought,” says Made. “It’s given me the ability to appreciate my family and its legacy – and where I want to take it.” “So many African bands are like me or my father,” Femi concludes, “but Made has created another universe. We’re just waiting to find out how more planets and galaxies there are.” JOHN ROBINSON For(e)ward and Stop The Hate are released together by Partisan on February 5

Vivien Goldman today and (below) in 1982

“We have to have hope!” Forty years since “Launderette”, punk professor Vivien Goldman is finally poised to release her debut album

cording artist, V producer, uthor and ademic – and now the selfyled “punk rofessor” aching music nd pop ulture in New ork. While she as making a lm about Trojan in Jamaica, she bumped into her old friend Youth, who persuaded her to write Next Is Now after agreeing to produce the album himself and release it on his own record label. “It’s been a huge honour and steep learning curve to work with Vivien,” he says. “She’s been such a big influence in my life, ever since I met her in John Lydon’s Chelsea eyrie in Gunter Grove, while he was forming PiL. She would take me to shebeens and all-night illegal Jamaican blues. Vivien was an early pioneer of post-punk and has

remained on the cutting edge, so it’s incredible and ridiculous that she has only now completed her debut album.” Despite their long friendship, Goldman found Youth to be “a real taskmaster if the truth be known. Beneath that loosey goosey front he has rigorous work practices. He can call me his mentor all he wants, but it was obvious that if I didn’t come up with the goods, I’d be out of it!” The album is preceded by a single, the political electro-dub of “I Have A Voice”. The song was written as a beacon of hope during miserable times, with Goldman seizing the chance to express thoughts and emotions more directly than in her journalistic work. “I was worried about Trump, Brexit, this creeping feeling of impotence,” she says. “It felt as if the forces of rage were winning against the positive and progressive elements. I wrote ‘I Have A Voice’ to remind me I have agency. What I love about Bob Marley is that even when he was doing the most confrontational songs, there’s never a moment when he gives up hope.”

Coronavirus delayed the album’s initial release but Goldman kept herself busy, shooting videos in Jamaica with a makeshift team in what she describes as a “very punk style”. With the album now due early in 2021, she is optimistic she might get to tour if the pandemic allows. “Remember,” she says, “we have to have hope!” PETERWATTS Next Is Now is out on Youth Sounds/Cadiz Music in February

“I am quite a cheerful person, but I tapped into a lot of anger I didn’t know I had”

REBECCA MEEK; DAVID CORIO

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IVIEN Goldman’s debut album has been a long time coming. In the 1980s, when she was writing for Sounds, Goldman worked with Aswad, Robert Wyatt, The Raincoats and The Flying Lizards to release a number of dub and experimental singles, among them underground classics “Launderette” and “Private Armies”. In 2016, these were collected on Resolutionary, a compilation that reignited Goldman’s interest in recording. Finally she’s ready to release Next Is Now, co-written and produced by Killing Joke’s Youth. “I turned the album around fast, but I discovered I had a lot I wanted to get out,” says Goldman from Jamaica, where she has been stranded by the pandemic. “There’s a lot of very heavy stuff on there, even though I am quite a cheerful person. But writing the book [2019’s Revenge Of The She-Punks: A Feminist Music History] meant I tapped into a lot of anger I didn’t know I had until I stopped to address it. To me it’s an emotional album and very eclectic sonically because of Youth’s grooves.” Goldman’s musical career started in the press office at Island in the early 1970s, working with Bob Marley among others. She went on to become a music journalist,

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •7

Mighty Ochs A new book highlights the optimism and humour in the writings of protest folk hero Phil Ochs

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N 1967, as the Vietnam War death toll kept mounting, Phil Ochs exhorted fellow radicals to join him on an absurdist mission to declare the war over “from the bottom up”. In the Los Angeles Free Press, he wrote, “I believe there is still something inherent in the fibre of America worth saving, and that the fortunes of the entire world may well ride on the ability of young America to face the responsibilities of an old America gone mad.” As with much of Ochs’ work, the words still feel pertinent today. The only ’60s protest songwriter who Bob Dylan ever considered a serious rival, Ochs walked it like he talked it. A new anthology – I’m Gonna Say It Now: The Writings Of Phil Ochs – charts the Texan’s extraordinary adventures through his writings, journals and poetry. It takes in political tracts and satire written as Ochs ran with the folkies in New York and then communed with the hippies in LA. There’s also some enthralling juvenilia. “One of my favourite things is a short story called The Fight which he wrote at Staunton Military Academy when he was about 18,” the singer’s daughter Meegan Lee Ochs tells Uncut. “It is a story standing up for what is right regardless of the personal cost, and has a twist that reveals his mastery in storytelling. His humour and pathos are on full display.” Having studied journalism, Ochs applied these skills to topical songwriting from the early 1960s with two studio albums for Elektra, All The News That’s Fit To Sing and I Ain’t Marching Anymore. He didn’t quite follow suit when Dylan went electric, but went on to

make a run of eccentric, inspiring albums for A&M, with his prose as impish and insightful as his best songs. In a 1968 piece, he depicts divided America in splendidly gonzoid fashion as “two Mack trucks colliding on a superhighway because all the drivers are on amphetamine”. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, combined with his personal witnessing of police attacks on protestors at the 1968

“The Fight has a twist that reveals his mastery in storytelling” MEEGAN LEE OCHS

A QUICK ONE

heralded a downturn in Ochs’s fortunes. His subsequent wheeze of performing in a gold lamé suit in a bid to become a cross between Elvis and Che Guevara divided critics, and – debilitated by writer’s block after the release of 1970’s misleadingly titled Greatest Hits LP – he struggled with alcoholism and bipolar disorder. Ochs was 35 when he killed himself in his sister’s Far Rockaway home in 1976. Thankfully, his diaries and notes survive. Ochs’s family deposited his papers and effects (including the gold lamé suit) at the Woody Guthrie Centre in Tulsa. Having sifted through that archive for I’m Gonna Say It Now, editor David Cohen says he hopes the book can “broaden that circle of friends who know who Phil is”. Meegan Lee Ochs continues to find comfort in her father’s work. “I was 12 when he died, but I’ve been more fortunate than most who lose a parent when they’re young,” she says. “I have his music, writings, and film of him performing, to know him better myself and share him with my children.” Ochs’ story was ultimately a bleak one, but his optimism remains infectious. The abiding message of I’m Gonna Say It Now rings out clear: Don’t despair. Pass it on. JIM WIRTH

I’m Gonna Say It Now: The Writings Of Phil Ochs is out now, published by Backbeat

With her Archives Vol 1 in the shops, we’ve taken the opportunity to update our Ultimate Music Guide to Joni Mitchell with a new deluxe edition. A lavish 148-page magazine, it includes reviews of every album, her 30 greatest songs as voted for by her peers, and Uncut’s extended account of Mitchell’s gradual return to a more public life in 2020. It’s in shops now or available to buy online via Uncut. co.uk…

Also utnow–and available exclusively from our online store – is the second part of Ultimate Record Collection: David Bowie, presenting every single, album and comp in order of release, with new stories and insights from the people who worked with Bowie to make them. If you missed Part 2 in March, you can pick that up too as part of a heavilydiscounted bundle, with free UK P&P… The 2021 UK Americana Awards will take the form of a virtual ceremony on January 28. Elvis Costello and Steve Earle are due to perform live during the broadcast, before collecting special achievement gongs along with Mavis Staples, Christine McVie and the late John Prine. Sign up to watch the ceremony, along with two days of livestreamed showcases, at bit.ly/AMAUK21…

B-sides and Rarities Out Now

UNCUT PLAYLIST On the stereo this month...

ALTIN GÜN Yol GLITTERBEAT

Building on the irresistible pulse of last year’s instant party-starter “Süpürgesi Yoncadan”, the Anatolian psych revivalists go full-on synth-pop. Harika!

TINDERSTICKS

Distractions CITY SLANG

Icy coldwave stylings, a desolate Neil Young cover, “these irritating wounds we need to attend to again and again”… Well, you didn’t expect a party album did you?

I’M NEW HERE

Lael Neale Howswappingguitarfor Omnichordhelpedherto captureLA’smagichour

“For No One For Now”, with its talk of solitary sheet-folding and toast-making, suggests settling into a new life alone. Neale won’t be drawn on detail, but describes herself as having been “in a pretty significant transition in my life” at the time of making the AEL NEALE grew up on a cattle farm in record. It led her to try to do everything in the Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, raised by opposite way to normal, “because my routine parents who took her to music festivals and world was kind of broken anyway”. A and played her the Grateful Dead and The Cure. dedicated morning person since the farm days Though she took to singing from an early age, of her childhood, she decided to try recording intense shyness kept her from performing. “So songs at night. It made for a strikingly different I got interested in writing, as that felt like a safe experience, and brought a looseness to the way way to be creative but to not have to put myself she played and sang. “My voice is very sweet and out there.” At college she became increasingly pure, but I think a day’s worth of talking and interested in poetry. “And then I was like, ‘Who using it made it richer and deeper and made reads poetry?’ So I thought, ‘Well, why wouldn’t these songs more conversational.” I just combine my love of singing with poetry?’ She recorded live, and at home. “In the evening That way I could trick people into listening.” there is such different energy around,” she says. If Acquainted With Night is a trick, then it’s a “It’s hot and hazy and the air is thick. There were pretty effective one. Her upcoming second album dogs barking and the birds had a different sound – and first for Sub Pop – is a thing of shimmering and kids were coming home so I could hear all beauty, led by Neale’s otherworldly voice with its that stuff going on outside. I lived in shades of Vashti Bunyan and Julia a room that was all windows, and the Holter. It began with the loan of an I’M YOUR FAN sun went down right in that room, so Omnichord, a kind of electronic the entire space would light up golden. autoharp. Previously Neale had The sounds I was discovering really written on guitar, but the Omnichord seemed like they were that light.” “opened up this whole realm of sound When the pandemic hit, Neale left as texture. The guitar is like a voice, California and headed back to the you’re always talking back and forth family farm. While she misses the with the guitar. But the Omnichord music community of LA and plans was like a timbre, a constant droning to return, she has appreciated this hum that could just lie as a platform “Lael’svoice, period of isolation, spending her days beneath everything.” arrestingand helping out on the farm and writing Neale placed the Omnichord in her unaffected, new music. “It’s been amazing home in east LA, and every time she broadcastsan passed it she would try out a new alluringinterior because I have so much space all around me,” she says. “I can play at drumbeat. “It was the gift of being worldof a beginner at something,” she says. symbols,stories any time of day or night, and I can play really loud.” LAURA BARTON “It gave my voice a freedom, and also andtimeless a new way to look at words.” While melodies”Guy some tracks draw on classic folk Blakeslee,The Acquainted With Night will be songs, others feel more personal: released by Sub Pop in February EntranceBand

GUY BLAKESLEE; ELIOT LEE HAZEL

L

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BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY & BILL CALLAHAN

“Deacon Blues (ft Bill MacKay)” DRAG CITY

This is the day of the expanding repertoire… The three Bills bravely tackle the Dan – in a dreamy bossa style no less!

CASSANDRA JENKINS

An Overview On Phenomenal Nature BADA BING

Sounds like a breakthrough record for the Woods and Kevin Morby associate, her arch observations unspooling into gorgeous sax-led reveries.

CARWYN ELLIS & RIO 18 Mas BANANA & LOUIE

Second album of sunny Welsh-language tropicália from the Colorama man.

WOOM Into The Rest HOUSE ANXIETY

South London indie supergroup harmonise furiously on spellbinding, quasi-acapella covers of Angel Olsen, Frank Ocean and Outkast.

MOTHER OF MARS I Hear RANSOM NOTE

Shake down! Ex-Rapture dudes Vito Roccoforte and Gabe Andruzzi expand their punk-funk workouts with heavy cosmic synths and the wraith-like vocals of Jaiko Suzuki.

TAMIL ROGEON

Son Of Nyx SOUL BANK MUSIC

We’ve had tubas, tablas and trombones – now here’s a new jazz combo led by a viola player. Streamlined Sun Ra vibes from Melbourne, produced by Harvey Sutherland.

JANE WEAVER Flock FIRE

Tasty pick’n’mix of electropop, shoegaze, glam, exotica and cosmic disco from the Manc psych siren. The album Kylie should have made!

DEZRON DOUGLAS & BRANDEE YOUNGER

Force Majeure INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM

Quarantining jazz duo cover the music of Alice & John Coltrane, Kate Bush and The Stylistics on string bass and harp. Soul food for the ears.

For The Road

15 tracks of the month’s best new music 1 BUCK MEEK

Candle

We lift off this month with a cosmic country cut from the Big Thief guitarist’s new solo record, Two Saviors. Adrianne Lenker helps out with the songwriting, deliciously blurring the lines between all the group’s projects even more.

Beautify Junkyards

2 FARMER DAVE & THE WIZARDS OF THE WEST

CaveWalls

The Beachwood Sparks’ Cali mystic returns with a long-awaited solo album. Amid its churning, psychedelic grooves and “Wipe Out” cover, there’s this beauty, almost shoegazey in its transportative haze of guitars and keys. Read a full review on p32.

5 AARON FRAZER

Mentored by Dan Auerbach, the drummer and co-vocalist in Durand Jones & The Indications has made an album of sublime vintage soul. He’s not breaking many boundaries, but that’s no problem when the result is as sumptuous as this. Head to p36 for more.

6

THE BESNARD LAKES

FeudsWithGuns

The Canuck survivors’ latest, …Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings, is their finest in a decade, and this piece of driving melancholy is just one of its many highlights. It’s our Album Of The Month, reviewed on p18.

7

JIM GHEDI

CommonThread

Goat Girl

3 GOAT GIRL HOLLYWHITAKER; LOISGRAY;ALYSSEGAFKJEN;JORDAN CARROLL

TheCrack

Second album On All Fours finds the London quartet expanding their horizons – this menacing post-punk highlight dissolves into synths and violins, and then a wonderfully hallucinatory chorus. Check out p28 for an extended review.

On his third solo album, the nimble guitarist has taken up the mic, inspired by the likes of John Clare and Barry Hines, to create his own strange, ambitious take on folkrock. Ghedi speaks on p34.

8

LANGHORNE SLIM

PanicAttack

Sean Scolnick created his new

4 BEAUTIFY JUNKYARDS

Cosmorama

The title track of the Portuguese outfit’s new album harnesses the crepuscular sound of English psychfolk and gives it a Tropicália twist, a little like Broadcast at their early peak. The group speak on p25. 12 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Wide, Wide River, but the depth and turmoil in his songwriting hasn’t been sacrificed. Here’s six-and-ahalf minutes of blissful, Lambchopesque drift.

IfIGotIt(YourLoveBroughtIt)

12 LUCERO

Back In Ohio Jim Ghedi

album Strawberry Mansion in lockdown earlier this year, and the result is a raw, stripped-down examination of personal recovery. It’s our Americana Album Of The Month on p26.

9 STAR FEMININE BAND

La Musique

A group of seven teenage girls from Benin, Star Feminine Band’s gorgeous, life-affirming grooves upturn what we might associate with manufactured bands in the west. “La Musique” is a glorious pan-African celebration.

10 DANIEL KNOX

Vinegar Hill

Won’t You Take Me With You is the Chicago songwriter’s bravest, most varied album yet. Second track “Vinegar Hill” comes on like John Grant playing with synth presets and smoky jazz saxophone, before it explodes into melancholy chord changes that Steely Dan wouldn’t sniff at.

11 JAMES YORKSTON

Struggle Aaron Frazer

Fife’s finest folkie has made one of his most accessible records with The

The Memphis Americana troupe’s new album, When You Found Me, continues the winning streak they established with records such as 2018’s Among The Ghosts. Throughout, chief songwriter Ben Nichols reflects on family, fatherhood and responsibility over pulsing classic rock.

13 TAMAR APHEK

Russian Winter

Israeli guitarist and singer Aphek headed to Daptone’s New York studio to record this, her solo debut proper. The result is thrillingly feral, funky, gothic and experimental – and yes, the start is meant to sound like that…

14 MATTHEW SWEET

Stars Explode

After decades of playing with stellar lead guitarists such as Richard Lloyd and Robert Quine, Sweet takes on that role himself on Catspaw. Here’s some melodic, stately evidence of the wisdom of that move.

15 INDIGO SPARKE

Everything Everything

We end with this piece from Echo, the debut LP by Australian singersongwriter Sparke; listening to this hushed, deeply emotional song, with its wavering hiss and woody reverb, feels almost too intimate.

LIMITED EDITION

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AVA I L A B L E D E C E M B E R 4

“Controversial music is not something you can take for granted, you have to fight for it”

“I love using the guitar as a canvas”: Tom Morello in 2018 14 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2020

There’s serious business athand ISTENING to Tom Morello’s raucous new “Comandante” EP, on which he pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen before trading licks with Slash, it’s hard to believe that it was recorded at home during lockdown. “My 97-year-old mom and my 89-year-old mother-in-law are with us,” he explains, “so we’ve literally been under corona house arrest for eight months with nobody in or out.” But after reading an interview where Kanye West extolled the virtues of recording to voicemail, Morello decided to make a whole EP doing just that. He’s particularly proud of how his version of “Voodoo Child” turned out: “It sounds pretty massive for a phone balanced on a little folding chair as the microphone.” Such restrictions are nothing new for Morello. “Historically, I’ve written my most bombastic riffs on an acoustic guitar, which runs back to a time when I was living in crowded apartments. When inspiration struck at 2am, I couldn’t wake the whole place up by cranking up the Marshall stack, so I became very adept at knowing what a riff quietly strummed into a battery tape recorder would sound like when played on stage at a festival.” Despite his extreme lockdown situation, Morello was still able to soak up some of the joy of Trump’s election defeat last month, as spontaneous parties erupted across Los Angeles. “There were a lot of amateur Rage life: RATM in DJs set up in the street banging 1993 and (above) out tunes. It was a euphoric the young Morello and friend moment, but this drama is still

Interview by SAM RICHARDS

playing out. I do not believe that we’ve escaped a 21stcentury fascist America quite yet.” Which means, of course, that Morello’s work as a noisy agitator for social justice continues…

Seeingyouplay“Killing InTheName”onThe Wordblewmytiny youngmind.Whatdo yourememberabout thatperformance? KapilSandhu,viaemail I remember it well! We were in the middle of this

press blitz, being shuttled from place to place, so it felt like it was going to be just another moment of trying to get heard. But it turned into this very chaotic and electric moment that seemed to divide everybody in the room into two tribes – there were those who recognised that a meteor was striking the country, and those who were aghast! And of course, it echoed out from that day onward. Did we have an inkling of how big that song would become? Of course not. I came up with the riff when I was giving a guitar lesson in my apartment in Hollywood. Originally when we worked it up for the band it was an instrumental, and even on our first demo we buried the song; I think it was track six. The idea for it to be the first single was not the band’s, it was our A&R Michael Goldstone’s. He said, “We’re not going to edit it for radio,” and I was like, “It has 16 ‘fuck yous’ and one ‘motherfucker’ in it – that’s awesome!” So there was no expectation that we’d be talking about it this many years later or that it would eventually find its way to No 1 on the pop charts.

Howmanyminutesintoyournaked protestatLollapalooza’93didyou begintoregretnotwearingpants? MarkDunham,Cornwall

Ha ha ha! This was in a football stadium by the way, and we opened the show: hello everyone, welcome to Lollapalooza, here’s naked Rage Against The Machine! There was an outpouring of excitement among the crowd for the first five minutes. Then there was an interesting stand-off as it was clear that this was not just some sort of quick stunt. And then for the last five minutes there was outright hostility – booing and giving us the finger and quarter coins being thrown at our dicks. The time I wish I had my pants on was when the police arrived. I ran to the only place that a naked black man might be FEBRUARY 2020 • UNCUT •15

WWW.TOMMORELLOBOOK.COM; GIE KNAEPS/GETTY IMAGES

L

ANAUDIENCEWITHTOMMORELLO

the band that ignited my fire and made me love rock’n’roll, so I spent a lot of time crafting that speech, and afterwards they all seemed grateful. I was mocked in school for being a Kiss fan – in addition to some other factors, it really made me a hunted minority growing up. But I steadfastly believed in that band. They showed a way beyond the constraints of the conservative town that I grew up in.

What is your favourite guitar slogan? Jean Sarlat, Lyon, France

My favourite is not on my guitar, it’s on Woody Guthrie’s. “This Machine Kills Fascists” is such an awesome, poetic treatise. I love using the guitar as a canvas for additional sloganeering but it all goes back to Woody emphasising that these are not just songs to sing and dance to, there’s serious business at hand with three chords and the truth.

Bossing it: with Bruce Springsteen at Madison Square Garden, NYC, October 29, 2009

undercover backstage at Lollapalooza, and that was the Fishbone tourbus; they were sitting around in various states of undress watching Star Wars, so I fit right in. Hopefully in some way we made the point that controversial music is not something you can take for granted, you have to fight for it. Although people just remember us standing there naked.

“I learned 250 songs before my first E Street Band tour – and still it wasn’t enough!”

What’stheinitiationritual for theEStreetBand? BrianSedgewick,Richmond

The E Street band was one of the greatest live rock bands in the world for 40 years before I played with them, so my main job was not to ruin a perfectly good thing! I learned 250 songs before departing for the first tour, so I guess that would be the induction. And still it wasn’t enough. Bruce would often surprise us by taking requests from the crowd – and sometimes they weren’t even Bruce Springsteen songs! When we were in Australia, we played songs by INXS, the Bee Gees… No-one in the band knows what the next song is, ever. And the arrangements of the songs are also not carved in stone, so you never know when it might be time for a guitar solo. It really kept me on my toes.

KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE; THEO WARGO/WIREIMAGE

What’sthebestormost dangerous ‘guerrillagig’you’veplayed as TheNightwatchman? SteveBritton,Halifax

The gigs at protests surrounding the G8 conferences tend to be the most violent. In Miami, there was a huge police riot with stormtroopers chasing protestors down the street. I was on a charity tour with Steve Earle, Billy Bragg and Boots Riley. When the tear gas broke out, they were all running back to the hotel and I was like, “No, guys, this way!” My eyes were burning for a week afterwards. But the one that was most dramatic was at the G8 in Hamburg. I had been asked to play by this anarchist coalition. The city was shut down and you couldn’t get in, there were military checkpoints keeping alleged 16 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2020

Backstage at the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, after inducting Kiss into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, April 10, 2014

rioters out, so we bribed a fisherman to use his boat. We had to ram the sea blockade and then climb up this Pirates Of The Caribbean ladder and we arrived in the middle of a pitched battle. I played my set and then we had to run the sea blockade the other way, this time in the dark. But it felt like what I was born to do, man. The Nightwatchman will serve when called!

Your 2014 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction speech for Kiss is legendary. Did you ever get feedback from the band about it? Mikko Kapanen, Helsinki

I did. Prior to the ceremony I went on an all-out blitz to try to get the original four members to perform together. After an unsuccessful lobbying attempt, I realised that the only show that night was going to be my speech. Kiss were

Do you think in this current cultural and political climate that socialism can still work and even be accepted again? PS I’m a Mikhail Bakunin anarchist. Karl Ozols, via email

I’m glad there are some of us left! I mean, I think it’s a necessity, to save the planet. Look at how capitalism has responded to the global pandemic – it’s a disaster. Look at how capitalism has responded to the impending environmental crisis – it’s a disaster. Look at how capitalism has responded to racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in the 21st century – it’s a disaster. I think that we have to look for solutions that serve humanity and the planet, and you can put whatever ism you want to it – that’s less important than the goal of a more humane, just, decent and sustainable earth.

When was the last time you did what somebody told you? James Entwistle, via email

Ha ha ha ha! Oh, around my household all day long. It’s ironic – the refrain around here is, nobody does what Dad tells them. My children enjoy music and the 11-year-old loves contemporary hip-hop, the more facial tattoos the better. As a young person it’s imperative that you like music that your parents don’t really understand. In the same way that Kiss and Black Sabbath made my mom raise an eyebrow, I raise that same eyebrow, but I have to push it down. My nine-year-old loves classic rock, for him it’s Zeppelin and Floyd and AC/DC… but sometimes it’s so loud. I’ve never once said “turn it down” because I recognise what that would mean – but I think it! Morello’s photo memoir Whatever It Takes is out now from Genesis Publications. See TomMorelloBook.com for more details

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“Things have been changing/Breathing new life into our heads”

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FEBRUARY 2021 TAKE 285

1 THE AVALANCHES (P22) 2 BARRY GIBB & FRIENDS (P24) 3 GOAT GIRL (P28) 4 JIM GHEDI (P34)

THE UNCUT GUIDE TO THIS MONTH’S KEY RELEASES

THE BESNARD LAKES The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings FULLTIMEHOBBY

Psych mainstays reach for the stars. By Louis Pattison

JOSEPHYARMUSH

A

well, yet another Besnard Lakes album. SPRAWLING, ALBUM Following its release, they separated from symphonic rock OF THE their long-time label Jagjaguwar, with them ensemble from a MONTH since 2007’s The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark country that has come to Horse. Lasek, meanwhile, has a productive be known for them, The 8/10 side-hustle, working as a producer for groups Besnard Lakes have been like Wolf Parade and Stars at the studio he coa constant at the coalface owns, Breakglass, in Montreal. of Canadian independent music for some 15 years At this point, Jace and Olga might have called it a now. In this time, the group – which revolves around day. But instead, The Besnard Lakes have somehow the creative and romantic partnership of husband pulled off a remarkable resurrection. Their sixth and wife Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas – have created album – the audaciously titled The Besnard Lakes Are a respectable body of work, five albums of dense, The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings – is an textured progressive music, two of which have been astonishing return, up there with their best records to nominated for Canada’s Mercury equivalent, the date. Clocking in at 72 minutes, it’s an album replete Polaris Prize. with echoes and allusions to the band’s history, Fifteen years, of course, is a long time to have been grappling with themes of death and renewal. “Things in a rock group, a period long enough to weed out have been changing/Breathing all but the most committed. new life into our heads”, sings By that point, the early hype Goreas to a fanfare of horns has reduced to all but embers, on “Our Heads, Our Hearts elder statesman status is at On Fire Again”. Here is a band least a decade off – truly, these back in love with the idea of are the marathon years. Had being a band. The Besnard Lakes not have How did this happen? In part, gone the distance, it would The Besnard Lakes’ rebirth have been understandable. is down to a return to first Some five years have passed principles. There is the album since their last album, 2016’s title – the return to a naming A Coliseum Complex Museum convention that began with – a perfectly serviceable piece 2007’s The Besnard Lakes Are of work that was dismissed The Dark Horse and 2010’s in some quarters for being, 18 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

The Besnard Lakes: making heavy weather

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 19

NEW ALBUMS requisite flash by the band’s friend Mark Cuthbertson of the 1 Blackstrap group Fantasticboom. 2 Raindrops If …Last Of The Great Thunderstorm 3 Christmas Warnings starts in a dark and Can Wait somewhat muted place, it grows into 4 Our Heads, Our Hearts on Fire Again one of the most upbeat and optimistic albums of the band’s career. “Feuds 5 Feuds With Guns 6 The Dark Side With Guns” is another spy song, some Of Paradise sort of ambush “on the dark side of 7 New Revolution town” – but musically, it’s a sweet 8 The Father Of thing, all soaring falsettos and warm Time Wakes Up mellotron. “The Dark Side Of Paradise” 9 Last Of The Great is a dreamy, shoegaze-tinted love Thunderstorms song from Jace to Olga that recalls Warnings something of the twilit indulgence Produced by: of Mercury Rev’s All Is Dream. And Jace Lasek and “New Revolution”, a revived offcut Olga Goreas from the Until In Excess, Imperceptible Recorded at: UFO sessions, glows with positivity. The Rigaud Ranch “There’re so many ways of creation/ and Breakglass So let’s write the world in our lifetime”, Studios, Quebec they sing, before a squalling synth solo the sky like meteorites breaching the Personnel: Jace Lasek (guitars, draws the song to a close. outer atmosphere. bass, drums, The final side – lest we remember, “Christmas Can Wait” is a song vocals, synths, “Life” – is entirely dedicated to a title about death – explicitly, the death keys, string and horn track that clocks in close to 18 minutes in of Lasek’s father, who while dosed arrangements), length. It starts in a place of desperation. up with morphine in his final days, Olga Goreas “Oh mother could you make the moon experienced dramatic hallucinations (bass, vocals, talk to me?” sings Jace. “Cos everybody that he communicated to his son. synths, keys, flute, string and horn here they hate my dream/Could you Thoughts of death permeate …Last Of arrangements), tear apart the world and make them The Great Thunderstorm Warnings – not Robbie MacArthur see?” Come the end, though, the lyric in a sophomoric or gothic way, but as a (guitars), Kevin is speaking the language of resolve sort of weighing of something gigantic Laing (drums, and commitment: “Leave a light on for and profound. One is reminded of the congas, perc), me love/No one else will take me now…” fact that a dose of DMT is supposed to Sheenah Ko Then, after seven minutes of fireworks, mimic a near-death experience; here, (synths, keys, b/v), Richard the track dissipates into a gentle, The Besnard Lakes employ psychedelia White (guitars), undulating space drone that persists for as a means of approaching and coming Loel Campbell 10 minutes, a deep cleanse for the brain. to terms with the unfathomable. (drums on “New On …Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Two other tracks explicitly pay tribute Revolution”), Warnings, we hear The Besnard Lakes to lost heroes of The Besnard Lakes’ Mark Cuthbertson make a very contemporary take on musical firmament. “Raindrops” is (guitar solo on psychedelic music; wise to rock history a psychedelic flight of fancy with a “The Father Of but not in thrall to it, more interested lyric (“Garden of Eden, spirited/Did Time Wakes Up”) in asking the big questions than it need to be protected?”) that makes senselessly adding to the canon. They oblique reference to Talk Talk’s Mark are far from the first psychedelic band to step up Hollis, who passed away in 2019. “The Father Of and attempt to pierce the veil of reality, in the hope Time Wakes Up”, meanwhile, is more explicitly of glimpsing what lies beyond. But by asking real a tribute to Prince. The lyrics are littered with and profound questions – and by making music Easter eggs – “Jamie Starr would steal everything with enough grace and power to carry at least you wore”, sings Lasek, a reference to Prince’s some of that profundity – it cannot be denied that production pseudonym – while the song ends they have got a lot closer than most. with a distinctly Purple guitar solo, played with

SLEEVE NOTES

Bes friends: (l-r) Robbie MacArthur, Olga Goreas, Jace Lasek, Sheenah Ko, Kevin Laing

The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night. There are songs here from throughout the band’s lifespan, tracks like “New Revolution” that were set aside for whatever reason but, heard with fresh ears, suddenly felt right. And there are, of course, more “spy songs” – curious narratives rooted in Lasek’s love for the shadowy world of international espionage. The opening “Blackstrap” tells the story of an agent who climbs a mountain in search of signal, hoping to contact his lost love. The band lock into a sort of seasick melody, as a dial tone rings, rings, rings, rings, and the track ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. “All your gods will grow up tonight”, sings Lasek, enigmatically, as the ashes fall back to earth. Like his musical hero Brian Wilson, Lasek is enamoured with the idea that the studio itself is the most important instrument. The Besnard Lakes have long had a certain widescreen aspect to their sound, but on …Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings, we hear a new sense of spaciousness and ebb and flow. Lasek mentions Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon as a possible touchstone, and there is that sense of scale here. The album is divided into four sides – “Near Death”, “Death”, “After Death” and “Life” – and each one brings in shifts in mood and tone, sometimes subtle, at times astonishing. Take that moment six-and-a-half minutes into “Christmas Can Wait”, where after a period of synth-powered stargazing, the drums start up, Lasek’s falsetto swoops out of the darkness and guitar notes blaze through

HOW TO BUY...

GREAT LAKES

The Canadians’ finest records up to …Thunderstorm Warnings

JOSEPHYARMUSH

The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse JAGJAGUWAR, 2007

After a somewhat vestigial debut album, here’s where The Besnard Lakes’ vision swings into focus. Their major sonic preoccupations – the vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys, the voluminous space-rock of Pink Floyd, a certain orchestral sturm-und-drang – are all present and correct. Lasek’s fixation on espionage takes shape on “For Agent 13”, while the bombastic “Devastations” climaxes with a three-way drum solo. 8/10 20 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night JAGJAGUWAR, 2010

Recorded on the 1968 Neve console used to capture Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti and using an expanded palette of instruments including flute, Omnichord and Mellotron, … Are The Roaring Night finds The Besnard Lakes blowing their sound into glorious widescreen. It’s perhaps their most dynamic album: hear how “Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent” and “Albatross” balance wistful beauty and apocalyptic terror. 8/10

A Coliseum Complex Museum JAGJAGUWAR, 2016

Besnard Lakes’ last for Jagjaguwar pares back some of the sprawl, “Golden Line” and “The Plain Moon” feeling lean, even as they burrow deeper into the fabric of ’70s rock. Many songs were demoed in rural Saskatchewan, and a certain nature quality seeps into the lyrics – although there are paranormal preoccupations, too, manifesting on “The Bray Road Beast” and the HP Lovecraftinspired “Necronomicon”. 7/10

NEW ALBUMS kind of down in the trees. That song, it’s like you come up over the top, and it’s like the opening of the rest of the record. You can see the valley below and you’re kind of starting to walk down. It’s like the start of the rollercoaster [laughs]. Our midtempo rollercoaster.”

The four sides of the record are titled “Near Death”, “Death”, “After Death” and “Life”. These are some heavy themes…

Q&A Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas on asking “classic existential questions” Fiveyearshavepassedsince TheBesnardLakes’lastalbum. What’sbeengoingoninthis time?

LASEK:In something like 2016, 2017, we parted ways with our label, Jagjaguwar, who we’d been with for a long time. We started making an album. But we decided to take a long look at ever thing and that was our m “Well, we’ve had a not young any mor young people [laug Maybe we said ever say, and why would record on top of the records that come o We sat around for a other things. And t that, after going thr older hard drives, w a whole bunch of st been finished. We w know what, let’s ju this stuff and finish have a deadline. Th no timelines for it to finished. Who care we ever finish it? Le just do this – becau it’s therapeutic for us, and we love doing it.” So we set up a space in our house that we converted into a tiny studio. We didn’t have to leave the house to workshop ideas, and soon some new ideas started coming out and we started making more songs. I decided that it would be really cool for us to do like a full-on concept album, something that

The Besnard Lakes: in the thick of things

we had always sort of stepped into – but maybe not quite closed the door, put the bookends on it, you know? This like, you know, Dark Side Of The Moon-style album that people could listen to from front to back, and it’d be sort of continuous. From 2017 onwards, we were throwing songs away, starting new ideas, putting things together, going back into the hard drive. We wanted it to flow right – be an uncompromising concept album, the way that we wanted it to be.

Wasthereasongthatunlocked thealbum foryou? hings ubs, n and wing azy had to ut it derful don’t album, is fun.’ ating hing w and fferent hat s was two , you’re

ath education, just as we have sex education” OLGAGOREAS

GOREAS: It’s an ‘exploring the depths’ kind of album. Jace’s father had passed away, while we were recording it. And also, a lot of musical figures we admired – Prince, Mark Hollis. Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO was kind of my death album – it was written after my dad had died, but that was more of a nostalgia thing, a memories thing. Whereas this is looking at death like the most psychedelic experience you could go through. I think maybe we should have death education, the same way we have sex education, you know? LASEK:Absolutely. It’s about contemplating the existentialism of death – it’s something that we all sort of have to address at some point, but most of our lives, we just avoid it, you know? You know, Prince dies, and then my dad dies – it’s these two totally bizarre, disparate things. Obviously my dad dying really affected me, but Prince dying really affected me too. It’s so funny, the way that institutions treat death. My dad was on morphine when he was dying, and he was in a psychedelic trance. He was telling me that he was seeing windows on his blankets, and he would look through and he could see carpenters, like building things. He’d tell me where he had been for the last hour, and he was right out of it. I guess we have decided that that’s the way people are going to pass away. We have decided to give them this psychedelic experience – to prepare them for the ultimate psychedelic experience. I find that fascinating, and I guess that’s what the record is about, really. What’s on the other side? Is it just lights out, or is there some kind of refresh? These are the classic existential questions.

Anddidyougetananswer tothosequestions?

LASEK:The realisation that the act of dying is a psychedelic experience really gave me peace with it. I’ve experimented with psychedelics, I still do from time to time. I guess that maybe the comfort comes from knowing that I can maybe see the edges of it; what death might be like, when you’re finally there, you know? INTERVIEW:LOUIS PATTISON FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •21

Robbie Chater, left, and Tony Di Blasi

THE AVALANCHES We Will Always Love You UNIVERSAL

8/10 Adventuresome third bursting with energy and wonder. By Erin Osmon

GRANT SPANIER

I

F, after suffering hardship, you’ve become particularly attuned to the everyday miracles of earth and sky, awed by the wonder of existence, then you’re already intimate with the hopeful air of We Will Always Love You. Drenched in mechanised shimmer and kinetic beats, The Avalanches’ third studio effort is at its core a beatific vision born of life’s darker turns, that neither weaponises nor romanticises pain. Instead, We Will Always Love You recognises the arc of pain as one of humanity’s strongest connective tissues, an acknowledgement that doubles as an exorcism, a non-verbal expression that

22 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

intones, “I feel you, pain, and now I am setting you free.” Fitting neatly at the junction between curiosity and maturity, the record may disappoint those fans with a particular long-simmering and perhaps unfair desire; it is not the anarchic and astonishing Frankenstein’s monster that was 2000’s Since I Left You or, to a lesser extent, 2016’s Wildflower, not an infinitely layered statement with WhoSampled pages that unravel like Kerouac’s On The Road scroll. It is more pop-oriented and far less mysterious. It is the sound of a group who want more from life than the fetishisation of dusty discs. Though it retains the same deconstructionist form that made The Avalanches a household name, it does so through a reliance

on original collaborations with guest vocalists that are then chopped, refracted and stitched with samples of cult records, obscure historical recordings, warbled YouTube clips and alien frequencies. It’s a less intensive template than Since I Left You, one that fulfils a few practical purposes: less time spent digging and chasing sample clearance, and core members Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi’s desire to work in a more standard album-tour cycle, one that doesn’t prompt a 16-year absence between records. In keeping with their liking for concept albums, they’ve crafted a record loosely based on the relationship between ‘science communicators’ Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, and their ‘love note’ on Voyager’s Golden Record. Druyan’s face appears on the cover, and she was originally planned to appear on the album; though it didn’t happen, the record is certainly not short of other contributors. While it’s fair to see names like Perry Farrell and Rivers Cuomo and be suspicious, the beauty of We Will Always Love You lies beneath the elder statesmen on the shiny hype sticker. It is here that Karen O whispers some of the

NEW ALBUMS SLEEVE NOTES 1GhostStory (feat.Orono) 2SongFor BarbaraPayton 3 WeWillAlways LoveYou (feat. Blood Orange) 4TheDivine Chord (feat.MGMT& JohnnyMarr) 5Solitary Ceremonies 6 InterstellarLove (feat.Leon Bridges) 7 GhostStoryPt2 (ft.LeonBridges& Orono) 8 ReflectingLight (feat.Sananda Maitreya &VashtiBunyan) 9 CarrierWaves 10 OhTheSunn! (feat.PerryFarrell)

11WeGoOn (feat.ColaBoyy& MickJones) 12StarSong.IMG 13 UntilDaylight Comes(feat. Tricky) 14WhereverYou Go(feat.Jamiexx, NenehCherry& CLYPSO) 15MusicMakes MeHigh 16 Pink Champagne 17 TakeCareIn YourDreaming (feat.Denzel Curry,Tricky &SampaThe Great) 18 Overcome 19 GoldSky (feat.KurtVile) 20 AlwaysBlack (feat.PinkSiifu) 21DialDFor

A necessary treat amid a turbulent, uncertain climate last and most profound words written by David Berman, over the crackle of static and a light twinkle of piano (“Pink Champagne”). It is here that pop luminary Dev Hynes meets folk luminaries The Roches and soul legend Smokey Robinson in an elegiac symphony built for headphones (“We Will Always Love You”). It is here that Johnny Marr’s guitar again shimmers with a Smiths-era glimmer (“The Divine

Chord”), and a crack modern soul upstart, Cola Boyy, is bolstered by none other than OG sampler Mick Jones (“We Go On”). It is here that a sample of Vashti Bunyan, taken from 1970’s “Glow Worms”, flutters on a wave of psychedelic soul (“Reflecting Light”). Though sonically We Will Always Love You is unlike the group’s first two albums, its spirit of discovery, and subtle championing of the oblique, forgotten and underrepresented, is familiar

The Avalanches: “We were in a really

How relieved are you that it didn’ttake16 years to make this record?

TONY DI BLASI: It’s like being saved fromtheTitanic.

ROBBIE CHATER: We were in a really goodflow.With Wildflower we made this huge digital catalogueof samples and I got lost. With this one wewouldfindarecord, get inspired in the moment and make a songthatday.

How involved were you with thealbum’s lyrical themes?

Produced by: Robbie Chater, Tony Di Blasi and Andrew Szekeres Recorded at: Various studios, mixed at Sunset Sound Studios, Los Angeles Personnel includes: Robbie Chater, Tony Di Blasi, Andrew Szekeres (various

instruments), Devonte Hynes, MGMT, Leon Bridges, Orono, Sananda Maitreya, Perry Farrell, Cola Boyy, Tricky, Neneh Cherry, CALYPSO, Pink Siifu, Denzel Curry, Sampa The Great, Karen O, Cornelius, The Australian Boys Choir, The Yarra Voices Choir, East Coast Inspirational Singers (vocals), Mick Jones (piano, vocals), Johnny Marr (guitar), John Carroll Kirby (piano, Moog), Kelly Moran (prepared piano)

territory. The album is neither stuck in the past nor barrelling recklessly towards the future, and, in this sense, it’s a lavish genre-agnostic mixtape. On paper it lacks focus, but in practice it is representative of the aural quilts crafted by modern, omnivorous listeners. Anti-pop sentiment has largely fallen out of vogue among serious music heads, and The Avalanches have long advocated for such progress. Through its adventuresome twists and well-considered combinations, this record acts as a necessary treat amid a turbulent and uncertain climate; it embraces the promise of love, the wonder of outer realms and the connective quality of music across genres and understanding. A reminder of the energy of bodies at one with a beat, and the soothing quality of a quiet hour alone with one’s thoughts, it’s a hopeful guide to a world where everyone is welcome.

Q&A

good flow”

Did it come together pretty quickly?

Devotion (feat. Karen O) 22 Running Red Lights (feat. Rivers Cuomo & Pink Siifu) 23 Born To Lose 24 Music Is The Light (feat. Cornelius & Kelly Moran) 25 Weightless

DIBLASI:Robbiecreatedathematicoverviewoftherecord thatconveyedwhatweweretryingtoachieve.Wesentit toeveryvocalistsotheyknewwherewewantedthemto comefrom.

TheDavidBermaninclusionisprettytouching.

CHATER:HeandIwrotealotduringthemakingof Wildflowerforthesong“SaturdayNightInsideOut”. DuringpartofthattimeIwaslostinaddictionandhewas thereformewithhumourandloveandsupport.When westartedmakingthisrecordheandIemailedalot.We wereexploringthisthemeoflight.Lyricshewroteforthe beautifulPurpleMountainsrecordfitthatthemesohegave uspermissiontousethem.Hedidgettoheartheresult beforehepassed. INTERVIEW:ERINOSMON

AtoZ This month… P24 P28 P29 P30 P32 P34 P36 P37

BARRY GIBB GOAT GIRL KEVIN GODLEY BUCK MEEK FARMER DAVE JIM GHEDI AARON FRASER MATTHEW SWEET

ACE OF CUPS

Sing Your Dreams HIGH MOON

7/10

Jackson Browne and Wavy Gravy guestonsecondreturnoffabled SanFranciscoband As a pioneering all-female group who played with Hendrix and the heroes of Haight-Asbury but didn’t record an album until their own golden years, Ace Of Cups are a Cameron Crowe movie waiting to happen. With their second album after 2018’s very belated self-titled debut, they’ve also become an ongoing concern. The bluesy, patchouli-scented boogie of “Jai Ma” and “Little White Lies” is amiable enough, but Sing Your Dreams benefits most from the quicker pace and harder crunch in the rallying cry “Put A Woman In Charge” and “Boy, What You’ll Do Then”, a punchy garage rocker that guitarist Denise Kaufman initially cut as a pre-Ace of Cups single in 1966 and has been coveted by cratediggers ever since. JASONANDERSON

TAMAR APHEK AllBetsAreOff KILLROCKSTARS

8/10

Israelisingerandguitarist’sBad Seeds-inspiredgothicfunkrock After fronting several Tel Aviv bands, Tamar Aphek decamped to the New York studio of the garage-funk label Daptone Records to record this powerful solo debut. She sings in a Nico-ish contralto, plays wayward psychedelic guitar solos, and writes simple songs that are transformed by the remarkable interplay she has with her band, particularly drummer Yuval Garin. On the two-chord waltz “Too Much Information”, Garin sounds like Buddy Rich stumbling into a garage-rock session; “Nothing Can Surprise Me” sees him playing an Afro-Latin barrage; while “Crossbow” is a terrific piece of motorik funk powered by a pulsating one-note bassline from Uri Kutner. JOHN LEWIS

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 23

NEW ALBUMS Yet for all the familiarity of hits, the pearl in the oyster is a number that’s relatively unknown. Gibb first recorded “Words Of A Fool” in 1986 for a solo album he shelved due to group commitments. Trading verses with Jason Isbell, Gibb infuses its lyric of heartache and regret with formidable grandeur, an extraordinary hybrid of soulful introspection and country classicism. That it should have lain dormant for so long is puzzling, at a time in the ’80s and ’90s when elder statesmen like George Jones were crying out for material with bite. Mention of Isbell brings us to a key factor in the power of Greenfields. Producer Dave Cobb’s impressive CV Barry Gibb: in tune with features, in addition to Isbell, high-water his legacy mark releases by Sturgill Simpson, Waylon Jennings, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Brandi Carlile (herself a contributor to Greenfields) and Chris Isaak, and in his capable hands the album finds space to breathe and grow. Whereas the Bee Gees’ own version of CAPITOL “Too Much Heaven” suffered from an overblown sonic template, here he strips it to the core before sparingly adding Surviving sibling sets the controls for the soul of country. flourishes that complement rather than overwhelm the intimacy of the voiced By Terry Staunton pairing of Gibb and Alison Krauss. He IT wasn’t until 25 years pulls off a similar trick on “Run To Me”, Case in point is the slightly slowedafter its release, and building from a near-whispered Carlile down tempo of “Jive Talkin’”, on which subsequent worldwide intro to the life-affirming crescendo of the Miranda Lambert’s slinky drawl sales in excess of five chorus, goosebumps-inducing harmonies resonates with the Gothic sass of Bobbie million, that the writers in full effect. It’s a savvy exercise in Gentry over alooseMuscleShoals groove. of “Islands In The identifying the emotive foundations of It’s there again in the gospel-flavoured Stream” revealed that country while fearlessly seeking out its yearning of Sheryl Crow on “How Can the song was originally written with Marvin hitherto untapped possibilities. You Mend A Broken Heart”, and the Gaye in mind. Kenny Rogers and Dolly Gibb’s last solo set, 2016’s In The Now, homespun delicacy Gillian Welch and Parton ultimately gave the Gibb brothers’ came four years after Robin’s death, David Rawlings bring to “Butterfly”. their biggest country-related success, but and was, in its maker’s own words, For millions of devotees these songs the track’s origins are evidence of the form’s stylistically geared towards the classic may already be written in stone, but for parallels with soul. Brill Building pop of Carole King or Neil Gibb himself the task was to honour the There’s further, irrefutable proof of that Sedaka, its songs written in tandem memory of his late brothers Robin and in the selections from the Bee Gees’ back with his sons Stephen and Ashley. It Maurice without reverting to carbon catalogue that are now gracing Barry Gibb’s may have been a conscious effort to copies. It works like a charm in almost elegant duets project. Though fashioned in draw a line under his Bee Gees past, every instance; surrendering his own Nashville with the assistance of some the but the huge outpouring of love that lead part in “I’ve Gotta Get A Message city’s finest musicians and a sprinkling of greeted his appearance in Glastonbury’s To You” to Keith Urban results in a thing the genre’s most bankable marquee names, Sunday afternoon “legends” slot the of beauty that pitches its testifying tent its contents are more widely evocative of the following summer would have served to somewhere between Glen Campbell and personality of the South. remind him that there is still substantial Otis Redding. mileage in his previous achievements. The subtitle of Greenfields Producer Dave Cobb on ThelikesofDollyPartonor Itwasaveryemotional experience reiterates that it’s an working with legends OliviaNewton-Johnare forBarrytorevisitsongs he’d album celebrating those presumablyoldfriends,but sungwithRobinandMaurice achievements, which HowwouldyourateBarry’s howdidacomparatively thousandsoftimes,but I think simultaneously illustrates countrycredentials? newernamelikeJasonIsbell havingafamiliarfacelike Dolly’s their relevance in the 21st They’vealwaysbeenthere,in crosshisradar? firstthroughthedoorreassured century, the “Vol 1” coda I’veworkedwithJasonalot,andI therootsofthoseearlyBeeGees himandbroughtfocus. I was the teasing more to come wouldhavesuggestedhimforthe records.Theenvironmentwhere nervousone.Watching the easy projectifBarryhadn’tbeatenme theygrewupinAustraliaissimilar interactionoftwolegends at such – “I don’t think Barry’s toit.HissonStephen’sabigfanand towhereIgrewupinthesouth, closequartersissomething I’ll finished with this project introducedhisdadtohisrecords.It andIheardthatintheirveryfirst neverforget. yet,” suggests Cobb. INTERVIEW:TERRYSTAUNTON thrillsmethatJasongottoperform album.Also,theblendoftheir It’s a very fine thing whatisclearlytheleastvoiceshasthatbrotherlyelement; when a writer and knownofthesongsandnotso youcantelltheydrewinspiration craftsman of Gibb’s weigheddownbyhistory. fromtheEverlysandtheLouvins. standing embraces his Butwewantedtomaketherecord own legacy and finds Didyougetthesense soulfulaswell,andIespeciallylike such persuasive ways thealbumwasalabour theMuscleShoalsvibewegoton oflove? “JiveTalkin’”. of embellishing it.

BARRY GIBB

Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol 1 8/10

DESIREEPRIETO

Q&A

24 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

SLEEVE NOTES 1I’veGottaGetA MessageToYou (feat Keith Urban) 2 Words Of A Fool (feat Jason Isbell) 3 Run To Me (feat Brandi Carlile) 4 Too Much Heaven (feat Alison Krauss) 5 Lonely Days (feat Little Big Town) 6 Words (feat Dolly Parton) 7 Jive Talkin’ (feat Jay Buchanan & Miranda Lambert) 8 How Deep Is Your Love (feat Little Big Town & Tommy Emmanuel) 9 How Can You Mend A Broken Heart (feat Sheryl Crow) 10 To Love Somebody (feat Jay Buchanan) 11 Rest Your Love On Me (feat Olivia Newton-John) 12 Butterfly (feat David Rawlings & Gillian Welch) Produced by: Dave Cobb Recorded at: RCA Studio A, Nashville, Tennessee Personnel: Barry Gibb (vocals, guitars), Jason Isbell, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings (vocals, guitars), Keith Urban, Brandi Carlile, Alison Krauss, Little Big Town, Dolly Parton, Miranda Lambert, Jay Buchanan, Sheryl Crow, Olivia Newton-John (vocals), Dave Cobb (guitars, Mellotron), Tommy Emmanuel, Tim Hanseroth, Elizabeth Lamb, Leroy Powell (guitars), Paul Franklin, Robby Turner (pedal steel), Brian Allen, Phil Hanseroth (bass), Phillip Towns (keyboards), Danny Goodstein, Chris Powell (drums), Jimmy Bowland, Samuel Levine (saxophone), Michael Haynes, Steve Patrick (trumpet), Roy Agee (trombone), Stephen Lamb (orchestrations)

NEW ALBUMS Samā’ī

SDBANULTRA

7/10

Transcontinentalpsychexpress pullsoutofBrussels Seemingly extinguished by a cold Marxist dictatorship, Ethiojazz’s alluring shimmer has had a global afterlife. These Belgian acolytes add a further crash Istanbul apprenticeship in Anatolian psych to a borderless, restless yet focused sound. Organ and husky flute warily dance in the airy outernational ’60s pop of “Fat Ari”, while rasping Fender Rhodes blasts dub lasers across the epic “Kadiköy”, like a late transmission between Bitches Brew and Lee “Scratch” Perry. Azmari are a steamy big band, as capable of intimate, floating interludes as polyrhythmic bustle, and with a sultry atmosphere honouring their heroes. NICK HASTED

BEAUTIFY JUNKYARDS Cosmorama GHOSTBOX 8/10

VaricolouredpopfromLisbonbasedgangofpsych-folkdevotees Portugal’s Beautify Junkyards have been pigeonholed, partly accurately, as a group in thrall to English folk song and Brazilian tropicália. Both of those influences are still present on Cosmorama, their fourth album, but there’s much more going on here, including a sidereal psychedelia that’s evident in the dialled-in incidental noises – submerged loops of found voices, breathy flutes deserted in echo chambers, clacking rhythm boxes. A song like “Cosmorama”, with its ornate folksiness, glistening with steel strings, is as lush as the sextet’s ever been; the glitchy electronics that introduce “Reverie” immediately transport the song to other zones. JONDALE

BELLE & SEBASTIAN

WhatToLookForInSummer MATADOR

7/10

Doublelivecollectionassumes itsownidentity That B&S are old live-recording hands might surprise those who’ve pegged them as born-in-abedroom recluses coaxed out against their better judgement. This 23-track set is their third live release (fourth, if you count their BBC Sessions), though it draws on recordings from multiple 2019 shows, including the Boaty Weekender. The band’s pleasure in playing and connecting with fans shines throughout, with onstage chat sometimes underlining the dark humour of their lyrics, as in the intro

REVELATIONS

to “Seeing Other People”. And while the strings-aided “If You’re Feeling Sinister” gallops with in-the-moment, energised grace, an inevitably beefier sound benefits many songs, especially the Pulp-ish and poignant “Funny Little Frog”.

SHARON O’CONNELL

BICEP

Isles NINJA TUNE

7/10

BelfastDJduoflextheirneo-rave musclesonsolidsecondalbum Belfast-born, Londonbased DJ duo Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson cracked the UK Top 20 with their self-titled 2017 debut. This handsome sequel stays mostly within their comfort zone of melodic, propulsive dance-pop tailored both to clubs and home listening, an impressive balancing act even if the formula sometimes feels overpolished. Anthemic ’90s superclub dynamics loom large – indeed, the galloping breakbeat euphoria and soaring vocals of “Atlas” and “Sundial” recall vintage Orbital. But oddball outliers like the psychedelic synth-drenched UK garage hybrid “Saku” or the glitchy, melancholy trance-house throbber “Hawk” suggest Bicep are more interesting when they detour from big-room crowd-pleasers. STEPHEN DALTON

GUY BLAKESLEE

Postcards From The Edge ENTRANCE

8/10

Oftengorgeouspsychfrom Entrancesongwriter Blakeslee usually releases records as The Entrance Band or ENTRANCE but chooses to put his most “experimental and confounding records” under his own name. Postcards From The Edge features seven tracks of questioning, tremulous, occasionally beautiful gospel-psych. Blakeslee excels at the sort of musical melodrama that you might get with somebody like Kurt Vile, Jim James or Father John Misty but comes from a more selfconsciously underground space, as heard on the quasi-experimental “Blue Butterfly” and “Giving Up The Ghost”. Straighter tracks like “Faces”, “Hungry Heart” and “What Love Can Do” thrive in this atmosphere, and it makes for a satisfying, immersive experience. PETER WATTS

The Body

BEAUTIFY JUNKYARDS

João Branco breaks down his group’s eclectic influences E have the band as a channel to express our creativity,” João Branco says of Beautify Junkyards, the Portuguese six-piece he co-leads. “That marvellous thing that is to build music together, each part being complemented to create our own musical language.” We’re talking revelations, musical and other: Beautify Junkyards draw on a refreshingly broad range of art to build their enchanted world. Talking about the influences that fed into their new album, Cosmorama, Branco continues, “We got inspiration from visionary artists like Austin Osman Spare and Vali Myers, not only because of their work but also because of their magical techniques, like automatic drawing. Movies

“W

are also part of our musical DNA: as examples, we can cite our love for Czech new wave surrealism – movies like Valerie & Her Week Of Wonders or Daisies – and Derek Jarman’s work, poetic and oneiric cinema.” Indeed, Cosmorama is a particularly mystic listening experience, full of shadows and light, exploring esoteric and acroamatic knowledge. No wonder the album’s perfectly named: according to Branco, it was “inspired by a Victorian London entertainment venue where people would go to see amplified images of exotic places. On our Cosmorama, some of the images are portals to other times and places; others are mirrors for selfdiscovery.”JON DALE

THE BODY

THE BUG FT DIS FIG

THRILLJOCKEY

7/10

I’veSeenAllINeedToSee 7/10

Experimentalmetalduoget distortedonalbumeight While listening to opening track “A Lament” you’d be forgiven for thinking your speakers were cutting out, such is the intense prickly static spewing forth, drum beats that sound like a sheet metal factory crashing intensely. This textural overdrive of doom-laden ambient sludge metal continues to loosen fillings via tracks like “Tied Up And Locked In”, which buries guttural screams beneath blasts of hissing distortion. This is pulverising, cacophonic stuff but it’s also considered and atmospheric. The Body understand the magnitude of power in letting the beast sleep before rattling its cage once more. DANIELDYLANWRAY

InBlue HYPERDUB

Dancehalldestroyertakesaleap intotheambientabyss Kevin Martin has dedicated his musical career to the pursuit of extremity, pushing sound systems to the limit in outfits like The Bug and Techno Animal. More recently, though, he’s found a rich seam in rather more ambient textures. In Blue, made in collaboration with Berlin vocalist/producer Felicia Chen, is a woozy, narcotised take on The Bug’s familiar dancehall mutations, in places closer to his work as King Midas Sound. “Blood” and “Blue To Black” wrap thunking bashment rhythms in a snowstorm of effects, with Chen a reproachful phantom at the centre. Martin calls this style “tunnel sound”. Certainly a claustrophobic listen, and not for the faint-hearted. LOUIS PATTISON FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 25

LOISGRAY,SAMGEHRKE

AZMARI

NEW ALBUMS

AMERICANA Rehab-spurred mountain music

LANGHORNE SLIM Strawberry Mansions DUALTONE MUSIC

US songwriter takes a deeply personal journey on vigorous seventh rattling piano. Slim’s voice is geared to match, sounding like a sinewy descendant of Clarence Ashley or Roscoe Holcomb on the brisk folkcountry of “Blood On Yer Lips” or “Dreams”. At times he’s reminiscent of turn-of-the-’70s Cat Stevens too, albeit one steeped in mountain music. Slim, whose real name is Sean Scolnick (‘Langhorne’ is taken from the Pennsylvanian borough he was born in), seems entirely at homes in these settings, aided by long-time collaborators Mat Davidson and Paul DeFiglia. An electric guitar makes an appearance on “Panic Attack”, written in the midst of an actual one, the sense of agitation palpable. “Morning Prayer” is self-explanatory too, Slim seeking deliverance not only for himself, but for friends, family and a world on its knees. “I offer myself to thee”, he sings in an intense shudder, “From this bondage set me free”. A resolution of sorts arrives with the lovely “Something Higher”, in which he begins to emerge from the other side of a bruising ordeal, infinitely wiser, it’s hoped. ROB HUGHES

HARVEYROBINSON,CHADWADSWORTH

AMERICANA ROUND-UP A couple of essential new albums are due in the early part of 2021. Israel Nash will release Topaz LOOSE , the follow-up to 2018’s much-admired Lifted, in February or March. “I’ve been recording and writing more music than ever over the past year,” the Texan-based songwriter tells Uncut. “After Lifted, I wanted to make something that was a little dirtier and shakier, where less is more. So there’s a lot of openness to Israel Nash the record and the whole thing is a really moody experience. There’s just a lot of emotion in the parts, things captured live, first takes. The songs are like a real-time journal of the last couple of years for me. It covers some 26 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Good Guess

RUINATION/WHATEVER’S CLEVER

8/10

OfficeCulturefrontmanemploys acollaborativeapproach With folkish, piano-led songs given a fluid, intuitive jazz twist by upright bassist Carmen Rothwell and guitarist Ryan Beckley, Cook-Wilson’s second album of originals recalls a muted Gastr Del Sol, especially since his voice has a similar timbre to David Grubbs’. Good Guess, however, is more personal than intellectual, with “Cakewalk”’s piquant melancholy redolent of Mark Hollis’s solo album and “No Regrets” echoing fellow New Yorker Gabriel Kahane’s Book Of Travelers. The elegantly poised title track catches fire in slow motion, too, plus he’s always eloquent: “The future I see now”, “Safety” warns, “it oozes like an oil spill”. WYNDHAM WALLACE

PEARL CHARLES Magic Mirror KANINE

8/10

IT wasn’t so long ago that Langhorne Slim feared he might be a spent force. His creativity numbed by prescription drug abuse and anxiety disorder, the East Nashville-based artist had a severe case of writer’s block. He decided to undertake rehab in late 2019, beginning a recovery process that would also coincide with parts of his neighbourhood being ravaged by a tornado and, of course, the advent of Covid. Something about the situation loosened his creativity. Songs started to rain quickly, until they became a stream-of-consciousness downpour. This personal catharsis forms the basis of Strawberry Mansion. Named after the area in Philadelphia where both his grandfathers were raised, it’s an album about the need to connect, not just with his muse but to anyone who may have had a similar experience. These songs feel as if they were written on the fly (which most of them were), their sense of immediacy reflected in the use of skittery acoustic guitar, banjo and

WINSTON CW

quite heavy things.” Also due in the spring, on the SUBMARINE CAT label, is a new album from John Murry. The as-yet-untitled work was recorded at Rockfield Studios with PJ Harvey’s long-time collaborator John Parish. “His ability as a producer is truly wizard-like,” Murry marvels. “Everything fell into place. Not perfectly, but in the most perfectly suited manner. Working with John, creating this album, it’s changed me. I know I’m headed where I’m meant to be, but have no clue where the road I am now goes, but I’m excited to take it simply because it’s been shown to me and is now alive again.” ROBHUGHES

7/10

Modern-dayreflectionsondisco euphoriaandCanyoncontemplation Seasoned Los Angeles songwriter Pearl Charles seems to be sliding through the ’60s and ’70s at warp speed. Her debut album, 2018’s Sleepless Dreamer, was full of beefed-up Laurel Canyon melodies and cosmic pedal steel, while its follow-up kicks off with the ritzy “Only For Tonight”, a shimmering discoball anthem worthy of peak Abba. Magic Mirror’s title track, meanwhile, seems as if it’s been lifted directly off the mixing desk at the Troubadour at some point in 1972, coming over like a lost Carly Simon ballad complete with whispers of Judee Sill’s unfiltered emotion. LEONIE COOPER

CHUBBY AND THE GANG Speed Kills PARTISAN

8/10

Spiritof’76keptflyingwiththese Londonpunks This London five-piece’s debut LP was originally issued in January 2020 on Static Shock Records but now gets a wider release – with additional track – via new label Partisan. The Damned and Motörhead are obvious touchstones, but there’s also a touch of Black Flag, Crass, Billy Bragg and The Libertines in the propulsive offering. Breakneck anthems like “Speed Kills” and “All Along The Uxbridge Road” have an intoxicating rhythm, but subtle ’60s ballad “Trouble” showcases a more tender side, while the trio of “Blue Ain’t My Colour”, “Grenfell Forever” and bonus track “Union Dues” show the band have a significant political side. PETER WATTS

NEW ALBUMS Better Way CITY SLANG 7/10

Efterklangsinger’ssolodebut Casper Clausen is the enigmatic frontman of Danish dream-rockers Efterklang and their more formal offshoot Liima, so this first solo record – an engaging mishmash of krautrock and space ballads – is a chance to experiment and show his lighter side, you’d think. Recorded in Lisbon and mixed by Sonic Boom, Clausen lets Pete Kember lay beds of shimmering electronics for his sinuous vocals – the best tracks, nine-minute opener “Used To Think” and the softer “Little Words”, nod to Spacemen 3’s “Big City” – but quite often, elsewhere, Clausen struggles to locate the tune amid the wandering atmospherics of, say, “Ocean Wave” and “Dark Heart”. PIERS MARTIN

COBALT CHAPEL Orange Synthetic KLOVE

7/10

Yorkshirehistoryandmythmingleon groovypsychconceptLP It’s likely there won’t be another release quite like Orange Synthetic this year, not least because its most powerful hook is its campily psychedelic Pentanglegone-disco sound, followed closely by the fact it’s a concept album about Yorkshire. With Cecilia Fage on cutglass vocals and Jarrod Gosling serving up BBC Radiophonic Workshop-worthy organ, an accidental Hammer Horror soundtrack arrives via the creeping “Our Angel Polygon” – perhaps the only song ever to be written about ballistic missile early warning centre RAF Fylingdales. Later, the title track eerily details 1970’s disastrous Krumlin Festival, which was all but flattened by a menacing storm. LEONIECOOPER

EDCOSENS

FortunesFavour DISTILLER 7/10

SolodebutfromReverend&The Makersguitarist The first solo set from this mainstay of the Sheffield indie scene was reportedly a decade in gestation, but during that time, he’s thankfully resisted the temptation to over-elaborate or overthink his compositions. There’s a Chubby And The Gang

CASPARCLAUSEN “I have a good feeling for 2021…”

“I

set out to confront myself and ended up in a new collaboration,” admits Casper Clausen of his first solo set, Better Way. Usually found fronting Danish chamber-pop darlings Efterklang, with whom he’s released six albums since 2004, Clausen embarked on his own project when he moved to Lisbon to take up a residency in an idyllic studio in the harbour of an old fishing village on the River Tagus. “That gave me a spark and a frame, and I wondered what songs I would create if I didn’t have to filter my thoughts and ideas through the band. Quite simply, I could be the captain of my own ship.”

classicist, string-laden simplicity to the wistful, lovelorn sweep of “Running On Empty”, while the swooning, lovestruck sway of the title track and the cooing backing vocals of “On The Run” are redolent of a more innocent era of pop composition. And while his echo-drenched vocals won’t help him avoid comparisons to Sheffield neighbours Richard Hawley or Alex Turner, he has strong enough tunes to transcend such obvious associations. JOHNNYSHARP

CRAZYARM

DarkHands,Thunderbolts XTRAMILE

6/10

Returningwithrageundiminished Seven years on from the band’s last release, Devon-based Crazy Arm’s curious hybrid of punk-infused attitude and rootsy folk has lost none of its aggression or ability to disarm. Yet, there’s more nuance to these songs, perhaps a determination to confound the parallels to Dropkick Murphys that plagued earlier records. “Montenegro” grabs the listener by the throat, then wrong-foots with its subtle Ennio Morricone undertones, “Epicurean Firestorm” flirts with the widescreen

He ended up channelling a raw, hypnotic groove for most of the record and mixed the album with local legend Pete ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember at his place in Sintra. “I did the best I could without overthinking it,” says Clausen, a longtime Spacemen 3 fan, “and then took it to Peter to let him meet the music and follow his intuition. I love how each song is going in a different direction while completing a bigger journey.” After the “global identity crisis” of 2020, Clausen is plotting more Efterklang activity. “I have a good feeling for 2021, but you know, let’s see. We’re living in strange times.” PIERS MARTIN

THEDIRTYNIL FuckArt DINEALONE 7/10

Canadiantrio’sthirdLPrevelsin inspiredbrattiness Like escapees from Wayne’s World, The Dirty Nil gleefully plunder eras and subgenres for laughs and licks on Fuck Art, lifting from the likes of Motörhead, White Reaper and Weezer. Speed-metal riffage sets the scene for opener “Doom Boy”, writer/singer/guitarist Luke Bentham’s portrayal of a rebel without a clue whose idea of a perfect date is to “hold hands/Listen to Slayer in the back of my Dodge Caravan”. Later, Bentham plots to exact revenge on “The Guy Who Stole My Bike”, while a bored airhead smashes his TV and phone in “One More And The Bill”. The Dirty Nil relive those innocent times when callow rock’n’rollers made noise designed to drive grown-ups batshit. BUDSCOPPA

STEVEEARLE&THEDUKES J.T. NEWWEST 8/10

DANALOGUEX ALABASTER DEPLUME

Movingeulogytofallenoffspring Prior to Covid, Earle had planned to spend the latter half of 2020 touring Ghosts Of West Virginia, the album he and the Dukes released in May. Instead, he found himself back in the studio for this set of songs written and first recorded by his 38-year-old son Justin Townes, who died in August. Despite the sombre circumstances, J.T. is a celebratory affair, the elder man bringing a hymnal ruggedness to “Far Away In Another Town” and a hearty hoedown spirit to “I Don’t Care”. New track “Last Words”, penned by Earle senior, is a fitting and reflective closer, an aching lament recalling his final conversation with the young man he’d always addressed as Cowboy. TERRYSTAUNTON

9/10

FLYINGMOONINSPACE

bombast of Arcade Fire, while there’s a playful wit to the thrashcore growl of “And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Meds”. Tales of alienation wrapped up in a succession of ferocious riffs. TERRYSTAUNTON

IWasNotSleeping TOTALREFRESHMENT Jazzheadscollideforacosmic newcollaboration The Comet Is Coming’s Danalogue and spoken-word artist and saxophonist DePlume connect here for a new, and largely instrumental, collaboration to push their love of psychedelic jazz into heady new realms. Gargling yet gliding electronics coat the opening “The March That Is Unstoppable” over a sparse yet infectious beat, setting the tone for an album that weaves between dub, hip-hop, dystopian electronica and cosmic jazz. “Broken Tooth Skyline” featuring Joshua Idehen is almost Death Grips-like in its grinding and roaring intensity, while the lullaby-esque “Guest” displays the pair’s ability to switch pace and genres with a seamless grace. A stirring debut offering. DANIELDYLANWRAY

FlyingMoonInSpace FUZZCLUB 7/10

Expansivedebutalbumfrom Germanpsychonauts Flying Moon In Space are known for free-form, hours-long improvised sets in their native Leipzig, which primes you for a freakout in the time-honoured krautrock mould. But the septet’s debut album isn’t quite that. Yes, they have an occasional taste for Neu!like motorik beats, evinced by “The Observer”, but Flying Moon boil their improv down into proper songs, while their pointillistic melodies, created by four interlocking guitars, gesture more to the precise math-rock of Foals. The 11-minute “Ardor”, meanwhile, feels like an attempt to replicate the synthetic rush of techno using rockband tools. LOUISPATTISON FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 27

HANNASTURM

REVELATIONS

CASPER CLAUSEN

SLEEVE NOTES 1 Pest 2 Badibaba 3 Jazz (In The Supermarket) 4 Once Again 5 P.T.S.Tea 6 Sad Cowboy 7 The Crack 8 Closing In 9 Anxiety Feels 10 They Bite On You 11 Bang 12 Where Do We Go From Here? 13 A-Men

GOAT GIRL On All Fours 8/10

ROUGH TRADE

HOLLY WHITTAKER

Forward-looking post-punk wizardry from London quartet. By Tom Pinnock THOSE casting a casual glance at Goat Girl’s arrival a few years back might have thought of them as gothic punks, mixing the Bad Seeds and The Libertines on singles like “The Man” and “Cracker Drool”. Exploring the patchwork quilt of their self-titled debut, though – 19 songs in 40 minutes – stranger worlds might have revealed themselves. It all began with a nightmarish minute of queasy synth, piano and drum machine on “Salty Sounds”, and even evoked The Residents on interludes “Dance Of Dirty Leftovers” and “Hank’s Theme”. It was lo-fi, awkward and charming. For their second effort, the quartet – currently consisting of Lottie Pendlebury (aka Clottie Cream), Ellie Rose Davies (LED), Rosy Jones (Rosy Bones) and Holly Mullineaux (Holly Hole) – have emerged from what now seems like their pupal stage into glorious, colourful flight. On All Fours is defiantly hi-fi, yet, as Berlin School synths and saxophones burble under warped guitar riffs, we’re reminded (with help from the likes of Low and Remain In Light) that glossy and crisp doesn’t always mean superficial or safe. Goat Girl are working again with Dan Carey, but their writing process has changed as significantly as his production. Previously, Pendlebury brought in the bones of their songs, but here each member has contributed the kernels of 28 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

tracks, and some, such as “Badibaba” and “Jazz (In The Supermarket)”, were created through group jams in Carey’s second studio, Davies’ mum’s garage or in the wonderfully named Yoghurt Rooms in Sussex. On All Fours’ opener, the subtle, moody “Pest”, is the first example of Goat Girl’s predilection for gorgeously sour chord progressions, and the earliest instance of synth arpeggios, which provide a bedrock through many of these 13 tracks. There’s little of the swampy side of their debut here, with Cramps/Gun Club staggers replaced with tauter, funkier rhythms, reminiscent of ESG on the bass-heavy “Once Again”, LCD Soundsystem on first

Produced by: Dan Carey Recorded at: Carey’s studio, south London Personnel includes: Lottie Pendlebury (vocals, guitar, various instruments), Ellie Rose Davies (guitar, vocals, various instruments), Rosy Jones (drums, vocals, various instruments), Holly Mullineaux (bass, vocals, various instruments)

single “Sad Cowboy”, which dissolves into a beatific Café del Mar coda, and Tame Impala on the psych groove of “Bang”. Pendlebury cites Broadcast and Stereolab as two of her personal inspirations, and those artists’ successful melding of rock and electronics seems to have been an influence on On All Fours. Even more heavily inspirational, perhaps, are Laetitia Sadier’s lyrics, with Goat Girl taking a similarly strident left-wing approach to global and social justice. So “Badibaba” finds them highlighting the hypocrisy of the West, which still benefits from the environmentally damaging industrial revolution, in criticising thirdworld countries for their own industrial development. The grungy “They Bite On You” finds Pendlebury equating the bites of scabies mites with the bloodsucking of capitalist parasites, while “The Crack” takes on, among other things, organised religion: “The people didn’t listen/They were singing worship songs.” Elsewhere, there are more personal songs; on “PTS Tea”, a spiralling, darker cousin of Metronomy’s “Everything Goes My Way”, Rosy Jones tells a true story of being badly burnt by a stranger’s hit-andrun tea spill on a ferry, and expands it into an examination of wider issues about her identity and society’s expectations of it. The duo of “Closing In” and “Anxiety Feels” find Pendlebury investigating depression and attempting to make peace with her feelings – her mention of the ghost that “rushes round in and out” is inspired, she tells Uncut, by Vera, the spectre that haunts hers and Jones’s Lewisham house. Taken as a whole, On All Fours is an impressive balancing act, creating something fresh from the group’s diverse influences, and managing to remain subversive even while it embraces Technicolor production techniques. Most enticing of all, there’s an infectious sense of freedom here; the idea that this democratic collective know they can do almost anything, that ideas can stem from any of them, and that they can take on any subject or style and effortlessly remain themselves. Right on.

Q&A Lottie Pendlebury on politics, possession and ghosts Howdidthewritingprocess workthistime?

Itwasalmostapiecingtogetherof loadsofdifferentideas.Someone wouldbringtheinitialidea,whether thatbeachordprogressionora lyricorsomething,andwe’dtryand expandonthattogether,record whatwe’ddoneandthenbringthose recordingshomewithus,writeour ownbitsontopandbringthemback.It wasacoolwayofworking.

Politicsseemlikeaheavy influenceonthesesongs.

It’s somethingthat’salwaysbeen important to us. We pride ourselves on being leftists, and that’s not just shown through the music, but through the way we live our lives, the things we do outside of the band. That’s obviously going to show itself through the lyrics, and also in the way we are with each – it’s very much a collective, it’s very democratised in how we work together. You have to practise what you preach.

Tell us about Vera… was that line in “Closing

In” inspired by her?

I think it was initially! I was thinking about how anxiety can take different forms, such as a weird ghost that enters your body, this thing possessing you. I guess that’s what anxiety is sometimes. Vera’s been kind of quiet recently, during lockdown she hasn’t really showed herself off. But she’s definitely here. INTERVIEW: TOM PINNOCK

NEW ALBUMS DieDrift BUREAUB 8/10

Tenslicesofpoppy,motorik krautrockfromVienna After two promising EPs, Viennese artist Conny Frischauf’s debut album sees her placing experimental krautrock and minimalist electronica through a pop filter, topped off by her amusingly deadpan German-language vocals. “Rauf” and “Zeit Verdrehen” are both memorable pieces of toytown electronica, using Casiotone drumboxes and warm analogue basslines; “Parapiri” is a nonsense nursery rhyme transformed into stately synth-pop; “Auf Wiedersehn” is a piece of clanking industrial doom metal, like Nico fronting Throbbing Gristle. The bass- and drum-driven post-punk of “Roulette” also suggests that Frischauf’s music would work in a live band context. Compelling and hypnotic stuff. JOHN LEWIS

M GEDDES GENGRAS

TimeMakesNothingHappen HAUSUMOUNTAIN

8/10

Analoguesynthmaestroturns lockdownisolationintosonic liberation A prolific composercollaborator in the overlapping fields of modular synth music, ambient drone and electronic dub, M Geddes Gengras spent much of lockdown bunkered down in his new studio base in upstate New York. Maybe this stir-crazy self-isolation helps explain the joyously kinetic feel of Time Makes Nothing Happen, which rattles along on jittery energy and surreal humour, metallic clang and elastic twang. From the cyberpunk techno-gamelan chatter-blast of “Mimic” to the jumble-sale musique concrete of “Time Is A Marble In A Bucket” and the Squarepusher-style ear-bending acid-squelch of “Funky Pressure”, this is a leftfield party album bursting with personality, wonky charm and random sonic mischief. STEPHEN DALTON

KEVIN GODLEY MuscleMemory THESTATE51CONSPIRACY

8/10

10ccco-founderexercises socialdistancing Despite having boldly invited collaboration from strangers via PledgeMusic in 2016, then filtered 286 submissions, the greatest delay to Kevin Godley’s debut solo album was the crowdfunding platform’s 2019 collapse. Still, his typically witty lyrics remain timely, with “The Bang Bang Theory”

satirising American gun culture and “One Day” musical algorithms, while “Song Of Hate” is cathartically caustic. His voice remains tremulously vulnerable on the languid “The Ghosts Of The Living”, as does his fondness for variety, with “Cut To The Cat” like a grumpy, half-speed Prince and “Expecting A Message” a thundering, So-era Peter Gabriel cut.

WYNDHAM WALLACE

GRANDBROTHERS

All The Unknown CITY SLANG 6/10

Electro-classicalduoexpandtheir sonicrepertoire On their two previous albums, classically trained pianist Erol Sarp and engineerproducer Lukas Vogel hooked up a prepared piano to bespoke computer software, with generally interesting but often anodyne results. Third time around, the German-Swiss duo have broadened their electronic palette and relaxed their self-imposed compositional rules, collaborating remotely for the first time. These changes have helped create some of their most adventurous work yet, from celestial ambient twinklers like “Auberge” to the muscular cinematic throbber “Unrest”. Pleasantly bland electro-acoustic chamber pieces still abound on “All The Unknown”, but at least Sarp and Vogel have begun reaching towards wilder sonic horizons beyond prim conservatory convention. STEPHEN DALTON

KACEY JOHANSING No Better Time NIGHT BLOOM

7/10

LAresidentkeepsthingssimple andsincere Though “I Try”, which teased Kacey Johansing’s fourth album, indicated that, as on 2018’s The Hiding, she was pursuing a Fleetwood Mac soft-rock urbanity, No Better Time is often permeated by a humble, homespun purity. Much of it’s relayed in her understated vocals, with “All Of Me” conjuring Feist’s effortless delicacy and “Fall Backwards” the straightforward sentimentality, given a Californian spin, of The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler. “Let Me Walk Right In”, meanwhile, boasts the nocturnal elegance of early Richard Hawley, but the sedately sophisticated “Not Only One”’s strings and piano suggest Kevin Godley

WE’RE NEW HERE

CONNY FRISCHAUF

Austrian experimentalist talks wordplay and hardware

O

N her debut album, Austrian artist Conny Frischauf sings in German, but one gets the impression that her sinister nursery rhymes wouldn’t make much sense if they were translated into English. Words are chanted until they become reduced to their syllabic components and become meaningless, like sound poetry. “Language is limited,” she says. “I enjoy playing with associations and strands of meaning, dissolving sentences and words, creating ambiguities, mixing up language, questioning it.” Instead of generating music on a computer screen, Frischauf works on “proper” analogue synths and acoustic instruments: you can even hear her playing a free jazz

an affinity with Lambchop post Is A Woman. WYNDHAMWALLACE

STEF KETT

CryAndSing BARMARFIL/ROMACPUNCTUREREPAIRS

8/10

Sologuitar/bassdrumattackfrom northLondon Album and cover are completely in harmony on this album from Stef Ketteringham – a work of intense guitar and intermittent bass drum. In the early 2010s you’d possibly have known Ketteringhamasguitarist withadecent post-hardcore groupcalledShieldYour Eyes. Thesedays, he has turned someof that passion into solo acoustic/electric savagery like “Barbed Thaw” and “Herd Of Deer”, where tumbling Bill Orcutt-style flurries meet emotional, minimal songs. It’s an appealingly physical album – stomping, string bends and clicking switches – but within the noise Kett finds some beautiful chords and a strangely courtly poise. JOHN ROBINSON

trumpet freakout on “Eingaben Und Ausnahmen”. “My way of working is a very haptic and intuitive one, and working with hardware and outboard gear works best for me,” she says. “The dynamics of these devices are always surprising me and I love to experiment with them.” Frischauf, born in 1986, is reluctant to make links to ’70s krautrock or ’80s synth-pop. “The way I work is not necessarily or consciously referential,” she says. “I fight my way through endless corridors of used records and endless open tabs. I also like to listen to radio plays, library music and the news. I can be influenced by conversations, spaces, sounds, politics, words, silence and so much more.”

JOHN LEWIS

KIWI JR

CoolerReturns SUBPOP 7/10

Canadianabsurdists’returnis alyricaldelight Last year’s selfreleased debut, Football Money, established Kiwi Jr as tellers of absurdist short stories, hiding in plain sight behind desk jobs and office wear. The Canadian quartet’s Sub Pop follow-up ups the ante, spinning yarns from urban legends and work-from-home distraction headlines. Jeremy Gaudet’s Jonathan Richman-esque speak-sung tones breathe life into protagonists widescreen-daydreaming their way out of drudgery – through smallbusiness arson (“Maid Marian’s Toast”), for example, conferenceseason affairs (“Omaha”) or dumping the frontman (“Tyler”). Flourishes of organ, piano and harmonica fill out their sound, but those jangly guitars have lost none of their ramshackle charm. LISA-MARIE FERLA

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •29

ZOEKURSAWE

CONNY FRISCHAUF

LIVE SKULL

DangerousVisions BRONSON

7/10

Daniel Knox: majestic

DANIEL KNOX

BOBBY LEE

HPJOHNSONPRESENTS

SELF-RELEASED

8/10

7/10

Won’tYouTakeMeWithYou FabulousfifthfromdrollChicagoan Knox is a masterly narrator, bringing a refreshing directness to his filmic tales of nocturnal wanderings, lonely roads and mysterious figures in parked cars. Driven by piano, synth and his whiskery baritone, these songs often sound like Broadway-style miniatures tilted at strange angles, from the lovelorn protagonist of “Fool In The Heart”, contemplating smashing his car into the kerb, to the conflicted ruminations that motor “I Saw Someone Alone”. His is a majestic voice too, somewhere between Leonard Cohen and John Grant, teasing out life’s intangibles (missing-years fable “No Horizon”; the haunted “Fall Apart”) with real authority. ROBHUGHES

L’EXOTIGHOST

LaOlaOculta EVERLASTING

PATRICK BURKE

7/10

Spanishexoticapuristsrevisit thespace-agebachelorpad ofthe1950s This retrofuturist outfit from Madrid are clearly obsessed with the exotica produced by the likes of Martin Denny and Les Baxter. Bandleader Javier Diez Ena takes centre stage on the Theremin, which sounds like a Hawaiian lap-steel on “Mai Tai Break”, a shakuhachi flute on “Roll Li Ning Roll” and a Japanese kokyu on “Luna Hiena”. The more interesting tracks, however, see Juan Pérez Marina taking lead on surf-rock guitar (“Sunny Garcia”) or Japanese shamisen (“Nissei Hula”). Best of all is “Cha Cha Cha Halloween”, where John Carpenter’s horror movie theme in 5/4 is transformed into a marimba-led heavy metal epic. JOHN LEWIS 30 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

ShakedownInSlabtown Destination:ambientAmerica. Sheffieldguitariststrikesout Bobby Lee is a man out of time and place. Located in Sheffield but spiritually from a dusty landscape broken only by an arrow-straight road, the guitarist is embarked on a journey that currently finds him between Americana and post-rock. One suspects the languid pace of a group like Brightblack Morning Light is much in mind here, and the likes of “Listings” also see him travelling comfortably in the wake of Ripley Johnson and Wooden Shjips. It’s a soothing trip, and the further Bobby and his band unmoor themselves from songs and head towards long-form abstraction, the more engrossing it all gradually becomes. JOHN ROBINSON

LICE

Wasteland:WhatAilsOur PeopleIsClear SETTLEDLAW 8/10

Brightonoutfitmergepost-punk withconceptualsatireondebut A “satire about satire” is how Lice describe Wasteland. With lyrics taken from a piece of experimental short fiction written over two years and turned into a concept album, it’s a deeply ambitious debut offering. Musically, it ducks and weaves like the shape-shifters that populate its world. “RDC” is both rhythmic and disjointed, as spiralling guitars clash and collide before erupting in post-punk fury, while “Imposter” ends in a groove-locked, almost math-rock-like wig out. There’s a Royal Trux-esque chaos to the album, always teetering close to the edge, that creates a nerve-recking feeling of unpredictability. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY

Newtunesand’80ssessionsfrom dissonantNewYorkrockers Contemporaries of Swans, Lydia Lunch et al on New York’s fearsome early-’80s no-wave scene, Live Skull did not quite attain the notoriety of their peers, although it was not for want of trying. Theirsecondalbumsincetheyreformed in 2016, Dangerous Visions is a curious half-and-half.SideOne collectsraucous new material, including the Crazy Horse-tinged “In A Perfect World”. Side Two, meanwhile, rests on an exhumed Peel session from 1989. Featuring the band’s then-singer Thalia Zedek, it’s a dark and smouldering set that suggests Live Skull were shouldabeens. They split up the following year. LOUIS PATTISON

LUCERO

WhenYouFoundMe LIBERTYANDLAMENT/THIRTYTIGERS

7/10

Roots-rockingMemphisbandcrank uptheguitars Like most things worth waiting for, Lucero have only improved with age, peaking with 2018’s Among The Ghosts, the artistic culmination of two decades of hard graft. This follow-up is mightily impressive too, the band ramping up their sound into something approaching classic rock, getting gnarly on “Good As Gone” and delivering a postmodern murder ballad in the shape of the Drive-By Truckers-ish “Outrun The Moon”. Singer-guitarist Ben Nichols offers reflections on family, fatherhood and responsibility, at his best on the sensitive “Coffin Nails” and the title track, the latter a very personal hymn to salvation. ROBHUGHES

ROB MAZUREK EXPLODING STAR ORCHESTRA

DimensionalStardust INTERNATIONALANTHEM/NONESUCH

7/10

Lush,looselypsychedelicensemble jazz,prismaticandhypnotic The ever-mutating Exploding Star Orchestra is now jazz stalwart Rob Mazurek’s core project, after decades wrestling his music into new, unpredictable shapes with groups like Isotope 217, Chicago Underground and São Paulo Underground. The 14-player lineup might have you thinking of the Sun Ra Arkestra, but Dimensional Stardust’s gorgeous miniatures take in Reichian minimalism, Rota-esque drama and some writing that recalls

Carla Bley and Michael Mantler. It’s a rich ensemble sound, full and complex, but not overly dense – Mazurek’s compositions allow players of the calibre of Nicole Mitchell, Jaimie Branch and Jeff Parker plenty of room to breathe. JON DALE

BUCK MEEK Two Saviors KEELED SCALES

8/10

TheTexas-bornsongwriteroffers apreternaturalcountrytome The Big Thief guitarist’s second solo effort hovers in a liminal plane between soil and sky, too earthen to be supernatural but too dreamy for the realm of mere mortals. Featherlike, Two Saviors floats between tender scenes of bygone love and ruminations on everyday subjects – the night sky, a candle, a ham sandwich on white bread – whose outsized emotional weight is revealed through subtle and often clever turns of phrase. It’s a fine country record refracted through a DIY folk-rock lens, a preternatural tome made more profound by its breaks and imperfections, in which breath and breeze and spirit are also instruments. ERIN OSMON

MIDNIGHT SISTER Painting The Roses JAGJAGUWAR

8/10

Twosomereturnwithsecondalbum ofquintessentialLAquirk The 2017 debut by the Los Angeles duo of Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian, Saturn Over Sunset, was an overlooked art-pop gem and this follow-up deserves love, too. Her voice often smeared with effects, Giraffe applies a drowsy charm to a wide variety of characters on songs that tap into the traditions of Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks, their city’s foremost purveyors of the kind of cock-eyed baroque pop and crackedup Tin Pan Alley found in abundance here. Painting The Roses’ other leftfield virtues include the Chelsea Girls-style winsomeness of “Wednesday Baby” and the ramshackle Roxy-disco of “Limousine”, both of which posit Midnight Sister as less frenetic but no less inventive West Coast kin to Fiery Furnaces. JASON ANDERSON Juliana Giraffe of Midnight Sister

California dreamer: Farmer Dave Scher

FARMER DAVE & THE WIZARDS OF THE WEST

Farmer Dave & The Wizards Of The West 8/10

BIG POTATO

Veteran sideman takes a rare turn at the mic. By Stephen Deusner YOU could get a contact high off “Cave Walls”, the first proper song on the self-titled debut by Farmer Dave & The Wizards Of The West. It opens in a cloud of rumbling guitars, hallucinatory synths and drums mixed to sound thick and gummy. The band flirt with the beat, coming down on either side of it, creating a sense of subtle weightlessness, as though they’re all hovering an inch or two off the ground. “May I be your forever freak”, Farmer Dave sings, projecting a sleepy-stoned charisma as he rambles about kid-sister empresses and sneaks in an Easter-egg shout-out to Led Zeppelin. That’s not a guitar solo, but two players trying to untangle their strings before the song ends in a galaxy of distortion. It’s a fitting introduction to this oddball group, whose buzzed vibe conceals some truly sharp chops and deep smarts. Farmer Dave Scher has spent most of his career on the side of the stage, his guitars (electric, lap steel, pedal steel) set up well out of the way of whoever he’s supporting. A member of All Night Radio and Beachwood Sparks – two turn-ofthe-millennium LA bands that found new ways to play old California music – he revealed his frontman ambitions with his genial 2009 solo debut, Flash Forward To The Good Times, then spent the 2010s touring and recording with Jenny Lewis, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Cass McCombs and Chris Robinson, among others. At some point he even found the time to make good on his nickname by moving to a 32 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

SLEEVE NOTES 1 Exegesis 2 Cave Walls 3 Right Vibration 4 Ocean Eyes 5 Stand & Deliver 6 Mutant Pill 7 Babe Got Plans (For Me) 8 Bohannon 9 Wipe Out Recorded at: Studio Four West, Los Angeles Produced by: Andy Kravitz, Farmer Dave & The Wizards Of The West Personnel: Farmer Dave Scher (keyboards, lap steel, melodica, vocals), Ben Knight (guitar, vocals), Brian Bartus (bass, vocals), Jud Birza (drums)

working farm outside Ojai and studying sacred plant medicine in the Amazon. Both the Wizards Of The West and their self-titled debut grew out of a recent summer residency at Club Pacific in Venice Beach, where they worked up a solid set of songs before workshopping them on small stages up and down the Golden State. Fortunately, they never got the songs too perfect, and the record has the excitement and spontaneity of a live album, albeit without crowd noise or stage banter. The road-hardened quartet bounce off each other with a chummy jocularity, improvising their way towards some form of enlightenment. It’s a modest, affable, occasionally goofy affair, and therein lie its charms. The music is, of course, steeped in California rock: the cosmic crunch of the Grateful Dead, the spacey twang of The International Submarine Band, the psychedelic spirituality of Ya Ho Wha

Farmer Dave:

“California’s my beating heart!” What does it mean for you to step out of the sideman role into a frontman role?

Energetically, it is a big shift. I’ve always loved being in groups, and don’t need to be the centre of attention. But then, when I find I have a bunch of tunes of my own playing in my head, it’s time to do something about that. The main thing for me is to follow

13. But their touchstones are so specific, so left-of-centre, that nothing sounds derivative; the Wizards play in present tense, never past. In fact, California – its landscape, its history, its culture and counterculture – becomes the overarching subject of the album. “Ocean Eyes” sounds like a bittersweet love song to the state, as Scher tenderly trips on the romance of the place and turns in some of his loosey-goosiest vocals. “My, how the canyon glo-o-o-ows”, he sings, supplying his own echo. “We’ll always have Big Sur, baby”, he declares and somehow that farewell sounds heartfelt rather than corny. Instead of apeing their heroes, the Wizards build on those foundations and put their own spin on West Coast sounds. They experiment with space blues on “Mutant Pill” and campfire singalongs on “Stand & Deliver”. On “Bohannon” they eulogise the late Detroit dance auteur Hamilton Bohannon, best known for the 1976 club hit “Let’s Start The Dance”. He’s an unlikely hero, especially since he refused to follow Motown out to California, but the Wizards sound sincere when they chant “Bohannon forever” over a slow-motion disco beat and what sounds like a very long bong hit. It’s a showcase for drummer Jud Birza, whose subtly complex beats rein in the guitars and allow the band to move fleetly. He drives their closing cover of “Wipe Out”, the 1963 hit by The Surfaris. Birza pushes the song along at a gnarly pace, as though he’s trying to jostle the other band members off their boards. They add zombie vocals and toppling waves of organ, and change the key to make it sound like a modded-out version of the Twilight Zone theme, finally bringing it to an end with a noisy crash. An unlikely climax to an unpredictable and ingenious album, “Wipe Out” might sound like an afterthought, but the band are obviously having a blast reimagining the familiar surf-rock tune, especially in such close proximity to disco, canyon folk and psych rock. They thrive on such far-flung musical juxtapositions and make their excitement contagious. As the forever freak sings on “Stand & Deliver”, “All the Earth is a-where I run”.

Q&A the most exciting mystery that presents itself.

Why did you cover The Surfaris’ “Wipe Out”?

Our drummer, Jud Birza, had been requesting we cover “Wipe Out”. I didn’t resonate with it at first, but he was persistent. One day I thought how fun would it be to play “Wipe Out” but to Duchamp it out a little. We got a lot of people dancing like crazy with that one.

This is an album inspired

by California, but also about California. What makes it such a rich source of material?

California’s my beating heart! On my father’s side, we had family come to California in the late 1800s, so I’ve been steeped in the culture and actually the counterculture my whole life. There is an amazing quality to living here and the nature is so beautiful. The history and mystery are there to be discovered in the land, air and sea. INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DEUSNER

SelfWorth CAPTUREDTRACKS

7/10

Re-energisedCatalonianoutfit findthemselvesonalbumfour After parting ways with a previous drummer who brought “bad vibes”, Mourn were able to spark back to life again as a band. Lyrically on “Men” they come for the jugular of the patriarchy, as they merge overlapping vocal harmonies with crisp yet crunchy guitars and clattering drums. Similarly, on “I’m In Trouble” there’s more than a touch of Riot Grrrl snarl as the track explodes via bursts of fuzzed-out guitars. It’s not all tension and frantic energy, however; the woozy, melodic groove of “The Tree” feels like the work of a band who sound comfortable and confident simply being themselves. DANIELDYLANWRAY

DANIEL O’SULLIVAN & RICHARD YOUNGS TwelveOfHearts OGENESIS

8/10

Adozeninspiredtunes,cutfromthe sameconceptualcloth Richard Youngs’s music often turns on a concept or predetermined parameters; the genius of it is the way he extracts deeply personal resonance from something that could appear, to some, coldly conceptual. So it is with Twelve Of Hearts, his first fulllength collaboration with Grumbling Fur member Daniel O’Sullivan, where each song revolves around the same set of chord changes. It’s a lovely collection of electronic pop miniatures, psalter vocals spiralling upwards as ever-cycling arpeggios and head-soaking guitar streak the melodies with vivid magnesium-flare strokes, voices reaching, at times, for a surprising kind of kaleidoscopic, heavenly doo-wop. JONDALE

PHILIP PARFITT

MentalHomeRecordings ATURNTABLEFRIEND

9/10

LovelyVelvetsianmelancholy, slowanddrifting A veteran of ’80s UK indie due to his time in The Perfect Disaster, Philip Parfitt dropped off the music industry radar in the mid-’90s, eventually relocating to an old mill in France. That shift would explain the pacific calm and melancholy loneliness of the graceful, chamber guitar hymns that dot his stunning second solo collection, Mental Home Recordings. The touchstones haven’t

changed that much – you can hear third album Velvets, Big Star’s Third and Peter Perrett at the heart of Parfitt’s minimalist dream-songs – but very few albums have been released this year with such emotional generosity. JON DALE

ARLO PARKS

Collapsed In Sunbeams TRANSGRESSIVE

8/10

Poeticallyinclinedsongwriter’s eagerlyanticipateddebut Last year, this muchtalked-about west Londoner made the underwhelming claim that she merely made “bedroom indie pop”. If that was supposed to manage the excitement surrounding her, it failed, and these 12 tracks won’t help either. The 20-year-old punctuates beautifully languid, trip-hoppy vignettes with a voice redolent of Martina Topley-Bird and a neat line in spoken-word poetic musings. Ear-pricking lines keep on coming, randomly namechecking everything from Taco Bell to Thom Yorke to pancakes to Plath. A Lily Allen-ish line in ripostes to errant lovers is just as endearing, and there is no shortage of alluring jazz-pop hooks to drive home her points. JOHNNYSHARP

LOUIS PHILIPPE & THE NIGHT MAIL Thunderclouds TAPETE

7/10

Regalchamberpopbyan underratedvisionary It’s one hell of a career – a highprofile football writer who doubles as an arranger of lush, romantic strings, a sophisticated songwriter with a silky, golden voice – but Louis Philippe’s always surprised us, ever since he first appeared, helping Mike Alway with his concept-heavy ideal-pop imprint, Él. Decades later and Philippe’s returned with Thunderclouds, where he’s indulging the swooning of baroque Bee Gees, and Laura Nyro’s stoned soul – both at once, on “Love Is The Only Light” – the artistry of his writing finding comfort in the joy of the chords and the seductiveness of these quietly dramatic songs. JON DALE

Philip Parfitt

Arlo Parks: trip-hoppy vignettes

SOHO REZANEJAD

DUKE ROBILLARD

SILICONE

PROPER

7/10

7/10

PerformAndSurrender Danish-borntoIranianparents, thisNewYork-basedsoundartist resistsidentification Derived from live performances, Soho Rezanejad’s 11th album is a genredefying mirage that opens with “Perform”’s barrage of crude metallic crashes and ends with “Sleepless Solitude”’s expressively mournful, amorphous ambience, reminiscent of Keeley Forsyth’s Debris. Some pieces are more accessible than others: “Absence”’s violin leads a ghostly séance, while “Half The Shore” might be Slowdive’s “Rutti” had only Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead turned up. There’s poetry here, too, on “Stages I” and “Stages II”, but “Surrender”’s 12 minutes of disembodied vocals, darkwave synths, birdsong and Enoesque pianos are the most riveting. WYNDHAMWALLACE

RHYE Home

LOMAVISTA

7/10

Anotherdelicatespellbinderfrom Toronto-bornTopangadweller Rhye’s fourth album continues the vibe of its predecessors, as Michael Milosh’s androgynous sighs convey an ardour that’s voluptuously heterosexual (as is the artwork of each LP, which venerates the feminine ideal of beauty). Cinematic strings converse with burbling synths on “Black Rain”, “Sweetest Revenge” and “Hold You Down” as they proceed on silky, Sade-like grooves that feel as if they’d float away were they not enfolded by sinewy basslines, which share the foreground with Milosh’s doubled vocals. The last-named track features a celestial coda from the Danish National Girls’ Choir, whose wordless cantos frame the album in gossamer. For the most part, Milosh goes for mood over hooks, but the sultry “Helpless” seductively sports both. BUD SCOPPA

Blues Bash!

Backtobasicswithablueslegend While arguably still best known to a wider public for replacing founder Jimmie Vaughan in The Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1990 (staying for three albums), Robillard’s extensive CV includes 30-odd long players bearing his own name and sideman duties with, among many others, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Witherspoon and Joe Louis Walker. Blues Bash! finds him touching base again with the form’s roots; “Do You Mean It?” burns with the urban grooves of Big Joe Turner, while “Everybody Ain’t Your Friend” recalls the slow jams of BB King in his prime, Duke’s string-bending solos neatly punctuated by a supremely well-drilled horn section. Fashioned mostly from single takes played live in the studio, it’s a fresh spin on reassuringly familiar mores. TERRY STAUNTON

HJALTE ROSS

Waves Of Haste WOULDN’T WASTE

8/10

Winninglybucolicreturnfrom whispering,NickDrake-lovingDane When you write an album in a remote Norwegian lighthouse with a view of the Northern Lights, and hire Nick Drake’s engineer John Wood to produce it, you’ve evidently got a certain atmospheric vibe in mind. And delicately voiced Danish songwriter Ross achieves it in intoxicating style on this second long-player. Softly sung acoustic meditations such as “Off My Mind” and “Adrenaline” are decorated with warm organ and woozy brass, but he doesn’t always understate his emotions: six-minute centrepiece “How Am I Supposed To Feel” resembles a slowed-down version of a show-stopping movie tearjerker, as undulating piano chords and shimmering strings envelop Ross’s faintly despairing vocal. JOHNNY SHARP

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •33

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NEW ALBUMS

Jim Ghedi: winter’s tales

JIM GHEDI

In The Furrows Of Common Place 8/10

BASIN ROCK

AMELIA BAKER

Land and freedom: primitive guitar voyager finds his voice. By Jim Wirth INSPIRED and deranged, Northamptonshire “peasant poet” John Clare was confined to a lunatic asylum in his later years. Fêted for his 1820 collection Poems Descriptive Of Rural Life And Scenery, he became prone to delusions as he struggled to find his place in the literary landscape, convinced he was not one poet but many. “I’m John Clare now,” he said. “I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly.” Sheffield avant-folkie Jim Ghedi’s third album proper contains multitudes in its own uncanny fashion. In The Furrows Of Common Place incorporates verses from Clare, lines from the notebooks of Kes author Barry Hines, a coal-mining rant and an ancient Scottish ballad as well as his own songs, rewiring them all into a chastening meditation on Britain in 2021. “This flimsy house is falling down with us inside”, Ghedi wails on the apocalyptic “Beneath The Willow”. “We can’t get out”. Conclusion: we have all been here before. Largely instrumental, Ghedi’s first two records, Home Is Where I Exist, Now To Live And Die (2015) and A Hymn For Ancient Land (2018), nodded to the guitar adventures of John Fahey or Bert Jansch and inviting comparisons to the esoteric mood music of Talk Talk or the user-friendly minimalism of The Penguin Café Orchestra. In The Furrows… is a bold step into more contentious terrain – an acknowledgement that a guitar, however lyrical, can only ever say so much. The 29-year-old’s tormented vocal 34 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

SLEEVE NOTES 1 Common Thread 2 The Lamentations of Round Oak Waters 3 Mytholm 4 Stolen Ground 5 Ah Cud Hew 6 Beneath The Willow 7 Beneath The Willow Part II 8 Son David Produced by: Peter Fletcher Recorded at: Black Bay Studios, Great Bernera, Outer Hebrides Personnel: Jim Ghedi (guitars, vocals, harmoniums), Neal Heppleston (double bass), dbh (violin), Guy Whittaker (drums, percussion), Sally Rowan Smith (trumpet, flugel)

style – try-hard Richard Thompson via syntax-mangling Tim Buckley – sets the uncompromising tone for a record that aspires not to scratch the surface, but to sink its blades right in. Recorded in the Outer Hebrides last winter, the wind-blast is palpable from the off, opener “Common Thread” deploying the language of the Child Ballads to give a survey of modern lands left to run to seed. Liege & Lief-era Fairport welded to an unsteady post-rock rhythmic chassis, it is unsentimental about the toil of past generations – back-breaking rural labour, industrial drudge work – but sees it as preferable to a world of atomised communities and endemic uncertainty. Ghedi’s splenetic refrain: “What’s lost is all I’ve known”. Digging for the roots of this 21stcentury malaise, Ghedi sets Clare’s “The Lamentations Of Round Oak Waters” to an austere background of droning violin and harmonium. The poet railed against the Inclosure Acts that took common land into private hands, but the feeling of powerlessness in the face of corporate might is a very modern one as Ghedi spits out Clare’s gloomy lines: “Their foes and mine are lawless foes, but laws themselves they hold/Which clipped-winged justice can’t oppose”.

So far so Socialist Worker, perhaps, but the mood on elegiac centrepiece “Stolen Ground” is resignation rather than fistsaloft rage, Ghedi’s elegantly fingerpicked opening giving way to a luscious Bryter Layter middle section. A secondgeneration descendent of Robert Wyatt’s “Shipbuilding”, it shows how poverty turns the dispossessed in on themselves, while a triumphant melody quietly drains the anger away. Ghedi’s rough-house take of Geordie miner’s anthem “Ah Cud Hew” seems unnecessarily butch, but makes sense as it gives way to “Beneath The Willow”, a minor-chord testament to alphamasculinity gone septic, and In The Furrows Of Common Place gets even darker before it ends. For his finale, Ghedi slows ancient slasher “Son David” to an anguished crawl, stretching and distorting the words over a tight-wound bed of acoustic guitar and violin. David returns to his mother, covered in blood. He dissembles; he struck his disobedient horse, he stabbed at the unruly dog, but the truth is more awful still – he killed his own brother “because he drew his sword to me”. Racked with remorse, he goes off to destroy himself (“I’m gaun away in a bottomless boat”). Here, for Ghedi, is the spirit of the bus-stop knifeman and the keyboard warrior; in a world short on human dignity, every slight is a mortal insult, every tiny lump in the ground a hill worth dying on. Recorded before lockdown, In The Furrows Of Common Place is a forceful reminder that getting back to normality may be nothing much to celebrate. However, if the abrasive, Lankum-like tone and the occasionally clunky agitprop may be a turn-off for some, there’s no masking its power or its melodic invention. Musically dextrous and lyrically astute, it’s a winter consort to XTC’s summer-loving Skylarking; Nic Jones’s Penguin Eggs on a campaigning high horse; Jim O’Rourke’s Eureka without the jokes. Sure of his ground, Ghedi takes those voices from the past and makes them his own. Bound by a shared vision, they speak as one.

Q&A Jim Ghedi: “This

album comes from an emotional place” This is the first record you have sung a lot on, and your voice is quite unusual: do you like it?

I don’t know if I do, to be honest. I’m like everyone else – just hearing my voice and going, ‘Fucking hell.’ But I am proud of what we did in the studio. A lot of the things I was trying to get across on this album I was aggressive about; they’ve come from emotional places.

Yourecordedthe album in the Hebrides in January: how was that? It was like going to another planet. Completely silent, and the landscape was breathtaking. Going up in January probably wasn’t the smartest move, but I’m glad I did. It was almost like a cocoon, when you’ve got this wind and this wildness battering against the window.

Are John Clare and Barry Hines important people for you?

Those two figures are really monumental for this album. We were made to watch Kes by our parents, and as years went by I started to take an interest in Barry Hines’s work and life. John Clare wrote passionately about changes in land ownership and what that meant. That example means a lot when you come from a similar working-class background: the possibility that you might be able to create as well. You might be able to do art, you might be able to do music. INTERVIEW: JIM WIRTH

NEW ALBUMS HowCanIHelpYou, WhenYouDon’tWant ToHelpYourself? CREEPINGBENT

8/10

Post-punkprovocateur’s dubreconstruction With The Pop Group and Rip, Rig & Panic, Sager has never been easy listening. Here, there are deconstructed funk squalls, and Sager’s gnarly siren guitar, wailing like an angry trumpet. Yet a disarming sense of order prevails. The melancholy opener, “All You Put Me Through”, is an acid ballad with Davy Henderson of the Sexual Objects on vocals. Elsewhere, Sager borrows the production manners of Rip, Rig producer Dennis Bovell to conjure lunar gospel on “My Little Brother (In The Family Way)”, and further loveliness with a Susie Hug vocal on “Those Suns Of Witches Were Too Tightly Wrapped”. ALASTAIRMcKAY

ANNA B SAVAGE ACommonTurn 7/10

TheLondonsinger-songwriterlays barecomplexquestions For her debut album, Anna B Savage clears a groundbreaking path where stirring, lower-register singing meets bold, simple lyrics that are heartrending, funny or both. Here the loaded intent behind a text message meets sexual fantasies about Tim Curry’s Dr Frank-N-Furter and the unraveling from a toxic ex. “What do you love about me I asked him/He paused and then said/I love how much you love me,” she sings on “A Common Tern”, named for a seabird but accounting for spiritual flight from a bad situation. Blended with earnest acoustic guitar picking and rattling electronic production, the young songwriter reveals a bright future at the end of personal agony. ERINOSMON

SHAME

DrunkTankPink DEADOCEANS

8/10

Nowaveringinpost-punkquintet’s commitment Their 2018 debut introduced a band brimming with conviction and fuelled by an energy bordering on the feral – a tough act to follow. But Drunk Tank Pink (the title refers to the crash space where singer-in-crisis Charlie Steen did most of his writing) triumphs. No less do-or-die in their commitment, these songs are less determinedly dense, with “Human, For A Minute” quite the ear-swiveller, as Steen’s murmured

REVELATIONS

entreaty (“Why don’t you stay just for today?”) is set to a slo-mo groove. On either side, though, sit “Nigel Hitter”, with its splicing of Wire with African highlife rhythms, and the frantic “Harsh Degrees”, which nods to Fugazi and Killing Joke.

SHARON O’CONNELL

SIGUR RÓS

Odin’s Raven Magic KRUNK/WARNER CLASSICS

7/10

Semi-classicallivesetfromParis, steepedinNorsemythology Initially performed for the Reykjavik Arts Festival in 2002, Odin’s Raven Magic is a grand symphonic piece based on an Icelandic medieval poem about Norse gods and apocalyptic visions, with Sigur Rós joined by choir, pagan musician Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, fellow countryman Steindór Andersen and a Parisian orchestra. It’s cathedrallike in scale and timbre, the rhythms largely dictated by the sound of a stone miramba as hymnal voices arc and dip like dramatic geological features. The twin voices of Jónsi and Andersen make for an eerie contrast at times, with “Stendur æva” a ravishing, multi-faceted highlight. ROB HUGHES

SLEAFORD MODS Spare Ribs ROUGH TRADE

8/10

Nottinghamduosoften,slightly,on playfullatest Once distinguished by their spiky proletarian anger, the Sleaford Mods we hear on Spare Ribs sound more comfortable in their own skin, relaxed enough to explore their eccentricities. A tart, sometimes topical edge remains: see “Short Cummings”, a withering shot at Boris Johnson’s nowdeposed special adviser. But there’s a new electronic gloss to Andrew Fearn’s productions, while “Glimpses” and “Fishcakes” find Jason Williamson’s bark softening into a weathered – dare we say Wellerish – croon. There are women present, too – Billy Nomates sings a soulful hook on “Mork N Mindy”, while Amyl And The Sniffers’ Amy Taylor pipes up on the agreeably rowdy “Nudge It”. LOUIS PATTISON

Sleaford Mods

TV SMITH

The former Advert reflects on his Covid-hit year

“I

T was horrible; it just totally flattened me,” TV Smith tells Uncut as he recalls his and his partner’s spring 2020 battle with coronavirus. “You really feel like you’ve been invaded by something. It was immediately after all the panic buying in the supermarket, so we couldn’t even get paracetamol.” Covid-19 and the Europewide lockdown was an especially cruel blow for the former Advert, who had been preparing for a bumper gigging year, including support slots with German punk giants Die Toten Hosen at 20,000-capacity venues. “It was going to be a real kick upwards, but it turned into a

slap in the face,” the 64-yearold says. “But I felt so ill, there was no point in moaning.” Instead, he ended up accidentally making a record about “the virus and the things it was exposing in society”, songs tumbling out of him at his home near Dartmoor, and congealing into his oddly vibrant homemade album Lockdown Holiday. “You can be critical without being down,” the ex-one-chord wonder says. “There’s a lot of spirit in it. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Green shoots will come through. When this is all over we’re really going to have to grab the world back for ourselves.”

JIM WIRTH

TV SMITH

INDIGO SPARKE

EASYACTION

8/10

LockdownHoliday 7/10

Notimetobe64:diaryoftheAdvert’s plagueyear “One sneeze in the service station, that’s where my calendar ends,” rasps TV Smith on “The Lucky Ones”, explaining how being in the wrong place at the wrong time led to him being an early Coronavirus sufferer. Set for a busy gigging year in 2020, the Advert-turned-raggle-tagglerabble-rouser was flattened by Covid-19 for a while, but made the best of his enforced lay-off with this topical acoustic set, “Send In The Clown” and “Going Nowhere Fast” a reminder that there is still no vaccine for political incompetence or ageing. Still paranoid, but now the worst has finally happened, oddly cheery. JIMWIRTH

Echo SELF-RELEASED

Australiansinger-songwriter’s poignantdebut,co-producedby BigThief’sAdrianneLenker Echo opens with the sound of a lead being plugged into a speaker, followed by a lonely strum of guitar that threatens to fade into you. Sparke emphasises the intimacy and immediacy of her performances on this debut, which sounds like you’ve walked into her rehearsal space. Recalling Hope Sandoval and Nico, her vocals are soft-focus but steely, gliding breathlessly up into her upper register on the fraught “Bad Dreams” and sing-speaking the song-poem “Dog Bark Echo”. Sparke worked with some distinctive musicians – including Adrianne Lenker and Shahzad Ismaily – but she never cedes the spotlight. STEPHEN DEUSNER

FEBRUARY2021•UNCUT•35

ANNE SCHELHAAS-WÖLL

GARETH SAGER

NEW ALBUMS SLEEVE NOTES

DISCOVERED Searching out the best albums new to Uncut

AARON FRAZER Introducing… DEAD OCEANS

7/10

ALYSSE GAFKJEN

Retro style with substance on drummer’s solo debut. By Sharon O’Connell AARON FRAZER has considerable form as a soul man. He’s the drummer, secondary singer and a songwriter with Durand Jones & The Indications, five graduates from Indiana University’s music school whose impeccable second album, 2019’s American Love Call, marked them out as real-deal disciples of the evergreen greats and skilful caretakers of the legacies of Otis Redding, James Brown and Marvin Gaye, in particular. Frazer also has a sometime side-project, The Flying Stars Of Brooklyn, NY, dealing in lowdown gospel soul. Now, he’s stepping into the solo spotlight. For Introducing… he’s teamed up with Dan Auerbach, who got in touch after hearing Frazer’s work on the Indications’ slow-burning “Is It Any Wonder?”. The Black Keys man is not only producer, songwriting partner and guitarist, he’s also helm and fixer, calling in heavyweight session players including Memphis Boys keyboardist Bobby Wood and Nashville guitar vet Billy Sanford (whose recording credits run from Ray Charles to Tammy Wynette, via Roy Orbison) alongside bassist Nick Movshon, a Mark Ronson regular who played on the Charles Bradley albums. He also brought in L Russell Brown, who penned 36 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

hits for Frankie Valli, as co-writer on dreamy album opener “You Don’t Wanna Be My Baby”. Given Auerbach’s reputation for something other than bracing modernism, this points to a fastidious facsimile cast in his own image that maybe uses his CV and the histories of older hired hands as guarantors of a young gun’s worth. But in practical terms, since the solo Frazer had no band of his own, drafting in pro kindred spirits was a no-brainer. More importantly, Frazer’s talent – which extends beyond his fabulous, unforced falsetto – is right there in the grooves, and although there’s no denying the overwhelmingly retro nature of Introducing…, it’s still a highly seductive record. Romantic songs with yearning at their core dominate, but Frazer’s takes are nuanced. He’s by turns filled with regret or deeply thankful, broken-hearted or redeemed, loved-up or lonesome and there’s both plain speaking and sweet, old-fashioned poetry in his expression: “Now the music in my soul/The butter on my roll/If I got, baby your love brought it”, he sings on the irresistibly swinging, piano- and horns-driven “If I Got It (Your Love Brought It)”, while the doo-wop-edged “Girl On The Phone” is a snapshot of envy (“I didn’t mean to listen to a private conversation/But it made me feel so all alone”) and bewilderment is cut with bitterness on “Over You”

on Introducing… spin a few nth-gen satellites 1 You Don’t Wanna that lend it a degree Be My Baby of modernity, though 2 If I Got It (Your that’s a relative concept. Love Brought It) The smooth “Done 3 Can’t Leave It Alone Lyin’” throws back 4 Bad News to ’80s-era Michael 5 Have Mercy Jackson, while the 6 Done Lyin’ staccato drive of “Can’t 7 Lover Girl Leave It Alone” nods to 8 Ride With Me Mary J Blige’s “Family 9 Girl On The Phone Affair” and “Over You”’s 10 Love Is hepped-up funk echoes 11 Over You Gnarls Barkley. There’s 12 Leanin’ On Your a thread there in that Everlasting Love Danger Mouse, who’s produced a couple of Produced by: Dan Auerbach albums by The Black Recorded at: Keys, is a retro auteur Easy Eye Sound, like Auerbach. But it’s (“Said you’d always be Nashville these moments that right there/Said you’d Personnel includes: edge Frazer out of the never let me go/Wonder if Aaron Frazer straight revivalist camp you ever cared/Were you (vocals, drums), Dan Auerbach of someone like, say, putting on a show”). In (gtr), Tom Leon Bridges. As he told the best soul tradition, Bukovac (gtr), Uncut: “On one hand, there are also songs Billy Sanford (gtr), I believe in celebrating with a socio-political Russ Pahl (gtr), my influences and bent, namely “Ride With Pat McLaughlin not feeling pressure Me”, with its breezy feel (acoustic gtr), Nick Movshon to pretend otherwise. and reverbed fadeout, (bass), Ray Jacildo On the other hand, lots and the terrific, Gil (piano, Mellotron), of my musical heroes Scott-Heron-styled Bobby Wood weren’t trying to simply “Bad News”, both of (piano, keys), which Frazer wrote Mike Rojas (synth, recreate the past. They were/are embracing with climate change clavinet), Matt the influences of the Combs (strings), on his mind. Not that Sam Bacco (perc, day, staying innovative you’d know: “If we don’t Vibraphone) throughout the decades. change/Then we stay I aimed to strike that the same” is as far as the balance here.” former goes, while on the It’s a thin line between deep latter he simply counsels: “Ain’t respect and fetishism and Frazer’s no place for hiding/You can debut is on the right side, a try to but the writing’s on the quality love letter to the music he wall”. Frazer doesn’t claim to committed to early on. At times, be any kind of a protest singer, it’s hard not to wish he’d been but addressing a specific issue bolder and a little less faithful. As demands a more explicit lyrical always, though, the heart wants kick. Around the potent Mayfield/ what it wants. Gaye/Scott-Heron/Cooke nexus

Q&A

Aaron Frazer “The train is leaving the station and we have to get on it”

Why did you choose to make a solo record now?

I’d been putting all my energy into the Indications for a long time, so I figured I’d just sneak out a 45 here and there when I had a minute. When Dan called me about making a record, it felt like an opportunity to do something for myself that I might not have made time for otherwise – and to do it with a musician who’s been a big influence over the years.

Which soul greats do you most admire?

Curtis Mayfield and Gil Scott-Heron taught me that you can write love songs and political commentary

withequal finesse, equal power. Lee Hazlewood and Smokey Robinson’s songs have such strong concepts, it feels like the verses bolster the choruses like paragraphs in a thesis. Nas and Mos Def create such vivid imagery with small details.

What was your aim with “Ride With Me”?

“Ride With Me” is a climate-change song. Which is something I’ve written about over the years. These days though, it feels more urgent. The train is leaving the station and we have to get on it. “Bad News” is also inspired by climate change (“I’m on fire, I’m burnin’/I can barely keep it turnin’”). Sometimes problems like this feel so big we want to look away, but that’s probably when we have to look most. INTERVIEW: SHARON O’CONNELL

UMS StarFeminineBand BORNBAD 7/10

HeavenlyWestAfricangirl-pop TheStarFeminine Band comprisesseven young womenfrom Beninaged between 10 and17,who were assembledvia a calloutfortalent on alocalradio station. Mastermindedby svengaliAndré Balaguemon, playingtheSimonFuller/ SimonCowell role,this is manufactured pop atitsmost joyous andleast banal. Clatteringtribal percussion, traditional call-and-responsevocals and panAfrican musicaltropes fromhighlife to soukouscombinewith trace elements ofgarage-rock on “Rew Be Me” and psychedeliaandprogkeyboards on “Montealla”. Dismiss itasagimmick,if youwill,butit’s anutterly glorious one. NIGELWILLIAMSON

STATS

Powys1999 MEMPHISINDUSTRIES 8/10

Londonsextet’ssmartandseductive, synth-popsecond MainmanEdSeedtook hisbandofftorecord theirsecondLPin Powyscounty,Wales, wherehegrewup,but hispersonalnarrative isabasicshapingtool,notastylistic determinant.Stats’bagiseloquently urgent,funkilythoughtfulandplain feelgoodsynthpopwhich,despitenods toRemainInLight-eraTalkingHeads, resistsretroismandidentifiesthem asbright-eyedmodernists.They’re childrenofthepresent,alliedtoHot Chip,StVincentandTheChemical Brothers,as“ComeWithMe”andthe terrific“NaturaliseMe”attest,but convinceawayfromthedancefloor, too,asonthefolkishroundsingingof “Innocence”andsplendid,Almondflavouredtorchsong,“IfOnly”. SHARONO’CONNELL

STILLCORNERS

TheLastExit WRECKINGLIGHT 8/10

Duofindbeautyinthewilderness onfifthalbum The Last Exit feels like the end of a journey for Still Corners; one on which the London duo have leaned into the wider, more psychedelic element of their sound and let Tessa Murray’s heady voice shine. Their fifth album has a desert-noir loneliness to it, underpinned by a hint of the shimmering electronics familiar from the first half of their career. “Crying” is perfectly pitched between dream-pop and Americana,Greg Still Corners

Hughes alternating between synth and lap steel while a forlorn whistle blares in the background, straight out of a blackand-white Western. Album highlight “White Sands” is a soundtrack in miniature, the acoustic and electronic tones combining like a neon-streaked empty road. LISA-MARIE FERLA

STRINGS & TIMPANI

Voices & Strings & Timpani HUBRO

Steven Wilson

9/10

Ambitious,inspired,indefinable genre-hoppingfromNorwegianduo Bergen experimental mainstaysguitarist StephanMeidelland drummer Øyvind Hegg-Lunde draw uponmultiple incongruous influences on this fascinating second, partiallyrecorded at the city’s 2016Nattjazz Festivalthen developed in thestudio.“Laxevaag” recalls Tortoise’searly abstractionsand the otherworldly “Cashmere”nodsto Steve Reich, while EvaPfitzenmaier and Mari KvienBrunvoll–AneBrun’s sister – lighten “Escargot”’sbrooding tension with chansonharmonies.There are hints, too, ofTalkTalk’s swansong in the spacious “Introducing”,but“Talk Tick Talk”’s percussive mysticismand “Swarming Strings MadeOut Of Light”s redemptive rhythmsinvoke .O.rang, Lee Harris andPaul Webb’s postLaughing Stock project. WYNDHAM WALLACE

MATTHEWSWEET Catspaw OMNIVORE 7/10

Crunchyguitarsfromanalmost one-manband Matthew Sweet has alwayssurrounded himself with great guitarists –notably Richard Lloyd and Robert Quine– who kept his heart-on-sleeve powerpop rooted in gritty punk.Forhis 15th album, the Omaha nativetakesover lead, along witheveryotherinstrument but drums. Sweet emergesasan ingenious guitarplayer inhisownright, one who has absorbed andtweaked the lessons of hiscelebratedcollaborators. He remains a precisecraftsmanwitha bottomless troveof’60s pophooksand dreamy melodies,buthe upendsthem with acute-angle riffsandscribbled punctuation, whichjolt“BlownAway” and “ChallengeTheGods” right off their axes. STEPHENDEUSNER

URBAN VILLAGE Udondolo NOFORMAT! 8/10

RainbowNationnewcomers flytheflag BlackSouthAfrican music inrecent years has understandably lackedthegamechangingpotency itenjoyed when

soundtrackingthe anti-apartheid struggle, butthis young quartetfrom Soweto may justbethe finest actto emergefromthe post-Mandela era. EchoesofZulutraditional music andastirring dose ofthebouncing, 1980stownship beats ofbands such asthe MahotellaQueensabound. Yet fromtheirresistible Afropop surge of “Sakhisizwe”totheFleet Foxes-styled folk harmoniesof“Ubaba”,theproud legacyon whichUdondolodrawsis recastwitha thrillingly contemporary experimentalism. NIGELWILLIAMSON

VARIOUSARTISTS

LostChristmas:AMemphis IndustriesFestiveSelection Box MEMPHISINDUSTRIES 7/10

Indielabelspreadssomeseasonal cheerwithalternativeChristmasLP Isyour Christmasday soundtrackalittle lackingin vocoder, eerieelectronics andhissing drum machine? Well, the PhoenixFoundationhave gotyou coveredwiththeir takeon “Have Yourself AMerry LittleChristmas”, along withthelikesofField Music, Stats,Jesca Hoop andThe Go! Team, whoall reinterpret Christmas music – while making money forcharity– with coversandoriginals.Field Music apply theirpop prowesstoastrutting “Home ForChristmas”,whereasHoopoffersa delicateyet stirring coverofFleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” with“Happy Xmas (WarIsOver)” incorporated. 2020hasn’texactlybeenteemingwith charm or joy,butthere’s plentytobe foundhere. DANIELDYLANWRAY

VIAGRABOYS WelfareJazz YEAR0001

8/10

Gonzosaxrockersdoubledown Stockholm’s Viagra Boys are cartoon sleazeballs whose vivid, lurid music packs a real punch. After their 2018 debut, Street Worms,helpedthem become apowerhouselive act,Welfare Jazz ratchets upthe pizzazz.With sardonic frontman SebastianMurphy fully licensed tocampitup, the grungydisco of“Creatures” and“Girls&Boys”aligns them asmuch with the VillagePeople asthe BadSeeds, his lowlife lyrics

delivered with tongue in cheek.More sobering are their forays into cross-eyed Americana with “To The Country” and a tremendous cover of John Prine’s “In Spite Of Ourselves” that conjures Purple Mountains. PIERS MARTIN

STEVEN WILSON The Future Bites CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL

8/10

Sixthsolosetburrowsfurtherdown abeguilingpoprabbithole After taking inspiration from epically inclined ’80s art pop on 2017’s To The Bone, the erstwhile great white hope of 21st-century Brit-prog ventures deeper into pastures new here. There’s a loose lyrical theme (concept? If you insist) of branding and consumer culture inspiring the maverick meta-pop of “Personal Shopper”, with Wilson, king of the surround-sound remix, audaciously mentioning “deluxe edition boxsets” among the staples of our market-led culture. The Sparks-y spriteliness of “Follower” also stands out, thanks to beautifully falsetto-iced vocal hooks, which further grace the gorgeously forlorn synth-pop of “King Ghost”. JOHNNY SHARP

JAMES YORKSTON AND THE SECOND HAND ORCHESTRA The Wide, Wide River DOMINO

8/10

Fifefolkie’sSwedishsojourn In April 2019, James Yorkston played with The Second Hand Orchestra (led by like-minded producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist), as his band. The following day they reconvened in the studio to improvise backings for a set of Yorkston’s songs, having only heard one of them – the opening “Ella Leather” – before. The immediacy is obvious, and the band (including Peter Morén) of Peter,Bjorn& Johnandnyckelharpa maestro CeciliaÖsterholm)stretch Yorkston’sreassuringvulnerability in new directions. “Struggle” employs minimalism andmuted twang, while “Choices,Like WideRivers”echoes themelodicjagginessoftheOriginal HarmonyRidgeCreekdippers. ALASTAIRMcKAY

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LASSE HOILE, BERNARD BUR

STARFEMININEBAND

“He didn’t even say goodbye/He didn’t take the time to lie”

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1 CAT STEVENS (P42) 2 MARC ALMOND (P43) 3 EVAN PARKER (P44) 4 LEILA (P46) 5 DAVE ALVIN (P48)

REISSUES | COMPS | BOXSETS | LOST RECORDINGS

NANCY SINATRA Start Walkin’: 1965-1976 LIGHT IN THE ATTIC

Payback: the reissue campaign kicks off. By Jason Anderson

RON JOY/BOOTS ENTERPRISES INC

Q

relates a narrative arc that may be familiar to UENTIN TARANTINO scored the opening REISSUE those who’ve long considered the Chairman of the Board’s eldest daughter to be one of moments of 2003’s Kill Bill: OF THE the coolest women to walk the Earth. But the Volume 1 to Nancy Sinatra’s MONTH choice of opening note here is as significant forlorn performance of 9/10 for the compilation’s purposes as it was for “Bang Bang (My Baby Tarantino’s. Like the tale of Thurman’s assassin, Shot Me Down)”. It’s a canny this one is about earning some payback. This time pick, even if the title of the Sonny Bono-penned it’s for a performer whose versatility and artistry number made it an obvious choice for Hollywood’s have long been overshadowed by the contributions pre-eminent record-nerd auteur, who’d just given of her illustrious collaborators and by Sinatra’s own his viewers their first glimpse of Uma Thurman’s celebrity. Indeed, by leading with “Bang Bang” and character as she’s shot in the head by her unseen lover. closing with little-heard marvels made after the hits While Sinatra’s voice possesses a delicacy that starkly ran out, Start Walkin’ presents a wider, richer view of contrasts with the bloodshed to come, the lyrics hint a singer who may finally be regarded as more than at darker things, as do the feelings of love, hurt and Hazlewood’s modeling clay or, worse yet, a well-born resignation she conveys so chillingly alongside the starlet remembered for those thigh-high go-go boots. trembling tremolo of Billy Strange’s guitar. At the very least, the new collection trumps the As the first of the 23 songs on Start Walkin’: 1965-1976, umpteen greatest-hits albums that preceded it. If “Bang Bang” is again being used to begin a story Start Walkin’ were more like those sets, it would’ve about a woman who should not be underestimated. opened with the song that The compilation inaugurates made Sinatra a star. Initially a reissue campaign by Light released at the tail end of In The Attic that continues 1965 and a chart-topper in the later this year with newly US and UK soon afterward, remastered editions of Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For 1966 debut long-player Boots, Walking” followed Sinatra’s 1968’s majestic Nancy & Lee run of singles for her father’s and 1972’s more autumnal label Reprise that had some Nancy & Lee Again. chart success in Europe and Covering Sinatra’s most Japan but made little impact productive years with her at home. It was Sinatra Sr who primary collaborator Lee connected the singer with Hazlewood (already the subject Hazlewood, then best known of his own lavish Light In The for his work with Duane Eddy. Attic campaign), Start Walkin’ 38 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

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ARCHIVE Though the rangy Oklahoman had no lack of opinions, the “skinny Italian girl” – as Hazlewood initially called her to Strange, cheekily avoiding the surname – had a will of her own. It was she who convinced Hazlewood that the lyrics to “Boots” were brutal when he “These sang them but empowering if Boots Are Made For she did instead (she also had to Walkin’”, lobby to make it an A-side.) The February 1966 result was a natural-born No 1, its swagger fueled in equal part by Sinatra’s fierce yet playful delivery and the indelible double-bass hook by Chuck Berghofer, one of the Wrecking Crew greats indispensable during Sinatra’s imperial phase. The song remains an irresistible display of popfeminist bravura. As such, it provided a formula for the many similarly strident numbers that can be found throughout the six Sinatra albums that arrived in quick succession through 1966 and 1967. Yet Start Walkin’ emphasises the team’s many deviations from the mean, demonstrating how inventive and subversive Sinatra’s music could be even before her music with Hazlewood took a more avidly idiosyncratic direction with Nancy & Lee. Just consider the decidedly weird nature of 1966’s “Sugar Town”, a dreamy shuffle that hit the Top 10 in the US and the UK which Sinatra later described as Hazlewood’s own “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” due to its coy acid references. The same year’s “Friday’s Child” captures Sinatra in a more dramatic mode, casting herself as a distraught diva in a smoky cabaret. Her power as a vocalist will surprise anyone who figured her skill set was

examples of how deeply she immersed herself in the songs’ characters. In the almost unbearably poignant “Arkansas Coal (Suite)”, she deftly shifts between the roles of three women in a family blighted by tragedy. And her breakdown at the end of “Down From Dover” – perhaps the most wrenching of the many heartstring-pullers written by Dolly Parton – could make a stone cry. SLEEVE NOTES Sinatra was herself heartbroken when Hazlewood abruptly departed for 1 Bang Bang 2 These Boots Are Sweden in 1968, reportedly fleeing his problems with the IRS and the prospect Made For Walkin’ 3 Sugar Town of a draft letter for his son. Though 4 So Long Babe Sinatra’s career never really recovered limited to ethereal softness and Sunset 5 How Does That from the end of the team’s original run, Strip sass. After going the full Shirley Grab You, Darlin’? Start Walkin’ shows she was hardly Bassey on her 1967 Bond theme “You 6 Friday’s Child down for the count. Produced by Jimmy Only Live Twice” – included here in the 7 You Only Live Bowen for her 1972 album Woman, punchier version cut with the Wrecking Twice “Kind Of A Woman” has much of the Crew in LA rather than John Barry’s 8 Summer Wine same magic of yore, and the outtake orchestra in London – she trumps even 9 Some Velvet “Machine Gun Kelly” is even better. the shrieking strings on “Lightning’s Morning 10 Lightning’s Girl Released as a single in 1976, Sinatra and Child”, a 1967 single whose synthesis 11 Sand Hazlewood’s gorgeous cover of French of Wagnerian grandeur and cowboy12 Lady Bird singer Joe Dassin’s hit “(L’été Indien) musical panache would be campy if not 13 Jackson Indian Summer” was one in the series of delivered with such ferocity. 14 Happy reunions that continued with their tours On songs like these, Sinatra is 15 How Are in the ’90s and 2004’s Nancy & Lee 3. indisputably the star of the show. It’s Things In Knowing that the music business harder to assert that for some of her California? found her “passé”, Sinatra largely left it most famous pairings with Hazlewood. 16 Hook And behind in the ’70s, devoting her energy While she’s an amiable sparring Ladder 17 Hello, LA, Byeto her young family instead. The latterpartner on their version of “Jackson”, Bye Birmingham day contents of Start Walkin’ invites her partner’s bullfrog voice and 18 Paris Summer thoughts of the music that might’ve drawling delivery gives Sinatra less 19 Arkansas Coal been. Given her affinity for thenroom to manoeuvre in 1966’s “Summer (Suite) emergent country-music talents like Wine”, the first of their duets to hit the 20 Down From Mel Tillis and Mac Davis, it’s certainly , and “Some Velvet Morning”, Dover easy to imagine Sinatra in rhinestones ythopoetic masterstroke that 21 Kind Of A as a strong yet soft-hearted songstress azlewood originally wrote for the Woman in the vein of Parton and Loretta Lynn. most Ingmar Bergman-esque 22 Machine Gun Kelly Any further adventures with Hazlewood sequence in 1967’s Movin’ With 23 (L’été Indien) through the decade would only have Nancy TV special. Indian Summer gotten weirder if the hypnagogic That’s why some of their haze of “Indian Summer” was a lesser-celebrated duets are fair indication. the greater standouts on But those stories are only of the speculative Start Walkin’. Shimmering and cosmic, variety. More compelling by far is the one that’s Sand” is an astonishing demonstration told here, in 23 concise chapters that are thrilling, e balance they could achieve with two surprising and sometimes sublime. You could es that no-one in their right mind would call the whole saga ‘Once Upon A Time… In e paired. The selections from 1972’s Nancy Hollywood’ if Tarantino hadn’t gotten there first. ee Again are similarly extraordinary as

HOW TO BUY...

WALK ON

Nancy Sinatra’s further adventures, with Lee and without

NANCY SINATRA

NANCY SINATRA

COUGAR, 1995

SANCTUARY/EMI, 2004

One More Time

Nancy Sinatra’s Playboy pictorial at the age of 55 earned more attention than the comeback album she was promoting. That’s a shame since One More Time is a classy demonstration of her versatility, with styles that range from the countrypolitan balladry of “I Didn’t Wear White” and saucy R&B of “For Me It’s You”, to the Hazlewood-style sturm und drang of “White Water” and an endearingly grandiose cover of “Nights In White Satin”. 7/10 40 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Nancy Sinatra

Coaxed out of retirement by a new generation, Sinatra shines on songs tailored to her talents by admirers like Thurston Moore and U2. Alas, the sumptuously Smiths-y single “Let Me Kiss You” was beaten on the UK charts by Morrissey’s own version, which he unsportingly released at the same time. Best of all is “Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time”, which Jarvis Cocker would also revisit as his first proper solo single two years later. 8/10

NANCY SINATRA & LEE HAZLEWOOD Nancy & Lee 3 WARNER AUSTRALIA, 2004

Barely available until its digital reissue on Sinatra’s Boots label in 2009, the reunion of Sinatra, Hazlewood and Billy Strange went underappreciated despite the resurgence of interest inspired by its more youthful counterpart. The trio deliver a meaty country-rocker and a spirited take on Kasey Chambers’ “Barricades And Brickwalls”. There’s also a lovely version of “Save The Last Dance For Me”, or “last dance for Lee”, as he quips to Sinatra’s audible bemusement. 7/10

ARCHIVE Do you think that music is really a testament to what became possible thanks to the chemistry and connection between you two? I’ve wondered about that myself

over the years. I don’t know if it’s maybe an unexpressed sexual tension. We did not have an affair or anything – if it was that kind of tension, then I didn’t realise that until much later on. It’s too late to ask Lee about it. A lot of people have asked me about that – “Did you and Lee date, did you have an affair, did you have sex?” – that kind of thing. And no, we didn’t. I knew his wife Naomi and the girlfriends he had over the years. We never had any intimacy. Maybe we just told the story better that way.

Nancy Sinatra: “Lee broke my heart” What’sitbeenliketorevisitthese songsforthenewcompilation?

My daughter Amanda is the one who helped put this together and I’m very grateful to her for that. I had literally nothing to do with it! But I do appreciate the focus this one has. It’s usually all about “Boots”, you know. I’m glad “How Are Things in California” is in there, and “Hook And Ladder?” and “Machine Gun Kelly”. They add a lot of colour.

Areyousurprisedthere’sstill somuchinterestinyourmusic andthatitkeepsattracting newlisteners? I attribute that to the

songwriters and the songs themselves. They do have a longevity. It’s humbling to have so many here, too. I don’t think most people have heard some of them – I’d be surprised if they had. They’re still quite remarkable. I’m glad “Indian Summer” is in there – a lovely record.

Growingupinthefamilyyoudid, doyouthinkitwasinevitablefor youtohaveamusiccareer?

The truth is, if it were not for my dad, I would not have had the opportunity I had. He put me on the label saying, “As long as you pay your way, you can stay.” It wasn’t a free ride. Fortunately for me, the first recordings I made – which I call “Nancy Nice Lady” records – made the charts in different countries in the world. That made it possible for me to stay on the label and record with Lee Hazlewood. And once I started doing that, that’s what put me on the map. Lee producing his own songs like “So Long Babe” is what cracks things open for me as an artist. Then my dad would go onstage and say, “Hi, I’m Nancy’s father.” Because I was having hit after hit after hit.

Whatwasyourfirstimpression ofLee?It’seasytoimaginehim

Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood: “We were doing so beautifully”

asthisweirdhipstercowboy.

Actually, he only pretended to be this kind of shit-kicker character. He was educated, smart and funny – different from his public persona. I mean, it took brains to write the songs he wrote.

Isittruethattherelationship essentiallystartedwithan argumentover“TheseBootsAre MadeForWalking”asasongyou shoulddoinsteadofhim? It wasn’t really an argument, more of a discussion. In the beginning, he didn’t have “Boots” as the A-side and I said you need to rethink that because it’s a good song for a girl to sing. And he agreed.

Leeaskedyoutosingitinalower voicethanyou’dusedbefore– wereyousurprisedaboutthe qualitythatcreated? It wasn’t necessarily that it was lower. It was just a different attitude.

Itseemedtofreeyouuptoplay thedifferentcharacterswho’d emergeinlatersongslike“Some VelvetMorning”and“Arkansas Coal(Suite)”. That’s exactly right.

It was about playing a role with each different song. And in the case of “Arkansas Coal”, it was about playing three roles. With Nancy & Lee Again, we got a lot more dramatic and the charts got bigger. Yeah, they are special. It’d be interesting to know whether people who hear them now are impressed by them like I am. I am humbly and mightily impressed by those records, I really am.

“I am humblyand mightly impressed by those records, I really am” NANCYSINATRA

HowdidyoufeelwhenLee decidedtoleaveforSwedenin 1968? Oh, he broke my heart. He just

deserted me. I suffered for a while, not hearing from him, not knowing what was going on. He later wrote a song with the line, “say a prayer for Nancy and me” and I kind of thought, ‘Well, maybe, maybe he gets it. Maybe he sees what he’s done.’ We were doing so beautifully and then all of a sudden he was gone. I don’t know why. It was not a very kind thing to do.

Wasthereachangeinyour dynamicwhenyoureunitedto workwithhim? Well, if you love

somebody sincerely, that doesn’t go away even though they hurt you. It doesn’t go away. It did not go away for me and I considered him a friend. And I think we did fall right back into it. The Nancy & Lee 3 record [released in 2004] was fun because we went to Nashville to do it.

It’sashamethatlikealotofyour laterrecords,thatonedidn’t findtheaudienceitdeserved.

A lot of that has to do with not having a label, not having anyone to promote it. I mean, how are people going to find it if they don’t know it’s there?

It’salsoamazingwhatyou wereabletoaccomplishinplain view.Alotofthesesongswere hugehitsandmillion-sellers, yetmanypeopledidn’treally getwhatwashappeningin themuntilyearslater.Howdid itfeeltofinallygetthatkindof recognition? When “Some Velvet

Morning” turned out to be the No 1 duet of all time, that was really something because I had no idea [the Nancy & Lee duet earned the top spot in a critics’ poll by the Telegraph in 2003]. Even though it was years and years later, it’s still nice to be appreciated. And for that record especially – nobody’s figured that song out yet. And I still don’t know what it means! INTERVIEW:JASONANDERSON

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PAUL FERRARA

Q&A

Top Cat: Stevens the “bedsit poet”

CAT STEVENS

Mona Bone Jakon/ Tea For The Tillerman – 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Boxsets JIM MCCRARY/REDFERNS

ISLAND/UMC

9/10,8/10 Masterly vehicles for artistic reinvention. By Nigel Williamson 42 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

B

Y 1970, Cat Stevens had been absent from the charts for three years. Rendered hors de combat by a life-threatening bout of tuberculosis, the time out also offered an opportunity for a major reset. The likes of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor were ushering in the age of the sensitive acoustic troubadour, and to Stevens their songs sounded so much more profound and poetic than the overblown, melodramatic orchestral pop of “I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun” and “Matthew And Son”. As he slowly recovered, a stream of songs in

a more reflective folk-rock vein poured out of him. Released from his old recording contract, Stevens auditioned his new material for Chris Blackwell, who had just signed John Martyn and Nick Drake. The result was Mona Bone Jakon. On its release in April 1970 the album flopped. Yet although five platinum LPs would follow over the next four years, MBJ remains the most compellingly human statement of his career. Half a century on, the naked intimacy of the songs still sounds fresh and alluring, from the spiritual awakening and selfdiscovery of “I Think I See The Light” and “Katmandu” via the sardonic denunciation of his old

ARCHIVE

The naked intimacy of the songs still sounds fresh and alluring songs, the heartfelt “Can This Be Love?” (which could have been a contender) and the throwaway “It’s So Good” (which has no such pretensions). There are also half-a-dozen other semi-rarities, all of which were previously released on the 2008 boxset On The Road To Find Out. “If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out” and “Don’t Be Shy” were written for Hal Ashby’s 1971 coming-of-age movie Harold & Maude after Elton John had dropped out and recommended Stevens as his replacement. “Honey Man” is a sprightly duet with Elton from around the same time. “The Joke” is a surprisingly soulful electric blues with a hippiefriendly lyric about “too many schemers and not enough dreamers”, while the whimsical “I’ve Got A Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old” sounds improbably like something The Incredible String Band might have recorded. Inevitably, there’s a lot of duplication as two crisp vinyl albums that originally clocked in at around 35 minutes apiece are expanded over nine audio discs and two Blu-rays, so that we end up with 10 versions of “Lady D’Arbanville”, and 16 of “Wild World”. But maybe you can’t have too much of a good thing. 1970 was Stevens’ annus mirabilis and Mona Bone Jakon and Tea For The Tillerman represent the high tide of his troubadour triumph. As he became a pop star for the second time round, he never sounded so real and true again.

TRACKLISTS MONABONE JAKON CD1Original Album(2020 Remaster) CD2Original Album(2020Mix) CD3Demos CD4Live Blu-Ray–Music Video&Live Videos+HighRes AudioofOriginal Album(2020Mix) 12”Etched Vinyl–LiveAt PlumptonJazz &BluesFestival (08/08/70) TEAFORTHE TILLERMAN CD1Original Album(2020 Remaster) CD2Original Album(2020Mix) CD3TeaForThe Tillerman² CD4Demos/ Outtakes/ Alternate Versions CD5Live Blu-ray-Music Video&Live Videos+ High-ResAudio ofOriginalAlbum (2020Mix) 12”-LiveAt TheTroubadour, 1970

Q&A Yusuf/Cat Stevens:“It was a transition of image, personality and identity”

How did nearly dying with TB affect thenew kind of songs you began writing in 1969-70?

It was a paradigm shift. I discovered a whole new sidetolife because I’d nearly lost my life. I was energised by that.

Did you see Mona Bone Jakon as a reinvention?

Yes, because it wasn’t only a transition of image but of personality and identity. I’d adopted the veneer of pop celebrity and was ready to shed the glitter and go bare. There’s a purity to the album. It was raw and experimental but it was me, and it’s one of my favourites for that reason.

Yusuf/Cat: “I was readyto shed the glitter”

It’sclearfromthesongsonMBJthatyouwere onaquest.Doyouseealinktherewithyourlater spiritualpathandreligiousfaith? Yes,becauseitwasaquestandIneverstopped.Whenyou findaspiritualpath,youcontinueexploringandwantingto gofurtherthanyouwentyesterday.

ChrisBlackwelloncesaidthatTeaForThe Tillermanwasoneofthe fivemostimportantalbums Islandeverreleasedand thatheknewitthefirsttime heheardit.Diditfeellikea specialrecordatthetime?

MBJhadsetthegroundandIwas feelingcomfortable.I’vealways saiditwaslikeclimbingamountain. You’renotreallylookinghowhigh youhaveclimbed,butwhenyoulook downyouthink‘Wow’.

INTERVIEW:NIGEL WILLIAMSON

AtoZ This month… P45 P45 P46 P46 P48 P48 P49 P49

BUZZCOCKS CURVED AIR IGGY & THE STOOGES THE PRETTY THINGS THESE NEW PURITANS RYUICHI SAKAMOTO PAUL WELLER THE WHITE STRIPES

MARCALMOND TheStarsWeAre (reissue,1988) SFE

8/10

Unlikelystarstrikespopgoldon fourthsoloouting “Bedevilledby angels, belittled by fools”is a tellingline from“Only TheMoment”,oneof the gemson The Stars We Are– itcaptures whereAlmond foundhimself, having partedwith Virginafter thestartling butcommerciallyunsuccessfulMother Fist…in1987. The Stars We Are, then, is onehellofariposte: aperpetual swoonofanalbum, scoredwithWalker Brotherstowers ofstrings, aduetwith Nico, anotherwithactress Agnes Bernelle,andthen, aftereverything, aNo 1hitwithGenePitney on “Something’sGotten Hold Of My Heart”. Hewould make more demanding records,butthis is the closestAlmond gottomaking aperfect pop album. Extras6/10:An extra CDofsingles andB-sides, andDVD ofpromovideos. JONDALE

THEBAND

StageFright:50th AnniversaryEdition UMC 9/10

Unreleasedhomerecordings andalivesetaccompanythis anniversaryreissue The Band’sthirdLP doesn’t quite have the cohesionoftheir first twonear-faultless records, areflection ofthegroup’s slow splintering,butit’s still afine exampleof theirvirtuosity. Robertsondominated thewritingand his view seemedtohave turnedinwards, channellingsome of thebrow-beating spiritofCSN on tracks like “TheShapeI’mIn”, “Time To Kill” and“Stage Fright”. Thebonus material includestudioouttakes andpreviously unreleasedrecordings:tracks like JohnnyRivers’ “Rockin’Pneumonia AndTheBoogie Woogie Flu” andBo Diddley’s “BeforeYou Accuse Me”. There’salsoasecondlive album from theRoyalAlbertHallin 1971. Extras7/10:Bonus tracks,“Time To Kill” 7”repro, photobooklet withnotes by Robbie Robertson. PETERWATTS FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •43

RHYS FAGAN

life on “Pop Star”, to the confessional soul-searching of “Trouble” and “Maybe You’re Right”. The original, glorious album on which dandified pop star was reborn as bedsit poet is augmented in this expanded 50thanniversary “super deluxe” edition with a new 2020 mix, a disc of stripped-down demos that sound even more introspective than the fully worked album versions, and a further disc of contemporaneous live performances. When Stevens auditioned for Island he allegedly had a cache of 40 new songs, 11 of which appeared on MBJ. Others were recycled on later albums and there are early concert versions here of several tracks that would make it onto Tea For The Tillerman, plus “Changes IV”, which would surface on 1971’s Teaser And The Firecat. Yet somewhat disappointingly amid the wealth of unreleased demos, there’s only one song – “I Want Some Sun” – that we haven’t heard before. It’s fine enough in its way, an upbeat, countryish romp on which Stevens has never sounded so American. But you can hear why it didn’t fit on the album. Within a month of the release of Mona Bone Jakon, Stevens was back in the studio recording Tea For The Tillerman. Several of its more pensive songs such as “Father And Son” and “On The Road To Find Out” fitted readily into the MBJ template. But at the same time, his writing was developing in other directions. Songs such as “Wild World”, the title track and “Where Do The Children Play” boasted a greater urgency that reflected his growing certainty in his new-found singer-songwriter persona, like a man who has tried on a new coat, wasn’t sure that it would fit but feels increasingly comfortable in its warm embrace. Again, we get the original album as heard at the time and in a new remix, plus the recent Yusuf-sings-Cat 2020 updates on the songs recently released as Tea For The Tillerman 2. Then there’s a swathe of live recordings and another disc of demos, this time with two previously unreleased

SLEEVE NOTES Saxophone Solos: Aerobatics 1-4 Monoceros: Monoceros 1-4

EVAN PARKER

Collected Solos OTOROKU

10/10

DAWID LASKOWSKI

Exacting saxophonist’s ’70s/’80s solo works, boxed. By Richard Williams THERE is nothing in all music like the experience of listening to Evan Parker’s solo soprano saxophone improvisations, one man and a small straight horn producing a tsunami of sound that turns a room into a hall of acoustic mirrors. Squawks, flutters, squeals, slaps, taps and honks materialise concurrently, long tones against short, creating patterns of sound for which none of the obvious metaphors – tapestry, mosaic, quilt – is remotely adequate. A phenomenon with origins in the free jazz of the ’60s, Parker’s solo work has evolved through the absorption of interests and influences that include the technique of double-tonguing, the overtone teachings of Sigurd Raschèr, leftbrain/right-brain theory, and the music of other cultures, such as the Greek clarinet tradition and the throat-singing found among the Tuvan people of Mongolia and Siberia. Constructed through a dedication to the development of extreme and very specific technical virtuosity, the result is a music that appeals to the emotions on some otherwise inaccessible level. Born in Bristol in 1944 and raised in the west London suburbs, Parker made his first impact with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the late ’60s. For the past halfcentury he has played and recorded with countless combinations of musicians, from duos with the drummer Rashied Ali and his fellow saxophonist Anthony Braxton to the big bands of Chris McGregor, Charlie Watts, Kenny Wheeler and Alexander von 44 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Schlippenbach. In 1968 he played on Peter Brötzmann’s Machine Gun, a manifesto for European free jazz. His own groups have included the Music Improvisation Company and the ElectroAcoustic Ensemble. He can also be heard on Robert Wyatt’s Shleep, David Sylvian’s Manafon and Scott Walker’s Climate Of Hunter. But it is for the compelling originality of his solo recordings that he is likely to be best remembered. Luckily for us and for posterity, one of the most prolific of contemporary musicians is also one of the most frequently recorded. Of around 400 albums on which his name appears, more than a dozen are devoted to his solo work. The box titled Collected Solos, which first appeared in 1989 in a numbered and signed edition of 200, contains four LPs and a cassette dating from 1975 to 1986. Capturing his progression from the very beginning of his solo work to its early maturity, and fetching upwards of £500 from collectors in recent years, it has now been reissued by Otoroku, the record label associated with London’s Café Oto, in an exact facsimile edition of 250 copies, complete with an insert signed by Parker, the original essay by the late poet Paul Haines, an early fan, and a new piece by Seymour Wright, Parker’s fellow saxophonist and occasional collaborator. Heard in chronological order, the recordings clearly demonstrate the sense of development as Parker pushes the

Six Of One: 1 One Of Six 2 Two Of Six 3 Three Of Six 4 Four Of Six 5 Five Of Six 5 Six Of Six The Snake Decides: 1 The Snake Decides 2 Leipzig Folly 3 Burden’s Ass 4 Haine’s Last Tape Cassette: Aerobatics 5-14 Reissue producer: Abby Thomas Recorded by: Martin Davidson, Jost Gebers, Numar Libin, Adam Skeaping, Michael Gerzon Recorded at: Unity Theatre, London (1975); FMP Studio, Berlin (1975); Wyestone Leys, Oxford (1978); St Jude’s on the Hill, London (1980); St Paul’s, Oxford (1986) Personnel: Evan Parker (soprano saxophone)

frontier of knowledge. Initially inspired by the unaccompanied playing of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy, by Steve Lacy’s pioneering work on the soprano and Braxton’s 1969 solo album For Alto, he laid out the components of his initial toolkit in Saxophone Solos, recorded in the Unity Theatre in north London in the summer of 1975, shortly before the venue was destroyed by fire. Three months later in Berlin he was recording the pieces preserved on the cassette, and the difference is remarkable: connective tissue is already growing between the individual elements. Some of the emerging possibilities are realised on Monoceros, recorded direct to disc in 1978 at Wyastone Leys, the Nimbus Foundation’s concert hall in Monmouth. Now the technique of circular breathing, as mastered by Harry Carney (Duke Ellington’s redoubtable baritone saxophonist) and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, is allowing Parker to develop continuous threads of sound in which discrete elements – including rapid sequences of notes almost too fast to register – create moiréd patterns of exhilarating complexity. By the time we get to 1980 and Six Of One, he has achieved absolute command of his materials. The opening piece, “One Of Six”, starts with a single howl, followed by a strange hovering sound; within a couple of minutes Parker is creating the illusion of a quartet of saxophones, with an underlying pulse that seems to come from nowhere. “Three Of Six” moves from a stately single melody to dense polyphony disturbed by rhythmic rip tides. The Snake Decides, from 1986, is majestic: recorded, like its predecessor, in a church, its rich natural reverberations illustrate the stimulus Parker finds in venues that provide an acoustic response as he fills them with sound. The 20-minute title track is an epic summary of his first decade of solo exploration. He didn’t stop there. Subsequent solo albums show him continuing to build on the early foundations, creating music that offers unique rewards, free of period, genre or attempts at metaphoric description. But these discs are where it all began.

Q&A Evan Parker “Each instrument has a kind of mind…” What’s the story of the original Collected Solos box, which came out in 1989 after you’d ended your partnership with Derek Bailey in the Incus label, and was distributed by John Jack at Cadillac?

I left Incus fairly abruptly. I’d had enough. I just said to Derek, let me take my stuff and carry on. He was angry but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. I was left with records and no covers. John Jack said, “If you put them all in a box and make something special of it, you can sell them off.”

How hadyoustartedplaying solo? To begin with I thought solo

playing was a species of composition in a way that group playing couldn’t be, because for there to be real improvisation you need there to be more than one mind involved in what happens. And then it was really listening to Derek’s solo playing, to me the best music he made. He was replacing the lack of other minds to bounce off with the mind of the

instrument itself. Each instrument has a kind of mind that you can tap into, or a set of possibilities that are beyond what you know. That becomes a different form of improvisation.

Different from the usual theme and variations?

The theme is the improvisation. It usually starts with something you did last time and if you’re lucky it goes to something you’ve never done before. INTERVIEW: RICHARD WILLIAMS

ROBBIEBASHO

BUZZCOCKS

TOMPKINSSQUARE

9/10

8/10

Five-discboxsetofAmerican primitivist’sprivaterecordings At the end of Liam Barker’s 2015 documentary Voice of The Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho, we get a tantalising glimpse of some cardboard boxes containing the guitarist’s unreleased tapes, sealed on his death in 1986 and untouched since. Now we finally get to hear what was inside – and what a cornucopia it turns out to be. Drawn from more than 100 reel-to-reels covering a 20-year span, the 54 tracks present a parallel path to Basho’s commercially released discography, ranging from Robert Johnson covers to dazzling east-meets-west guitar instrumentals, via classical piano suites, troubadour songs in the baroque style of early Tim Buckley and whimsical humour on oddities such as “Hippie Song”. Weird and wonderful, you could lose yourself for a lifetime in Basho’s esoteric world. Extras8/10: The box itself is an objet d’art with gold-foil inlay, poster and splendid 48-page booklet containing erudite essays and unseen photos.

Complete United Artists Singles 1977-1980 DOMINO Domino reissue the band’s first 12 singlesforUnitedArtists,compiling theminatidyboxwithanewbooklet There’s no debating that the music in this boxset is essential. For evidence, look no further than the 1979 compilation Singles Going Steady, which has been reissued countless times and is regarded as a symbol of good taste in any record collection. This release covers much of the same ground, gathering the songs of Singles Going Steady plus 1979’s “You Say You Don’t Love Me” b/w “Raison D’Etre” and three softer 1980s singles that suffer at the hand of new wave. Presented in their original 45rpm format with cover art by Malcolm Garrett, the songs ring with piercing earworm angst and loveworn earnestness, and endure as pinnacles of the intersection of pop and punk that has long been emulated but rarely rivalled. While this new box of 45s might look nice on a shelf, any seasoned collector will question its need – originals are widely available at reasonable prices. Extras: None. ERIN OSMON

NIGELWILLIAMSON

CURVED AIR

THEBLACK KEYS

ESOTERIC

Brothers (reissue,2010) NONESUCH

9/10

Duo’scommercialandartistic breakthroughgetsa10thanniversarytouch-up The Black Keys’ pivotal sixth album – which bridged their gritty early homemade recordings and their more elaborate LPs of the 2010s – is a hodge-podge, cobbled together from sessions in four far-flung locales over 14 months. Nonetheless, Brothers is as coherent as anything in the band’s discography, bonded by Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney’s immersion in ’70s funk and soul; their 2009 foray into hip-hop, BlakRoc; and, most of all, their hardearned closeness, threatened and reaffirmed during the project and fittingly referenced in the album title. The maturation of the Keys’ factorytown blues-rock sound is explosively apparent in the workboot stomp of “Howlin’ For You”, the fuzztone raunch of “Next Girl” and the psychedelic sludge of “Sinister Kid”, all captured with face-melting immediacy by engineer/co-producer Mark Neill and mixed with primal artfulness by Tchad Blake in response to their directive: “Make it sound fucked up.” Extras 8/10: Three outtakes, including the brutal kiss-off “Keep My Name Outta Your Mouth”; 60-page photo book. BUD SCOPPA

The Albums 1970–1973 8/10

Violintimes:“BackStreetLuv” hitmakers’careerarc An unstable fusion of Jefferson Airplane folk rock and classicsfor-dummies prog, Curved Air scored big in common rooms with the thunderous “Vivaldi” from their 1970 debut LP, Air Conditioning, but harshed their underground buzz by having a Top 5 single, the superb “Back Street Luv”. This no-nonsense collection captures a band who pulled in many directions. Electric violinist Darryl Way and keyboard wizard Francis Monkman brought in Sonja Kristina – a member of the original London cast of Hair – to front their band, but Monkman and Way had ceased writing together by the time of the twinkly Second Album, and both quit after 1972’s quasi-psych epic Phantasmagoria, leaving Kristina to assemble a new band (including future Roxy Music sideman Eddie Basho, Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA, 1977

Fine Young Cannibals: ’80s soul-pop act, oddly overlooked

Jobson) for 1973 rock folly Air Cut. A bit lightweight for the King Crimson crowd, but those keyboard sounds have aged rather well. Extras6/10: Sleevenotes plus bonus single sides. JIMWIRTH

FINEYOUNGCANNIBALS FineYoungCannibals/ TheRaw&TheCooked (reissues,1985,1989) LONDON

6/10,7/10

Expandedtwo-disceditionsofthe trio’sonlytwoalbums Like fellow Red Wedgers and musical soulmates The Communards, rock history has rather forgotten the FYCs – which is strange because when they burst onto the scene at the height of Thatcherism, Roland Gift and his band seemed unstoppable. Led by Gift’s soaring falsetto, the trio’s 1985 debut was an artful soul-pop concoction loaded with hooks and hits such as “Johnny Come Home”. Four years later the much delayed follow-up, The Raw & The Cooked, was even better, adding James Brown drum loops and house to the mix, plus the Princeinspired smash “She Drives Me Crazy” and a brilliant cover of “Ever Fallen In Love”. A pleasure to hear them again and reclaim Gift as one of the great Brit-soul singers. Extras7/10: Both albums feature previously unreleased material, including BBC live sessions and demos, plus new remixes of the group’s biggest hits by Derrick Carter, Dimitri From Paris and Seth Troxler. NIGELWILLIAMSON

FRANKIEGOES TO HOLLYWOOD

WelcomeToThe Pleasuredome (reissue,1984) ZTT/UMC

7/10

Liverpoolband’sambitious debutreissued There are two bands on Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s strange, sprawling 1984 debut. The first specialises in pounding dance-pop

tracks like “Relax” and “Two Tribes”, incorporating tribal chants, spokenword samples, references to Kubla Khan and some of the most sexually explicit lyrics to reach No 1. Producer Trevor Horn blends these songs together so that the momentum doesn’t flag; it’s less an album than a worldbuilding exercise. The second band is a little less outrageous and a lot less fun, with baffling, karaoke-level covers of “Born To Run” and “San Jose” rubbing up against straightforward pop songs like “Krisco Kisses”. Pleasuredome – which is being reissued alongside their 1986 follow-up, Liverpool, and 1994 hits comp Bang! – reveals a group thrust suddenly into the spotlight while still trying to figure themselves out. But that friction between these two bands can be compelling, especially when it produces a ballad as singular as “The Power Of Love”. Extras: None. STEPHENDEUSNER

MARGO GURYAN

TakeAPicture (reissue,1968) SUNDAZED

7/10

Asunny‘60scultclassicgetsreissued Fans of soft-pop and languorous psych will be in their element with 1968’s Take A Picture, which now finally gets a mono vinyl pressing. Margo Guryan’s work may already be familiar to those who haven’t heard her. As a songwriter, her original compositions were recorded by artists including Jackie DeShannon, Glenn Campbell and Saint Etienne. Guryan’s whispery vocals might divide listeners – they have that breathy ethereal quality that can add a seductive tinge to songs such as the brassy “Someone I Know”, the electric guitar-laden “Sunday Mornin’” or the sitar- and string-drenched “Sun”, but can also grate for those who prefer their vocals with a bit more grit or guts. Musically, it’s a triumph. Songs with rich, life-affirming melodies and harmonies nestle up against mild freakouts, such as the creepy jazz number “Love”, where organ, flute and drums fight for attention under dustings of sugar-sweet lyrics. Extras8/10: Red vinyl, first mono reissue. HANNAHVETTESE FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 45

GRAHAM TUCKER/REDFERNS, JEFF DOOLEY

SongOfTheAvatars: TheLostMasterTapes

ARCHIVE

REDISCOVERED

Uncovering the underrated and overlooked

IGGY & THE STOOGES

You Think You’re Bad, Man? The Road Tapes 73-74 CHERRY RED 7/10

Dashing,deafening,dangerous:fiveconcerts capturingtheStooges’lastgasps Six years deep into one of rock’s darkest, most contentious journeys, Iggy Stooge, guitar maestro James Williamson and company were ripping Chuck Berry’s masterful, 15-year-old mythology down to life’s abyss. Sex and extra sex, animalist survival, confrontation and rage pillage through Mr Osterberg’s oeuvre: “Search And Destroy”, “Open Up And Bleed” and “Cock In My Pocket” are the modus operandi, with wry humour and cover songs to boot. Listeners beware, though – Road Tapes’ 41-track set presents primitive, muddy audience recordings; still, the long-classic Stooges finale, Metallic KO, with its brooding, eight-minute “Gimme Danger”. Auburn Hills, from 1973, is the crucial find here – the bass-less, sharp-shocked artistry raging directly into one’s cranium. Extras: 6/10.Atmospheric Iggy band photos and liner notes. LUKE TORN

ARIEL PINK

Archive Cycles 3 & 4 MEXICAN SUMMER 6/10

LEILA

Like Weather (reissue, 1998) MODERN LOVE / THANK U

9/10

High-water mark of late-’90s electronic eclectica FROM Beck to The Beta Band, Hello Nasty to Moon Safari, offhand eclecticism was the name of the game in 1998. Among these more heralded names, Leila Arab’s debut album seemed to spring from nowhere to define the patchwork spirit of the times, though the Iranian-born Londoner had a decent pedigree: she’d toured with Björk and befriended The Aphex Twin, who helped her to mix Like Weather before putting it out on his own Rephlex imprint. While in some ways Arab fitted the Aphex mould of reclusive maverick techno boffin, she didn’t necessarily seek to push sonic boundaries; instead she applied gnarly homebrew techniques to the business of making a pop record, albeit a deeply esoteric one. Despite its gleeful collision of styles, the overall mood of Like Weather is pleasingly crepuscular and claustrophobic. After a short peal of feedback and a bassline that sounds like it’s being played on your boiler pipes, the first thing you hear is the bruised, bluesy vocal of Luca Santucci: “Break me off a little piece of something”, he moans, “I want to lose my mind”. This sets the tone for an album that seems to suggest – not unreasonably – that the best remedy for heartbreak is to get completely off your face. As with Tricky’s Maxinquaye, some of Like Weather’s insular mystique emanates from 46 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

the rawness of the guest singers, who were all drawn from Arab’s own circle of family and friends. Santucci was previously signed to EMI offshoot Cooltempo but his solo career never took off, and he carries some of that hurt into the deconstructed R&B of “Don’t Fall Asleep” and “Won’t You Be My Baby, Baby”. Donna Paul lends “Feeling” and “Misunderstood” an ingenuous reggae lilt, while Arab’s sister Roya sings the fuzzy, enveloping “Blue Grace”. In between, there are corroded amen breaks and glinting Moomin lullabies. No two tracks sound alike but nor could they belong to any other album. Everything has the feeling of a spacewalk or deep-sea dive, the shimmering alien beauty heightened by a fear that you might run out of oxygen at any moment. It’s a rare and heady mood that even its creator has struggled to recapture. Arab subsequently hooked up with bigger labels in the form of XL and Warp, but her music seemed to become even more scratchy and elusive, and she hasn’t released a full album since 2011. Hopefully this reissue, marking the launch of her own label Thank U, will help her find her way back to that late-’90s sweet spot. Extras: 8/10.As with the original LP release, vinyl copies come with a free 7” featuring two bonus tracks.

SAM RICHARDS

Mannafordiehardfans This collection represents the final raid of the Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti archive spanning the years 1999-2019 and includes four recordings remastered from the original tapes: Oddities Sodomies Vol 1 plus Sit n’ Spin (Cycle 3) and Odditties Sodomies Vol 3 plus standalone album Scared Famous/ FF>> (Cycle 4). Diving in at random does no disservice to songs that are fragmentary, heavily patchworked and almost hallucinatory. If anything defines them it’s the refusal of definition, but AP’s love of eccentrics from Syd Barrett to Frank Zappa is obvious. As a document of compulsive, avant-pop creativity, it’s hard to deny, but whether a 75-track release (following two Cycles totalling around 100) is plain self-indulgence is a question worth asking. Extras: None. SHARON O’CONNELL

THE PRETTY THINGS

Parachute (reissue, 1970) MADFISH 8/10

Neglected1970treasurefromR&Boverlords The Pretty Things were in flux after SF Sorrow, with drummer Twink quitting for Pink Fairies and founder member/guitarist Dick Taylor leaving to become a producer, most notably for Hawkwind. Happily, none of this seemed to upset them unduly. Vic Unitt was drafted in from Edgar Broughton’s band, as lead singer Phil May and bassist Wally Waller constructed a majestic set of layered songs built around the contrast between urban and pastoral life. There’s a rangy, prog-folk feel to “The Good Mr Square”, offset by the postpsych rumble of “Sickle Clowns”, on which May appears to be undergoing his own kind of Primal Scream therapy. The title track, with its hurtling finish, serves as a metaphor for Parachute’s main concerns: the missed opportunities of the ’60s and the bumpy promise of an uncertain future. Extras: 7/10.Six rare singles and B-sides, including the fine “Blue Serge Blues”. ROB HUGHES

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THE SPECIALIST

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO

Hidari Ude No Yume WEWANTSOUNDS 8/10

ThirdsolorecordfromTokyosynth wunderkind,restoredandremastered Recorded in 1981 as his parent band, Yellow Magic Orchestra, were introducing the wider world to the synthetic pleasures of Japanese technopop, Hidari Ude No Yumeis the moment Ryuichi Sakamoto’s distinctive sound slides into focus. Assisted by a gang of collaborators including his YMO bandmates and American guitarist Adrian Belew – then fresh from touring Talking Heads’ Remain In Light – it’s a beguiling blend of ancient and modern, Sakamoto fusing cuttingedge technology with traditional instruments: marimba, didgeridoo and Japanese sho and hichiriki flutes. Its 10 tracks encompass robotic funk (“Relâché”), minimal exotica (“Slat Dance”) and playful vocal pop (“Saru To Yuki To Gomi No Kodomo”) – often eccentric, but with enough good ideas to pull it off. Extras: 7/10.Hidari Ude No Yume was originally released in the UK as Left Handed Dream in a bastardised form, with some tracks removed or (worse) re-recorded with English lyrics. This reissue restores the original, plus a disc of instrumentals. LOUIS PATTISON

THESE NEW PURITANS Hidden [MMXX] DOMINO 8/10

DAVE ALVIN

Songs From An Old Guitar: Rare And Unreleased Recordings YEP ROC

9/10

CHIP DUDEN PHOTOGRAPHY

Master Blaster: covers, originals and transcendent thrills DAVE ALVIN’s back catalogue – four albums with the original Blasters, 13 solo albums since 1986 – is abloom with songs that attest to his standing as one of America’s greatest songwriters, a roots-rock poet with a blues man’s soul and a rock’n’roll heartbeat. He’s also been over the years a masterful interpreter of other people’s material. His Grammy-winning 2001 album, Public Domain: Songs From The Wild Land, for instance, drew from a rich motherlode of traditional songs, recast in his own musical image. West Of West, six years later, celebrated the work of a dozen California songwriters – including Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, Merle Haggard – Alvin’s singular vision bringing a thematic unity to a disparate collection of songs. Songs From An Old Guitar similarly is an album mostly of covers, just three tracks Alvin originals. Some of them are songs that didn’t make the final tracklisting of the albums they were originally recorded for and various tribute albums he’s contributed to. The rest are from sessions that were convened between 2000 and 2017 for no better reason than “making music for the transcendent thrill of, well, making music”, as Alvin puts it in his sleevenotes. There are songs by Alvin heroes Willie Dixon, Bob Dylan, Marty Robbins, Doug Sahm, Texas fiddler Papa Link Davis, Chicago blues guitarist Earl Hooker, bawdy early blues man Bo Carter, occasional 48 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

member of Dylan favourites The Mississippi Sheiks. There are further covers of songs by Alvin’s songwriter friends Peter Case, Chris Smither and the vastly underappreciated Bill Morrissey. Whatever their diverse source, there isn’t a song here that doesn’t fit Alvin like a favourite old shirt, hat or harmonica rack. He turns Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” – originally recorded for an Uncut CD – into a kind of Pentecostal noir, the lyric delivered as apocalyptic sermon or the voiceover of a hardboiled B-movie, guitars sinister and forbidding, imagined by Alvin as “avenging angels”. Among multiple other standouts here are a beautiful version of Marty Robbins’s conservationist hymn, “Man Walks Among Us”, a bopping, jubilant cover of Mickey Newbury’s “Mobile Blue”, the Hot Club strut of Lil Hardin Armstrong’s “Perdido Street Blues”, the rampaging roadhouse blues of Alvin’s own “Beautiful City ’Cross The River”. Perhaps best of all is the rousing swirl of “On The Way Downtown”, by the great Peter Case, a song about love, friendship and ghosts, with carousing violin from the late Amy Farris, for whom Alvin write the requiem “Black Rose Of Texas” on his Eleven: Eleven album. It may have been assembled as a lockdown stopgap, but Songs From An Old Guitar is overall glorious, a career highlight in a career full of them.

ALLAN JONES

10thanniversaryof(modern)classically inclinedsecond Brothers Jack and George Barnett made a surprisingly divisive entrance with their post-punk Beat Pyramid in 2008: plenty admired its brilliant ideas and vaulting ambition, while detractors judged it stern and pretentious.Hidden is a very different beast, though only slightly less austere. It sees Jack Barnett teaming up with producer (and ex-Bark Psychosis mainman) Graham Sutton and bringing in bassoons, taiko drums and a children’s choir, among other things, to meet the former’s target of “dancehall meets Steve Reich”. The end result isn’t too far off, in terms of rhythms and phrasing, especially in regard to the relentless march of “Attack Music”. Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes opera is another reference point, audible on “5”, but Hidden is a modern classic on its own terms. Extras: 7/10.Four unreleased session tracks and two contemporaneous live versions. The delicate xylophone polyphony of “Mallets” and the sweetly urgent, Robert Wyatt-ish “Hologram Chamber Mix” stand out. SHARON O’CONNELL

VARIOUS ARTISTS

2 Tone: The Albums CHRYSALIS

8/10

Eight-disccompletehistoryoficoniclabel To mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of 2 Tone, we’ve already had the7” Treasures vinyl box – and now comes a multi-CD extravaganza thatcomprises everything the label released in its brief but explosive lifespan between 1979-84. That means the Specials’ three studio LPs, The Selecter’s Too Much Pressure and a brace of

ARCHIVE

VARIOUSARTISTS

DeutscheElektronische Musik 4: Experimental German RockAndElectronic Music 1971-83 SOULJAZZ 7/10

Kraut-kosmischecollectionofpulsing electronicsandstonerwig-outs It’stestamenttothe visionandquality controloftheSoulJazz teamthatthey’vemade ittofourvolumesof DeutscheElektronische Musik withoutscrapingthebottomofthe krautrock or kosmischebarrels.Attheir weakest, thesekindsofmulti-volume genre compilationsrepeattiredold narratives, butattheirbest,theysuggest new connectionsandunderstandings– Deutsche ElektronischeMusikispitched in the middleofthosetwopolarities: not tedious, butneitherasrevelatoryas you’d hope. Indeed,theultimatetake home ofthe setisthatthecanonical names of Germanundergroundmusic are canonicalforareason;thestrongest cuts here, by thelikesofMichaelRother, Canand Harmonia,allreassertthese artists’ dominanceofthefield.It’sgood to hear some hippie-bongstrumfrom Kalacakra, though,especiallywhen followed by thedappledarpeggiosof EMAK’s “TanzInDenHimmel”. Extras: None. JONDALE

VARIOUSARTISTS SEX (reissue,2003) STRANGER THAN PARADISE

8/10

The songs thatrockedthewrongend of the Kings Roadin1975 Originally issued on CD in 2003, this compilation contains 20 songs that featured on the jukebox at SEX, among them

WEAREBUSYBODIES

9/10

Exuberanthighlifelate-’70sclassic AstheGhanaianmusic businessgathered pacethroughthe 1970s,Vis-A-Vis emergedasoneofits forerunners,carrying withthemanintoxicatingblendof highlife,AfrobeatandR&B.Initially issuedin1977andmuch-prizedsince, ObiAgyeMeDofoisarguablytheir greatestmoment.Thenear10-minute titletrackaloneissomethingtobehold, afizzingAfrofunkgempropelledby horns,TonnyDozis’spaceysynthsand thebassgroovesofSlimManu.The sameappliestomini-epic“Kankyema”, whichultimatelybecomesashowcase forliquid-lightningguitaristSammy Cropper,thoughfullecstaticrelease arriveswiththeremarkable“Gladys Mmbobor”.Thepercussive“SusanSuo” isatreattoo.Andwhilethebandwere frontedbyIsaac‘Superstar’Yeboah, Vis-A-Visbecomemorepopularasthe fluidbackingbandforKFrimpong, oneofWestAfrica’sbiggestcrossover stars.Alsoreissuedatthesametimeis thealbum’s1976predecessor,OdoGu Ahorow,anotheressentiallisten. Extras:None. ROBHUGHES

PAULWELLER

WakeUpTheNation (reissue,2010) ISLAND

9/10

10th-anniversarymixofanalbum thatsawWellermutateintoan experimentalpost-rocker Wellerwasnever happywiththeoriginal mixofthisLP,and hehasapparently tweakedthemaster tapestoensurethatthis reissueisslightlyheavierandbassier. ButotherwisewehearWeller–again

in consort with his co-producer Simon Dine–continuehispost-millennial experimentalismwithseveralnotable guests.Themotorikpunkof“FastCar/ SlowTraffic”andpsychedelicswirl of“SheSpeaks”featureJambassist BruceFoxton;KevinShieldsservesasa wonderfullydisruptive,fuzzypresence ontherevolutionaryanthem“7&3Is TheStriker’sName”;BevBevanadds aheavyundertowtothetitletrackand “Moonshine”;whileClemCatinithumps hiswaythroughtheRoyOrbison-ish bolero“NoTearsToCry”.Andthere isplentytolovehere:“AimHigh” resemblesaStyleCouncilsoulballad putthroughagaragerockfilter;“Trees” isaremarkablesymphoniccollage thatmeditatesontheageingprocess, atributetoWeller’srecentlydeparted father.Extras:None. JOHNLEWIS

THEWHITESTRIPES

GreatestHits THIRDMAN/COLUMBIA 9/10

Overduesurveyofduo’schoicecuts TypicalofTheWhite Stripestoreleasetheir firstgreatesthitscomp whenstreaminghas madethebest-ofall butredundant–an antiquatedideathatprobablyamused JackWhiteasthebloody-minded thingtodo.Still,13yearsaftertheir lastalbum,IckyThump,it’sasgooda timeasanytolookagainatthebodyof workheproducedwithMegWhite.This anthologyroundsup26oftheirmost popularsongs,runningfromthebrittle snarloftheir1998debut“Let’sShake Hands”totheirbiggesthit,“Seven NationArmy”,barelypausingforbreath totakeintheMotowntendernessof “HelloOperator”and“HotelYorba”. Whatstrikesyou,aboveall,isthe innocenceandaffectionintheirbreezy blues,atoddswiththeheavyweather Whitehasmadeofhispost-Stripes career.Extras:None. PIERSMARTIN

YOUNGMARBLEGIANTS ColossalYouth–40th AnniversaryReissue DOMINO 9/10

Indie-popfoundationstone celebratesits40thanniversary

COMING NEXT MONTH... S we settle into 2021, be taking a look A we’ll at albums from

newcomers such as Black Country, New Road, Mush and Carywn Ellis & Rio 18 ,and established favourites including John Carpenter,Altın Gün, Mouse On Mars and the mighty Weather Station. In the world of archives, there’ll be releases from Nirvana (the ’60s ones), John Mayall,The National and lots more. See you then! TOM.PINNOCK@UNCUT.CO.UK

ColossalYouthalmost certainlywouldn’t haveexistedwithout punk,butitisarecord thatowespractically nothing tothesound’s familiarhallmarks.Thesolelong-player fromtheband,agirlandtwobrothers fromrainyCardiff,itturnedheadsasit wassooutofstepwith1980’sprevailing trends.Sparseinsound,shyinmanner, its15songs–justPhillipandStuart Moxham’swiryguitars,AlisonStatton’s schoolgirlvocal.Alonelyorganand thetap-tapofadrummachine–felt confrontationalpreciselybecauseof itsapparentdiffidence.Listenclosely andyouhearemotionalnuanceandsly humour,plusanaggingmelodicismthat wouldwinfuturedevoteesfromNirvana toBelle&Sebastian. Extras:8/10.Tracksfromthe“Final Day”single,“TestcardEP”and additionalrarities,plusaliveDVDof theirfinalshowinNewYork. LOUISPATTISON

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FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •49

ANGELOPENNETTA

AliceCooper’s“I’mEighteen”, thetrackthatJohnLydon mimedtofortheauditionthat sawhimtransformedinto These New Puritans: JohnnyRotten.Curatedby brothers SEXclerkandfutureBanshee with brilliant MarcoPirroni,ithasanear ideas impeccablemixofNuggets garageand’50srockandblues, pepperedwiththeoddcurveballlike albums by JamaicantrombonistRico, LorettaLynn’s“ThePill”,“BetterMove plus the multi-artistlivesetDanceCraze On”byArthurAlexanderandJohnny and 1983 compThisAreTwoTone,which Hallyday’s“JouePasDeRockN’Roll rounded up non-LPsinglesandB-sides PourMoi”.Severalsongsareessential and includes other2Toneactssuchas tothecomingpunkrevolution–“Shake Madness andTheBeat.Ifsomeofthe SomeAction”and“PsychoticReaction” music now hasaperiodyou-had-to-beactasatemplatefor90percentoffirstthere feel, muchofit–includingthe wavepunk–butjustasinfluentialonthe classic zeitgeistsongsofJerryDammers newscenewouldhavebeenlarger-thanand the two rathersplendidRicorecords lifecharacterssuchasVinceTaylor, – has enduredwell.Asa sealedtime ScreamingLordSutch,Screamin’Jay capsule of a seminalmomentinyouth HawkinsandJonathanRichman. culture, it’s anirresistiblereminderof Extras:6/10.Pinkvinyllimited-edition the high tide of2Toneandtheskarevival comeswith7”oftwoadditionalsongs when the Specials,theSelecterand –IanHunter’s“OnceBitten,TwiceShy” Madness all appearedonTopOfThePops and“LightsOut”byJerryByrne. on the same night. Extras: 6/10.Newartworkoverseenby PETERWATTS Dammers (whocreatedtheoriginal 2Tone logo) andextensivelinernotes. VIS-A-VIS NIGEL WILLIAMSON ObiAgyeMeDofo (reissue,1977)

ALBUMSPREV

GARY MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

O gy Pop’s torso, another features a romantic song about masturbation, while a third includes recordings of 19th-century Romantic poetry. Join us then for Uncut’s essential guide to 21 of 2021’s key albums. Brace yourselves for news of THE CURE, JACKSON BROWNE, PAUL WELLER, FOO FIGHTERS, MARIANNE FAITHFULL, MICHAEL STIPE, KENDRICK LAMAR, STEVIE NICKS, DINOSAUR JR, GRINDERMAN, THE ROLLING STONES, ERYKAH BADU, TEENAGE FANCLUB, LOW and more…

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASEDATE 2021 Expect“heavyanddark” moodsonthemuch-anticipated comebackfromRobertSmith’s bandofbrothers REEVES GABRELS, GUITAR: We started the record in January 2019 in Wales – we went in for about two 50•UNCUT•FEBRUARY2021

months. We’d all been writing before that. So we got together and listened to it all, learned it, went in the studio and recorded it. There’s enough material for two or three records, a lot of stuff. So one of the problems, when you’ve got enough for two records, is deciding which songs to bring to completion. Right now I’m not 100 per cent sure where we’re at. Are we at a record and a half? Are we two records finished? I always feel as though The Cure is Robert’s to talk about, so I’ll defer to him on that. But he did say the

record was finished at one point and we all kind of went, “What?” It’s a heavy and dark record as well. I don’t think there are any short songs on there. The description of Lou Reed’s Berlin when it came out was that it was the “Sgt Pepper of depression” – I don’t know if we’re that psychedelic, but we are that depressed. It was a tough couple of years for everybody. A by-product of getting older is that people around you keep dying. We all lost relatives. Robert lost his brother, I lost a stepdad and

father-in-law – while we were on the road, too, which meant there was more strain. Not that we have to go and put on a happy face when we play. The playing in fact was more like a salvation, that was our point of solace. All that fed into what we ended up doing. We’ve been having a great time playing as a band. We’re enjoying each other’s company. We didn’t have time to finish the vocal tracks [in 2019], and this year was going to be required to look at everything we did in 2019. We had

one gig scheduled for June. The wonder of modern technology is such that we don’t have to be in the same place at the same time, although that would be preferable. When we did the basic recording we were all there. Work has been continuing remotely this year: a Zoom call on one computer. Robert on a chair in

front of a screen and me in front of my computer with a guitar plugged into a bunch of stuff. It’s possible to make it work and just as comical as being in the studio – even when you’re just a head on a chair. Like, “Don’t say anything, or I’m going to close this laptop!” If we’re going to make a record that’s truly an emotional thing, then

“Workhasbeen continuingremotely thisyear…it’sjustas comicalasbeingin thestudio” REEVES GABRELS

there’s a certain amount of guitar stuff where I need to hear Robert’s finished vocal because it’s reactive – I have to be able to get into that space to respond to what Robert is singing musically. There are a few little bits and pieces on a couple of the songs that still need to be done. I think it’ll all become clear by the summertime. FEBRUARY2021•UNCUT•51

SAMIR HUSSEIN/WIREIMAGE

“It was a tough couple of years for everybody”: The Cure at Glastonbury 2019

2021 ALBUMS PREVIEW MichaelStipe: composing himself

Finally cracking the code: Jackson Browne with engineer Kevin Smith

TITLE Downhill From

Everywhere LABEL Inside Recordings RELEASE DATE Spring 2021

West Coast singer-songwriter ponders his legacy on an erudite mix of the personal and the eco-political

LORIFLETCHER;DAVIDBELISLE

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’VE put together songs that I worked on for three years or more with a bunch of new songs. The first thing we did was “My Cleveland Heart”, which I wrote with [guitarist] Val McCallum. We cut it with Davey Faragher and Pete Thomas, from Elvis Costello’s Imposters, who also play in Val’s band, Jackshit. “Downhill From Everywhere” and “A Little Soon To Say” have already been out, as have “Love Is Love” and “The Dreamer”. They’re songs from specific projects I was involved with, doing things with other people. “The Dreamer”, for instance, is from the Haiti [Artists For Peace And Justice benefit] album Let The Rhythm Lead. I stopped and started the title song a bunch of times. In fact, there were a lot of soundchecks in England, when I was touring there last, where we’d go listen to it. Every single one of those images in the song is to do with something that produces plastic [“Downhill From Everywhere” featured in 2019’s Discovery Channel documentary The Story Of Plastic]. “A Little Soon To Say” is a kind of companion

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piece, inspired by playing a concert in Vermont. I looked out and saw all these faces of all ages. In a very real sense, I saw the place that I may occupy in the spectrum of young and old, past and present. As far as legacy goes, I look around every day at younger people and wonder how the fuck they’re going to deal with what we’ve left them. How are they dealing with the fact that our democratic institutions are under attack? That they want to go on making oil and polluting the environment and devastating the health of people all over the planet, including the poorest and most vulnerable. I think it was really important that the demonstrations that were organised by Greta Thunberg let us know that the children of the entire world are really paying attention. “A Little Soon To Say” tries to address that. I can’t just write a song in a few days any more, it very rarely happens that way. “I’m Still Looking For Something” is a song I was trying to write years ago, but I didn’t know what I was talking about. Even as a child you have expectations and dreams, an inward belief about what life is supposed to be. Then you find out the truth as you go along. I needed to live it more, until I’d finally lived it enough to where I’m really at that place. So that song is the most recent one on the record, because I finally cracked the code.

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASE DATE 2021 Stand by for synths, dumb sounds and “whatever the fuck I want, in essence”

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HAT I have at the moment are 18 pieces of music that I’m working on. Some of them are much more complete than others – some have lyrics, others don’t. I threw a bunch of barricades in my path by deciding to compose myself with a lot of this music. I’ve never written music before, which means that I’m coming from a completely different vantage point than I ever did with REM. I’m writing for things that I’ve never had any experience with whatsoever. But that’s where I get excited. So that’s what’s coming up. I can’t play an instrument, so that makes composing for me that much more thrilling, because I really don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not afraid of stupid sounds. So banging around on synthesisers is, for me, an easy way to create. Typically, I’ll create a melody by singing over it, then I’ll mimic that melody with a synth and develop it or not. I think the voice actually helps create a balance there because it’s very real and very organic. I want something that’s gonna make me feel like I’m really living in the moment. At the age of 60, I don’t really want to do things that are

easy. I can do whatever the fuck I want, in essence. I’m at that point in my life where I don’t really have to please anyone but myself.

TITLE As Days Get Dark LABEL Rock Action RELEASE DATE March 2021 Sixteen years after The Last Romance, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton rekindle the fire

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IDAN MOFFAT: We did the reunion tour [2016] just as a sort of celebration, then that spiralled off into getting offered a lot of festivals. It’s the elephant in the room when you’re sitting in the dressing room together: “Shall we try to make a record again?” So I said I’d do it as long as we had exactly the same team that made the first album [with producer Paul Savage]. What was interesting to me was the idea of the same three people making a record with an extra 20-odd years’ experience. Songs of experience: Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat …

2021 ALBUMS PREVIEW

TITLE It’s Not Broken,

I’m Not Angry LABEL Sub Pop RELEASE DATE August 2021

Minnesota minimalists reach for transcendence on follow-up to 2018’s Double Negative

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LAN SPARHAWK: For the last few records we’ve learned to put the vocals on early and put them in a place where you can’t deny them. You’re like, “OK, so how is the music going to step up and be where it needs to be?” Using the vocals as the anchor for that been a little weird and risky, but I think it’s working. It’s a challenge. We’re still trying to find sounds that we’ve never heard before, trying to find ways to depict rhythm without necessarily going to drums first. I’ve been playing more guitar lately, though it’s more in an effort to try to make sounds that don’t sound like guitar, finding other ways to use it. On a lyrical level, there’s …and Malcolm Middleton

TITLE They’re Calling Me Home LABEL Nonesuch RELEASE DATE March 2021

Beguiling trad/covers successor to 2019’s There Is No Other

R Low: trying to touch the sky

definitely a feeling of reaching. We’re trying to actually touch the sky, not just expose it. Sometimes you reach for it and it disappears, and that’s the sound that you capture. We’re reaching for transcendence and trying to be cautious about escaping. We just wrote one song that we might record – the working title right now is “It’s Not Broken, I’m Not Angry”. A couple of the lines are memories of sitting underneath the car with my dad as a kid, trying to fix the transmission in the dark when it’s 10 below zero. There’s another called “Disappearing”, which is kind of a tribute to living by the water. Where we live in Duluth, Lake Superior is big enough that there’s a disappearing horizon, as if it was an ocean. It’s weird. I like the idea of the unknown.

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASE DATE 2021 America’s hippest rapper/ producer hints at radical sounds

based fashion house Neet Tokyo. “I think I worked on the new one a little bit,” he offered, “but not as much.” Aside from being spotted filming a video in Los Angeles this September, the biggest indicator that Lamar has been back in the studio came in an interview for i-D with Baby Keem, recently signed to his newly launched service company, pgLang. Addressing the long gaps between albums, Lamar explained: “I spend the whole year just thinking about how I’m gonna execute a new sound; I can’t do the same thing over and over. I need something to get me excited.” Meanwhile, regular engineer Derek Ali has claimed that Lamar currently has six albums’ worth of unreleased material. “It’s having that mindset to strive for the best possible version of you,” Ali told podcaster Kevin Durant in November. “Being that detailed is what separates the kids from the men, the good from great… He’s a true artist.”

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020 appeared to be comeback time for Kendrick Lamar. At the turn of 2020, Billboard’s editorial director, Bill Werde, revealed that the long-awaited follow-up to 2017’s Damn may finally be upon us. What’s more, claimed Werde, Lamar will be “pulling in more rock sounds this time”. In March, Thundercat seemed to confirm something was in the works during a video interview with Japan-

Rad trad: Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi

HIANNON GIDDENS: Right before the lockdown we managed to get into the studio – Hellfire, just outside Dublin. It’s the most quintessentially Irish place you could imagine, on a working farm with hay bales stacked up and cows in the field. Then you walk through the door and there’s this beautiful stone space that they’ve made into a modern studio. It was just me and Francesco, then we had a couple of guests come in for a few hours apiece: the wonderful Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu and then an incredible Irish traditional musician called Emer Mayock, who plays flute, whistle and pipes. I started playing these old North Carolina songs that I hadn’t played in years, and we were playing Italian things. I think, musically, we were reflecting on the fact that we couldn’t go home, the kind of big, sweeping human things that traditional music handles so well. One of the most important tracks is “Waterbound”, which we did with Niwel. It’s three ex-pats in the middle of the Irish countryside, playing a song about missing home. There’s also one of the first old-time tunes that I ever learned, “The Blackest Crow”, an old Italian lullaby that Francesco used to sing, Alice Gerard’s “Calling Me Home” and a version of “O Death” that was inspired by Bessie Jones’ recording. We took a 17th Century song by Monteverdi that became this beautiful combination of new and familiar, with an extra shimmer. It’s a very intense experience.

PAUHUSBAND;KARENCOX

We didn’t just want to make a record that sounds like the old stuff. Having said that, there is a song on there about wanking [“Another Clockwork Day”], but it’s done in a romantic way! We’re also very open to new sounds, like on “Kebabylon”. The idea of having a saxophone on an Arab Strap record in 1996 was outrageous. That would just never have happened. “Fable Of The Urban Fox” was written after it struck me that tabloid papers have treated foxes in entirely the same way as refugees and immigrants. They paint them as an enemy, demonise them. It’s an obvious metaphor in the context of the song. When I was growing up in the ’80s there was all this alternative comedy and I used to think as a teenager, ‘Why don’t people just sit around and cry together?’ That’s how “Tears On Tour” came about. My mum was a bit of a hippie as well, so maybe I took that notion a little further than normal. In a sense, that’s kind of what I’ve ended up doing with my life.

2021 ALBUMS PREVIEW Weller: makingthe most of lockdown

TITLE Fat-Pop (Volume 1) LABEL Polydor RELEASE DATE May 2021 Solo album No 16, with input from Andy Fairweather Low, daughter Leah and others

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was in London for most of lockdown, then around May I started on the record. I came down to the studio on my own, recording tracks with an acoustic guitar to a click track, then sending them to my band to put their parts on. It wasn’t a great way of doing it, but it kept us working. It was certainly a challenge. But I have to say, for me the first couple of months of lockdown was great. It felt like everything slowed down for a little bit. Because our lives are so fucking hectic these days, it felt quite nice to have empty streets, no aeroplanes and hearing the birds sing. I found inspiration in that quietness. We finished at the end of October. There’s 12 tracks on the album, with five tracks left over as bonus songs. We’ve done this 16-minute mix where we’ve used bits of the album – like a sound collage. The album is called Fat-Pop, with Volume 1 in brackets. There’s a track called “FatPop”, which sums it up. There’s 12 really fat pop songs on it, so I guess that’s what I was thinking. They feel meaty and chunky and melodic. In our own arrogant way, we thought they could all be singles! It sounds different from On Sunset. It’s not a complete change, but it’s more about the songs on this new one than the sonics. There’s a song called “Moving Canvas” that’s

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a tribute to Iggy Pop. What a great performance artist he is! You hear people say, “He should put his top on at his age,” but I think he should never put his top on – it’s his canvas, it’s what he paints on. Hopefully he’ll like it! There’s another song called “Still Glides The Stream” which Steve Craddock wrote the words to. It’s really nice poetry. There’s a track I co-wrote with Andy Fairweather Low called “Testify”. He sings on it. I’ve met him a few times, but we did a charity show in January 2020 where we had a chance to sing together. I love his voice, man. I sent him the backing track – it was something I had around for a while but I couldn’t find the right thing for it. He sent back a demo of his ideas. Then we had to wait a little while until lockdown lifted. He drove up in the summer and did his vocals. Then there’s “True” which I’ve done with Lia Metcalfe, from a little Scouse band called The Mysterines. It’s quite a funky little tune. I did a few co-writes, now I think about it. There’s another song called “Shades Of Blue”, which will probably be the first single, which I wrote with my daughter Leah, and she sings on it too. I already had the verses, but I was really stuck on the chorus and bridge. I was playing the piano in the studio and she just started singing – that was the chorus! We did the vocals that week. It worked out really well. There’s another song called “Glad Times” – it’s soulful, a bit Marvin. The rest are my own compositions. That’s coming out in May. Hopefully, we’ll start touring in June. We’ve reorganised the shows for the UK and Europe – America will be 2022 now, which is mad.

success in April with “Living In A Ghost Town”. The story has moved on since then, of course. In September, Richards was back at work on the album in Manhattan’s Germano Studios, while Jagger posted a clip from a new song called “Pride Before A Fall” on his social media. Working again with Don Watts, Richards estimates the band have “four or five tracks”, which would comprise their first studio album of original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang. The band might not be in too much hurry to finish it, though. There is the not-sosmall matter of 15 dates that they postponed owing to the pandemic, while keen Stones watchers will know the band celebrate their 60th anniversary in 2022. Sounds to us like the perfect time to release an album of all-new songs supported by a triumphant run of shows.

TITLE Sweep It Into Space LABEL Jagjaguwar RELEASE DATE April 2021 First in five years promises cosmic vibes, Kurt Vile and a dash of Thin Lizzy

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Universal RELEASE DATE Unconfirmed Tracks are in the can, but we may be waiting on our friends

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N July, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards both confirmed to Uncut that the pandemic had, unsurprisingly, disrupted the Stones’ ongoing recording sessions for a new studio album, their first since 2016’s Blue And Lonesome. Work continued during isolation – Jagger explained that he was struggling with the interpretation of a new ballad, while Richards was considering whether the band should surprise-release more material, as they had done to great

Jagger: teasing new tracks

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MASCIS: We started recording in the fall of 2019, so it was about 80 per cent done before lockdown happened. Then I was somehow able to fumble my way through to the end and finish it by myself, which was weird. And without an engineer. We had Kurt Vile helping to produce it a little bit. He was supposed to come one more time, but that didn’t happen. But he’s on there quite a bit, singing and playing guitar. I would’ve maybe tried to have other people on there too, but I was locked out of adding any more. Kurt brings a different kind of flavour… He’s playing some guitar lines that I wouldn’t play. Sometimes it would inspire me to try different things, like I was in a big Thin Lizzy kick at one point, so I took the opportunity to try to guitarmonise with something he was doing. I don’t think it’ll come off that way when you hear it, but that’s what I was thinking. I play bass a little too, like when Lou [Barlow] plays guitar on his own songs. A lot of the song titles I just made up, like “Garden”, “I Ain’t” and “To Be Waiting”. Then I asked a friend of mine, who’d heard the album, if there were any lyrics that stuck out that I could maybe use as a title. He came back with “Sweep It Into Space”. I guess that gives it a cosmic kind of feel. It’s always an inspiration.

2021 ALBUMS PREVIEW

Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis: fumbling his way through

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IVE years have passed since mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone, Erykah Badu’s last official solo release and first on her own label, Control Freaq. Since then she’s teased a couple of follow-ups, without either coming to fruition. But recent activity has been encouraging, if a little piecemeal. Three new tracks landed on SoundCloud in 2016 – “Trill Friends”, “Thru It All” and “Come See Badu”. Two years later, Badu explained that she was making slow progress on her sixth studio album. This seemed to gather more validity with the appearance of a new song (“The Sound Of Green”, dedicated to late trumpeter Roy Hargrove) during a performance on NTS’s The Sound Of Colour in November 2018. Another fresh tune was premiered the following summer, when she unveiled “The Work (The Way She Sees)” during her set at Primavera

Erykah Badu: piecemeal activity

TITLE EarthTrip LABEL ThrillJockey RELEASEDATE Spring2021 WoodenShjips/MoonDuo wizardgoesbacktothesource

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IPLEY JOHNSON: I started working on it in the spring, but all these things kept happening to prevent me from completing the record. And it’s just been a shit show of a year. Our tour was cancelled midway through and it was a tough time, so I thought this was going to be a darker record. But, being a generally optimistic kind of person, I just can’t make a superdark record. It would be too much. So it’s not wildly different from Summerlong, though there’s definitely a different feel to it. I had all the songs and ideas, then it was just a matter of executing them. Barry Walker, who’s a local pedalsteel guy, has added some things.

Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis: revisiting the Romantics

I had a friend add some percussion and my partner, Sanae [Yamada, of Moon Duo], added some piano. So I’ve let some other people into my little world this time. But John [Jeffrey], who played on Summerlong, did all the drums again, so it’s mostly me and him, with Cooper Crain from Bitchin’ Bajas doing the mixing. I was doing a lot of gardening and working in the yard, so there’s a lot of earth influences in the songs, a lot of nature influences. The more I thought about it, it seems that 2020 has seen earth and nature try to tell us things over and over again, especially when you consider the wildfires and hurricanes and everything else. There’s one song called “Silver Roses”, which relates to the earth, but also the dream life, which is another big thing. “Wide Open Spaces” is another. And “In The Rain”. They’re all connected somehow.

TITLE SheWalksInBeauty LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASEDATE Spring2021 Spoken-wordpoetrysetto WarrenEllis’sexperimental ambience,withguests NickCave,BrianEnoand VincentSégal

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ARIANNE FAITHFULL: This project has been in my head since I was in my

teens, when I was studying English for A-Level and got into the 19th-century English Romantics: Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron. I started by recording six or seven of the poems in my flat with [producer] Head, who mixed them, then we sent them over to Warren. The music he came back with was just brilliant. I’ve never heard anything like it. The first lot of recording was done before Covid. And then post-Covid, I didn’t know if I could even do it any more. It was very sad, because I really wanted to sing the Lord Byron poem “So We’ll Go No More A Roving”. But I can’t sing at the moment, because it’s really damaged my lungs. When I had Covid, I was nearly dead. And I’m still recovering. So that poem turned out to be one of the most beautiful, because it’s so vulnerable. WARREN ELLIS: I was left to my own devices and found a work flow that was really meditative. I’d done spoken-word stuff with Nick [Cave] before, but this was the first time I’ve done a whole project dedicated to it. I sent the ideas over to Nick and he listened to the whole thing on speaker phone at the same time, then said, “This is unreal. Can I play on it?” The whole project had this fabulous kind of communal imagination about it. Marianne just has one of those voices that’s totally authoritative and full of such colour and such wisdom. It found it very moving and inspiring. FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 55

ROSIEMATHESON;GILBERTCARRASQUILLO/GETTYIMAGES

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASE DATE 2021 Neo soul queen’s long-awaited return. Possibly…

Sound in Barcelona. Around the same time, Badu and The Roots’ James Poyser issued a cover of Squeeze’s “Tempted” for Record Store Day. The spirit of collaboration continued into 2020. In May she teamed up with D’Angelo for the alluringly weird “Behoove”, a track on enigmatic jazz artist Slingbaum’s debut EP, “Slingbaum One” (other guests on the recording included Bilal, FKA twigs and Damon Albarn). A month later, Badu was among the guests on The Album, the third release from American allrounder Teyana Taylor. The enforced lockdown may have been another factor. Responding to an enquiry about new music from a fan on social media, Badu suggested she may finally be ready to get started: “Shit… look like I got time now.”

2021 ALBUMS PREVIEW

Stevie Nicks: it started with a dream

Slowdive: “there’s a definite cohesiveness”

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL DeadOceans RELEASEDATE October2021 Differentagain,possiblymore electronicandprobably “fuckingdepressing!”

INGRID POP; KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES FOR NARAS

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ACHEL GOSWELL: I never really thought we’d go back to Slowdive [for 2017’s selftitled comeback after 22 years], but the universe aligns itself in strange ways sometimes and it was the right time for everybody. What I love about the records we’ve done is that they’re all different. This one is gong to be different again. Slowdive doesn’t really stand still when it comes to making records. The bare bones of what we’ve done so far feels very exciting. We’re all quite eclectic in our musical tastes. Simon [Scott, drums] brings a different element to it because he brings all his field recordings and has been in the electronic music world for the last 10 to 15 years. The five of us went into our usual studio, the Courtyard in Sutton Courtenay, with our engineer, Ian Davenport. Neil [Halstead, guitar and vocals] came in with several pieces that he’d been working on at home. Not so much guitars, more electronic-based, though that’s not necessarily what it’ll end up sounding like. Some of the songs are more formed than others, some of them are more like sketches at the moment. Neil has done very vague guide vocals over some of the melodies, though I haven’t really done anything yet. Neil does a lot of the writing and maybe I’ll end up writing on some 56 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

of these tracks. Usually it comes from the heart, so probably it’ll be fucking depressing! All I can say is there’s a definite cohesiveness to what’s been done so far. It all ties in very nicely together.

TITLE EndlessArcade LABEL PeMa RELEASEDATE March2021 FiveyearsonfromHere, Glasgow’sfinestprovethere’s stilllifeafterthedepartureof co-founderGerryLove

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AYMOND McGINLEY: I don’t want to diminish Gerry’s absence in any way, but it was two years ago when we were dealing with that and we were already working with the people we have in the studio band now. What we didn’t want to do was bring in a

Fannies old and new: Norman Blake and (right ) Euros Childs

ringer; we just wanted to continue with the people that are part of the family. Dave McGowan’s been with us since 2004 and he’s a bass player, though he’s also been playing pretty much every other instrument you can imagine. Euros Childs has played in Teenage Fanclub before. It seemed obvious to ask him if he wanted to get involved in a larger way. So it was invigorating, it was inspiring. There’s a lot of detail that Euros brings to the record – these great, idiosyncratic keyboard lines. I suppose there’s an element of finding things out about each other during the songwriting process. For example, we find out about Norman’s state of mind through his songs as much as conversations we’ve had. When it came to the title track, the words “Don’t be afraid of this life” just suddenly came to me. Then you kind of write the song around the thing you’ve come up with instinctively. I’d never thought of the term Endless Arcade before – it just came out through the process. We’re already of the mindset where

we’re thinking of making plans to go into the studio to make another record. We’ll see what happens. Two Teenage Fanclub albums in two years? That would be a first!

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASE DATE 2021 Never mind the Mac, Stevie’s back

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OLLOWING her induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2019 – the first woman to be inducted twice, once with Fleetwood Mac and now solo – Stevie Nicks returned this year with a live album and accompanying film. 24 Karat Gold: The Concert arrived in cinemas in October, taken from her tour of the same name in 2017. More intriguingly, the same month saw the release of power ballad “Show Them The Way”, Nicks’ first new music in six years. The Greg Kurstin-produced song, with Dave Grohl on drums and Dave Stewart on guitar, came in both

2021 ALBUMS PREVIEW

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASE DATE Autumn 2021 Drive-By Truckers mainman revives a secret collaboration

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ATTERSON HOOD: I’d originally hoped that the Truckers would tour behind The Unraveling for all of 2020, but now everything’s up in the air. I’ve got a bunch of songs earmarked for a solo record, too. The problem is I can’t really get together with the people I want to work with on the project, so it’s still on hold. But the other thing I have is an unreleased record I made with Luther and Cody Dickinson [North Mississippi Allstars], their dad Jim Dickinson and my dad, David Hood. We formed a band back when Jim was still alive, called Dickinsons And Patterson Hood: “Its a cool, weird record”

Foo Fighters: stepping out of the box

Hoods. We went into the studio together. This was maybe around 2007, right before Jim got sick. Then after Jim passed away [2009], for years we just didn’t touch it. But we got together again last year, right before all this shit happened, and actually went back into the studio and finished recording that project. They’re all original songs. Some of the songs Jim wrote, at least one or two Luther wrote and then I wrote a good bit. It’s a cool, weird record. We still have to mix it, but at some point we’re going to put that out, hopefully next year. We’ve got Spooner Oldham on it and just the fact I got to do something with Jim Dickinson is enough for me, because he was one of my lifelong heroes.

TITLE MedicineAtMidnight LABEL Roswell/RCA RELEASEDATE February2021 Grohlgetshisgrooveonwitha “partyrecord”.ExpectBowie/ Prince’80sdancevibes

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AYLOR HAWKINS, DRUMS: It all came together really quickly. Dave got excited about what kind of record he wanted to make, so he started doing demos. Within a couple of weeks he was ready, so he called us up. The songs weren’t done, but the ideas were definitely pretty much already on their way there. All we needed to do was fill in the blanks. There were a couple of things that happened more out of the air. For example, Dave wrote “Waiting On A War” as we were all together. “Love Dies Young” as well. I think he wanted to get it done quickly. There’s a method to that, because sometimes when you demo stuff too much, you kind of beat the life out of it. It’s good to know what you’re doing when you walk into the studio, but at the same time he was really interested in letting it happen spontaneously once we had an overview of the song. “Making A Fire” was the first song we worked on – and the first

time we introduced the idea of making drum loops, which is something we’d never done before. I was kind of against it, to be honest – I’m the drummer, so I would be – but once I got my head around the fact that Queen made drum loops, it changed my ideology. I realised it’s OK if we stepped out of the box and tried something different. Dave almost wanted it to have a kind of Beastie Boys feel to it. When we got done with it I was cool, it is a new sound for us. For Foo Fighters to come up with something relatively fresh and new is not easy, man. We’ve been doing this for so long and this is our 10th record. But when [first single] “Shame Shame” came out, people were like, “What the fuck is going on here?” Overall, Dave wanted more of a grooveoriented record, not so much just big guitars. There are big guitars and all that stuff, but he wanted to make his Let’s Dance or his Purple Rain. That’s the kind of mood he was in. The title track is a nod to Let’s Dance and that kind of vibe. Even the sort of “Let’s Dance”inspired guitar solo. That’s just such a new kind of feel for us… I think Dave wanted to make a fun record – a dancey, party record. FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 57

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rock’n’roll and acoustic versions. Nicks explained that the song actually dates back to 2008, when she dreamed she was singing at a political benefit with Martin Luther King, John Lewis and John and Bobby Kennedy in attendance. It began life as a poem, “The Kennedys”, prior to being adapted into a lyrical message of hope and perseverance. “I think this song is maybe the best thing I’ve done in 20 years, maybe 30 years, maybe ever,” Nicks told Billboard. “It has a message and it is a prayer for the world…” In the same interview, Nicks explained that “Show Them The Way” had inspired her to “make another record. I hadn’t really thought that I was gonna do that, but I should.” One of the new tunes will be based on a character she’s been watching in a TV crime show: “I’m going to go and write that song and that will be the beginning of writing this new record.”

2021 ALBUMS PREVIEW “There’s so much interest in Grinderman”: Cave and co at Coachella, April 12, 2013

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASE DATE Unconfirmed Will they, won’t they? The possible return of Nick Cave’s miscreant quartet

JASONKEMPIN/GETTY IMAGESFORCOACHELLA; ANTONYCROOK

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SIDE from a brief reunion at the Coachella festival in 2013, two years after they’d officially broken up, Grinderman seemed content with a legacy of two well-received studio albums. But a fan query, addressed to Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files website in October 2018, prompted discussion about whether the band (Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos) still had a future. Accompanied by a photo of Cave and Ellis, sitting on chairs “in the Museum Of Modern Art, Mexico City, discussing the wisdom of reforming Grinderman”, Cave replied: “I sat with Warren and we discussed whether it was a good idea. We both thought the world needed Grinderman, considering its current emotional climate.” He added that “we both thought releasing a Best of Grinderman record was a good idea. We thought it should be a double album.” The story took a twist in July 2019, in a further post on Red Hand Files. During a discourse on his favourite guitarists, Cave recalled Robert Fripp’s seismic contribution to an extended version of “Heathen Child”, a song from 2010’s Grinderman 2. Almost in passing, Cave stated that their second album 58•UNCUT•FEBRUARY2021

collaborated with Atticus [Ross] on the Before The Flood soundtrack [2016 documentary about climate change], so we knew that was something that was going to work. The one with him on it [“Midnight Flit”] is quite a big production, with a full string section. Quite epic. And we’re all really big fans of Colin Stetson [Arcade Fire, Bon Iver], so he’s on the record as well. “Ritchie Sacramento” has vocals on it. Bob Nastanovich put up a post a year after David Berman had died. The first line of the song is based on something that David had said when they were all drunk at college and he threw a mop at a sports car. I asked Bob if he’d mind me using it in a song.

was “part of a yet to be completed trilogy, you might be happy to know”. Cave has been engaged with Nicholas Lens’ minimal chamber opera L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S of late, as well as the Idiot Prayer live album and concert film, but the prospect of a revived Grinderman remains in the air. Speaking to Uncut, Ellis is tightlipped. “There’s no news on that front,” he maintains. “There’s so much interest in Grinderman, it seems. These are strange times. You never know what’s up ahead.”

TITLE As The Love Continues LABEL Rock Action RELEASE DATE February 2021 Glasgow post-rockers look to defy expectations on their 10th

Mogwai: taking U-turns

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TUART BRAITHWAITE: We were due to go over to [producer] Dave’s [Fridmann] studio in New York in May, but obviously that couldn’t happen. So we found an amazing place in Worcestershire [Vada Studios] instead. Dave was still really involved, on a live Zoom call, while we were playing, which had a weird Wizard Of Oz vibe about it. In a funny way, I think it kind of helped the record. Dave wanted us to do at least one thing that we wouldn’t normally do for each song. So if we were going up one avenue, he’d want a complete U-turn and try for something completely different. He definitely kept us on our toes, so as not to make the same record again. We were talking about getting some other people in too. We’ve already

TITLE Unconfirmed LABEL Unconfirmed RELEASE DATE Autumn 2021 Brooklyn singer-guitarist heads West for a hook-up with Elliott Smith’s old producer

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OR me, this record will be a continuation of where the last one left off. When I was writing The Unseen In Between [2019] it was a time of turmoil for me. I was going through some personal loss and the thread that was running through that record was hope and clarity and focus. So I still felt like I had some ground to cover with these new songs, which means reflections on moving through all those emotions. At the same time feeling hopeful. I’ve been working on these songs by myself and I feel like this body of work is a result of me being locked in a room. It’s going to be a small crew on this record, a very focused studio situation. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s going to be a personal sort of record in that way. Not so much a woe-is-me thing – more just exploring my mind and playing with form and storylines. I’m working with an engineer, Rob Schnapf [Elliott Smith’s ex-producer], who has a studio in Los Angeles called Mant Sounds. I’ve admired his work for a really long time. There’s a musician friend of mine, Justin Tripp [bass], who’s someone I came up with in Philadelphia and has played on my records before. So it’s just the three of us to begin with, then I have a lot of musician friends in LA who I’m going to call in at some point. I’m super excited about it. INTERVIEWS BY MICHAEL BONNER, MICHAEL HANN, ROB HUGHES AND JOHN ROBINSON

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Tamara’s world: “When I sing softly I feel I have my full range of expression”

60 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

THE WEATHER STATION

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE The stakes have never been higher for THE WEATHER STATION. The brilliant, poetic Tamara Lindeman tells Laura Barton how loss and devastation – both emotional and global – have informed Ignorance, the first great album of 2021 Photo by JEFF BIERK

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HE Department For The Study Of Religion stands among the cluster of University of Toronto buildings in the Queen’s Park area of the city; a downtown neighbourhood of broad streets, red oak and silver maple. Once a week, Tamara Lindeman, the songwriting heart of The Weather Station, heads here to work alone in a rented office space. “I’m not sure what else is going on in this building,” she says via video call. “But it’s very calm, and it’s stone and it’s extremely quiet.” Behind her lie blank walls and empty wooden shelves, and as she talks, glints of sharp sunlight strike her pale face. By now, Lindeman should be preparing to tour the fifth Weather Station album, Ignorance – a vivid expansion of the band’s sound, made with a glut of the city’s musicians including two drummers, a saxophonist and a flautist and produced by Marcus Paquin, who previously steered Arcade Fire and The National. It’s a bold stride out for a musician known for fine-spun folk lyricism, but it’s also the sound of an artist rising up to her talent, finding fluidity and new possibility beyond the familiar. With tours still grounded, however, Lindeman is instead FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •61

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THE WEATHER STATION trying to use the unexpected time in her office wisely. “It sounds very presumptuous to say, but I have been trying to write a book,” she says. “It’s about writing lyrics. But I’m scared to mention it in case I never finish it…” Since her 2009 debut, The Line, Lindeman has established herself as both a remarkable lyricist and an arresting vocalist – addressing subjects from love to climate change to mental illness and the peculiarity of advancing adulthood with a resonance and precision. “Her writing is just incredible,” says Ben Whiteley, who has played bass in The Weather Station for the past six years. “The way she can paint pictures with words, and the way she can capture a moment, or really mundane things, or normal interactions. I love the way she juxtaposes really big, abstract language with superplain, super-simple language.” While Lindeman might often pay her dues to her country’s rich musical heritage – Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, the Torontopia scene of the early 2000s, alongside more immediate contemporaries such as Jennifer Castle and Bahamas – as her career and her

“I’MSTILL LEARNING HOWTOBE MYSELF” TAMARA LINDEMAN

onfidence have gathered pace, her work has come o display a great singularity. Today, according to aquin, she stands as “one of Canada’s greatest ngwriters, and one of the great Canadian voices”. For Lindeman, the emboldening of that voice, the pur that led not only to Ignorance but also to bookriting, is tethered to a broader cultural shift. In the ast she has spoken about the peculiar male minance of the music world – being the only man on her two previous record labels, the verbal orthand of male musicians, the shortage of women und engineers, producers, label heads. Now, she speaks of the recent explosion in female artists, thinkers and essayists, of the new confidence this movement has brought to her own work. “Post-MeToo there’s this blossoming of women such as myself trusting their voices a bit more,” she says. “I’ve found it really empowering.” “I think as a young person in my twenties I was very shaped by the intellectual and artistic writing and film and music of men,” she continues, “which is great, and I have no qualms about any of the stuff I absorbed… But I feel I’m still learning how to be myself, because the programming is so powerful. And as I read all of these women writers it just gives shape to my experience.”

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INDEMAN grew up in Dufferin County, Ontario, a rural area of swampland and dairy farms and soybean fields, her nearest town famed for holding the Annual Canadian Championship Fiddling Contest. As a child she spent a lot of time alone in the woods, though she also snowboarded, and took piano lessons down the street with a teacher, Mrs Hildebrand. “I loved piano,” she remembers. “I hated piano lessons. I never wanted to actually learn the theory or learn the songs – I was like, ‘This is bullshit!’” Instead at home she spent hours making up her own pieces on the family piano. She recalls the intensity of it: “The piano is bigger than you, and it makes so much sound, even if you give it the lightest touch. It’s a very overwhelming, lovely, lovely, sensual experience to play piano, I think.” She also sang: to herself, and at school, and to accompany piano recitals in Mrs Hildebrand’s front room and then joining a nearby choir. The choir led to youth theatre and then to a succession of fêted screen roles: performances in made-for-TV movies, Elizabeth I in an HBO drama, Tilda Swinton’s daughter in The Deep End. Lindeman was in her late teens when she began playing music again, she took up guitar and taught herself banjo and borrowed music software from a rapper friend. Now living in Toronto and studying at the university, she began exploring the city’s music scene, then giddy with the emergence of bands such as Broken Social Scene (and associated acts, including Feist, Emily Haines and Kevin Drew), and a new collective spirit captured by the record labels Arts & Crafts and Constellation Records (Montreal based, but with a strong Toronto presence). Around 2004, she first visited the Tranzac to see a band called the Sunparlour Players. The Tranzac, a community arts venue in downtown Toronto, had long nourished the

62•UNCUT•FEBRUARY2021

THE WEATHER STATION BUYERS’GUIDE ALL OF IT WAS MINE

YOU’VE CHANGED RECORDS, 2011

Sparser than her debut, this is Lindeman’s most straightforward folk album – led by voice, fingerpicked banjo and guitar, and with a determinedly pastoral bent to the lyrics (porches, lilacs, jars of honey), it captured the reigning nu-folk feel of the time. Recorded at the home of producer Daniel Romano, there’s a captivating intimacy to this short, simple record. 8/10

Going electric: The Weather Station at the Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, January 2018

PARADISE OF BACHELORS, 2015

toughness of Lindeman’s preceding years: the challenge of her parents’ divorce, a difficult period of mental illness, the sudden anxiety of turning 30 and wondering what she was doing with her life – surprised, perhaps, to find herself still a touring musician, rather than settling down and starting a family. When she looks back over her career, Lindeman, too, can see a gathering of power – a sense that she knows her craft and can raise her voice. “I feel I’ve just been on this steady trajectory towards greater and greater control,” she says. “And greater and greater acceptance of following what initially felt like whims and now feel like instincts.”

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INDEMAN began writing Ignorance during winter 2018, recording the following spring. Its slow passage to release, she explains, was due to her need to find a new label – she has since signed to Mississippi-based Fat Possum. Already Lindeman feels some distance between herself and the record (she has already recorded its successor) and looks faintly hesitant when discussing it at all. “I listen to the record now and feel embarrassed about all kinds of things!” she says. “But I know that I had to let the songs be that naked, because that’s where I was at the time. I think this record was a lot more vulnerable and messy. I feel like it was a lot more just like ‘heart on the floor’ a little bit.” It would be easy to mistake the vulnerability in these songs for romantic disappointment, but in fact their sense of loss is connected to global concerns. One of the presiding forces in Lindeman’s work is a reverence for nature – it was there abundantly in the lyrics to “Everything Was Mine”, heavy with lilacs and columbine, petunias, lilies, lobelia, and more recently in the

Lindeman decamped to a deteriorating French mansion to record her third album in the company of engineer Robbie Lackritz and Bahamas leader Afie Jurvanen, sharing both production duties and instrumentation. It’s an elegant, hushed recording that sometimes belies the new sharp confidence of Lindeman’s lyrical style, grown more concentrated and precise and unsparing. 9/10

THE WEATHER STATION PARADISE OF BACHELORS, 2017

Self-producing brought a fullness and a clarity to Lindeman’s fourth record, setting aside the fingerpicking and rustic imagery for electric instrumentation and subject matter that ranged from the introspective – depression, the loss of self in a relationship – to more external concerns: climate change and mass shootings. It was the clearest indication of Lindeman’s ambition to date. 9/10

talk of floods in the lowlands on “Complicit” and the song’s quiet observation “I was raised to hear the curlews, I was raised to notice light”. It is here once again on Ignorance – in the sense of sorrow, fear of the future and particularly for the environment, that underscores many of these tracks, from “Robber” to “Atlantic” and “Loss”. In “Parking Lot”, for instance, which finds Lindeman sitting outside a venue watching a small bird, “its small chest rising and falling, as it sang the same song, over and over again, over the traffic and the noise”. It kills her, she sings, to see a bird fly. To think that “everywhere we go there is an outside, over all these ceilings hangs a sky”. It is a tangibly different ecological perspective to that of the previous album, Lindeman feels. “I think, like a lot of people, up until a few years ago I was totally buying the line of ‘climate change is all my fault; if I hadn’t been so selfish and wanted to drive a car we wouldn’t be in this situation!’” she says. “I think I had eaten all of the shame that FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •63

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city’s indie music scene and Lindeman was immediately smitten. Here, she developed the songs that made up her first EP, “East”, playing acoustic shows throughout 2008 in the venue’s smaller Southern Cross room. There she first saw the Polarisnominated folk-rock band The Bruce Peninsula, with whom she later sang, as part of the band’s choir. The city seemed to open up to her. “It was this thriving living scene,” she remembers, fuelled by a DIY aesthetic, with selfreleases and house tours, and where folk and punk and jazz and experimental music overlapped. By the time she released the full-length The Line in 2009, Lindeman was intimately entwined with Toronto’s music community. Look through old profiles and reviews of The Weather Station and with each new release comes mentions of Lindeman’s growing confidence. Her 2011 album, All Of It Was Mine, was a warm, finger-picked beauty, produced by Daniel Romano. But by 2014, and the arrival of an EP, “What Am I Going to Do With Everything I Know”, followed by Loyalty, there was something keener and more clear-eyed about her songwriting; something perhaps less eager to please. Recorded in France, in midwinter, with just three players, Loyalty had a quietly revelatory quality, its songs intimate but measured, dealing with friendship and loneliness and uneasy relationships. Two years later, The Weather Station’s self-titled release was a sturdier prospect – a testament, she explains, to a new feeling of self-assertion after many years of finding herself the only woman in the recording studio. It also carried some of the

LOYALTY

THE WEATHER STATION was the defining narrative through the ’90s and early 2000s – of the Inconvenient Truth generation.” Her stance began to change in 2018. “I went through this experience that was really strange, but I guess the words are ‘climate grief’,” she says. “Where I peeled back the layers, and even though I wasn’t a climate denier, I absolutely accepted the science, I couldn’t actually accept it. And when you actually, actually accept it it’s a very profound experience.” Across the screen she starts to cry. “It has to change you,” she says after a moment. “Because you can’t not be changed by it when you look at it honestly and truthfully, and you don’t try and hide from it. Then you start to see our whole society as a giant project in denial. Historians of the future will be looking at our culture and they’ll be so confused. They’ll be like, ‘What?! They’re going to be clinging to life in remote regions where they can still grow food… but they were really obsessed with the Kardashians?!’” Songwriters rarely manage to tackle serious global issues without seeming uncomfortably sanctimonious, but there is a sincerity and a beauty to Lindeman’s lyrics that proves convincing. “She’s very earnest, which is something that I seek out in the music that I listen to,” says Paquin. “I think Tamara has preserved that sense of self-reflection without trying to pander or be something that she’s not. Lyrically she’s so thoughtful. She’s somebody who asks a lot of questions of herself and us as people, and has this beautiful way of never being pedantic, but telling a story that is both relatable and expands on subjects that we might not think as much about.”

DANIEL DORSA

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“LYRICALLY SHE’S SO THOUGHTFUL”

F her last album was about Lindeman’s fascination with guitar music, and the “freedom and solitude and machismo and being the lonesome hero” that guitar music has come to represent, then Ignorance brings a new interest. Over the last couple of years Lindeman has listened to a lot of pop music. “Eighties pop music,” she clarifies, “which was, I think, the best pop music.” She has tried to contemplate why that might be. “I was thinking it’s the music that’s about longing and desire and despair and unrequited love, and I think that’s why I was really drawn to it.” Crucial to this development was coming to appreciate her partner’s differing musical tastes. “At first he would put on Kraftwerk and I’d be like, ‘I don’t like this!’” Lindeman laughs. “It was so antithetical to everything I felt music should be. And then it turned slowly into accepting it. And then it turned into really loving it.” In the early days of their relationship she had what she describes as “the folky’s dislike of synthesiser” but with time and cohabitation this softened too. “I live with someone who plays synthesiser every day, and is constantly working with drum machines, so I think it forced me to hear the humanity in that music that I didn’t want to hear, because I wanted everything to be acoustic, organic music.” Her great realisation was that “this is music that inhabits a physical space really differently than 64 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

MARCUS PAQUIN

delicate, creaking music that can’t really be heard. You could put some of these songs on the worst sound system of all time – you can put them on a single speaker in a really loud van, and you still get transported somehow.” To try this in her own work, Lindeman kept her lyrical approach much the same, “but I thought the music underneath them, what if it was a bit more muscular?” she explains. She grew interested in rhythm – in particular, straight rhythm. “Because personally I have really bad rhythm,” she laughs. “I can’t play in time! My rhythm is always flowing around. Which I think is really beautiful actually – in the earlier records it’s a critical part of my voice that I think I’ll go back to.” But playing live, she had come to feel trapped by that meandering feeling. She had a thought: “What if I just abdicate rhythm to someone else?” She hired Kieran Adams, who she describes as “a human drum machine” to provide a succession of disco and rock beats. “Then I could flow on top of it, like it’s the stream bed and I’m the stream,” she says. “I got excited by the idea of ‘one element is really orderly, and one element is very disorderly’. You match them together over and over again.” The other defining influence of the record was the experimentalism of the contemporary jazz

scene. “In Toronto I go and see a lot of music, and a lot of music I see is jazz,” Lindeman says. “I don’t understand jazz, it’s completely strange to me, but I was able to start being curious and allowing a couple of those people to come into the band and just do their thing.” She started writing on piano and with drum machines, using simpler chord sequences. Paquin recalls receiving her earliest demos. “Tamara and I have had laughs about that,” he says. “They were filled with great ideas but having heard her material from the past these demos were basically midi piano, vocals and midi strings and I think just a beat box from GarageBand. I remember getting the demos and thinking, ‘Oh my God, what is this?! What are we doing?!’” His role was to take these ideas and help create them more organically in the studio, with a live band. It was an ambitious project, and with so many players and such differing rhythms, Paquin worked hard not to lose the emotional heft that has characterised Lindeman’s more lo-fi recordings. “I’m not a particularly technical producer,” he says. “I know the technical stuff, but all I really care about when we hit record is that I feel something, and I get goosebumps, and cry. I did a lot of that in these sessions.”

Christine Bougie…

Kieran Adams…

Ryan Driver…

Johnny Spence…

Phillipe Melanson…

…andBen Whiteley

Throughout it all her voice has remained her focus. It is after all Lindeman’s voice that proves most striking upon first hearing The Weather Station. It carries the same cool clarity of her lyrics, but with it its own mysterious rhythm, and an intimacy that is defiant rather than fey. “Singing loud feels really uncomfortable to me,” she explains. “So I’m a very soft singer.” Live, this has the strange effect of making an audience lean in. John Darnielle first heard Lindeman sing when she supported his band The Mountain Goats at a show in London in late 2015 and was struck by the quiet resolve of her performance. “I always think it’s really brave to do stuff that counts as genuine folk music in front of big crowds,” he says down the line. “For the longest time that sort of music carried the stigma of not being really uptempo, not running out to grab the audience. Many performers, myself included, think, ‘I have to go and take every bit of attention I can get!’ But folk music often assumes that the audience is already listening. The Weather Station played like that; they played slow and patient music.” In the studio, working with such a voice of course presents challenges. “With somebody whose lyrics and voice wants to be the main subject in the art it’s really for me about framing that story without stepping on its toes,” Paquin says. Lindeman herself found her gentleness of tone proved something of a boon. “It was just quite beautiful, because I could sing extremely softly,” she says of the recording sessions. “And when I sing softly I feel I have my full range of expression, and I can sing the words the way I want them to.”

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ACK in her office, in the quiet corner of the city, Lindeman is still wondering what light her book might throw on the art of lyric-writing. She recalls the phases of her own writing: the easy early days,

“SHE’S KIND OF CRAFTY”

Bassist Ben Whiteley on the close-knit Toronto scene

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HIS feels in a lot of ways like a really Toronto record. This is where I have to give Tamara credit – she’s kind of crafty like that, she doesn’t always tell everybody all her plans, intentionally or unintentionally, and she really assembled people from different Toronto scenes. The two drummers: Kieran Adams, who plays in Diana and with tons of other people – he’s an incredible drummer, and he’s a producer as well. And then Philippe Melanson who plays in Bernice, he’s like a freefloating, exploring drummer. She said we’re going to bring in Brodie West (The Ex) to play saxophone because he comes from the free jazz scene, but we’re also going to bring in Ryan Driver (Eric Chenaux) on flute and Christine Bougie who plays guitar with Bahamas, and Johnny Spence the keyboard player who toured with Tegan and Sara. So she says I’m going to put together all these guys who respect each other as artists but bring very different things to the table… And she’s just like: ‘Go!’”

followed by a period of questioning – a time where she thought every line she wrote was bad, and when she found it hard to determine “do I dislike this lyric because it’s vulnerable, or do I dislike it because it’s bad?” Some while ago, she took a teaching post at Banff Centre For Arts And Creativity in Alberta. She held workshops and tutorials on songwriting, guiding her students through the process of crafting their own material. It was, she says, the best job she ever had. “It changed my whole perspective on writing, and my own work.” What she came to find was a degree of self-acceptance – a kindness to herself when she does not write as quickly as she’d like, or to look at a song and think, “Yeah this is a mess, that’s OK.” More than anything she has learned to follow her songwriting gut. “I didn’t understand that when I was younger,” she says. “I was like, ‘What does it mean to have an instinct?’ I was just so unaccepting of myself.” The last few months of lockdown have offered her a chance to lie fallow, to enjoy “a period of relative stability that’s actually been very good for mental health and physical health”. She has written essays, not songs; she has walked to work and walked home; she has been in one place and taken stock. Today she looks back over her albums – from the “loops and recurring pieces” of her debut to Ignorance’s “technicolour fantasy of sound”, and notices how “I seem to always go in a new direction every time”. It is not chance or coincidence, not aimlessness or indecision, but rather, she sees now, a matter of artistic choice. “I’ve realised of course I’ve had instincts all along,” she says. “I think I’m learning to accept the way that I think.” Ignorance will be releasedbyFatPossum on February5 FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 65

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Ignorance is bliss: Lindeman and (left) her players on the new album

STEVIE WONDER

Between 1972 and 1976, STEVIE WONDER released an astonishing five-album run – including Talking Book, Innervisions and the double-album masterpiece Songs In The Key Of Life. Stephen Deusner hears about Wonder’s transformation from teen idol to visionary auteur. “He was on a quest to be his own man,” reveals one collaborator

HIGHER GROUND Photo by DAVID REDFERN

DAVID REDFERN/REDFERNS

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HE mood at Madison Square Garden is upbeat and celebratory. It is July 26, 1972, the final date of The Rolling Stones’ STP Tour across America. Stevie Wonder has just come on stage to play an encore with the Stones and to wish Mick Jagger a happy 29th birthday. Just a few hours before, Wonder ran through a lengthy, occasionally awkward opening set as the crowd – who included Bob Dylan, Truman Capote and Patti Smith – waited restlessly for the headliners. This late in the evening, however, even the nosebleed seats stomp and cheer as the two groups tear through Wonder’s 1965 hit “Uptight (Everything’s Gonna Be Alright)” and then the Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. “That’s when Stevie was really young and full of energy, jumping up and down on stage,” recalls Marshall Chess, the Stones’ executive manager. “He and Mick were dancing on stage together, then somebody came out and put a whipped cream pie in Mick’s face. It was crazy. The building was actually vibrating. You could feel it in the concrete.” The STP jaunt was the Stones’ first American tour since their performance at Altamont Speedway in 1969. Wonder, as their opening act, was likewise trying to leave that decade behind, along with his image as the clean-cut teen phenomenon behind “I Was Made To Love Her” and “For Once in My Life.” 68 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Innervisionary: performing “Living For The City” on Top Of The Pops, January 1974 FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 69

STEVIE WONDER

BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; GILLES PETARD/REDFERNS

OnstagewithMick Taylor and a creambespatteredMick JaggeratMadison SquareGarden, July1972

“Motown was trying to break Stevie bigger than he’d ever been,” says Chess. “It was a great thing for the Stones, because Mick and Keith just loved Stevie. It was a great thing for Stevie because it showed him to this whole other white audience, the Stones’ audience.” Prior to the Stones tour, Wonder had faced some difficult audiences as he struggled to redefine himself, introducing longer, heavier, funkier songs to his setlist. “Sometimes we would get these gigs at supper clubs, and we’d show up in bellbottom jeans and fringe jackets,” recalls David Sanborn, who played saxophone in backing band Wonderlove. “Everybody else would be in tuxes and tails. Stevie was adamant about playing the new stuff, so it could get tense at times. Sometimes the audience was just not having it. They got restless because they weren’t hearing what they wanted to hear, what they had paid their money to hear. We understood that, so we did play ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours’ and ‘If You Really Love Me’. We always played the shit out of them.” Winning over Stones fans wasn’t much easier, but Wonder drew on 12 years of experience – more than half his life – working crowds as part of Motown package tours with The Temptations, The Supremes, and other label acts. When the Stones were arrested in Rhode Island after Richards assaulted a journalist, Stevie and Wonderlove played a double set in Boston that night to calm the audience – who grew rowdy when the Stones looked like no-shows. The STP tour was such a success and the chemistry between the two acts so palpable that they collaborated on a joint double live album, with one LP devoted to Wonder’s set and the other to the Stones. Even though the record never materialised, the tour did exactly what he needed it to do. “That’s when his popularity just jumped,” confirms Deniece Williams, who toured as a member of Wonderlove. 70 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

The Stones tour helped usher in a new imperial phase in Stevie Wonder’s career, as he transformed himself over a string of bold and progressive albums beginning with 1972’s Music Of My Mind album and culminating in 1976’s Songs In The Key Of Life. Together, these albums are as much about Wonder’s creative development as they are, from another perspective, about his attempts to defy the Motown assembly-line approach to writing, recording, and touring. “At Motown, Stevie never really got a chance to be himself,” says Robert Margouleff, who played a crucial role in Wonder’s transformation from teen idol to visionary rock star. “He was on a quest to be his own man.”

“HECOULDBE TOUGH,BUT HECOULDBE LOVING” DENIECE WILLIAMS

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TEVIE Wonder signed to Motown when he was only 10 years old; it was the only life he’d known. Precocious is how most of his fellow musicians remember him, an impression he struggled to outgrow. Otis Williams, co-founder of The Temptations, remembers Little Stevie Wonder’s immense musical curiosity and boundless energy, which didn’t always sit well with the older artists on the Motown package tours. “We would be riding down the highway, one or two in the morning, everybody on the bus trying to get some rest,” recalls Williams. “Stevie would be in the back of the bus with whatever new instrument he’d just bought, playing around with it. Somebody would have to yell, ‘Stevie, man, cut that thing off so we can get some sleep!’ But he was woodshedding. He was honing his talent. He knew he had to improve himself and be a consummate professional.” Inspired by Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Wonder wanted to write and sing about more significant issues than love and devotion. “What’s Going On enabled Stevie to say, ‘Hey, if Marvin can do his own album, that’s what I want to do,’” says Williams. “He wanted to take control of his songs and his production. So one artist could help the next artist. Marvin opened the

BUYERS’ GUIDE

Stevie Wonder in the ’70s

MUSIC OF MY MIND MOTOWN, 1972

When he turned 21, Wonder renegotiated his contract with Motown and took control of his music. Music Of My Mind bursts with new ideas, not all of them equally great (“Sweet Little Girl” sounds awkward in its horniness). But there’s a jittery energy to the music as Wonder finds a way to make every instrument sound completely new. 8/10

TALKING BOOK MOTOWN, 1972

Music Of My Mind was a tentative first step, but his follow-up later that year celebrated every new possibility. The songs are more streamlined, the messages bolder, the grooves harder, in particular the unkillable “Superstition”. Closer “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)” may be his most perfect song. 10/10

INNERVISIONS (MOTOWN, 1973) Continuing his partnership with Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil of Tonto’s Exploding Head Band, Wonder released his most politically focused album yet, depicting urban life in all its grimness on “Living For The City” and shouting out Nixon on “He’s Misstra Know-It-All”. 9/10 FULFILLINGNESS’ FIRST FINALE

door for Stevie and Stevie opened the door for other people. We all learned from each other.” When he turned 21, Wonder was able to renegotiate his contract with Motown and exert greater control over his music. He began exploring new ideas and integrating everything he heard on the radio: psychedelic tangents, Moog experimentations, jazz-fusion noodlings, gospel exultations, R&B rhythms and rock aggression. He recruited his first band, Wonderlove, which included a horn section from the recently defunct Paul Butterfield Blues Band, to flesh out his songs about social, spiritual, and sexual matters. He even changed his look, throwing away all the crisp suits associated with Motown in the ’60s and instead sporting brightly coloured African robes, hair braids and Indian jewellery. In some ways, they were changes dictated by Wonder’s philosophy of life and music; unabashed in their uplift and unapologetic in their positivity. What connects the records he made during the 1970s is his concern for the fate of love in a harsh world. A new agenda for the artist, it demanded new sounds, new ways of being. While on tour, Deniece Williams mentioned to Wonder that she was homesick and missed her children, so he wrote a song for her on the spot: “Smile Please” became an exuberant standout on 1974’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale. “I thought it was so cute for him to do this song to lift somebody else’s spirit up,” she says now. “There were many times like that when somebody in the group was going through a hard time and he would write a little something to try to cheer them up. He could be tough, but he could be loving; there were many different sides to him.”

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OBERT Margouleff remembers the day Stevie Wonder showed up at Media Sound, the New York City studio he shared with his musicmaking partner Malcolm Cecil. It was a Sunday – Memorial Day weekend, to be exact – and Margouleff and Cecil were

Poly fellas: Malcolm Cecil (right) and RobertMargouleff of Tonto’sExpanding Head Band, circa 1974

SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE

MOTOWN, 1976 It took him more than two years to make – an eternity for Wonder. It went through several iterations before he finally settled on two LPs and a 45 to contain all his ideas. It’s a long album that still sounds too short, simultaneously optimistic and realistic in its depictions of black America at the Bicentennial. 10/10

JOURNEY THROUGH THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS MOTOWN, 1979

As his ill-advised follow-up to his biggest album, Wonder produced and scored a film adaptation of the bizarre best-seller The Secret Life Of Plants. The scientific assertions about empathetic ferns and conscious trees are questionable, but the music is surprisingly ingenious. 7/10

fidgeting with the gigantic synthesiser they called TONTO, short for The Original New Timbral Orchestra. “We had Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, and we’d put out a very wacky record – which to this day is still wacky in every way – called Zero Time,” says Margouleff. “I’m not sure how he heard of us, but we got this knock on the door, and we looked out the window and there was Stevie standing there in a chartreuse jumpsuit with the album under his arm.” Wonder was obsessed with Zero Time and wanted to know if they could work together. “It was a match made in heaven,” says Margouleff. “He ran straight into the arms of electronica with me and Malcolm.” Learning how to manipulate TONTO, Wonder was that kid at the back of the Motown bus. Over the next five years and three albums, he worked with Margouleff and Cecil to manifest the FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •71

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

Harp and soul: in the studio recording Talking Book, July 22, 1972

MOTOWN, 1974 In August 1973, Wonder was nearly killed in a car accident in North Carolina, and the near-death experience inspired a period of deep introspection. This tongue-twister-titled album depicts life as a cycle of triumphs and tribulations, although it never quite coheres into a larger statement. “Boogie On Reggae Woman”, however, remains one of his best and breeziest grooves. 8/10

Fulfilment:playing theRainbowin northLondon, January30,1974

control room and said, ‘OK, I think I’m ready to do it for real.’ Stevie said, ‘No, no, no, that was great!’ I was just learning the tune! I figured it must have been so bad that they weren’t going to use it. I remember waking up a few hours later thinking, ‘Did I just dream that?’ And then the record comes out and that’s me playing on ‘Tuesday Heartbreak’. They kept that as the final.”

“W

sounds he heard in his head and to explore the cosmos in search of unimagined tones. They created subtle soundscapes for Wonder’s grooves and melodies, distorting a choir into something morally ambiguous on “Evil”, the hymnlike finale on 1972’s Music Of My Mind and adding grit and grime to his clavinet on “Superstition”, a standout on 1973’s Innervisions. “We were always exploring,” says Margouleff. “We made new sounds for every song, and Stevie wrote new songs all the time. We kept the tape rolling in the studio, because when we were busy programming the synthesiser, Stevie sat at the piano noodling around and writing songs. It was a little music factory. We’d work until the sun came up, night after night. Christmas, New Year’s, Jewish holidays, you name it.” The songs seemed to arrive faster than Wonder could write them down. “He would come to soundcheck every day with a new tune,” David Sanborn remembers. “After a gig, he would have all of his keyboards taken back to his hotel room – his ARP synthesiser, his clavinet, and his Fender Rhodes – and he would just play all night. I don’t know when he ever slept. ‘Superstition’ was one that I remember from those soundchecks. Stevie was really dedicated to his craft and worked really hard at it. He didn’t sit around and wait for the muse to strike. He just kept in there in the trenches.” Wherever he was – on the road, in the studio, at home with his family – Wonder was always at a studio, always working on a new song. Inspiration might hit at any moment. According to Deniece Williams, Wonder would even write a song right in the middle of a live performance. “A lot times we’d be up there and he’d hear something and go off on this new thing. The background singers had to ooh and aah like we knew what he was doing. The band had to play like they knew what he was doing. But it taught us to be fast on our feet and follow his creative spirit wherever it took us.” While he played most of the instruments during these sessions, the members of Wonderlove had to always be on call, ready to hit the studio at a moment’s notice. A few days before their tour together, Sanborn recalls, “Mick Jagger had a big party at the house he was renting up in the Hollywood Hills, and he invited all of us. Stevie might have been there for a few minutes early on, but he didn’t stay long. But the rest of us carried on and did what people did back in the ’70s, which was stupidity for long periods of time. I got back to the hotel around seven or eight in the morning and got a call from Bob Margouleff saying, ‘Stevie wants you in the studio right away.’” Sanborn was still in last night’s clothes, still riding last night’s buzz, but he dutifully called a cab. He barely had a chance to hear the song once before he was playing along with it. “Afterwards, I went into the

E played slaps all the time,” says Howard Lindeman, an assistant engineer on Songs In The Key Of Life, referring to the game where one player tries to slap the hands of his opponent before they’re pulled away. It’s a game of quick reflexes, and no-one was better at it than Wonder, despite not being able to actually see his opponent’s hands. “I was never able to get him. Not once, man. But he slapped the living shit out of your hands. Of course, we were always watching his hands. But you can’t look. You have to close your eyes and feel the other hands move. Because that’s what Stevland was doing to you. I think that’s what he was doing with his instruments. That’s what he’s doing with his music. He’s feeling and living those notes.” He might have been quick on the draw in slaps, but his follow-up to Fulfillingness’ First Finale was taking forever. A two-year gap between albums might not seem like much today, but it was an eternity for a prolific and exacting musician like Wonder, who’d released five groundbreaking records in a three-year period. During that time, Wonder dropped hints that he might retire from the music business, repeatedly stating his plans to move to Ghana and work with handicapped children. That may have been more of a shrewd negotiating tactic than an actual mission. He re-signed with Motown and ended up with the largest contract ever for a recording artist: seven years and seven albums for $13m upfront, plus an astronomical 20 per cent royalty rate. Wonder was, suddenly, among the highest-paid entertainers in the world. Even that windfall didn’t light a fire under him. Wonder was obsessed with getting every little detail just right, but the high expectations turned his drive into something like mania. He scrapped some of Nate Watts’ basslines and redubbed them on organ. He tinkered with tempos and key changes. He even visited local maternity wards to record the cries of newborn babies for “Isn’t She Lovely”, a beatific ode to his newborn daughter. As the album ballooned from a single to a double album and then to a double album with an extra 45, Wonder grew so tired of being asked about it that he had T-shirts printed that read, WE’RE ALMOST FINISHED. “He played me some of the music he was working on, and all of the

“IDON’T KNOWWHEN STEVIEEVER SLEPT”

GIJSBERTHANEKROOT/REDFERNS; RICHARD E.AARON/REDFERNS

DAVID SANBORN

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On the promotion trail for Songs In The Key Of Life, September 1976

songs were knockouts,” says George Benson, who plays guitar and sings on “Another Star”. “But very little of what I heard ended up on Songs In The Key Of Life. He tossed all those wonderful songs and started fresh. I never heard why. I remember one in particular I was sure was going to come out, and it never did. I was highly disappointed, but the album’s so good I can’t get mad at nothin’.” Wonder’s methods could be demanding and exacting, but they could also be inscrutable. Jim Horn was invited to Crystal Industries’ studio to play a solo on “Ebony Eyes”, a bopping number that ended up on the 45. “He said he’d tell me when to come in for my solo, and I heard him yell, ‘Saxophone!’ and I played this bluesy thing on my alto sax. I was getting ready to come back into the control room when Stevie said, ‘Hey Jim, I need you to play that again.’” Horn was confused. Did he mess something up? Did Stevie not like it? Not at all, it turned out. Stevie only wanted to replicate the solo note for note toward the end of the song but didn’t want to overdub the same performance. “Stevie asked me if I needed him to write the part out for me. A blind guy offering to write out the notes! He had a great sense of humour. Stevie was always joking around.” He took no half-measures with Songs In The Key Of Life. Wonder might have played most of the instruments, but there were nearly 100 musicians listed in the credits, some just clapping their hands or singing in the choir. The songs sprawl and spiral, repeating lines or melodies for minutes on end, as though reluctant to let go of an idea or a sentiment. “Black Man” even corrals a classroom of schoolchildren for a lengthy call-and-response about the contributions of black men and women to American culture – a timely lesson during the year’s Bicentennial celebration. But Songs In The Key Of Life is the rare double album that can’t be pared down to a better single; its most appealing

PICTURE BOOK

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Robert Margouleff remembers photographing Stevie Wonder

N addition to being a studio whiz, Robert Margouleff was an experienced photographer and filmmaker. “I discovered photography when I was 15 or 16 years old, and even started a business in my first year at college. When I was in the army, I was in a unit whose specialty was combat motion picture photography. That taught me a lot of the technical aspects, but not a lot about aesthetics. It was basically how to use a camera on the battlefield. Later, I shot an experimental black-and-white film called Ciao! Manhattan, which was the story of Edie Sedgwick. As a matter of fact, I’m still working on that.” With the release date for Talking Book looming, they needed to finalise a cover image and album design. At six in the morning after an all-nighter at the Record Plant in LA, he and Wonder hiked up into the Hollywood Hills in search of a Biblical-looking backdrop. “Stevie had his hair in cornrows, and he took off his glasses. He was very into Africa at that time, so he put on a robe that was designed and created by Ola Hudson – who was Slash’s mother! I took all those pictures in just 15 minutes. It was a lot easier than the battlefield.”

quality is its generosity. It sounds like an artist giving as much of himself as he can.

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ERHAPS he gave too much. Wonder found it difficult to follow up Songs In The Key Of Life. He retreated from the public eye for three years. When he did re-emerge, it was with a double album called Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants, the soundtrack to a film he produced about the emotional intelligence of ferns and trees. It went platinum, but was quickly deemed a flop, although it has been reassessed as a landmark of early digital music. The Secret Life Of Plants broke Wonder’s remarkable streak of albums, yet the magnitude of his accomplishments in the ’70s has only grown. With his lucrative contract, he changed how artists are compensated in the industry, how they can exert creative control over their own output, and even how they employ new technology to make music. He’s become an example for generations of artists struggling to define themselves against the music business formats, whether it’s Prince changing his name to a symbol or Beyoncé defying the promotional cycle and surprise-releasing her own albums. At various points in his career, Wonder has even considered quitting music altogether. The gaps between new music have grown longer: in November 2020, he released “Can’t Put It In The Hands Of Fate” and “Where Is Our Love Song”, his first new material for 15 years. But the idea of Wonder retiring for good strikes his friends and collaborators as preposterous. “Wherever Stevie is, e always wants to find a piano,” says David Sanborn. “He wants to play. hat’s what he feels like he was put n Earth to do. His life, at least as far s I could see, has always been about music. That’s the central fact of his fe. It’s him.” FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •73

ALLANTANNENBAUM/GETTYIMAGES

Everything’s alright: with students at the Dance Theater of Harlem, NYC, December 18, 1976

© GLOBE PHOTOS/ZUMAPRESS.COM/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Welcome to Uncut’s deep dive into 40 of L ’s greatest songs – rock’n’roll in its highest form, from goldplated standards to long jams and forgotten gems. Over the next 12 pages, members of Young’s extended musical family – including o , , l , , bo , o , o Ol , o , o , t and give up their intimate secrets about his mercurial recording practices. We discover the origin of “Don’t spook the horse!”, enjoy a cameo from Marlon Brando, pay heed to Young’s studio direction (“More air!”) and learn that genius can manifest itself surprisingly easily via magic marker and a big easel. But for all the different Neils we encounter in our cover story – folkie Neil, ornery Neil, electronic Neil, rocker Neil, eco-warrior Neil and more besides – the overriding message we can divine from this multitude of first-hand recollections is this: “You never know what he’s going to do next.”

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“A special talent”: Neil Young circa 1970 FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 75

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MR SOUL

!BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD, BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD AGAIN; 1967"

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SUGAR MOUNTAIN

EARL LEAF/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

!NEIL YOUNG, THE ARCHIVES VOL. 1 1963!1972 ; 1965"

Lament for lost youth RANDY BACHMAN, FRIEND: I first met Neil at a gig I was playing in Winnipeg. He seemed determined to get to a place far from where he was. He played me both “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” and “Sugar Mountain” as acetate demos. I also saw him play them live at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in 1971. I was absolutely amazed. He had sold out several nights in a row and performed solo on guitar and piano. I couldn’t believe that this kid from Winnipeg had turned into this artist that had the audience so mesmerised with his music. At that concert he announced that he had written “Sugar Mountain” about a Joni Mitchell connection and, while driving in the canyons the other day, he’d written about 10 more verses! He asked the audience: “Do you want to hear the new verses?” He sang it for about eight minutes with the audience singing along on every chorus. 76 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Early swipe at rock stardom BRUCE BOTNICK, ENGINEER: I think it was on “Mr Soul” that Neil overdubbed his solo and I forgot to put the eight-track into Sel-Sync, so when we did the playback Neil’s solo was out of synch by something like 187 milliseconds. They all thought that was cool and left it. Neil’s playing on this was great. There was this constant competition between Neil and Stephen [Stills]; they were always pushing one another. But they were so fluid and so good together. When they did the Buffalo Springfield reunion tour in 2011, both Neil and Steve were having a ball on stage, especially with “Mr Soul”. In the studio I could sense there wasn’t a lot of harmony within the group because there were these two big stars – Neil and Stephen – rising out of that whole thing. Neil always felt comfortable standing on his own two legs. He was bursting with music. He didn’t necessarily know where to go with it, he just knew he needed to get it out. He followed the adage – don’t think, just do, let it come. You can hear that in his playing, it’s very fluid. Every album is still Neil Young, so that untapped creativity is still inside him. A lot of artists dry up and imitate themselves, but not Neil. He might go back and take a snapshot of a style, but he won’t copy it. I’ve always felt Neil paid attention to his emotions. He is a very sensitive guy. But when you see him on stage it’s no holds barred: he opens the barn doors and out he comes.

Buffalo Springfield in LA, 1966: (l–r) Bruce Palmer, Dewey Martin, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Richie Furay

TO FLY 3 EXPECTING

!BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD, BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD AGAIN; 1967"

Singer-songwriter confessional BRUCE BOTNICK, ENGINEER: We recorded “Expecting To Fly” at Sunset Sound. It was basically Neil and the Wrecking Crew. I think we had Carol Kaye on bass, Russ Titelman on rhythm, Hal Blaine on drums and Don Randi on piano.

he had a fire burning inside him, glowing red like ET’s heart. When we finished the album, I was producing Love’s Forever Changes. I asked Neil if he’d like to co-produce because I felt this musical kinship. Initially he said yes, but then he came back and said, “Sorry Bruce, I really have to do me.” He went and did his own stuff and I did Love. It worked out for both of us, and later I co-produced the first Crazy Horse album with Jack Nitzsche.

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BROKEN ARROW

!BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD, BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD AGAIN; 1967"

I was doing some work with Jack Nitzsche and he got me in. On “Expecting To Fly”, none of the other guys from Springfield were around. Jack came in with a full-blown arrangement and we did the rhythm track. I think Neil overdubbed the guitar because that was emotionally such a feel thing. I found Neil was very deep and very open. Musically

Ambitious, folk-rock suite JIM MESSINA, ENGINEER: I think the episode that most summed up Neil’s creativity was working on “Broken Arrow”. When Neil brought the song in, he wanted to use all these separate pieces. That was a first for me, but I knew what we had to do to make it work. I got a chance to see how his mind worked in terms of piecing all those images together. The last part has that jazz part in it, which I never understood why he wanted it there. But when it all came together, it was quite wonderful. I would never have pictured it in that way, but Neil did. Sitting back and watching him think it through, then bringing the band in and getting them to play it, then putting that little piece in at the end, it was fascinating.

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COWGIRL IN THE SAND

!NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSE, EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE; 1969"

Heroic guitar jam RALPH MOLINA, DRUMS: Neil’s playing on this was awesome, it was At the Big Sur Folk Festival , September 13–14, 1969

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DOWN BY THE RIVER

!NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSE, EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE; 1969"

The first Crazy Horse classic BILLY TALBOT, BASS: When we were The Rockets, we would do long instrumentals with Danny, Ralph an plus Leon and George [Whitsell] and Notkoff. We even recorded one called Let Me Go . But “Down By The River” was the first time we did it with Neil. We were playing the song, and it opened up into this long jam. The three of us were used to doing that and Neil just stayed there with us. We went to his place in the canyon and played “Cinnamon Girl” and “Down By The River”. The first song was pretty cool, but “Down By The River” we didn’t get right. We wondered how to play it, tried it a few times, but it wasn’t working. We went home and Ralph and I talked about it and we thought it should be played more in half time instead of double time. That decision went into shaping the song. That stretched it and give it space to breathe. Ralph and I had only been playing bass and drums for a year, so we had this one beat that was a bit advanced for us and we decided to use that one – it worked! It was the first time the four of us ever did that, and I guess we did that for another 50 years on a bunch of different songs! It’s a fun song to play for anybody, but nobody plays it like Neil Young and Crazy Horse. we got Poncho [Frank Sampedro] we became a crunch band, but with Danny it was a mellower kind of thing. The last time we toured with Ben Keith, I thought Ben would do organ or keyboard, but Neil liked Ben on guitar. I asked why and he said it was because he played rhythm like Danny did.

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CINNAMON GIRL

!NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSE, EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE; 1969"

The horse unleashed! BILLY TALBOT, BASS: What I remember about “Cinnamon Girl” is the four of us playing it – me, Ralph [Molina], Danny [Whitten] and Neil – and realising, “Oh yeah, we can do this.” There’s Danny’s guitar, there’s Neil’s voice and guitar, and Ralph and I just need to keep the beat. When you are inside a song like that, it’s something beautiful. It sounded good and I liked it, then we got to the bridge and I loved it! We were able to get very psychedelic; we could slow it down and it got bigger and even more beautiful. I don’t think we worked on it for long, we really did just play it once or twice before we got the take. I never really thought about who the Cinnamon Girl was – I don’t even know if there was one – but I know in my heart that everybody who is young and is male and who likes girls will have a vision of a girl in his mind’s eye when he hears that song. That’s what that song does.

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HELPLESS

!CSNY, DÉJÀ VU; 1970"

Nostalgic evocation of time and place DAVID CROSBY: It was obvious to me that Neil was a special talent right from the first night I heard him. But I didn’t fully comprehend his weight and range as a songwriter until one afternoon when I was in front of either Joni or Elliot [Roberts]’s house in Laurel Canyon. I was sitting in my car waiting for whichever one to show up, when Neil pulled in. I’d never actually had a conversation with him before, so we started talking. My first impressions were that he had a great sense of humour and was very smart. I liked him immediately. Then he said, “Do you wanna hear a new song?” And I said, “Fuck, yeah!” So we sat on the trunk of the car, he pulled out a guitar and sang probably four of the best songs I’d ever heard. I thought, ‘Oh Jesus, this guy’s good.’ One of them was “Helpless”. Right there and then I said, “I wanna work with this guy.” That experience absolutely fed into CSNY.

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ROBERTALTMAN/MICHAELOCHSARCHIVES/GETTYIMAGES

I remember him standing up when it was done, with a huge smile on his face, and saying, “That’s it. That’s great!” It’s wonderful to see anybody who has a passion and vision for something and is able to put it all together.

o fresh and original. We did a lot of different versions, but this was the best. How it started is Neil would ome up to Billy [Talbot]’s house n Laurel Canyon when he left the Springfield and we’d sit around playing acoustic with Danny Whitten]. We were doing a show at he Whiskey and we asked him to sit n with us. He wasn’t a heavy yet, he was just a guy called Neil. The next thing I remember is that Danny said, “Neil wants to do some recording.” So we went to his house in Topanga and started to play. That’s when we realised it was a working thing. Neil loved the way Danny played. After

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, London, 1969

these love things can really trip you up. He was only 24 when he wrote that. It’s incredible how prolific he was. At this time, Neil would come to rehearsals with us as CSNY and then at the end of the day we’d go about our business and we didn’t know he was going into the studio to record a solo album. It’s been amazing to watch Neil become this great artist. When we were first together as CSNY we all realised how talented he was. I personally feel that Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby, Nash, Stills & Young are two completely different bands because of his talent and the difference that it makes. Over the years, I accumulated 28 handwritten documents by Neil containing original lyrics that had been left behind at studios or given to me. A year or so ago, he decided to sell his archive to a university in Canada and he asked me if I still had those lyrics. I said I did. I’d valued them at $800,000 but I realised that Neil wanted them, I realised how much money I had made because of his talent, and I gave them to Neil with a good heart. If Neil wanted his stuff back, he could have it.

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SOUTHERN MAN

!NEIL YOUNG, AFTER THE GOLD RUSH; 1970"

OHIO

PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

!CSNY SINGLE, 1970"

Powerful protest anthem DAVID CROSBY: I watched Neil wr ever heard it. It was in a friend of ours’ house in Butano Canyon up in northern central California. Neil and I were sat out on the porch and our friend had just come back from the grocery store, where he’d gone to get breakfast. He had a copy of Newsweek magazine, featuring the Kent State shootings of May 1970, with the picture of the girl and the other kid in a puddle of blood and the question “Why?” written all over her face. Neil and I both looked at it and realised we were now in a country that was shooting its children. It was a shocker for the both of us. The guitar happened to be on the other side of me and he said, “Hand me that.” Neil sat there right in front of me and wrote it. It took him maybe 10 minutes, then I got on the phone to Nash and said, “Get a studio, right now! Find Stephen and get him there, too. We’re coming to Los Angeles now.” Within 24 hours of Neil writing it, we had it recorded. Then we put “Find The Cost Of Freedom” on the B-side, which was about as appropriate as we could get. “Ohio” pointed the finger. It was very powerful because it was so direct. It named Nixon and said what he was doing. Part of our job is just to rock and entertain you, but another part is to be the troubadour, the town crier. You know, it’s midnight and all is fucking not OK. We did our job there on “Ohio”. Probably did our job the best we ever did it. 78 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

ONLY LOVE CAN BREAK 0 YOUR HEART

!NEIL YOUNG, AFTER THE GOLD RUSH; 1970"

The simplest of sentiments, timelessly transcribed GRAHAM NASH: That song means a lot to me because Neil wrote it about me and Joni. It’s such a beautiful song. I knew it was about me the day Neil played it for me at Stephen’s house in Laurel C It was incredibly important for me to hear what Neil had said because he was dead right, it is only love that can break your heart. We are strong, mankind, but

Savage commentary on Southern racism NILS LOFGREN, GUITAR: That was a startling song. The way it starts musically – dum-dum-whack! – is just a half-time groove, very down. Then I started doing a polka-beat on the piano, Ralphy double-timed it, and we went on this roaring groove. David [Briggs] and Neil said, “That feels great.” But, yeah – between the Vietnam War and the civil rights marches I’d played on in 1968 and the assassination of Martin Luther n all these nts, and now ear or two we’re king outhern an”. Neil eemed angry s he sang it. here’s a rage d a concern. as really a

The Harvest tour in March 1973, captured on Time Fades Away

12HARVEST

!NEIL YOUNG, HARVEST; 1972"

Sorrow-soakedcountrywaltz HENRY DILTZ, PHOTOGRAPHER: I remember the flow and the beautiful sound of that song. It’s one of his more cryptic lyrics, quite impressionistic. I photographed Neil many times around this time. I’d go to the ranch and he was always sitting around noodling with his guitar. This was such a prolific time; he was taking every thought and turning it into a song. That is what makes songwriters so brilliant – they can turn their thoughts and feelings into a song and make it universal. It’s what makes them so special. I do a slideshow of people I have photographed – Joni, The Doors, CSN, Neil – and I always say there’s a reason these people are loved around the world and it’s simply that they are interesting people. They are a little bit different to us, they are special, they really live life and they have a wonderful musical way of stating it. They have a certain kind of freedom from their lifestyles and that gives them time to sit and think and to

!NEIL YOUNG, TIME FADES AWAY, 1973"

Theditchbeckons... JOHNY BARBATA, DRUMS: Neil called me up halfway through the tour and said, “Can you come out and play drums?” The mood was pretty wild because Danny Whitten had died, so Neil started drinking tequila and everybody thought he was on heroin, which he wasn’t. Did I get a sense of mourning from “Time Fades Away”? Well, Neil’s songs could put you in a mood and I’ve got a feeling it’s all about Danny Whitten. But who knows what’s in Neil’s oven? H ’ a pretty happy-go-lucky guy. n he’s having a really good time, slap his hand on his leg. Like a d old country boy. But when he’s ed off, he’ll let ya know. As far as f goes, the show went on, and the ay Gators were magic, man. Neil as down a little bit. Because that as a hard thing, to think that he ad fired Danny and he died. But was always up when he played, the crowd were OK with the new gs. Because with Neil, you never w what you’re going to get.

reflect and really dig into how they feel about something. They are a cut above the average person

13

HEART OF GOL

!NEIL YOUNG, HARVEST; 1972"

Thatmassivehitsingle ELLIOT MAZER, PRODUCER: We first met in Nashville when Neil came down to do a Johnny Cash TV show. He said, “You have a studio?” Yes. “Great, you have a band?” Yes. So I got Kenny Buttrey, Ben Keith, then Tim Drummond and various pianists. Went to the studio, I set it up. I remember hearing “Heart Of Gold” for the first time. Neil played the song in the control room on guitar. Kenny and I looked at each other and we each put up one finger to show that we felt it would be a No 1. From that point on, it was easy. With Neil, his songs are worked out in advance and he plays them with great conviction and what he plays and sings dictates what the record should be. He is totally prepared. In the studio, Neil would play a new

ON THE BEACH

song for u a d gi e u some i as. When Neil plays a song, his playing implies a complete arrangement. The band learned to play less around him.

THE NEEDLE AND THE 14 DAMAGE DONE !NEIL YOUNG, HARVEST; 1972"

Heartfeltmeditationonaddiction GRAHAM NASH: Neil had just had some surgery on his back and was in hospital in Los Angeles. I went to visit him and there he was with his back in a brace in his hospital bed, but he had his guitar with him, obviously, and he said to me, “Graham, do you want to hear a new song?” Of course I said yes because who doesn’t want to hear a new song from Neil Young? He played me “The Needle And The Damage Done”. I knew straight away hat it was about Danny Whitten. eil loved Danny and was worried bout him, and this was such a sad me in his life. He thought Danny as an incredible talent, and for him OD at such a young age was eartbreaking. It’s one of the most owerful songs I’ve heard about rugs and what an incredible title – he Needle And The Damage Done”. tells you everything. He’s such a reat songwriter and I am so pleased d fortunate to be his friend.

!NEIL YOUNG, ON THE BEACH; 1974"

Anthemof alienationand loneliness AL SCHMITT, ENGINEER: Neil wanted the room set up like a living room with a couch and lamps. He wanted this comfortable atmosphere as if they were at home. He kept getting this amazing guitar sound and I was just trying to capture that. People from the record company kept coming down to see what we were doing. We had to stop the tape and put the old tapes on for a playback. This was getting to be a drag, so Neil said, “Let’s make some rough mixes for the label.” We did that on a two-track, no echo but good rough mixes. We finished the album and I said, “OK Neil, when are we going to mix?” He said, “You know, I’ve been listening and I’ve fallen in love with those rough mixes.” I said, “Neil, you can’t do that, you have to let me mix them.” There’s no arguing with Neil. He didn’t want it to be slick, so the fact there was no echo other than what came out in the studio is what he liked. Even now, he’ll ask if I still want to remix On The Beach. It’s a running joke. “Where are you going, Al?” “Oh, I’m off to finish the mix for On The Beach.” FEBRUARY2021•UNCUT•79

JOEL BERNSTEIN

beautiful, powerful statement about the shame and stain of racism. In my country, we’ve struggled with it since the beginning – and we’re still struggling with it mightily now. I wouldn’t have coined the phrase then, but what Neil was talking about is moral treason. With that song I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that’s a scary lyric.’ I’m proud of Neil for writing and singing it.

15

TIME FADES AWAY

getting very angry, man, and talking about Bruce Berry’s death. Instead of playing notes, while he was yelling, he banged the piano with the heel of his hand. Neil was processing sadness and loss and rage – at everything.

19 DANGER BIRD

!NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE, ZUMA; 1975"

The Horse reborn! FRANK “PONCHO” SAMPEDRO, GUITAR: When I first met Billy and Ralph, we started jamming at their house. I wrote a couple of songs and Billy had some songs. Next thing I knew, Neil showed up. We played with him for a day. Two months later, we were recording at David Briggs’ house on Zuma Beach! I remember, every evening, I’d go visit my buddy Bonzo, and we’d play together at his house. That was where I figured out parts for every section of “Danger Bird”. When we recorded it, I was playing kinda hard on the second solo and Neil came over and said, “More air! More air! More air!” You can hear him saying that on the recording. So it was really easy for me to back off! About a month ago, Neil sent me me versions of “Danger Bird” from ay Down In The Rust Bucket, the e Crazy Horse album he’s putting ether. He asked which version ked the best. I chose the one at sounds like when you’re in the dience, but he liked the one where guitar sounds better! He played eat that night, so I know why he kes it. There’s nothing like listening yourself play at your best.

Amsterdam, 1974, with his antique Rolls-Royce, acquired in London

17

AMBULANCE BLUES

GIJSBERT HANEKROOT/REDFERNS

!NEIL YOUNG, ON THE BEACH; 1974"

Crypticmeditationonchangingtimes RALPH MOLINA, DRUMS: This wasn’t a Crazy Horse thing. I came in and played drums on a couple of songs like “Walk On” and “Ambulance Blues”. These were great sessions, but it was more like a solo album with the rest of us coming in and out. Neil was really digging into his life on this song. I played a very minimal drum part on this; I was a lot more subtle than I am now. It was basic but it was good, and Neil liked that because what Neil lly wants is lots of space. We give m space, we don’t crowd him. You definitely hear the influence of t Jansch on that song. Ben Keith o played on this, and he was a y important part of the sound for se albums. When I think about n, I always think about him rping after he drank a quart of quila. But he was a great player, great fit, and when we did night’s The Night he was all er the album. never asked about the lyrics. now the words because I sing backing vocals, but to me it’s the melody. I never try to understand what he’s trying to say. The one time that was different was Tonight’s The Night. After the first song we played, “Tired Eyes”, I knew what this album was about – Danny, the roadie, and the other shit that was happening. The record company weren’t sure, but we played it for Rick Danko and he said we have to put it out. I don’t see On The Beach as a similar thing at all. People compare On The Beach with Tonight’s The Night, but to me it was night and day. 80 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER2019

TONIGHT S THE NIGHT

!NEIL YOUNG, TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT; 1975"

Haunting elegy for fallen comrades NILS LOFGREN, GUITAR: That whole album was a magical dark ride, to commiserate about our dear friends and heroes who had started dying on us. Top of the list was Danny Whitten. We’d get together at SIR studio in Hollywood, shoot pool, sip a little tequila and commiserate about what the hell was going on. After midnight, we’d go into the studio. “Tonight’s The Night” was a lot of piano and electric guitar, and very loose jamming. Neil said it was an anti-production record, play what you feel. Nothing was ever the same twice, as you can hear in the opening and closing versions of “Tonight’s The Night”. Had Neil been changed by his losses? I would say yes. I remember when we were playing in England, there was a reckless rage and acceptance and Neil started doing a lot of rapping during “Tonight’s The Night”. He was

0

CORTEZ THE KILLER

!NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE, ZUMA; 1975"

Moody, electric epic banned by Spain’s Franco government! PONCHO SAMPEDRO, GUITAR: I’m sitting in the back at David Briggs’ house with Billy and my friend Steve Antoine. We did a little angel dust, not really knowing that much about it. Everything got really fuzzy when Neil goes, “Hey, Poncho! I got this great song, it’s only three chords. You’re gonna love it!” We played in a guest room and Briggs was in the living room, where the

equipment was set up. The power went out in the living room, but it didn’t go out for us. David was so brilliant. After he got the power up, we were still playing, he listened to the tape and punched us back in on beat. But we still lost the fourth verse of “Cortez” – that will never be heard. I remember something about a ‘rocky cave’ and ‘below the ocean’. I said to Neil, “What about that fourth verse?” He said, “No, it didn’t make the record. It wasn’t meant to be.” It’s a really beautiful song, very sad and lilting. It kinda floats – and you just have to have faith that it’s going to keep moving forward! You can’t push it! It’s also very sparse; I don’t need to play a lot of notes. That gives Neil a ton of room to exercise his craft. There were nights on tour when it got intense and crazy and we pushed it hard, but we always came back to the feeling on that record – that floaty, spacey thing, where the song almost stops. When you talk about those earlier records and first getting together with Crazy Horse, those songs like “Cortez”? I remember thinking, ‘Wow, we’re really making some good rock’n’roll!’

22

COMES A TIME

!NEIL YOUNG, COMES A TIME; 1978"

Effortless country stylings SPOONER OLDHAM, PIANO: I met Neil Young in the mid-’70s. We recorded it in Nashville and we did

21

LIKE A HURRICANE

!NEIL YOUNG,AMERICAN STARS ’N BARS; 1977"

Celebration of love’s destructive mystery BILLY TALBOT, BASS: I remember it all happening very fast. Neil was right there, he was ready, he had that song in his head and we just tagged along. He sang it and before you knew it we’re already in the chorus. We recorded it and then we went back and added the harmonies and then it was done. Boom. It was like a hurricane. It blew in and then blew out. It’s a very strong vocal performance and he did that live in the studio as he played the guitar. That was always very cool to watch, and because he sings live on most of his records, you know when you go to a show that’s what you are going to hear. It’s what you are familiar with and there it is in front of you. He improvised that guitar. He was singing and playing guitar, supporting himself in the song. It’s because he comes from a folk background he can do that; the only difference is that he’s playing an electric guitar rather than an acoustic one. He simplifies things a little bit because of the nature of the beast, the electric guitar, but when he’s done singing and goes into the solo, that’s real. He doesn’t have it mapped out, he’s just going for it. I love the way “…Hurricane” opens. We did that as an edit so it started from the best moment, because we had been playing a bit before, but it wasn’t so good until that point. I never really think about how a song will endure when we’re making it, but a while after it came out I heard “Like A Hurricane” on the radio when I was driving down to Neil’s ranch, and that’s when I realised, ‘Wow, that one sounds really good.’

the rhythm tracks and then a string arranger came in and did a lot of extra stuff. What I liked about “Comes A Time” is the part I played on the piano – I liked the sentiments of the lyric; it’s like a psalm. I like the song a lot and could go out right now and play it. Neil likes you to get involved with the creative process. He’s like all the great artists I have worked with – they write the song and play it to you, and then you are like the tailor, fitting shoes and hats and gloves on it. You don’t change anything, you add to it. That’s the beauty of the creative process – you can make something

durable, something that people still want to hear in 20, 40, 60 years. They can listen to it and it feels the same as when it was first done. That’s the beauty in the possibility of what we do.

MY, MY, HEY, HEY (OUT OF 23 THE BLUE) !NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE,RUST NEVER SLEEPS; 1979"

Acousticrequiem,twinnedwith theelectric“Hey,Hey,My,My(Into TheBlack)”

JEFF BLACKBURN, CO-WRITER: Neil ducked out for a while and came to Santa Cruz in ’78. He could just be himself without a lot of hoopla. We were old friends going back to the ’60s. I was playing in Santa Cruz with John Craviotto and Bob Mosley [Moby Grape], who were a great rhythm section, when Neil ducked into it. That was a great summer. We played about 30 shows as The Ducks. We played every night. It really was a mighty month. Neil and I swapped ideas. We both had material, we had ideas and things came together as we were rocking together pretty good. I had a song with the line, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust/It’s better to burn out than it to rust”. Neil liked that and the hole rust thing came from that line Rust Never Sleeps. Not many people hare a credit with Neil Young. It’s rd to say why I got one, you’d need o ask Neil. But you never know what ’s going to do next.

24 POWDERFINGER !NEIL YOUNG & RAZY HORSE,RUST NEVER LEEPS; 1979"

look back into America’s dark past ILLY TALBOT, BASS: This is a great song to play live. Ralph and I get to do all the “oohs” in the backing vocals and we always like to get them

right – which isn t easy when you are making that much noise up there on stage. This is one of Neil’s best stories, too. We recorded it live for the Rust Never Sleeps album. We hadn’t even tried to do it in the studio, it was completely fresh. He was so prolific at this point that we were able to do this live album with all that new material. Once he gets rolling, all these songs fly out of him. Back in the heyday of “Powderfinger” it seemed that the older he got, the better he got. He just kept producing all these songs and surprising us, more and more of them each month until he slowed down a bit. But that doesn’t matter. What’s important is to be who you are at the time and take advantage of the opportunity you have been given until things change. That’s when the thing you were doing becomes the past. That’s just the way it works. FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •81

EDPERLSTEIN/REDFERNS/GETTYIMAGES

Live at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, California, July 31, 1977

25

POCAHONTAS

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; AARON RAPOPORT/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

!NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE,RUST NEVER SLEEPS; 1979"

Time-travelling visions! JAMES MAZZEO, FRIEND: I finished doing The Last Waltz as The Band’s road manager. Neil was building a boat in Florida and he said, “Let’s drive down Route 66 to Florida.” We were going through Kansas or Oklahoma and Neil grabbed my journal and started writing. He wrote the poem “Pocahontas”, and by the time we got to Florida he had the guitar worked out and played it to me. It was all there, including the last verse about Marlon Brando. A year or so earlier, Bill Graham had a benefit at Golden Gate Park. Neil and I met Brando and Dylan on the steps of City Hall. Marlon was a big supporter of the Native Americans. They talked about that and Neil put it in the song. This was a time when Neil stopped writing so much about himself and the songs became more external. There was “Pocahontas”, “Cortez”, “Powderfinger”. Short stories, surreal, metaphysical. When Neil was in high school he had rheumatic fever and went blind for six months; he lived with nothing but the images in his mind. That trained his brain. When he sings a song with that high, almost invalid voice, it’s coming from that hospital bed.

26SHOTS

!NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE, RE*AC*TOR; 1981"

An onslaught of guitars and effects

With Nicolette Larson at the premiere of the Rust Never Sleeps movie, LA, August 1979

PONCHO SAMPEDRO, GUITAR: It was a really weird time. From when I got into the band, we were always together – Neil, Billy, Ralph and I. We recorded together, toured together, even hung out at the ranch together when we weren’t touring or recording! But after Rust Never Sleeps, Neil got absorbed with Ben [his son] and the Patterning programme for cerebral palsy. We went off and did our own thing. We’d been separated as a group, for the first time in years. So when we got back together, it was different. For “Shots”, we spent time hitting everything we could find in the studio – banging pieces of metal

istracted by Ben, but it was also ecause, at the time, we had been eparated. But I remember playing Shots” at home on my own and inking, ‘Yeah, this is a good song!’

7LIKE AN INCA

t get er, doi g a dc ap . Ev ryon in the Patterning programme showed up and we banged everything we could find. Neil overdubbed the synthesisers and effects onto the song later. When we left those sessions, I don’t know if we got anything great. You could say that was a product of Neil being

!NEIL YOUNG, TRANS; 1982"

Relentless rocker amid Trans’ electronic strangeness RALPH MOLINA, DRUMS: We did some of Trans at the ranch, some of the computer songs, and we did some rockers like “Like An Inca” with Nils

8

THIS NOTE’S FOR YOU

NEIL YOUNG & THE BLUENOTES, HIS NOTE’S FOR YOU; 1988"

Blues brother: Young in 1988

enchant take on corporate sponsorship IKO BOLAS, PRODUCER: The Bluenotes started when we were just oing some blues tunes in the barn. I remember saying to Neil, “I wish had a horn section.” The next thing I knew, we had six fucking orns! I mean he just went: boom – OK, this is what we’re doing now. hen that evolved from Crazy Horse into a different rhythm section, bunch of new songs and suddenly there were the Bluenotes. The moniker of that tour was “This Note’s For You”, because at that time in the ’80s it was the beginning of the heinous corporate sponsorship of rock’n’roll. Neil has never aligned himself with any company. He aligns himself with music. The song “This Note’s For You” was amazing, then the video won the MTV Best Video Award – even though MTV wouldn’t play it because it was slagging them! That’s pretty standard for Neil. I didn’t have to wean Neil from Crazy Horse. I was frustrated because the groove wasn’t happening with them, so I just said, “Here’s what I really think…” All you can do with Neil is be rigorously honest, immediately. Because there’s no time wasted. Neil’s not an imposing character, and he’s not egocentric. But he’s about purpose, and the last thing you want to do is to get in its way. Neil listens to everybody. What he does with it is a different story. Neil just keeps going in the studio. Then when he hears it, we’re done.

in Hawaii. I loved Trans and I also love Life, neither of which got the recognition they should have done. Neil using the vocoder, changing the sound of his voice, confused people. This was one of the rockier songs on the album and it was fun to play. Neil doesn’t send us cassettes, and I like it when we walk through the door and Neil will have a new song like “Like An Inca” and we jump in and start playing. It’s a lot easier for me than it is for Billy and Poncho. They need to learn the changes, but I can just follow. Neil was always interested in the indigenous people. He wrote “Cortez” way back, long before Crazy Horse, but thank God he never recorded it. After this, we did “Inca Queen”. Maybe it was because of the Cree people up in Canada, but he loves the subject and it makes for great material.

Contemplating Freedom: in Amsterdam, December 1989

CRIME IN THE CITY 29 (SIXTY TO ZERO) Powerful lament for the American Dream CHAD CROMWELL, DRUMS: We cut it in the barn late at night. There was a full moon. I was looking out this huge window and as we were tracking the song you could see this fog bank cascading over the mountain with moonlight shining on the fog. It’s rolling up the mountain and we’re cutting this badass rock’n’roll song. I think every session I’ve had with Neil culminates with a full moon. We didn’t fool around with it much; he had it written. The lyrical content didn’t surprise me because he always writes about what is fucked up in America. Like “Ordinary People” and “Rockin’ In The Free World” – this was postReagan, everything that’s wrong with America and the planet. Very much a statement about politics and the timing was pretty good. With Neil, once you are in that extended family you are part of it – you just don’t know when he’s going to need you again. It’s not a good idea to wait on Neil, but whenever I hear from him I start to get excited. Here we go again!

31

LOVE AND ONLY LOVE

!NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE, RAGGED GLORY; 1990"

The Horse at their most gleefully primitive PONCHO SAMPEDRO, GUITAR: We were playing with Billy and Ralph, Neil was showing us the song, then out of nowhere David Briggs shows up. He brought John Hanlon with him, who

ROCKIN’ IN THE FREE WORLD

!NEIL YOUNG,FREEDOM; 1989"

Young’s ’90s renaissance begins CHAD CROMWELL, DRUMS: We were touring the Bluenotes record. While we were doing that, as Neil will often do, he started drifting in another musical direction. The music shifted away from the bluesy hornbased thing and into rock, folk, story-based writing like the early ’70s. That began the process of what became Freedom. The Bluenote stuff did well – he got a lot of attention with “This Note’s For You” and that started a resurgence. Then I think he got bored. We’d played it enough, so he started writing, and the next thing you knew we’re banging out some rock’n’roll. We cut “Rockin’ In The Free World” in a couple of days at the barn. He was writing the verses as we went. He’d write it down with a magic marker on a big easel, crossing and scribbling them out as we went through and shaped the song. In two days we had the body of the verses and the song came together. It then became pretty much the biggest rock’n’roll anthem he ever cut and it had really come almost out of nowhere. At that time he wasn’t in that mode. He was experimenting, he’d had these issues with Geffen and was being sued for producing non-commercial records, so it was very unexpected. OK, we’re going to do an eighth-note slamming rock’n’roll thing? Aren’t we a blues horn band? In the studio he has a unique approach. He’s not picky about execution or production values and sound, he’s really more interested in capturing a moment. It’s like watching a baby getting born. It might be a bit messy and fucked up, but it’s a first look at a brand-new life. was kinda nervous, checking the mics and amps, and all of a sudden the band choked. We couldn’t play to save our lives. That’s where Neil came up with the line, “Don’t spook the horse!” So because of that, when we went to do the sessions, no-one was allowed in the room with us apart from Briggs. “Love And Only Love”, we beat that song like it owed us money. It’s not super-complicated, but it’s what we do. We come up with the in-between – how we managed the verses, can we make them more sensitive than the rest of the song – then hammer the solos. The bottom

line is when Neil’s really feeling it, he’s singing great and playing great, we all recognise it; the lightbulb goes on and everybody steps up. Don’t ask me how we know, we do. That’s what makes us a thing.

MOON 32HARVEST

!NEIL YOUNG, HARVEST MOON; 1992"

Young’s fascination with lunar cycles revealed! SPOONER OLDHAM, ORGAN: This was always a special song to play live. We’d be in an amphitheatre and

it would be mid evening and this moon would hang up there. It made that whole moment special. I noticed with Neil how often the moon was out when he was recording. I didn’t know if he planned it but maybe he did, like a farmer. I remember the recording session for this pretty well because I liked playing the song. I was on the organ, which is unusual as I don’t usually play organ, but a lot of the heavy lifting for the song was done by Neil and his guitar riff. It’s pretty consistent, and that gave us a really good bed to work with. What makes Neil special? He has all the great qualities you want from a songwriter. He writes good songs, he’s a great musician, his singing is in a different category, and he is a great entertainer – a lot of people can do one or two of those things but not many can do them all. FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •83

ROB VERHORST/REDFERNS

!NEIL YOUNG, FREEDOM; 1989"

33

BE THE RAIN

!NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE, GREENDALE; 2003"

Eco-fablestill resonatestoday RALPH MOLINA, DRUMS: This was just me, Billy and Neil up at the ranch. One thing I remember is that I always play with sticks, but in the studio it was so mellow without Poncho, Neil was almost scratching his strings. I felt so loud, so I got some cool rods and threw the sticks away. “Be The Rain” is one of the rockers on the album. Neil started playing, Billy and I jumped in, and then while we were recording my snare broke. It was about halfway through but I didn’t want to stop, so I kept playing. In the studio they had to add a little snare to it. That Greendale thing was awesome, it was this big play that just kind of evolved. Neil wrote a couple of songs and suddenly it became this story about this place. On stage for “Be The Rain”, he uses two mics taped together, one for his regular singing and one for the shouted parts – “Be the rain!” He was always very environmentally minded, and he’s become even more so now with Daryl [Hannah].

but poignant enough to matter. I was at the ranch when he says, “How come nobody’s doing any protest records? We’re going to war, and we have all this corruption.” Next thing I know, the band has been flown in, and nine days later he had written and executed nine songs, and we’d recorded 100 voices singing every word, with the lyrics projected two storeys high on the studio wall. Did this record start Neil recording simpler and more directly political songs? As you get older you become more aware of how finite your time is. So perhaps there’s an urgency. But things have always been really simple for him. There’s evil. Then there’s people who love.

36RAMADA INN !NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE, PSYCHEDELIC PILL; 2012"

FOR 35 A LEADER 34LOOKIN’ ZUMA PRESS, INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; EBET ROBERTS/GETTY IMAGES

!NEIL YOUNG,LIVING WITH WAR; 2006"

Urgent protest song, reworked for 2019’s “The Times” EP NIKO BOLAS, PRODUCER: Is “Lookin’ For A Leader” prophetic? He sang it on his front porch a couple of months ago, about the current administration. “Yeah we’ve got our election, but corruption has a chance”. It still has a chance, unfortunately. I think every song I’ve ever recorded with Neil comes from the simpleness of a folk singer. He manages to make ideas general enough to fit a bunch of situations, With “Hitchhiker” producer Daniel Lanois, Woodside, California, 2010

Horse power: with Poncho Sampedro and Billy Talbot at Farm Aid in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Sept 22, 2012

HITCHHIKER

!NEIL YOUNG, LE NOISE; 2010"

Autobiographical ‘70s reject gets an update DANIEL LANOIS, PRODUCER: Neil came to me wanting to put his best foot forward, and I wanted Le Noise to stand with the giants of his previous albums. I built a custom studio for him at my villa in Los Angeles. We didn’t want be, “OK, Neil, here’s your barstool and your old Martin.” He’s a very imaginative person. He responds to surprises, and he really appreciated the far-out sounds that I brought to him first on “Hitchhiker”, like a synth which let his guitar trigger subsonics. He’s a great technological innovator himself, and he was like a kid in a sandbox. It juiced him up. I also

Horse back! PONCHO SAMPEDRO, GUITAR: The lyrics are very personal to Neil and Pegi [Young’s second wife; they divorced in 2014]. I told Pegi, “I don’t know if you’re gonna like this song or not. It seems like it’s revealing a lot of stuff. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. You should check it out.” She came back two days later and said, “Poncho, it’s just a song about people and relationships. Everybody goes through that stuff.” I saw it more as, “Wow, the writing on the wall has been announced.” I cried a lot of times in that song, man. On the Alchemy Tour, we had a big sound. Neil was here in Hawaii, I was here in Hawaii and before that tour I walked down to his house with my acoustic guitar over my shoulder like it was a shovel, and we’d play the whole set. Then say goodbye and the next day we did it again and the next day we id it again. We got into some nuances those songs that we could carry rward. He wasn’t really playing; he as working more on his vocals. But at e same time, we goofed around with e other songs. That’s where I really rned how to play “Mr Soul”. “Ramada Inn”, I still play that song th my girl. It’s a lot, you know? That’s at he has to do: “He loves her so”. ght now, I’m looking at a picture of i with me and my wife at the Bridge ool. This song is really special to me.

appreciated Neil’s Canadian commitment, and sense of humour. He said, “Well, I’m only interested in recording under the full moon.” I trusted that he knew something about it, and I think he was right! “Hitchhiker” was a song he had in his back pocket for a long time. Neil went back home to his hotel at night and wrote the extra verse to finish the song. I was really impressed by his capacity as a songwriter to deliver.

37

ORDINARY PEOPLE

!NEIL YOUNG,BLUENOTE CAFÉ; 2015"

84 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2019

State-of-thenation address, originally recorded in 1988 NIKO BOLAS, PRODUCER: There are so many iterations of that song. But it’s the best example of how deep the entity of Neil Young is. It’s so much deeper than the verses he finally decides to give us. On “Ordinary People”, or “Sixty To Zero”, or “Crime In The City” – I’ve cut it with all three of those titles – there are so many verses, each one of them is a concise vignette of a life. By the ends of the stanzas, you actually have a picture of an emotion, or a

“He has all the great qualities of a songwriter”

BLUES 38VAMPIRE

!NEIL YOUNG & PROMISE OF THE REAL,EARTH; 2016"

’70s cut given first live outing in more than 40 years MICAH NELSON, GUITAR: I’m really glad we got to play it with him, as the guitar solo on the original is my favourite of all time. Because it’s such a strung-out song, of course Neil would play the solo as if he was nodding off, as if he’s a junkie who’s falling apart on that one note. When Neil played it with us, it was perfectly shitty and unhinged. Jim James was

39PEACE TRAIL !NEIL YOUNG, PEACE TRAIL; 2016"

Spare trio tune about feeling past it but pressing on JIM KELTNER, DRUMS: That was one of many times with Neil where the session’s really fun, then when the record comes out you think, ‘Oh my god, I wish I’d had time to think.’ Like on “Peace Trail”, I hadn’t put the

snares on, but he started and bam, you’re in it. I didn’t want to reach down to them and cause that bump. Because that would have stayed as well! Neil is all about the moment. And he really loves train wrecks along the way. I was talking about the beauty of playing with Crazy Horse one night, and I’m always amazed at how he brings an idea to the band, and then as it develops he seems to know that it was going to go like that. He’s so sure of what he does. And maybe that’s why he loves the accidents. Maybe that’s why it’s so important to him to be in the moment. And listen to the way he plays on “Peace Trail”. He’s a great jazz musician, to me. He takes the chords and just chews them up.

40

OLDEN DAYS

!NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE, COLORADO; 2018"

ValedictoryballadfindsYoung takingstock NILS LOFGREN, GUITAR: We were doing shows up in Winnipeg, 40 below zero and very dangerous, with me on the old Gold Rush upright iano, which was a beautiful, spooky eeling. We were on the bus with lliot [Roberts, Neil’s long-time manager] after the last show and it eminded me of the Tonight’s The Night tour. It was a reckless, raw ow. Elliot was laughing and we were talking about more to come. hen when we lost Elliot it was that ame kind of rage and sadness as onight’s The Night. Months later, eil sent us these real primitive

dem s n we ec r up in h Colorado mountains. “Olden Days” is a more reflective reaction to loss than Tonight’s The Night was. For all of us, too – we get older, we all got stuff going on. It was very therapeutic and healing – the ragged inspiration of Colorado, playing with old friends and creating something new. It won’t bring anyone back, but it reminds you their spirits are with you and they want you to carry on. INTERVIEWS BYMICHAELBONNER,NICK HASTED,ROBHUGHESANDPETERWATTS

After The Gold Rush 50th Anniversary Edition is available now;a retail edition of Archives Volume II:1972–1976 is released on March 5;Young Shakespeare and Way Down In The Rust Bucket are due in early 2021 Nils Lofgren’s live set Weathered is out now on Weinerworld;Micah Nelson’s Particle Kid album Time Capsule and Daniel Lanois’ album Heavy Sun will both be released in spring 2021 FEBRUARY2021•UNCUT•85

DH LOVELIFE

person, or a situation. Then you string 15 of ’em together and you realise all of those things are going on in Neil’s brain. You’ll actually leave having felt it and whistling it when you go home. Oh, and there’s more coming out, man. There’s a version on the way that’s 25 minutes long. It’s just one thing after another. The groove is just – boom! Give us another story, give us another story. And by the end of it you’ve gone around the world, you’re exhausted, and you still want some more.

here, and after the show he said, “Man, ‘Vampire Blues’ creeps me out!” We all grew up with Neil’s music under our skin. My brother Lukas has got the ballad, country-rock and blues thing and I’ve got the cinematic, trance-out and abstract qualities. We free Neil up to play any era of his music authentically – and he feels like he’s 25 again and playing n the band. Is Earth a freaky live album? Yes! The background singers singing “Exxon” and shit sound shiny and plastic – but that’s the point. They’re like a commercial on TV, and he juxtaposed that with a live band and animal sounds. He’s a conceptual genius!

HarmonyIn My Head

by Buzzcocks

CHRIS GABRIN; ROBIN MARCHANT/GETTY IMAGES; SHIRLAINE FORREST/WIREIMAGE; GRAEME BULCRAIG

After a clutch of melodic punk-pop hits, their other songwriter steps in to add some grit: “I wanted to give Top Of The Pops a kick in the face”

I

N the estimable singles catalogue of the Buzzcocks, Manchester’s first wave experimental melodic punks, “Harmony In My Head” is something of an oddity. There’s a couple of reasons for this. Amid an impressive collection of songs that are alternately candid and spiky, witty and melodic, lovelorn and catchy, this is the only single of the post-Howard Devoto era to be sung by their lead guitarist, Steve Diggle and not by the band’s singer/ guitarist Pete Shelley. Not only that, it’s certainly the only Buzzcocks song by either writer to transform itself in the live arena into a freeform testifying anti-establishment

rap. To examine footage from London’s Roundhouse of the Buzzcocks’ 40thanniversary tour in 2016 is to observe Steve Diggle as the song’s lightning rod, using it to receive unstable electrical charge from historic rock’n’roll forces. While a recessive Shelley keeps pace with the song’s digressions, a wry smile on his face, Diggle prowls the stage – intermittently thrashing his guitar and delivering an improvisational sermon against the commercial wrongs of the world. “You add a lot of dimension to it,” Diggle told me in 2016 of the band’s 21stcentury reworking of old songs. “You can fill ’em out with more experience: you find other noises, vibes. It’s part of the craft.

KEY PLAYERS

Steve Diggle Vocals, guitar, songwriter

John Maher Drums

Alan Winstanley Engineer

Malcolm Garrett Sleeve designer Mondrian love: (l–r) Steve Diggle, Steve Garvey, Pete Shelley and John Maher

A song like ‘Harmony In My Head’, with noises in the middle, it takes it somewhere else. It’s a long journey of experience – you’re almost different people.” A few years on, and with Pete Shelley sadly no longer with us, the low-key give and take that was once the narrative between Shelley and Diggle has necessarily settled into something a bit more one-sided. Still, Diggle remains keen to represent for his contributions to Buzzcocks’ oeuvre. After early co-writing credits, during the band’s period of peak chart achievement he contributed chords and chorus to “Promises” (with verses written and sung by Shelley). Then shortly after Shelley’s “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays”, he delivered “Harmony In My Head”, the second of the band’s two standalone singles of 1979. As was customary for the band in the period, the Buzzcocks appeared on Top Of The Pops to mime to the record. There’s miming and then there’s miming, though, and Steve Diggle’s front-foot performance is a classic example of a musician claiming their moment in the spotlight – and loving it. “I was quite punk and with The Clash on that, about not appearing – you can’t sell out,” Diggle says today. “But then you think, ‘Well, it does enhance the programme…’” JOHN ROBINSON ALAN WINSTANLEY [engineer]: I just thought they were really good musicians for young kids. They started off as a punk band but they developed. “Ever Fallen In Love” was a fantastic pop song – they were a punk band but they played pop songs. STEVE DIGGLE [guitar; vocals]: We’d been around the block a few times. I don’t know how many singles we’d had, but

we’d had quite a few hits at that point, done quite a few tours. Some of the singles I wrote like “Promises” and “Harmony…” weren’t on albums. I’d written “Promises”, the music and the chorus, but I’d left my verses at home. Pete said, “I’ve got some verses,” and he ended up singing it. I said to him, “You’ve made it into a love song…” because “Promises” was [originally] about the government. JOHN MAHER [drums]: The thing with “Harmony In My Head” – we’d obviously gone through the love song phase, the pop songs. Myself and Steve Diggle were interested in doing something a bit different. I can’t remember how it was put forward as a single; I guess Steve was fighting his corner on it – it was Steve trying to rock things up a little bit. ALAN WINSTANLEY: “Harmony…” is interesting as it’s the only one Steve Diggle sings – it doesn’t have that Pete Shelley sweetness – but when he comes in on the chorus it really changes it. Then off Steve goes again with his growly voice. STEVE DIGGLE: I thought it was time to do something heavier. I wanted to get back to the roots of the matter. I wanted it to be as powerful as “Anarchy In The UK”

“I guess Steve was fighting his corner… trying to rock things up a little bit” JOHN MAHER

and to give Top Of The Pops a kick in the face. Because we’d had “Ever Fallen In Love?” and “Promises” and we didn’t want people to get the wrong idea. It’s not all fucking nice, is it? We needed something heavy really which is how I came up with “Harmony In My Head”. JOHN MAHER: Richard Boon, our manager, was very keen on the idea that the singles weren’t just pulled off the album. There was an approach to make the single a bit more special in its own right. We did resort to having singles pulled off the albums eventually, but there was certainly an initial reluctance to do that. STEVE DIGGLE: With the singles, there was a value for money attitude. If you put out a single which had

been on the album, that was selling out. We cut our teeth doing interviews with fanzine writers – that was serious journalism. You were lucky to get out of the club alive after an interview with those kinds of people: “You’ve signed a deal – you’ve sold out.” We said no to selling out, but then “I Don’t Mind” came out months after the first album. So those [standalone] singles were about not selling out – but also because by the time it came to doing a new album we’d have some more songs. JOHN MAHER: United Artists, particularly when [legendary A&R man] Andrew Lauder was there, were keen on letting us do what we wanted to do. Otherwise they wouldn’t have put out “Orgasm Addict” and “Oh Shit” [B-side of “What Do I Get?”] first – not exactly commercial radio-friendly stuff. MALCOLM GARRETT [sleeve designer]: The whole thing was about personal identity as well as DIY. They signed to majors but were in control of their visual identity. I was interested in the front, the back and the label. Nothing was allowed to be… wrong, including conventional record company marketing. We felt we were smarter than the rest and we could do it in

a more appropriate and original way with Buzzcocks. STEVE DIGGLE: The songs were always there. It was part of the way of life: you got up, you wrote a song. If Pete had a song or if I had a song we’d do it very quick in the afternoon, get it done because the pubs opened at 5.30pm. It’s true! You could hear people in the next room, they’d still be rehearsing the intro to a song. We’d just written a hit single and would be on Top Of The Pops the next week! There was a lot of off-the-ball work went on between me and Pete Shelley – I think who he was came out in his songs, and who I was in mine. When you’re in your twenties, there’s a lot of internal searching. JOHN MAHER: We’d had a thing where every time we released a single we’d get on Top Of The Pops and that peaked with [1978 single] “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)”. There was a bit of a reaction when we released “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” [in 1979]. Lyrically it’s very cynical. Weirdly people perceived the singles which came out prior to that as these very poppy love songs – whereas the lyrical content if you dig into it, in a song like “Love You More”, is a bit darker than what people FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •87

“Things were going darker still”: the Buzzcocks in 1979

“The harmony in my head was the sound of the crowd. That’s how real life is” STEVEDIGGLE

CHRISGABRIN

saw on the surface. “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” was a period when things were going darker still. STEVEDIGGLE:At that time having gone through the mill you sort of question your sanity. You start off in rock’n’roll thinking it’s all going to be easy, but it’s a tough road: the drink, drugs, the parties, the actual writing. You tie yourself to the mast like Turner and it all comes at you. JOHNMAHER:Around 1979, Pete thought it was all getting a bit much and the fact that Steve came along with “Harmony In My Head”, it possibly allowed Pete to step back a bit. Pete would retreat into himself. These days we are better talking about mental health. I think I probably thought, ‘Pull your socks up, let’s get on with it…’ STEVEDIGGLE:“Harmony In My Head” was venomous. I was reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is a heavy book. But it had a lot of cinematic imagery – so “Harmony” wasn’t a linear story like pop songs are. The Arndale Centre [Manchester shopping centre, five years in the construction] had just been built and it gave me a real sense of alienation. I wanted to walk down the street and hear the percolation of the crowd – that was the

FACT FILE Writtenby: Steve Diggle Recorded:Eden Studios, Acton, west London Producedby: Martin Rushent (producer);Alan Winstanley (engineer) Personnel:Steve Diggle (guitar, vocals), Pete Shelley (guitar), John Maher (drums), Steve Garvey (bass), Malcolm Garrett (sleeve designer) Highestchart position:UK32;US–

harmony. Life was never going to be sweet and nice and it’s not always doom and gloom. The harmony in my head was the sound of the crowd. That’s how real life is. JOHN MAHER: As time went on, Steve was wanting to put a stamp on things. When I look back to the very beginnings of the band, with Howard and Pete there was very much a sense of “This is Howard and Pete’s thing”. I was just delighted to be a part of it. Not putting Steve’s contribution down at all, but I think he was a bit like me – he’d been drafted in and was there, allowing things to happen which were pushed forward by Pete and Howard. STEVEDIGGLE:We recorded “Harmony…” at Eden studios in Acton and mixed in Marquee studios. [Producer] Martin Rushent was as fast as us. You’d go in, say, “This is the song”, bang three versions down and then pick the best one and work on it. Alan Winstanley, who went on to do Madness, was the engineer. Martin, he didn’t interfere with anything. The band had the magic anyway – you just had to stick the mics in front and let the band do the work, really. JOHNMAHER:Of all the people we worked with in the first period of Buzzcocks from 1976-81, Martin Rushent was the best. Not just from a technical point of view, he was very good at how he dealt with people. It’s almost like being a social worker. ALANWINSTANLEY:You were trying to recreate their live shows, in a way. What Martin and I did was capture a live sound as we did with The Stranglers and 999. We

never had booths, just screens in front of the drums, and the guitar amps. The only thing that would have been different was Steve’s voice, so we might have done some jiggery-pokery on that. STEVE DIGGLE: With “Harmony” I wanted that attack, that aggression, which we captured. We found some microphones in the cupboard, a really old-fashioned ribbon microphone, and I think that’s what we used in the chorus. It’s got a lovely sound; my voice is double-tracked – but it’s got a real warmth to it. MALCOLM GARRETT: There’s a huge amount of confusion about the red and the blue sleeves. I think I specified blue and Steve suggested red which I was happy with. It got marked up for blue but proofed in red, which was fine and correct but it had been passed on to the printing company that there had been a change. They changed it to red and then they changed it back to blue. So Steve was happy with the proofs, but then when he saw the sleeve he was very unhappy. There was another batch printed in red and these are much rarer; all of the major sales were in the first batch. JOHNMAHER:At Top Of The Pops, we’d probably taken advantage of the drinks in the bar. The story I remember about “Harmony” is that they would cake this makeup on which made you look better on TV. This was a big deal for Steve, so he’d had three or four days’ beard growth to look a bit more rock’n’roll. But in makeup they put this stuff on his face and they blotted out his whiskers and you couldn’t see them. He was a bit miffed about it, so the woman said, “Well I can draw it back on for you if you like…” So she got this pencil and drew stubble back on him. STEVEDIGGLE:With “Harmony” we weren’t on tour, so it stayed at 32 for six weeks, selling 100,000 a week. It’s amazing now – but it didn’t move. Some people say it’s their favourite and better than “Ever Fallen In Love”. It’s not a competition, but it’s interesting that people get that side of things. I think it gets a raw deal from radio. It’s easier for them to play “Ever Fallen In Love” than it is “Harmony”. It’s an easier pill to swallow. Complete United Artists singles 1977-1980 7” boxset is released by Domino on January 15

TIME LINE January29,1977 Buzzcocks’ selffinanced EP “Spiral 88 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Scratch” goes on sale September 8, 1978 “Ever Fallen in Love

(With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” is released

July 21, 1979 “Harmony In My Head” is released

July 26, 1979 800th edition of Top Of The Pops is aired,

featuring Buzzcocks playing “Harmony In My Head”

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CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

“WELL, I WAS BORN IN THE DESERT”

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

He came from Antelope Valley and travelled to the far reaches of the musical cosmos… 55 years on from their debut single, Tom Pinnock talks to the surviving members of the Magic Band about Don Van Vliet’s remarkable transformation into CAPTAIN BEEFHEART… N autumn 1966, Captain Vic Mortensen was travelling down Vietnam’s Highway 1 in an army Jeep. Stopping at a shack by the side of the road, he was surprised to discover that his old group had finally make a record. “The Vietnamese would flatten old cans and make tin sheds out of them where they sold beer,” says Mortensen today. “My driver said, ‘Sir, can we stop here so I can get a beer?’ I stayed with the Jeep, and then half an hour later he came running out. ‘Sir, sir! There’s a Captain Beefheart record on the jukebox!’” The single, a cover of Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” backed with a Beefheart original, “Who Do You Think You’re Fooling?”, was hardly earth-shattering, but it was a step forward for the Magic Band. Here they were, a desert blues band, recording in Hollywood’s Sunset Sound for A&M, a label keen to push them forward as a commercial act, being heard halfway across the world. Undermining this progress, though, was a seam of chaos, a constant since the Magic Band had formed in the high-desert town of Lancaster, California. This was a dangerous group, in its sound as well as its working environment; unpredictable too, with members coming and going amid fights and intimidation. “He liked to create tension right before going in to record,” says Gary Lucas, later 90 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Beefheart’s manager and guitarist. “He liked to keep us off balance. He never wanted us to feel comfortable recording, so he’d make enormous changes at the last minute.” Yet their leader, Don Van Vliet – child sculptor and psychic (maybe), blues and free-jazz obsessive (certainly) – hadn’t always had a vice-like grip on the group. The plain old Magic Band had been formed by guitarist Alex Snouffer but, following the eerier, darker path Van Vliet favoured, they turned the town’s youth on to R&B and then set their sights on Los Angeles. “They were the band that introduced the whole Antelope Valley to blues,” says drummer and multi-instrumentalist John French, later known as Drumbo. “Us young guys that were playing in garage bands all of a sudden went, ‘Hey, we gotta do some blues,’ because everybody was going to their dances but not to ours.” “After I saw Beefheart, I stopped listening to The Beatles because it was cutesy,” says Bill ‘Zoot Horn Rollo’ Harkleroad. “The Rolling Stones were trying to be tough, but Jagger didn’t have a tough voice. They were coming from a similar place as Beefheart, though [image-wise] – pirates in the parking lot.” Here, 55 years after “Diddy Wah Diddy” and the Magic Band’s legendary run at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom, members of the group tell the full story of their beginnings: how Van Vliet journeyed from the dust of the Antelope Valley to the heart of the late ’60s psychedelic

The Magic Band in 1966, Captain Beefheart (centre) FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 91

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; GEMS/REDFERNS

underground, how his friendship and rivalry with Frank Zappa inspired him, and how they almost became a cartoon band for Hanna-Barbera. “Don was different then,” says guitarist Denny Walley, remembering high-school days. “You just knew something great was gonna happen, somehow. He would say 10 brilliant things a day, but there was no way he could be trusted to guide his own destiny.” “Frank Zappa was a renaissance man,” says drummer Vic Mortensen, “but Don was a genius. No question.”

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HERE wasn’t much to do in Lancaster in the ’50s and early ’60s. In a town dominated by the aircraft industry, surrounded by little but dust, Joshua trees and turkey farms, the only entertainments were malt shops, burger joints and the long straight desert roads where cars could be raced. “The Roadhogs, The Searchers… car clubs were a big deal in the desert,” says Denny Walley. “There was nothing else to do; you’d get out there and go wild. There was so much more freedom to experience all kinds of crazy stuff and not be arrested for it. There were bikers too – the real badass group aside from the Hells Angels were Satan’s Slaves. Instead of wearing

Beefheart and the band in 1966 – Alex St Clair (second left) had been the early leader

Wolfman Jack: an early influence

“HE COULD NOT BE TRUSTED TO GUIDE HIS OWN DESTINTY” DENNY WALLEY

the colours they would have the entire thing tattooed on their backs.” The Vliet family moved to Lancaster when Don was in his early teens. By this time, his legend attests, he was already an accomplished sculptor. Bill Harkleroad is doubtful, considering Don’s penchant for tall tales, but Gary Lucas is convinced otherwise. “I was sceptical for a while, but I think that’s all true,” says Gary Lucas. “There are photographs of him and [sculptor] Agostinho Rodrigues, where Don has sculpted a little elephant. He said he got his own TV show, and I would say it’s pretty probable – he was at least invited as a guest on a sculpture show a couple of times.” His ancestors, he claimed, included writer and adventurer Richard Halliburton and duchess Wallis Simpson, while his grandma, then living in Lancaster and known as ‘Granny Annie’, grew up on a plantation in the South and claimed to have seen an early performance by Howlin’ Wolf there. Crucial to Don in this period was his friendship with fellow Antelope Valley High School pupil Frank Zappa. The pair listened to Zappa’s impressive collection of blues and R&B records together, with

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

Beefheart's best buddy, Frank Zappa, on drums with The Blackouts in Lancaster, California, 1957

ra i i vi J , anarchic DJ broadcasting from a super-high-powered ‘border blaster’ in Mexico. “They were best friends,” remembers Denny Walley. “I really got interested going to Frank’s house because he had a big collection of 45s, doowop, R&B and weird shit. That was where I got hooked on collecting blues.” The pair made their first recording at school in the late ’50s: “Lost In A Whirlpool”, a seemingly improvised blues with spidery Zappa guitar, features Don first singing in falsetto and then unleashing his now-classic, Howlin’ Wolf roar complete with a daring “motherfucker”. That recording must have been one of the more productive days at school for Don. “He didn’t go to school that much,” notes Walley. “He used to just cruise by in his blue ’51 Oldsmobile, a real bad-boy machine. He was funny as shit, though. People would go to parties and they’d bring their stack of 45s to play, so once Don brought some records and slipped in a parakeet training record. That went in the stack, people were dancing and then the parakeet came on – ‘Pretty boy, say hello!’” While Dan devoured music, having little musical skill aside from his impressive voice meant he didn’t play much – apart from a short-lived 1963 collaboration as The Soots with Zappa. In contrast, his multi-instrumentalist friend was regularly performing and recording – Harkleroad remembers breaking into a gymnasium to play basketball with friends and finding The Blackouts, featuring Zappa on drums, rehearsing there. At the end of 1964, local guitarist Alex Snouffer, sometimes known as Butch, asked Don to sing in his new group. The guitarist adopted the surname St Clair, and Vliet added ‘Van’ to his own name. Friends Doug Moon, Jerry Handley and Vic Mortensen joined on guitar, bass and drums, respectively, and the group were named after a quip by the latter. “The first time I met Don,” Mortensen says, “he walked into this roadhouse, a kind of biker bar, on Highway 66 with Frank, who I knew. Don was wearing a full-length leather coat. He introduced himself and said he was ‘working on a movie in Hollywood’. “Frank and Don were working on their own film project, Captain Beefheart And The Grunt People, and because Don was addicted to Pepsi Cola, I said to Frank, ‘Don should take a sip from his Pepsi Cola, and poof, the Magic Band would appear behind him.’ We had a good laugh about it. But then when Don called me at my home

LIVE AT THE AVALON BALLROOM 1966

WAX RADIO, 2018 Primitively recorded, this set shows off the early bluesy Magic Band at their peak. “Tupelo” is a masterful taut slow blues, while “Evil” is suitably savage. Throughout, Beefheart, on harp and stinging vocals, is very much the star. 7/10

SAFE AS MILK

BUDDAH, 1967 Psychedelic garage-blues with extra Cooder! Alongside fuzzy, eccentric delights such as “Dropout Boogie”, “Abba Zaba” and “Electricity”, there’s also a seam of soulful beauty in “I’m Glad” and “Call On Me”. 8/10

THE MIRROR MAN SESSIONS

BUDDAH RECORDS, 1999 Two LPs of lengthy material recorded in late 1967 for the Safe As Milk follow-up. As John French recalls, there’s not much Captain here because he hadn’t rehearsed with the band and was unsure how to fit his lyrics into their epic psych-blues pieces. 7/10

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HEN the Magic Band began, they were very much St Clair’s group. He was far more experienced than Van Vliet, having worked for periods performing in bar bands in Nevada and in The Omens in Lancaster. From the start, though, the newly dubbed Beefheart made his presence known on stage. “They had long hair,” says Bill Harkleroad. “That was a big deal to kids like us because we weren’t allowed to grow our hair. They stood out because of the way they looked, all dressed in black and wearing sunglasses indoors at night.” John French heard the group for the first time at a Battle of the Bands contest at Lancaster’s Exposition Hall in 1965, organised by a local car club. “The lineup was Merlin & The Sorcerers, The Jungle Jive Five, I was in a band called The Intruders, and Beefheart,” he remembers. “We all thought we did pretty good, but then they came out and started with this fanfare with Don playing these fast harmonica notes. They played these slow chords and then counted it off and went into the first piece. I was blown away by the fact they had such showmanship. Of course we got our asses kicked, because they were the popular band.” “We thought the Beefheart band were the best thing on earth, we were pummelled by them,” adds Bill Harkleroad, who first saw the Magic Band early on in Lancaster. “Beefheart was doing this stuff that seems really dark and real. It was like, ‘Oh God, those guys are scary, don’t meet them in the alley.’” Harkleroad didn’t see the Magic Band again until he joined them in 1969 – in the meantime, he left Lancaster to become an “LSD Buddhist” in Timothy Leary’s Lake Tahoe cult – but they stayed on his mind. “It was a very powerful thing. Because of the desert, it was really easy to be focused on the one band that was making noise.” By the mid-’60s, Zappa was heavily involved at a studio in nearby Cucamonga, first named Pal and then Studio Z after Zappa purchased it. It was the scene of some out-there happenings, as Vic Mortensen recalls. “Frank and I would be doing all kinds of experimental crap. We had a baby grand piano, and Frank sat on the piano stool, cross-legged, and I would crawl underneath the piano with timpani mallets and play the strings as he would depress the keys. Sometimes we’d be in the place so long that when we walked out we were surprised that it was daylight.” Mortensen taught a keen Van Vliet to play harmonica, which added a new dimension to their performances, then mostly at Lancaster’s Exposition Hall, but also branching out to the local health spa and an excursion to Bakersfield. The drummer also bought Van Vliet a pair of finger cymbals, which were used to mimic the wheels of New Orleans burial carts at the start of “St James Infirmary Blues”. “I looked up and to God is my witness, there were tears rolling down his cheeks. We had a knack with audiences… mostly, we blew their minds.” By mid-1965, the Magic Band had a manager – someone, says Mortensen, who worked for an insurance company and had been intrigued by the bubble-written form Van Vliet had sent back after he’d crashed his Corvette. Their new champion secured them an unusual, if potentially lucrative, meeting with Hanna-Barbera Productions, makers of The Flintstones, Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo. “We went to Hanna-Barbera, set up our instruments and played,” says Mortensen. “Then we went to a FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •93

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The best of early Beefheart and the MagicBand

in Montclair and said he was starting a band, I said, ‘What are you gonna call it?’ He says ‘Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band.’ He must have heard it from Frank.”

MICHAELOCHSARCHIVES/GETTYIMAGES

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART guy’s office, he put on a record and asked if we could play it. ‘We’re gonna do an animated show about a fictitious group called The Bats, and we want you to become The Bats.’ We said, ‘We’re Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, thank you.’ An animated show and a series of records, and we passed it up. I thought our manager was going to die on us.” Instead, at a Hollywood Battle of the Bands in April 1965, the group were spotted by agent Leonard Grant, who arranged for them to embark on a tour of Whisky-A-Go-Go venues out of state. Alas, it was not the greatest success. Denver was “a nightmare”, says Mortensen. They were replaced halfway through their run by a country band. When they returned from Hawaii a few weeks later, Mortensen discovered that he had been called up for active duty in the army. The band’s lineup shifted accordingly. At the end of ’65, Beefheart and the Magic Band were signed to A&M. In Mortensen’s absence, Alex St Clair took over the drumkit for the recording of their debut single, “Diddy Wah Diddy”, early the following year. Meanwhile, Richard Hepner, a guitarist they’d met in Denver, took over from St Clair. “Alex already sounded dated on guitar,” says John French. “When he did a solo it sounded like ’50s rock’n’roll, pentatonic scale all the way. But Hepner was BB King-inspired, a really great player. He was more in the contemporary vein, and all the guitarists “Don didn’t know how to lead a group, he had not a clue”: the band in Los Angeles, 1966

in the Antelope Valley loved him. But when he left and Alex went back to guitar, the band wasn’t as strong.”

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“DON WANTED TO OUT WEIRD FRANK ZAPPA” JOHN FRENCH

LUES and R&B weren’t enough for Van Vliet. He wanted to venture into weirder territory, incorporating new psychedelic sounds. He was also keen to capture the spirit of the free jazz he and Zappa loved – the pair had seen Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, with Van Vliet securing the latter’s autograph on a dollar bill. “Their sound was already stretching from the blues,” says Bill Harkleroad. “Those psychedelic things like the gong in ‘Zig Zag Wanderer’. 1966 was the beginning of my psychedelic life – just at that time everyone was getting into those things.” Van Vliet’s tastes were surprisingly varied. Lucas recalls him raving about Jackie Gleeson, Dave Van Ronk and Ewan MacColl and AL Lloyd’s Blow Boys Blow, whose “The Handsome Cabin Boy” was later adapted into Trout Mask Replica’s “Orange Claw Hammer”. They followed “Diddy Wah Diddy” with a second A&M single, “Moonchild”, written by producer David Gates. Shortly after, the band were dropped for being too “uncommercial”. All the while, though, they were building up an underground following. In June 1966, they played their most prestigious gigs to date at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom. The setlist is still stuffed with blues covers, from Howlin’ Wolf’s ever-present “Evil” and Willie Dixon’s “Down In The Bottom” to John Lee Hooker’s “Tupelo” and the Stones’ “Heart Of Stone”. “‘Tupelo’ really stood out for me,” says John French. “I got so enthralled by the way Don handled the story of this Mississippi flood and fire. The way he commanded the audience was amazing.” Among their other notable gigs during this period, they opened for Them at LA’s Whisky – with John Peel and, apparently, a tripping Andy Williams in attendance. With John French newly installed on drums, the group moved to a house in Laurel Canyon, funded by St Clair and Van Vliet’s mothers. There, their own songs began to flow with a psychedelic vigour – “Electricity”, “Abba Zaba” and “Sure ’Nuff…” were early results, warped and weird blues mostly with lyrics by Lancaster beatnik Herb Bermann. Mortensen wrote “Call On Me” as a Byrds-y ballad in late 1965, after a rehearsal was halted by his mother ringing to inform him of his father’s death. Van Vliet rearranged it as a harder, soulful stomp the following year, requisitioning the writing credit in the process. “Don was very good at taking the credit for everything even though he delegated a lot to other people,” says French. “You know how they say creativity is one per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration? Well, Don was the one per cent inspiration and we were the 90 per cent perspiration. Another problem was he hardly ever finished anything, so there were all these great song ideas that we didn’t know how to play.” With younger members like French joining the fold, Van Vliet increasingly threw his weight around. He had always been unpredictable – for instance, refusing to rehearse with the group – but his behaviour became increasingly erratic. Doug Moon departed in early 1967 after recording demos for their debut album, provisionally titled “Abba Zaba”. Richard Perry and Bob Krasnow, the record’s prospective producers, were unable to find Van Vliet. They eventually tracked the singer down in LA’s Canter’s Deli, where he informed them, “I’ve been

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EEFHEART and the Magic Band went on to stranger, bolder things in the decade and a half following Safe As Milk. But those early years set a pattern – from infuriation, intimidation and anxiety came stunning music. Even the rivalry with old friend Frank Zappa would continue to reap rewards. “Don wanted to get a piano because Frank had started writing on one,” says John French, recalling the creation of Trout Mask Replica. “He wanted to out-weird Frank, that was his big goal. That was more important to him than making money or putting together a saleable product. He just wanted to do art, man.” Just as importantly, the high desert remained a constant source of inspiration for Van Vliet in his music

“It was chaos the whole time”: Beefheart and the band in 1967

Gary Lucason DonVanVliet’sESP “I SAW some examples of it. One night Don’s doing an interview at my apartment in New York, and we heard something like a car backfire, and he says, ‘Hold on, man, did you hear that? Something really heavy just went down, and you’re gonna read about it on the front pages tomorrow.’ In the middle of the next interview, the phone rang and it was the first journalist: ‘Gary, I don’t believe it, man. John Lennon was just shot. How did Don know?’ He was definitely sensitive to stuff in the air. He’d say the phone would ring and then it would ring. I think there are people who might not have mystical power, but they just have different channels on the world and their nervous system picks up stuff that’s out there.”

, , p infused in that landscape,” explains Gary Lucas. “He’d often stay up night after night, drinking coffee and sketching at Denny’s. He always said the desert was too hot for him, but if he hated it, wouldn’t he have moved? There were parts of him that embraced the landscape, embraced being a very big fish in a very small pond.” “He was an explosive creative person, with real vision,” says Bill Harkleroad. “People say, ‘God, some really great players came out of that desert area.’ But maybe every little town had all these people, but they didn’t get the break? Maybe there were two people that were explosively talented – Frank and Don – and then all these other kids got in rooms and started practising because, ‘Shit, that’s possible!’” Whether Van Vliet planned it or not, the tumult of those early years endured as the Beefheart modus operandi. It created the cult-like atmosphere around the Trout Mask sessions, the shocking accessibility of Clear Spot and even arguably informed his sudden retirement after 1982’s Ice Cream For Crow. “It was chaos the whole time,” says French. “I can’t think of any instance where I went, ‘There is hope!’ We were just terrified of him, because he would fly off the handle and scream at you.” “I never met anybody like him, not remotely,” says Gary Lucas. “He threw out ideas like an oil well, an endless flow of creative ideas.” Even much later, when he was a luminary in the art world, Van Vliet couldn’t escape his early years in Lancaster. Like the sandstorms that periodically hit the Antelope Valley, his past just kept springing up. “We were out in the middle of nowhere in this diner,” says Lucas. “It was a real beat-up place, like you’re travelling into another dimension. And in walks this trucker guy and he spots Don. ‘Hey! Don Vliet.’ Don looks up and says, ‘You mean, Don Van Vliet.’ And he went, ‘Yeah, Don Vliet. Remember when we didn’t let you join the car club?’ and laughs. Don says to the guy, [witheringly] ‘So whaddya wanna talk about – quantum math?’” Bill Harkleroad can be found at zoothornrollo.com The Essential Gary Lucas is out January 29 on Knitting Factory FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •95

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waiting for you…” “It was like he’d mentally commanded them to find him there,” laughs Gary Lucas. To replace Moon, Van Vliet recruited Ry Cooder – formerly a member of Rising Sons alongside Taj Mahal. A hotshot slide guitarist long admired by Van Vliet, he was able to whip the Magic Band into shape in time for the Safe As Milk sessions at RCA Studios. “Ry put the album together,” says John French. “He wrote parts where they were missing. On ‘Zig Zag Wanderer’, Ry came up with the riff in the middle – he said, ‘We gotta break this up, so it isn’t just the same thing over and over.’ Don was anxiety-ridden during the sessions. We had to take him to the hospital a few times; they gave him Librium, told him that he was just having psychosomatic attacks.” “Safe As Milk surprised me,” says Harkleroad. “I expected more of a blues album. I didn’t realise it was going to be so different.” “Blues was a good place to start,” explains French. “But Don wanted to do something new. I could see he was way more ambitious than Alex.” When Safe As Milk came out in June 1967, Van Vliet, whether intentionally or accidentally, injected an unwelcome dose of drama into the proceedings. Performing “Electricity” at the Mt Tamalpais festival, the frontman hallucinated that an audience member had turned into a fish and promptly walked off the back of the stage. A frustrated Cooder left the group the same day, reportedly heading to Oregon to escape the wrath of the group’s Rising then-manager Sons with Taj Mahal Krasnow. Thrown into (left) and chaos, the band pulled Ry Cooder (front), out of Monterey Pop a 1966 few days later. “Maybe we’d do ‘Electricity’ or ‘Abba Zaba’ live,” says French. “But most of the time Don reverted to the same stuff we’d done at the first gig I’d played with them. I think it was because he didn’t bother to memorise his lyrics – he didn’t know the words to ‘Abba Zaba’ for years! “After Safe As Milk came out we went to England, and we were still doing ‘Down In The Bottom’ for 20 minutes. But then we’d do ‘Sure Nuff N Yes I Do’, which is almost the same song, with different lyrics. Don didn’t know how to lead a group, he had not a clue.”

Cocteau Twins Big hair, big voice, big sound – “There was a certain chemistry there”

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OR most of the time of the band, Liz [Fraser] and I were completely in our little bubble,” says Robin Guthrie. “We lived small, we didn’t do much without each other, we didn’t live in big apartments.” That hermetic atmosphere in part helped create the unique feel of the Cocteaus’ records, with Guthrie and Fraser, joined by Will Heggie and then Simon Raymonde, mostly recording in their own studios, improvising songs out of thin air as they battled to keep industry tentacles out of the control room. “There wasn’t much career planning, we were just kids that listened to John Peel and wanted to be part of that,” says Guthrie, explaining why they signed to 4AD, currently celebrating its 40th birthday. “We wanted to be on the same label as The Birthday Party!” Here, the guitarist and Raymonde recall the highs and lows of their 15-year journey, from the cavernous noise of debut, Garlands, and the ecstatic, lifeaffirming Heaven Or Las Vegas to their time on a major label that led to the end of the band. “I’ve always tried to do my best at everything,” explains Guthrie, lamenting the demands placed upon him in the ’90s. “I’m not able very easily to make a crap song, badly recorded. In my head, it had always been so fucking special…” TOMPINNOCK

GARLANDS

CHRIS GARNHAM

4AD,1982

Thenoisy,post-punkdebut, recordedatLondon’s BlackwingStudios ROBIN GUTHRIE: It was a very exciting time – here’s me, my girlfriend and my mate coming down to London on the bus from Scotland, young and naïve and innocent in many ways, to make a record. We were teenagers, I was 19 and Liz was 17, and our aim was to make a record – never a second or third record or anything. This album took six days to record and mix. It was pretty much all live. These were songs we’d already played live; we’d written them in my mum’s living room and in various abandoned lockups in Scotland. There were some absolutely gorgeous moments in the studio; when we were able to hear what Liz was singing through studio monitors without it being drowned out by the guitar, that was quite a moment. There were a few disputes along the way as well – I understood the technical reasons for not wanting to make the little needle go into the red, but I also understood that that’s how I wanted it to sound! On all the demos we’d done we used to put a beatbox through a distortion unit and they wouldn’t let us do that. 96 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2020

We used a different drum machine that we borrowed from Depeche Mode, because it was an expensive one, but it didn’t really sound the way we wanted it to – but who cares, you know? We had a record, and that was fucking brilliant. That’s the bucket list over, at 19.

HEAD OVER HEELS 1983,4AD

Aboldturningpointforthegroup, writteninanEdinburghstudio GUTHRIE: After Garlands we did a lot of touring, then Will decided to depart. I remember when the idea for Head Over Heels came – we were in a chip shop and I said to Liz, “So we’ve gotta tell 4AD we’ve got some new songs, and we’ll just wing it. We won’t let them hear the demos, because we haven’t done them, because we haven’t written anything… Come on, we can do this…” So that’s what we did. Palladium was our home ground, we’d recorded demos there before. We weren’t as intimidated because we weren’t in the big city, there weren’t red buses and all this shit. It was joyous – I was getting into the pilot seat, Liz would spend her afternoons upstairs in the studio reading books and writing lyrics and then come down and start singing

The Cocteau Twins in 1982: (l-r) Liz Fraser, Will Heggie and Robin Guthrie

along and we’d just go with it. It was so exciting to have that freedom that we’d worked towards, to be able to express ourselves without having to channel our ideas through somebody else, an engineer wearing a white coat with pencils in the pocket… It liberated us and set the tone for the way I did all the other records, essentially starting with nothing – the songwriting process started to become integrated into the recording process. This is one of the most important records we ever made, in terms of releasing our creativity. SIMONRAYMONDE: I got to see them live a lot before I joined. Liz was just like this beautiful angel on the stage beating her chest, so into the music. It was wonderful to watch, and to listen to this big swirl of spacey guitars and these huge bass drums on the tape machine.

TREASURE 1984,4AD

JoinedbynewbassistSimon Raymonde,thegroupmaketheir ‘unfinished’thirdwhiletheirlabel triesforahit GUTHRIE: We released “The Spangle Maker” EP before this, with “Pearly Dewdrops’ Drops” as a single. I think it was a bit of a

disappointment, because 4AD had put a lot of money into it, but it only got to 29. We met up with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois before Treasure [there was talk of them producing it] – I asked Eno, “How would you produce our records differently?” And he kindly said, “Well, we don’t want to produce them differently, they’re beautiful as they are.” So I went, “Oh, well, we should just carry on doing them ourselves.” RAYMONDE: I think Robin was like, “Yes!” Because he heard the band’s sound in his head – even though the records all say ‘produced by Cocteau Twins’, he was very much the producer. We had three weeks in the studio to come up with an album, and it was really exciting – I loved being in Scotland, the snow was halfway up the door and we got cooked breakfasts! I really enjoyed the process even though we felt the record wasn’t really 100 per cent finished. GUTHRIE: I apparently said that Treasure was an “abortion”, which is a really Scottish way of saying it wasn’t quite right. It was the first time that Simon had contributed some things and we were still finding our feet with each other. Some decisions I made are pretty poor – I got sucked into some of the technology of the time – and it’s not what it could have been. I’m not gonna say it’s a bad record, because I really consider that the body of

work I’ve got behind me is fucking brilliant – hats off to all of us.

VICTORIALAND 1986,4AD

WithRaymondeworkingonThis MortalCoil’sFiligree&Shadow, FraserandGuthriecreatethis ‘acoustic’albumalone GUTHRIE: This does have a very different sound. The reason to make Victorialand was simply because we made Treasure and didn’t get it right. Liz and I were a couple, it was our group, it was our thing, so it didn’t seem odd to us at all not to ask Simon to be on that. We wanted it to be something that would just by default be different to Treasure. So we had this idea: ‘OK, let’s see if we can strip it back to acoustic guitar and vocals, see what our take on that would be.’ We’d never done that. We’d always hidden behind a big noise. This was an important record; I’m really pleased with this. It put us back on track. Simon and I took an awful lot more time after Victorialand to work together, to get the best from each other. We rented a small studio space in Maida Vale and spent a lot of time working together. The outcome of that were the EPs “Echoes In A Shallow Bay” and

“Tiny Dynamine”, which were pretty much self-recorded in our little work room and mixed in a couple of different studios. They set us up nicely for the next thing. RAYMONDE: It’s a beautiful record. Our relationship just continued absolutely as normal after it. I think people make more out of it than was there. It was just circumstance really.

HAROLD BUDD, SIMON RAYMONDE, ROBIN GUTHRIE, ELIZABETH FRASER THE MOON AND THE MELODIES 1986,4AD

Afruitfulcollaborationwiththe minimalistmaster GUTHRIE: We’d got some money by this point, so we got this industrial unit in west London and built a studio. We’d met Harold already and we became real buddies – we used to go for beers and hang out. There was allegedly a TV show being made about different artists working together. RAYMONDE: As Harold’s plane landed on the tarmac, the TV show got pulled so we thought, ‘Well, let’s just do something and see what comes out.’

GUTHRIE: We were kind of testing the studio out, making sure it all worked. It was a way of me getting to know my studio – I could have Harold playing and I could be recording him. We kept continually changing studios and changing equipment, so you’re always gonna get different results. We had a lot of fun recording this. Liz is only on the one song, and Harold was really surprised about that because he’d not heard that track when he got his copy. But Harold’s a minimalist, he doesn’t listen to his own records anyway… RAYMONDE: I think there are some nice pieces on it. There are tons of mistakes that I hear all over it, but I quite like that – it’s very rough and ready, but there’s also some really beautiful tunes like “Sea, Swallow Me”, and some of Harold’s pieces are absolutely gorgeous.

BLUE BELL KNOLL 1988,4AD

Astepforwardforthetrio, finessingtheirsound GUTHRIE: This was the first record we properly did in our studio in Acton, and it turned out to be really good, I think. Simon and I were on the same page, I was firmly in the command seat where I wanted

to be, there was nobody else there telling us to change things. It wasn’t a big, professional studio – 16-track, half-inch tape – a completely different way from how people work now. Everything was done in a linear fashion; we couldn’t really cut and paste easily. They’re a bit arcane now, the studio skills I learned back then! RAYMONDE: This was our first great record. We were almost living in the studio. Musically we trusted each other, and they trusted me a lot more than at the beginning. The songwriting, if you could call it that, pretty much always came out of a piece of equipment. We’d plug in the guitar or piano and create some interesting sounds, and then all of a sudden the song would write itself. We would create 10 instrumentals before any lyrics or melodies were ever developed – it was a weird way of working. There are no vaults of unreleased Cocteaus material, because if an idea wasn’t gonna be any good it would never be more than a drumbeat. Liz would come into the studio when we said, “Come and listen to this,” or just wait until the end, so the pressure was pretty much on her from the time we finished the music. She’s one of the most incredible singers to work with because she just listens to the music and reacts off the cuff. Then she’d double-track it exactly the same, which is almost impossible. FEBRUARY 2020 • UNCUT • 97

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With Simon Raymonde (left) in the mid-’80s

In the Milk & Kisses era, June 1996

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HEAVEN OR LAS VEGAS

BOB BERG/GETTY IMAGES

1990, 4AD

Created in their new September Sound studio, the Cocteaus’ sixth embraced both grief and joy RAYMONDE: We’d outgrown our little Acton studio, and saw an advert in Music Week about this beautiful studio in Richmond needing a unique client. The owner turned out to be Pete Townshend. It was gorgeous there, and we fell in love with it immediately. GUTHRIE: We leased the top floor, with a view of the river, bought some bigger, fancier equipment and made this. We tried to keep record company people at a distance and stay in our own bubble. When you’re doing all these things and having a child too, that’s life being full-on! And yet we just did it. Most of this period is full of fairly golden memories when I think of Liz and I as a couple, because she was the first woman I loved and we were having a baby. It’s a good record, flawed but not as flawed as some others. This was a time when we were starting to have some issues with 4AD regarding finance, money and business, because we’d not really taken much care with that. An old friend who was in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles came over and I poured 98 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2020

my heart out to him about a tax bill we’d had. He could see that we were not in a great place financially considering the records we’d sold and the tours we’d done. We weren’t exactly getting shafted, but we were not really getting looked after either. Creating the songs was fairly quick – I’m not a person for pondering things. It was only when I met people in other bands that I realised that Liz and I worked in quite a different way. When I produced people, I’d realise they wrote songs in their bedroom and then brought them into the studio. ‘That’s weird – must be exhausting!’ RAYMONDE: There was a lot of change going on then but I think the music held it all together – it was always our safe place. We didn’t talk about our problems, but the very process of improvising allows you to express your immediate personal feelings much more so than just writing a song. With this record my dad died right in the middle of it, so there’s grief there from my side, and then there’s the joy of birth from Robin and Liz’s side, and then there’s this overhanging subject of drugs that we didn’t really talk

“We tried to keep people at a distance and stay in our own bubble” ROBIN GUTHRIE

about much. Throw that all into the mix and you’ve got a really interesting record. I do think it’s a beautiful album – Liz’s contribution should never be understated, and Robin was on his A-game. I learned a lot from him.

FOUR-CALENDAR CAFÉ 1993, FONTANA

Thedarkmajor-labeldebut, recordedaroundtheUK GUTHRIE: We started making this when we were on 4AD, but I believe we were judged totally on the label it was released on. To make it I took myself out of London to work at different studios – Strawberry Studios in Stockport, Moles in Bath, and a few others. September Sound was by this point running as a commercial studio, so I couldn’t really get in there when I wanted to, or if I did there’d be someone sitting in my seat smoking a fag. Then I took the songs back to September Sound where Liz and Simon contributed their important parts. It wasn’t the best time in Liz’s life, and it wasn’t the best time in my life either, but it’s a good record. It’s not necessarily a nice place to be, being publicly shamed [in the lyrics], but I can listen to it because it’s honest. I’d been in a childlike bubble for a decade, so I did a lot of growing up then. I went to rehab, but I made the mistake of announcing that I’d been, because then I was branded a druggie. It should be pointed out that after rehab I stayed in an environment for the next two records that wasn’t exactly clean and sober. The uptempo poppy tunes I did before I went to rehab and the dark, mellow

ones were done after – completely the wrong way about! RAYMONDE: There are some really amazing songs here, but obviously it’s a painful record to listen to for me because I hear Elizabeth’s stories, I hear her verbalising how she was going to make sure she never felt that way again. This was very much the start of her process of becoming a happy human again. If you’d been a fan of Garlands, you’d probably have given up on us by this point, but in many ways this is as brutal as that album was at the time. GUTHRIE: There are gorgeous moments here, but we had all these label people barging into our little world, which wasn’t a good idea.

MILK & KISSES 1996, FONTANA

Theunderratedswansong, conceivedinBrittany GUTHRIE: I rented a place in France for a few months, set up a studio in the living room and did the bones of Milk & Kisses over here, where I live now. When we toured this record it was fantastic, Liz had found her voice again and she sang the songs gorgeously, Simon and I had stripped it back to our simpler lineup. A really pleasant experience. But too many things were happening that were not quite right, like each time you released a single you had to make a fucking album’s worth of B-sides. I felt worn down by the fact everyone had a different idea. It was like, “This is not our band any more.” If we’d stopped for a year, maybe it would never have ended, but it certainly became like a chore, going to the studio to write extra songs that were nothing to do with our proper body of work. I’m able to see it more clearly than I could at the time: the more people that have an opinion, the more diluted the product’s gonna be. Don’t sign us up, give us loads of money and then come and tell us how to make the record – that’s just being a fucking idiot. I never made music with anyone else [during the Cocteaus], because all my needs for making music were completely fulfilled up until the last days. But these things don’t go on forever. The fact that we managed to get as much good stuff done in the time we were together, that’s really good. There was a certain chemistry there, that was the genius of it.

Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd’s Another Flower is out now on Darla Records

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100 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

SYD BARRETT

“One thinks of itallasjust a dream…” To coincide with what would have been SYD BARRETT’s 75th birthday, we dig into the Melody Maker archives to bring you his last published interview. Here, Syd is encouraged by Michael Watts to reflect on art, a third solo album and his “rather unexciting” old bandmates. Plus! Bassist Jack Monck remembers Stars, Syd’s final band Photo by BARRY PLUMMER

STORIES about Syd Barrett are legion. That he became overbearingly egotistical, impossible to work with. That he was thrown out of Pink Floyd. That he suffered a psychological crack-up. That he once went for an MELODY MAKER 27/03/71 afternoon drive and ended up in Ibiza. That he went back to live with his mother in Cambridge as a part of a mental healing process. That occasionally he goes to the house of Richard Wright, the Floyd’s organist, and sits there silently for hours without speaking. Some of the stories are true. Roger Waters: “When he was still in the band in the later stages, we got to the point where any one of us was likely to tear his throat out at any minute because he was so impossible… When ‘Emily’ was a hit and we were third for three weeks we did Top Of The Pops, and the third week we did it he didn’t want to know. He got down there in an incredible state and said the reason was that John Lennon didn’t have to do TOTP, so he didn’t.” In the past two years he has made a couple of albums. One of them was called Barrett. The other was The Madcap Laughs. The cover of Madcap has a picture of him crouching watchfully on the bare floorboards of a naked room. A nude girl stretches her body in the background. The picture encapsulates the mood of his songs, which are pared down and unembellished, unfashionably stripped of

refined production values, so that one is left to concentrate on the words and stream-ofconsciousness effect. His work engenders a sense of gentle, brooding intimacy; a hesitant, but intense, awareness. Syd Barrett came up to London last week and talked in the office of his music publisher – his first press interview for about a year. His hair is cut very short now, almost like a skinhead. Symbolic? Of what, then? He is very aware of what is going on around him, but his conversation is often obscure; it doesn’t always progress in linear fashion. He is painfully conscious of his indeterminate role in the music world – “I’ve never really proved myself wrong, I really need to prove myself right,” he says. Maybe he has it all figured. As he says in “Octopus”, “The madcap laughed at the man on the water”. What have you been doing since you left the Floyd, apart from making your two albums? Well, I’m a painter. I was trained as a painter… I seem to have spent a little less time painting than I might’ve done… you know, it might have been a tremendous release getting absorbed in painting. Anyway, I’ve been sitting about and writing. The fine arts thing at college was always too much for me to think about. What I was more involved in was being successful at art school. But it didn’t transcend the feeling of playing at UFO and those sorts of places with the lights and that, the fact that the group was getting better and bigger… I’ve been at home in Cambridge with my mother. I’ve FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 101

SYD BARRETT got lots of, well, children in a sense. My uncle… I’ve been getting used to a family existence, generally. Pretty unexciting. I work in a cellar.

November 1970: “I think of me being a painter eventually”

What would you sooner be – a painter or musician? Well, I think of me being a painter eventually. Do you see the last two years as a process of getting yourself together again? No. Perhaps it has something to do with what I felt could be better as regards music, as far as my job goes generally, as I did find I needed a job. I wanted to do a job. I never admitted it because I’m a person who doesn’t admit it. There were stories you were going to go back to college or get a job in a factory. Well, of course, living in Cambridge I have to find something to do. I suppose I could’ve done a job. I haven’t been doing any work. I’m not used to doing quick jobs and then stopping, but I’m sure it’d be possible. Tell me about the Pink Floyd – how did they start? Roger Waters is older than I am. He was at the architecture school in London. I was studying at Cambridge – I think it was before I had set up at Camberwell [art college]. I was moving backwards and forwards to London. I was living in Highgate with him, we shared a place there, and got a van, and spent a lot of our grant on pubs and that sort of thing. We were playing Stones numbers. I suppose we were interested in playing guitars – I picked up playing guitar quite quickly. I didn’t play much in Cambridge because I was from the art school, you know. But I was soon playing on the professional scene and began to write from there. Your writing’s always been concerned purely with songs rather than long instrumental pieces like the rest of the Floyd, hasn’t it? Their choice of material was always very much to do with what they were thinking as architecture students. Rather unexciting people I would’ve thought, primarily. I mean, anybody walking into an art school like that would’ve been tricked – maybe they were working their entry into an art school. But the choice of material was restricted, I suppose, by the fact that Roger and I wrote different things. We wrote our own songs, played our own music. They were older, by about two years, I think. I was 18 or 19. I don’t know that there was much conflict, except that perhaps the way we started to play wasn’t as impressive as it was to us, even, wasn’t as full of impact as it might’ve been. I mean, it was done very well, rather than considerably exciting. One thinks of it all as a dream.

BARRYPLUMMER;ANDREWWHITTUCK/REDFERNS

Did you like what they were doing – the fact that the music was gradually moving away from songs like “See Emily Play”? Singles are always simple… All the equipment was battered and worn – all the stuff we started out with was our own property. The electronic noises were probably necessary. They were very exciting. That’s all, really. The whole thing at the time was playing on stage. Was it only you who wanted to make singles? It was probably me alone, I think. Obviously, being a pop group one wanted to have singles. I think “Emily” was fourth in the hits. Why did you leave them? It wasn’t really a war, just a matter of being a little offhand about things. We didn’t feel there was one thing which was gonna make the decision at the minute. I mean, we did split up, and there was a lot of trouble. I don’t think Pink Floyd had any trouble, but I had an awful scene, probably self-inflicted, having a Mini and going all over England and things… 102 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

“I’VE BEEN GETTING USED TO A FAMILY EXISTENCE. I WORK IN A CELLAR” Barrett with Pink Floyd at the UFO club, London, 1967

Did the glamour go to your head at all? I dunno. Perhaps you could see it as something went to one’s head, but I don’t know that it was relevant. There were stories that you’d left because you’d been freaked out by acid trips. Well, I dunno, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the job. I only know the thing of playing, of being a musician, was very exciting. Obviously, one was better off with a silver guitar with silver mirrors and things all over it than people who ended up on the floor or anywhere else in London. The general concept, I didn’t feel so conscious of it as perhaps I should. I mean, one’s position as a member of London’s young people’s – I dunno what you’d call it; ‘underground’ wasn’t it? – wasn’t necessarily realised and felt, I don’t think, especially from the point of views of groups. I remember at UFO – one week one group, then another week another group, going in and out… I didn’t think it was as active as it could’ve been. I was really surprised that UFO finished. I only read last week that it’s not finished… What we were doing was a microcosm of the whole sort of philosophy and it tended to be a little bit cheap. The fact that the show had to be put together; the fact that we weren’t living i luxurious places with luxurious things around . I think I would always advocate that sort of hing – the luxurious life. It’s probably because don’t do much work. Were you not at all involved in acid, then, uring its heyday among rock bands? No, it as all, I suppose, related to living in London. I was lucky enough… I’ve always thought of going

back to a place where you can drink tea and sit on the carpet. I’ve been fortunate enough to do that. All that time… you’ve just reminded me of it. I thought it was good fun. I thought the Soft Machine were good fun. They were playing on Madcap, except for Kevin Ayers.

Glimpses of the old Syd: “If he smiled, the whole room lit up”

Are you trying to create a mood in your songs, rather than tell a story? Yes, very much. It would be terrific to do much more mood stuff. They’re very pure, you know, the words… I feel I’m jabbering. The whole thing is based on me being a guitarist and having done the last thing about two or three years ago in a group around England, Europe and the US, and then coming back and hardly having done anything, so I don’t know what to say. I feel, perhaps, I could be claimed as being redundant almost. I don’t feel active, and that my public conscience is fully satisfied. Don’t you think people still remember you? I should think so. Then why don’t you get some musicians, go on the road and do some gigs? I feel, though, the record would still be the thing to do. And touring and playing might make that impossible to do. Don’t you fancy playing live again? Yes, very much. What’s the hang-up then? Is it getting the right musicians around you? Yeah. What would be of primary importance – whether they were brilliant musicians or whether you could get on with them? I’m afraid I think I’d have to get on with them. They’d have to be good musicians. They’d be difficult to find. They’d have to be lively. Would you say, therefore, you were a difficult person to get on with? No. Probably my own impatience is the only thing, because it has to be very easy. You can play guitar in your canteen, you know, your hair might be longer, but there’s a lot more to playing than travelling around universities.

What records do you listen to? Well, I haven’t bought a lot. I’ve got things like Ma Rainey recently. Terrific, really fantastic. Are you going into the blues, then, in your writing? I suppose so. Different groups do different things… One feels that Slade would be an interesting thing to hear, you know. Will there be a third solo album? Yeah. I’ve got some songs in the studio, still. And I’ve got a couple of tapes. It should be 12 singles, and jolly good singles. I think I shall be able to produce this one myself. I think it was always easier to do that. The Lyrics Of Syd Barrett will be published by Omnibus Press on February 18

Pink Floyd, July 1967: (l–r) Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett, Richard Wright

StarsbassistJackMonckonBarrett’sfinalband

“I

BECAMEinvolvedwithSyd throughmygirlfriendatthe time,JennySpires;sheand Sydwerechildhoodsweethearts. Whenhe’dbeenyoungerhewasof courseverycharming,thelifeandsoul oftheparty,butbythattimehewas verywithdrawn,livinginhismother’s basementinCambridge.Hewas haunted,youknow?Hewouldwander aroundnotreallytalkingtoanybody, hardlyengagingevenwithus. “InJanuary’72,TwinkandIplayed withtheAmericanbluesmusician EddieBurnsattheCambridge UniversityBluesClub–wewerelikethe houserhythmsection–andSydcame tothatgigandmaybeevensatinwith us.Idon’tthinkhewasplayingreally, untilwecameandsaid,‘Right,let’sget together.’Wethoughtitwouldbegood forhimtospendtimewithsympathetic friends,andachancetomakea newband.Weobviouslythoughthe seemedwellenoughtobeplayinggigs. Inhindsightheclearlywasn’t. “Westartedwithnopressure.Wedid alow-keygigintheDandelionCafe inCambridge,playingalotof12-bar bluesandsomeofthematerialfrom hissoloalbums,aswellas‘Lucifer Sam’.Thatgigwasreallygood–itwas atinyplace,withaveryfriendlyvibe. Wefeltlikewewereontosomething.It wentdownhillfromthere.Oursecond gigwasinthestreetbytheMarket

SquareinCambridge.Iremembermy littledog,Jerry,standingontopofmy amplifier!Itwasn’tadisaster,butitwas clearSydwasn’tveryengaged. “Itrapidlyturnedintoabitofa nightmarewhenpeoplewantedto bookusforbiggergigs:evenatthebest oftimes,theCornExchangeisahuge stagewithdreadfulacoustics.Atone gigtheMC5wereonthebill,playing beforeus!Theywereonfire,andwe werereallyjustbeginningasagroup. “Weessentiallyfellapartonstageat ourlastgig,Ithinkmyampblewupand Sydbrokeastring,andwedeparted thestageinaratherchaoticway. Isupposeifwe’dbeenmoreresilient wecouldhavegotareplacementamp andanewstringandcomebackon. Butthatwastheendofthat.Sydmade thedecisionforhimselftostopafter that;thegeneralfeelingwasthatwas theend.Wejustcouldn’tliveuptothe expectations,really.IsupposeSydwas thefrontman,butIwouldn’tblamehim entirely–weallcouldhaverehearsed harderandreallyputinthework. “JennyandIwerelivinginacottage inthecountryatthattime,andour daughterhadjustbeenborn,andI havenicememoriesofSydcomingto thecottagejustafterStarsended.He wouldrelaxandbeverysweet.You wouldoccasionallygetglimpsesofthe oldSyd–theguywhoifhesmiled,the wholeroomlitup.” TOMPINNOCK FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT •103

GEMS/REDFERNS;KEYSTONE FEATURES/GETTY IMAGES

Why don’t you go out on your own playing acoustic? You might be very successful. Yeah… that’s nice. Well, I’ve only got an electric. I’ve got a black Fender which needs replacing. I haven’t got any blue jeans… I really prefer electric music.

EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL November 13–22, various venues, London

Sometimes dissonant, but played with a cosmic beauty

The UK jazz boom continues to flourish across 10 days of compelling livestreams

MARKALLAN;MONIKASJAKUBOWSKA/KINGSPLACE

I

N an alternate timeline, 2020 was a banner year for UK jazz; following a long period of underground incubation, it was due to hit summer festival main stages and reach a place of broad public recognition. In our lived reality, of course, Covid-19 had other plans. But this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, 10 days of music and interviews broadcast via livestream from spaces across the capital, demonstrates that the scene’s energy can’t be contained so easily. “I hope this has given you your fix of somewhat live music,” beams Cassie Kinoshi, alto saxophonist and leader of SEED Ensemble, from the stage of the Barbican. SEED’s Saturday night show is a tribute to Pharoah Sanders – a living legend of free jazz, still playing in his 80th year – and their take on his catalogue digs into the dichotomy at the heart of his music: sometimes dissonant and avant-garde, but played with a generous, cosmic beauty. SEED’s Shirley Tetteh brings spikily explorative guitar to “Upper And Lower Egypt”, while special guest Shabaka Hutchings pops up with his clarinet for a stirring take on “Astral Travelling”, hanging around for a closing “Love Is Everywhere” sung by Richie Seivwright.

SEED also sneak in one of their own tracks, “Come Home”, which Kinoshi introduces as capturing “the feeling of being black British… of being in limbo”. It’s a theme that perhaps articulates why this current wave of British jazz feels so vital; not a high-art museum piece, but a conversation spanning cultures and generations, a thing of lived experience. Diversity breeds creativity, a creativity that’s very evident in a pair of sets livestreamed from Total Refreshment Centre, a sunlit studio space just off Stoke Newington High Street. Sarathy Korwar and his band – dressed in matching bootleg football shirts that read ‘Fly Immigrants’ – perform a thrilling set that draws lines between spiritual jazz and Indian classical music. Korwar is a limber presence behind the drums, weaving between tabla and western drumkit, while poet Zia Ahmed jumps in with spokenword lyrics that pick at the scab of colonialism and address what it’s like growing up brown in Britain: “Which part of England do you grow them leaves that make your famous English breakfast tea?/English like a cheeky Nando’s/English like cutting through your country as if it were a mango…” Emma-Jean Thackray grew up nowhere more exotic than Yorkshire, Cassie Sarathy Kinoshi Korwar withZia Ahmed

104 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

where she learned to play trumpet in a brass band. Today though, she leads an ensemble blending Rhodes-powered grooving with a spiritual poise learned from Taoist philosophy. The lyric of “Movementt” – “Move the body/ Move the mind/Move the soul” – is delivered like a mission statement, while a rework of Cajmere and Dajae’s Chicago house classic “Brighter Days”, with Thackray singing and punching out the claps on a sampler, is full of joy.

That the UK jazz scene is in such rude health has a lot to do with Tomorrow’s Warriors, the not-for-profit organisation that’s fostered a young, multicultural wave of London musicians since the late ’90s. On Thursday night, it stages a showcase for two upand-coming female bandleaders, Mia Runham and Amy Gadiaga, though Tomorrow’s Warriors alumni pop up across the EFG Festival bill. Yazz Ahmed’s Thursday evening set from King’s Place finds Yazz Ahmed

L IVE Astral travellers: SEED Ensemble and Shabaka Hutchings pay tribute to Pharoah Sanders

the London-born trumpeter and flugelhorn player exploring her Bahraini heritage, powering the melodies of Arabic folk and wedding music through a gauze of electronic effects as her band – a bassist, drummer and vibraphone player – switch between moments of psychedelic abandon and dreamy repose. The following night, Tomorrow’s Warriors founder Gary Crosby leads Groundation – an all-star band featuring past Warriors Nathaniel Facey, Shirley Tetteh, Hamish Moore and Moses Boyd – on a voyage through Charlie Parker standards, in celebration of the American saxophonist’s centenary. Pound for pound it’s one of the finest shows of the festival: Facey skilfully channels Bird’s dexterous, melodic soloing, and he’s surrounded by a band of fellow virtuosos pushing their technique to the limit. Robert Rath’s Erased Tapes label has become something of an institution, presenting contemporary classical music in a way that’s accessible to an audience raised on film scores or post-rock.

Their EFG showcase features three solo musicians with a remarkable command of their respective instruments: Daniel Thorne plays saxophone, although his technique feels more influenced by classical minimalism than jazz, his sax fluttering like a feather, or set into swirling circulatory patterns; Berlin-based cellist Anne Müller uses a bank of effects and loop pedals to turn her meticulous and precise strokes into something emotionally stirring; and the Japanese artist Hatis Noit also uses loop technology, but her instrument is her voice. For 30 minutes she holds a small, socially distanced room spellbound through a set of avantgarde opera and chant delivered in the slow, purposeful movements of Butoh dance. But the highlight of this year’s EFG is an intriguing collaboration, pairing Shabaka Hutchings with the Britten Symphonia for a take on Aaron Copland’s 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring. Hutchings has become one of the most visible faces of UK jazz, although he is wary of the term – he studied classical

clarinet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama – and in a preperformance interview he reflects on what Copland’s piece means to him. “It’s a reflection on jazz… It’s not a jazz piece but it’s someone taking the form of jazz and using it as a springboard to their own cultural interpretation.” Copland was one of the first American composers to draw influence from jazz, although there’s a lot of influences in Appalachian Spring: a celebration of the American pioneers, it touches on the music of the early 20th century, of square dances and country hoedowns. Sporting a stunning ceremonial shirt, Hutchings joins half-an-hour in for the suite’s clarinet solo, an interpretation of music from Shaker religious communities that bursts out in gorgeous, wild flurries. For the climax of the show, he returns for a spirited take on Copland’s “Clarinet Concerto”. Under normal circumstances, it’d be the cue for a standing ovation. Hopefully 2021 will find a way to redress the balance.

Hatis Noit

Shabaka Hutchings with the Britten Symphonia

LOUIS PATTISON

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 105

Emmylou Harris, just about managing to keep the proceedings light

EMMYLOUHARRIS& THEREDDIRTBOYS City Winery, Nashville, November 9 Mad for sadness! Americana queen and veteran players wring joy from gloom

DANIELLEDELVALLE/GETTYIMAGES

“E

NOUGH of this happy stuff,” Emmylou Harris declares, a few songs in. “I know why you come to see me… Those sad songs.” That’s her introduction to “Red Dirt Girl” from her 2000 album of the same title, and it’s certainly not a happy song. In fact, it flirts with Southern gothic: the bucolic childhood of the first verse gives way to a grim update on an old friend, who never escapes that small town and becomes trapped in a loveless marriage, addicted to pills. Backed by her longtime band The Red Dirt Boys, Harris exudes compassion as the song turns tragic, letting her voice slip into a hoarse upper register when she sings “Ala-bama” like she’s choking back a sob. Harris’s preference for melancholy becomes the recurring joke of the evening, mentioned in nearly every bit of stage banter until it sounds almost defensive. Throughout her 50-year career, she has gravitated towards songs – her own and others’ – that confront loneliness, grief and the glories of the afterlife. Her songs come across as heavier during this set, which is one of only a handful of shows she’s played this year. Her voice sounds

106 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

burdened with fresh ache, and even the sight of a small live audience (two per table, all socially distanced) make her thoughts on mortality and the Great Hereafter all the more urgent. “Going up home to live in green pastures/Where we shall live and die nevermore”, she promises on the old hymn “Green Pastures”, which is dreamier and more delicate than ever. And she pauses several times to eulogise some of her favourite songwriters, including David Olney, Townes Van Zandt and Billie Joe Shaver. “I thought he was going to live forever,” she says sadly, before launching into a casually elegant version of his song “Old Five And Dimers Like Me”.

She is gentle with her songs, conveying empathy for her characters

SETLIST 1 Here I Am 2 Orphan 3 Love And Happiness 4 Red Dirt Girl 5 Old Five And Dimers Like Me 6 Green Pastures 7 My Name Is Emmett Till 8 Raise The Dead 9 Home Sweet Home 10 The Ballad Of Cape Henry (Red Dirt Boys) 11 Wash And Fold (Red Dirt Boys) 12 An Old Song (Red Dirt Boys) 13 All Saints Day (Red Dirt Boys) 14 1917 15 Why Worry 16 Pancho And Lefty 17 Michelangelo 18 Together Again 19 Save The Last Dance For Me 20 Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight ENCORE 21 Big Black Dog

Somehow Harris manages to keep the proceedings fairly light, not only joking with her audience but generally letting the songs speak for themselves. She has always been a sensitive interpreter, but over the past few years she has become something akin to a conduit: gentle with her songs, wary of intruding on their sentiments, conveying empathy for their characters. That quality allows her to deliver the wartime melodrama of Olney’s “1917” and to navigate the racial roleplaying of “My Name Is Emmett Till”, which seethes with understated anger. But Harris seems to have the most fun on relatively rowdy numbers like “Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight” and “Raise the Dead”, where she and The Red Dirt Boys can cut loose. More than a decade playing with Harris has transformed them into an agile backing band, with Will Kimbrough on guitar, Phil Madeira on keyboards and accordion, Chris Donahue on bass and Eamon McLoughlin on fiddle and mandolin. (Missing this evening is drummer Bryan Owings, who Harris explains is under the weather.) Veteran players, they’re proficient on a range of instruments; and because most of them are accomplished songwriters, they support Harris with a casual sensitivity to the sound of her voice and her unique phrasing. The evening flags when they play a short set of their own songs, but they allow Harris to move easily from the Appalachian folk of “Orphan Girl” to the midcentury twang of “Together Again” to the mariachi-inspired flourishes of “Pancho And Lefty”. Together, they ensure that the sadness always finds a resolution. STEPHENDEUSNER

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Leonard Cohen with Judy Collins at the Newport Folk Festival, July 15, 1967

A

TORONTO hotel room, some time in the mid-1960s. Canada’s young poetdu-jour Leonard Cohen is being interviewed by journalist and socialite Barbara Amiel (the future Mrs Conrad Black). Unsettled by the sound of a couple having sex next door, Cohen drops a bombshell: “I think I’m going to record myself singing my poems,” he says. Slightly revulsed at the sound of his nasal voice, Amiel replies, “Please don’t.”

well-to-do Montreal family stubbornly resisted career advice to establish himself as the great bedsit voice of his age. In fact, many of the hundreds of friends and family members interviewed in the first instalment of Michael Posner’s three-part oral history discouraged Cohen from singing, but his competitive streak won out; as one cohort put it, “Leonard was extremely ambitious, expressly, to overtake Dylan.” And while Bob Dylan was recovering from his motorbike accident in 1967, Cohen almost did just that. A job at the family clothing firm, Freedman Company, never seemed a likely option for the dreamy Cohen, who established himself as an all-round mensch working at children’s summer camps while bewitching women with his poetic side. “He was a very good marketeer of pain,” one friend remembers with a roll of the eyes. “It awoke empathy. Poor man. The women lined up to comfort. He did that very well.” Cohen came of age in the late-’50s, but despite prodigious LSD use, never became a real beatnik face. By the mid-1960s he had published several volumes of poetry and a couple of novels, but as he entered his thirties he was well aware that the written word would never fund the kind of gilded bohemian lifestyle he yearned for. Realising, in the words of one associate, that “a minor poet… could become a major lyricist”, he linked up with manager Mary Martin – formerly an assistant to Albert Grossman – and was invited to play three of his songs to folk star Judy Collins in 1966. “I fell off my chair at all three,” she recalls. “But it was ‘Suzanne’ and ‘Dress Rehearsal Rag’ that I recorded soon after.” Posner’s endlessly quotable interviewees track Cohen’s subsequent emergence as a recording artist on Songs Of Leonard Cohen and Songs From A Room. Not everyone appreciates his voice, his work or his womanising (“the phrase ‘naked body’… appears in every one of his songs,” snarks his sometime bedfellow Joni Mitchell), but these multiple perspectives capture man and myth in tandem. For all of his gift for words, Cohen would have struggled to tell his story better himself.

REVIEWED THIS MONTH

LEONARD COHEN: UNTOLD STORIES – THE EARLY YEARS MICHAELPOSNER

SIMON&SCHUSTER, £25

8/10

BLACK DIAMOND QUEENS: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN AND ROCK AND ROLL MAUREEN MAHON

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, £25

7/10

“Leonard was a very good marketeer of pain” FIFTIES R&B star LaVern Baker found a novel way to fight back when white singer Georgia Gibbs kept having hits with note-for-note replicas of her recordings. Heading to Japan for a concert tour, Baker took out a $125,000 insurance policy, payable to her nemesis, writing in an open letter to Gibbs: “This should be at least partial compensation for you if I should be killed or injured, and thereby deprive you of the opportunity of copying my songs and arrangements in the future.” In Black Diamond Queens, anthropologist Maureen Mahon finds that while black women helped to invent rock, they rarely reaped the full benefits. Elvis Presley made his name by cannibalising Big Mama Thornton’s 1953 version of Lieber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog”, but she was swiftly shut out of commercial rock’n’roll, spending the rest of her career swigging gin and milk on the blues and R&B circuit. “He makes a million and all this jive because his face is different from mine,” she sighed. The Shirelles faced similar visibility issues. The archetypal

girl group scored US No 1s with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “Soldier Boy”, but were deemed too black for The Ed Sullivan Show – and indeed their own record sleeves – their label fearful that the colour of their skin might harsh the everygirl buzz. British invasion stars acknowledged their debts to African American women (producer George Martin once said The Beatles were “like a male Shirelles”), but as ‘white’ rock was quietly uncoupled from ‘black’ soul and R&B in the late 1960s, black women found themselves shoved sidestage as backing singers or characterised as sex objects. Mahon notes how The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” (working title: “Black Pussy”) “treats the institution of American slavery as a setting for an edgy bodiceripper”, while the lyrics to 1978’s “Some Girls” (“black girls just wanna get fucked all night”) reflect some of the toxic stereotypes of the time. Betty Davis and Labelle explored those hypersexualised tropes as they tried to forge rock careers in the 1970s, but if Tina Turner did so more successfully in the 1980s, the “Queen Of Rock” was branded inauthentic by black and white purists alike. If that is a measure of what still awaits black female artists who cross zealously policed genre lines, Mahon is encouraged that the likes of Brittany Howard continue to ignore those boundaries; she remains convinced that distinctions between pop, rock, soul and funk are only skin deep. JIMWIRTH FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 109

JOHN BYRNE COOKE ESTATE/GETTY IMAGES

Leonard Cohen: Untold Stories – The Early Years shows how this scion of a

Visual fireworks and metaphysics from Pixar; old Hollywood dramatised; blues and race in ’20s Chicago…

S

OUL Pixar’s latest feature shows the studio very much in ruminative Meaning Of Life mode. It’s as close as digital animation comes to being a mindfulness seminar or a fullblown treatise in cosmology – but don’t worry, it still has a funny talking cat. It’s directed and co-written by Pete Docter, whose Inside Out – a pop-art mapping of theories of the self – was the studio’s most outré to date. In Soul, he sticks his neck out even further. Pixar’s first African-American-themed feature, it focuses on Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a middle-aged Harlem music teacher who feels he’s missed his vocation as a jazz pianist. One day, he gets his big chance to accompany a saxophone legend (voiced by Angela Bassett). But an accident leaves Joe’s soul – a blue glowing bespectacled blob – hovering in a parallel dimension, in a metaphysical premise that winks at Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life And Death. He finds himself mentoring novice soul ‘22’ (Tina Fey), a wiseacre little tyke, and the two return to Earth in a bizarre body-swap incident, pursued by a character who’s essentially a collection of wiggly lines… As you’d expect with a film about a musician, Soul really cares about its score – with Jon Batiste providing a snappy jazz soundtrack to complement Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s gently mind-bending electronica. It shows a dizzying visual imagination, with sequences that mix 3D and 2D, futurism and retro, and it plays gorgeous, outright experimental tricks with colour, light and texture. It’s a shame that the film is exclusive to the Disney + platform, as it would be a wonder to see on the big screen. Still, you suspect that its strangeness might have been a liability for multiplex release, its complexity and sometimes arcane wit making for an outright child-baffler: pity parents having to explain the jokes about Jung and chakras. It’s

Mank: Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz and Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies

perhaps not as much fun as Inside Out and not quite in Pixar’s absolute top rank – but it’s a thing of joy and real aesthetic audacity. MANK According to a controversial theory advocated by critic Pauline Kael, the real creative force behind Citizen Kane was not Orson Welles, but its screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz. Accordingly, Welles – played by Tom Burke – is only a fleeting presence in Mank, David Fincher’s portrait of the writer. Gary Oldman plays Mankiewicz, boozy, cynical and indisposed, holed up in the desert under orders to produce the Kane script – which he does via a series of flashbacks to his time around the studios and in the court of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), commonly agreed to be the model for Charles Foster Kane. This black-and-white Netflix project is unlike anything that Fincher has made – a labour of love, steeped in lavishly baroque visual style. The film was scripted by the director’s late father Jack Fincher, but if the suggestion is that writers make movies as

much as directors do, Mank rather disproves the point: a wordy, even over-literary script is brought to life by flamboyant direction and heightened acting. Erik Messerschmidt’s magnificent photography channels Welles’ own visual tropes and other period tropes: even the clouds in the opening sequence feel authentically early ’40s. But it’s an unconvincing, even unengaging film. There are endless sour bons mots and world-weary zingers tossed over shoulders, with Mankiewicz characterised as a flaneurat-large who seems able to stroll onto any set or into any mogul’s office and scathingly, boozily talk truth to power. Oldman gives a big performance – possibly his biggest – but it’s distractingly eccentric, sometimes seeming to parody the old movie shorthand for sophisticated-lush behaviour, with a delivery weirdly reminiscent of the great Hollywood actor Burgess Meredith. The drama depends on us caring about old studio lore – about bosses like Louis B Mayer and Irving Thalberg, and about MGM’s newsreel war against writer and Democratic politician Upton Sinclair (here’s

REVIEWED THIS MONTH SOUL

Directedby Pete Docter Starring (voices)Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey Streamingfrom December 25 Cert PG

8/10

MANK

Directedby David Fincher Starring Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried Streamingfrom December 4 Cert 12A

6/10

MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

Directedby George C Wolfe Starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman Opens December 18 Cert tbc

7/10

110 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

MURDER ME, MONSTER

Directedby Alejandro Fadel Starring Victor López, Esteban Bigliardi Opens December 4 Cert tbc

7/10

THE MOLE AGENT

Directed by Maite Alberdi Starring Sergio Chamy Opens December 11 Cert PG

7/10

Mank is a labour of love, steeped in lavishly baroque visual style acted piece, with Davis by turns grandiose, caustic and unexpectedly tender in a magnificent speech about the blues as “life’s way of talking”, and Boseman shifting mercurially through gears of vanity, arrogance, vulnerability, wit and rage. This is an unapologetically theatrical film, classy and commanding, and with a tart coda that makes a chilling point about black music’s innovation being stolen by white musicians.

where Mank is most timely, in its exposé of an older American history of media warfare). But, erudite as the film is, its picture of old Hollywood is morosely solemn compared to the wit of the Coens’ no less jaundiced versions (Barton Fink, Hail, Caesar!). This is a sublimely executed folly, but short on real pleasure – although one saving grace is Amanda Seyfried’s terrific performance as Hearst’s actress mistress Marion Davies, crackling with witty, pitiless self-awareness. Mank is made with passion, energy and expertise – yet it somehow feels like a whole lot of cinema, without an actual film. MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM Chadwick Boseman, who died in August, was a phenomenal actor – far more than just the star of a superhero movie, however important Black Panther was. Accordingly, he leaves us on ferocious form in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Directed by theatre veteran George C Wolfe, this is an adaptation of August Wilson’s celebrated play about a 1920s Chicago recording session for the legendary blues singer Ma Rainey. While Ma (an imperious, peppery Viola Davis) drives her manager to distraction with her uncompromising ways, her band limber up downstairs, bicker among themselves, exchange nightmare stories about the reality of American racism. Firebrand trumpeter Levee (Boseman) rages against the older musicians’ conservatism while making a silver-tongued play for Ma’s maid Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige) – who’s also desired by Ma. This is very much a chamber piece, with claustrophobia of the essence, and it doesn’t really benefit from being opened up, first by a concert sequence, then by some CGI evocations of old Chicago. Instead, Wolfe is more imaginative at taking us inwards, focusing on the minutiae of period recording technology. It’s a fabulously

Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman 1984

ALSO OUT... WONDER WOMAN 1984

OPENS DECEMBER 16 As the first blockbuster to hit cinemas this winter, Gal Gadot’s DC Comics heroine looks set to be the other Amazon that cleans up in 2020.

THE MOLE AGENT This very engaging documentary from Chile follows 83-year-old Sergio Chamy, recruited as an undercover agent to size up conditions in a retirement home by checking in as a resident. Chamy initially has some trouble getting to grips with the job – especially when it comes to mastering FaceTime – but soon proves a natural, as insightful and empathetic as a good gumshoe needs to be. The Mole Agent might feel like a put-up job, and you wonder how on earth director Maite Alberdi and her team managed to film Chamy’s mission without sounding alarms (in fact, we learn that they were already shooting at the home before he arrived). The film feels at moments like a sly joke – an improbable cross between Deep Cover and The Last Of The Summer Wine. But as you get to know Chamy and his new acquaintances, it emerges as a gentle but profound reflection on age, solitude and the need for community – and a very brisk, enjoyable affair it is, with its impish hero always genial company.

LET HIM GO

MURDER ME, MONSTER From Argentina comes Murder Me, Monster, a cinematic UFO that looks like a genre chiller from one angle, an atmospheric art slowie from another, but from any angle, achieves its own formidable level of WTF-itude. It begins with an image that’s jumpout-of-your-skin grisly, then settles into sombre, contemplative mood – long takes, wide sweeps of desolate landscape, eldritch lashings of pissyellow light – as policeman Cruz (Victor López) investigates the case. The strangeness slowly mounts up – drips of viscous gunk, phantom bikers, Cruz’s boss reciting a litany of exotic phobias… Then the tentacles appear – and while director Alejandro Fadel doesn’t take Lovecraftian crawling chaos quite as provocatively far as the recent Mexican alien-sex-fiend drama The Untamed, he still goes to some unmapped places. The visual imagination is dazzling, and the uncanny mood keeps you on a tantalising knifeedge – until Fadel blows the effect, perhaps intentionally, by jumping into Guillermo del Toro SFX territory. Murder Me, Monster is bewildering, bewitching and not a little infuriating, but it’s utterly its own thing – the sort of hothouse hallucination that, once it’s over, you can’t quite believe you’ve really experienced. JONATHAN ROMNEY

SYLVIE’S LOVE

OPENS DECEMBER 18 Kevin Costner and Diane Lane star in a neo-western thriller about a couple trying to rescue their grandson, with the great Lesley Manville as a bad-tothe-bone rural matriarch.

FREAKY

OPENS DECEMBER 25 Serial killer body-swap comedy – yes, you read that right. A high schooler (Kathryn Newton) finds herself merged with ‘the Butcher’ (Vince Vaughan), with the odd splash of gore.

BLITHE SPIRIT

OPENS DECEMBER 25 Noël Coward’s comic warhorse is reanimated with Judi Dench, whose eccentric spiritualist Madame Arcati turns out to be a cut above the medium. STREAMING FROM DECEMBER 25 Tessa Thompson stars in a ’50s/’60s romance about a Harlem woman who falls for a saxophone prodigy (Nnamdi Asomugha) but finds the course of true love has more turns than a Solly Rollins solo.

THE FATHER

OPENS JANUARY 8 Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman in a version of Florian Zeller’s acclaimed play about family relations and dementia, with Zeller directing and Christopher Hampton adapting.

The Father: Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman

FEBRUARY 2021 • UNCUT • 111

THE BEE GEES

HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART NBC UNIVERSAL

8/10

Compellinglyhonestchronicle ofarollercoasterride Half way through this feature-length doc, we’ve reached 1975 and “Jive Talkin’” is being sent to radio as a white label because the Bee Gees’ stock is so low it won’t get airplay under their name. It’s a career turning point – and the pivotal moment in this fascinating film, too, which smartly mixes poignant archive footage, interviews old and new and tales-behind-thesongs to track their transformation from 1960s pop group to Saturday Night Fever disco gods and beyond.

Caroline Catzas Delia Derbyshire

NIGEL WILLIAMSON

DELIA DERBYSHIRE, THE MYTHS AND THE LEGENDARY TAPES BBC

7/10

FELICITY HICKSON

Playful drama doc eulogy to Radiophonic pioneer. By Stephen Troussé TWENTY years after her death, the legend of Delia Derbyshire grows ever more vivid. There have been documentaries, plays, blue plaques, Coventry street names and arguably an entire genre – hauntology – devised to recapture the formative rapture of some uncanny Derbyshire drone in the background of a BBC Schools’ maths programme in 1967. Now Caroline Catz’s Delia Derbyshire: The Myths And The Legendary Tapes crosses the streams of dramatic reconstruction, feminist revisionism and metafictional reverie. It doesn’t so much aim to create a definitive biography as to enlarge our perception of a woman whose work so often conjured “the distant past, the distant future, or the inside of the human mind”. It would like to establish her as an honorary Time Lord, an artist who might have enjoyed a few pints of Guinness, a pinch of strawberry snuff and a round of arrows (“Delia was superb at darts” is one of the film’s more mindblowing revelations) with Pythagoras, Francis Bacon, Pierre Schaeffer and 112 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Cosey Fanni Tutti. Cosey, in fact, is a ghostly presence in the film and contributes the scintillating score, sampled and reworked from the vast archive of tapes recovered from old Bran Flakes boxes in the attic of Derbyshire’s house in Northampton. Berberian Sound Studio is an obvious model for Catz’s depiction of the mind-altering subterranean claustrophobia of recording studios. But if Berberian found a natural generic home in giallo, with physical horror sublimed into psychological terror, The Myths…, for all its flights of fancy, often strikes a note of English bathos. There’s something of late Ealing (The Man In The White Suit, say) in the scenes of the young Derbyshire encountering a careers guidance counsellor (“Have you considered a career in deaf aids?”) and a cigar-chomping studio manager from Decca, via Toast Of London. Julian Rhind-Tutt has a lovely turn as Brian Hodgson, the Radiophonic co-conspirator who forged the time-bending groans of a Tardis and joined Derbyshire in increasingly psychedelic side hustles, first in Unit Delta Plus, and then, along with David Vorhaus (Tom Meeten, having a ball) in phantasmagoric

prog séance White Noise. You might recall his role inneglected ’90ssitcom Hippies, and at times the film verges on period comedy, a riot of bad hair, frilly cuffs andawkward orgies. Catz, playing Derbyshire with eternally immaculatefringe, cyclesrepeatedly through time and place, oddly like Nerys Hughes midway between Liver Bird and District Nurse. Catz might have taken more historical liberties: as Derbyshire is beaten down by BBC bureaucracy, paralysedby deadlines andbetrayed by lovers, booze is increasingly less the fuel for all-night recording sessions in the corridors of BBC Maida Vale and more solace, a way of muffling “the whole world going out of tune” in the early 1970s. One scene imagines a pie-eyed Derbyshire hosting a soirée with Mary Wollstonecraft and Ada Lovelace, and at times you wish Catz was similarly intellectually capricious. The film ends, however, with welcome audacity: following her bitter quest to escape London (she fled as far as Cumbria, by Hadrian’s Wall, as though she could never quite escape the gravitational pull of ancient England), and eventually dissolving her identity in alcohol in Northampton, the film imagines a wry, amused Derbyshire returning to correct all the errors and lies in her obituaries. “Golly, am I glad I came back!” she laughs, enjoying a Cosey chat in some snug bar of the afterlife. “Otherwise… who designs the myths?”

SHORT SHARP SHOCKS BFI FLIPSIDE

7/10

Horrorshorts,frommacabre tocamp This 2-disc Bluray collection of British horror shorts ranges from the gothic camp of Algernon Blackwood’s fireside storytelling to the almost pornographic 1973 fantasy The Sex Victims, in which a trucker is distracted by the sight of a naked woman on horseback. The highlights are Stanley Baker in the shadowy Poe story The Tell-Tale Heart, and the colourful hangover tale Twenty-Nine, in which Alexis Kanner retraces the seedy night before. Extras: 6/10. Shorts, essay. ALASTAIR McKAY

WE ARE WHO WE ARE BBC IPLAYER

8/10

Teenagekicksonanarmybase Director Luca Guadagnino’s first TV project is a coming-of-age story about army brats set in Chioggia, northern Italy. Languidly paced, it captures the insecurities and attitudes of 14-yearold Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) as he adjusts to a new life at a US military base where his mother, Sarah (Chloë Sevigny), and her wife, Maggie (Alice Braga), have been stationed. Gender identity, sexuality, politics, morality are in constant flux. Dev Hynes’ airy piano scores and haunting synth numbers are augmented by a carefully curated soundtrack including Kip Hanrahan, Chance The Rapper and Radiohead. MICHAEL BONNER

C O M E T Curt Chambers @curtchambers

www.harmony.co @harmonyguitars

Expand your tonal palette with the infinitely playable Harmony Comet.

Not Fade Away Fondly remembered this month…

Shaver at the Wise Fool’s Pub, Chicago, Illinois, March 23, 1980

!1939"2020#

I

n 1973, Billy Joe Shaver pitched up unannounced at a Waylon Jennings recording session in Nashville. Jennings had casually invited Shaver to write some songs for his next album after catching the newcomer’s set at the previous year’s Dripping Springs Reunion in Texas, only to forget ever having done so. On this occasion, Jennings offered him $100 to go away. But Shaver stood his ground. “I told him, ‘You’re going to listen to my songs or I’m gonna kick your ass here in front of God and everybody,” he recalled to Variety. “After I played him a bunch of my songs, he called in his band and we got to work.” Jennings was so impressed, in fact, that Shaver’s compositions formed the bulk of Jennings’ 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes, which swiftly became an outlaw country landmark. Shaver’s pugnacious attitudewas the result of a difficult upbringing in Texas. His father left home before he was born, and he left school early to help out on the family farm before undertaking a series of manual jobs. But even losing two fingers in a sawmill accident didn’t deter Shaver from playing guitar and composing. Hitchhiking to Nashville in 1965, he hustled a gig as a jobbing songwriter, working for the likes of Harlan Howard and Bobby Bare, before Jennings offered him a break. His poetic, plainspoken tales of hard living, regret and salvation found an outlet on 1973 debut Old Five And Dimers Like Me, produced by Kris Kristofferson. Shaver’s reputation grew quickly

Silver Sun frontman

KIRK WEST/GETTY IMAGES

!1970"2020# Silver Sun’s lush harmonies and fat power chords were more aligned to American forebears like Cheap Trick and Jellyfish than the Britpop crowd they jostled with. Led by songwriter James Broad, their eponymous, Nigel Godrich-produced debut landed in 1997, while follow-up Neo Wave yielded two Top 30 hits. Broad, who has died from cancer, continued to write under the Silver Sun banner, their latest album being this year’s Switzerland.

Iconic rock snapper !1937"2020# AsRollingStone’schiefphotographer 114 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

thereafter. He was revered by fellow songwriters; those who covered his work included Elvis Presley (“You Asked Me To”), Johnny Cash (“I’m Just An Old Chunk Of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be A Diamond Some Day)”), Willie Nelson (“I’ve Been To Georgia On A Fast Train”) – who in 2010 called Shaver “the greatest living songwriter” – and Bob Dylan, who also namechecked him on 2009’s “I Feel A Change Comin’ On”.

from the magazine’s inception in 1967 throughto late 1970, Wolman was ideallyplaced to document the counterculture era. His informal style soon became a trademark, his willing subjects ranging from the Grateful Dead (his first assignment) to Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Grace Slick and Jim Morrison. “Everybody was approachable and appreciative in those days,” Wolman reflected. “For a photographer, it was a fucking goldmine.”

“1-2-3” hitmaker !1942"2020# Philadelphia-born Len Barry started out as frontman with The Dovells, who toured with James Brown and scored major Billboard hits in the early ’60s with “Bristol Stomp” and

Shaver continued to record deep into his seventies. His most recent album, 2014’s Long In The Tooth, included a duet with Willie Nelson, “Hard To Be An Outlaw”, and earned Shaver a belated spot on Billboard’s country chart for the first time. Commenting on his legacy, he noted: “When you write good songs, people will always remember you… You’re gonna live forever.”

“You Can’t Sit Down”. But it was as a solo artist that Barry found international acclaim, particularly 1965’s “1-2-3”, co-written with John Madara and David White. During the ’80s he co-wrote hits for Fat Larry’s Band (“Zoom”) and Booker Newberry III (“Love Town”).

Midnight Oil bassist !1958"2020# Bassist Wayne Stevens, better known as Bones Hillman, moved through a number of punk bands in his native New Zealand from the late ’70s onwards: The Masochists, Suburban Reptiles, The Rednecks, The Swingers. He was sharing a Melbourne flat with Neil Finn when Midnight Oil invited him to

audition in 1987, to replace Peter Gifford. Hillman remained with the band from then on, while also becoming a session musician in Nashville.

Strawbs co-founder !1943"2020# Schoolfriends and singer-guitarists Tony Hooper and Dave Cousins cut their teeth in bluegrass outfit The Strawberry Hill Boys in 1964, prior to shortening their name to The Strawbs and pursuing a more folk direction. Hooper’s pure vocals, contrasted with Cousins’ earthier tones, were a key element of the band’s early appeal. Hooper quit after five albums, though he rejoined for an extended period in 1983.

!1945"2020#

Original Turtle !1946"2020# Rhythm guitarist Jim Tucker co-founded LA surf combo The Crossfires in 1963, two years before they morphed into The Turtles. Their popular breakthrough happened almost immediately, with a cover of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe”, and peaked with 1967’s “Happy Together” and “She’d Rather Be With Me”. Weary of the band’s punishing schedule, Tucker retired the following year, aged 21, after which he became an electrical contractor.

Thriller engineer !1934"2020# The multiple Grammy-winner started his career in Chicago, recording various jazz artists during the ’60s, among them Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. His friendship with Quincy Jones led to a successful association with Michael Jackson, recording and mixing Off The Wall, Thriller (with a special credit for his unique ‘Acusonic Recording Process’), Bad and Dangerous. Swedien also worked with BB King, Paul McCartney and Diana Ross.

TV host and balladeer !1932"2020#

the Billboard Top 40. Parent album Demons And Wizards was similarly successful, resulting in the band playing 10,000-seaters across the United States. Other signature songs followed, including “Stealin’”, “Free Me” and grandstanding epic “July Morning” (co-written with singer David Byron), but Hensley was done by 1980. Unconvinced by changes in personnel, he quit after the sessions for 13th album, Conquest. Hensley – who’d begun his career in the mid-’60s with The Gods, alongside young guitarist Mick Taylor – then embarked on a solo career. He accepted an invitation to join Southern rockers Blackfoot in the early ’80s, before a period of semi-retirement and, eventually, a solo return in 1999. His most recent recording project, My Book Of Answers, is due out in February 2021. Given his status as popular doyen of TV chat and game shows, it’s easy to overlook the success of Des O’Connor’s singing career. He recorded a total of 36 albums and enjoyed a handful of UK Top 10 singles, among them 1967’s “Careless Hands” (previously a hit for Mel Tormé and Bing Crosby) and the Barry Mason/Les Reed ballad “I Pretend”, which reached No 1 in July 1968.

Broadway star !1943"2020# Lynn Kellogg rose to fame in the original 1968 Broadway production of Hair, in which she played debutante-turned-hippie Sheila. Her substantial role included singing the big ballad “Easy To Be Hard” and leading the rest of the cast on the finale, “Let The Sun Shine In”. A year later, Kellogg appeared alongside Elvis Presley in the western Charro! and performed “When Papa Rolled His Own” on TV’s The Johnny Cash Show.

Ken Hensley, Tokyo, March 1973

skills as a composer, performer, musicologist and publisher. His main instruments were saxophone, oboe and electric bass, playing the latter for Stevie Wonder from 1968-’70, followed by an appearance on Weather Report’s 1973 opus, Sweetnighter. Aside from releasing nearly 50 albums on his own label, White also transcribed hundreds of John Coltrane works.

Jamaican guitarist !1956"2020# Guitarist Dalton Browne shot to prominence in early ’70s Jamaica as one fifth of The Browne Bunch – Kingston’s answer to the Jackson 5 – alongside his siblings Glen, Noel, Cleveland and Danny. By 1980 he’d become an integral member of the Studio One Band, backing the likes of Johnny Osbourne, Mikey Dread and Freddie McGregor. He went on to serve as longtime musical director in McGregor’s band.

Monster publicist Jazz musician and scholar !1942"2020# A tireless self-promoter, Andrew White dubbed himself “the most voluminously productive self-industrialised musician in history” on account of his

!1947"2020# Latterly known as a flamboyant, cigar-munching football agent, Eric Hall started out as an office tea boy before becoming a publicist for EMI. His clients included Cockney Rebel, Marc Bolan and Queen, claiming later that “Killer Queen” was written

about him. In December 1976, when Queen cancelled Bill Grundy’s Today show at the last minute, Hall arranged for the Sex Pistols to take their place, an appearance that earned them nationwide notoriety.

Aussie bassist !1946"2020# Peel adopted the alias Rockwell T James to mark the beginning of his solo career in 1968. He scored a minor hit with “Love Power”, before moving to Britain three years later to join a new iteration of Thunderclap Newman. Peel teamed up with the John Paul Young Allstars in 1975, staying for four years, during which time he scored an unexpected solo success with “Roxanne”.

Gospel bandleader !1948"2020# Singer, pianist and guitarist Rance Allen joined with his brothers Thomas and Steve to form his own gospel ensemble in Detroit in 1969. The Rance Allen Group soon caught the attention of Stax Records during a local talent contest, upon which they signed to the label’s Gospel Truth imprint. The group appeared at the all-star Wattstax benefit in 1972 and issued the first of dozens of studio albums later that year. ROBHUGHES

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EN HENSLEY was central to the development of Uriah Heep. The multiinstrumentalist signed on as keyboard player in late 1969, when the band were still known as Spice, prompting a broadening of their musical approach. Heep were by then halfway through recording 1970 debut …Very ’Eavy…Very ’Umble. Taking a cue from Vanilla Fudge, they decided to root their sound in Hensley’s organ tones and Mick Box’s burning guitar. Crucially, too, Hensley emerged as the group’s predominant songwriter. “Lady In Black” and “Look At Yourself” – both of which featured Hensley on lead vocals – were early indicators of his potential, but it was 1972’s “Easy Livin’” that broke Heep in America. Written in 15 minutes, it was a major hit across Europe (though, weirdly, not in the UK) and made

Email letters@uncut.co.uk. Or tweet us at twitter.com/uncutmagazine AFTERTHEGOLDDUST

Thanks for an excellent in-depth review of Neil Young's Archives Vol II: 1972-1976 boxset [January issue]. I am one of the lucky people who bagged a copy from the 3,000 on offer from Neil's Archives online store in the USA for a princely sum of over £200, as the European retail sites had sold out. There is no doubt that the music is gold dust and it's hard to believe that so many of these unheard originals and superb alternative and live versions have been locked away for over 40 years. Neil could have put out several more first-rate albums during the 1970s had he chosen to do so, but at least we have them now (or at least some of them, as who knows how long it will be until we get Archives III, covering the later 1970s). However, the delight of finally getting these unreleased songs is rather tainted. Among the 10CD set are six already-released albums, so in some cases fans already have original vinyl and CD versions. Then there is the massive price tag and the difficulty of actually getting hold of the limited-edition set: a second ‘deluxe’ issue of the same set has now been belatedly promised for March, along with a ‘normal’ retail version. There are other issues including the way Young tends to release only parts of concerts, as with the live material included here, and how there are a lot of songs still being held back. Had Neil omitted all the albums that fans already have then the set could have encompassed much more of his unreleased 1970s studio and live work, for which we now await Archives III! As it is Archives II ends awkwardly in mid-1976 in the midst of an intense creative period. So, for example, we have the studio version of “Like a Hurricane”, but no live version. Neil could take a leaf out of Dylan's book and straightforwardly get the unreleased songs out for fans to buy. After all it’s about the music. John Bentley, North Yorkshire Thanks, John – and thanks to John Jobling and Ian Capes who also wrote in about this. I agree Dylan is the exemplar on how archival releases should be managed. Neil has always followed his own course, but perhaps in this instance he might have been wise to adopt a consistent strategy to a release as anticipated as Archives II. But, blimey, the music is very good. [MB} 116 • UNCUT • FEBRUARY 2021

Huge gratitude to everyone who wrote in about our Review Of The Year, either to thank us for turning them on to a hitherto unheard record or to (gently) berate us for omitting a personal favourite from our poll. I realise we can’t please everyone all the time, but I’m encouraged by the tone of the debate around the poll. I think everyone agrees that, despite everything, 2020 was a good year for new music. And there’s a lot more to come in 2021, I’m delighted to say – I’d encourage you to check out the Weather Station feature on page 60, which sets a very high bar, early on, for the year ahead.

BACK TO THE FUTURAMA Not yet on the beach: Neil Young, 1973

YEAR-ENDRESULTS

It’s always enjoyable digesting your year-end list [Jan issue]. Often predictable in parts, frequently surprising. What did take me aback was your choice of the Drive-By Truckers at No 4. You are so right in your assessment of them as an important band. I used to distribute their CDs in my country when they were on New West. However, you chose the wrong album. While The New OK is excellent in its own right, with its very pertinent and appropriate songs, The Unraveling is the one you should have chosen. The quality of the songs are consistently stronger and just as relevant politically. I’m really not sure how you could have ignored the Jonathan Wilson, Luluc, Sturgill Simpson, Jeff Tweedy, Matt Berninger to mention a few. However, you made enough good calls – the Fleet Foxes certainly deserved its position at No 2. I’m still not totally sold on the Dylan, but perhaps I need more time with it. Thanks for always providing some talking points every year! David Towers, Johannesburg …I demand a recount! I’d never even heard of Diana Jones prior to your review of Song To A Refugee [Novemberissue],andwow!It'sheartbreaking, beautiful, tragic, poignant, and touching in equal measure. Just as importantly it’s relevant to what's happening in the world right now.

Before hearing this, my Top 3 albums of the year were The Unraveling, Good Souls Better Angels and Rough And Rowdy Ways. But with apologies to the Drive-By Truckers, Lucinda and Bob, Diana Jones’s is the finest new album I’ve heard this year. David Tags Taylor, Thurnscoe, Yorks …Congrats on another year of varied and interesting music journalism, and another no doubt hotly contested end of year list! Yours was a strong selection with some great records, but also some great omissions, and I'll rant about a few of those now.... Taylor Swift’s Folklore was probably the most glaring omission. It’s a fantastic record in so many ways, more confirmation of a huge talent, and possibly my No 1 album of 2020. I would also have included 2020 albums by Four Tet, Osees, Mike Polizze, Once & Future Band, Soccer Mommy, Jonathan Wilson, Swamp Dogg, Grimes and My Morning Jacket. Of those, the Osees record is phenomenal, MMJ’s is up there with their very best, and Once & Future Band makes the old sound new in all the best ways. I’d have placed Haim much higher, too. I predicted you’d rank Dylan’s latest opus as your No 1. Mine would have been Rolling Blackouts CF’s, which I’ve played constantly and unveils new layers of joy each time I hear it. Folklore is a very close second. Or maybe first.... Giles Lewis, via email

I was telling my wife yesterday about when I was 16 and how my best mate and I bussed and hitchhiked our way down to Stafford (of all places) for a music festival. I made the point that the music was brilliant but that there’s no way I’d let a teenager do such a thing today... Imagine my surprise when I got home found my copy of Uncut had arrived with an article on the Futurama Festival in Stafford (1981) on the first page I opened. How freaky! I remember vividly Theatre Of Hate opening with “Legion” and the crowd going nuts. Bauhaus were amazing despite the tights and 23 Skidoo too were very odd and very good. Headliners Gang Of Four, even though I was a big fan, were not so good on the night. We slept in a massive tent set up in a field. Shocked to realise it was nearly 40 years ago – and doubly shocked my dear old mum and dad let me go!! Steve Fraser, Middlesbrough

GIMME SOME TRUTH

I’ve been reading Uncut for a long time now and it only now occurred to me to ask if you might publish an article on The Undisputed Truth... you probably remember their biggest hit “Smiling Faces”. What prompted me to ask is the guitarist from that band is one of my tennis buddies. He has tons of great stories and is a great, affable guy! Ken Meyer Jr, via email Certainly among the most radical of Motown acts, Ken; their 10-minute version of “Ball Of Confusion” is mind-blowing.

VINYL JUDGEMENT

Great idea for readers to send in other Uncut CDs we’d like to see reborn as vinyl editions! I agree with Mike

CROSSWORD

OneoftwocopiesofGoatGirl ’sOnAllFoursonCD

Rudge of New Zealand in his choice of Highway 61 Revisited Revisited and Sounds Of The New West. I’d add the other Americana CDs, More Sounds Of The New West, the Best Of Americana 2001, Americana 2004, Americana 2012, The New Frontier and Sounds Of The New West Class Of 2016 and Sounds Of The New West Volume 5. Also, Eight Miles High (19 Tracks Inspired By The Byrds), Long Time Gone (15 All-New American Music Classics), Like A Hurricane (A Tribute To Neil Young), Across The Great Divide (Music Inspired By The Band) and Global A Go Go (Celebrating 20 Years Of World Music). Every one a great comp and all stored in neat plastic slip cases! Tony Burke, Bedford, UK Thanks for taking such good care of them, Tony; each one of them is a precious part of Uncut’s history.

ROVER’S RETURN

I recently subscribed to Uncut again after a hiatus from music magazines. One of the biggest draws for me are the album reviews and the prospect of finding a new musical love that I have never heard of. Uncut is excellent for covering a good range of artists, many of which are under the radar, but my only criticism would be that many of the reviews don’t actually give a good impression of what the musical sound is and almost every review is 7 or 8 out of 10. Having said that, I will spend the next month listening through most of them on Spotify waiting for a gem to jump out that I can buy on vinyl. I bought the Drew Citron album last month which was a lovely little find – so thanks! Stuart Hawthorn, Ayr Thanks for rejoining the Uncut family, Stuart. I hope you continue to find plenty more new music in each issue.

MICK TYAS R.I.P.

Hello… any chance of an obituary for Mick Tyas? Mick was a wonderful guy. A talented musician. A multiinstrumentalist. A member of The Whisky Priests for many years, including their most recent lineup. He did a lot of work in recent years with Whisky Priest founder Gary Miller. Latest band, The Chime Hours, played but two gigs. Mick Tyas, County Durham lad, died of Covid-19 in Darlington Hospital today, November 25, 2020. Mick Marsden, via email

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HOW TO ENTER The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by Neil Young. When you’ve worked out what it is, email your answer to: competitions@uncut.co.uk. The first correct entry picked at random will win a prize. Closing date: Wednesday, January 13, 2021. ThiscompetitionisonlyopentoEuropeanresidents.

CLUESACROSS 1 I’ve seen Talking Heads, but never again (4-2-1-8) 9 A complimentary copy of last years’ album by Iggy Pop (4) 10+18A I’ve got ages to go, so here’s an early single from The Rolling Stones (4-2-2-2-4) 11 Those people who are unaware that this Tracey Ullman song was written by Kirsty MacColl (4-4-4) 14 INXS album giving out a sudden thrill (4) 16 Their last album to chart was 1968’s The Village Green Preservation Society (5) 18 (See 10 across) 20 Before the birth of music by Nirvana (2-5) 23 Sensational Alex Harvey Band hit that was a cover of a 1968 hit (7) 25 Their albums included The Colour Of Spring and Spirit Of Eden (4-4) 28 Katrina named album after her backing band (5) 30 Captain Beefheart looking a bit fishy on album _____ Mask Replica (5) 31 “The only sight I wanna view is that wonderful picture of ___”, Joe Brown (3) 32 (See 13 down) 34+22D A steady stream of music coming from Pearl Jam (4-4) 35 Travis, Feeder and The Wombats all had singles of this title (4) 36 Record label that showcased Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash (3)

CLUESDOWN 2 Direction that Elvis Costello took for album in 2003 (5)

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1+9ATomorrowNever Knows,10+36AImploding TheMirage,11Millie,13Free Bird,14OhGirl,15Yeah, 16Gus,18ToTheEnd,21 Closer,23Opel,24+4DSnap OutOfIt,27Fog,28TLC,

3 Mournful song for final album by progrockers The Nice (5) 4 Ron Tucker remixing an instrumental by B Bumble And The Stingers (3-6) 5 (See 11 down) 6 Fred’s in remixing a Beach Boys’ album (7) 7 A bit of nightwork results in an album for The Calling (3) 8 Genesis song taken from a drama, maybe (4) 11+5D “So put me on a highway and show me a sign, and ____ __ __ ___ _____ one more time”, 1975 (4-2-2-3-5) 12 “There’s a feeling I get when I look to the ____”, from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” (4) 13+32A “Me and Mary, we met in high school when she was just 17”, 1981 (3-5) 15+17D “And when I ask you to be nice, you say you’ve gotta be _____ __ __ ____ in the right measure”, 1979 (5-2-2-4) 19 Album featuring that highly distinguished female singer Annie Lennox (4) 21 1982 hit with opening line “Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love” (4-3) 22 (See 34 across) 24 Sleepy Jackson album featured in a festival overseas (6) 26 Americans who sang of “Africa” (4) 27 Ellie Goulding single that scorched up the charts to No 1 (4) 29 She was frontwoman for indie rockers Skunk Anansie (4) 33 In her mid-forties, __ Subversa was frontwoman for punk band The Poison Girls (2)

30+26ARadarLove,32Hell, 34Abba DOWN

1TakeMeOut, 2Moonlighting,3Rossi, 5NoParlez,6VioletHill, 7Raining,8Aged,12Ellie, 17Street,19E.S.P.20Dot,

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Barton, Mark Bentley, Greg Cochrane, Leonie Cooper, Jon Dale, Stephen Dalton, Stephen Deusner, Lisa-Marie Ferla, Michael Hann, Nick Hasted, Rob Hughes, Trevor Hungerford, John Lewis, April Long, Alastair McKay, Gavin Martin, Piers Martin, Rob Mitchum, Paul Moody, Andrew Mueller, Sharon O’Connell, Michael Odell, Erin Osmon, Louis Pattison, Jonathan Romney, Bud Scoppa, Johnny Sharp, Dave Simpson, Neil Spencer, Terry Staunton, Graeme Thomson, Luke Torn, Stephen Troussé, Jaan Uhelszki, Wyndham Wallace, Peter Watts, Richard Williams, Nigel Williamson, Tyler Wilcox, Jim Wirth, Damon Wise, Rob Young COVER PHOTOGRAPH: ©Bob Seidemann PHOTOGRAPHERS: Barry Plummer, Paolo Brillo, Jeff Bierk, Daniel Dorsa, David Redfern, Danny Clinch, Chris Gabrin THANKS TO: Sam Richards, Kevin Grant, Lora Findlay (design) TEXT AND COVERS PRINTED BY

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Edie Brickell

The eternal New Bohemian knows what she knows when it comes to music: “A chord progression can really affect your chemistry” VARIOUS ARTISTS

BLOWINGTHEFUSE:R&B CLASSICSTHATROCKEDTHE JUKEBOX BEARFAMILY,2007

I love music from the ’40s, because it feels so much less self-aware, before the distraction of TV and the oversaturation of showbusiness. The16 compilationsinthisseriesare probably my all-time favourite collection;thepersonalities inthose records makemefeel happyand connected to asenseof authenticity that I didn’t experience but that I can relate to. I heard a lot of these songs growing up – while my mother was getting ready for work, she’d yell from the bathroom, “Go put this record on!” And then, “Go put the needle back!” When I heard these collections, I felt a warm feeling of home and comfort.

RUFUS FEATURING CHAKA KHAN

THEVERYBESTOFRUFUS FEATURINGCHAKAKHAN MCA,1996

Some of the records my mum made me put on repeat were by Rufus. We must have listened to “Tell Me Something Good” a thousand times in one week and then we moved on to “Sweet Thing”. “Tell Me…” is incredible. It’s fun and it’s such a deep groove that makes you move. And Chaka Khan sings it with such soul and passion thatyou feel her voice inyour body. It’sjustperfection. “Sweet Thing” is so tender and beautiful, and the chord changes are very different for a traditional R&B song. They have an uplift and a shift; it made me discover how a chord progression can really affect your chemistry.

DAVID BOWIE

STAGE RCAVICTOR,1978

I love this version of “Station To Station”. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times. There’s such a hypnotic, beautiful build on it, I can’t believe it’s live. Growing up with a lot of traditional music and traditional chord progressions, when I first started hearing stuff that sounded more experimental, it moved me so much. I first heard this back when I was in high school, and I played it over and over again. Bowie’s so varied, and I appreciate that most about an artist, when they’re super-flexible and can change their own lens, change how they see the world and can express it in many different ways. That to me is the most compelling kind of artist.

PHOTO:BRUCE GLIKAS/FILMMAGIC. INTERVIEW: TOM PINNOCK

VARIOUS ARTISTS

THEHARDERTHEYCOME ISLAND,1972

I first heard this back in 1987. I loved [Jimmy Cliff’s] “Sitting In Limbo”, so I bought the soundtrack and fell in love with Desmond Dekker’s “007 (Shanty Town)” and The Slickers’ “Johnny Too Bad”. One of my favourites is “Rivers Of Babylon” by The Melodians. It’s gorgeous. “Let the words of our mouth/And the meditations of our heart/Be acceptable in thy sight” – it’s so comforting and beautiful. I guess this relates very well to Blowing The Fuse, because there’s a similar sensibility in terms of lyricism; they offer little glimpses of characters that you can relate to. It’s gorgeous storytelling with very few words.

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND

ADECADEOFHITS1969-1979 POLYDOR,1991

I discovered the Allmans late, when I was first on the road with the New Bohemians in Europe in ’89. I was in dark hotel rooms, and I felt kind of alone because I didn’treally go out muchafter shows. But then IputontheAllmanBrothers and they brought a sense of sunshine into the room. There’s something earthy about their storytelling, their vocals are beautiful and obviously the guitar work is soulful. I wish I could be as tough as those guys sound! I think they hit on this wilder side of myself that I’ve never really explored – the road not taken. So I can live vicariously through the wild abandon in their music.

BJÖRK

POST ONELITTLEINDIAN,1995

I thought this was the most free thing I’d ever heard when it came out. It rivals when I first heard David Bowie’s Stage, how different its choices were in terms of lyrics and players and musicianship. Post is a perfect album to me; every song is a beauty. Even Björk’s accent has its own musical quality, and a character that I’ve never heard before. “Hyperballad” is one of the most interesting lyrics I’ve heard, and the production of this record, the sonic appeal, the musicianship, it’s moving and fresh. It’s a masterpiece. I couldn’t be a bigger admirer.

DUKE ELLINGTON

KENBURNSJAZZ:DUKE ELLINGTON COLUMBIA/LEGACY,2000

Whoever curated this – I guess it was Ken Burns – I like the versions they chose, especially of the earlier recordings. They knock me out. I’ve played this endlessly in my house. My kids grew up listening to this record. I explored other Duke Ellington records but I kept coming back to this, because I think it’s just got great versions of his songs. I love “Rockin’ In Rhythm” and “The Mooche”, where they use breath in the orchestration; that just knocks me out. There’s a sense of humour here too, which I love.

JEAN-EFFLAM BAVOUZET

DEBUSSY:COMPLETEWORKSFOR PIANOVOLUME3 CHANDOS,2008

When I hear music like this, it makes me wonder about reincarnation, because I think, “Why does it speak to my soul? Why do I feel this music so much in my body and heart?” It makes me feel like I’ve been everywhere at once. I don’t understand it, but I love this album. I’ve heard a lot of different versions of “Clair De Lune” and I like Bavouzet’s sensitivity the way he plays it. And “Nocturne” is gorgeous on this album. This music comforts me, it’s so peaceful and has elegance and beauty that elevates the mood and your sense of being. I’m very grateful for this music.

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians’ Hunter And The Dog Star is out on February 19 via Thirty Tigers 118•UNCUT•FEBRUARY2021

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