Home//UNCUT/January 2023/In This Issue
UNCUT|January 2023Rough andA rowdy ways“I DON’T know how many of you know, but Jerry Lee’s gone,” Bob Dylan announced from the stage of Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena on October 28, just hours after one of the foundational stars of rock’n’roll died. Dylan isn’t doing encores on his current tour, but he made an exception on this occasion. “We’re gonna play this song, one of his. Jerry Lee will live forever. We all know that.” Then he and his band launched into a solemn cover of “I Just Can’t Seem To Say Goodbye”, from Lewis’s 1970 album Taste Of Country. The Killer exerted a profound influence on Dylan – who in the late 1960s wrote “To Be Alone With You” specifically for his hero – and pretty much everybody else who either played or listened to…3 min
UNCUT|January 2023“It was like the Wild West”AFTER the original New York punks grew up, a thriving young hardcore scene filled the gap, taking over CBGB as well as newer venues such as the A7 and The Ritz. Local bands such as Cro-Mags, Warzone and Agnostic Front shared bills with Minor Threat and Bad Brains, bringing hard, fast, angry punk to the tattooed misfits who flooded New York’s grimy East Village. The scene’s unofficial photographer was Brooke Smith, whose pictures are collected in a new book, Sunday Matinee. “I tried to get a band started but was too self-conscious,” she explains. “When I hid behind a camera I could get right into the centre of the action. The East Village was a little like the Wild West but it felt like it was ours.” The pictures in…3 min
UNCUT|January 2023BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN“I’m gonna find my way/I’m gonna find my way” JANUARY 2023 TAKE 308 1 DUKE GARWOOD (P14) 2 ROZI PLAIN (P16) 3 NEIL YOUNG (P22) 4 PLAID (P24) Only The Strong Survive (Covers Vol 1) COLUMBIA LISTENING to Walter Orange and JD Nicholas sing “Nightshift” can still make you cry, 37 years after they recorded the song with their group, the Commodores. The two lead singers each take a verse. Orange begins with the one about Marvin Gaye. Nicholas takes the one about Jackie Wilson. It’s a hymn to a pair of recently departed heroes, quoting from their best-known songs, but it’s not a pastiche. The rich synth textures and the finely detailed percussion are a reminder that this was made in 1985, not 1965. The voices are filled with…6 min
UNCUT|January 2023AtoZARCHERS OF LOAF Reason In Decline MERGE 8/10 One-time indie slackers confront a changed world a quarter-century after split Archers Of Loaf broke up in 1998, but an exploratory 2020 reunion that yielded the elegiac “Raleigh Days” convinced singer/guitarist Eric Bachmann and his erstwhile bandmates to recommit. The resulting Reason In Decline juxtaposes the Big Country-like clangour of “Saturation And Light” with furious punk rave-ups like “Misinformation Age”, on which Bachmann, testing his surgically repaired vocal cords, bellows about dark days and demagogues. The 51-year-old family man’s struggles with depression and anxiety bring unrelenting urgency to the album, most explicitly in “Mama Was A War Profiteer”. Only in “Aimee”, a gentle ode to a lasting relationship, does Bachman find solace. BUD SCOPPA ATTAWALPA Presence ATTAWALPA 6/10 Former Turbogeist guitarist gets…30 min
UNCUT|January 2023AMERICANA ROUND-UPAMERICAN voiceover artist and comedian Grey DeLisle also boasts a fine line in folk and country, as proven by the two albums she made for Sugar Hill in the mid-noughties. After devoting the interim to raising a family, she finally returns in early January with Borrowed REGIONAL, teaming up with longtime producer (and ex-Lone Justice founder) Marvin Etzioni to leave her imprint on a bunch of covers from artists as diverse as Pink Floyd, T. Rex, Stephen Foster and Gene Austin. Meanwhile, DeLisle is already back in the studio preparing a set of all-originals for release later in 2023. On a rootsier tip, The Bad Ends are a new supergroup of veterans from Athens, Georgia, whose maincoup is securing the services of former REM drummer Bill Berry. Also comprising Mike…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023SAM PREKOPSAM Prekop is on a roll this year – and he’s barely left his studio. The 58-year-old Chicago post-rocker, known as the frontman of The Sea And Cake, has become increasingly devoted to creating music using modular synthesis, generating abstract electronic pieces which he knocks into shape at his home in the Pilsen neighbourhood. “It’s a very rich environment to, well, experiment and create with abandon,” he says. This new vocal-less direction started in earnest on his 2015 solo set The Republic and found elegant expression on this summer’s Sons Of collaboration with his pal John McEntire. Now there’sThe Sparrow, a suite of five songs, including the 18-minute title track, which, in typical Prekop fashion, are jazzily understated. “This record feels spare and hopefully immediate,” he says. “I was interested…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023THE BEACH BOYS“I work the seaways, the gale-swept seaways/Past shipwrecked daughters of wicked waters” Sail On Sailor, 1972 UNIVERSAL AS hard as they swam against it, nostalgia always pulled The Beach Boys back. As we left them at the end-of-season cliffhanger of their last boxset, their new manager Jack Rieley had recently tried to bring the band up to date. They embraced ecological issues, politics and new technology; they grew their hair and played with the Grateful Dead. Even as it broke new ground, however, 1971’s wonderful Surf’s Up ended on familiar territory. Bruce Johnston wrote a song (“Disney Girls”) that hymned the very mom-and-pop America the band were allegedly trying to leave behind. The album concluded, meanwhile, with “Surf’s Up” itself, a song rescued from the abandoned Smile sessions of 1967…8 min
UNCUT|January 2023EMAHOY TSEGUÉ-MARYAM GUÈBROUJerusalem MISSISSIPPI 8/10 WHEN Francis Falceto’s Paris-based label Buda Musique started releasing its Éthiopiques compilation albums in 1997, it was something of a revelation, even for music buffs who had been immersing themselves in African music for years. Where there are certain instruments, rhythms, scales and voicings that are shared by several regions around the continent, the music of Ethiopia seems to stand quite apart, almost unrelated to genres from any neighbouring parts of Africa. In particular it was the Ethio-jazz made in the 1960s and ’70s by the likes of Hailu Mergia, Mulatu Astatke, Mahmoud Ahmed and Gétatchew Mékurya that became quite addictive. Partly we were hooked in by the shuffling, disjointed rhythms, often in waltz-time, and the sizzling wah-wah guitar riffs, but another defining feature of Ethiojazz seemed…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023COMING NEXT MONTH…NEXT time we focus in on N 2023’s early releases, from the established – John Cale’s Mercy, his first original album since 2012’s Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood, and Margo Price’s Strays – to lesser-known gems from Meg Baird, The CIA, The Murder Capital, HC McEntire and Juni Habel. In the archival section, all will be revealed, but we can promise Steely Dan, a stunning lost garage compilation and Ahmad Jamal live in ’60s Seattle. EMAIL: TOM.PINNOCK@UNCUT.CO.UK…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023BEST NEW RELEASES75-51 75 DRUGDEALER Hiding In Plain Sight MEXICAN SUMMER 74 CHRIS FORSYTH Evolution Here We Come NO QUARTER 73 AOIFE NESSA FRANCES Protector PARTISAN 72 ŠIROM The Liquefied Throne Of Simplicity TAK:TIL/GLITTERBEAT 71 ANGELINE MORRISON The Sorrow Songs (Folk Songs Of The Black British Experience) TOPIC 70 TOMMY McLAIN I Ran Down Every Dream YEP ROCK 69 JACK WHITE Entering Heaven Alive THIRD MAN 68 KATHRYN JOSEPH For You Who Are Wronged ROCK ACTION 67 JAKE BLOUNT The New Faith SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS 66 THE UNTHANKS Sorrows Away RABBLE ROUSER 65 BEACH HOUSE Once Twice Melody BELLA UNION 64 GHOST POWER Ghost Power DUOPHONIC SUPER 45S 63 ROBYN HITCHOCK Shufflemania! TINY GHOST 62 JENNY HVAL Classic Objects 4AD 61 YARD ACT The Overload ZEN F.C. /ISLAND 60 SARAH DAVACHI Two Sisters…20 min
UNCUT|January 2023REISSUES | LIVE | COMPILATIONS30DAVID BOWIE The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust AndThe Spiders From Mars PARLOPHONE Ziggy’s 50th birthday saw a riot of celebrations, from international cosplay fan conventions to Barbie special editions and Brett Morgan’s kaleidoscopic biopic Moonage Daydream. But the flash and bang of glam would have gone nowhere without the tunes, as this half-speed vinyl remaster amply demonstrated, reminding us of how Bowie fused Judy Garland, Lou Reed and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy to kickstart the 21st century from the back streets of Beckenham, 1972. 29 CAN Live In Cuxhaven MUTE Compared with the sprawling sets captured on the first two archival releases in Mute’s Can live series, the third instalment was almost shockingly concise at 30 minutes. This performance in Cuxhaven, Germany, also documented a later stage in…12 min
UNCUT|January 2023“IF YOU STAY YOU WON’T BE SORRY”“I love ‘Kooks’. It’s so real. I was often asked when David was alive whether I’d consider working with him again if I was asked, and I’d say yes but only on a very specific album. Both David and I, as were a lot of people in this industry, we weren’t particularly great fathers. We were workaholics and didn’t see our kids that much. I know that David, as did I, regretted that later in life. The album I would like to have done, because we had moved on so far and realised our mistakes, is an album along the lines of ‘Kooks’, maybe a kids’ album, because we had both learnt so much. “‘Kooks’ is the love of Duncan [Jones] that he never really showed when Duncan was growing…2 min
UNCUT|January 2023ROXY MUSIC02 Arena, London, October 14 BRYAN Ferry arches an eyebrow and stares us down, as Roxy Music tear into “Re-Make/Re-Model”. Gold lamé, green eyeshadow… this is undoubtedly how you start off the final date of a 50th-anniversary tour. And, yes, grudgingly, while it’s true that this version of Bryan Ferry (like the fleeting appearance of Brian Eno) is only here via the show’s substantial audio-visual package, it does tell you plenty about how Roxy Music feel about Roxy Music these days. Their guidance would seem to be for us not to think of the people on stage as young men who have become older. It’s more to consider them in art-school terms: that this is simply a new edition of a classic work. There are some updated elements, but the…5 min
UNCUT|January 2023ALSO OUT…THE MENU RELEASED NOVEMBER 18 Ralph Fiennes plays Chef Slowik, a molecular gastronaut with a sad*stic streak, in a savage satire on the world of haute cuisine, directed by Succession’s Mark Mylod. CLARA SOLA RELEASED NOVEMBER 18 A fever dream of sexual awakening in the repressively Catholic Costa Rican countryside, Clara Sola is a stunning debut by director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén. SKINT RELEASED NOVEMBER 18 Originally commissioned by the BBC as a series of shorts curated by Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, these seven monologues get a richly deserved theatrical release; worth it for Peter Mullan’s performance in The Taking Of Balgrayhill Street alone. ARMAGEDDON TIME RELEASED NOVEMBER 18 Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong star in director-writer James Gray’s sombre coming-of-age memoir, tackling privilege, racism and the corruption of the…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023New adventures!ATHENS, Georgia, is the kind of town where two local legends can just bump into each other on the street and start a band. In 2017, REM co-founder and occasional Love Tractor guitarist Bill Berry was minding his own business when he was collared by Five Eight frontman Mike Mantione, who was working on songs for what he thought would be a solo album. “I immediately asked Bill, ‘Would you play on my record?’ I’m sure he thought I was crazy.” Quite the opposite. “It was actually good fortune for me,” says Berry. “His invitation was alluring. It had been two decades since I was in any way involved with making a record. Of course I wanted to hear the stuff before committing. Frankly, I wouldn’t have signed up if…3 min
UNCUT|January 2023UNCUT PLAYLISTMEG BAIRD Furling DRAG CITY After her telling contribution to Joan Shelley’s The Spur, the former Espers frontwoman delivers her finest solo LP yet: refined folk-rock with a dewy sheen. ROBERT FORSTER The Candle And The Flame TAPETE “Her beauty has not withered/From her entrance in chapter one…” Forster’s pithy lyricism takes a poignant turn on an album made with wife Karin Bäumler as she was undergoing chemotherapy. IGGY POP “Frenzy” GOLD TOOTH/ATLANTIC After the wise ruminations of Free, a return to stoopid, sweary hard rock in the company of GN’R’s Duff McKagan and RHCP’s Chad Smith. THE ARCS Electrophonic Chronic EASY EYE SOUND Second album of retro-futurist Southern soul swingers from Dan Auerbach’s other band, serving as a fine tribute to their sadly departed shipmate, Richard Swift. JAMES YORKSTON,…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023{ SOUL MAN }“Man’s Job” (from Human Touch) COLUMBIA, 1992 “Loving you is a man’s job, baby”, he sang 30 years ago, which would have been a typical 1960s soul singer’s boast in a golden age for music, if not for female empowerment. With the great Bobby King singing responses and harmonies, Bruce delivers a song that wouldn’t need much retooling to fit right into the Drifters’ repertoire. “Back In Your Arms” (from Tracks) COLUMBIA, 1998 (RECORDED 1995) “Do we have any lovers out there? Do we have anyone out there who’s ever been in love and blown a good thing?” Introducing this one in concert, Bruce climbs into Solomon Burke’s pulpit, building up to a gorgeous minor-key Southern soul ballad infused with a massive dose of romantic yearning. Imagine Burke, Percy Sledge…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023THE COOL GREENHOUSEWE’RE NEW HERE WHEN Tom Greenhouse, vocalist and songwriter of post-punk four-piece The Cool Greenhouse, was seeking out ways to make Sod’s Toastie sound different to the band’s 2020 self-titled debut, he thought AI lyrics might do the trick. “I envisaged the record at the beginning as a kind of lyrical Turing test,” he says. “Most of the lyrics became mine in the end, but the influence of AI writers still haunt the entire record.” The Cool Greenhouse set these lyrics – largely spoken-word – to clattering rhythms in a manner that makes them a cross between John Cooper Clarke and indie humourists I, Ludicrous or Half Man HalfBiscuit. The band incorporated a variety of disarming sounds, including “wailing amps, crackling synths, circuit-bend processors, radio speakers and megaphones”. Subjects covered…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023SOPHIE JAMIESONI’M NEW HERE “I’VE been doing this for 10 years but I feel like I’m only just starting,” Sophie Jamieson tells Uncut. That may be a surprising statement for those who pegged the London-based singer-songwriter as one of British folk’s most startling new talents during her first run of singles and EPs. Though poised for a breakthrough, she instead stepped away for several years; then came “Hammer” and “Release”, two 2020 EPs that previewed the grace and turmoil contained in Choosing, her bracing debut for Bella Union. “In all honesty I didn’t know what I wanted to do until about three years ago,” Jamieson notes of the yearsshe spent bartending and not writing songs. She describes the process of recording Choosing with producer Steph Marziano as “a gentle crystallisation”. The…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023PLAIDFeorm Falorx WARP 7/10 THE most unassuming of electronica acts from that rich post-rave boom of the early ’90s, Andy Turner and Ed Handley have been Warp stalwarts for almost 30 years, consistently releasing fine music without ever enjoying the same high profile as language-mangling, circuit-bending labelmates like Aphex Twin or Autechre. Now in their mid-fifties, the Suffolk duo have taken great pains to couch their 11th studio album in cutting-edge AI visuals and goofy space-mission imagery; the music within, however, is classic Plaid, lightly sprinkled with self-referential echoes drawn from all stages of their sonic journey. No alarms and few surprises, just another casually excellent collection of mellifluous electro that deepens in earworm appeal with each listen. In a first for Plaid, Feorm Falorx comes with a playful back…3 min
UNCUT|January 2023BILL ORCUTTMusic For Four Guitars PALILALIA 8/10 BILL Orcutt and Adris Hoyos’ ’90s band Harry puss* were described by critic Douglas Wolk as “just about the most abrasive band America has ever seen”. The noise and chaos masked some of the most important and influential music of the era, though; an often harrowing amalgamation of free jazz and blues filtered through the eyes of hardcore. Beloved by contemporaries such as Sonic Youth, they released five albums, most notably on the Ohio-based Siltbreeze label, but split after Orcutt and Hoyos divorced in 1997. Orcutt moved to San Francisco to become a software engineer and retired from music for over a decade. Inspired by putting together a compilation of Harry puss*, Orcutt began making music again, beginning with the release of A New…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023SAIL AGAIN, SAIL BETTER“Carl And The Passions/Pet Sounds promo” (CD1, Carl And The Passions) “What’s this? It sounds like a new Beach Boys…” An amusing radio ad promo that makes a case for the prescient but ultimately unflattering special double set that packaged the latest BB album with their classic Pet Sounds. “We Got Love” (CD2, Holland) Welcome in the live set but not on the album, this anti-apartheid song of fraternity is a decent showcase for Fataar/Chaplin. Comes into its own in the lovely bridge section, which channels a very Carl-style break for the melancholic. “Little Child” (Daddy Dear CD 6, Live bonus) Long-bootlegged, this super-cute, “kind of touching” home-recorded fragment finds Brian at the piano presenting a song that feels like it has the potential to go far. Except… “I forgot…1 min
See Also
ozone layer locationUNCUT|January 2023NEAL CASAL“TO me,” says Gary Waldman of Rain, Wind And Speed, “it’s Neal at his earnest best.” Waldman was Neal Casal’s manager for his entire career, up until Casal’s death in 2019. “It’s certainly some of his best acoustic guitar playing, and singing. He was growing so much as a songwriter, and he believed so much in this particular batch of songs.” Casal was, however, learning about the music business the hard way. His second album, Rain… had to be done on the cheap following the abrupt termination of his first record deal. “Neal just wanted to move on,” says Waldman. “Luckily, he was writing so many songs that we just got right to it.” Casal eventually became best known as a sideman and collaborator – a member of Ryan Adams’…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023TREVOR BEALESFireside Stories (Hebden Bridge Circa 1971-1974) BASIN ROCK 8/10 Stunning cache of ‘lost’ loner folk from West Yorkshire SOMETIMES the best discoveries are right under your nose. Basin Rock, the Todmorden label that’s brought us a select international roster of Nadia Reid, Julie Byrne, Andrew Tuttle, Aoife Nessa Frances and others in recent times, has now unearthed a genuine treasure from its own Calder Valley home. Son of a West Yorkshire soldier and an Algerian stenographer, who settled in the region after meeting in the Second World War, Trevor Beales was composing and playing folk guitar at a young age. Inspired by the likes of Dylan, Django Reinhardt and Welsh folkie Dave Evans, this scintillating batch of songs was recorded in the attic of the family house at various points…2 min
UNCUT|January 2023Blue Kentucky GirlWHEN performing in concert during her late career renaissance, Loretta Lynn would wear a bejewelled floor-length ballgown with – she claimed – bare feet concealed beneath. It’s difficult to imagine a more potent metaphor for an artist who was larger than life yet rooted in the Kentucky coal country where she was born and raised. Starry yet earthy, imperious yet plain-speaking, Lynn was one of the towering voices of American country music, and perhaps its most authentic. “If you’re looking at me”, she sang in one of her signature songs, “You’re looking at country”. “She was such a trailblazer,” Lucinda Williams tells Uncut. “In terms of the way she wrote, particularly the way she wrote about women, they were incredibly forward-thinking songs for that time. She had an impact and…14 min
UNCUT|January 2023ALBUM BY ALBUMRichard Dawson“IS it OK to big up your own music?” asks Richard Dawson, partway into our discussion. “I’ve slagged off everything so far, but I was just paving the way for a huge self-aggrandising which will be the rest of the interview…” While the Newcastle songwriter is certainly critical of his own work, there’s really no need: across the last decade or so, the guitarist and singer has built a compelling and deeply unique body of music. Here he takes Uncut through his records so far, from his “very bad” debut and the a cappella triumph of The Glass Trunk right through to the mighty, labyrinthine Peasant, his heavy collaboration with Finnish rockers Circle and his latest, sci-fi-inspired opus, The Ruby Cord, which appears in our 75 Best Albums Of 2022.…13 min
UNCUT|January 2023THE MAKING OF…Heroby Neu!AFTER a year apart, guitarist Michael Rother and drummer, singer and guitarist Klaus Dinger had opposing visions when they regrouped as Neu! in 1974. Rother wanted to develop the textural music he’d recently been exploring with Harmonia, while his bandmate was shifting towards more primal rock’n’roll. The compromise was Neu! 75, which appears along with its two predecessors and a remix album on the boxset Neu! 50!: our archive album of 2022. The showpiece of Neu! 75 is “Hero”, where Rother’s gorgeous melodies and drones are stampeded by Dinger’s proto-punk vocals, raging against the perceived injustices of his personal life and career. It ends with a bitter declaration: “Your only friend is music until your dying day!” The message is intensified by the powerful playing of his brother Thomas and…11 min
UNCUT|January 2023FILL YOUR HEARTWALK 10 minutes uphill from Beckenham Junction station, past the squat new developments and elegant townhouses, and you’ll eventually arrive at the corner of Southend Road and Shannon Way. Today, it’s a block of square brick apartments, similar to many buildings in this corner of southeast London. But before it was demolished in the early ’80s, this was the site of Haddon Hall, where David Bowie lived with his wife Angie and an assortment of musicians from 1969 until 1972. A sprawling Victorian villa, Haddon Hall was effectively the cradle for Bowie’s fast-moving transition from folkie to futuristic superstar. When 80-year-old south Londoner Terry moved into his flat three years ago, he had no notion of the building’s musical heritage. He’s since done his research, prompted by the gaggles of…18 min
UNCUT|January 2023IT’S THE FREAKIEST SHOW!“TIRED OF MY LIFE” (STUDIO DEMO, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1970; DISC 1) Previously unreleased Bowie confessional TRIS PENNA: “There has been so much speculation about ‘Tired Of My Life’. It later became a track on Scary Monsters – some of the lyrics and melody became ‘Up The Hill Backwards’. I think it was written towards the end of 1970 as he became half a pop star and looked around himself and wondered where he really was. Usually, when he writes about himself, it’s slightly detached. This is one of the handful where he is very personal about himself and the state of his mind.” “KING OF THE CITY” (HADDON HALL DEMO, EARLY 1970; DISC 1) Previously unreleased song with soul feel TRIS PENNA: “Like ‘Tired Of My Life’, this could have been…5 min
UNCUT|January 2023FILMSWHITE NOISEDon DeLillo’s 1985 novel about a deathobsessed, imposter syndromesuffering academic, and his family’s adventures through the hypermediated high noon of the Reaganite 1980s, is the best entry point into the great author’s extended universe. It’s the book where DeLillo’s themes of conspiracy, mortality and waste are most leavened by his morbid, mordant humour. But it’s also his most domestic novel. So on the face of it Noah Baumbach, with his feel for f*cked-up families and the absurdities of academia, is the perfect director to bring the book to the screen. But White Noise the film isn’t quite a triumph on the level of Paul Anderson’s Inherent Vice. It’s largely a problem of tone. Baumbach shoots the Midwest campus town in a golden, Spielbergian light (and the toxic cloud…6 min
UNCUT|January 2023SIR DOUG AND THE GENUINE TEXAS COSMIC GROOVESPTM 8/10 DURING the campaign to reissue Joe Nick Patoski’s 2005 documentary about Doug Sahm, the project was sold on the basis that the San Antonio-born musician was an unsung hero of Texas music, which is curious given the calibre of musicians who testify tohistalent. ThereisBobDylan, an early supporter of Sahm’s Texan “British Invasion” group The Sir Douglas Quintet who also guested on 1973’s Doug Sahm and Band, recorded at Jerry Wexler’s behest for the progressive country arm of Atlantic Records. Of the project, Dylan reportedly said: “You know, I’ve done the word trip. I wanna do the music trip.” Or, there is Dr John, who praises Sahm’s “wide open” spirit. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top makes a cultural observation, saying Sahm’s audience, or perhaps his musical style, “was hippies…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023Not Fade AwayIVY JO HUNTER Key Motown songwriter (1940-2022) IVY Jo Hunter was determined to avoid the formulaic route at Motown. “If I got a chance to work with an artist, I was not looking for the ‘Motown Sound’,” he explained in 2019. “I took that artist somewhere else. You weren’t going to get a ‘My Guy’ out of me. I just did what came naturally.” The range and quality of his compositions during the label’s classic ’60s era was ample testimony, from The Four Tops’ sorrowful “Ask The Lonely” to Marvin Gaye’s rough-hewn “You”, from The Isley Brothers’ emotionally torn “Behind A Painted Smile” to the effervescent groove of his most celebrated co-write, Martha And The Vandellas’ “Dancing In The Street”. Previously employed at Detroit’s small Correctone label, Hunter was signed…7 min
UNCUT|January 2023Sparkle hardALEX Crowton, director of a new documentary about Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous, admits it would be easy to sensationalise the life of the troubled musician, who took his own life in 2010. “But we tried to shy away from that,” says Crowton. “We wanted to focus on the music and make it about his amazing records.” Prior to his death, Virginia native Linkous had built up a unique body of work. Elements of gothic country permeated his five studio albums, as did a love of melancholy rock, lo-fi sensibilities and a punk spirit – all combined with a voice that was as ghostly and delicate as it was weathered and rusty. “He was an incredibly talented writer and musician,” says singer-songwriter Gemma Hayes, who appears in the film, alongside Linkous collaborators…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023The Murder CapitalWE’RE NEW HERE THE Murder Capital ended 2019 on a roll. The Dublin quintet’s powerful debut, When I Have Fears, had reached the Top 20 on the back of a string of great reviews. Their subsequent tour of the UK and Europe was an intense but celebratory affair, gigs often ending with singer James McGovern carried above the audience’s heads. Then their momentum was suddenly checked by the pandemic. “Everything had happened very quickly for us,” McGovern tells Uncut. “That tour was very special, a very precious memory. We never thought it would be closing a chapter.” The band were just two dates into a US tour when the lockdown curtain fell. It’s taken them three years to return, after what began as a classic ‘difficult second album’ struggle turned…3 min
UNCUT|January 2023DUKE GARWOODRogues Gospel GOD UNKNOWN 8/10 "EVERYONEsays I sound like I live in the desert,” muses Duke Garwood, St Leonards’ premier exponent of parched, post-modern blues. For him, it’s not about where you’re from, or even where you’re at – it’s about where your daydreams take you. “I look at the sea a lot and it seems like a big desert,” he says. “I’m a fantasist, I guess.” Rogues Gospel certainly sounds like the work of a man strolling out alone into the dusty wilderness, following ancient tracks across the plains, vultures circling overhead as he hallucinates his own demise. It’s Captain Beefheart twitching on the desert highway, it’s Tom Waits sleeping with his shovel, and vividly evocative of a scorched American landscape to the point where you can almost hear…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023ROZI PLAINPrize MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES 8/10 YOU can tell a lot about people from the company they keep – and by extension, about their creative expression. Take Rosalind Leyden, for instance, who’s consorted with wayward folkies, mercurial indie-pop types and experimental jazz practitioners. Early on, she played with fellow Winchester-born songwriter Kate Stables (whose This Is The Kit she’s a member of), Rachael Dadd and François Marry (of The Atlas Mountains); later, a friendship with Pictish Trail and King Creosote led to her debut as Rozi Plain and the release of four albums on Fence/Lost Map, which featured increasingly large casts of simpático players. Though circ*mstances such as musicians’ availability or geographical separation have often given Leyden no choice, wide collaboration became a preferred practice, and with 2019’s terrific What A Boost,…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023THE WELCOME WAGONEsther ASTHMATIC KITTY 8/10 MONIQUE Aiuto and her husband, Presbyterian pastor Vito Aiuto, tend to operate by their own clock. Since 2008’s Welcome To…, their arresting debut as The Welcome Wagon, produced by Sufjan Stevens on his own Asthmatic Kitty label, the pair have released just two albums, suggesting that artistic inspiration can be a fickle companion. Much of the impetus for their latest came from Monique’s decision to take up painting again after a decade of inactivity. The collage materials she used were taken from the collection of her late grandmother, Esther, whose readings from the Bible (home-recorded onto cassette during the ’90s) kept her company. As Vito’s tentative new songs gathered shape, with Monique’s accompanying artwork, it became apparent that home, family and faith were the three interlocking…2 min
UNCUT|January 2023NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSEWorld Record REPRISE 8/10 IT seems an obvious thing to say, but you get the feeling Neil Young’s new record is important to him. In the old days – the days that press behind the simple, shaky, beguiling, bemusing, finally burning surfaces of these songs – your first impression of the album would have been its cover. And there, without fuss, he lays things bare. Up front comes a photograph of his father, the writer Scott Young, caught striding down the street in suit and tie, raincoat over one arm. It could be the late-1950s, and he looks like a man with places to go and things to do there. You don’t have to recognise the face to know who he is: the image comes captioned, like a museum exhibit:…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023AtoZMONTY ALEXANDER The Montreux Years BMG 7/10 Ten-track compilation of live performances from the Jamaican piano genius The latest in this series of compilations from the Montreux Jazz Festival archive features the great Jamaican pianist in various lineups between 1993 and 2016. Alexander made his name fusing jazz with Caribbean music – two tracks here pay tribute to Bob Marley, including a gospel-tinged mash-up of “No Woman No Cry” and “Get Up Stand Up”, while there’s also a rambunctious version of the mento anthem “Linstead Market”. But he’s underrated as a flashy, Oscar Peterson-style big swinger who can rattle through absolutely anything at incredible speed, while playing funky lead lines that really sing. Check out the episodic composition “Hurricane Come And Gone”, which lurches from limpid ballad to Latin metal…17 min
UNCUT|January 2023LES RALLIZES DÉNUDÉS’67–’69 Studio Et Live (reissue, 1991) Mizutani – Les Rallizes Dénudés (reissue, 1991) ’77 Live (reissue, 1991) VARIOUS ARTISTS Oz Days Live ’72–’73 Kichijoji: The 50th Anniversary Collection (reissue, 1973) TEMPORAL DRIFT 8/10, 8/10, 9/10, 7/10 IN the 50-odd years since they formed, the mystique of Les Rallizes Dénudés has become something of a cult behemoth in underground circles. Mysterious even in their home country of Japan, increased interest in Japanese psych-rock in the previous decade – groups like Acid Mothers Temple, High Rise, Fush*tsusha and Kousokuya – had sent dedicated listeners looking for clues: where did this incredible, volatile, spirited music spring from? After the circulation of bootlegs in the noughties, Les Rallizes Dénudés, led by mythical figure Takashi Mizutani, became a touchstone; an idealised development of, and endpoint…4 min
UNCUT|January 2023DJIVAN GASPARYANI Will Not Be Sad In This World/Moon Shines At Night (reissues, 1983, 1993) ALL SAINTS 8/10, 8/10 THE duduk might resemble a recorder, but it’s a world away from discordant orchestras in school halls. Originating in Armenia millennia ago, this apricotwood, double-reed instrument takes great skill to play, with circular breathing a must; the results are beautiful and mournful, akin to a gently melismatic singer. It has soundtracked Game Of Thrones, Gladiator, The Last Temptation Of Christ and more – pretty much anything set somewhere hot, dry or vaguely fantastical – and many of those spots have been played by Djivan Gasparyan, the duduk’s most celebrated master. Yet when Brian Eno found his debut album (originally released on the Soviet state label Melodiya) in Moscow in the late ’80s,…2 min
UNCUT|January 2023AN AUDIENCE WITH…Michael Head“I’ve been lucky – when things were tough, I’ve had a creative outlet” IT’S the morning after Liverpool’s pulsating victory over Manchester City at Anfield, and Mick Head is understandably buzzing. “It feels good. I was listening on the radio and I heard a couple of pundits talking about the atmosphere and saying they’d never heard anything like it – and this was before the game!” Head has further cause for celebration when informed that his latest album with the Red Elastic Band, the triumphant Dear Scott, has been named Uncut’s third best album of 2022. “That’s amazing,” he beams. “It’s just recognition for what everyone’s put into it. We’re all really proud of it.” Earlier this year, the album became his first ever Top 10 record in a long…8 min
UNCUT|January 2023HELLZAPOPPIN’!SIX weeks into an American tour, when most young bands are losing their minds, Black Midi are in a Chicago apartment playing chess. “You have to move the king, bro, you’re in check,” singer and guitarist Geordie Greep calls to the band’s live keyboardist Seth Evans, aka Shank, before turning back to the phone. “Neither of us are good at it, but we’re just passing time, having a laugh. There are sections in Nabokov novels where he talks about chess problems, and I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. H6, B4, all this… I’m like, ‘Get back to the incest, please…’” Aside from the trauma of terrible pizza the night before – “Where to begin?” says a broken Shank – things are going pretty well out here in…11 min
UNCUT|January 2023FILMS OF THE YEAR20 NOTHING COMPARES Directed by: Kathryn Ferguson From queen of the primal scream to long-term survivor, via the legendarily rebellious Saturday Night Live appearance, which made Sinéad O’Connor the woman that America, and Catholics, loved to hate. Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary traced her subject’s rise to international glory and notoriety, but also excavated the childhood torment that fuelled the artist’s music and her commitment to uncompromising expression. 19 FLUX GOURMET Directed by Peter Strickland British cult director Strickland – a sometime member of the Sonic Catering Band – reconnected with his culinary concrète roots in a drama about a noise-art trio on a residency at an experimental institute, where their own radical performances in sound cuisine come up against malign rivals. Gwendoline Christie and Asa Butterfield stared in arguably the most…8 min
UNCUT|January 2023“THIS ALBUM IS FULL OF MY CHANGES”“MY name is David Bowie. My record is called Hunky Dory on RCA. “MThe first one is called ‘Changes’. This album is full of my changes and those of some ofmy friends, and there is a time and space level, just before you go to sleep when all about you are losing theirs and the void gets you, and that’s when I like to write my songs. “‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ The reaction to my wife being pregnant was archetypal daddy – ‘Oh, he’s going to be another Elvis’ – and this song is all that plus a dash of science fiction. “‘Eight-Line Poem’ That comes after ‘…Pretty Things’. Kind of together. I would call it a kind of city, a high-life wart on the backside of a prairie. It’s…2 min
UNCUT|January 2023SUBSCRIBE TO UNCUT AND SAVE UP TO 40%!SPECIAL OFFER! • NEVER MISS AN ISSUE • DELIVERED DIRECT TO YOUR HOME • FREE CD EVERY MONTH SUBSCRIBE ONLINE AT UNCUT.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBE Or call 01371 851882 and quote code UCPR2022 LINES ARE OPEN MONDAY – FRIDAY 9AM – 5.30PM Direct Debit offer is available to UK subscribers only. £25 payable by six monthly Direct Debit. Offer ends December 31, 2022. This price is guaranteed for the first 12 months and we will notify you in advance of any price changes. Please allow up to six weeks for delivery of your first subscription issue. The full subscription rate is for 12 months (12 issues) and includes postage and packaging. If the magazine ordered changes frequency per annum, we will honour the number of issues paid for, not the term of the…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023REVIEWED THIS MONTHWHITE NOISE Directed by Noah Baumbach Starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle Opens November 25 Cert To be confirmed 7/10 AFTERSUN Directed by Charlotte Wells Starring Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall Opens November 18 Cert To be confirmed 9/10 THREE MINUTES: A LENGTHENING Directed by Bianca Stigter Starring Helena Bonham Carter (voice) Glenn Kurtz, Moszek Tuchendler Opens December 2 Cert To be confirmed 8/10 LYNCH/OZ Directed by Alexandre O Philippe Starring Karyn Kusama, John Waters, David Lowery, Rodney Ascher, Amy Nicholson Opens December 2 Cert To be confirmed 6/10 Directed by Choi Ka Yan, Lee Hiu Ling Opens November 22 Cert To be confirmed 8/10…1 min
UNCUT|January 2023BOOKSWHEN people talk about Bob Dylan’s ‘born again period’, they can miss the point. If there was a determining spiritual rebirth, it didn’t happen in the late 1970s, but two decades earlier, when the Hibbing kid with a headful of Hank Williams and Little Richard vowed to dedicate himself to song. It became a never-ending baptism; he immersed himself in that river and never emerged, just swam deeper. Speaking to Newsweek around the time of 1997’s Time Out Of Mind, Dylan was unambiguous: “Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.” He reiterated to The New York Times: “Those old songs are my lexicon and my prayer book… You can find all my philosophy…8 min
UNCUT|January 2023FEEDBACKFAR OUT FLOYD Your reader Les Gallop asks about a Pink Floyd show at the Roundhouse, London, sometime in 1970/’71 [Take 303]. I was there too! It was a Sunday afternoon in early 1971. At the time there were regular ‘Implosions’ at the Roundhouse on Sunday afternoons, with great acts every time. The Floyd turned up and played the whole of Atom Heart Mother live. They had Ron Geesin with them on keyboards and other tape recorders. They used the upstairs of the Roundhouse (naturally round) to place speakers in a circle. They then used a 360° joystick to move sounds like footsteps, doors opening and closing and kids around in circles. I remember them looking at each other a lot as the music changed to make sure they got…6 min
UNCUT|January 2023CROSSWORDHOW TO ENTER The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by David Bowie. 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, December 7, 2022. This competition is only open to European residents. CLUES ACROSS 1+7D A song that originated in Elvis Presley’s hometown and ended up with Mott The Hoople (3-3-3-4-7) 9 At no time was this a single by The House Of Love (5) 10+3D Counting Crows performance approximately in this place (5-4) 11 Beastie Boy involved in a Zoom call (3) 12 Bob ____, US folk singer who had a 41-year gap between albums in 1971 and 2012 (4) 13+19D+36A “My heart takes a leap…2 min
UNCUT|January 2023Kevin RowlandELVIS PRESLEY “Can’t Help Falling In Love” RCA VICTOR, 1961 A lot of musicians talk about how they got into music when they were 12 or 13, but it wasn’t like that for me – I was really young. And the big one when I was about 7 or 8 was Elvis, “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. I couldn’t believe how beautiful that was; I was already a romantic at that age. I never got to see Blue Hawaii, but I remember walking past the cinema and watching them all going in. I was waiting for my birthday money to buy the single, but when I went down to the shop it had sold out, so I panicked and bought “Wimoweh” by Karl Denver. I quite liked it, but it…5 min
