pl us !

ree cd curated by the national ex cl us iv e

in te rv ie w

essential
vampire wee
morrisseykend

“we had no plan!”

Joni mitchel
120 albumsl,
+films & bo
oks

pinK floyd
set the controls for their future
s o t
his genius remembered

bo l
“the spirit was new”

p i r
“don’t mess with raccoons”

r
mavis staples ra kli
Judy collins amazing grace!
maxine peake ranking roger rip
roy harper cate le bon
JJ cale
Jordan blur reunite
king gizzard and popol vuh
the lizard wizard peter perrett
THE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN LEGENDARY LIVE
PERFORMANCE FROM THE QUEEN OF SOUL

“A TRANSCENDENT, SPINE-TINGLING, UPLIFTING,

UTTERLY JOYOUS EXPERIENCE”
NPR

EXPERIENCE IT FOR THE FIRST TIME

IN CINEMAS MAY 10
/StudiocanalUK #AmazingGrace

AMAZING GRACE: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS

RELEASED ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME. EXPANDED VERSION OF THE QUEEN OF SOUL’S
GRAMMY®-WINNING GOSPEL ALBUM AS A 180-GRAM FOUR-LP SET. AVAILABLE NOW
 “Floating down, the sound resounds around the icy waters underground”

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f I was looking for a thread that somehow connected all the option. finally, there is JJ Cale, a man who in many ways resisted
artists featured in Uncut this month, it would be the pursuit of transformation – he liked what he did and he did what he liked. But
transformation. for Scott Walker – whose life is celebrated at nonetheless his quietly radical way of going about his business
length by Graeme Thomson – it was a career-long quest to proved to be transformative to others – not least the likes of Eric
evolve and challenge himself and his audience as he followed Clapton, as Graeme Thomson learns.
his path away from the mainstream to flourish entirely on his own By now you’ll have hopefully noticed that this month’s CD has been
terms. for our cover stars, it is the fertile transitional period when curated exclusively for us by The National. They have long been at
The Pink floyd became Pink floyd. Tom Pinnock discovers a group the centre of a unique musical nexus, and our 15-track “friends and
reconfiguring themselves and their creative aesthetic following the family” CD explicitly reinforces those far-reaching creative
departure of Syd Barrett – via a run of bold, experimental records relationships. You can hear music from
that are, I think, among their best. for The National, meanwhile, it is Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten, This Is The Kit,
the manner in which they conduct themselves, as they continue to Deerhunter, Lisa Hannigan, Thomas
move from celebrated cult favourites to mainstream players. And Bartlett & Nico Mulhy, Big Thief and
then there is Bob Dylan – that guy! – for whom, you could argue, his Cat Power, among many others.
entire career has been one long act of perpetual transmogrification. We hope you enjoy the CD – and, of
Here, Peter Watts speaks to many of the key musicians who joined course, the rest of the issue.
the Rolling Thunder Revue – another typical swerve for Dylan, who
in the wake of Blood On The Tracks was at a point where he could
pack out arenas, but chose instead a more spirited and picaresque Michael Bonner, Editor. follow me on Twitter @michaelbonner

contents

4 Instant Karma! 58 The National 90 JJ Cale

Aretha Franklin, Dinosaur Jr’s Camp We travel to rural Upstate New York to find The mysteries and contradictions of
Fuzz rock school, Maxine Peak a band redefining themselves 20 years on; a legendary player who shunned the
as Nico, The Seeds, Sunwatchers plus their guide to the free CD spotlight: “A lone wolf,” says Eric Clapton

14 Peter Perrett 66 Pink Floyd 96 Live Africa Express, Roy Harper

An audience with the former Interstellar drive: Nick Mason and others
Only Ones frontman tell the story of the group’s experimental 109 Books Jordan, Phill Savidge
years, rubber octopus and all
18 New Albums 110 Films
Including: Mac DeMarco, Mavis Staples, 76 Cate Le Bon Dragged Across Concrete, Vox Lux, Arctic
King Gizzard, Morrissey, Vampire Weekend Album By Album
112 DVD, Blu ray and TV
38 The Archive 80 Bob Dylan Joni Mitchell, Ella Fitzgerald
Including: Popol Vuh, Judy Collins, Jóhann We heartall tales from Rolling Thunder
Jóhannsson, Venom, Pete Seeger Revueinsiders, involving dopplegangers, 114 Not Fade Away Obituaries
Beatpoets and mysteryshamen!
50 Scott Walker RIP 116 Letters… Plus the Uncut crossword
With the help of close collaborators, Uncut 86 Primal Scream
charts a remarkable artist’s career – from The making of the “Dixie-Narco EP” 118 My Life In Music
reluctant pop star to singular solo explorer in Nashville, Tennessee Earth’s Dylan Carlson

celebrate father’s day. subscribe

special to uncut from only £20.49!
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june 2019 • unCuT • 3

 his monTh’s revelaTions from The world of UncUT
feaTUring... dinosaur Jr | nico | The seeds | sunwatchers
Grace
at last!
forty-seven years late, Aretha Franklin’s
stunning Amazing Grace film hits cinemas
A
retha Franklin’s two
performances at the New
temple Missionary Baptist
Church in Los angeles in
January 1972 aren’t exactly a secret.
the double live album Amazing Grace
was Franklin’s biggest seller, and won
her a Grammy. What’s less appreciated
is the fact the shows were filmed –
with Sydney Pollack directing – with
the footage languishing largely
unseen in the vaults ever since.
Now atlantic a&r man turned film
producer alan elliott has brought
those shows brilliantly to life.
Amazing Grace is an extraordinary
time capsule showing Franklin at the
peak of her powers, singing with a
first-rate band, and surrounded by
peers and mentors including her
father, Baptist minister rev CL
Franklin, and the charismatic MC,
“I was thrilled to be
there. I didn’t realise
it was the end of
something” Joe boyd
rev James Cleveland, the gospel
legend who taught her to play piano.
the film’s lengthy gestation is the
result of a hard-to-fix technical error.
Pollack, more used to shooting
features than live music, seems to
have forgotten to use a clapperboard,
making it almost impossible to sync
the film with the audio. “they had five
cameramen,” says producer Joe Boyd,
who was in the church during the
recording. “I have a vague memory of
going up to one of them and saying,
‘how are you syncing this stuff up with
the truck behind the church?’ and he
said, ‘Oh, we’ve got it under control.’”
the fact that the cameramen are
often in shot, darting around, and not
dressed for church, is another oddity.
“there’s these guys in these satiny
orange shirts using cameras,” says
elliott. “Nobody brought a clapper.
But they’re dedicated, and the duality
4 • UncUT • JUne 2019
of it is: if they had to do it over, they
would have been a bit more static in
their movement and that might not
have made for as dynamic imagery.”
elliott consulted with Pollack before
the director’s death in 2008, and says
he never acknowledged the mistake.
“Sydney had an assistant, Donna
Ostroff,” says elliott. “She said that
between projects, Sydney would call
down to Warner Brothers and have
them send the film up. he would watch
it without sound. I think he was greatly
saddened he could never get there.”
elliott’s efforts included a couple of
false starts. First, he resisted Pollack’s
suggestion that they interview Quincy
Jones to provide a contextual interview.
then – frustrated by Franklin’s
refusal to sanction the film – he raised
$1m to pay her to return to the church
and sing with the original band, to
provide a coda. Michel Gondry was
keen to direct. “then aretha said
through her lieutenants, ‘I hear Julia
roberts gets $15-20m a movie, I should
get $5m.’ that killed that.”
Boyd suggests that the film not
only captures aretha at a moment
of inspiration, but documents the
Precious
end of a particular strand of gospel memories:
music. aretha’s house in Detroit was aretha hitting
“the summit” of
at the centre of the gospel circuit, he her gospel-soul
explains. “all these groups would style in la in ’72
visit, and she was a part of that. By
1972, the Staple Stingers had left
gospel and signed to Stax. the great
quartets were on their last legs.
“When aretha sang all these
songs in the way she sings them,
she quotes Mahalia Jackson and
Claude Jeter and Mavis Staples, but
she takes them way beyond what
anybody had ever done. and right
after that, aretha signs with arista
and changes her style. that way of
approaching the music – I was
thrilled and moved to be there,
because I didn’t realise it was the
end of something. to me, it was the
summit.” AlAstAir McKAy
Amazing Grace is in UK cinemas
from May 10
lady soul: aretha
franklin, backed by
the southern
california community
choir and the rev
James cleveland, la,
January 13/14, 1972

JUne 2019 • UncUT • 5

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 I’ll be your mirror
Maxine Peake reflects on becoming nico for a new
Manchester show based on The Marble Index
ÒI
’ve always been
fascinated with Nico,”
says actor Maxine
Peake. “I was a big
velvet Underground
fan, but what really started my
fixation was reading James Young’s
book about her final years living in
Chelsea girl: Manchester [1992’s Nico, Songs They
Maxine Peake in Never Play On The Radio]. The
character for
The Nico Project atmosphere was so evocative of
Manchester in that period.”
Peake was poised to play Nico in
a Radio 4 adaptation that never
quite happened. “It all got very
complicated with scripts and
ownership of rights, so I finally
went to [theatre director] Sarah
Frankcom and said, ‘What about
doing a theatre piece?’”
Co-created by Peake and
Frankcom, The Nico Project
will premiere at the
Manchester International
Festival this July. The main
source of inspiration is 1968’s
The Marble Index, the stark
avant-classic that defined
the uncompromising sound
of Nico’s solo work. “We
agreed early on that this
wasn’t going to be a bio
piece,” Peake says. “Sarah
and I wanted to look at
different aspects of her
instead. We spent a lot of
time listening to the
album, then decided to
get a composer on board
and reimagine it. The
show's about what it
is to be a female
artist, using
The Marble
Index as our
jumping-off
point.We’ve
got an all-
female
orchestra,
ev Crowe is
writing the
text and the
amazing
Anna Clyne
is doing the
music. I’m
excited.”
Clyne,
nominated
for a Grammy
for her 2012
double violin
concerto
Prince Of
Clouds, says
The Nico Project is structured
“according to the song order of The
Marble Index. For the selected songs,
I’ve transcribed the music and
arranged it for an ensemble of 15
musicians and two singers. I’ve also
developed some of the music through
my own lens – expanding some
harmonic and melodic material to
take it in a new direction, filtering the
original material through the sound
world of an orchestra. One of the
exciting aspects of this project is that
the musicians will be choreographed
– they’ll physically move within the
space throughout the performance.
It’s been a challenge to translate
what was a very intimate creative
process – Nico creating demos which
John Cale expanded upon in the
studio – to the canvas of a more
structured chamber ensemble.”
In preparation, Peake has been
listening to Nico’s music, devouring
books and seeking out film clips.
She’s also been speaking to people
“There was
something very cut-
off about Nico. She
was so enigmatic”
MAXIne PeAKe
who directly encountered her. “I was
talking to Johnny Marr about it the
other day, because everyone in
Manchester had some kind of Nico
experience in the ’80s. You might see
her at the bar in the Haçienda,
or see her bicycle outside a pub in
Prestwich. Johnny remembers
chatting to her in the Haçienda one
night and said it was like talking to
someone behind a glass screen.
There was something very cut-off
about her. She was so enigmatic.”
As for other plans, Peake is still
involved in The eccentronic
Research Council, the experimental
folklorists based in Sheffield. “A
well-known author has offered to
write some stuff for us, so fingers
crossed,” she teases. She also reveals
that she and Marr “are going to get
together towards the end of the year,
’cos we’ve been threatening to do an
album for a long time. So we’ll go
over to Johnny’s studio and just see
what happens.” Rob HugHes
The Nico Project is at The stoller Hall,
Manchester, from July 10–21
june 2019 • unCuT • 7
 Taught
Start
choppin’:
happy
campers
j Mascis,

by the
Lou Barlow
and Murph

fuzz
enrolment is open
for dinosaur Jr’s
residential rock
school, Camp Fuzz

F
or many years, hyperactive
kids have been packed off to
music camps over the summer
by parents unable to tolerate
another ear-lacerating violin
rehearsal. Grown-ups, however, are
less well catered for. But if you can
spare a few bob, you can now pack
your bags for your own, mature
version of band camp, where you
can hang out with – as well as play
with and learn from – your heroes at he says. “I taught myself to use woah, where did this come from?” that’s so digitally oriented, what
an exclusive weekend retreat. them at the same time I learned the Mascis will also play a solo show, as we lack is direct contact and
Well-established songwriting and instrument. I wanted to recreate the will bassist Lou Barlow, who’ll community,” says Music Masters
performance camps hosted by Music dynamics I’d heard playing drums. conduct a “4-String Guitar & Ukulele founder Henry Stout. “We take the
Masters in the idyllic countryside I still like to experiment.” Clinic”. “He writes a lot of his stuff musicians’ creative cue to help
near Woodstock, NY, include Steve “When he’s talking about gear he’s that way,” adds Murph, “simplified make unique experiences for them
Earle’s Camp Copperhead and a different person,” says bandmate on the ukulele, then he’ll transfer and their fans.”
richard Thompson’s Frets & Murph, who will be leading a drum onto his bass and other stuff.” And will Mr Mascis be pitching his
refrains. But the newest addition to clinic at Camp Fuzz. “You can’t shut Camp Fuzz is not cheap. Tickets for tent? Unlikely. “I’ve never stayed in
their lineup of events is Camp Fuzz, him up when he’s talking about the 120-capacity event start at $1,099 a tent,” he admits. “I’ve never even
where Dinosaur Jr will be hosting a different compressors, amps and (plus tax) and more if you’d rather be been glamping. I only went to a
four-day summit in July. But how wah-wah and vibrato – you’re like, indoors than camp – a price tag that camp as a kid once. The main thing
will J Mascis approach his tutorials, provoked criticism when Frank I remember is the red ‘bug juice’ they
given that he’s all about messy Turner hosted his Campfire used to give us, this sugary drink.
feedback and improvisation? Punkrock retreat in the same That somehow made an impression
“I dunno…” says the famously
“I’ve never location for the last two summers. on me.” Will Dinosaur Jr have some
unforthcoming frontman. “Guess stayed in a tent. But compared to events such as the on offer at Camp Fuzz? “I expect
we’ll see. People seem to like to go $4,999 rock’n’roll Fantasy Camp in people will want something a little
through my setup.” In fact, Mascis
I’ve never even Las Vegas this summer with Vince stronger.” JOHNNY SHARP
will devote a seminar to talking been glamping” Neil and Joe Perry, it’s proving a
exclusively about his effects. palatable package for fans looking Camp Fuzz is at Full Moon Resort,
“Pedals are part of guitar for me,”
j MASCIS to get closer to the source. “In an age New York, July 30 to August 2

the classifieds
This month: Melody Maker, May 2, 1964 – blowin’ in the wind, wadin’ in the water…
levi walton

8 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019

 The Seeds in LA,
july 1967: (l–r)
jan Savage,
Rick Andridge,
Sky Saxon and
Daryl Hooper

a quick one
Out now is a deluxe
edition of our ultimate
Music Guide to The
Smiths, marking the
35th anniversary of
the band’s self-titled
debut. this expanded
release allows for new
developments in the
careers of Johnny Marr
and Morrissey, including

“They owned the

reviews of Call The
Comet and California
Son, plus new articles.
No shoplifters, please…

a message to you:
with the label turning
40 this year, and the
reformed Specials on
world for two years”
tour, we present our
ultimate Genre Guide
A new film documentary has prompted the gonna put music on to have sex to,
it would be The Seeds” – alongside
to 2-Tone! in shops on rebirth of garage-rock originals The Seeds Kim Fowley, Bruce Johnston, Pamela
april 26, it features Des Barres and Rodney Bingenheimer.

W
passionate new hen neil norman was 12 LP. I was there when they recorded “They had hair down to their
writing and anarchic years old, he found himself ‘Pushin’ Too hard’. Like a mascot.” bellybuttons and were punky and
archive features on in an LA recording studio The Seeds are often seen as one-hit raw, but they had real charisma,” says
core artists like The
Specials, Madness and
watching four hairy rockers recording wonders, but four of their singles norman. “I wouldn’t change a note
The Selecter, as well as what would become a stone-cold made the Billboard hot 100. Their of their first two albums.”
fellow travellers such classic of American garage rock. That two 1966 albums – The Seeds and Pushin’ Too Hard is partly a
as uB40 and Dexys moment clearly made a significant A Web Of Sound – defined the biography of Saxon, who graduated
Midnight Runners. impact, because 50 years later, band’s distorted, raw, keyboard-led to the rock scene after a stint as teen
Plus Ranking Roger norman has made a documentary sound, which would later be dubbed crooner Little Ritchie Marsh. A
remembered… about the band, The Seeds, and garage rock. It was a unique, very flamboyant dresser with sneering
named it after that song. Pushin’ Too American noise, featuring the Doors- vocals, Saxon invented “flower
British folk institution Hard has its London premiere this power” with The Seeds as well as
Topic Records
celebrates its 80th
month, alongside the first ever recording baroque-pop and blues LPs,
London performance by the band, before frazzling his brain on fame and
birthday with the
release of an album featuring original keyboard player “The Seeds were LSD. After The Seeds, he joined a cult
called Vision & Revision Daryl hooper. Also playing is punky and raw and was briefly homeless before
on May 31, on which drummer Don Boomer, who joined returning to music. he died in 2009.
contemporary artists in 1968 when “The Seeds were the but they had One of many eye-opening pieces of
reinterpret a song
from topic’s back
biggest band in LA”. norman sets the real charisma” footage unearthed by norman is an
bar even higher. “The Seeds owned appearance by The Seeds on TV
catalogue. it’s followed the world for two years,” he says. NeIL NORMAN sitcom The Mothers-In-Law, where
by a concert at london’s
Barbican on June 7,
norman was there from the start. they performed “Pushin’ Too hard” as
featuring Martin carthy, his father Gene was a DJ and influencing organ of hooper and the The Warts. he describes the film as an
emily Portman, Lisa nightclub owner who also ran the fuzz-surf guitar of Jan Savage, with “Icarus-like” tale of a band that briefly
knapp, Sam Lee, alasdair GnP Crescendo label (“The first time direct, sometimes dark lyrics by burnt as bright as any: “It’s a real rise-
Michael Ochs archives/Getty iMaGes

Roberts, olivia chaney my dad smoked pot, it was with Dizzy frontman Sky Saxon. “Most bands and-fall story. Then, after punk,
and more… Gillespie out of a coconut”). Gene was were guitar driven and we were people loved the raw energy of The
looking for rock acts to join a jazz- keyboard driven,” says Boomer. “We Seeds again. We now do screenings
in last month’s issue, heavy roster and asked his young son didn’t have bass – Daryl payed bass all over the world with the band, who
we accidentally to help. “The Seeds had made a demo on his Fender Rhodes. The east Coast are dynamite. We can’t wait to finally
missed off a credit for
robert ham and alex
of ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ and sound was more swing and on the come to england.” PETER WATTS
Greene, who made an everyone turned them down,” recalls West Coast it was surf, which is very
invaluable contribution norman. “Dad played it to me and I straightforward with square corners.” The Seeds play 229 Great Portland
to the al Green feature. said, ‘Go for it.’ It made some noise Iggy Pop was a fan, and he’s in the St, London on April 20 alongside the
apologies to both. and so my dad wanted to do a whole film talking up the band – “If I was UK premiere of Pushin’ Too Hard

10 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019

 Sunwatchers:
(l–r) jeff Tobias,
jim McHugh,
jason Robira,
Peter Kerlin
UNCUT PLAYLIST
On the stereo this month...
CALeXICO AND
IRON & WINe
Years To Burn CITY SLANG
Beam, Burns and Convertino
finally follow up 2005’s
collaborative In The Reins EP
with a tasty new eight-tracker, recorded
at Nashville’s storied Sound Emporium.

BLACK PeACHeS
Fire In The Hole HANGING MOON
Hot Chip utility man Rob Smoughton
returns with a second album of Latin-
WE’RE tinged Southern prog boogie. Ladies and
NEW gentlemen, we give you… Steely Denim.
HERE CARWYN eLLIS & RIO 18

Sunwatchers
joia! BANANA & LOUIE
From Caernarfon to Carnival – the
Colorama frontman recruits a band of
crack Brazilian musicians for an album of
lusty Welsh tropicália.

Radical, dudes: ecstatic, psychedelic punk-jazz VANISHING TWIN

The Age Of Immunology FIRE
with genuine anti-establishment fire Ghosts of Broadcast, Can and
Jean-Claude Vannier haunt

ÒU
nderground music should be
intrinsically linked to radical ideas
and radical empathy,” declares
Sunwatchers guitarist Jim McHugh, “or it’s just
posturing. If music isn’t linked to a greater sense
of good, it seems suspiciously like highly
intellectualised entertainment for rich people.
And we have not dedicated our lives to that.”
A rousing corrective to solipsistic faux-indie
rock, new York’s Sunwatchers are certainly
putting their money where their mouths are:
proceeds from all their records go to support
prison abolition groups. “In America, the criminal
justice system is the frontline of the system of
economic disenfranchisement our nation is based
on,” explains McHugh. “Being that we’re all white
men – which is what this crippling system is set up
to benefit – we have to use our privilege to dedicate McHugh attributes this to gaining the confidence
this music to something greater, to people crushed
The sax belongs to Jeff Tobias, who first played
with McHugh and drummer Jason robira in
notoriously messy 15-piece Athens “freakout
band” dark Meat. “We toured heavily for four or
five years, acting like complete animal people,”
says McHugh. “Which was great, but then we
decided we wanted to improve our CVs, so the
three of us moved to new York.” At first they all
joined a band called nymph, and when that
became “dysfunctional and untenable” they
broke off to form Sunwatchers in 2014, along
with Solar Motel Band bassist Peter Kerlin.
This year’s Illegal Moves is their third album –
seventh if you count various cassette/Cd-r
releases and 2018’s collaboration with eugene
Chadbourne – marking a progression from gnarly
experimental terrain to something groovier.
to allow some of their formative influences (from
the terrific second album by
this multinational quintet.
LLOYD COLe
Guesswork EARMUSIC
Puttering drum machines and Blue Nile
atmospherics offer a perfect backdrop
for Lloyd’s elegant, high-spec misery:
“Our sleepy hollow was a fetid lagoonÉ”
MeGA BOG
Dolphine PARADISE OF BACHELORS
Your next helping of phantasmagorical
indie folk, after fine albums by Big Thief
and Hand Habits. Members of both lend
a hand here, alongside Nick Hakim and
Sunwatchers’ Jeff Tobias.
SAINT eTIeNNe
Tiger Bay: Deluxe edition
HEAVENLY

by the system. Music isn’t the material, physical Minutemen to new jack swing) to bubble to the The expanded reissue of St Et’s finest
struggle required to change things, but it helps surface. Impressively, they also cover Alice hour throws in a bundle of essential, era-
people feel empowered toward that struggle.” Coltrane’s “Ptah, The el daoud”. “She’s amazing. specific rarities, including folk bagatelle
“Sushi Rider” and the swooning “I Buy
Although Sunwatchers are primarily an Anything we can do to touch the hem of her American Records”.
instrumental band, their fiery, anti-establishment garment… I hope we do it justice.”
attitude is embodied by their fervid, uplifting Sunwatchers have already written the bulk of MORT GARSON
music. Broadly, you might describe the material for a follow-up, which Mother earth’s Plantasia SACRED BONES
them as playing psych rock, but rather I’M YOUR FAN McHugh reckons might be even more Welcome reissue of the cult 1976 synth-
than making inward-focused, head- accessible, based on “huge melodies lounge album that’s meant to be good for
trip music, Sunwatchers have arrived and major keys”. He’s particularly your begonias.
here by combining snotty noise-punk proud of a medley called “Love Paste/
with spiritual free jazz and non- Brown Ice”, which nods to Beefheart, BIBIO
western influences. As well as guitar, Meat Puppets, neu! and don Cherry.
Ribbons WARP
Teaching himself mandolin,
McHugh sometimes wields his double- “The reason it’s called Brown Ice is violin and Bach cello suites,
necked electric phin, an instrument because the toilets in our practice Stephen Wilkinson’s dewy
with origins in Southeast Asian folk. space overflowed on a cold day, so we electronica and wistful
“I got into Khun narin electric Phin “Sunwatchers started chanting, ‘Brown ice, brown Camberwick Green folk gains
are some of the another vivid dimension.
Band, from northern Thailand. They truest musicians ice’, like the don Cherry track “Brown
play plugged into battery-powered I know. They rice”… That’s an example of the
amps on a cart someone pushes combine hard- electrified idiocy we produce, VARIOUS ARTISTS
through the woods. They put me in earned underdog alongside the music with political electrical Language: Independent
touch with the person who makes their chops with the consciousness.” SAM RICHARDS
British Synth Pop 78-84 CHERRY RED
Beyond The Human League and The
phin, which is kinda like a three-string willingness to go Normal, the well runs surprisingly deep.
wherever and
lute. It’s fun to play. The phin and the as far as the Illegal Moves is out now on Trouble Vindication, finally, for 100% Manmade
sax composing together was the start music requires.” In Mind; Sunwatchers tour the UK Fibre, Ice The Falling Rain and A Popular
of what became Sunwatchers.” Chris Forsyth from May 18 History Of Signs.

12 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019

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“Procrastination
has been one of
my biggest
weaknesses.
There’s always
tomorrow, next
year or next
decade!”
 Somehow
I’vestumbledback
into the light…
an auDienCe WiTH peTer perreTT

T
here was a time when it was Do you think you are making the best
rather more difficult to gain Poised to seal a remarkable music of your career at the moment?
entry to Peter Perrett’s house,
fortified as it was against
comeback with his second Dave Hegarty, via email
It feels like the best music of my career,
police raids and attacks
from rival drug dealers. These days it’s
album in three years, the ’cos it’s the only music I can remember
making! It’s amusing to call it a career.
a welcoming scene chez Perrett, with
nothing stronger than english Breakfast
former Only Ones frontman In the ’70s I had a trajectory, that I
abandoned. So I can’t relate that to what
on the premises. Amplifiers are stacked reflects on the lost years, I’m doing now, because I feel like a child
up in the living room that doubles as his taking its first steps, and those steps are
rehearsal space, in a nice echo of the encounters with Lou Reed always exciting.
building’s former life; it was once the tiny
Pathway Studios, where The Damned’s
and Keith Richards, and how What comes first for you – music
“New rose”, elvis Costello’s “My Aim
Is True” and various other late-’70s
to repel “unwanted visitors” or lyrics? Pedro Mercedes, Yeovil
It varies. Normally it starts off with me
classics were recorded, including Dire playing chords, and then a tune, then
Straits’ first pass at “Sultans Of Swing”. interview by Sam RichaRdS the lyrics to the first verse will probably
“We once got paid £750 to come into my head, and then I’ll be more
vacate the house while Mark duly acclaimed for its effortless considered about finishing it off in as
Knopfler was filmed for a melodies and wry lyrics, intelligent a way as I possibly can. I’ve
documentary,” relates Perrett and forthcoming follow-up never been good at routines, at least
with amusement. Humanland may be even better. ones that are beneficial for anything. It’s
Arguably, Perrett would “It’s a miracle, definitely,” something that I’m trying to learn. Once
have made for the more muses Perrett, on his incredible I start playing I start writing, but I’m not
interesting documentary comeback. “My choices have disciplined enough to approach it in a
subject. After releasing never been motivated by constructive way. I need to reach the edge
three beloved albums and career; they were blind, just of something – if I know I’ve got to go into
one world-beating single stumbling about in the dark, the studio, I’ll make sure the songs are
with The Only Ones, Perrett and somehow I’ve stumbled ready. Procrastination has been one of
disappeared from public view back into the light.” my biggest weaknesses. Because there’s
as he was drawn into London’s Understandably he’d prefer always tomorrow, there’s always next
drug underworld. he didn’t The Only Ones in
not to dwell too long on the year – or next decade! Part of it is my mind
pick up a guitar for decades 1978: (c/wise from missing years – “Shock horror, being focused by imminent mortality.
at a time and during The Only left) alan Mair, Mike ex-musician becomes a junkie Obviously as you get older you ask yourself
Kellie, john perry
Ones’ short-lived mid-2000s and peter perrett and fucks his life up, it’s not questions like, “What was it all about? Was
reunion, he looked, that rare a story. OK, maybe not it worth it? What can you leave behind?”
frankly, close to death. But to the extent that I’ve done it” – And the only thing I can leave behind is my
steve gullick; Fin costello/RedFeRns

Perrett finally got clean, but he does shed some light on music. I neglected it for too long, really.
and with the prompting his struggles down the years.
of his two sons Jamie and “I’ve got an addictive personality, it’s On your new songs, you seem
Peter Jr, who now form the ust finding the most benign addiction. more fired up about the state of
fulcrum of his backing When I first stopped smoking, I got the world than you ever did before.
band, he started writing addicted to football on the telly. I’d Has your perspective on songwriting
songs again. watch 80 hours of football a week. changed? Paul B, Glasgow
Good ones, too: 2017’s ’m a Tottenham fan, so football has In the ’70s, it felt like all the political
solo debut How The probably given me more pain than any battles had been won. So when people
West Was Won was ther addiction!” sang political songs, it seemed like

june 2019 • unCuT • 15


The family that plays
together: Perrett with
his sons at Islington
Assembly Hall,
London, May 4, 2018
posturing. To me, things weren’t that bad:
you could get your dole money and play
music all day, there was a safety net. Then
Thatcher and Reagan happened and the
world’s just got worse and worse since
then. On the new album there’s a couple
of political songs; I couldn’t help but
write them. But you’re not gonna change
the world – it’s so polarised now and
everyone’s got their views.
How do you get around the fact that
your lungs don’t function? What’s
your health regime these days?
Sherlon Gold, London
I haven’t had one puff of any smoke for
eight years now, that’s the main part of
my health regime that I have to stick by.
Lungs are important, and I’ve had to find
a new way of singing, but if my brain was
damaged, that would be worse. So I’m
quite lucky, considering what I’ve gone
through. OK, I can’t jump around the stage
like I used to. I have to stop myself getting
excited, as I start getting out of breath. Not
being able to breathe is quite frightening
when it first happens, so you soon realise
what the consequences are going to be if
you carry on. It’s a simple choice, then –
you either want to live for a bit longer and
do something, or carry on into oblivion.
What do you remember about
writing “Another Girl, Another
Planet”? Tim Hunter, via email
I can remember being inspired by a
Yugoslavian girl. It was like she’d stepped
out of a Fellini film, and she spoke with
an accent that sounded like an alien
language. It got me thinking that there’s
Lorne Thomson/redferns; Leon neaL/afP/GeTTy ImaGes
something unique about every girl, every
relationship. Also, I’d started dabbling
with drugs, so I used that as an analogy for
love and vice versa. I used to have a lot of
nervous energy and when I brought that
song to rehearsal I remember [drummer,
Mike] Kellie saying, “That’s too fast!” But
even when we recorded it, I had no idea [it
would be big]. I used to resent people going
on about it ’cos I thought I’d written better
songs. But it’s better to be remembered for
one song than not to be remembered at all.
I’ve grown to appreciate its omnipresence
in my musical history.
16 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019
Your first band, england’s
Glory, rehearsed in the
same Greenwich Studio
as Bowie, Iggy Pop and
Lou Reed. Did you get to
hang with any of them?
Stephen Capstone,
Ipswich
Once, we heard The Stooges
rehearsing next door.
You could tell it was them
because it was just one riff played
for about two hours. But our paths
never crossed. I met Lou Reed
when he toured in 1972 with The
Tots. I think we went to all the gigs
south of Cambridge and got to
know the band. I was 19 and very
shy, so I didn’t talk to Lou for
a long time. But he was
a lovely guy. I know he’s
got a bad reputation and
sometimes he treated
journalists with disdain,
but I think it was just his
sense of humour.
What’s the story with
Keith Richards and
The Only Ones?
Enzo Delacruz,
Grenada, Spain
In 1976, we had a mutual
friend who was trying to get
Keith to produce us. We were at
a little 16-track studio in Tooting
and he turned up a few times
with his son Marlon, sat there
and made suggestions. He was
renting Donald Sutherland’s
old house in Old Church Street,
and we got invited round there.
He particularly liked a song
called “Prisoners”. He had a
“The only thing I’m good at
is writing songs, and I was
distracted for too long by
the outlaw lifestyle”
Fender Rhodes, so he asked me what the
chords were and we just stood around
playing the song. I don’t think he’d mind
me saying we spent most of the time
snorting cocaine. Then he went to Toronto,
he had some court thing, and we never
saw him again.
just how fortified was your place in
Forest Hill in the days when you were
dealing drugs?
Kevin Gunn, Sydenham, London
It had a major door, with metal
going in three different directions.
And it was at the top of some very
steep stairs, so it was pretty difficult
to bash down. It had bars on all the
windows, CCTV in every direction.
Once you’ve had unwelcome visitors
a few times, you take precautions.
We didn’t like people invading our
space and disturbing our vibe! Did
it work? Well, I never went to prison!
The reunited At first it was fun, being followed by
Only Ones,
june 14, 2007 helicopters, having people taking
over the office blocks over the road to
rain cameras on you. It’s
ike you’re in a movie. It’s a
hallenge, to know you’ve
ot enemies and you’re
pitting your wits against
hem. I like to think I was
good at evading the dark
orces. But really the only
hing I’m good at is writing
ongs and singing them, and
was distracted for too long
y the outlaw lifestyle.
How come you didn’t
ecord an LP when you
got back together with The Only
Ones in the mid-2000s?
Amanda Kahn, Leeds
We got back together to play the old
songs. There were a couple of new songs
hat I wrote in a token way, just because
had a guitar in my hand. But I was still
using drugs, and with me it had to be
one or the other. It’s nothing to do with
The Only Ones, just the desire on my
art We went into the studio, but it
was very half-hearted. I would
have hated to have recorded an
album for the sake of it, and for it
not to be as good as the albums
we did in the beginning.
What’s it like being in a band
with your sons?
Carl Templeton, Kettering
’m very lucky because they
understand my music more than
anyone else, they know exactly
here I’m coming from. They’ve
ot good taste because they’ve
grown up listening to good music, and
they’re the best musicians I know. They’re
like musical carers. Everyone talks about
their band members as a family – well,
this is an actual family.
Peter Perrett’s Humanworld is
released by Domino on June 7
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 “You lay awake waiting for her call/But it never comes and it never will”

june 2019
Take 265
1 mavis sTaples (p22)
2 morrissey (p28)
3 caTe le bon (p30)
4 vampire weekend (p35)

thE unCut GuidE to this month’s kEy rElEasEs

mac demarco
Here comes The cowboy
mac’s record label/caroline

Goofy Canadian reveals his mature, sensitive side on

subdued, stripped-back fourth. By Jason Anderson

E
very artist contains a
multitude of selves, a good
many of which may not be
on speaking terms with each
other a lot of the time. efforts
must nevertheless be made to
maintain some kind of coherent
identity – after all, there may be no worse sin in the
age of Instagram than having an inconsistent brand.
yet there are some people who feel quite comfortable
about being one of Kris Kristofferson’s walkin’
contradictions. As both a craftsman of growing
sophistication and a dude who’s always ready to be
his own punchline, Mac DeMarco could be modern
music’s most bewildering and endearing example.
There are moments on the Canadian’s fourth
album of such grace, simplicity and sweetness, they
could only be created by a singer and songwriter of
the utmost sensitivity and
maturity, one who’s able
to look deep down into the
murkiest crevices of his heart
and find the most direct means
of expressing what he found.
On Here Comes The Cowboy,
the most affecting results
of this continual process of
excavation include “K”, an
achingly sincere addition to
DeMarco’s exquisite canon of
Christine Lai
suggest that when it comes to his taste in
album early-’70s troubadours, the 28-year-old
OF THE may now have less of an affinity for James
mONTH Taylor’s casual ease and more for Nick
8/10 Drake’s stark desolation.
Such songs add further nuance and
texture to the more melancholy sensibility that
strongly emerged on 2017’s This Old Dog. DeMarco
demonstrating a new power and depth in his writing,
songs like “Dreams Of yesterday” and “Moonlight
On The river” saw him explore the confusing welter
of emotions he felt upon seeing his estranged father
on what appeared to be his deathbed. (The singer
admitted to feeling even more confused when his
dad’s health rebounded.)
If Here Comes The Cowboy contained nothing but
these moments, it could’ve easily earned DeMarco
the respect he’s due from the doubters who view him
as a fun-loving, beer-swilling
goofball who’ll do whatever
it takes to keep an audience
entertained (and do it minus
his pants). Of course, that other
Mac came to this party, too. He
even brought his gong.
As heard in “Choo Choo” –
an irresistibly daft, cod-funky
mid-album exercise in comic
relief that also gives DeMarco
the opportunity to do a steam-

ballads for his girlfriend, and whistle impersonation – the

“Skyless Moon”, one of several telltale reverberations of the
more darkly hued songs that golden king of percussion

18 • uncuT • june 2019

june 2019 • uncuT • 19
 new albums
instruments are another indication that
he’s not so eager to leave childish things
behind. He’d rather have an outlet for his
cheeky, occasionally juvenile sense of
humour, which is also discernible in the
new album’s abundance of cowboy kitsch.
The opening track entails him repeating
the album’s name in a corny drawl –
elsewhere, he sings of “pretty cattle”,
hopping trains and a sweetheart who’s
unsure whether to stay down on the farm.
While DeMarco’s abiding love of shtick
may frustrate the admirers who recognise
his capabilities, Here Comes The Cowboy
is the strongest evidence yet that his
many selves can coexist in a surprisingly
harmonious manner.
Indeed, it shows a growing courage on
his part to let those contradictions be so
plain to the ear. That’s down to the spare,
relatively unadorned style DeMarco chose
for the mostly subdued songs he recorded
in January in his Los Angeles home
studio with the help of his touring sound
engineer Joe Santarpia. (Drugdealer’s
Shags Chamberlain and Alec Meen of
DeMarco’s live band provided further
assistance.) Whereas DeMarco lent a
smeary, smudgy quality tothesoundson
his2014breakthroughSaladDaysbymulti-
trackinghisvocalsandusingvarispeed
tapeeffectsandothertactics,he’slargely
contenttoleavewellenoughalonehere.The
layersuponlayersofsynthesisersthatmade
ThisOldDogstandouts like “On The Level”
so shimmering and sumptuous have also
been reduced to more modest levels.
All that marks a dramatic shift for a
musician whose early releases were
steeped in a particular late-’00s strain
of lo-fi maximalism, when DeMarco
antecedents like Ariel Pink slathered
everything they touched in reverb and
anything else they could use to simulate
the sound of a chewed-up cassette tape.
Instead, on songs like lead-off single
“Nobody”, DeMarco leaves ample space
between the few elements he uses besides
his forlorn vocals: a loping beat, a few
plucked guitar notes, a burbling synth that
struggles to stay in tune.
MEME SPIRIT
KIeRA MCNALLY, SUNSeT BOULevARD/CORBIS vIA GeTTY IMAGeS
The Wings
Christmas
Song
Released on
Christmas Day
2017, DeMarco’s
take on “Wonderful Christmas
Time” is not half as weird as the
accompanying illustration that
depicts the bodies of DeMarco
and McCartney melting
together on a yellow sofa. As he
writes, “Pauls (sic) thoughts
became mine and mine became
his. Flies had gathered to feed on
all the beauty of Christmas that
20 • unCuT • june 2019
demarco:
moving on
from lo-fi
maximalism
SLEEVE NOTES
1 Here Comes
The Cowboy
2 Nobody
3 Finally Alone
4 Little Dogs
March
5 Preoccupied
6 Choo Choo
7K
8 Heart To Heart
9 Hey Cowgirl
10 On The Square
11 All Of Our
Yesterdays
12 Skyless Moon
13 Baby Bye Bye
engineered and
The new album’s bare-bones production call/But it never comes and it never will”.
mixed by: Mac
aesthetic may not be hugely surprising An equally fraught successor to This Old DeMarco and
to listeners familiar with last year’s Old Dog’s poignant “Moonlight On The River”, Joe Santarpia
Dog Demos and the other collections of “Skyless Moon” charts a loss of hope and with mixing
early-draft recordings that DeMarco has time spent too carelessly. “No-one wants help from Shags
released as stopgaps between his albums you singing along,” DeMarco sings before Chamberlain
proper. But there’s nothing rough or making a high lonesome sound of his own. Recorded at: Jizz
tentative about the performances here. Since the mood sometimes threatens Jazz Studios, Los
Angeles
For one thing, his singing has never been to grow too heavy, listeners may feel
Personnel: Mac
more expressive. On “Preoccupied” and supremely grateful for digressions that
DeMarco (vocals,
“Heart To Heart”, he shifts back and forth might’ve seemed self-indulgent if they instruments), Alec
from a lazy murmur to a sultrier croon with weren’t so crucial for the balance of Meen (keys on
a new-found finesse. The spare setting also elements and emotions here. In other “Finally Alone”,
gives new prominence to the emotional words, Here Comes The Cowboy needs the “Choo Choo”,
vulnerability that he’d previously preferred big lovey-dovey burst of “K” just as much “The Cattleman’s
to obscure, as well as the thornier feelings as it needs the nutty levity of “Choo Choo”. Prayer”)
that he used to only hint at or hide inside Another dose of loping, whacked-out funk,
wisecracks. “The Cattleman’s Prayer” provides the
Longings for home fill many of the songs, silliest of codas. “Yee-haw!” cries DeMarco
as befits the wandering-cowboy motif. before unleashing a series of cackles and
Out on the range, our hero contends with a closing, “Get along, li’l doggie!” It’s a
a deepening darkness. On “Nobody”, he fitting final flourish for an artist who’s
calls himself “another creature who’s lost unafraid to seem ridiculous if it gets him
its vision”. The good cheer in the ragtag- to where he wants to go. The result is an
singalong “Baby Bye Bye” belies the bitter album that’s braver, weirder and richer
edge in the lyrics: “Another night you don’t than most of his more sensible and brand-
sleep at all/You lay awake waiting for her conscious peers could ever manage.
how to buy...
mac demarco has found some novel ways to maintain his rep as
a professional goofball in the last two years
seeped from our pores.” If you “Sukiyaki” Singalong Backing up Austin
say, so, Mac. A passionate devotee of Powers
Japanese music, After joining Neil and
His First Cat Video DeMarco capped off Liam Finn to back Mike
In April of 2018, DeMarco a performance at Myers performing
treated his YouTube subscribers the Fujirock “BBC”, the faux-mod
to his first foray into the world of Festival in July of number sang by
online cat videos. Given that his 2018 with a Austin Powers,
attempt consisted of a four- shambolic singalong of DeMarco debuted a
minute shot of a ginger stray “Sukiyaki”, the Asian pop new side band called
eating off a plate (“Pickles lives standard made famous Met Gala. Their seven-
behind the garage,” DeMarco by Kyu Sakamoto and minute digital-only “7-inch”
writes by way of explanation), it A Taste Of Honey. suggests authorities
understandably failed to go viral US rapper Post mike myers should seize his Auto-
but you’ve got to dig his score of Malone guested as Austin Tune before he does
perky ’80s-hotel-lounge jazz. on egg shaker. Powers any more harm.

Q&a
mac Demarco on
getting slow and
quiet, not shaving his
chest and being his
own kind of cowboy
ere Comes The Cowboy is
H
the quietest album you’ve
ever made. do you think
your fans will be surprised by
such a dramatic change?
I know what people want is not always
what I want. I feel like if I’d made another
big synthy record like This Old Dog or
did a couple of songs that sounded like
songs I’d already done again, some kids
would be happy. Other people would
be like, “Fucker, you just made Salad
Days again!” But I like playing real slow
and real quiet, so I like that I’m making
more songs like that now. And with this
album, I think all the songs were pretty
slow from the jump. Sometimes I’d
think, ‘Gee, maybe I should write a fast
one,’ but I just never did!
Why the shift toward such a
spare production style, too?
I have this new thing where I want to
respect the sounds as they are. Even
in mixing this, I was like, “Ah, I don’t
know if I can carve that bad note
outta there.” It felt like it would be
disrespectful to the piano or whatever. I
just want to leave everything how it was,
as shitty as something may sound. It’s
like if somebody came in and shaved my
chest. It’s like, “Yeah, well, I’m sorry you
didn’t like the hair but it’s kind of part
of me.” Know what I mean? And I don’t
have a lot of chest hair, so I need what
I got. I’ve always tried to keep it pretty
straight with my songs. I’m not a great
musician or singer or anything, so back
in the day, when I couldn’t hit a note, I
“I want to
respect the
sounds as
they are”:
mac in the
studio
knew if I put another double track on it
and put on another even weirder note,
then it might work in another way. I’m
not really doing any acrobatic singing
or anything here, so I figured this time –
just leave it as it is. I’m right in your ear,
and I like that.
The cowboy theme may also
throw listeners, though you
grew up in a part of Canada
where some people really do
live that life, or at least dress like
they do. Is that what sparked
your interest in that kind of
iconography?
I remember when I was a younger
man and I moved to Vancouver, I
didn’t want to tell people I was from
Edmonton because I felt weird about all
that shit and embarrassed about these
associations with truck-driving
construction workers and people who
dress up like cowboys. But as I grew
up, I started to feel like those things
about where I grew up are kinda
dope. But it’s still a very weird thing.
I have a lot of references and lyrical
content about cowboys and trains
and shit like that, but the way I feel
about it is that this is almost like if
someone wanted to write a cowboy
record but had never seen a cowboy
“I figured this time
– just leave it as it is.
I’m right in your ear,
and I like that”
mAC demARCo
new albums
or could understand what it is at all. It’s
a very, very misguided interpretation.
Is the result not so far from the
japanese takes on American
folk and country rock you love
so much, like Haruomi Hosono’s
Hosono House?
That’s a big thing for me too, because
that’s all I really listen to. It’s like with
the Hoseman’s records when he’s doing
his James Taylor impression or his
Band impression. It’s great music but
it’s kind of weird in that way. It’s a loose
interpretation of something from the
other side of the planet.
do you think that wandering-
cowboy image suited the
feelings of displacement you
express in many of the new
songs, too?
Yeah, there’s a lot of self-reflection,
self-education here – looking back,
looking forward. There are definitely a
few songs that are about displacement
or that feeling of the grass always being
greener somewhere else. That reflects
my experience for sure. I lived in Canada,
I lived in New York, I’m in LA now, and
I feel like I am never really able to stay
anywhere for very long. And I’m on tour
all the time, so that’s a day-in, day-out
feeling of: “Where the hell am I today?”
I’ve always grappled with the concept
of people taking a lot of pride in where
they’re from. It’s cool how people might
love their city’s sports team or their city’s
sandwich, but I’ve never really grabbed
ontothatsortofthinganywhereI’velived.
Maybe it just didn’t make sense to me.
You range pretty far and wide in
terms of the musical style on the
new album. How’d you land on
“Choo Choo”? It feels like some
crackpot Sly Stone outtake.
I love Sly Stone – I think he’s amazing.
That song came from me watching a
Larry Graham bass tutorial on YouTube
and thinking, “Well, I could take this
little practice here and make a looped
song out of it.” After I did, I was like, “This
is dope – I think I’ll put it on my record!”
of course, you just had to put
a gong on it too.
Hell yeah! My manager bought it for me
a few years ago. I really got into videos of
people “gong washing”, which is when
you rub the mallet along the surface
instead of just tapping it. The sound
of it massages your insides somehow
because the vibration of the metal is so
deep, apparently. So my manager was in
Memphis and she picked me up a gong at
the gong shop down there. It sat around
for a long time and then I finally found an
appropriate use for it. I had a little choo-
choo-train song and you know what that
needs? A little gong in the middle.
INTerVIeW: JASON ANDerSON
june 2019 • unCuT • 21
 new albu

by way of gospel standards, and in their of political activism. Mavis’s advocacy

MAviS STAPleS musical treatment. 2017’s If All I Was Was

Black, for example, often sounded like
stretches back to the Civil Rights
struggles of the 1960s, when her father,

We Get By “Family affair”-era Sly Stone.

On We Get By, Staples rings the
AnTi
changes again, this time working with
8/10 Californian bluesman Ben harper on a
set that ranges from funky to subdued.
Gospel–soul legend rings the changes with It’s a sparser affair than the Tweedy-
the help of Ben Harper. By Neil Spencer produced trio, adding only backing
voices to a bass/drums/guitar lineup
in which harper’s searching playing
a close friend of Martin Luther King, lent
the Staple Singers to the movement’s
soundtrack. her commitment has never
wavered. harper has been similarly
relentless since he arrived in 1994 with
Welcome To The Cruel World, an album
whose standout, “Like a King”, paid
tribute to both Martin Luther King and
Rodney King as martyrs to the Civil

‘C
hange’ is not a provides the principal, sometimes sole Rights cause.
theme one expects counterpoint to at first it seems that this will be an
from an artist Mavis’s earthy, album of protest songs. “Change”,
approaching her heartfelt vocals, the opener and lead single, is funky
80th birthday. their power blues with a John Lee hooker groove
More usual would remarkably and a snappy vocal that’s custom
be a reprise of intact in her cut to become an anthem for today’s
old glories or some Johnny Cash-style advancing years. troubled times. “One’s the number, blue’s
meditations on death. Mavis Staples is Staples and the colour, now’s the time/We gonna
not so easy to predict, however. 2016’s harper have change around here,” snaps Mavis to
Living On A High Note deliberately worked together a background of gospel voices, while
requisitioned songs that had a joyous, before as one of harper throws in a dirty solo. We may
upbeat feel. The three recent albums the pairings on be hearing a lot of more of it in the next
MYRIAM SANTOS

she made with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy – an Living On A High two years.
unexpected pairing for sure – ranged Note. Born 30 after that, however, the tone of the
wide in both their choice of material, years apart, they record begins to soften and take on
from Randy newman to george Clinton share a history a more soulful hue. The defiance of

22 • unCuT • june 2019

 new albums

SLEEVE NOTES

AtoZ
That imaginary single might have
“Sometime” on its a-side. Its lyric –
“Everybody got to change sometime/ 1 Change
Cry sometime/Pray sometime” – is a 2 Anytime
3 We Get By
thread that has run through blues and
(feat Ben Harper)
gospel traditions for the last century,
and gets an infectious treatment here,
4 Brothers And This month…
Sisters
with harper laying down a rolling, 5 Heavy On My P24 BlACk MOunTAin
reverberating groove much in the Mind
P27 THe FeliCe BROTHeRS
manner of the late Pop Staples, while 6 Sometime
P29 FujiYA & MiYAGi
hand claps and gospel hollers help drive 7 Never Needed
Anyone P30 CATe le BOn
things along.
8 Stronger P32 AlAn PARSOnS
There are more personal pieces here.
9 Chance On Me P34 SeBADOH
“hard To Leave” is a love song addressed
10 Hard To Leave P35 vAMPiRe WeekenD
to a lifelong companion, comparing
11 One More P37 THe WATeRBOYS
the passage of time to a warm summer Change
breeze, and detailing the intimacy of
“softly reaching for your touch in my Produced by: AlTin Gün
sleep”. More stringent is “Chance On Ben Harper Gece
Me”, calling on a stone-hearted lover Recorded at: GliTTeRBeAT

to open up and embrace possibility, Henson Studio,

8/10
delivered with an anguish that’s Hollywood, CA
Personnel Traditional Turkish folksong put
matched by harper’s stinging solo. through a wobbly psych-rock filter
includes: Mavis
The same forlorn mood haunts “never an obsessive fan of
Staples (vocals),
needed anyone”, an achingly intimate Ben Harper early-’70s Turkish
piece that verges on despair. (guitar), Rick psych-rockers like

“The USA can Mavis has always walked an

ambiguous line between the sacred and
Holmstrom
(guitar), Jeff
Moğollar, Bunalim
and Cem Karaca,

change. The
the secular, her records often managing Turmes (bass), Dutch bassist Jasper
to inhabit both worlds simultaneously. Stephen Hodges Verhulst formed this transnational
(drums), Donny sextet to emulate his heroes. Their

future will be
bright again”
MAviS STAPleS
“anytime” is set to a riff that could be
from Stax-era Staples, adorned with
some off-kilter guitar work. “We get By”
is slower still, a testimony to the stoicism
So it is with “Stronger”, where the
“Nothing is stronger than my love for you”
chorus might equally be addressed to a
lover or to Jesus; take your choice. There
isn’t much ambiguity about “heavy
On My Mind” or “One More Change”.
The former is almost a farewell – “We
tried so hard to slow this world down/But
now my love is in the ground.” Delivered
spoken as much as sung and backed
only by harper’s spare guitar, it’s a deep,
affecting piece. The “One More Change”
of the album’s final track isn’t specified
as death but it’s implied. Unsurprisingly,
it’s a harrowing piece, with Mavis hoarse
and tormented; but soaked in gospel
influences as it is, it’s also transcendent,
which is the gift that Mavis Staples has
Gerrard (vocals), second LP draws upon traditional
CC White, Laura anatolian folk melodies, particularly
Mace (backing those associated with the singer
vocals) neşet ertaş, but puts them through
a psychedelic filter. “Yolcu” is
transformed into wah-wah funk,
“Leyla” into sludge metal, and
“Kolbasti” into funky oriental rock,
with singer erdinç ecevit playing
wiggly, distorted modal riffs on a
seven-stringed Turkish saz. Towards
the end of the album, analogue
synths are used to add further layers
of thrilling disorientation.
JohN LEWIS
AMYl & THe SniFFeRS
Amyl & The Sniffers
ROuGH TRADe

of people who have little but survive on been bringing since she was a 1950s 8/10
“love and faith” and sung like a lovelorn teenager singing “Uncloudy Day” with Aussie punk quartet’s feral and
B-side on an old soul single. her family. ferocious first
Melbourne’s amyl…

Q&A burst into earshot

Mavis Staples: “With the mood of the album,
Ben just kinda read my mind…”
when did you first become aware of
ben Harper?
It was when he came over to a session I was doing with
Ry Cooder at the end of 2006. He wrote a song for
me on that album, “We’ll Never Turn Back”. A few
years later, in 2013, I met Ben at a workshop fo
Michelle Obama celebrating “Memphis Soul”
in DC. I had the pleasure of meeting Ben’s
mother at that time!
why did you choose ben for this
album? Obviously you share an
interest in political/social activism,
but We Get By has a very
different feel to the
records you made
with Jeff Tweedy.
I had spent some time with him the past few years, got
to know him pretty well, and I heard he had wanted to
produce me, so it seemed natural. I trusted him, and I’m so
pleased how it turned out. With the mood of the album,
Ben just kinda read my mind. It’s hard not to
include this mood in anything you talk
about or write about these days.
are you optimistic that the
us really can change?
Yes, the USA can change. And I
know for a fact that there are
more people who want to love
and care about living the right
way and treating people the
right way, that it will put a damper
on the negativity and
e future will be
bright again.
INTERVIEW: NEIL SPENCER
in 2016 with an
eP written and
self-recorded in one
night and released
the next morning. That’s as much
an indicator of their sound as their
attitude – a rough-necked, direct
and superfast hybrid of retrofitted
punk and aussie pub rock. Their
debut burns through 11 tracks in 27
minutes like an acetylene torch burns
through butter, as spin-on-a-dime
tight as it is exhilaratingly unsubtle.
But there’s more to amyl… than
visceral wallop – namely, amy Taylor.
Through her shouting, “angel”
makes a bittersweet declaration of
love not returned in kind, while
“new Rose”-ish closer “Some Mutts
(Can’t Be Muzzled)” smarts with the
pain of being replaced.
ShARoN o’CoNNELL

june 2019 • unCuT • 23

 new albumS
revelations
BedouIne
azniv Korkejian: a masterful singer-songwriter
inger-songwriter Azniv
S Korkejian’s second
album under the
Bedouine moniker is proof that
a studied mastery of craft
often drives the most breezy,
unfussy music. A sound editor
for film by trade, Korkejian
melds her technical aptitude
with stirring emotion. “Anytime
I’m overwhelmed, good or bad,
I consider putting a little of the
spillover away into a song,” she
says. This crafted ease fills
each track on Bird Songs Of
A Killjoy, 12 meditations on
personal experience that
marry Korkejian’s soothing
voice with acoustic guitar and
orchestral flourishes. The title
is a celebration of self. “When it
comes to my surroundings, I
don’t really like loud, crowded
Brad armsTrong
I got no Place
remembers me
CornelIus ChaPel
8/10
Second solo album by 13ghosts
frontman and Dexateens mainstay
I Got No Place
Remembers Me opens
with the sound of a
radio dial spinning
through static, briefly
picking up ominous
words from a charismatic preacher.
Brad Armstrong settles into a pitch-
dark story-song about blind faith and
brutal betrayal, but the seven-minute
MOISES GALVAN, MIChAEL BuIShA
“Brother Ford” is a bit of a feint, as
the album shifts from third person to
first, from Southern gothic to starkly
confessional. Armstrong makes
graceful DIY folk that incorporates
ramshackle blues on “13 Anchors” and
slow-dance country on “Fishing Pole”.
And when he leads the bruised “Carry
Your Head High” to its rousing finale,
24 • unCuT • june 2019
places,” she says. “Naming the
album was a way of saying I
won’t feel bad about it.”
Taking cues from the subtle
layers of Nick Drake, and the
punchy phrasing of Joni
Mitchell, there’s an exactitude
in sound and texture that
elevates the album from mere
folk songs. Its sonic quality
slides like hand in glove among
the roster of the Richmond,
Virginia-based Spacebomb.
“When I met them I was pretty
far along with my record with
Gus [Seyffert],” she says.
“They were understanding
and allowed us to move
forward with it whereas they
usually produce their own
records. The fact that it’s not
too obvious is a testament to
our fit.” ERIN OSMON
he makes every triumphant note sound
wholly and beautifully earned.
STEPHEN DEUSNER
WIllIam BasInsKI
on Time out of Time
TemPorarY resIdenCe
7/10
The sound of “black holes
fucking”, apparently
For On Time Out
Of Time, William
Basinski’s source
material takes a leap
from the elegiac
contours of his
classic The Disintegration Loops
(decaying archive recordings) into the
cosmic: here, he’s using recordings of
two merging black holes, occurring 1.3
billion years ago, which were sourced
from interferometers at Massachusetts
Institute Of Technology. Composed
for art installations, On Time Out Of
Time is classic Basinski, or maybe
more accurately, in patented Basinski
style: lovely, cyclical drone works
that are too compelling to be mere
ambience. It’s a little by-the-numbers
sometimes, though the results are
never less than gorgeous. JON DALE
BedouIne
Bird songs of a Killjoy
sPaCeBomB
8/10
Los Angeles folk-rocker’s second
album is a cinematic beaut
For her sophomore
album, LA singer-
songwriter Azniv
Korkejian amplifies
the pastoral quality
of her folk-rock
debut with cinematic arrangements
that flutter and soar with the lilt of
her soothing voice. Spacebomb, the
Richmond, Virginia-based label that
issues her records, is known for its
home studio’s orchestral capabilities,
and though Korkejian worked with
LA-based producer Gus Seyffert, her
albums fit right into the production
house to powerful and fruitful effect.
Strings and woodwinds elegantly
punctuate love’s bliss, palpitations
and heartbreak, but perhaps most
striking is Korkejian’s precise and
poignant phrasing. It recalls Joni
Mitchell in its most salient moments,
like “Echo Park”, and is key to the
album’s sonority. In melding ethereal
production with clarion narratives,
Korkejian has created a beautifully
dynamic work. ERIN OSMON
BIg ThIef
ufof 4ad
9/10
Folk-rock foursome make their
finest statement with LP three
Big Thief albums
are like séances
– songs act like
outstretched fingers
connecting with
spirits across worlds.
Sometimes that linkage is comforting,
occasionally disturbing, but always
atmospheric. Perfect examples:
“Contact”, the opening track, is a
dreamy folk story shattered by a blood-
freezing scream; and the title track,
where principal songwriter Adrianne
Lenker addresses her “UFO friend”.
While lyrically her preoccupation with
nature and otherworldliness deepens,
textually it’s their most progressive
work: melodies take unpredictable
twists, producing results that are
somehow both fragile and visceral
(“Strange” being the highlight).
There’s a mystical bind to UFOF that
grips the listener and never lets go.
GREG COCHRANE
Big Thief
BlaCK mounTaIn
destroyer jagjaguWar
8/10
Canadian psych-lords take to
the open road
Based on an unlikely
premise in terms
of conceptual rock
(leader Stephen
McBean finally
getting a driver’s
licence), Destroyer takes its name from
an ’80s muscle car and rips along with
the wind in its beard, led off by the
accelerated greaser-metal of “Future
Shade” and “Horns Arising”. The
journey takes a variety of fascinating
detours along the way, not least the
digressive folk-prog of “Pretty Little
Lazies” and “Boogie Lover”’s spacey
approximation of classic Hawkwind.
Best of all, though, is “High Rise”, a
mini-epic powered by an unstoppably
cranky riff. ROb HUGHES
aa BondY
enderness faT Possum
7/10
Alabaman’s darkly languid first in
more than seven years
That Auguste Arthur
Bondy has questioned
the country-folk tag
commonly pinned
on him seems even
more right and
proper with the release of his fourth
solo album. Previous records have
sometimes showed their roots rather
too obviously, but the entirely solo
Enderness is more of a brooding
country-soul set, with the emphasis
on soul. It’s also more abstract, with
some tracks evoking fever dreams,
accentuated by the silvery, unforced
tremor of Bondy’s voice. Of these, the
opaque and unsettling “Fentanyl
Freddy” and “I’ll Never Know” stand
out, while “Diamond Skull” revisits the
lugubrious guitar twangle of old.
SHARON O’CONNELL
BroKen soCIal sCene
let’s Try The after Vols 1& 2
arTs & CrafTs
6/10
Swift return for epic but elusive
Canadian collective
It’s not entirely clear
why these 10 new BSS
songs are presented
as two EPs – having
taken a seven-year
hiatus between
Forgiveness Rock Record and 2017’s
Hug Of Thunder, perhaps co-founders
Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning
are too bashful to admit they’ve made
another LP with such indecent haste.
Taken together, the songs constitute
a potent set of surging alt.rock
euphoria (“Can’t Find My Heart”
and “Boyfriends”) and more sombre
ambience (the spooked title track and
the downtempo squelching of “Wrong
Lines”), via the cool palpitations of
“1972”, sung gorgeously by recent
recruit Ariel Engle. NIGEL WILLIAMSON

KIng gIzzard &
The lIzard WIzard
fishing for fishies flIghTless
8/10
Prolific Aussie psychedeliacs take their time for once...
and their patience pays off handsomely. By Peter Watts
NOBODY would ever
call King Gizzard &
The Lizard Wizard
slackers – this is, after
all, the band that
once released five
albums in a single year
– but the gap between December 2017’s
Gumboot Soup and Fishing For Fishies has
been their longest yet. Judging by the new
album, the extended break doesn’t seem
to have dimmed their verve, but it did lead
to a change of approach. King Gizzard
albums often start with a musical concept,
and Fishing For Fishies was originally
conceived as a blues album. But having set
themselves a longer deadline than usual,
that concept had space to evolve and the
songs, in the words of frontman Stuart
Mackenzie, were “set free” as the album
became something very different.
Traces of their bluesy origin still linger
in the great squalls of honking harmonica
that regularly drift into hearing as well
as the titles of three songs, “Boogieman
Sam”, “Plastic Boogie” and “Cyboogie”,
but this trio now act as signposts for the
album’s thematic development. Fishing
For Fishies was recorded at The Drones’
farm in rural Victoria and is, largely, about
the relationship between humanity and
nature . This album follows a musical
journey from the sunny tranquility of
the whimsical opening title track to
the concluding “Cyboogie”, a sinister,
synthesised slice of robotic funk. Each
song moves the story along further, with
the music getting progressively darker and
less organic – an evolution mimicked by
the lyrics, written largely by Mackenzie
with contributions from Ambrose Kenny-
Smith and Joey Walker.
Given their productivity, there’s an
astonishing consistency to King Gizzard’s
work, and Fishing For Fishes doesn’t have
a weak track. Even as it explores a variety
of different styles, a deep sense of groove
is embedded into every song from the
ululating “Boogieman Sam”, a fantasy
about a dancing demon, to “Real’s Not
Real”, which flits between QOTSA-style
disco-metal and more pastoral styles
but never loses its sense of galloping
rhythm. King Gizzard are blessed with two
drummers and an ability to easily locate a
pounding sense of momentum, but they
are also able to draw on seven members,
many of whom are multi-instrumentalists.
That offers a lot of variety, and ensures
things always stay fresh.
stuart mackenzie “Where it
started was very different to
where it finished”
It’s been a while since your last
record, hasn’t it?
It’s the longest I think we’ve ever gone
between records. It’s also the longest
we’ve spent working on a record. I
don’t know whether that means we
put in the most total hours, but there
was a fair amount of chopping and
changing, rearranging and rewriting.
We’d got used to making records
quickly and maybe we got out of the
rhythm and had to figure out how to
new albumS
This diversity would count for nothing
without Mackenzie as the guiding force.
His lyrics have a charming naivety, as if he
is gazing wide-eyed upon a polluted world
like a stranded alien. “Fishing for fishies
don’t make them feel happy or me neither/
I feel so sorry for fishies,” he sings on the Oh
Sees-like opener. He returns to the ocean
on “Plastic Boogie”, a cool bit of spiralling
Stevie Wonder-style soul jazz that begins
with the sound of a party but is actually
the grooviest song ever written about
plastic pollution. “Fuck all of that plastic
wrapped up in my dinner/It’s not fantastic,”
he sings before the call-and-response
refrain: “The way we wrap it is wrong.”
Between these two comes a song that
SLEEVE NOTES speculates about the very nature of nature.
1 Fishing For The cheerily repetitive “The Bird Song”
Fishies features Mackenzie asking a succession of
2 Boogieman questions about consciousness: “To a bird,
Sam
what’s a plane?/To a tree, what’s a house?/
3. The Bird Song
4 Plastic Boogie
5 The Cruel
To a cow, what’s a car?/To a cloud, what is
a breeze?/To a seal, what is real?” To get
Millennial
6 Real’s Not Real
7 This Thing
a sense of the album’s progression into
darkness, just compare this ingenuous
early track with one that appears later on
8 Acarine
9 Cyboogie
the album. “Acarine” is a dense, synth-
soaked tune about a parasitic mite that
Produced by:
lives inside the breathing tube of a honey
bee, eating it from within.
Stuart Mackenzie
recorded at:
Three tracks at the centre of the album
TFS Studios, focus on more human issues. “The Cruel
Nagambie, Millennial” has a CCR choogle and words
Victoria, Australia by Kenny-Smith about his struggle with
Personnel: Stuart contemporary youth and technology. It’s
Mazkenzie immediately followed by the multiple
(vocals, guitar, moods of “Real’s Not Real”, which leads
flute), Ambrose to “The Thing”, a bouncy bit of pop with
Kenny-Smith
lyrics by Joey Walker about human frailty.
(harmonica,
By closer “Cyboogie”, it feels as if
keyboards,
synthesiser, Mackenzie is distilling and condensing all
organ, the album’s emotions, moods and themes
percussion), into a single piece of electric boogaloo
Joey Walker about a depressed cyborg. King Gizzard
(guitar), Cook contain multitudes and cannot quite be
Craig (guitar), summarised by a single album, but it’s
Lucas Skinner still impressive how momentum and focus
(bass), Michael
has been maintained since the springy
Cavanagh
rhythms of 2016’s Nonagon Infinity brought
(drums), Eric
Moore (drums) them to wider public attention. Fishing For
Fishies encapsulates many of their musical
charms, foregrounds their deeper lyrical
concerns and also shows they don’t need to
rely on gimmicks to get their point across.
Q&A
be free. So where it started was very land. Once we decided to do that, this
different to where it finished. record actually gained a personality.
This was originally a blues what are the themes?
album, right? There’s a general theme of humanity
That’s where those songs started, and nature and the struggle to coexist.
really jammy, lots of harmonica and That’s in a lot of music we make. It’s
guitar. We had about 17 jams that about the varying relationships we
weren’t really songs, and we ended have with Mother Nature.
up adding overdubs, splicing, cutting
sections from different jams, adding will there be another record
layers and sounds, re-recording and in 2019?
cutting out the guitar and adding We are working on another batch
keyboards. Then it was about of songs, but I am hesitant to say
sequencing, starting at this natural anything, any more, ever.
place and ending in this synthetic INTERVIEW: PETER WATTS
june 2019 • unCuT • 25
 new albums
americana
Country, bluegrass, folk & more
jOSH RITTeR
fever Breaks
PyTHeAS/THIRTy TIGeRS
8/10
US singer songwriter unpacks a folk rocking country
beauty, with a little help from his friends
JOSH RITTER first hit on the
idea of recording with Jason
Isbell three years ago, after the
pair had undertaken a joint
tour of the US. Various other
commitments notwithstanding,
it’s taken a while for the plan to finally reach
fruition. Accepting the offer to serve as producer
on Fever Breaks, the 10th album of Ritter’s career,
Isbell brought along his regular band, the 400
Unit, and decamped to Nashville’s famous RCA
Studio A to get down to business.
The results are exemplary. Ritter has always
been a songwriter of nuance rather than physical
power, but Isbell’s presence has brought a
winning marriage of both. A standout moment
is “Losing Battles”, which pairs a dark lyric
and artful melody with crunching guitars
over a relentless rhythm section. Similarly,
“Old Black Magic” feels like a midway point
between sensitive troubadour and blustery
rocker. Amanda Shires’ violin-playing is a key
americana round-up
It’s been 14 years since “In The Reins”, the
joint EP from calexico and iron & wine.
They’ve finally got around to a full-length
collaboration, in the shape of Years To Burn,
out on CITy SLAnG in mid-June. Recorded at
Nashville’s Sound Emporium, founded by
the Cowboy Jack Clement in the ’60s, the
album features a number of guests, among
them steel guitarist Paul Niehaus and
trumpeter Jacob Valenzuela. Talking of his
working relationship with the Calexico
DAVID MCCLISTER, PIPER FERGUSON
pairing of Joey Burns and John
Convertino, Iron & Wine man
Sam Beam says: “Life is hard.
Awesome. And scary as
shit. But it can lift you up if
you let it. These are the
things Joey and I write Calexico
about now. And the title and Iron
can encapsulate a lot of & Wine
26 • unCuT • june 2019
ingredient throughout, at its most dramatic on
the pointedly political “The Torch Committee”,
which finds Ritter pouring scorn on the current
climate of fear, suspicion and blame, calling
out those in power for hiding behind bylaws
and easy excuses. “All Some Kind Of Dream” is
another overtly political rebuke. A mid-tempo
country-blues with a carefree skip that belies
its subject matter, it’s a direct attack on US
immigration policy that also acts as a wider
discussion on the values we hold dear.
Ritter has also decided to cut his own version of
“Silverblade”, covered by Joan Baez on last year’s
Whistle Down The Wind (alongside another Ritter
tune, “Be Of Good Heart”). Here, violin strings
combine with deft acoustic trills and understated
electric guitar to fashion what could easily be a
great lost frontier song. And there’s a nod to Bob
Dylan on the bittersweet “I Still Love You (Now
And Then)”, which keeps a flame burning for an
ex-lover in much the same way as “If You See Her,
Say Hello”. rOB HUgHeS
things.” Following on from 2017’s glorious
What In The Natural World, the same
month finds Durham, North Carolina
singer-guitarist Jake Xerxes Fussell
transforming more obscure songs from
American and Celtic folklore on Out Of
Sight PARADISe Of BACHeLORS . Expect cotton-mill
hymns, gospel shanties, deckhands’ songs
and Irish tragi-comedies. Fussell is joined by
a full band for the first time, with Nathan
Bowles on drums and Nathan Golub on
pedal steel. On the live front, be
sure to catch Fussell associate
william Tyler across the UK
during the last week of
April. And the inimitable
patty Griffin begins her
British tour at Belfast’s
Black Box on May 7.
rOB HUgHeS
CAGe THe eLePHAnT
Social Cues RCA
8/10
Kentucky band raise the stakes on
fifth studio album
Without fanfare, Cage The
Elephant have become
one of the most consistent
bands of this decade,
specialising in taut, punchy
rock that still seems barely
controlled. Whereas the Dan Auerbach-
produced Tell Me I’m Pretty (2015) mined
rock’s past, Social Cues has been encased in
synthesised caterwaul by producer John Hill
(Portugal. The Man). This retro-futuristic
wall of sound supercharges the ferocious
“Broken Boy”, the fraught nocturne “Skin
And Bones”, the Mutations-like Beck collab
“Night Running”, the churning “Ready
To Let Go” and the dread-filled “House Of
Glass”, deepening Shultz’s razor’s-edge
agitation as he writhes inside these
surreal settings like a cornered coyote.
This audacious album succeeds not by
altering Cage’s distinctive identity but
by exponentially amplifying it.
BUD SCOPPA
CLInIC
Wheeltappers And Shunters
DOMInO
7/10
Inscrutable Merseysiders get back in
the saddle
Clinic’s first album since
2012 takes its title from an
unremembered 1970s ITV
variety show, compered
by Bernard Manning, that
the band sometimes use
to describe their peculiar style of wizened
rockabilly. It also alludes to an era of
British culture – Butlin’s, Blackpool pier,
working men’s clubs – fondly satirised on
Wheeltappers… in the sticky-carpet shuffle
of “Laughing Cavalier”, the wheezing
blues of “Rubber Bullets” and disco slink of
“Flying Fish”. This kind of queasy nostalgia
suits Clinic, a band encased in their own
weird world, whose claustrophobic pop
has evolved incrementally over two
decades. Happily, Wheeltappers… offers
more of the same – but you knew that.
PIerS MArtIn
HAnnAH COHen
Welcome Home BeLLA unIOn
7/10
Domestic bliss produces a labour of love
Recorded with her partner
Sam “Evian” Owens as
producer, former model
Hannan Cohen’s third
album is a muted affair
whose punctiliousness
is sweetly offset by its warm heart. Her
voice – oddly fragile yet honeyed, like Stina
Nordenstam auditioning as Lana Del Rey
– remains central, especially on laidback
piano ballad “What’s All This About”, the
earnest “Old Bruiser” and “This Is Your
Life”, which adds subtle synth accents to its
lilting acoustic framework. There are more
keyboards, too, on the spacious white soul
of “Wasting My Time”, but, even at its most
soft rock, this is always cosily intimate.
WYnDHAM WALLACe

eRLAnD COOPeR
Sule Skerry
PHASeS
8/10
the young man and the sea
Inspired by the birds
swirling round his
childhood home
on last year’s Solan
Goose, Cooper returns
to the Orkneys,
focused now on coastal waters. Placid
moments abound: “Haar” offers A
Winged Victory chamber orchestra
stylings, while “Sillocks” opens with
muted Nils Frahm piano, drifting with
Lottie Greenhow’s soprano towards
territory recently occupied by another
island aficionado, Yann Tiersen. But
“Spoot Ebb”’s syncopated, Penguin
Café rhythms indicate choppier
waters, and “Flattie”, introduced
by poet Will Burns, hints at dark,
incoming clouds, while “Lump O’ Sea”
delivers a post-rock storm. The closing
title track, with Astra Forward’s vocals,
provides the inevitable, subsequent
calm. WYnDHAM WALLACe
MIKe DOnOVAn
exurbian Quonset DRAG CITy
7/10
Wholly solo third from San
Franciscan scenester
The title of the solo
latest from the former
Sic Alps mainman,
now leading The
Peacers, describes a
US army hut plonked
down beyond a city’s suburbs, but
it could easily refer to his outlier
imagination. These 10 tracks share a
scrabbly ballpark with the Velvets, Syd
Barrett, early-’70s Lennon and Pussy
Galore, but are deconstructed and/or
warped and doused with reverb and
feedback. Centrepiece “What Do Rich
People Do All Day?” is more sound
collage than song, while there’s a Tin
Pan Alley feel to “B.O.C. Rate Applied”
and a Roger Waters forlornness in
“Stone”. Just 26 minutes – and as much
eccentric delicacy as rowdy skronk.
SHArOn O’COnneLL
DRAHLA
useless Coordinates
CAPTuReD TRACKS
8/10
excellent debut from Yorkshire-
based post-punks
There’s a sinister
groove to this fine
debut from Drahla,
a Yorkshire trio
who embellish
their disjointed
post-punk beats with atmospheric
squalls of sax. That can create quite
a cacophony on tracks like “Pyramid
Estate” or “Primitive Rhythm”, but
songs are usually driven by a motorik
beat that prevent them from drifting
into proggy or jazzy areas. While
Parquet Courts and Bodega are
contemporary influences, it’s also
a lot like an updated Wire, with songs
like “Stimulus For Living”, “Invisible
Sex” and “Serotonin” offering a
combination of improv and discipline
supplemented by anxious guitars
and a vocal that often sounds like
the recitation of a manifesto.
Peter WAttS
THe DReAM SynDICATe
These Times
LABeL
7/10
Paisley Underground veterans
look to the present
The Paisley
Underground is often
cast as a musical
version of Happy
Days, the 1980s doing
the 1960s, and The
Dream Syndicate’s back catalogue
in particular recalls a muscular
amalgam of The Velvet Underground,
Creedence Clearwater Revival and
Neil Young. For their new album, and
second since reforming in 2012, the
group led by Steve Wynn bring this
meshing of influences squarely to the
present. Inspired by the visionary
sonic experimentation of J Dilla’s
Donuts, and the current dumpster
fire of American politics for lyrics,
These Times is an alternately moody
erland
Cooper:
tides wait
for no man
Drahla
and spirited pastiche of influences
spanning decades and genres, a timely
representation of communal fears and
hopes and an unexpected turn from a
band 30 years in. erIn OSMOn
juSTIn TOWneS eARLe
The Saint Of Lost Causes
neW WeST
5/10
Americana troubadour’s
lackadaisical seventh album
Comfortable family
man he may be, but
JTE can still walk a
convincing mile in
the shoes of America’s
ne’er-do-wells. Can
he write a memorable tune to go along
with it, though? Nearly, but not quite
here, as he dips toes in the blues,
country, R&B and rockabilly without
ever really grabbing your attention.
Sun-dappled pedal steel shines across
“Mornings In Memphis”, and adds
eerie undertones to “Frightened By
The Sound”, and some fine lyrics tell
worthwhile tales of the downtrodden.
But bridges? Choruses? Hooks? Write
them off as another lost cause.
JOHnnY SHArP
eARTH
full upon Her Burning Lips
SARGenT HOuSe
7/10
Dylan Carlson marks his band’s
30th year with another bruiser
No-one could’ve
expected Earth to
enjoy any kind of
longevity, what with
the heavy addictions
that Dylan Carlson
shared with his close pal Kurt Cobain
and the infamously low sales for his
band’s Sub Pop releases in the ’90s,
albums that dissolved heavy-rock
tropes into molten pools of noise,
drone and abstraction. Yet Full Upon
Her Burning Lips boasts the same
robustness and sense of renewed
purpose as all of Earth’s output
since 2005’s mighty comeback Hex;
Or Printing In The Infernal Method.
Drummer and percussionist Adrienne
Davies again lays down a solid
foundation for Carlson’s slow-motion
riffage on instrumentals that eschew
the more ornate sensibility of recent
efforts in favour of a leaner, meaner
kind of swagger. JASOn AnDerSOn
THe feLICe BROTHeRS
undress yeP ROC
8/10
Americana vets see past trump
to salvation
new albums
The current US
president is an
unnamed symptom
of deeper ills here, as
loose-limbed surges
of rock’n’roll attempt
to purge a stricken country. Nodding
back to the Stones and The Band, these
familiar sounds serve an open-souled
gospel vision, rooted in upstate New
York reality and dreams. Fully in the
spirit of local ancestor Walt Whitman,
poetic, danceable epiphanies rise from
poverty and horror, most profoundly
in “Poor Blind Birds”. Somewhere
between honky-tonk drinking song
and hymn, it finds satisfaction in
American words (“through the snow/of
Shenandoah”), peers behind the veil of
a broken world via music, and glimpses
a reachably better place. nICK HASteD
fILTHy fRIenDS
emerald Valley KILL ROCK STARS
7/10
Snowflakes are dancing: do-
gooder supergroup go green
An unexpected
Pacific Northwest
alliance of Sleater-
Kinney singer
Corin Tucker and
REM guitarist Peter
Buck, Filthy Friends set out their
righteous stall with the elite-bashing
“Despierta” (translation: awake),
which opened their 2017 debut
Invitation. More desperate than
defiant, follow-up Emerald Valley is
an extended fret about environmental
collapse, the Creedence Clearwater
Revival-ish doom-mongering
happily delivered with a modicum
of Reckoning-era spangle. Tucker
upgrades Patti Smith’s hymn to the
indignity of labour, “Piss Factory”, on
“Last Chance County”, and shelters
her loved ones from the coming ice
age on Replacements-worthy closer
“Hey Lacey”. Cold but somehow
comforting. JIM WIrtH
fIRefLy BuRnInG
Breathe Shallow fATHOM
7/10
third album from north London
art-folk quintet
The spirt of Joni
Mitchell’s early piano
ballads filtered via
the Kate Bush-like
swoops of singer
Bea Hankey, an
intricate, improvised experimentalism
that leans on Reich/Nyman and is
topped with a blissful hint of Talk Talk
mystique courtesy of Tim Friese-
Greene’s production – it’s easy enough
to detect Firefly Burning’s diverse
influences. The art, of course, lies in
the way the elements are seamlessly
blended. Underpinned by mesmerising
violin/cello/bass synth textures,
the band’s poetic compositions are
augmented by settings of verses by
ALExKOzOBOLIS
Hardy and Rilke, and if the effect is a
little self-consciously arty in places, for
the most part it’s enthralling.
nIgeL WILLIAMSOn
june 2019 • unCuT • 27

MORRISSeY
California Son BMG
7/10
The old groaner relaunches as problematic 21st century
protest singer. By Stephen TroussŽ
FOR a brief moment in
2006, Morrissey was
dangerously close
to being embraced
by his homeland.
“Irish Blood, English
Heart” had entered
the charts at number three. You Are The
Quarry was his first solo album to go
platinum. And then he outperformed Paul
McCartney and David Bowie in the BBC’s
poll of Britain’s Greatest Living Icons.
It all feels a lifetime ago. Since then it’s
hard to imagine a more sustained project
of artistic self-sabotage: World Peace Is
None Of Your Business, released in July
2014, then withdrawn barely three weeks
later following a bitter dispute with his
label; Low In High School, launched in 2017
with interviews lauding Islamophobes
and rehashing far-right talking points,
followed by a cancelled European tour.
If he’d released a crowd-pleasing
covers album in 2007, he might have
finally ascended to the status of dotty,
domesticated national treasure, alongside
Alan Bennett, Elton and David Hockney.
As it is, in this context, California Son can’t
help but feel like a fairly desperate attempt
to reboot the career before he terminally
alienates his fanbase.
On the face of it, it’s a strange success.
For those still keeping count, “Morning
Starship” is his best single since
“Something Is Squeezing My Skull”.
Though it was glam rock that warped
his adolescent brain, he’s not often been
able to translate that freaky formative
rapture into his own music – “Panic”
and “Shoplifters” bought Bolan’s cosmic
JAkE WALTERS
boogie down to provincial highstreets,
while his live covers of Bowie and Roxy
too evidently echoed the pale teenage boy
28 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019
apology for his increasingly eccentric
geopolitical turn as a contextualising of it.
Here, after all, is a stentorian take on
“Only a Pawn in their Game”, the song
where Dylan explored the perspective
of the “poor white on the caboose of the
train” who is taught to “hide ’neath the
hood”, and “kill with no pain”. The song is
SLEEVE NOTES now so safely tamed and framed within
1 Morning sentimental pop-histories of the Civil
Starship Rights movement that it’s hard to hear just
(Jobriath) how scandalous it might once have been
2 Don’t Interrupt
to express some degree of curiosity, if not
The Sorrow (Joni
Mitchell)
sympathy with the thoughts of the white
3 Only A Pawn In trash who ended up in the Klan. Hard as
Their Game it might be, for example, to write a song
(Bob Dylan) from the perspective of the family of a
4 Suffer The Little boy joining the NF (as Morrissey did on
Children (Buffy “National Front Disco”). It’s an interesting
Sainte-Marie) comparison, one which casts Morrissey
5 Days Of
Decision
(Phil Ochs)
6 It’s Over
as a brave prophet of systemic injustice,
much like the venerable Nobel laureate.
But in a moment when an actual white
(Roy Orbison)
7 Wedding Bell
supremacist is in the White House, judging
that there are some “very fine people” in
Blues (Laura Nyro) the Klan, it feels profoundly tactless at
best. Moreover, Dylan has never, as far
8 Loneliness
Remembers as we know, advocated voting for Britain
What Happiness
Forgets (Dionne
First, which renders fine considerations of
moral complexity somewhat moot.
Warwick)
singing along in his box bedroom. But Herepriseshiselegiac protestcroon ona
9 Lady Willpower
here he transcends Jobriath’s original, waltz throughthemudandmurder ofPhil
(Gary Puckett &
with Joe Chiccarelli’s sumptuous, sci-fi the Union Gap) Ochs’ “Days ofDecision”,buthe’son safer
baroque production framing an ardent, 10 When You ground onhiscovers offemale artists.Joni
imperious vocal. Close Your Eyes Mitchell isan underappreciatedinfluence
The straitlaced cover of “It’s Over”, the (Carly Simon) on theMorrissey canon– “Amelia”alone
album’s first lead song, had hinted that 11 Lenny’s Tune is atthe coreofatleast three ofhisfinest
he was going to play it safe in a Richard (Tim Hardin) songs– but hisversionof“Don’t Interrupt
Hawley/torch song twang kind of way, 12 Some Say The Sorrow” isa little toofaithful,andhis
(I Got Devil)
aimed squarely at the heart of Radio 2, band unableto emulate Mitchell’suncanny
(Melanie)
but “Morning Starship” suggested that strum andswoon.“Suffer The Little
California Son might be a more ambitious Produced by: Children”originally byBuffy Sainte-Marie,
affair, a reckoning and refashioning of Joe Chiccarelli is stronger, beefedup with honky-tonk
his own back pages that might add up Recorded at: swagger, as itsurveys thenation’schildren,
to a more telling musical autobiography Sunset Sound, institutionalised intocorporateslavery.
than his own Autobiography, and a pop Hollywood The album builds to a glorious swansong
art confection to place alongside Bryan Personnel with Melanie Safka’s “Some Say I Got
Ferry’s These Foolish Things or Bowie’s includes: Devil”. Originally released on her 1971
Morrissey
Pin Ups. You might expect a collection album Gather Me, it sounded like a wistful,
(vocals), Matt
of songs to rival his Meltdown curation Greenwich Village version of some old East
Walker (drums),
in its heterogeneity: some girl groups, Mando Lopez European Romany folksong, a la “Those
some glam, some MOR (he should record (bass), Gustavo Were Those The Days, My Friend”. Here
his cover of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “I Didn’t Manzur (keys), Chiccarelli and the Morrisey band recast
Know What To Do” sometime), some Boz Boorer it as a relentless march to the scaffold, in
bewildering transgender artsong. (acoustic guitar), the mode of Klaus Nomi – that is, a perfect
But though it has plenty of light relief in Jesse Tobias Morrissey showstopper, tailor-made for
loving renditions of turn-of-the-decade soft (electric guitar), the final curtain of his forthcoming
Roger Manning
pop (the best of which is a giddy take on Broadway residency. California
(additional keys),
Laura Nyro’s “Wedding Bell Blues”, with Son may not entirely succeed in
Ed Droste, Ariel
backing vocals from Green Day’s Billie Joe Engle, Petra repositioning Morrissey as a
Armstrong) California Son proves to be a Haden, Billie Joe righteous protest singer, boldly
more peculiar affair, a rum collection of Armstrong, LP, crooning truth to power, but in
American artfolk from the 1960s and ’70s. Sameer Gadhia, fleeting moments like
Once upon a time the young Morrissey Lydia Night this, it confirms him as
crooned “I thought that if you had an (additional as a peerless modern
acoustic guitar/Then it meant that you vocals) practitioner of deep
were/A protest singer/Oh I can smile about song, the pop artist
it now but at the time it was terrible”, and who can divine, even
carefully positioned himself away from the in the work of the
mid-’80s Red Wedge agit-pop enragés he singer of “Brand New
frequently shared stages with. But in many Key”, Lorca’s dark,
respects this is an artfully framed album abymsal spirit
of cosmic protest songs, not so much an of duende.

FUjIYA & MIYAGI
Flashback
IMPOSSIBLe OBjeCTS OF DeSIRe
7/10
Pop modernists’ (almost) joyous
reappropriation
Props to singer and
guitarist David
Best for coming
clean about F&M’s
latest, by calling it
“an unashamedly
nostalgic record”. They’re right to be
unembarrassed, because by looking
to the ‘80s electro and funk of their
youth they’ve leapfrogged stasis and
had what sounds like fun along the
way. Neither homage nor pastiche,
Flashback sees them revisiting Liquid
Liquid, Arthur Russell, Laid Back,
Melle Mel, the Queen of “Another
One Bites The Dust” and more, while
Cabaret Voltaire glower from the
wings. Lyrically, though, this sharp
half-hour set is very much focused
on the present, as the likes of “Fear
Of Missing Out” and (especially) the
scathing “Gammon” attest.
SHARON O’CONNELL
GReYS
Age Hasn’t Spoiled You
CARPARK
7/10
Mellower in sound if not in spirit,
Toronto’s Greys maintain high
standards on third LP
On 2016’s Outer
Heaven, Greys
dropped a thrilling,
hardcore truth bomb
of a record that was
loud, intense and
self-exploratory. Age Hasn’t Spoiled
You sees them easing off the sonic
throttle as they explore other sounds,
while maintaining a similar level of
emotional fervour. As before, there’s
a certain amount of self-loathing in
Shehzaad Jiwani’s lyrics, but this time
the music is generally less propulsive
and more droney from the opening
“A-440” through “Western Guilt” and
the Spiritualized-like “Tangerine”,
foregrounding a sense of beleaguered
acceptance over anger. There’s also
some welcome straight-out indie pop
on the grungy “Burning Chrome”,
“These Things Happen” and the
punkier “Arc Light”.
PETER WATTS
GUADALUPe PLATA
Three Demons
eVeRLASTING
8/10
Spanish Screamin’ Jay disciples
dig deep
This is garage-
rockabilly filtered
through deep
Iberiana, the sound
of a band in thrall to
American hoodoo
from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to Dr.
John, Spanish Catholic and pagan
ritual music, and Tom Waits’ junkyard
rattle. Singer-guitarist Perico de Dios
Greys:
easing off
the sonic
throttle
Barceló specialises in demonic groans
and susurrations, as fuzz guitar hangs
heavy over washboard-bass and anise-
bottle clinks. The disturbing skitter of
his acoustic guitar on Hawkins cover
“Oigo Voces” even out-freaks their
hero. With North African and Latin
American angles also explored, this
is a throbbing, ominous, rigorous
homage to garage basics.
NICK HASTED
GLeN HANSARD
This Wild Willing
ANTI-
6/10
Fourth solo album from the Oscar-
winning Irish singer-songwriter
The Academy
Award-winning
star of Once and
The Commitments
– and long-time
member of Dublin
indie rockers The Frames – also
releases solo albums, which tend to be
folksy, unplugged affairs. Hansard’s
whispery growl is something of an
acquired taste, and the first half of
this LP sees him aiming towards
Nick Cave-style slow-burning
epics – lengthy songs layered with
clunky piano, string drones and the
odd mariachi horn flourish. More
successful is the second half of the
album, where the drums drop out
and Hansard uses acoustic guitars,
mandolins, double bass and strings to
create a pleasing sound that’s pitched
somewhere between early Pentangle
and Astral Weeks. JOHN LEWIS
TIM HeCKeR
Anoyo
KRANKY
7/10
Holly Herndon:
AI with tunes
Second helping
of electronically
warped Japanese
court music
Recorded during the
same collaborative
2017 sessions that produced last
year’s Konoyo album, Anoyo is a
rare case of Canadian conceptual
sound-sculptor Tim Hecker repeating
himself. Drawing on gagaku,
Japanese ceremonial music dating
back to the sixth century, these
six electro-acoustic pieces were
largely improvised live in a Buddhist
temple in Tokyo, with Hecker adding
delicate glitch and drone effects to
flutes and lutes, clatters and twangs.
Despite occasional hints of tastefully
anodyne sonic wallpaper, most of
these painstaking musical haikus
have a quietly potent and gently
mesmerising beauty, especially
opening and closing tracks “That
World” and “You Never Were”, with
their cavernous ambient depths and
corroded, rusty shudders.
STEPHEN DALTON
HOLLY HeRNDON
Proto 4AD
7/10
Cybernetic doyenne’s digital
folksong
Computer-music
pioneer Holly
Herndon’s art is
very much part of
her process, which
can leave her output
sounding remarkable but emotionally
detached. For her third album, Proto,
she explores the notion of protocol
and identity by way of her own newly
developed voice-mimicking AI
software Spawn and a real-life choral
ensemble; the latter’s live recordings
of devotionals “Canaan” and “Evening
Shades” provide some semblance
of human warmth amid a surreal
cacophony of manipulated voices and
ecstatic electronics emulating non-
specific feelings with eerie efficiency.
While “Godmother” confounds with its
sci-fi babble, the likes of “Alienation”
and “Eternal” suggest that a tune is a
tune in any language.
PIERS MARTIN
new albums
HeY COLOSSUS
Four Bibles
ALTeR
7/10
Prolific London noiseniks diversify
sound but still pack a punch
Sixteen years since
their formation,
there’s the whiff
of a mid-life
crisis about Hey
Colossus’s 12th
album, as Four Bibles embraces
shoey indie and Interpol-ish
post-punk textures as well as
the post-hardcore noise they’ve
previously touted. Frontman Paul
Sykes’ metallic growl is now a
portentous bellow, but it still works
when backed by the lurching,
Mudhoney-ish riffs of “Confession
Bay”. That visceral heaviness is still
their trump card – the reverb-heavy,
monochrome indie-rock they
sometimes turn to is less distinctive
– and the shuddering sonic walls of
the impeccably titled “Babes Of The
Plague” and “Memory Gore” are as
robust as ever here.
JOHNNy SHARP
IMPeRIAL WAX
Gastwerk Saboteurs
SAUSTeX
7/10
Ex-Fall men’s new outfit make a
bouncy racket
The death of Mark
E Smith left The
Fall’s longest
serving lineup
with nowhere to
go, but the trio of
Keiron Melling, Dave Spurr and
Pete Greenaway have now returned
with a new band, fronted by Sam
Curran. Thankfully, Curran’s vocal
style contains no MES references,
and the music is similarly evolved,
BORIS CAMACA, VANESSA HEINS
providing a sludge rock undertow to
tracks like “Turncoat” or knocking
out some bubblegum garage for
“Plant The Seeed”. There are also a
couple of longer tracks – “Rammi
Taxi Illuminati” and “Night of The
Meek” – that channel The Stooges to
great effect. PETER WATTS
jUNe 2019 • UNCUT • 29
 new albums
revelations
LiTTLe STeVeN
“We’re drowning in politics – what happened to fun?”
s
teven Van Zandt is
planning a busy 2019
even if the E Street
Band don’t get together at
the end of the year (“We’ll see
what Bruce wants to do. He’s
still recovering from his
Broadway experience – he
may never recover!”). Van
Zandt already has 100 tour
dates lined up with the
Disciples of Soul, with whom
he has just recorded a
second album Summer Of
Sorcery – the first time he has
ever recorded successive
solo albums with the same
band. And then there is
Brexit. ““I could fix that,” he
insists. “All you gotta do is
call me.”
Lamb
The Secret Of Letting Go
COOkiNG ViNyL
7/10
First album in half a decade from the
trip-hop veterans
Lamb looked to
have called it a
day after their 2017
retrospective tour,
with Andy Barlow
turning into a big-
name producer for the likes of U2.
But revisiting their back catalogue
for that tour inspired them to write
new material, and their first LP in five
years is at its most interesting when
their minimal electronica is almost
Bjorn oLSSon, IVAnA KLIčKoVIć
unplugged and drumless, as on the
bucolic “Silence Inbetween” or the
ghostly “One Hand Clapping”. But
“Armageddon Waits”, a Morricone-
ish epic in the disorientating time
signature of 7/8, and the twitchy
drill‘n’bass of “Bulletproof” show
they can be an effective highbrow
dancefloor act. John Lewis
30 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019
Politics is absent from
Summer Of Sorcery. Instead,
Van Zandt has channelled the
mood of “your first summer of
consciousness... the
hopefulness of unlimited
possibilities” on an album of
honking, upbeat rock and
soul. “I wanted to recapture
that sense of excitement and
fun,” he says. “Life has got so
boring. We’re drowning in
politics – what happened to
fun? I feel so bad for this
generation growing up in this
fucking mess. All we can do is
give people some inspiration,
that’s the job of the artist right
now. We can give people
sanctuary from the madness.”
Peter watts
CaTe Le bON
Reward meXiCaN SUmmeR
9/10
Freewheeling fifth from mercurial
welsh star
After last year’s
Drinks outing and a
producing role on the
latest Deerhunter LP,
Cate Le Bon’s terrific
run of form continues
with what must be her best album.
Languid, quizzical and laced with
zigzagging melody, Reward rolls the
singer’s qualities into 10 easy-going
songs that forego the brittle lo-fi of
previous records for a jazzy new-wave
groove. Most alluring is the glassy funk
of “Mother’s Mother’s Magazines”
and “Magnificent Gestures”, where Le
Bon, who composed Reward in relative
isolation in Cumbria while learning
woodwork, swirls her voice around
staccato sax. Elsewhere, on the elegant
pastoral pop of “Miami”, “Daylight
Matters” and “Sad Nudes”, she
enchants at every turn. Piers Martin
LiTTLe STeVeN aND THe
DiSCiPLeS OF SOUL
Summer Of Sorcery
WiCkeD COOL/Ume
7/10
a nostalgic new Jersey starburst
of sex and soul
A musically
reinvigorated Steve
Van Zandt returns
just two years after
2017’s solo Soulfire
with the 14-strong
rock-and-soul Disciples Of Soul. It’s
an upbeat trip down the boardwalk,
opening with an E Street reference
on “Communion” before diving deep
into bar-room soul on tracks like
“Soul Power Twistin’” and the rappy
“Superfly Terra Plane”. The nostalgic
feel is enhanced by the use of doo-
wop on “A World Of Our Own” or the
Curtis-vibing intro to “Vortex”, while
“Suddenly You”, an outtake from the
Lillyhammer soundtrack, provides a
nice change of mood. It closes with
“Summer Of Sorcery”, a valiant stab at
widescreen Springsteen.
Peter watts
ROSie LOWe
yU
WOLFTONe
6/10
she’s in love – and wants you to
know it
If the Devon singer’s
underrated debut
album Control charted
the tempestuous
path it takes to
know oneself, then
the follow-up is a contemplation on
how exposing falling in love can be.
“YU” explores that in every sense;
body, brain, blood. Co-written
with The Invisible’s Dave Okumu,
it’s a celebration of the virtues of
partnership – like the loved-up “The
Way” where Jay Electronica makes an
unexpected appearance on a floaty
jazz outro. The yearning, sensual soul-
funk of “Birdsong” and empowering
“Pharoah” are groovier still. And while
latterly the music gets a bit flavourless,
it’s forgivable because a collection
about modern love that’s neither
searching nor jaded but evangelical
and fulfilled is oddly restorative.
GreG CoChrane
LUCeTTe
Deluxe Hotel Room
ROCk CReek mUSiC/THiRTy TiGeRS.
6/10
Canadian americana artist veers
into pop territory
Lauren Gillis, aka
Lucette, is known for
her hit “Bobby Reid”, a
Southern Gothic tome
whose video starred
Sturgill Simpson as
a creep with a rifle. For Deluxe Hotel
Room, Simpson steps into the producer
role, swapping the minimalist quality
of Lucette’s debut for a sound that
melds touchstones from girl groups,
Southern soul and ’80s pop. Album
standouts “Angel”, “Out Of The Rain”,
“Fly To Heaven” and “Deluxe Hotel
Room” excel in this format, positioning
Gillis’ smokey vocals over sax, drum
machines, strings and synths to a
dynamic and soulful effect. In less
successful moments, the albums idles
in a mid-tempo haze. Simpson’s built
his name by pushing the envelope of
Americana, but here it translates as a
series of peaks and valleys, rather than
a cohesive landscape.
erin osMon
maDONNaTRON
musica alla Puttanesca
TRaSHmOUTH
7/10
who’s that grrl? riotous Ciccone
youths return
Fat White Family’s
Lias Saoudi described
Madonnatron’s
earliest shows as
being “like listening
to a kitchen falling
apart in an earthquake”. However,
if the south London gorgons are no
longer frighteningly untogether, their
second album remains fearsome.
Raincoats disco opener “Goodnight
Little Empire” throws something of
a musical dummy, but Madonnatron
swiftly slam back into their juddering
groove; “Bone Dumb Grunt” is a dirty
snowball of T.Rex and The Shangri-
Las, “Elizabeth Taylor” a bedsitter
torch song worthy of Marc Almond.
Danielle Dax redux, maybe, but
pleasing capers all the same.
JiM wirth
maPS
Colours. Reflect. Time. Loss.
mUTe
8/10
Bedroom producer gets expansive
on fourth album
After a dozen years
as a laptop wizard
and three albums of
shoegazey synth-pop
with a shoegazing
sheen, James
Chapman steps out of his bedroom to
team up with classical ensemble the
Echo Collective and a freewheeling
cast of live percussionists and
guest vocalists. Not everything has
changed, however, and his ability
to combine ethereal tunes and
immersive atmospherics with a hint
of MBV remains strong on the likes of
“Wildfire” and “Howl Around” – but
the emotional dynamic has been
transformed by the added heft.
niGeL wiLLiaMson
Cate Le bon:
shaping up
for her best
album yet
 B I G T H I E F

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FROM THE MAKERS OF

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AND MORE!
UNCUT.CO.UK

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 new albums
LISA MORGenSTeRn
Chameleon DIWALI DISCS
9/10
Striking, singular mix of the ethereal
and the earthly
Though Berlin-based
Morgenstern’s
been opening for
Ólafur Arnalds
recently, her multi-
octave-spanning
voice – as likely to shatter mirrors
as growl moodily – is as arresting
as her classical keyboard skills.
Both dominate elegant piano ballad
“Answers” and the delicately escapist
“At The Top Of A Tree”, while spectral
instrumental “Codex” offers a blur of
fingers. Producer Sebastian Plano adds
aching cello to the lovely “Waltz Of A
Loner”, but it’s her modular synths,
Chameleon’s only source of rhythm,
which set Morgenstern apart, whether
slowly unfurling on the glacial “Atlas”
or swelling to a glorious climax on
“Levitation”.
WYNDHAM WALLACE
The MOunTAIn GOATS
In League With Dragons
MeRGe
6/10
John Darnielle melds mystical rock
opera with dragon noir on 17th
album
The days of
John Darnielle’s
impassioned screams
delivered wonkily
atop of frenetic
acoustic guitar seem
to be over. In recent years a smoother,
more produced, crafted and softer
approach has been the go-to Mountain
Goats sound. On this semi-rock opera
inspired by wizards and dragons,
Darnielle plunges deeper into this
exploration of technique and craft.
There’s melodic charm aplenty on the
album, from the REM-like “Passaic
1975” to the shuffling country skip
of “In League With Dragons”, and
as a storyteller he clearly continues
to blossom. However, despite the
glistening production and seamless
craft of it all, his wired intensity is often
REBEccA NEAD-MENEAR, JEREMY M. LANGE
missed.
DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
MARISSA nADLeR &
STePhen BRODSKY
Droneflower
SACReD BOneS
6/10
Gothic folk maiden meets metal
veteran: results cinematic
The
Mountain
Goats
32 • unCuT • june 2019
I’m
new
Here
DAnnI
nIChOLLS
…On recording her new
album in a magical place
t’s a lot more spacious,”
“I decides Danni Nicholls,
asked how her new LP,
The Melted Morning, differs
from its two predecessors.
“Over the last few years, I’ve
become more introspective,
and it felt like the songs
wanted to step out on
their own. There’s more
vulnerability on this one.”
Nicholls remains based in her
native Britain, but returned to
Nashville to cut The Melted
Morning – this time at MOXE,
the studio built by the album’s
producer, Jordan Hamlin, in
woods outside the city. “It’s a
Folk music is not
always a bed of roses,
but time has shown
Marissa Nadler plays
it darker than most.
Consequently, you’d
expect a link-up with Stephen Brodsky
– guitarist for metallic hardcore groups
Cave-In and Mutoid Man – to be a
plunge into the abyss. What’s perhaps
surprising about Droneflower, then, is
how keenly it balances light and shade.
Guitars chug and snarl on “For The
Sun”, but Brodsky shows himself to
be a sensitive foil, shadowing Nadler’s
mournful keening with desolate
country licks on “Dead West”, or
wreathing a straight-faced cover of
Guns N Roses’ “Estranged” in banks of
dreamy fuzz.
LOUIS PATTISON
The nATIOnAL
I Am easy to Find
4AD
8/10
Sharon Van Etten, Lisa Hannigan
and the Brooklyn Youth Choir find
The National
magical place,” says Nicholls.
“Most studios are windowless,
this one’s flooded with light.”
As on previous stays in
Nashville, Nicholls created her
languid Americana with local
collaborators, a process she
describes as more organic
than contrived. “Every time I
go there,” she says, “I make
new friends, and if your friends
are songwriters, then the
writing just kind of happens.”
The obvious question thus
prompted is whether Nicholls
would ever make the move
full-time: her records certainly
sound like the work of
someone who should have
been born in Tennessee. “I’ve
considered it,” she says, “but
there are benefits of coming
and going. I worry that once
you’re in it, it might not seem
so special.” ANDREW MUELLER
To shake things up
on their eighth studio
album, The National
corralled some
remarkable female
singers to add new
voices and textures to their worried
songs. Some of these songs are full
duets, like the jittery opener “You Had
Your Soul With You”, featuring Gail
Ann Dorsey. Most, however, cast these
guests as a Greek chorus, alternately
supporting and undercutting
frontman Matt Berninger. The
relentless mid-tempos at times make
this epic 16-track album drag, but
on the devastating “Not In Kansas”
and the frantic “Where Is Her Head”
Berninger once again proves himself
rock’s most astute and humane
chronicler of everyday crises of faith.
STEPHEN DEUSNER
DAnnI nIChOLLS
This Melted Morning
DAnnI nIChOLLS MuSIC
8/10
Another terrific set by British
Americana songwriter
Three remarkable
albums in, it seems
mildly outrageous
that there’s still any
need to explain who
Danni Nicholls is,
but basically: Bedford-raised country
singer somehow born with the voice of
Roseanne Cash. This Melted Morning,
recorded in Nashville, is substantially
co-composed with a panoply of other
songwriters, including Jaimee Harris,
Ben Glover, Robby Hecht and Kyshona
Armstrong, and features kindred
spirits The Secret Sisters on three
tracks. It all sounds unmistakably like
Nicholls, however, though it’s a more
downbeat, ballad-driven affair than
her previous records, the desolate
backdrops foregrounding Nicholls’
yearning vocals to especially gripping
effect on “Unwanted” and “Texas”.
Marvellous, again. ANDREW MUELLER
ALAn PARSOnS
The Secret
FROnTIeRS MuSIC SRL
6/10
Project man’s first solo set in
15 years
Last time Alan
Parsons put an album
out under his own
name, he seemed
keen to keep up
with contemporary
trends. 2004’s A Valid Path dabbled
in electronica with some conviction,
but here he returns to a more 20th-
century sonic template. Apart from
a symphonic rock take on Dukas’
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” to open,
MOR-ish pop-rock abounds. Jason
Mraz and Foreigner’s Lou Gramm
contribute suitably radio-friendly
vocals, alongside sax breaks and
guitar solos straight out of a 1987
movie soundtrack, but it’s actually the
simple, Parsons-fronted “As Lights
Fall” whose easy anthemics strike
home more effectively. JOHNNY SHARP
Lee ‘SCRATCh’ PeRRY
Rainford
On-u SOunD
7/10
Dub veterans reunite
Lee ‘Scratch’
Perry and Adrian
Sherwood’s paths
have crossed a few
times since the
mid-1980s but there’s
something rather touching about the
On-U Sound boss anchoring these
twilight reflections from the 83-year-
old Upsetter; the student shepherds
the master. Perry’s cartoonish persona
can grate, so it’s refreshing to hear him
speak from the heart on Rainford (his
birth name) as he croakily dispenses
wisdom on the steady chug of “Kill
Them Dreams Money Worshippers”.
Sweetest of all is “Autobiography Of
The Upsetter”: “Bob Marley come to
me/Say my cup is overflow and I don’t
know what to do/Can you help me, Mr
Perry?” Quite a life.
PIERS MARTIN

RhIAnnOn GIDDenS WITh
FRAnCeSCO TuRRISI
There Is no Other nOneSuCh
9/10
An acoustic ‘side project’ of some potency. By Nigel Williamson
RHIANNON GIDDENS
has yet to record a
‘proper’ follow-up to
her brilliant second
solo album Freedom
Highway, but there
has been no escaping
the restless creativity of the Carolina
Chocolate Drops founder. Since that
Grammy-nominated solo release in 2017
we’ve heard her folk-soul voice and earthy
banjo playing on Music From The American
Epic Sessions alongside Jack White and
Alabama Shakes and in collaboration with
Kronos Quartet on their Folk Songs set.
She’s written the score for the ballet Lucy
Negro Redux, which premiered earlier this
year, and convened the American roots
supergroup Our Native Daughters, whose
debut album was released in February.
Now comes There Is No Other, an
acoustic set recorded with Italian multi-
instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, which
one might describe as a ‘side project’,
though the term hardly does justice to the
potency of the music they make together.
Giddens represents a unique figure in
black American music. You can trace her
folk lineage back to Memphis Minnie,
Elizabeth Cotten and Odetta, but none of
them had the inclination or opportunity to
delve so deeply into the music’s patrimony.
She derives inspiration from the likes of
Nina Simone and Mavis Staples, but the
closest analogue, perhaps, is Taj Mahal,
whose vision of African-American roots
over his 50-year career has been similarly
expansive and inquisitive.
Giddens like to freight the titles of her
projects with socio-political layers, and
new albums
past collaborators include early music
ensembles, jazz combos, contemporary
classical composers, Irish roots singers
and Balkan folk musicians and he’s all over
this set playing piano, accordion, lute/oud,
cello, banjo and Arabic percussion, while
Giddens augments her vocals with banjo,
violin and viola. Global fusion projects are
often constructed like Meccano, bolted and
screwed together for no discernible reason.
Here the cross-cultural connections are
explored with an organic subtlety in which
everything fits comme il faut because, as
Giddens puts it, “We’re educated about
where the music is coming from.”
Yet it is far more than an academic
exercise, for, as she adds, “when it comes
to playing it’s just what we feel” – and it’s
that marriage of purpose and passion that
makes There Is No Other special.
Over a sombre, classical-sounding Arabic
lute, the opener “Ten Thousand Voices”
finds Giddens’ keening voice essaying
the kind of melismatic quarter-tones
that her labelmate Robert Plant enjoys.
(Note to Nonesuch: how about a duet?)
“Gonna Right Me A Letter” is a cover of a
song by bluegrass pioneer Ola Belle Reed
in modal Arabic-blues style, while the
familiar “Wayfaring Stranger” is given
a more conventional arrangement, sung
hauntingly by Giddens over a plaintive
banjo and accordion accompaniment.
so it is here. The “other” refers to the way The mix of Appalachian banjo and Arabic
SLEEVE NOTES discrimination and prejudice marginalises percussion conjures a intoxicating rhythm
1 Ten Thousand the culture and identity of those outside on the instrumental title track. “Pizzica
Voices the mainstream, and the album serves di San Vito” requires considerable vocal
2 I’m Gonna Write as both a condemnation of “othering” gymnastics from Giddens as she gallops
Me A Letter
and “a celebration of the spread of ideas, through a furious Italian folk dance,
3 Wayfaring
connectivity, and shared experience”. although her finest singing on the album
Stranger
4 There Is No In particular, Giddens and Turrisi throw probably comes on a gorgeous version
Other the spotlight on the profound but largely of Oscar Brown Jr’s “Brown Baby”. The
5 Trees On The ignored historical input of Islamic culture set ends with a brace of Giddens’ own
Mountains into European, African and US music. compositions. “I don’t know where I’m
6 Pizzica Di San Recorded in five days in Dublin in going but I know what to do,” she sings as
Vito August last year last with little editing and she strides down the freedom highway
7 Brown Baby minimalist intervention from producer again on the stirring folk-blues of “I’m On
8 Briggs’ Forró
Joe Henry, Turrisi – whose southern My Way”, while “He Will See You Through”
9 Little Margaret
Mediterranean upbringing versed him is a righteous gospel-lullaby sung with
10 Black Swan
11 I’m On My Way in a rich tapestry of Islamic influences a soaring purity over reverberating cello
12 He Will See You blown in on the sea breezes from North and Turrisi’s plangent piano chords. This
Through Africa – proves to be a felicitous guide is acoustic roots music at its most glorious,
in unpicking these hidden connections. and Giddens is fast becoming the genre’s
Produced by: Joe The conservatoire-trained polymath’s brightest star in the firmament.
Henry
Recorded at:
Windmill Lane Q&A
studios, Dublin Rhiannon Giddens meet each other and both of There are some unexpected
Personnel: and Francesco us say, “Wait a minute – you connections we found and
Rhiannon Turrisi “We’re both think that way too?” we have interesting stories
Giddens (vocals, rare birds…” to tell about them. It’s a
minstrel banjo, what was the thinking perfect fit.
octave violin, How did you come to behind this project?
viola), Francesco collaborate together? RG: It’s about movements of Can you say more
Turrisi (piano, RG: We met four years ago humans and how we affect about the nature of the
accordion, frame and had a jam and it was each other. If you look at musical links you found?
drum, tamburello, amazing, and then years our range of instruments FT: People think the blues
lute, cello banjo, passed and we couldn’t and how they’ve travelled has a strong connection to
daf, colascione), get gigs together as our across the world, it’s pretty a type of melismatic singing
Kate Ellis (cello, schedules were too difficult. amazing. The Islamic that’s connected to the
viola on four Finally in 2017 we got back world had a huge impact Arabic world. In my head I
tracks) in touch. We’re both rare on European music and had this idea of combining
KAREN cOX
birds. We found ourselves culture and on the African my Mediterranean sound
feeling a bit freakish in our continent and Muslim people with the stuff that Rhiannon
own worlds, and then we enslaved in the Americas. was doing.
june 2019 • unCuT • 33
 new albums
LAuRenCe PIKe
Holy Spring LeAF
8/10
Freestyle drummer’s celestial
minimalism
Australian drummer
Laurence Pike
enjoyed modest
success last year as
part of deep-fried
synth trio Szun
Waves, whose New Hymn To Freedom
was swept up in the new British jazz
revival. On Holy Spring he expands
upon the minimalist palette of
his debut Distant Early Warning,
layering fluttering electronics over
rhythmic passages in what he calls a
“conceptual experiment” – namely,
he composes the samples of music in
a month then assembles the whole
album in one day. This allows for a
quick-witted improvisational quality
to pieces such as “The Shock Of Hope”
and “Transire”, parts of a puzzle that
has endless permutations.
Piers Martin
ROSeAnne ReID
Trails
LAST MAn
8/10
Polished debut by Proclaimer’s
daughter
The name may sound
familiar: Roseanne
Reid is the eldest
daughter of Craig Reid
of The Proclaimers.
“Trails” – produced
by a scion of another musical
dynasty, Teddy Thompson – is one
of those debuts with the paradoxical
confidence to be understated:
there’s no lapel-seizing accosting
of the listener here, just a dozen
terse, reflective country-ish ballads,
written with careful economy and
delivered in an unaffected, husky
drawl. “I Love Her So”, embellished
with soulful horns, and the wryly
sprightly “Me Oh My” will find favour
with fans of Gillian Welch and Kris
Delmhorst; Steve Earle duets on the
perfectly poised “Sweet Annie”. An
extraordinarily good start.
anDreW MUeLLer
RODRIGO Y GABReLA
Mettavolution
RuBYwORKS/BMG
7/10
Dexterous Mexican duo set the
controls for the heart of the sun
The flamenco-infused
yet satisfactorily
trippy cover of Pink
Floyd’s “Echoes”
that occupies
Mettavolution’s
second half will undoubtedly intensify
the love that this Mexican duo
already inspire, particularly on the
festival circuit. Though the original
JIM NEwBERRY
instrumentals on Rodrigo Sanchez
and Gabriela Quintero’s first album
in five years may not be quite so
astral-minded or ambitious, the pair
34 • unCuT • june 2019
revelations
LuTHeR RuSSeLL
…on his early heroes, current faves and keeping it real
A native Luther Russell,
l 48, has been a DIY
striver since his band
The Freewheelers broke up in
1996 after two major-label
albums. “I just try to do what
I’ve always done, which is stay
true to myself and collaborate
with interesting people I
respect,” he explains. He’s
been hooked on Big Star since
he first started making music
at 17, but Medium Cool “came
out of the period I started
working with Jody at Ardent,
and traded an amp for a
cheap Strat, so that vibe
started to emerge.” Nostalgia
permeates the new LP. “I’ve
realised in retrospect that I
grew up with some of the best
rock’n’roll money could buy:
continue to impress with their ability
to shift through a variety of Latin, folk
and rock styles without ever taking
the easy routes. Indeed, what with the
rhythmic and melodic complexity of
songs such as “Electric Soul”, the best
of Mettavolution is too lively to merely
serve as background music for indie
coffee shops or, in the case of “Echoes”,
purveyors of quality bongs.
JasOn anDersOn
LuTHeR RuSSeLL
Medium Cool
FLuFF & GRAVY
8/10
In the
driving
seat:
Roseanne
Reid
The Knack, Tom Petty, Cheap
Trick, Blondie – this shit was
popular!” Russell also listens to
younger bands, including
Nude Beach, Cairo Gang, Real
Estate and Michael Rault.
“Some of those records have
influenced me just as much
as the old stuff,” he says.
“But the album is really an
impressionistic take on living
life through rock’n’roll, the
sense of possibility at the
beginning and the toll it can
take in the very end.” As for
maintaining his career on a
shoestring, “it’s always a
challenge, and the only
reward is when I’ve made
some music that might stand
the test of time.”
BUD sCOPPa
Former Freewheelers frontman
spins a tale of two cities
Although Russell’s
stated objective for
Medium Cool was to
“capture the essence
of growing up in the
San Fernando Valley”,
the LP simultaneously nails the vibe of
early-’70s Memphis, as the 48-year-
old artist becomes Alex Chilton’s
doppelganger, down to his dry, boyish
singing and off-kilter guitar chops.
The fact that he’s half of Those Pretty
Wrongs with Jody Stephens furthers
the Big Star connection. Among the
reference points, shambolic romp
“Deep Feelings” uncannily mirrors
Radio City’s “O My Soul”, the Southern
boogie “Have You Heard?” borrows
the riff from “In The Street” and
the chiming “Corvette Summer”
ecstatically evokes “September Gurls”.
Russell’s Kurt Vile-like effervescent
nonchalance animates every track,
elevating these emulations and
doubling the fun.
BUD sCOPPa
SeBADOH
Act Surprised FIRe
7/10
Lo-fi firebrands ransack the
self-harmacy again
“I won’t be your
carpet/I won’t be your
clown,” sings Lou
Barlow, standing
up for himself
unconvincingly on
“Fool”, the Cole Porter of passive-
aggression still capable of complex
feats of self-annihilation even as he
hits his fifties. Sebadoh helped the
Dinosaur Jr sideman to vent after he
was bucked by the post-hardcore
Crazy Horse in the late-1980s, but the
torrent of songs he unleashed with
Jason Loewenstein in the 1990s has
slowed since – Act Surprised is the
first Sebadoh LP in six years – but
Barlow’s spiky, spindly diary entries
(“Medicate”, “See-Saw”, “Sunshine”)
remain an abject lesson for indie losers
everywhere. JiM WirtH
SHOw Me THe BODY
Dog whistle LOMA VISTA
8/10
nYC outfit continue to redefine
hardcore on second LP
Sitting somewhere
between Fugazi and
Death Grips but with
banjo, SMTB are a
unique hardcore
band. There are
guttural screams, thrashing guitars
and terrorising drums aplenty, but
they’re intent on challenging genre
conventions. The opening “Camp
Orchestra” is all deeply melodic lush
scales and fingerpicked delicacy
before severely distorted guitars take
over, evolving into a metal-like stomp.
There’s an equally brutal, pulverising
mix of guitars and electronics
elsewhere, but they surprise more
often than not. DanieL DYLan WraY
SOunDwALKCOLLeCTIVe
wITH PATTI SMITH
The Peyote Dance BeLLA unIOn
7/10
Hallucinatory visions via field
recordings from Mexico
Soundwalk Collective
are headed up by
two artists, Stephan
Crasneanscki and
Simone Merli.
Compulsive
collaborators, their previous projects
involve a who’s-who of modern arts:
from techno producer Villalobos to
actress Catherine Deneuve and author
Paul Auster. For The Peyote Dance, they
regroup with Patti Smith, bringing
some of the eschatological author-actor
Antonin Artaud’s final works back to
life. The field recordings Crasneanscki
and Merli pull together offer a supple
ground for Smith’s recitals, though
there’s a touch of exoticism about it,
and it’s surprisingly polite, at times:
Artaud’s transcendental Peyote visions
are flattened out here. JOn DaLe

VAMPIRe weeKenD
Father Of The Bride
COLuMBIA
7/10
Back after six years with a transformative, possibly divisive
double. By Sharon O’Connell
EzRA KOEnIG’S description
of the time it’s taken to follow there are also several disappointing
up Modern Vampires Of The
City as working at “a dignified curveballs that make you wonder if the
pace” is drolly self-aware
– six years is an eternity in
his game. But the self-styled
“neurotic over-thinker” whose smart, emotionally and Ariel Rechtshaid – who share most of the
articulate and slightly whimsical pop songs
have taken Vampire Weekend from blogosphere
darlings to arena-headlining Grammy winners
has been otherwise engaged – becoming a
father, working on his animated netflix series
and presumably, leading a group recalibration
following Rostam Batmanglij’s departure in 2016.
It’s the kind of long hiatus/upheaval
combination that can make hard work of a
return, but it seems Koenig was on a roll for their
fourth LP – so much so, that he wrote 40 songs.
Father Of The Bride runs to 18 tracks, which is
a good half dozen surplus to standard album
requirements. But canny offspring of the internet
that they are, Vampire Weekend have been drip-
feeding fans with posts of two songs per month
in the run-up, while on his Instagram, Koenig
acknowledged the dominance of playlist culture
by saying anyone who wanted to edit out six
tracks was welcome to do so.
The temptation is there, although at 59 minutes,
Father Of The Bride is hardly epic and treads water
infrequently. In fact, it’s every bit as immediate
and listenable as it is confident, and more buoyant
overall than the sombre Modern Vampires…. It’s
also flighty and so wide-ranging, at times it reads
like a future compilation rather than the next
step from a band now into their imperial phase.
Alongside the exhilarating fresh twists, winning
new albums
Hans zimmer’s choral “God Yu Tekem
Laef Blong Mi” (from The Thin Red Line
score). Along with the terrific “Married
In A Goldrush”, which again features
Haim, it sits outside the record’s three
general category types: mutant, Cali
soul/R&B pop; a less collegiate take
on their Paul Simon-styled classic
pop, with inflections from calypso to
highlife; and the kind of instant-grat
art pop that’s a reminder of the band’s
connection to peers like Animal
Collective and Dirty Projectors (whose
David Longstreth guests on perky first
single “Harmony Hall”).
As a long-term fan of hip-hop, Koenig
has often included homages, deep
references or direct lifts in his songs
SLEEVE NOTES but as he’s wryly noted of this release,
1 Hold You Now “nobody wants to hear the Vampire
2 Harmony Hall Weekend trap album”. Instead, they’re
3 Bambina paddling in the micro pool of west-
4 This Life
coast, hybrid R&B/soul jams. As with
5 Big Blue
the dreamily uncertain, DJ Dahi co-
6 How Long
7 Unbearably produced “Big Blue” – which vaguely
white
8 Rich Man
9 Married In A
recalls Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreak but
borrows George Harrison’s weeping
guitar and bungs in a choir – or
Gold Rush
10 My Mistake
“Unbearably White”, an understatedly
lovely number that comes on like Bill
11 Sympathy Withers joining a minimalist Anderson
12 Sunflower
13 Flower Man
.Paak. “Sunflower”, featuring The
Internet’s Steve Lacy, runs along
14 2021
similar laid-back lines. By contrast,
15 we Belong
Together “Bambina”, “Stranger”, “We Belong
16 Stranger Together” and “Rich Man” hark back to
complements and bravura dynamics, 17 Spring Snow the bedrock Vampire Weekend sound,
18 Jerusalem, with peppy steel pans, parping horns
bet-hedgers and some kitchen-sink New York, Berlin and palm-wine guitar.
A couple of tracks in particular
band are just so pleased to be back in the indicate Vampire Weekend’s obvious
saddle they’ve gone a bit giddy. desire to change things up: “How Long” is a
It seems a Kacey Musgraves show that Koenig lurching and sparse, art-pop tune with finger
clicks, upright bass and comical sound effects,
production credits (with Batmanglij among the but the real curate’s egg is “Sympathy”. A stew
guests) – saw in 2016 was significant. Struck of spaghetti-western and mariachi music that
by the undisguised nature of her lyrics and the moves at a gallop, it’s heavy on the shakers
way that country pop speaks so directly, and to action and throws analogue shrieks and cries
an identifiable audience, Koenig decided to try of “sissup!” into its mix. “I think I take myself
writing less opaque and more direct songs. Which too serious; it’s not that serious,” says Koenig in
explains “Hold You now”, the album’s opening the intro, begging the question of whether he’s
track and first surprise. It’s a straight tale about talking about life or art. Either way, Father Of The
seizing the relationship moment, with Danielle Bride is the sound of a band boldly vaulting their
Haim and Koenig trading verses as per country perimeter fence; that they snagged their pants
tradition and marries back porch acoustic finger- on the way over was perhaps inevitable, but is
picking to pedal-steel guitar, with samples from really no big deal.
Q&A
ezra Koenig “These songs to the previous chapters and for all those flavours and feelings.
belong together” relevant to the particular moment I thought about breaking it up into
in my life. It’s always a tall order two records but that felt boring.
what were your but you gotta try. These songs belong together.
motivations/concerns, given
the long absence? Did you ever think, “we can’t which song helped
Honestly, the time away didn’t release 18 tracks”? determine the lP’s shape?
concern me too much (outside Actually, I wanted it to be 20 tracks. “Spring Snow” was an early
of the occasional sleepless night That seemed like a proper double song written for it and it gave me
wondering if I should try to go album to me. I cut two at the last confidence that this album could
back to school). The concerns minute to get in under an hour. That contain some short story-type
and motivations were more or ultimately felt right. I knew this songs. That song is about a fleeting
less the same as on every record: album needed room for the light moment and actually, looking
I wanted to make an album that next to the heavy and a shorter back, a lot of the others are, too.
felt fresh, different yet connected album wouldn’t have had space interVieW: sHarOn O’COnneLL
june 2019 • unCuT • 35
 new albums
discovered
BooGArinS
Sombrou Duvida
8/10
Brazilian tropical psych rockers widen their
experimental explorations. By Stephen Dalton
The election
of Trumpian
right-wing
demagogue
Jair Bolsonaro
in Brazil last
year may be
bad news for global politics, but it
could have unexpected musical
benefits. When Brazil was under
military dictatorship in the late
1960s, a key arm of resistance
was the short-lived Tropicalia
movement of psych-pop artists led
by Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso
and Tom Zé. These self-styled
“cultural cannibals” mixed acid-
rock and anarcho-hippie styles
from the USA and europe with
a subversively surreal slant on
Brazilian folk music. Inevitably,
the censorious regime clamped
down on such rebellious acts,
arresting the key artists and
forcing them into exile.
Of course, Bolsonaro is not yet
as extreme as the fascist junta that
he openly admires, who plunged
Brazil into its so-called “vazio
cultural” (“cultural void”) era in
the 1960s and ’70s. history rarely
repeats itself, but it sometimes
rhymes, which may help explain
RodRIgo ZaN
the rise of Boogarins. Originally
a high-school duo formed in 2008
by singer-guitarist duo Dinho
36 • unCuT • june 2019
Searching out the best albums new to uncut
oAr
Almedia and Benke Ferraz in the
central Brazilian city of Goiana,
these neo-psychedelic explorers
are trippy, playful and opaquely
political. They named themselves
after a type of jasmine flower
whose name reportedly translates
as “pure love”.
So far, so 1967. But with the
addition of drummer Ynaiã
Benthroldo and bassist Raphael
Vaz, the Boogarins sound has
become increasingly sophisticated
both sonically and rhythmically,
adding drum loops, abrasive
avant-rock textures and glitchy
electronics to their retro-stoner
vocabulary. Like Super Furry
Animals, Flaming Lips or
Deerhunter before them, these
Brazilian twenty-somethings are
putting a contemporary slant on
vintage psych tropes.
Across their three albums to
date, Boogarins have grown
from homegrown Brazilian
success story to international cult
stars, earning rave reviews and
touring extensively in europe
and North America. They now
have a US-based record label and
management, though they remain
rooted in Brazil and continue
to sing in Portuguese. Indeed,
something unique to their native
tongue remains crucial to their
easy, sunny charm.
even to foreign ears,
those liquid vowel
sounds and happy/
sad sighs seem to be
steeped in saudade,
the yearning ache
that runs like a river
of inconsolable
melancholy through
Portuguese fado and
Brazilian bossa nova.
They could be singing
about lobsters and
still sound elegantly,
sublimely sad.
With a word-
mangling title that
loosely translates as
“shadow or doubt”,
Sombrou Dúvida is
not a revolutionary leap forward
for Boogarins, but it is the quartet’s
most experimental and sui generis
statement so far. It expands their
playful ongoing conversation
with vintage psych and prog,
most obviously on “A Tradição”
(“Tradition”), a gorgeous tempo-
changing ballad bubbling along
on lysergically fuzzy-headed
vocals and a sinewy, warm,
percolating bassline. Likewise,
a Syd-era Floydian vibe haunts
“Tardança” (“Lateness”), which
alternates between deceptively
drowsy stoner verses and a
punchy power-pop chorus hook,
and “As Chances”, a blissed-out
tropical beatnik reverie couched in
a vivid fog of silvery guitar ripples.
But more than previous albums,
Sombrou Dúvida also amplifies
the band’s agreeably post-punk
impulse to deconstruct, dislocate
Q&A
Dinho Almedia “We always
push ourselves”
where does the title Sombrou
Dúvida come from? We first got
this idea from a line dropped during
an improvisation. It’s [about] how
uncertainty can take you out from the
shadow of your comfort zone, but you
can go deeper on it.
You recorded Sombrou
Dúvida in austin, Texas: did
the location have an effect on
how the album sounds? Not that
much, it was more about the situation.
Us four, in short breaks during tours,
living together totally focused on the
album, a nice studio, nice people. This
scenario had a stronger effect on the
music than any US or Texas vibe.
and interrogate the formal rules
of rock. The quasi-title track
“Sombra ou Dúvida” (“Shadow
Or Doubt”) lays lustrous guitar
shimmers over a crunchy,
shuddering, stop-start avant-
dub rhythm that gathers a real
brute physicality by its climax.
And the closing “Passeio” is a
gloriously uncategorisable beast,
its dessicated vocal skipping over
choppy waves of mechanised
rhythmic distortion. This is the
quartet’s most experimental
composition to date, a kind of alien
trip-hop whirlpool that seems to
end up swallowing itself.
even songs that start out in fairly
conventional indie-folk terrain
take a left turn into the twilight
zone. The spare, wistful ballad “Te
Quero Longe” (“I Love You From
Afar”) initially feels like a classic
exercise in saudade until its
crunchy, imploding, gnarly finale.
In most cases, these stylistic
quirks add warmth and depth to
the Boogarins formula, though
occasionally they feel like goofy
gimmicks and superfluous
spanners in the machinery.
A few weaker tracks such as
“Desandar” (“Unwind”), a
ramshackle ramble of twisty jazz-
pop, never quite grow beyond
rehearsal room jams. But with a
little less stoner-slacker mischief
and a little more rigour in their
rule-bending experimentalism,
Boogarins could be world-class
avant-rockers. For now, they
are clearly enjoying the ride,
and flexing their potential to be
Brazil’s most exciting musical
export since Tropicalia.
This album sounds more
experimental than your
previous albums, do you
agree? We are experimenting in
the action of translating feelings
into sounds, delivering interesting
melodies and textures to the listener,
but inside a strong song idea. That’s
the Boogarins main recipe.
Do you feel any pressure to
start writing and singing in
english? Not really – we always push
ourselves to do more music, to always
be able to play better, to improvise
and record stuff. We already did a
few experimental recording sessions
in English and it was a real good
experience. We just want to evolve
the maximum we can as musicians.
INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DALTON

CAroline SpenCe
Mint Condition rounDer
8/10
Beloved Nashville songwriter pens
a solo stunner
Caroline Spence is
already a force on the
Nashville songwriting
scene, celebrated
by in-the-know
industry veterans and
even the likes of Miranda Lambert.
her third solo record and debut for
storied Americana imprint Rounder
Records is a stunning journey through
self-discovery and rebirth, which
showcases lyrical storytelling that’s
vivid in its precision and touching in its
emotional resonance. Mint Condition’s
most potent moments depict women
reclaiming agency. “Her life, like some
cowboy’s cliché,” she sings in “Angels
Or Los Angeles”. “She’s locking doors,
leaving with the key/Making herself
the one that got away.” Spence’s
higher-register purity and sheer vocal
tenderness recall emmylou harris
and Tift Merritt, and such Americana
luminaries are taking notice – harris
sings harmony on the title track.
ERIN OSMON
jAn ST Werner
Glottal Wolpertinger:
Fiebplatter Catalogue #6
THrill joCKeY
8/10
Mutant, microtonal feedback
reveries, with members of
The National
With Glottal
Wolpertinger, Jan
St Werner of Mouse
On Mars pushes his
Fiebplatter Catalogue
to yet another
extreme. Drawing from material
constructed for a radio installation at
the Documenta 14 exhibition, Glottal
Wolpertinger teases out the various
intensities of feedback: long stretches
of hum and flux that continually
mutate at a micro level; great waves of
grunting drone; flickering, oscillating
textural overload. Like 2017’s Spectric
Acid, it explores one area of sound
with great intensity and nuance.
There are contributions here from
Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The
National, too, though you’d be hard
pressed to find them. JON DALE
STuArT A STApleS
Music For Claire Denis’
High life CiTY SlAnG
7/10
Tindersticks man delivers another
dread-filled score for the French
auteur
Like Claire Denis’
science-fiction tale of
nastiness on board
a prison spaceship,
Stuart A Staples’ latest
collaboration with
the director elicits a profound sense of
unease. evoking the film’s deep-space
setting, the many eerie, near-ambient
passages consist of sounds that seem
to barely emerge from some sinister
void before slipping back into darkness
and silence. The score’s more forceful
moments – like the BBC-Singers-
enhanced doom-drone of “The Fuck
Box” and the burst of avant-jazz
cacophony in “Rape Of Boyse” – only
deepen the prevailing atmosphere
of dread. A string-laden lullaby sung
by leading man Robert Pattinson in a
soft and eminently Staples-like croon,
“Willow” provides the sole respite,
but even it seems awfully creepy given
what surrounds it. JASON ANDERSON
Von SpAr
under pressure BureAu B
8/10
Dazzling fifth from Cologne’s
dedicated chameleons
Presumably through
fear of boredom, Von
Spar either shift the
balance between their
stylistic indicators
– kosmische, post
disco and jazz fusion – or change tack
completely with each record they
make. With Under Pressure, they’ve
somehow done both. It’s a smart,
effortlessly elegant and ravishing
set that leaps from sparky prog pop
(“extend The Song”) to sumptuous
baroque rock (the swoony “Better
Late”) and Junior Boys-ish techno
funk (“Falsetto Giuseppe”). Feature
vocalists include eiko Ishibashi, The
Flying Lizards’ Vivien Goldman,
Laetitia Sadier and Christopher A
Cummings, a return guest whose
baritone warms four songs. ‘Tasteful’
is a dubious compliment, but there’s
plenty of substance in Von Spar’s
refined style. SHARON O’CONNELL
THe WATerBoYS
Where The Action is
CooKinG VinYl
7/10
Mike Scott’s resurgence continues
The title track’s mod
R&B struts with the
confidence of a band
whose last album
hit the Top 10. It’s
balanced by “In My
Time On earth”, a Bowiesque, defiant
acoustic elegy for defeated heroes and
hopes. One of Scott’s most Van-like
qualities, meanwhile, is his copious
referencing of a personal pantheon,
here ranging from Mick Jones to “Piper
At The Gates Of Dawn”, which sets The
Wind In the Willows’ english mystic
vision of Pan to nine minutes of stately
piano. his enraptured voice shivering
with wonder and worship, Scott adds
another song to his own hall of fame.
NICK HASTED
Von Spar
jamila
Woods
FAYe WeBSTer
Atlanta Millionaires Club
THrill joCKeY
7/10
Subtly spliced R&B-country
love songs
Webster’s spell with
Atlanta hip-hop
label Awful and
a family love of
country continue to
find fertile common
ground in her third, as conversational
confessions sprawl in slow-motion over
lachrymose steel guitars and woozy
‘70s R&B. “What Used To Be” typically
recalls love in small, private signs: “I
miss your shirt that didn’t fit right/I’ve
worn it to bed at night, once or twice.”
The closing “Johnny (Reprise)” could
be a Spector girl-group complaint.
Problems are timelessly ordinary,
loneliness lightly worn, and Webster’s
music is enriched by her unique
cultural blend. NICK HASTED
joY WilliAMS
Front porch
SenSiBiliTY/THirTY TiGerS
7/10
Female half of The Civil Wars
returns home in the aftermath
After resuming her
solo career following
the 2012 split of The
Civil Wars with
the electro-folk
misstep Venus, Joy
Williams has returned to her sweet
spot – contemporary takes on the
Appalachian ballad. The understated
intensity of Front Porch, threaded with
references to wanting and needing,
was honed by producer Kenneth
Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids,
who deftly applies his expertise
in vocal harmonies and acoustic
embroidery to the spare settings.
On intimate originals that explore
traditional (“Canary”, “When Creation
Was Young”), metaphysical (“Be With
You”) and carnal themes (“hotel St
Cecilia”), Williams, subtly shadowed
by Anthony da Costa’s harmonies,
delivers elegantly inflective
performances on these bittersweet,
deeply affecting contemplations of
love lost and regained. BUD SCOPPA
albums
jAMilA WooDS
leGACY! leGACY!
jAGjAGuWAr
9/10
Chicago breakout artist celebrates
black icons
even amid this
era’s welcome
abundance of
artistically bold and
avidly woke avant-
R&B artists, Jamila
Woods shines very brightly. Like her
2016 debut HEAVN, the Chicago singer,
poet and activist’s sophomore set
serves as both a potent primer on the
traumas and triumphs of life in not-so-
post-racial America and an enthralling
demonstration of her playful musical
sensibility. Since each song is named
for the black icon who inspired it,
there are many opportunities for her
to slip in sly nods to various heroes
and heroines, with results that range
from the murky, On The Corner-style
funk that underpins “Miles” to the raw
electric blues in “Muddy” to the regal,
Kitt-worthy cool of “eartha”.
JASON ANDERSON
WreCKleSS eriC
Transience
SouTHern DoMeSTiC
8/10
Stiff veteran paints a less than
wonderful world
eric Goulden has
upped the pace in
recent years, making
very fine albums
either solo or with
partner Amy Rigby.
Transience might just be his late-career
peak – a deliciously sour, sarky
and occasionally moving study of
modern life and his place in it.
“Father To The Man” finds him
realising that, with age, he’s
become more like the dad he once
rebelled against. Filtered through
personal loss, the punky Velvets
drone of “Indelible Stain” addresses
his own legacy, offset by the droll
“California/handyman”. There is
also a bracing experimentalism
at play, his gnarly anti-pop often
fracturing into weird ambient noise.
ROB HUgHES
june 2019 • unCuT • 37
 jUNe 2019
Take 265
1 jUdy ColliNs (p42)
2 a CerTaiN raTio (p43)
3 The fall (p45)
4 veNom (p46)
5 peTe seeger (p48)

reissues | ComPs | boxsets | lost reCordinGs

popol vUh
The essential album Collection volume 1
Bmg

Crystal-gazing Germans’ voyage into

inner space. By Jim Wirth

P
opol Vuh’s eerie scores
graced some of director
Werner herzog’s best films,
but the director’s patience
for the band’s otherworldly
auteur Florian Fricke had its
limits. “he was always too much
into drugs, which I never liked,” herzog sniffed as
he pondered how he lost touch with his old Munich
collaborator. “secondly, he drifted away into this
idiotic, new-age pseudo-philosophy babble, and
I could not really communicate with him.”
Not a krautrocker by any stretch, Fricke’s quest
became increasingly spiritual as time went on, this
boxed set tracking the pilgrim’s progress through
remastered editions of Affenstunde (1970), Hosianna
Mantra (1972), Einsjäger & Siebensjäger (1974), Aguirre in practice it’s a journey from ominous electronic
(1975) and an expanded Nosferatu (1978). he would
pursue his high-minded
mission “to make music for the
human being, for his heart and
soul” until his death, aged 57,
in 2001, but while he aspired
to create a sense of Incredible
string Band-ish pantheistic
wonder, the pieces that
chimed with Kate Bush and
the Cocteau Twins were the
ones that soundtracked raw,
unholy terror.
Fricke was doing odd bits
of arts criticism for papers in
Munich when he heard the first
Moog synthesiser in Germany being played
reissue by one of his near neighbours, composer
OF THe Eberhard schoener. he was sufficiently
MONTH intrigued to buy one of his own despite the
forbidding 800,000DM price tag. Fricke’s
8/10 collaborator Frank Fiedler told Uncut that the
two of them spent several months testing out the
new machine before liberty invited them to record
as popol Vuh, their name taken from the Guatemalan
holy book, which the pair had bonded over.
Fricke’s classical piano training is little in evidence
on Affenstunde (tr: “ape lesson”), a series of noodling
sound collages, most of which sound like spaceship
distress calls under heavy bongo fire. Fricke conceived
the side-long title track as a 2001: A Space Odyssey-style
representation of the moment apes became human;
throbbing through a Moog-ish approximation of
bagpipe sex followed by an
intense barrage of percussion
and martian shrieks.
For Fricke, it was a false start:
naive, unsophisticated and
liable to be used as cosmic
wallpaper. “There’s no doubt
that my music has delighted
a lot of people who were into
drugs, or smoking, or taking
trips or whatever,” he would
say. “That was part of our
musical culture in those days.”
1972 follow-up In Den
Gärten Pharaos (annoyingly,

38 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019

 stretching for
something higher:
(l–r) djong yun,
florian fricke and
daniel fichelscher

jUNe 2019 • UNCUT • 39

 ARChIVE

not included in this set) was much less Florian

trippy, the daunting “Vuh” perhaps
Fricke’s “eureka” moment. The sound of
a thousand tiny demons dropping cutlery
in hell, it is a vaguely curated cacophony
based around one terrifying chord struck
on a medieval church organ, proving
that conventional instruments could
produce something every bit as awe-
inspiring as futuristic ones. The Moog was
mothballed soon afterwards – and sold to
Klaus Schulze in 1975 – as Fricke sought
a carbon-based music to express the
wonder of his free-flowing faith.
From the opener “Ah!”, the third
Popol Vuh album, Hosianna Mantra,
is a markedly different beast, Fricke’s
impressionistic piano meshing with
the seagull caws of Conny Veit’s guitar
and Robert Eliscu’s yearning oboe as
they stretch for a beauty beyond words.
However, it is Djong Yun’s voice on
“Kyrie” and the title track that lifts the LP
skyward. Brought to Fricke’s attention
after he had sounded out “Cinderella
Rockefeller” hitmaker Esther Ofarim for
the job, the Korean singer keens snatches
of the Bible at a mile-high pitch, her
inscrutable space whisper encapsulating
the prelapsarian purity Fricke aspired to.
However, if it seems abstract on paper,
Hosianna Mantra – like much of Popol
Vuh’s mature work – is profoundly
unthreatening; it has something of the
serene weightlessness of Neu!, but it
meanders into Celtic folksiness just as
happily, “Abscheid” a notable mix of
jasmine-scented raga and Mark Knopfler’s
“Local Hero”. As much as Popol Vuh get
lumped in with countrymen like Can or
Faust, most of their records better echo
the vanilla Euro-rock of Vangelis or the
rainbow dome musick
of Steve Hillage.
The personnel
fluctuated after
Hosianna Mantra
– Amon Düül II
Fricke: on
a mission
to “make
music for
the human
being, for
his heart
and soul”
SLEEVE NOTES
Disc One: Affenstunde
1 Ich Mache Einen
Spiegel (Dream
Part 4)
2 Ich Mache Einen
Spiegel (Dream
Part 5)
3 Ich Mache Einen
Spiegel (Dream
Part 49)
4 Affenstunde
5 Train Through Time
(bonus track)
alumnus Daniel Fichelscher, notably, unsettling as the Clockwork Orange score.
replacing Veit on guitar – but Fricke’s Fricke doubled down on the doom for Disc Two: Hosianna
languid, ruminative sound remained 1978’s Nosferatu, theme tune “Brüder Des Mantra
consistent. There are flashes of The Schattens – Söhne Des Lichts” a two- 1 Ah!
2 Kyrie
Doors (“King Minos”) and a bit of Bert chord Gregorian monstrosity every bit as
3 Hosianna Mantra
Jansch (“Morgengruss”) on Einsjäger & fearsome as the vampire in Herzog’s film. 4 Abschied
Siebenjäger – the fifth Popol Vuh album The remainder of the music is relatively 5 Segnung
– but concessions to modern rock are sedate, Popol Vuh weaving sitar and 6 Andacht Pt 1
cosmetic. Fricke is still stretching for tamboura into the exotic fug, but this new 7 Nicht Hoch Im Himmel
something higher, crescendo notably double-length version also includes music 8 Andacht Pt 2
chasing crescendo on the side-long title from the “other” Nosferatu album – AKA 9 Maria (Ave Maria)
(bonus track)
track: a happy-clappy approximation of On The Way To A Little Way – some of which
Television’s “Marquee Moon”. was cannibalised from Moog-era PV tapes. Disc Three: einsjäger
However, Popol Vuh’s path to musical Popol Vuh’s records drifted further & Siebenjäger
enlightenment would be cluttered by towards homeopathy corner as time went 1 Kleiner Krieger
Fricke’s soundtrack work. His unearthly on. Tellingly, when Kate Bush contacted 2 King Minos
choral pieces for Herzog’s 1972 study in Fricke seeking to repurpose a bit of 3 Morgengruß
delusion, Aguirre, Wrath Of God, made Nosferatu for 1985’s The Hounds Of Love, 4 Würfelspiel
5 Gutes Land
it to record three years after they were he had no idea who she was, having cut
6 Einsjäger &
recorded, jarring somewhat against the himself off from outside musical sources Siebenjäger
blithe spirit of his more recent output. A for fear of sullying the purity of his vision. 7 King Minos II
16th-century prefiguring of Apocalypse Such chinks in his celestial armour emerge (bonus track)
Now, the film tracks a demented Klaus on this collection. Those two years when 8 Wo Bist Du?
Kinski as he leads a band of conquistadors he made “Vuh”, the Aguirre soundscapes (bonus track)
on a doomed mission to find El Dorado. and Hosianna Mantra provided enough
Disc Four: Aguirre
Unable to afford the giant choirs he inspiration to last him a lifetime. From 1 Aguirre I
wanted, Fricke used a “choir-organ” to then on, he believed in what flowed from 2 Morgengruß II
create the walls of vocal noise that give within. New age babble, maybe, but there’s 3 Aguirre II
“Aguirre I” and “Aguirre II” their eerie something divine in here too. 4 Agnus Dei
force. The machinery was sophisticated extras: 6/10. “Train Through Time” was 5 Vergegenwärtigung
for its time, but the sound is subtly but the deranged space polka stuck to the end 6 Aguirre III
(bonus track)
profoundly inhuman, Fricke’s daunting of Affenstunde, while the most exciting of
melodies – shot through with splashes of the other extras is “Ave Maria”: the flipside Disc Five: nosferatu I
Mellotron and pan pipes – are every bit as of Djong Yun’s expensive 1972 solo single. 1 Brüder Des
Schattens
2 Höre, Der Du Wagst
how to buy... 3 Das Schloss
Des Irrtums

voulez vuh?
More “floaty” records from Germany
4 Die Umkehr
5 Mantra I
6 Morning Sun

Disc Six: nosferatu II

TAnGeRIne CLuSTeR KRAFTWeRK 1 Venus Principle
DReAM Cluster II Ralf And Florian 2 Mantra II
3 Die Nacht
Zeit BRAIn, 1972 VeRTIGO, 1973
Der Himmel
OHR, 1972 Hans-Joachim Florian Fricke
4 Der Ruf Der
Florian Fricke brought Roedelius and Dieter abandoned electronic
Rohrflöte
his mighty Moog to Moebius started off music because he felt
5 To A Little Way
guest on “Birth Of Liquid Plejades” – making an unforgiving avant-garde it lacked human warmth; Kraftwerk 6 Through Pains
the opening sprawl on Tangerine racket as Kluster, but slowly lightened forged on and hit a notable soft spot To Heaven
Dream’s fourth album. Edgar Froese’s up, Cluster II marking the waning of on their third album. Flute salads 7 On The Way
gargantuan gas-giant double LP is their dark ages. “Im Süden” and “Live In “Tongebirge” and “Kristallo” weave 8 Zwiesprache
an austere evocation of a cold, Der Fabrik” are spooky but twinkly synthetic and natural fibres together Der Rohrflöte
infinite universe; embrace your utter electropop winks from beneath the in a way Popol Vuh never quite dared.
insignificance and dive in. 8/10 sturm und drang. 8/10 9/10

40 • unCuT • june 2019


Q&A
Florian Fricke’s former
collaborator Frank
Fiedler talks to Uncut
W
here and when did you
meet Florian Fricke?
In 1969. I came to Munich
from the Film Academy in Berlin to
make a movie about this Italian director,
Pier Paolo Pasolini, together with a
girlfriend; she had the connection to
Florian. We met in her apartment and
we talked, for instance, about the Popol
Vuh book, which we had both read. He
had just bought this Moog III synthesiser
the month before – a big machine, four
big black boxes, with oscillators and
filter banks inside which you could fix
together with cables. I had an interest
in electronic music from listening to
composers like Pierre Henry, so we
had a look at it together. He needed
somebody who had a little more
technical know-how than him. He was
a very good composer and musician but
not so good with technical stuff.
How did you learn to use the
Moog III?
There was no instruction manual.
Robert Moog himself came to Munich
in person and gave a demonstration
of how to use it. The rest was trial and
error. We had two Revox tape machines
which we used to record what came out
of the machine and the result was the
first LP – Affenstunde. There was a lot
of experimentation, then we went to a
studio where they had multitrack and
dubbed on one track after the other and
put all the structure into it.
What exactly do you do on
the record?
Well, it’s a little complicated. We used
to work together, stood in
front of this machine; Florian
played the keyboard and I
did the filtering. There was
no fixed border as to who
did what. It’s a great record
because it was so far out
compared to everything else.
Timeless, I think. Florian’s
Purple days: Frank wife Bettina is listed as the producer –
Fiedler (left) with she was the muse.
Florian Fricke in
1969 and (below)
a Moog IIIc synth,
which they used to
It is amazing that it was put out
create the first by a major label, Liberty.
Popol Vuh album At the time, it was much easier to find
a label. Today it’s much more difficult
– it’s a much more closed-minded
society. After the hippie-times, before
commercial interests took over, there
was a big opening for everything – in
the film business too. You went to a TV
station with an idea and they gave you
30,000 Deutschmarks, and you could
make a documentary.
What sort of music were Popol
Vuh listening to at the time?
We heard a lot of the usual mainstream
rock – The Doors, Beatles, Stones,
everything – and we also had one foot in
the classical world. I don’t think anyone
was making the same kind of music as
us. Bands like Amon Düül were much
more rock oriented. What we did was
more experimental and dreamlike.
“Robert Moog came to
Munich in person and
gave a demonstration
of how to use it”
FRAnK FIeDLeR
Aguirre has this crazy choir
organ sound on it; did you ever
see that machine?
Unfortunately, we never took a photo –
today it would look crazy. It was 60 or 80
tape loops with a keyboard; two
big plywood boxes with all
this machinery in it, and
was very noisy when it
as running because of
electric motors. We had
use speakers so you
ould hear the music
ver the noise.
ARChIVE
The soundtracks are famous;
did Florian make them in the
same way as his other records?
His first intention wasn’t to make music
for films, but then Werner Herzog came
in and used what Florian had already
recorded as film music. He sometimes
made music to order, but Florian always
had ideas he wanted to record and was
constantly searching for people to give
him money to go into the studio. You
couldn’t have a studio at home like you
do today; you had to go to very expensive
professional studios.
Florian lost interest in electronic
music in the early 1970s – did he
explain why?
After those first two Moog records,
he went over to natural instruments.
Hosianna Mantra was the first record like
that. He was a pioneer with the Moog,
but he got tired of it; it was hard to soften
this hard electronic sound down into
something more human. You could make
such extreme sounds that it was painful.
We came back to the machines and
worked together later in the ’90s when
they were a bit softer, more human. The
first two albums, Affenstunde and In Den
Gärten Pharaos, were from outer space.
Was Florian always a
spiritual person?
He was interested in lots of things; he
studied Mexican myths, the Popol Vuh,
Buddhism, the early Bible (the Martin
Buber translation from Hebrew), Tibetan
and African music. He had a very special
mind and a magnetic personality;
sometimes you would see him and
people would be clustered around him,
like a corona. He was a very talented
musician, too. Piano was his instrument.
He was classically trained and won
prizes in his youth. Even the songs that
ended up being played on guitars would
have started out with his piano.
You produced Djong Yun’s solo
single; what was she like?
Her father was a very famous composer
in South Korea. There was a period when
I was doing movies and was traveling
around the world doing other stuff.
When I came back she was suddenly
there. Florian was always looking
for special female voices. He wanted
someone who could realise his vision.
She had a soprano voice in the classical
style but with a little rough undertone in
it. He liked that very much.
What are your favourite Popol
Vuh records?
I really like Seligpreisung, the one where
Florian sings. They are really well-
composed songs and very inspiring. My
favourite one is Hosianna Mantra – for
my opinion the composition on that is
one of the biggest things that has ever
been done in modern music.
june 2019 • unCuT • 41
 ARCHIVE

persuasive vocal tone arguably made “Send In the Clowns”, although her

jUdY COlliNS the material she took on more palatable

to the masses.
that’s not to suggest Elektra was
work throughout the previous decade
was resolutely in the folk firmament.
Collins began singing as a teenager
The elektra Albums entirely overrun by inaccessible in Colorado to support her infant
Volume 1 (1961-68) edSel
mavericks touting more challenging beat
poetry sensibilities, but a comparatively
son, eventually making her way to
Greenwich Village via stints on the folk
7/10 uncomplicated singer like Collins was circuits of Boston and Philadelphia.
always going to Once settled in New York she was
A young folkie evolves into be an easier sell wooed by Columbia Records’ venerable
a versatile interpreter of ’60s to mainstream A&R guru John Hammond, but instead

I
song. By Terry Staunton audiences. accepted a deal with Holzman, who
Her biggest was on the lookout for a female star to
t wasn’t until the seventh commercial emulate Joan Baez’s burgeoning word-
Dezo Hoffman/ReX/SHutteRStock

album in this eight-disc set successes came of-mouth buzz at rival label Vanguard.
that Judy Collins cut her teeth in the 1970s, Her 1961 debut, A Maid Of Constant
as a writer, her previous six courtesy of Sorrow, relied heavily on traditional
releases training a spotlight the hymnal Celtic mores, with a smidgen of protest
on her remarkable talent “Amazing Grace” sneaking in the back door on Ewan
for interpreting the songs of and perhaps the MacColl’s ode to wrongful conviction
others. An integral player in the rise of definitive reading “tim Evans”. Golden Apples Of The
Jac Holzman’s soon-to-be-iconic label of Stephen Sun followed a similar blueprint,
Elektra, her crystal-clear diction and Sondheim’s albeit with Collins in possession of

42 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019


More than just
MOR: judy
Collins on
stage in 1965
a more confident, assured voice,
but it was Judy Collins 3 that
cemented her reputation with its
eloquent reupholstering of Dylan
(“Farewell”, “Masters Of War”),
Pete Seeger (“turn! turn! turn!”)
and Woody Guthrie (“Deportee”),
all arranged by Roger McGuinn.
the album was especially popular
on college campuses, the onus
on more urban, hipper writers
proving irresistible to listeners less
enamoured by the traditionalism of
her previous outings.
She followed it in 1964 with a live release,
The Judy Collins Concert, but rather than
cherry-pick the best-loved material from
earlier sets it was a savvy collection designed
to build career momentum. Recorded at
New York town Hall, it also served as a
showcase for the Village’s most talked-about
tunesmiths; Dylan was represented again,
alongside Fred Neil, Shel Silverstein and
three songs apiece penned by tom Paxton
and Billy Edd Wheeler.
By now, securing a song on a Collins album
was seen as a badge of distinction, and
returning to the studio for Fifth Album she
brought her own inimitable spin on Gordon
Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” and equally
emotive material by Phil Ochs, Eric Andersen
and Richard Fariña, while also delving into
the Dylan catalogue again, twice. In tandem
with ...Concert, it was a brace of records
that made her folk’s most acceptable and
dependable name, but something more
adventurous was on the horizon.
In My Life (1966) was, to a degree, a radical
departure, owing to its dramatic orchestral
arrangements by noted academic Joshua
Rifkin. Naming it after its cover of a Lennon
& McCartney high-water mark didn’t hamper
its chances, nor did the smart selection of
songs by Leonard Cohen (“Suzanne”), Randy
Newman (“I think It’s Going to Rain today”),
Donovan (“Sunny Goodge Street”) and,
further afield, compositions from the likes of
Jacques Brel and Kurt Weill. Risky on paper,
perhaps, it has proved to be one of the most
enduring albums of her career, and the first to
reach sales of half a million.
Collins brought self-penned material to
market for the first time on Wildflowers, and
it’s neither harsh nor dismissive to suggest
her efforts weren’t as pleasing as her skilful
adaptations of other people’s songs. “Since
You Asked” possesses a naive, simplistic
charm, but the record is most distinguished
by her smash-hit cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both
Sides Now” and the articulate heartbreak of
Cohen’s “Hey, that’s No Way to Say Goodbye”.
Usual suspects Cohen and Dylan
SLEEVE NOTES feature again on Who Knows Where
The Time Goes?, graced by a title
ALBUMS track that never veers far from
INCLUDED
the Sandy Denny original (a rare
a maid of instance of Collins reluctant to
constant Sorrow
further embroider the fabric of what
(1961)
went before) and more pop-chart
Golden apples of success with Ian tyson’s “Someday
the Sun (1962) Soon”. the album is at its most
Judy collins 3 introspective on its opener, Rolf
(1963) Kempf’s “Hello, Hooray”, which,
the Judy collins a few years down the line, would
concert (1964) provide Alice Cooper with a
monster hit single.
fifth album
(1965)
When Holzman left Elektra in
1973, Collins opted not to follow her
In my Life (1966) mentor out of the door but to stay
Wildflowers within the family that had nurtured
(1967) her talent and helped it blossom.
While rarely given the firebrand
Who knows
Where the time cachet enjoyed by contemporaries
Goes (1968) Baez or Buffy Sainte-Marie, and all
too often lazily branded a sweet-
voiced chanteuse bordering on MOR,
Collins was – and is – an undeniably
innovative performer.
the calibre of the songs on these eight
albums are cast-iron evidence of a wise head
making informed choices; her willingness
and hunger to stretch the parameters of
not only those songs but her own vocal
style demands she be taken as seriously as
any ’60s figure whose body of work came
overwhelmingly from their own pens.
ARCHIVE
AtoZ
A CeRTAiN RATiO ACR: Box MUTe
8/10
Legendary Factory funk punks collect
B-sides and rarities
A companion to the ACR: Set
compilation of 2018, ACR: Box
compiles tracks missing from
the previous reissue and adds
a host of lost and forgotten
songs, including singles,
demos and previously unissued material.
the set opens with the band’s first 7-inch
for Factory, “All Night Party” b/w “the thin
Boys”, two gothic slow burners previewing the
danceable angst to come. A radio edit of club
banger “Shack Up” is overly sheeny compared
to the original, but hints at the band’s ambition.
It’s a feeling not terribly dissimilar from Joy
Division’s evolution to New Order, and is no
surprise given that Bernard Sumner and
Johnny Marr are featured on the track. Perhaps
most remarkable among the 54 songs collected
here, though, are two covers of talking Heads’
“Houses In Motion”, which were thought to be
lost. the demos were meant for a session the
band did with Grace Jones, at a time in 1980
when she was fascinated by the Manc scene
and toying with the idea of hiring the group as
her backing band. the first version features
bassist-singer Jez Kerr’s vocal interpretation of
what Jones might have done had she recorded
the track (which she didn’t), and is an instant
classic among the group’s sprawling oeuvre.
Newcomers may find themselves overwhelmed
by the many dots to connect in this archival
deep dive, but it’s an embarrassment of riches
for fans. extras: None. ERIN OSMON
SiMON BONNeY
Past, Present, Future MUTe
7/10
Choice cold cuts plus unreleased tracks
through his long captaincy
of Crime + the City Solution,
Bonney dwelt on the
saturnine and arty side of
post-punk. But after moving
to the US in the early ’90s
he released two albums of contemplative,
understatedly intense country music, favouring
organ and piano, violin and lap-steel guitar.
this comp pulls together three tracks from
1992’s Forever and three from Everyman (1994),
all moodily representative. Standouts are
“there Can Only Be One” (from Forever), with
its soft organ swells and spaghetti-western
shimmer, and the unedited (11-minute)
“Everyman”, where Bonney finds himself
“in the Ozarks, carving Sunday pork with a
knife” and hankering after a simpler life, with
violin and banjo accompaniment and a train
rattling by in the distance. the main draw of
this collection, though, is material from his
unreleased Eyes Of Blue, recorded in Detroit in
1996-98 with Jim White on drums and dusted
off here because as Bonney sees it, “the world
seems like it’s in the right place for my kind of
observational music.” A cover of Scott Walker’s
“Duchess” intrigues, but the highlight is the
title track, where hammered guitars and piano
build to an anguished tumult.
extras: None. SHARON O’CONNELL
jUNe 2019 • UNCUT • 43
 must have suited its glacial pace, the slowly
mutating, elegiac brass fanfares frequently
stalled by the rumble of deep drones.
That record caught the ear of 4AD,
SLEEVE NOTES who signed on for Jóhannsson’s next
ALBUMS two studio albums, 2006’s IBM 1401,
INCLUDED
A User’s Manual and 2008’s
Virðulegu Fordlandia. Neither’s included
Forsetar (2004)
here, but both, with their sweeping,
Dís (2004) affecting orchestral arrangements
And In The decorated by sparkling, synthetic
Endless Pause flourishes, helped raise his profile,
There Came The cementing his dominant musical
Sound Of Bees approach, which now embraced the
(2009) expressively cinematic while wearing
The Miners’ its heart proudly on its sleeve.
Hymns (2011) It thus made sense that, as an avid
Copenhagen fan of film and literature, Jóhannsson’s
Dreams (2012) next collection, 2009’s undersung And
In the Endless Pause There Came the
Free The Mind
(2012)
Sound of Bees, would develop from
work on Marc Craste’s animated short,
White Black Boy Varmints. It finds him creeping gently
(2012, previously
between “Siren Song”’s near-silence
unreleased)
and the redemptive sounds of the
unashamedly moving “Rainwater”,
whose unhurried melody is borne aloft
by strings atop a vista of shimmering effects, and
from “Escape”’s solemn tension to the splendour

jÓHaNN jÓHaNNSSoN of “City Building”, whose soprano voices and

slowly descending string patterns offer further
reminders of his debt to Arvo Pärt.
Retrospective i Further soundtracks followed. 2011’s The
Miners’ Hymns, written for multimedia artist Bill
DeUTSCHe GRaMMoPHoN
Morrison’s 52-minute documentary, is a bold
8/10 attempt to stress the dignity of County Durham’s
coalfield communities. Nodding inevitably to
Early arrival: how the late Icelandic composer paved his way to colliery bands, it reflects the workers’ arduous
Hollywood acclaim. By Wyndham Wallace labour in “An Injury To One Is The Concern
Of All”’s grim, industrial rumbles, and their
By the time Jóhann metal, trip-hop and even funk bands, as well as profession’s demise in “The Cause Of Labour Is
Jóhannsson died, aged 48, in the keyboard-driven Apparat Organ Quartet, The Hope Of The World”’s climactic, stately brass
February 2018, he’d become and continued to co-run the multi-disciplinary laments. 2012’s Copenhagen Dreams, meanwhile
one of his generation’s most Kitchen Motors collective. – composed for Danish director Max Kestner’s
prolific, lauded soundtrack Consequently, he was still finding his voice 2010 documentary – displays a lighter touch with
composers. A frequent when, in 2004, he unveiled his first soundtrack, multiple graceful, heart-tugging instrumentals.
collaborator with French- for Silja Hauksdóttir’s Dís. Admittedly, “The Jewish Cemetery”’s and “There’s No Harm
Canadian director Denis “Ruslpóstur”’s and “Gúmmískór”’s tranquility Done”’s twilit radiance again predicts Nils Frahm,
Villeneuve – his work for pre-empts Nils Frahm’s imminent solo piano this time his increasingly electronic tendencies,
2015’s Sicario was nominated for an Oscar, as was albums, and two versions of “Flugeldar” – whose while “He Says”’ poignant melody could almost
his soundtrack for James Marsh’s The Theory Of central motif of four broken chords echoes themes be Francis Lai’s.
Everything 12 months earlier – he’d successfully on Max Richter’s The Blue Notebooks, issued the The same year, Free The Mind allowed
blurred the lines between film scores and the same year – likewise provide explicit indications Jóhannsson to explore, with contributions from
so-called New Classical movement, in which he of where he’d head. But “10 Rokkstig” is merely his friend Dustin O’Halloran, more conventional
was also considered a leading light. a guitar-led instrumental pointing back towards filmic realms, the tone of the propulsive title track
Jóhannsson, however, was always more youthful endeavours, and “Bangkok and buoyant “Neurons” far more affirmative.
distinguished by his versatility. During his Norðursins” and “Ljósrit” recall Air’s tasteful late- Another 2012 documentary soundtrack, White
final years, he veered from the sentimental ’90s offerings. The title track, furthermore, is a Black Boy – available here for the first time –
(The Theory of Everything) to the satanic (Panos breezy pop song, with local rising star Ragnheiður indulged more minimalist inclinations: with its
Cosmatos’ Mandy, which saw him collaborate Gröndal delivering its sweet melody. volume rarely rising above “Exam Results”’ quiet
with Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley), while 2016’s Dís, therefore, isn’t the principal reason for rattle, it’s instead more reminiscent of Loscil’s
studio album, Orphée, adopted a sometimes investing in this set; much better, however, atmospheric work for the Kranky label.
more somnolent approach. Jóhannsson, is his startling second studio album, Virðulegu Of course, Jóhannsson’s fondness for electronic
JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON PRIVATE ARCHIVE

moreover, was adaptable from the start, as this Forsetar, released a few months earlier. This embellishments to string- or piano-led arpeggios
selection of seven albums from his solo career’s joins the dots between Arvo Pärt’s late-1970s are now overly familiar, thanks both to his more
first decade underlines. tintinnabuli canon and Henryk Gorécki’s commercially successful later work and those,
Given his background, perhaps this wasn’t Symphony No 3, recently revisited by Portishead’s like fellow Icelander Ólafur Arnalds, who’ve
surprising. By the time he released his solo debut Beth Gibbons and a staple of the modern adopted a similar style. But his abiding eagerness
(sadly missing here), 2002’s Englabörn – on which, classical canon since the London Sinfonietta’s to investigate new methods, illustrated by the
amid pop music’s constructs, he utilised classical million-selling 1992 rendition. That its breadth of the material collated on Retrospective
instrumentation and arrangements – Jóhannsson four movements were first performed to an I, serves as a touching, often stirring, reminder of
had been part of his native Iceland’s music scene accompaniment of slowly rising black balloons in his loss. As The Miners’ Hymns’ opening track has
for well over a decade. He’d played in indie rock, Reykjavík’s landmark church, Hallgrímskirkja, it, “They Being Dead yet Speaketh”.

44 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019


MiKe CooPeR
oh Really!?/Do i Know you?/
Trout Steel/Places i Know/
Machine Gun Co BGo
9/10
Early inroads: British slide/
steel guitar maestro’s first five
masterworks resurrected
Undeservedly
below rock’n’roll’s
radar for, well, his
entire dazzling
50-year career,
blues-interpreter-
cum-avantgardist Cooper began as
Blind Boy Fuller’s doppelganger,
conjuring the Mississippi Delta with
a baker’s dozen of spellbinding
slide-guitar gems. By album two,
his talents and ambitions swelled.
Cooper’s songwriting, expanding into
philosophy and mysticism, coalesces
under mournful, expressionistic
vocals, modal guitars and jazz bassist
Harry Miller’s fine touches. Evidently,
Do I Know You? was only a harbinger
of Cooper’s genre-melting tours de
force to come. With crisp production,
splashes of sax, flute and violin enter
the fray on 1970’s Trout Steel, thick
meditations wandering from country
to soul, R&B to free jazz. Soulful yet
quite unconventional ballads enter
the palette on Places I Know, while
the five-track The Machine Gun Co
finds Cooper reaching an unabashed
pinnacle: “The Singing Tree”, for
instance, stretches folk balladry into
a piano-laden masterpiece; “So Glad”
somehow melds popsters à la The
Rascals with Albert Ayler.
extras: 8/10. Extensive photos/
historical clips/liner notes by John
O’Regan; four non-album tracks,
including the gorgeous country-gone-
blues “Time In Hand”. LukE Torn
THe fall
live at The Witch Trials/
Dragnet (reissues, both 1979)
CHeRRy ReD
9/10, 8/10
First two long-players from
Mark E Smith and friends
MIKE COOPER
Selected “ambient exotica” works
RayoN HUla
CaBiN, 2004
Cooper’s concept
of “expanded
exotica”gets
a thorough
working-over here: samples from
exotica pioneer Arthur Lyman
get dropped into a woozy,
waterlogged soundscape of
swaying lap steel, looping glitch
electronica, and swirling birdsong.
Key to Rayon Hula’s power is the
gentle alienation that sits at its
core, its ability to render the ersatz
newly profound. 8/10
When a maverick
artist passes on, a
great disservice is
often done to their
catalogue – albums
left to slide out of print,
or worse still, subjected to a variety of
humiliating repackage jobs. Cherry
Red’s newly inaugurated Fall Sound
Archive hopefully means the life’s work
of Mark E Smith will receive the respect
it deserves. These 40th-anniversary
reissues of The Fall’s first two albums,
remastered by long-time engineer
Andy Pearce, are available as limited
coloured vinyl, or as expanded 3CD
clamshell boxsets. Live At The Witch
Trials remains a surly joy, the likes of
“Rebellious Jukebox” and “Industrial
Estate” inaugurating the band’s rock-
on-a-shoestring style, with Smith’s
obstreperous harangue already present
and correct. The bonus discs are
keepers too, collecting singles “Bingo
Master’s Break-Out!” and “It’s The
New Thing”, as well as the group’s first
Peel session and a vigorous, if wobbly,
recording of a 1978 live performance.
Just eight months separated …Witch
Trials and Dragnet, but much had
changed – founding guitarist Martin
Bramah was out, new recruits Marc
Riley and Craig Scanlon were in –
inaugurating a newly dark and dense
sound, drawing from rockabilly and
krautrock. CDs 2 and 3 collect 1979 live
shows from Retford and Los Angeles.
extras: 7/10. CDs come with sleeve
notes; Dragnet vinyl packaged with
“Rowche Rumble” seven-inch.
LouIS PATTISon
aReTHa fRaNKliN
amazing Grace: The
Complete Recordings
RHiNo
7/10
Classic gospel set reissued as
deluxe four-LP package
The most amazing
thing about Amazing
Grace is not that the
original 13-track LP
released in 1972 was
the biggest-selling
how to buy...
GiaCiNTo
HiPSHoT, 2005
One of Cooper’s
more austere
works, Giacinto is
a drone-based
tribute to the singular Italian
composer Giacinto Scelsi. Arto
Lindsay once described Scelsi’s
compositions as having the quality
of “holding [an instrument] up to
the light… [and] checking it out
from all angles” – here, Cooper
does something similar with his
trusty National resophonic guitar.
It’s spellbinding. 8/10
gospel album of all time but that it
outsold all of Franklin’s classic R&B
albums. A 27-track, two-disc set,
featuring the full recording of her
legendary concerts at LA’s New Temple
Missionary Baptist Church, eventually
appeared in 1999 and that expanded
reissue is now released on vinyl for the
first time. The endless introductions
– it’s eight minutes before we get to
hear her – are tedium incarnate. But
once Aretha starts raising her voice to
the Lord, the spine-tingling effect is as
carnal as it is righteous. Even “you’ll
Never Walk Alone” is transformed
into a sanctified call-and-response
miracle, while her supernatural
10-second ululation on “Precious
Memories” (it comes at 3:24 if you want
to check it out) could turn any sinner
into an ardent disciple. Best of all are
a transcendent take on “Mary Don’t
you Weep” and an ecstatic “Precious
Lord Take My Hand”/“you’ve Got A
Friend”. However, never has a concert
set been so in need of judicious
editing. The preachers and peripherals
are intended to create an authentic
“church” atmosphere. In truth, they
get in the way.
extras: None. nIGEL WILLIAMSon
GeNeRaTioN X
Generation X (reissue, 1978)
CHRySaliS
6/10
Punk attitude with slick production
RafT
RooM40, 2017
Cooper’s recent
album Raft,
which hymns the
movements of
solo travellers on the water, is an
unexpectedly lush treat, with his
trademark lap steel set adrift on
a sea of fuzz and stutter; the
electronic disruptions here, at
times, come close to hardline
computer music. He’s the master
of the “post-everything” genre –
maybe its only inhabitant.
8/10
ARChIVE
Gen X: close
ear to the
mainstream
Malcolm McLaren
may have been hell-
bent on extracting
“filthy lucre” from
punk via the Sex
Pistols, but there was
always something equally knowing,
and perhaps cynical, about Generation
X. The first single from this debut
album, “Ready Steady Go”, made direct
reference to the pop sounds of the
previous decade’s seminal TV show
(following on from the Who-baiting
of earlier 45 “your Generation”), and
it could be argued that bassist and de
facto leader Tony James was testing the
manipulative waters he’d investigate
with Sigue Sigue Sputnik a few years
later. As a body of work, it’s a record
that wants to have its punk cake and
eat it, producer Martin Rushent and
engineer Alan Winstanley keeping
a close ear to the mainstream rather
than adopting a DIy ethic of ripping up
blueprints. There are early signs of Billy
Idol’s future pantomime villainy on the
sneer of “Kiss Me Deadly” and the mock
aggression of “youth youth youth”,
protest and pose in equal measure.
extras: 6/10. Second disc comprising
non-album A- and B-sides including
breakthrough hit “your Generation”,
plus 11 previously unheard outtakes
and rough mixes. Most notably, John
Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth” is
refashioned as a spiky, fast-paced
punk anthem.
TErrY STAunTon
Mike Cooper:
master of
“post-
everything”
jUNe 2019 • UNCUT • 45
 ARCHIVE

rediscovered Love UNLimiTed

orChesTra
The 20th Century records
Uncovering the underrated and overlooked albums (1973-1979) merCUry
7/10
Opulent R&B from Barry White’s
backing orchestra
Barry White was a producer
and songwriter for 20th
Century Records when he
assembled a 40-member
orchestra in the early ’70s
to accompany a female
vocal group called Love Unlimited. When he
launched his own solo career, he hired the
group to play on massive hits like “Can’t Get
Enough Of Your Love, Babe” and even back
him on tour. The Love Unlimited Orchestra,
as they became known, pioneered an opulent
brand of soul music that mixed crushed-
velvet strings and fluttering woodwinds with
wakkachikka guitars and a supremely tight
R&B rhythm section. In fact, they briefly
eclipsed their famous maestro in 1974, when
“Love’s Theme” hit No 1 in the US and set
the stage for the disco takeover of the dance
clubs and pop charts. This awkwardly titled
boxset starts strong with Rhapsody In White
and White Gold, both featuring seductive

veNom narration by White and both ingenious

in their musical luxuriance. However,
the orchestra ended the 1970s with the
in Nomine satanas gimmicky Super Movie Themes: Just A Little
BmG Bit Different, which applies their extravagant
sound to popular songs from Superman,
8/10 Shaft, and – most embarrassingly – Grease.
It’s an ignominious end to a decade the Love
Accidental inventors: the English trio who built Unlimited Orchestra helped to define.
extreme metal, boxed extras: None. STEPHEN DEUSNER

FOR Venom, the metal trio Alongside Motörhead, Venom were instrumental oh sees
from Newcastle upon Tyne who in brokering a relationship between punk and The Cool death of island raiders
somehow managed to name an metal, not least thanks to “limitations” when it CasTLe FaCe

entire metal sub-genre off the
back of some smart imagery,
limitations were always the
way forward. Listening to In Nomine Satanas
– a boxset consisting of their first four albums,
Welcome To Hell (1981), Black Metal (1982), At War
With Satan (1984) and Possessed (1985), the 1986
live set Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and a double-
album of early rehearsals and demos – you get
the sense of a group not so much chafing against
restrictions as understanding exactly how to
intensify metal’s most basic building blocks, and
having one hell of a blast doing it.
Their original lineup of Cronos (Conrad Lant),
Mantas (Jeffrey Dunn) and Abbadon (Anthony
Bray) met through the local metal scene, playing
in groups like Oberon, Guillotine and Dwarfstar,
and while they formed during the first flush of
the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, the group
had little real interest in what that entailed –
Mantas’s former group members in Oberon
“wanted to sort of put a bit of makeup on and
wear green spandex and things”, Cronos
told Frank Stöver in 1995, “and they needed
somebody a bit more hardcore”.
If NWOBHM often gave in
to the baroque flourishes
of metal, Venom were
reductionists at heart,
continually paring the
music back to its core.
You can hear that
drive in Welcome
To Hell, along with
an embrace of
the more streamlined,
unadorned side of punk.
came to the nuts and bolts of actually playing an
instrument. (If punk was DIY out of ideological
pride, Venom were simply about rudiments.) If
anything, this makes Venom’s first few albums
even more powerful – the way the songs almost
buckle under their own weight makes listening
thrilling. Besides, it’s a lie to argue, as some do,
that Venom were borderline incompetent – they
simply had other, more important concerns.
The legend of Venom, surely, ultimately rests
around Black Metal – the album, the Satanic
imagery they played with, and the subgenre
they unintentionally named. If they share
anything, it’s roughness of production, and the
genius of Black Metal is its thick slurry of sound;
there’s a suffocating tenor to the LP, and the
songs themselves – “Black Metal”, “Leave Me In
Hell”, “Raise The Dead” – are unrelenting. Later
albums would play, only partly successfully,
with more ambitious structures: the 20-minute
title song from At War With Satan is
a half-decent idea, pulled off with
marginal success. Instead, the
revelation of In Nomine Satanas
is the rehearsal and demo
recordings, particularly some
1979 tapes from a church hall
rehearsal that are eye-opening and
ear-shattering in their cavernous
onslaught. That’s
where the magic
lies – the great,
inescapable
primitivism
of Venom in
excelsis.
JON DaLE
6/10
Early release from when the Oh Sees were
a freak-folk trio
Beforetheywerethe
skronky prog-garage
goblinswerecognisetoday,
OhSees went through
almost asmany musical
evolutions astheydid
names (OCS, The OhSees, The Ohsees, Thee
Oh Sees).This albumcameout in2007when
theywere (mostly) calling themselvesThe
Ohsees,anditsawJohnDwyerexperimenting
with asortof Devendra Banhart/Sufjan
Stevensblend offreakfolkandminimalism.
In this, hewas ably supported byPatrick
Mullins andjoined byBrigid Dawson,who
supplied vocals. Dwyeralso managedto
persuade TVOn The Radio’s DaveSitekand
Kyp Maloneto produce. It’s anodd-sounding,
occasionally twee affair – theplinky-plonk
“TheDumb Drums”, thewhimsical “Broken
Stems”,creepy space-folkof“Turn Offs”
– evenbeforeyou factor in thecompletely
different space thatthe bandnow occupies
in musicandthe culture. There areelements
of that future on show,notsomuch inthe
music (although thetwodrones andthe
brilliant, clanging“We Are Free”have a
recognisable Oh Seesvibe), but inthe
overallspirit of non-comformist,energetic
weirdness that’s more freak thanfolk. Fun for
fans, andDwyer promisesfurtherreissues
from theband’s back catalogue will follow.
extras: None.
PETER WaTTS

46 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019

©2019 AIRWAIR INTERNATIONAL LIMITED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

COM
 ARCHIVE
the specialist
PeTe SeeGeR
The Smithsonian Folkways Collection
SmITHSOnIAn FOLKWAyS
8/10
Music meets politics and history: folksinger archetype’s
100th-birthday gala
IT’S not easy to grasp the epic
sweep of Pete Seeger’s life and
his staggering, relentless legacy
– 75 years of singing out against
social and racial injustice,
expanding Woody Guthrie’s
worldview to anyone listening. Although he
was an exemplary and idealistic folksinger, that
was just the window dressing. He was also an
activist, archivist, historian, poet, musicologist,
teacher, supporter of countless fellow artists,
all to a fault. Herein, then, lies a seven-and-a-
half-hour voyage into the heart of his voice, his
worldview, 137 tracks (20 previously unreleased),
with a 200-page book full of photos, essays,
song-by-song notes and more.
As musician, Seeger generally stayed in the
traditionalist stable, an expert banjoist and
adept singer – though experimentation as well
as accompaniment did come and go, as in the
Weavers era and stellar collaborations with
bluesmen Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon.
As dissenter, Seeger was unwavering rather
than disillusioned by Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s
gaslighting and the blacklisting that followed.
Seeger’s work remained staunch, sweet
(sometimes), deliberative in building coalitions,
and always bent on curiosity and exploration.
His sing-song motifs – “We Shall Overcome”,
“If I Had A Hammer”, “Wimoweh” and
“Kumbaya” – deeply infiltrated the social
fabric of the mid-century and beyond.
In capturing Seeger’s range and depth,
this set surpasses the dozens of other
BRUCE DAVIDSON
anthologies in existence. Live hootenannies
with political and union rallying cries chime in
with warm children’s hymns such as “I Had A
Rooster”. Forays aplenty into world music and
48 • unCuT • june 2019
its horizons (“Guantanamera”) broke barriers.
Essential, enduring covers of songs by folk icons
like Guthrie, Joe Hill and Malvina Reynolds still
ring true. Other tracks here – like the long-lost
“The Popular Wobbly” by T-Bone Slim, and
“Black And White”, a David Arkin/Earl Robinson
composition strangely revised into a stellar pop
song by Three Dog Night, deserve examination
in the 21st century. “Waist Deep In The Big
Muddy”, timelessly capturing the essence of
soldiers’ wartime horror while grey-haired
politicians and corporations profit, is arguably
Seeger’s songwriting pinnacle. Dozens more
originals, never well known, detail the man’s
more oblique phases.
Admittedly, listeners might not often want to
set “Kumbaya” on repeat, but there’s so much
else here to explore. Perhaps the most interesting
matter sparked by this release concerns apple
farmer Les Rice’s all-but-unknown 1935 song
“Banks Of Marble”, which flashed back into
the public sphere of the Cold War. In its terse
portrayal of power grabs and the effects on the
haves and have-nots, it rang as true in 1958 as
in the ’30s. In the predatory and scandalous
world of the 21st century, one in which Seeger,
then aged 92, took part in the Occupy Wall Street
solidarity march, “Banks Of Marble” loses not
even a speck of relevance.
LukE TOrN
THe POOH STICKS
The Great White Wonder
(reissue, 1991) GLASS ReDuX
8/10
Brilliantly dumb bubblegum pop and
wannabe AM classics, via Wales
Hailing from Swansea, The
Pooh Sticks started out as
two boys inspired by the
C86 movement, recording
smart, ingratiatingly
catchy indie-pop songs in
their bedrooms. The accidental genius of
Hue Williams and Steve Gregory was the
way they took the piss, lovingly, out of their
inspirations – see early songs like “I Know
Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows
Alan McGee Quite Well” or the collector-
baiting “On Tape”. But The Great White
Wonder, which followed in 1991, was their
moment, a sideways swerve that swapped
out irony indie for bubblegum pop and
supersized radio hits. Liberal with quotes
(James Taylor, Peter Frampton, The Four
Seasons and Charles Manson get the nod,
among many others), the knowingness of the
songs didn’t obscure their pop perfection.
“Young People” is a bubblegum classic;
“Desperado” is a properly anthemic rock
tale of love on the road; “Good Times” is
a gilded ray of sunshine pop. Towering
over everything, though, is “I’m In You”,
a 14-minute odyssey replete with a soaring,
seemingly endless Neil Young-esque solo.
Like their peers Redd Kross, here The Pooh
Sticks imagined another, better world, one
where Joey Levine and Kasenetz-Katz are
every bit as important as Dylan.
extras: None. JON DALE
PROTOmARTyR
no Passion All Technique DOmInO
6/10
Widespread release for Detroit punks’
previously scarce debut
The story of Detroit – the
manufacturing city that rose
quickly and fell slowly – has
been repackaged numerous
times. While swathes of that
once-booming metropolis
remain desolate, some natives, like
Protomartyr, are committed to reflecting the
contemporary realities – without resorting to
the myopic presentation of Motor City simply
as a problematic ghost town. If the post-punk
foursome’s Relatives In Descent (2017) was
the perfect summation of how they do that –
with nuance, humanity and an urgent sonic
backdrop – then the signs were there on their
debut, until now a rare find given that fewer
than 300 copies were pressed back in 2012.
It acts like a map dotted with their regular
routes at the time. There’s an introduction
to their local bar “Jumbo’s”, and a visit to
nearby city “Ysilanti”, next to the abstract
neighbourhood humour of “Feral Cats”. In
truth, they’ve improved in all aspects on
their subsequent three albums. Most notably
in the sheer audibility of charismatic singer
Joe Casey’s mumbled/bellowed parables.
“Whatever Happened To The Saturn Boys?”
is a previously unreleased addendum, a song
about a gang run out of town. Or maybe not;
since Casey sounds like he’s yelling into a
pint glass, it’s hard to tell.
extras: 6/10. Three bonus tracks from
an early EP, and another song previously
unreleased. GrEG COChrANE

Greg
Cartwright
of Reigning
Sound
ReIGnInG SOunD
Abdication... For your Love meRGe
8/10
Welcome reissue for hard-to-find
2011 LP by Memphis soul-rocker
It’s been five years
since Greg Cartwright
graced us with a new
Reigning Sound LP
(2014’s outstanding
Shattered), but
this reissue fills some of that gaping
void. Abdication... For Your Love was
recorded in 2011 for the record label
arm of a Japanese car company – and
surely the circumstances behind this
unlikely union is a story that requires
further explanation. It received a
digital and limited physical release,
but has barely been heard since even
though it featured the production
skills of Dan Auerbach and a batch
of Cartwright’s timeless Memphis
soul-rock garage-pop songs. The
album was recorded with members of
the Jay Vons, who would later play on
Shattered, and was fleshed out with
outtakes from 2009’s Love And Curses.
As ever, Cartwright writes almost
exclusively about matters of the heart,
but finds endless subtlety on this
theme, just as he consistently finds
gorgeous new melodies to play with.
Highlights include the psych-rocker
“Lyin’ Girl”, the downbeat “Everything
I Do Is Wrong”, the blissful jangle of
“Eve”, the lustful joy of “Watching My
Baby” and the wistful “Not Far Away”.
The reissue also adds a bonus track
“What Did I Tell You”, originally a 7in
for the same car company.
extras: 5/10. Bonus track. PETEr WATTs
THe ROLLInG STOneS
Honk POLyDOR/InTeRSCOPe
7/10
It’s the third stones hits comp of the
century – so what’s the point?
Honk has 15 tracks
in common with
2002’s Forty Licks
and 18 from 2012’s
GRRR! The set’s USP
is that it focuses
exclusively (and non-chronologically)
on the Stones’ post-Decca years. If
the three-CD anthology is intended to
make a case for the allure of the band’s
post-Tattoo You recordings, which
comprise 18 of the 36 studio selections,
it succeeds for the most part, though it
eases into the task, with 11 of the first
12 tracks on Disc 1 from the 1971–81
golden decade. Disc 2 benefits from the
compilers’ decision to go beyond the
old standbys; “Saint Of Me” and “Out
Of Control”, both from 1997’s middling
Bridges To Babylon, come across with
surprising subtlety, as does the Voodoo
Lounge ballad “Out Of Tears” (1994),
while “Rain Fall Down” from 2005’s
undervalued A Bigger Bang is an
entrancing fusion of mood and groove.
The chief selling point, though, is
the third disc, which contains 10
performances from recent tours,
four of them featuring guest stars,
and here, the results are decidedly
mixed. Dave Grohl credibly mimics
Jagger on “Bitch”, and Brad Paisley
slides naturally into “Dead Flowers”,
but Florence Welch’s histrionics
overwhelm “Wild Horses” and Ed
Sheeran shouldn’t have been allowed
anywhere near “Beast Of Burden”.
extras: None. BuD sCOPPA
STeReOLAB
Transient Random noise
Bursts With Announcements/
mars Audiac Quintet
(reissues,1993,’94) WARP/DuOPHOnIC uHF DISKS
7/10, 8/10
second and third by motorik pop
groop, remastered and expanded
Today, pretty much
every band in
Christendom cites
the influence of
krautrock, but back
when Stereolab got
started, experimental German music
was still a deep cut. Of course that
wasn’t the only string to Stereolab’s
bow: French yé-yé, Farfisa drones, ’50s
exotica and Marxist philosophy all
found a place in the sleek experimental
pop of Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier’s
forward-thinking London “groop”,
a cosmopolitan counterpoint to the
nascent Britpop movement that
was just beginning to foment. These
expanded versions of Stereolab’s
second and third LPs catch them in
their first flush of experimentation.
Transient Random-Noise Bursts… is a
little fuzzier and crankier, but certainly
ambitious – see 18-minute motorik
centrepiece “Jenny Ondioline”. A
generous suite of extra tracks takes two
early versions of beloved non-album
track “French Disko” and a host of four-
track demos that foreground Sadler’s
coolly beautiful vocals. Stereolab’s
first classic record, though, came with
1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet. Here they
emerge as a glossier and more playful
ensemble, chaining deviously catchy
pop to Marxist dialectic on “Ping
Pong”, or drawing on bossa nova
rhythms on “International Coloring
Contest”, featuring marimba from
future High Llamas founder Sean
O’Hagan. Additional four-track demos
and alternate mixes complete the set.
extras: 7/10. Vinyl editions include
poster, sleeve notes and scratch card.
LOuIs PATTIsON
VARIOuS ARTISTS
nigeria 70: no Wahala:
Highlife, Afro-Funk & juju
1973-87 STRuT
7/10
Varied prime cuts from brilliant and
unknown African groups
The crate-digging
phenomenon that
sent vinyl junkies
searching for ancient
African recordings
in dusty basements
from Lagos to Addis Ababa seems to
have run its course. The flow of golden
archival releases has in recent years
slowed to a trickle: the last volume
in the revelatory Nigeria 70 series
was in 2011. Yet, if you know where
to look, it seems there are still gems
to be unearthed, and this set offers
up a dozen nuggets from the heyday
of Nigeria Afropop, all previously
unreleased outside West Africa. The
common template involves marrying
local styles such as highlife and juju to
western jazz, soul and funk influences,
but beyond that the diversity is
dazzling. If you thought Nigerian music
began and ended with the Afrobeat of
Fela Kuti, prepare to be amazed by the
juju-disco fusions of Felixson Ngasai
& The Survivals, the garage-highlife
hybrid of Etubom Rex Williams and his
band, who sound like Nigeria’s answer
to The Seeds, a throbbing nine-minute
funk jam by Rogana Ottah and his
Black Heroes International and the
Meters-style funk syncopations of Don
Bruce And The Angels.
extras: 7/10.Booklet of interviews
with original artists. NIGEL WILLIAMsON
VARIOuS ARTISTS
Pacific Breeze: japanese City
Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976-1986
LIGHT In THe ATTIC
8/10
Luxuriant Japanese grooves from
30 years ago
The term “city pop”
doesn’t refer to a genre
of music so much as
to a very particular
time and place:
namely, Japan’s major
cities in the late ’70s and well into the
’80s. The musicians lumped into that
category shared very few similarities,
aside from an interest in shiny surfaces
and breezy beats. It was more about
who consumed the music and how.
During a time of national prosperity,
fans could pop a cassette into a new
invention called the Walkman or blast
tunes from a new convertible. It was
special
offer
ARCHIVE
ComIng nExt
montH...
ichard Hawley returns
R new Further,
with his first
record in four years,
while Rickie Lee Jones is back
with Kicks. There are a bunch
of exciting new LPs that we
currently can’t reveal (sorry),
but also fine new albums from
spectral singer-songwriter gia
margaret and Memphis noise-
rockers nots. In the world of
archives, Julian Cope’s much
underrated Autogeddon gets
dusted off, Ronnie Lane is the
subject of a new boxset, Just
For A Moment: Music 1973-1997,
and Peter green’s Fleetwood
mac ride again with Before
The Beginning: 1968-1970 Rare
Live & Demo Sessions.
TOM.PINNOCk@TI-MEDIA.COM
music as self-conscious commodity.
As the latest instalment in Light In
The Attic’s excellent Japan Archival
Series attests, city pop was a wide
umbrella encompassing buoyant
blends of synthpop, rock both soft
and yacht, jazz, funk, fusion, even
tropicália. The candyfloss grooves
of Minako Yoshida’s “Night Driver”
and Friends Of Earth’s “In My Jungle”
may have prompted criticism that
this was cheesy music for yuppies,
but the songs collected on Pacific
Breeze are uniformly inventive and
innovative, emphasising the word city
less than pop: Nanako Sato’s breathy
“Subterranean Futari Bocci” and
Haruomi Hosono’s catchy “Sports
Men” burst with the joy of new sounds
and technologies, and the ideas that
accompany them.
extras: None. sTEPhEN DEusNEr
CELEbRAtE
FAtHER’s dAy.
subsCRIbE to
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Subscribe online at www.
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Or call 0330 333 1113
and quote 36Ay
Offer closes june 30, 2019. For full terms and
onditions, visit www.magazinesdirect.com/terms
june 2019 • unCuT • 49
 scott walker | 1943-2019 Bedmate of
hunter: Scott
Walker and
friend, 1969

30
Century
Man Following the death of SCOTT WALKER,
Graeme Thomson traces the arc of the artist’s
remarkable career – from reluctant pop star through
to his singular solo career. We also hear from many
of Walker’s closest collaborators: “There are hard
lessons for any artist to learn from the way he worked
and lived his life. It was total commitment.”
Photo by dezo hoffman
Dezo Hoffman/ReX/SHutteRStock

50 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019


The Walker
Brothers in
London, 1965:
(l–r) john Maus,
Scott Engel and
Gary Leeds
M
an, how do you get a handle on Scott Walker?”
wonders Peter Van Hooke, who played drums
on two of Walker’s solo albums. “The key thing
is that Scott was always interested in what he
was doing at that moment. I don’t think the
past was particularly relevant to him.”
Certainly, few artists have travelled quite
so far in the course of a career. Walker
morphed from teen idol to
existential balladeer to conflicted
MOR crooner, finally finding
satisfaction as an art-rock Lear,
bellowing absurd truths from
DezO HOffMAN/ReX/SHuTTeRSTOCk; MICHAeL OCHS ARCHIveS/GeTTy IMAGeS
the blasted heath of a debased
culture. establishing a
through line isn’t easy, yet
there are connective threads,
suggestions that the contrarian
artist he became was hiding in
plain sight all along. “It all fits,”
says his long-term co-producer
and engineer, Peter Walsh. “If you
know the man, it all fits together.”
The glorious baritone first heard
on “Make It easy On Yourself”
contains a tell-tale quiver of terror
that became amplified as the years
went by. Throughout his work,
Walker contrasted elegant
minimalism with moments of
cartoonish maximalism: alongside
52 • UNCUT • jUNE 2019
the burnished ballads on his first four
solo records are many comedic,
whizz-bang-pow orchestrations.
A 1967 B-side, “The Plague”, is in
its own way as bleak, strange
and madly avant-garde as
anything that came later. Back
then, Walker might deploy the
timpani for dramatic effect;
later it was a man repeatedly
punching a side of meat.
The desire to harness the power
and resonance of an orchestra never
left him, while the eclecticism of
his early solo albums – show
tunes, chanson, country
standards, pungent originals
– is mirrored in his later work,
which shifted from industrial
lieder to screeching metal,
clomping jazz pastiche to
drowned Gregorian chant, in
the space of one song. his eye
for the grotesquely corporeal
and grubbily absurd was
“The early
days were
very happy…”
Alan Parker – session
guitarist and honorary
Walker Brother – recalls
a man “who couldn’t
believe he was as good
as he was”.
“I
PLAyeD guitar on almost all of
the Walker Brothers records
in the Phonogram studios at
Marble Arch, with Ivor Raymonde
arranging. Scott was no wilting
violet! He would take the lead in
any decisions. He and John [Maus]
would discuss things, but Scott
was very determined, and knew
exactly what he wanted. He had an
incredible voice. He sang in a slightly
abnormal key, a middle-to-low tone
which was unique. In those days the
orchestral and rhythm track would
go down live in one take. There
were no overdubs, apart from the
vocals. He would go for it, and hit it
in one. It was quite amazing.
“The early days were happy. He
took what he was doing seriously,
but he was easygoing, we had a
lot of laughs in the control room.
As time went on, it got a bit more
strange. He didn’t like the spotlight
– yet he was a natural star, with
that voice, and being a great-
looking guy. Some people can
handle it; some people find it a bit
overwhelming. He couldn’t believe
he was as good as he was, I’m sure
that came into play.
“eventually, Scott wanted to go
in a different direction on his own,
off on a tangent. When he went
back to The Walker Brothers later
in the ’70s, I played on Lines and
No Regrets. There was a change.
I never knew what was going on
with him, whether it was personal
or emotional issues, but he was
more withdrawn. There were no
great dramas; he just seemed to go
within himself, to huddle in a corner.
“It was a rocky road, creatively; he
seemed unsure of his direction. yet
through it all he was never in a foul
mood, always polite. There was no
nastiness about Scott whatsoever.
He was such a great guy.”

Scott in the
studio circa
’Til The Band
Comes In,
1970; (below)
jacques Brel
present from first to last: he simply
graduated from beginner’s Brel to
advanced Beckett. Perhaps Walker
said it all in 30 Century Man, the
2006 documentary about his work:
“It’s just a man, singing.”
T SCOTT
he artist born Noel Scott
engel in hamilton, Ohio, in
1943 was a “survivor of the
‘this-pop-thing-will-kill-me’
brigade,” says his friend, former
Rolling Stones manager Andrew
Oldham. With The Walker
Brothers there were three
momentous Top 10 hits in
“The Brel 1965 and ’66, a smattering
introduction of smaller successes, and
a brief period of mania that
helped him Walker found physically and
psychologically profoundly
onto the uncomfortable. During the
height of his fame he retreated
road that to Quarr Abbey, seeking refuge
saved him” with Benedictine monks on
the Isle Of Wight.
ANDREW OLDHAM ever after, he remained
intensely private, drawn to
anonymity. “I think he’d been
affected by the adoration,” says Ian Thomas, a drummer and
percussionist who started working with Walker in the ’90s. “he used
to come in with the baseball cap, dark glasses and the coat up high –
properly incognito. he was a sweet guy, funny, easy to communicate
with. I just think he liked a lot of normality around him.”
By the end of 1967, Walker bailed from the band and began to
explore his growing obsessions. “I introduced Scott to the music of
Jacques Brel,” says Oldham. “I think the Brel introduction helped
him onto the road that saved him. Unless you’re Paul, Mick or elton,
pop can be a vicious mistress that can take you to heaven in bed
and then give you a dose of the clap.” Walker, who loved a bawdy
bordello reference more than most, would surely have approved
of the analogy. The visceral theatricality of Brel “unlocked my
whole imagination”, he said in 1995. It stimulated a hyper-europhile
sensibility that was already in thrall to the films of Bergman, Fellini
and Bresson, the writings of Sartre, Brecht and Camus, and the
SCOTT WALKER:
10 KEY TRACKS
THE WALKER
BROTHERS
THE SUN AIN’T
GONNA SHINE
ANYMORE
(PHILIPS, 1966)
Walker’s cavernous vocal is borne
aloft on a Spector-esque Wall
Of Sound. The result is a Gothic
cathedral of orchestral-pop
drama, luxuriantly in love with its
own melancholy.
SCOTT
WALKER
MONTAGUE
TERRACE (IN
BLUE) (SCOTT,
PHILIPS, 1967)
One of Walker’s first notable
compositions. Wally Scott’s
arrangement gavottes elegantly,
while the singer dissects his fellow
residents with an unsparing eye: the
“bloated belching figure” of the man
upstairs; the working girl next door
with “thighs full of tales to tell”.
SCOTT
WALKER
IT’S RAINING
TODAY (SCOTT 3,
PHILIPS, 1969)
Inner turmoil
depicted via “cellophane streets”,
“dark little rooms” and desolate
“street corner girls”. A bone-deep
ode to emotional isolation framed as
a lovelorn lament, with the dissonant
strings emitting a high-wire tension,
like a bad thought buzzing around an
agitated mind.
SCOTT
WALKER
THE OLD MAN’S
BACK AGAIN
(SCOTT 4, PHILIPS, 1969)
With its Bergman
nods and Camus quotes, Scott 4
embraced full-blown existentialism.
This thrillingly apocalyptic response
to the 1968 Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia boasts a booming
male choir, sawing strings,
outrageous bass and a great scat
vocal. Anti-Stalinist impressionism
was never so funky.
THE WALKER
BROTHERS
NO REGRETS (NO
REGRETS, GTO, 1975)
Walker’s last
hurrah as a pop
star came with this lush reading of
Tom Rush’s forlorn country ballad.
Bookending “The Sun Ain’t Gonna
Shine Anymore”, Walker sings from
the other side of loneliness, stoic
and resigned, vocal power held in
devastating check.
scott walker | 1943-2019
THE WALKER
BROTHERS
THE
ELECTRICIAN
(NITE FLIGHTS,
GTO, 1978)
The start of a dedicated descent
into the pit. A sickly evocation of
a CIA torture – “Drilling through
the Spiritus Sanctus” – alternating
between the nightmarish screech
of the abattoir and a gorgeous
chorus, flecked with incongruous
Spanish guitar. Bowie was still trying
to capture its throbbing menace in
2013, on “Heat”.
SCOTT
WALKER
DEALER (CLIMATE OF
HUNTER, VIRGIN, 1984)
Often overlooked
as a bridging work
between past and future, Climate
Of Hunter has some magnificent
moments. This grinding, repetitive
crawl possesses an icy grandeur,
Mark Isham’s looped trumpet rubbing
against “hissing brains boiling up”.
WALKER
FARMER IN THE
CITY (TILT,
FONTANA, 1995)
Late-period Walker
isn’t for the faint-hearted, but Tilt’s
opener is as beautiful as anything
he ever did. A darkly operatic
ode to Italian poet and artist Pier
Paolo Pasolini and his young lover
Ninetto Davoli, it’s cinematic and
hugely moving.
SCOTT
WALKER
CLARA (THE DRIFT,
4AD, 2006)
A “fascist love song”
rooted in Walker’s
childhood nightmare of seeing
newsreel footage depicting the
murder of Mussolini and his mistress
DezO HOffMAN/ReX/SHuTTeRSTOCk; PHILIPPe BATAILLON/INA vIA GeTTy IMAGeS
Clara Petacci. With its sinister martial
pulse, queasy strings and infamous
pig-punching percussion, it plays like
an aural snuff movie.
SCOTT
WALKER
SDSS14+13B
(ZERCON, A
FLAGPOLE
SITTER)
(BISH BOSCH, 4AD, 2012)
The zenith of Walker’s contrarianism,
an extraordinarily dense 21-minute
play-in-sound, encompassing death-
metal shrieks, swathes of silence,
jarring horn fanfares and ribald gags.
Altogether now: “If shit were music,
you’d be a brass band…”
jUNE 2019 • UNCUT • 53
 New Wave screen scores of Michel Legrand. These influences
flooded his first four solo albums. Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3 and
Scott 4 come wrapped in the veneer of light entertainment,
but with a heavy heart.
They are beautiful records created by a man who viewed
misery as a vital passage into adulthood. Walker recognised
subsequently that the extravagant sadness on display
would not have sat well in an older artist – it would have
been somehow unseemly – but in a young, fading pop idol
striving for substance and significance, the callow
melancholy was ravishing.
After a couple of solo hits in 1968 and 1969, and a spell
hosting Scott, a BBC TV series, Walker fell into the margins
with the masterful Scott 4, entirely self-written and almost
completely ignored at the time. He took it hard. The MOR
covers and countrypolitan sounds of his subsequent ’70s
output have considerably more value than he believed, but
for Walker they were the product of an artist acting in “bad
faith”, working off contracts, drinking heavily, depressed,
Dezo Hoffman/ReX/SHutteRStock
indebted, hooked on Valium.
With all bets off, he reformed The Walker Brothers. On their
final album, 1978’s Nite Flights, Walker glimpsed a new
future. “Scott had the reins,” says Nite Flights co-producer
David MacRae. “He played me demos of the more traditional
song choices, just with guitar accompaniment, then he sang
me the lyric and melody to ‘Nite Flights’ and ‘The Electrician’
and tried to explain the atmosphere and, well, darkness he
“He needed to
make the listener
uncomfortable to get
his point across”
STePhen kijak
54 • unCuT • june 2019
felt for these two songs. These were not going to be your usual
pop or rock creations.”
Thematically and texturally, the two tracks forged a path
forward. “From then on it kind of clicked, because I was
in some kind of abyss for years,” he recalled in 2006.
“That reopened everything for me.” After touring Nite
Flights, Walker stopped performing and would not make
another album for six years. The first line was, “This is how
you disappear…”
On 1984’s Climate Of Hunter, you hear intimations of the
scarred, desolate landscape of Tilt, The Drift and Bish Bosch,
Walker’s astonishing trilogy of later works. In this unsettling,
atonal music, the song is no longer God; it is subservient to the
sound-world conjured by the words. Conventional melody is
discarded for string clusters, ominous throbs, white noise,
juddering percussion. “A lot of people play around with that
dark stuff, but he understood it,” says Peter Van Hooke. “He
had an intuitive sense of drama and a feeling for where his
music could communicate in a different way, and he wanted
to explore that.”
By the mid-’80s, Walker’s wide-open Midwestern croon had
been adopted as the voice of new romantic yearning, of goth’s
eldritch melodrama, of countless tortured bedsit poets. As his
imitators circled, Walker headed somewhere else entirely. The
boy who was born with the gift of a golden voice concluded
that the brutalities of the world could not be crooned. “He felt
there was a point where the baritone voice anaesthetises you,
Scott in 1970,
with a darbuka
drum and his
first four solo
LPs in the bag
 scott walker | 1943-2019
by Faber & Faber in 2018, the Irish author Eimear
McBride identified his oeuvre as a “work of vision,

THE LOST ALBUM scale, deep thought, deep emotion and much – if
often distressed – humanity”, acknowledging that “it

it becomes too beautiful, too soothing,” says Stephen
Kijak, director of 30 Century Man. “He needed to pitch it
somewhere else to get your attention. He needed to
make the listener uncomfortable to get his point across.”
From here on, Walker barked, sobbed, screamed and
muttered. Few artists have quite so bravely throttled the
golden goose.
Where the earlier material luxuriated in existential
angst, the later albums plunged headfirst into the
arenas of human suffering, referencing Eichmann,
Ceaușescu, 9/11, Elvis’s stillborn twin, Srebrenica,
Mussolini, Attila The Hun. A key text was Knut
Hamsun’s gruelling novel Hunger. In her introduction
to Sundog, the book of selected Walker lyrics published
I
n the ’80s, Walker
embarked on an
aborted album
project with eno and
Daniel Lanois. “We did
it at Phil manzanera’s
studio,” recalls Peter
Van Hooke, who
played drums on
the sessions. “We
were there for six days
and did some amazing stuff
that never came out. Some of it
was pretty spectacular, just the
ideas. It was a very interesting
record, but Scott wanted to do it
his way, that was what he was
all about. Brian was a fan, but I
knew they weren’t getting on
particularly well – it was musical
differences; seeking a different
shape. Scott was like, ‘If I’m not
going to do it my way, I won’t
bother.’” In a 2006 interview,
Walker explained: “my work
is a totally different process, it
takes so long ’cos that’s how
long it takes. materially I’m pretty
prepared when I go in. I like to
have some kind of blueprint. I
wait for spontaneity to happen
in the studio, but I don’t like to
start absolutely from scratch.
that was their method and it just
didn’t work out.”
does not impart comfort or ease”. There is no
solace, only a pitiless determination to recreate
grim experience.
The body is meat, wading through shit and
sweat, torture, humiliation and the extremities
of existence. The words pinball between
Beckettian epigrams – “The dark day behind us/
The dark day ahead” – punchy cornball gags
(“The only place you’re ever invited is outside”)
and the cock-eyed colloquialisms of the madman on
the bus. Not quite poetry, it is closer to a script. “He
wanted to get to this really simple place where it’s just
soundscapes and a voice,” says Stephen Kijak.
The words dictated everything. Musically, vocally,
texturally, “I will do anything the lyric calls for,” Walker
told The Quietus in 2012. Hence the later albums became
“an aural version of the HR Giger drawings for Alien”.
Stretched out over vast sonic canvases, he tested the
boundaries of what music can be, searching for the
precisely apposite sound. Drained of cliché, the music
strove to be as abrasive and confrontational as the
subject matter, deploying fart noises, machetes, breeze
blocks, whole sides of pork. “It was almost like anti-
music, in that he was veering away from the norm,” says
Ian Thomas. When he communicated with musicians,
Walker did so in terms of emotions. “He’d say, ‘I want
you to be really fucking pissed off when you go back in
there, really annoyed, can you do that?’” says Thomas.
“You’d try to get in that zone, you’d come out and he’d
say, ‘You fucking nailed it!’ It was great to work with
somebody not afraid to describe music in that way.”

“He wantedtoripyoursearsoff!”
Peter Walsh: Walker’s right-hand man, co-producer and engineer of
Climate Of Hunter, Tilt, The Drift, Bish Bosch and Soused

“B
efoRe recording
Climate Of
Hunter I hadn’t
heard any demos,
so wasn’t totally
aware that Scott was heading
in an experimental, avant-garde
direction. my intention was to
capture that voice, to echo the
Walker Brothers days. that was
the guy I thought I was recording!
I’d suggest harmonies that linked
back to what had made him
popular and he’d say, ‘I know what
you’re trying to do, but…’ I quickly
realised that we were making a
different kind of record. He looked
forward. I would mention stuff on
previous albums and he’d kind
of forgotten about it. He wasn’t
referencing the past at all.
“every album started with a full
day in the studio playing demos
and discussing sounds and
notation. Later Scott started using absolutely sure that he’d got it. metallic percussion without ripping
a digital keyboard and he’d build “Lyrics weren’t really discussed people’s ears off?’ then I realised,
the songs with the help of the until just before the vocal he wants to rip people’s ears off!
internal sequencer. We would recording. I wouldn’t be aware “In the 36 years that I recorded
take that information as the that we were shadowing any his vocals, there was never anyone
starting point of the album. the particular lyric with the musical else in the control room – just me.
end result would be a lot more textures, but he was. I did He used to come in and avoid
human, more pulsing and sonically occasionally ask about them. conversation, preserving his voice,
embellished. He was a fan of a big “tracks like ‘clara’, with the meat so that his performance would
sound, a wide soundscape. punching, at some point you have have that deep, early-morning
“He really loved making his music to say, ‘Listen, Scott, what is this all bass sound. It was always a very
in the studio. It was about? I’m not getting it. and the concentrated process, and a very
always fun, and knock on the door, what’s that?’ personal interaction.
a privilege to He would say, in a quite light- “He was hugely intellectual, very
sit next to him, hearted way, ‘Well, that’s when knowledgeable about history,
but it was he comes into the room…’ as literature, cinema, classical music
concentrated, though you should absolutely – but at the same time he would
committed know that already! to him, it get engrossed in a tennis match.
work. I was all quite logical. He was a complete gentleman,
remember with “When the vocal went loyal, trusting and very private. I
guitarist James down, that was respected that.
Stevenson, he when you would “I’d meet him for a glass of wine
said, ‘You’ve got finally realise how now and again, but I can count
to sound like an it all stitched the times on one hand. We had a
mIcHaeL PutLanD/GettY ImaGeS

colours. We worked closely with animal wailing. together. on a very nice email relationship. my
a musical director – first Brian Just fucking rip track like ‘the last email from him was in mid-
Gascoigne, then mark Warman the shreds out of cockfighter’, february and he sounded good.
– who would then transcribe the this thing.’ He was you think, He was trying to work out a way
music. In the early days, they searching for ‘How do you of doing the next record, trying
scored the songs based on something and get a vocal to organise what it was about.
these conversations, and using never stopped through He certainly had no intention of
Scott’s personalised method of until he was all that stopping, I’m sure of that.”

june 2019 • unCuT • 55

 scott walker | 1943-2019

A
merican by birth but
european by taste and
inclination, once The Walker
Brothers came to Britain in 1965,
Walker spent only a handful of
months cumulatively in the US
during the remaining 53 years of
his life. in the late ’60s and early
’70s, he lived for spells in Holland
and copenhagen, but London
was home. He cycled around
the city, played tennis, went
to concerts, met friends. His
work was not, mercifully,
autobiographical. The happier
Walker became personally, the
more extreme his vision grew.
“i couldn’t speculate on the
past, but Scott was not a damaged
person,” says David Sefton, former
artistic director at the Southbank,
who commissioned Walker to curate
meltdown in 2000. “He was an utter
joy to work with – smart, funny,
personable and not at all the eccentric
recluse of public mythology, although
he didn’t go out much. He actually
came to my leaving party from the
Southbank and walked through the
door with the immortal line, ‘You
know, this is the first party i’ve been to in 35 years!’”
Describing himself to The Guardian last year as “a great
prevaricator”, Walker proceeded deliberately. The long years between “Thentheybrought
his later albums were punctuated by film scores, commissions for
dance shows and production work – recording with Ute Lemper and
with Pulp. He enjoyed collaboration. The Drifting and Tilting shows
inthesideofpork!”
at the Barbican in november 2008 recast songs from Tilt and The Drift Stephen Kijak – director of acclaimed
in a quasi-theatrical setting, with music by Walker’s studio band and Walker documentary 30 Century Man
guest vocalists including Jarvis cocker and Damon albarn.
His last record was Soused, a productive union with experimental
– on “shining a black light on an enigma”

ÒM
noise group Sunn O))). in august 2016, his soundtrack to Brady aking 30 Century Man
corbert’s movie The Childhood Of A Leader was performed live at a was a six-year journey.
i started developing it at
screening at rotterdam Film Festival. He collaborated again with
the turn of the millennium, laying the
corbert on the soundtrack to Vox Lux in 2018, the final work Walker groundwork. it was a slow burn; it
completed before his death, from cancer, on march 22, aged 76. was about gaining trust, given the
“Good art never goes one way,” Walker told The Quietus. True to his levels of privacy and secrecy he built
jamie hawksworth; phil laslett
in the studio. it was like watching an
art installation being put together –
and then they brought in the side of
pork! it was pretty fucking amazing.
it was almost like foley work in a film,
sound effects and noises being put
to narrative uses. that was the first

word, he ended up a long way from where he started, yet even in himself into. he miraculously let us in.
songs as dense as “clara”, sunbursts of glorious melody punctuate “Bowie was hugely influential in
getting it done. it took almost as
the darkness. a “straight” cover of Dylan’s “i Threw it all away”, cut
long to get him on board as it did to
in 1996 for the soundtrack of To Have And To Hold, confirmed he was get the film made. he’d had heart
still conversant in the romantic vernacular. at these moments, it’s as problems and had stopped touring.
though Walker was saying – to us, to himself – “i used to live here, we were told, ‘You’ll get a phone call
remember?” So yes, it was just a man singing. it was also, to borrow at some point when he’s ready, and
from the extraordinary “Farmer in The city”, “the journey of a life”. you will just have to get yourself to
wherever he is.’ Fine! Bowie’s love of
scott was real – i knew the level of
admiration that existed. You can hear
the influence clearly. i remember him
talking about Heathen and saying,
‘i needed my scott walker voice on
that song…’
“there was no
process of getting
to know scott!
we were held
back, held back…
eventually we were
given access to a
recording session
for The Drift. we
went in the day
Collaborating he was building a
with US noise
merchants big wooden cube
Sunn O))), 2014
moment i had laid eyes on him.
“i don’t even think we said hello until
three hours in. the interview with him
was the very last thing we shot, we
had 45 minutes. after all this build-up,
this dark, mysterious orphic myth
surrounding him, he was really just
a nice man sitting on a couch having
a chat. he seemed imageless. By
becoming absent, people fill in that
gap for you. he was dry and self-
deprecating. there was a humility
and a humour that i did not expect.
“his management believe that he
never watched the movie, but he was
always proud of it.
we never wanted
o strip the mask
away, but to shine
a black light on the
enigma and let it
be. there are hard
essons for any artist
o learn from the
way he worked and
ved his life. it was
otal commitment
o a vision.”
THE NATIONAL

HOW

dOes
it feel
l

l l

Photo by GRAHAM MACINDOE

58 • unCuT • june 2019


tO feel?
O
n an afternoon in early March, Long
Pond – the recording studio owned by
The national – seems deceptively
quiet. nestled deep in Upstate new
York, the studio resembles a modest
country church complete with timber-
panelled walls and a peaked roof.
The most recent snowfall was less than a week ago –
there is still ice on the pond that gives the studio its name
– and now a kind of sacred stillness hangs in the air. On
closer inspection, though, Long Pond is not as inactive as
appearances might suggest. The studio was built by the
band’s guitarist Aaron Dessner, who lives with his family
in an 18th-century farmhouse nearby. But since Long Pond
Long Pond, Hudson
Valley, December 12,
2019: (l-r) Bryce
Dessner, Mike Mills,
Bryan Devendorf,
Aaron Dessner,
Scott Devendorf and
Matt Berninger
opened for business in April, 2016, it has also welcomed
other artists, including Justin Vernon, Luluc and Arcade
Fire’s Richard Reed Parry. Today, Dessner is hosting indie-
folk trio The Lone Bellow – friends from The national’s old
stomping ground in Brooklyn. Coffee is brewing in the
studio’s cluttered kitchen-lounge area. In the cupboard,
bottles of artisan gin, whisky and vodka line one shelf
while another is stuffed with cartons of organic pasta
shells, breakfast cereals, granola and green tea bags.
Cardboard packaging is piled underneath a set of stairs –
including two tall, slender boxes stamped with the Fender
logo and a crate of Sierra nevada pale ale that’s been
clearly labelled as the exclusive property of the band’s
drummer, Bryan Devendorf.
june 2019 • unCuT • 59
 Sofa so good:
The national
in the studio
with Mike Mills,
(third left)
In the main studio-cum-control room,
Aaron and Jon Low – The National’s engineer
for the past six years – are finishing up the
morning’s session. The room is two storeys,
open-plan. The cedarwood walls emit a faint,
pleasingly earthy smell, while a huge window
alongside the far wall bathes the room in
natural light. Dotted around the room are
guitars, drums, speakers, monitor amps and
keyboards. A carpeted isolation booth, to the
right of the room, was built to house Bryan’s
drumkit, but has become instead a repository
for assorted amps, spare microphone stands, a
stack of tambourines and a solitary trumpet. Next to a
piano, a giant picture of a reclining buffalo is propped
up against one wall. A gift from the band’s record label
after the success of their 2017 album Sleep Well Beast,
the picture is, Aaron estimates, probably far too heavy
to actually hang anywhere.
The move to the open country has proved auspicious.
The band had previously worked out of Aaron’s garage
studio in Brooklyn. But the site has helped the band to
recalibrate and allow for different energies to flow.
As a consequence, The National have recorded two
albums in two years at Long Pond – Sleep Well Beast
and their latest, I Am Easy To Find. The “It’s not the
place you can imagine making a rock record,” notes
singer Matt Berninger. “There’s packs of wild coyotes
taking down deer, bullfrogs that sound like 200 trucks
graham macindoe; michael bonner
parking. You can swim in that pond in summer,
red-winged blackbirds landing in the cattails. It’s
kind of ridiculous.”
The National are not the first people with strong
artistic credentials to move to the Hudson Valley. Its
proximity to New York and Boston has long made it
a destination for musicians, painters and writers
drawn to the wide open spaces and vivid seasonal
transformations – from the Hudson River School,
60 • unCuT • june 2019
Washington Irving and Edith Wharton in the
mid-19th century onwards. The Band’s Big
Pink house is a little under an hour’s drive
way in West Saugerties – with Woodstock just
a little further down the road. More recently,
ormer Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and
ilmmaker Tony Stone opened a community-
oriented arts venue in a 19th-century factory
building in nearby Hudson.
“It was an important shift to move up here,”
says Aaron. “You feel the legacy of all the
artists who’ve lived in this area. We have
more fun, we’re less tight, less anxious. Less urban. I
don’t know if you can hear it in the music necessarily,
but I feel it in how we work.”
Walking round the perimeter of the property, with
the Catskills misty in the distance, Aaron considers
the creative ecosystems that have hothoused The
National: first in Brooklyn and now in the Hudson
Valley. “Over the years we’ve learned that any music
you’re making, being able to lean on a community and
have input or feedback – whether it’s direct or indirect
– is vital,” he explains. “It’s rare that somebody
actually makes something completely alone. The more
you are open to the world, the more you learn.”
To emphasise The National’s position at a rare
creative nexus, I Am Easy To Find is explicitly
“Itfeelslike connected to a 24-minute film by director Mike Mills;
the album also moves the spotlight away from
Berninger and foregrounds a wealth of female voices,
thereshould ranging from familiar associates Sharon Van Etten,
Lisa Hannigan and This Is The Kit’s Kate Stables to
be25peoplein newcomers such as David Bowie’s former bassist
Gail Ann Dorsey.
bandphotos” “I haven’t thought of The National as five guys for 10
years,” says Berninger. “Why it’s still just five guys in
MATT BeRnInGeR the photos is a little weird to me; it doesn’t feel like that.
I like to be in the middle of the photos, but it feels like
there should be 25 people in there. The National is
a pretty big community – and that makes it much
more exciting. It makes me feel like there’s a lot
more still to do. Because five guys talking about
their problems? I got tired of that long ago.”
J
uST as The National’s music has
given voice to a particular strand
of midlife melancholy, so the
narrators of I Am Easy To Find discover
themselves considering how inert and
immobile feelings of disappointment
and longing become over time. “I used
to fall asleep to you talking to me/I don’t
listen to anything now,” sings Berninger
on the album’s lead-off track, “You Had Your Soul
With You”. In many ways, I Am Easy To Find
grapples many familiar National themes –
identity, what constitutes being a ‘good’ person,
the anxieties of contemporary living. But
critically, I Am Easy To Find marks a significant
change in how The National function.
The ideas for I Am Easy To Find were sewn in
Autumn 2017 when director Mike Mills – fresh off
his Oscar-winning 20th Century Women – first
approached Berninger. “I started in music videos,
I loved The National’s music, so I reached out to
them,” says Mills. “I was surprised they knew my
movies and liked them. When I got Matt’s
number, I thought I was just calling to hopefully
do a music video. But no. He said, ‘Actually, we
have these songs we haven’t finished and don’t
know what to do with them. Why don’t you do a
big long film for all of them?’ Oh. OK!”
Although The National have a long history of
extracurricular musical dalliances, Mills’ project
presented fresh challenges. Not least, it forced the
band to interrogate their working practices. “We
were interested in allowing the filmmaking to
influence the music and for the music to influence
the film,” says Bryce. “After 20 years, it’s healthy
to have someone come shake up our dynamic.”
“One pushed the other a little bit,” explains
bassist Scott Devendorf. “usually, we’d retreat
and take a year at least from the band. We’re
always working on a million projects. But we had
enough stuff to ground us and that Mike
was excited about. It became apparent
we couldn’t wait three years to make it.”
“Mike came up with the idea of telling
one person’s life from beginning to
end,” says Berninger. “He pulled
together a rough sketch where he
chopped up an old French film and put
some of our music to it. That was when
it stopped being another record about
Matt Berninger and my feelings about
life. It had bloomed into: ‘Let’s talk
about us.’ Meaning: our marriages, our
friendships, our relationships with our
parents, our relationships with our
children and our understanding of
ourselves, what our role is and how we
pass ourselves and all these others on.”
Filming took place during March 2018,
with Alicia Vikander playing the same
character from birth to death. Mills’ film
leans into familiar narrative beats –
childhood, friendships, job, marriage,
parenthood, bereavement – in a way
that leaps associatively from personal
Mike Mills on shooting
I Am Easy To Find
“i
started working on the
film in the fall 2017 and we
shot for five days in march
018 in pomona, in the lanterman
developmental center – a
iscontinued 300-acre compound
or severely mentally disabled
eople. it had schools, housing, a
factory, a power generator, its own park.
everything was shot in one location. the
band wanted to come to the shoot, but they
were in south america touring. they said,
‘do whatever you want. go shoot a film.’
this trusting quality was a generous and
positive thing to be around. i think they liked
that i wasn’t from the music world – but
i’m still involved in a time-based emotional
delivery system artform. it has similarities!
“alicia was amazing. there’s not many
oscar-winning actresses that would
make themselves so vulnerable and
exposed and go for it. she was a fan, too!
a big relationship started with a date at a
national show, so there was a real strong
connection to their music. there’s a lot of
luck in this whole thing.”
into more universal “truths”. you get to that, the more mysterious you are to
The project developed even as The National’s yourself. I think there’s still an anxiety about that
touring schedule took them round South America, on the record. It’s not a self-help record! It’s a bit
North America and Europe. Mills recalls going to like, ‘This is how everyone feels… probably.’”
Long Pond first during summer 2018. There was
A
further “back and forth for six and nine months”, S The National keep proving, little is ever
he recalls. “I’d do a cut, show it to them, then Matt straightforward. The writing process
would send me a new version of lyrics, I’d put that for I Am Easy To Find required fresh
in, show that to them.” perspectives, cooked up by Berninger, his wife
“They were blurry ideas,” laughs Berninger. Carin Besser – a contributor since the days of
“They’re a lot of the same ideas that I usually chew Boxer – and Mills. “I wasn’t thinking specifically
on – but I do feel like this record, we all tried to get too much about the woman character,” admits
to the bones of what it means to be you. The closer Berninger. “I was thinking about my daughter.
Mike was thinking about his kid, his
wife, his marriage. Carin was writing
about herself, also but she could have
been writing about me and I could have
been writing about Carin.”
Besser describes Mills’ rough cut as
“the dream of the record before we’ve
graham macindoe; KevorK djansezian/getty images for film independent
fallen asleep yet – which we’ve never
had before as collaborators. It creates
a new energy, because we’ve all seen
something and that then informs our
imaginings as we continue writing.”
Sessions took place in bursts during
touring breaks – including one last
summer at Studio Delta in Paris, Bryce’s
adopted home city, involving This Is The
Kit’s Kate Stables, Bryce’s wife Pauline
de Lassus, Mina Tindle, Melissa
Laveaux and Diane Sorel.
“We’re all good friends and are always
happy to work on stuff together,” says
Stables, who’s known the band for the
best part of 20 years. “They’re super-
intelligent and talented guys with a
good sense of reality and I think this
june 2019 • unCuT • 61
 THE NATIONAL
Spotlight kid:
The national
live in Milan, Italy,
September 7, 2018
filters through in the artistic choices they make. I
definitely feel like they’ve become wiser over the
years, in their work and art and their approach to
being in a band.”
Another session took place under Bryce’s
auspices with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. “We
were workshopping ideas quite a bit,” says Bryce.
“The minute Mike started working on the film, we
started working on the music. We didn’t know we
were making a whole album. At first, it was six or
seven songs. It just started to grow.”
In November, only a month after finishing the
Sleep Well Beast tour, the band convened at Long
Pond and began assembling the album from the
accumulated pool of songs and sketches. “Mike
came in and… directed,” laughs Aaron. “He was
here for maybe 14 days of two different periods.
He was throwing the table over quite a bit. ‘Mute
Sergione infuSo/CorbiS via getty imageS;
that! Mute that! What about if you take that thing
you’re doing there and put it at the front of the
song?’ Ideas that the musician in me would be
resistant to on some level. But you’ve got to see
where this leads.”
Bryce identifies one song on the album –
“Rylan” – that benefited from Mills’ benignly
disruptive input. The song dates from the
High Violet sessions, although so far it has
never successfully been recorded. “The new
62 • unCuT • june 2019
arrangement of ‘Rylan’ was something we
really tried out with Mike,” agrees Bryce. “The
reason the song is very different from the way
we used to play it live is partly with Mike’s
feedback trying to find a new character for
that song – a new arrangement, a new
juxtaposition of what the instruments are
“It was time to
allow for radical
reinvention”
AAROn DeSSneR
doing. He’s trial and error, really radical.”
“You can hear it on ‘Hey Rosie’,” says Aaron.
“That was all mapped out, then he said, ‘Why
don’t you improvise piano at the start?’ Matt
would never embrace the idea of me improvising
piano! We went down quite a long tangent. Then
Bryan replayed the drums. We ended up in a place
that I much preferred.”
Berninger, meanwhile, recalls Mills telling him
one day: “‘I think you’re too much singing like Roy
Orbison. Why don’t you try to sing like Ian Curtis?’
“Mike really brought Carin in, too,” he
continues. “There was a phase where I ran out of
steam, there was a lot going on, and I had to
disappear from the process for a while. I was
burned out on the songs and the things we were
digging into – especially after Sleep Well Beast.
She picked up the baton and finished things I had
started and then wrote many brand new songs
like ‘Hey Rosie’ and ‘You Had Your Soul With You’.
Mike can convince a big group of smart people to
follow him. That’s what a film director has to
figure out at some point. He came in and we were
like, ‘Oh, good. Someone who’s comfortable
telling everybody what he thinks should happen.’
That used to be me, until it got really
uncomfortable for everybody – including me.”
“They have a tremendous trust,” says Besser.
“They all know, ‘Let’s try all this and then we’ll be
able to find the beating heart of it.’ I don’t think
anyone is ever that confident, but they’re
confident enough to listen to other people and
bring other minds in.”
Other minds – and other voices, too. As
Berninger and Besser wrote more and more, what
Aaron describes as “a community of voices”
began to emerge. “We were not gender casting

Matt with Carin
Besser. From top:
any of these songs,” insists Lisa Hannigan,
Sharon Van etten
Berninger. “We’re all writing and Kate Stables
about the same people.
Which is us – but also these
blurry characters that were all in this constellation, in
this film, all centred around this one woman, this one
soul. So when Carin was writing ‘Hey Rosie’ – part of it
I know was about me and my drinker’s complexion – it
all becomes slightly amoebic and interchangeable
when you put it through a different perspective.”
“Matt has been pushing himself over several years to
sing differently and work differently,” says Scott. “He
has a very singular way of presenting himself, even
though I feel like he’s grown melodically, rhythmically
and his perspective has shifted. He was a guy who
started with stage fright, but now although he’s
different, that nervous person still exists. Being able to
step back a little bit and play fielder for a moment, and
not be up, that’s refreshing.”
“I wrote Matt a few times – ‘Hey, do you think there’s
enough of you on this record?’” says Aaron. “Matt’s
response was, ‘I’ve heard enough of myself.’”
Around three-quarters of the way though the
sessions, the band began to involve other vocalists.
Unlike previous National albums – where guests like
Sharon Van Etten or Lisa Hannigan contributed to
songs’ textural arrangements – on I Am Easy To Find,
their participation were significantly enhanced. In
some instances, like “You’ve Got Your
Soul With You”, Berninger shares the
spotlight with Gail Ann Dorsey;
elsewhere, Lisa Hannigan sings lead on
“So Far So Fast”, while Berninger is
entirely absent from “Dust Swirls In
Strange Light”.
“We’ve made a bunch of records and
people know what the band sound like,”
says Scott. “There’s the dynamic and
dynamics that exist within the music
that we make, that’s how the five of us
have made music in the past, for 20
years. To have other voices is refreshing
– and they’re all known to us. We’ve
toured with Kate Stables, Bryce had
worked with Brooklyn Youth Chorus,
Lisa and Sharon are friends. It’s not like,
‘Let’s get superstars!’”
Another Hudson Valley resident, Gail
Ann Dorsey first met Aaron at a local
Democratic party fundraiser in October
last year. He invited her first to perform
with The National a few weeks later at a
Planned Parenthood benefit in Hudson
itself. “What I admire most about them
is their obvious and refreshing
commitment to creativity,” she says.
“Their talents as musicians, composers,
and arrangers are undeniable. They
have a clear and original approach
to what they do. There is also an
integrity and an intelligence to their
music that reminds me of artists like
Bowie, Eno, Byrne and so on.”  (another Kingston resident), who
Dorsey contributed vocals to five
tracks on the album – her voice
acting as a smooth, assured
counterpoint to Berninger’s
rough-hewn baritone.
“Its an interesting moment for the
band,” says Aaron. ”It’s been my role
in the band to carefully weave this
fabric around Matt and reinvent it
over time – but always with the same
central character in mind. But this
time, because there’s many occasions
where his voice is supplanted by another, it takes on an
entirely different shape. But hearing, say, Lisa
Hannigan sing one of Matt’s words and melody
elevated the material on some level. We’re at a point
where it was time to allow for some more radical
reinvention. Frankly, we needed an outsider to
stimulate that. It would be hard for the five of us to
make those moves – you get into some weird attrition.
People are set in their ways.”
I
T is early evening in Hudson and the stores on
Warren Street are beginning to close. The
bohemian spirit that pervades the region is evident
here – chi-chi vintage boutiques and antique stores sit
cheek by jowl with artisan cafes, hippie hobby
businesses and multimedia gallery spaces like
Hudson Underground advertising “candy, satire,
art, salvation”. Meanwhile, sitting in the lobby of
Rivertown Lodge, a friendly boutique hotel at the top
of the strip, Aaron Dessner considers the themes and
threads that have wound through the band’s 20-year
career. “We argued about whether we should be
‘National’ or ‘The National’ before we played out first
show in early 2000,” he laughs. “Even then, we were
gail ann Dorsey
on working with
The national
“P
retty much everything
i contributed to this
album was all done in
one day. When i arrived at aaron’s
studio, mike mills was also there.
it was only the engineer, aaron,
mike, myself, and my friend bella
works for the band. i had been
sent roughs of about six songs
beforehand, but i didn’t know
exactly what aaron wanted me to
do vocally with them. matt’s vocals
and the other female vocalists were
already recorded, so i was alone in
the vocal booth working from their
existing tracks. aaron had a dry
erase board with a long list of songs,
and as soon as i finished one song,
aaron and mike were ready to send
me back into the vocal booth for
another. it turned out to be nearly a
10-hour session for me, and i think
i sang on about eight songs before
my voice and brain were shot!
“mike was very involved in getting
the emotion he wanted from my
delivery, and it was obvious he and
aaron had a clear picture in mind of
the finished product. Some songs
were more challenging than others,
but what was most rewarding was
not only the ease and total chill of
the session itself, but that on many
of the songs, i was given the space
to play around and come up with a
getty imageS; ryan pfluger; paul bergen/redfernS
specific harmony, or an approach
of delivery on my own. interestingly
enough, i feel that my brief time
working with aaron on this album
reminded me a lot of working on
bowie albums!
“i know with absolute certainty
that david would be very proud of
my collaboration with this band and
my work on this record. Sometimes,
i even wonder if he didn’t even have
something to do with this. i can see
him smiling now.”
june 2019 • unCuT • 63
 THE NATIONAL
all involved in thinking critically about the band. What is worthwhile
about doing this? Alligator was when Bryan’s drumming came into
focus as this machine in contrast to the flawed humanity of Matt. We
realised, ‘OK, we can thread this needle. There’s a thing here.’ Also
around Alligator, I started to know what chord movements Matt
responds to and what pulls him along in the right ways. That’s evolved
over time. But that’s the first time certain behaviours appear.”
“The chemistry that existed on those tiny stages when nobody cared
is the same as today,” says Bryce. “But what keeps it grounded is that
sense of old friends and family that’s always been there. For me, it’s the
alchemy or telepathy I have with my brother. The National is one thing,
but my brother and I have been playing in bands with Bryan since we
were 13. Not many people were listening at the start, so it gave us time
to develop. We had to give each other feedback so that remains when
we get into process or get on stage. That’s the healthy thing about being
a band that’s been around for 20 years – these pillars you can lean on.”
Berninger singles out “the Midwestern stuff” as a critical through-
line for the band. “We’re all from Cincinnati; we’re two sets of The
brothers, I have a close relationship with my family,” he explains. Breeders
“There’s a shared empathy, we all have fucked-up corners that we

iNTROduCiNG…
recognise. We can also show each other great love. When things get
dangerous between people or situations, we rise above the pettiness
and show each other great love – but we’re not a loving band, we’re a
bit cold to each other. There’s
legitimate reasons why
THE NATiONAL’S
UncUt Cd
we’re mean to each other
sometimes. Making these
records and seeing how
good a band we can be when

W
we put those things aside, ELCOME to this month’s free CD – as exclusively curated for Uncut by
that’s what has sustained The National. The band have long enjoyed healthy and productive
creative relationships with other artists – you might even call them
our friendship.”
serial collaborators – and this CD highlights the work of many key players from
“The fact we started the The National’s extended family. Across these 15 tracks, you will hear music made
band as friends, liking by close friends and long-term associates of the band as well as artists who’ve
music, not always playing shared touring and festival bills with them.
together, has been a “The National became a big group of collaborators a long time ago,” says Matt
dynamic,” says Scott. “It’s Berninger. “Carin has been writing lyrics with The National for 12 years. Kyle
[Resnick] and Ben [Lanz] play live with us. There’s Padma Newsome, Thomas
not like one of us answered
Barlett, Lisa Hannigan, Justin Vernon, Sharon Van Etten…”
an ad. We were making art as
friends. Maybe it’s good, 1 LANz 3 dEERHuNTER
Scott and Matt:
“There’s a shared maybe people like it, maybe “AuCKLANd” [FEAT JAMES “PLAiNS”
empathy” it’s just fun for you – and it McALiSTER] Taken from the
was fun for us, for sure, at the Taken from the 4AD album, Why
Brassland album, Hasn’t Everything
beginning. We all lived in the same neighbourhood at the start, really
Hoferlanz II Already Disappeared?
close. We’re further apart geographically, I guess – but in many ways, Airy, jaunty highlight James Dean’s
we’ve grown closer. My brother and I probably wouldn’t have spent from the second album performance in Giant inspired this
all this time together had we not had the band. Or me and Matt – my from a National sideman, Ben Lanz smooth, sophisticated gem from
friend from college. It strengthens things, challenges things. I always – who is also a member of the Bradford Cox and co…
feel lucky we still count each other as close friends. But it’s not easy.” Devendorf brothers’ underrated MATT: This song is why I’ve always
side-project, LNZNDRF. loved Deerhunter. He’s one of the
Individually, the band share their concerns about the pressures
SCOTT: Ben tours with us and James better writers out there. He’s a really
facing The National in 2019. Geographically dispersed, working in McAlister is a multi-instrumentalist courageous writer and performer. I
different environments, communities and creative spaces, the biggest who plays drums with Sufjan. To me, wanted this on the CD because it’s so
challenge seems to be marshalling the energy that is required to this track is very Talking Heads in its infectiously joyous and fun, yet it’s
perform on the level they’re capable of. Aaron, especially, is bassline and construction. I think it’s really abstract about this strange,
conscious that as The National move into their third decade, there are the ‘hit’ off his latest, Hoferlanz II. nihilistic blurry visuals. It has this
groove. So it has this really magical
obligations to uphold. “There is a legacy,” he acknowledges. “The
2 THiS iS THE KiT ability to turn anxiety and fear and
most important thing is preserving that and taking care of the music. “BASHEd OuT” self-loathing into fun. I don’t know
Making sure that if we put something out it deserves to be put out. Taken from the how he does it!
And this LP does. It feels very exciting. It’s a different kind of record.” Brassland album,
“We’re in a luxurious position of being able to figure out what’s the Bashed Out 4 THOMAS BARTLETT
point of being a band,” says Berninger. “So breaking open the idea of Stripped-back folk & NiCO MuHLy
what a record is, and what a band is, what combination of people in
from Bristol-born, “dOMiNiC”
Paris-based Kate Stables & friends Taken from the
the photo made them a rock band over time – one that’s been around AARON: We’ve known the Stables Nonesuch album, Peter
for 20 years and had so many people involved – we’re comfortable family for 20 years almost. They were Pears: Balinese
enough to tear that apart a bit. What is a record at this point? What is our first fans in England, almost. I saw Ceremonial Music
a video? They’re all branches of the same gnarly vine with different Kate play a show in east London for 10 Striking analogue-
people with her daughter in front of meets-electronica piece from the
graham macindoe

species of berry growing on it. It’s a weird thing, a rock band,

her, drawing on the floor, 10 years ago
especially after 20 years. It was simpler towards the beginning…”
at least. I ended up making Bashed Out
with her in the Brooklyn garage, all
I Am Easy To Find is released by 4AD on May 17. The National live. She has such a deep soulfulness
play BST Hyde Park on July 13 to how she plays and sings.
producer and his conspirator, the
esteemed composer...
BRyCE: Thomas has played on a
bunch of our records as did Nico,
who collaborated with Bryce on

64 • unCuT • june 2019


Cat
Power
Planetarium. Nico is a big Benjamin
Britten and Peter Pears fan, so this
record they made of duos is inspired
by the arrangements Britten and
McPhee made of Balinese gamelan
music. Thomas and Nico share a
studio on 37th Street called Reservoir,
which is where I recorded the strings
for Easy To Find.
5 SHARON VAN ETTEN
“GiVE OuT”
Taken from the
Jagjaguwar album,
Tramp
Gripping, frank
missive from Van
Etten’s breakout album…
AARON: This was a song we recorded
late during the sessions for Tramp in
my Brooklyn garage. That was 2010. It
was a song she had had performed
quite a bit. I’d heard it, but we had
the idea it would fit perfectly with
“Warsaw” and “Serpents”, that are in
the same zone. It’s Sharon with a
guitar and I’m playing these counter
melodies against it. She’s on the new
record as a spoken-word vocal on
“The Pull Of You”.
6 KHRuANGBiN
“LAdy ANd MAN”
Taken from the Night
Time Stories album,
Con Todo El Mundo
Admittedly, not
immediately part of
The National’s wider community,
nevertheless the Houston jam trio
share a number of European stages
with them this year – including BST
Hyde Park in July…
SCOTT: Bryan, Aaron and I were
introduced to Khruangbin while we
were on tour with Bob Weir by our
buddy, John Shaw, who’s a bass player
with Shakey Graves. I love this band!
7 BON iVER
“8 (CiRCLE)”
Taken from the
Jagjaguwar album,
22, A Million
One of the most
conventionally
satisfying songs from Justin
Vernon’s latest, rich with
soulful melancholy…
Khruangbin
BRyCE: Justin is one of our closest
musical collaborators and friends.
He’s a huge influence and has played
on a lot of our records. Aaron and I
were involved in a lot of projects with
him recently, working on the Big Red
Machine album and his new record. “8
(circle)” was first played in Paris,
when Justin allowed me to arrange a
bunch of his songs for voices.
8 THE BREEdERS
“WALKiNG WiTH A KiLLER”
Taken from the 4AD
album, All Nerve
Hypnotic murder
ballad from reunited
rockers’ comeback LP
SCOTT: When we started out,
we were fans of music from the ’90s –
Pavement, Breeders, all those bands.
Matt and I saw the Breeders at college
at the Tavern in Dayton, Ohio and have
loved them ever since. Every record,
everything they do. Kim and Kelley
Deal are amazing. There’s a Kim Deal
solo version of this from 2012, but this
is the full-band version. They played at
the Homecoming Festival that we
curated in Cincinnati last year.
9 LiSA HANNiGAN
“SNOW”
Taken from the Hoop/
PIAS album, At Swim
Lilting, haunting cut
from the Irish singer-
songwriter, carried
along by Hannigan’s lushly
swooning voice…
AARON: The album was recorded in
Hudson live in an old 19th-century
church. This was before I built Long
Pond. The song is meant to bring to
mind snow. I’m playing this high-
string guitar and I find her voice
incredibly soulful. For our new album,
I recorded Lisa in Berlin with our
friend Bella engineering.
SCOTT: Lisa sings a lot of our last
couple of records. Super sweet!
10 STiLL CORNERS
“SuBMARiNE”
Taken from the Sub
Pop album, Creatures
Of An Hour
From the London-
based dreampop
Moses
Sumney
quartet’s debut, “Submarine”
comes with eerie, krautrock pulses
and atmospheric synth lines while
Tessa Murray’s breathy vocals have
all the panache of a French New
Wave film soundtrack. Pitched
somewhere between Broadcast
and Slowdive, this is one of the
lesser-spotted gems on this
compilation.
SCOTT: I picked this song with
Bryan. We both wanted a Still Corners
song. This is our wheelhouse of
shoegaze music.
11 BiG THiEF
“uFOF”
Taken from the 4AD
album, UFOF
Following on from the
feature on Big Thief in
last month’s issue of
Uncut, this title track from the
band’s remarkable third album
is an alien-abduction fantasy
delivered by fingerpicked acoustic
guitars and airtight rhythms.
Big Thief also played a run of
five dates with The National in
spring 2018.
SCOTT: Very mysterious, Big Thief!
They were tour mates of us recently
and we were honoured. Adrienne
Lenker is a fantastic front person.
12 PAdMA NEWSOME
“CLOud THEORy”
Taken from the New
Amsterdam Records
album, The Vanity
Of Trees
From the musician’s
latest song-cycle – a dreamy hymn
to the landscape around his home
in Mallacoota, Australia...
BRyCE: Another extremely important
collaborator of ours. He was very
involved from Sad Songs For Dirty
Lovers through High Violet.
He and I went to the Yale School Of
Music in the ’90s. We had a band
called Clogs for many years. Padma
used to tour in The National, playing
violin and keyboards. This track is
off of a new album of compositions
that he’s done.
13 MOSES SuMNEy
“dON’T BOTHER CALLiNG”
Taken from the
Jagjaguwar album,
Aromanticism
Sumney played at
2018’s Haven – the
Copenhagen-based festival
curated by the Dessner twins. This,
the first proper song on his 2017
debut album, showcases many of
Sumney’s wide-ranging qualities:
the graceful guitar plucks, classical
flourishes and the gentle,
languorous soundscape, not to
mention his celestial falsetto...
SCOTT: I love this song so much. I love
his performance, his presentation.
He’s an amazing guitar player and a
super guy, too.
14 CAT POWER
“HORizON”
Taken from the Domino
album, Wanderer
Brooding, elegiac
moment from Chan
Marshall’s latest…
BRyCE: We all have very different
musical interests in the band. But Cat
Power would be one of the three or
four artists that we all deeply, deeply
love. In the years that we spent touring
in the van, I’d say that Chan is the
artist that we listened to most. There’s
a soulfulness and simplicity in her
music that we’ve always strived for.
Recently, we covered a song of hers,
“Maybe Not”.
15 BRyCE dESSNER/
SO PERCuSSiON
“MuSiC FOR WOOd &
STRiNGS: SECTiON 1”
Taken from the
Brassland album,
Music For Wood
& Strings
A brief detour into
Bryce’s more experimental,
classically minded work…
eliot lee hazel; mary kang; ibra ake
AARON: Those guys are old friends.
They play tons of drums and metals
and various percussion on Sleep Well
Beast and this record. Aaron Sanchez,
who has a band called Buke And Gase,
made these duclimers and Bryce wrote
this record for them. You hear those
same dulcimers on I Am Easy To Find
at the beginning of “Quiet Light” and
in “So Far So Fast”.
june 2019 • unCuT • 65
 PINK FLOYD

To InfInITy…
SmITh ColleCTIon/Gado/GeTTy ImaGeS

66 • unCuT • june 2019

And Beyond!

Obscured by
clouds of CO2:
Pink Floyd live
in Columbia,
Maryland,
june 1973

june 2019 • unCuT • 67

 lmost 50 years ago,
on July 20, 1969, humans set
foot on the surface of the
moon for the first time.
a triumph of endeavour,
futurism, optimism
and technological
advancement, this momentous
event was watched by 530 million
viewers worldwide.
A group of men similarly venturing into uncharted
interstellar territory, armed only with rudimentary
equipment and a steely determination to succeed, were
chosen to soundtrack this historic achievement for the
BBC. As television viewers peered through the static to
watch the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle’s passengers
explore a small corner of the Sea Of Tranquility, they
would have heard Pink Floyd perform an atmospheric,
instrumental improv now known as “Moonhead”.
“I always liked the slogan we used on one tour,” says
Nick Mason in 2019. “‘Pink Floyd – still first in space…’
The moon landings track would have been based on
something we already were playing. We didn’t even
play to an image, it wasn’t one of those moments where
we thought we were on the moon.” “none of us
By 1969, Pink Floyd had already been on quite the wanted to
learn any
journey. Perhaps they hadn’t quite risked life and limb dance moves”:
like the astronauts of Apollo 11, but their own mission Floyd in 1970
hadn’t been without its dangers – one of their
crew had bowed out of the trip early, leaving
the rest to boldly plough on. Aldrin and
“still first in
Armstrong, meanwhile, didn’t have to space”: the
contend with German hippies breaking down ’69 moon
landing –
venue doors, money literally being washed Floyd not
away or rubber octopi failing to inflate. pictured Over the next five years, Waters, Mason, Wright and
“We had no plan? Absolutely,” explains Gilmour metamorphosed from two-hit wonders to a
Mason. “The one thing about the Pink Floyd stadium-filling juggernaut that chronicled the trials
V&A exhibition, inevitably, is it makes us look and trauma of modern life – from psychedelic pop stars
so fucking clever. As if we thought, ‘Ah, then The Pink Floyd to something more imposing and
ULLSteIn BILD/ULLSteIn BILD vIa Getty IMaGeS; GRanGeR/ReX/ShUtteRStOck; DeZO hOFFMan/ReX/ShUtteRStOck

we’ll do this, then we’ll do that…’ But there
was so little premeditation. It’s not like we
decided we were going to be an album band
– the public decided. They stopped buying
any singles by us. We ended up being more
interested in this idea of lighting, because none of us
wanted to learn any dance moves…”
On January 26, 1968, the group decided not to pick up
Syd Barrett for a gig in Southampton, and they were left
without their charismatic frontman, songwriter and
figurehead. As their Piper-era manager Andrew King
recalls, the original four-piece had been a powerful
unit. “Roger had this steely determination, and if he
hadn’t been in Pink Floyd he’d have been a top
architect of his generation,” says King. “Nick had a sort
of showbiz instinct, Rick knew a lot more interesting
chords than anybody else, and then you had Syd – so
with the original four you’ve got a very strong setup:
musical knowledge, showbiz instinct, tremendous
ambition and a genius writer.”
“I think by then we were finding it so difficult
wanT To be in
working with Syd,” says Mason, currently revisiting
the group’s early career with Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of
The band – iT
gnomic known as just plain Pink Floyd. Along the
way, as they lurched from one project to another,
improvising their career as much
as their music, they honed their
songwriting and produced some of
the finest, freshest-sounding work of
their storied career.
“I do miss that way of working,” David
Gilmour told Uncut. “But you can’t get
back to that sort of equality that one has
syd barrett when one starts out as a young chap in a
with the Floyd, band. Gradually, over years, the balance
1967: “we
were finding it of power changes and your life changes
so difficult” and you become sort of – how does
one put it without sounding ridiculous?
– ‘a legend’. You become bigger and
more powerful than the people you’d get in.”
“syd didn’T “Once you look back on things,” says Mason, mulling
over the impact of technology, culture and the times on
the Floyd, “you realise that [if we’d been] two years
earlier or two years later, we’d not have been able to do
what we wanted to do. We’d have missed the boat.”

was a relieF”
t
Secrets. “He obviously didn’t want to be in the band ODAY Nick Mason has the sophisticated air of a
any more. We still did want to be a successful band, so man ready to take a leisurely lunch at his club,
it was a huge relief [to be without him], even though we niCk mason rather than someone about to drum up some
hadn’t got the material.” otherworldly space rock. Change, after all, is the

68 • unCuT • june 2019


natural way of things in Floyd.
As he welcomes Uncut into his north London
office it’s hard to miss the full-size Ferrari
Formula One car installed in its interior, with
matching Ferrari-branded toms neatly stacked
next to it. A wall of toy cars welcomes guests as
they ascend the stairs, while the meeting room
at the top of the office includes Floyd sales discs
commemorating, among other landmarks, 22
million units for The Wall. On Mason’s shelves,
nestled among various awards, sit The Rock Snob’s
Dictionary and all 10 hardback volumes of The
Gentleman’s Motor Racing Diary. In the entrance
hall, meanwhile, is a disassembled set of DW
drums, perhaps placed there in preparation for
his next tour with Saucerful Of Secrets.
“You think you know these songs,” Mason
muses of their recent shows, “but when you come
to play them and arrange them you find that in lots
of situations they’re more complex than you expect.”
Much of the Saucerful setlists draw from the Barrett
era, but many of the real buried treasures date from after
their first leader’s departure – “If”, say, or “The Nile Song”.
Indeed, the eventual toppling of Barrett was a relief to the group,
according to the band’s longtime creative director Aubrey Powell.
“They were uncertain times, but things passed. I think Rick, Nick and
Roger were ambitious to keep the Floyd together. They’d got that far,
they’d had two hits – ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘See Emily Play’ – so they’d
tasted that high life, they’d been on tour with Jimi Hendrix, they’d done
some great things already and they weren’t about to let it go.”
“I missed Syd,” remembers Richard Thompson, who shared a
number of bills with the Floyd in the late ’60s as part of Fairport
Convention. “I thought he wrote wonderful songs and had a great,
whimsical sense of humour. When he quit, the band changed – they
got a real guitar player, but something disappeared.”
With David Gilmour now fully taking over Barrett’s guitar and
vocal duties, the new lineup’s first release, June 1968’s A Saucerful Of
Secrets, uncertainly mapped out some new directions. Led by Waters
and Wright’s songwriting on the likes of “Let There Be More Light”,
“Corporal Clegg” and “Remember A Day”, and with Barrett still
haunting the feast on the closing mania of “Jugband Blues”,
Saucerful’s main leap forward came on its title track: a four-part
instrumental epic, it moved from glacial grandeur to martial noise,
ending on a heavenly choral section. It was experimental and
freeform, but imbued with a stately pace and more churchy, classical
influences than Barrett’s wild improvisations ever had space for.
A few months later, in late 1968, attempts by Waters and Gilmour
to co-write a single to match the success of “Arnold Layne” and “See
Emily Play” ended with the chart failure of “Point Me At The Sky”.
“Not their finest work” is Andrew King’s assessment today – yet the
song and its decidedly literal promo clip (the group in flying suits with
a DeHavilland Tiger Moth at Biggin Hill) does have a naïve charm.
pink floyd
However, tucked away on the B-side of “Point Me…” was a track that
would fully open the door to a new terrain for the Floyd. Symphonic,
simple and moody, “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” was as out-there
as “Interstellar Overdrive”, but with a new restraint and stately poise
that set the Floyd apart from any of their peers.
“It wasn’t necessarily well played,” says Mason, “but it was
interesting enough for people to think, ‘Hmm, this is good’, and quite
often be fooled into thinking we were rather good musicians. How we
developed the idea on ‘…Eugene’ of going from very sombre to
exploding, I have no idea, I don’t think we did it deliberately. But the
dynamic of having music that wasn’t just full on from beginning to
end was very unusual in 1968. Dynamics in rock music were not
really done very much.”
That summer the group had parted ways with their
anagers, Blackhill Enterprises’ Andrew King and Peter
enner, and travelled to America to begin their second
S tour. On the outbound flight, TWA mislaid Gilmour’s
white Fender Telecaster, never to be seen again. Even
he clanging guitar sound of the Barrett era was now
xcised, with Gilmour primarily using his new smoother-
ounding Stratocaster, bought from Manhattan’s famous
anny’s, from then on.
Saucerful would be their last band album proper for
ree years – not a soundtrack, a collaboration or a curio.
stead, the Floyd drifted into 1969 with little clue of
here they would go next. A lifeline came from the film
irector Barbet Schroeder, who enlisted the band to
rovide an original soundtrack for his film More.
“I don’t think we’d ever heard of him,” admits Mason.
“We’d done little bits of working with film, and it was one
ULLSteIn BILD/ULLSteIn BILD vIa Getty IMaGeS
f those things that we were quite good at. The fact that we
idn’t always work to song formats meant that we could
evise stuff that could be made to fit, with crossfades.”
Side One of More, in particular, is a pinnacle of early
loyd. The structures are song-based, with a more
ssured Gilmour handling all vocals: “The Nile Song”
emains the heaviest Floyd track sonically, its brute
ower and flailing lead guitar masking complex,
ontinual key changes; “Cirrus Minor” is spooky space
lk, beginning with birdsong before its sublime descending
elody fades in with hushed organ; “Green Is The Colour”
GILMOURBLUES
Aubrey Powell recalls the awkward entrance
of the Floyd’s new guitarist
“W
hen the Floyd asked back to the audience – it was almost
David to join, I remember like he was feeling his way. Playing
going down to the guitar with a Zippo lighter and trying
studio with them. Syd was trying to to create psychedelic sound effects
play the guitar with nick and David, when he was used to just playing R&B
and he couldn’t function, he couldn’t songs was very odd for him, and he
play the guitar properly, it was the looked uncomfortable on stage. It took
saddest thing you’ve ever seen. he him a long time to fit into the band.”
didn’t even know what he was doing
there. he tried to play ‘Back Door
Man’, I’ll always remember that. So
David slowly moved into the band,
and then I remember that suddenly
Syd was not there. But David was
very shy about joining Pink Floyd,
very uncertain. here was a guy who
was normally used to playing R&B
numbers – I mean, if you’ve ever heard
David play ‘hey Joe’, it’s unbelievable;
he was incredibly good at mimicry of
other artists, particularly guitarists.
So stepping into the psychedelic
world was really strange for him, and
stepping into Syd’s shoes felt most
uncomfortable. Many times at those
early gigs he used to play with his
 pink floyd
and “Cymbaline” are ballads, the first tender, the second stormy, and a still from
Barbet
proof of Roger Waters’ growing skill as a writer. That Schroeder’s film schroeder’s
was a pointed and tragic tale of hippies, love and heroin abuse on more (1969)
idyllic Ibiza only enhanced the Floyd’s countercultural reputation.
“More was three weeks of work or less,”
says Mason. “There wasn’t much sense
of worrying about it, we just got on with
it. The fact there were tunes being put
together for More must have given us
more confidence for the next thing.”

I
F the band’s songs appeared
unified on More, they were still
experimenting wildly with their live
show. April 14, 1969 saw a spectacular
at London’s Royal Festival Hall, The
Massed Gadgets Of Auximenes: More
Furious Madness From Pink Floyd,
which introduced the Azimuth
Co-ordinator, a pioneering panning nd “A Saucerful Of Secrets”. As engineer Peter Mew
control for quadrophonic sound. But recalls, though, the studio side of the project was
the Floyd’s next show, The Man, The Journey – harder to create. “They didn’t, so far as I could tell,
Koh hasebe/shinKo Music/Getty iMaGes; Moviestore/reX/shutterstocK

something of a work in progress that never progressed actually have anything prepared. On the very first
– would confuse their audience; after a new song, day in the control room of Studio 2 at Abbey Road,
“Daybreak”, opened the gig, the group began producer] Norman Smith said to them, ‘Well, what
constructing a table live on stage, then sat down for a are we gonna do?’, and they just looked blank. It was
tea break. A full set of tuned gongs was also involved. only after a lot of discussion that they decided that
“The audience for 20 minutes sat there thinking, his was the way they were going to go – one quarter
‘Hang on, I’ve come to see Pink Floyd and what I’m of the album each.”
getting is a lesson in carpentry,’” recalls Aubrey With half a side each to play with, the four
Powell. “It was so avant-garde, it really was – I mean, members created their own wildly different pieces,
there wasn’t another band that was doing that stuff.” with varying success. Waters’ “Grantchester
In June, the Floyd headed back into Abbey Road to Meadows” (a renamed “Daybreak”) was a sublime
record their next album. They had already tracked coustic guitar ballad accompanied by a looped
two live sets in the preceding months, at Manchester nightingale, while “Several Species Of Small Furry
College Of Commerce and Mothers club in Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving
Birmingham, for a proposed live album, and from With A Pict” found the bassist creating an a cappella
the recordings they picked out lengthy, noisy versions sound collage using various tape effects.
of “Astronomy Domine”, “Careful With That Axe, “Roger Waters’ stuff was a lot more avant-garde
Eugene”, “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” han the others’,” says Peter Mew. “There was a lot of
double-speed and echo chambers, all sorts of stuff.”
Mason contributed a percussion-based piece,

cLosinGthe “The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party”, and Wright provided the rather
fancy, keyboard-led “Sysyphus”, while Gilmour’s “The Narrow Way”

GATESOFDAWN suite bolted several minutes of noodling to the song proper, the
guitarist’s first lyrical contribution to the band. He handled all the
instruments, including drums.
Andrew King on how Blackhill lost Pink Floyd “Ummagumma to a large extent proves the point that it was better
and kept Syd Barrett when we worked as a band than as individuals,” says Mason. “I don’t
know whose idea it was; I think we probably thought it would be a

“I
t’s not the case that we the reverse of that was not the case.
thought, ‘Well, the Pink Floyd i don’t think anyone knew how to
are nothing without syd.’ and cope with syd. i don’t think members
f the band did. i think everyone tried
retty sincerely in different ways
o help him, but it didn’t really get us
syd Barrett,
london, 1967 nywhere. [Music publisher] bryan
Morrison had basically nicked the
oyd anyway, there wasn’t much
uestion of us being involved with
hem for much longer. bryan’s father
id the accounts at the publishers
aughs], so he was able to dry up the
money, which put Jenner and King
nder a lot of pressure.
“i probably wouldn’t say this if bryan
were still alive, but he’s not. they did
a good job of getting rid of Jenner
and King, and telling the band how
big they were going to be, and that
hey didn’t need us. roger was
very determined, and i think steve
o’rourke became very good news
for them. but David was always very
strong, he held it together.”
much easier way of knocking out a record quite quickly, because
everyone can go and get on with something. Roger was almost
certainly the most enthusiastic. Least enthusiastic? Probably me. But
there was a general enthusiasm for doing it – it just feels to me that it
didn’t really make sense, because it would have been easier to do
those sort of things as solo albums or something.”
Less than a year previously, George Martin and The Beatles had
studiously mixed ‘The White Album’ in mono and left the stereo mix
to a more junior engineer, but the Floyd and Mew were keen to mix
Ummagumma in stereo. It was just one example, along with the
Azimuth Co-ordinator, of how keenly the group took an interest in
audio technology that just a few years before hadn’t been available.
More ostentatiously, the back cover showed off their equipment,
gongs, WEM stacks, roadies, van and all, laid out on a runway at,
again, Biggin Hill. “At the time people would look at the back of that
cover and think, ‘Wow!’” says Mason. “But you look at it now and it’s
more or less a home stereo.”
“We opened for them a few times in Cambridge between 1968 and
1971,” remembers Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith. “Looking back, I
find it faintly astonishing that we played a gig in what was effectively
a small college meeting room… I remember Dave Gilmour leaning

Floyd in 1969:
“Roger had a
strong plan”
over to tune Roger’s bass on that tiny stage.”
Their equipment was always much larger than the
period’s standard, however, as promoter Freddy
Bannister explains. “I remember arriving at their gig
at the Assembly Halls in Worthing [on September 21,
1967] to find them already there, with their equipment
taking up at least half, if not 60 per cent, of the hall
floor. I remember politely telling some young ladies
who were part of the crew they couldn’t stay there,
as that’s where the audience were going to be!”
1
968 and ’69 found the Floyd touring more
intensively than they had before, helped by the
growth of the university circuit and eager
social secretaries like Richard Branson and Harvey
Goldsmith. These venues had barely existed in
1967, but the new circuit gave the Floyd much-
needed practice, and more opportunities to
improvise, still one of the main ways they
developed new material. “It is odd how little any
of us had played when we started,” says Mason.
“Rick had done some studying, and David had
been playing with his band in France, but the total
hours of playing for Roger and me would have
been very little when we signed a record deal in 1967.”
“Their improvisation was quite special,” says Frith.
“My memory is of them playing extended outer-space
jamming rather than specific songs. They were
working on making music collectively, each
contributing whatever they could.”
“None of them were particularly skilled,” recalls Jim
Cregan, then of psychedelic also-rans Blossom Toes,
who often performed alongside the Floyd in the late
’60s. “Mason was not the best drummer, they were
still learning their craft. But I thought they were great.
They were excellent at these long, moody, not terribly
complex things, brilliant at creating a mood.”
Despite the haul shown on the back of
“PeoPle would
look aT The BaCk
oF ummagumma
and say, ‘wow!’”
niCk mason
Ummagumma, their touring was still resolutely
no-frills: they had only two roadies, Peter Watts and
Alan Styles, and would rarely stay outside London if
hey were gigging south of Hadrian’s Wall [see the
Blue Boar panel]. Yet further afield across the
Channel, the group had found crowds increasingly
keen on their otherworldly sound.
“The French absolutely thought we were the
bee’s knees,” says Mason. “And the Netherlands,
Belgium and Germany later.”
“We played in a few Dutch cities in 1971 or
hereabouts,” recalls Fred Frith. “It was often like
entering drugged caverns in which the audience
scarcely noticed we were there.”
“It was really interesting that they picked up on
t,” says Mason. “We became really successful,
particularly in France. We were seen as intellectual but
ommercial. I remember the ferries we’d always seem
o be on, I think they’d been in service in WWII.
“Italy was a bit more chaotic and harder work, as the
promoters made it much more difficult get the money.
But politically it was not as bad as Germany, where
there were student demonstrations and this
whole business of ‘music should be free’ – they
would break down the doors of the venue. In
Belgium there were occasionally punch-ups
between the French and the Flemish. At one show
in Leuven, we were on stage for about 10 minutes
before having to load up to leave.”
ray stevenson/reX/shutterstocK
At the Actuelle Festival, held in a Belgian
turnip field in late October 1969, the band ended
up jamming with compère Frank Zappa on
“Interstellar Overdrive”. “Frank had a rig set up on
a little rolling riser,” recalls Jim Cregan, who also
performed and jammed with Zappa. “He didn’t say,
‘Hey, is it OK if I jam on one of your tunes?’ He just
“not the best
drummer”: nick waited until something he liked happened and he’d
mason, 1968 push his amp on stage on rollers. Off he went.”
june 2019 • unCuT • 71
 pink floyd
Back in the UK, More’s “The Nile Song”/“Ibiza Bar”
had once again failed to chart, just like the Floyd’s
four previous 7-inches. Not for the first time, though,
fortune was in their favour as the underground
expanded out of west London into the provinces, and
hipper music fans prioritised the LP over the 45. As
the end of ’69 neared, Michelangelo Antonioni asked
the band to soundtrack Zabriskie Point, and Floyd
headed to Rome for sessions that eventually proved
unsatisfactory to the exacting director. Still, their studio
improvs created a stash of new ideas they could draw on.
Notions of a rock “career” were in their infancy as the
’70s dawned, of course. Yet the Floyd were more in flux
than most groups, according to Aubrey Powell. “From
’67 through to the early ’70s it was very unplanned for
them, no question. There were always dramas,
always something going on around Pink Floyd. It was
an emotional chaos as much as a practical chaos that
they were involved in.
“When chaos is at the top, it works its way down
unfortunately. I always remember one night when
their manager Steve O’Rourke collected cash from
a venue in Holland, and he went upstairs to his hotel
room on the top floor but didn’t know where to put
the cash. So he opened the window, put the money
into the drain. Then he went out with the guys to
dinner, and while he was out it poured with rain.
KOh hASeBe/ShINKO MuSIC/GeTTy IMAGeS
When he came back, the money had washed away.”
A
S the new decade arrived, Pink Floyd found
themselves at the vanguard of the counter-
culture. For better or worse, they’d managed
to escape their roots as psych-pop renegades, Top Of
The Pops and all, and had carved out a reputation
as a hip and uncompromising outfit. But they were
still touring relentlessly, kept afloat primarily by
the determination of their bassist.
72 • unCuT • june 2019
“Don’t underestimate Roger Waters!” warns
Andrew King. “He was very determined, and I
hink he had quite a strong plan.” “Roger is the
most driven by far,” agrees Aubrey Powell. “He’s
got drive beyond, Roger, drive beyond.”
All Waters’ commercial ambitions came
omewhat to fruition with Atom Heart Mother, the
group’s first No 1 album in the UK – and their only
hart-topper until 1975’s Wish You Were Here.
Atom… was another “project”, however, rather
han a straight album, pairing the group with
avant-garde composer Ron Geesin on the side-
ong title track, and showcasing a song each from
Waters, Wright and Gilmour on the second side
before ending with a playful instrumental
featuring their roadie Alan Styles cooking his
breakfast. Bearing in mind the No 1 albums the weeks
before and after the Floyd – Bridge Over Troubled
Water and Motown Chartbusters Volume 4 – this was
quite some achievement. Again, though, it was born
rom a place of frantic desperation rather than a result
f clear-headed planning.
“They were knackered, they were run out,” says Ron
Geesin. “Running on near empty. Because of constant
ouring, yes, and the pressure of management and
ecord labels, but that’s all to do with maximising on
uccess. That side of things would be pushing them.”
After agreeing to colllaborate, Geesin and Floyd met
o discuss ideas, before the composer took away their
backing track and came up with his own melody lines
or horns, cello and choir.
“For the cello I was given no indication or guidance
s to what to do, only that there would be a cello,” says
eesin, “For the choir section, Dave played me an
arpeggio, and Rick Wright and I discussed the first
ouple of bars. They were about to go on tour again, and
said, ‘Just leave it with me.’ I was glad of that, as having
floyd at hakone
aphrodite open
air festival, japan,
august 1971
 in this case aided by their cover model, Lulubelle III, a Friesian cow from Essex.
“Atom Heart Mother, especially the work with Ron Geesin, is unbelievably
experimental,” says Aubrey Powell, “so I sometimes listen to it and think, ‘What
were they thinking?’ Then on the other hand I look at the cover, which of course I did
with Storm [Thorgerson], of a cow with no title and no name on it, and I think, ‘What
were we thinking?!’ To create such a non-cover, a sort of Marcel Duchamp statement
about nothing at all, and yet somehow being provocative… Especially in that period,
people must have gone, ‘What are they doing now?’ Of course that was the general
idea, but it was subconscious.”

A
T the outdoor stage at Crystal Palace Park
on May 15, 1971, Pink Floyd reached another
turning point. In among their usual setlist
– a stripped-down version of “Atom Heart Mother”,
ldies such as “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The
un” and “Embyro” – was a brand-new song, dubbed
“Return Of The Son Of Nothing”. After a period
determined: Roger ttempting to make music with household objects
Waters live with
floyd at KB hallen, uch as rubber bands and wine glasses – perhaps the
Copenhagen, 1971 polar opposite of soundtracking the moon landings –
he group had begun improvising on their usual
done quite a few soundtracks by then, the worst thing nstruments and created a great number of pieces
is having a bloody director or a producer hanging hat they named “Nothing 1”, “Nothing 2” and so on.
over you saying, ‘Can we have a bit more of that?’” One idea deemed worthy of further exploration came
The title piece, then named “The Amazing from Rick Wright, and involved his piano being run
Pudding”, was premiered at a number of gigs well through a Leslie speaker for an eerie aquatic effect.

JORGeN ANGeL/ReDFeRNS; ANL/ReX/ShuTTeRSTOCK

before the album’s release in October 1970, often Fleshed out into an elegiac, lengthy song and
without guest musicians. When the choir and horns renamed “Echoes”, it became Side Two of the band’s
were present, though, the results could be astounding.
“They were a big band, but not as big as all that,” says “i love ‘faT next LP, Meddle, eventually released in October 1971.
Something had changed: for a start, it was their first
Freddy Bannister, who promoted the Bath Festival
Of Blues & Progressive Music held in June 1970. old sun’ – iT standalone LP since A Saucerful Of Secrets more than
three years before. “Meddle was a real departure,”
“I billed them below John Mayall, Canned Heat and
Steppenwolf. Things in the admin office had quietened
fell TogeTheR recalls Aubrey Powell. “You knew they were moving
up into somewhere else.”
down a little by the time the Floyd came on, at about
2am, so I went for a walk around. It was raining and
veRy easily” “If Ummagumma was all of us doing individual
things, then by the time you get to Meddle it’s almost
I ended up behind the stage – I heard this ethereal david gilmouR a band album,” says Mason. “My view is that
sound, and I remember thinking, ‘What the hell is Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother are sort of
that? Who are they?’ It was fantastic. It was the Floyd
with their choir. They were very innovative, and it just happened that
‘The Amazing Pudding’ was something that they wanted to push to
the crowd. They wanted to see, I guess, how it was received.”
When the band recorded “Atom Heart Mother” at Abbey Road, they
PIGSONTHEROAD
found their ambitions limited by the confines of the studio. Even the Remembering tour hotspot the Blue Boar

“T
crack young engineer Alan Parsons couldn’t save them from the he big thing was to stop The Blue Boar was immortalised
restrictions of tape and a crucial mistake in the early sessions. to eat at about one in the in Roy harper’s 1977 song, “Watford
“What we should have done was use a click track,” explains Mason, morning at the Blue Boar Gap”, which included the lines,
“but we didn’t, and Roger and I played the whole fucking thing services, at Watford Gap,” explains “Just about a mile from where the
through from beginning to end as a backing track. So the tempo is Nick Mason. “The car park would be motorways all merge/You can view
full of transit vans, with everyone on the national edifice, a monumental
irregular. Consequently when they put the orchestra on top the only
their way back from somewhere.” splurge… Watford Gap, Watford Gap/
way the conductor could make any sense of it was to have a bloody Perfectly located near the point Plate of grease and a load of crap…”
loud PA system giving him the backing track, which meant there was where the M1 motorway ended, One of eMI’s board members, also
spill onto all the orchestra. So it was a less than perfect arrangement.” almost every group heading to the involved in the Blue Boar, didn’t take
“Sometimes in the concerts it was just unbelievably, spine- northern half of england or Wales too kindly to the song, and harper
tinglingly good,” says Geoffrey Mitchell, who sang on the piece and would pass by the services, originally was forced to remove it from several
opened in 1959. editions of his Bullinamingvase LP.
then conducted the choir live for most of the performances. “But it
“If we were in Doncaster that
never got there on the recording – it was a shambles, it really was.” night,” says Mason, “Cream would
Elsewhere on the record, Waters’ “If” was a delicate acoustic piece, be somewhere else, Jimi hendrix
but the real revelation on Atom Heart Mother’s second side was would be somewhere else… Amen
Gilmour’s “Fat Old Sun”, the finest song the guitarist, for so long Corner somewhere else… but
feeling his way uncertainly within the group, had written. sooner or later you’d find everyone
at the Blue Boar. We’d have eggs,
“I love ‘Fat Old Sun’,” David Gilmour told Uncut. “It’s one of those
sausage, chips and beans, I think –
songs where the whole thing fell together very easily. In fact, I or beans, chips, eggs and sausage.”
remember at the time thinking, ‘What have I ripped this off of? Where Some groups, such as Fairport
did this tune come from? I’m sure it’s something by The Kinks or Convention, would have most
someone else.’ But no-one has ever yet said, ‘It’s exactly like this.’ of their meals there on gigging
I think it’s a nice lyric, I’m very happy with that.” days. “We would often stop there
in both directions,” says Richard
Most previous Pink Floyd albums had featured photos of the Watford gap:
Thompson, “for lunch on the way,
band on the back or front covers, and at least their name on the “Plate of grease
and then for a late dinner coming and a load of
front, but Atom Heart Mother continued the group’s retreat from back. The food was very poor, crap?” surely
convention. Now the music would speak, mysteriously, for itself, though, basic transport caff stuff.” not, Roy?
 pink floyd
cul de sacs on a line of development. I like the albums
and they’re interesting, but they’re not routes we ended
up following again.”
Meddle continued the musical sophistication that
had been developing over the preceding years. It also
featured a clutch of impressive songs, including
“Fearless” and the ambient waft of “A Pillow Of
Winds”, and a collectively composed instrumental,
the galloping “One Of These Days”, which has since
been a live staple for Waters, the Gilmour-led Floyd and
now Mason’s Saucerful troupe. No Floyd album to this
point had sounded as good as Meddle either, recorded
on Air’s 16-track machine rather than the eight tracks
available at Abbey Road; Wright had mastered the
possibilities of his Hammond organ and EMS VCS 3
synth (bought from the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop)
and Gilmour was reaching the peak of his invention on
Stratocaster, Binson II echo unit and Vox wah, and
developing a new confidence and maturity in his
singing voice.
“When you start out, you copy,” said David
Gilmour. “I learned by copying Pete Seeger,
Lead Belly, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimi
Hendrix. And gradually, you start moving or
concentrating the things you do towards
something. And there’s a flash moment when
you think, ‘God, I rather like my own playing
now.’ That happens exactly the same with
singing, too. There was a moment when I can
remember thinking, ‘Ah, yes, now I think I
can sing OK. I like my own voice.’”
“Meddle is more mature? Yes, I think it is,”
says Mason. “Recording technology got better,
we became more proficient and we started
growing up a bit. We started getting married
and having children. It makes a big difference.”
Back at Crystal Palace, the group had placed
a giant rubber octopus in the lake in front of
the stage, with the plan being that it would
inflate during the last number, “Astronomy
Domine”. It rose slightly out of the lake, but
failed to be blown up as planned. While the
lake’s population of fish and lilies, wiped out
by this eight-legged invader, might have
preferred a different trajectory, the octopus began
the Floyd’s interest in inflatables and their drive
towards, as Waters would have it, a kind of
“electric theatre”. In just a few years, the group
would have planes flying over the audience,
lighting rigs seemingly taking off into space and
an inflatable flying pig.
“You can see this incredible progression, with
Roger particularly,” says Powell. “He was
thinking all the time, ‘How can we better this?’ But
GIjSBERT HANEkROOT/REDFERNS; PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMy STOCk PHOTO
it really started way back at that Crystal Palace gig
with that inflatable octopus. I think he realised
that the audience appreciated something more
than just the band. You see him today and he’s
gone off the clock with it, which is fantastic!”
“When we started using lights with the band it was
total amateur hour,” says Andrew King. “We lived in
a narrow bubble and we didn’t realise the sort of things
they were doing in live theatre. We just made it up as
we went along. But it ceased to be amateur hour as
more people who understood the technology of
lighting got involved.”
“[US lighting designer] Arthur Max transferred
us from coloured slides and 35mm projectors to
something bigger,” says Mason. “Even the whole
cherrypicker thing that we debuted at Radio City
Music Hall.”
74 • unCuT • june 2019
An octopus’s
garden party:
Rick Wright
at Crystal
Palace, 1971
If Meddle was the beginning of a new era, it was also
he end of another, with the Floyd effectively abandoning
mprovisation until the initial sessions for The Division
Bell over two decades later. The result was that their
music became more clearly structured, less wildly
reewheeling, and increasingly centred around Waters’
now extraordinary songs. “The transition with Roger’s
writing was incredible really [from ’67 to ’68],” says
Mason. “It went from ‘Take Up Thy Stethoscope And
Walk’ on Piper… to ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The
un’, which I still think is a really fantastic piece. But
Roger really came into his own after Meddle.”
As the group toured that record, Waters was writing
new set of songs, interlinked and wordier than before,
and tentatively titled Eclipse: A Piece For Assorted
Lunatics. During 1972, the group often previewed this
conceptual work in full, pairing it with ever more
mpressive visuals and lightshows. “We first played
‘Eclipse’ in the Colston Hall, Bristol,” Waters told
Uncut. “I seem to remember making a giant pâpier
maché elbow and hanging it over the band. I have
no idea if it’s real or not, but it is in my head.”
At larger venues such as Wembley Empire Pool,
hey began with ‘Eclipse’ and then went on to play
ust four more songs – none written by Syd Barrett
– and a concluding blues jam. ‘Eclipse’ would soon
ake on a different lunar-related title.
Y
ET Floyd had one more arthouse “project”
to try before global success beckoned.
The catalyst was their old friend Barbet
chroeder, who enlisted the group to soundtrack
his new film La Vallée. So the group decamped to
Strawberry Studios at Château d’Hérouville outside
Paris for a week in February 1972 to work up and
ecord 10 diverse new pieces: there was the
pounding title track, driven by synth, molten guitars
and drum machine, the uncharacteristic pile-driving
“RoGeR ReAlly rock of “The Gold It’s In The…”, Gilmour’s rustic
“Wot’s… Uh The Deal” and Wright’s bittersweet
CAMe inTo his groupie saga “Stay”. Best of all, however, was the
guitarist’s “Childhood’s End”, the final Floyd song to
oWn AfTeR feature his lyrics until the group’s Waters-less reunion
15 years on. “Did I miss writing more for Floyd?” says
meddle” Gilmour. “No. Things just gradually moved into the
directions they did. Roger wanted to be the guy writing
niCk MAson the lyrics. I was happy for him to be that. He was very
good at it; I didn’t feel that I was. So I don’t think there
 setting the they set out as equals on a voyage without a map, the
controls for necessary skills or even a destination in mind.
the dark side:
floyd in 1972 Through sheer force of will, hard work and luck, they
had arrived somewhere very different to where they’d
started: one giant leap, perhaps, to somewhere new
but just as intriguing. “Roger had found a way of
organising their avant-garde and commercial sides so
that the result had some architectural shape,” says
Andrew King. “But then it became a
bloody great organisation. I
remember Steve O’Rourke saying
hat the hardest part of doing a
ig gig with Pink Floyd [in the
mid-’70s] was arranging
heir individual caravans so
hat the wives could get in
nd out without having to
un into each other. Those
ort of pressures appear,
nd that’s all to do with
wealth and what to do with it.
But I don’t think that worried
hem much before Dark Side.”
was ever a point where I was frustratedly trying to “Until Roger was writing The Wall, we

MICHAEL PuTLAND/GETTy IMAGES; NEIL LuPIN/REDFERNS

say, ‘Read these lyrics! I want to put this song on!’ never had a choice of material, it was always
The way it happened made sense.” whatever came up next,” says Nick Mason. “We just
On its release as a single, Waters’ downbeat yet hought, ‘What can we do next? Oh, that might be
slightly silly “Free Four” became the Floyd’s first nteresting…’ I don’t think we ever thought, ‘We
song to chart since “See Emily Play” five years have to do this…’ We never really had a leader,
before. This underground album band had come even on The Wall. There was certainly no giving
back around to the singles charts, but now they of orders. We worked with what we had? Yes. How
weren’t singing about “games for May”, but US o you make sense of that?”
tours and gloomy “sickrooms”. “Astronomy
Domine”, the first song on the Floyd’s first album, Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets begin
had talked of “a second scene” – well, now the a run of UK tour dates on April 29 and
curtain had finally opened on it. hen tour Europe during July. Visit www.
“I think the improvisation got boring and I think thesaucerfulofsecrets.com for more details
the audiences got bored of it,” says Aubrey Powell.
“It was a period of time – I think they realised the
importance of writing about important things. On Dark Side Of The
Moon, Roger began to write about emotions and feelings and
madness, the workings of the great goldmine in your head and all
SECRETSRETOLD
Guy Pratt sheds light on nick Mason’s
the rest of it. Boy, were they on a different trajectory then.” Saucerful Of Secrets
Even as they moved into their imperial phase, with the pristine

ÒI
concepts, live grandeur and ever-increasing sales of Wish You Were T’S been amazing, the reviews band for me, it’s all new material. This
Here and The Wall, Pink Floyd couldn’t escape the echoes of their are always insane – it’s probably period is such a rich tapestry, and then
formative years, or the spectres of those who’d fallen by the wayside. the best band I’ve ever been you do something like ‘Point Me At The
in. It’s as intensive touring as I’ve ever Sky’ and it’s like, ‘Hang on, what band
“You could say that a lot of the rest of their career was about grieving
done with anyone, and hats off to is this?’ That really is quite funny, the
for Syd really,” says Andrew King. “Whether it’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Nick for agreeing to it. I guess it’s a idea of them trying to be this quirky
Diamond’ or The Wall or whatever, it seems like it could all be related small operation compared to the ’90s pop group.
to what they went through with Syd, and what Syd went through.” Floyd. But with those sort of shows “I’ve learnt a lot about Roger as a
“They worked hard and they deserved their success,” says Powell. you always have at least a day off bass player doing this: there’s very
“They all wanted it, they really did. But let’s never forget that Syd between each gig – here we’re doing little ‘bass’ bass, he was very much
three or four in a row. in the mould of Peter Hook, it’s all
started it all – without him I’m not sure they’d have gone anywhere.”
“I’ve only ever played three of mad, up-the-dusty-end stuff, which
Their later music even featured echoes of their transitional work, these songs before. ‘Arnold Layne’, is brilliant. He was the first person to
reckons longtime Floyd live bassist Guy Pratt. “So much of the later ‘One Of These Days’ and ‘Astronomy consistently use the octave as a thing
stuff is sort of buried in their earlier work. With something like ‘If’, Domine’, so it’s essentially a new in rock bass-playing, too.”
you hear that so much of The Wall is already sort of nascently there,
bubbling under. Listen to the beginning of the choral section of Guy Pratt, nick
‘A Saucerful Of Secrets’ and it’s basically ‘Comfortably Numb’!” Mason and Gary
kemp with saucerful
Elsewhere, Dark Side’s “Us And Them” dated from a piano piece of secrets at The
Rick Wright composed for the Zabriskie Point soundtrack, and Roundhouse on
september 24, 2018
which Antonioni dismissed, while the intro of “Shine On You Crazy
Diamond” stemmed from the group’s experiments with tuned wine
glasses during their “household objects” phase. On Waters’ Floyd
swansong, 1983’s The Final Cut, “Your Possible Pasts” even
incorporated a lyric from one of the bassist’s unrecorded 1968
compositions, “Incarceration Of A Flower Child”.
Though many of the exploratory and often stunning songs from this
fertile post-Syd, pre-Dark Side period were neglected in live sets for
decades, these transitional years were some of the band’s happiest, as
The Welsh singer-songwriter/producer
on her best work to date: “I hate
everything I do right after I’ve done it!”

“Q
uITE different? Yeah, it’s almost the complete
opposite,” says Cate Le Bon, pondering her move
from Los Angeles to rainy Lake District. There, she
took a year-long course at a renowned furniture
school. “Since finishing school,” she explains, “I
made a chair that looks like my record sounds. I’m
gonna build that chair again during the Marfa
Myths annual festival in April. I’ve been asked to do something musical at
the festival, but it’s like, ‘No way, I’m here to build a chair…’”
The new album in question, Reward, is Le Bon’s fifth, and perhaps her
most complete work. Taming the weirdness of Crab Day and her records with
White Fence’s Tim Presley, it finds the Welsh singer-songwriter composing
primarily on piano. Now back in her native Cardiff, Le Bon takes some time
out on her birthday to talk us through her work so far, from 2009’s Me Oh My
and Drinks all the way through to this year’s Reward and the latest
Deerhunter album, which she produced. “I hate everything I do right after
I’ve done it,” she laughs, “then sometimes I hear a song and go, ‘Oh yeah,
Splendid isolation:
that one’s all right!’ It depends what mood I’m in!” TOM PINNOCK Cate Le bon
in 2009

CATe Le bOn suppose, instrumentation-wise. I in the studio, so it was a

Me OH MY
IRONY BORED, 2009
Le Bon’s enchanting debut,
stripped-down and folky
Kris Jenkins,
who played
with Super
Furry Animals
a lot, had seen
me open for
Gruff Rhys and
told me I should go and do some
recording with him at his studio,
Signal Box. He’s a wonderful man,
really kind, really encouraging, so I
started working on a record and had
lots of fun, and experimented. I’d
never really been into a studio
before, and we had this loose idea to
make a record, but I had this
moment – I think it was where I was
putting down the mouth harp –
where I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’ve
completely lost our way…’ And I
totally scrapped that first record. So I
got 10 songs together and rehearsed
with a band and then took that into
Signal Box again, but with a bit more
structure. I couldn’t even tell you
what that scrapped record sounded
like – it sounded like about 15
different records playing at the same
time! I guess Me Oh My was probably
a reaction to having become
completely lost, so it was pretty
stripped-back and pretty classic, I
think it was pretty indicative of what
was going on musically then. There
was a lot of talk of freak folk and
psychedelia, and I guess it seemed
like the record to make at that time.
CATe Le bOn
CYRK
OVNI/TURNSTILE, 2012
A more freewheeling album,
inspired by Le Bon’s new
German passions
What had
happened in
between the
debut and this
was I’d found
krautrock. I
discovered
Faust IV, which continues to be my
all-time favourite record – it’s one of
the best records ever, I think. Its
playfulness and experimentation,
not just with instruments, but with
melodies and form. It’s insanely
inspiring. And I had probably learnt
a bit more about being in a studio,
that you can employ abandonment
and still get a record finished. I
was back at Signal Box for Cyrk,
with Kris Jenkins – I was again
experimenting, but with one eye on
actually having to finish a record so
it doesn’t turn into a quagmire. I
remember Kris really pushing me to
try loads of things and not be timid
really joyful, exciting
process. The “Cyrk II” EP
collected the slower songs
from these sessions – I
guess things sometimes
pool together in two very
separate puddles. Gruff
Rhys worked out the
tracklists for this album,
and Me Oh My and Mug
Museum, I think.
CATe Le bOn
MuG MuSeuM
TURNSTILE, 2013
UNCUT
A move to Los Angeles, CLASSIC
and a more angular then you’ll remember it, but if
aesthetic, helped drive Le you don’t remember it then
Bon’s finest songs to date maybe it was shit in the first
I’d written a lot of this over in place. Then I moved to Los
Wales. I’d gone to a house in Angeles, finished off some of the
Crickhowell by myself to write. I had songs and wrote a few new ones
this romantic idea that I’d go and there. So it’s a bit of one foot in Wales
spend five days there writing on my and one foot in LA. I wrote “Mug
own – but it was a pretty spooky Museum” in LA, I remember there
house, so I think I called my was a Wurlitzer in the apartment we
boyfriend to come and stay with me were sub-letting. I think I wrote a lot
every night from Cardiff. As soon of choruses in LA, or parts that I was
as I got back from that trip, we got missing. Then I wrote most of the
broken into that night and they took lyrics in Los Angeles too. The sound
the iPad with all the demos on it that of the record is down to a
I’d written. But you kind of think combination of people, but Samur
maybe it’s a good thing, maybe it’s a [Khouja] is an exquisite engineer.
blessing, because then you have to He’s tasteful but he’s weird when
try and remember everything you’ve it warrants it, but never at the
done. You think if it’s good enough detriment of something sounding

76 • unCuT • june 2019


With Tim Presley
in Drinks, 2015
good. Noah [Georgeson] is probably
more instrumental in how Mug
Museum sounds, in terms of the
width of the recordings. Has the
sound of this informed everything
I’ve done since? I guess so. It was the
first time I’d been produced in the
traditional sense of being produced.
It feels almost like the first record,
working with people where you
consider everything and you’re
messing around for ages trying to
find the right guitar sounds. We all
had really similar taste in scratchy,
thin, shitty, DI-sounding guitars. I
think at that point I was so sick of
being categorised as psychedelic
folk, so it was quite nice just to be
making a record that was electric
guitar-driven. Josiah [Steinbrick,
co-producer] and Noah, who had
listened and been fans of the first
two records, were really tuned into
trying to make the record sound like
me. They were super encouraging in
getting me to play guitar in the way I
naturally play guitar, instead of
trying to rip off some solo that I’d
heard on a record. So that was really
nice, that I could just do the things
that came naturally to me and it all
worked. My style is 90 per cent
execution and 10 per cent skill.
DRInKS
HeRMITS On HOLIDAY
BIRTH, 2015
Le Bon collaborates with Tim
Presley on this divisive, abstract
avant-rock LP
Los Angeles
was always an
amazing city to
come back to
after tour, I
loved living
there, and I met
some incredible people. But I always
used to find myself getting a little bit
antsy if I was there for three or four
months and hadn’t left the city. I’d
find myself driving to the mountains
or the ocean quite a lot. White Fence
had opened for us at a show in Santa
Monica. I guess on that night I met
Tim, who we were all absolutely
terrified of because he was real cool,
smoking where he shouldn’t have
been smoking, being quite snarly at
us all, we were just these frightened
Welsh people. Then the first time we
tried to meet Tim for a coffee in LA,
he stood us up which I was thought
was a real cool move… a bit too cool,
yeah! He was asked to cover this lost
record by The Dandelions, and he
asked if I wanted to help him record.
I remember him telling me he’d
spent all week putting this track
together. And I hated it! I remember
just thinking, ‘You have to tell him!’
So I said, “Tim, I’m really sorry,
dude, but I really don’t like what
you’ve done with this song.” He was
“Tim Presley
was being quite
snarly with us.
We were just
these frightened
Welsh people…”
so shocked that someone had said
that to him, and then he kind of
went, “Oh my God, you’re right, it
sucks.” And we spent the rest of the
afternoon putting a new version of
the cover together, and it was a really
lovely, easy process. After I toured
with White Fence, we went straight
into a rehearsal space and had a
really fun time playing guitar at
each other. It was just really exciting
for the both of us, because we’d been
making music by ourselves for a
long time. There was no push and
pull, it was just building off one
another, just doing it to please one
another, which is a really lovely
way to make music.
CATe Le bOn
CRAb DAY
DRAG CITY, 2016
Drinks inform Le Bon’s fourth album,
a wonky, spontaneous set of
Beefheart-y garage-pop
Taking steps: at
the time of Crab
Day in 2016
Crab Day was
enthused by
that more
spontaneous
attitude, of
going to a studio
in the middle of
nowhere [Panoramic House, Stinson
Beach, CA], just being in this lovely
bubble. I’d written all the songs and
we’d rehearsed them as a band. I
think it was as we rehearsed
“Wonderful”, just before we
recorded it, that I realised I wanted
to do it differently, more fractured. I
remember everyone being excited,
because it sounded bananas, but it
was also this structured song that
we all knew. Stella [Mozgawa] is one
of the best drummers I’ve ever
worked with –if you say to her, “This
song just needs a driving rhythm,”
she’ll play every single hit like she
means it. So Stella played drums,
Steve [Black] and Huw [Evans]
played bass and guitar and synths, I
think, and Josh Klinghoffer played
guitar, and Josiah played piano and
other bits, so it was an amazing
ANGEL CEBALLOS; IvANA KLIčKOvIć
group of musicians. All of them
understood and were invested in the
record. Why do I like marimba?
Well, there was one in the studio in
Stinson, and I’d been listening to a
lot of Aksak Maboul. I love that mix
of writing a guitar song and having
marimba on it, it’s a nice combo.
june 2019 • unCuT • 77

Cate in 2019:
“Music became
my hobby again”
BANANA
LIVe
LEAVING, 2017
A percussion-led supergroup that
rose out of the Crab Day sessions
I guess Banana
started as an
improvisational
group, which
sounds really
pretentious –
and it probably
is. But it was really fun, because it
was a group of friends, and all of a
sudden I found myself playing with
these amazing musicians. Josh
Klinghoffer I’d known for years, and
he was in Neon Neon, but it was after
that when he was asked to join the
Red Hot Chili Peppers. So regardless
of the fact he’s in that gigantic band,
he’s one of the most incredible
musicians. I love playing guitar with
him, he doesn’t make you feel
inhibited or small in comparison to
him, he’s just an absolute lover of
playing music with all different
types of musicians. For the first
incarnation of Banana we had
Rodrigo Amarante as well, who’s
insanely fun to play with. Then it
became myself, Josiah, who started
the whole thing, Josh, Stella, Huw
and Steve, playing compositions
that Josiah and Josh and I had been
working on, and then we all semi-
improvised them and recorded it on
an eight-track, as far as I remember.
Were they hard to play? I can’t really
remember any of the songs! Do they
have choruses?! They’ve got these
little tricksy moments, and we
Ivana KlIčKovIć
rehearsed for two or three days solid
and then did this recording, so we
were all pretty well oiled for the
strange polyrhythms and whatnot.
78 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019
DRINKS
HIPPO LITe
DRAG CITY, 2018
A second outing for Drinks, with a
more mellow, European sensibility
I’d left LA by
this point, and
I saw Tim at a
festival in Italy,
and I think both
of us were just
craving playing
together and spending some time
together. So we decided that the next
Drinks record should be made in
rural Europe somewhere. Our
booking agent said that he had a
friend who had a mill in the South Of
France, and we could have it for
€500 for the month or something
ridiculous like that. So Tim flew in, I
picked him up from Heathrow and
we did this 10-hour drive down to
this tiny village. It couldn’t have
been more perfect, really – basically
furnished, no WiFi, no TV. Just
isolated from everything. The days
were so long, and it was just back to
basics – we’d swim in the river two
or three times a day, and just sit and
write, or sit and watch the birds, or
sit and paint. It was a nourishing
month, conducive to making a
record with and for each other. I
think it sounds like the mill. I like
Hermits On Holiday but it was at
times a bit too masculine to me, and
“I went to the desert to finish Reward.
Quietness seems to be something I’m
always searching for…”
CATe Le BON
for Tim as well. So we wanted to
make the demos the record, and not
lose the intimacy by re-recording
them in a souped-up studio. We
wanted that fragility that was
missing from the first record to be
enhanced on the second. It was a
more collage-y affair.
DeeRHUNTeR
WHY HASN’T
eVeRYTHING ALReADY
DISAPPeAReD?
4AD, 2019
Le Bon is enlisted to co-produce
Deerhunter’s eighth LP
Bradford had
written about
Mug Museum
for Pitchfork, so I
was getting all
these messages
from people
telling me Bradford was a fan. We
ended up writing to each other on
email, and kept in touch. He said,
“When you play in Atlanta, please
come and stay at my house.” So we
did, and spent this lovely evening
with him – he’s an extraordinary
person, when you meet him he’s
more extraordinary than you could
ever invent. Then this Marfa Myths
festival collaboration came up, and
they asked me who I wanted to
collaborate with. I suggested
Bradford because we’d never really
managed to tour together. Then I was
in furniture school and he phoned
me and asked if I’d consider staying
on in Marfa after the collaboration
and producing the Deerhunter
record. It was a no-brainer, seeing as
Bradford and I spoke a similar
language and had a similar
mentality, taste and attitude towards
making music. It’s easy to call
someone like Bradford ‘difficult’, but
it’s doing someone like him a huge
disservice, as he’s also easy because
he writes these incredible songs and
writes all the arrangements.
He’s clear about what he likes and
doesn’t like. To be in his company is
honestly a treat.
CATe Le BON
ReWARD
MEXICAN SUMMER, 2019
A piano-led gem, comprising 10 of
Le Bon’s finest, richest songs so far
I took a year
off to go to
furniture school
– there’s the
romanticism of
moving to the
country by
yourself and attending furniture
school, but it’s also solitary and quite
lonely. The architecture of life as I
knew it had changed in every
element. So I bought myself a piano
and wrote songs and sang for
company. But I wasn’t writing them
with the idea of an album in mind,
but because I was going to school for
nine hours a day, so music became
my hobby again. I don’t think I’d had
this length of time to compile and
write songs for a while. And so I
guess everything about this record is
less spontaneous, and a bit more
considered and involved. I tried to
maintain some of the intimacy,
so it was recorded with the same
musicians, but just one on one. The
drums and most of the piano and
bass were recorded in Stinson
Beach. Then Samur and I went to
finish the record in the desert for a
month, which was amazing – it
was quiet, and you felt like nothing
else existed, which seems to be
something I’m always searching for.
But the air dried my voice out, so it
didn’t ever sound like me when I
sang, which was quite strange. So I
did all the vocals in Staveley in the
Lake District by myself, which was
perfect. It had come full circle. I wish
I was building furniture in Cardiff,
but it’s quite an investment putting
a workshop together, so I’m just
figuring out where the best place to
do that is. It’s a lovely thing to spend
time doing.
Reward is released by Mexican
Summer on May 24
BOB DYLAN

“
s
c s”
i
n 1974, Bob Dylan decided, not for the
first time, he wanted to do something
different – only he wasn’t entirely sure
exactly what. After his successful
comeback tour with The Band and the
acclaim of Blood On The Tracks, he could
have pursued a lucrative, conventional touring
model. Instead, he envisaged “something like
a circus,” he explained to his friend Roger
McGuinn. From such a loose idea, however,
emerged something entirely unique: a free-
wheeling, multi-artist caravan – the Rolling
Photo by Ken Regan/CameRa 5/ContouR by getty Images
Thunder Revue – that began in October 1975 and
finished up in May 1976.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was conceived in
the folk venues of Greenwich Village and took

80 • unCuT • june 2019


Dylan and friends around the small towns of new
England and Canada. Liberated, Dylan wore hats,
scarves and flowers and sometimes performed in
masks or whiteface. Venues were town halls and
civic centres, where the players often arrived
with hardly any notice. Shows lasted four hours
– sometimes two sets a day – and culminated in
mass singalongs of “This Land Is Our Land” or
“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”.
The tour mixed old friends – McGuinn, Joan
Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bob neuwirth –
with new faces like bassist Rob Stoner, multi-
instrumentalist David Mansfield, violinist Scarlet
Rivera and singer Ronee Blakley. There were wild
cards like Mick Ronson, Allen Ginsberg and
T-Bone Burnett, guest appearances from Robbie
Robertson, David Blue, Arlo Guthrie, Kinky
Friedman, Gordon Lightfoot and Ronnie
Hawkins. Joni Mitchell played one show in new
Haven and enjoyed it so much, she joined the tour.
At the same time, Dylan was making Renaldo
& Clara – with playwright Sam Shepard as the
nominal screenwriter – shooting concert footage
alongside largely improvised scenes like Dylan’s
visit to Jack Kerouac’s grave with Ginsberg. The
first leg culminated with a benefit show for
imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter at
Madison Square Garden on December 8.
A second leg took place in spring 1976 but didn’t
have the spirit that made Rolling Thunder such a
blast for performers and audiences alike. “There
was so much music on that tour,” recalls Larry
The Rolling Thunder Revue
at the Patrick Gym,
Burlington, Vermont,
november 8, 1975: (l–r)
Ramblin’ jack elliott, joan
Baez, Bob Dylan (with
T-Bone Burnett and Mick
Ronson in backing band
Guam behind him), Ronee
Blaklee and Bob neuwirth
“Ratso” Sloman, the Rolling Stone reporter who
wrote a book about his experiences, On The Road
With Bob Dylan. “Music in the hallways of the
motels, in the motel rooms, in tour buses, in the
dressing rooms, the hospitality suite. People were
jamming all night and then poured into the bus
for the next show.”
Ideas percolate over baseball in Malibu and in
the Greenwich Village folk clubs.
JOAN BAEZ: I knew it would be a great thing to
do. My main memory is sitting in the audience
every night to see Bob. The first leg was colourful
and beautiful. There was a lot of insanity, and
june 2019 • unCuT • 81
 BOB DYLAN
Bob filming it, and people I knew, and people I didn’t
know, like a floating ship of crazies.
ROGER McGUINN: Bob came over to my house in
Malibu one day. There was a basketball hoop over the
carport and we played one and one. At one point, he
said he wanted to do something different. If Bob says he
wants to do something it could be, “Let’s all go to Mars”,
something wild and crazy. He said, “I don’t know,
something like a circus.” Then we went back to
basketball. He won because he’s much better than I am.
LOUIE KEMP: I was a businessman in the commercial
fish process in Alaska. Bob and I were friends since we
were 11. We were hanging out in LA as he got ready to go
on tour in ’74 with The Band. He asked me if I wanted to
come. That gave me an insight into how the tour
business worked. Eighteen months later we were in
Minnesota. He had this idea for a tour, but the promoters
kept discouraging him because it wasn’t commercial.
He wanted to do something more down to earth that
would be fun for the audiences and bands. He didn’t
care if he made any money, he wanted to have fun,
play some cool places like a musical gypsy caravan.
Everybody told him it wouldn’t work, but I thought it
was a great idea. He said do I want to produce it. I agreed.
RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT: I was playing in a club in
Greenwich Village, The Other End or The Bitter End,
Ken reGAn/CAMerA 5/ConTour By GeTTy IMAGeS
they were always changing the name, and Bob showed
up. Patti Smith sang solo, Bob sang a few songs and at
the end, Bob said he was thinking of doing a little tour
playing small halls with Joan Baez and would I be
interested. I said count me in.
SCARLET RIVERA: I dropped out of Southern Illinois
University and bought a one-way ticket to New York.
I had an idea I was going to integrate the violin into
contemporary music and fate made it happen. I was
walking in the East Village with my violin case over
my shoulder when a nondescript green car pulled
alongside me. A guy that looked like Bob Dylan rolled
Rehearsals in
new York with
joan Baez
and john
Prine (top left),
October 1975
82 • unCuT • june 2019
efore the tour started,
the rolling Thunder revue
performed a warm-up
show at Gerde’s folk City. The
gig doubled as a birthday party
for owner Mike Porco, who gave
Dylan some of his first shows.
As well as the revue, there were
performances from Phil ochs,
Patti Smith, Bette Midler and
eric Andersen. Tom Waits was
in the crowd, trading impressions
with Dylan.
Guitarist Arlen roth was one of
the performers. He recalls, “It was
one of the most strange and chaotic
events I’d ever been to. Dylan was
playing my Martin. Joan Baez said
I’d be sorry I let him use it, and he did
put a gouge in it with his belt buckle.
“I played with Jack elliott, roger
McGuinn, Allen Ginsberg, Patti
Smith. Then when Phil ochs was
playing, Bob walked out. ochs said,
‘Don’t leave, Bob.’ Bob said he’d be
right back and ochs was inebriated,
falling down on stage. There was a
birthday cake for Mike Porco and
this guy grabbed a knife from the
cake and went flying at ochs’ chest.
ochs says, ‘There’s a guy with a
knife!’ and eric Andersen tackled
him and this guy goes face down in
the cake. The minute Dylan left, the
whole night just deteriorated into
another bad gig on Bleecker Street.”
down the window to ask, “Could I play that thing?”
I was about to cross the street when Dylan saw me. If
I had crossed one minute before he’d never have seen
me at all – although we connected in such a deep way,
I think it was inevitable.
LARRY “RATSO” SLOMAN: I was in Gerde’s Folk City
with Roger McGuinn. We heard Dylan was at The Other
End, so we walked over. Dylan was at this big table at
the back. He said, “Roger, come on the road with us, we
are doing an incredible thing.” And he said I should
come and write about it for Rolling Stone.
KEMP: We asked Barry Imhoff, Bill Graham’s
ex-partner, to be tour director. We mapped out a tour of
the north-eastern states but we didn’t tell the venues
who the principal performers were, we just told them it
was the Rolling Thunder Revue. Then we’d break the
concerts a day before, so people would wake up and
hear that Bob Dylan was in town. We didn’t tell the
artists where we were going, either. We wanted it to be
mysterious and fun for everybody.
ELLIOTT: We started in New England, then went up to
Canada and then back to New York for the Night Of The
Hurricane at the Garden.
SLOMAN: This was a way for Bob to get back to his
roots and bring some of those people like Joan and Jack
who were meaningful to his early career.
Rehearsals begin in October in New York’s SIR
studio. The first night of the tour takes place at
Plymouth’s tiny War Memorial Auditorium.
ROB STONER: I was bandleader. Every night after
rehearsal, I listened to cassettes and made notes about
what could be improved. I realised we’d be under a
microscope. This was Dylan’s new effort and everyone
would compare us to The Band. A hard act to follow.
SLOMAN: They had a solid base – Howie Wyeth on
drums, Rob Stoner on bass. They could play any sort of
Beats remember: Dylan
and Allen Ginsberg at
jack Kerouac’s grave in
Lowell, Massachusetts,
October 1975
music. Then there was T-Bone Burnett and
Steven Soles and Mick [Ronson] from Hull.
I don’t know how Ronson happened, I think
it was through Neuwirth. He was the nicest
guy, sweet and unpretentious.
STONER: We had these figures from his
past, but I was trying real hard to guard
against it being a museum piece. I wanted it
to sound like contemporary arena rock music
du jour. Mick Ronson was a great element. He
kept it from sounding too folky, and David
Mansfield’s versatility was very important.
I tried to arrange the tunes so they didn’t
sound mouldy. Fortunately I had Howie Wyeth and also
Luther Rix, both very versatile drummers.
BAEZ: This was fresh and way evolved from the coffee
houses of the ’60s. The spirit and the music was new.
It didn’t feel like the old days in the Village. It was
important that it wasn’t trying to repeat the past. It was
extraordinary and out of the ordinary and just crazy
enough that you wanted to be there.
SLOMAN: The first night was at Plymouth’s tiny War
Memorial Auditorium on October 30, 1975. They were
staying at a hotel that was hosting a Jewish women’s
retreat. They played some songs and Ginsberg did a
reading for a crowd of blue-haired elderly Jewish women.
ELLIOTT: They didn’t understand what we were singing
about but they smiled and clapped. Not the best audience.
SLOMAN: It was a little old hall, but there was an
electricity in the air. The second night was Halloween and
Bob and Neuwirth came out in these masks to sing “When
I Paint My Masterpiece”. People were astonished to see Bob
in such an intimate setting. It was a thrill to be that close.
STONER: To get the crowd warmed up, the people in the
band who were experienced as frontmen or songwriters
each got a song. Neuwirth did a tune, I did a tune, Ronson
did a tune, Soles did a tune. We were a self-contained
opening act. Then we’d bring out the guest
artists. McGuinn did his hits, Ramblin’ Jack
would do some tunes and then to take it home
for the first half, Bob would come out. We’d
ease into that with him and Neuwirth singing
“…Masterpiece” together in funny masks.
Ken reGAn/CAMerA 5/ConTour By GeTTy IMAGeS; frAnK Lennon/ToronTo STAr vIA GeTTy IMAGeS; BLAnK ArCHIveS/GeTTy IMAGeS
Then there’d be 30 minutes of Bob before an
With Mick intermission. Then we’d have Bob and Joan,
Ronson
and Bob then Joan, then Bob on his own. Then there
neuwirth, was the grand finale with everybody on
Toronto,
Dec 2, ’75 stage. We had so many arrows in the quiver.
SLOMAN: Jacques Levy was writing lyrics
and he was a great stage director, so he put
together the whole format.
RIVERA: Backstage on opening night there is a photo
of Bob kneeling down in front of me with his guitar. Bob
was sensitive to the fact I’d never played in front of that
many people and I was nervous. He offered reassuring
words so I could go out and deliver with confidence.
ELLIOTT: I’d play the last two songs of my set with T-Bone
Burnett’s guitar. He was in the band that played behind
Bob, they were called Guam. I played solo for about three
songs, then Guam came and joined me for two hotter
numbers. I did my set early in the show and then as I ran
off Bob would run on and say, [does Dylan impression]
“Good set, Jack.” Then he’d go on without announcement.
BAEZ: I’m limited in this sort of situation as I do covers, not hits.
I did “Diamonds And Rust” and whatever I felt would get through.
Bob was always respectful and introduced me in a polite way, but
I felt a little like I did at Live Aid – “What am I doing here?” I had to
find ways to keep people amused. I’d go out and dance.
RIVERA: I was fearful of so many people staring at me, so I put
on dark glasses and painted a talisman of protection on myself.
That was the beginning of the white face. I sometimes appeared
with a painting on my face of butterfly wings or spider web. Bob
started wearing the whiteface and I feel certain he understood
the symbolism behind what I was painting.
june 2019 • unCuT • 83
 BOB DYLAN
New Boss, same as
the old Bob?: Dylan
and Springsteen,
backstage in New
Haven, Connecticut,
November 1975
An unconventional blessing ceremony takes place.
Frank Zappa’s tour bus is requisitioned. A young
musician shows his appreciation.
ELLIOTT: Bob never told us why it was called Rolling
Thunder and I never asked. He just thought it was a good
name. A friend of mine, a Native American medicine
man from Nevada, was called Rolling Thunder. I asked
Bob if he knew there was a Native American called
Rolling Thunder. He said, “No, I didn’t know that.”
That’s what Bob always says if you ever ask him any
question in the world. He always says, “No, I didn’t know
that.” When we were staying in Newport, Rhode Island,
we all went down to the beach and Rolling Thunder lit
a bonfire. We took turns to say a prayer and he blessed
the tour with an eagle feather.
McGUINN: We danced around singing, “Yeah Yeah Yeah
Yeah Coco Baby Bop Dooap Bop Dooap,” and it felt good.
I said later that it saved my soul.
KeN RegAN/CAMeRA 5/CONTOuR By geTTy IMAgeS; RON gALeLLA, LTD./WIReIMAge
BAEZ: I felt Bob wasn’t entirely comfortable with
the ceremony. Bob sang his song in that way he
has where he wants to get rid of it.
McGUINN: We had this tour bus we rented from
Frank Zappa. It had “Phydeaux” – Fido – written
on the side and a picture of a greyhound. Bob
was in “the green machine”, a GMC motorhome.
One time I went with him. He had prescription
sunglasses and it was getting dark and he
couldn’t see where he was going. That was
a real interesting experience.
SLOMAN: I was in a rental car. Management
were always fucking around with me. At one
point in New Haven they actually pulled some
wires in my car so the battery wouldn’t work.
They were sabotaging me. They even discussed
getting me a ticket and putting me on a
steamer, but I don’t think they had the balls
to do that.
84 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019
First leg October 30, 1975
– December 8, 1975
Second leg April 18, 1976 –
May 25, 1976 (plus second
Carter benefit at Houston
Astrodome on January 25)
Songs played:
Isis 46
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door 43
Oh, Sister 37
Romance In Durango 34
Just Like A Woman 34
It Ain’t Me, Babe 33
One More Cup Of Coffee 33
When I Paint My Masterpiece 32
Blowin’ In The Wind 32
I Shall Be Released 32
joan and Bob at
Madison Square
Garden, NYC,
December 8, 1975
ELLIOTT: Joni Mitchell performed
a couple of shows, and then she
came and joined us.
McGUINN: Joni likes to sit up front
behind the driver. She had a book, a
speckled exercise book, and she was
always writing songs. One day I got
a song from her, “Dreamland”.
ELLIOTT: At one show, a young man
came to the dressing room asking for
my autograph. I asked if he played
guitar and he said he did. I wished
him luck and asked his name. He
said it was Bruce. Bruce Springsteen.
STONER: It was an evolving entity.
It would change from night to night.
It was always in flux, there were
always surprises and it always kept
you on your toes. That meant there
was sheer terror on my behalf
throughout the show as I knew
there’d be something we’d never
done and I had to hope the band
could remember from rehearsal.
And I had to hope Bob remembered
it the same as the band did. We were
all strung out, 30 feet across the
stage, about eight of us, and
everybody seemed to be on guitar.
SLOMAN: When Bob was on they’d
all come out and watch. He was so
great on that tour. A lot of these songs were epic journey
songs and Bob was able to almost act them out. He was
wearing whiteface. “Isis” is a great example, or “One
More Cup Of Coffee”. These songs were very cinematic
and you could really see him emoting.
McGUINN: Bob was amazing, full of surprises. You
didn’t know what he was doing next.
BAEZ: He was spectacular. It was a stellar performance
every night. I went down into the crowd. Sometimes
people noticed me, but I’d just look at them and say
“Sssh” and they’d not bother me.
STONER: There were all these stop-and-start type
songs that Bob was very enamoured of at that time, like
“Durango” and “Oh, Sister”. Every time they started up
again my heart would be in my throat wondering if these
motherfuckers would know when to go. The whole time,
I’m singing harmony, conducting with the neck of my
bass and watching Bob’s mouth to see when the next
syllable was coming. It was a high-wire act.
Baez as Bob. Sam Shepard’s film. Muhammad
Ali attends the show at Madison Square
Garden. The first leg concludes.
McGUINN: T-Bone Burnett would lasso me when
I was playing “Chestnut Mare”. Joan Baez and I
would sing “Eight Miles High” and she’d do this
dance in the middle of it, a sort of boogaloo that
nobody would have thought of Joan Baez.
ELLIOTT: Joan warned me in Toronto she was
going to do something during my set. She came out
dressed in this very funny outfit, like a bobbysoxer
with striped socks and a miniskirt chewing bubble
gum doing a jitterbug. Nobody knew who she was,
so one of our security guards lifted her over his
shoulder and took her off the stage.
BAEZ: I remember dressing up as Bob for one show.
You could not tell from a distance which of us was
which. He didn’t have an ass, but we didn’t turn
round for the public. I did a
spectacular Dylan impersonation.
ERIC ANDERSEN: I was doing a
show in Niagara Falls with Tony
Brown, who played on Blood On The
Tracks. We went to see Rolling
Thunder, then went on for the finale.
Bob asked if I wanted to do a number,
but I was singing choruses, having
a good time. After the gig I went to
the party and saw Joni and Ginsberg.
I think there were a lot of drugs.
Something had to keep it rolling.
McGUINN: It was a big party for
a long time.
SLOMAN: As well as playing
every night, Dylan was doing
joni Mitchell
Renaldo & Clara. and Richie
ELLIOTT: The film is totally Havens join the
troubadours
unrelated to anything that really in Toronto,
happened. They are all last-minute December ’75
made-up scenes that Bob made up.
He invited Sam Shepard and his job officially McGUINN: I think somebody decided he’d lost
was scriptwriter for this film, but we rarely a lot of money, so they did another tour in ’76 at
had a written script. larger venues in the South. That wasn’t as much
BAEZ: The film was goofy. I had no particular fun, the first half was great. I do remember we
confidence what would come out of the film. went to see Bobby Charles in Louisiana, and for
I didn’t think there were any professionals dinner he had this alligator wrapped in
around. It was like a Boy Scout camp Muhammad Ali on
aluminium foil on the table and a keg of beer. You
making a cool film, that’s what it felt stage during the poured yourself a beer and grabbed a hunk of
like and kind of what it ended up. Revue’s first Rubin alligator flesh. It tasted like chicken.
Carter benefit,
SLOMAN: “Hurricane” [Dylan’s Madison Square SLOMAN: The second part didn’t have the same
November 1975 song about Garden, Dec 8, ’75 spirit. You look at the footage and it’s a whole
imprisoned boxer Rubin Carter] different Bob. He’s got a different outfit, he’s

BLANK ARCHIVeS/geTTy IMAgeS; LOMBARD STReeT/KOBAL/ReX; NOAM gALAI/FILMMAgIC

was a real return to his roots. He’d reinvented himself again. He was ready to move
done a lot of songs about racial RIVERA: The prison was a very on, ’cos one thing he never does is repeat himself.
injustice and this wasn’t new for sad experience. At the Garden, I got BAEZ: All the colour is gone, the pretty scarves

BeTTMANN/geTTy IMAgeS; VINCeNT RIeHL/Ny DAILy NeWS VIA geTTy IMAgeS;

him to pick up the cause of a black
guy screwed by the justice system. The
last big event on the first leg was the Night Of
The Hurricane at Madison Square Garden.
Muhammad Ali was there, it was amazing.
ELLIOTT: We also did a concert at Carter’s prison
for the inmates. They were all black. They didn’t
appreciate Joni, she was too white. They didn’t
tap their feet for Joni.
BAEZ: I’m pretty good at penitentiaries. I kind of
get what the inmates want, what they’re missing,
and how to relate. They’re usually Latinos or black,
and I have that repertoire. I remember Joni singing
something wordy, long and white, and they
weren’t interested, they got restless. Bob didn’t
have to think about it, he’s in his own stratosphere.
They wouldn’t care if he got up and farted.
to shake Ali’s hand. That was an
incredible show. But almost every show
was a great show, I don’t think we did a bad
one. Every night and every place. We didn’t get
tired. This was music that everybody was
passionate about and an experience that we all
knew was never going to happen again.
The tour ends up where it began – in New
York’s Greenwich Village, where one final
revelation from Dylan awaits.
RIVERA: Before the second leg, we did another
benefit for Carter at the Houston Astrodome. It
was an all-star concert with Stevie Wonder and
our guest drummer was Ringo Starr. We all
deferred our salaries for the fund.
and flowers, and with it the excitement. It wasn’t
over, it just wasn’t the same.
KEMP: The second tour was similar but in a
different location, so had a different flavour. It was
a one-of-a-kind tour and that’s why it is legendary.
No-one had done anything like it before or since.
McGUINN: It just faded away. There was never
a wrap party. The real party was at the front
hanging out at Gerde’s before we left.
SLOMAN: Every night I got to see Dylan pour
his heart out in the most amazing fashion. At the
end of the tour we were back at the Other End
where it all began and somebody played “Like
A Rolling Stone” on the jukebox. I started kidding
Bob, “You didn’t even play your best songs on
this tour!” And he said to me, “Ratso, did I ever
let you down?”

HIS year, Netflix will be screening fever dream”. “There’s a reason

Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited
documentary, Rolling Thunder
Revue: A Bob Dylan Story. Larry Sloman
has seen a rough cut and “is in awe”.
The film will use much of the archive
footage shot for Renaldo & Clara
as well as contemporary interviews
conducted over the past few years
with those who were present.
It’s believed that this film will be less
of a conventional biography than
Scorsese’s No Direction Home (2005)
and has been described as “part
documentary, part concert film, part
the word ‘story’ appears in the
title,” a source told Variety.
Dylan himself has provided
interviews for the film, as have
many of the tour’s supporting
cast and crews. “One of the things in
the Scorsese movie is the unbelievable
performance footage,” says Sloman.
“He had access to everything including
interviews conducted as soon as the
tour was finished. That was shrewd. joan Baez,
Sara Dylan
Scorsese (inset, above) inherited all and Bob in
that and found other footage and put it Renaldo &
together a great film.” Clara (1978)
 Dixie-Narco
EP byPrimal Scream
FollowingtheScreamadelicaLP,thebandtakearootsierturnin
Memphis: “We loved Sun, Stax and Big Star!” says Bobby Gillespie
W
hen Primal Scream
Darren Gerrish/WireimaGe; lberto Pezzali/nurPhoto via Getty imaGes; nils JorGensen/
arrived in Memphis,
reX/shutterstock; tom olDham/reX/shutterstock; robin marchant/Getty imaGes
Tennessee, in late
november 1991, it
must have seemed a
little like coming home. Although none
of the group had visited the city before,
and keyboardist Martin Duffy had never
stepped foot in the States, many of the
group’s musical touchstones originated
in the American South. “We were working
in the crucible of the blues,” recalls Bobby
Gillespie, “so it was kind of a rock’n’roll
pilgrimage, you know? We loved stuff that
came out of Sun and Stax… elvis, Jerry Lee
Lewis, Johnny Cash, rockabilly, and also
we were fans of underground Memphis
artists like Alex Chilton, Big Star, Panther
Burns. Then there were soul artists like
Al Green, and Delta blues music.”
Though they wrote and recorded in the
city for less than two weeks, they also
found time to meet up with “outlaw”
photographer William eggleston, call up
Primal Scream, 1991:
(l-r) Rob “Throb” Young,
Toby Toman, Bobby
Gillespie, Henry Olsen,
Andrew Innes and
Martin Duffy (front)
Isaac hayes, produce nation Of Ulysses,
get tattoos, wrangle with raccoons and
head to Graceland, where they may or may
not have misbehaved.
“I’d be more worried if there hadn’t been
some hedonism,” says Douglas hart, the
former Jesus And Mary Chain bassist who
was filming the whole trip. “But they were
on fire then, the band at their peak playing
together, so they focused on their work
because it was just happening.”
The recordings in Memphis were a far
cry from Screamadelica, released months
before; haunting and stripped down,
“Stone My Soul” and “Carry Me home”
foreshadowed the rootsier sound they’d
pursue on their next LP, ’94’s Give Out But
Don’t Give Up. “They’ve got a beautiful
vibe,” says Martin Duffy. “It doesn’t sound
like Give Out or Screamadelica, it just
sounds like those two tracks, different
from anything else we’ve done.”
To create the “Dixie-narco eP”,
they teamed these two tracks with
key players
Screamadelica’s “Movin’ On Up” and the
last spin of their psychedelic dance sound,
an 11-minute epic that took the title of
their recent LP. “‘Dubbed-out Funkadelic’
was the vibe,” explains producer Andrew
Weatherall of Screamadelica itself. “But Bobby Gillespie
with the tracks recorded in America, vocals
a certain wistfulness may have come
through the music. Memphis has a certain
melancholy. If the music’s in your blood
and your bones a little bit, you tap into the
psychogeography, and you touch the walls
of buildings… It was kind of in us!”
“It was lovely,” says Gillespie, “because
a year and a half before, we were signing andrew Innes
on, and here we were in Memphis making Guitar
music in Ardent Studios with all our
friends. It was a great time.” TOM PINNOCK
BOBBY GILLeSPIe: We’d had the success
of Screamadelica, and Creation wanted to
release “Movin’ On Up”. We had already
recorded the track “Screamadelica”
in September 1991 at eden Studios in Martin Duffy
Chiswick. Weatherall had mixed that. keyboards
AnDReW InneS: We started
“Screamadelica” just as we were finishing
off the album. There was a gospel sample
that hadn’t been used on “Movin’ On Up”.
We started writing around that, and then it
developed into another thing.
AnDReW WeATHeRALL: I wasn’t given
a finished song, it was more a groove and andrew
a few ideas. And as was my wont in those Weatherall
days, I thought, ‘Yeah, this needs to be a Producer
12-minute song with three kitchen sinks in
it.’ It’s a wonky approximation, that’s how
originality is born, and “Screamadelica”
and “Dixie-narco” was just us doing
wonky approximations of rockabilly, jazz,
techno, whatever went into the pot.
GILLeSPIe: We needed more songs to do an
eP. Big Star were really the reason we went Douglas Hart
to Memphis. A great friend, Tim Tooher, Friend/
was working at Creation doing a reissue documentarian
label and he wanted to reissue stuff like
Dan Penn and [Big Star’s] Sister Lovers.
I think Tim was in contact with [Big
Star drummer] Jody Stephens, and
Jody suggested, “Why don’t the band
come over and work at Ardent?” Of
course we are massive fans of Big
Star, particularly Sister Lovers.
InneS: We finally had some money.
We would have been in London’s
cheapest 24-track, but suddenly we
had a budget to say, “Let’s go make
a record where Big Star did.” Just
living the dream, I guess.
MARTIn DuFFY: I hadn’t been to
America before. I arrived separately
at night, and it was amazing to be
there and making music. It was
fantastic just walking around, it’s
such a musical place. It was a very
romantic time. I think it might have
been the week Freddie Mercury died.
GILLeSPIe: I wouldn’t remember
that, because Freddie Mercury never
meant anything to me. no disrespect
to him or Queen. We went over there
with no music, the idea was just to
make something, to write on the
spot. I had a bootleg tape of Dennis
Wilson singing this unreleased
song, “Carry Me home”, which
I was taken by. I think we’d decided
we’d record a version of that,
but we hadn’t worked out how
we were gonna do that. It was
purely experimental.
“We went over
there with no
music the idea
was just to write
on the spot”
BOBBY GILLeSPIe
WeATHeRALL: I remember we were
being shown around the studio –
“That there is the very organ that
played ‘Green Onions’” – you’ve
never seen five men move so fast, to
lay their hands on it.
DuFFY: The organ blew me away. But
it wasn’t quite in tune, so we had to
tune everything around it.
DOuGLAS HART: It was incredible to
be in that studio, and we had a little
white, wooden-framed house out
back, like an eggleston photo.
InneS: There was all this rattling
going on up in the roof, and it turned
out there was a family of raccoons
living there. Me and Douglas went
out the back door and there was a
raccoon stood there – they don’t give
a fuck, they’re not scared of you, and
we ended up backing off! eventually
someone told us, “Don’t mess with
raccoons, they’ll stand and fight.”
You only go for them if you’ve got a
gun, basically… They won’t start on
you, but if you move towards them,
they’ll have it. “Carry Me home” is a
beautiful piece of music. Apparently
we got a lady from the Memphis
Symphony Orchestra to come along
and play cello or bass on that.
WeATHeRALL: I wanted a really
deep sound. Stand-up basses have
insane sub-bass, so we thought we’d
try that. Then we thought we’d try it
with a bow and see what happens.
InneS: We wrote “Stone My Soul”
there, in the house attached to the
studio. It started off quite fast, but we
slowed it down and ended up with
a really sparse version. It features a
pedal steel guy, Robert Turner, who
was Waylon Jennings’ pedal steel
player. They had to send to nashville
for him. he was obviously very good
– one of those musicians who listens
once and then does you a great take.
They’re professionals, unlike us lot.
GILLeSPIe: I listened to “Stone My
Soul” last night, and the pedal steel
playing is just exquisite. his mum
and dad had both played in hank
Williams’ band. Good lineage.
WeATHeRALL: he was a bit sceptical
at first, though, you could tell – “Oh,
another bunch of limeys trying to
get a bit of rock’n’roll atmosphere.”
But Bobby started talking to him
about records and his face, body
language, visibly changed. Which
is fair enough, ’cos if you’re the
real deal and these fuckwits from
Britain come to try and get a bit of
authenticity you might get a bit
defensive. We weren’t just turning
up to get some heritage brand sheen.
InneS: I think Jody [Stephens]
played drums on one of the songs,
but I don’t think we used them.
We recorded a lot of stuff, then
Weatherall did what he did, picked
what he thought were the best bits.
he’s a great editor of music.
WeATHeRALL: We were mixing
on a Sunday and I didn’t want the
band to come in, so I wanted to do
this Spector thing, where he turns
round and he’s got a gun. So I said to
someone at the studio, “Can we get
hold of a gun?” “Sure, no problem!
I’ll go and get one.” I wanted the
band to come in and then I’d point
a gun at them and say, “Get out!”
But half an hour later the guy comes
back – “Bad news, man, Piggly
Wiggly’s shut!” It was Sunday hours!
InneS: We tried to get Isaac hayes to
do a mix of “Screamadelica”, as it’s
a bit of a Hot Buttered Soul thing. I
june 2019 • unCuT • 87

Done and dusted:
the Scream in
Memphis, 1991
“On the last day, the drugs
turned up. I remember
mirrors being pulled off
walls” ANDREW WEATHERALL
remember someone putting a bit of paper
in front of me saying, “Mr Hayes has called
for Andrew Innes…” It was like, “Ah, this
is really getting too much now…” Because
suddenly we were in this sort of world that
you only dream of being in. The success of
Screamadelica was giving us access to all
our wildest notions of making records. But
we never got back to him for some reason.
DUFFY: “Carry Me Home” and “Stone My
Soul” are comedown-y and bluesy, they’ve
got a real atmosphere, kind of spooky.
GILLESPIE: We were just conduits for what
was happening in the culture at the time.
And I felt that culture was getting a bit
dark all round, so it came through us and
came out in the music.
INNES: I don’t think the songs are that
consciously different. “Carry Me Home”
could have been on Screamadelica, but it’s
not as lush, maybe a bit more fragile.
HART: The title of the EP comes from the
Coke machine in Ardent. Dixie-Narco
are the company that distributed and
maintained soda machines.
WEATHERALL: While we were in Memphis
I met the man who wrote “Eye Of The
Tiger” in the car park of a roadside bar
and grill. We also got the chance to meet
Jerry Lee Lewis, but we passed on that.
I think we all thought he would put on a
performance and we’d be sitting there
going, “Oh, it’s Jerry Lee Lewis!” Another
day we walked into this tattoo shop on
the wrong side of the tracks, and the guy
September 1991
Primal Scream release
he Screamadelica
recognised us and offered free tattoos all
around. It came to mine and the bloke
doing it didn’t have a single tattoo. I asked
him why, and he said, “I haven’t seen one
I really like yet.” An amazing purity!
DUFFY: This was the pre-tattoo generation
– but Weatherall was already pretty
tattooed, and Throb had some. I got my
one and only tattoo there, a harp – it had
an Irish connection, a musical connection
fact file and a Guinness connection.
GILLESPIE: There was a second-hand
Written by: Bobby record shop up the street from Ardent
Gillespie, Andrew
Innes, Robert
called Shangri La. One day Douglas and
Young, except I were in there, and these kids came in all
“Carry Me Home”, dressed in suits, with this pompadour hair
by Dennis Wilson – like a bunch of young John Cassavetes!
& Gregg It turned out they were in a band called
Jakobson Nation Of Ulysses. They were playing a
Performers gig that night at the Antenna Club, and
include: Bobby Bikini Kill were on too, so Weatherall,
Gillespie (vocals), Douglas and myself went to the show. We
Andrew Innes
(guitars), Robert
particularly enjoyed Nation Of Ulysses,
Young (guitars), and we brought all of them back to our
Martin Duffy band house, had a few drinks. The
(organ), Denise next day we were having a day off, so
Johnson (vocals), Weatherall and I said, “We’ll produce
Robert Turner you, we’ll cut some songs and you can
(pedal steel) release it as a single if you want.” So both
Produced by: bands came to Ardent the next day and
Andrew we recorded four songs with Nation Of
Weatherall &
Hugo Nicholson,
Ulysses and gave them a DAT tape at the
except “Movin’ On end of it. But it never came out. When I ran
Up”, by Jimmy into them years later they had the band
Miller The Make Up, and I said, “Why didn’t you
Recorded at: release that?” They said, “It was too rock,
Ardent Studios, man.” I was like, “Fuckin’ hell…”
Memphis; Eden WEATHERALL: We also went to Graceland
Studios, London and nearly got thrown out.
Released: HART: Didn’t someone vomit in the
February 1992
Highest chart
front garden?
positions: UK 11; WEATHERALL: We were with Douglas
US - Hart, and you know he’s got these kind
of dreadlocks? Well, me and Bob G were
stood at the back of this tour, and Douglas
time line
album, and the group november 1991 new tracks for the
record the song of the The band travel to “Dixie-Narco EP”
same name Memphis to record february 1992
was at the front, and this very WASP-y
young girl doing the tour said to him,
“Gee, I love your hair! How do you get it
to go like that?” And from behind me,
very loud, Bob G just goes, “He fucks
Catholic virgins.” And the guide went,
“What did he say? What did he say?!”
But it all got smoothed over and we went
about our business.
GILLESPIE: I don’t think that’s true.
Maybe the second time we went [in 1993]
somebody might have been a bit worse for
wear. Maybe Andrew [Innes]? But I don’t
know, I wasn’t there.
HART: We got William Eggleston’s
number from Jody Stephens and the tour
manager called him up. “I’m in town with
a band, they’d love to meet you…” and
without missing a beat Eggleston said,
“You’re not that band that shits on stage
and eats it, are you?” The tour manager
said, “No!” and Eggleston said, “Ah,
that’s a pity, but come over anyway.”
What a line!
GILLESPIE: I became aware of him through
the Big Star album covers. I wanted to use
one of his photographs that had never
been seen anywhere. He was a gracious
host, charismatic, a stylish gentleman
outlaw, and obviously a very talented
artist. It was an unforgettable meeting.
HART: I remember him putting on “Movin’
On Up” – we must have brought a record –
and he put his head down, put his hands
in the air and started going, “Bo Diddley!”
GILLESPIE: He very kindly allowed us
to use any photo we wanted, so after
Memphis I went up to New York to see
William’s agent and I chose the photo of
the little girl. I thought it was really cool.
WEATHERALL: On the last day the drugs
turned up. I remember mirrors being
pulled off walls and put on coffee tables
to aid consumption. I imagine Douglas’s
film of it’s like the Scream’s Cocksucker
Blues! There probably was gear going
round before, but they weren’t drug-
fuelled sessions, not for me anyway. But
I do remember on the last day, when it was
done and dusted, we got done and dusted.
DUFFY: We let our hair down on the last
day? I don’t think it had been up, really.
WEATHERALL: They took it seriously,
though, it wasn’t a jolly. We were at the
heart of rock’n’roll, there was a job to be
done. It would have been an insult to the
memories of the people who’d recorded
there if we’d just fucked about.
GILLESPIE: We felt it to be a place of
historical importance, of records that
we’d loved and that had inspired us. It
was like being a football player playing at
Wembley, you kind of rise to the occasion.
We were aiming high.
Maximum Rock’n’Roll: The Singles will
be released on May 24 by Sony
The EP is released in
the UK, hitting No 11
in the charts
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 JJ CALE
“He relished the
quiet life”: Cale
at his home
near San Diego,
California, 1989

RollOn
Photo by michael putland

M
anaging JJ Cale could be
an unconventional business.
in the mid-’80s, Cale was
living in a trailer park near
Disneyland without a care
– or, indeed, a telephone.
“i would have to send mailgrams to the local
post office – marked: JJ Cale, general Delivery –
and hope that he would come by to check his
mail, so that gig offers wouldn’t disappear,” says
MiCHael PuTlanD/GeTTy iMaGeS
them. Cnn wanted to do a feature on him, and
he’d say, ‘nah, why would i want to do that?’ He
was interested in success, but he wasn’t going to
prostitute himself for it.”
One of his oldest musician friends, David
Teegarden, dubbed Cale “Dr no”. Even when he
did play the game, he did it his own way. “We’d go
out on the road and he had 20, 30, 40,000 dollars
in cash in a tote bag,” says Jimmy Karstein, Cale’s
close friend and drummer for 50 years. “He would
the microphone until he blended back into the
song. “Much of the time playing concerts, he stood
behind his band members,” recalls his older sister,
Joan. “Becoming successful made him even more
reclusive, never wanting to be in the spotlight.”
John Weldon Cale sought to disappear inside
the music. His most famous songs – among them
“after Midnight”, “Call Me The Breeze” and
“Cocaine” – were hits for bigger names, notably
Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Santana, Waylon

Cale’s long-term manager, Mike Kappus. Often,
Cale and his wife, Christine Lakeland, had taken
off in their motor home for an adventure. “Our
lifestyle was very free,” says Lakeland. “it’s easy
to get hooked on that feeling.”
“i turned in lots of great offers,” says Kappus.
“at one point, for six years, he didn’t accept any of
pay cash for everything he ever bought: his
house, his cars, his equipment. He said it kept it
simple. He approached his career completely
differently to anybody else. He cared nothing for
the trappings of show business.”
On stage, if the mixing engineer raised Cale’s
vocals above the music, he would back away from
Jennings and Captain Beefheart. “He was a huge
influence on every musician that i knew,” says
drummer Jim Keltner. “The records are so iconic.
among musicians, JJ is legendary.”
Other admirers include neil Young, Mark
Knopfler, Tom Petty, Beck and Willie nelson, yet
Cale remained so low-key he was practically

90 • unCuT • june 2019

june 2019 • unCuT • 91
 JJ CALE
invisible. His signature style was minimalist, Stripping things
rhythmic and deceptively complex. “I’ve listened to down: jj Cale
backstage at the
‘After Midnight’ again and again and I’m still pretty Boarding House
sure I haven’t worked it out,” Eric Clapton told Uncut, nightclub in San
Francisco, 1977
pondering the song that gave him his first solo hit in
1970. “Are there four guitars on there? Three, two, five?
Interlocking, all playing different stuff. It’s like a
Chinese puzzle. It’s a constant challenge to me with JJ,
every time I hear anything, just to try to analyse how
he did it.”
Five years after his death at the age of 74, Cale’s estate
is releasing Stay Around, a career-spanning collection
of outtakes. The highest compliment you can pay the
album is that it sounds like every other great Cale
record: a spare, utterly distinctive blend of mid-paced
shuffles, whispered melodies and low, laconic vocals.
“He was a great musician, songwriter, singer, but he
was a lone wolf,” Clapton says. “There was something
about him that made me very curious, a real mystique.
My radar went up.”

B
Y the time Cale released his debut album,
Naturally, in 1972, he was 33 and had been
making music for half his life. Raised in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, he didn’t come from a musical family,
“though we loved to dance”, says Joan Cale. “Most of
our music was gospel from the church.” Inspired in the
mid-’50s by Elvis Presley and Les Paul, Cale taught
himself guitar in high school. “He was a typical
teenager, drinking and smoking while doing his
own thing,” says Joan. “He and his friends
would come over and play in his garage,
neighbourhood kids would stop by to listen.”
By the late ’50s, he was making his name at
Tulsa’s Casa Del club, first as Johnny Cale & The
Valentines, then as the Johnny Cale Quintet.
“He was established in the area,” says David
Teegarden, who later produced Cale. “We thought
he was Elvis or something! He was a big deal to us, a
real inspiration.”
Cale ventured to California in the early ’60s but
couldn’t gain a foothold. He returned to Tulsa,
married, and for a spell worked a steady day job. In
1963, he scored some local success as the writer of
“Lazy Me”, a regional hit for Mel McDaniel, from alternate engineer there. Leon would leave at 10 in the
nearby Okmulgee. Emboldened, he and Karstein morning to do sessions, and John would show up on his
set up Cale-Karstein Enterprises, an ambitious moped. He was living down the street in a motel.”
venture encompassing a record label, booking Around this time he established his performing name.
agency, publishing and management company. Johnny Rivers was the current resident act at the Whisky
It went swimmingly until they lost $77 on a single A Go Go in Hollywood; Cale was hired to play the off-night.
show, and the business folded. Club owner Elmer Valentine told Cale he couldn’t “have two
Shortly afterwards, Cale headed back to Johnnies on the marquee”, and billed him instead as JJ
Los Angeles, following in the footsteps Cale. Cale responded, “I don’t care what you call me as
of fellow Okies already establishing long as you pay me.” He worked the clubs successfully, but
themselves out west, among them Tom his ambitions lay elsewhere. “He saw that the future for
Tripplehorn, Carl Radle, Jimmy Karstein him was to write songs and record,” says Teegarden. “He
and Jim Keltner. Most notable of all was had just written ‘After Midnight’. I was just blown away.
Leon Russell, part of the Wrecking Crew We’d play that song every day. Leon would come in and
collective of crack session musicians, say, ‘Play me some “After Midnight”’, and we’d put it on
and one of the first artists to have a home the machine.”
studio set-up: Skyhill Drive in Studio City, “After Midnight” was released as single in 1966 on
established in 1964. Liberty Records, where Russell’s friend Snuff Garrett
Michael Ochs archive/ Getty iMaGes

“Leon opened it up for everybody,” says was head of A&R. Similar to Russell’s house style, the
Karstein. “He started to be successful as wickedly syncopated guitar groove is augmented with
studio musician and he’d bought a house, horns, female backing vocals and an uncharacteristically
where many Tulsa musicians lived, with animated vocal. The 45 didn’t make a commercial impact,
its own studio.” The jungle drums drifted partly because the best song was on the B-side. “The box
back to Tulsa and Cale showed up, of singles came to Leon’s house, and the A-side was a
scuffling to get something going. “John song called ‘Slow Motion’”, recalls Teegarden. “Leon said
learned all about the studio from Leon,” to John, ‘What the hell, John, you put the wrong song on
says Teegarden. “He became the chief the A-side!’ Cale said, ‘The last thing you record is the

92 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019

 Troubadour: between blues, R&B and country. “After
Cale at the Midnight” was re-recorded in a funky piano
New Victoria
Theatre in style, appearing alongside other classics like
London, “Call Me The Breeze”, “Magnolia”, and Cale’s
May 1977
only Top 20 hit, the whispering ghost-blues
groove of “Crazy Mama”.
“He liked to record really quickly,” recalls
bassist Norbert Putnam. “He would come in and
play down the song, and we would sketch out the
chord progression as we played along. Then we’d
do it in one take – no rehearsal – maximum two
takes. He would say, ‘I don’t want you guys to get
it too slick.’”
Naturally established
Cale’s life-long working
“He liked to methods. Firstly, he would
record quickly with a group
record really of studio musicians. For
Jim Keltner, Cale was part
quickly… no of a select group of artists
dedicated to spontaneity.
best, so I just put that on.’ He was sick of hearing
‘After Midnight’, and he had a new song.”
single of ‘After Midnight’,
with ‘Slow Motion’ on the
rehearsal” “There’s Bob Dylan, Neil
Young and JJ Cale – those
Failing to break through as a solo artist, Cale A-side. I thought it was NORBeRT PUTNAM three guys don’t tell you
did the rounds. He played in Gary Lewis & The fantastic, and we tried to anything! The run down
Playboys, a Tulsa-heavy ensemble that included work it out. It was really is the first take, so the tape
Radle, Tripplehorn and Keltner. Alongside elaborate, it seemed. As much had better be running when you
Garrett, he co-produced A Trip Down The Sunset as anything, back then there sit down.”
Strip, a 1967 compilation of psychedelic covers was something about the After cutting the basic
attributed to The Leathercoated Minds, together reverence other musicians tracks, Cale brought the
with four Cale-composed instrumentals. He showed towards JJ.” ongs to his home-recording
produced Blue Cheer – “He told me that got him Released in October 1970, etup. “He liked to take his
out of the recording business, they were so loud!” “After Midnight” became a ime overdubbing multiple
says Spooner Oldham – and was an early member Top 20 hit and inspired Cale guitars and working out
of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, the husband-and- to pick up his own faltering what he liked,” says Christine
wife rock-soul ensemble who recorded their 1969 career. “He didn’t even know Lakeland. Several musicians
LP, Accept No Substitute, at Skyhill, with Russell as about it,” says Karstein. “He recall a song sounding flat
uncredited co-producer. “That was a phenomenal was driving down the street n the studio, then being

Keith Bernstein/redferns; Michael Ochs archives/Getty iMaGes

band,” says Karstein. “A tour de force.” one day and heard it on the ransformed by Cale in
“Later, Delaney Bramlett told me about his radio. He thought, ‘Well, private. “Whatever kind
days with Cale,” says Oldham. “He said, ‘We’d that’s something!’” of magic sauce he had
be playing on stage, I’d look around for him to Cale was by now living in with that guitar, you
play a solo and I couldn’t find him. He’d be hiding Nashville, cutting tracks ould hear the results,”
behind the amplifier.’” with producer-publisher ays Karstein. “He would
He didn’t last long in the lineup, but Cale’s Audie Ashworth, who lways do something in
association with the Bramletts had significant became his manager. he dead of night to those
repercussions. Disillusioned with life in Blind Meanwhile, Leon Russell racks that would add his
Faith and acting on a tip by George Harrison, Eric and Denny Cordell had signature touch.”
Clapton hooked up with Delaney & Bonnie on started Shelter Records. Once

C
their UK tour late in 1969, joined by the equally Clapton’s cover was a hit, ALE fell into a
out of sorts Harrison. They opened his ears to lots Cale had some leverage. He contented groove
of new music, including JJ Cale. signed to Shelter, who Delaney & in the ’70s. He
Bonnie: the
“Delaney was very keen to introduce me to stuff released his debut, Naturally, Clapton oured with his band,
he liked,” Clapton told Uncut. “He gave me the in 1972. The songs hit the spot connection made five quietly

RiveRRuns Deep
Four classic Cale covers
“CALL Me “SAMe OLD “COCAINe” “MAGNOLIA”
THe BReeZe” BLUeS” eRIC CLAPTON LUCINDA
LYNYRD CAPTAIN (SLOWHAND, RSO, WILLIAMS
SKYNYRD BeeFHeART 1977) (DOWN WHERE
(SECOND HELPING, (BLUEJEANS & the cream-y riff THE SPIRIT MEETS
MCA, 1974) MOONBEAMS, seems tailor-made THE BONE,
the final track on skynyrd’s VIRGIN, 1974) for clapton, who stays broadly true HIGHWAY 20, 2014)
double-platinum second lP turns Bluejeans… is a patchy, too-polite to cale’s sleek, funky original while an extraordinary 10-minute
cale’s laconic 12-bar stroll into a affair, but this streamlined stroll beefing up the solos and lending excavation of one of cale’s
greasy, solo-heavy choogle, replete through a cut from cale’s Okie the vocals a gruff weariness. most covered songs – a tender,
with horns and barnstorming album boasts a smoky, hazed-out Pitched as an anti-drug song, it’s beautifully evocative postcard to
saloon-bar piano. vibe, gilded by slide guitar and the ambivalence that lingers. a much-missed lover “down in
growling despair. New Orleans”.

jUNe 2019 • UNCUT • 93

 JJ CALE
masterful records in Nashville that skimmed the
Billboard 100, and watched his bank balance
grow thanks to other versions of his songs,
notably “Call Me The Breeze” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
and Eric Clapton’s 1977 reading of “Cocaine”,
which first appeared on Cale’s 1976 album
Troubadour and was, insists Karstein, born from
observation rather than experience. “I’m sure he
never tried cocaine,” says Karstein. “I just felt he
thought it was a very topical thing to write about,
but I don’t think he did a toot in his life. He
enjoyed smoking marijuana – we’d roll down the
highway and smoke joints, but not to excess.”
Shortly after Clapton’s hit with “Cocaine”, Cale
met Christine Lakeland backstage in Nashville.
A singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist,
Lakeland became his bandmate, collaborator
and wife. They were together from 1977 until his
death in 2013. In 1980 they left Nashville for
Southern California and spent the decade living
an itinerant life, based in a trailer park in
Anaheim but essentially following the wind.
Gradually, he slipped off the radar. His 1983
album, #8, made few ripples. His record label,
Mercury, was so unenthused by the follow-up,
david mcclister; Jim steinfeldt/michael Ochs archives/Getty imaGes
Cale walked away for seven years. “He had given
up on recording, basically,” says Mike Kappus,
who began managing him in the late ’80s. “He
was so disappointed with their reaction that he
paid money to get out of his
contract and step away from
the company. This was an
album that never actually “He could be
came out. He was just
disillusioned with the
industry in general.”
stubborn. He
Kappus offers a corrective
to the notion that Cale was as
didn’t want
laid back as his music. “He
was an incredibly sensitive
to be sold”
person. He was low-key, but Mike kappuS
he had high blood pressure,
94 • unCuT • june 2019
On the road with
Christine Lakeland,
outside the Fine
Line Music Cafe in
Minneapolis,
Minnesota,
September 5, 1988
he was kind of buzzing
inside. He took great pains to trumming a guitar with
make that laidback music. a tape recorder.”
He agonised over mixes, In 1990 he and Lakeland
spent an inordinate dropped anchor just
amount of time on it. outside Escondido, a town
It’s very much 40 miles from San Diego. He bought
contrary to the image a property with a few acres. His
of him sitting on home studio was his living room.
a back porch “It was never built as a studio,
with sound proofing and all that,”
says his friend and band member
Walt Richmond. “His recording gear
was in the front room.”
Signing to Silvertone, Cale
eturned to the fray with 1990’s
Travel-Log. He toured occasionally
– telling Kappus to “book some
dives” – but was generally happier
at home. Royalties from covers of
After Midnight”, “Cocaine” and
Call Me The Breeze” accounted for
he vast majority of his income, and
enabled him to be picky. “He was
ery thankful that he didn’t have to
do anything to make a living,” says
Kappus. “I was making offers to him,
nd he’d refuse, saying, ‘This is a full
wallet talking.’ He could do exactly
what he wanted.” Sometimes, it was infuriating.
Cale was especially popular in Europe but visited
only once in the last 30 years. Having negotiated
a new record deal with an enthusiastic French
record company, Kappus spent $600 on a hotel
telephone call from Paris to California trying to
convince Cale to sign. “There was talk of videos
and interviews, all that, and he dug in his heels.
He could be stubborn. He didn’t want to be sold.”
“He was very honest about what he didn’t want
to do,” says Lakeland. “There was no guessing,
John was direct.” Though he could be sociable
and talkative with close friends, he shunned
official functions, dinner parties and industry
events. Instead, he and Lakeland would visit
merchant conventions to check out new gear and
recording equipment. He also kept up with the
“The vibes were latest sonic advances by regularly buying the
good”: Cale and Top 10 albums, paying special attention to
Clapton playing
together in engineering techniques. “I remember once at
2006, when McCabe’s guitar store, he was talking about how
they recorded
The Road To great the production was on [Lil Wayne’s] ‘Back
Escondido That Azz Up’,” says Kappus. “You could see all
these people from this total Americana world,
shocked! He got out of it what connected with him.”
At home, he relished the quiet life. Mowing the lawn,
tinkering with tractors and guitars, tending to the
rabbits and squirrels in his yard. “John had a real soft
spot for all animals, especially those in shelters,” says
his sister Joan. “He loved dogs.” In later years, Kappus
would research animal shelters in each city they
played, and Cale would make a sizeable donation after
the show. Among humans, too, his generosity was
legendary. “He would go to a guitar store and noodle
around, and then feel guilty if he walked out without
buying at least one guitar,” says
Teegarden. “To friends, he gave away
thousands and thousands of dollars’
worth of equipment.” When Jim
Keltner’s son was struggling with
addiction, Cale invited him over for
a session and, at the end, handed him
a brand-new Fender Telecaster. “That’s
JJ in a nutshell, right there,” says
Keltner. All the while, songs would
percolate. “Finally it would be, ‘Oh,
I’ve got some songs here, I might make
another record,’” says Lakeland.
I
N 2004, Clapton invited Cale to
perform at his Crossroads festival
in Dallas. Despite their mutual admiration,
the two had rarely crossed paths. “When he came
I said, ‘I’d really liked to make a record with you,
I’d like you to produce it. I want to sound like
you!’” Clapton told Uncut. The project evolved
into a full-blown collaboration: 2006’s Grammy-
winning The Road To Escondido.
“Before we made the album, Eric stayed here
at the house for a week, doing prep and going
through things,” says Lakeland. “They had a great
time hanging out, and that was when you started
to feel that all the vibes were good. It carried on
right up into the studio. They connected on a
number of levels.” There was a sense of debts being
fully acknowledged and repaid on both sides.
“John was always so thankful; he felt that the life he
had was because Eric cut his song,” says Lakeland.
“That was huge to John. Life-changing.”
Spending time with Clapton, Cale experienced first-
hand the fate he had escaped. “Anywhere they went
people were coming up to Eric, telling him how much
he meant to them, asking for autographs,” says
Kappus. “Cale didn’t envy that at all. He was very
happy to live life as a normal human being. He was
accessible to friends, but he didn’t want fans coming
by or to be separated out as someone different. He
could go anywhere pretty much and nobody knew
what he looked like.”
Clapton convinced Cale to spend three days
promoting the album in a New York hotel room, but he
fell short of persuading him to join him on tour. “John
was offered his own bus, whatever he wanted,” says
Kappus. “Each time Cale declined. He was maybe
nervous about living up to any expectations, and he
was wary of big halls.” In the end, Cale showed up for
Clapton’s San Diego concert, right on his doorstep, on
March 15, 2007. Released in 2016 as Live In San Diego,
the show also featured blues guitarists Robert Cray and
Derek Trucks. “He was reluctant to even do that,” says
Kappus. “I had to really kick him – ‘Come on, John, get
serious!’ Even on the way to the gig, he was saying,
‘Eric doesn’t need me, he sold the place out by himself.’
There’s a picture of him on stage that night with Eric
FResh
Breeze
Christine Lakeland
talks Uncut through
Cale’s posthumous
album, Stay Around
“I
wanted two things.
i wanted completely
unheard cale stuff, songs
that nobody had ever heard, where
there wasn’t some grainy video on
youtube. i also wanted the quality
level to be right up there with John’s
[best] work. those were the main
ideas, going through the material.
there’s a number of things [in the
vault], but these songs seemed to
go together. ideally, i want to find a
new audience. i know that those of
us that are already JJ fans would
listen to anything that he did, but
i’d like to make the younger crowd
aware that, wow, he was doing this
music 50 years ago. i’m hoping i
can broaden the audience, so there
might be new interest in his work.
i have more that i’m hoping to let
people hear. it’s a good feeling.”
“This all went
by so fast”: jj
as he appears
on posthumous
compilation
Stay Around
nd Derek Trucks, and I don’t know if there’s
nother picture of Cale looking so happy on stage.”
In 2009 Cale released Roll On, his last album. He
as 71, and beginning to tire. “He was aware that
ou woke up with lots of ideas, and by the end of the
ay you had kind of lost your steam,” says Lakeland.
He was quite accepting of it. You just need to
ecome more particular about your choices.”
Cale had high blood pressure and a long-
tanding heart problem, apparently exacerbated
y his aversion to medical treatment. “He did not
want to be operated upon,” says Kappus. “He had
a real reluctance to deal with doctors, and would
ake only half the medicine he was supposed to
take. He felt it made him feel unnatural. He lived
with the problem for a long time. It was a decline,
fading to not having much energy at all.”
A scheduled session on Clapton’s eponymous
2010 album was cut short because Cale felt unwell.
Like most friends, Clapton kept in touch from a
distance. “He was shutting down, withdrawing.”
“At the very end he didn’t want to see anyone,” says
Walt Richmond. “He knew it was coming. He didn’t
talk about it, but you could tell he didn’t feel good.
Maybe the last time I saw him, he did say, ‘This all
went by so fast.’ I don’t know of any regrets. He seemed
OK with everything.”
Cale died of heart failure on July 26, 2013. Clapton
immediately set about organising a tribute album.
The Breeze, released a year after his death, featured
contributions from Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler, Willie
Nelson and Clapton. It underlined the esteem in which
this unique, reluctant pioneer was held among his
peers. “He has tremendous respect among musicians,
people who appreciate the taste, subtlety and class in
his playing,” says Kappus. “It was most important to
him, I think, that his peers respected him.”
“He never wanted to be the Top 10 of anything,” says
Lakeland. “He wanted to knock himself out with what
he wrote, then he wanted other people to like this
songs. He didn’t really care about being famous. He
just wanted to be listened to.”
Stay AroundisreleasedonApril26byBecauseMusic
june 2019 • unCuT • 95

AFRICA eXPReSS:
THe CIRCuS
Wanstead Flats, London, March 29
Five breathless hours of globe-straddling
collaborations – plus a surprise Blur reunion
ÒM
uSic can do
what politics
can’t,”
claimed
Damon
Albarn, a
couple of days before the Africa Express
pulled into this big top erected on a scrap
of east London parkland. it’s an idealistic
view of where real power lies, but when
it comes to unity and understanding,
tonight in particular you’re tempted to
concede his point. Neither the timing – on
the date Britain was originally scheduled
to exit the Eu – nor the location of this
epic show is arbitrary. Albarn’s both a
committed Remainer and an enthusiastic
internationalist and he grew up in this
borough. Early on in proceedings, he
ruefully acknowledges that “today’s a mad
The show is
proof that music
is a universally
understood
language
day for this country” before mentioning
a visit to his old primary school, where
80 different languages are spoken. But if
there’s a potent subtext to this particular
incarnation of Africa Express, it’s first
and foremost a celebration designed to
bring joy, as well as the noise. it’s also
messily democratic, with no hierarchical
billing and a five-hour running time that’s
certainly a test of stamina, but it features
mercifully short changeovers, single- or
two-song sets by many acts and manifold
ad hoc ensembles cheerfully flying by the
seat of their pants.
The cultural span stretches the project’s
definition, too, with representation from
Turkey, Lebanon, Bulgaria, the uK, uS
Brendan Bell; stars redmond
and even Australia, as well as the length
and breadth of Africa and its associated
diasporas. As this is only the third Africa
Express event to have been held in
London, it has the aura of a happening, the
variety and scrambled-together feel giving
an impression that’s half around-the-
96 • unCuT • june 2019
SETLIST
1 opening
evocation
2 ruuah
3 Beli Yamana
4 Psicopata/
Pabre e rico
5 sotoque
6 City In lights
7 diana
8 skies over Cairo
Mounir
9 Wor
Troudi
10 miziki
11 1917
there’s the regally poised Rokia Traoré,
12 Guragina
joined by an ensemble featuring Joan
13 Guns of Brixton
14 the Hunter As Police Woman and Wolf Alice’s Ellie
world-in-80-ways mixtape, half end-of- 15 rakabeh al Rowsell; Warren Ellis provides lyrical
term revue. For the most part, it’s Hamra violin accompaniment for Lebanese singer
a winning combination. 16 I Wish I Knew Yasmin Hamdan; Gruff Rhys pitches
How It Felt to Be
Tunisian Sufi singer Mounir Troudi Free in with South African singers Muzi and
opens with a sweetly keening, solo 17 Kiss Morena Leraba plus London’s Georgia for
welcome; he reappears a bit later with 18 dans le monde “Vessels”, a track from new Africa Express
Django Django for an epic version of their entier Paix EP “Molo”; Michael Kiwanuka pairs up
“Skies Over cairo”, which is whipped 19 education with a grinning Terry Reid, who slashes at
up into a frantic, quasi-psychedelic 20 Can’t Get Used his guitar on the former’s bittersweet “Love
to losing You
storm thanks to a walloping bass drum, & Hate”; and The Good, The Bad & The
21 love & Hate
three percussionists (including Baaba 22 danger Queen play their phantasmagoric “1917”
Maal regular Mamadou Sarr) and much 23 Woza from last year’s Merrie Land, with Naïny
whooping and yelping. The tag-teaming 24 Imarhan Diabaté and a brass section. There’s also
continues when three members of 25 Idarchanet an appearance by Blur.
Django Django join London-based South 26 niger To say this is a surprise is an under-
African singer Toya Delazy for something 27 strange Fruit statement and the big top erupts in ecstatic
more muted than her usual hepped-up 28 Ya nass cheers. “What’s going to happen,” says
29 Quimsu/Funani
mix of electro-funk, jazz and hip-hop, Albarn, by way of introduction, “is that
20 riders
which follows her (disappointingly
21 Up early
inaudible) guest turn with the excellent 22 Vessels
Onipa. This London-based duo pump 23 Clover over
out a style of super-bouncy electro with dover
24 tender
soukous inflections and tonight their
“Danger” becomes a fiercely energetic, 25 song 2
26 no Games
bass-monstered pile-up, featuring
rappers Afrikan Boy and Ghetts alongside 27 Black man In a
White World
vocalist KOG. No wonder Luke November
– winner of the local battle of the bands
28 Kin
29 mia/Festa
competition, whose prize was a guest spot
here – seems a bit overwhelmed when he
skank
30 Zen
steps up to deliver his bars.
“More is more” is tonight’s motto, which
is entirely in keeping with Africa Express’s
fundamental principal of promiscuous
cultural exchange. The show is proof –
were any needed – that music really is a
universally understood language with
instant connectivity. it’s occasionally
frustrating, too, in that no sooner are you
presented with an act as compelling as
they are perhaps unfamiliar – powerhouse
singer from the ivory coast Dobet Gnahoré,
for example, or Mali’s all-female Kaladjula
Band, led by the vocal force that is Naïny
Diabaté – then they exit to make way for
someone else who hasn’t been announced.
An enthusiastic hypeman makes the
odd introduction, but surrendering to the
uninformed moment is really the only
way to roll. Anyhow, no artist is here for
an opportunity to extend their brand, and
plenty are way past needing uK exposure
at any rate: here’s guitarist Nick Zinner,
popping up first with Slaves, who are Blur with Rokia Traoré
joined by Pauline Black and Paul Simonon and the London
Community Gospel
for a fiery cover of “Guns Of Brixton”, Choir at Africa
and then on three songs from imarhan; express: The Circus
joan As
Policewoman
(right) with the
Kaladjula Band

we’re going to keep on talking and we’re

going to resolve our differences and
we’re going to make this country a better
place, right?” Then they dust off “clover
Over Dover”, unplayed since 1994, with
Kinshasa drummer cubain depping for
Dave Rowntree, who’s moved over to
congas. After faffing for what seems like
an eternity they finally locate the song’s
spare and plaintive mark, which might
have stung a little more sharply had today
gone to original governmental plan.
Then, after the London community
Gospel choir assemble onstage, they
deliver a sweetly shambolic “Tender” and
a ragged but exhilarating “Song 2”. Blur
might shine by virtue of their celebrity,
but they’re not the “stars” of Africa
Express: The circus. There are none, in
the conventional sense – instead, a whole Côte D’Ivoire
singer Dobet
galaxy of talent. SHARON O’CONNELL Gnahoré makes
her point

june 2019 • unCuT • 97

 Harper with
Bill Shanley on
accompanying
guitar, the London
Palladium, 2019
roy HarPer
London Palladium, March 16
It’s farewell but not goodbye to a still-raging
folk-rock legend
ÒT
HIS is a long
song – in fact
it’s practically
an opera,” says
Roy Harper,
introducing the
epic, 18-minute
“McGoohan’s Blues”. “I might die midway
through, like Tommy Cooper. At my age
it’s something you have to consider.”
But on the same London Palladium stage
where, 35 years ago, the great comedian
collapsed with a fatal heart attack on
live TV, Harper seems indomitable. Now
almost 78, neatly trimmed beard long gone
grey, he claims this is his farewell tour, but
he shows no signs of retiring from music
for good. Tonight, in a rambling, raging,
bittersweet valedictory performance, he
introduces three new songs, taking in the
Kardashians, “sexting in cyberspace,” trial
by tabloid, and elegiac gratitude for life
in all its mad variety, from a new album
promised some time in the next year.
It’s an oddly curtailed set – Harper
is onstage by 7:30 but off before 10,
with an interval midway through – but
he’s greeted like a conquering hero
awais
nevertheless, with much loving banter
98 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019
from a devoted audience, many of whom
have evidently been with him on this
long, strange trip since Sophisticated
Beggar in 1966.
“McGoohan’s Blues” is the centrepiece,
the epic Prisoner-inspired broadside
prophecy from 1969’s Folkjokeopus,
railing against the corruption of business,
religion, media and state, Roy coming
across like a Lancastrian William Blake,
howling into the night. There are false
starts and missed verses, but the song
retains its furious energy and sense of
cosmic futility: “But if all of that supersale
overkill world is for real/Well there’s
nowhere to go kid, so you might as well
start to freewheel.”
Harper is greeted like a
conquering hero, with
much loving banter
from a devoted crowd
Following his acquittal in 2015 after a
SETLIST
1 Hors D’Oeuvres
2 Time is
lengthy court case, there is a sense that
Roy Harper is starting to enjoy life again.
“The Man In The Glass Cage”, one of the
Temporary
3 Don’t You Grieve
new songs showcased, may be a savage
denunciation of the “dimwits of the redtop
4 Man in The
Glass Cage lynchmob”, but the highlights of tonight’s
set are its more langourous moments.
5 McGoohan’s
Blues “Another Day”, covered by This Mortal
6 another Day Coil and Kate Bush, was the gateway
7 Drawn To The drug for many of us to Harper Country,
Flames
and it’s a song full of bittersweet rue and
8 The wolf at The
Door regret that grows only more beautifully
9 Highway Blues tender with age.
10 Hallucinating “When An Old Cricketer Leaves The
Light Crease” is one of many Harper tunes
11 when an Old that in a saner country might serve as a
Cricketer
Leaves The national anthem. Fiona Brice, leading a
Crease small but impressive band incorporating
12 i Loved My Life strings, brass and the diligent Bill Shanley
on guitar, doesn’t try to emulate Dave
Bedford’s colliery brass arrangement, but
instead conjures a hallucinatory reverie,
a perfect twilight that feels like it could
linger forever.
Best of all is the closing “I Loved My
Life”, already penciled in as the title
track of the forthcoming album. “Life is
but a moment forever on its way/Calling
time at random through its existential
day,” sings Harper, voice breaking,
overwhelmed by the outpouring of love
from an audience that’s just risen for
its second ovation. When he gets to the
key line – “I loved my time here/And here
surely it must stay” – there’s not a dry eye
in the house.
Roy Harper: 77 not out. Hats off.
STEPHEN TROUSSƒ
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V for vivacious:
jordan with john
Lydon, circa ’76
T
hrilled to discover Nick Kent
had turned up for a February
1976 Sex Pistols show, Malcolm
Mclaren turned to Jordan, the
terrifyingly dressed in-house
muse at his and Vivienne Westwood’s Sex
boutique. “The NME are here!” he said.
“do something, Jords! Take your clothes
off, girl!” She complied in her own way,
wrestling topless with Johnny rotten
on stage and creating an image that was
strident, provocative, era-defining.
in, Defying gravity – her
autobiography, written in tandem with
Cathi Unsworth – the Madame Guillotine
of the punk revolution shows how her life
as a fashion fundamentalist mirrored the
narcissism and nihilism of her age. Adam
Ant, who stalked her benignly before
persuading her to manage Adam And The
Ants, declares that, “Jordan created punk
rock… She was living it on public transport
when other people were just dressing up.”
Travelling up from her native Seaford
to the King’s road for some of her time at
Sex, Jordan’s fetishwear outfits earned
her upgrades to first class, train guards
worried she might cause a riot in the cheap
seats. She was nearly arrested for wearing
one combo of see-through bra, knickers
and fishnets on another commute, a
measure of how the extreme became
everyday for the Pistols’ shock troops.
There was harmless transgression
– Jordan received a “knowing wink”
from newsreader reginald Bosanquet
so she knew he was wearing the rubber
underpants she had sold him on TV – but
genuine menace too. Freddie Mercury fled
one club to avoid a verbal pummelling
from Jordan for his comments on punk,
and in another extreme concession to
style, she carved the word “FUCK” into
Adam Ant’s back with a razor blade. When
she and Westwood heard at work that Sid
Vicious’s girlfriend Nancy Spungen had
revieWeD been found murdered in the couple’s New
this month York hotel room, they allegedly laughed.
if that seems tasteless, Jordan did not
lack discernment. She appeared in derek
Jarman’s Jubilee (and was almost gored
by a bull rhino in the process) but gave
Mclaren’s Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle a miss
since “it was obviously going to be shit”.
however, her radar failed her as the 1980s
dawned; she received a “Germs burn”
from Sid Vicious wannabe darby Crash,
then disappeared into a heroin haze after
Defying gravity marrying Ants bassist Kevin Mooney in
jordan with Cathi 1981. The couple split, and Jordan retreated
unsworth
Omnibus, £20
to Sussex and a new life as a veterinary
8/10 nurse, but in Defying Gravity she is
unrepentant, her candour and plentiful
contributions from her peers contributing
to perhaps the most insightful punk book
since Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming.
impeccable style, but substance too.
hanging out with damon Albarn
sometime in the blurry mid-1990s, Britpop
Pr giant Phill Savidge felt a shiver go
through damien hirst’s Notting hill
Lunch With the restaurant The Pharmacy as david Bowie
WiLD frontiers walked in. The Thin White duke held out
Phill savidge his hand to the skinny white pretender:
jawbOne, £14.95 “hello damon, really nice to meet you.”
7/10
Once Bowie had sauntered off, Savidge
writes in his memoir Lunch With the
Wild frontiers, Albarn turned to his
friends and, in “an absurdly high voice”,
said: “david Bowie knows who i am!”
That such a situation ever arose may
Jordan was nearly arrested
for wearing see through
bra and knickers on a
commute from Seaford
be in part down to Savidge. Savage &
Best, the Pr firm he co-founded, were
recognised starmakers. The huge
breakthrough they made by getting Suede
on to the cover of Melody Maker before
they had a record out helped to inflate the
indie-pop balloon that would float Blur,
Oasis, Pulp and elastica to celebrity.
Savidge explains that he started out by
forming his own imaginary “John Peel”
band in his childhood bedroom – Jimmy
& The dreadnoughts, featuring the
brilliantly named rachel Prejudice – and
ended up inventing stories about real pop
stars for a living. Working for Virgin, he
hoodwinked a skein of magazines into
believing they’d got the last interview
with roy Orbison, following the Big O’s
death in december 1988.
At Savage & Best, he worked his way up
from the Pixies, the Cocteaus and Curve to
marshalling a Union Jack-waving assault
on the mainstream. however, he is aware
the attention did not necessarily help his
charges. Savidge suggests that fame drove
a rift between Suede’s Bernard Butler and
Brett Anderson, hastening the break-up
of their fruitful partnership, while Pulp’s
Jarvis Cocker hit an all-time low when
Savidge accompanied him to an A-list-free
1996 party in honour of Action Man. his
sage advice to his client thereafter: “You
should consider staying home for a bit.”
The party, however, trundled on
joylessly. Keith Allen’s postmodern
novelty band Fat les feature prominently
as Lunch With The Wild Frontiers goes from
Ray StevenSon/Rex/ShutteRStock
Britpop boom to Millennium Bug bust.
With Savidge plugging away on behalf of
The hospital Club, dave Stewart’s private
members place for “creatives”, the book
comes across like a Nathan Barley remix
of K Foundation Burn A Million Quid.
Unedifying stuff, maybe, but as a witness
to delusional times, Savidge’s voice rings
more or less true. jim wirth
june 2019 • unCuT • 109
A grim, twin-narrative
heist, the appalling
charm of Ted Bundy,
brutality in outer
space and moreÉ
D
rAGGed ACross
ConCrete S Craig
Zahler set out his stall
with Bone Tomahawk
(2015) – a mashup of
western and horror
tropes that played like
John Ford’s The Searchers with the surprise
bonus of cave-dwelling flesh-eating
cannibals. His follow up, Brawl On Cell Block
99, was an incorrigible grindhouse romp,
with a fearsome turn from Vince Vaughn
as a tattooed, eye-gouging prison inmate.
Comparisons to Tarantino are, superficially,
valid: both directors are cultural magpies,
liberally borrowing from a variety of sources
for their stylish, violent movies.
Where Zahler differs, however, is that
his films are largely more serious than
Tarantino’s (if, that is, you can consider a
cannibal western “serious”). Dragged Across
Concrete is his most sombre yet. It stars Mel
Gibson and Vince Vaughn as crooked police
partners Brett Ridgeman and Anthony
Lurasetti, who are suspended from the
department without pay for using excessive
force while arresting a drug dealer. To make
ends meet, the pair decide to intercept a bank
robbery that’s taking place across town. In
the meantime, African-American ex-con
Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) is fresh out of
prison and going back to work as a getaway
driver for Biscuit (Michael Jai White), a local
crime boss. The clock starts ticking – how
and when will the two storylines collide? –
and yet Zahler doesn’t exploit that tension,
preferring to draw things out for an ambitious
two-hour-and-40-minute run time. As with
Zahler’s previous films, there are terrific
set-pieces, notably the robbery itself, handled
with precision and economy. The dialogue,
however, is airless, at times bordering on
self-parody with Lurasetti’s laboured
insistence on using the word “anchovies”
as an expletive. The effect is as gruelling as
the title. Dragged Across Concrete is a grim
recession noir; all the same, it would be nice to
see the never more granite-faced Gibson and
Vaughn – just occasionally – crack a smile.
drAGGed
ACross
ConCrete
directed by
S craig Zahler
starring Mel
Gibson, Vince
Vaughn
opens april 19
Cert 18
6/10
110 • unCuT • june 2019
Showing eXtremeLY wiCKed, shoCKinGLY eviL
some flare: And viLe When it debuted at the Sundance
Mads
Mikkelsen festival earlier this year, Extremely Wicked,
in arctic Shockingly Evil And Vile drew criticism for
casting heartthrob Zac Efron as Ted Bundy,
one of America’s most notorious serial killers.
It’s hard to see the logic in that, since most
of that notoriety stemmed from Bundy’s
tremendous charisma; his prison breaks and
courtroom theatrics attracted groupies.
Joe Berlinger’s docudrama is an
honourable attempt to dissect the myth of
Bundy, who protested his innocence even as
the evidence of over 30 homicides mounted.
Berlinger tells the story from the point of view
of the killer’s longtime on-off partner Liz
Kloepfer (Lily Collins), a shy single mother
who meets him in a bar at the tail end of the
’60s. Bundy appears to be a loving partner
and a considerate stand-in father, but a string
of arrests in the mid-’70s bring us closer to the
monster behind this mask.
We never see the crimes, but then neither
did Liz, and this isn’t just a dramatic
reconstruction. What attracts Berlinger, and
drives the film, is how Bundy’s white male
privilege kept him on the streets for so long
– every time the police came for him, Bundy
doubled down, playing the wronged man,
a victim of circumstance. In this, we start
reviewed this month
eXtremeLY voX LUX
wiCKed, directed by
shoCKinGLY Brady corbet
eviL And viLe starring
directed by natalie
Joe Berlinger Portman,
starring Zac raffey cassidy
efron, Lily opens May 3
collins Cert 15
opens May 3 8/10
Cert 18
8/10
to see echoes of today’s world, as Bundy
ploughs on in his bid to bend the world to
his will. In that respect, Extremely Wicked…
is unusual, since it’s a true crime story that
isn’t too concerned with its protagonist’s
psychology. Instead, it deals with what
Bundy presented to the world, and for that
reason alone, the shockingly good Efron –
handsome, suave, intelligent – is perfect.
voX LUX Actor-turned-director Brady
Corbet is 30 years old, with only two movies
to his credit. But his output shames the
parochial short-sightedness of some of his
peers and holds its own against directors
twice his age. His films – The Childhood
Of A Leader and now Vox Lux – can be
maddening in their opacity, but they are
dizzyingly imaginative and rich in ideas,
raising complex questions that hang in the
air long after the credits roll.
Vox Lux charts the career arc of a fading
pop icon. Played as a teenager by newcomer
Raffey Cassidy, the young Celeste emerges
from a tragic school shooting to become the
nation’s sweetheart; after an ellipsis of nearly
20 years, and a slew of scandals, she returns
as Natalie Portman, an altogether more
cynical and spoilt personality, struggling to
maintain her fame.
ArCtiC hiGh LiFe
directed by directed by
Joe Penna claire Denis
starring Mads starring robert
Mikkelsen, Pattinson,
Maria thelma Juliette
Smáradóttir Binoche
opens May 10 opens May 10
Cert 12a Cert 18
7/10 7/10
 ALso oUt...
Arctic is a simple GretA
story, elegantly told OPenS APRIL 19
neil Jordan’s thriller with chloë Grace
Moretz befriending Isabelle huppert’s
and with a very real lonely widow/psychopath.

sense of danger heAd FULL oF honeY

Corbet frames the story in chapters and
with a dryly omniscient narrator (Willem
Dafoe), a conceit often employed by Lars
Von Trier, to whose work Vox Lux owes an
obvious debt. But where Von Trier can be
detached and ironic, Corbet is committed
to making Celeste credible, with catchy,
upbeat autotune bangers written specially
for the film by Sia. Lest we get too swept
away, however, Corbet counterpoints Sia’s
escapist pop with an eerie score by the late
Scott Walker. With its haunting strings and
nightmarish lullabies – at a key point, weird
baby voices sing, “All of the cheekies are out
of doors” – Walker adds a frisson of dread
to a story of America’s fascination with
celebrity and tragedy.
ArCtiC Mads Mikkelsen is not afraid
of silence – this much we know from
his performance as the mute One Eye in
Nicolas Winding Refn’s surreal Viking
drama Valhalla Rising. Arctic is an even
more impressive showcase for his imposing
presence, finding him alone in the Arctic after
a plane crash. Mikkelsen plays a pilot named
Overgård, a revelation that is reserved for the
end credits, since Arctic is not a film that over-
concerns itself with exposition. There are no
flashbacks, no clues to Overgård’s previous
life or how he came to be stranded; instead,
director Joe Penna gets straight to Overgård’s
fight for survival in the moment.
How successfully he does this is a
testament to Penna’s chops as a first-time
living presence in the area, and then a
passing helicopter promises to be his
salvation. Suddenly thrown into a life-or-
death situation, Overgård realises that he
needs to move to survive, following a map
that, if correct, will lead him to safety. If not,
oblivion certainly beckons. It’s a simple
story, elegantly told, with a convincingly
chilly mood and a very real sense of danger.
It’s also a story few directors would be
technically competent enough to tell,
and one that few actors would have the
physicality and emotional range to pull
off. Mikkelsen is that kind of a man, and
they don’t call him the strong, silent type
for nothing.
hiGh LiFe Since her arthouse breakout hit
Beau Travail in 1999, Claire Denis has proven
herself a singular and unpredictable talent
with a flair for the daring. But surprisingly
– or perhaps inevitably in the largely male-
dominated world of international cinema
– Denis has never quite been elevated to the
status of her peers. High Life may not be the
film to make much of a difference, playing
narrative tricks that make it very hard to
follow, but one could never imagine, say,
Michael Haneke or the Dardenne brothers
making a film with Twilight star Robert
Pattison set in outer space.
Denis has played with genre before – her
last film, 2017’s Let The Sunshine In, revealed
that she could even handle a romcom – but
High Life more closely resembles her 2013
neo-noir Bastards. With that film, Denis
abandoned the niceties of storytelling
altogether, arguing, reasonably, that bricks
still make a decent wall without the benefit of
cement. Denis does the same here, choosing
not to signal either the passing of time or the
effects of space travel on time itself.
The focus is Pattinson as Monte, who is
leading the crew of a space cruiser manned
by criminals from Earth. Convicted for
unseen but extreme crimes, the felons are
offered a trade – in exchange for freedom, of
sorts, they will be sent out into the unknown
to look for new forms of energy. Needless to
say, it’s a one-sided offer, as Monte starts to
discover. The crew figure it out too, and soon
life on board begins to unravel in a flurry of
increasingly animalistic violence.
The premise may suggest sci-fi, and the
OPenS APRIL 19
Drama with nick nolte’s alzheimer’s
sufferer who heads off on a road trip
with his granddaughter.
red JoAn
OPenS APRIL 19
Judi Dench – for it is she – is a Soviet
agent working undercover for
50 years. not Judi, no!
AvenGers: endGAme
OPenS APRIL 25
Modest arthouse doc about a quirky
chess team? or the biggest superhero
blockbuster ever?
BeL CAnto OPenS APRIL 26
Julianne Moore’s soprano is invited to
perform for a wealthy industrialist in
South america. Bad stuff happens.
toLKien OPenS MAY 3
adding to the already huge volume
of cinematic Lord Of The Rings
business, this biopic stars nicholas
hault as Jrr.
dr strAnGeLove
OPenS MAY 17
kubrick’s peerless satire (above),
restored. Slim Pickens’ riding an h-bomb
into infinity has never looked better.
John wiCK 3
OPenS MAY 17
Subtitled ‘chapter 3 – Parabellum’, in
case you were interested in keanu’s
latest actioner.
ALAddin
OPenS MAY 22
another live action remake from
Disney, with Will Smith as the Genie.
Guy ritchie directs. Go figure.
GranGer/reX/ShutterStock

filmmaker. Previously better known as sight of Juliette Binoche’s sinister doctor

YouTube’s wacky MysteryGuitarMan – the
most subscribed-to channel in his native
Brazil – Penna proves to be a master of
restraint, carefully dishing out information
by instalments. First Overgård’s fishing
supplies are raided, suggesting another
cavorting in an orgasm box doesn’t detract AsBUrY PArK: riots,
from that, but High Life isn’t so much about redemPtion, roCK & roLL
science as it is nature, red in tooth and claw. OPenS MAY 22
It will be interesting to see what Pattinson’s Bruce, Little Steven, Southside Johnny
followers make of his most hardcore auteur and the rest celebrate the new Jersey
collaboration yet. damon wise town and its rich history.

june 2019 • unCuT • 111

 DVDBLURAY&TV
VARIOuS ARTISTS
jOnI 75
(RHINO)
7/10
Musicians of every stripe gather to wish
Joni a happy birthday. By Stephen TroussŽ
It’s fair to
say that if an
Uncut reader
were pulling
together an
all-star tribute
to one of the
defining artists
of the 20th century like Joni Mitchell,
your first choices might include,
let’s see… Joanna Newsom, kd lang,
Kamasi Washington, Julia Holter,
Dirty Projectors, Ryley Walker, the
Weather station, Kaitlyn Aurelia
smith, and maybe, holographic
ViVien killilea/geTTY iMages for The Music cenTer
afterlife technology permitting,
Prince – artists all touched in one
way or another by her example,
who have continued her reckless,
restless, adventurous approach
to words and music into the 21st
century. It probably wouldn’t, at a
guess, include Glen Hansard from
the Frames, Los Lobos or, well, seal.
You have to feel some sympathy,
for Joni, on the occasion of her 75th
birthday, witnessing the bottled
lightning of her back catalogue
112 • unCuT • june 2019
smoothed into a succession of
sometimes excruciatingly polite,
often inscrutably programmed,
occasionally piercingly beautiful
performances across two nights
last November at LA’s Dorothy
Chandler Pavilion.
though she has pride of place in
the audience, the cutaway reaction
shots in this two-hour production
are strangely impassive, even
following the emotional high
point of the set, Graham Nash’s
irresistible “Our House” (as he
shamelessly admits, with dazzling
white happysad smile, the only
song tonight not written by Joni).
Instead she’s most present in the
looming photos, paintings and film
clips projected onto the backdrop,
as though casting imperious
judgement on the whole affair.
What does she make of it?
Her presence overhangs the
performances, as though
intimidating the singers into
politeness for fear of offending her.
It may be morbid to say, but you
feel that in a posthumous concert
the performers might feel greater
freedom to pour more of themselves
into these singular songs.
Peter Gabriel and Elton John pop
up incongruously to add some star
power midway through via video
message, with Gabriel memorably
paying tribute to songs with
“melodies that sparkle like
jewels on a trampoline. I envy
the poor bastards who have to sing
them tonight.”
that said, it’s probably a good test
of a song to see how well it stands up
to being interpreted by Hansard –
backed by Brian Blade’s impeccable
house band, he can’t inflict much
damage on the mighty “Coyote”
– but too often, even with singers
of the quality of Norah Jones,
Rufus Wainwright (beaming with
pride for his husband having
organised the event) and a distinctly
uncomfortable Chaka Khan, these
brave, questing tunes feel aimless,
and meandering.
Notable highlights are an
imperious Emmylou Harris
(beginning her version of
“Magdalene Laundries” with the
lines “I’m going to lighten the mood
a little now, with a song about
women who were enslaved back
in the convents of Ireland”), Diana
Krall, exploring the endlessly rich
and strange “Amelia”, and James
taylor, taking “River” into new
directions of his own devising.
But best of all is Kris Kristofferson,
joni 75, november 7, 2018: (l–r)
emmylou Harris, norah jones,
unknown, graham nash, Charles
Valentino, joni Mitchell, physical
therapist Sauchuen Yu, james
Taylor, glen Hansard, Chaka
Khan, Kris Kristofferson, Brandi
Carlile and Rufus Wainwright
gingerly stepping through the
chords of “A Case Of You” like an
old guy on an unfamiliar staircase,
accompanied by Brandi Carlile,
bringing the vintage bitter to
her flutteringly sweet voice. It’s
hardly the most musically brilliant
performance of the set, but there’s
delight in how this careful, creaking
rendition brings the brilliance of the
song once more to life.
But the most startling moment of
the evening is the famous footage of
Mitchell herself, on stage at the Isle
of Wight Festival in 1970, laying into
the audience. “Last sunday I went
to a Hopi ceremonial dance in the
desert and there were a lot of people
there and there were tourists who
were getting into it like Indians and
there were Indians who were getting
into it like tourists, and I think that
you’re acting like tourists, man.
Give us some respect!” the sudden
irruption of this fearless young
woman, addressing a crowd of half
a million, into today’s comfortable
auditorium (tickets were reportedly
$2,500, to raise funds for the centre’s
educational activities) couldn’t be
more pronounced.
the evening concludes, almost
inevitably, with a ramshackle,
awkward romp through “Big Yellow
taxi” – the Joni Mitchell song for
people who don’t really like Joni
Mitchell – and finally Joni herself
appears on stage with a bemused
smile and a regal wave.
extras: None. STEPHEN TROUSSÉ
 Sixx appeal:
Mötley Crüe
biopic The Dirt

THe DIRT
NETFLIX

6/10
Mötley Crüe exposé, played for laffs
the transition to movie flattens out much
of what made the autobiography Mötley
Crüe produced with the assistance of
journalist Neil strauss so compelling. the
four members’ self-pity and inability to
accept responsibility isn’t so apparent, and
the almost wholly horrific nature of their
behaviour is played for comedy. But as rock
biopics go, it’s fun, precisely because in
the absence of any social significance, the
story becomes jaw-dropping anecdote after
jaw-dropping anecdote. Just be prepared
for the shock when you realise that, yes,
that is Ramsay Bolton from Game Of Thrones
playing Mick Mars.
MICHAEL HANN
MIFune: THe LAST SAMuRAI
BFI
8/10
Behind the mask of Samurai star
steven Okazaki’s
documentary about the
great toshiro Mifune
centres on his work
with director Akira
Kurosawa on films such
as Rashomon, Seven
Samurai and Yojimbo.
the golden age of
Japanese cinema directly influenced western
movie-making, and as well as Mifune’s
acting contemporaries there are thoughtful
contributions from Martin scorsese and
steven spielberg, who toasts Mifune with a
line from Kurosawa’s 1962 thriller Sanjuro:
“You glow too brightly, like a drawn sword.”
extras: 6/10. Mifune interview, spielberg
interview, trailer.
ALASTAIR McKAY
MR TOPAZe
BFI
7/10
Sellers in surprisingly intimate mode
Peter sellers’ directorial
debut, first seen in
1961, reunites him
with his Ladykillers
co-star Herbert Lom for
a bittersweet comedy
about a humble French
schoolteacher corrupted
by big business as the
frontman for a government official’s shady
financial dealings. One of the star’s least
“showy” performances, it’s an early indicator
of the nuanced acting chops that would serve
him well in later, equally subdued work like
the Oscar-nominated Being There.
extras: 7/10. seven additional films,
including shorts co-starring spike Milligan
and archive interviews.
TERRY STAUNTON
eLLA: juST One
ella Fitzgerald
OF THOSe THIngS
performing at Mr EagLE ROCk ENTERTaINmENT
Kelly’s nightclub
8/10
in Chicago, 1958
In-depth doc chronicles an
ROOM 37: THe MYSTeRIOuS
DeATH OF jOHnnY acclaimed, reclusive jazz voice
THunDeRS MORE than 23 years after her death, jazz
CLEOpaTRa ENTERTaINmENT music’s most beloved singer remains an
enigma. Ella Fitzgerald was a famously
6/10
private person who rarely did interviews;
Rocker’s final days, garishly dramatised even her closest friends weren’t sure how
the sober title suggests an many times she was married. Her peers
investigative documentary and collaborators – Duke Ellington, Louis
about the unanswered Armstrong, Count Basie, Louis Jordan, Oscar
peculiarities attached to Peterson, tommy Flanagan, Dizzy Gillespie –
Johnny thunders’ 1991 were often flamboyant, articulate musicians who could discuss
death in New Orleans. their craft, but Ella was entirely self-taught and unusually
Room 37, however, introverted. Her gifts seemed to come from nowhere, and she
reimagines Johnny’s last seemed to be the last person who could explain them.
days as a full-blown horror British documentary veteran Leslie Woodhead has made
film, the kind that used to go straight to heavyweight films about 9/11, Bin Laden, the Beslan massacre,
video, complete with decomposing Dolls President Milosevic and the Cold War, but has also made several
drummer Billy Murcia, a Creole voodoo excellent music documentaries, and he animates Fitzgerald’s
queen, sundry drooling psychopaths and story using some articulate talking heads – tony Bennett,
an actual mad axeman. Imagine Bohemian smokey Robinson, Cleo Laine, Jamie Cullum and Emeli sandé
Rhapsody, directed by Eli Roth, with more are joined by Ray Brown Jr (the son that Ella adopted with
methadone than music and no Live Aid. bassist Ray Brown), as well as concert promoter George Wein
Different, anyway. and, in his last interview, Andre Previn. One primary source
extras: None. here is a sprightly 102-year-old dancer – born in 1917, the
ALLAN JONES same year as Ella – who witnessed a dishevelled teenage Ella
eventually win over a sceptical crowd at a try-out spot at the Yale Joel/life Magazine/The life PicTure collecTion/geTTY iMages; Jake giles neTTer
SeBASTIAne Harlem Apollo on November 21, 1934.
BFI the supporting cast includes Chick Webb, the charismatic,
four-foot-tall drummer and bandleader, who initially thought
7/10
Ella “gawky and unkempt” but soon invited her to front his big
Jarman’s priapic debut comes to Blu-ray band; when he died of spinal tB, aged only 30, Fitzgerald took
From its opening over. there’s the dapper promoter Norman Granz, who used Ella
moments – Lindsay to front his touring jazz circus and helped turn her into a global
Kemp cavorting in a red star. there’s also Marilyn Monroe, who in 1955 demanded that
glitter jockstrap among the prestigious Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood end its colour
papier-mâché phalluses, bar and allow her favourite singer to headline; Monroe insisted
Jarman’s first full-length that she’d turn up every night, guaranteeing massive paparazzi
feature (originally presence for the club and ensuring that Ella never had to play a
released in 1976, now small venue again.
issued for the first time By the 1960s, Ella was earning acclaim as a high-art singer.
as standalone Blu-ray) has a strong claim to Critic Will Friedwald brilliantly narrates a 1960 performance of
being the gayest British movie ever made, “How High the Moon”, where her three-minute scat solo weaves
consisting almost entirely of lithe,naked, in quotations from dozens of pop, opera and traditional tunes,
young Praetorian guards, bitching in dog including “the Peanut Vendor”, “stormy Weather”, “Poinciana”,
Latin and stewing in photogenic martyrdom “Heat Wave”, “A-tisket A-tasket”, “Deep Purple”, “Did You Ever
to an Eno soundtrack in the sardinian sun. see A Dream Walking”, “smoke Gets In Your Eyes” and an old
extras: 6/10. Jazz Calendar (1968): footage Celtic jig called “the Irish Washerwoman”. “How the hell do
of the Royal Ballet in rehearsal with scenery you even draw upon such an inventory?” he exclaims. “It’s like
and costumes by Jarman, Making Of, shorts. skipping through puddles six feet deep and never sinking.”
STEPHEN TROUSSÉ extras: None. JOHN LEWIS

june 2019 • unCuT • 113

 NotFadeAw
Fondly remembered this month…

DICK DALE Dick Dale:

surf guitar
Surf rock trailblazer was born
when he
(1937-2019) ”just
started

L
egeND has it that Dick cranking
on that
Dale’s signature song mother”
was the result of a bet.
Challenged by a young
fan to deliver a tune
using only one guitar string, Dale
drew on his experience of watching
his Lebanese uncle play an eastern
Mediterranean staple, “Misirlou”,
on the oud. Dale duly ramped up the
tempoandtransformedthesonginto
a bone-shaking surf classic. Making
its live debut in 1962, Dale recalled
that he “just started cranking on that
mother. And it was eerie. The people
came rising up off the floor, and
they were chanting and stomping. I
guess that was the beginning of the
surfer’s stomp.”
Dale’sunofficialstatusasKing
OfTheSurfGuitar–thenameof
hissecondalbumwithhisband
TheDel-Tones–arosefromaseries
oflegendaryperformancesin
MiChAel oChs ArChives/getty iMAges

theCaliforniancoastaltownofBalboainthelatterhalfof1961.Hissell-out richard Anthony Monsour was raised in Massachusetts, but moved to

‘stomps’atthe3,000-capacityrendezvousBallroombecameevents,with
DaleemployingArabicscales,reverbandexcessivevolumeinhisquestforthe
definitivesoundofsurfmusic.Akeensurferhimself,hisroaringpercussive
approachwasasintenseasitwaslightning-quick,anapproximationofthe
elementalforceofthewavesthemselves.“Surfmusicisaheavymachine-gun
staccatopickingstyletorepresentthepowerofMotherNature,ofourearth,
ofourocean,”heonceexplainedtoTheNewYorkTimes.Daleheightened
thesensationbyhelpingLeoFenderproducea100-wattamplifierthatcould
withstand thunderous volume without suffering any undue distortion.
California as a teenager. He began playing in country bars, whereupon he
was christened Dick Dale by the troubadour Texas Tiny. 1961’s “Let’s go
Trippin’”, later used as the theme to John Peel’s radio 4 series Home Truths,
is often cited as the first true surf rock instrumental. His debut LP, Surfers’
Choice, arrived a year later, followed by regular appearances on The Ed
Sullivan Show, making Dale a nationwide star. He experienced a fresh surge
of popularity in 1994 when “Misirlou” was featured prominently in Quentin
Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Despite suffering ill health for decades, Dale
continued to tour up until his death.

HAL BLAINE
Legendary session drummer
(1929 2019)
“Not everybody can be a plumber
and go fix a broken pipe,” drummer
Hal Blaine told The Times in 2000.
“Sometimes you need an expert,
and that’s all there is to it.” This
perfunctory explanation belied
the true nature of Blaine’s art, as
well as that of his colleagues in the
Wrecking Crew, the crack team
of sessioneers that dominated
the LA studio scene of the 1960s.
Blaine claimed to have played on
over 35,000 recordings during
his career, including TV and film
soundtracks and no less than 150
Hal Blaine: Billboard Top 10 hits. Inducted into
rock’s finest
session the rock and roll Hall of Fame in
sticksman? March 2000, the organisation stated
that he “has certainly played on
more hit records than any drummer
in the rock era”.
Perhaps his most iconic moment
arrived in July 1963, when he
contributed the thumpingly
memorable (and much imitated)
intro to The ronettes’ “Be My
Baby”. Brian Wilson’s favourite
record of all-time, it swiftly led to
Blaine becoming The Beach Boys’
go-to drummer, featuring on such
treasures as “California girls”,
“good Vibrations” and Pet Sounds.
The recipient of a Lifetime
Achievement grammy in 2018,
Blaine had initially moved to
California from Massachusetts
during the war, making his early
reputation on the jazz and big band
circuit. His other session work
includes Simon & garfunkel’s
“Bridge over Troubled Water”, The
Byrds’ “Mr Tambourine Man”, The
Mamas & The Papas’ “California
Dreamin’”, TV’s “Batman Theme”,
elvis Presley’s “A Little Less
Conversation” and Frank Sinatra’s
“Strangers In The Night”.
ANDRE WILLIAMS
R&B’s ‘Mr Rhythm’
(1936 2019)
Andre Williams forged his ‘Mr.
rhythm’ persona as lead singer of
The 5 Dollars in 1950s Detroit, then
as a solo act, cutting proto-rap gems
like “Bacon Fat” (later covered by
The Cramps). He went on to work for
Chess and Motown, co-wrote the
r&B classic “Shake A Tail Feather”
and eventually resumed his solo
career in the early ’90s.
RANKING ROGER
Co frontman of The Beat
(1963-2019)

R
oger Charlery’s muscial career began in the late-’70s as
drummer with Birmingham combo The Dum Dum Boys, but
he soon switched allegiances to their support act, The Beat.
Adopting the name ranking roger, he regularly appeared live
with The Beat, singing and toasting, prior to joining them in an
official capacity in March 1979. By November, he and the band had cracked
the UK Top 10 with their infectious cover of “Tears of A Clown”.
The teenage roger was a lively and energetic complement to singer-
guitarist Dave Wakeling, helping propel The Beat to the vanguard of British
ska and 2-Tone. “If one person had to be picked to epitomise everything that
was good and positive about the British ska movement and its youthful spirit,
I think it would have to be roger,” said Jerry Dammers, who initially signed Ranking
Roger:
The Beat to his 2-Tone label. “He was an inspiration to anyone who ever met youthful
him or saw him perform.” spirit
roger was a key fixture of The Beat’s three studio albums between
1980-82 – I Just Can’t Stop It, Wha’ppen? and Special Beat Service – before
he and Wakeling formed general Public after the band’s demise. The first as well as embarking on a solo career. In recent years, he headed up a new
incarnation of general Public released a couple of albums before splitting in version of The Beat. At the time of his death from cancer, he’d completed a
1986. roger went on to collaborate with Sting, Pato Banton and The Specials, memoir, I Just Can’t Stop It, due for publication this summer.

BERNIE TORMÉ
Irish rock guitarist
(1952 2019)
Bernie Tormé fronted his own band
during the punk era, before joining
gillan for 1979’s Mr. Universe. He
remained until 1982, when he was
drafted in to ozzy osbourne’s Diary
Of A Madman tour. After only a few
shows, however, Tormé parted
company with ozzy, and began his
long solo career later that year.
JOE FLANNERY
The ‘Secret Beatle’
(1931 2019)
Liverpool-born Joe Flannery served
as The Beatles’ booking manager
from 1962-63, when he was often
referred to as the “Secret Beatle”. It
was an assocation forged through
his relationship with Brian epstein,
a friend since childhood, and also
extended to handling bookings
for gerry And The Pacemakers,
Cilla Black and Billy J Kramer.
NIPSEY HUSSLE
LA rapper
(1985 2019)
ermias Asghedom, aka Nipsey
Hussle, spent 13 years releasing
mixtapes – among them 2013’s
ISSA CISSOKHO
Orchestra Baobab
bandleader
(1946 2019)
A charismatic presence with
orchestra Baobab, the Senegalese
band he joined in 1972, saxophonist
Issa Cissokho incorporated a variety
of forms, from Cuban and traditional
Wolof music to ska and jazz. He led
the group through to 1987, going on
to play with Youssou N’Dour before
reuniting orchestra Baobab in 2001.
DAVID WHITE
Doo-wop singer and
songwriter
(1939 2019)
David White founded Philadelphia
doo-wop quartet Danny & The
Juniors in 1955. They rose to fame
three years later, when White
co-write “At The Hop” topped the
Billboard chart. other co-creations
included “rock And roll Is Here To
Stay”, Lesley gore’s “You Don’t own
Me” and Len Barry’s “1-2-3”.
YUYA UCHIDA
Flower Travellin’ Band
leader
(1939 2019)
Singer, producer and sometime
STEPHEN
FITZPATRICK &
AUDUN LAADING
Liverpool duo Her’s
(1994 2019)
Alt.pop duo Her’s, comprising
singer-guitarist Stephen Fitzpatrick
and Norwegian bassist Audun
Laading, graduated from Liverpool’s
Institute For Performing Arts in
2016. The pair, who have died in a
road crash while touring the US,
issued a compilation, Songs Of Her’s,
before releasing their debut proper,
Invitation To Her’s, last year.
ASA BREBNER
Modern Lovers guitarist
(1953 2019)
Songwriter and guitarist Asa
Brebner passed through a variety
of bands – among them Mickey
Clean & The Mezz and robin Lane
& The Chartbusters – but he’s best
remembered for his stint with
Jonathan richman’s Modern
Lovers, replacing “Curly” Keranen
in 1977. Brebner featured on The
Modern Lovers Live and 1979’s
Back In Your Life.
STEPHAN ELLIS
Survivor bassist
(1949 2019)
to ill health in 1987, only to re-enter
the fold nine years later.
AGNÈS VARDA
New Wave film director
(1928 2019)
As one of the most progressive
figures of the French New Wave
during the 1950s and ‘60s, Agnès
Varda “fought for a radical cinema”.
The Belgian-born director, who also
became close to Jim Morrison, made
her name with docu-realist works
like Cléo From 5 To 7, Happiness
and The Creatures.
MIKE GROSE
Early Queen bassist
(DOB UNKNOWN 2019)
Tim Staffell’s departure in early
1970 opened the door for bassist
Mike grose to join Smile, the band
who morphed into Queen during
his five-month tenure. Previously
a member of The Individuals and
The reaction, grose played three
gigs with them (including one at
London’s Imperial College)
before quitting.
SARA ROMWEBER
Let’s Active drummer
(1964 2019)
Andre CsillAg/reX/shutterstoCk

Crenshaw, of which Jay-Z bought
100 copies – prior to issuing his
grammy-nominated 2018 debut,
Victory Lap. Hussle, who has died
in a shooting outside his Marathon
Clothing store in Los Angeles, drew
tributes from pop’s biggest names
including rihanna, Beyoncé
and Drake.
actor Yuya Uchida first tasted fame
as support act on The Beatles’
Japanese tour of 1966. Three years
later he formed Yuya Uchida & The
Flowers, who soon became the
Flower Travellin’ Band. The prog-
psych outfit issued four albums with
Uchida at the helm, including 1971’s
much-admired Satori.
Stephan ellis’s time with Survivor
coincided with their rise in
popularity in the US, joining them
for 1981’s Premonition (which
housed debut Top 40 hit, “Poor
Man’s Son”) and international
smash “eye of The Tiger” the
following year. The bassist quit due
Sara romweber was just 17 when
she joined North Carolina power
pop outfit Let’s Active, making her
live debut supporting reM in 1981.
She featured on 1984’s Cypress
before co-founding Snatches of Pink
and, alongside brother Dexter, the
rockabilly-styled Dex romweber
Duo. ROB HUGHES

june 2019 • unCuT • 115

 feedBack
email uncut_feedback@ti-media.com or write to: uncut feedback, basement 2, blue fin building,
110 Southwark Street, london Se1 0Su. Or tweet us at twitter.com/uncutmagazine

VeRy ’eAVy, nOT

SO ’umble
Seeing the photo of Humble Pie at
Hyde Park free concert brought it all
back to me. I was a 15-year-old going
to my first outdoor concert. I jumped
on the No 2 bus from Brixton to
Victoria and followed the long-
haired masses up to the park. It was
packed, but I managed to get a spot
quite near the front. The first band
on were Heads, Hand & Feet, who
were well received. A short time
after, on they came. I remember I’d
never seen anyone look so cool as
Peter Frampton in his green suit and
black suede Chelsea boots. They
played a fantastic set and I’ll always
remember the way Steve Marriott
confronted a gang of Hells Angels
who were throwing cans and bottles
at people. “Hey, man, there’s women
and children down there,” said
magnificent:
Steve, which brought a huge cheer Humble pie
from the rest of the (peaceful) at the free
festival in
crowd. After that, he had everyone Hyde park,
in the palm of his hand. You had to london, 1971
feel sorry for Grand Funk Railroad,
who were headlining, as Humble Pie
destroyed them so comprehensively. records give me a sense of closure confidence of a self-assured star. he’d been spotted in Uncut, but even
I’m now 62 years old, but I’ll never where nothing further needs to be This comeback led to Songs For more delighted if anyone had
forget how magnificent Humble Pie said and the mystery will now Drella, a fitting tribute to Reed’s remembered his name!
were that day nearly 50 years ago. remain forever unexplained. No mentor Andy Warhol, preceding the Jack Morgan, Hampton
Bob Bowley, Ramsgate reunion gigs with tickets being sold memorable Magic And Loss. Finally, Amazing, Jack! Thanks for filling in
Hey, Bob, we’ve written a lot about out in seconds then resold on after three decades have passed, the gaps about Arty.
Steve and the Small Faces; but this secondary ticketing sites at inflated Lou Reed’s later LPs receive the
is the first time we’ve run a bespoke prices. I never saw Talk Talk live, publicity they deserve. I hope the A bAnd CAlled HORSe
Humble Pie piece. Glad it evoked just as I never saw Beefheart or the article inspires new fans to check As a 50-year-plus follower of Neil
powerful memories for you! (MB) Ramones, but we can’t always get out this fruitful, undervalued period Young, it was good to see his smiling
what we want. The sadness seems in this lyrical legend’s life. face in May’s Uncut. It was also
mARK Of genIuS somehow appropriate on days like Mr P Turbeville, Derbyshire interesting to see the focus of this
I received the May issue of Uncut today. Gary Howchen, via email I’ll let you into a little secret. I’d article was Neil’s infamous
today and was deeply saddened to Thanks for writing, Gary. We hope been patiently waiting for that 30th relationship with Crazy Horse.
learn the news that Mark Hollis had you found Graeme Thomson’s anniversary to come around so we Surprisingly, there was only the
passed away. He was a genius and tribute in our recent May issue a could run a New York piece. I agree briefest of mentions of Danny
moreover an apparently happy, satisfying send-off to Mark. – it’s a brilliant album, one of his Whitten and not even a mention of
normal bloke who mostly enjoyed very best. Hard to beat the first four the classic first Crazy Horse album,
his 64 years on this Earth. Only the Reed: All AbOuT HIm Velvets albums, though... which contained some brilliant
passing of Mark Linkous has meant What a sublime article about Lou songs including Danny’s “I Don’t
as much to me in recent years. I have Reed, whose poignant and flawless RACIng CeRTAInTy Wanna To talk About It”, later to be
been listening to Spirit Of Eden, New York album (1989) confirmed A copy of February’s Uncut has been murdered by Rod and assorted
Laughing Stock and the other great his status as the city’s painterly poet. passed to me because of the article artists. Whitten was at the time
Talk Talk albums for about 30 years, This is the best record Reed ever on Mark Knopfler and, in particular, viewed as an equal to Young. Crazy
and familiarity has made them even made. The songs are fired up by his because of the photo of the Cafe Horse also released another fine
more powerful, with every sound fury, flavoured by his world-weary Racers on page 88. The (unnamed) record, Loose, with a new lineup
and silence deliberately placed for voice and soundtracked by rowdy, character on the far left of the photo after Whittten’s death. Both albums
maximum effect. I can liken them in punk-powered guitars. Looking is the Racers’ lead singer, my old can be found on the excellent
a way to the work of Ligeti, Terry back now, 30 years on, these tunes mate Dave (“Arty”) Pask. He’s from Reprise compilation Scratchy –
Riley, even Kate Bush maybe, but swagger with attitude and sizzle in Manchester and we met at university Lofgren was on the first Horse
Central Press/Getty ImaGes

then again they are unique works
of melancholy beauty that defy
classification and will continue to
stand the test of time.
I’m glad that Mark Hollis and Tim
Friese-Green walked away from
Talk Talk and never went back. The
the mind’s ear like lava. “Halloween
Parade” tackles the sensitive subject
of Aids and “There Is No Time”
presents the rough-and-ready street
characters in his neighbourhood.
Here, he doesn’t walk on the wild
side, he storms through it with the
in Sheffield in the late ’60s. When I
returned to London after completing
my studies, Arty also moved there.
Our friendship continued for many
years and I saw several of his gigs
with the Racers (and others). I’m
sure Arty would be pleased to know
record but wasn’t photographed as
he was signed to CBS with his great
Grin, a band worth a few pages
perhaps? Andy Riggs, Wallington
Hi, Andy. The late, much-missed
David Cavanagh wrote a brilliant
piece on Danny for us a few years

116 • unCuT • june 2019


ago. I agree, the first Horse album
is terrific. But we were trying to
tell the Horse story via their
association with Neil. No
immediate plans for a Grin
feature… but you never know.
TOp CRASS
I’d like to echo a couple readers’
letters from the April issue.
Thank you for the retrospective
on Crass, which was every bit as
interesting as I would expect and I
second Mr Tom Nelson’s request for
some coverage of Willy DeVille, an
incredibly talented artist in a variety
of genres who deserves more
acclaim. If you are in the market for
other artists/bands that I’d like to
read more about, here are a few
more: The Hoodoo Gurus, Nico,
The Fuzztones, the Rich Kids, The
Stranglers, Lizzy Mercier Descloux.
One of the other great things about
Uncut is the photography. I am
frequently surprised by pictures
I’ve never seen anywhere before.
Thanks for a consistently fun and
educational read!
Geordan C McQuiston, via email
Hey, Geordan. Yep, Peter Watts’
Crass piece was pretty amazing.
WIlly THe KId
You asked if there are enough fans
out there to make a case for a piece
on DeVille? Hell, yeah! He has a
strong following in my circles in
Sweden, ever since his debut, Mink
DeVille, aka Cabretta, in 1977. No
party is complete until “Spanish
Stroll” is played and the dancefloor
is full of cool cats. His mariachi
rendition of “Hey Joe” from
Backstreets Of Desire in 1992 is a big
favourite over here as well. The
soulful version of the old Searchers
classic “Needles And Pins” is
another testament to the man’s
ability not just to write and perform
great songs but to interpret others.
Stefan Hasselblad, via email
…I’m writing in support of
Tom Nelson’s letter [April issue]
suggesting an in-depth piece on
Willy DeVille. I was knocked out the
first time I heard “Cadillac Walk”
way back when, and remain a fan to
this day. Mr Nelson’s assertion that
DeVille integrated a multitude of
styles throughout his career was
spot on, which leads me to another
overlooked artist of undeniable
influence, David Johansen. I hope
you’ll consider shedding light on
both of these two underappreciated
musicians. Thanks for your mag.
I dig it the most.
Mike Piercy, Virginia, USA
Thanks, guys! I appreciate you all
making the case for Willy.
CROSSWORd
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june 2019 • unCuT • 117
 DylanCarlson
Revelations aplenty as Earth’s doom-rock doyen opens up
his record cabinet: “I listen to a lot of jazz…”
LeON RUSSeLL
“Medley: jumpin’ jack Flash/
Youngblood” APPLe, 1971
This is from The Concert For Bangladesh. I
guess I got into Leon Russell around the Hex
era [2005], but I was aware of him before
because my grandfather, right before he died,
was on a huge Joe Cocker kick. So I heard
Mad Dogs & Englishmen almost constantly,
which of course Leon Russell was the bandleader for. I heard The Concert
For Bangladesh when I was a kid, because of my parents, but it didn’t really
register. The Band especially was the soundtrack to my childhood, then I
went in a slightly different direction. But I’ve come back to my roots!
PAT MARTINO
Baiyina (The Clear evidence)
PReSTIGe, 1968
He’s a jazz guitarist, started out in the ’60s,
but he’s still going. On this record he used a
lot of sitar and Indian instruments like tabla.
It’s very droney! I mean, there are jazz-guitar
solos over it, but the basic material is quite
repetitive. When did I get into Pat Martino?
I think I had the record back in the ’90s, but it must have been early 2000s
that I got into him. Then I saw the documentary about him, because he had
this aneurysm [in 1980] and had to completely relearn how to play guitar.
Lee MORGAN
Tom Cat
BLUe NOTe, 1980
I really like the melodic content of this,
especially on the title track. It was supposed
to be the follow-up to In Search Of The New
Land and was recorded in the same year
[1964], but the label wanted more hits like
“The Sidewinder”, so it actually wasn’t
released until like 1980. I really dig both this and …New Land. Yeah, I listen
to a lot of jazz – there are certain eras I like. It doesn’t have to have guitar, but
I do like jazz guitar. The guitar is always the red-headed stepchild in jazz,
and still is, kind of.
VANILLA FUDGe
“Shotgun” ATCO, 1969
This is something I saw on YouTube recently,
a version of “Shotgun”. I’ve been on a
Vanilla Fudge kick lately. Such a strange
band! They’re often viewed as one of the first
‘heavy’ bands, but The Beat Goes On is one
of the weirdest records ever released in the
entire history of the world. I just saw this live
interview: tom pinnock
thing on YouTube the other day. I think they were in the process of getting
ready to break up right after this. It’s funny, Jon Lord said they were a huge
influence on Deep Purple, and they influenced a bunch of bands, but they
cannot get any love!
Earth’s Full Upon Her Burning Lips is out on May 24 on Sargent House
118 • UNCUT • jUNe 2019
jeRRY GARCIA BAND
“And It Stoned Me”
jeRRY MADe, 2004
This is a Van Morrison song, but I’ve only
heard the Jerry version; I had to look it up to
realise it was a Van Morrison song. I’m a huge
Dead fan. There are two versions I like – one
from ’87 and one from ’89. I guess I like Jerry’s
complete devotion to the guitar. He seems
like quite a polarising guitarist, but I just love the way he plays, and I love
his voice, which is also quite polarising! Yeah, it’s a very clean and melodic
sound, and he does a lot of chord soloing, which I’ve always liked and I can’t
do any of myself.
HeRBIe MANN
Push Push ATLANTIC, 1971
Herbie Mann was a jazz flautist, but I really
like this album, particularly because it’s got
Cornell Dupree on guitar and Duane Allman
too. He was a pop-jazz flautist and he was
really big in the early ’70s. He’s not taken
very seriously any more, but I’ve always
really liked him. There’s a lot of the Stax/Volt
people on here [Duck Dunn, Bernard Purdie] and he worked a lot with R&B
stuff because he was on Atlantic. I’ve always liked flute – I’m a big Jethro
Tull fan!
GRATeFUL DeAD
“Franklin’s Tower” GRATeFUL DeAD
ReCORDS, 2004
This is from October ’76 at the Oakland
Coliseum. They were on fire that year, I think.
I’ve heard a lot of versions of this song; I have
a lot of them on my phone right now! But this
version is the best. This was before they got
a bit funky, when they released their worst
album, Shakedown Street, which is just awful. They pretty much stopped
making good albums in ’77, it was just live that was good. This version of
“Franklin’s Tower” is about 15 minutes long, it’s a bit more uptempo, a lot
of chord soloing.
KING CRIMSON
Starless And Bible Black
ISLAND, 1974
This is my favourite album by King Crimson.
It’s one of those albums that completely
changed how I saw music and saw
improvisation. It was a big influence
on Earth in my early days. A lot of this
album is live, like “Fracture”, “Trio” and
“The Mincer”. Robert Fripp is great in that era, 1969 to ’75. I’ve always
wondered where he gets his melodic ideas from. No, I’ve never tried his
picking style or anything like that. I just do my own thing.
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