HERE’S Irmin Schmidt, explaining the mercurial brilliance of Can in full flight. “Even if we improvised onstage, we always went in the same direction,” he tells us on page 19 of our new issue. “In a way that it became a music that was not just bullshit. It was not some kind of jamming and everything falls apart. It was always something very connected.” You can witness the fruits of the group’s potent psychic bond on this month’s Uncut CD – a sampler showcasing Can’s indispensable live series, as they improvise freely and at length in cities as far-flung as Stuttgart and Birmingham. On these five tracks – don’t feel short-changed, the briefest is over eight minutes long – you’ll find rock’s most forward-thinking band at their most uninhibited. Dive in!

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Elsewhere, we’re delighted to present a world exclusive interview with another forward-thinking artist: David Gilmour, who invites us to his splendid boat-cum-studio, the Astoria, moored on the banks of the river Thames, to discuss his first studio album for nine years, Luck and Strange. Over tea and a handful of satsumas, Pete Paphides finds that the reinvigorated guitar genius has a lot to talk about – including collaborative relationships, therapy, parenthood, adolescent epiphanies, his woodwork skills, fallen bandmates, what he thought of Get Back and whether the digital simulation of ABBA Voyage might make a good treatment for his old band.

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Gilmour aside, there’s plenty more returning heroes in this issue, including Beth Gibbons, Slowdive, Mark Knopfler, Mdou Moctar and T Bone Burnett. At the other end of the spectrum, meanwhile, we shine a light on a new folk scene in Cornwall, where artists like Angeline Morrison and Daisy Rickman are quietly flourishing.

It’s a busy issue – as ever, let us know what you think.