When Richard Dawson picked his favourite records for Uncut in 2017, his choices provided an unusually deep insight into his music. Mix Éliane Radigue, Orchestra Baobab and Sun Ra and you may, if you’re as talented and hard-working as the Newcastle songwriter, end up with records as special as Peasant or its 2019 follow-up, 2020. ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut Dawson’s first choice for that list, however, his earliest mind-blowing moment, was Iron Maiden’s self-titled debut. Their influence has always been present in his music, from his bellows and...
When the album and film that shared the title Let It Be appeared in the spring of 1970, they were not greeted with the usual warmth. As the arrival of a new decade consigned the ’60s to history, they seemed an unwanted reminder that an era responsible for so much pleasure had ended badly. It felt like these final Beatle documents had been sanctioned by people who no longer recalled nor cared what had been on their minds when they got together in the film studios at Twickenham at the beginning of the previous year, even then unsure whether...
Alexis Kings is a highly acclaimed alternative rock band that has been on the rise with their lovely releases. “Surrender” is one of their hit singles that has gathered tens of thousands of streams. It has some impressive fiery percussion adorned with a distinctly 80’s vibe. At the same time, Alexis Kings set a futuristic mood, incorporating elements of various styles. Stunning vocals, mood-making beats and powerful music — everything comes together in harmony, allowing the listener to sit back and enjoy the art. Brendan Aherne and Fabio Bocca are the band’s talented members who draw inspiration from soul,...
Peter Jackson is a transformative film director. He’s turned New Zealand into Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and (in his exceptional documentary They Shall Not Grow Old), remade the jerky, unrelatable figures in murky newsreel footage into the very real human combatants in the First World War. ORDER NOW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE REVIEW OF 2021 FEATURE IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT If we were to have believed the teaser trailer for his Beatles documentary, which arrived to cheer the world in high pandemic times, his latest project had done something similar: turned notoriously fraught Beatles sessions into a feelgood movie,...
It’s a chilly September night in Nashville and Yasmin Williams is sitting alone on stage at 6th & Peabody – an outdoor venue attached to a touristy moonshine bar and a gourmet hot dog stand. Behind her is a giant banner for AmericanaFest, the annual roots music gathering. There are a handful of people seated at picnic tables and Adirondack chairs arrayed around the stage, all them watching closely as she rips through one guitar instrumental after another, most of them taken from her second full-length album, Urban Driftwood. When she plays, she plays with her whole body –...
Consistency can be a curse. Now into his fourth decade in action, Dean Wareham has a catalogue that contains unimpeachable masterpieces – Galaxie 500’s “On Fire” and the one-two mid-1990s punch of Luna’s “Bewitched” and “Penthouse” among them. But truth be told, he has yet to make a bad record. Luna’s less-ballyhooed later albums are understated but sparkling gems, and Dean’s duo records with his longtime partner Britta Phillips update the Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra template to marvellous effect. He’s nothing if not reliable. But that steadiness means that, at this stage, even longtime fans might be guilty...
Though every cratedigger dreams of such moments, few enjoy the exhilaration Mike Nishita, Money Mark’s brother, felt in January 2018 after his latest visit to The Roadium, a swap-meet in Gardena, California. Digging through a haul of reel-to-reel tapes, he noticed many came from Sea-Saint Studios, the New Orleans establishment co-owned by legendary songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint. ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut Plenty of this material, Nishita discovered, was rare, some entirely unreleased. Among its most precious treasures were recordings marked with the name Leo Nocentelli, founding member...
There’s more of Timothée Chalamet in Dune, in considerably less whimsical mood, and more Oscar Isaac too – just as saturnine as in The Card Counter, but behind a severe fatherly beard. This long-awaited blockbuster is cinema’s third stab at Frank Herbert’s supposedly “unfilmable” science fiction epic. Outré visionary Alejandro Jodorowsky tried, but it never happened, while David Lynch did pull it off, but to somewhat murky effect. Now comes Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Arrival) with a Dune for the CGI age. His version certainly takes the novel seriously, and itself, too. ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021...
The early years of this Belgian multi-instrumentalist and composer, who made his first public appearance on classical piano at the age of six, just 14 years before touring Europe with the Quincy Jones Orchestra, point to a long and productive career. He enjoyed both, but rather than taking the straight highway, Vandroogenbroeck chose the exploratory side roads. ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut He’s best known as the leader of Brainticket, the experimental band he founded in 1969 whose sound was a fusion of jazz, kosmische and cosmic rock/prog, with...
The Beatles, then, as you’ve only partially seen them before. For four years, Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson has been given sole access to 60 hours of previously unseen footage and 150 hours of audio of the band writing, rehearsing and performing Let It Be, captured for Michael Lindsey-Hogg’s 1970 film. In The Beatles: Get Back, his seven-plus hour, three-episode digital reconstruction of the turbulent events of January 1969, he throws light on areas that Lindsey-Hogg’s documentary wasn’t allowed to go: George’s departure, candid conversations, early takes on future Abbey Road tracks and solo songs, the rooftop...
