Hit Singles

Hit Singles

Donn Perignon: Rising from Small Town Hustle to Hip-Hop’s Next Big Voice

Hip-hop has always thrived on stories of grit, determination, and the relentless pursuit of dreams, no matter where they come from. It’s a genre that champions voices from the margins, turning personal struggles into powerful anthems that resonate far beyond their origins. For artists like Donn Perignon, hip-hop is more than just a genre; it’s a way of life, a means of expression, and a pathway to overcoming adversity. Emerging from the small city of Grand Junction, Colorado, Donn Perignon is a testament to hip-hop’s transformative power, proving that with passion, perseverance, and a unique voice, you can rise above any circumstance. As he continues to break barriers and make his mark, Donn Perignon embodies the heart and soul of what hip-hop was always meant to be: raw, real, and unapologetically authentic. Donovan Robles, known to the music world as Donn Perignon, has been making a name for himself with a style that stands out in today’s crowded hip-hop landscape. Growing up in a small city often overlooked by the mainstream music industry, Donn Perignon’s story is one of sheer hustle and resilience. His latest single, “Take You To My Place,” encapsulates his journey, showcasing his ability to blend punchy… Read More →

Hit Singles

Elvis Costello announces King Of America & Other Realms

Elvis Costello has announced King Of America & Other Realms, a new box set exploring his US adventures and his longtime creative partnership with T Bone Burnett. THE BEATLES, JONI MITCHELL, VAN MORRISON, MICHAEL KIWANUKA AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! The six-disc Super Deluxe Edition box set is released on November 1 via UMe. You can pre-order a copy here. Advertisement It comes with a newly self-penned 35-page essay illustrated with numerous rare and never-before-seen photos in a 57-page booklet. The discs are housed in a 12” x 11.5” box. In addition to the Super Deluxe Edition box set, King Of America & Other Realms will also be available on 2CD with the new 2024 remaster of the album on CD1 and highlights from the box set on CD2, including studio recordings, demos and live recordings. The new remaster of King Of America will be available separately on both 140-gram black vinyl as well as limited edition 140-gram gold nugget colour vinyl, exclusively via ElvisCostello.com, uDiscover Music and Sound of Vinyl. It begins with a remaster of King Of America. Disc 2 features Costello’s solo demos from 1985. Disc 3 features a never-before-released concert, recorded on January 27, 1987 at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Disc 4, 5 and… Read More →

Hit Singles

Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor

There have yet to be reports of Nilüfer Yanya refusing to answer to her own name, terrifying production assistants, or exhibiting any of the demanding off-camera behaviour once expected of Marlon Brando, Daniel Day-Lewis and other master thespians. Nevertheless, the notion of the method actor is a potent one for the London singer-songwriter. She’s spoken of the kinship she feels with these counterparts’ determination to ground performances in personal experiences and memories of trauma, essentially re-living those emotions in order to lend authenticity and urgency to present-day expressions. She sees her songs as a potential means to do the same. THE BEATLES, JONI MITCHELL, VAN MORRISON, MICHAEL KIWANUKA AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! Another anxiety well-known to actors – or, indeed, to anyone who spends too much time on social media – surfaces throughout her third album as she captures and ponders instances of slippage between the versions of herself that are public and private, and of transitions between earlier, younger selves and who she is in the now. She often expresses a measure of uncertainty about what constitutes “my new costume” as she calls it in “Method Actor“, along with the worry… Read More →

Hit Singles

Nick Lowe – Indoor Safari

When Nick Lowe toured America to promote Quality Street, his 2013 album of Christmas songs, his backing band was Yep Roc labelmates Los Straitjackets, retro rockers whose own albums suggested they hadn’t heard any new music since about 1965, their records awash with twanging instrumental rock’n’roll, rockabilly, surf music, teen ballads, some Tex-Mex and country. Nick, meanwhile, had been reversing into tomorrow, to borrow an old Stiff sales slogan, for most of his career, plausibly even earlier. They were a perfect musical match. And what a spectacle they offered! Four burly Americans in black hitman suits festooned with gold Aztec medallions, each sporting a lurid Mexican wrestling mask. The dapper Nick out front in crisp white shirt and black slacks, relaxed as a Rat Pack crooner at a poolside matinee. THE BEATLES, JONI MITCHELL, VAN MORRISON, MICHAEL KIWANUKA AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! Over the decade Nick’s been touring with Los Straitjackets, there have been occasional forays into the studio, tracks recorded on the hoof, wherever they happened to be, released as singles and EPs. Nine of the 12 songs on Indoor Safari are taken from those sessions, the original tracks either remixed… Read More →

Hit Singles

Lone Justice for all!

“People are saying it’s the first new Lone Justice record in 40 years, and I’m like… is it?” says Maria McKee, the band’s firebrand vocalist. The answer is both yes and no. While the group hasn’t released a proper full-length since 1986’s Shelter, upcoming album Viva Lone Justice isn’t technically new. McKee recorded the bulk of the material with ex-bandmates Marvin Etzioni and Don Heffington as demos for her 1992 solo effort You Gotta Sin To Get Saved. Dusting off those tapes in the wake of Heffington’s passing in 2021, Etzioni encouraged McKee to turn the sessions into a new solo album. Instead, she suggested they reach out to another former bandmate, guitarist Ryan Hedgecock, to add overdubs and release it under the Lone Justice name. THE BEATLES, JONI MITCHELL, VAN MORRISON, MICHAEL KIWANUKA AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! Viva Lone Justice is a rollicking, eclectic ride that puts hillbilly country stomp alongside shimmery folk, barrelhouse blues and a faithfully ripping cover of The Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks”, recorded in honour of Feargal Sharkey who scored his only No 1 single in 1985 with the McKee-composed “A Good Heart”. Advertisement “I didn’t do anything,”… Read More →

Hit Singles

Kara Major Inspires with New Single “Win” and Empowering Music Video

Kara Major, the emerging singer-songwriter from Hollywood, FL, has made a strong impression with her latest single, “Win,” paired with a visually captivating music video. The track highlights themes of self-confidence, perseverance, and strength, blending her dynamic vocals with electronic rhythms. With lyrics such as “Our highest selves are always calling. It’s important we pick up! Self love rescues. Self love WINS,” Kara Major aims to motivate her listeners to face challenges and focus on personal growth. This release marks an important milestone in her career, as she continues to demonstrate her skill in merging genuine storytelling with energetic EDM sounds. In the production of “Win,” Kara Major drew inspiration from an unexpected source: a reel of Jenifer Lewis’s interview on The Breakfast Club that came across her Instagram feed. Lewis’s words about her struggles with depression resonated deeply with Kara Major and arrived at just the right time only a day after she had conceptualized the track. Already having the chorus and the ending of the song in mind, Kara Major incorporated Lewis’s sentiments into the song’s intro, making slight alterations to fit seamlessly. This influence became a crucial element in the song, perfectly complementing its message of overcoming… Read More →

Hit Singles

Introducing the new Uncut: The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Michael Kiwanuka, a free 15-track CD and more

One of my last jobs on this issue has been proofing our field report from the End Of The Road festival, which Uncut was proudly involved with again this year. I’m hard-pressed to find another festival which reflects so much of what we do here at Uncut – mixing familiar names (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Slowdive, Lankum, Yo La Tengo) with upcoming faces (Kassi Valazza, Sanam, Florence Adooni, Snõõper) across a variety of genres and styles. THE BEATLES, JONI MITCHELL, VAN MORRISON, MICHAEL KIWANUKA AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! By way of evidence, please look no further than this issue of Uncut. Among many highlights, Laura Barton profiles the remarkable redemption story of Christopher Owens, the former frontman with indie-rock classicists Girls, and whose new album I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is one of my favourite records of the year so far. Elsewhere, I’m very happy to have found time to write a feature on psychedelic drone outsiders Spacemen 3, who according to one admirer, were nothing less than “the greatest English band of the late ’80s”. There’s more, of course – Van Morrison, Michael Kiwanuka, Peter Perrett as well as Steve… Read More →

Hit Singles

Uncut – November 2024

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR THE BEATLES: With a new boxset collecting the Fabs’ ’64 US LPs, eyewitnesses and contemporaries relive the mania of the British Invasion. “In music, there is The Beatles and then there is everybody else…” VAN MORRISON: The Celtic soul guru on jamming with The Band, recording with Cliff, why he no longer performs “Brown Eyed Girl”, old songs and new arrangements, Veedon Fleece at 50, the nature of creativity and more. “I am nostalgic. But it’s my nostalgia, you know…” Advertisement MICHAEL KIWANUKA: Drawing inspiration from Gene Clark and “obsessed” with David Gilmour’s guitar phrasing, the Mercury Prize winner is once again upping the stakes with his consciousness-raising, widescreen soul party. “You’ve gotta keep speaking up,” PETER PERRETT: Clean and healthy, the Only One is on a career roll with The Cleansing – a gloriously ambitious and death-defying double that’s his third album in seven years. “I have a mantra: each day we survive is a revolutionary act!” SPACEMEN 3: Psychedelic outsiders on the ’80s UK indie scene, they were on the cusp of success before combusting spectacularly. “We were a pretty dysfunctional group of people. We recognised that in… Read More →

Hit Singles

The Beatles’ 1964 US LPs collected for new mono vinyl set

The Beatles‘ American albums originally compiled for US release between January 1964 and March 1965 are reissued on November 22 by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe as The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono. All seven albums – Meet The Beatles!, The Beatles’ Second Album, A Hard Day’s Night (Original Motion Picture Sound Track), Something New, The Beatles’ Story (2LP), Beatles ’65 and The Early Beatles – have been analog cut for 180-gram audiophile vinyl from their original mono master tapes and feature replicated artwork and new four-panel inserts with essays. The albums’ new vinyl lacquers were cut by Kevin Reeves at Nashville’s East Iris Studios. Out of print on vinyl since 1995, the seven mono albums are available now for preorder in a new eight-LP box set, with six of the titles also available individually. Advertisement To celebrate the reissue of these albums, Uncut’s November 2024 issue digs deep into The Beatles’ momentous first visit to America in 1964 – and the mania that followed as the British Invasion took hold. The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono box set can be pre-ordered here while the separate albums can be pre-ordered below. [embedded content] Meet The Beatles![Capitol Records: released January 20, 1964;… Read More →

Hit Singles

City to City: Introducing King Nun

“We’re really more of a cult than a band,” grins drummer Caius Stockley-Young from underneath an unseasonal woolly hat as he tries to explain the chemistry that defines King Nun. The five-piece formed when they were at school in south-west London and meet Uncut in nearby Kingston, scene of some of their earliest successes. It turns out that King Nun are a fairly self-contained unit. Caius produced their 2023 album LAMB at the Marshall Studio, brother Ethan (bass, percussion) painted the cover art, guitarist James Upton drives the tour van with Caius, while bassist Nathan Gane – “the human calendar” – is tour manager. That leaves singer Theo Polyzoides free to write lyrics, which are plucked from a pile of notebooks that he fills with ideas while the band are writing songs. It’s an admirably DIY approach, as you’d expect from a band that first bonded over a love of CGBG bands, particularly Marquee Moon, which became an early point of unity when they formed as teenagers in 2013. Their tastes have changed and diversified as they have got older, but LAMB still resounds with the punkish energy that saw them named Best Rock Newcomers at Bonnarroo festival. There’s galloping… Read More →

Hit Singles

Hear a previously unreleased live version of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performing “Helplessly Hoping” at the Fillmore East, 1969

David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young are releasing a newly-discovered live set recorded during the band’s September 20, 1969, concert at the Fillmore East in New York. JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND MORE – ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE NEW UNCUT HERE! Live At The Fillmore East, 1969 will be available on 2xLP and CD. Pre-order here. Advertisement You can hear a previously unreleased live version of “Helplessly Hoping” below. [embedded content] Stephen Stills and Neil Young compiled and mixed the original eight-track concert recordings with John Hanlon at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles. The audio is AAA lacquer cut for the vinyl release to provide the highest audio fidelity. ​Said Young recently: “We mixed at Sunset Sound – the analog echo chamber, no digital echo. We’re staying all analog throughout the production…Pure. Analog. No digital – an Analog Original.” Advertisement Live At The Fillmore East, 1969 tracklisting is: LP ​Acoustic Set Side One “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” “Blackbird” “Helplessly Hoping” “Guinnevere” “Lady Of The Island” ​ Side Two “Go Back Home” “On The Way Home” “4 + 20” “Our House” “I’ve Loved Her So Long” “You Don’t Have To Cry” ​ Electric Set Side One… Read More →

Hit Singles

Hear Joan Shelley’s new track, “Mood Ring”

Joan Shelley returns with the Mood Ring EP. Scroll down to hear the title track. JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND MORE – ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE NEW UNCUT HERE! The Mood Ring EP is released by No Quarter on October 4 and can be pre-ordered here. It marks Shelley’s first new music since The Spur album in 2022. Tracklisting for the EP is: Mood Ring Singing To You Fire of the Morning Seven Steps I Look After You Shelley says the title track was inspired by: “the idea that heat and time are interlinked. That they tug and warp each other in space. I had read about block universe theory and it bothered me—if it were true, how do we really change anything? The song wove its own little message in response: this sense that all of us, our web of connections and the friction of our relationships, are the fuel that propels us through time… and that inevitably we are consumed by it. But what a spectacular thing to get a chance to ignite this vast, incomprehensible space with our lives. To have gotten an invitation to be here at all.”

Hit Singles

Uncut’s New Music Playlist for September 2024

For anyone currently suffering from seasonal disaffection, back to school blues or general doom-scrolling dismay, The Jesus And Mary Chain have a message for you. “Don’t let those grey skies pin you down,” they drawl on sweetly autobiographical new single “Pop Seeds”, detailing how as teenage misfits they found solace in “dusty grooves” and “punk rock magazines”. JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND MORE – ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE NEW UNCUT HERE! “We’d never make the world OK,” Reid concludes, “but we would make our world OK.” Hence why we present to you this gift-wrapped bundle of uplifting, inspiring, exhilarating, consoling new music from the likes of Songhoy Blues, Joan Shelley, Christopher Owens, Naima Bock, Gazelle Twin (remixed by Beak>), The Hard Quartet, Manu Chao, Field Music, Goat, Flock, Yasmin Williams and more. Advertisement As White Denim’s James Petralli advises on their own life-affirming new single “Light On” (also featured below), “Keep loving in spite of the darkness / Laughing in the faces of the heartless”. And don’t let those grey skies pin you down… THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN“Pop Seeds”(Fuzz Club) [embedded content] WHITE DENIM“Light On”(Bella Union) Advertisement [embedded content] JOAN SHELLEY“Mood Ring”(No… Read More →

Hit Singles

Herbie Flowers remembered: “Doris Day was invited to play the organ…”

Herbie Flowers, the veteran bassist who played with David Bowie, Lou Reed and Paul McCartney among many others, has died aged 86. Flowers, who was thought to have contributed to more than 500 hit albums by the end of the 1970s (according to the BBC), passed away on September 5. His death was announced by the family on Facebook. Flowers was born in Isleworth in 1938. He was conscripted into military service – which, he told Uncut, gave him ample preparation for a career as a musician. “It’s my working-class background and the nine years I spent in the RAF living in billets and sleeping in bunks, that I was quite well-geared to being on the factory floor.” Advertisement As a session musician, working for producers including Shel Tamly, Mickie Most and Gus Dudgeon, “My job was just to run in, never be late,” he told us. “They’d play us the song or the musical director would give you a bit of paper with little dots on it – that’s called ‘music’ – and you play it, you go home with £6 or £9 or £12 or £24 and that was the end of your involvement in it. “It was… Read More →

Hit Singles

Sérgio Mendes has died, aged 83

Sérgio Mendes, a titan of Brazilian music, “passed away peacefully” on September 5 in Los Angeles, aged 83. According to a statement on his Facebook page, “His wife and musical partner for the past 54 years, Gracinha Leporace Mendes, was by his side, as were his loving children… For the last several months, his health had been challenged by the effects of long term Covid.” Originally trained as a classical pianist, Mendes was at the forefront of Brazil’s bossa nova boom of the late 1950s alongside his mentor Antônio Carlos Jobim. Advertisement After recording with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann, Mendes moved to Los Angeles where he eventually formed the bilingual group Brasil ’66, featuring singers Lani Hall and Bibi Vogel. Their debut album Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 went platinum in the US. In 1968, the group scored consecutive Top 20 hits with bossa nova covers of “The Look Of Love”, “The Fool On The Hill” and “Scarborough Fair”, turning Mendes into a global ambassador for Brazilian music. He went on to make over 40 studio albums, the most recent being 2020’s In The Key Of Joy. “Sergio Mendes was my brother from another country,” wrote… Read More →

Hit Singles

Neil Young – Archives Vol. III (1976 – 1987)

The first two discs of Archives III – here at last! – are culled from concerts at the Budokan and Hammersmith Odeon on Neil Young’s 1976 world tour with Crazy Horse that make you wish you’d been witness to at least one of them. Then you remember you were. Hammersmith, March 31, four rows from the front, half-blinded by the grit being blown off the stage by a huge wind machine during an early outing for “Like A Hurricane”. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACK FROM ARCHIVES III It comes back to you in a rush. First, Neil solo and acoustic, the setlist a fan’s dream. Crazy Horse joining him for a second set that included “Down By The River”, “Like A Hurricane”, “Southern Man”, “Cortez The Killer”, “Cinnamon Girl”, “Cowgirl In The Sand”. These songs became central to Young’s concert repertoire in the decades ahead, but these recordings are from the days before they became familiar set-pieces. Everything felt newly minted, freshly bottled lightning. “Like A Hurricane” had been played for the first time only months earlier, in December 1975, on the Rolling Zuma Revue tour. The Odeon version is everything you remember, played out in… Read More →

Hit Singles

We’re New Here – English Teacher

JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND MORE – ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE NEW UNCUT HERE! Lily Fontaine is pleased that her group, English Teacher, are defying expectations on their eclectic debut album – but she’s still a little apprehensive at how fans will take its diverse, sprawling contents. “A lot of people are probably expecting a heavier album, and that is a concern,” she says. “But we’d like to challenge people, surprise people – annoy people, maybe? I just don’t want to lock myself into one thing. Whatever comes out, comes out.” Indeed, This Could Be Texas sets up the Leeds-based four-piece for a long, adventurous career. Across 13 tracks, it crosses the boundaries of indie-rock and ventures into post-rock, electronica and anthemic balladry, not unlike Radiohead, a big influence for the band alongside Black Country, New Road, Sonic Youth, Television, Fontaines DC and more. Meanwhile, Fontaine’s lyrics show her love of science fiction. Advertisement “‘You Blister My Paint’ is named after a song playing in the Korova Milkbar in A Clockwork Orange. I love Isaac Asimov. It’s not classic sci-fi but one of my favourite short stories is Stephen King’s ‘The Langoliers’. There’s… Read More →

Hit Singles

Introducing the 500 Greatest Albums of the 2000s…Ranked!

One phrase which kept returning to mind while working on this new magazine was “Quiet is the new loud”. Back in 2001 it was the name of an excellent album by the lovely Norwegian group Kings Of Convenience (included, of course, in the collection of fine music we’ve democratically assembled for you here). But it was also a kind of ethos. As Fleet Fox Robin Pecknold explains in his excellent introductory interview to the magazine, from his point of view the 2000s were a simpler time. So dominant was the aggressive and neurotic nu metal which was the big commercial force in rock music as the 1990s turned into the next century that the choice was clear cut: it became a key mission to find an escape in other – better – sounds. For Robin, this meant drinking in the weekly dramas of the Libertines, and following the explosion of the Strokes and White Stripes as they were chronicled in the British music press. As his own musical mission developed it became obvious that retreating into quieter, folkier sounds, more like the Joni Mitchell records he grew up listening to in his parents’ record collection could hold the answer. Advertisement… Read More →

Hit Singles

Exclusive! Listen to a previously unreleased Neil Young recording from Archives III

Neil Young has shared his previously unreleased original version of “Razor Love” with Uncut. JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND MORE – ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE NEW UNCUT HERE! This version was recorded at Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch in early January 1984. It features Young on LinnDrum, Simmons drums, Synclavier and vocals. It was produced by Young and Tim Mulligan. Advertisement [embedded content] While Young went on to debut the song live during the International Harvesters tour that same year, he didn’t release a studio version until 2000, when a re-recorded version appeared on his Silver & Gold album. This previously unreleased original version appears on Disc 13: Evolution (1983-1984) of Neil Young’s Archives Vol III: (1976-1987), which is released on September 6 via Reprise Records. The 17-CD limited edition boxed set of Archives Vol III features a total of 198 musical tracks, including 121 previously unreleased versions of live, studio, mixes, or edits, plus 15 previously unreleased songs. Advertisement The music covers live performances with Crazy Horse, solo, with Nicolette Larson and with Devo and with The International Harvesters, along with unreleased studio recordings and outtakes. In addition, a double vinyl LP-only set titled Takes,… Read More →

Hit Singles

The Jesus Lizard: Reptile be back

“We haven’t mellowed,” proclaims Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow, with more than a hint of pride. “My wife makes fun at how dark and menacing it is, but I don’t see it that way. We write what we write because that’s what we write.” Although the band reunited in 2009 to play live, forthcoming album Rack will be their first for 26 years. “We pick up right where the last record left off,” says guitarist Duane Denison. “Some of the songs are even based on ideas we had from that era.” JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND MORE – ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE NEW UNCUT HERE! Rack sees The Jesus Lizard maintain an approach – riffs, dissonance, freaky lyrics – that made them one of the most acclaimed cult bands of the 1990s. They formed in Austin in 1987, but really got going when they relocated to the fertile Chicago scene a few years later. Brooding, intense and threatening, they toured with the Blues Explosion and Sonic Youth, released a split single with Nirvana and recorded several LPs with Steve Albini, including classics Goat and Liar. Advertisement Their live shows were legendary. Yow fondly… Read More →

Hit Singles

Send us your questions for Queen!

Roger Taylor, from the mighty Queen, will be answering your questions as part of our regular An Audience With… feature. So is there anything you’d like us to ask? What’s his favourite memory of Freddie?Would Queen ever consider a Queen virtual concert residency like ABBA Voyage?Will there be a sequel to Bohemian Rhapsody? JIMI HENDRIX, A BIG STAR CD, GILLIAN WELCH, FONTAINES D.C. AND MORE – ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE NEW UNCUT HERE! Send your questions to audiencewith@uncut.co.uk by Monday, September 16. The best questions, along with Queen’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine.