Hit Singles

Hit Singles

Perfect Circle

On a Thursday night in February at the famous 40 Watt club in Athens, Georgia, REM fans got to witness the closest thing we may ever see to a full-band reunion. As actor Michael Shannon and guitarist Jason Narducy brought their touring celebration of 1984’s Murmur to REM’s hometown, members of the original band began joining the the fray, until Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe were sharing a stage for the first time in 17 years. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE “Bill asked us if he could play piano on ‘Perfect Circle,’ which he does on the record,” says Narducy. “And when I saw ‘Pretty Persuasion’ coming up on the setlist, I asked our stage manager to see if he could find Mike Mills and invite him up, since that song has such heavy backing vocals. He jumped up and kept on jumping up.” Buck, meanwhile, had been at the club since soundcheck, giving Narducy a few pointers. “Even when he was on-stage with us, he’s showing me these little things as he was playing on the record. It was very touching for a massive fan… Read More →

Hit Singles

Introducing the 500 Greatest Albums of the 1990s…Ranked!

1991, according to the title of a documentary about Sonic Youth, was “The Year Punk Broke”. What they meant by this was that 1991 was finally when punk – the traditional music of abrasion, alienation and catharsis – finally became commercially successful. It was a strange turn of events, as if this wasn’t in the first place an absurd expectation for such music. In truth, while exciting music was certainly being made by Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney and Babes In Toyland and others featured in Dave Markey’s documentary, the majority of the actual breaking was being done by Nirvana. As Stephen Deusner writes in his review of Nevermind in this new magazine, other artists launched careers, reinvigorated genres and sold more records in 1991, but no-one had quite the cultural influence of Nirvana. True enough, the bands of Britpop – by some reckonings the other dominant genre of the decade – made lesser incursions overseas, but for huge numbers of inland youth the successes of these bands marked a breaking of their own: a victory over the imagined gatekeepers of the pop charts, the ones keeping Take That at the top. If in the previous decade success might have… Read More →

Hit Singles

Live! Paul Weller, The Lighthouse, Poole (04/04/24)

Paul Weller is not going gently into that good night. On the cusp of turning 66 – the title of his upcoming album – the ever-changing mod-rock godfather remains an edgy, bristling, wired presence onstage; still fired by youthful belligerence despite that sleek silver swoop of hair. Kicking off a short British tour in Poole, Weller keeps his stage banter genial but spare, giving little away. A Palestinian flag hangs behind him, a reminder of his long legacy of political statements. With barely a lull across two frenetic hours, he plays even gentle folk-pop ballads like he is itching for a fight. Powered by a muscular six-piece band, including two drummers, this Poole show mostly sticks within Weller’s boisterous, high-decibel comfort zone. There is doubtless an element of playing to his geezer-rock heartland here: the public gets what the public wants. But all this burly clobbering risks underselling the subtle beauty of songs like the soulful, intricate “Mayfly”or the wafting, perfumed “Above The Clouds”. Even so, there are softer sonic textures in the mix, notably when honking tenor sax player Jacko Peake switches to pastoral flute and plaintive melodica on more introspective tracks like “Glad Times”. Weller may be naturally pugnacious, but manages… Read More →

Hit Singles

Hear Beechwood Sparks’ “Torn In Two”

Beechwood Sparks return with their first new music for 12 years. You can hear “Torn In Two” below. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE “Torn In Two” is taken from their upcoming studio album, Across The River Of Stars, which is released on July 19 by Curation Records. Their first album since 2012’s The Tarnished Gold, Across The River Of Stars has been produced by Black Crowes‘ Chris Robinson. Across The River Of Stars will be available on vinyl, CD and DD formats. You can pre-order a copy here. The tracklisting is: My Love, My LoveTorn in TwoFalling ForeverGentle SamuraiGemFaded GloryDolphin DanceHigh NoonWild Swans

Hit Singles

Nico – The Marble Index/Desertshore (reissues, 1968, ’70)

At once terminally forbidding and inexhaustibly alluring, Nico’s The Marble Index belongs among those ultra-modernist works that stand aside from their art without regard for the consequences. Like James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake or Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, it seems destined to offer an eternal challenge even to those who choose to fall under its obscure spell. This latest reissue, coupled with Desertshore, its successor/sibling, demonstrates that five and a half decades have failed to dent a vital component of its greatness: an obstinate refusal to explain itself or to succumb to the pattern whereby the avant-garde is absorbed and neutralised by the mainstream. There may never come a time when The Marble Index will not be avant-garde. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE After Nico’s departure from The Velvet Underground in 1967 and the baroque-folk mish-mash of her debut solo album, Chelsea Girl, it represented a complete self-reinvention, jettisoning not just the reliance on other (male) songwriters but the version of the look of a classic ’60s blonde – the Berlin to Catherine Deneuve’s Paris or Julie Christie’s London – that had brought her work as a model and the attention… Read More →

Hit Singles

Ride – Interplay

Bliss it was to be alive in 1990, but to be young was very heaven. When Ride first stormed out of the gates in that shoegaze spring, they had an irresistible coltish energy to them. The presiding eminences of the time (My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, House Of Love and The Stone Roses) had all already been around the block a few times, and made their youthful missteps away from the public eye. But the Oxford four-piece emerged blinking into the immediate glare of public acclaim, knocking out immaculate EP after EP like a teenage Robbie Fowler racking up the hat-tricks. No second thoughts, no calculation, just the sheer thrill of a moment they seized quite brilliantly. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Did the immediacy of the rise overwhelm them? In retrospect they seem like a classic case of a band that stalled on The Difficult Third Album. They were keen to move on from the movement that threatened to define them (driving “Leave Them All Behind” into the Top 10 was a swaggering statement of intent), uncertain of exactly where to chart their course, and swept up in the… Read More →

Hit Singles

I’m New Here – Oisin Leech

“It was this mixture of total excitement and total fear,” says Oisin Leech of his decision to make a solo album. “I had no idea what was going to happen. But when we’d finished, Steve Gunn turned to me and said: ‘I think you’ve done something special here. There’s not many people making records like this.’” DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Produced by Gunn, Cold Sea is Leech’s first venture outside of The Lost Brothers, the folk duo he formed with Mark McCausland in 2008. It finds the singer-songwriter reaching into his ancestral roots for an exquisite set of lambent folk songs that reflect the harsh beauty of his ocean-facing surroundings. Recorded in an old schoolhouse in Malin, at Ireland’s northern tip, Cold Sea maps exile, love, loss and healing via erudite guitar and judicious use of synths and strings. Gunn is a discreet presence too, as are guests M. Ward, Dylan’s upright bassist Tony Garnier and bouzouki veteran Dónal Lunny, co-founder of Planxty and The Bothy Band. Advertisement “The album is inspired by that landscape,” says Leech. “My mum and her family come from Donegal, where we made the… Read More →

Hit Singles

Total Blam-Blam! Inside this month’s free Uncut CD

Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement 1 MINT MILESunbreaking Silkworm’s Tim Midyett returns with the second Mint Mile album, Roughrider, mixing up the sounds of his old band with the ragged swing of Pavement and Crazy Horse, and some gorgeous chamber accompaniment. 2 JESSICA PRATTWorld On A String Advertisement Here In The Pitch, the long-awaited follow-up to 2019’s Quiet Signs, is our Album Of The Month on page XX. Here’s a highlight of this seductive, velveteen folk record, with Pratt’s strummed nylon-string acoustic and echoing voice gradually joined by a haze of Mellotron synths, keys and sparse drums. Truly magical. 3 MICHAEL HEAD & THE RED ELASTIC BANDAmbrosia Another masterclass in songwriting here from Michael Head, and a highlight of his new album Loophole, produced once again by Bill Ryder-Jones. Following 2017’s Adios Senor… Read More →

Hit Singles

An Audience With… John Sinclair

It’s almost 60 years since John Sinclair co-founded The Detroit Artists Workshop, hoping to stir up some radical jazz action; a terrific new compilation on Strut is testament to his efforts in that field. But by 1968, Sinclair had achieved greater notoriety as manager of the incendiary rock group MC5, affiliating them with his White Panther Party and proposing a “total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock’n’roll, dope, and fucking in the streets”. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Sinclair spent two years in prison on trumped-up marijuana charges before a freedom rally headlined by John Lennon and Yoko Ono hastened his release. Since then, he’s recorded more than 20 albums of jazzy beat poetry, as well as almost 1,000 shows for Radio Free Amsterdam. But now he’s back in downtown Detroit, feeling glummer than ever about the prospects of cultural revolution. Advertisement “They’re bringing in new white people!” he complains. Gentrification? “Call it what you will. Ugliness is what I call it. They aren’t doing anything for the black people who went through years of awfulness. This used to be a dope area, now it’s all… Read More →

Hit Singles

Drummer Gerry Conway has died aged 76

Gerry Conway, the drummer best known for his work with Fairport Convention and their wider folk-rock circle, has died at the age of 76. Conway passed away on Saturday (March 29) after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease two years ago. Born in Norfolk and brought up in London, he formed Eclection with Trevor Lucas in 1968, and through him came to be a member of Fotheringay, Sandy Denny‘s post-Fairport group. Advertisement He was also an in-demand session drummer, and in the ’70s performed on albums by Iain Matthews, John Cale, Steeleye Span, Mike McGear, Shelagh McDonald, Al Stewart, Denny and Cat Stewart, his long association with the latter beginning with 1971’s Teaser And The Firecat and running until the singer-songwriter’s retirement at the end of the decade. In the 1980s he played with Richard Thompson, Jethro Tull and Pentangle – the latter’s Jacqui McShee his long-term partner – before joining Fairport Convention as a permanent member in 1998, a trifling 25 years after he appeared on three songs on their album Rosie. He remained with the group until he became ill in 2022. In a warm note to “our dear friend and former drummer” on their website, Fairport wrote:… Read More →

Hit Singles

Grateful Dead announce 50th anniversary reissue of From The Mars Hotel

Grateful Dead have announced the latest instalment in their ongoing reissue programme – a 50th anniversary Deluxe Edition of 1974’s From The Mars Hotel. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Released June 21 by Rhino, this Deluxe Edition is a 3CD and digital set, featuring a remastered edition of the original album enhanced with two demos from the era and a complete, previously unreleased concert from the 1974 tour in support of the album. Advertisement Below, you can hear a demo of “Wave That Flag” – the song that became “U.S. Blues“. [embedded content] And you can pre-order From The Mars Hotel Deluxe Edition by clicking here. The tracklisting is:Disc 1U.S. BluesChina DollUnbroken ChainLoose LucyScarlet BegoniasPride Of CucamongaMoney MoneyShip Of FoolsBonus TracksChina Doll (Demo)Wave That Flag (Demo) Advertisement Disc 2Live From the University of Nevada, Reno, May 12, 1974SugareeMexicali BluesTennessee JedJack StrawBrown-Eyed WomenBeat It On Down The LineChina Cat Sunflower>I Know You RiderEl PasoU.S. BluesGreatest Story Ever ToldIt Must Have Been The RosesMe And Bobby McGee Disc 3Live From the University of Nevada, Reno, May 12, 1974DealAround And AroundMississippi Half-Step Uptown ToodelooTruckin’>The Other One>Row JimmyBig RiverShip Of FoolsSugar Magnolia In addition… Read More →

Hit Singles

Ever Fallen In Love?

When he sat down to write a biography of Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks, Paul Hanley hit a problem. His enthusiasm for the subject was getting in the way of his objectivity. “I was a massive Buzzcocks fan at the age of 14. It was quite a process to keep stepping back. I thought, ‘A lot of people could write a biography. It’s only me could write about my relationship with the band.’” DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE As a former drummer with The Fall, Hanley is well-placed to write about one of the most significant Manchester bands. The beauty of Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (And Me), is the way it renders an adult view of Pete Shelley’s genius with teenage enthusiasm. The biographical details of Shelley’s life are present; so is the purity of Hanley’s passion. Advertisement Hanley remembers the day Buzzcocks’ first album Another Music In A Different Kitchen came out. Future Fall members Marc Riley, Craig Scanlon and Steve Hanley (Paul’s older brother) went to Virgin’s Manchester branch for a launch event. The shop released balloons. “The idea was that whoever got… Read More →

Hit Singles

Uncut – May 2024

HAVE A COPY SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOME David Bowie, The Black Keys and Beck, St Vincent, Richard Thompson, Kamasi Washington, Radiohead, Iron & Wine, Vini Reilly, Lou Reed, Brett Anderson, Wah!, Myriam Gendron, Neil Finn, Broadcast, Alice Coltrane and more all feature in Uncut‘s May 2024 issue, in UK shops from March 29 or available to buy online now. Advertisement All print copies come with a free CD – Total Blam-Blam!, featuring 15 of the month’s best new music including Khruangbin, Jessica Pratt, James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg, Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band, Arab Strap, Iron & Wine, Camera Obscura and more! INSIDE THIS MONTH’S UNCUT DAVID BOWIE: As a new boxset digs deep into Ziggy Stardust, we map the 1972 masterpiece’s secret history with the aid of key players Advertisement THE BLACK KEYS MEET BECK: Two decades after they first met, ‘the Beck Keys’ finally get it together in the studio – and tell us all about it! ST VINCENT: Annie Clark squares up to her demons on her sublime seventh LP RICHARD THOMPSON: The magic of Big Pink, adventures in the Sahara and imaginary conversations with Sandy Denny KAMASI WASHINGTON: The reigning king of jazz… Read More →

Hit Singles

Peter Singer Drops “Eternal You”

Peter Singer ditches the usual dance floor euphoria for a more introspective trip with his latest release, “Eternal You.” The track starts with a sense of impending doom. A pulsating bassline throbs like a heartbeat under a melody that coils with tension. The lyrics paint a picture of unease: “The floor beneath feels like it’s shaking / Heart in throat the only sound.” Peter throws out existential questions like confetti: “The coming darkness, and what of hate?” There’s a cynical edge to the track. Lines like “Illuminate this caliphate” hint at a world consumed by conflict, where easy answers are hard to find. The chorus pulsates with a dark energy: “Yes, it’s a long hard journey, cautious moves / And every small decision leads to eternal you.” Each choice we make shapes who we become, our “eternal selves,” but the path is shrouded in uncertainty. “Eternal You” doesn’t shy away from doubt. “Accepting the old gospel yet still lacking proof,” Singer sings, highlighting the struggle for meaning in a world where faith and reason clash. The driving rhythm underscores this relentless pursuit of answers: “Forever, always learning. Everything we do / Each plan, each undertaking… eternity, eternity teaches you.” This… Read More →

Hit Singles

Watch a video for John Cale’s new single, “How We See The Light”

John Cale has announced that his new album POPtical Illusion – a swift follow-up to 2023’s acclaimed Mercy – will be released by Double Six / Domino on June 14. PINK FLOYD ARE ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Watch a video for lead single “How We See The Light” below: In contrast to Mercy’s big cast of collaborators, POPtical Illusion was played mostly by Cale in his Los Angeles studio. The album was co-produced by longtime artistic partner Nita Scott. POPtical Illusion will be available on 2xLP, CD and digital formats. The Domino Mart pink & mint limited edition vinyl includes a 7″ featuring two exclusive tracks and a paper ‘objet’. Pre-order POPtical Illusion here and peruse the artwork and tracklisting below: God Made Me Do It (don’t ask me again) Davies and Wales Calling You Out Edge of Reason I’m Angry How We See The Light Company Commander Setting Fires Shark-Shark Funkball the Brewster All To The Good Laughing In My Sleep There Will Be No River

Hit Singles

Samantha Morton announces debut album with XL’s Richard Russell

Actor/director Samantha Morton has formed a new musical duo with producer and XL Recordings boss Richard Russell. Named Sam Morton, their debut album Daffodils & Dirt will be released by XL on June 14. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Watch Morton’s self-directed video for the single “Let’s Walk In The Night”, featuring Alabaster DePlume, below: Daffodils & Dirt also features guest appearances by Laura Groves, Jack Peñate and Ali Campbell. You can pre-order the album here. Sam Morton will play their biggest headline show to date at London’s ICA on June 20, tickets here. They will also perform at this year’s End Of The Road, among other festival appearances.

Hit Singles

Kevynn Hudsonn Gets Real on “Rose Quartz”: A Lo-Fi Anthem for the Heartbroken but Healing

Brooklyn’s Kevynn Hudsonn isn’t your typical R&B artist. Sure, the smooth vocals and soulful melodies are there, but beneath the surface lies a simmering pot of genre-bending influences – a dash of hip-hop swagger, a sprinkle of synth-pop shimmer, and a healthy dose of alternative rock grit. His latest single, “Rose Quartz,” is a perfect example of this sonic alchemy, a lo-fi anthem for anyone who’s ever loved and lost, but emerged stronger on the other side. The track opens with a stripped-down soundscape. Sparse piano chords and a melancholic synth line set the stage for Hudsonn‘s introspective lyrics. He sings in a hushed tone, almost a confession, admitting a love that perhaps bloomed a little too soon. Lines like, “Wish I’d learned to love myself / Before I fell in love with you,” hit hard, a relatable sentiment for anyone who’s ever prioritized someone else’s happiness above their own. But “Rose Quartz” isn’t just about dwelling on the past. The title itself – a reference to the rose quartz crystal known for its connection to self-love – hints at a deeper message. Throughout the song, Kevynn uses the rose quartz as a symbol of self-discovery. The pre-chorus, “Rose Quartz… Read More →

Hit Singles

Alan Hull – Singing A Song In The Morning Light – The Legendary Demo Tapes 1967-1970

The making of Alan Hull as a songwriter was not sitting hunched over his guitar in his bedroom with only his introspection for company, but the three years he spent working as a trainee nurse in a Tyneside psychiatric institution. “That’s what changed me and the things I was writing about,” he said of his time working with patients at the St Nicholas hospital in Gosforth in the late 1960s. “It made me think about a lot of things and made the songs go deeper.” PINK FLOYD ARE ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement For a while the experience threatened his own equilibrium, but the troubled souls in his care also gave him a “million ideas” and taught him that there are many different ways of looking at the world. Coupled with his own poetic sensibility, a deep compassion for his fellow human beings, a scabrous wit and a righteous pride in his Geordie working-class roots, the result was a flood of songs written between 1966 and early 1970, before he formed Lindisfarne. The band then took its pick of the best, but only scratched the surface of a prodigious songbook that is… Read More →

Hit Singles

Julia Holter – Something In The Room She Moves

Pop music used to be the preserve of the autodidacts, the high-school dropouts who taught themselves a few chords on the guitar and worked things out instinctively. The odd classically trained figure would sometimes crop up here and there – a Mick Ronson scribbling string arrangements on the back of a cigarette packet, a Donald Fagen writing out complex extended chords for his session musicians to improvise over, a Sean Moore from the Manic Street Preachers playing the occasional trumpet flourish over a punk track – but, by and large, pop and rock musicians would eschew formal learning and play by ear. PINK FLOYD ARE ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE But something odd seemed to happen around the millennium, when an entire sub-genre of classically trained art-rock figures started to emerge across the US and Canada, including the likes of Joanna Newsom, Sufjan Stevens, St Vincent, Owen Pallett, Janelle Monae, Caroline Polachek, Mary Lattimore, Oneohtrix Point Never, Andrew Bird and members of Vampire Weekend, Antony And The Johnsons, Dirty Projectors, The National, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Deerhoof, Battles, Midlake and many more. Where the art school had been the breeding ground for so much… Read More →

Hit Singles

David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust to receive deluxe reissue

David Bowie‘s 1972 masterpiece The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars lands as a deluxe 5CD and 1 Blu-Ray Audio set, called Rock ‘n’ Roll Star!, on June 14. As a taster for the box, you can hear the “Ziggy Stardust” demo, recorded by Bowie on vocal and acoustic guitar in March 1971 at Haddon Hall in Beckenham. PINK FLOYD ARE ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! contains 29 unreleased tracks, covers early songwriting demos, recordings from The Arnold Corns, rehearsals at Haddon Hall, BBC sessions, singles, live performances, plus outtakes and alternative versions from the original album recording sessions, which have been newly mixed by original album producer, Ken Scott. You can pre-order a copy by clicking here. The audio-only Blu-Ray disc features the definitive 2012 remaster of the original Ziggy Stardust album in 96kHz/24bit PCM stereo, plus the album and additional mixes from 2003 in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 as well as the singles, outtakes and alternative versions in 96kHz/24 bit PCM stereo. Advertisement The Blu-Ray also includes a version of the Ziggy album called Waiting In The Sky (Before The Starman Come To Earth),… Read More →

Hit Singles

Simon Armitage releases the Blossomise EP

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and his band LYR have released the Blossomise EP. PINK FLOYD ARE ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE The five track EP coincides with both World Poetry Day and yesterday’s Spring equinox [March 20]. Advertisement You can hear “Folk Song” from the EP below. [embedded content] “Blossom is an extraordinary emotional milestone every year, a moment of illumination and resurgence after the dark winter months,” says Armitage. “Increasingly, we have seen that poetry is resonating with people from across the generations and from many different walks of life, not least when it shades into musical territory and performance. As such, this feels like the right project at the right time, designed to amplify the joy of blossom, encourage people all over the country to feel inspired by nature’s resilience, and to welcome the coming of spring.” Apart from Armitage, LYR comprise singer-songwriter Richard Walters and multi-instrumentalist and producer Patrick J Pearson. Advertisement The Blossomise EP is available to buy or stream on digital platforms here. LYR will perform Blossomise on a limited tour of four key cities (Plymouth, Coventry, Manchester and Newcastle) that are hosting a variety of creative blossom inspired events as part of the… Read More →