Hit Singles
New Generation Of Soft Pop Is Here: Argentina’s Finest Juan Minatta & His Single “best of me”
Juan Minatta is an Argentinian singer-songwriter who is releasing some of the most emotional songs lately and his latest release is “best of me,” a sad reflection on his past romantic relationship. The way Juan sings his lyrics is truly unmatched as the talented artist touches the hearts of his listeners with his powerful voice. The young singer started off his career by releasing his version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” gaining substantial traction for his music. In the summer of 2020, Juan Minatta released his debut single “Run Away” that reached more than 150k streams across...
Kendrick Lamar Mr Morale & The Big Steppers
Kendrick Lamar is one of the finest instrumentalists of his era, although his instrument happens to be his own voice. On previous albums but especially on his latest, Mr Morale & The Big Steppers, he raps in many modes, varying his pitching and flow on nearly every song, switching up his cadence as though changing his identity. He sounds impossibly nimble and declarative on opener “United In Grief”, even as he warns the listener, “I’ve been goin’ through something/Be afraid”. He goes low and legato on “Crown”, then spry and playful on “N95”. He uses short, choppy lines on...
Elvis
Of all the filmmakers who could have made an Elvis biopic, it had to be one whose aesthetic is more Vegas bloat than Sun Studios leanness. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis lives up to the swooning excess of his Moulin Rouge, even down to its digital diamanté-studded end credits. Less a narrative than a deluxe jukebox musical with touches of Douglas Sirk melodrama, Elvis is framed as a sort of Citizen Kane deathbed reverie from Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s Dutch-born, Mephistophelean manager. He’s played by Tom Hanks with a bizarre, undefinable European accent, in makeup suggesting a cross between the Penguin...
Iury Lech Musica Para El Fin De Los Cantos
Iury Lech’s second album, Música Para El Fin De Los Cantos (‘Music For The End Of The Songs’), has taken a while to reach its audience. Originally released by Spanish label Hyades Arts, which was run by writer and director Antonio Diaz and musician Dr Héctor, its understated beauty eventually attracted a wave of bloggers who were interested in albums that slipped between genres, sitting as it does between minimalism, New Age and Fourth World musics. Reissued five years ago by CockTail d’Amore, with altered artwork, for this reissue, Wah Wah and Lech have gone back to the master...
Michael Nesmith Tantamount To Treason Vol 1 (reissue, 1972)
There’s added poignancy in this reissue of Nesmith’s fourth post-Monkees album, following his death in December last year. Yet rather than being a sentimental salute, Tantamount To Treason underscores Nez’s status as a country-rock forefather of a rather idiosyncratic bent. ORDER NOW: THE BEATLES ARE ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT Produced by Nesmith himself, Tantamount To Treason was his only recording with the Second National Band, a sextet featuring just him and pedal-steel guitarist Orville “Red” Rhodes from the first incarnation, plus session musicians including bassist Johnny Meeks, who did time as lead guitarist with the...
Hip-Hop Veteran TEF XL Shares A New Banger “Say Less”
TEF XL shares a new single called “Say Less”, another major drop that fuses the best of hip-hop with the artist’s own life experiences, making the entire piece personal and at the same time relatable. “Say Less” mimics a life advice off the rapper’s lips, an autobiographical lesson for all to learn: “Learned what is and isn’t true / Took my time and mold my mind / Speak on sh*t most couldn’t rhyme” and so on. With a confident presence and a powerful voice, TEF is sweeping up the scene through well-crafted and well-executed compositions like “Deuces”, “RNR”, and...
Joan Shelley The Spur
Earlier this year, speaking to Uncut about her love of Nick Drake, Joan Shelley expressed a preference for “the more intimate recordings, that stripped-downness. When somebody is that good at being the whole band, I want to be as close to the guitar as possible. It has certainly had an influence on my own record making.” ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut The heart of Shelley’s music since her 2015 breakthrough, Over And Even, is located in the warm, unshowy, close-mic’d interplay between voice and acoustic guitar. So compelling is that...
Arthur Russell Calling Out Of Context / Instrumentals (reissues, 2004, 2017)
Thirty years after his Aids-related death, aged just 40, Arthur Russell’s music still has a luminous freshness and richly emotional power. The cult composer, cellist and downtown New York scene-hopper amassed a vast body of work spanning avant-classical chamber pieces, disco and dub, experimental electronica, folksy Americana and Buddhist bubblegum pop, but he released very little solo material in his lifetime. Russell’s radical queerness and genre-blurring musical promiscuity confounded peers and record labels, but he also stifled his own potential with painstaking perfectionism, endlessly hoarding and reworking pieces that deserved a public airing. ORDER NOW: The Beatles are on...
Barbara Keith Barbara Keith
When Barbara Keith, acoustic in hand, headed from Massachusetts to Greenwich Village during the height of the folk era, she became one of countless aspiring troubadours tentatively following in Dylan’s footsteps, singing folk standards at Café Wha? and Gerde’s Folk City. She fell in with a bunch of Café Wha? regulars, and they formed the short-lived band Kangaroo. By the time they’d scored a record deal, Keith was starting to write songs, and soon after the group dissolved, she was signed by MGM/Verve, with Peter Asher assigned to produce her self-titled 1969 debut album. Although the LP caused barely...Recent Posts
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