Jane Weaver is playing a very good long game. She’s just turned 52 and has spent over 30 of those years deeply involved in music in Manchester – from her early bands Kill Laura and Misty Dixon to her free-flowing solo output and more wayward projects such as Fenella and NeoTantrik – and yet this latest release, Love In Constant Spectacle, is by some distance her most satisfying album. Full of surprises and tantalisingly familiar, it’s the sound of Weaver stretching out and drawing from her wealth of experience to fashion a heartfelt, head-spinning account of grief and solace....
In this month’s Uncut, we speak to the reigning king of jazz saxophone Kamasi Washington about how his upcoming album is inspired by new life and the need to overcome old divisions. “Music cleanses us,” he explains. Now read on for an extract from our interview… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement Around midnight most evenings, Kamasi Washington will sit down at the piano in the living room of his home in Inglewood, Los Angeles, and begin to compose. Despite being synonymous with the saxophone, he only ever writes on...
In this month’s Uncut, we speak to Myriam Gendron, the enigmatic French-Canadian artist who has been quietly transforming folk songs and Dorothy Parker poems with intense, delicate results. With a new album of her own compositions imminent, we hear her remarkable story. Now read on for an extract from our interview… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement On the wall of the music room in her Montreal home, Myriam Gendron has hung several posters: one from a party to celebrate the poetry publishing house run by her partner; another from...
In this month’s Uncut, we speak to Richard Thompson about his brilliant new album, the magic of Big Pink, adventures in the Sahara and imaginary conversations with Sandy Denny. Now read on for an extract from our interview… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement Inconspicuous in a black leather coat and cap, Richard Thompson remains undisturbed as he windowshops on London’s Denmark Street. For one of Britain’s most revered guitarists and songwriters, though, this particular road holds temptations and regrets at every turn. “Roger McGuinn left his Rickenbacker behind in...
In this month’s Uncut, we speak to Annie Clark, aka St Vincent, about her the dramas and demons behind her sublime seventh album, All Born Screaming. Now read on for an extract from our interview… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement Reclining on the sofa in her grand Edwardian hotel suite, Annie Clark seems immaculately composed as she recalls the first strange stirrings of her seventh album. “I had a sense that I wanted to be pummeled by music,” she says matter-of-factly, holding your gaze. “Who knows if I was...
In this month’s Uncut, we bring together The Black Keys‘ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney and Beck for an exclusive interview to celebrate their work together on The Black Keys new studio album, Ohio Players… Let’s just call them The Beck Keys. Now read on for an extract from this one-off encounter… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement That’s a picnic lunch 20 years in the making. The two acts have been circling each other for decades, bound by their shared love of blues, funk and soul. After touring together in 2003, the three musicians often talked about...
This month’s Uncut cover story digs deep into David Bowie‘s groundbreaking Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars album, as an expansive new box set, Rock N Roll Star!, unearths outtakes, alternate versions, radio sessions and more to shed new light on his doomed extra-terrestrial rocker. In this excerpt from our cover story, we preview 10 tracks from the upcoming Rock N Roll Star! box… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement DISC 1 “Hang On To Yourself” Advertisement Bowie had just met Gene Vincent when he recorded...
Supporting the old trope that you must suffer for your art, Alice Cooper got an opus out of a toothache. On “Unfinished Sweet”, the deranged heart of the band’s sixth studio album, Billion Dollar Babies, frontman Vincent Furnier sings some lowdown dental blues, describing the pain like a “Saint Vitus dance on my molars tonight” and wincing at the paranoid hallucinations prompted by the laughing gas. The rest of the band are just as committed to the ludicrous concept, with Glen Buxton duetting with a dental drill before colliding head-on with a surf-rock/spy-theme breakdown. At no point does dentistry...
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...
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...