As their definitive career documentary airs, we present The Ultimate Music Guide to The Velvet Underground. Covering the legendary albums, to the reunion and their enduring legacy. Also features writing by Jonathan Richman and in-depth coverage of pioneering work by Nico and John Cale. “I’ll be your mirror/Reflect what you are, in case you don’t know…” Buy a copy here!
Big Thief have announced details of a new 20-track double album – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You will come out in February via 4AD. ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Adrianne Lenker – Songs/Instrumentals review The record was first touted in a recent interview with vocalist Adrianne Lenker, and is being previewed by new single “Time Escaping”, which can be heard below. It follows the band’s two records from 2019, U.F.O.F. and Two Hands. Discussing the new album, Lenker said: “One of the things that bonds us...
It is Sunday night in New Jersey. A crowd has gathered at Asbury Lanes – but they’re not here for bowling. Instead, the audience have come to hear two old friends talk about their glory days. ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut “We were completely immersed in popular music,” says Bruce Springsteen, as he recalls how, as teenagers, he and Steve Van Zandt first bonded. “It was wonderful to have a friend that you could do that with. I wish that friendship on everyone, to have it last for our...
Big Boi has revealed that he is holding on to a song he made with Kate Bush, and he’s described it as “a monster hit”. ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen and the review of 2021 feature in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Inside Kate Bush’s hidden world Speaking to Mark Ronson on The FADER’s Uncovered Podcast, the rapper said the collaboration came after he met the elusive singer in the UK in 2014, while he and André 3000 were on their OutKast reunion tour. “I have a monster hit with Kate Bush that I’m just holding,” he said, adding “It’s...
Ohio-based singer-songwriter Lo’renzo To’rez has released two new tracks, “Closing the Door” and “Live Again.” A collaboration between Brett Pemberton and Rachel Maloney, “Closing the Door” was recorded at Randy Jackson’s studio in California. Lo’renzo’s music stands out from the others because of its honesty, genuineness, and real-life experiences. Songs written by him reveal his raw, true personality, which he hopes will help others understand his life experiences. Lo’renzo To’rez is a self-employed artist with a growing fan base who is also a hard worker and a gifted musician.
For more than 20 years, Damon Albarn seems to have been desperate to escape the suffocatingly restrictive straitjacket of Britpop and engage with a wider world. There have been collaborations with musicians from Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Syria, Japan, Cuba and Iceland; charity projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Chinese operas commissioned in Paris; hook-ups with everyone from Bobby Womack to Lou Reed, from De La Soul to Erykah Badu. ORDER NOW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE REVIEW OF 2021 FEATURE IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT As a routine example of Albarn’s rootless cosmopolitanism, his second solo LP –...
When Paul “Top Dollar” Major promises to “go full condor” in Admonitions’ opener The Offender, he doesn’t need to explain what he means. Besides recasting Endless Boogie’s sexagenarian frontman as an ’80s action-movie hero about to open a can of whup-ass, the line serves as a handy description for the many moments when he and his bandmates launch out of their signature motorik-choogle groove, spread their ragged wings and soar toward the sun. A gesture that seems majestic, foolhardy and potentially a little ridiculous, it’s fundamental to the mission this ragtag crew set for themselves every time they’ve jammed...
Looking back, there have always been clues. The Stones’ Stray Cat Blues, with its 15-year-old protagonist. Ted Nugent’s Jailbait. Iggy Pop’s Look Away – the lyrics referencing the relationship between teenage model Sable Starr and the New York Dolls’ Johnny Thunders. There are “countless” instances of what Runaways co-founder and songwriter Kari Krome calls “little girl songs”. So many, she says, that “it’s become a thing that’s normalised”. ORDER NOW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE REVIEW OF 2021 FEATURE IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT The music industry has yet to experience a #MeToo movement of the size and scale of that...
While property prices make even the Soho of the 1990s a distant memory, the district in its older bohemian prime really is a long-lost Atlantis. But it resurfaces vividly in Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, a cinematic séance with the spirits of the West End’s bygone glory. A love song to ’60s fashion, pop and glamour – while peeling back the dust covers over a squalid past – Last Night is a ghost story about a retro-loving ingénue, Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), who comes to the big city to study fashion. Alienated, anxious and alone, she is haunted by...
Damon Albarn‘s new solo album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows, goes on sale today. In this interview – an edited version of which appeared in the December 2021 issue of Uncut – Albarn discusses the late, great Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, cormorants, solar flares and an abandoned cruise ship… ORDER NOW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE REVIEW OF 2021 FEATURE IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT UNCUT: How much did the project change when you switched recording from Iceland to the UK in early 2020? DAMON ALBARN: It was originally commissioned as an orchestral project so we...