We already know their ubiquitous singles, and their world-beating albums. As you’ll discover in this new magazine, in addition to their artistic achievements, The Police must also have been the world’s most self-aware band. Advertisement As they freely confess in the classic interviews we’ve picked from the archive for you here, this wasn’t a band to keep their cards close to their chest or their motivations to themselves. Forming to take advantage of punk. Ditching their original guitarist when he couldn’t keep up. Frankly discussing the economics of the trio format. For all their unanimity of image – three...
Rocking out in the margins, Julian Cope has been on a roll in recent years. 2020’s Self Civil War was his finest record in 25 years, and 2022’s England Expectorates was almost as good (bonus points for the melodic nail-bomb of “Cunts Can Fuck Off”). Then came last year’s Robin Hood, without Cope’s name on the packaging, and now Friar Tuck, also mysteriously cloaked. It appears, as all his music has since 1997’s Rite 2, on Cope’s own Head Heritage label (a vinyl edition is on its way too, his first since 2017’s Drunken Songs): that means home recordings...
Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake is awaiting a delivery of logs to his cottage in the Clyde Valley when Uncut catches up with him. “There’s no gas supply here,” he says. “Last year I had storage heaters, and they were really, really expensive. Hence the logs.” On the upside, Blake’s move to the countryside a year ago has yielded an album of glorious autumnal songwriting in collaboration with Love And Money frontman James Grant and former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler. “Norman’s place is really lovely,” says Butler. “Every time I go there it’s just a peaceful few days.” THE FEBRUARY...
For a while there, across the late 1960s and the decade of the 1970s, Terry Riley became the friendly face of contemporary minimal composition. There he was, grinning amiably, superimposed over trees and sky on the cover of his best-known album, 1969’s A Rainbow In Curved Air, a countercultural goofball maverick with chops to spare, his music both spiraling in its hypnotic power, and remarkably easy to get on with. He crops up again in all kinds of contexts – an album with the Velvet Underground’s John Cale, who he also replaced in La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s...
“At the time, I thought no one would listen to it,” says Haruomi Hosono of his fabled 1973 album Hosono House. In some ways, he was right: Hosono’s whimsical interpretation of Americana, loosely based on The Band’s Music From Big Pink, hardly made him a household name in Japan. That would come later in the ’70s after a run of eclectic solo albums and success as part of Yellow Magic Orchestra with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi. THE FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE OF UNCUT, STARRING THE BAND, THE YARDBIRDS, SHARON VAN ETTEN, KEITH RICHARDS, THE VERVE, ASWAD AND MORE IS...
Edwyn Collins has announced details of his 10th solo album, Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation, which is released by AED Records on March 14. THE FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE OF UNCUT, STARRING THE BAND, THE YARDBIRDS, SHARON VAN ETTEN, KEITH RICHARDS, THE VERVE, ASWAD AND MORE IS AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW Advertisement You can watch the video for “Knowledge” below. The 11-track album was recorded at Collins’ own Clashnarrow Studio in Helmsdale, North East Scotland and was co-produced by Collins with Sean Read and Jake Hutton, who all play on the album. Also featuring James Walbourne on guitar, William Collins on bass, Carwyn Ellis on guitar, Lena Wright and Bianca White on backing vocals and...
Jason Isbell has shared a new track, “Bury Me“, which is taken from his first entirely solo acoustic album, Foxes In The Snow. You can hear “Bury Me” below. THE FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE OF UNCUT, STARRING THE BAND, THE YARDBIRDS, SHARON VAN ETTEN, KEITH RICHARDS, THE VERVE, ASWAD AND MORE IS AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW Advertisement Foxes In The Snow is released March 7 on Southeastern Records. The album was recorded in New York City at Electric Lady Studios in October, 2024. You can pre-order the album here. The tracklisting for Foxes in the Snow is: Advertisement...
Neil Young has declared that he is a fan of the “great” new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. THE FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE OF UNCUT, STARRING THE BAND, THE YARDBIRDS, SHARON VAN ETTEN, KEITH RICHARDS, THE VERVE, ASWAD AND MORE IS AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW Advertisement Writing on his Archives site on Saturday, January 11, Young says, “I love Bob Dylan and his music. Always have. He’s a great artist. Once he was on my bus and I didn’t recognize him and threw him off but that’s another story. This movie is a great tribute to his life and music. I think if...
Sam Moore has died aged 89. As a duo with Dave Prater, Moore enjoyed hits including “Hold On! I’m Comin’” and “Soul Man”. Bruce Springsteen described Moore as “one of America’s greatest soul voices.” Advertisement THE FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE OF UNCUT, STARRING THE BAND, THE YARDBIRDS, SHARON VAN ETTEN, KEITH RICHARDS, THE VERVE, ASWAD AND MORE IS AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW Born in Miami, Moore performed in gospel quartets before meeting Prater in 1961. The pair signed to Atlantic Records in 1965, before moving to Stax Records under the auspices of songwriting/production team Isaac Hayes and David Porter. At...
From Uncut’s July 2011 issue (Take 170). We tell the story of the Mod legends and their complex, gifted front man Steve Marriott. From The Small Faces to Humble Pie, to his strange last days on the pub circuit, what was it that drove Marriott to self-destruct? “He was the most talented person I’ve ever known,” recalls his Humble Pie bandmate, Peter Frampton, “but there was something in his psyche. Some huge problem.” “Nice”: that was their favourite word. And it’s true – musically, sartorially, psychedelically, The Small Faces were nice. But by the 1980s, they were a distant...
