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Uncut is the essential magazine about rock music, written by people who love that music as much as you do. Every month, it features the most comprehensive and trustworthy album reviews section in the world. There are in-depth interviews with the finest mu

UNCUT2 min read
Long And Winding Road
WHEN Let It Be finally returns to circulation in June on Disney+, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg is eager to see how his long-lost Beatles film is received by a contemporary audience. Originally released in May 1970, it became what he describes as “co
UNCUT2 min read
Uncut
HERE’S Irmin Schmidt, explaining the mercurial brilliance of Can in full flight. “Even if we improvised onstage, we always went in the same direction,” he tells us on page 19. “In a way that it became a music that was not just bullshit. It was not so
UNCUT3 min read
High Infidelity
“THE bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife/Did it quick, then split…” John Cale’s notorious opening to his 1975 song “Guts” described Kevin Ayers’ seduction of his wife Cindy, the former Miss Cinderella of the GTOs, the night before he and Ayers
UNCUT3 min read
Wild Wild County
“TIME seems to operate on a different level in Cornwall,” says singer-songwriter Daisy Rickman. “It feels like another rhythm of life and I guess it opens up different spheres, musically. Growing up by the sea has had a huge influence on my creativit
UNCUT2 min read
Feed Your Head!
BUDDING New Jersey photographer Mike Frankel knew Jefferson Airplane were the future from the moment he saw one of their posters on a visit to San Francisco in 1965. Picking up their first releases the following year confirmed his suspicions, and he
UNCUT3 min read
Foal’s Gold
WHEN Willy Vlautin says The Horse is his most autobiographical book, it’s a cause for alarm. As a novelist and songwriter with The Delines and Richmond Fontaine, Vlautin has always mined a deep seam of melancholy. But The Horse’s embrace of bleakness
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A Quick One
It’s now 30 years since the passing of Kurt Cobain, whose life and musical legacy we celebrate in the Ultimate Music Guide to Nirvana. Featuring in-depth reviews of every album, comprehensive interviews with Dave, Krist and Steve Albini, plus a new p
UNCUT3 min read
Landless
IF traditional music from Dublin seems to be having its moment in the spotlight – most notably as a result of Lankum’s recent critical and commercial success – it’s only because the world is starting to pay attention. Lily Power, Méabh Meir, Ruth Cli
UNCUT1 min read
Uncut Playlist
Cosmic jazz-rock therapist returns to heal our psychic wounds. Now with added Sunn O)))-style heaviosity! Looser, earthier – but equally stunning – follow-up to the peerless Vulture Prince. Amid the ghazals and jazz standards, there’s a Moor Mother r
UNCUT7 min read
Irmin Schmidt
FOR a few years now, Irmin Schmidt has been the conscientious curator of the Can legacy – a role that has taken on added poignancy since the recent passing of Damo Suzuki, leaving keyboardist Schmidt as the last surviving member of the classic early-
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Can Live 1973-1977
TECHNOLOGY has brought its fair share of good and bad, but one achievement we can certainly chalk up as a positive is the appearance of Can’s series of live albums. Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt has long been in possession of a series of audience recordi
UNCUT2 min read
Limited Time Offer
UNCUT is a place where readers the world over can share our passion for the finest sounds of the past 60 years – old and new, beloved and obscure. Each issue is packed full of revelatory encounters with our greatest heroes, trailblazers and newcomers
UNCUT5 min read
Beth Gibbons
Lives Outgrown DOMINO ALBUM OF THE MONTH 9/10 IN recent times, we have tended to place great faith in late-life albums by revered artists. Johnny Cash’s releases on American Recordings, begun in 1994, perhaps set the course; since then has come, if n
UNCUT1 min read
Simply The Beth
Dummy GO! BEAT, 1994 The songs that made up Portishead’s Mercury Prizewinning debut sampled, scratched and looped distressed vinyl and mingled it with the band’s original compositions. The result was an introspective and avant-garde blues, threaded w
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Q&A
You’ve crossed musical paths with Beth several times over the years. How did you begin working with her on Lives Outgrown? I have known Beth for many years, since she came down for a couple of sessions for the [post-Talk Talk] Orang albums, pre-Porti
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Einstürzende Neubauten
Rampen (apm: alien pop music) POTOMAK 8/10 IN their own peculiar way, Einstürzende Neubauten have always been ruthlessly efficient. In their early days, they smelted completely new music from the ruins of West Berlin, scavenging everyday and industri
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Q&A
This album is constructed from Einstürzende Neubauten’s in-concert improvisations. Is it harder to work with language in that context? Yes, it’s harder. At the very beginning of the band, everything was improvised. The lyrics were always improvised t
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AtoZ
BARRY ADAMSON INCORPORATED 7/10 Soundtrack king returns in a Cave-ian style Adamson’s first LP in seven years comes after he briefly rejoined the Bad Seeds for a US tour, and the influence of Nick Cave’s poetic mastery looms strongly over this song c
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Willie Nelson
The Border LEGACY 8/10 ITis already beyond serious argument that the string of tremendous albums issued by Nelson during his eighties established a formidable benchmark in the admittedly little-contested field of octogenarian discographies. Having bl
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Q&A
What drew you and Willie to the border as a theme? I wouldn’t say I began this record with a particular theme in mind. In every record I produce I start out trying to find the very best songs which I believe fits Willie’s vocal style and usually a th
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Q&A
There’s a lot about Big Wave that suggests the album was written during an unhappy period of your life. Is that reading too much into the songs? Not at all. When I started writing these songs, I wanted to dive into a shadow growing inside me. I felt
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Bernard Butler
IT’S been 25 years since Bernard Butler placed his own voice front and centre on a record, and Good Grief is only his third solo album to date. That original experience had not been fulfilling – “I was left with the impression that making my own musi
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Joana Serrat
Big Wave GRAND CANYON 9/10 Big Wave starts with a big bang. A track called “The Cord” that in a little over three pummelling minutes upends most available notions of what to expect from a Joana Serrat record, the song ending with its chorus repeated
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Americana Round-up
WHEN ex-Blasters founder Dave Alvin returned to live performance in 2022, after prolonged treatment for cancer, he chose Jimmie Dale Gilmore as his touring partner. He and the renowned Flatlander have now made good on 2018’s terrific Downey To Lubboc
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Richard Hawley
ROCK’N’ROLL began as rebellious, antagonistic music. Richard Hawley’s latest album, In This City They Call You Love, instead values lasting places and loves. “I’m 57 years old, and it is a reflective record,” he agrees. “The rise of the right wing an
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The Decemberists
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again YABB/THIRTY TIGERS 8/10 IT’S a bold statement, 24 years into your career, to label an album your band’s best, as Colin Meloy, the songwriter behind The Decemberists, has described As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Agai
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Q&A
You’ve described this as the “best” Decemberists album… COLIN MELOY: I’m so in the midst of it that I don’t necessarily have a feel for what a “good” Decemberists record is. But there was a point during the recording process where I was looking at th
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Poppycock
BY any measure, 15 years is a lengthy gestation period for an album but Una Baines’perseverance as a band leader has finally paid off. Poppycock’s debut was hobbled by “various difficulties like lineup changes, people moving away and illnesses, and t
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Ezra Feinberg
Soft Power TONAL UNION 8/10 EVERY so oft en, an ageing agit-rocker will crawl out of the woodwork to bemoan that the abject state of our governments is not being met with suitable ire from the current generation of songwriters. Where are our Bob Dyla
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Q&A
Are there similarities between your music-making process and your day job as a psychoanalyst? When I was younger, it felt like a sort of irreconcilable split. But now I see that they inform each other really nicely, because both are about process, an
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Art And Sol
DRAG CITY, 2000 Grubbs explores more conventional song structures on his fourth solo album but it’s not all mellow acoustic numbers. His inclination for the experimental comes through loud and clear on the drony majesty of “Stanwell Perpetual”, while
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Gastr Del Sol
We Have Dozens Of Titles DRAG CITY REISSUE OF THE MONTH 9/10 DAVID GRUBBS has been thinking about this release from the moment Gastr Del Sol ceased operating, but a few things had to happen in the ensuing 26 years. For one, Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke ha
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Q&A
Could you name a few Gastr songs that are particularly special to you? DAVID GRUBBS: I’m super fond of “Onion Orange”. That’s on the first solo record that I made. This is the one time that Jim and I performed this live. Jim’s playing is great on it
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Try It, You’ll Like It
TAMLA, 1963 The key to the Motown Sound was the early infusion of gospel music’s fervour, beautifully captured by Holland, Dozier and Holland on this 12-bar blues in which, goaded by Johnny Griffi th’s pounding piano chords and Benny Benjamin’s huge
UNCUT5 min read
Holland-dozier-holland
Detroit 1969-1977 DEMON 8/10 BORN of Eddie Holland’s conviction that he, his brother Brian and their fellow songwriter and producer Lamont Dozier were not getting a fair share of the proceeds from the global success of Berry Gordy Jr’s Motown company
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AtoZ
PARLOPHONE/WARNER MUSIC 9/10 Remaster with rarities for downtempo landmark At a time when a lot of electronica seemed to be proudly displaying its determination to stare into the emotional and aesthetic abyss, the debut album from this Versailles pai
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Blancmange
Everything Is Connected: The Best Of Blancmange 1979-2024 LONDON 8/10 DISMISSED in its heyday as a plastic fad, time has been kind to synthpop. The hits of The Human League and Depeche Mode have become a byword for the ’80s – shorthand for the decade
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Robin Trower
Bridge Of Sighs CHRYSALIS 9/10 IT’S 1974 and blues rock is badly in need of a new guitar hero. Hendrix and Duane Allman are dead, Clapton and Peter Green are missing in action and Jimmy Page was last heard essaying reggae and doo-wop pastiches on Led
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Q&A
What did you think of Rolling Stone and other publications centring so heavily on the Hendrix comparisons? I felt what we were doing was something unique, and that can make it difficult to pin down. It’s not always easy to find helpful reference poin
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Various Artists
Ghana Special 2: Electronic Highlife & Afro Sounds In The Diaspora, 1980-93 SOUNDWAY 7/10 ONE of West Africa’s most enduring and adaptable signature sounds, Ghanaian “highlife” music has long sent its supple rhythms and lilting melodies, cycling guit
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This Is A Call
THE first time Mdou Moctar heard electronic drums, he thought they sounded like a war breaking out. The towering guitarist was nine years old. He and his friends were killing time outside the school gates in Arlit, a dusty mining town in the north of
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Class Axe
Moctar is often compared to the American guitar great and with good reason. They share a virtuoso talent with their instruments and Moctar finds particular inspiration in live recordings like 1970’s Band Of Gypsys. “For me, when I listen to Jimi Hend
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Tributaries
While the startling “Sultans Of Swing” launched the band, the quieter, slower tracks on Dire Straits’ self-titled debut – notably “Water Of Love” and “Wild West End” – paved the way for Knopfler’s 21st-century work. 8/10 Arguably DS’s finest record,
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Our Friend In The North
MARK Knopfler’s British Grove complex, tucked away in a quiet corner of Chiswick, West London, seemingly has everything a musician might need. There are two studios, connected by a chic lobby of translucent glass, with a huge live room previously fil
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Isobel Campbell
SINCE joining Belle & Sebastian on vocals and cello while still studying music at Strathclyde University, Isobel Campbell has followed her passion to some fascinating places. Even before jumping ship from B&S – during the early days, Campbell and ban
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“Their Music Is Everywhere”
“THE first time we played America, we had this real connection to the audience,” says Neil Halstead. Even after their absence, Slowdive have returned to discover that this connection has gone from strength to strength. “Genres that I was into when I
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“We Were All In Tears”
WHEN Slowdive were asked to play Barcelona’s Primavera Festival on May 30, 2014, it signalled one of rock’s most unlikely second acts. “We were all in shock that we were doing it,” says Neil Halstead. “We did a few gigs leading up to it, but nothing
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Lost In Music
FEBRUARY 16, 2024. Backstage at the Brighton Dome, Slowdive are preparing to take the stage for the first date of their UK tour. But first, there’s some star-spotting to be done. Neil Halstead – the band’s main writer, guitarist and co-singer – peers
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A-list Friends
“I THINK it was all about two years, really ’76 and ’77 — maybe ’78 in there. Steven Soles, David Mansfield and I became close friends on the Rolling Thunder tour. When the second tour was over, we decided to go somewhere and play, because we enjoyed
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Abetter world
IT’S a chilly February afternoon in Nashville and T Bone Burnett is in the basement of the century-old house he shares with his wife, Callie Khouri, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter behind Thelma & Louise and the Nashville TV series. Burnett –
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Prime Cuts
Still hot off Rolling Thunder, heads bursting with ideas, Burnett and co-conspirators hit stride on their second album, with border songs, ballads, and a Ringo Starr-powered take on Dylan’s “You Angel You”. 7/10 With their Tejano take on early rock’n
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Electric Avenue
ONE afternoon in the late ’70s, Eddy Grant was making the regular pilgrimage from his home in North London to the Black Theatre of Brixton when he noticed the name of the market street next to Brixton tube station: Electric Avenue, so called because
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Veterans Of Disorder
THE Adams Morgan neighbourhood has long been a hip enclave of Washington DC. During the ’60s, the local psychedelic scene converged at the Ambassador Theatre, which hosted shows by such luminaries as Jimi Hendrix, Moby Grape and The Fugs. East Coast
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“They Were Geniuses”
“I remember the first time I saw Royal Trux, at Maxwell’s in New Jersey, and how Jennifer didn’t fucking move. She was wearing a Raiders jacket and the only thing moving was the smoke from her crazy 120mm cigarette, with Neil and the band roaring nex
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Let’s Get Lost
After a ramshackle 1988 debut, the Trux unpack their first great visionary work, a double album sprawl of densely layered noise-rock, driven by fractured rhythms, feral guitar riffs and vocals that nudge the pain barrier. 9/10 A first real dalliance
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“It’s Time For A Decısıon”
“WE had some people turn up who claimed to be a TV news crew,” says David Gilmour as he points at the section of the River Thames into which divers allegedly once launched themselves. Their objective? To ‘bug’ the boat from the outside and illicitly
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Marriage Material
Brennan was a script analyst on Francis Ford Coppola’s One From The Heart – for which Waits was composing the score – when she met her future husband. He subsequently dedicated his 1980 song “Jersey Girl” to her, and by the time he released Rain Dogs
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“I Used To Call Him Old Gilmour’s Almanac”
“IT’S getting on for 40 years since I first worked with David in Pink Floyd. My first bonding moment with him was in a hotel room in Philadelphia, when we sat on a bed and played ‘I Can’t Breathe Anymore’ from his first solo album. Getting to know ‘T
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Flying Below The Radar
THOUGH David Gilmour has no clear memory of hearing The Montgolfier Brothers for the first time, it isn’t hard to discern the qualities in their music that would have appealed to his sensibilities. On “Journey’s End”, taken from their 2005 album All
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“He Was A Very Significant Part Of What We Did”
THE presence of Rick Wright on “Luck and Strange” is the latest posthumous appearance from the Floyd’s talismanic keyboard player. Following Wright’s untimely death on September 15, 2008, aged only 65, Gilmour has continued to honour the closeness fo
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Teenage Cancer Trust: Ovation
Royal Albert Hall, London, March 24 IT’S been a long and impressive stint, but tonight, at 80, Roger Daltrey is stepping back from Teenage Cancer Trust. Powered by 24 years of Albert Hall benefit gigs, the charity has founded 28 specialist UK wards (
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Pixies
O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, March 18 IT may not have seemed likely when he first yelled about slicing up eyeballs, but Black Francis has grown up to be a retracer. Indeed, the Pixies frontman has practically written the manual on how bands of his
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Screen
HOARD The most interesting British films of the past couple of years – Aftersun, All Of Us Strangers – have dealt with characters weighed down by unreckoned emotional inheritance from their parents. Few have quite so much baggage, however as Maria, t
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Reviewed This Month
Directed by Luna Carmoon Starring Saura Lightfoot-Leon, Joseph Quinn, Hayley Squires Opens May 17 Cert 15 9/10 Directed by Alice Rohrwacher Starring Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato, Isabella Rossellini Opens May 10 Cert 15 8/10 Directe
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Also Out…
A 14-year-old girl has to choose between staying with her father in war-torn Damascus or following her dreams in this prize-winning film from Syrian director Soudade Kaadan. Kristin Stewart and Katy O’Brien star as 1980s bodybuilders in Rose Glass’s
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Catching Fire: The Story Of Anita Pallenberg
MAGNOLIA 8/10 IN an interview with The Observer in 2008, Anita Pallenberg explained why, despite many offers, she would never write an autobiography: “The publishers want to hear only about the Stones and more dirt on Mick Jagger and I’m just not int
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Books
DAVID Bernz’s preface to Chopping Wood: Thoughts & Stories Of A Legendary American Folksinger contains a health warning. The book, he notes, is not a biography of Pete Seeger. Neither is it designed to be read at a single sitting. It is “a collection
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The Darling Buds
Price £300 ONE day, Bose is going to release a pair of true wireless noise-cancelling earbuds that don’t absolutely blow everyone away with their sound quality and ability to deal with all external sonic distractions. Today is not that day, though –
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Save Over £50*
The Ultimate Record Collection ranks the 500 Greatest Albums of the decade, as voted for by Uncut’s team of experts SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Order online at shop.kelsey.co.uk/UCP624RC Call 01959 543 747*** and quote ref: UCP624RC SCAN ME TERMS AND CONDITIONS
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Not Fade Away
STEVE Harley’s biggest hit may never have happened had his band not walked out on him. After a successful 1974 tour, three members of Cockney Rebel demanded more say in the songwriting. Harley, who’d written everything thus far, stood firm. When the
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Crossword
The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by David Gilmour. When you’ve worked out what it is, email your answer to: [email protected]. The first correct entry picked at random will win a prize. Closing date: Thursday, May 23
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Feedback
As the May issue of Uncut (Take 325) was delivered to me this morning, I was reminded to fulfil my promise to myself that I would write to thank your colleague Tom Pinnock for his impeccable work in compiling the covermount CD that came with the Apri
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Uncut
Editor Michael Bonner Editor (one-shots) John Robinson Art Editor Marc Jones Reviews Editor Tom Pinnock Contributing Editor Sam Richards Senior Designer Michael Chapman Production Editor Mick Meikleham Senior Sub Editor Mike Johnson Picture Editor Ph
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Bill Janovitz
My grandparents had these neighbours who were getting rid of a ton of records, which are still among some of my most cherished albums. On the same day, I got Out Of Our Heads by the Stones, Wild Honey by The Beach Boys, and some others. But of those,

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