David Byrne – American Utopia
Listen to “Don’t Worry About the Government” from Talking Heads‘ 1977 debut album and you could take it as a straight homage to Jonathan Richman: “I smell the pine trees and the peaches in the woods /...
View ArticleCourtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel
“Sprawl”, according to the country’s unofficial laureate Les Murray, is that quintessential Australian quality of cheerfully casual excess. It’s “the fifteenth to twenty-first lines in a sonnet”,...
View ArticleJohnny Marr – Call The Comet
In Set The Boy Free, his brisk, bullish autobiography published in 2016, there’s a great photo of Johnny Marr from 1981 or 1982, still working at X-Clothes in Manchester, but clearly already in the...
View ArticleDirty Projectors – Lamp Lit Prose
“Is it me or is the condition of indie rock in the 24½th century both bad and boujee?” enquired Dirty Projectors mainman Dave Longstreth in – where else? – an Instagram post last year. “Bad in the...
View ArticleLambchop – This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You)
Lambchop’s last record, the magical, mysterious FLOTUS, was released only two-and-a-half years ago, yet it can feel like a couple of lifetimes away. With a cover that obliquely depicted Michelle Obama...
View ArticleMorrissey – California Son
For a brief moment in 2006, Morrissey was dangerously close to being embraced by his homeland. “Irish Blood, English Heart” had entered the charts at number three. You Are The Quarry was his first solo...
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Leonard Cohen: “He charmed the beast”
The new issue of Uncut – in shops now and available to buy online by clicking here – tells the incredible story of Leonard Cohen’s 1970s, as Songs Of Love And Hate ushered in a strange and compelling...
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Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché
Of all the strange blooms to flourish in the wake of the Sex Pistols’ first tour across the infernal English summer of 1976, the boldest and brightest was Poly Styrene. A mixed-race child of a sad-eyed...
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My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything / Loveless / m b v / EPs ’88–’91
“Magic isn’t about pulling rabbits out of hats,” says Ewen Bremner as Alan McGee, fancying himself the dark lysergic mage of EC1, midway through the recent, regrettable Creation Stories biopic. “But it...
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Making The Sparks Brothers documentary: “Being ahead of the curve for 50...
“Is the Sparks story even that interesting?” wonders Ron Mael aloud, with one of those quizzical frowns that over 50 years have variously signalled wry mockery, abject despair, ironic ennui or absurd...
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1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything
Right now you can find a whole bookshelf of pop histories eager to contend that any year from 1966 to 1984 was the one true year when rock, soul, punk or pop changed the world forever. On the face of...
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Summer Of Soul (… Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
“Do you remember the Harlem Cultural Festival?” the interviewer asks, and 50 years on, by the distant looks on some faces, you sense even people who were there are still not sure if it was all some...
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Great Noises That Fill the Air: Music, Poetry and Performance on Film
“The English excel in dancing and music for they are active and lively. They are vastly fond of great noises that fill the air, such as the firing of cannon, drums and the ringing of bells. So that it...
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The Velvet Underground
With an oeuvre devoted to the poison, perversity and paranoia of the 20th century and a passion for telling tales of ambition, fame and oblivion, you couldn’t imagine a director better suited to a...
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The life and times of Ronnie Spector
For all the grandiose backing tracks assembled in the Gold Star Studios between 1962 and 1966, there was nothing to match the overwhelming into-the-red chorus of love and reverence that met the passing...
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Brian Wilson – Long Promised Road
Near the start of Brent Wilson’s modest, elliptical, ultimately desperately moving new documentary, the director sits Brian Wilson at a piano in his lambent Beverly Hills mansion and tosses him a few...
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Sharon Van Etten – We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong
Through the past couple of years of fresh hell there have been records that might console you (Ignorance), albums that might sustain you (Rough And Rowdy Ways) and even pop songs so defiantly absurd...
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The Smile – A Light For Attracting Attention
“There was a point a year and a half ago when I wondered whether I would be doing this again,” admitted Thom Yorke on stage at the Albert Hall last October. “I’m a British musician, and I was told...
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Night of a Thousand Bowies: celebrating Ziggy Stardust’s 50th anniversary
To mark the 50th anniversary of Ziggy Stardust, collaborators, historians, collectors and fans congregate in Liverpool for a weekend of communion, remembrance and celebration. Stephen Troussé finds...
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David Sylvian – Blemish/Manafon
Interviewed in 2009, David Sylvian mused upon the supposed difficulty of Manafon, his last vocal studio album to date. “I don’t personally hear it as being a difficult album, but I’ve always known the...
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