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Art decades
David Bowie’s friend George Underwood talks about their lifelong bond and his new Bowie-inspired artwork in aid of War Child
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Juxtaposed with you
Ahead of their co-headline tour this autumn, Gruff Rhys and Bill Ryder-Jones interview each other for Uncut. Iechyd da!
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What’s up, doc?
As Doc’n Roll unveils a new season of revelatory music films, festival co-founder Colm Forde picks out some highlights
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Stuff of legend
Macca’s bass! Bonzo’s drum mic! Pink Floyd’s studio settings! Photographer Rick Guest on his hunt for music’s Holy Relics
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“It’s been a journey”
Following a cancer scare, roots-rock stalwart Chuck Prophet has found salvation in cumbia music
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King Hannah
Sing-speaking Liverpool duo with an outsiders’ take on Americana
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Uncut Playlist
On the stereo this month…
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That’s What You Want
15 tracks of the month’s best music
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STEVE CROPPER
The Stax legend talks Memphis water, John Belushi on acid and Friday night “schwimps” with Eddie Floyd
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LAURA MARLING
August songwriter reaches deep into family dynamics on revelatory eighth.
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BRIGHT EYES
A richly deserved extension on a new lease of life.
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A to Z
This month…
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ANNA BUTTERSS
Talented multi-instrumentalist’s multi-faceted approach to a multifarious genre.
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FAT DOG
Joe Love on mayhem, masks and micturition
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ETRAN DE L’AÏR
Niger family band marry desert blues with a pan-African sensibility.
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WAYNE GRAHAM
Arresting Kentucky-led quartet view hometown life through a fresh lens
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GEORDIE GREEP
“Random people start telling you things…”
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NAIMA BOCK
Alluring and subtly realigned folk-pop second.
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THE CLEARWATER SWIMMERS
Slowcore meets Americana on this distinctive indie-rock debut.
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TUCKER ZIMMERMAN
“I am convinced that we are all connected”
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JONI MITCHELL
The lost highways of Joni’s 1970s odyssey, mapped and charted across six astonishing discs.
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BOB DYLAN AND THE BAND
The American arena tour when Dylan played the part and gave audiences just what they wanted.
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A to Z
This month…
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NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN
Rediscovered improvisations from the feted qawwali singer
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FACES
Glorious dive into the Faces at their rowdy best recording at the Beeb.
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DOROTHY ASHBY
Underappreciated jazz harp explorer re-evaluated
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“Sometimes you get lucky, but most of the time it’s just hard graft”
As he begins to dig into his capacious archive, we find VAN MORRISON on unusually reflective form. To be discussed: jamming with The Band, recording with Cliff, why he no longer performs “Brown Eyed Girl”, old songs and new arrangements, Veedon Fleece at 50, the nature of creativity and more. “I am nostalgic,” he confides to Graeme Thomson. “But it’s my nostalgia, you know…”
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“IT CAME FROM SOMEWHERE IN MY SUBCONSCIOUS”
50 years of Veedon Fleece
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TRANSLUCENT FLASHBACKS
Led by two charismatic and determined frontmen, drilled in the heavy drones of the Stooges and Suicide, SPACEMEN 3 were the psychedelic outsiders of the ’80s UK indie scene. On the 40th anniversary of their first recordings, the band relive the search for the perfect sonic prescription – from the rehearsal rooms of Rugby to the cusp of breakthrough success. “We were a pretty dysfunctional group of people,” discovers Michael Bonner. “I guess we recognised that in each other.”
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ECSTASY SYMPHONIES
Your guide to the official Spacemen 3 canon
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“THE SCAFFOLD FOR THE DREAM”
Jason Pierce unveils Junk – his book of Spacemen ephemera
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Lijadu Sisters
Merging Afrobeat with jazz, rock and disco, the Nigerian siblings made waves sonically and socially
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TERMINAL LUCIDITY
From The Only Ones onwards, PETER PERRETT’s 50-year career has sometimes felt like an exercise in squandered potential. But, astonishingly, he is on a roll with The Cleansing – a gloriously ambitious and death-defying double album and his third release in seven years. He tells Stephen Troussé how he’s resolved to make up for lost time. “I have a mantra: each day we survive is a revolutionary act!”
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“HE WAS SO POETIC”
Johnny Marr and Bobby Gillespie on their enduring love of Peter Perrett
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NO OTHER
Drawing inspiration from Gene Clark and “obsessed” with David Gilmour’s guitar phrasing, MICHAEL KIWANUKA is once again upping the stakes with his consciousness-raising, widescreen soul party. But a new album, steeped in new-found domesticity and fatherhood, hasn’t blunted the message at the heart of his music. “You’ve gotta keep speaking up,” he tells Nick Hasted
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“BLACK PEOPLE DON’T PLAY JAZZ ANY MORE”
The Miles Davis years
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A New Testament
He survived a radical Christian cult and drug addiction to become frontman of beloved indie-rock upstarts GIRLS. But while a series of tragedies – including a motorbike accident, homelessness and the death of a former bandmate – have delivered hard blows, CHRISTOPHER OWENS has found redemption and catharsis in a powerful new album. “You find yourself going from the best place in my life to the worst,” he tells Laura Barton. “And you find yourself having to choose: how are you going to carry on? What’s important to you?”
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OWENS’ GOALS
Best of Girls and solo
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“The Wild ones” by Suede
As Dog Man Star agonisingly took shape, a ray of shining romantic beauty shone through a crack in the stormclouds
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YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!
THE BEATLES arrived in the USA in February 1964 – the tip of the spear in a transatlantic musical revolution. By 1966 they had retreated from the madness into the recording studio – but not before the Stones, Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, Herman’s Hermits, The Zombies and more had blown American minds during the British Invasion. With a new boxset collecting the Fabs’ ’64 US LPs, eyewitnesses and contemporaries relive the mania. “In music, there is The Beatles and then there is everybody else,” learns Peter Watts
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ACT UNNATURALLY!
EXPLAINED! The Beatles USA Catalogue 1964/1965/1966
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THE MAYSLES IN AMERICA
How two brothers pioneered the rockumentary
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“BANGER AFTER BANGER!”
Inside the new boxset, THE BEATLES: 1964 US ALBUMS IN MONO
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END OF THE ROAD FESTIVAL
Larmer Tree Gardens, Wiltshire, August 29 – September 1
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PJ HARVEY/BIG THIEF
Gunnersbury Park, London, August 18
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SCREEN
A stylish, deranged serialkiller thriller; an oddly conventional redemption tale; a gruesome way to cheat ageing; and more…
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LUSH: A FAR FROM HOME MOVIE 8/10
Super 8 footage of the last days of Lush becomes a poignant postcard from the late 20th century.
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HI-FI
The new speakers
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Not Fade Away
Fondly remembered this month…
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Feedback
Send your brickbats, bouquets, reminiscences, textual critiques, billets-doux and all forms of printable correspondence to letters@uncut.co.uk
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Crossword
One LP copy of Laura Marling’s Patterns In Repeat
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Simon Raymonde
The Cocteau Twin turned Bella Union boss itemises his aural treasures: “It sounds like it’s from another universe”