THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE...

Mark Blake A long-standing MOJO contributor, Mark writes

ALL BACK TO MY PLACE

THE STARS REVEAL THE SONIC DELIGHTS GUARANTEED TO GET THEM GOING

A Spaceman Came Travelling

Ace Frehley, AKA Kiss’s Space Ace guitar hero, left us on October 16.

Heart Full Of Soul

Yardbirds guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja left us on September 25.

Dave Ball

Soft Cell’s sonic mastermind BORN 1959 Electro de

The Mighty Scaramouche!

RARITIES! RECORD SHOPS! CRATEDIGGERS ASSEMBLE!

Steven Wilson

Get in time with the nu-prog superstar.

Cosmic Slop

This month’s lost waxing: a star-packed, crackpot space opera.

Whose voice changed the most?

Let us answer your rock’n’roll questions and solve your musical mysteries.

King Of Spool

Win an Elvis Edition We Are Rewind portable cassette player plus DALI KUPID speakers!

Leo Lyons and Ten Years After

They started out pretending to be Scotty Moore and Bill Black. The end came when one of them couldn’t keep quiet any more.

Theories, rants, etc.

MOJO welcomes correspondence for publication. Write to us at: MOJO, H Bauer Publishing, The Lantern, 75 Hampstead Road, London, NW1 2PL. E-mail to: mojoreaders@bauermedia.co.uk

The Black Messiah

Called “the last pure singer on Earth,” neo-soul genius D’Angelo left us on October 14, aged just 51.

ROLLING! THE REEL-TO-REEL TAPE REVIVAL STARTS HERE

Is it too real: ’70s ‘R2R’ aficionado and

Jake Burns

The Stiff Little Fingers frontman talks Belfast in ’77, old comrades and Inflammable Material .

FIELD MUSIC CELEBRATE 20 YEARS! AND EXPLAIN THEIR DOORS TRIBUTE BAND…

“WHY HAVE Field Music survived 20 years?” wonders

THIS MONTH’S MANE ATTRACTION: POST-NOISE MINIMALISTS HORSEGIRL

On the rocks: Horsegirl (from left) Nora Cheng,

TRANCE OUT WITH NEW INDIE-FOLK HIGH-FLYER, JACOB ALON

AT THE END of the final UK lockdown

MOJO PLAYLIST

The month’s best live communion, low-riding ska and rock gigantism.

WHAT’S THE COLOUR OF TIME? THE STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK KNOW

Paisley lark: Strawberry Alarm Clock (back row, from

THE MOJO INTERVIEW

Juvenile delinquent-turned-rock’n’roll original, he navigated hard drugs, Buddy’s plane crash and a crazed Phil Spector to enjoy multiple reinventions. The constant? “If I pick up a guitar and play, it’s just Dion music,” says Dion.

CUTS AND BRUISES

THE ROLLING STONES were reeling. A guitarist down, beset by addiction and bereavement, out of time with label, management and the tax man. Somehow they came out of it with an album, Black And Blue, and a guitarist they've leant on for 50 years. How? "Everyone was winging it," discovers MARK BLAKE .

MOJO PRESENTS

Approaching the last shows of his final tour, the 81-year-old MULATU ASTATKE could be forgiven for planning to put his feet up. But for the esteemed inventor of Ethio-jazz, the habit of innovation dies hard. “My greatest achievement is still coming up,” he tells DAVID HUTCHEON.

BITTER SWEET SYMPHONY

The second-unlikeliest Creation hand to re-form in 2025, SUGAR gave the perma-troubled BOB MOULD the success his songs had always deserved. But grunge-fatigue, post-Kurt syndrome and natural angst poured sand in their gears, and their dissolution drove a wedge between them. "None of that is on anybody else but me," Mould tells KEITH CAMERON

"GRANT AND I WERE LIKE, LET'S MAKE A POP RECORD"

1985: The Miracle Year commemorates HÜSKER DÜ at their peak power and melodic invention. "It was the best year of the band, by far," its survivors tells Keith Cameron.

THE BEST OF 2025

THE MUSIC AND MUSICIANS THAT MATTERED IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS

THE 75 BEST ALBUMS OF 2025

50 MARGO PRICE Hard Headed Woman (LOMA VISTA)

“Ultimately, It’s About How I Dislike Myself”

The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station said everything about CMAT ’ s writing talent, then she smashed it at Glastonbury. “On the day, I was catatonic,” she tells VICTORIA SEGAL .

THE 75 BEST ALBUMS OF 2025

40 PANDA BEAR Sinister Grift (DOMINO) Noah ‘Panda

“It’s About Transcending The Mundane”

VAN MORRISON celebrated turning 80 with one of his best albums in years. ANDREW MALE passed on MOJO’s congratulations…

THE 75 BEST ALBUMS OF 2025

20 CASS McCOMBS Interior Live Oak (DOMINO) “The

“It’s A Reminder Of The Power Of Richey’s Lyrics”

KEITH CAMERON ’ s 168 Songs Of Hatred And Failure drew Manic Street Preachers into a typically fearless confrontation with their past. “There’s no way bands can pretend that everything they touch is gold,” NICKY WIRE tells DANNY ECCLESTON .

“It Was Like Some Crazy Manifestation”

Sly Lives! – QUESTLOVE’ s hard look at SLY STONE ’ s rise and fall – took the drummer/director to a strange place. “I totally understood how Sly had felt,” he tells STEVIE CHICK .

THE 75 BEST ALBUMS OF 2025

10 WET LEG Moisturizer (DOMINO) Following a hit

“It’s The Way I Make Sense Out Of My Life”

A landmark year for JARVIS COCKER and co peaked with the unexpected brilliance of their first album since 2001. Surely it’s not their last? “Depends whether we write more songs,” the singer tells VICTORIA SEGAL .

THE BEST REISSUES OF 2025

“Gottle o’ geer?”: Patti Smith’s landmark Horses got

“Nick Was Operating At A Higher Level”

Lost tapes of intimate performances were the treasures unearthed in this exemplary box set. “I was stunned,” original Five Leaves Left producer JOE BOYD tells MARTIN ASTON .

“THE BEST THING I’VE HEARD ALL YEAR!”

OUR FAVE ARTISTS OF 2025 BIG-UP THE MUSIC THAT ROCKED THEIR WORLDS.

I Know It’s Over…

HE REALISES THE SMITHS WILL NEVER RE-FORM WITH HIM IN THEIR RANKS, BUT MIKE JOYCE ISN’T BITTER. HIS NEW MEMOIR CASTS HIS BAND’S MID-’80s MASTERY AS MIRACULOUS AND LIFE-AFFIRMING, WHILE CRITICS GASPED, FANS THREW FLOWERS AND MICK JAGGER SHOOK HIS ARSE. AND YET, POST-SPLIT, SOME QUESTIONS INTRIGUE THE DRUMMER AS MUCH AS EVER. “THAT NEXT ALBUM, COULD IT HAVE BEEN MORE SUCCESSFUL?” HE ASKS IAN HARRISON .

Twin’s peak

Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and her sister Allison scale songwriting heights together again.

FILTER ALBUMS

Ed Harcourt ★★★ Orphic DEATHLESS. DL/LP Singer-songwriter goes

Ólöf Arnalds

★★★★ Spíra Keeping it ethereal: Ólöf Arnalds. BELLA

Dust brothers

One country giant salutes another.

Joshua Hedley

★★★★ All Hat Stetson sonic: Joshua Hedley –

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Keaton Henson ★★★★ Parader Joshua Black Wilkins PLAY

The hits keep coming

Sometime Pogues singer’s troubling sensual world.

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Alison Brown & Steve Martin ★★★ Safe, Sensible

The James Hunter Six

Off The Fence Across the tracks: James Hunter

Teen spirit

After an eight-year gap, Staten Island harmonisers serve up their second album.

Sin city

Fourth soundtrack in the on-going collaborative relationship between the brothers Matt and Gerard Johnson.

FILTER ALBUMS

Antibalas ★★★★ Hourglass DAPTONE. CD/DL/LP The New York

JAZZ

Theo Croker & Sullivan Fortner ★★★★ PLAY ACT.

The Gnomes

Pixie dust: the ’60s aren’t over for The

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Jake Xerxes Fussell & James Elkington ★★★★ Rebuilding

FOLK

Claire M Singer ★★★★ Gleann Ciùin TOUCH. CD/DL

Shine a light

A new 50th-anniversary box set illuminates the rock titans’ 1975 masterpiece – and some. All that’s missing is an ambient dance mix, says Mark Blake.

“I underestimated it.”

Nick Mason speaks to Mark Blake.

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Sister Irene O’Connor ★★★★ Fire Of God’s Love

Kate & Anna McGarrigle

★★★★ Kate & Anna McGarrigle/ Dancer With Bruised

Love, actually

Unreconstructed third album rebuilt. By Danny Eccleston.

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Everything But The Girl ★ ★ ★ ★

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

★★★★ Welcome To The Pleasuredome Frankie goes to…

The singular Simone

The good doctor’s final act and most soulful singles.

Spare the Rod

Fascinating early material sees a reluctant singer find his voice.

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Lush ★★★★ Gala 4AD. CD/DL/LP Shoegazing pioneers’ early-career

REISSUES EXTRA

Field Music ★★★★ Field Music + Write Your

Good fellas?

Two new bachelors do drugs, watch movies and, it turns out, make history.

FILTER SCREEN

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere ★★★★ Dir: Scott

The long goodbye

Years-in-the-making documentary becomes inadvertent farewell.