UNCUT

On the cover: Nirvana by AJ Barratt Paul

CROSSWORD

One of two copies of Rodrigo Amarante’s Drama on CD

Young ideas

Previously unseen photos of  The Jam  show  Weller  and co’s impatient evolution  

World of Echo

Spare us the clutter! How a house clearout led to an illuminating earlyyears memoir for Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant

“I always felt like an outsider”

Best known for singing with Meat Loaf and The Clash, now Ellen Foley is happy to “create my own thing”

A Man And His Myths

As Roy Harper celebrates a significant birthday, he looks back on his masterpiece Stormcock – which turns 50 this year – and forward to his next album. “Where do I stop?” he asks

A QUICK ONE

Celebrations are in order this month. As PJ

Arooj Aftab

Brooklyn-based singer drawing on ambient jazz and Pakistani love ballads to make one of the year’s most stunning albums

UNCUT PLAYLIST

On the stereo this month

Entertain Us

15 tracks of the month’s best music

When the guns come out, get outta there!

AN AUDIENCE WITH RODNEY CROWELL

RODRIGO AMARANTE

THE UNCUT GUIDE TO THIS MONTH’S KEY RELEASES

BRAZILIAN WAX

The pick of Amarante’s previous projects

SLEEVE NOTES

1 Drama 2 Maré 3 Tango 4 Tara

Rodrigo Amarante on toxic masculinity and a ‘horizontal’ approach to culture

Amarante: “Mixing styles comes naturally” JULIA BROKAW Can

LUMP

Marling and Lindsay reach seventh heaven on irrepressibly fun second outing

Laura Marling on young love and laziness

What’s fun about working with Mike? He’s one

SLEEVE NOTES

1 Bloom At Night 2 Gamma Ray 3

AtoZ

This month… P22 JOHN MURRY P24 THE FLATLANDERS

JOHN MURRY

The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes

SLEEVE NOTES

1 Oscar Wilde (Came Here To Make Fun

John Murry on covers and altered states

The new album starts with a song that

THE FLATLANDERS

Treasure Of Love

AMERICANA ROUND-UP

Nashville legend Connie Smith returns in late August

DOT ALLISON

Heart-Shaped Scars

ANIKA

Change is afoot on former journalist’s first solo album in 11 years

JOAN ARMATRADING

Melodic singer-songwriter’s recent renaissance continues

DANIEL AVERY

Collection of static ambient plucked from special live show

BLACKBERRY SMOKE

You Hear Georgia

BLANK GLOSS

Where the desert meets the sky

LEON BRIDGES

Gold-Diggers Sound

JACKSON BROWNE

Downhill From Everywhere

PETER BRUNTNELL

Journey To The Sun

BUFFET LUNCH

The Power Of Rocks

CEDRIC BURNSIDE

I Be Trying

TURNER CODY AND THE SOLDIERS OF LOVE

Friends In High Places

KINGS OF CONVENIENCE

Stylish, melancholic moves by the Bergen grandmasters

SLEEVE NOTES

1 Rumours 2 Rocky Trail 3 Comb My

Eirik Glambek Bøe & Erlend Øye: “We’re like brothers… or an old couple”

How is your relationship now – has it

COLLEEN

The Tunnel And The Clearing

RODNEY CROWELL

Compelling meditation on strange days by the songwriter’s songwriter

GEMMA CULLINGFORD

Let Me Speak

STEVE DAWSON

At The Bottom Of A Canyon In The Branches Of A Tree

CHRIS ECKMAN

Where The Spirit Rests

FM EINHEIT

Exhibition Of A Dream

ELEPHANT9

Arrival Of The New Elders

AMARO FREITAS

Brazilian pianist’s minimalist tribute to his African ancestors

BOBBY GILLESPIE & JEHNNY BETH

Dystopian divorce duets from Scream and Savages singers

THE GO! TEAM

Get Up Sequences Part One

ETHAN GOLD

Earth City 1: The Longing

THE GRID/FRIPP

Pan-generational pop polymaths come together in electric dreams

JUNI HABEL

Norwegian singer-songwriter makes a virtue of simplicity

HORSEY

Thrice neigh: King Krule associates’ perverse first

ANDREW HUNG

Raw analogue realness from Fuck Buttons co-founder

JACK INGRAM, MIRANDA LAMBERT & JON RANDALL

The Marfa Tapes

ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO

Mother Nature

KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD

Butterfly 3000

MICHAEL LEAGUE

Snarky Puppy founder’s first solo outing

DAMON LOCKS BLACK MONUMENT ENSEMBLE

Disorientating mini-album from Chicago collective

LOS LOBOS

Legendary LA band cover legendary LA songs

LOUNGE AT THE EDGE OF TOWN

Lounge At The Edge Of Town

THE LUVMENAUTS

Cosmic exotica from Toronto’s soundtrack junkies

MARINERO

Mexican American celebrates the hometown he’s left behind

KEVIN RICHARD MARTIN

Return To Solaris

SCOTT MATTHEWS

Black Country singer-songwriter takes a lightly experimental detour

MARINERO

Jess Sylvester reveals the environmental factors that shaped him

SLEATER-KINNEY

Path Of Wellness

SLEEVE NOTES

1 Path Of Wellness 2 High In The

IAN McNABB

Icicle Works man still cool and spiky

SHANNON McNALLY

The Waylon Sessions

MEGA BOG

Oddball alt.folk that explores curious musical corners

PARKER MILLSAP

Be Here Instead

MODEST MOUSE

The Golden Casket

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

Dark In Here

MUSEUM OF LOVE

Life Of Mammals

JEB LOY NICHOLS

Jeb Loy

MEGA BOG

Erin Birgy “I started cracking open”

YOLA

Stand For Myself

SLEEVE NOTES

1 Barely Alive 2 Dancing Away In Tears

“A BITCH IS BACK”

Yola on her new album

CHARLIE PARR

Last Of Better Days Ahead

PORTICO QUARTET

Terrain

RED RIBBON

A search for truth results in a sublime listening experience

SISTER JOHN

I Am By Day

EARL SLICK

Fist Full Of Devils

SLY & ROBBIE

Red Hills Road TAXI 6/10 First album from

SQUIRREL FLOWER

Planet (i)

SUNROOF

Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1

CHARLIE PARR

A path through the man’s country blues

JOHN FRANCIS FLYNN

Young Dubliner brokers the ancient and modern on captivating debut

SLEEVE NOTES

1 Lovely Joan 2 Cannily, Cannily 3 My

John Francis Flynn on discovering his voice

How did you go about reclaiming these traditional

TASHAKI MIYAKI

Los Angeles dream-pop trio’s bittersweet second

TEKE::TEKE

Pile-driving mutant Japanese garage-rock

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY

Funky, loved-up debut from rising London jazz trumpeter

UB40

Brummie reggae legends round up some heavy legends

UNWED SAILOR

Indie-rock veterans continue a post-resurgence creative burst

VARIOUS ARTISTS

May The Circle Remain Unbroken: A Tribute To Roky

THE WALLFLOWERS

Exit Wounds

WOLF ALICE

Quartet’s prowess is proved on storming third album

ZOEE

Flaw Flower

ALICE COLTRANE

Kirtan: Turiya Sings  IMPULSE

ALICE’S ADVENTURES

How to buy three more of Coltrane’s spiritual masterpieces

Michelle Coltrane, Alice’s daughter on spirituality, and music in the Coltrane home

Alice and son Ravi Coltrane with a photograph

LAURA NYRO

American Dreamer

THE EMPRESS NYRO

Three later works that represent a more relaxed but political singer

AtoZ

This month… P43 MILES DAVIS P43 PJ HARVEY

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Spiritually charged roots reggae from Clement Dodd’s super-studio.  

Soul Jazz’s Stuart Baker on Studio One

What was the thinking behind the selections? It’s

CARIBOU

One of three limited-edition vinyl represses for one-man marvel

THE CURE

Double-album vinyl picture disc reissue for Record Store Day

MILES DAVIS

Previously unreleased set recorded three months before his death

ARETHA FRANKLIN

The Queen of Soul from 14 to 76

NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS

Solo career-spanning compilation highlights his drift from dad-rock

PJ HARVEY

Album number seven in a comprehensive reissue series

KHAN JAMAL

Spiritual jazz classic re-emerges

PAUL & LINDA McCARTNEY

Piece of cake: Macca’s second effort, half-speed mastered

MICHAEL SMALL

Uncovering the underrated and overlooked

JUANA MOLINA

Second sight: the idiosyncratic Argentine’s revelatory starting point

MOTÖRHEAD

No Sleep ’Til Hammersmith (40th Anniversary Edition)

MUDHONEY

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

CHRIS BARBER

A Trailblazer’s Legacy 

RUSSELL POTTER

Lost albums by a guitar wunderkind

SCRITTI POLITTI

Landmark set on LP, the full realisation of its driven creators’ talent

THE SHINS

Albuquerque alt.pop quartet’s watershed debut, remastered

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Impulse! Records: Music, Message And The Moment

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Nurse With Wound-approved experimentation from Germany

VARIOUS ARTISTS

The pre-history of roots reggae, reissued and refined

WAR

50th-anniversary coloured-vinyl release of their first five LPs for Record Store Day

THE WEDDING PRESENT

Groundbreaking, soul-searching, lo-fi British post-rock

COMING NEXT MONTH...

N ext time around, there’ll be new records

A FAB TIME

Photographer HARRY BENSON was nonplussed when he received a commission to cover THE BEATLES in 1964. All the same, travelling from London to Paris and New York during this breakthrough year, he struck up a rapport with the band – and PAUL McCARTNEY in particular – that endured through several decades. With a new collection of his images due for publication, Benson shows us McCartney at work and at play – backstage, in hotel rooms and on private jets. The secret of Benson’s success? “Quickness wasn’t everything,” he tells Mark Beaumont. “It was the only thing.”

TURKISH DELIGHT

From their base in a former Cold War nuclear bunker, psych warriors ALTIN GÜN are busy reinventing the deep and mystical sounds of Anatolian rock. Their tools? Fuzz pedals, electronics, and ancient instruments once used in shamanic rituals. But their message, they tell Tom Pinnock, is universal: “Songs about love, hate, tragedy, death, war… it’s all basic human emotions…”

SAZ YOU LIKE IT

Altın Gün’s guide to their favourite Turkish psych-rock albums 

IN BLOOM

Thirty years after Nevermind transformed NIRVANA from adolescent punks to global superstars, Uncut revisits this era-defining classic in the company of its surviving creators. In brand new interviews, DAVE GROHL and KRIST NOVOSELIC trace the album’s remarkable journey from a rented barn in Tacoma to the stage of Seattle’s Paramount Theatre and beyond, while producer BUTCH VIG reveals the secrets of the band’s working practices. There are cameos from Neil Young’s producer, aspiring cast members of Annie – The Musical and an ill-fated blue Datsun B210. And what of Kurt Cobain, you might ask? “He was vastly underrated as a comedian.”  Here we are now, read on…

“THERE NO MONEY AND THERE WAS NO TIME”

DAVE GROHL on freezing cold rehearsal spaces, road trips with Kurt Cobain and “Wilson Philips, Mariah Carey and fucking Bon Jovi”

“WE CAME FROM THE COUNTERCULTURE”

KRIST NOVOSELIC on the impact and the aftershock of Nevermind – and Nirvana’s unexpected admiration for the Bay City Rollers

“WE WANTED TO CALL IT SHEEP!”

Dave Grohl on Nevermind’s original title…

“AS BIG AS THE BEATLES!”

From the Smart Studio in Wisconsin – via $2 pitchers of beer at the Friendly Tavern – to Los Angeles’ legendary Sound City, BUTCH VIG guides us through the Nevermind recording sessions. Stand by for food fights with L7, encounters with Billy Corgan and Europe and sojourns at the “Cokewood Apartments”

“I COULD SEE RAGE”

A problem with tempo

“IT WAS SO LOUD”

When Vig got Weld-ed

KEY PLAYERS

DAVE TONGE/GETTY IMAGES; NICK SAYERS; BRUCE WANG; DAVE M.

“ON THE EDGE OF CHAOS”

In late 1991, the Nevermind tour reached Britain – taking in numerous historic gigs as well as a brace of controversial television performances. Here, eyewitnesses recall first-hand the thrilling power of Nirvana unleashed and in their prime. “They were forging something new,” says one insider

BRISTOL–LONDON

“We could have sold every show three or four times over...”

THE WORD

“Get a fucking move on!”

BRADFORD–BIRMINGHAM

“You could tell something special was happening...”

TOP OF THE POPS

“We were crying with laughter…”

EDINBURGH–LONDON

“They were on the cusp of being huge…”

TONIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS

“They were teetering on the edge of chaos…”

TOUR DE FORCE

EURO ’91: NIRVANA ON THE ROAD (AND ON TV)

TAKE ME HIGHER

It is 1969 and SLY STONE is on the brink of superstardom. Ensconced in his Bel Air mansion, he has begun work on a new album. But surrounded by dealers, groupies and gangsters, it takes over two years to finish the record – during with time the life-affirming utopianism of his music is replaced by darkness, drugs and isolation. Fifty years on, band members recall the turbulent making of a masterpiece: There’s A Riot Goin’  On. “Fame attracts wonderful people,” hears Michaelangelo Matos.  “But fame also attracts guns and dogs.”

“IT AIN’T NO FUN NO MORE”

How Bobby Womack  shared the highs – and lows – of working with Sly

BUYER’S GUIDE

Sly’s  long-players  in a nutshell

Back To BLACK

Desolate and cinematic, the hit the Queen of Camden created with young producer Mark Ronson would become her timeless swansong

MAELSTROM!

Fifty years after releasing their first album as Halfnelson, SPARKS are finally ready for their close-up.  A new documentary, The Sparks Brothers, directed by Edgar Wright, pays tribute to the indomitable, pioneering spirit of music’s oddest couple. “People expect us to try to alienate them from time to time,” they tell Stephen Troussé…

“IF ANYTHING, IT’S A DRAMA”

Edgar Wright on making The Sparks Brothers

SPARKS AT THE MOVIES

As youthful film students, the Mael Brothers always had ambitions to take their vision to the silver screen. But things rarely ran smoothly…

Angélique Kidjo

The singer-songwriter’s eclectic yet consistently Afrocentric musical path

“Everything stretched out... it expanded!”

DEAD FREAKS UNITE! 1971 was a momentous year for the GRATEFUL DEAD – involving landmark shows, bizarre ESP experiments, French Acid Tests, hypnosis, new faces and emotional farewells.  BOB WEIR, BILL KREUTZMANN and other eyewitnesses share tales from this momentous journey with Rob Hughes: “We were just coming alive.”

INSIDE THE DEAD VAULT

N O other group has been collated quite

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Bob Weir goes classical

SONGLINES ENCOUNTERS FESTIVAL

May 20–22, Kings Place, London

GRUFF RHYS

Chalk, Brighton, May 22

BOOKS

“I looked like an alien”: Sinéad O’Connor in

FILMS

Mesmerising period drama, the perils of narcissism and a deranged comedy with “killer style”

REVIEWED THIS MONTH

WHITE ON WHITE Directed by Théo Court S

ALSO OUT...

IN THE HEIGHTS OPENS JUNE 18 Musical from

PUNK THE CAPITAL: BUILDING A SOUND MOVEMENT

The real MacKaye: fab retrospective of punk rock in Washington, DC, 1976–84

24 HOURS: THE WORLD OF JOHN & YOKO

CODA COLLECTION 7/10 A day in the life

DON’T GO GENTLE: A FILM ABOUT IDLES

DOC ‘N’ ROLL FILMS 7/10 Rowdy rock doc

JUST A GIGOLO

SHOUT! FACTORY 5/10 Bowie’s ’78 flop, remastered Deep

LAST MAN STANDING

DOGWOOF 8/10 Nick Broomfield follows up Biggie &

WITCH: WE INTEND TO CAUSE HAVOC

BULLDOG FILM DISTRIBUTION 7/10 Zambian psychedelic gem unearthed

ROCKUMENTARY: EVOLUTION OF INDIAN ROCK

Rock doc full of top bands but omitting much

Not Fade Away

Fondly remembered this month…

LLOYD PRICE

Rock’n’roll pioneer  (1933-2021)

FEEDBACK

Email letters@uncut.co.uk . Or tweet us at twitter.com/uncutmagazine

UNCUT

AUGUST 2021 BandLab UK Limited Griffin House 135

Jakob Dylan

The Wallflowers frontman reveals his greatest vinyl epiphanies and the songs that “completely ruptured my idea of rock’n’roll”