Editorial

On the cover: David Bowie © The David

“He was like a sun”

Rosanne Cash and Rickie Lee Jones acknowledge the all-powerful influence of Lou Reed

Death and the Suede man

Brett Anderson teams up with Charles Hazlewood and Paraorchestra to breathe new life into songs about dying

Revolution rock

How punk chronicler Caroline Coon captured a “fracture in the zeitgeist”

Black country, new road

Nashville hitmaker Alice Randall on recovering the “erased histories” of country music

Mint Mile

The Silkworm has turned! Indie-rock lifer ploughs a fruitful new furrow

Total Blam-blam!

15 tracks of the month’s best music

VINI REILLY

AN AUDIENCE WITH...

JESSICA PRATT Here In The Pitch

A cursed City of Angels inspires a soft-sung stylist to new creative heights. By Laura Barton

QUIET EVOLUTIONS

The songwriter’s mighty, sparse discography so far

Q & A

Jessica Pratt: “There is a tinge of darkness”

MICHAEL HEAD & THE RED ELASTIC BAND

Fine dream-state return, with added ghosts. By Pete Paphides

A to Z

This month…

IAN HUNTER

Ian Hunter: three chords, famous friends and the

VAMPIRE WEEKEND

Only God Was Above Us COLUMBIA 9/10 Indie-rock

SCOTT HBIRAM

The One & Only Scott H Biram

ARAB STRAP

I’m Totally Fine With It Don’t Give AFuck Anymore ROCK ACTION

PEARL JAM

Dark Matter MONKEYWRENCH/REPUBLIC

BROADCAST

Spell Blanket: Collected Demos 2006–2009 WARP

COME ON LET’S GO

Weaving the Spell Blanket 

AC/DC

High Voltage/Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap/Powerage/HighwayTo Hell /Back In Black/For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)/The Razor’s Edge/Live/Who Made Who

A to Z

This month…

ALICE COLTRANE

The Carnegie Hall Concert

SISTER ROSETTA THARPE

Live In France: The 1966 Concert In Limoges

THE SPECIALIST

SANULLIM

THE WOMAN WHO FELL TO EARTH

Two decades into a singular career as ST VINCENT, Annie Clark squares up to her demons and endures a season in hell on her sublime seventh album, All Born Screaming. She tells Stephen Troussé how she went back to basics and learned from Dave Grohl, David Bowie and John Coltrane how to “wield music like a god”

Hymns Ancient And Modern

MYRIAM GENDRON has been quietly transforming folk songs and Dorothy Parker poems with intense, delicate results. But for the enigmatic French-Canadian, a new album of her own compositions proves to be a powerful reckoning with loss and grief. “We’ll see where it leads me,” she tells Laura Barton 

Iron & Wine

The man behind the stage name, South Carolina songwriter Sam Beam, reviews his back catalogue

EPIC SOUNDTRACKS

Following his lavish cosmic explorations, KAMASI WASHINGTON comes back down to Earth with an album inspired by new life and the need to overcome old divisions. But the reigning king of jazz saxophone is still cleaving close to his radical mission to soothe the soul and inspire the mind. “Music cleanses us,” he tells Sam Richards

The Story Of The Blues by Wah!

How Pete Wylie’s “drinking song” developed into a huge anthem: “When I have an idea, I have it in Cinemascope!”

Still On The Ledge

Reassuringly, RICHARD THOMPSON is showing no signs of slowing down. With a brilliant new album almost upon us, he reveals all about the magic of Big Pink, adventures in the Sahara, imaginary conversations with Sandy Denny… and how he feels about his approaching 75th birthday. “I’ve still got the same mindset as I always had,” he tells Tom Pinnock. “I’m always trying to write a good song or play a good solo. That hasn’t changed since I was 18.”

SPACEPORT CONVENTION

RT’s new millennium on record

WHERE IT’S AT

Twenty years after they first met, THE BLACK KEYS and BECK have finally got it together in the studio for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s explosive new album, Ohio Players. In this exclusive interview, Beck, Auberbach and Carney – let’s call them The Beck Keys – talk early encounters, blues legends, Memphis rappers, random ’90s festival bills and more… “We’re three old friends getting together to make stuff and we were having a good time,” hears Stephen Deusner

VELVET GOLDMINE

Ongoing kwest: a newly colourised shot from Brian

“I’LL BE YOUR KING VOLCANO”

10 jewels from the Rock NRollStar!boxset

“I’M KNOWN TO LAY YOU, ONE AND ALL”

When Bowie ‘came out’

“LAY THE REAL THING ON ME”

When an Arnold Corn who lived next door lent Bowie his Gibson Les Paul

“SO INVITING, SO ENTICING…”

Inside the Rock NRollStar!book

Theater Des Westens, Berlin, March 4

AIR

ECHO&THE BUNNYMEN

Beacon Theatre, Bristol, March 6

SCREEN

Skulduggery and identity theft on the Côte d’Azur; mounting tensions in a German high school; Irish folk-horror; and more…

THE CLOCK COMES DOWN THE STAIRS BBC IPLAYER

9/10

BOOKS

THERE is alegend about Skip Spence. Moby

The Volume Dealers

The pick of the latest speakers JBL L100

Not Fade Away

Fondly remembered this month...

Feedback

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Crossword

WIN!

Neil Finn

Everywhere he goes, the Crowded House chief takes these records with him: “A song doesn’t have to follow a narrative…”

UNCUT

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