Sommaire pour October 2019 de MOJO

Typex Typex, a Dutch comic artist and illustrator, regarded The Beatles as an Eternal Musical Omnipresence when he was growing up. A graduate of the Amsterdam College for the Arts, he is the author of two graphic novel biographies: Rembrandt and Andy: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol, both published by SelfMadeHero. A regular contributor to MOJO, this month Typex drew our two extraordinary maps of The Beatles’ London and Liverpool. Lois Wilson If longtime MOJO contributor Lois Wilson had a time machine, she’d set the dials for Liverpool 1962 and head straight to The Cavern to see The Beatles. She first became smitten with them after finding her mum’s Love Me Do 45 at her grandma’s. Saving her pocket money, she got her first Beatles record: a second-hand…

FOR TEN MINUTES ON THE MORNING OF August 8, 1969, The Beatles walked back and forth across the zebra crossing outside their studio, while a policeman detained the traffic and photographer Iain Macmillan captured the moment for posterity. In some images, as you’ll see in this issue of MOJO, Paul McCartney wears sandals. In the one that made the cut, he is barefoot; like a corpse, the conspiracy theorists would soon allege. Less than two months later, the eleventh Beatles album was in the shops, and Macmillan’s cover shot had turned a pedestrian crossing into a site of pilgrimage. A brisk stroll away from the MOJO offices, the Abbey Road site is still thronged with tourists today; you can even watch them, exasperating the Uber drivers of north London, on…

Frank Sinatra Cairo, Egypt, 1979 (NSU, 2015) Recorded at the Giza pyramids on September 27, 1979, this charity gig was organised to honour peace-making Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. “He really is a great cat,” says Frank, before dedicating Try A Little Tenderness to Mrs Sadat. Paul Horn Inside The Great Pyramid (MUSHROOM, 1977) Where the jazz reedsman combines unusual reverb with chanting, ohm’ing and mysterio-flute playing in, you guessed it, the Great Pyramid. Horn said some listeners told him the music, “brought back recollections of past Egyptian lives.” Nik Turner’s Sphynx Xitintoday (CHARISMA, 1978) The former Hawkwind groover lets it happen on the flute in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. Then Steve Hillage and various ex-Hawkwind freaks jam over the top. Features lyrics from the Egyptian Book Of…

…in August MISSY ELLIOTT (right) told Marie Claire that new music is on its way, her intention being to make her male fans dance like they did on Soul Train. “It’s not corny,” she declared … says Barney Greenway of a new NAPALM DEATH album, “It’s gonna be a multifaceted rasper… some nice’n’quirky cover songs too” … ex- KRAFTWERK man Wolfgang Flür is working on a new record. Hamburg techno crew U96 f Das Boot fame) and Hebden Bridge producer Duggal will guest. Talking to Big Issue North, Wolfgang noted, “I was a drummer, as everyone knows, so I love hard beats” … Kevin ‘The Bug’ Martin and Justin Broadrick have announced the reactivation of ZONAL , billed as a sequel to their industrial group Techno Animal. Described as “corrupted,…

ONLINE THERE’s a 1970 clip of Elton John, seated at a white piano, saying, “There’s one here that I’ve sort of, done the other day, which is Tiny Dancer. Which is about Bernie’s girlfriend.” Also in the film are co-writer Bernie Taupin and a smiling young woman. This was Maxine Feibelman, who became Mrs Taupin in 1971. She found herself as close as you could be to the pair’s composing partnership until 1976. As she tells MOJO in her first media interview, she is now to share insights from these years: in December she will auction (at Bonhams in Los Angeles) her ex-husband’s handwritten lyrics for key Elton tracks Your Song, Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, Candle In The Wind, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Bennie And The Jets and Border…

1 Born to not follow: the young Mike Scott in 1972. 2 Another Pretty Face, October 23, 1981: (from left) John Caldwell, Chic McLaughlin, Willie Kirkwood, Ally Donaldson and Scott. 3 Scott on a thunder roll with fiddler Steve Wickham: “I could tell this guy was my musical brother.” 4 All hands on deck: (from left) Scott, with Karl Wallinger and Anthony Thistlethwaite, recording 1985’s This Is The Sea . 5 The band’s all here: Scott (front row, centre), Thistlethwaite (far left) and Wickham (far right) with the massed Room To Roam recording line-up. 6 Born again: Scott sees the light outside Universal Hall, Findhorn, Moray, 2003. 7 The newly reduced Waterboys sans Wickham, ready to rock a Big Top in the Scottish Highlands, 1990. 8 Scott with his wife,…

MARVIN GAYE What’s Going On Motown, 1971 “It’s just 36 minutes of joy,” proclaims Greep. “This is obviously the best recording of a voice there’s been in pop music, but also there’s a lot of the really weird stuff that happens when fantastic musicians are playing, so although there are loads of wrong notes, it’s also flawless.” THE MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA The Inner Mounting Flame Columbia, 1971 “John McLaughlin went DI on that one – plugged his guitar straight into the mixing desk,” says Morgan excitedly. “That’s frowned on in a lot of circles, but on this album it totally works.” ARTHUR RUSSELL World Of Echo Upside/Rough Trade, 1986 “His idea,” Picton enthuses, “was that delay is a universe in itself… We were in New York recently and there’s an archive…

JETHRO TULL’s 50-year journey is the subject of a new book out in November. The Ballad Of Jethro Tull, the official illustrated oral history, features extensive contributions from Ian Anderson and many previously unseen images from the singer’s personal archive. Anderson invited ex-members of Jethro Tull to contribute, and the book includes words from Clive Bunker, Mick Abrahams, Jeffrey Hammond, Dee Palmer, John Evans and Chrysalis Records founders Terry Ellis and Chris Wright, among others. “There were many wonderful details and recollections from the others interviewed,” says Anderson. “I didn’t touch anyone else’s contributions. Some of them may have shown a bit of diplomatic restraint – and with an unguarded Twitter tongue, things might have taken a different course – but I found it highly entertaining. Reading it all, I…

MARCH 10, 1982. ANYONE IN BRISTOL, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, Wiltshire or Somerset switching on 15 minutes early for BBC1’s Wednesday Film would have seen a programme that, even by the standards of British regional television, was very odd indeed. Screened by BBC West’s arts magazine RPM, The Black Documentary featured shots of two black-clad figures driving a vintage black Cadillac, interspersed with various musings on the cultural significance of the colour black. Contributors included Bristol University neuropsychologist Professor R.L. Gregory, an Anglican vicar, and a young girl who, when asked, “Why do you think bad men in films always wear black?”, replied: “So that they’re not seen in the dark.” Later, over footage of a US presidential motorcade, the programme’s narrator wondered if the colour black indicated “symbolic reverence to supernatural forces…

Glyn Johns interrupts early-hours recording at Trident to report there’s been a complaint about the noise. “Who’s around at this time of night?” marvels Lennon. John critiques a take. “It got a bit faster, Ringo,” he tells Paul, who’s on drums. “OK, George!” Macca replies. John breaks off his vocal in the middle of “He got early warning”, as if the spell’s been broken. “Early warning?” asks Paul. “A man like him would have it,” John assures him. John doubts the impact the medley fragment is likely to have on future Beatle earnings: “Now this won’t keep the Apple staff in work for the next 10 years…” The band run through an instrumental take. What does engineer Geoff Emerick think? “Less harpsichord.” Lennon: “Is my hair all right, Geoff?”…

Why did you decide to make a solo record this time? “The subject matter, it’s more personal. It’s really hard to give away something you have a complete vision for. And in the Shakes we’re a democracy: we all bounce ideas off each other, and things change and get better. With this, I was curious what it would be like to leave things in their rawest form.” What do you mean by it being more personal? “I’m leading more with my heart and less with my mind. With Sound & Color, everything was veiled. A song like Dunes was really about depression, but I never would say it. On this one I’m talking about religion pretty blatantly. I’m talking about sexual preference pretty blatantly. Talking about racism in Goat Head.…

Chris Bergson & Ellis Hooks ★★★ Live In Normandy 2 SHIRTS. CD/DL/DVD Bergson is playing a long way from home, but it will take admirers of the New York singer-guitarist-songwriter only seconds to recognise a characteristic groove and his voice’s grainy snarl. His six-year collaboration with vocalist Ellis Hooks now sounds as inevitable a partnership as grits and groceries (see track nine). The stage sound is rather cramped, but any Bergson album is an event. The Cash Box Kings ★★★ Hail To The Kings! ALLIGATOR. CD/DL/LP Singer-harpist Joe Nosek, singer Oscar Wilson and guitarist Billy Flynn are experts in classic Chicago grooves – Smoked Jowl Blues perfectly evokes Muddy and Little Walter – but they also enchant their listeners with original songs both funny – like The Wine Talkin’ (with…

• “I was talking about making a classic British rock’n’roll record like Disraeli Gears,” Ian Astbury told MOJO, “strip it all back, get a rhythm section that swings.” His vision went awry – ‘stripped back’ Sonic Temple is not – as the band struggled to find a permanent rhythm section partner for long-suffering bassist Jamie Stewart. Four drummers feature on this 5-disc ST: Eric Singer (ex-Black Sabbath) on the first demo session, and Bob Rock bandmate Chris Taylor on the second. Mickey Curry (Bryan Adams; Tom Waits) plays on ST itself; while Spanish Gold is from a post-album demo with Matt Sorum (above), who joined in ’89 for the Sonic Temple tour.…

Creepy John Thomas Creepy John Thomas RCA, 1969 LESSER-KNOWN Antipodean rock of the ’60s and early ’70s has proven fertile territory for the music-minded record dredger, with such groups as Coloured Balls, The Missing Links, Carson and Tamam Shud leaving listeners stirred and intrigued with their shifting layers of aggro and finesse. Another group with Australian roots were Creepy John Thomas, though bizarrely the vine would sprout not in Sydney or Melbourne, but in a Cologne studio with future Kraftwerk/Neu!/Eno producer Conny Plank. Group leader, guitarist and voice John Thomas grew up in rural Murwillumbah, just south of the Queensland border. Turned onto rock’n’roll by Buddy Holly, he played in local bands before moving to Sydney where he co-founded beat group longhairs The Flies, who supported The Rolling Stones on…

Nyro never released a sub-par album, though Nested (1978) and Mother’s Spiritual (1984) are comparatively middle of the road. Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best Of Laura Nyro comprehensively covers early and late periods, while the single CD Time And Love: The Essential Masters nails her pop ingenuity (all Columbia). Laura: Live At The Bottom Line (recorded 1988, Cypress) and Live: The Loom’s Desire (recorded 1993-94, Rounder) are for those seeking fuller immersion. Michelle Kort’s Soul Picnic: The Music And Passion Of Laura Nyro (Thomas Dunne Books) is a detailed, open biography. There is no dedicated DVD but snippets of Nyro’s Poverty Train and Wedding Bell Blues are part of The Complete Monterey Pop Festival.…

I have been an avid music collector of all categories since I was 16. I am now in my seventies and wondering when the R&B category was changed. Many singers are hailed as being R&B when their output doesn’t resemble anything like I remember from such performers as Sonny Boy Williamson, Tommy Tucker, etc. M Gardiner, via e-mail Fred Says: Part of the reason is probably linked to the US Billboard charts. In that journal, black music was first listed under the heading ‘Harlem Hit Parade’ in October 1942. It quickly evolved into the R&B Juke Box Chart, and then Hot R&B. In 1969 the listing became a Soul chart, while 1982 saw the creation of Black Music charts. It was in October 1990 that the R&B categorisation returned, though…

HELLO 1972 My first thing was to play with my brother Catfish [guitarist Phelps]. We’d got with James Brown and became The J.B.’s. Once we left him in ’71, we came back to Cincinnati and started House Guests. It was the middle of the acid thing and we were dressing crazy and wanting to be freaky. When we started touring, people would say, “Y’all are like Funkadelic!” We didn’t know who they were. They were kind of an underground college thing, with a white audience; we were doing the serious chitlin circuit. “George had these big yellow chicken feet on.”BOOTSY COLLINS We had Philippé Wynne singing with us, and Billy [Henderson] from The Spinners called and wanted a band, so we went to Detroit. While we were there this chick…

THE HYUNDAI MERCURY PRIZE champions the best British and Irish music, supporting artists who push boundaries to produce creative and innovative long-playing albums. This is true in 2019 more than ever, with a list that includes established creative talents like Anna Calvi and Cate Le Bon alongside relative newcomers such as 24-year old Northampton rapper, slowthai and Dadaist noise berserkers Black Midi. There are big rock names here, like Foals and The 1975, next to soulful singer-songwriters such as NAO and Bristol agit-rockers IDLES. But whether it’s the Dublin post-punk of Fontaines D.C. the inspirational British rap of Dave and Little Simz, or the jazz-funk grooves of Cassie Kinoshi’s SEED Ensemble, one thing is certain; each album here is striving for progress, a challenge to convention and a celebration of…

AS MOJO SPEAKS to Noddy Holder he’s had bad news. “My best pal from school, he died a couple of days ago,” he says. “From my first band, the Rockin’ Phantoms.” But as we discuss Slade, Noddy’s natural ultra-exuberance returns – the massive Midlands joie de vivre that beams from the recent Slade 45rpm vinyl trove Feel The Noize: The Singlez Box. Noddy left Slade in 1992, subsequently deploying his remarkable voice and presence over radio and TV engagements, from BBC Radio 6 Music to Coronation Street and Bob The Builder, not forgetting the lift announcements in Walsall New Art Gallery. Now he pauses to reflect on the glory days of Slade. The box set sleeves are packaged as per their original releases in the 1970s, in Italy, Germany, France,…

BEFORE TERRY O’NEILL began his photographic career, he was planning on becoming a steward for British Airways forerunner BOAC. Instead, he found himself in the company’s picture unit, where he was introduced to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s concept of the “decisive moment”, the instant which captures the substance of an event within a precisely organised image. “He was living very fast in 1974, you can see that in his eyes.”TERRY O’NEILL Previously available as a limited run of 500, a new edition of photobook Bowie By O’Neill collects the photographer’s pursuit of such decisive moments with a subject and friend more likely than most to deliver them. Adding new and unseen material, its 500-plus shots take in such encounters as the final appearance of Ziggy Stardust at the Marquee in October 1973,…

FEW ALBUMS wear their influences on their sleeve as literally as Jamila Woods’s second album, Legacy! Legacy! Each of its 12 songs is named for a different artist of colour, from Sun Ra to Jean-Michel Basquiat to Frida Kahlo, the singer/songwriter invoking her heroes over smart, jazzy neo-soul in the lineage of Afro-futurists such as Erykah Badu and D’Angelo. “I felt like before I could go forward and find my voice as an artist, I had to take a moment to honour those who helped me get here,” says Woods, down the line from her native Chicago. She dreamt up Legacy! Legacy! ’s concept to overcome her anxiety about writing a follow-up to her acclaimed 2016 debut, Heavn. The new album’s title is taken from Margaret Burroughs’ poem What Will…

PRODUCER RAS G (below, b. Gregory Shorter Jr, 1979) began his exploration of psychedelic jazz, hip-hop and funk with 2008’s Ghetto Sci-Fi. He would go on to release more than 20 albums and mixtapes on labels including Brainfeeder, Leaving and Poo-Bah, collaborating with talents including Flying Lotus, Thundercat and Open Mike Eagle. Hudson Mohawke hailed him as “a true visionary in his own world ’n’ a weirdo in the greatest possible sense.” LEAD BARITONE JERRY LAWSON (b. 1944) was raised in Apopka, Florida, singing gospel in church. He sang with The Persuasions for four decades, beginning in Brooklyn in the early ’60s when a no-show by a guitarist forced the group to perform a cappella. Having heard their five-part harmonies over the phone, Frank Zappa signed the group to his…

THE BIG MUSIC BLOWS UP The Waterboys A Pagan Place  (ENSIGN, 1984) Scott recorded the first two Waterboys albums, The Waterboys (1983) and A Pagan Place (1984), simultaneously and often solo. Many of his best songs, however, ended up on the second set: meticulously layered epics that located pantheistic awe in the wildest of landscapes. The Big Music, a song articulating spiritual rapture rather than U2-like ambition, became Scott’s first calling card, and millstone. TOO HIGH! TOO FAR! TOO SOON? The Waterboys This Is The Sea  (ENSIGN, 1985) The first Waterboys album to be recorded as an album, by a group, This Is The Sea found Scott, Karl Wallinger and Anthony Thistlethwaite pushing their sound to its grandest logical extreme. Scott’s private notes for the album made clear the mission:…

IT’S A BLUE-SKIED AFTERNOON IN Paris. On the terrace of Ma Bourgogne cafe, beneath the 17th century arcades of Place des Vosges, Jean-Claude Vannier has finished his steak tartare, and is telling stories, impressionistic tales of a remarkable life, from his late-’60s work as arranger, composer and songwriter for Serge Gainsbourg – the supreme poet and provocateur of French pop – via his underrated ’70s solo albums of rough-edged chanson, to his most recent and unexpected work, Corpse Flower. Assembled with Faith No More singer and Cali-gothic renaissance man Mike Patton, these 12 stygian ballades rework many of the songs from Vannier’s past. Translated and adapted by Patton, his six-octave growl prowl intricate arrangements, the album draws you into a noir cityscape, populated by immigrants, criminals and fugitives, figures Vannier…

The bookish Long Island hard rockers first referenced the MiB on E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), from 1976’s Agents Of Fortune: “Three men in black said, ‘Don’t report this’”. After collaborating with pre-eminent UK sci-fi author Michael Moorcock, guitarist Eric Bloom penned 1983’s Take Me Away: “Don’t ask if they are real/The men in black, their lips are sealed.” After alien cosmological previous with the Pixies’ E.T. in memoriam Motorway To Roswell (“He ended up in army crates/And photographs in files”), Frank went the full flying saucer on Men In Black from 1996’s The Cult Of Ray: “I’m watching my back/I’m awaiting my visitation.” Coincidentally (or not), he’s a massive Stranglers fan. Dave Grohl’s band name is the term given by Allied World War II pilots to mysterious lights that apparently…

“Jaime is a giant leap forward: a testimony of liberation but just as accessible as her old music.” Brittany Howard ★★★★ Jaime COLUMBIA/ATO. CD/DL/LP AROUND THE time Donald Trump was elected, Brittany Howard decided not to live in the South any more. “There’s some safe havens,” she says, “and not everyone plays into Trump’s hands, by any means. But as soon as you leave your safe haven, you don’t feel safe. Being with a woman and just trying to live your life got a bit more difficult.” Howard’s career to this point has been predicated on a proud and overt identification with the American South: the band with which she has scored American Number 1s and harvested Grammys are called, after all, the Alabama Shakes. But Jaime , the 30-year-old’s…

Gruff Rhys  ★★★★ Pang! ROUGH TRADE. CD/DL/LP EVEN WITH the might of Super Furry Animals behind him, there’s always been the chance that Gruff Rhys would one day spin off into the conceptual ether like a loose balloon. Since sticking his head above the Brexit parapet with 2016’s referendum protest I Love EU, however (his “baguettes/castanets” rhyme should have been on the side of a bus), Rhys has appeared more firmly tethered, revolving along with the planet’s nightmare locked groove rather than blue-skying above it. His previous album, 2018’s Babelsberg , was a beautifully upcycled anxiety attack, dystopian clutter – drones, selfies, imminent apocalypse – scrubbed up nicely by the BBC National Orchestra Of Wales. Pang! is a different kettle, stylistically speaking, but the fish thrashing about inside remain the…

Joe Armon-Jones ★★★★ Turn To Clear View BROWNSWOOD. CD/DL/LP Vocals are more to the fore on the Ezra Collective keyboard wizard’s second solo outing. Afrikan Revolution talisman Asheber, rising Afrobeats star Obongjayar and veteran British rapper Jehst add metropolitan grit to dreamy, synthy soundscapes that dip into the frenetic fusion era and then bang it up-to-speed over restless, slippery grooves. Armon-Jones’s fiery soloing is intrinsic to the headnoddable whole. Jonathan Crompton ★★★ Intuit NEW LAB. DL Australian alto saxman’s career caught traction in New York working alongside Dave Liebman and Ingrid Laubrock. The latter is one of three tenorists (alongside Patricks Booth and Breiner) whose polyphonics light up Crompton’s taut, barely adorned pieces.All apply extended technique to coax dreamlike figures from its suspenseful title track, switching from light/ dreamy to…

Five Rise Records www.fiveriserecords.co.ukEmail: aidy@fiveriserecords.co.uk Tel: 01274 512867 Located two minutes from the train station and the Five Rise Locks in the picturesque town of Bingley, Five Rise Records opened in June 2019, after selling online and at record fairs since 2015. Selling new vinyl releases and indie exclusives, they also buy and sell an extensive selection of second hand vinyl, serve fresh coffee and offer a record cleaning service. They are also behind the successful Brudenell Record Fair in Leeds and work with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans on his Vinyl Adventures record fairs.…

Tracks: Gut Runs Great Stone / (Do I Figure) In Your Life / You’ve Got To Hide / One Way Track Blues / Trippin Like A Dog And Rockin Like A Bitch / Ride A Rainbow / Green Eyed Lady / Sun And Woman / Lay It On Me / Bring Back The Love / Moon And Eyes Song Personnel: Creepy John Thomas (lead and acoustic gtrs, vocals, arrangements), Andy ‘Shotgun’ Marx (bass, lead gtr on (Do I Figure) In Your Life), Helmut Pohl (drums), Paul Rogers (vocal harmony on Ride A Rainbow), Conrad Plank (bongos). Producer: Creepy John Thomas, Conny Plank, Andy ‘Shotgun’ Marx. Engineered by Conrad Plank. Released: 1969 Recorded: unidentified studio, Cologne Chart peak: n/a Current availability: download…

Bob Dylan Neil Young & Promise Of The Real Hyde Park, London AMIDST ALL THE subterfuges and false trails of Rolling Thunder Revue, one of the rarer truths revealed in Martin Scorsese’s film is that Bob Dylan used to be a hell of a showman. Watch him sing Isis, eyes popping in whiteface, a vituperative mime acting out his scorn for folk authenticity. In 1975, Dylan did not need to hide in the shadows to ensure his privacy; being an enigma could be played out energetically in the spotlight, too. As the Never-Ending Tour has rolled on over the decades, Dylan’s flamboyance – riverboat gambler threads apart – has been mostly forgotten by his adoring and bewildered crowds. Still, here he is centre-stage in Hyde Park, hand on hip, holding…

VISION GALORE 7 Tonight, BBC TV’s pop show the Six-Five Special features Johnny Dank-worth & His Orchestra with Cleo Laine (above) and The Vipers Skiffle Group among others. CARD TIMES 7 Nestlé announce that for 1s/6d, plus three chocolate bar wrappers, a laminated cardboard disc with singers Franklyn Boyd, Margaret Rosef or Ray Edwards can be yours. REET NEAT 8 Brunswick release Jackie Wilson’s first solo record, Reet Petite. It’s a song co-written by Berry Gordy Jr. SKIFF’ HANGAR 8 London’s Royal Albert Hall hosts a rock’n’skiffle concert with Lonnie Donegan, Terry Dene, Nancy Whiskey and The John Barry Seven. STEREO GRAND! 9 Stereophonic records may become a reality next year should tests being made on the Westrex Stereo System prove successful. CLIFF BANG POW! 19 Cliff Richard joins the…

Sheila Maurice-Grey NÉRIJA’S TRUMPET ARTIST What music are you currently grooving to? Onda by Cassiano, a beautiful, very chilled Cuban artist. A lot of Brazilian music too. Jose Feliciano’s rendition of Golden Lady has similar vibes, alongside another classic, Brazilian Love Affair by George Duke. I listened to a lot of Brazilian music when I was 14, 15 – my biological father’s side is Portuguese speaking, I was researching. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? It’s clichéd but, Kind Of Blue. It’s timeless, there’s space in it, colours, moods… it was so innovative, and it’s still relevant to how I view making music. A beautiful piece of artistry. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? I can’t remember,…

JOHN FOXX made his vinyl debut in 1975 with Tiger Lily’s glam cover of Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’. One year ago, at home in London, the veteran electronic pathfinder sat down and played through the music he’d recorded since. “I don’t often do that,” he says, “and I was really dissatisfied. A lot I thought I’d touched on, the sound and emotional qualities and the violence, I hadn’t done it. That made me determined to make this record, to fill these aspirational gaps.” Assisted by his “peak people” The Maths – synthesizerist/producer Benge, violinist/ keyboardist Hannah Peel and guitarist Robin Simon – work began in April at Benge’s Cornish analogue refuge MemeTune. Simon first played with Foxx on Ultravox’s 1978 album Systems Of Romance and is, it seems, central to…

“It was in Plumstead in 1973. I was 16, 17. My head was in the clouds – of snooker, and music. Gentle Giant were my favourite prog rock band. One night I went to a friend’s house and he put on Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh. I thought it was a pile of shit, really rubbish. I was also into Caravan, Hatfield And The North, Canterbury bands. We went to see Isotope, who were supporting Magma at the Roundhouse. We were going to leave, but we didn’t, and when Magma came on-stage it was like I’d witnessed the second coming. I immediately bought the album and my whole listening habits changed. It’s a struggle to sell it to people. You might say, say a dollop of classical, a dollop of jazz and…

1 YU SU WATERMELON WOMAN Vancouver-based DJ’s nod to Herbie Hancock has a dubby, retro-techno bounce that its composer equates to “endless fun”. Find it: Watermelon Woman EP/various streaming services 2 ROYAL TRUX VS. ARIEL PINK SUBURBAN JUNKY LADY Guest mixer Pink sends the Trux blearily sideways, bringing out poignancy rather than mashedness. Find it: YouTube 3 HANS CHEW HOURGLASS Fresh from the psychedelic underground, Chew teams up with Garcia Peoples for an epic, Allmans-gone-to-New-Orleans freakout. Find it: Bandcamp 4 RED RIVER DIALECT SNOWDON Cornwall’s answer to The Water-boys bring elemental paean with Joan Shelley on backing vocals. Find it: YouTube 5 WILCO LOVE IS EVERYWHERE (BEWARE) First taste of their new “monolithic folk” album, in which Jeff Tweedy tries…

IT WAS PATTI SMITH AND JOHN CALE WHO introduced Velvet Lanier to the Portobello Hotel in west London. A fanzine-writing Edinburgh student, Lanier soon enough reverted to his real name, Mike Scott, to steer The Waterboys through a series of rousing musical epiphanies. First, though, he would turn up in late-’70s London on dauntless missions to meet his heroes. John Cale was stirred from his hotel room, drunk, in a rugby shirt, and in the company of notorious rock manager Tony Secunda, who laughed at Scott’s flares. An opportunistic call from Scott’s mother’s house in Ayr brought an invite from Patti Smith to come and stay with her entourage at the Portobello. “Easter 1978,” remembers Scott. “I got the midnight train down to Euston. I got here about eight o’clock…

WHEN MAVERICK FORMER CAN VOCALIST DAMO Suzuki joined Black Midi for their soundcheck at the Windmill in Brixton, there was no explicit signal that a baton was being passed on. “He didn’t really say ‘Hi’ or anything,” drummer Morgan Simpson remembers of the night in 2018. “He just started doing his thing.” The double challenge of first supporting Suzuki and then being his backing ensemble is one for which no YouTube tutorial could prepare you. Few young bands, though, have been better placed than Black Midi to respond to Suzuki’s minimal pre-gig directions – “When I jump and hit the ground, make a noise!” – with the optimum level of intuitive cacophony. In the two years since bassist Cameron Picton stepped up from occasional after-school jam participant to full-time member,…

(Island, 1969) While marking their crossover from underground heroes with a devoted live following to chart contenders, Stand Up  was still a blues rock album in essence, albeit one with a plethora of ideas and influences, not least in the flute-driven reimagining of Bach (Bourée), as Martin Barre replaced guitarist Mick Abrahams, releasing the inner Ian Anderson. (Chrysalis, 1971) Still widely regarded as their finest hour, Tull’s fourth album was reputedly stressful to make. Yet it marked Anderson’s emergence as a major songwriter, mixing heavy rock with acoustic meandering via lyrics trashing organised religion and the social iniquities evoked by the tramp-like character of the title track and cover pic. (Chrysalis, 1972) Described by Anderson as “the mother of all concept albums”, its satirical overload and musical complexity baffled as…

Serge Gainsbourg HISTOIRE DE MELODY NELSON (Philips, 1971) Although acknowledged as Gainsbourg’s masterpiece, nothing here would work without Vannier’s romantic and sinister string arrangements, his eerie modal progressions, or his minimalist use of an English rock quartet. “Everything is reduced,” says Vannier. “The choruses only play one note, an E. Nothing is extraneous. I hate useless things.” Jean-Claude Vannier L’ENFANT ASSASSIN DES MOUCHES (Suzelle, 1972) Vannier’s sonic autobiography, centred around a morbid child composing symphonies from household noises, this astonishing ballet mécanique finds the composer at his most free, mixing in sleazy funk minimalism with Middle Eastern drones, Morriconestyle strings, flute, accordion, clacking billiard balls, celestial choirs and a tolling church bell. Jean-Claude Vannier JEAN-CLAUDE VANNIER [AKA MIMI, MIMI, MIMI] (Warner Bros, 1975) If Brigitte Fontaine Est… Folle marked the…

• Pre-Alabama Shakes, Howard rarely travelled far from her hometown of Athens (population: 25,000); her family had lived there since the time Alabama was “unclaimed territory” rather than a state. The success of 2012’s Boys & Girls brought her houses in Athens and Nashville, 100 miles up Interstate 65. But now, after a recording sojourn in Topanga, LA, Howard and her partner have settled in Taos, New Mexico. “There’s good food and fishing,” she says, “a nice relaxed and open place. I just want somewhere quiet where the people don’t suck.”…

Longform Editions Devised by Andrew Khedoori of Australian record label Preservation, Longform Editions is a curated online series of single-track, digital releases exploring different models of “deep listening”. Each release runs around 20 to 60 minutes and is intended as a solitary immersive listening experience – a counter-narrative to the casual Spotify radio model – to inform and alter the shape of your day. Longform releases three tracks every two months, $3 downloads each with their individual “punched card data” sleeves by Mark Gowing. The artist roster is impressive, with such esteemed ambient, drone, folk and noise artists as Lee Noble, Sun Araw, Matthew David and Caterina Barbieri, but a recent release – Alison Cotton’s improvised rural tone-poem, Behind The Spiderweb Gate – might be their finest yet, a gothic…

“For good and bad, Sonic Temple would define the band from here on.” The Cult ★★★★ Sonic Temple BEGGARS BANQUET. CD/DL/LP SOME ALBUM sleeves reveal much about what lies within. Sonic Temple features Billy Duffy, legs splayed, long-haired and bare-chested, frozen mid-windmill on a Gibson Les Paul: the rock god in full effloresce. Duffy is in clear focus, at the centre of the frame. In the background, a grainy image of Ian Astbury blurs into saturated red. The guitar player has been superimposed on top of the singer, partially obscuring him. That’s Sonic Temple, right there. Ian Astbury once described Billy Duffy as “the Ground Control unit to my Major Tom”. Throughout the band’s 35-year history, The Cult has been a search for harmony between Duffy, the pragmatic provider of…

Arab Strap ★★★ The Week Never Starts Round Here CHEMIKAL UNDERGROUND. LP Paul Savage’s remaster elevates the currently dormant Falkirk duo’s 1996 debut. Arab Strap would make stronger albums, but the best bits (I Work In A Saloon; The First Big Weekend) document life‘s banal mating rituals with a wit and pathos that’s uniquely theirs. KC Roy Budd ★★★★ Get Carter OST Deluxe Edition CHERRY RED. CD Sturdy box of the much-fancied, jazzily sordid themes for the ’71 Britcrim thriller, evoking high-tar grot, violence and taut artistry, with between-song film dialogue. Adds different mixes, sleevenotes and groovy, sawn-off selections from Budd’s other movie credits. IH Nick Cave & Warren Ellis ★★★★ The Road MUTE/BMG.. LP Gatefold, coloured vinyl edition of the Bad Seeds’ elegiac score to John Hillcoat’s 2009 film,…

A KEY MOMENT in Bronx teenager Laura Nyro’s education was hanging out on street corners or in subway stations, singing harmonies with Puerto Rican boys, driven by a need for musical communion and expression. By all accounts, the child born Laura Nigro in 1947 was precocious and demonstrative, with a potent combination of Italian-Catholic and Russian-Jewish DNA, and also music in her genes (father Lou was a gifted trumpeter). She graduated Manhattan’s High School of Music & Art to forge a sound that bridged late-’50s/early-’60s pop 45 forms and post-Beatles album-cut complexity. “Dramatic peaks, her own poetic language, almost operatic levels of anguish…” Groomed on jazz standards, doowop, girl groups, Motown, the Brill Building, R&B and Broadway, Nyro’s reach was broader than her peers, not least in the key influence…

• When a cop came on-stage in Tampa with a bullhorn to stop her show mid-song, Joplin screamed, “Get off my stage, motherfucker!” She made the FBI list, under suspicion of inciting riots. • Joplin went to business school, earning high marks in keypunch, marketing and accounting. The accounting part didn’t prevent her band from signing a rip-off deal. • That night with Leonard Cohen in the Chelsea Hotel? Apparently it was pretty meh. Janis, usually generous about her lovers, mentioned Cohen, along with Jim Morrison, as being way down the list.…

1 ANKA DIANA COLUMBIA PAUL 2 IN LOVE THE LETTERS SAND PAT BOONE LONDON 3 LAST TO SAN TRAIN FERNANDO JOHNNY DUNCAN AND THE BLUE GRASS BOYS COLUMBIA 4 HEART WITH ALL PETULA MY CLARK PYE NIXA 5 ISLAND THE SUN IN HARRY BELAFONTE RCA 6/ WATER A HANDFUL WATER OF SONGS TOMMY STEELE AND THE STEELMEN DECCA 7 SO I LOVE MUCH YOU IT HURTS/ WANDERIN’ EYES CHARLIE GRACIE LONDON 8 UP ALL ELVIS SHOOK PRESLEY HIS MASTER’S VOICE 9 PARALYZED ELVIS PRESLEY HIS MASTER’S VOICE 10 DEBBIE TAMMY REYNOLDS CORAL…

MOJO 309 Across: 1 Stevie Nicks, 7 Coda, 9 Never A Dull Moment, 10 Calypso, 13 Teenage Fanclub, 17 Carole King, 18 Ron Geesin, 20 Idiot, 22 Spot, 24 Sayer, 25 Ebb, 26 Hank, 27 Earle, 29 Camel, 30 Iowa, 31 Mould, 32 Egg, 33 Those, 34 Isaac, 35 Mael, 36 Dissident, 39 Ago, 40 Lydia, 41 Kites, 42 Klub, 43 Lal, 45 Go Now, 46 Tea, 47 Ella, 49 UFO, 51 Shame, 53 Hat, 54 Crises, 55 Arena, 57 Hoodoo, 58 Matt, 59 Tim Hardin, 61 Taxi, 62 Too Bad, 63 Reddy, 64 Stan. Down: 1 Sonny Bono, 2 Elvis, 3 I Try, 4 Nudie, 5 Colin Greenwood, 6 Some Girls, 7 Come Find Yourself, 8 Aztec, 11 A Hard Day’s Night, 12 Onka’s Big Moka, 13 Tango, 14…