Uncut Magazine 293 (October 2021) Nick Cave

Uncut Magazine 293 (October 2021) Nick Cave

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Specials, Kacey Musgraves, Supergrass, Caravan, Buena Vista Social Club, David Crosby, Low, Shabaka Hutchings, and Van der Graaf Generator all feature in the new Uncut, dated October 2021 and in UK shops from August 19 or available to buy online now. As always, the issue comes with a free CD, this time comprising 15 tracks of the month’s best new music.

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS: Moroccan opium dens! A song called “Jazzmen”! “I spend my days pushing Elvis Presley’s belly up a series of steep hills”! As a new compilation featuring previously unreleased material from Nick Cave’s most recent studio albums emerges from the vaults, Peter Watts takes a dive into a remarkable secret history – a rich and strange phantasmagoria of lost songs, near-forgotten gems and other sonic outcasts. Our guides are Bad Seeds Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos, Thomas Wydler and Mick Harvey along with Cave himself. “You can’t buy that stuff!” he tells us…

OUR FREE CD! TOMORROW’S SOUNDS TODAY: 15 fantastic tracks from the cream of the month’s releases, including songs by The Limiñanas/Laurent Garnier, The Felice Brothers, Low, Devin Hoff and Sharon Van Etten, The Stranglers, Little Simz, Sarah Davachi, Matthew E White and more.

Inside the issue, you’ll find:

THE SPECIALS: The No 1 success of Encore proved The Specials remain a vital force – but what are Terry Hall, Horace Panter and Lynval Golding doing for, well, an encore? Taking a stand against the “heavy atmosphere” of the last 18 months, they have recorded a set of protest songs by artists as diverse as Frank Zappa, Big Bill Broonzy and Chip Taylor. “All we can do is try and raise awareness,” they tell Peter Watts. “That’s our role.”

KACEY MUSGRAVES: By confronting Nashville conservatism, she became the outspoken queen of “galactic country” – but how will magic mushrooms, “insane spiritual welfare” and a rose-strewn bed that resembles “some Brian Wilson shit” help Kacey Musgraves sort out her next “Big Bang explosion of ideas”? She tells Stephen Deusner, “Sometimes I contradict myself from one song to the next…”

CARAVAN: Join us at the bar in The Millers Arms, before genial host Pye Hastings takes us on an evocative tour of Caravan’s old haunts around Canterbury. Along the way, Sam Richards hears how wigwams, Brussels sprouts and a bypass near Sevenoaks helped them become the enduring, if unlikely, heroes of prog. “The problems of the world didn’t really affect us… We lived in our own little bubble.”

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB: In 1996, Ry Cooder assembled the Buena Vista Social Club and turned Havana’s forgotten musical aristocracy into unlikely stars. Twenty-five years on, the magic of the joyous, bittersweet album they recorded together is stronger than ever. But how did its curator and venerable cast navigate power cuts, food shortages and meetings with Fidel Castro? “We got in there and did great things,” Cooder tells Graeme Thomson.

SMALL FACES: Kenney Jones reveals his plans to restore the lost treasures of the Small Faces.

DAVID CROSBY: As new album For Free caps a remarkable renaissance, Croz recalls jamming with Hendrix, being “stupefied” by The Beatles… and the making of High Noon.

SUPERGRASS: The making of “Richard III”.

SHABAKA HUTCHINGS: Album by album with the Brit saxophonist.

LOW: Duluth duo’s intense 13th album Hey What masterfully combines the difficult with the beautiful.

In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from The Stranglers, Pokey LaFarge, Saint Etienne, Little Simz, José González, Arushi Jain, and more, and archival releases from Van der Graaf Generator, Joan Shelley, Rory Gallagher, Whipping Boy, Charles Mingus and others. We catch Roger and Brian Eno, and Chrissie Hynde live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are Respect, Censor, New Order and Pig; while in books there’s Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer.

Our front section, meanwhile, features Small Faces, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, John Grant, and Adia Victoria, while, at the end of the magazine, Pat Metheny reveals the records that have soundtracked his life.