Uncut Magazine 297 (February 2022) The Eagles

Uncut Magazine 297 (February 2022) The Eagles

Paul Weller, Eagles, Elvis Costello, Big Thief, Margo Cilker, William Bell, Cluster, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Robert Fripp, and Lenny Kaye all feature in the new Uncut, dated February 2022 and in UK shops from December 9 or available to buy online now. As always, the issue comes with a free CD, comprising 15 tracks of the month’s best new music.

OUR FREE CD! HIT PARADE: 15 of the month’s best music, including songs by Cat Power, Garcia Peoples, The Soundcarriers, Eels, Tim Hecker, Imarhan, Rob Aldridge & the Proponents and more.

ALBUMS PREVIEW 2022: Our essential guide to some of the forthcoming year’s key albums, with news of Neil Young, Jack White, The Weather Station, Stephen Stills and many more.

PAUL WELLER: As Paul Weller plays his first live shows in over two years, Uncut visits the guv’nor and his band during tour rehearsals in South London, for fish and chip suppers at the storied Black Barn studios and, finally, as he makes his triumphant return to the stage. Along the way, Pete Paphides digs deep to locate the source of Weller’s current seam of inspiration. “When you go out, you go out with nothing,” we learn. “We’re not the fucking pharaohs. You don’t get buried with your gold, and even if you did… what good did it do them? The most important things you hand down aren’t material things…”

BIG THIEF: Always seeking their next adventure, Big Thief roamed across America in the midst of the pandemic to create their stunning new double album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You – already a strong contender for 2022’s Best Of lists. Sam Richards hears the story of four disparate musical travellers who’ve sacrificed their egos for the benefit of the collective. “Tending to the fibre of our relationships is more important than the music we make,” says frontwoman Adrianne Lenker. “That’s the hardest thing, and the music just comes out of that.”

ELVIS COSTELLO: Elvis Costello has a brilliant new album to talk about, but as Michael Bonner soon discovers, his candour covers all bases. To be discussed: climate crisis, genre exercises, distorted truths, imaginary friends and the joys of beating up Sting. Every night. Oh, and the human race? “Everybody’s guilty!”

EAGLES: Fifty years ago, in the frozen depths of a British winter, the Eagles recorded their debut album, in doing so defining their signature blend of laid-back country rock. But what took this ambitious group of self-confessed “control freaks” from the sun-baked climes of California to a cavernous and draughty studio in Barnes, in pursuit of success? “The shop ladies would call you ‘dearie’,” learns Nick Hasted.

MARGO CILKER: With its vivid songs of fortitude and determination, Margo Cilker’s debut Pohorylle introduces a powerful new voice to country rock. Rob Hughes charts her long, strange trip from church choirs in Silicon Valley to Americana roots-rock free-for-alls in Bilbao, via Leytonstone’s Ex-Servicemen’s Club and a winter retreat near the Columbia River Gorge. Her philosophy for this peripatetic lifestyle? “There’s a lot of reckoning with the self,” she explains.

LENNY KAYE: The Patti Smith guitarist, Nuggets compiler and venerable rock scholar talks techno, Tom Verlaine and his own ‘lightning striking’ moment.

WILLIAM BELL: The making of “You Don’t Miss Your Water”.

CLUSTER: Album by album with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius.

JAKE XERXES FUSSELL: Timeless tales of loss and redemption fuel folk informed Southern songwriter’s stirring return.

In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from Cat Power, The Soundcarriers, Rob Aldrige & the Proponents, Imarhan, Black Flower, Jana Horn, and more, and archival releases from Robert Fripp, Kelley Stoltz, Mary Wilson, Carambolage, The Chieftains and others. We catch Bob Dylan and a tribute to Tony Allen live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are Titane, Memoria, Encounter and Peter Jackson’s Get Back; while in books there’s Lee Scratch Perry, Mark Lanegan and John Prine.

Our front section, meanwhile, features Janis Joplin, Ray Davies, Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets and Eve Adams, while, at the end of the magazine, Nicole Atkins reveals the records that have soundtracked her life.