Just working my way through a batch of seven-inches from Jack White’s Third Man label, as I write; really liking the Dex Romweber Duo one so far. Plenty more good stuff this week, including long-awaited new ones from Lightning Bolt, Broadcast and Rickie Lee Jones.
As our recent Uncut playlists probably make clear, we’ve been happily overwhelmed by a glut of Big Star-related material over the past few weeks, beginning of course with the hefty “Keep An Eye On The Sky” boxset.
Over the past few weeks, there have been a bunch of albums, much anticipated, that I’ve found hard to get into, at best, or slightly disappointing, at worst. In the midst of these frustrations, the second Fuck Buttons album, “Tarot Sport”, has acted like a kind of big, cleansing blast.
Apologies for the radio silence these past couple of weeks – I’ve been on holiday a long way from the CD mountain, catching up on some well-earned silence. Thanks for all your correspondence in the meantime, not least the kind words about my “Seeing For Miles” comp, and the Brazilian contributions to the Os Mutantes piece.
In what now seems, somewhat miraculously, to be an annual free-pass for self-indulgence, I’ve been allowed to compile another one of my psych CDs to come free with the new issue of Uncut; the one with The Who on the cover, hence the CD’s pretty arbitrary title, “Seeing For Miles”.
Some promo CDs come with a serious layer of security to prevent piracy and leaks: a special watermark which means the music can be traced back to a specific numbered disc if it finds its way onto the internet. You can often see the point of these heavy manners, especially when an album that may well sell millions arrives early in the Uncut office.
Thanks to everyone who made it down to the Wooden Shjips show last night, not least of course the band themselves. A very hot and ecstatic night at Club Uncut, and it was pretty clear that this is a band who are really - and deservedly - loved by their fans.
As is pretty obvious, the arrival of the Kraftwerk remasters has been a significant distraction at Uncut this week - though as should be equally obvious, there are one or two other interesting new releases amidst this lot.
When the last Om album, “Pilgrimage”, came out, I made some kind of borderline lazy crack about it being virtually indistinguishable from its predecessor. Not much danger of being able to do that with “God Is Good”, this time.