Our Year

BY Stormzy Gorillaz Father John Misty Wiley

Manic Street Preachers Rag’N’Bone Man
Skepta Kasabian LCD Soundsystem Sampha

THE AWA R D S

When
LIAM
Met
ED
It was murder...

50
The

Albums Of
The Year

Squeeze
A love story

Muna
On the road with Harry Styles
and his favourite group

igarettes
fter Sex
The truth behind the
worst band name in music
 Contents
January 2018

This month’s highlight: storming live sets by Sleaford Mods and Manic
Street Preachers, which closed this year’s Q Awards ceremony.
A Stormzy in heaven:
the grime superstar
enjoys himself at the
Q Awards (p34); (left)
Muna on tour with
Harry Styles (p66).

24 Q AWARDS 2017
Yes, it’s that time again when the great and
good gather for the highlight of the musical
calendar, the Q Awards. This year featured
a stellar cast, including Ed Sheeran, Liam
Gallagher, Stormzy, Sleaford Mods,
Manic Street Preachers and many more.

54 ALBUMS OF
THE YEAR
Drum roll, please, as we count down the
50 Best Albums of 2017, featuring LCD
Soundsystem, Father John Misty, Sampha
and interviews with entrants, including…
58 SQUEEZE
Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, South
London’s answer to Lennon and McCartney,
haven’t always had the most harmonious
relationship. But now they’re back together
and making music to match their best.
66 MUNA
What are a group of radical feminists doing
supporting Harry Styles on his US tour? We
join the trio in Texas to find out how they’re
COVER: ALEX LAKE PHOTOS: SIMON SARIN, RACHAEL WRIGHT

bringing the revolution to the masses.

72 THE WAR ON DRUGS
Panic attacks. Despair. Chronic back pain…
It hasn’t been easy for Adam Granduciel
but after his breakthrough in 2014, he’s now
making the kind of albums he once idolised.
86 MAVERICK: BAXTER DURY
He may have grown tired of comparisons
with his father Ian, but with this year’s
Prince Of Tears, he’s now his own man.

JANUARY 2018 3
 Here’s Johnny:
(right) the return
of Mr Marr (p14);
(left) ex-Maccabee
Orlando Weeks goes

INCOMING
it alone (p10).

10 ORLANDO WEEKS
Dry your tears Maccabees fans,
ex-frontman Orlando Weeks has some solo
material you might be interested in.
12 STEVE MASON
We hook up with the ex-Beta Band
frontman in his Portslade studio to talk
about UFOs and dusting.
14 IN THE STUDIO: JOHNNY MARR
Why the ex-Smiths guitar maestro is
embracing his glorious musical past
on his forthcoming solo album.
16 OUT TO LUNCH:
STUART MURDOCH
Over prawn linguine, the Belle And
Sebastian head honcho proves he’s made
of sterner stuff than you might imagine.

REGULARS
20 CASH FOR QUESTIONS:
SPARKS
The Mael brothers talk Hitler moustaches,
nearly breaking up Queen and why
Morrissey will never lighten up.
128 Q MAIL
Demands for an Oasis reunion and big love
for the late Tom Petty.
130 LAST WORD
Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil adds his final
touch to the issue.

108 NEW BJÖRK

After the trauma of her last album, Iceland’s
greatest export is violently happy again.
THE WORLD’S BIGGEST
& BEST MUSIC GUIDE 111 NEW N.E.R.D
The time is ripe for Pharrell Williams and
his old pals to make a storming comeback.
102 LIVE ROYAL BLOOD
The Brighton duo brave the mosquitoes to 112 NEW TAYLOR SWIFT
bring Milan a masterclass in heaviosity. It’s been three years since pop music’s
biggest star released the world-conquering
104 NEW U2 1989. Can her follow-up match it?
ED MILES, TRACEY WELCH, ED MASON

It seems like Bono’s recent brush with

mortality has concentrated his mind as U2 116 REISSUE FELA KUTI
cook up a late-period classic (right). deluxe Erykah Badu-
urated boxset shines
“Yo, Milano!”
Royal Blood
107 NEW MIGUEL light on the Nigerian
live (p102). The R&B star mixes the personal Afrobeat superstar’s
with the political on his fourth LP. underrated classics.

4 JANUARY 2O18
Backstage...
“I’m plastered,
you’re plastered...”:
Ed Sheeran encounters
Liam Gallagher
backstage at the Q
Awards, October 2017.
“What happens when you make a pop-up photo studio
in a tiny backstage space, throw in the biggest stars from
the worlds of rock’n’roll, grime, pop, comedy and TV,
gallons of free whisky and beer, and a whole load of
winners’ adrenalin? The most insane and impossible to
control photo shoot of all time – that’s what.
“But that’s what makes the Q Awards Winners’ Studio
so unique and, for one night only, the most hilarious
place to be – witnessing Tom from Kasabian genuinely
star-struck when he bumped into Game Of Thrones star
Maisie Williams; Skepta and Liam Gallagher bonding over
‘garms’; and the genuine love affair between the Manic
Street Preachers and actor Michael Sheen.
“So here’s the moment when Liam clapped eyes on
Ed Sheeran, who had both his arms in plaster after a biking
mishap. As you can see he had us all in pieces – I won’t
repeat what he said here, turn to page 41 for that. But safe
to say, it wasn’t just a “congratulations, mate”.
MARIAN PATERSON, Q PICTURE EDITOR
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6 JANUARY 2O18
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 SAM AMIDON CELEBRATING THE YEAR DAN AUERBACH
THE FOLLOWING MOUNTAIN
++++Guardian
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IN NONESUCH MUSIC WAITING ON A SONG
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NONESUCH.COM
 1. MORRISSEY
I WISH YOU LONELY
(Morrissey, Boorer). Published by BMG Rights
Management (UK) Limited/Domino Publishing
(P) 2017 BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd.
Music’s most contrarian figure was
rarely out of the tabloids this year, but
that didn’t distract from him making one
of his most consistent solo LPs in aeons.
This highlight, with its Johnny Marr-style
arpeggiating, shows Moz is at his best
when he lets the music do the talking.
On: Low In High School (Etienne/BMG)

6. GORILLAZ
SATURNZ BARZ
(Gorillaz, Popcaan). Published by Warner/Chappell Music
Ltd. (PRS) & Sony ATV. Popcaan appears courtesy of
Mixpak Records. (P) 2017 Parlophone Records Ltd. A
Warner Music Group Company and (c) 2017 Gorillaz
Partnership under exclusive licence to Parlophone
Records Ltd. www.gorillaz.com
From Q readers’ Best Album of 2017, this
jagged hip-hop/dancehall gem featuring
Jamaican deejay Popcaan showed the

YOUR CD...
cartoon band going thrillingly off-piste.
On: Humanz (Parlophone) See page: 93

Sit back, relax and enjoy your

15-track cover-mounted CD,
Best Of The Best: 2017 In Music ,
11. WOLF ALICE
che i f o our 50 Albu s DON’T DELETE THE K ISSE S
(Ellie Rowsell, Joff Oddie, Theo Ellis, Joel Amey);

Of r list w ich o can published by Kobalt Music Group Ltd; (p) and (c) 2017
Dirty Hit Ltd. www.wolfalice.co.uk
North London indie-rockers Wolf Alice
access fr page 54. ristmas made a giant leap forward on second LP
Visions Of A Life, both in terms of

really has come early this year… ambition and identity. This standout
showcases the band’s grasp of dreamy
atmospherics and shiny pop hooks.
On: Visions Of A Life (Dirty Hit)
*Due to licensing and distribution issues, the cover-mounted CD is not available for overseas or value-pack purchasers. See page: 93
2. LIAM
GALLAGHER
I’VE ALL I NEED
(Gallagher) Published by Warner/Chappell Music.
(P) and (C) Warner/Chappell Music.
www.liamgallagher.com
The greatest rock’n’roll singer of his
generation returned to active service in
2017 spoiling for trouble. But on this
La’s-style album closer, an older, wiser
Liam emerged sagely advising, himself
included, to “slow down”.
On: As You Were (Warners) See page: 83
7. FOREST
SWORDS
THE HIGHE ST FLOOD
(M. Barnes) Published by Just Isn’t Music (P) & (C) 2017
Ninja Tune. www.ninjatune.net
When not collaborating with Massive
Attack or soundtracking movies and
video games, Liverpool’s Matthew
Barnes crafts beautiful, textured,
atmospheric post-dubstep like this.
On: Compassion (Ninja Tune)
See page: 83
12. LCD
SOUNDSYSTEM
OH BABY
(Murphy) Published by Guy With Head And Arms Music
and Songs From My Face, Inc. (ASCAP) All rights admin. by
Kobalt Songs Music Publishing. (P) & (C) 2017 Excelsior
Equity Management of NY, LLC under exclusive licence to
Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music
Entertainment. www.lcdsoundsystem.com
Spectral electronic torch song which
opens LCD’s spectacular comeback LP.
On: American Dream (DFA/Columbia)
See page: 94
3. STORMZY
BIG FOR YOUR BOOTS
(Omari, Joseph) Published by Warner/Chappell Music Ltd.
When Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari
Owuo Jr’s debut album Gang Signs &
Prayer went straight to Number 1 in
March, it heralded the arrival of a grime
superstar. Its lead-off single, Big For
Your Boots, showcases Stormzy’s
vocal dexterity and brilliant way with
a put-down.
On: Gang Signs & Prayer (#Merky)
See page: 85
8. ST. VINCENT
PILLS
(Annie Clark, Jack Antonoff, Mark Anthony Spears) Big Deal
Notes / Nail Polish Manifesto Music (ASCAP) / Mark Anthony
Spears (ASCAP) – Sony/ATV Allegro / Beat Bully Productions
(ASCAP) / Sony / ATV Songs LLC / Ducky Donath Music (BMI) (P)
2017 Loma Vista Recordings., Distributed by Concord Music
Group, Inc. www.ilovestvincent.com
When Annie Clark recruited producer
Jack Antonoff (Lorde, Taylor Swift) for
her fifth LP, it suggested a crossover
ambition as exemplified on this standout.
On: Masseduction (Loma Vista/Caroline
International) See page: 93
13. JANE WEAVER
THE LIGHTNING BACK
Jane Weaver published by Heavenly Songs Limited/ Bucks
Music Group Ltd (p) and (c) 2017 Jane Weaver.
www.firerecords.com
The Manchester-based singer-
songwriter went distinctively cosmic
on her follow-up to 2014’s Krautrock-
influenced The Silver Globe. This
otherworldly, synth-futurist marvel
was one of many highlights.
On: Modern Kosmology (Fire Records)
See page: 77
4. DIZZEE RASCAL 5. SLEAFORD
SPACE
(Mills, Salva) Published by Dirtee Stank Recordings (P) & (C)
2017 Dirtee Stank Recordings Limited, under exclusive
licence to Island Records, a division of Universal Music
Operations Limited. www.Raskit.co.uk
Dizzee’s sixth studio album Raskit was a
timely return to the unburnished beats
and lyrical flow of his 2003 debut Boy In
Da Corner. On standout Space, Dizzee
declares, “Ain’t no point in playing it
safe,” and he most surely doesn’t.
On: Raskit (Dirtee Skank) See page: 83
9. FATHER
JOHN MISTY
TOTAL ENTERTAINMENT
FOREVER
(Wilson, Tillman) Published by Cripple Creek Fairies
(ASCAP). (P) & (C) Cripple Creek Fairies (ASCAP) / Kobalt
Music Publishing. www.fatherjohnmisty.com
According to Father John Misty, aka
Josh Tillman, this lush, immaculately
sculpted song is about virtual reality
sex with famous people. No, really.
On: Pure Comedy (Sub Pop)
See page: 92
14. ALT J
3WW
(Joe Newman, Gun Unger-Hamilton, Thom Green)
published by Kobalt Music Publishing P+C 2017 Infectious
Music Ltd., a BMG Company.
This wonderfully strange indie-rock trio
got even odder on their third album,
Relaxer, not least with opener 3WW,
where a twisty-turny exploration of
the phrase “I love you” starts like a
futuristic spaghetti western before
transforming into a blissed-out ballad.
On: Relaxer (Infectious) See page: 56
MODS
J UST LIK E WE DO
(Fearn, Williamson) Published by Wipe Out Music.
Licensed courtesy of Rough Trade Records Limited by
arrangement with Beggars Group Media Limited.
(p) 2016 Rough Trade Records Limited.
www.roughtraderecords.com
A highlight from the gnarlier-than-thou
post-punk duo’s best album to date, and
their first recorded in a proper studio.
On: English Tapas (Rough Trade)
See page: 85
10. KEVIN MORBY
DOWNTOWN’S LIGHTS
(Morby) Published by Kevinmorby (ASCAP) administered
by Kobalt Songs Music Publishing. (P) & (C) 2017 Dead
Oceans. Courtesy of Dead Oceans www.kevinmorby.com
With his fourth album, wandering US
singer-songwriter Kevin Morby
replaced his hobo-Dylan tendencies
with more Lou Reed-like lyrical
observations about travelling through
urban space, as typified on this gem.
On: City Music (Dead Oceans)
See page: 56
15. THE HORRORS
PRE SS ENTER TO EX IT
(Faris Badwan, Tom Cowan, Joseph Spurgeon, Rhys Webb,
Joshua Third, Paul Epworth) Published by Global (P) and
(C) 2017 Wolf Tone Limited, under exclusive licence to
Caroline International. www.thehorrors.co.uk
Drafting in über-producer Paul Epworth
for their fifth album was a smart move
for the Southend quintet, as evinced
here on this LP closer, where they’ve
never sounded so expansive and poppy.
On: V (Wolftone/Caroline International)
See page: 85
JANUARY 2018 9
 NEW ADVENTURES
IN MUSIC...
In which we check in
with Steve Mason, join
Johnny Marr in the
studio and break bread
with Stuart Murdoch.

First Look

WHAT THE
MACCABEES’
FRONTMAN
DID NEXT
ORLANDO WEEKS SETS UP HIS STALL AT THE
Yule be lucky: (right)
Orlando Weeks in the Union
CHRISTMAS MARKET WITH A LONDON SHOW. Chapel, London, venue for
the special one-off show on
easonal entertainment can be 12 December; (left) Weeks

S
a dangerous game to play, the with Paul Whitehouse,
who narrates the
domain of “He’s behind you!” Gritterman album and will
panto, spectacles on ice and appear at the live show.
winsome singing children.
An excellent new addition to the Christmas
canon, however, is The Gritterman, created
by Orlando Weeks, the former frontman of
The Maccabees. Released in September,
it comes in two parts – a book written and
illustrated by Weeks, and an album of softly
shining songs narrated by comedian and
actor Paul Whitehouse. He tells the gently
lyrical story of a man who sells ice cream in
summer but converts his van to a gritter in
the winter – a job he loves until the council
abruptly inform him that he’s no longer
required. It’s a role that Whitehouse, reading
between the lines, feels some empathy with:
“Working with Orlando was hell because
although he’s not young, he’s considerably
younger than I am. I will never forgive him
for that. Nevertheless, it was a joy to work Union Chapel, Weeks is wearing a soft black solitary project, the music written on
on something as beautiful and intimate jumper that gives him the same inky line as piano, a way of using the time between
as The Gritterman,” he emails. his drawings. He’s just finished rehearsals The Maccabees calling it a day in 2016,
Weeks is now preparing to perform the before heading home to Margate: the show is and playing their jubilant final shows
album at London’s Union Chapel on 12 on a tight schedule, but the five-piece choir this summer.
December, complete with band, choir and and his band – “the professionals”, as he How much did he identify with his
Whitehouse – the latter possibly up in the sweetly puts it – seem happy, so he is. Gritterman character, a man suddenly cut
ORLANDO WEEKS, ED MASON

pulpit. It’s not musical theatre, says Weeks,
nor a radio play, but something in-between,
the delicate melancholia of the songs
influenced by Harry Nilsson, Bill Fay,
Randy Newman and Leonard Cohen.
Sitting in a North London bakery by the
“It’s only ever been on record for me,
or on a computer, so to have a bunch of
musicians and singers making it something
beyond that, being in amongst it – I don’t
know what that’s going to feel like,” he says
over a cup of tea. It started as a largely
adrift? Is it fanciful to see parallels with the
end of The Maccabees? “The sadness is that
he’s not doing that thing any more, but
there’s also a kind of celebration that it’s
very rare to find the thing you love to do and
be able to do it. I love the things that I do –

10 JANUARY 2018
 “I just thought what
a privilege it was to sign
off The Maccabees
in a positive way.”

making, writing, all those things – and if that are lots of complicated emotions but the mark out his Decembers in Gritterman
was taken away I would miss it hugely. It was lasting one is, what a treat it was.” shows. “It’s the first – and I feel like the
very sad that it was the end of that bit, but all The same should apply to The only – time that we’re going to do it,” he
of us are carrying on making.” Gritterman. Even if it’s a Christmas classic says. “I want it to feel like a special thing.”
It wasn’t too much of a jolt for Weeks to in the making, though, the restless Weeks For one night only in December, catch it
re-enter the earth’s orbit post-Maccabees. doesn’t plan to go all Snowman in future and while you can. VICTORIA SEGAL
“It was a very… unjolty moment,” he smiles.
“Knowing that there were going to be these A Christmas classic?
gigs that were going to be a really beautiful (below and right) The
send-off. There was no huge row and people Gritterman, written and
storming out.” Weeks says that the band illustrated by Weeks.
loved making The Maccabees work and
that they’re now enjoying other things.
“I think you have to believe that there are
other things.”
He wasn’t worried about James Murphy-
style second thoughts about quitting, either.
“I just thought what a privilege it was to sign
off in a positive way and I felt incredibly proud
of us all and what we’d achieved. If there had
been awful gigs at the end I might have felt
differently. But they were wonderful. There

JANUARY 2018 11

Where Are You Right Now?
STEVE MASON
THE FORMER BETA BAND FRONTMAN WILL NEED YOU
TO SIT DOWN WHILE HE EXPLAINS THE POSITIVELY
OUT-OF-THIS WORLD CONCEPT BEHIND HIS NEW ALBUM.
Hi Steve, where are you right now?
I’m in a studio in Portslade, working on
some music with a friend. It’s just messing
around really. Something might come of
it, something might not.
You’ve made a mini-album with Primal
Scream’s Martin Duffy under the
name Alien Stadium. How did that
come about?
We just wanted to have something where it
was kind of pointless, just start something
12 JANUARY 2O18
“I think it’s likely there is
some form of life out there,
but what I love about UFOs
is the romance of it.”
Shock and oar: the
alienated Steve Mason
“messing around” in
his Portslade studio.
that was fun and then the concept kind of
spiralled out of control.
It is quite a concept, isn’t it?
Yeah, the original germ of the concept was
the first song, This One’s For The Humans,
sending a message into outer space asking
for help from the aliens, saying, “We’ve all
cocked it up down here, we need some help”,
then unbelievably the signal is received and
the aliens come down and they don’t like us
and they don’t appreciate anything we’ve
done, so they basically just execute every
motherfucking one of us. Me and Martin
somehow manage to escape and we build our
own little ship, hoping to get to Mars but we
get the calculations slightly wrong and end
up on the moon. We realise there’s just as
many idiots up there as there are down here,
so we just come back and have a massive
party so when the aliens do come back to try
and finish us off, we’ll be partying so hard we
won’t even notice they’re there.
Maybe you could stretch it across a few
different mediums, give Netflix a call?
We could do that, it would be brilliant.
I’d definitely play myself.
Do you believe in UFOs?
I don’t know. It’s a romantic thing, isn’t it?
I think it’s highly likely that there’s some
form of life out there, yeah, but what I love
about it is the romance of it.
If you had to take an alien round for the
day, where would you take it?
I’d probably just take them to the pub. They
could see you there with all your mates and
see how the conversation goes.
You and Martin live near each other in
Brighton. Do you knock for each other
like people did when they were kids?
Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, it’s taken us
three years to finish this thing. When we
started doing it we were both single, he’s now
in a serious relationship and I’ve got married
and had a kid. No one can accuse us of being
workaholics, that’s for sure.
During the scene in High Fidelity where
John Cusack’s character puts on The Beta
Band, a peaceful serenity comes over all
the customers. Do you think if your music
was pumped out of giant speakers in the
sky, world peace could be achieved?
I think it would work, yeah. I think the reason
that I’m not as big as Bono, apart from the
fact I don’t have lifts in my shoes, is mainly
because I just haven’t been heard enough.
If I was rammed down people’s throats as
much as some of these other bands, I’d be
massive. It’s just getting people to hear it.
But we’re breaking the back of that, each
solo album is getting more and more support
from radio. But I’m quite happy. I’m playing
the long game.
I’m pleased to hear it. What will you be
doing in 20 minutes’ time?
I think I might do some dusting.
Crack on with your dusting, Steve.
Thanks, see you, bye! NIALL DOHERTY

In The Studio
JOHNNY MARR
TAPS INTO
THE PAST
FOR HIS THIRD SOLO ALBUM, THE GUITAR ICON OF
A GENERATION HAS MADE PEACE WITH THE SMITHS.
ix floors up in a former
S
factory on the outskirts of
Manchester, Johnny Marr
is head down in his studio,
working hard on his third
solo album. This white-walled industrial
space is where you’ll find him, usually
seven days a week, tinkering with tracks-in-
progress or, when it comes to writing lyrics,
drifting through the halls lost in thought.
“I just kind of wander around this big
place like a ghost,” he says with a grin. “When
I’m writing words, that’s when I have to be
in here on my own for a few days and stay till
the middle of the night.”
The as-yet-untitled album, due in spring
2018, is the first that Marr has made in this
studio, which he’s named Crazy Face Factory
– partly in tribute to the Crazy Face clothing
shop once owned by The Smiths’ former
manager Joe Moss (who died in October
2015 on the day Marr moved in here) and
partly because it reminds him of the similarly
one-time factory studio spaces where he’d
rehearse in his youth. “This place definitely
Captain of industry:
Johnny Marr, hard at work
in a former factory outside
Manchester, October 2017.
reminded me of the early ’80s,” he says.
In fact, the industrial atmosphere of the
building seeped into the music Marr began to
make when he started working here, the first
track he produced being the hypnotic synth-
and-guitar shapes of Actor Attractor, with its
Krautrock-meets-Factory Records vibe. WHAT WE KNOW
In terms of an overall theme, while not Due: Spring 2018
overtly political, some of the tracks Marr
plays Q today are oblique, defiant protest Title: TBC
songs, such as the Sandinista!-era Clash-ish Song titles: Bug,
Bug, about “the virus that is the right wing”, Day In Day Out,
and super-charged rocker Rise, which he Actor Attractor,
describes as “a conversation between two Hey Angel, Walk Into
lovers after a kind of bomb has dropped.” The Sea, Rise, Hi Hello
Initially, though, Marr tried to resist Influences:
world events creeping into his new songs. Krautrock, The Clash,
“Because of what had happened with Brexit industrial workspaces
and Trump and everything, I came into this
record really determined to not let those
fuckwits impede on my creative life,” he
says. “But you’re living in this world and
you can’t do anything about it.
“So much of the record is about
dislocation,” he adds. “Whether it’s
ch
Striking a chord: “So mu
ut
of the new record is abo
dislocation,” says Marr.
being forced by the political system or
because of personal demons. I was trying
to imagine an alternative society.”
Musically, sometimes, the brighter-
sounding the track, the darker the lyric, as
with propulsive acoustic strummer Day In
Day Out, which tackles the nagging feelings
of everyday obsessions. Elsewhere, the
brilliant chiming pop of Hi Hello is a song
that deals in empathy with troubled loved
ones (sample line: “I will find you if you’re
TRACEY WELCH
losing your mind and you can’t let go”) and –
there’s no getting away from it – sounds
distinctly Smiths-like.
 Marr admits that in the past he’d pull back
from making music that echoed his former
band. These days he’s found his peace with it.
“You’ve got to be who you are, and I’m proud
of it,” he says. “Enough people try and copy it.
So why not just be who I am? I don’t feel like
I’m kind of resting on it, so I’m alright with it.”
Where his two previous solo albums,
2013’s The Messenger and 2014’s Playland,
had in Marr’s mind “a huge element of
psychogeography” in terms of being about
towns and cities, his third record – similarly
co-produced with his keyboard player James
Doviak – has been influenced more by the
“I’m proud of The
Smiths. Enough
people copy it. Why
not be who I am?”
nostalgia that came with writing his 2016
autobiography, Set The Boy Free.
“By the time I got to the end of it, I felt I’d
really spent a lot of time in introspection and
I was hoping that the next record was gonna
kind of blast me out of that introspection,”
he points out. “But I think that actually some
of the introspection has stuck.”
With 17 tracks in the running for the
album, Marr is going to be a busy boy
between now and springtime. He’s clearly
in a happy creative place, though.
“I started out writing songs when I was
a teenager by making tapes on my own,” he
says. “What I’ve done over the years is kind of
get back to a more elaborate version of that.”
In other words, he’s never really changed.
Except that that tape-making teenager has
now grown up and found a bigger playground
for his imagination. TOM DOYLE
JANUARY 2018 15

STUART
MURDOCH
HEARD THE ONE ABOUT THE BAND WHO LEFT
THEIR DRUMMER IN A WALMART IN HIS PYJAMAS?
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN’S FRONTMAN REVEALS ALL.
his morning Stuart Murdoch
T
woke early in his room at
The Hoxton hotel, East
London, threw on yesterday’s
clothes, went outside, hired
one of London’s public bikes and went for
a little cycle. It’s something he likes to do
whichever city he’s in, particularly New
York, where he recently braved the three
miles north from Greenwich Village to
Central Park. “It was kind of thrilling,”
he grins today. “Taxis cutting me up and
people stumbling into the road. Trying to get
through Times Square, it was a madhouse.”
As the bandleader of Belle And Sebastian,
Murdoch has earned a reputation for being
slightly fey, but he’s clearly made of sturdier
stuff. Back in August, it was he who calmly
rallied his band and crew into action on tour
in America when they realised they’d driven
off in their bus leaving drummer Richard
Colburn 500 miles behind in his pyjamas
at a Walmart in North Dakota in the middle
of the night.
Inspired by an episode of The West Wing
where the President’s daughter is kidnapped,
he put a Twitter alert out to fans, a handful
of whom offered to rescue the hapless
tub-thumper, before a local minicab driver
was roused to drive Colburn to the nearest
16 JANUARY 2018
Pasta la vista, baby:
Stuart Murdoch and a
rather fetching prawn
and chilli linguine.
airport. “We got real focused, real fast,”
Murdoch laughs. “You never see these
things coming. Honestly, you could ask
a taxi driver what Belle And Sebastian have
done for the last 10 years and they wouldn’t
know anything. Now they do. Now we’re
the band that lost the drummer…”
“Someone had to explain to me what
a pepper was when I went up to college.”
We are sitting this Tuesday lunchtime in
Granger & Co in Clerkenwell, an Australian
eatery recommended to him by none
other than his actor pal, Hannah Murray
(who starred in God Help The Girl, the indie
film musical he directed in 2014), best known
as Gilly, the wildling girlfriend of Samwell
Favourite restaurant?
CAN I “The Eighth Station Of The
YOUR Cross Kebab House in Jerusalem.
TAKE
E R , MR I wrote a song about it.”
ORD
och?
Murd Brown sauce or ketchup?
“Ketchup. Brown
sauce is very East
Coast Scottish…”
Culinary speciality?
“My wife’s dad’s from
Tarly in Game Of Thrones. “Actually,” he
says, “I just texted her and said, ‘Thanks,
I’m bringing Q magazine here.’”
Picking up the menu, Murdoch orders
the prawn and chilli linguine with a green
salad, along with a black decaf Americano.
“Mostly veggie” since his teens, the 49-year-
old suffers from various allergies along with
chronic fatigue syndrome, so sometimes
seafood-shaped protein is required. Growing
up in Clarkston in the west of Scotland, he
somehow managed to avoid the deep-fried,
chips-based diet of his peers.
“It was quite rare when we got chips,”
he remembers. “I mean, it was relatively
healthy. Always spuds, something green,
and meat. Of course we didn’t have the range
of fancy vegetables. I didn’t see an avocado
till I was 21. Somebody had to explain to me
what a pepper was when I went up to
Glasgow to go to college.”
A music-obsessed youth and dedicated
follower of various (and perhaps surprising)
bands, he trailed the likes of Mudhoney,
Sonic Youth and The Stone Roses around
the country, before forming Belle And
Sebastian at the relatively advanced age
of 27. Which, of course, gave him a certain
affinity with the utterly devoted fans his
band soon attracted.
“I’d been through a lot,” he says, as his
pasta arrives, “so I didn’t think there was
anything high and mighty about getting
up on a stage. When we started playing,
the audience were a hell of a lot cooler
than we were. We were a rag-tag band and
suddenly all of these hip folk showed up.”
As far as ambitions left unfulfilled,
Murdoch dreams of discovering a great
female singer he could collaborate with.
“I just want to find my Amy Winehouse one
day and write with them,” he says. “I don’t
want to do whimsical indie with them.
It’s tricky cos I’m from Glasgow and not
exactly in the centre of things. But I’m just
waiting for the voice.”
Sounds like an invitation. Are you Stuart
Murdoch’s Amy Winehouse? He’s waiting to
hear from you. TOM DOYLE
Sicily and he makes Chicken
Cacciatore. I had a go one time
and I thought it was up there.”
Dream dining companion?
“It’d be nice to get Buddha and
Jesus on two sides of a table,
to compare notes.”
Death Row dinner?
“Seafood, right out
of Loch Fyne.”
It’s hard to get started as a
musician. Every year, we help
hundreds of emerging musicians
to develop their talent and get
the crucial break they need.

This year we’ve helped artists

including English songwriter Ralegh
Long and Scottish singer, producer
and writer Be Charlotte.

If you’re looking to develop your

WDOHQW DQG ZDQW WR ̰QG RXW PRUH
please visit helpmusicians.org.
uk/creative-programme or call
020 7239 9100

@HelpMusiciansUK
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Registered Charity no. 228089 Photograph credit: Charlie Marden 2017

 Re-live forever:
Liam Gallagher
plays for your
ears only.

rom Q partners
Absolute Radio this month include Liam
and Noel Gallagher in conversation
(not together!) and Elbow live.

The working relationship Skinner, in an extended chat

LIAM GALLAGHER LIVE
Absolute Radio, 23 November,
6pm
Liam Gallagher took to the
stage on 7 November at Bethnal
Green Working Men’s Club in
East London for an intimate
show, especially for Absolute
Radio prize-winners. Hear his
conversation with Dave Berry
after 6pm and highlights from the
set after 7pm with Danielle Perry.
ELTON & BERNIE AT “50”
Absolute Radio, 25 November,
10pm
between Elton John, musician –
and Bernie Taupin, lyricist, goes
back 50 years. Mark Goodier talks
to the partnership that has made
Elton one of the most successful
artists of all time (with over 300
million records sold) in part two
of this special programme.
NOEL GALLAGHER
WITH FRANK SKINNER
Absolute Radio, 26 November,
8pm
The greatest British songwriter
of his generation meets Absolute
Radio’s National Treasure, Frank
about, ostensibly, new album
Who Built The Moon? and
dabbling in psychedelic pop with
collaborator, DJ David Holmes.
THE ’80s UNWIND
Absolute 80s, 4 December, 9pm
Absolute 80s metaphorically
kicks back in the spa, with a
selection of wind-down classics
from the decade that brought you
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The
Dark, The Cure, Everything
But The Girl and Deacon Blue.
The “Unwind” hour runs
each weekday from 9pm.
ELBOW IN HYDE PARK
Absolute Radio, 10 December, 8pm
As Bury’s finest prepare to unveil
their first Best Of collection 20
years into their career, catch an
opportunity to re-live one of our
favourite live performances of
the year, as Elbow took to the
stage in Hyde Park (in July), in
support of The Killers. It’s a
master-class of storytelling.
 LIVE MUSIC ON-DEMAND
Download the free Absolute
Radio app to listen to extended
highlights, on-the-go, from a
whole of host musical events.

As my more November (One Little collaboration. Chakras, answers, then relaxing

gleeful friends Indian). We caught up flute-playing, Tinder… enough to show you how
start banging on the phone a couple of we spoke at length about much fun it could be if
on about Christmas, days after the first track, all of these things and you were to make it to
let’s just STOP for a The Gate, dropped. As you can listen back to their “Bunker” HQ for
minute. There’s ever, it took a few listens our chat via our free app. a night of merriment.
still time for a few to get into. And on this Secondly, I caught Finally, this month
releases to enter our occasion, it clicked up with Black Rebel we learned how pared-
musical sph e Motorcycle Club to down Four Tet’s studio
remaining we ng talk about their new set-up was during the
2017. Recentl ndrew LP, Wrong Creatures recording of his latest
I caught up wi Huang – (to be released at the exquisite LP. Sometimes
three of them start of 2018). They are simplicity is key.
This month Sunday show – the firs visual as intriguing in the radio  Listen to The Sunday
Night Music Club
GOFF PHOTOS, PHOTOSHOT

being Björk, w studio as they are Night Music Club from

host Danielle Perry Björk talks 8pm every week
unleashes her onstage, much happier
flute-playing
has mostly been musical chapt and chakras. lurking in the shadows on Absolute
listening to… Utopia, on 24 mulling over their Radio.

18 JANUARY 2018

SPARKS
WORDS EAMONN FORDE PHOTOGRAPHS ALEX LAKE
The erudite glam-pop siblings on songs about
the First Lady of the US, nearly breaking up
Queen and the correct way to wear a kimono…
n their West London
I
hotel, Sparks are
enjoying an autumn
years lap of honour.
Hippopotamus, their
23rd album, recently
went to Number 7 in
the UK charts, making it their first Top 10
album in the 43 years since their commercial
peak with the double whammy of Kimono
My House and Propaganda in 1974.
Forming Halfnelson in their home town
of LA in 1968, brothers Ron (keyboards
and death stare) and Russell (falsetto and
flouncing) Mael struggled to get noticed,
but after a name change and move to London
they finally hit pay dirt with This Town
Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us – still the
weirdest sounding single to almost get to
Number 1 (it stalled at Number 2 in Britain).
Briefly, they were the oddest teen idols in
pop – their baroque confections the square
peg in the chart’s round hole. Since then
they’ve ploughed music’s most fascinating,
ironic and restless furrow, inventing the
modern synth duo with the Giorgio Moroder-
produced album No.1 In Heaven in 1979
and springing a neo-classical rebirth with Lil’
Beethoven in 2002. Reconfiguring, rebooting,
refreshing, realigning: they are always
different, always fascinating, always Sparks.
Having their photo taken, they are wary
of showing too much flesh, especially as
Ron’s trouser legs ride up when he sits down.
“I tried practising the Obama leg cross,”
he sighs as he struggles to find his position.
Asked to react to print-outs of the questions
they are about to be subjected to, the natural
band and sibling pecking order emerges.
“Ron is better at reacting,” says Russell.
“I am better at looking.”
For this, however, they are both going to
20 JANUARY 2O18
THE STAR
P R O B E D !! S !
BY YO U!!! Do you own a kimono?
Rachel Marriot, via Q Mail
Ron: I own several kimonos. In Japan,
you can rent a kimono for the day. It’s
a real one and they dress you up so that
you’re doing it properly. If you fold it right
over left, you are banned from the country
for life. In any case, I actually kind of liked
the way I looked in a kimono.
Russell: I am more about the yukata. It is
more for leisure. They give them to you
when you go to the onsen, which is a
Japanese spa. You are required to wear
Japanese attire when you go there so you are
given one of these. They are very utilitarian
looking – in greys or blues. That’s more me.
You have a song called Lighten Up,
Morrissey. He’s never going to lighten
up, is he?
Andy Mitchell, Otford
Russell: Probably not. It’s not in his nature
to lighten up. It ain’t gonna happen.
Is it harder to be ironic in the age of
Trump, identity politics and impending
nuclear annihilation?
Adam Buxton, via Twitter
Russell: You can’t concoct anything that’s
on the level of all of those things that you’ve
mentioned. That is one of the reasons
why we steer away from doing anything
overtly political – like referencing Trump
or referencing things that are happening
in the world. It seems one dimensional to
sing, “Ain’t Trump a bad guy?” We know
he’s a bad guy and our saying that probably
isn’t going to help anything.
Is it “the Godwin’s law of Sparks
interviews” that someone will eventually
This staircase ain’t big mention Hitler in reference to Ron’s
enough for both of us: toothbrush moustache in the 1970s?
Russell (left) and Ron Neil Hillings, Leeds
Mael in 1975; (below) Moz
– subject of a Sparks ditty. Ron: It does happen more than I would like.
Russell: It seems like it is being phased out
more. One thing is that Ron’s moustache
have to react. These questions are, after all, is not in that shape any more. And it was
big enough for both of them. never a Hitler moustache in the first place –
it was a reference to Charlie Chaplin and
What professions do you have listed on Oliver Hardy. That aside, it seems like it is
your passport? slowly fading by the wayside.
Liam Kerry, Hope
Ron: I try to be pretentious and If you had to fight to
put “composer”. They the death, which brother
don’t like musicians, but would win?
a composer is different Pete Bruynseeles,
and seen as erudite. Taunton
Russell: I am a “music Russell: I go to the
producer”. They like that gym regularly so
one, too. That’s a step up I might prevail.
from a musician. Ron: I walk a lot
Ron: Your baggage gets so I might be able
GETTY, RETNA
looked through a lot less if to escape.
you are a composer rather Russell: He could
than a musician. walk over me.
“It’s not in Morrissey’s
nature to lighten up.
It ain’t gonna happen.”
Russell Mael

Breakfast is served… Sparks’

Russell (left) and Ron Mael,
London, 29 September, 2017.
Cash For
Questions
You tried to poach a pre-fame Brian
May to join your touring band. If you
had succeeded, could you have saved
the world from the horror of Queen?
Tanya Blake, via Q Mail
Ron: That was around the time of
Propaganda. We approached him and he
pondered it but it probably worked out best
for both sides. I don’t think that would have
been a long-lasting relationship. His style
probably wouldn’t
for us. We were alw
with combinations
Queen”? No comm
where one side is not as into it as the
other. Do you actually believe in love?
Molly Wiles, Huddersfield
Ron: We were brought up on movies and,
at least for me, it ruined a lot for me.
I never found love in the way that I always
defined love – which was Cary Grant and
Ingrid Bergman. So maybe I have been
disappointed only in the sense of having
the idea of love from movies rather than
You did an album and tour with Franz
Ferdinand as FFS in 2015. Soon after,
their guitar player, Nick McCarthy,
left Franz Ferdinand. Was it
something you said?
David Thorne, via Q Mail
Russell: He left Franz Ferdinand. He didn’t
leave Sparks. He is still a good friend of
Sparks. We like Nick.
Ron: He stayed in FFS until the end. Our

In 2008 you playe

albums in order o
ones did you not
Olly Rankin, New
Ron: There were o You’ve got Mael:
got ignored and we according to
ignoring parade – l Russell (left), “it
Sparks and [1980’s seems mention of
process of actually Ron’s moustache
is slowly fading by
a great equaliser an the wayside.”
that maybe it was t
albums were done
Even for the album
thought, “Oh, we c
tomorrow,” the nig
performing them t
seemed special. Th
were, in a way, the
out more for us. Th
obvious ones that w
looking forward to
audience were look
to, but the ones tha
more obscure som
a lot more surprise

Here In Heaven, T
Number One Son
Heaven, What Th
Is It This Time? W
with you and God
Sian Marks, via Q
Ron: None of your
goddamned busin

Super Furry Anim

“You and me and
from Sparks, han
with Howard Ma
you ever hung ou
Howard Marks?
Keith Gobey, Trin
Russell: We haven
Ron: There’s an in
to your question!

Many of your son

failed relationshi
disappointing on
suicide pacts gon

22 JANUARY 2
 On your Marks: drugs smuggler Howard
(left) was namechecked along with
“the guy from Sparks” in a Super Furry
Animals song; (right) Cary Grant and Ingrid
Bergman “defined love” for Ron Mael.
“There’s a song we’ve done already
called Everybody’s Stupid. That could
work for Melania Trump. We’ll do an
updated version of that.” Russell Mael
What themes would you put into
a computer to write the ultimate
Sparks song?
Lianne Riton, via Q Mail
Ron: Lots of proper names. You don’t
often see proper names in many songs.
Apart from maybe Bette Davis Eyes. So
many lyrics just seemed generic. At least
when you have a proper name it is pointed
in some sort of way and you can work
backwards and try to figure out what the
song is about. Put a bunch of proper names
in a huge computer, shake it up and see what
would come out in terms of relationships
between several of those names.
Ron – where did you learn to throw a
bowling ball? You’re the slickest 10-pin
bowler I’ve ever played.
Alex Kapranos, via Twitter
Russell: We were in Dallas mixing the FFS
album and decided one evening to go out
to a bowling soirée with Alex.
Ron: We felt this was really getting into the
Dallas scene. So we went to a bowling alley
and I did surprisingly well for someone who
only walks and doesn’t do any other exercise.
Russell: And who has no technique!
You’ve done two songs namechecking
US presidents’ wives (Jacqueline
Kennedy and Mary Lincoln). Will you
do one about Melania Trump?
Ian Barnes, Northampton
Russell: There’s a song we did already called
Everybody’s Stupid [on 1976’s Big Beat]. That
could probably work. We’ll do a re-recorded
version of that. An updated version.
Ron: I think Help would be a good song title.
Russell: And nobody’s used that title yet.
Ron: How about with an exclamation point?
No one knows much about your private
lives. What are you hiding?
Karen Parker, via Q Mail
Ron: Alex revealed my secret passion for
bowling. So that’s out. I wear bowling shoes
with my kimono.
Russell: That’s the only thing that people
are missing.
The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins did a cover
of This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both
Of Us. What did you make of it?
Fiona Lyle, Stockton-on-Tees
Russell: We like to hear other artists’ takes
on Sparks songs. In that respect, we liked it.
Ron: We liked the sound of The Darkness so
we were disappointed that it wasn’t done in
that approach. It was done in an approach
that was a little more controlled. We liked
the out-of-control thing about The Darkness.
We were in the video. That’s where we
learned about darts.
The FFS album has a song called
Collaborations Don’t Work. For you
they clearly do. Who is next on your
collaboration wish list?
Samuel West, via Q Mail
Russell: We met Chuck D from
Public Enemy at a festival in
Spain a couple of years ago.
We said hello. He was
Strike! Ron Mael is “the slickest”
when it comes to bowling, says
Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos.
aware of Sparks and obviously we love Public
Enemy. That would be one collaboration we
think would be very unexpected. Musically,
God knows what it would bring about. But it
couldn’t possibly be bad with Public Enemy
and Sparks. It would have to work.
With urban renewal, is this town finally
now big enough for both of us?
Ed Upton, via Q Mail
Ron: Gentrification has, in a way, made
places smaller. In those areas now it’s just
coffee and bagel shops and it has ruined the
old and seedier aspects of places. It’s making
places into small villages within cities. Maybe
it is big enough for the both of us if all we
want to do is drink coffee and eat bagels.
If there was a Sparks tribute act, what
should they call themselves?
Ryan Havers, Sunderland
Ron: Fullnelson. It’s tough for people as our
songs are sort of all over the place.
Russell: We occasionally see people online
covering our songs. It’s neat to see the
variety. There’s a guy who does some of
our songs with an accordion.
Ron: Someone has done a country version
of [1980 single] When I’m With You. That’s
really, really good. I’d love to hear someone
do an album of our songs in that style.
I heard at the time of Kimono My House –
and I don’t know if it’s true – that Barbra
Streisand was considering doing a cover
of This Town… That would have given us an
air of legitimacy early on.
Russell: We were saying the other night
that Taylor Swift should cover Missionary
Position from the new album. The invitation
is now out there. If Taylor is reading Q, please
call me [does “phone me” gesture].
To take part in next month’s Cash For
Questions, go to Qthemusic.com,
follow @Qmagazine on Twitter
or visit Facebook (facebook.
com/qmagazine).
£25 for each question
printed! If yours is printed,
email Qmail@Qthemusic.
com to claim your money.
JANUARY 2018 23
 WELCOME
TO THE

V for victory!
(from left) Wiley,
Liam Gallagher and
Wolf Alice’s
Ellie Rowsell.

24 JANUARY 2018
RDS
Everyone here? Then
let’s begin: (from left)
Paloma Faith, Skepta,
Ed Sheeran, Biffy Clyro’s
Simon Neil and Stormzy.

201
This year’s star-congested Q Awards, as voted by Q and our readers, took
at London’s Roundhouse, with live performances from Sleaford Mods and
Manics. Don’t worry if you didn’t get a ticket, all the best moments are her
Q BEST BREAKTHROUGH ACT Presented by
RAG’N’BONE
MAN
alk us through your
day, please.
T Yeah, it’s been alright.
I feel very awkward
at these events, to
be totally honest. It makes me very
nervous, but it’s nice to win an award.
Who have you bumped into so far?
Paloma Faith’s on my table, and I saw
Wiley earlier. I keep bumping into
him at festivals and stuff. He’s a nice
dude, I get on with him. I remember
the first time I heard him, he was
doing something totally on its own,
that came out of garage and jungle
and stuff. It’s kind of serendipity how
it’s all come back around and those
guys – everybody knows about it now,
with grime, which is fucking amazing.
What’s been the highlight of your
year so far?
Apart from having my little boy [son
Reuben was born in early September],
which is obviously gonna go down in
history as one of the most important
things ever – I say that, because he’s
probably gonna know about this in
years to come – yeah, you little shit!
Apart from that, it’s the feeling that
I’m gonna be able to do this for a few years,
like it isn’t just a flash in the pan. I think
people have really embraced this album,
and me as an artist, and it feels really good.
I don’t feel like I’m just gonna disappear off
into the ether, and people will forget. I’m
working on my second record, and it’s people
all around Europe that have embraced my
music, so it feels like a proper career now!
You have wider goals now? America?
We’ve done pretty well in America, but it’s a
different beast, innit, to the UK. And I’m not
really that type of person – I don’t have those
things, like, “Oh, I’m gonna accomplish this.”
We’ll keep going back and see what happens.
What was your best night out this year?
We went out in LA after a gig. It was my bass
26 JANUARY 2018
Presenter: Paloma Faith
It’s been quite the year for Rory Graham. In-between
becoming a father and part ing with Ron Jeremy,
he released the biggest-selling debut of the year.
“It isn’t ust a flash in the pan,” he says.
Who’s the daddy? Rag’n’Bone Man receives
his Q Award for Best Breakthrough Act.
player’s birthday and we partied with [porn
legend] Ron Jeremy. He’s a funny guy, and
I’m a fan of his work, so…
Anyone you’ve been starstruck in front
of this year?
I met B-Real from Cypress Hill, that was
pretty amazing. He’s a hero. It was just at
a festival. He was doing the Prophets Of
Rage thing, and he was just walking by. Liam
Gallagher actually was pretty cool, too. We
hung out a little bit, he’s a real safe dude.
We’ve been doing the same festivals – one
was in Holland – so you bump into people.
What was the best gig you played?
The last gig we did in Paris was off the chain.
France is a notoriously difficult
market, and Paris is a hard gig –
a bit like London, people are
really fucking cool, and they
don’t just roll over for anyone,
you know? But I love that.
The French are wicked.
Have you had a holiday?
Have I fuck! The only time I took
off was two weeks, and that was
to have a baby! So, no, I haven’t
had a holiday. We’re gonna have
the whole of December off –
have some time out, and go
away or something.
So how were those two weeks
in September?
Just fucking nerve-wracking,
for the start. I was in America
touring, and my missus was due
at the time, so I was like, “If I
don’t get back, she’s gonna have
this baby without me”, and
that put the fear of God into
me. Then when I got back it was
just another waiting game – like,
“When’s it gonna happen?” So,
yeah, it was all sorts of emotions,
and we were both knackered,
but it was also a beautiful time. I held my son
for the first time, and we got to be a family for
a little while – before anyone annoyed me.
Did you have any New Year’s resolutions
this year and have you stuck to them?
I don’t really do that. I’m pretty sure I didn’t
this year. If so, it was probably to drink less,
but I definitely didn’t do that. Ha!
What are you looking forward to in 2018?
Digging into the next album. I’ve just started
on it. I’ve been in the studio for the past two
weeks, because I wrote loads of stuff on the
SIMON SARIN, ALEX LAKE
last tour, and we’ve put down a lot of songs
already. There’s a totally different sound,
and a totally different ethos around the
making of this album. We’re writing the
album like a band, basically. ANDREW PERRY
Happy together: Paloma
Faith and Rag’n’Bone Man
enjoy the moment, backstage
at the Roundhouse, Camden,
18 October, 2017.

“I don’t
feel like I’m
just gonna
disappear
off into the
ether.”

JANUARY 2018 27
 THE

VE R
ACLUB
Q BEST LIVE ACT Presented by And Q ICON Presented by

LIAM
N
C
LIVERPOOL
Est.1957

Presenters: Richard Ashcroft & Skepta

Hero to a new generation of stars, the man
of the moment shows the pretenders how
ows he’s “the bollocks”.

GALL HER hat’s the best

music you’ve

W
heard this year?
By other people?
Nothing. I don’t
really listen to other
people’s records.
What was your highlight of the year?
Going to Number 1, I guess. But releasing
a fucking record, wherever it goes, that
You have to was the highlight, because I didn’t really
hand it to him: expect it to happen.
Liam Gallagher
(with presenter Did you expect it to sell 100,000 copies
Richard Ashcroft) in its first week?
and his Best No, I didn’t to be fair. I didn’t think I was
Live Act gong. even going to make a record this year. So to
have done that has been amazing.
How did you celebrate?
I didn’t, mate. Today is the first time I’ve been
out since I heard about it, I hadn’t even left
the house. I thought I’d save myself for you
lot. I’ve been recovering from my trip to
LA, where I went crowd surfing [when he
joined Foos Fighters onstage at the CalJam
festival to perform The Beatles’ Come Together].
I’d had a drink and that, and I thought we
were going to sing I Am The Walrus. I forgot
the words and jumped into the crowd. People
were pinching my arse really hard, so I was
getting over that.
What was the funniest thing that’s
happened to you this year?
There was the bloke on Hampstead Heath
who dropped his trousers and showed me
his John Lennon tattoo. But the crowd
surfing was pretty funny. It’s not all it’s
cracked up to be but it was good to get among
the people. There were a couple of [Foos fans]
down the front that were booing me, so
I thought I’d just crowd-surf and fart on all
their heads. Cop that, you c**t! Then other
people were cheering, so I’d fart on their heads
too. Have that, c**t! It was good revenge!
How have the Awards been so far?
Good, man. It was great bumping into
Richard Ashcroft. We always cross paths
ALEX LAKE

but we’re working, so it’s nice to have some

fucking time off and have a proper drink

JANUARY 2018 29
 ALEX LAKE, OLLIE HALFIN, JORDAN HUGHES
“Those trousers,
man…” Liam
Gallagher and
Q Icon presenter
Skepta swap
style tips at
the Awards.

together, instead of worrying if we’ll get

through the night or not. But it’s nice
being here, seeing people and dodging
people, that’s the most important thing.
Who are you dodging?
Everyone [laughs]. No, I’m not dodging
anyone, but sometimes it’s like, “Shit, didn’t
I slag him off last week? Probably…”
When you woke up this morning were
you preparing for a big night out?
No, I got up this morning and went for a run.
Went back to the house, had a coffee, ironed
my T-shirt. Then I checked out my parkas –
should it be blue or green? I went for blue.
I checked out a couple of pairs of pumps,
took some laces out of a different pair,
then decided to stay with the originals.
But… it’s nice being here, I like doing all
this kind of stuff. I felt like I’d had the rug
pulled out from under my feet, and then
with Beady Eye there weren’t exactly a lot of
awards coming our way. It’s nice going back
down the showboating road… on a boat.
What are you drinking?
I’ve been on the double rum and cokes,
and I grabbed this Champagne on the way
out as I needed something to drink while
I was getting my photo taken. Did I go
to the pub first? Yeah, I went to the Red
Lion in Highgate for a drink.
You didn’t say much onstage apart
from thanking Richard Ashcroft and
your mum…
I want to get this point across – I’m not any
good at speeches, so expect a lot of mumbling

30 JANUARY 2018
 “Every day’s
today. I’m not one for
thanking everyone. I must
say, I was very surprised to
a holiday when win Best Live Act. I know I’m
the bollocks and the [new]

you’re in this band are good and all that,

but I thought Stormzy or

game and some of the other young kids

would get it. I was genuinely

you’re Liam
surprised, and that’s thrown
me a bit. I like having

Gallagher.”
this do in the Roundhouse,
by the way. Those posh
hotel ceremonies are
a bit hyacinth, know
what I mean?
What are you looking forward to in 2018?
More of the same, but at the moment I’m
looking forward to playing live. We’re going
to America to give them another opportunity
to “tut”. There’s nothing better than going
to America and watching people “tut” you.
Then there’s the sold-out UK tour of arenas
and then Australia. It’s going to be great, man.
What was the best gig you played this
year? The Manchester concert for the
victims of the bombing?
Yeah, there’s been some really good ones. But
[with our own shows] Glastonbury was great –
I’m not sure if we were great but sometimes
the occasion takes over, the crowd make it
special, and that was one of them. We’ve
done some really good ones when there
weren’t many people there, but let’s not
talk about that [laughs]… so Glastonbury.
Have you had a holiday this year?
No, but every day’s a holiday when you’re
in this game and you’re Liam Gallagher.
Let’s face it, it isn’t that hard being this
cool. PAT GILBERT

Two for
the road:
Gallagher
with his pair
of gongs.
P R E T T YG R E E N . CO M
 Q BEST FILM Presented by

SLEAFORD MODS
Presenter: Tim Burgess
Winning Best Film for Bunch Of Kunst was one of many
Playing to a packed
Roundhouse after
the Awards.

peaks for Jason Williamson this year. His band are at the
top of their game. “It’s all been a highlight,” sa s the singer.
ou won Q Best Film In the early ’90s he brought it back. He made
for your documentary the Small Faces what they should’ve been,
Bunch Of Kunst. So he gave them recognition. He introduced

Y it was worth having

director Christine
Franz following
a lot of people to that kind of music.
Where are you off to next?
Lincoln

Mod for it:

Bunch Of
Kunst director
Christine
Franz
and Jason
Williamson.
ALEX LAKE, SIMON SARIN
 Award presenter
Mo Gilligan (left) aka
Mo The Comedian,
props up a “very

“There’s a
legacy to be made
that ain’t gonna
make itself.”
 Q BEST SOLO ARTIST Presented by

STORMZY
Presenter: Mo Gilligan
With a Number 1 album, a Q Best Solo Artist gong
and a triumphant year behind him, the grime star had
good reason to embark on whisk -fuelled celebrations
Do you know what it is? I just like to be
unapologetically myself. I always just say
whatever I want to say. I know that sounds
a bit rock-starry but I like to go with what’s
in my heart and what’s in my truth, so I end
up speaking on lots of different topics.
at our Awards show. He’ll be back next year, he says. It wasn’t like your Bono moment, then?
Naa. I don’t ever want to be like, “Yeah, I’m
ongratulations on winning early in the year that so much has happened out here doing all of this shit, look at me.”
Best Solo Artist. since, but then I always think, “Na, that one.” Fuck all of that. This is just a thing, you take
C Thanks very much.
How was your day?
That feeling was a different kind of feeling.
Does it make it more special for you given
it however you want it. You do what you
fucking like and whoever likes it likes it.
It was wicked. I was very you were doing it on your own through Winning a Q Award, getting to Number 1,
drunk. That was a proper good night, I had a your own label? being nominated for the Mercury Prize…
lot of fun. I was on the whisky from early on One hundred per cent. I always said that I had is it hard to take it all in?
so by the time I got onstage I was actually to do my first album by myself, it’s got to be There are times when I think, “Fucking hell!”
drunk, to be dead honest. independent. Sometimes there’s this stigma But mostly I take it in my stride. I accept the
Who did you bump into? about true artists, that they can’t equate to memory, I celebrate, then I keep it moving.
I saw Ed [Sheeran], I saw Wiley and I saw mainstream success, that true artists are I find it difficult to sit around on my arse
Liam Gallagher at the end. I’ve met Liam never going to top the charts. But I felt like because I’ve got a Number 1 album. That’s
twice before. It’s always love and good vibes I was able to be myself and not compromise, not how this game works. You bank that –
every time, but it’s always brief. Every time while also having a successful album. Before and then you make the next one. For example,
I’ve seen him I’ve been drunk. It’s always I started music I always felt there were artists I’ve got one Q Award compared to artists
a proper good vibe, he’s a good dude. on top who are always true. Even Liam who have four or five, so I can’t start thinking
What do you chat about? Gallagher – he’s never tried to fit the mould or I’m on top of the world. There’s a legacy
Nothing, it’s always just some drunk go in to make a pop hit and it still translates. to be made that ain’t going to make itself.
recklessness. I’ll be like, “You’re my fucking Outside of music, this year you’ve been So, you’ve got to come back to the Q
boy!” and he’ll be like, “No, you’re the fucking using your position to speak out about Awards next year and win a few more…
boy!” Just gassing each other up. With me not things, from supporting Jeremy Corbyn One hundred per cent. I’ll see you there.
getting much time for celebrations and stuff to your own mental health problems… CHRIS CATCHPOLE
like that, I treat awards shows as a good night
out because before you’ve even won, you’ve
won already. It’s already a reason to celebrate.
Did you catch up with Ed Sheeran?
Yeah, I caught up with my boy for a quick
one. I haven’t seen him for ages, he’s been all
over the gaff, but I caught up with him quick.
He’s broken his arm since you last
saw him…
I thought it was a motorbike accident,
honestly. That sounds way more epic than
a pushbike. He was like, “Yeah, I was riding
down the road…” and I went, “Wait – you
were you on a pushbike? Fucking hell, bruv!”
What did you get up to after the awards?
We went to see Mo The Comedian. He
presented me with my award and was
randomly playing literally next door to
the Roundhouse, so we all went there
after and had a little night of comedy. I’m Man on a mission:
SIMON SARIN, ALEX LAKE

a big fan of his. He’s a very, very funny dude. Stormzy with his
You’ve had one hell of a year, is it hard to Q Best Solo Artist
pick a highlight? award. The first of
many, he hopes…
Definitely the album going to Number 1 was
the highlight. That’s not a bad one! It was so

35
 Q GIBSON LES PAUL AWARD Presented by

ongratulations on winning Is there anything you’d change?

KELLEY C
the Q Gibson Les Paul
Award. What does the
award mean to you?
Well, thank you! Let me
You know, my guitar G-string is a little
low right now and it’s really hard to
play slide on it, so that.
What’s the funniest thing you’ve

DEAL
answer that by telling you a story… it’s 1992, seen all year?
NYC and The Breeders are playing CBGB’s. Have you seen who we have for President?
If memory serves, the band Unrest are You’re walking round with your face screwed
supporting. Anyhow… so The Breeders take up all the time, every day is crying through
to the stage and there is a woman screaming the laughter. Maybe it isn’t funny, but it’s odd.
Presenters: Wolf Alice’s Ellie
something over and over and over. You can What are you looking forward to in 2018?
Rowsell and The Horrors’ hear her before EVERY song; after EVERY The Breeders’ new album. I can’t tell you
Rhys Webb song and during EVERY song. This goes the name of it but we’re playing some of
on THE. ENTIRE. GOD. DAMN. NIGHT. the songs and they sound so good live.
For one night only, And this is what she is yelling: “FUCK THE Have you had a holiday?
FENDER, PLAY THE LES PAUL!” I haven’t had one in a long time, but I did
The Breeders’ guitarist How has your day been so far? go to the crime convention in Indianapolis.
hogs the limelight. Good! We’ve been soundchecking [the
band are playing in Camden that evening].
You know who was there? Jon Ronson, the
guy who wrote The Psychopath Test. He
I’ve got my guitar and my vocal and my did a great talk. He took over. IAN HARRISON
[monitor] wedge and so far that’s working
for me. Usually I like to put everybody else
in, but tonight it’s gonna be all about me!
And then more me!
What’s been your highlight of the year?
I don’t know. Tonight’s looking nice though –
let’s see how it turns out.

Guitar hero:
Gibson Les
Paul Award
recipient Kelley
Deal (with
presenters Ellie
Rowsell and
Rhys Webb).

“Usually, I put
everybody else
in, but tonight
it’s gonna be
all about me!”
ALEX LAKE
Sling w
Ed She I
The Wo
presen
Maisie
 Q BEST ACT IN THE WORLD TODAY Presented by

ED
Presenter: Maisie Williams
Nothing could stop the unlikeliest lad picking up his
prize: not even a broken wrist, broken rib and broken
elbow. The year belonged to a superstar from Suffolk...

SHEERAN S
o, you’ve bust
more than just
your arm? What
happened?
Fell off a bike, broke
my wrist, broke my
elbow, broke my rib.
In Suffolk. I woke
up at 5.30am and was like that [bewildered
look at arms]. It was just pain. I don’t know if
anyone’s gonna be interested by the time
this is published, though!
You’ve just been photographed with
Liam Gallagher. Met him before?
I met him at the Olympic closing ceremony
in 2012. We were outside, just me and him,
I walked outside for a cigarette and he was
there. He was super-friendly to me. He’s a
very funny guy. I really like him, really cool.
What do you think about your pal
Stormzy being guest judge on this
year’s X Factor?
Cool! It’s a very smart move by Simon Cowell
to do that. [Begins laughing] Have you had
some wine? The red carpet treatment:
We only drink sponsorship Red Stripe Ed Sheeran arrives at the
round ’ere. How about you? Q Awards, the Roundhouse,
I can’t, I’m not allowed to drink! Camden, 18 October, 2017.
2017 has been your year – what does that
say about 2017?
Uuuuuuh, radio have been playing the You’re on the front page of the
ALEX LAKE, OLIVER HALFIN, SIMON SARIN, JORDAN HUGHES

songs!? And a lot of people are falling satirical digital mag The Daily Mash

“I’ve got to
in love, hopefully. today. It says: “Ed Sheeran’s arm
How many parties have you had till 6am breaks itself…”
round your London pad? Heheheheh!

do a lot of
Well, I’ve been on tour most of this year, “…Ed Sheeran’s right arm has broken
so maybe… 12? A lot more till 5am, though – itself in a desperate attempt to save
that’s the more sensible time. Well, if you’ve the world from his music.”

physio...”
got promo at seven, y’know? I do like The Daily Mash. They’ve written
You’re supposed to be touring in 2018 – a lot of funny stuff! [PR approaches,
how crocked are you for playing guitar? bundles him away] I’ve really gotta go!
I’m waiting for the doctor to tell me. I’ve got I’m off to Jonathan Ross. See yer later!
to do a lot of physio before. SYLVIA PATTERSON

JANUARY 2018 39
 “Don’t touch
the arm!”: Ed
mingles with
Tom and
Serge from
Kasabian.

lway
“Sorry about Ga Ed
th ou gh ”: (le ft)
Gi rl,
his award
manfully holds
aloft; (rig ht ) with one-
tor Wiley.
time collabora
 WHEN ED MET LIAM
Liam Gallagher was in a chipper mood at the
Q Awards. He has been in good spirits ever
since his album came out and sold a rarely-
heard-of 100,000 copies in its first week.
So, several days later, the Q Awards became
a de facto Team Liam Number 1 Album
party, especially as Liam had said he hadn’t
been out since its release. There was a lot of
pent-up excitement to disperse.
He was full of beans as he bounded
through the swing doors to the first floor of
the Roundhouse after collecting his second
award of the night, walking over the gangway
to the Q photo room, telling everyone he met
Let the bantz
commence!
Liam Gallagher
sledges Ed.
ALEX LAKE, SIMON SARIN, JORDAN HUGHES
that, although, yes, he was “a fucking Icon”,
he’d been “robbed” of that Best Track Q
Award by “those cheeky c**ts Kasabian.”
And then he saw Ed Sheeran. Ed had had
a different experience at the ceremony so far.
No doubt the Q Awards are also the highlight
of his year too, but he did have both arms in
plaster and one in a sling. He wasn’t drinking
because afterwards he was off to perform
on television. Minutes earlier, Tom Meighan
had grabbed his arm in painful greeting.
Q writer Sylvia Patterson had hugged him
enthusiastically, squashing that cast again.
And here, here was Liam Gallagher.
“Fucking hell, kiddo!” Liam shouted.
“You want to calm down on the two-handed
wanking a bit. Can’t go breaking both
arms wanking. Go back to one hand, it’s
all you need.”
Ed barely knew where to look as the
room burst into laughter. The next few
minutes were a masterclass in bemused
Liam Gallagher piss-taking, all taken in
extremely good humour by Ed Sheeran.
Being the world’s biggest solo artist buys
you that kind of humility, no doubt.
They parted with an embrace, Ed off to his
TV studio and Liam back to his table before
repairing to the nearby pub that his label
had hired for the night. He was last seen deep
in conversation with Skepta in the garden, as
the evening’s real bromance blossomed.
Q BEST TRACK Presented by

KASABIAN
Presenter: Dave Berry (Absolute Radio) & Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro

Tom Meighan and Serge Pizzorno

are thrilled that ou’re in love with
until it was too late. I’m really glad I did as
I would have been ruined. He was meeting
Harvey Keitel and I missed them both.
TM: Mine was Shane Richie, [EastEnders’]
Alfie Moon. I just saw him outside [at the
Awards] and went, “What the fuck are
You’re In Love With A Psycho, you doing here?” He couldn’t reply, he had
winner of the Q Award for Best Track, a fag in his mouth, bless him.
You put your longest-standing roadie Rick
but Liam Gallagher isn’t having it. Graham on the front of your album For
Crying Out Loud, which came out in May.
o how has your day been TM: Me trying to mow a lawn. Has cover stardom gone to his head?
so far? Who else have SP: Yep, Tom mowing the lawn! SP: Yeah. He’s the ultimate example of it.
S you bumped into?
Tom Meighan: I had a good
That sounds potentially dangerous…
SP: He was talking about buying a hedge
TM: [Adopts comedy grouchy voice] “I can’t
do this any more…”
chat with Jason [Williamson] strimmer earlier, can you imagine that? SP: We only did it to do his head in and it’s
from Sleaford Mods at the bar. Nice chap. I’m TM: I’d cut my fucking head off, wouldn’t I? definitely done his head in. He’s lording it
a massive fan. I think we’re friends now. Game Of Thrones-style. over everyone – us, especially. He’s got his
Serge Pizzorno: It’s called banter. [Jason had What are you looking forward to in 2018? own van, his own hotel now, everything.
previously slated Kasabian in interviews] TM: Getting a hedge strimmer! I’m going to Here’s a fun fact for you – while doing
TM: It sells records or it gets people talking. get ahead of the garden. I’m not really into his Cash For Questions interview for
We did it years ago when we were 24. gardening but I’m getting into domestic Q recently, it came up that Marilyn
We were good at it. things around the house, which is fantastic. Manson is a Kasabian fan. His favourite
How’s your year been? It’s good for me, it’s good for the brain. track is Shoot The Runner, which
TM: It’s been wonderful, hasn’t it, bro? It keeps it ticking. he likes to play on film and video sets
SP: Yeah, it’s been amazing. SP: We’re on tour. We’ll be out, mooching to unnerve the staff…
TM: It’s wonderful, we’re all happy. about. TM: Fuck off! Really? I think he’s quite
You can add Q Best Track for You’re In Is there anyone you’ve been starstruck in a sexy guy.
Love With A Psycho to your reasons to front of this year? SP: What I really like about him is that
be cheerful. Tell us about that one. SP: It was a near miss, but I was in a hotel he’s in the same vein as people like Alice
SP: It came from nowhere. It’s one of those and Robert De Niro walked pass me. He Cooper; he’s super clever and they don’t
things that happened in five minutes, which was wearing combats, golf shoes and golf make people like that any more. When he
rarely occurs. It just flowed. It just made me hat. So I missed it was him walks into a room, and we’ve
laugh. A lot of friends seen this before, whether
think it’s about them and you get his music or not he
say to me, “That’s not can make the room stand
about me and my Mrs, still and those people should
is it?” and you go, “No, be applauded. There’s not
no, no.” So a lot of enough of them.
people relate to it. [As Kasabian turn to
What’s been your leave they are accosted
highlight of the year? by Liam Gallagher]
SP: It’s got to be LG: Alright, lads? Right,
headlining Leeds and come on, deep down you
Reading, it really has. know Wall Of Glass is
TM: That was amazing. better than that Psycho
SP: It was a culmination tune of yours. I should’ve
of a lot of things coming won Best Track, admit it!
together. We’ve figured TM: Er… no.
out who we are, and it was LG: Come on, it is! Admit
JORDAN HUGHES, ALEX LAKE

incredible. We covered it, you got lucky tonight.

Nirvana’s All Apologies [Tom and Liam mock spar
which was massive, it before ending up in a big
“Security!” Liam
was really good. Gallagher attemp
ts to hug] Alright, see ya, but
What’s the funniest thing g To m an d Se rge of remember you two got
mu
k gong. lucky… PAUL STOKES
you’ve seen all year? their Q Best Trac

42 JANUARY 2018
And the award for Most Ridiculously
Dressed Trio goes to… (from left)
Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil, Serge
Pizzorno and Tom Meighan.

“I’m looking
forward
to getting a
hedge strimmer
next year.”
Tom Meighan
 Q MAVERICK Presented by

IV
Presenter: Don Letts
Unfortunately, Viv Albertine was ill and unable to attend
the Q Awards. Her gong for Q Maverick was presented by
film-maker, DJ and former Slits manager Don Letts

ALBERTINE
to her daughter, Arla. This is Don’s presentation speech.

distinctly Free spirit: Viv

remember the Albertine, recipient

I first time I laid

eyes on Viv.
of the Q Maverick
Award; (left)
Don Letts and
It was just Viv Albertine’s
before the punk explosion daughter, Arla.
of the late ’70s. Me and
Jeannette Lee were running
a shop called Acme
Attractions [on the King’s
Road in London] and in she
strolled, a back-combed
blonde with ripped
fishnets and a black
leather jacket. Striking
as she was, it was her
attitude that caught our
attention and this was
before she was even
in a band! This deadly
combination needed and
demanded a medium,
which she soon found
in the punk outfit The
Slits, via the short-lived Flowers Of Romance
with Sid Vicious. The Slits empowered
women up and down the land with
dynamic live shows and their debut album
Cut, released in 1979. It was during this
period that I became friends with Viv.
Even back then, she was never one to
take things at face value and was always
questioning the norm. Consequently, she
was one of the first to jump the punk-rock
ship, taking a musical hiatus to explore
her keen visual sense and become a film
director. Viv returned to music with an EP
on Thurston Moore’s record label before
releasing The Vermillion Border, her
debut solo album in 2014. Just when you
thought she was back on a musical tip, she
took on her first acting role in the Joanna
Hogg film, Exhibition. Viv’s first memoir
ALEX LAKE, MICHAEL CLEMENT

was the critically acclaimed Clothes, Clothes,

Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys,
Boys and the follow-up, To Throw Away
Unopened, drops in April 2018. What’s
next? Who knows. If she or we did, Viv
wouldn’t be a maverick.”

44 JANUARY 2018
 They’re only Humanz after
all: Gorillaz’ Damon Albarn
(left) and Jamie Hewlett.

46 JANUARY 2018
 Q BEST ALBUM Presented by

GORILLAZ Presenter: Benjamin Clementine

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett got
the cartoon band back together after a
seven-year absence to make Humanz,
Did you imagine you’d be going this
long when you first started Blur?
DA: Well, it’s hard to imagine that when
you’re that young. It’s such a different world,
but I can’t believe I’ve had a chance to do
winner of the Q Best Album award. it all over again and establish myself in
America. Jamie’s like me, he’s done two
famous things [art and music]. Very few
ongratulations on DA: The birth of my 13th child. No, realising people get to do three famous things.
winning another that this is my 28th album. Though I know I can’t think of anyone who’s done
that Bob Dylan has written about 50…

C
Q Award. Happy? anything differently that resonated.
Damon Albarn: It’s JH: I’ve got an idea...
really nice. It’s about Virtual reality, by any chance?

“My highlight of
the music. Genuinely, DA: We’ve done a virtual reality project:
we’ve been really been there, done that.

the year? Realising

touched that people recognised this record What are you looking forward to
because it was a bit of a departure in that next year?
I’m not really in it much at all. Obviously DA: The new The Good, The Bad &
I helped to make it. And I forgot to mention
[producers] Remi [Kabaka] or The Twilite that this is my The Queen album, produced with Tony
Visconti. I’m doing it at the moment. We
Tone, but I’m not very good at speeches.
What are you drinking to celebrate? 28th album.” have another session and we’ve done two
weeks previously. Is he bringing something
Jamie Hewlett: I’d love a glass of wine. Have
you only got Q wine? Oh, is it a 2017 vintage…
What’s been your album of the year?
Damon Albarn different? Of course! It’s Tony Visconti, it’s
fucking awesome. And it’s the same line-up
as last time around. MATT ALLEN
DA: I don’t really work like that. I work with
experiences, really. I’m in and out of so many We got the
different types of music all the time, so power: Gorillaz
I don’t really engage in music in that way. In celebrate
their Q Best
terms of experience, that happened a few days
Album gong
ago when I went to see [producer, rapper] with presenter
Mike Will Made It. He did Kendrick Lamar’s Benjamin
albums and I went to do some work with him Clementine.
while we were on tour. As a new experience
in music-making this was something that
I will never forget: it was so loud and brutal.
This man is the top hit-maker in the world
and it was interesting to witness that kind of
alchemy because it doesn’t last forever. It was
interesting, the interface between the two of
us, and how he picked up on what I did and
what I picked up with him.
JH: As for new bands, I quite like Starcrawler
and [singer] Arrow de Wilde. They’re 19 years
old and making a noise that’s interesting.
What’s been your musical highlight
this year?
DA: I saw Erykah Badu and thought she
ALEX LAKE, SIMON SARIN

was fantastic. I also saw Run The Jewels,

they were impressive, too. We’re all
dinosaurs, aren’t we?
What’s been your personal highlight of
the year?

JANUARY 2018 47
Q INSPIRATION AWARD Presented by

MANIC STREET
PREACHERS
Presenter: Michael Sheen
The Welsh trio have spent 2017 revamping their clubhouse
and working out their next move. Ahead of the 30th anniversary
of their debut single, another burst of reinvention beckons.
ongratulations, you are
officially an Inspiration.
C How does it feel?
James Dean Bradfield
(singer, guitarist): I have
a very simple set of emotions. Awards
ceremonies, I’m 48, the next album is our
13th, so I accept these awards with absolute
magnanimity and glee. It’s just lovely.
Nicky Wire (bassist): Our first Q Award
was in 1996. We’ve had Best Album,
I remember when we had Best Band In
The World and James got up and said,
“Best band in the world… except North
America”, that was 1998. But there’s been
some mega dos at the Q Awards. It shows
how old we are that when we did the video for
A Design For Life here, it was a pile of rubble,
the Roundhouse hadn’t been done up.
I forgot to say that in my speech. Shit.
And you’ve got a gig to do afterwards
too, it’s not just a jolly for you...
NW: I’m glad we’re doing it. It’s our only
indoor gig this year.
JDB: I’ve just come off the back of flu so NW: The last few albums were high-concept, Spreading the word:
I might sound a bit Joe Cocker. I’ll sound and I think we ran out of concepts. We’re (above and far right)
like a man. just trying to do a masterclass in songwriting. Manic Street Preachers
play the Roundhouse
What’s been your highlight of the year? We’re making a bit of headway finally. It’s after the Awards
JDB: Finishing our studio, because we got coming fast now but it’s been a bit of a grind. ceremony; (main pic,
chucked out of our other place because the What’s the best thing you’ve heard from left) Sean Moore,
BBC wanted to move in to where it was and all year? Q Inspiration Award
we lost the lease on it. So we built a new NW: St. Vincent’s Masseduction. I love the presenter Michael
studio and the highlight is having the Manic graphic nature of the artwork, the colours, Sheen, Nicky Wire and
James Dean Bradfield.
Street Preachers’ clubhouse back, where the way she fuses art and music, the guitar
we can go, we can piss, we can moan. playing, the lyrics. It’s really high-concept,
NW: It’s just outside Newport. It’s more which I love.
rural, less urban. JDB: Prisoner by Ryan Adams. I love
How are you settling in? that record. It’s a crystalline version of
NW: It took a while. As Liam would say, somebody saying, “I may be of another time,
it’s moving and grooving at the moment. I may be out of step, but I’m just going to
JDB: It feels like home, we’ve started make the record that I always was going to
ALEX LAKE

recording there, trying to make sense of make,” even if it is about the break-up of
what’s happening with us musically. a marriage and who gets custody of the
What’s the next move for the Manics? six cats. NIALL DOHERTY

48 JANUARY 2018
“When we did the
video for A Design
For Life in the
Roundhouse, it was
a pile of rubble.”
Nicky Wire
 Q INNOVATION IN SOUND Presented by

Presenter: James Lavelle

The grime godfather’s got a new album and
autobiography out soon, but for now the
Q Innovation In Sound winner is happy to
indulge in a spot of shopping and gag-telling.
alk us through your vibes
after winning the Q
T
Innovation In Sound Award.
I’ve had a great day, man.
This morning I wanted to get
something to wear but I was with a girl. Don’t
go shopping with birds because they’re going
to wind you up, mate. So, they did their bit of
shopping, I done my bit. We got here for the
right time, but I was scared she was going to
make me late. But she didn’t, it was all good. “This year has
Who have you bumped into so far?
Rag’n’Bone Man, Ed Sheeran, Skepta,
Stormzy. I’ve seen some of the other guys as
been my best
well, like Paloma Faith. These guys are even
bigger to me because I wasn’t inside their
year album-
world. That’s why I’m so happy to be here.
Congratulations on your award…
wise, respect-
I’m so happy about this award for two reasons.
Number one, I can’t believe that me and
wise and credit-
Dizzee Rascal started something and today
Skepta and Stormzy are championing it.
wise.” Wiley
Number two, the fact I’m getting recognition
for my last 17 years of work means that I can
think about which direction I want
chaps!”
“Say cheese,
ar t di re ct or looks
Q’s
on as pr esenter
James La ve lle and
pose.
Wiley strike a
ALEX LAKE, SIMON SARIN, JORDAN HUGHES

50 JANUARY 2018
 to go in next. I have children and if one day my
daughter decides she wants to do it she can.
If she’s good enough, the people who have
shown me love will show her love.
You appeared onstage at the [grime
collective] Boy Better Know takeover of
London’s O2 Arena in August. Did you ever
think grime would be at that stage in 2017?
The eyes have it: You just don’t know. It’s like when you go to
Wiley with his see a football team, you don’t know if you’re

CHEERS!
Q Innovation In going to win today. Music is one of the most
Sound Award. unsure jobs ever. I like that. I don’t know if
I’m going to have a hit tomorrow but if I go
and work on one, maybe I will.
Was that your highlight of the year?
Definitely. This year has been my best year
album-wise, respect-wise and credit-wise.
A BIG THANK YOU TO...
People have said, “This person cares about THE Q AWARDS 2017 WERE PRODUCED BY:
other people.” It’s like if we go to a youth
Helen Scott and Marguerite Peck at Winter French,
club, one guy can go [and succeed] tomorrow,
the other can go next week, then the others Dave Henderson, Ted Kessler, Niall Doherty
can go. I’m all for that. Dizzee Rascal was & Dave Mackenzie.
the first to show us that you can become
a multi-millionaire out of this, so I always
respected him, but now it’s Skepta and THE Q AWARDS 2017 WOULD NOT HAVE
Stormzy keeping it alive. I’m able to say to my HAPPENED WITHOUT:
kids, “This thing is having its fucking day…” Patrick Horton, Abby Carvosso, Rob Munro Hall,
Look what Dad’s done...
Yeah, exactly! Clare Chamberlain, Dan Knight, Simon McEwen, Marian
It’s been a busy year. You put out an Paterson, Salman Naqvi, Chris Catchpole, Joel Stephan,
album, Godfather, in January and now Jess Blake, Fergus Carroll, Natalie Paszkowski,
your autobiography is coming out.
The good thing about the book is that my
Kirsty Morton, Stacia Nambiar, Nadia Maddison.
sister and my dad also wrote some. When
I was reading it I was like, “Wow, Dad, you SPECIAL THANKS TO:
shouldn’t have put that in there…” But he
Christian O’Connell and Troika, Paul Sylvester, Harriet Hines
should have. They can see what I can’t see, it
lets me see things from their point of view. and all at Absolute Radio, Jo Parkerson and the
And Godfather 2 is coming out... Bauer Ents Hub Team, Gibson Brands, The Cavern Club,
It’s great when I make an album now – it’s Buster + Punch team, Geraldine Coyle at Scenario UK, BMW,
not just about me, it’s about the scene.
Before, it would have been me trying to make 808 Whisky, Pretty Green, Help Musicians UK, Flare Audio,
an album on my own, maybe two [members Red Stripe, Three, BoxTV, Doug Wright, Emma Elwood,
of] Roll Deep, two Boy Better Know… but Sam Roberts, Alex Karol and the team at
now I can make an album with the scene.
What are your hopes for 2018? LD Communications, Rhi Williams and the team at Create
I hope that more youth get into music and Food & Party Design, Sam Stagnell and Chloe Brown at
get to see what their day is going to look like Premier, Hannah Pierce and Joe Leonard at the Roundhouse,
and I hope that England as a whole, team
Ian Robinson, Shirley McLean.
UK, stick together and we do the world thing.
So Liam Gallagher, Skepta, Rag’n’Bone Man,
Ed Sheeran, Wiley… I hope that everybody THE Q AWARDS 2017 IN ASSOCIATION WITH
recognises each other and we stick together. ABSOLUTE RADIO WERE SUPPORTED BY:
Can you tell us a joke? THE

My last joke was an English, Irishman and VE R

ACLUB
N
C

Scotsman one. [Thinks for a moment] It was LIVERPOOL

Est.1957

e where the Irishman comes down the

nd says, “Weeee!” You know it! I’m
can’t remember the fucking middle!
e are you off to next?
e bar to chill. CHRIS CATCHPOLE

d that’s not all...

more interviews with presenters
he Q Awards, including Wolf
e, Mo Gilligan and The Horrors,
d to Qthemusic.com.

JANUARY 2018 51
 GOING
PLACES
...with the sponsor of the Q Inspiration
Award, Three, who help you to roam
worldwide on your phone, at no extra
cost, in 60 destinations.
ravel and

T
inspiration
often walk
hand in
hand: Lou
Reed, U2
and David
Bowie have all used Berlin as
their creative base, while the
politics and landscapes of
America have enchanted and
terrified enough songwriters to
ensure its mention in a raft of
tracks and song titles. Some of
these artists have been bestowed
with the Q Inspiration Award
over the past few decades; their
lyrical nods to locations and Aussie rules:
faraway places have provided Manic Street
the scene for escapist fantasy, Preachers wrote
imagined safe spaces and an ode to a land
Down Under.
political drama.
More names were added to
PHOTOS: ALEX LAKE, GETTY DISCLAIMER: NONE OF THE ARTISTS FEATURED HAVE ENDORSED OR PROMOTED THIS SERVICE.

this prestigious portfolio at the

2017 Q Awards, where artists
such as Liam Gallagher (Q Best

DAVID
Live Act, Q Icon), Sleaford Mods Going Dutch: David
(Q Best Film) and Gorillaz (Q Bowie covered Jacques

Best Album) were honoured at
Camden’s famous Roundhouse.
Manic Street Preachers, winners
of this year’s Q Inspiration
Award Presented By Three,
celebrated with a sold-out show
at the venue, comprising a
greatest hits set from their 12
album-strong career so far.
So, what better way to
celebrate the success of this
year’s Awards and Three, who
let you roam worldwide on
your phone in 60 countries at
no extra cost, than by compiling
a brief list of Q Inspiration
Award winners and their lyrical
nod to some faraway, and not
so faraway locations.
BOWIE
Brel’s torrid portrayal
of Amsterdam.
PORT OF AMSTERDAM
Originally performed (but never
recorded) by Belgian singer,
songwriter and director Jacques
Brel, this version was released
by Bowie in 1973 as the B-side
to single Sorrow. Bowie’s
enigmatic, acoustic take of
Port Of Amsterdam later
appeared as a bonus cut on the
reissue of his seventh studio LP,
Pin Ups (1973), an album of
cover versions that included
The Who’s I Can’t Explain.
Bowie and his long-term
collaborator Brian Eno received
the Q Inspiration Award in 1995.
Berlin calling: U2 recorded
classic album Achtung Baby
in the German capital.

MANIC U2 SIMPLE
A Belfast story: Simple
Minds’ poignant ballad
went to Number 1.

STREET
PREACHERS
AUSTRALIA
The Manics’ fourth single of
1996 was a rush of anthemic
guitars and existential despair:
bassist Nicky Wire wrote
the song during the fall-out
from guitarist Richie Edwards’
vanishing the year before,
his lyrics shot through with
claustrophobia and an urgency
to escape the despair enveloping
him: “I want to fly and run till
it hurts/Sleep for a while and
speak no words… in Australia.”
OH BERLIN
U2 are no strangers to winning
Q Awards. Their portfolio of
successes includes Best Live Act
(2016, 2005), Q Greatest Act Of
The Last 25 Years (2011), and
the Q Inspiration Award in 1996.
Meanwhile, their relationship
with Berlin has extended to
the recording of 1991 album,
Achtung Baby at Hansa
Studios, as the band sought
to find inspiration from the
reunification of Germany. Rare
studio track Oh Berlin was later
released on the 20th-anniversary
of Achtung Baby in 2011 on
the super deluxe boxset edition.
MINDS
BELFAST CHILD
A Number 1 on its release as
the lead track from the Ballad
Of The Streets EP in 1989,
Belfast Girl drew lyrical
inspiration from the IRA
bombing of Enniskillen in 1987.
“In the second part of the song,
I’m trying to relate to people
in Northern Ireland who lost
loved ones,” says Simple
Minds’ vocalist Jim Kerr, whose
band would later win the Q
Inspiration Award in 2014. “I’m
trying to talk about the madness,
the sadness and the emptiness.”

SUEDE European sons:

Suede in 1996.
EUROPE IS OUR PLAYGROUND
Winners of the Q Inspiration
Award in 2010, Suede were
the flag bearers of a scene that
would later morph into Britpop
during the mid-’90s. Europe
Is Our Playground first appeared
as a B-side to the 1996 single
Trash, a brooding ballad swathed
in eerie synths and singer
Brett Anderson’s soaring,
escapist vocals (“Run with
me baby, now”).

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 0
Let the countdown
commence as we look
The back in the company
of Squeeze, Baxter
Dury, Muna, The War
On Drugs, Cigarettes
After Sex, James
Murphy and Sampha,
all of whom have
made it into Q’s select
half-century of 2017.
As compiled by John Aizlewood, Matt Allen, Laura
Barton, Martin Boon, Chris Catchpole, Hannah J
Davies, Niall Doherty, Tom Doyle, George Garner,
Rupert Howe, Ted Kessler, Dorian Lynskey, Simon
McEwen, Rebecca Nicholson, Paul Moody, James
Oldham, Andrew Perry, Simon Price, Victoria Segal,
Laura Snapes, Kate Solomon, Paul Stokes, Matt Yates.

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

01
NO
50 PUMAROSA he Backstory: A band who
left their East London rehearsal
room behind to craft their songs in a
disused cinema in Southern Italy.
The Clincher: It is a record that
inhabits its own fantastical world,
with anthems about priestesses and
ay from
baggy beats to sprawling rock.
What They Say: “A lot of the figures
being sung about are women. There’s
a general feeling of powerlessness or
anger.” Isabel Muñoz-Newsome
Key Track: Priestess
NIALL DOHERTY

“A record that inhabits its

own fantastical world”:
Pumarosa, featuring
Isabel Muñoz-Newsome.

VOCALIST ISABEL MUÑOZ-NEWSOME
ON MAKING PUMAROSA’S DEBUT AND
LAUNCHING HER OWN SPANISH INQUISITION.
Hello, Isabel, The Witch is in
Q’s Albums Of The Year.
Yesssssssss!
How does that feel?
It feels really great. I’m really,
really happy. Q is a massive
institution and it’s amazing, it’s
great. Haha! It’s incredible news.
How do you look back on
making the album now you’ve
had some time to reflect on it?
I still feel quite inside of it. I read
articles with artists and as soon as
they’ve finished recording, they
press stop and they’re over it, but
I still feel quite inside the music.
I’m really proud of it, it’s our first
LP, our first proper big release.
What’s been your highlight
of the year?
Oh God. There have been loads.
Going and playing the album
through and listening to it with
Dan [Carey, producer] and Jim and
Alex from the label and the band,
just listening to it for the first
time once we’d got everything
in order was amazing. It was
emotional. The gigs have been
incredible. Each place has such a
unique flavour and you really pick
up on that with the crowds. The
Green Man Festival was amazing.
They gave us an 11pm slot, which
was nice of them and it worked.
I really like how they programme
– they include a lot more women
at their festivals, a lot more lead
vocal women and that’s nice.
The Witch is a record about
strong female figures, quite
a pertinent theme now.
Yeah, it is. The songs happen cos
you feel that theme is relevant,
whatever’s going through them.
Also, I’m half-Chilean so I’ve got
a bit of Spanish in my blood, so
I translated Priestess and Lions’
Den with my dad and we’re going
to be releasing them in Spain.
Politically, there’s this separatist
theme and the government is
shutting it down in a violent
way. You can’t just shut down an
opinion, so we’re releasing Lions’
Den, which is essentially about
the ruling class and being heard.
I hope that will translate and
they’ll hear it.
INTERVIEW BY NIALL DOHERTY

JANUARY 2018 55

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
48. KEVIN
MORBY
CITY MUSIC
The Backstory: Morby’s
excellent third album, 2016’s
Singing Saw, had cast the former
Woods bassist into a wilderness
of dusty, ancient Americana.
The Clincher: As its title
suggests, the follow-up swapped
the great outdoors for the big
city. A New York rock’n’roll trip
that rattled past corners
populated by the ghosts of Lou
Reed, Television and, most
obviously on 1234, the Ramones.
What They Say: “Singing Saw is
a conversation with Leonard
Cohen, Nina Simone and Neil
Young. City Music is more like
Patti Smith or Lou Reed.”
Key Track: Downtown’s Lights
CHRIS CATCHPOLE
56 JANUARY 2018
47. GHOSTPOET
DARK DAYS + CANAPÉ S
The Backstory: Over three
albums, Obaro Ejimiwe
has proven himself a new
master of musical dread in
the vein of Massive Attack
and Tricky. Now was the time
to make his mark.
The Clincher: Producer Leo
Abrahams helps to expand
Ejimiwe’s sonic vision, as
electronica, post-rock and
warped funk grooves seep into
each other. The singer is an
uneasy but magnetic presence
from start to finish.
What They Say: “If I didn’t
write about the times we’re
living in currently I’d think
I was cheating myself.”
Key Track: (We’re) Dominoes
NIALL DOHERTY
“Their most vital album
in years”: Depeche
Mode’s Dave Gahan
steps things up.
46. JAY-Z
4:44
The Backstory: Publicly
chastened by Beyoncé’s
revelations of marital
indiscretion on Lemonade,
the architect of hip-hop’s
modern blueprint turns his
rhymes against himself.
The Clincher: Here Jay-Z
performs a demolition job on
his public image and extracts
Shawn Carter the husband,
father and son from the ruins.
It may not be his best, but it
is unequivocally his most
personal release to date.
What They Say: “This album
has a lot of topics – that’s why
it had to be so short, it’s
so condensed.”
Key Track: 4:44
GEORGE GARNER
49. DEPECHE
MODE
SPIRIT
The Backstory: They aren’t
exactly best friends and live in
three different cities stretched
across the globe, but the
Basildon trio are nearing their
fourth decade together. Could
their dysfunctional set-up bring
something magical once again?
The Clincher: Their most vital
album in years, a snarling state-
of-the-nation address from a
band who’ve made a career out
of turning angst into anthems.
What They Say: “I felt the
world was in a complete mess
and I wanted to address that.”
Martin Gore
Key Track: Where’s
The Revolution
NIALL DOHERTY
45. ALT J
RELAX ER
The Backstory: This trio
of sonic adventurers make
indie-rock that rarely stays
on the straight and narrow,
not when there’s a psychedelic
side-road that they can plough
down instead.
The Clincher: The group’s
third album is as strange
and beautiful as anything
they’ve ever done, making
medieval folk, hip-hop-style
grooves, a children’s choir and
orchestral swells sound like
perfect bedfellows.
What They Say: “We usually
JOHN JOHNSON, ALEX LAKE
come back to the big four, which
are love, loss, sex and death.”
Gus Unger-Hamilton
Key Track: 3WW
NIALL DOHERTY

“His Love-meets-Nick
Drake vision remains
beautifully intact”:
Michael Head, minus
his Red Elastic Band.
NO
MICHAEL HEAD
& THE RED ELASTIC BAND
ADIOS SEÑOR PUSSYCAT
The Backstory: After 11 years
in a wilderness of, in his words,
“fucking booze”, Head finally
returns with his first full-length
album since Shack’s On The
Corner Of Miles And Gil in 2006.
The Clincher: His Love-meets-
Nick Drake vision remains
beautifully intact here, the music
a genial, iridescent reflection of
his new-found peace of mind.
What They Say: “Maybe things
could have been different. But
at the end of the day I’m still
writing music – boss music…
And that’s more important to
me than a mortgage or hefty
bank balance.”
Key Track: Winter Turns
To Spring
JAMES OLDHAM
CULT HERO AND
“CHEEKY SCOUSE TWAT”
SAYS TA-RA TO HIS PAST.
It’s been 11 years since the last
Shack album. What changed
so you felt ready to make Adios
Señor Pussycat?
I did a gig the summer before last and
my band at the time pulled out. Tom
[Powell], who plays bass on the record,
his dad Steve engineered The Strands
album [in 1997]. I met him at his dad’s
birthday party and he said he played
bass and his mate played drums. It was
like a bulb went off in my head. I gave
them a bell and said, “Get four or five
Shack, Strands and Mick Head songs in
your arse pocket,” and they were like,
“Yeah, we know quite a few of your
songs, actually…” When we played the
gig, it was like the planets aligned, it
clicked – so we went into the studio.
Is the LP new songs or stuff you’d
been stockpiling over the years?
It’s a mixed bag of songs, old and
new. There’s a song called Working
Family which I wrote about 25 years
ago but didn’t finish.
You got a great reaction to the
shows you played recently…
Young people, you get chatting at gigs
and they say, “Me dad got me into your
album and I love it!” So I’m loving that.
Then sometimes you look out at the
crowd and see people you’ve known
for years and they’re smiling so much.
Everyone is buzzing.
There’s a lot of reflection in the
lyrics – were you aware of looking
back to your past?
There is a lot of looking back and
a lot of farewells in the lyrics. Maybe
subconsciously it’s a new beginning
and I’m saying ta-ra to my past. There’s
reflection in songs like Winter Turns
To Spring and Queen Of All Saints.
Queen Of All Saints is about you
getting a kiss from your teacher at
school – how much truth is in that?
It’s all true! Miss McCourt. I was a
cheeky little fucking so-and-so and
yeah, I did ask her for a kiss. She was
buzzing on me and said, “If you guess
my first name, you can peck me on
the cheek.” She must have thought,
“You cheeky Scouse twat…”
It’s been 33 years since you first
released an album with The Pale
Fountains. Do you still get a buzz
recording and releasing an album?
Yeah, it’s amazing. I’m always writing
songs anyway and the fact that we
can record them and there’s people
listening to them blows me away. The
other day we were in rehearsals and it
was so fucking amazing. It sounded like
The Paleys at their best. It reminded
me of that freshness. I’m loving it.
INTERVIEW BY CHRIS CATCHPOLE
JANUARY 2018 57
 N
SQUEEZE
In the ’70s, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford were the
songwriters in Squeeze, whose kitchen-sink pop classics had
them called a South London Lennon and McCartney. They were
massive. Then, the money. Then, the drugs. Then, the split.
But now they are reconciled. Pat Gilbert offers counselling.
PHO T O GR A PH S: TOM SH E E H A N

PERCHED ON THE ROOF of Squeeze’s

SQUEEZE studio-cum-HQ near the Thames in South East
THE K NOWLEDGE London, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford are
The Backstory: drinking in the vista. To the untrained eye, it looks
After years of uncannily like a decrepit 1920s industrial estate,
bickering like the kind where high-end motors might arrive in
a post-punk the dead of night only to re-emerge next morning
Ray and Dave with a new paint job and “funny” number plates.
Davies, Chris But to Squeeze’s songwriting partnership, it’s
Difford and an emotive reminder of their earthy London
Glenn Tilbrook roots which, in the late ’70s, inspired the quirky
have mellowed kitchen-sink classics on which their reputation is
with age and based: Cool For Cats, Up The Junction, Slap And
towards each other. heir second album of Tickle, Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)…
new material this century plays to their warm, “My family have lived in the Greenwich area for
wry strengths. 150 years,” explains the still-cherubic Tilbrook,
The Clincher: Diehard fans of the band will today sporting eccentric gold stripy trousers, his
revel in a characteristically witty heartbreaker. short grey hair ruffled by the breeze. “It’s a big
New ones will discover why Squeeze are part of who I am.”
so revered. “In two years this will be built over with flats,”
What They Say: “Playing back The Knowledge adds the dapper, bespectacled Difford, in the droll
I can feel the love we still have as songwriters, Cockney croak which made Cool For Cats’ tale of
and for each other. It’s been some journey.” cowboy films, TV cops shows and post-disco
Chris Difford shagging so convincing. “The community that has
Key Track: Two Forks lived and worked here will be swept out. That must
JOHN AIZLEWOOD be a huge concern for people around here.”
 ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

Still cool cats: Squeeze’s

Glenn Tilbrook (left) and
Chris Difford, London,
September, 2017.
 The “kitchen-sink classic” years:
Squeeze (from left) John Bentley,
Jools Holland, Chris Difford, Glenn
Tilbrook and Gilson Lavis, 1979.
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

“When you first get together as a

band, you don’t understand what you’re
Yet, as we descend to terra firma down a
rusty iron ladder, the two men will admit that doing. It takes time to realise what your
the stomping ground of their youth wasn’t
always ripe for romanticising in a pop hit or
journey is, and to be grateful for it. Back
two. Take, for example, an incident that
occurred in a pub in nearby Deptford, not long
then we weren’t.” Chris Difford
after Squeeze had first became famous in 1978.
“We were taken under the wing of some gangsters, as the local boys tackling such uncomfortable topics as erectile dysfunction (the jolly
made good,” recalls Tilbrook. “I was sitting there having a drink when Please Be Upstanding), child abuse (Final Score) and death (the
two blokes beat up another bloke with a fire extinguisher. It was moody Departure Lounge).
proper serious, horrible violence. I wish I’d never seen it. They were “Some albums take a few years to work out, but this has come into
very sweet to the band but that was the last time I ever went there.” focus almost immediately,” says Difford. “I think it takes on some
“Does that sort of thing still happen here?” enquires a quizzical really important issues.”
Difford, who moved out of London to the south coast in the ’90s. “It was crucial for us to capitalise on the momentum Cradle… gave
“I bet it does,” explains his bandmate, “but my life doesn’t come us,” chips in Tilbrook. “For gentlemen of our age, that’s really
into contact with it. The last time it did was at a crack den in the ’80s.” important, because as well as success, we’ve known failure. We’re back
He laughs. “But that’s another story…” where we should be, writing new songs, recording and touring
Welcome to the curious world of Squeeze, your favourite America. That hasn’t been the case for a very long time.”
knockabout Cockney pop band, where London is an endless source of One of The Knowledge’s most poignant songs is the closing Two
wonderment, substance abuse and “weirdness” play an important part, Forks, which probes at Difford and Tilbrook’s famously difficult
and the relationship between its two songwriters is still a challenge… friendship down the years. From 1975 to what at the time appeared to
be a terminal split in 1999, the two men helmed Squeeze’s on-off
t’s a sunny September afternoon, and Chris and Glenn are journey from knavish South London pub rock misfits to world-
seated in the “garden” area of the industrial unit that they conquering pop band, peaking commercially in 1987 with the
call home. We’re here to discuss the band’s rollicking new Babylon And On album.
album, The Knowledge, a swift follow-up to 2015’s Cradle Yet from as early as the band’s second album, 1979’s Cool For Cats,
To The Grave, which was written as a soundtrack to Danny Chris and Glenn admit they rarely communicated openly with each
Baker’s BBC sitcom of the same name, and featured the first other, onstage or off, their connection existing solely in the alchemical
original Squeeze material for 17 years. As its title suggests, moment when Tilbrook would post a cassette or CD to Difford
The Knowledge is both a kind of virtual cab ride through containing the music he’d created for his partner’s lyrics.
modern British society (the trenchantly political A&E calls Even today, 10 years into their millennial reunion, our meeting
for NHS nurses to be paid more, Rough Ride highlights the is notable for the unnerving silences between the two men, and the
GETTY

capital’s seamier side) and a wizened meditation on middle-aged life, sense one is interviewing them separately, even though they are sitting

60 JANUARY 2018
 “We could get used to
this…”: Difford and
Tilbrook feel the fan
just feet apart. For their first manager, Miles love, JFK Airport,
New York, 1982.
Copeland – older brother of The Police’s
Stewart – the problem was that both are “deep
and weird. They write great songs but how their
brains worked was always a mystery.” Q wonders
what the pair themselves feel might be at the heart
of their uneasy marriage of personalities.
“[Long pause] Because we’re very different
people,” answers Difford.
In what way, Q asks?
“[Long pause] It might be easier to ask in what
ways we’re similar,” says Tilbrook, smiling.
OK, in what ways are you similar?
The two great songwriters look at one
another askance, before each emits a
spluttering laugh.
“I really don’t know,” says Difford.
Yet both will contend that being in Squeeze –
of which they are long the only original members – ha
hugely entertaining ride, especially in their formative days. The pair Tilbrook, who lived in separate flats in the same townhouse near
first met in 1973, when an 18-year-old Difford posted a message in a Greenwich Park, a new lyric or completed piece of music tucked
sweetshop window seeking musicians to join a band he hadn’t actually behind the other’s milk bottles almost every day. After their first hit,
started yet; 16-year-old Tilbrook was the only person to respond. At the synth-propelled Take Me I’m Yours, in February 1978, Difford’s
the time, Difford had not long been sacked from his job as a solicitor’s interest in diarising quotidian English life rapidly developed, spurred
clerk for stealing from the office safe. He was, by his own admission, on by a fascination with Ray Davies (“I thought The Beatles’ lyrics
a speed-freak and “a bit of a thug” (though – rock fact alert – that were too weird”) and the fact he was by now sinking into the fabric of
summer he did find time to help a mate create the backdrops for South London’s criminal underbelly.
Bowie’s Ziggy/Aladdin Sane stage show). Glenn, meanwhile, was a “I was going out with a girl whose sisters were prostitutes,”
barefooted hippy with long blond hair who’d learned to play guitar explains the lyricist. “The family had connections with proper villains.
listening to Jimi Hendrix records. I found it fascinating to be among these people, getting pissed with
Recruiting showboating keyboardist Jools Holland and hard-man them, going for fish and chips.”
drummer Gilson Lavis, Squeeze cut their teeth playing local pubs Yet during the run of hit singles that followed, crowned by the
around Deptford and Greenwich, where budding Svengali Copeland peerless Up The Junction and its story of an ill-fated teenage
signed them, convinced he’d seen the “next Beatles”. By late 1977, pregnancy, the two songwriters’ friendship became strained. Difford
riding shotgun on punk, they’d landed a major deal with A&M. The attributes the change to his marrying his new American girlfriend in
Velvet Underground’s John Cale was brought in to produce their 1979, and subsequently becoming a father. Tilbrook agrees this had an
debut album, but fell foul of Squeeze’s penchant for practical jokes effect, but believes the estrangement began earlier, “some time
when he passed out in the studio and Holland wrote “I’m a c**t” on his between the first and second albums”, when Difford “began to
forehead in felt-tip pen. “It was still there when we met him the next withdraw” and no longer showed an interest in sharing lead vocals.
day,” chortles Tilbrook. “John Cale wanted to call our album ‘Gay Whatever the causes, both admit “we never discussed it”.
Guys’, but we obviously weren’t so keen…” Adding to tensions within the group, the musically adroit Tilbrook
began to take an increasingly dictatorial approach in the studio. This,
he says, was mostly “because I spent less time in the pub than

WHEN IT’S COOL FOR CATS, an old woman having loved and helped introduce Chris and Glenn

IT’S COOL FOR CATS... lost, set to a weeping country

Ten Classic Squeeze Numbers
1. COOL FOR CATS
(Cool For Cats, 1979)
Difford’s genius lyric about those
essential ’70s male pursuits –
watching Westerns, The Sweeney
and pulling “birds” after the disco –
demanded to be learned in full.
2. UP THE JUNCTION
(Cool For Cats, 1979)
No chorus, but seven heart-
rending verses about a young man
in Clapham screwing up
fatherhood and his early adult life.
3. PULLING MUSSELS
(FROM THE SHELL)
(Argybargy, 1980)
Tilbrook’s brilliantly catchy vocal
melody and slick guitar solo
soundtrack a tale of a saucy
English seaside holiday romance.
4. LABELLED WITH LOVE
(East Side Story, 1981)
A lachrymose drinker’s lament to
strum-along.
5. KING GEORGE STREET
(Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, 1985)
A first-split comeback with all
the classic Difford-Tilbrook
ingredients: a South London
location, a broken marriage,
a midnight flit and a gorgeous
pop melody.
6. TRUST ME TO OPEN
MY MOUTH
(Babylon And On, 1987)
A gigantic ’80s production
propels a funky pop behemoth
about prematurely blabbing
about secret love.
7. SOME FANTASTIC PLACE
(Some Fantastic Place, 1993)
Poignant salute to the recently
deceased female friend who
in 1973, featuring a stinging guitar
solo recorded from that year.
8. ELECTRIC TRAINS
(Ridiculous, 1995)
Difford’s nostalgic schoolboy
memories collide with one
of Tilbrook’s most stirring,
emotional rock work-outs.
9. HAPPY DAYS
(Cradle To The Grave, 2015)
The first album of original
Squeeze material in 17 years
included this sunny gem, revisiting
the theme of ’70s Londoners
heading for the coast.
10. TWO FORKS
(The Knowledge, 2017)
Difford acknowledges his
bumpy 40-year relationship
with Tilbrook on this loveable,
lopsided Cockney skank.

JANUARY 2018 61

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
“We got back together very gingerly.
I wanted the opportunity to press the
the others. Don’t get me wrong, I was
having a good time. But yes, without a
exit button at any time if it wasn’t
doubt I did resent [doing a lot of the work]
as you got paid the same as everyone else.
right, but it was.” Glenn Tilbrook
Those things have to be addressed or they
become festering sores.”
“When you first get together as a band, you don’t have the
emotional intelligence to understand what you’re doing,” adds
Difford. “You’re just knocking about from one thing to the other.
It takes time to realise what your journey is, and to be grateful for it.
Back then we weren’t.”
In 1980, at the height of Squeeze’s first flush of fame, Jools Holland
left to pursue a career as a TV presenter and solo artist. In 1982, after
scoring a US hit with Tempted – sung by Holland’s replacement Paul
Carrack – Squeeze split up, only to re-form in 1985 and going on to
make one of their biggest-selling LPs, Babylon And On, two years later.
“Five years of recording an album every year and touring took its
toll, even at that age,” says Tilbrook of the first split. “The inspiration
had dried up a bit and we needed to take time off. When we got back
together we became a better band, the records moved sideways.
Then after a while it lost its way again.”
Indeed, behind Squeeze’s ever-jaunty public façade, the mid-’80s
Difford-Tilbrook partnership was entering its darkest phase.
Tilbrook’s then-wife took to demanding that Chris show her his lyrics
before he presented them to Glenn. Difford was incredulous. Making
matters exponentially worse, Tilbrook briefly experimented with
heroin, while Difford obliterated his own demons in a blizzard of
white powder. “I’d sit in a hotel room, look at the wine list, get out the
cocaine, watch some telly, go for a walk, then do it all again,” he told
this writer in 2007. “Just selfish. It got to the point where I had to go
into rehab – it was a real wake-up call. But I’m pleased that part of my
life happened so I could come back.”
Both men spent a cleaned-up ’90s steering Squeeze through
various line-up changes and studio albums, including 1995’s
superlative Ridiculous. But Difford was now suffering anxiety
attacks, and when he fell ill on the eve of a US tour in 1999 an
exasperated Tilbrook called time on the band. One of Britain’s
62 JANUARY 2018
…And they all lived happily
ever after: Chris Difford
and Glenn Tilbrook, 2017.
great songwriting institutions seemed to have fractured for good;
tellingly, no one really noticed.
ack at Squeeze’s HQ, Difford is readying himself to
drive back to Brighton, doing hands-free phone
interviews on the way. On the wall is a poster for his
and Tilbrook’s 2015 The At Odds Couple acoustic
tour, its knowing title poking fun at their famously
unorthodox relationship. The pair have been working
together again as Squeeze since 2007, when they
reunited for a tour to promote the Essential Squeeze
compilation. The rapprochement came after several
press interviews had convinced them that
they were silly to throw away such a singular commodity as the
Difford-Tilbrook writing partnership. There was also the realisation
that the Squeeze brand was more popular than ever.
“Basically, we began to appreciate what we had,” says Difford.
It did, however, take eight years for them to return with Cradle To
The Grave, a result of taking the reunion one step at a time. “Splitting
up [in 1999] wasn’t a decision I enjoyed at the time,” says Tilbrook,
“but it was the best thing ever. We did solo things and through that
Chris discovered what he could do and I discovered what I can do.
When we got back together it was very gingerly done, I wanted the
opportunity to press the exit button at any time if it wasn’t right,
but it was. It took several years to make an album and now The
Knowledge is even better.”
“It’s been noted many times that we’ve had disagreements but our
similarities are so strong – in the making of the records, the band, the
way that we play, our vision. That’s the important thing.”
And with that, South London’s strangest but most resilient odd
couple prepare to pull down the shutters on their riverside lock-up
and wave Q goodbye.
 42. LAURA
MARLING
SEMPER FEMINA
The Backstory: After Short
Movie’s desert quest, the singer-
songwriter’s sixth album sought
out some hazy Laurel Canyon
shade to muse on muses,
wildness and womanhood.
The Clincher: Subtle, complex,
lushly orchestrated, this was
music that was as cerebral as it
was sensuous.
What They Say: “This one was
about understanding femininity
and masculinity. The last one
was understanding solitude.
Before that was heartbreak,
before that was freedom. It’s
like I’m tackling the world
one emotion at a time!”
Key Track: The Valley
VICTORIA SEGAL
41. FLEET FOXES
CRACK-UP
The Backstory: Missing-in-
action for three years after singer
Robin Pecknold enrolled at
Columbia University, Fleet
Foxes returned with a time-and-
space-bending record.
The Clincher: Their third
album takes their acoustic sound
and propels it into an aural
otherworld featuring anything
from water drumming to cuts
between hi- and lo-fi, while
keeping the harmonies.
What They Say: “I wanted
moments where the song
was stripped away and you’re
almost listening to the demo.”
Robin Pecknold
Key Track: I Am All That I Need/
Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar
TOM DOYLE
40. TYLER ,
THE CREATOR
FLOWER BOY
The Backstory: Controversy
magnet and leader of LA hip-hop
collective Odd Future delivers
his most complex and lyrically
daring statement to date.
The Clincher: Studded with
A-list guests and grounded by
low-slung beats, Tyler’s fourth
album also found him in
unexpectedly confessional
mood, swapping homophobic
spleen for lines about “kissing
white boys.”
What They Say: “I just make
music. I don’t go into deep shit
[about it]. Like, if I made a pink
and yellow shirt, it’s because I like
the way pink and yellow looks.”
Key Track: Who Dat Boy
RUPERT HOWE
39. LANA
DEL REY
LUST FOR LIFE
The Backstory: The
pre-eminent prophetess of
doomed romance returns with a
smile on her face and hope in her
heart. But does it work?
The Clincher: Del Rey’s
melancholia and fatalism
remains gloriously intact, only
this time tempered by joy and
optimism. Lust For Life expands
her emotional jurisdiction to
stunning effect.
What They Say: “On the
last records I needed to look
inward… I came to the end
of my self-examination and
I naturally was looking
at everything else.”
Key Track: Love
GEORGE GARNER

The Italian job:

Phoenix explore
“a world of
possibilities”.

38. PHOENIX
TI AMO
The Backstory: Versailles indie
royalty return from a four-year
break in unashamedly romantic
mood, inspired by thoughts
of love, art and Italian ice
cream. Bellissimo!
The Clincher: Assembled
largely from first takes, the
quartet’s effervescent sixth
studio album saw them discover
a perfect mix of flavours,
whisking baroque Euro-disco
and crunchy ’80s rock into
their uplifting, festival-friendly
choruses.
What They Say: “[This album]
embodies the true value of what
art should be, which is a world of
possibilities.” Thomas Mars
ED MILES

Key Track: J-Boy

RUPERT HOWE
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
Start making Sense:
J Hus – “like nothing
you’ve heard before”.
36. ELBOW
LITTLE FICTIONS
The Backstory: A man down
after the departure of drummer
Richard Jupp, the Mancunian
quartet rallied themselves
around lovestruck Guy Garvey’s
lyrics about romance and
impending fatherhood.
The Clincher: Little Fictions
set aside Elbow’s knack for
big singalongs in favour of
hushed grooves and songs that
kept the bombast on a leash.
A gently uplifting record that
gets under your skin with
repeated listens.
What They Say: “Life is about
the way you touch people’s
lives. It’s how you exist forever.”
Guy Garvey
Key Track: Trust The Sun
NIALL DOHERTY
64 JANUARY 2018
35. KASABIAN
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD
The Backstory: Following
the more electronic-oriented
48:13, Serge Pizzorno set out
to make a set of chaff-free,
pop-friendly bangers.
The Clincher: Going straight for
the massive chorus/bit where
you can wave your hands in
the air jugular, Kasabian’s
sixth album delivered. Fun
and frequently outright silly,
it’s the most consistently
enjoyable set of songs of the
band’s career.
What They Say: “There’s so
much comedy in what we do.
We’re psychedelic kids from
Leicester.” Serge Pizzorno
Key Track: You’re In Love
With A Psycho
CHRIS CATCHPOLE
34. SUSANNE
SUNDFØR
MUSIC FOR PEOPLE
IN TROUBLE
The Backstory: Rattled by
depression and anxiety, the
Norwegian singer ditched the
electro-pop of 2015’s Ten Love
Songs for a dreamier and more
dramatic acoustic sound.
The Clincher: It deals with The
Big Stuff (drone-led conflicts,
our place in the mystery of the
universe) and the personal
(see No One Believes In Love
Anymore) with real beauty
and delicacy.
What They Say: “I wanted to
take the pulse of living today.
I sensed a lot of uneasiness in
the world.”
Key Track: The Sound Of War
TOM DOYLE
37. J HUS
COMMON SENSE
The Backstory: East London’s
Momodou Jallow, known to his
friends as Hus, built on the hype
of early YouTube freestyles and
his 2014 mixtape The 15th Day
and ended up releasing one of
the pop albums of the year.
The Clincher: Though Hus
is often bundled in with grime,
his approach to genre is far
less prescribed, and Common
Sense is a mostly joyful, always
earnest blend of everything
from garage to R&B to
classic hip-hop.
What They Say: “I’m like
everything you’ve heard
before, and nothing you’ve
heard before.”
Key Track: Did You See
REBECCA NICHOLSON
33. JOAN
SHELLEY
JOAN SHELLEY
The Backstory: Exceptional
Louisville country singer teams
up with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy
(he produces) to create her
most beautiful album to date.
The Clincher: Recorded live,
it’s sparse and unhurried
throughout, an album devoid
of anything superfluous either
musically or lyrically but
still vibrates with a deep
emotional force.
What They Say: “The space is
the most important thing. The
space in between the words, the
timing of the words: that space
is the thing that will allow you
to reach someone.”
Key Track: Where I’ll Find You
JAMES OLDHAM
 32. NADIA REID
PRE SERVATION
The Backstory: The follow-up
to 2015’s lovelorn Listen To
Formation, Look For The Signs
showed the 26-year-old New
Zealander stretching out her
songwriting skills, deepening
and darkening her folk-rock
storytelling.
The Clincher: These newly
defiant songs dissected
relationship fall-out with a clear
eye and a steady stare, each one
revealing the quiet power and
ANDREW WHITTON, ANDREW COTTERILL
slow-release emotion in Reid’s
voice and arrangements.
What They Say: “It can be a
difficult listen sometimes but
I really think it can be healing
to hear that kind of stuff.”
Key Track: Richard
VICTORIA SEGAL
“Their most
coherent
album yet”:
Everything
Everything
slide forwards.
31. BRIAN ENO
REFLECTION
The Backstory: On New Year’s
day, the nation’s favourite
cultural polymath released
his 26th solo studio album.
The Clincher: This “generative”,
one-track ambient piece
harked back to the minimalist
experiments Eno began with
1975’s Discreet Music. But its
immersive thrum, replete with
atmospheric whirrs and whistles,
sounded thoroughly modern –
making Reflection his most
pensive, absorbing moodscape
in over two decades.
What They Say: “It seems
to create a psychological
space that encourages
internal conversation.”
Key Track: Reflection
SIMON McEWEN
30. BECK
COLORS
The Backstory: After the
plaintive folk of 2013’s Morning
Phase, Beck turned his attention
to a kaleidoscopic pop record.
But, with two years having
passed since its first single,
would he ever get round to
finishing it?
The Clincher: It was worth the
wait. This is Beck’s most buoyant
collection of songs in years,
catchy earworms distilled
through modern, slick
pop production.
What They Say: “It’s not
retro and not modern. To sit
everything together so it doesn’t
sound like a huge mess was quite
an undertaking.”
Key Track: Colors
NIALL DOHERTY
29. EVERYTHING
EVERYTHING
A FEVER DREAM
The Backstory: After the
intense creation of 2015’s Get
To Heaven, Manchester’s indie
experimentalists found a way to
both harness the gloom and
sleep soundly at night.
The Clincher: Frontman
Jonathan Higgs perfects his role
as perplexed social commentator
to make the quartet’s most
coherent album yet. It’s a potent
mix of electronic warmth, spiky
guitars and twisted hooks.
What They Say: “We’ve written
more together on this album
than ever before. We just seem
to be churning out the hits now.”
Jonathan Higgs
Key Track: A Fever Dream
NIALL DOHERTY
MUNA
Just what was it about radically
political feminists Muna that grabbed
the attention of superstar heartthrob
Harry Styles? Laura Snapes joins
Styles’s US tour to find out how his
favourite support act are enjoying it.
8 N O

R AC H A E L W R IGH T
PHO T O GR A PH S:

MUNA
ABOUT U
The Backstory:
Three university friends
accidentally recorded
a pop song one day
and went on to create a
warm, inclusive brand
of synth-y heartache.
“We know we’re f**king good”:
Muna (from left) Naomi McPherson,
Josette Maskin and Katie Gavin,
Austin, Texas, 11 October, 2017.
The Clincher: Soaring,
euphoric pop that delves
into dark places and comes
out with something to
hope for.
What They Say: “I like
to find emotional spaces
that feel like they haven’t
been explored by the
pop terrain. People
talk about love all the
time… but there are a
lot of parts about it that
[they] don’t cover because
they seem too complex.”
Katie Gavin
Key Track: I Know A Place
KATE SOLOMON
wo paper signs are
pinned to the back
door of Irving, Texas’s
Toyota Music Factory
on a bright but chilly
Tuesday afternoon in
early October. One
depicts two wily
teenage girls who are
not allowed in the
building under any
circumstances. The
other is a shot of the former boy-band
star headlining tonight, indicating that
he does not, under any circumstances,
require an access pass. Those passes bear
the edict “TREAT PEOPLE WITH
KINDNESS”, a cultish mantra that
appears on crew members’ lanyards
and gig merchandise.
These are the only rules in an
otherwise absurdly friendly environment
that seems incongruous to one of the
year’s biggest pop tours (albeit one that
takes place in purposefully intimate
venues). There’s no booze, egos or bad
behaviour. Beneath those paper signs,
two security guards chat about church.
Upstairs at catering, the world’s most
lusted-after boy is sitting on the knee of
a girl with a severe punk haircut.
He is Harry Styles, resplendent in a
tropical shirt. She is Katie Gavin, singer
in the LA-based pop trio Muna, the
support for Styles’s debut headline tour.
Alongside Muna multi-instrumentalists
Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin,
they’re discussing the joy of bagels and
wondering why band chat always gets
scatological. “I hope you’re getting all
this,” Styles gestures at Q as Maskin,
choking with laughter, confesses that
he almost walked in on her mid-shit
earlier in the tour.
This easygoing scene conceals the
chasm between the two acts. He is a
heartthrob trying to make his name as an
artiste without alienating One Direction’s
devoted teen girl audience. They are a
radically political, hyper-academic
group of queer feminists who behave like a DIY act despite also being
signed to Columbia/RCA and sounding like Depeche Mode playing
Fleetwood Mac. Styles wears flamboyant custom-made Gucci suits
onstage. Two of Muna sleep together each night to save money.
The tour is a huge commercial opportunity for Muna, but equally
great branding for Styles. Gavin sings explicitly about sexual assault,
emotional abuse and sanctuary, songs that grow in resonance with
each passing week – Irving comes a few days after the Vegas shooting
and during the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Meanwhile, Styles’s LGBTQ
fans have adopted him as a gay icon thanks to his feminine aesthetic,
some broad statements about inclusivity and a willingness to dance
with rainbow flags. Having Muna as his support stokes this reputation,
which isn’t lost on these three diligent over-thinkers.
I
nside the Toyota Music Factory, bored dads in real cowboy
hats (not the glittery pink pop show staples) sit reading
their phones. Onstage, Muna look like Regency goths in
lavish white frills and black pinstripes, Gavin extending
a lacy sleeve to the screaming front row. Usually they
wouldn’t play their song Everything in such a short set,
but felt its obsessive theme was appropriate.
Their euphoric closer, I Know A Place, was written in
2015 as an LGBTQ anthem. The lyrics console a friend
recovering from trauma by suggesting that they go dancing
in a safe space. Muna released it in late 2016 when it took on a starker
resonance in the wake of the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub,
as it has again this week post-Vegas. McPherson introduces it with a
tribute to the crowd. “In this day and age, it does take a lot of courage to
come to a show, which is such a sad thing,” she says. “But I know there’s
a lot of disenfranchised people in this building – queer people, people
of colour – so look at what a beautiful space you’ve created tonight.”
“We knew there
was something
special about this
combination of
people. What we
didn’t know was us
being queer women
who talk about
things in certain
ways would be a big
deal.” Katie Gavin
United front: Muna,
Austin, Texas,
11 October, 2017.
Muna think deeply about their obligation to Styles’s fans. On the
first night, in San Francisco, Gavin gave a speech about taking them
“from the world of your everyday life to the world where all your
dreams become real,” she recounts in a mystic voice post-show.
She’s stopped doing it, but feels a heavy respect for their experience.
“I wanted to be shamanic, guiding them on their trip, because I do see
girls coming down from being in a room with him. It’s no fucking joke.”
This conscious approach is typical of Muna, who take their
mission seriously. Though not themselves, thankfully: Maskin, 23,
is a cartoon-voiced goof, McPherson, 24, a no-nonsense hippy. Even
cautious Gavin, 24, sends up her own seriousness. They’re enjoyably
cocky, because “we know we’re fucking good,” says McPherson, but
also as a way of elevating each other. “If you ask me how to value
myself on a day-to-day basis, it’s a shit-show,” says Katie. “But I know
how to value them.”
una met at the University Of Southern California.
Maskin and McPherson were more into
experimental prog, but at their first jam session,
Gavin told them they were going to be a pop band,
and that she was going to write lyrics about things
that weren’t usually covered in pop songs. An
A&R at RCA in the US heard a SoundCloud demo
of Loudspeaker in September 2015, flew them out
to New York and signed them a month later.
McPherson produced their debut album,
About U, released this February.
It’s hard to think of another pop lyricist like Gavin. You could take
Crying On The Bathroom Floor as a break-up track, or, as Muna said
around its release, as an exploration of “traumatic bonding”, aka
Stockholm syndrome (incidentally, the name of a One Direction track
in Styles’s set that is definitely not about the same
thing). Loudspeaker celebrates the power of speaking
out about sexual abuse, “but you can listen to that
and be like, ‘Let me fucking dance!’” says Maskin.
“Or, I Know A Place: It’s the club, bitch! Party!”
“We’re not making music saying, ‘Fuck
Republicans,’” says McPherson. “It’s not about
them. We can’t just say, ‘Fuck all these fuckin’
shitty people who don’t agree with me, I’m going
to go to my liberal cave.’ It’s obviously not fucking
working for [society].”
Muna’s Twitter functions more like a summary
of social justice issues than a promo tool. But they
debate whether they initially intended to be
political. Maskin suggests that McPherson saw
Muna as an extension of her dissertation on female
rappers using the mainstream to create social
change. “We knew there was something special
about this combination of people,” adds Gavin.
“I think what we didn’t know was the fact that us
being queer women who talk about things in certain ways was gonna
be a big deal. We weren’t aware of the way that our narrative was going
to fit into a more national, or even global narrative.”
They admit to feeling desensitised to the events that have made
their music feel more relevant in recent weeks. A less scrupulous
band might take advantage of this significance, but it leaves Muna
conflicted. “That’s the difficult thing about being ‘political’ and being
an artist in an era where everything is just clickbait, ultimately,” says
McPherson. “I feel like in a lot of ways our identities have snowballed
out of control, and become just bait for people to click on an article.
It’s weird to be a ‘political artist’ while also being seen as an artist.
And not letting those things get the better of you.”
It’s five minutes until Styles’s set. Maskin stays upstairs to keep
icing her bad knee, but Gavin and McPherson head down. Girls
approach them for hugs and selfies. At 9pm, a spotlight on a pink floral
curtain covering the stage picks out Styles’s silhouette, and 3000
mobile phones catch the moment when it drops. Later in the set, fans
 Lone star power: (clockwise from
left) gearing up in Austin; backstage
in Irving’s Music Factory, Texas;
Harry Styles’s “TREAT PEOPLE
WITH KINDNESS” access pass and
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
instructions on the man himself;
“elevating each other” in Irving.

hold pink paper hearts

in front of their phone
torches, giving the room
a rosy glow – part of a
forum-initiated project.
Styles mocks the rare
blokes standing with their
arms folded, and runs
around with a rainbow
flag thrown onstage.
“I could not feel more
honoured to perform in front
of a group of strong women,”
he says before closing with
Sign Of The Times. Then he’s They consider SXSW 2016 the moment the band was truly born,
bundled into a 4x4, though fans so tonight in Austin brings them full circle from that do-or-die
patrol the back door for hours, moment. The urgency of making the band work was also to keep
convinced he’s still inside. McPherson from moving back to San Diego after college. Even now,
on a huge pop tour, on a major label, Muna struggle to break even.

O
n Wednesday morning, Muna convene for a healthy
breakfast before the three-hour drive to the next date
in Austin, Texas. Tour manager and drummer Scott
Heiner is filming bassist Brian Jones recording a
freestyle rap about police brutality in the strip mall car
park. McPherson and Maskin, bored of waiting for their
nutritious orders, dispatch Gavin for bagels. Queuing in
the strip mall Starbucks, she says she hasn’t drunk for
almost three months, and that Muna mostly tour sober.
They learned their lesson at last year’s SXSW, when
Gavin lost her voice thanks to free beer and her amateur singing
technique. She contemplated quitting, but Heiner told her the band
would die if she did. So she persisted. “I’m really proud of myself,”
she says, as another girl in a Styles shirt requests a photo.
Muna get in the van and head down the long, straight highway.
After 18 months on the road, the sight of horned cattle and anti-
abortion billboards holds no interest. Gavin and Maskin read,
and McPherson works on their next album, which she’ll produce.
“I’m doing something so legendary right now,” she tells Maskin.
They’re squeezing in small headline shows between Styles dates and
McPherson will soon move in with Maskin and her parents.
“Only in the last six months has it felt like we’re a professional
band, this is what we do for a living,” says Maskin. “It’s a more mature
version, it’s not as anxious…”
“Speak for yourself!” McPherson sighs, though admits that this
tour “was an opportunity to take ourselves more seriously.”
The van sails down I-35, eventually stopping for tacos in Austin.
Muna are getting colds and lay down once they arrive at The Moody
Theatre. Tonight’s show is standing, so fans have been camping at the
front of the queue for a week, planting a rainbow flag in the concrete.
As queer women, Muna weren’t deterred by accusations of
“queerbaiting” that have followed Styles – adopting a sexually
ambiguous aesthetic to ensnare LGBTQ fans. “I think one way of
seeing what he’s doing is that he’s offering an opportunity for a new
expression of masculinity,” says Gavin. They also share his admiration
for his empowered female fans. “Now you’re in an era where young
women are not only woke, but also some of the only people paying for
your music, you can’t be a dickhead,” says McPherson.

JANUARY 2018 69
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

Bloom, shake the room:

(above) Muna, The Moody
Theatre, Austin, Texas,
October, 2017; (below) the
“woke” faithful in Austin.

Unlike most pop stars would, Styles hasn’t been talking up the
“KINDNESS” branding. “I really respect this whole establishment
that he has created more than I thought I would,” says Maskin. “The
behaviour of everyone who works for him is immaculate. It’s so
important to do what you actually fucking say, and that’s what I keep
thinking about in terms of us being an ally and an activist.”
For Muna, part of that means rejecting the hierarchy of fandom.
“I’m really hopeful that we’ll be able to do something a little bit
differently,” says Gavin. “I want to set up spaces for us to have real
conversations with our fans, not just Twitter or a meet’n’greet.
I just want to destroy the chances for them to put us on a podium.”

A
s the Austin show coincides with International Day
Of The Girl and National Coming Out Day, tonight
fans display rainbow hearts. They wave them
during Muna’s set, where despite the band’s
encroaching colds, they give it even more than last
night. Fortunately, they get a few days off after this;
Styles is there to hug them at the end. “To see the
energy between the audience and Muna every night
has been amazing,” he says by email a week later.
(As friendly as the vibe is backstage, pointing a
Dictaphone at Styles is verboten, and my questions on why he exactly
picked Muna, and how his shows became an LGBTQ-friendly space,
go unanswered.) “They fill the crowd with love, and everyone in the
crowd, including me, loves them right back.”
It’s worth considering how pop music has become a vehicle for
activism again, more than three decades after Bronski Beat, Live Aid
and other ’80s causes célèbres. Ariana Grande’s One Last Time became
an unwitting anthem after a terrorist attacked her Manchester
show. Acts like Years & Years are far more radical than their indie
counterparts. Styles is no political firebrand, but his presence has
awakened something within his fans that Muna could catalyse.
McPherson wonders if the internet is responsible for pop’s
politicisation – in senior school she had an account on Tumblr, a social
media site where millennials dissect social justice and fandom. “I
think everyone’s minds are open to academia being integrated into pop
culture and seeing things through a critical lens,” she says. “We wanna
understand what the fuck is going on because it is so confusing and
terrifying and you wanna know why you’re so fucking sad all the time!”
Muna are often asked why they use pop for their message, but
confess that they don’t really enjoy much punk music and rail against
pop snobbery. “People love to hate what feels good!” says Maskin.
Right on time, a pre-show Styles, in a pink flared suit, starts dancing to
Hot Chocolate’s Every 1’s A Winner outside his dressing room.
Watching him has emboldened Muna as performers. “It’s not gonna
be an overnight change for us,” says Gavin. “It’s such a delicate dance
of your body feeling good and authentic, and not making a mockery
out of the whole performance. But we’re also trying something new.”
Despite the differences in resources, perhaps Muna and Styles
aren’t so far apart. They’re both clinging to their identities when
there are far easier routes to success and establishing a new way of
functioning. For Styles, it means showing his fans of all creeds that
they’re as worthy of adoration and respect as they think he is. For
Muna, it’s outgrowing the clickbait era so they can reach their creative,
ethical and commercial ambitions, and endure. Two of a kind.

“I think everyone’s minds are open to academia being integrated into

pop culture. We wanna understand what the f**k is going on and
you wanna know why you’re so sad all the time!” Naomi McPherson
70 JANUARY 2018

27. SZA
CTRL
The Backstory: Big-name
co-writes and well-received EPs
didn’t make getting this hazy,
winding debut album out any
easier for SZA (aka Solána
Rowe). After a year of delays she
nearly quit music altogether.
The Clincher: A dreamy R&B
record to rival Frank Ocean for
tender self-examination, SZA’s
relatable lyrics are like a series
of late-night WhatsApps
between friends.
What They Say: “It’s
about peeling back layers
and honesty, even when it’s
ugly, when it hurts. Just kind
of cleansing… Just being
more free.”
Key Track: The Weekend
KATE SOLOMON
25. THUNDERCAT
DRUNK
The Backstory: Extravagantly
attired cat-lover and go-to bass
wizard for Kendrick Lamar lets
his creative muse run free on
dazzling third album.
The Clincher: A surreal,
funkadelic fantasia which
played virtuoso riffs on
addiction, racial politics and
feline-human relations – yet
still found room for inspired
guest appearances by ’80s yacht
rock legends Michael McDonald
and Kenny Loggins.
What They Say: “I wanted to
convey a feeling, a reality, and
an idea. I wanted to express the
feeling of now, what it means
to be a person now.”
ALEX LAKE
Key Track: Show You The Way
RUPERT HOWE
That’s
entertainment:
Paul Weller’s
purple patch
continues.
26. SPARKS
HIPPOPOTAMUS
The Backstory: Inspired by
their recent Franz Ferdinand
collaboration, the Mael brothers
went into their first Sparks-
oriented project since 2009,
their first major label release
since 1994 and the first to reach
the Top 10 since 1974.
The Clincher: With Ron’s
symphonic arrangements,
Russell’s heavenly falsetto and
the art-pop legends’ usual lyrical
wit, it is simply classic Sparks.
What They Say: “We wanted
an album that would excite
someone with no knowledge
of the band as much as a fan.”
Russell Mael
Key Track: Edith Piaf (Said
It Better Than Me)
SIMON PRICE
24. PAUL
WELLER
A KIND REVOLUTION
The Backstory: Weller’s
late-period purple patch was
now nearly a decade-long,
would he drop the ball on his
13th solo album?
The Clincher: A resounding no.
Abandoning some of the SFX
blips and pings of recent albums
for a warm, live sound, A Kind
Revolution’s magpie-eyed
groove shuffled between Aladdin
Sane-era Bowie (Nova), funk
(She Moves With The Fayre)
and a Balearic disco duet with
Boy George (One Tear).
What They Say: “I still have
this mad, impossible idea that
music can make a difference.”
Key Track: Hopper
CHRIS CATCHPOLE

PHO T O GR A PH S:
GU Y E PPE L
A DEEPER
UNDERSTANDING
The Backstory: Major label
debut for Adam Granduciel
after years of relative
obscurity ended with 2014’s
Lost In The Dream.
The Clincher: Granduciel
made his psychedelic
drivetime rock lusher, and
more confessional, detailing
his paranoia and rejections in
love. In the end, though, A
Deeper Understanding was
all about the joy in revelation.
What They Say: “I kept
thinking of this three-
dimensional sound to the
band. I was hovering above
this weird, spinning thing.”
Key Track: Thinking Of
A Place
TOM DOYLE
NO
The War On Drugs’ mastermind Adam Granduciel
believes that making music is like a religious
calling. Dave Everley joins the band on tour in
Canada to hear how his faith was tested in the
creation of A Deeper Understanding.
FOR ADAM GRANDUCIEL, THE best thing about the last 12 months is that
hey have been free of pain. When he says this, he’s not referring to the kind of existential
orment that could come with the burden of single-handedly dragging a band from the
furthest fringes of the indie rock scene to the American heartland. Though he’s experienced
his share of that in the past. No, he means literal physical pain, of the kind that can floor
a grown man.
For the last three or four years, The War On Drugs’ mastermind has been plagued by a
chronic back problem. It started out as a bulging disc, but the endless distractions of life in a
band – making records, playing live, generally being consumed by thoughts of music – meant
t gradually escalated from annoying to debilitating. By last October, when he was trying to
complete his band’s fourth album, A Deeper Understanding, the agony was unbearable.
“It was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,” he says, wincing at the memory. He’s reclining on
a dressing room sofa backstage at Toronto’s Massey Hall. A yoga mat that he uses for
stretching exercises lies on the floor. “I was in pain all the time. I couldn’t sit in a chair
for more than a couple of minutes. I couldn’t stand and hold a guitar for more than a
minute. I was eight months into making the record and I had to get it fixed or I wouldn’t
have been able to get it done.” He gives the impression that this would be a personal
doomsday scenario.
Granduciel finally had surgery in November 2016. He gave himself the remainder of
he year to recuperate and undergo physical therapy. Then he threw himself back into
work. “That’s when I knew I could truly finish the record,” he says. “Because I wasn’t in
pain any more.”
His ordeal partly inspired the song Pain from A Deeper Understanding. But then putting
The War On Drugs before his physical and mental well-being is a very Adam
JANUARY 2018 73
 “I want to make records with the
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR grandiosity that I see when I watch
documentaries about my favourite
albums.” Adam Granduciel
Granduciel thing to do. A few years ago he pushed himself to the
verge of a nervous breakdown while making the band’s breakthrough
album, Lost In A Dream.
The 38-year-old approaches music as a religious calling, viewing
songwriting as “a code to be cracked”. If that’s at the expense of
everything else, then so be it. Yet despite evidence to the contrary,
he scoffs at the idea that he’s a tortured artist. He settles, grudgingly,
for “workaholic”.
“I love doing this, as exhausting as it may be,” he says. “Is it
healthy? I dunno. I guess the point is that I made a decision for this to
consume my life. That’s my burden.”
umps in the road aside, that burden seems to be
working out well for Granduciel. Like Lost In A
Dream – Q’s Album Of The Year back in 2014 –
A Deeper Understanding has been garlanded
with acclaim. It continues the band’s languid drift
towards the centre ground, although the connective
tissue that links the frontman’s chief influences –
underground noise, psych-pop, the big beasts
of American heartland rock – remains.
The tour in support of the album has brought
them to Canada. Over the next two nights, they will play a pair of
brilliantly freewheeling shows at Massey Hall, an airy redbrick theatre
with an ambience best described as “peeling”. Ever the music geeks,
they round the first show off with a cover of Neil Young’s Like A
74 JANUARY 2018
Hurrica lbum the Toronto-born icon recorded at
this ven
Qm e the second show. Granduciel is a little on
the cran y’ve been on the road for a month – this is
their fifth gig in six days and everyone’s tired. The singer’s parents
were in town for the first night and he wanted to catch up with them
for dinner before they flew back home, but the more onerous duties of
band life – soundcheck, photos, interview – have scuppered his plans.
He walks briskly to the needle-strewn alley at the side of the venue
where the band are having their picture taken, then strides equally
briskly back to the safety of the dressing room when it’s done – with
little in the way of small talk (happily, he’s more relaxed by the time
we sit down to speak).
Granduciel isn’t the cosmic slacker The War On Drugs’ music
might suggest. He speaks quickly, with the verbal snap of a Philly
barman, though with his lank hair and plaid shirt he looks like he
belongs behind the counter of a second-hand record store. He cut
out drinking and drugs a few years ago, after the trials of making
Lost In A Dream.
Bassist Dave Hartley has been Granduciel’s right-hand man
since the mid-’00s and the only other constant member of The War
On Drugs during that time. The pair met in Philadelphia after the
Massachusetts-born Granduciel moved back East following a
year-long stint in Oakland, where he dabbled unsuccessfully in
the visual arts.
Hartley describes the 20-something Granduciel as “kind of a mess,
 Canada high: (clockwise from left)
The War On Drugs, Massey Hall,
Toronto, 21 October, 2017; the
benevolent dictator backstage with
the band; drummer Charlie Hall
hits the on-tour vinyl collection.

but an inspiring one”. The bassist remembers his bandmate living in

a “dilapidated squat of a house that looked like what you’d imagine
Andy Warhol’s Factory would look like.” He spent much of his time
avoiding the bill collectors who turned up at his door. What money
he did scrape together would be spent on guitars.
“I was no different to anybody else at the same age,” says
Granduciel. “Who isn’t going out five nights a week, struggling to
make rent, getting the electricity cut off at the age of 24? I never had
any problems with drugs or alcohol or anything. I was just a guy who
was really inspired to be creative.”
The creativity has manifested itself in a distinctive way. The band’s
first album, 2008’s Wagonwheel Blues, was a collaboration between
Granduciel and then-musical partner Kurt Vile. When Vile left to
pursue a solo career soon afterwards, Granduciel assumed complete
creative control. The role of singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist,
musical director, co-producer – benevolent dictator, effectively – has
been set in stone ever since. Granduciel himself has even said that
every War On Drugs album “has been a solo record.”

“I’ve never said I can make a great record by myself,” he counters.
“When I say they’re solo records, I mean that the most important
thing is how I connect to the material, the arrangements, what the
record is all about.”
It’s a situation the rest of the band seem entirely happy with.
“There’s a black box thing where nobody knows what Adam’s vision is
except Adam,” says Hartley. “Everything is 110 per cent his, there’s
nobody touching the steering wheel. It only works because he’s so
good. If his vision wasn’t so pure, it wouldn’t work.”
You can tell a lot about Granduciel, and by extension The War On
Drugs, by looking at his vinyl collection. Not so much the contents –
Dylan, Springsteen, Neil Young are all there, along with the Bee Gees’
Odessa, AC/DC’s Powerage and ABBA’s The Visitors. It’s more the fact
that they’ve taken the trouble to pack a couple of hundred LPs into
sturdy metal cases and bring them along for the ride. They sit perched
on a table in the band’s dressing room, next to a portable turntable.
Granduciel freely admits he’s a music nerd, although his passion
goes deeper than merely hoarding plastic. He’s as much a historian as
a fan, and not oblivious to the fact his band are spoken about as part of
the lineage of Great American Rock Acts. In fact, there’s a distinct
sense that it’s a big part of what he’s shooting for.
“Sure, I hope that we’re part of that,” he says. “I want to make
records with the grandiosity that I see when I watch documentaries
about my favourite albums. I hope that people are talking about the
records in 20 years and telling stories about the recording process and
the camaraderie and the ups and downs. Making a record is a journey.
I want it to be hard. I want it to be exhausting and complicated and
confusing. And yeah, I want it to mean something in the end.”
H
e says this with the benefit of hindsight, but the
exhaustion and complication and confusion have
got the better of him in the past. While he was
recording Lost In A Dream, Granduciel began to
suffer from crippling panic attacks. He’d had
sporadic periods of anxiety while he was growing
up, though he never really knew what was
happening. “I didn’t know how to communicate it,
so I kept it pretty private,” he says.
He can pinpoint exactly when he suffered his
first major attack. It was just before he was due to go into the studio
for the first recording sessions for Lost In The Dream, the day after
his birthday. He’d jointly marked both occasions by inviting his
bandmates over to his house for a booze-fuelled jam session.
“We ended the night at a bar near Dave’s house,” he remembers.
“I was having a strong margarita or two, and I was standing on a chair
explaining why I was captain of my block. It was the greatest feeling.
And the next morning, I woke up and it was like a switch had flipped.”
His heart was beating faster than it should have been, he was
unable to focus. Rather than abating, it got worse. The feeling of panic
continued non-stop for days, weeks, months. He was spiralling into
an anxiety-led depression, and it was taking its toll. His state of mind
wasn’t helped by the fact he’d just come off a lengthy period of touring
the band’s previous album, 2011’s Slave Ambient, and broken up with
a long-term girlfriend at the same time.
“I never experienced that level of despair in my life, ever,” he says.
“It was just consuming my life every day for six, seven, eight months.
When you taste those waves of despair, it’s frightening. You

JANUARY 2018 75
become a prisoner to it. You can’t sleep because you’re worried. show, you don’t realise it’s been 12 years in the making. It takes a lot of
You can’t even leave the house.” work to hold on and be passionate for that long, to go through so many
His bandmates were understandably concerned. “He was so close things to make it happen.”
to the edge,” says Hartley. “He was fracturing, mentally. He went A wry grin. “It kind of makes what I do look easy.”
through a phase where he was only drinking things he’d made in a
juicer. There was maybe a little bit of mania in there, rolling panic n fairness, Granduciel himself makes what he does look
attacks. He put so much pressure on himself to make that record.” easy, at least up onstage. The two Massey Hall shows are
At Hartley’s urging, Granduciel underwent a year-long course of pitched somewhere between soft-rock luxuriance and
cognitive behavioural therapy, which helped him get to the root of his trans-dimensional blow-out, a combination so effective
problems. That, together with the success of Lost In A Dream, put him and all-enveloping you wonder why no one’s done it before.
in a much healthier place. These days, he manages his anxiety in part The absence of rough edges in Thinking Of A Place and the
by avoiding alcohol and drugs. “Managing it is the perfect term,” he Springsteen-goes-Krautrock Holding On are deliberate –
says. “You have to, otherwise you just end up back… there.” part of the reason for The War On Drugs’ success is that
Physically, the process of making A Deeper Understanding was no they offer a salve in these troubled times.
less intense than its predecessor. Granduciel rented a studio in LA last Granduciel himself is literally at the centre of things.
year, and his bandmates flew out to him once every few weeks for short, The band are arranged around him in a semi-circle, waiting for his cue
10-day bursts of recording. But this time it was more collaborative, and to start the next song, or to step Under The Pressure into the next gear.
the frontman made sure he didn’t tie himself up in mental knots. “Now “I would never have thought this when I first met him, but he’s a
I think he’s had his vision validated on such a scale, he doesn’t need to really gifted leader,” Dave Hartley says. “He’s very demanding. He
put himself through what he did,” says Hartley. wants you to work your fucking ass off. But then he works his ass off
It helps that Granduciel has romantic stability in his life once again. too. Nobody’s bristling under his regime. We’re all faithful followers.”
Since 2014, he’s been in a relationship with actress Krysten Ritter, star The benevolent dictator himself is already contemplating what
of Netflix TV series Jessica Jones and Breaking Bad. Ritter conceived comes next for The War On Drugs. “I’m thinking of something more
the sweetly melancholic video for this year’s Holding On single, which intimate and direct,” Granduciel says of what the band’s fifth album
found Granduciel trying his hand at acting alongside The Wire’s might sound like. Tellingly, he’s also pondering what he calls the
Frankie Faison, an experience he says he’s in no hurry to repeat. “veer-off” – that point in every band’s career when they suddenly
Part of the reason he moved to LA was to spend more time with find themselves taking a wrong turn, heading off on bumpier roads.
Ritter. At the start of this year, they made the return journey across “What’s the first exit we take?” he says. “The lost years. Dylan had
the country when her work took her to New York. Theirs is about as them, Bruce had them. I’m just wondering how we can avoid them.”
low-key as celebrity relationships get. He politely laughs off The look on his face suggests he isn’t quite sure if they will. He
suggestions that they could become the Kanye West and Kim knows from experience that no worthwhile journey is without its
Kardashian of American rock if they put their minds to it. pain. It’s all part of the burden.
“We just do our thing,” he says. “Krysten works
ridiculously hard, she’s got a million things “I would never have thought this when
happening. In her world, there’s a big hustle going
on. When you hear about this movie or this TV I first met him, but Adam’s a gifted leader.
Nobody’s bristling under his regime.
We’re all faithful followers.” Dave Hartley

The war on rugs, more

like! The band, featuring
long-time member
Dave Hartley (second
left), Toronto, 2017.

76 JANUARY 2018
 NO JANE ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

WEAVER The Clincher: Synth-futurism,

space-rock drive and a heavy
shot of occult ectoplasm: it’s a
formula that sent Weaver’s
“Synth-futurism,
space-rock drive”:
Jane Weaver hits
the kosmic heights.

songs spinning into the far-out

MODERN KOSMOLOGY
The Backstory: After shedding
her indie-rock and folktronica
incarnations, the Manchester-
based singer-songwriter hit a
shiny new evolutionary plane
with the kosmische follow-up
to 2014’s The Silver Globe.
blue. Can’s Malcolm Mooney
even appears on Ravenspoint for
added Krautock gravitas.
What They Say: “I’ve always
been searching for a bit
of the cosmos.”
Key Track: The
Lightning Back
VICTORIA SEGAL

HER MUSIC MAY BE OTHERWORLDLY, BUT HER FEET ARE MOST DEFINITELY ON THE GROUND.
What’s been your highlight of the year?
We did a gig with Goat that was really good
– they’re a fun band but I’ve never actually
met any of them because they want to be
anonymous. I did spot the odd girl going to
the toilet and I thought, “Ooh, you look like
a dancer.” I suppose the real highlight is
releasing an album, though. I’m grateful
that I’m in the position to do it. It’s an
amazing thing.
What about the lowlight?
I never enjoy the bit just before you finish
an album. I don’t like people to hear stuff
REBECCA LUPTON
much self-imposed stress! I feel like
I’m having a meltdown.
Did Modern Kosmology come easily
or was it a struggle?
It was kind of a struggle because I wasn’t
sure where it was going to begin with. I had
this weird fate situation when I stumbled
across an artist called Hilma af Klint,
she was a mystic and a painter. I was so
obsessed with her and delving into that
world that it then carried me for the rest of
the process. It’s great to stumble across
something like that which speaks to you.
limbo situation [with Brexit] and it’s
something I really don’t want. It’s very
odd – and also all the war stuff that’s
going on. How can you not be affected
by that in some way?
Did you make any New Year’s
resolutions?
I’m always trying to be more mindful and
more positive – and I want more studio
time next year! That’s probably a resolution
I’ll make: get back in the studio.
If you had to give 2017 a mark out of 10,
what would it be?
8/10. It’s been alright! Everything’s good,

until it’s more or less finished and I don’t Do you think the world’s turbulent
tend to finish my lyrics until the last minute political year affected your work? pretty grateful being able to do whatever.
– so I put myself in this terrible position, so Yeah, definitely. We’re still in this awful INTERVIEW BY KATE SOLOMON
 N O

CIGARETTES
AFTER SEX
Greg Gonzalez was working in a New York cinema wondering where his life
was going when, in 2012, he noticed one of the songs he’d written under the
alias of Cigarettes After Sex had become a viral sensation. Laura Barton
meets him to learn how that fork in the road saved his life.
PHOTOGR A PH S: C OL I N L A N E

THERE WAS A WEEKEND two Octobers ago when Greg pace. “I had notifications on, so I was alerted to it,” recalls Gonzalez.
Gonzalez experienced his life change exponentially. That week he had “Out of nowhere I started getting emails saying, ‘Someone bought
uploaded a video to YouTube – a song named Affection, written and your record on Bandcamp’ or saying, ‘Someone subscribed to your
recorded by Cigarettes After Sex, the musical project he had pursued YouTube channel.’ And that went on for a week straight every
in various incarnations since second.” After a while he had
2008. It was, he felt, a fine song, o turn his notifications off.
worthy of a wide audience, but The Clincher: Drifting Gonzalez was 33 then,
Cigarettes After Sex had no real along like a heavily-sedated working at a cinema on
fanbase to speak of and no Mazzy Star, the combination New York’s Upper East Side,
record label. And although of twinkling atmospheres beginning to contemplate the
Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby, and frontman Greg dea that his music career might
a track from 2012 posted by an Gonzalez’s gorgeous, never really take off. Fearing
unknown fan, had mysteriously sleepy-eyed songs made it he was drifting, his parents
racked up 100,000 views, the difficult not to fall under urged him to take a proper job
band had little online presence, Cigarettes After Sex’s spell. managing a multiplex. Two of
save for an EP still for sale on CIGARETTES What They Say: “The his band members had recently
Bandcamp. Their live shows, AFTER SEX landscape that I wanted to announced they were leaving
meanwhile, playing the small CIGARETTE S AFTER SEX convey was a night-time he city. The sudden arrival
hipster venues of New York, The Backstory: Following a beach with a wildfire. Imagine of success, on the brink of
“were totally dead,” according well-received but low-key EP if you were there with friends mminent failure, proved quite
to Gonzalez. “There would be of noir-ish dream pop in 2012, and with someone that you’re overwhelming. “Lying in bed,
10 people, five people, less.” the Brooklyn-via-Texas outfit seeing.” Greg Gonzalez under the covers, looking at my
But that weekend views for replicated its twilight textures Key Track: K phone…” he remembers. “It led
Affection mysteriously gathered for their debut album. CHRIS CATCHPOLE me to tears. It was like

78 JANUARY 2018
“I would’ve killed
myself if I hadn’t had
music.” Greg Gonzalez “Goths? Us? How dare you!”:
Cigarettes After Sex (from left,
Jacob Tomsky, Randy Miller,
Greg Gonzalez, Phillip Tubbs)
New York, 8 October, 2017.
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

“Anyone else feeling a little

bit Abbey Road right now?”:
Gonzalez and his new cohorts,
New York City, October, 2017.
my whole life flashed before my eyes – I had this deep recollection
of everything up to that moment. All those relationships and people
that I’ve known that passed away, a whole long history before me.
You’re lying in wait for a moment like that your whole life and then
it finally happens. It was probably one of the most emotional things
that ever happened to me.”
Not even YouTube has been able to explain how or why
Affection went viral – these things are, apparently, largely random
events – unaccountable, unexplainable and prone to strange and
unpredictable surges, such as the song’s sudden popularity in Poland
and India. But ever since, Cigarettes After Sex have continued to grow.
In a few short months the band found a manager, signed a record deal,
recorded a debut album and headed off on a world tour.
O
n an autumn weekend this year, on pretty much
the anniversary of that first rush of success, they
headline two sold-out shows at
the Bowery Ballroom in New
York. Their live shows are a “I’m writing
mesmerising experience, the
band performing almost eerily
because I have to. If
immaculate versions of their
recorded songs, dressed all in
I didn’t I would be
black, beneath white lights, overwhelmed and I
while behind them a screen shows excerpts
from some of Gonzalez’s favourite films: wouldn’t be happy.
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Double Life Of
Veronique, Eric Rohmer’s My Night At Maud’s, When you write and
Ingmar Bergman’s Summer With Monika.
The effect is deeply immersive, soft-focus and get feelings out that
dreamlike and tonight the audience is largely
reverential: they know every song, every word,
you didn’t know
every contour. When a small group of Saturday
night lushes strike up a conversation by the bar,
you had, that’s a
the crowd quickly hush them quiet. wonderful feeling.”
The next day before soundcheck, I meet
Gonzalez at the One Mile House Bar next door Greg Gonzalez
to the Bowery. He is much as he appears onstage:
slender and gently-spoken, his manner perfectly open yet also neat and
contained and considered. He drinks sparkling water and carries a
rucksack, conducts himself as a man who has been preparing for this
moment all his life and sure as hell isn’t going to blow it now.
Gonzalez grew up in El Paso, Texas, in a home where his mother
liked Mariah Carey and his father played Nilsson, and his older
brother’s record collection led him to Queen’s A Night At The
Opera, and where for “a really short-lived second” he was a
teenage metalhead. “And it was all Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer
and death metal.”
He learned guitar early, took to it readily and soon “sick of metal
and wanting to move on” he began exploring other types of music.
“Quite honestly, I started smoking pot when I was 14 and then that
piqued my imagination in a way too,” he recalls. “I started listening to
bands like The Doors and Tool – bands that had drug influences,
talking about stranger concepts.” He began making a little money
playing at wine bars and restaurants around town, performing jazz
standards and salsa and rock. “And I got into more modern pop music
and more avant-garde music and film soundtracks,” he says. “I had to go
through so many phases to get to what I would consider an identity.”
In his early years, Gonzalez’s father worked as an advisor for video
rental stores and he recalls the cinematic education that seemed to
run hand in hand with his musical explorations – the closet that held
maybe 600 VHS cassettes, the advance copies of Schindler’s List and
Jurassic Park. Film and music were intermingling back then, he says.
“Film was influencing all of my philosophies and all my viewpoints
and creative things,” he explains. “You’d see a film and it would change
you. I remember seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was 14 and my
imagination went to another level. The mystery that it had and just
what it achieved on an emotion level – it blew me away. A film comes
along and changes your viewpoint. Your mind changes and your
perspective is widened. And it’s the same thing with music – the first
time you hear OK Computer or Kind Of Blue and you’re forever
changed. So that’s what film and music did for me – expanded my
imagination, extended my emotional depth.”
Still, he found a force in music that film could not quite deliver.
“I guess music is the most immediate art form for me,” he explains.
“With a film it can take an hour and 30 minutes for it to give you that
emotional punch, but a song can do it in a minute, two minutes.”
Nevertheless, this marriage of music and visual image is a crucial
component of Cigarettes After Sex. It’s there in the live show of
course, but it’s also there in Gonzalez’s lyrics – words he works hard
to make stand alone on the page.
After high school Gonzalez enrolled in a music composition course
at the University Of Texas with the intention of a career writing film
scores, but as a self-taught musician he soon bucked against the
rigours of an academic approach to music,
transferred briefly to philosophy, then
dropped out. Still, if not an education, what
his stint at the university had given him was
an introduction to a concrete stairwell that
ran the height of the music building, four
long flights up “with this huge and echoey
sound” that would play an integral role in
the story of his band.
Gonzalez had begun writing and
recording as Cigarettes After Sex in 2008. It
was a solo project then, and over the next few
years moved through various musical phases
– electropop and ’80s new wave and then
something “more like The Cure or Jesus And
Mary Chain or R.E.M.” Each time he recorded
songs, posted them online and then quickly
grew tired of them and took them down.
In 2012, however, he wrote a run of
six songs that he felt were in some way
“unified… they were songs that felt like a new
band, like a new chapter.” He had at that
point rediscovered his love for Madonna, as well as Erasure and New
Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle. “And I thought I want to write songs
like this,” he says. Lyrically, too, he had found a kind of honesty he had
never allowed before. “And that was the distinction,” he explains.
“Let’s use these really shiny ’80s pop sounds, but I’ll talk about
introspective concepts. That was the slant on it – talk about my life,
talk about sexual things, just be more detailed. It felt like the right
thing to do, but it felt dangerous because, honestly, even now there’s
stuff in the lyrics that if girls I was dating, girls I don’t talk to any more,
read them they would know it was about them. I think it’s kind of
sweet – just a little tap on the shoulder.”
More than just honest, these six songs were also Gonzalez’s way of
processing a deep sense of heartbreak. “I hit a point where things got
really heavy in 2012, and I learned a lot going through a lot of rough
times,” he says. “I think I would’ve killed myself if I hadn’t had music,”
he adds quietly, quickly, with his eyes on the barroom table. “It was
really cathartic. I’m writing because I have to do it. If I didn’t I would
be overwhelmed and I wouldn’t be happy at all. When you write
and you get feelings out that you didn’t know you had, that’s a
wonderful feeling.”
Gonzalez decided that the concrete stairwell would be the perfect
place to record these heartbroken songs, placing each musician on a
different floor – “the guitarist one level up, then the keyboard player,
and down the stairs was the drummer – really far away, no one could
hear each other at all,” he explains. “It was a very bizarre experience,
but it made everyone play in a certain way. And, because it was very
echoey in that stairway, it had an atmosphere to it and notes could get
lost, so we had to play very delicately and simply.”
They recorded at night, which set a kind of precedent. “We only
record at night [now] and I’m pretty superstitious about
JANUARY 2018 81
 Blue, Blue Moon by Elvis, “or the music of Erik
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR Satie where he’s playing one chord and it feels
like a minute goes by and then another chord.”

T
hose rules stayed intact last year
when the band came to record
The sweet smell their full-length LP – largely a
of success: Greg collection of songs written over
Gonzalez onstage, the previous five years. They
Bowery Ballroom, were, Gonzalez says, “trying to
New York City, get that spark again” – though
8 October, 2017. this time they recorded in a small
apartment in Brooklyn, far away
from the wide open spaces of
Texas, forced to turn inwards to find emotional, if
not physical, room. The sound he worked hard to
create had a dreamy, somnolent quality.
“It’s supposed to be deeply romantic and
deeply passionate and deeply melodic,” he says.
“It comes from a lot of pain, it comes from loss, it
comes from a lot of positivity. They’re romantic,
erotic ballads or, I like to say, X-rated lullabies.”
In recent months, Gonzalez has begun to
lessen his control freak qualities, weakening his
grip on every element of his band and its music.
Indeed, it’s only recently that Cigarettes After
Sex officially became a band rather than an
augmented solo project, appointing Phillip Tubbs
(keyboards), Jacob Tomsky (drums) and Randy
Miller (bass) as its official members. “Honestly,
I’m still getting used to it,” says Gonzalez,
“It’s supposed to be smiling. “It felt like I was dating forever – I kept
deeply romantic and deeply things very casual, because I was coming from a
gig background. So it wasn’t like, ‘We’re a band
that,” he says. “Night
is where you have that
melodic. It comes from a lot and we’re going to take over the world.’ It wasn’t
like we’re The Beatles, it was like Paul Simon and
relaxed feeling, more of pain, from loss, from a lot a backing band. And even when the band took off
space, just lighter, you I was like, ‘Well, I’m still leading it.’ But now it’s
have all the emotions of of positivity. They’re erotic locked-in, it’s like a committed relationship, and
the day and they finally I think it’s strong this way.”
sink in at night. And you ballads or X-rated He is even letting his songwriting grow a little
can use all that, you have
access to a bunch of lullabies.” Greg Gonzalez looser. Earlier this year in Spain, recording some
new tracks for their next LP, for the first time
emotions when you’re Gonzalez found himself improvising with his
writing and when you’re recording too. Plus, I wake up really late.” band. “Which is kind of like a fun game to me,” he laughs. “It’s
He took the recordings home and over the next few evenings something I’d done a long time ago, because I’m from a jazz
he drove around east El Paso listening to them on repeat; past the background, and actually I feel like I’ve written some of my best songs
strung-out runs of fast food restaurants, apartment buildings, quiet that quick, in a few minutes.” As a result, the new songs have found a
neighbourhoods, the sidewalks deserted, the roads quiet. “It just really different emotional quality. “Because it’s so rapid,” he explains. “But
had this deep mood to it,” he recalls, “listening to those songs over and I think there’s definitely an electricity to that.”
over again. It just took my mind to places. It felt that there was finally The lyrics, though, remain a solo endeavour – “alone, at night, with
something to it that I just couldn’t deny. There was some magic that just a candle and hot tea, maybe a little bit of whisky. They kind of take
was missing in the older stuff. You can’t even explain what that magic a second,” he says. “Because I kind of have to get into the memory,
is but it has that spark in it.” then I’ll start thinking about what the walls look like or what it felt like,
Space, distance, the night, a strong visual aesthetic, have all been or what someone’s voice sounded like or what they said, then I have to
integral to Cigarettes After Sex’s music. Gonzalez refers to himself paint a picture with the words, create a narrative and be careful what
repeatedly as a “control freak”, imposing rules on his writing and to leave in and what to leave out.”
recording. “I think what happened was that it was necessary for me to The memories come back to him in colour, he says, but it is in the
put restraints on the music because since I played so many styles it writing process that he re-casts them in black and white, makes them
could’ve been anything – it could’ve been jazz, avant-garde, it could’ve big-screen and cinematic. That night I think of this again as they take
been pop,” he explains. “But I made a mix CD of about 10 songs that to the stage once more at the Bowery Ballroom. The dark figures
I wanted the 2012 EP to sound like, and I put Cocteau Twins, Mazzy playing beneath the pale stage lights, the screen showing a slow loop
Star, Red House Painters, Françoise Hardy and Julee Cruise and even of monochromatic images: soft snowfall, a train, Harriet Andersson’s
Dylan’s Basement Tapes on there. And I liked the way that Cowboy face. “Black and white is more romantic,” Gonzalez told me. “People
Junkies recorded their record with just one mic in a church and they’re don’t think how much black and white film removes you from reality.
playing overnight and so I thought, ‘We’ll just do that’ – a few mics and It’s taking away what the natural world looks like and putting you into
play it live. I think those constraints were necessary, because for me, something different, into something more romantic.”
the best music has simplicity,” he says, naming as examples Kind Of Romantic and perhaps even erotic and X-rated.

82 JANUARY 2018
 20. FOREST
SWORDS
COMPASSION
The Backstory: Scouse sonic
explorer Matthew Barnes
reformatted the hazy electronic
dub of excellent 2013 debut
Engravings into glorious
CinemaScope for his second LP.
The Clincher: Recorded with
digital and analogue equipment
to blur the boundaries between
“real and fake”, this thrillingly
intense protest record about
communication (or lack
thereof) dripped with ominous,
post-dubstep dread.
What They Say: “You can say
quite a lot with an instrumental
part that you maybe can’t say
with language or lyrics.”
Key Track: The Highest Flood
SIMON McEWEN
18. FOUR TET
NEW ENERGY
The Backstory: In his restless
quest to find new sounds, Kieran
Hebden dipped back into his
earlier, club-friendly work for
ninth album New Energy.
The Clincher: An expansive
and ambitious set that fused
a dizzying breadth of styles,
including early-Warp, trippy
house, twinkling dulcimer,
gamelan-like tones and beyond.
Not only was New Energy
Hebden’s warmest record yet,
but also a masterwork which
defined his peripatetic MO.
What They Say: “I want to look
back when I’m an old man and
ANDREW WHITTON
have these records tell a story.”
Key Track: Two Thousand
And Seventeen
SIMON McEWEN
19. DIZZEE
RASCAL
RASK IT
The Backstory: After burning
out on dance-pop, Dizzee
returned to the core elements
of beats and rhymes, recapturing
the spirit, if not the sound, of
his grime days.
The Clincher: US hip-hop
producers provide a sturdy
platform for Dizzee’s most
dextrous and thoughtful
lyrics yet. A breakneck history
lesson in the evolution of
London, grime and the
man himself.
What They Say: “I’m not going
to chase pop hits. I wanted to
go back to being as honest
with myself as possible.”
Key Track: Space
DORIAN LYNSKEY
17. THE X X
I SEE YOU
The Backstory: In the five years
since their last album, this most
insular of groups has struggled
with alcohol abuse (Oliver Sim),
fallen in love (Romy Madley-
Croft) and launched a solo
career (Jamie Smith).
The Clincher: I See You rejected
the monochrome palettes of its
predecessors in favour of a far-
reaching and even joyous sound.
From the brass of Dangerous to
On Hold’s Hall & Oates sample,
this is what you get when life
finally happens to a band.
What They Say: “We all
thought, ‘Let’s stop worrying.
Let’s just make music.’”
Romy Madley-Croft
Key Track: On Hold
DAVE EVERLEY
16. GIRL RAY
EARL GREY
The Backstory: The first
outing for this post A-level
North London trio was a
glorious infusion of teen
melancholy, beautiful diction
and C86 attitude, scented with
bergamot and a touch of Gorky’s
Zygotic Mynci prog ambition.
The Clincher: Songs that
hang out at the corner where
Orange Juice, The Shangri-Las,
the Marine Girls and Syd
Barrett meet? You’d be a fool
to say no.
What They Say: “It does go
off-piste sometimes, but mainly
it’s just about love and loss.”
Poppy Hankin
Key Track: Don’t Go Back
At Ten
VICTORIA SEGAL
“A history lesson
in the evolution
of grime”: Dizzee
Rascal gets back
to the essentials.
15. LIAM
GALLAGHER
AS YOU WERE
The Backstory: After two fairly
unremarkable albums with
Beady Eye, Liam Gallagher
finally stepped into the ring
as a solo artist.
The Clincher: With the help of
a crack team of co-songwriters,
Liam tore through a knock-out
set of lean rock’n’roll and
Lennon-style ballads. Delivering
his best vocals in nearly two
decades, he reminded everyone
that he’s still in possession of the
best larynx in music. It’s good to
have him back.
What They Say: “I’m at my best
when someone gives me a tune.
‘Give it here. I’ll fucking nail it.’”
Key Track: I’ve All I Need
CHRIS CATCHPOLE
JANUARY 2018 83
NO
“Bruised beats,
lonely vocals”:

SAMPHA
Sampha flew
solo in style.

PROCE SS
The Backstory: After two EPs
and a string of sky-high-profile
collaborations – Drake, Kanye
West, Beyoncé, Frank Ocean –
the South London multi-tasker
finally stepped out on his
own terms.
The Clincher: The loss of his
mother hangs heavy over these
songs, but Sampha’s bruised beats,
exquisitely lonely vocals and
spare piano transform grief
into something beautiful.
What They Say: “I felt like
because I’d featured so much
on other people’s records, I really
just wanted to put across the
sense of me.”
Key Track: Blood On Me
VICTORIA SEGAL

HE SYMPATHISES WITH THE JUDGES, BUT SOMEONE’S GOT TO WIN THE MERCURY PRIZE.
Congratulations on making it into
Q’s Albums Of The Year…
Thanks. This year feels a bit dream-like.
All the places we’ve been and shows we’ve
played, we had the album coming out…
it’s been a good year.
What have been the highlights for you?
It’s tricky to pull out some, but playing the
Roundhouse was cool. Obviously, winning
the Mercury Prize was a highlight.
It’s been seven years since your first
EP. You were then busy collaborating
with everyone from SBTRKT to Kanye
West, did it ever feel like you’d never
get around to making your own album?
I definitely went through a stage where
I thought, “Will I actually finish a record?”
It wasn’t really a priority of mine, to be
honest. Featuring on all these other
records wasn’t aimed at this bigger plan of
one day going solo. All the things that went
along with releasing an album put me off.
What changed?
It was just time. It’s no longer this big
scary thing. I felt I was emotionally stable
enough to put myself out as a solo artist.
(No One Knows Me) Like The Piano
was written about the death of your
mother. It felt like the song that people
really connected to on the album…
For me, it’s the central song [on the album].
I really felt the need to express myself in
that way. It was quite challenging because
I’m not really one to talk about that kind
of stuff even though I wrote the song.
I’m happy that I have that song as a
document of my relationship with my
mother. It’s like a photograph.
What other music have you been
enjoying this year?
The Moses Sumney album – that’s great.
Loyle Carner, Stormzy… it’s difficult. I’ll go
off and think, “Ahh, I’ve been listening to
that all year, why didn’t I say that!?”
Do you have some sympathy for
the Mercury judges now?
Oh yeah, I don’t envy them!
INTERVIEW BY CHRIS CATCHPOLE
 ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

13. THE
HORRORS
V
The Backstory: Having moved
through garage-punk, Krautrock
and stadium-sized Big Music,
the ever-mutating quintet make
their poppiest album yet.
The Clincher: Super-producer
Paul Epworth helps the band
unashamedly embrace their ’80s
influences, and create pop songs
which counter-intuitively nudge
seven minutes and are just as
exuberant as they are elegiac.
What They Say: “We’d
explored that euphoric
ascension, from Primary
Colours and into Skying,
so maybe it was time for
something else.” Rhys Webb
Key Track: Press Enter To Exit “Their poppiest album
yet”: The Horrors embrace
SIMON PRICE
their inner ’80s influences.

12. SLEAFORD 11. STORMZY 10. THE 9. QUEENS OF

MODS
ENGLISH TAPAS
The Backstory: After four years
of intense touring, the post-punk
duo returned with their first LP
recorded in a proper studio.
The Clincher: The winning
formula – Jason Williamson’s
bug-eyed rants about life in
Broken Britain over Andrew
Fearn’s stark laptop-techno – was
largely unchanged, but a subtle
tweaking of sound and the sheer
catchiness of the songs made this
their breakthrough triumph.
HOLLY FERNANDEZ, SIMON SARIN
GANG SIGNS & PRAYER
The Backstory: Striding out of
South London in his size 12s,
Michael Omari completes his
remarkable transition from
street-corner freestyler to
grime 2.0 sensation.
The Clincher: A chart-topping
showcase for his natural
charisma and imperious
put-downs, GSAP also revealed
an unexpectedly soulful side,
showing there was more to
him than hardcore bangers.
What They Say: “I want you
NATIONAL
SLEEP WELL BEAST
The Backstory: Cincinnati-
formed band quit their Brooklyn
base, built a studio in rural
upstate New York and made
their best, most atmospheric LP.
The Clincher: Sleep Well Beast
mixes layers of sonic intrigue
with equally mysterious lyrics
(some curiously co-written with
singer Matt Berninger’s wife
Carin Besser) about the troubles
of long-term relationships.
What They Say: “There’s a
THE STONE AGE
VILLAINS
The Backstory: Inspired
by making an album with Iggy
Pop in 2016 and picking up
the pieces from the terrorist
atrocity during the Eagles Of
Death Metal show in Paris in
2015, Josh Homme gets his
main band back together to
seize the moment.
The Clincher: A playful,
come-and-have-a-go rock
record with a perfect balance
of bristling riffs and emotive

What They Say: “The sound
of the record changed itself
organically in the studio, like bio
yoghurt in the fridge overnight.”
Jason Williamson
Key Track: Just Like We Do
SIMON McEWEN
to understand who I am, what
I love, what I hate, what
I treasure… I want everything
to be in this record.”
Key Track: Big For Your
Boots
RUPERT HOWE
certain confidence and it’s not so
introverted sonically. I feel like
we’ve pushed into another
dimension.” Aaron Dessner
Key Track: The System Only
Dreams In Total Darkness
TOM DOYLE
anthems. They had their
swagger back.
What They Say: “Life’s too
short. This is it. Now is all you
ever get.” Josh Homme
Key Track: Feet Don’t Fail Me
NIALL DOHERTY

JANUARY 2018 85
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

NO
BAXTER DURY
PRINCE OF TEARS
The Backstory:
For his fifth album,
Dury attempted
a break-up record
but rapidly veered
into darker,
surrealist territory
via shout-outs to
Morgan Freeman
and urban geese.
he Cl ncher: irmly cementing Dury’s
reputation as a true British original, Prince
Of Tears marries his usual thrilling verbal
dexterity to a string-laden musicality that makes
for his most satisfying record to date.
What They Say: “I have to be on the edge “It’s funny being
of a ledge to achieve anything… otherwise, here... you remember
forgotten things.”
I’m just a loose Ladbroke Grove knob Baxter Dury, by the
drowning in soya latte.” flats he lived in as a boy,
Key Track: Miami Hammersmith Bridge,
JAMES OLDHAM London, October 2017.
 Celebrating the wildcards who’ve inspired cult worship
PHOTOGRAPHS TOM SHEEHAN
DURY
hen Baxter Dury
was 12, or maybe
W
13, definitely
before he was
14 (or just after),
his exasperated
mother, the
artist Elizabeth
Rathmell, sent her
son to live with his father, the singer Ian Dury.
Rathmell had had enough of policing
her son’s extreme truancy and thought it
was time that his dad had a go. Ian Dury had
left Rathmell when Baxter was an infant and
his sister Jemima was three, moving from
Tring, a market town in Hertfordshire, back
to London. There he shacked up with a new,
younger girlfriend.
Liberated from the pram in the hallway,
Ian Dury’s musical career blossomed, first
in Kilburn And The High Roads, and then
more notably while fronting Ian Dury And
The Blockheads. He became a superstar.
Rathmell fared less well through
this period, raising her two children in
straitened economic circumstances,
first in Tring and then in Chiswick, West
London, all the while wondering why her
son kept climbing through the fence at
school as soon as she’d deposited him
there. So Baxter was moved into Dury Sr’s
mansion flat overlooking the Thames, in
Hammersmith. It did not immediately
provide the disciplined structure that
Baxter’s mother might have hoped for.
“It was fucking mental,” says Baxter
Dury now, nursing a pint of Guinness outside
The Rutland Arms, just a few yards away
from the balcony of his father’s former flat,
where they lived together in the mid-’80s.
“If you were being poetic you could describe
it as bohemian.”
Undecorated since the 1960s, Baxter’s
bed was “a rotten chaise longue in the front
room, next to an Olympic-sized ping pong
table.” The bedroom Baxter had earmarked
as his was instead occupied by The Sulphate
Strangler, aka Pete Rush, a drug dealer and
Ian Dury’s bodyguard.
“I suppose my dad was an alcoholic,” says
Those who enter the same
trade as illustrious parents
are doomed to live by
constant comparison. Such
is life for BAXTER DURY,
the singing son of superstar
singer, Ian. But now that
he’s released an album
that matches his dad’s best,
will he emerge from the
shadow? TED KESSLER joins
him by the Thames as he
flicks through his Rolodex
of amazing anecdotes.
Baxter. “He started drinking every other day
at noon and that was the mood of the place.
But he managed to turn it into a performance,
heckling people from his balcony, charming
them. So nobody pinned the tag on him.
There was always a party at our gaff.” That’s
perhaps why there were two steel front doors
to their flat. “Like a prison. Or a crack house.”
Days in the flat would drift hazily into the
evening, with Dury Sr holding court in his
armchair through the night. Trays of pints
would be ferried across Hammersmith
Bridge from the Irish pub on the opposite
bank as small gatherings developed into
fiestas. Sooner or later someone would
whip out a guitar, or a didgeridoo, or some
other instrument designed to disrupt the
sleep of a small boy on a chaise longue in
the same room. But whatever happened the
night before, Baxter always awoke at dawn
as there were no curtains on any of the
windows in the front room. “It was the
brightest room in London when the sun
came up over the Thames.” His academic
attendance consequently did not improve.
JANUARY 2018 87
 BAXTER DURY

Not too long after Baxter

moved in, Ian Dury moved
abroad for six months to act
in a film. He entrusted his son
to The Sulphate Strangler in
his absence.
“Strangler took it really
seriously,” remembers Baxter.
“He drove me to school,
picked me up, we spent all our
time together.” The Sulphate
Strangler saw it as a mission of
redemption, for both of them.
“He was a middle-aged drug-
dealer, and I was a 14-year-old
schoolboy, but we became close
mates. He looked out for me.”
Their bond was such, in fact,
that when Ian Dury would
periodically return, they’d gang
up on him. “If he was banging
on, as he could, being ‘Ian Dury’,
the role he’d created, Strangler
would dose his drink. Knock him
out.” Baxter smiles sheepishly.
“It was probably dangerous, but
he could wang on.” It was brutally upsetting at first, but then,
Baxter Dury and The Sulphate over time, the pain became even worse. Eight
Strangler’s story would make a beautiful or nine months after she left, he wondered if
rites-of-passage screenplay or novel: he’d ever be mended. There was one silver
Withnail & I meets Catcher In The Rye. lining, however.
Picture the scenes. The Sulphate Strangler “Before she left,” he explains, “I had
escorting Baxter to the classroom of his posh, written volumes of stuff literally about
last-resort exam crammer in Chelsea and nothing, Bic pens or something. I needed
sharing a smoke with his teacher; Strangler a drama, I realised, as soon as it happened,
taking Baxter’s mates clubbing in town in the and I managed to outsource that emotion
back of his car, sneaking them into places into the songs.”
Dury service: (from top) a young Baxter
most 14-year-olds can only dream of; Baxter with father Ian on their old balcony; Over his previous four albums, Baxter
and Strangler setting off on road trips around Dury Sr with (left) bodyguard/dealer The Dury had carved out a reputation for
Europe to see The Blockheads, Strangler’s Sulphate Strangler; Baxter’s Instagram poetically cynical, emotionally vulnerable
wares hidden in their bags… post of his ex-girlfriend Margaux Ract lo-fi funk-pop. His songs were dinky, dark,
“It wasn’t typical,” recalls Baxter. “But it listening to the song he wrote about her. contagious and good, but niche. He’s
was a bit of an adventure.” big in France in the same way that
Anyone who tells you, however, that life Serge Gainsbourg is popular in the
is not circular, or cyclical, that we are not UK with a strand of deeply-invested
bound to repeat our formative paths in music head who appreciates
midlife, is not paying attention to the melancholic introspection and a
correct texts. For in the winter of 2015-16, raised eyebrow, but without being
Baxter Dury, like his father, was forced to remotely as popular in his homeland
flee Tring and seek emotional sanctuary in as Gainsbourg was in his. Baxter
West London. And that is the hook upon Dury should be as well known for his
which this tale hangs. observational reporting of British
life as Jarvis Cocker is, but somehow
or not entirely selfish he’s only as well known as Baxter

F
motives, Baxter Dury Dury. He has often written very
moved to Tring from elegant, perceptive songs about
Notting Hill with his also thought that life in a cottage in the shame – shameful decisions and shameful
French girlfriend, country would be romantic. Who knows. people – and maybe that just doesn’t connect
Margaux Ract, and his In the end, though, the move provided in Britain the way that it does in France.
son from a previous that dreaded flipside of romance: heartbreak. With the break-up, though, a new
relationship, Kosmo, a few years ago. His He was working on his fifth solo album, opportunity presented itself. He could
primary concern was to provide a stable writing melody lines and song structures now examine and exorcise this pain, poke
home for Kosmo, a bright, sensitive lad, away when, for reasons that Dury is beneath the rock of his feelings for an album
from some of the inner-city distractions that understandably unwilling to share with with a more universal message. Nobody
Baxter had faced as a youngster. Maybe he a magazine, Margaux decided to leave him. escapes heartbreak, after all. And so Prince

88 JANUARY 2018

Of Tears, his fifth album, was born.
It’s comfortably his best.
There’s a lushness to it that’s absent
from its predecessors, due partly to some
incredible strings, arranged by “a Welsh
bloke [Joseph Davies] I bullied like a total
c**t until, watching him on the day of the
recording, I realised he knew what he was
doing and I didn’t. Suddenly, it was like,
‘You’re the Bob Marley of conductors and
I’m a c**t.’ He even looked more handsome.”
The key to the album’s brilliance is not
just the real strings or that the songs are
better, says Dury. It’s money. “I thought,
‘These are good songs. I’m going to get the
best people to play them with me. I’m
going to get The Harrods Hamper Band
together.’ I argued with labels for a long time
about releasing cash, but once we got it the
recording was quick.”
Despite all this, if you were to dwell just
on the lyrics and isolate his delivery of them,
it does sound like a 30-minute expression of
“If a girl threatens to leave me,
my reaction accesses that same
reaction I had to Dad leaving.”
clinical depression, sung with a masochistic
relish. Baxter Dury likes picking a scab.
On 23 January, 2017 Dury posted a
photo on Instagram of a woman in a French
café, wearing a large pair of headphones
and an inscrutably deadpan expression.
Dury’s description reads: “Margo listening
to Margo.”
Playing Prince Of Tears now, all is
revealed about the photo. Margaux Ract is
listening to Mungo, a pivotal song on the
album that is addressed directly to Ract,
detailing Dury’s forlorn need for her.
“Hello Margo, please wake up, right now,”
Dury sings, desperately. “Don’t you think I’m
special? I think I’m special.” Every line in the
song is to her except for the chorus, which, it
Taking it to
the bridge: the
post-break-up
Dury returns
from exile.
seems, is her imagined reply at the other end
of the line, delivered by Dury’s long-term
vocal foil, Madelaine Hart, singing, “Please
don’t call me. Cos there’s nothing here.”
It’s brutal, and very catchy, but the photo
of Margaux listening to Mungo, the song
Baxter Dury wrote about her, to her, in the
depth of forsaken self-pity, is a masterpiece
of post-modern art in its own right. How did
she take it? Dury can play poker when he
wants to. After all, what more is there to say?
“She was cool,” he says. “We’re still
really close. There are people you can walk
away from and it becomes very apparent
quickly that it wasn’t right. But not her.
She’s amazing.”
At first when they split up, it was just
JANUARY 2018 89
 BAXTER DURY
School of hard knocks:
the West London
comp where Dury
often went AWOL.
awful. Nothing more. He could cope. He
didn’t shave, he stopped eating, his clothes
looked bad and he fell into a light depression,
but it was manageable. Life went on. Kosmo
still had to go to school after all, and Baxter
had an album he could now write. But this
heartache was a slow-burner. Letter Bomb,
although it has no words beyond the title,
describes this phenomenon.
“I went out with this girl once,” he
explains, “and when we split up I said, ‘Oh
it’s alright, I don’t feel too bad actually.’
And she went, ‘Darling, it’s in the fucking
post.’ And I said, ‘What is?’ She went, ‘Your
emotions.’ And they were as well. Ka-boom!
This was like that, but much worse.”
The detonation lay in the change of
seasons. By the time July rolled through,
Dury was ambushed by the memories of
previous summers spent together. She
was in France and he was in Tring, and only
one person was making the most of that
arrangement. “I think something snapped
in me,” he says. “I was contemplative and
quite broken. We used to do Frenchy,
summery things and I wasn’t doing that.
I was left to my own cooking, not to put too
sexist a perspective on it. That’s what the
90 JANUARY 2018
“Chiswick School was quite tough.
Well, it felt tough to me. It’s all relative.
I was arts’n’crafts class and these were
hard lads from tower blocks.”
song August is about. I just really fucking
missed her. Like, where are you?”
In the end, something had to give and
that something was Tring. “I mean, Tring’s
a shithole. It was sort of alright when that
girl was there, but she wasn’t and then
Brexit happened.”
So, just like his father before him,
Baxter Dury wiped away a tear, packed his
bags and got on a train from Tring back to
West London.
hen Martin Amis was
W
writing his bestselling
novel London Fields in
the 1980s, he’d sit in
Notting Hill pubs and
just observe for weeks.
The characters he
needed were all there in the boozers around
Portobello Road. Amis has moved on now, to
Brooklyn and much less convincing dialogue,
but those voices from his great mid-period
London novels live on, in Baxter Dury’s
songs. They survive there because, for better
or worse, they’re his people.
They’re the cokey, delusional sleazebag
of Miami, “the urban goose, the shadow
licker”, who is an amalgam of all Dury’s
worst instincts combined with some of the
most awful people he knows. And they’re
the tearaway described in Oi, with whom,
Dury sings, he used to “run down Chiswick
High Road, being horrible to people.”
“Oi’s focused on one person from a small
group,” explains Dury, “but I don’t want to
say who in case I get a screwdriver in my
neck.” These were the kids he met at
Chiswick School, the comprehensive he
spent most of the time running away from.
“It was quite tough, that school. Well,
it felt tough to me. It’s all relative. I was
arts’n’crafts class and these were hard lads
from tower blocks.”
Everyone knew who his dad was at
Chiswick School, but that didn’t buy him
space. It made him a target. He had to assume
a fearless naughtiness to compensate. It
 meant he bunked off a lot of school and
fought in corridors when challenged,
although the protagonist in Oi “collapsed
me like a deckchair.”
Once, in an effort to win him over, he
brought the kid from Oi to his flat to meet
Ian Dury. “But my dad just sat there making
sheep noises at him for ages. Afterwards
I got it in the neck for months. ‘Your dad is a
fucking weirdo, isn’t he?’ I’d tried to counter-
weird him and it massively backfired.”
Dury still vaguely knows this kid, now
a 40-something man like himself, although
he doesn’t live in upwardly-mobile Kensal
Green as Dury does, alongside all the other
“happy dads with no obvious schedule”.
“He’s in prison, I think.” He throws
an exaggerated look over his shoulder, down
the riverbank. “I’ve said too much…”
axter Dury gets
B
a bit tired of all
the Ian Dury
comparisons.
Well, you would,
wouldn’t you?
That doesn’t mean
we aren’t going to ask him about it
though. After all, his singing’s never
sounded more like Ian Dury than on
Prince Of Tears. It’s like he’s his son.
“Thing is, his voice isn’t even his
voice. I see pictures of Dad in the ’70s
and I can hear his false Cockney accent:
stop it, please. It was a masquerade.”
This will come as a surprise to those
who watched Mat Whitecross’s hit
2010 biopic of Ian Dury, Sex & Drugs
& Rock & Roll, which framed Dury’s
relationship with his own father, wayward
Cockney Bill (played by Ray Winstone)
as pivotal to who he was.
“But that film’s not real,” protests
Baxter. “That’s Andy Fairground or
whatever his name is [Andy Serkis]
pretending to be Dad. That’s the Cockney
vista. It’s a male view. Ray Winstone
as his dad, all that bollocks.”
REX
Baxter points out that in fact Ian Dury
was raised by three well-educated women,
his aunts and mother. “That story is much
more illustrative, it explains the artistic side,
but it’s not as interesting as good-old manly
working-class conflict. Dad created that
Dickens character. That wasn’t who he was.”
Children of messily-divorced parents,
along with cognitive therapists, will
recognise the slightly dismissive tone that
Baxter displays sometimes when talking
about his illustrious old man. It links to a
word that also runs right through Prince Of
Tears, one that explains why it’s a powerful
piece of work: abandonment.
“It all stems from abandonment,” he
agrees, with possible relief. “If a girl threatens
to leave me, my reaction accesses that same
reaction I had to Dad leaving. Now, I was
only one when he left. But we were living in
Family guy: the Dury clan,
including Baxter, father Ian
and sister Jemima; (below)
with son Kosmo at an Ian Dury
artwork exhibition at London’s
Royal College of Art, 2013.
a rural setting, we were very poor and my dad
decided to fuck off and live with a 21-year-
old, leaving my mum very sad and unable to
give me the attention I needed. All that
comes out whenever I hit crisis mode.”
Hence, The Prince Of Tears. Baxter
shrugs. “Understand that I am totally fine,
please,” he says. “I’m definitely good. It’s
just the life I’ve had makes it hard to settle.
I’m the only one of my mates who’s not
married. My flat looks like a terrorist bomb
maker’s, like I could scarper at any time.”
But of course, he can’t, and he won’t,
because he’s intent on giving Kosmo as
much of himself as he didn’t get from Ian.
“Did you know, he’s become a musician,”
he asks, brightening. “It’s been about two
months. He picked up instruments and,
being Kosmo, he just occupied them. The
bass and the guitar. He learnt them! Like
that! I’m like, ‘The fuck?!’”
Baxter drifts off,
magining his 15-year-old
n, the rock star. “I’d put a
illion quid on him pulling it
ff. He might be a musician.
he first real one out of
ll of us, the first hope.”
The sun is setting
s he finishes his pint,
lluminating the river
owards Barnes. Baxter tells
a story about an old boy
with gangster connections
who owned “an amphibious
tank” that would pick
up his dad, Baxter and
crew, sail down the river
and then deposit them at
various pubs, “coming
up the banks of the
Thames on wheels.
Freaked everyone in
the pubs out.”
“It’s funny being here,”
he says, “you remember
forgotten things.”
He and his dad used to
stand on the balcony
he night, he recalls,
watching the water. “There are steps
down to the Thames on the other
side and every so often someone would walk
down them and not come back up.”
Ian Dury, he says, had an idea that he
looked into seriously. “He wanted to get a
massive neon sign hung over this bank and
every time someone climbed down those
steps over there at night he could press a
button that lit it up with: Stop! Don’t Do It!
Come And Have A Nice Cuppa!”
The Prince Of Tears laughs ruefully,
a man weighed down by a thousand
anecdotes. All true, all golden, too
many ghostly.
“It’s a lovely idea, isn’t it?” he says. It is.
Add it to the list.
JANUARY 2018 91
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR DON’T CALL HIM
“MAN OF THE YEAR”.
What was the highlight of
your year?
Well… I really enjoyed
Glastonbury. What do other
“Gorgeously people reference when you ask
sculpted songs”: them this question? It [Pure
Father John Misty,
aka Josh Tillman.
Comedy] is not an album you
particularly enjoy having
lauded, you know? There was
another publication that asked
me to do a “Man Of The Year”
kind of thing and I had to call
the editor and say, “Surely
there is someone more
inspiring than me?” because
this album – it isn’t meant to be
inspiring… I guess it’s supposed
to be sobering in a certain way.
I’m not sure how noble a thing
that is… I didn’t particularly
enjoy any of the material
success of this record and nor
do I think it’s particularly
appropriate to. It’s contrary to
the whole essence of the record
– it’s very, like, dust to dust.
Pure Comedy felt prescient
considering it was written
before Donald Trump’s
election…

NO
The only thing that changed
between when I recorded the
album and when the album
came out is that America got
a leader as hideous as America
is. America was expanding
deportation programmes and
commanding drone strikes and
expanding the surveillance
state and imprisoning
whistleblowers before Donald

FATHER
Trump got in. The only thing
that changed is that now we get
to see the face the world sees.
You ditched Twitter this year
– do you recommend it?
I do. If Twitter was a physical
space – a bar – would you ever

JOHN MISTY
PURE COMEDY
The Backstory: Is Josh Tillman
a microdosing hipster with a
jaundiced view of modern culture
or a 21st-century seer with a bent
for self-flagellation? On his third
album as Father John Misty,
he was both at the same time.
The Clincher: If Tillman
constructed a lyrical hall of
mirrors, then his gorgeously
sculpted songs – simultaneously
lush and bleak – provided the
roadmap through it.
What They Say: “People see me
as a charlatan, and that disdain is
probably what’s going to ruin this
record, which is too bad because
it’s actually very sincere.”
Key Track: Total Entertainment
Forever
DAVE EVERLEY
go there? American culture has
just become like this human
centipede – the same shit just
passes through all of us, like
a Hadron Collider of shit.
In a way, Twitter was
my lips on the asshole of
the guy in front of me and
I needed to disengage from
that guy’s asshole.
Any New Year’s resolutions?
I just got hypnotised to
stop smoking. I’m not sure,
though – it was all I could do
not to die laughing.
INTERVIEW BY VICTORIA SEGAL

92 JANUARY 2018
 6. ST. VINCENT
MASSEDUCTION
The Backstory: Over the last
couple of years, St. Vincent’s
Annie Clark has gone from art-
rock darling to tabloid celebrity.
On her brilliantly ostentatious
fifth album, which grows bleaker
with every listen, she attempts
to sift through the wreckage.
The Clincher: Clark has
always been a shapeshifter, but
here she morphs dramatically
into a sharp artistic vision
of tawdry glitz, glamour and
grief, all the while honing her
ear for strange, unsettling pop
to perfection.
What They Say: “If you want
to know about my life, listen
to my record.”
Key Track: Pills
REBECCA NICHOLSON
ANDREW WHITTON
5. GORILLAZ
HUMANZ
The Backstory: Damon Albarn
and Jamie Hewlett hadn’t made
an album for seven years, or
even spoken to each other for
three, but they buried the
hatchet and reignited their
cartoon collective.
The Clincher: Roping in their
highest quota of guests yet,
they make a party record
about the world going to pot.
It moves away from their
trademark future-pop sound in
favour of jagged hip-hop-
influenced grooves.
What They Say: “The three
tenets for this record were
pain, joy, urgency.”
Damon Albarn
Key Track: Saturnz Barz
NIALL DOHERTY
4. LORDE
MELODRAMA
The Backstory: Pop moves fast
but former teenage wunderkind
Ella Yelich-O’Connor took her
time processing the success
of 2013’s Pure Heroine and
plotting a way forward with
co-songwriter/producer Jack
Antonoff, this year’s pop Zelig.
The Clincher: The hard graft
paid off. Pivoting between
angst and ecstasy, Lorde’s
song cycle about young
adulthood once again places
her firmly in pop’s vanguard,
fizzing with wit, wisdom and
arresting honesty.
What They Say: “We finished
it and I said to Jack, ‘You realise,
I can go anywhere I want now.’”
Key Track: Liability
DORIAN LYNSKEY
3. WOLF ALICE
VISIONS OF A LIFE
The Backstory: After the
breakthrough success of
their debut album, the North
London quartet’s youthful
abandon morphs into
mid-20s anxiety.
The Clincher: They channel
their post-adolescent fretting
into one of the best-sounding
albums of the year, a rock record
that sounds as dreamily
atmospheric as it does heavy,
pop hooks always lurking deep
in the sonic fug.
What They Say: “What am I
going to write about if this is
supposed to be the funnest
time of my life?” Ellie Rowsell
Key Track: Don’t Delete
The Kisses
NIALL DOHERTY
“Unsettling pop
perfection”:
St. Vincent hits
peak form.

N O
LCD
SOUNDSYSTEM
AMERICAN DREAM
The Backstory: After 2011’s
premature retirement, James
Murphy got the band back
together – at David Bowie’s
urging, no less – and more
than made up for lost time.
The Clincher: All Murphy’s
disco neuroses are turned
up to 10. It’s everything you
need for the best mortality-
awareness dance party ever.
What They Say: “I knew
we were going to have to be
significantly better than we
ever were, for anyone to say
we were even half as good as
we used to be.” James Murphy
Key Track: Oh Baby
VICTORIA SEGAL
94 JANUARY 2018
JAMES
MURPHY
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
They made the comeback of the year…
ow has your 2017 been?
Overall, things are great. We’re
touring right now, but we tour
really well in every aspect you
can think of. We all get along
really well and we do little
civilised things, so touring
isn’t brutal. Like, we make
relationships with coffee
houses who send us baristas.
We work out a little barter,
so we’ll have coffee all day.
Who’s been coming to the shows – the old
guard or new friends?
started doing a poll at shows, asking who’d
never seen us and it was an enormous percentage.
’ve been shocked. The time we took off is a long
ime if you’re a kid. You could have been 12 years
old when we split up and now you’re 18 seeing a
band you heard about when someone’s older
brother gave you a file – I was going to say a tape
because I’m 47, I don’t know how people find
hings – so we’re an old band now!
You finished American Dream in May, then
released it in September. Were you making
up for lost time?
That’s about as quick as you can do it. I don’t see the
point of finishing the record then letting it sit there.
Do you know why people do that? They want the
maximum impact and I don’t. I believe in the record
so I don’t care when it comes out. If we play by
hose rules we’re always going to lose. We don’t
have the weaponised elevator music that pop is
now. People were saying, “We’ll get radio if you
wait” but I don’t know that I want people finding
our music next to stuff I think is garbage. I don’t
want to lull people into accepting us through
constant exposure.
Do people treat you differently now you’ve
done the reunion thing?
Something new happened this time: the knives
were out! I’ve never had that before and I’ve been
fully aware of that all the way along, I even wrote a
song immediately after [2002 debut single] Losing
My Edge called Here Comes The Backlash but never
released it. There’s been a hammer on a rope over
our band ever since somebody went: “This is the
best!” At that point it was like: “Put a candle by the
rope and we’ll see how long this lasts.” But I forgot
about the hammer, went into my little bubble,
had a baby and became a private citizen, as they
say when people leave office…
But you couldn’t stay away…
I was shamed by my wife to do something. She
pulled my 15-year-old self on me! I always say my
15-year-old self would be horrified by this or that,
then she said: “How would your 15-year-old self
feel if you owned the studio of his dreams and
didn’t make a record because you didn’t want
people to be mad at you?” So the knives were out,
which was actually exciting. Before it felt like
we’d been given a pass – none of our records were
perfect. In fact, I think I might like this new record
the most – so it’s been interesting to have the
opposite experience. People were going:
“It’s going to be so delicious when this fucking
self-effacing teddy bear eats it, after the fake
farewell tour to make money…” Yeah, right!
The split wasn’t the PR stunt of the decade?
It’s a great idea, but when you quit your job they
tend to stop paying you! [Laughs] It’s been
interesting to be up against something.
What’s the best thing you’ve heard this year?
We put out Delia Gonzalez’s Horse Follows
Darkness on DFA in May. That’s a totally beautiful
record, really moving. And I love the new stuff by
AMOR – Paul Thomson from Franz Ferdinand’s
WORDS: PAUL STOKES. PHOTO: SIMON SARIN
other band. I was really into Golden Teacher too.
There are good things in Glasgow right now.
And after all that coffee, what’s the best
cup you’ve had in 2017?
I got a coffee at a place called Third Floor Espresso
in Dublin, and the guy does something very magical.
They have the best organic Irish country milk.
They gave me a box of their special coffee and
it’s really fucking good.
 ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

“The knives were out!”:

James Murphy defied
the naysayers with a
post-retirement classic.

“I was shamed by my
wife to do something.”
 “Operating on a higher
plane”: Kendrick Lamar
leaves the competition
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR in the dust with DAMN.

N O
KENDRICK
LAMAR
DAMN.
The Backstory: Tasked with
following the landmark of
To Pimp A Butterfly and
vindicating the most
extravagant praise, hip-hop’s
reigning MC slam-dunked it.
The Clincher: Tighter and
tougher than its predecessor
but no less complex, DAMN.’s
knotty moral conundrums,
musical curveballs (U2?!) and
breathtaking mastery of the
mic proved that Kendrick is
operating on a higher plane.
Sit down, be humble.
What They Say: “I want to
challenge the way you think
and the way you take in music.
That’s what excites me.”
Key Track: DNA.
GETTY
DORIAN LYNSKEY
KENDRICK
LAMAR
How often is one of the best-selling albums of the
year also the best-sounding, asks Dorian Lynskey.
UNLESS IT IS OVERTAKEN by Ed
Sheeran’s ÷ or, at the last minute, Taylor Swift’s
Reputation, it looks very possible that America’s
best-selling album of 2017 will be Kendrick Lamar’s
DAMN. That would be a remarkable development.
To find other occasions when the biggest album of
he year was also generally agreed to be the best,
you’d have to go back to the days of Rumours and
Thriller. And if you’re looking for an equivalent run
of artistic and commercial dominance, there’s only
Stevie Wonder in the ’70s. Like Stevie, Kendrick is
capable of producing one masterpiece after
another, becoming the soundtrack to his era.
There’s one crucial difference, though. Wonder
poured so much of himself into
Songs In The Key Of Life that
he could never match it, but “You have
Kendrick has found a way to
escape the gravitational pull of the to confirm to
similarly compendious To Pimp
A Butterfly. He couldn’t go any yourself that
broader, so he went deeper.
you’re the
At first glance, DAMN. may be
shorter and more straightforward
han its predecessor but once best, period.”
you’re inside it, it’s no less of a
abyrinth: “Fourteen tracks, carried out over wax,
searching for resolutions,” to quote FEAR.
As a microphone fiend with a social conscience
and impeccable taste in beats, Kendrick is catnip to
hip-hop fans who miss the ’90s. But his personality
s of-the-moment, because he defines the moment.
Many of music’s most satisfying developments
since the former mixtape rapper went overground
with 2012’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City – from soul-
searching mavericks like Chance The Rapper to
multifaceted explorations of blackness such as
Solange’s A Seat At The Table, can be described as
post-Kendrick. His emotional honesty and moral
purpose, chiming with the unravelling of American
optimism, have changed the musical weather.
Kendrick is deeply moral without being a scold,
because he always loops back to his own failings
and inconsistencies. “It was always me versus the
world,” he ventriloquises through Bekon on
DUCKWORTH. “Until I found it’s me versus me.”
His pyrotechnical brilliance on the mic, where he
absorbs and exceeds the lessons of everyone from
Eminem to André 3000, is never technique for its
own sake. He hones his craft so that he can get ever
closer to perfect clarity of thought and expression.
DAMN. is precise yet complex. Every track has a
distinct purpose – the battle rap, the protest song,
the love jam, the memoir with a twist – but some of
those tracks are moving targets, sent spinning by
bold thematic pivots and tonal shifts, while FEEL.
and FEAR. use repetition to uncover a multiverse in
a single word. Kendrick’s multiple voices convey
multiple truths: “I’m a savage, I’m a asshole, I’m a
king” (LOYALTY.); “I got power,
poison, pain and joy inside my
DNA” (DNA.). With Kendrick,
the answer is always all of the
above. As he says on LUST.:
“It’s all contradiction.”
Kendrick has been acclaimed
twice over: as the greatest rapper
alive and as the voice of black
America under hideous duress.
That volume of praise and
expectation could go to anybody’s
head, so it’s impressive that he’s still asking what it
all means. HUMBLE. is a memo to himself disguised
as a throwdown to his competitors. XXX.’s Bono-
communing meditation on the history of violence in
America springs from Kendrick’s awareness of his
own vengeful impulses. President Trump, the mad
elephant in the room, merits only a fleeting
reference. What’s happening in the world can’t
compete with the drama raging in Kendrick’s soul.
One of DAMN.’s running themes is the
loneliness that comes from leaving your peers
behind. In a rare interview, Kendrick told Zane
Lowe: “You have to challenge yourself and you have
to confirm to yourself – not anybody else – that
you’re the best, period.” There’s no shortage of
smart, fearless rappers out there, from Run The
Jewels to Vince Staples, but really, Kendrick
Lamar’s only competition is Kendrick Lamar.
JANUARY 2018 97
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104 U2
After a near-death
health scare, rock’s
elder statesmen
return with a late-
career classic.

108 BJÖRK
All is full of love 107 MIGUEL
again in the The R&B star gets
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JANUARY 2018 101

A REGAL HIGH
BRIGHTON DUO COME TO MILAN: THEY PLAY, THEY CONQUER.

“Any roadies about?”

Mike Kerr (left) and ROYAL BLOOD at Glastonbury with the news that
their second album, How Did We Get
Ben Thatcher arrive FABRIQUE, MILAN So Dark?, had duplicated its self-titled
at Milan’s Fabrique. THURSDAY, 2 NOVEMBER, 2017 predecessor’s achievements by
#### entering the UK charts at Number 1.
n the loading alley A triumphant festival season

I
beside Milan’s
Fabrique, Royal Blood
are busy swatting
away one of the city’s
infamous swarms of mosquitos. At
this precise point in their trajectory,
however, there are no flies on the
Brighton-based duo. In June, they
inaugurated a plum early-evening set
followed, and thereafter their climb
continued with a two-month US tour
supporting Queens Of The Stone
Age, heroes of theirs, whose Songs
For The Deaf inspired fledgling
singer/bassist Mike Kerr to devise
their trademark two-man, bass and
drums set-up with Ben Thatcher.
For Kerr, a 28-year-old former chef

“Slap-bass, anyone?”
Royal Blood get physical,
Fabrique, Milan,
2 November, 2017.
from Worthing, touring with Josh
Homme’s crew was equally edifying.
“We had a lot to learn from them,” he
enthuses, staving off insect interest
with a succession of ciggies. “We can
drink most people under the table
now, and it’s really got us match-fit
for this tour.”
“WE’RE LIKE A NON-STICK BAND RIGHT NOW.
YOU CAN FRY ANYTHING ON US.” MIKE KERR
ED MILES
Theatre of Blood:
the Milan massive
make some noise.
Back in late 2014, on their first
sweep through northern Italy’s fashion
capital, the pair suffered one of very
few career missteps as gastroenteritis
forced them to cancel their show here.
This time around, with How Did We
Get So Dark? embedding Royal Blood
deeper in the global heavy-rock
psyche, they’re in no mindset for
throwing sickies, as a month-long
headlining excursion takes them
through some of Europe’s biggest
theatres and arenas.
“Before you take on a tour like
this,” summarises Kerr, ever keen
to apply a culinary theme, “you do
need to be seasoned, like a good wok.
Y’know, a work surface needs a good
oiling every now and then, and we’re
like a non-stick band right now. You
can fry anything on us.”
At this sixth engagement on their
itinerary, the mood of expansionist
confidence is writ large from the off.
The familiar Royal Blood set-up – Kerr
to the left, amid his assemblage of
vintage amps and FX pedals; Thatcher,
right, capped and bearded, battering
away atop a three-foot riser – is
augmented by a further gantry at the
back, occupied by two female backing
singers, applying the “oo-ooh”’s to
the second LP’s title track. (Kerr later
notes it’s “cool to feminise” their act).
The square-shaped Fabrique is
packed wall-to-wall and the place
erupts for How Did We Get So Dark?’s
opening sequence. During Kerr’s riffing
on Lights Out, a vast circle pit opens
up, only breached by delirious slam-
dancers once Thatcher cracks into SETLIST
the final chorus. Spotting the crowd’s
over-excitement, Kerr requests mutual
care. “Everybody love everybody, How Did We
Get So Dark?
goddammit!” he cries. Where the first
album’s no-nonsense approach was Where Are You
refreshing, their comfort onstage these Now?
days sees the excitement ramp up to Lights Out
whole different levels. During a drop- Come On Over
out in Come On Over, Thatcher stands
You Can Be So
to comically stare out the front rows, Cruel
while Kerr, one arm aloft in
showboating guitar-god pose, knocks I Only Lie
When I Love
out a solo with his fret hand.
You
The new record hardly reinvents
the wheel, but here in the flesh, its She’s Creeping
quality tunes and subtle variations Little Monster
hit home. On I Only Lie When I Love Hook, Line &
You, Thatcher displays a Charlie Sinker
Watts-style dexterity in shifting to an Blood Hands
almost disco rhythm, before returning
Sleep
to a full-tilt John Bonham wallop for
his solo on Little Monster. Hole In Your
Another new song, Hole In Your Heart
Heart, sees Kerr hammering on Ten Tonne
a pair of keyboards but then his amp Skeleton
packs up. In the confusion, Thatcher Loose Change
fulfils Kerr’s promise of interim
Figure It Out
“entertainment” with further creepy
stare-outs. Gear back up and running, Encore
there’s a mass clap-along during Hole
Figure It Out, quickly topped by the Out Of The
encore’s Hole and Out Of The Black, Black
where a 20-yard-long moshpit appears
with punters scooting down it as Kerr
orchestrates a deafening left/right
cheering contest. Thatcher soon stage-
dives into the chaos and is briefly
unhatted before returning for a
feedback-drenched crescendo.
Non-stick, no flies, no prisoners –
whatever the preferred metaphor,
Royal Blood’s show on a night like
this is about as thrilling as rock’n’roll
gets. ANDREW PERRY
JANUARY 2018 103
 THIS BRINGING
ISSUE IT ALL
BACK HOME
G NEW ALBUMS G REISSUES

Alien Stadium 106

Baths 106 BRUSH WITH MORTALITY INSPIRES ROCK
Bibio 106 ELDER STATESMEN’S MOST PERSONAL WORK.
Björk 108
Karl Blau 106 U2
Peter Broderick 106 SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
ISLAND, OUT 1 DECEMBER
Michael Chapman &
Ehud Banai 106 After expansionism comes retreat.
Just as Britain begins negotiating
Eera 109 Brexit and the US prepares to
Electric Wizard 109 withdraw behind Donald Trump’s
Wall, so U2, ever in lightning reaction
Paloma Faith 109
to the zeitgeist, are focussing on
Tav Falco 109 matters closer to home. Their shift
Amp Fiddler 109 has occurred, causally or not, after
the disastrous launch of 2014’s best comeback single since 2000’s
Charlotte Gainsbourg 109 Songs Of Innocence. The group were Beautiful Day. At this perilous
Charles Hayward And vilified for their decision to thrust its juncture, Bono has largely chosen
Thurston Moore 109 11 tracks into half a billion iClouds to sideline his usual Business Class
Hello Skinny 110 unbidden; worse, Bono, their PR globalist observations, and tackle
maestro, had nearly paralysed himself his hitherto keenly-protected
Sharon Jones & while cycling in Central Park and was family life, in his most touchy-feely
The Dap-Kings 110 thus unavailable for some of the initial lyrics to date.
Jonti 110 damage-limitation interviews. Only Behind a Joshua Tree-worthy
the ensuing top-budget Innocence + chorus and Edge’s irresistible riffing,
Kaukolampi 110 Experience tour, and this summer’s You’re The Best Thing About Me is
Fela Kuti 116 Joshua Tree shows, put them back on addressed to his wife, Ali, with an
Lost Horizons 110 an all-pleasing footing. uncharacteristically self-questioning
Yet, as their shaken mouthpiece vulnerability. “I have everything but
Metallica 117 guardedly informed Q last month, I feel like nothing at all,” he notes, then
Dan Michaelson 110 Bono has suffered a further, wonders, “If you’re the best thing
Miguel 107 unspecified “brush with mortality”, about me/Why am I walking away?”
which, more than the necessity to The album opens on a haunted
N.E.R.D 111 respond to world events, halted note, as Love Is All We Have Left
Noya Rao 113 production on this 14th studio outing. speculates on mortality, before a
U2, in fairness, are anything but cosmos-contemplating Bono is fed
Playgroup 117
indolent dinosaurs. They throw through an Auto-Tune, Kanye-style.
Princess Nokia 113 everything at their albums – often too U2 always seek to freshen up their
Penny Rimbaud 113 much. The relative unpopularity of sound, but never in a “new direction”
their last two outings – 2009’s No Line as such, preferring a complex
The Rolling Stones 117 On The Horizon sold a mere five patchwork of often conflicting
Shamir 113 million, half of its predecessor’s tally; signifiers. Hence, Lights Of Home
Sia 113 Songs Of Innocence proved readily conversely features a rootsy
deletable from your consciousness, bottleneck guitar, and a sisterly
Siinai 113 if not your iTunes – might easily have gospel chant featuring its sampled
Sam Smith 115 fed that inherent self-doubt, with riff’s authors, Haim.
fatal consequences. Also woven into the fabric:
Omar Souleyman 114
Instead, Songs Of Experience will a St. Vincent-like tilt at robotic funk song and Summer Of Love find Bono
Spinning Coin 114 likely go down as a late-career classic. (The Blackout); a reading of Christ’s brooding on the plight of Syrian
Mavis Staples 114 Unlike its predecessors, it carries Beatitudes from Kendrick Lamar; and, refugees, but there’s only the odd
some memorable, stadium-ready on Red Flag Day, a revisiting of their passing glance towards Anglo-US
Taylor Swift 112 tunes, initially signposted by You’re War-era selves, complete with angular politics. Instead, the simmeringly
U2 105 The Best Thing About Me – their groove and soaring harmonies. That revelatory Get Out Of Your Own Way
Various: Black Man’s Pride 117 offers his four kids motivational
guidance with near-death urgency,
Various: Habibi Funk 117
SONGS OF EXPERIENCE WILL LIKELY GO
while The Showman (Little More
Lee Ann Womack 114 Better) serves up a knowing appraisal

DOWN AS A LATE-CAREER CLASSIC.

ANTON CORBIJN

Yung Lean 114 of his craft. “There’s a level of shallow

that you just can’t fake,” he avows,
Zombie Zombie 114 archly, “but you know that I know”.
Seemingly under attack from all

104 JANUARY 2018

 U2: “they remain
both postmodern and
unpredictable.”

fronts, U2 have dug deep, yet they

remain both postmodern and DON’T FEAR THE REAPER Three more albums inspired by serious health scares.
unpredictable. Able to assume
many sounds and voices; to invoke Bob Dylan Bob Marley Edwyn Collins
their early-’80s innocence, but also John Wesley & The Wailers Losing Sleep
none-more-experienced, masters of Harding Exodus HEAVENLY, 2010
every inch of their game. “Making COLUMBIA, 1967 ISLAND, 1977 The ex-Orange
a spectacle of falling apart is just the After a motorcycle Surviving a point- Juice singer suffered
start of the show,” croons their leader, accident in ’66, Dylan drew a line blank assassination attempt in his two cerebral haemorrhages, but
sagely. From here, U2 can rebuild under his drug-fuelled electric own kitchen in Jamaica, Marley soon found melodies arriving
with bullish confidence. ★★★★ phase, moved to Woodstock, decamped to London to sculpt his in his head by night. Cue this
ANDREW PERRY and hatched a more rustic, cryptic crossover masterstroke in Island extraordinarily upbeat riposte to
Listen To: You’re The Best Thing folk-rock songcraft. ★★★★ Records’ basement. ★★★★★ his illness. ★★★★
About Me | Red Flag Day

JANUARY 2018 105

 Common: he’d got into
a row with a particularly
stubborn seagull.
ALIEN STADIUM
LIVIN’ IN ELIZABETHAN TIMES
DOUBLE SIX, OUT 1 DECEMBER
Beta Band/Primal Scream
collaboration heads spacewards.
Concept albums about cosmic
encounters with Martian pop stars
have been all too scarce on the
ground in 2017. Luckily, Alien
BIBIO
PHANTOM BRICKWORKS
WARP, OUT NOW
Improvised ambience, designed
to give listeners the chills.
Where last year’s A Mineral Love
found Bibio, aka West Midlands sonic
voyager Stephen Wilkinson, delving
into ’70s jazz funk and otherworldly
folk, Phantom Brickworks is an
ambient concept album attempting
to evoke what he describes as “places
haunted by meaning”. In other
words, lingering, perhaps imaginary
spirits trapped in buildings and
locations. Ambient music is well-worn
terrain by now, and opener 9:13
is too close perhaps to Brian Eno to
make much of an impact. But when
a chorus of ghostly voices rise above
the fractured piano of Phantom
Brickworks III, the theme really
works, offering a genuinely unsettling
air of spookiness. ###
TOM DOYLE
Listen To: Phantom Brickworks II
| Phantom Brickworks III |
Branch Line
106 JANUARY 2018
Stadium – aka Steve Mason and
Primal Scream keyboardist Martin
Duffy – are here to fill that gap with
a record that almost certainly owes
its origin to a pint or seven. Despite
the ludicrous nature of the concept,
the duo don’t play it for laughs. Over
four tracks, they weave in and out of
their rich personal musical histories,
one minute aping the thrilling
KARL BLAU
OUT HER SPACE
BELLA UNION, OUT NOW
Off-kilter country-soul from
Washington State indie veteran.
Having made umpteen records over
20 years, Karl Blau launched himself
in Europe last year with Introducing
Karl Blau, an album of cover versions.
On Out Her Space, he offers up
his own songs. Where Ya Goin’ Papa
turns a question Blau hears from his
kids whenever he heads out on tour
into a quirky Harry Nilsson-like pop
tune, while Poor The War Away
sounds like a backwoods Talking
Heads. Sometimes the results
are a bit too wilfully weird, as in
the gratingly frenetic electric folk
of Valley Of Sadness, while Beckon
sounds like it’s in danger of falling
apart entirely. When his songs
are sturdier though, Blau is an
intriguing figure. ###
TOM DOYLE
Listen To: Slow Children |
Poor The War Away | Where Ya
Goin’ Papa
Alien Stadium: “What
do you mean we don’t
have AA cover?”
eclecticism of The Beta Band’s Three
EPs (This One’s For The Humans),
the next the electro-buzz of Primal
Scream’s Vanishing Point (Titanic
Dance (Lynch Mob Mix)). Bananas
but in a good way. ####
JAMES OLDHAM
Listen To: This One’s For The
Humans | Titanic Dance (Lynch
Mob Mix)
PETER BRODERICK
ALL TOGETHER AGAIN
ERASED TAPES, OUT NOW
“A group of oddball works” from
occasional Efterklang member.
Oregon composer Peter Broderick
marks a decade in the music industry
with this set of previously unreleased
pieces that were first commissioned
as strange one-offs. There is the score
he once wrote for a fashion show (the
piano-led If I Were A Runway Model),
a piece commissioned as a wedding
anniversary gift (Emily’s romantic
folk), and the 17-minute track written
to accompany a ferry ride through
Istanbul (the multi-layered ambience
of A Ride On The Bosphorus). There’s
a real and sinewy loveliness to these
compositions – they stand both
as superb pieces of music and as
tributes to the way that songs can
wind themselves around our days,
colouring relationships, fashion shows
and boat rides, as they go. ####
LAURA BARTON
Listen To: If I Were A Runway
Model | A Ride On The Bosphorus
BATHS
ROMAPLASM
ANTICON, OUT NOW
Hermetic beatmaker returns with
first LP in four years.
Few bedroom-pop artists fit the term
so cosily as LA’s Will Wiesenfeld, aka
Baths. Where other stay-at-home
producers trade in ornate electronic
confessions, Wiesenfeld’s bubbly
symphonies embody our private
alcoves in their totality. From grimy
bodily secretions (“Will I let the salt
flow from my eyes or armpits?” he
asks on Out) to cabin fever-fuelled
escapism, his follow-up to 2013’s
Obsidian hurtles ahead like a chaotic
daydream. Yeoman’s synth-pop
fantasia portrays infatuation as an
animé-inspired expedition, while
Extrasolar nods to the soundtracks
of video games and cartoon series.
The manic arrangements sometimes
overwhelm, but there are worse
places to drown than Baths’ ball-pit
of an imagination.###
JAZZ MONROE
Listen To: Yeoman | Adam Copies
MICHAEL CHAPMAN
& EHUD BANAI
EB=MC²
NANA DISC, OUT 1 DECEMBER
Veteran jazz-folk outlier’s
Anglo-Israeli odyssey.
Leeds-born Michael Chapman’s
status as the cult-est of cult artists
stands in inverse proportion to the
reverence in which he’s held by
musicians as diverse as Thurston
Moore and Lucinda Williams. Here,
he unites with another fan, Israeli folk-
rock institution Ehud Banai. The pair’s
parched reworking of Chapman’s
1970 almost-hit Soulful Lady is so
stripped down you can hear them
draw breath, though EB=MC2 is at its
best when it meshes Western and
Middle Eastern cultures, notably on
English/Hebrew duet Angel and the
instrumental Guitartar, which overlays
Chapman’s celestial finger-picking
with swirling Mediterranean scales.
Stirring and unique. ###
DAVE EVERLEY
Listen To: Soulful Lady | Angel
 A LOVER AND
A FIGHTER
R&B SMOOTHIE MIXES THE PERSONAL
WITH THE POLITICAL.
his last album, 2015’s Wildheart:
if anything, War & Leisure
feels bigger, brighter, more
eager to connect. That’s noble
and necessary in its way, but
somewhere in here, a stranger
artist is lurking, one that really
would be made for these
times. 
VICTORIA SEGAL
Listen To: Criminal | Skywalker |
City Of Angels

WAR & LEISURE MIGUEL tells

Miguel: “like all the best
people, he’s complicated.”
RCA, OUT 1 DECEMBER
Watch the video for Skywalker,
the mellow-buzz single from
Miguel’s fourth album, and you
could be forgiven for thinking San
Pedro’s prettiest R&B star was
your average pop hedonist, telling
his audience to “celebrate every
day like a birthday” surrounded
by bikini-wearing girls. Yet this is a
man who recently aligned himself
with Pussy Riot, briefly covering
their hammering satire Make
America Great Again; a man who
clearly enjoys singing, “I know
she’s vegan but she wants the
steak tonight”, but is also acutely
aware of impending Armageddon.
Thoughtful but filthy, sensual
but cerebral: like all the best
people, he’s complicated.
War & Leisure is, as the
title’s punchy contrasts indicate,
more complicated than most.
Skywalker’s weightless cool
is kept company by the wordy
swell and strut of Criminal. The
old-school soulful good times of
Pineapple Skies and Banana Clip
are balanced by Now, a nervy
thrum castigating the “CEO of the
Free World”, and City Of Angels,
a song about cheating on your
lover just as the bomb drops.
Such rangy ambition can,
however, stretch War & Leisure
a little too thin. Miguel has been
mentioned in the same breath
as Frank Ocean (often by himself)
and The Weeknd, but this
album doesn’t quite unlock such
self-contained worlds. There’s
nothing, either, to match the
X-rated dislocation of The Valley,
or the falsetto haze of Flesh, from
Victoria Segal about
tackling the world’s
ills and his “sonic
journal”.
Do you think of War &
Leisure as a political album?
“I wake up in the morning and
not only do I have to deal with
my personal reality, like we all
do, we also have the reality of
the world. That is what we see in
the news – nation rising against
nation, political powers
threatening other political
powers… it’s part of our human
history. So yes, there’s a bit of
what is happening politically, but
there’s also things that are more
about what I’m living though.”
Like a diary?
“It’s more of a sonic journal. I’m
consistently wanting to take a
snapshot of what I’m living
through when I create a project
[so] when I’m older I can look
back and remember where I was
– I was living in LA, I’d just got
engaged and it was a time when
all these equality issues were
coming back up. Hopefully,
I can look back and go, ‘Man,
we moved forward from that’.”
What was the inspiration
behind nuclear-age romance
City Of Angels?
“The best thing about creating
music is using your imagination
to fill in the blanks. Every day
we hear things that allow you to
imagine a world of possibilities.
That’s the best explanation
I can give short of saying I have
an overactive imagination.”

JANUARY 2018 107

 Björk: loves
a toot.
IT’S LIKE WALKING
THROUGH A VAST
TROPICAL GREENHOUSE,
FULL OF SUNLIGHT AND
TWITTERING BIRDS.

FEELS LIKE HEAVEN

ICELANDIC VISIONARY SWAPS HEARTACHE FOR EUPHORIA.

simplistic but Björk’s were
multidimensional: romantic,
erotic, visceral, spiritual. Not
that she skirted tougher realities
but it was shocking to hear her,
on 2015’s Vulnicura, mapping
the debris of her marriage to
artist Matthew Barney with such
punishing honesty. She had been
many things but never bleak,
never lost.
celebrating new love and (like
2011’s Biophilia) the dance
between nature and technology.
The airy, organic sounds of
woodwind, strings, harp and
choirs are knitted with crunchy
digital beats, most exquisitely
on 10-minute centrepiece Body
Memory and the title track’s
rainforest chamber-pop. Utopia
is like walking through a vast
Memory, “fucking mist”. But
they are eclipsed by moments
of piercing emotional clarity such
as Features Creatures’ playful
account of fledgling romance
(just the way she sings lit-er-all-y
is a treat) or Tabula Rasa’s
pledge to her daughter: “You
will have to deal with shit soon
enough/I hope to give you the
least amount of luggage.”

BJÖRK As the title of Utopia signals,

UTOPIA
ONE LITTLE INDIAN, OUT 24 NOVEMBER
One reason that Björk became
an irresistible pop star in the ’90s
was her talent for joy. Songs
conveying happiness can be
things are looking up. Björk
has framed it as “paradise” to
Vulnicura’s “hell”. She’s brought
back that album’s co-producer
Arca, her most simpatico
collaborator since the late
Mark Bell, but this time they’re
tropical greenhouse, full of
sunlight, oxygen and the
twittering of birds.
Like all of Björk’s albums this
past decade, it has a slippery
relationship with melody and
structure. The more shapeless
tracks resemble, to quote Body
Utopia’s elevating optimism is
encapsulated in its final glowing
benediction, Future Forever:
“Hold fast for love, forever.”
Paradise regained. ####
DORIAN LYNSKEY
Listen To: Utopia | Body Memory |
Features Creatures

108 JANUARY 2018


EERA
REFLECTION OF YOUTH
BIG DADA, OUT NOW
Impressively intense debut from
Norwegian singer-songwriter.
If the title of Anna Lena Bruland’s first
album is taken at face value, it seems
fair to assume the London-based
artist behind EERA hasn’t wasted
her 20s having fun. Reflection Of
Youth is, instead, steeped in moody
introspection, its electronic tremors
and tense distortions stopping these
songs from holding their solid shape.
It can sound like the room-spinning
drama of Birmingham’s retro futurists
Broadcast, or Portishead’s eerier
night-flights, but there’s something
harder and colder present in Living
or 10,000 Voices, a wildness found in
early Cat Power or PJ Harvey at her
most declamatory. Growing up is
hard to do, but Bruland has clawed
some fabulously uneasy songs from
the process. 
VICTORIA SEGAL
Listen To: Living | Beast | 10,000
Voices
TAV FALCO
A TAV FALCO CHRISTMAS
ORG MUSIC, OUT 24 NOVEMBER
Rockabilly eccentric gets
weirdly festive.
Tav Falco is a Memphis provocateur
who’s been making deranged
performance-art rockabilly since
1979 when he formed his first band,
Panther Burns, with Big Star’s Alex
Chilton. With Chilton long gone,
Falco’s taste for the absurd has
continued to spiral, culminating in this
– his first Christmas album. Recorded
with a line-up including bassist Mike
Watt (of Minutemen and Stooges
renown) and keyboardist Toby
Dammit (a current live Bad Seed).
Obviously, it’s ridiculous but there’s
something enjoyably unnerving about
these gnarled ne’er-do-wells tiptoeing
their way through straight-faced
renditions of Rudolph The Red-Nosed
Reindeer and White Christmas.
The John Lewis ad it isn’t. 
JAMES OLDHAM
Listen To: Santa Claus Is Back In
Town | Christmas Blues
ELECTRIC WIZARD
WIZARD BLOODY WIZARD
WITCHFINDER/SPINEFARM, OUT NOW
Mixed bag from West Country
metal institution.
Defined by their thunderous plodding,
Dorset doom-metallers Electric
Wizard extend their reluctance
to rush anything to their output:
Wizard Bloody Wizard is only their
ninth album in 24 years. It starts off
well: the familiar touchstones of
monolithic Black Sabbath riffs, stoner-
rock repetition and suitably silly lyrics
(“Lucifer, my only friend/I’ll burn
in hell till the end”) are all in play on
opener See You In Hell; Necromania
is relatively lively without sacrificing
any heaviness; and the hypnotic Hear
The Sirens Scream is even better.
It’s a shame, then, that the second
half of the album is so unspectacular,
reaching a nadir with the 11 airless
minutes of Mourning Of The
Magicians. 
PHIL MONGREDIEN
Listen To: Necromania | Hear The
Sirens Scream
AMP FIDDLER
AMP DOG KNIGHTS
MAHOGANI, OUT NOW
Motor City linchpin stays on
the comeback trail.
If connections were cash, Joseph
“Amp” Fiddler would have enough
to retire several times over. The
keyboardist-singer-producer links
Detroit’s past to its present like
few others. He played in the ’80s
incarnation of Parliament/Funkadelic,
mentored the young J Dilla and here
again works with deep house legend
Moodymann, following last year’s
Motor City Booty. Amp Dog Knights
offers little new to his fusion of R&B
vocals, bumpy hip-hop beats and
spacey electronic textures, but it
tightens the formula, making it move
with a fresh crispness. At its best, as
on the taut mating ritual Put Me In
Your Pocket, it has the swing to match
its considerable swagger. 
STEVE YATES
Listen To: Return Of The Ghetto
Fly | Put Me In Your Pocket |
Good Vibes
PALOMA FAITH
THE ARCHITECT
RCA, OUT NOW
Retro-pop belter gets serious.
While Paloma Faith’s previous LPs
have offered a theatrical take on
slick retro-pop, fourth time around
she’s got serious, taking on
everything from Brexit, interracial
relationships and environmental
catastrophe. Alongside songwriting
assistance from Sia, Rag’n’Bone
Man and Ed Harcourt, she’s hired a
gaggle of heavyweight talent to add
vocals. A gloriously stentorian
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG CHARLES HAYWARD
REST
BECAUSE, OUT NOW AND THURSTON MOORE
French icon delivers her best yet.
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s albums have
traditionally been beautifully curated,
collaborative affairs sparked by major
personal crises (2010’s IRM arrived in
the aftermath of brain surgery). Rest
is no exception. Creatively triggered
by the death of her half sister, it was
made with Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de
Homem-Christo and Paul McCartney.
However, it also marks a departure for
her sonically (producer SebastiAn
brings a Moroder-inspired electro)
and lyrically (Gainsbourg has written
them herself for the first time). This
new combination reaches its apex on
the whispered glide of the title track
but is equally touching on the sleek
melancholy of Kate. The balancing of
Gainsbourg’s natural good taste with
this deeper emotional resonance
remains key throughout. 
JAMES OLDHAM
Listen To: Kate | Rest | Ring-A-
Ring O’Roses
Paloma Faith:
“gone to a whole
new level.”
Samuel L Jackso
word opener Evolution, John
Legend assumes control of
swooning duet I’ll Be Gentle and
socialist mascot Owen Jones pipes
up in the brief rant, Politics Of
Hope. With string arrangements
from David Arnold, the production
is epic and when Faith belts out the
arena-filling choruses of Warrior,
Guilty and the title track, it’s clear
The Architect has elevated her to
a whole new level. 
JOHN AIZLEWOOD
Listen To: The Architect |
Guilty | Warrior
IMPROVISATIONS
CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, OUT 8 DECEMBER
Self-explanatory titled
collaboration produces noisy gold.
Improvisations is seven tracks of
former Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston
Moore making stuff up with drummer
Charles Hayward of avant-garde prog
outfits Quiet Sun, This Heat and
Camberwell Now. It was recorded
in an afternoon, it’s an hour long and
it’s great. Improvisations veers from
shorter pieces like the snappily-titled
A2 to monster riff beasts such as the
10-minute A1 (all pieces are named
after the track order, not major
British roads), which sounds like you
always hoped heavy metal would
sound like but it never did. Hayward
drums like he needs your attention
right now, Moore plays like an
apocalypse, and it’s all loud, snappy
and catchy as hell. 
DAVID QUANTICK
Listen To: A1 | A2
JANUARY 2018 109
HELLO SKINNY
WATERMELON SUN
BROWNSWOOD, OUT 24 NOVEMBER
Second solo album from jazz
drummer Tom Skinner.
While London’s jazz scene is currently
a fertile beast, it can appear to
have just one act at its core – Sons
Of Kemet – who feature acclaimed
saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings
(from 2016 Mercury nominees The
Comet Is Coming) and drummer Tom
Skinner, whose personal project Hello
Skinny is. Although formed from
improvisational sessions, Watermelon
Sun, Skinner’s first album in five years,
has none of the bump and squawk that
that often entails. Instead, it provides
a starring role for Arthur Russell’s
trombonist Peter Zummo, and is a
voyage through dubbed-out disco,
New York’s no wave and London’s
bass scenes. It gives the melodies
freedom to wander without ever
letting the rhythm go limp. ###
STEVE YATES
Listen To: Signs | Coda |
Watermelon Sun
KAUKOLAMPI
1 synth-rock-inspired solo mission.
SVART, OUT 1 DECEMBER
Finnish producer communes
with his dark side.
A decade ago Timo Kaukolampi was
creating quirky dance-pop alongside
Norwegian singer Annie. Since then
he’s switched tack entirely, first with
110 JANUARY 2018
SHARON JONES
& THE DAP-KINGS
SOUL OF A WOMAN
DAPTONE, OUT NOW
Modern soul diva’s swansong.
With the recent death of Charles
Bradley, Brooklyn’s retro-soul label
Daptone suffered its second loss
in less than a year. The first, last
November, was Sharon Jones, whose
final LP gives as much pleasure as her
2002 breakthrough. The uptempo
first side kicks hard as she faces down
bad boys, and the second beseeches
their love; ill health not dampening
her drama and passion in the slightest
on either. Written by members of the
Daptone house band, 10 of the 11
songs are pin-sharp recreations
of the classic R’n’B of Jones’s ’60s
childhood, while Call On God, penned
by the singer herself, returns to the
gospel roots of her faith when she
needed it most. ####
MAT SNOW
Listen To: Just Give Me Your
Time | Call On God
the dark electronica of 2010’s
side-project K-X-P and now this
Channelling both ’70s Krautrock
and the more forbidding end of
European techno, the result is music
that strives for knitted-brow
intensity – even if the track titles
suggest irony may be at work, too.
The Prodigal Son Of Magnesia is a
JONTI
TOKORATS
STONES THROW, OUT NOW
Expansive second-coming for
Sydney-based magpie.
From the Dust Brothers to The
Avalanches, sampling has raised
mash-ups to an art form – one
embraced by Joni Danilewitz,
a producer, singer and songwriter
who not only knows his way round
a loop station but has recently been
brought into The Avalanches’ touring
band. Knitting together spidery
electronic breaks and folksy melodies,
his own output can tend toward the
skittish, though this follow-up to
2011’s Twirligig sparkles with bright
melodies and inspired collaborations
– not least the hazy psychedelia of
Lotus Street and Island Rose’s
exuberant alt-rap, featuring
Sampa The Great. An album where
technological trickery frequently
delivers real magic. ####
RUPERT HOWE
Listen To: Lotus Street | Island
Rose | Staring Window
Kaukolampi: the Gollum
vibes are strong
with this one.
nine-minute storm cloud of ominous
synth drones, while pulsating
techno chiller Three Legged Giant
Centipede would slot in nicely on an
episode of Stranger Things. Nordic
drama at its most noir. ###
RUPERT HOWE
Listen To: The Prodigal Son
Of Magnesia | Three Legged
Giant Centipede
LOST HORIZONS
OJALÁ
BELLA UNION, OUT NOW
Welcome return of erstwhile
Cocteau Twins bassist.
The relationship between Lost
Horizons’ Simon Raymonde and
Richie Thomas goes back to when the
former was bassist with the Cocteau
Twins and the latter drummer with
4AD labelmates Dif Juz. Both are long-
steeped in creating atmospheric,
sometimes oblique music, and Ojalá
probably sounds exactly as you’d
expect: melancholy indie rock with
flashes of soul and improv jazz. Blank
titles such as Asphyxia, Amber Sky and
Winter’s Approaching could just as
easily be stage directions were they
not grounded by guest vocalists
including former Midlake leader Tim
Smith, Ghostpoet and Nordic Giants
collaborator Beth Cannon. Raymonde
may have run Bella Union for 20 years
but this is far more than just a vanity
project by a label boss. ####
ANDY FYFE
Listen To: Bones | Reckless
DAN MICHAELSON
FIRST LIGHT
THE STATE51 CONSPIRACY, OUT 8 DECEMBER
A new day dawns for melancholy
Brit singer-songwriter.
Where Northampton-born Dan
Michaelson’s last three records
looked long and hard at the end of
a relationship, his new album steps
slightly outside, considering the first
waking moments of the morning.
Though Michaelson regards this as
“the most unpleasant moment of any
day”, the songs here are real beauties,
from the blurry swell of Someone
Else’s Dream to the bittersweet
delicacy of Old Kisses. As Michaelson
grows older his voice gains even
more creak and patina, and while
quiet and space played a crucial
role in previous records, here Arnulf
Lindner (aka Skeleton Key)’s
orchestral arrangements bring a
warmth and a flutter of breath and
new life. ####
LAURA BARTON
Listen To: Sand | Someone
Else’s Dream | Old Kisses
 SWOT TEAM
PHARRELL’S FUNK-ROCK ADVENTURERS RE-ANIMATE TO FACE DOWN INJUSTICE.
N.E.R.D
NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES
RCA, OUT 15 DECEMBER
No one ever really dies but
N.E.R.D’s vital signs were fading.
Since 2002’s excellent debut In
Search Of…, their albums had
produced dwindling artistic and
commercial returns and, for the
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
last seven years, the funk-rock
adventurers had been consumed
by their own projects – not least
Pharrell Williams, whose Happy
single turned him into a genuine
pop superstar in 2013.
Life comes at you fast, though.
One day you feel like a room
without a roof, the next Donald
Trump is President. With Williams
an outspoken critic of the current
US administration, politics have
lent N.E.R.D – completed by Chad
Hugo and Shay Haley – a new,
compelling purpose. Their fifth
album surveys an America beset
with racial injustice, police
brutality and closing borders, and
concludes that this is no time to
lay back or lie down but, as the
insistent electro-funk of ESP
urges, “lean forward” and resist.
No_One Ever Really Dies is
a questing, futuristic rallying
cry, full of bone-rattling bass,
cavernous, machine-tooled
drums, hypnotic vocal samples
and stellar guests. Reflecting the
volatile social landscape, songs
morph boldly in pace and shape.
Rollinem 7’s fuses high-speed
doo-wop, woozy techno and a
IT’S A QUESTING,
FUTURISTIC
RALLYING CRY.
bravura cameo from André 3000,
while Don’t Don’t Do It lurches
from soft jazz keys and sky’s-the-
limit optimism into urgent funk
and snarling guitars as Williams
picks through incidents of police
shootings before Kendrick Lamar
arrives for an arresting verse.
It’s serious stuff but there’s
as much positivity as despair –
particularly in the dubby Lifting
You – and Williams and Hugo’s
unerring ability to transform a
few notes into a sharply mesmeric
riff laces their most experimental
work yet with immediacy. Alive
and well, N.E.R.D have come
back swinging. ####
MATT MASON
Listen To: Lemon | Don’t Don’t
Do It | Lightning Fire Magic Prayer
N.E.R.D (from left, Chad
Hugo, Shay Haley and
Pharrell Williams): “politics
have lent them a new,
compelling purpose.”
JANUARY 2018 111
STATUS
Taylor Swift:
“soars when
she is most
herself.”

REPORT
POP QUEEN’S SKILLS SHINE THROUGH
ON SOMETIMES OVERLY BUSY ALBUM.
TAYLOR SWIFT
REPUTATION
BIG MACHINE/VIRGIN EMI, OUT NOW
Taylor Swift learned a valuable
lesson from the bumpy launch of
her sixth album, Reputation, in
August. If you reveal that title and
artwork composed of newsprint
alongside a single as clickbaity
as the teasingly vengeful Look
What You Made Me Do, a lot of
people will expect a string of
musical subtweets directed at
celebrities who have wronged
you. Reputation is not that – most
of the songs are about love, lost
and found – but its bitchiest track
is actually one of its best. This Is
Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,
which gleefully skewers a former
friend, flaunts most of Swift’s
considerable strengths: melodic
brio, lyrical precision, nimble
charisma and a camp
sense of fun – never
mind subject matter.
Reputation only falls SWIFT IS STILL
short of 1989’s triumph
when it gets in the way A KILLER POP
of those qualities.
That last album’s
warm, ’80s-influenced
CRAFTSWOMAN.
romanticism made
Swift’s full transition from
country to pop beautifully
persuasive. Working with the
same team here – Max Martin,
Shellback and Jack Antonoff –
she skews towards a jerkier,
heavier sound that sometimes
breaks her songwriting flow or,
worse, makes her indistinct.
The characterless End Game,
featuring Ed Sheeran and Future,
sounds like a streaming hit
designed by an algorithm. But
Swift can accommodate deep
house (Delicate) and diaphanous
R&B (Dress) and is still a killer
pop craftswoman. Gorgeous’s
starry-eyed synth-pop and the
pulse-quickening Getaway Car,
in particular, have the fizz and
glow of 1989. New Year’s Day
closes this sometimes overly busy
album on an affecting note of
intimacy and hush, proving that
Swift soars when she is most
herself. ###
DORIAN LYNSKEY
Listen To: Getaway Car |
Gorgeous | This Is Why We Can’t
Have Nice Things | New Year’s Day

112 JANUARY 2018

 Princess Nokia:

PRINCESS NOKIA forever in blue jeans,

hoodie, hair...
1992 DELUXE
ROUGH TRADE, OUT NOW
Fierce debut from one of hip-
hop’s most exciting new stars.

NOYA RAO It takes some chutzpah to end your

ICAROS
GONDWANA, OUT 24 NOVEMBER
Jazz-inspired Leeds quartet
deliver stylish debut.
Named after a mythical Amazonian
tree and with connections to jazz
progressives Portico Quartet, Noya
Rao might initially seem a forbiddingly
arcane proposition. Yet their
seamless union of live drums, subtle
electronica and smoothed-out R&B
has a refreshing immediacy, Icaros
slotting in somewhere between the
off-beat dance grooves of Little
Dragon and ’80s soul siren Sade. It’s
singer Olivia Bhattacharjee who
supplies the star quality, especially
on jazz-enhanced highlight Moments
and tightly syncopated slow jam Fly.
Golden Claw, meanwhile, has a synth
riff that wouldn’t be out of place
on a Wild Beasts record, the kind of
attention-grabbing move Noya Rao
should try more often. ###
RUPERT HOWE
Listen To: Moments | Golden
Claw | Fly
debut full-length album with a
chopped and screwed rendition of
novelty hit The Fast Food Song, but
New York rapper Princess Nokia is
not lacking in confidence. A smart
melting pot of influences and
references, 1992 Deluxe fizzes with
righteous anger and feminist chest-
thumping as Nokia’s deft rhymes
weave their way through dark trap
beats and old-school samples. Her
home city provides the backdrop
to tracks that deconstruct gender
(Tomboy), explore Puerto Rican
mysticism (Brujas) and celebrate
weirdness (G.O.A.T.), always with
enough levity to avoid veering
into po-faced self-
importance. “Most
folk are so fucking
lame,” she spits on alt-
anthem Different – not
a problem that Princes
Nokia has. ####
KATE SOLOMON
Listen To: ABCs Of
New York | Tomboy

PENNY RIMBAUD SHAMIR SIA SIINAI

WHAT PASSING BELLS
ONE LITTLE INDIAN, OUT NOW
The original anthems for doomed
youth reborn a century on.
Nearly 100 years after his death,
First World War poet/soldier Wilfred
Owen’s works such as Dulce Et
Decorum Est still gut-punch with the
horror of war, pity for its victims and
contempt for its promoters. Jeremy
John Ratter, aka anarchist/pacifist
Penny Rimbaud, was a baby of the
following world war – and his father
was emotionally hollowed by his
experience of it. Here, the hardcore
hippy visionary and co-founder
of anarcho-punks Crass recites
some 30 of Owen’s poems, hauntingly
accompanied by cellist Kate Shortt
and pianist Liam Noble. Their
restrained power packs a dramatic
and moral authority that few listeners
will deny or forget. ###
MAT SNOW
Listen To: Dulce Et Decorum
Est | The Sentry | I Saw His
Round Mouth’s Crimson
REVELATIONS
FATHER/DAUGHTER, OUT NOW
Las Vegas singer leaves disco-pop
firmly behind on minimal new LP.
The Shamir Bailey of 2015 was a man
of pristine disco-pop. His debut album,
Ratchet, was full of cowbell, dance
beats and brassy self-assuredness.
He then took himself off in a rawer,
guitar-based direction for its follow-
up, Hope, earlier this year. Revelations,
however, finds the Nevada singer
more at home in both his music and
his skin. It’s a beautiful record that
unfurls through minimalist songs
about anxieties and identity, with little
more than a single guitar line and
Shamir’s irresistible falsetto. From
defending millennials on ’90s Kids,
ripping into toxic masculinity on
Straight Boy or turning a psychotic
episode into the anthemic Float,
it’s a record that manages to find hope
among the uncertainties. ###
KATE SOLOMON
Listen To: You Have A Song |
Games | Straight Boy
EVERYDAY IS CHRISTMAS
ATLANTIC, OUT NOW
Pop polymath gets in the
festive spirit.
Presumably most days already seem
like Christmas for fans of Sia, whose
prolificacy has birthed a fusillade of
soundtrack contributions, songs for
herself and songs for others. Everyday
Is Christmas might be a conflicting
experience for them, though: you’d
hope these 10 original seasonal songs
would be good, but what if potential
hits had been rendered unlistenable
outside the festive period? Tracks
such as Ho Ho Ho and Candy Cane
Lane don’t prove troubling on that
front, but Underneath The Mistletoe
and Snowflake are welcome returns
to the intimacy of Sia’s early career.
More upbeat is the Phil Spector-
referencing Puppies Are Forever, the
high-point on an LP that, on balance,
really is just for Christmas. ###
PETER ROBINSON
Listen To: Puppies Are Forever |
Snowman | Snowflake
SYKLI
SVART, OUT NOW
Finnish Krautrockers go round
and round.
Fresh from their collaboration with
singer-songwriter Spencer Krug’s
Moonface last year, Siinai return to
home turf – making instrumental
concept albums about nothing in
particular. Sykli, as Finnish speakers
will surmise, is notionally about life’s
tendency to move in cycles and is
built on much circular motion, with
remorseless rhythms laying a bed
for great swirls of electronic effects.
Or rather, it half is. The opening two
tracks of the five might be set on
an exercise bike for all their lack of
forward motion. Not until Ananda’s
thudding bass and incessant strings
does the action begin. When grand
melodies break through like bursts
of sunlight on closing epic Europa,
it feels like the destination was just
about worth the journey. ###
STEVE YATES
Listen To: Mestari | Europa

JANUARY 2018 113


OMAR SOULEYMAN
TO SYRIA, WITH LOVE
MAD DECENT/BECAUSE, OUT NOW
Syrian singer raves up a storm.
To Syria, With Love is either Omar
Souleyman’s third album or his
five hundred-and-somethingth,
depending whether you count the
avalanche of records yielded during
his career as a wedding singer in his
native al-Hasakah region of North-
east Syria. Now in exile and more likely
to be seen collaborating with Björk
and Four Tet than in his war-torn
homeland, he records at a slower rate,
if not musical tempo. Souleyman can
at times sound like a kid in the world’s
biggest sweetshop, cramming in wild
melodies and relentless 4/4 techno-
pop beats played on electronic
simulacra of Arab instruments. To
Syria, With Love sounds like Flight Of
The Bumblebee on E – impossibly
energetic, joyously extreme and
a little bit exhausting. 
STEVE YATES
Listen To: Ya Bnayya | Khayen |
Es Samra
MAVIS STAPLES
IF ALL I WAS WAS BLACK
ANTI-, OUT NOW
Gritty socio-political soul from
78-year-old R&B legend.
Following cameo appearances on
records by Arcade Fire and Gorillaz
earlier this year, Chicago gospel
and soul legend Mavis Staples isn’t
slowing down. Three albums into
her collaboration with Wilco’s Jeff
Tweedy, the latter writes all the
material here for the first time,
performing a feat of musical
ventriloquism with songs that are
pertinent to the long-standing civil
rights activist and come over as
deeply heartfelt. The sound is classic
soul via alternative rock, but it’s the
lyrics that punch hardest, whether
it be the Black Lives Matter sentiment
of Little Bit or the rousing No Time
For Crying: “People are dying/
Bullets are flying/We’ve got work
to do.” Potent stuff. 
TOM DOYLE
Listen To: Little Bit | No Time For
Crying | Build A Bridge
114 JANUARY 2018
Spinning Coin:
“ramshackle and
wide-eyed.”
SPINNING COIN
PERMO
GEOGRAPHIC, OUT NOW
Heads they win: Glasgow ban
find new currency in old indie.
Even if you didn’t have the facts,
it wouldn’t take a huge imaginative
leap to guess that Glasgow five-
piece Spinning Coin’s debut album
LEE ANN WOMACK
THE LONELY, THE LONESOME
& THE GONE
ATO, OUT NOW
Country star trades Nashville
gloss for Texas dirt.
The noirish sleeve of Lee Ann
Womack’s latest outing tells you
everything you need to know about
the music. A far cry from the
crossover country singer’s pop-tinged
past, here Jacksonville-born Womack
immerses herself in low-tempo,
high-sorrow songs such as All The
Trouble and the title track. There
are a few missteps along the way –
the attitudinal stomp of Wicked
being one – but it is otherwise
executed with authority. Don’t let
nail-on-the-head titles such as Mama
Lost Her Smile deceive you; Womack
excels at finding ambiguities in
her subject matter. It’s what makes
her special. 
GEORGE GARNER
Listen To: All The Trouble | Mama
Lost Her Smile | The Lonely, The
Lonesome & The Gone
was partly produced
by Edwyn Collins and
released on The Pastels’
imprint Geographic.
There’s a ramshackle, wide-eyed
quality to their songs, a vintage-indie
energy that alternating songwriters
Sean Armstrong and Jack Mellin
turn to both wistful Orange Juice
romanticism (Raining On Hope
YUNG LEAN
STRANGER
YEAR0001, OUT NOW
Scandinavian rap scenester
perfects his mopey party music.
Swedish rapper Jonatan Håstad,
better known as Yung Lean, has fine-
tuned his “saddest boy at the party”
persona over the course of two
mixtapes and two albums, and things
haven’t really changed on latest LP
Stranger – although perhaps the
parties have got glitzier and the drugs
a bit better. His languid rhymes, and
the accent he can’t quite shake, sit
over ghostly trap beats and bass-
heavy tracks, lending the whole thing
an enjoyably hypnotic monotony.
Håstad’s not a natural singer, but on
songs such as the bad-trip ballad
Agony it’s endearing, like watching
your brother fluff a talent show.
Perhaps not something you’d put on
to get the party started, Yung Lean has
though nailed the comedown. 
KATE SOLOMON
Listen To: Yellowman | Red
Bottom Sky
Street) and righteous political bite
(Tin, Money Is A Drug). It’s an old-
fashioned form Spinning Coin
inhabit, but with Permo, they display
a self-starting urgency that keeps
them up to speed with the turbulent
here and now. 
VICTORIA SEGAL
Listen To: Raining On Hope
Street | Tin | Starry Eyes
ZOMBIE ZOMBIE
LIVITY
VERSATILE, OUT 8 DECEMBER
Enigmatic Gallic trio attempt
techno-prog reboot.
Driven by the expansive ambitions of
French producer and synth aficionado
Etienne Jaumet, Zombie Zombie are
one of those acts which reanimate the
cult forms of times past, from vintage
horror soundtracks to classic period
Krautrock. The upgrade here comes
via additional production input
from French house producer I:Cube,
whose propulsive beats help
ground Jaumet’s more progressive
tendencies, not least the title track’s
insistent acid house pulse and
muscular percussion. Looose’s
invocation of early-’80s New York,
complete with squeaky sax solo,
is less compelling, but when they hit
their groove with the aptly titled
Heavy Meditation, it really does
sound as if there are superhuman
powers at work. 
RUPERT HOWE
Listen To: Livity | Heavy Meditation

Sam Smith: there are
“no pop bangers”
on the new album.
LONELY AT THE TOP
BREAKTHROUGH STAR FACES HIS DEMONS ON EMOTIONAL SECOND OFFERING.
SAM SMITH
THE THRILL OF IT ALL
CAPITOL, OUT NOW
The Thrill Of It All is not the
second act many would have
expected from Sam Smith. For
one, it is emphatically not the
sound of a young man riding high
on life after shifting 12 million
copies of his 2014 debut, In The
Lonely Hour. The heartbroken
sentiment charging his comeback
MUST BUYS The essential albums of the last few months
St. Vincent
Masseduction
LOMA VISTA/CAROLINE
INTERNATIONAL
Annie Clark has lost
none of her abrasive unpredictability
nor her love of dramatic contrasts
on this fifth effort. Throughout, she
bends and distorts her voice, taking
on a different identity for each track.
She’s now the closest thing we have to
Bowie’s protean vision of pop stardom.
single Too Good At Goodbyes
was not a false omen: what
has materialised is a 10-track
unbinding of emotional wounds.
Smith’s soaring falsettos and
default vulnerability remain,
only this time they are utilised
to different, more compelling
effect than on his sleek yet
straightforward first album.
There are no pop bangers lurking
here, certainly nothing to rival the
incessant hook of Money On My
Four Tet
New Energy
TEXT
The way that Kieran
Hebden has shaped
electronic music over the past 20 years
is a thing of beauty. His ninth album has
much of the warmth and breadth of
his earlier records, but by pressing an
array of new textures (gamelan, strings
and dulcimer) onto a familiar setting,
he’s crafted the best LP of his career.
Mind. As the sparse piano ballad
Burning shows, the prevailing
mood is one of a stoic person
quietly unravelling in some dead-
of-night despair. Even when Smith
invokes Amy Winehouse at her
most ebullient on Baby, You Make
Me Crazy, his conflicted lyrics
manage to insidiously strangle
the music’s upbeat mood.
While the slick production can
occasionally neuter the emotions,
The Thrill Of It All distinguishes
Morrissey
Low In High School
ÉTIENNE/BMG
As an artist, Morrissey
is forever tantamount
to Marmite but any wavering voters
will be astonished by his 11th solo LP.
Musically diverse and with lyrics of
rare piquancy, it’s his best album since
1994’s Vauxhall And I. At 58, the Moz
is proving himself, once again, to be a
pop provocateur of enduring efficacy.
IT’S EMPHATICALLY
NOT THE SOUND
OF A YOUNG MAN
RIDING HIGH ON LIFE
AFTER SHIFTING
12 MILLION ALBUMS.
itself by its dovetailing of
themes. On HIM, Smith delivers
a coming-out narrative that
contends with both a disavowing
father and the notion of holy
judgement, while Pray reconciles
his experience visiting war-torn
Mosul with his post-fame
existence. Both perfectly distil
the vision and boldness of this
return. ####
GEORGE GARNER
Listen To: HIM | Burning | Pray
Baxter Dury
Prince Of Tears
HEAVENLY
Though ostensibly
a break-up record,
West London wide boy Baxter
Dury’s sparky and playful fifth album
mutates into something far freer and
more surreal. Verbally dexterous,
musically varied and forcefully
imaginative, it cements Dury’s
place as a true British original.
REBEL MUSIC
FASCINATING RETROSPECTIVE OF AFROBEAT LEGEND.

FELA KUTI
VINYL BOX SET 4,
COMPILED BY ERYKAH BADU
KNITTING FACTORY, OUT 15 DECEMBER
An iconic figure even in his own lifetime,
since his death in 1997 Fela Anikulapo Kuti
has assumed near-mythical status. More
than just the many-wived inventor of
Afrobeat, today he bestrides African culture
like a shamanic amalgam of Miles Davis,
Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, spawning
a Broadway musical and weighty collections
such as this seven-LP boxset curated by US
R&B star Erykah Badu.
Badu’s liner notes declare that Kuti was
“a fucking genius”, as if she were the first
admirer to appreciate the creative leap he
took when announcing his new,
funk-inspired “Afro-beat”
sound in 1968. But she
grasps the enduring allure
of Kuti’s music, the power
of which has sometimes
been overshadowed by his
combative personality and
very public disputes with
Nigeria’s military rulers.
“With Fela it seems to
have spilled right out of
him,” she writes of 1979’s
V.I.P., an Afro-jazz epic
recorded at the previous
year’s Berlin Jazz Festival.
“We instantly get the feeling
that we are connected to
those tones and vibrations.”
Kuti’s musical daring and
willingness to challenge the
status quo runs throughout
these albums. Yellow Fever,
from 1976, is a stinging attack
on the then-current vogue
for skin-lightening creams
in Africa and has lost none of
its radical force, the Afrika 70
band, driven by drummer
Tony Allen, shuffling together
West African highlife, modern
jazz and hypnotic funk.
A year later, No Agreement
formed an even more explicit
attack on the state of Nigerian
society, while J.J.D. satirised
Africans who adopted
European and American
manners. Yet it’s 1980’s Coffin
For Head Of State that provides
the centrepiece to Badu’s
collection. A delayed response
to the Nigerian army’s storming
of his Lagos compound in
February 1977, it remains one of
his most personal, and powerful,
musical statements. By then in

116 JANUARY 2018

 KUTI BESTRIDES
his 40s and mourning the death of his
mother, who had lapsed into a coma after
the attack, there’s an imperious air to
AFRICAN CULTURE
Kuti’s vocal as he links organised religion
and state corruption, while the backing
band, renamed Egypt 80 following
LIKE A SHAMANIC the departure of Tony Allen, build a
bass-infused rhythm that’s part funeral
AMALGAM OF march, part triumphant parade.
Throughout this period, Kuti was
MILES DAVIS, dogged by controversy, from the 1978
mass marriage in which he took 27 of his
MUHAMMAD ALI backing singers as wives to his 1984
imprisonment for currency smuggling.
AND MALCOLM X. Yet his assault on what he perceived as
institutional injustice remained potent to
the last, 1985’s Army Arrangement
directly accusing former military leader
General Obasanjo of corruption and
1992’s frenetic, 28-minute Underground
System suggesting a shadowy network of
corruption had undermined many
progressive African leaders.
Following earlier, and equally
compelling, selections by Questlove,
Ginger Baker and Brian Eno, Badu shines
a light on less frequently explored areas
of Kuti’s back catalogue. With the
growing interest in contemporary
Afrobeat there’s never been a better
time to reconnect with one of music’s
undisputed heavyweights. ####
RUPERT HOWE
Listen To: Yello Fever | J.J.D. (Parts 1 & 2)
| Coffin For Head Of State
THE BEAT GOES ON…
Three later calling-points for
post-Fela Afrobeat
Ebo Taylor
Love And Death
STRUT, 2010
Berlin-recorded
second coming for the
ebullient rhythms and highlife-accented
harmonies of the veteran Ghanaian
bandleader, who worked alongside
Fela in ’60s London. ####
Rocket Juice
& The Moon
Rocket Juice
& The Moon
HONEST JON’S, 2012
Masterminded by Damon Albarn
and RHCP’s Flea, this Afro-inflected,
genre-crossing experiment also united
Erykah Badu with Fela’s one-time
rhythm machine Tony Allen. ###
Various
Afrobeats Hot Hits
SHANACHIE, 2017
Despite the name,
Afrobeats is only loosely
connected to Fela’s charged epics,
Chairman of though this choice sampling of digitally
GETTY
the ’board: enhanced West African dance moves
Fela Kuti in 1986. has similar global reach. ####
ALSO OUT...
METALLICA
MASTER OF PUPPETS
BLACKENED RECORDINGS, OUT NOW
Metal pioneers’ monster third.
Like an old rocker and his favourite pair of skinny jeans, by
the mid-’80s thrash metal had outgrown its underground
beginnings. Slayer, Anthrax and former Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine’s group
Megadeth all helped push metal into the mainstream, but Metallica carried the
load. This third LP, remastered and available in a variety of extras-laden formats,
combined the aggressive thrust of their earlier albums with power anthems and
furrow-browed balladry. A new rock force was born. #### NIALL DOHERTY
PLAYGROUP
PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED VOLUME 2
YES WAVE RECORDS, OUT NOW
Second helping of raw, disco-dub obscurities.
Much like last year’s run of nine weekly 12-inch vinyl
EPs which made up Volume 1, this similarly hedonistic
set of mutant disco, groovy post-punk and thumping
techno bangers showcases producer/designer Trevor Jackson’s deep
understanding of dancefloor dynamics. Everything here (recorded from
1999-2001), especially P.C.H’s propulsive electro and Sold Out’s disco-ball
bounce, sounds relevant and utterly contemporary. #### SIMON McEWEN
THE ROLLING STONES
ON AIR
POLYDOR, OUT 1 DECEMBER
Enjoyable rattle through early-’60s radio sessions.
Seeing as The Rolling Stones’ early-’60s records weren’t
exactly laden with tricksy studio sleights of hand, these
BBC radio sessions from the period don’t offer many
revelations. There’s still a thrill to be had from listening to them rattle through
this selection of – mostly – non-originals though. Indeed, if it weren’t for a slightly
shoddy vocal recording, the fuzzed-up, proto-punk stomp of (I Can’t Get No)
Satisfaction here would inch it over the original. ### CHRIS CATCHPOLE
VARIOUS
BLACK MAN’S PRIDE
SOUL JAZZ, OUT NOW
More righteous sounds from Studio One.
Like Berry Gordy’s Motown, Studio One was
pioneering, both as a black-owned label in Jamaica
and as an outlet for songs of black/Rastafarian
self-assertion. Soul Jazz’s reliably banger-packed collection focuses on the
early ’70s, when Bob Marley had yet to formalise the roots sound. Black Man’s
Pride thus captures the jubilation of an underclass’s first expression of racial
identity, from Horace Andy’s Child Of The Ghetto to Winston Jarrett’s Up
Park No Man’s Land. #### ANDREW PERRY
VARIOUS
HABIBI FUNK 007: AN ECLECTIC SELECTION
OF MUSIC FROM THE ARAB WORLD
HABIBI FUNK RECORDS, OUT 1 DECEMBER
Globe-trotting crate-digging par excellence.
With professional crate-diggers excavating the
further reaches of the globe for vinyl obscurities,
today’s thrill-seeking audio-gourmand is spoilt for choice. They’ll still be
impressed at this haul of deep cuts for grooving from Morocco, Algeria,
Lebanon and beyond, though. Opening with raw Arabic R&B (the crazed funk
of Fadoul’s Bsslama Hbibti must be heard), it moves into snake-hipped North
African-jazz before smoother soul and pop from the ’70s and ’80s kick in.
Entertaining and informative. #### IAN HARRISON
JANUARY 2018 117
 CHOICE CUTS
THE Q STAFF AND WRITERS’ TIPS OF THE MONTH.
4
LAURA BARTON
Q WRITER
“WESLEY GONZALEZ is
one of my favourite live
performers – sets that are
precarious, witty, rousing and
joyous. It’s an energy that he
carries into his debut album,
1 EXCELLENT MUSICIAN, but if you need an
introduction to his magic, the video for his latest
single sees him riding around Milton Keynes on
a Swegway. Two music-based books I’ve loved
recently: THE STORY OF JOHN NIGHTLY,
the first novel by composer and curator Tot Taylor,
and Nick Coleman’s upcoming non-fiction
masterpiece VOICES: HOW A GREAT SINGER
CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.”
SIMON MCEWEN
PRODUCTION EDITOR
“By far the most interesting
music I’ve heard this month
is by Berlin techno-dub
minimalists MORITZ VON
OSWALD and MARK
ERNESTUS, the two men
behind the much-fabled Basic Channel/Rhythm
& Sound imprints. The former’s collaboration
with Kyrgyzstan folk outfit 4 ORDO SAKHNA
(out now on Honest Jon’s) is a mesmerising
collection of gorgeous a cappella and textured
ethno-abstraction, while the latter’s Congo Get
Slap/Flagged Up 12-inch remixes (out now on DDS)
of crack Jamaican production unit EQUIKNOXX
is stripped-to-the-bone, digi-dancehall in excelsis.”
118 JANUARY 2018
MATT YATES
ASSOCIATE COPY EDITOR
“I’ve been getting deadly
serious of late in a bid to
contextualise the current
political crisis in Spain. Along
with a number of podcasts on
the subject, I’ve been reading
THE TREE OF GERNIKA by war correspondent
George Steer and 2 HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by
George Orwell, whose account of fighting alongside
the revolutionary Marxists – and getting shot – in the
Spanish Civil War is brutally honest. It’s also led me to
revisit and pore over the lyrics to The Clash’s Spanish
Bombs and the Manics’ If You Tolerate This… Heavy,
complicated, thought-provoking stuff all round –
maybe a dose of Strictly is needed after this lot.”
NIALL DOHERTY
DEPUTY EDITOR
“Train journeys through the
autumnal darkness have
been soundtracked by
5 ANDREW WASYLYK.
The Dundee native’s most
recent album, THEMES FOR
BUILDINGS AND SPACES, is a collection of
dreamy instrumentals that veer between hazy
Americana, brass warmth and atmospheric drones.
It hasn’t exactly helped when I’ve needed waking
up in the morning, though. On a similarly soporific
tip, I’ve been listening to Hans Zimmer and
Radiohead’s Blue Planet 2 collaboration
(OCEAN) BLOOM lots. They need to release it
properly, if only to save data on my phone plan.”
6
CHRIS CATCHPOLE
ASSISTANT EDITOR
(REVIEWS/BREAKING)
“From Armando Iannucci’s
funny – and terrifyingly
accurate – The Death Of
Stalin to the BBC’s glut of
documentaries marking the
100th-anniversary of the Russian Revolution, I’ve
been on a bit of a Soviet bender this month. Still up
on iPlayer, THE BRITISH ROAD TO BOLSHEVISM
on how the whole thing had its roots in dingy East
End boozers, in particular, was right up my alley. Any
insurrectionary fervour has been cooled, though,
by debuts from Detroit’s 3 BONNY DOON (think
a breezier Parquet Courts) and the psych-pop of Boy
Azooga, aka Cardiff whizz-kid Davey Newington.”
MARTIN BOON
SUB EDITOR
“Having spent the last three
months jonesing for the
return of gripping Spanish
drama I KNOW WHO YOU
ARE, it was with a slightly
undignified sense of relief that
I welcomed back the series climax to BBC Four. If
you fancy getting acquainted with a host of obscure
’70s Americana, can I point you in the direction
of SING IT HIGH, SING IT LOW, a fantastic
compendium of the short-lived Tumbleweed
record label. And, if you fancy getting acquainted
with a similarly under-appreciated German novelist,
can I point you in the direction of Hans Fallada’s
wartime classic 4 ALONE IN BERLIN.”
 VICTORIA PARK
LONDON, E3

FRI 25 MAY

LCD OU D Y T
Yeah Yeah Yeahs > Phoenix
Glass Animals > Richie Hawtin CLOSE > Dixon
George FitzGerald Live

SAT 26 MAY

T
Lorde > Sampha
Popcaan > Lykke Li
Rex Orange County

SUN 27 MAY

BJÖRK
Beck > Father John Misty
Flying Lotus 3D > Mashrou’ Leila
Sylvan Esso > Alexis Taylor > Agoria Live

PLUS MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED

Subject to Licence allpointseastfestival.com

 2018 TOUR

MARCH
08 BURY ST EDMUNDS The Apex 21 MANCHESTER Cathedral
09 SHEFFIELD Leadmill 22 MILTON KEYNES The Stables
10 GLASGOW O2 ABC 23 CARDIFF Tramshed
11 NEWCASTLE Tyne Theatre 24 OXFORD O2 Academy
14 BRISTOL St Georges 28 LEEDS City Varieties
15 LONDON Palladium 29 EXETER Phoenix
16 BIRMINGHAM Town Hall 30 BRIGHTON Concorde 2
17 NOTTINGHAM Rescue Rooms 31 PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood Rooms
gigsandtours.com | turinbrakes.com
NEW ALBUM ‘INVISIBLE STORM’ OUT 26 JANUARY 2018
CD, VINYL & DOWNLOAD
An SJM Concerts presentation by arrangement with DMF Music
 PLUS SPECIAL GUEST

une Delamere Forest Delamere,

June Thetford Forest NR Brando
ne Westonbirt Arboretum NR
Bedgebury Pinetum NR Tunbri
June Sherwood Pines NR Mansf
3 June Dalby Forest NR Pickerin
ne Cannock Chase Forest NR R
 CROSSTOWW
N
W CONCERTS
P R E S E N T S

SATURDAY 14 APRIL 2018

ALEXANDRA PALACE LO N D O N
A C R O S S T O W N C O N C E RT S P R E S E N TAT I O N B Y A R R A N G E M E N T W I T H C O D A A G E N C Y

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

- UK TOUR 2018 -
TUESDAY 13 FEBRUARY TUESDAY 20 FEBRUARY
MANCHESTER BIRMINGHAM
ALBERT HALL O2 ACADEMY
WEDNESDAY 14 FEBRUARY WEDNESDAY 21 FEBRUARY
NOTTINGHAM BRISTOL
ROCK CITY O2 ACADEMY
FRIDAY 16 FEBRUARY FRIDAY 23 FEBRUARY
NEWCASTLE CAMBRIDGE
O2 ACADEMY CORN EXCHANGE
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TOUR MONDAY 19 FEBRUARY SUNDAY 25 FEBRUARY
2018 LEEDS BRIGHTON
O2 ACADEMY DOME
A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS,
SJM CONCERTS & DF CONCERTS
PRESENTATION

FRIDAY 16 MARCH WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH SUNDAY 25 MARCH

CARDIFF NOTTINGHAM NORWICH
GREAT HALL ROCK CITY UEA
SATURDAY 17 MARCH FRIDAY 23 MARCH THE NICK RAYNS LCR
SHEFFIELD BIRMINGHAM TUESDAY 27 MARCH
O2 ACADEMY O2 INSTITUTE LONDON
MONDAY 19 MARCH SATURDAY 24 MARCH ALEXANDRA PALACE
ABERDEEN MANCHESTER WEDNESDAY 28 MARCH
BEACH ACADEMY BRISTOL
BALLROOM O2 ACADEMY
TUESDAY 20 MARCH T H E W O M B AT S . C O. U K THURSDAY 29 MARCH
NEWCASTLE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE WILL
RUIN YOUR LIFE
SOUTHAMPTON
O2 ACADEMY NOW AVAILABLE TO PRE ORDER O2 GUILDHALL THE NEW ALBUM ALWAYS ASCENDING OUT 09 FEBRUARY 2018
A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS, SJM CONCERTS DF CONCERTS AND PVC PRESENTATION FRANZFERDINAND.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/OFFICIALFRANZFERDINAND
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL TWITTER.COM/FRANZ_FERDINAND | INSTAGRAM.COM/FRANZ_FERDINAND

Gomez
20 YEAR CELEBRATION OF BRING IT ON
VOTED FAVOURITE MERCURY PRIZE WINNER BY BBC 6 MUSIC LISTENERS

TUESDAY 24 APRIL FRIDAY 27 APRIL SUNDAY 29 APRIL WEDNESDAY 02 MAY

BRIGHTON DUBLIN LEEDS BRISTOL
DOME OLYMPIA O2 ACADEMY O2 ACADEMY
WEDNESDAY 25 APRIL SATURDAY 28 APRIL TUESDAY 01 MAY THURSDAY 03 MAY
NOTTINGHAM GLASGOW MANCHESTER LONDON
ROCK CITY BARROWLAND ALBERT HALL ROYAL ALBERT HALL
A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS & FRIENDS PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY

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LETTER OF THE MONTH this deranged woman asking for

more, will be forever in your debt.
Let’s bring the Q Award for
Dear Q, excellent Noel Gallagher feature in the latest Greatest Live Band to Basildon!
issue – Gallagher Snr is almost as entertaining as his Ana Clara, via Q Mail
younger brother but not quite as amusing However
I was most pert TOM PETTY RIP
Dear Q, your marvellous tribute
“Oasis have go to the late, great Tom Petty
business… It’s [below] was up to your usual high
know he and L Depeche Mode: standard when celebrating iconic
caused “such a stir”
enjoying very s among devotees. musicians. Your writer’s
careers in their knowledge of his subject,
but, as a massiv and the way he told his life story
refuse to believ SIX APPEAL through his songs, was insightful,
to hear more fr ear Q, Thanks ever so much for entertaining and respectful.
he fantastic issue featuring I made a Spotify playlist from the
exciting band t
epeche Mode. As a “devotee” 10 songs selected and have been
seen since The or most of the last 30 years of my listening to it ever since reading
2019 marks 25 fe, I have to praise you for your the article. As so often is the case,
since the releas nconditional support of the it’s sad to lose another great, but,
Definitely May and. I have lived in the UK for fortunately, the brilliant music
(in my view the wo decades and you are one of lives on. Keep up the good work.
best LP), surely he few local media outlets that Gerry Sullivan, via Q Mail
there’s no bett ays DM (and their respective
excuse for the olo projects) the credit that they
re due, by supporting every
brothers to bur
aunch, every tour. You caused
the hatchet and uch a stir within our “cult” that
take a stroll do had to buy six issues to dispatch
memory lane? Noel Gallagher: not cross the globe to fellow
special, wouldn quite as amusing as his evotees who were desperate to
brother, apparently. rab hold of your magazine. My
Matthew Soame
ocal newsagent, though scared of

The
World
of
GORC/GC IMAGES, ALAMY, ALEX LAKE

Meet the world’s

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Iain MacKenzie, US Tennis Open, Hendrick Val Olivia, Dubai Simon Dancey, San Andrés,
New York Colombia

128 JANUARY 2018

 Caption Competition
WIN! THE FIRST OFFICIAL
BOOK CREATED BY
THE JACKSONS.
has teamed up

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with the good
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Jackie, Marlon, Tito and their hard-back volume features over lives, including their stellar
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you enter our competition
professional archives. Harrison Funk’s exclusive of one of the greatest vocal groups to win The Jacksons Legacy.
This sumptuous, 320-page coverage of their professional of all time.

THIS MONTH’S Q378 WINNING

CAPTION CAPTIONS
CHALLENGE “When I said I wanted the
Here’s a picture of Noel hair of the dog…”
Gallagher having his Andrew Fisher, Stoke-on-Trent
pockets picked outside
a restaurant. Send your “So who does your hair
caption entry (one per then?” Bill Drury, Epping
person, and the funnier Congratulations to Andrew and
the better) including Bill who both win signed posters
your address, and Blu-Ray copies of Fast &
to captioncomp@ Furious 8. Plus Rob Stirrup,
Qthemusic.com or on London; Gerald Harvard,
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To win, email your caption to: captioncomp@Qthemusic.com or post to the usual Q address before 11/12/17. Five winners will be chosen by the panel. The winners will be notified, by email, 7-10 days after the closing date and must
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respond to Q within 14 days or another winner may be chosen. Q will not respond to questions about its chosen winners but will provide winners’ names and the home towns, provided a request is made to the usual Q address and
accompanied with a SAE. One entry per person and you must be over 16 and live in the UK. Prize is non-negotiable with no cash alternative. Personal data will be collected by Q and passed to prize provider to process entries.
See http://www.bauerdatapromise.co.uk for more details. Full T&Cs apply, see http://www.bauerlegal.co.uk/competition-terms.html. Any queries, email: QMail@Qthemusic.com

Q379 SPINE “4.51” billion years is the FOUR GETS FIVE Hebden’s work, and not really
MESSAGE estimated age of the moon, a nod Dear Q, I know you very rarely a fan of much so-called
Am I right in thinking that “4.51” to cover star Noel’s new LP Who give new albums 5-star reviews “intelligent dance music”, but
refers to the running time of Built The Moon? Now can you put (in fact, I can only think of thought it was worth a punt on
Don’t Look Back In Anger on the Damon on the next cover so that Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. this your recommendation and
Oasis album (What’s The Story) you’ve featured my three favourite year so far) so I was surprised – downloaded it. What a brilliant
Morning Glory? artists in consecutive months? and a little sceptical, if I’m honest record! So soulful and
Simon Mallinson, via Q Mail Clare Skinner, via Q Mail – when I saw you gave Four Tet’s melancholic, I’m now a convert.
Sorry, Simon, that’s incorrect. Correct, Clare. Stay tuned for New Energy full marks in the Thanks for the tip.
Better luck next time. that Damon cover. latest issue. I’m new to Kieran Jason Morris, via Q Mail

JANUARY 2018 129

 Last Word

Most people think

I’m a vagrant.”
Simon Neil
STAYING UP ALL NIGHT WITH THE BIFFY CLYRO FRONTMAN.
hen was the last time you cooked a meal

W
for someone?
My wife is a wonderful cook. She doesn’t let me
cook because she loves it so much. So it was
probably two years ago and something really basic
like salmon and pasta. Very student, very bachelor.
When was the last time you had to explain
to someone what you do for a living?
All the time. Most people think I’m a vagrant because of my long hair
and beard. So I hear a lot of, “Get the fuck out of my shop!” Often you
say you’re a musician, but people don’t think you’re a real musician
if you play in a band. So fuck you!
What’s the last thing you think about at night?
How much of a headache the next day is going to be. I am a bit of a
worrier so when my head hits the pillow that’s when my mind kicks
into life. It usually takes me around two hours to get to sleep.
What was the last book your read?
I read to help me get to sleep. So it would have been one of
Jo Nesbø’s crime thrillers. He’s a Norwegian writer and his
murder stories actually help me relax. But I’m also reading
a book about stoicism at the moment. Stoicism is my new
pursuit – another thing to help me sleep.
When was the last time someone asked for
your autograph?
It actually happens quite often. The last time was when we
were on the same plane as a load of Celtic fans going to see
the Bayern Munich game. My dad wouldn’t have been
happy about that as he’s a Rangers fan. But I loved the
spirit on that plane. It was like Scotland came together.
When was the last time you were in awe
of someone?
When I met Alan Yentob at the Brit Awards this year. Biffy Clyro’s
I actually went up to him and said, “Alan, I am a big fan Simon Neil:
of yours.” I felt embarrassed afterwards, but it’s true. the scourge of
shop-owners,
When was the last time you went on holiday? apparently.
Me and the missus had a week in Manhattan,
New York, at the start of September, just before
we began a US tour. We always have a holiday just
before a tour. It wasn’t a sun, sea and sand holiday
but it was in a city with a great vibe.
When was the last time you wrote a song?
I’m in a busy period, and I’ve written three this week
already. The latest one has a working title of 698pm.
The trick is, I don’t work on things that don’t excite
me. As soon as an idea stops exciting me, I move on
to something else.
WORDS: MARK BLAKE PHOTO: ALEX LAKE

When was the last time you heard one of your

own songs on the radio?
A month or so ago. I don’t listen to the radio. So it
usually happens when we get picked up in a taxi.
Sometimes I’ll ask to turn it down if I don’t want to listen
to my voice. But it’s a buzz, especially if it’s a newer song. If
you don’t get a thrill from hearing your music on the radio, then
something has gone fucking wrong. You’re in the wrong job.

130 JANUARY 2018

 C O M I N G N E X T M O N T H…

The Best Thing I’ve

Heard All Year...

The stars pick their hits.

ONLY IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF Q. ON SALE 19 DECEMBER.

UK & IRELAND TOUR APRIL/MAY 2018
www.noelgallagher.com