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58 Articles

This month we say farewell to Q’s secret ingredient: sub-editor Martin Boon. He’s scored another job, the rascal, and legally we’ve had to provide the combination to his ball and chain so that he can leave the office. We’ll miss him. All those snappy picture captions on this month’s Supergrass cover story, for example? Martin Boon. The copy on Contents that makes section editors question why they can’t sum up their stories as succinctly in their feature standfirsts? Martin Boon. Also, good at spelling and grammar and facts and logic and detail and all those basics that makes a magazine tick. You can admire his work without realising it throughout this excellent issue of Q: you only really notice a sub when they’ve let a mistake slip through. As a special…

INCOMING VAUGHAN OLIVER 1957-2019

Musicians, artists and collaborators have paid tribute to designer Vaughan Oliver, who passed away in late December. Under the handle of 23 Envelope and then v23, Oliver created some of the most iconic album artwork of his era. Best known for his work with label 4AD, he designed record sleeves for Pixies, Cocteau Twins, The Breeders, Lush, This Mortal Coil and many more. “Without doubt his work on 4AD artists alone during the ’80s and ’90s will leave him with a long-lasting legacy. His artwork defined the visual style of a whole host of bands who hitherto would not have even known what ‘visual style’ was,” says Simon Raymonde, the Cocteau Twins keyboardist and bassist who also worked with Oliver for releases on his Bella Union label. “Album cover art and…

INCOMING VAUGHAN OLIVER 1957-2019

“Every minute I spent with Nile Rodgers, I felt I learned something about how to go down in history.” Hello, Alex, where are you right now? I’m in my bedroom. I just got out the shower. This is a very early rise for me. I’m normally up at noon. Noon?! What time do you go to bed? 4am or 5am. It’s like a normal night’s sleep but in the wrong place. I find it much easier to self-motivate and work in the dark or at night. It’s a bad habit. How does this alien hour of 10am feel? You know what, whenever I get up early it feels really good, I feel like I’m part of society. You’re from Guernsey. If I was there for a day, where would you take me? I’d take you to loads of…

With a roll call of former students that includes Adele, FKA twigs, Octavian, King Krule, Kate Tempest and Rex Orange County, Croydon’s BRIT School has become a bona-fide hit factory. The latest graduate of the UK’s only non-fee-paying performing arts academy is 18-year-old Lola Young, whose chunky golden earring game is as strong as Pat Butcher’s and whose soulful, spacious sound brings to mind Amy Winehouse freestyling over Loyle Carner’s more melancholy beats. “I used to make folk but you can’t play folk music at the club,” explains Young of her cross-pollinated approach. Accordingly, Young’s songs bring her open-hearted lyricism and London twang together with a neo-jazz sensibility with one foot always pointed in the direction of the nearest dancefloor. One of four sisters, Young was born into an enviably creative family…

THE TUNES ON REPEAT IN THE Q OFFICE THIS MONTH.

J HUS NO DENYING J Hus’s second single since being released from prison last year is a defiant broadside aimed squarely at his detractors; the East London rapper delivering his gruff, lyrical flow over skittering beats and a sultry jazz undertow. Out: now, on Black Butter. CHERRY GHOST BLUE CHRISTMAS Simon Aldred has become a key member of Liam Gallagher’s songwriting team but he returned to his Cherry Ghost moniker recently. He turns a festive ballad into a scathing commentary on modern British politics on Blue Christmas, with its proceeds going to homeless charity Lifeshare. Out: now, via Bandcamp. FRAZEY FORD THE KIDS ARE HAVING NONE OF IT On the surface, this excellent comeback track from Canadian artist Frazey Ford is a soothing slice of warm Americana but repeated listens reveal a rage building behind her soulful…

THE TUNES ON REPEAT IN THE Q OFFICE THIS MONTH.

Tegan and Sara Quin declare that they’re not fussy eaters as they sit down for lunch at Isla, the restaurant inside The Standard hotel in London’s Kings Cross. It should make ordering from the swanky sharing menu nice and easy, but rattling through the options with the indie-pop twins it soon becomes clear there is definitely a fussy-eating theme developing between the three of us. Some don’t eat meat, others don’t eat anything from the nightshade family (potatoes, aubergine, peppers and tomatoes) and at least one is avoiding dairy. Everyone is so unfailingly polite through the ordering process, though, that we end up with far too much food. “We were not adventurous eaters growing up,” Sara explains of their upbringing in Calgary, Canada in the ’90s. “We grew up with literally…

CAN I TAKE YOUR ORDER, TEGAN AND SARA?

Favourite restaurant? T: “This pizza place in Vancouver called Nicli – it’s all really fresh.” Most hated foodstuff? S: “We spent a lot of time being forced to eat tomatoes and we hated them.” T: “Then we found out they were nightshades – we have issues with nightshades.” S: “I don’t want to hate them, just physically it’s very difficult for me to eat them.” Favourite condiment? T: “Gravy.” S: “Sriracha. Always sriracha.” Culinary speciality? T: “I do good drunken grilled cheese.” S: “My partner and I are really into making Indian food.” Death Row dinner? T: “A buffet of fast food.” S: “Sushi.”…

CAN I TAKE YOUR ORDER, TEGAN AND SARA?

WILLIE J HEALEY

“People ask if I get nervous before shows and I’m like, ‘No way! Try getting punched in the face in front of a room full of angry punters.’” Sitting in a North London pub on a windy, rainy afternoon, Willie J Healey is weighing up the pros and cons of his various career paths. From the age of 10, Healey, now 25, was a promising amateur boxer. Most nights he would either be training or competing in public. Music and songwriting was something he kept hidden, a secret escape even his close friends weren’t aware of. It wasn’t until he saw Jarvis Cocker performing on television that Healey realised people might be interested in his own skewed, unconventional pop songs. “I started getting some low-level attention from my friends for my music…

WILLIE J HEALEY

Cash For Questions THIS MONTH: JENNY LEWIS

It is mid-December, the day after Jenny Lewis has played her final show of the year, and the LA singer-songwriter is feeling demob happy. She strolls into a banquet room in London’s posh The Langham hotel with a smile on her face and Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack blaring from the phone in her pocket. Lewis likes to have musical accompaniment wherever she goes, and another favourite trick of hers is to have a Bluetooth speaker tucked in her hand luggage, pumping out her favourite songs as she walks through airports. Lewis has just completed a support tour in the UK with The National, wrapping up a successful year that began with the release of her excellent fourth solo album On The Line. She has already set her sights…

Cash For Questions THIS MONTH: JENNY LEWIS

The Bonny Prince

The crowd inside the enormous foyer of the enormous P&J Live venue in Aberdeen are rocking already, at 6pm, three hours before the headliner is due. You can feel the anticipation: roaring groups of geezers, cavorting couples, pals charging around on a big-night-out, teenage girls in hot-pants and bras on a rainy late November in Northeast Scotland. You can feel, too, the molecular charge of the boozed-up edge, of a simmer about to boil, as the chant finally comes and doesn’t stop: the sound of KC And The Sunshine Band’s 1983 disco-pop thriller Give It Up reworded for their national hero: “Nah na na na na na na na na na naaaah… Gerry Cinnamon… Cinnamon!… Gerry Cinnamon…” Backstage in a featureless side-room of the brand new 15,000-capacity venue, now Scotland’s biggest…

The Bonny Prince

The quickest route to the 1990s is to head for Glastonbury, then hang right when you get there. Another hour or so along the A39 will bring you to the seaside town of Minehead. Specifically, to Butlin’s, the holiday camp that has been furnishing working-class families with six-berth chalets and cabaret dreams since 1962. It’s here, away from the eyes and ears of the mainstream pop industry, that an unlikely revival is taking place. Since 2015, Butlin’s Minehead has played host to the Shiiine On Weekender, an annual celebration of ’90s music. Or, to be precise, 1990s music of the kind that once dominated popular culture but has long since been deemed by the gatekeepers of cool to be as relevant as a Guigsy solo album in 2019-going-on-20. Right now, close to…

One of the first things The Killers got in the bag for their forthcoming new album was the cover image. They stuck it up round the studio and let everything flow from it. If something didn’t sound like it fitted with that visual, it was nixed. “It’s usually something that people do last,” says frontman Brandon Flowers, down the phone from his home in Park City, Utah. “It’s a beautiful painting and it embodies the record perfectly. Or we’ve kind of forced the record to embody this painting. It’s by an artist here in America but fans will go on a mad Google search if I give away his name so I’m just gonna wait.” It’s just gone 9.30am and Flowers has dropped his kids off at school, eaten his regular…

Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers may have got round to making the follow-up to her astounding 2017 debut, Stranger In The Alps, a little sooner if it weren’t for the distraction of not one but two supergroups in the interim. First, there was 2018’s boygenius, her team-up with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, and then last year brought Better Oblivion Community Center, her band with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. With those out of the way, she’s free again to focus on her second solo effort. Initial work on the as-yet-untitled album started back in the summer of 2018 at LA’s iconic Sound City Studios and it seems that recording in the same spot where Nirvana made Nevermind has had an impact. Bridgers says she let her inner Kurt Cobain loose on one track, swapping…

Phoebe Bridgers

“It’s the first time I’ve ever written a song where I felt like it was a classic song.” Given it’s an album about hindsight that’s to be released in the year 2020, calling her new record 2020 was a no-brainer for Meghan Remy. That is until the Toronto-based artist behind the U.S. Girls name did some digging and realised she was not alone in having this idea. “It turns out Bon Jovi and everybody and their brother is naming their record 2020, so I was like, ‘OK, maybe I won’t be part of that pack,’” she says. Re-titled Heavy Light, Remy’s eighth album as U.S. Girls follows 2018’s breakthrough In A Poem Unlimited. That record moved away from the lo-fi experimentation of her early work and put her ear-worming melodies front and…

“I know what I’m meant to do. I know what I’m here for, the power is in my hands.” It may sound self-assured but when Flohio says, “I believe I can balance my vocal on any beat” she’s not wrong. In the last year, she’s gone from hotly-tipped rap newcomer to one of the UK’s most exciting exports – collaborating with The Streets and cloud rap pioneer Clams Casino. “People called me a grime artist, but I’m a hip-hop kid, I just settled in grime,” she says. “Now I’m discovering electronic music and I don’t wanna make hip-hop no more.” This dynamic approach to her sound has seen Bermondsey-born Funmi Ohio bend genres at will – blending warehouse-ready electronics with a devastatingly breathless flow and the confidence of a bona-fide rap superstar.…

Arriving five years after the crossover sensation of Currents, Tame Impala’s fourth album, The Slow Rush, has taken a little bit longer than anyone expected. “A little bit?” laughs Kevin Parker, sitting in his studio in Fremantle, Australia. “You don’t have to sugar-coat it. It took an embarrassingly long time.” “I told everyone it was definitely going to be out in March and I just didn’t have it.” Parker, who writes, plays and produces every note of music on his own, planned his busy 2019 around having the album wrapped by spring. Instead, having blown two deadlines, he found himself playing a 44-date tour, which included Coachella and Glastonbury, without releasing any new material beyond the ironically titled stand-alone rave-up Patience. “I told everyone it was definitely going to be out in…

Shabaka And The Ancestors

Shabaka Hutchings, tenor saxophonist, musical visionary and face of London’s burgeoning contemporary jazz scene, is attempting to explain how he gets his head round leading three bands. “I go into different mindsets for each one,” he says, over the phone from his home in the capital. “The music provokes different states in me, but the challenge has always been to try and find a way to communicate that to the audience in these different settings.” For the past decade, the ever-restless 35-year-old Londoner has been reaching out to audiences around the world with Mercury-nominated quartet Sons Of Kemet, cosmic jazz trio The Comet Is Coming and, more recently, Shabaka And The Ancestors, the spiritual Afro-futurist outfit Hutchings is here to talk up today. Although he hadn’t actually planned to be here…

Shabaka And The Ancestors

The best-laid plans of mice and frontmen often go awry. Last year, Shame singer Charlie Steen thought it was time for the South Londoners to knuckle down and write some songs for the follow-up to their 2018 debut album, Songs Of Praise. Aware of the multifarious temptations their hometown presented, he and his bandmates made for the Scottish Highlands to concentrate on the task in hand. “It was halfway up a mountain in a house with this electronic artist called Makeness. We drove 11 hours to the middle of nowhere and it ended up being one of the heaviest weeks of my life, just partying with a load of Scottish nutters,” recalls Steen. “But a lot came out of that – Makeness would sit in while we were demo-ing and add…

“A lot of the time when things clicked for this record were late at night.” It’s more than two years since Archy Marshall, aka King Krule, released his Mercury-nominated second album The Ooz, a sprawling, 19-track voyage into the heart of darkness. On its follow-up, Man Alive!, Marshall maintains the murky intensity, mixing punk with hip-hop, while in other parts recalling the noir jazz of Chet Baker. Unsurprisingly, given the nocturnal vibes, much of Man Alive! was recorded in the wee small hours. “A lot of the time when things clicked for this record were probably within those hours,” says Marshall. Recorded in London and then Stockport, after King Krule relocated to the North West with his photographer partner Charlotte Patmore and their daughter Marina (born in March last year), the songs saw…

“I felt so dark living in the US, watching what’s happening here.” Shirley Manson My band gets really angry whenever I say anything about anything,” admits Shirley Manson, down the phone from her home in Los Angeles. “They want it all top secret.” The Garbage frontwoman spills the beans about the veteran rockers’ seventh album anyway, due for release in the autumn, a quarter of a century on from their self-titled 1995 debut. Writing started back in spring of 2018 in the salubrious surroundings of Palm Springs, at a house belonging to Garbage guitarist Steve Marker’s in-laws. “Being in the desert is always kind of magical,” explains Manson, though it wasn’t the magic that brought them to Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley’s former playground. “We went up there for economic reasons,” she…

Run The Jewels certainly know all about surprises. The fast and furious rap duo released their last album, Run The Jewels 3, as an unexpected seasonal gift on Christmas Eve 2016 and its 2020 follow-up looks set to arrive similarly without warning. El-P and Killer Mike are currently deep in the final stages of crafting their “raw” fourth album. “This record has a real bop to it – it’s jammin’.” Killer Mike “This record has a real bop to it – it’s jammin’,” explains Mike, checking in from Rick Rubin’s Malibu studio, where the pair are applying the finishing touches. “It’s hard as fuck but it’ll still make you smile and move.” El-P says that they’re going for “fire emoji” energy, taking inspiration from the old-school hip-hop of EPMD with Mike promising…

Isobel Campbell

Isobel Campbell has been living in the Los Angeles sunshine under the palm trees for almost a decade now. The former Belle & Sebastian member has been out of the spotlight for almost as long as she’s been in California, but it certainly wasn’t her intention. Getting her first solo album since 2006’s Milkwhite Sheets released was more of a battle than anyone could have realised. “I got told in 2010 that I had four years left in my career – that was from a CEO and a woman,” explains an exasperated Campbell. That year, she had put out Hawk, the last of her three collaborative records with Mark Lanegan. The comment didn’t put her off. In 2014, Campbell signed a new deal and delivered There Is No Other two years later.…

Isobel Campbell

“The one before this was the break-up album and this is more foraging.” In Q’s preview for 2019, Baxter Dury waxed lyrical about his new album. He said his sixth record would be a “lusty hip-hop” adventure and was adamant it would be released by the end of the year. Come the year’s end, however, there was still no record. “I was just lying,” says Dury of the hazy timeline for the follow-up to 2017’s career-best Prince Of Tears. Now it has a name – The Night Chancers – and a release date in March. It would be hard for him to wriggle out of it again, not least because he’s just shot the video for Slumlord, the album’s chugging, sleazy first single. “I look like a combination of slowthai’s dad…

In 2018 Paul Weller was recording a new bonus track for the deluxe edition of his last album, the acoustic leaning True Meanings. Or as he puts it, “the deluxe fucking nonsense boxset whatever it is.” As the song started to develop though, it became clear that it might not be something to just fritter away for a few Weller diehards. “I was like, ‘Na, fuck that, man, this is too good for a fucking B-side. We’re keeping this,’” he recalls. “So that became the cornerstone of the new album.” Even within Weller’s recent 10-year stint of surprising musical adventurousness, the song in question, Mirror Ball, is a bold step. Seven-and-a-half minutes long, it shapeshifts between twinkling disco, choral segments, a heavy ’70s soul groove and a disorientating extended section of musique…

“We’re an acid-funk-step-chillsurfcoresoul subway band.” Mark Speer Attempting to summarise Texas trio Khruangbin’s ever-mutating sound is a hotly debated topic, not least among the band members themselves. Bassist Laura Lee describes it as “world-influenced music created in a barn”, while guitarist Mark Speer is a little less prosaic: “We’re an acid-funk-step-chillsurfcore-soul subway band.” Certainly, since forming over a decade ago, the three-piece, completed by drummer Donald Ray “DJ” Johnson Jr., have embraced a myriad of global influences: instrumental Thai funk for 2015 debut The Universe Smiles Upon You; Middle-Eastern and Spanish flavours for its follow-up, Con Todo El Mundo; stripped-to-the-bone mellow Americana for the dub version of the latter, Hasta El Cielo. But before releasing their third album (due this summer – “We’re on the final stage of mixing and editing,”…

Rufus Wainwright

“I feel it’s my responsibility to continue the tradition of songwriting.” It’s been over two decades since Rufus Wainwright released his lavish, self-titled debut, an album which took two years to record and cost a rumoured million dollars. Now older, wiser and with a better eye for budgeting, he’s ready to deliver Unfollow The Rules. His eighth album is also Wainwright’s first mainstream effort since 2012’s Out Of The Game. It follows a period of self-imposed pop exile, during which he wrote two operas and released a record of Shakespearean sonnets set to music. “Opera had always been the bedrock of my songwriting,” explains Wainwright. “I’m always imitating arias and I did go to a music school conservatory but I dropped out after a year to hang out with punk boys…

Rufus Wainwright

This year marks a decade since the release of Crazy For You, Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno’s shimmering debut as Best Coast – two sunshine-loving California stoners surfing the crest of chillwave. They followed it with two equally intoxicating albums, but it’s now been a whopping five years since we heard much of anything from the pair. What gives? “A lot of people have asked, ‘Where were you?’ ‘What were you doing?’” explains Cosentino. “I was living, I was going through shit and getting out on the other side.” It’s a period that came with a certain amount of creative paralysis. “I definitely had moments where I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this any more, I don’t know if I’m good at this any more.’” After a…

Just three years ago, J Rick was working in a call centre. These days, however, the 23-year-old Tottenham native is one of the most acclaimed and innovative producers in the UK. As part of the Essie Gang collective, J Rick –aka Jordan Christie – has already made waves crafting hits for London rapper Octavian – his avant-garde beats metabolising everything from rap, trip-hop and garage to dancehall and house. This cutting edge is no accident, it’s by design. “The music I make isn’t a supply-and-demand thing where I give people what they’re already looking for,” he says. “That’s not what I’m about.” Born to an Irish mother and Jamaican father, as a teen he sharpened his skills by enrolling in the prestigious BRIT School where he befriended Octavian. The union proved…

There are plenty of pleasant surprises to be found tucked away on producer Dan Snaith’s fifth Caribou album. Not least for Snaith’s mum, who unwittingly appears on melancholic opener Sister singing a lullaby recorded in the 1970s. “I’ve always felt self-conscious about my singing but I’ve found my voice.” Dan Snaith “My parents moved from England to Canada before I was born. My mum would go years without seeing her parents, so would send these tapes back of things like my sister playing piano. When my grandparents passed I got them all digitised. I thought it was beautiful and fits wonderfully into the song,” explains Snaith. “She doesn’t actually know she’s on there yet. I’m waiting to give her the vinyl so she can turn it over and see the credits.” Pieced together…

The Lost Art Of

Eamon Sandwith’s face – the unforgettable carrot-mullet-framed transmitter of rage in the cheapo-video clip for The Chats’ viral smash, Smoko – is today etched with anxiety. Q has joined the young Aussie trio for the penultimate date on an unforeseeably large sold-out UK tour, and as we hunt for picture locations while late-afternoon twilight descends in Bristol city centre, the singer’s visage darkens. “Mate,” he says, in all seriousness, “we’ve only got three hours’ drinking time left before the show – is this gonna eat in much longer?” A brief conversation ensues, reassuring him that drunkenness can be achieved in two hours-plus, or even 10 minutes if required. Soon, however, Sandwith and his two compadres are happily ensconced with pints of Staropramen in the four-centuries-old Hatchet Inn, 20 yards across the street…

The Lost Art Of

Getting The Band Back Together

Worthy Farm, September 2019. Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes is nervously pacing outside the band’s dressing room at the Pilton Party. “He’s a well-known pacer,” notes drummer Danny Goffey. “I am as well. We used to wear out floors in dressing rooms. We’d be going around in circles like Duracell bunnies.” Both have reason to be apprehensive. Tonight, Supergrass are the special guests at this annual bash on the Glastonbury site, organised by the Eavises as a thank you to locals. It’s their first gig since 2010 and there’s a vibe in the air that they just want to get it over with. Coombes heads into the dressing room and grabs a bottle of beer from the fridge, offering them around. When Goffey says he’s not drinking, Coombes looks mortified. “I just…

Getting The Band Back Together

The Grass Is Always Greener

Mick Quinn (Bass, vocals) “I drifted into quite a few different things. I did a solo project, The DB Band. Locally, I was playing with different outfits around Oxford and then about five years ago I got the call from Adam Franklin from Swervedriver. I followed Swervedriver as people that came from Wheatley and stuff but they were coming at it from a different angle to us. I’m the youngest out of all the guys in Swervedriver and the oldest in Supergrass. I’m sitting between those two generations. So it’s a fantastic position for me to be in, to be in both bands that came from the same area and play such wildly different music.” Gaz Coombes (Vocals, guitar) “I’ve spent almost a decade moving away from things that I was always doing,…

The Grass Is Always Greener

They Should Coco

Gaz Coombes on Strange Ones “I’ve always loved this track, I remember writing it in a little cottage down in the village in Wheatley on two acoustics, me and Mick and I think Danny was there, and I remember the time change and how cool we thought that was. It was such a buzz and the lyrics were great. I think of Oxford and Cowley Road when I hear those lyrics, going out and scoring and getting some hash and hanging out with either posh students or really dodgy dealers, going to the pubs and smoking weed and doing too much speed.” Mick Quinn on Alright “I knew the backing track for Alright was bulletproof. I’ve got a distinct memory of staring at the two-inch turning round while that backing track was playing…

They Should Coco

1995: Thee Year The Levee Broke

Everyone who attended the Brit Awards at Alexandra Palace on 20 February, 1995 was witness to a revolution. “I don’t think my parents’ neighbours knew who Blur were until that night,” Alex James recalled in John Harris’s book The Last Party. “At that point, we became a household name.” The mainstream gatekeepers of the BPI, who had barely acknowledged indie-rock until now, were suddenly handing the keys to a bunch of art-school smart alecks. Collecting their fourth and final trophy of the night, for Best Band, Damon Albarn said, “I think this should be shared with Oasis.” Noel Gallagher was similarly gracious: “What Blur did was a great gesture, and I want to go on record as saying that it’s us and them now, against the world.” For people who had…

1995: Thee Year The Levee Broke

Georgia On My Mind

You can tell a lot about a musician who chooses to take their mother on tour with them. Georgia Barnes, known mononymously as Georgia, is in Madrid today to promote her new album Seeking Thrills and to perform with her labelmates, the dance collective Hot Chip, in the evening, and has her mother, Perree, in tow. Perree, in her 60s, is the last one to leave the dressing room after a gig and the person who first turned her daughter on to Billie Eilish. Georgia, in turn, introduced her mother to the genius of Kanye West. Both are instantly likeable, a dynamic duo of massive hair and major laughs. “People keep mistaking her for my manager,” says Georgia. “My mumager!” The pair share a house in West London and were hoping…

Georgia On My Mind

“It’s none of my business what anyone else thinks of me if I know who I am.” 1 IT’S GOOD TO BE DIFFERENT Don’t ever let anyone give you shit because you don’t fit society’s idea of “normal”. The false sense of security some get by joining the pack of lemmings, who would all don ridiculous red baseball hats originally designed to keep a criminal politician’s terrible comb-over in place while he struts around in public, are somehow oblivious of the fact that they will be the first to get fucked over by these shitheads they support. Ignorance is at a place where next week a trip to the doctor’s office will get you a chest covered with leeches to fix what ails you. Kids, be brave, be smart and don’t buy…

THE TIES THAT BIND

As much as this is a story about a band, it is also a story about the absence of a band. It’s about a band releasing an album called So Long, See You Tomorrow then breaking up, ceasing to be the singular unit Bombay Bicycle Club and becoming four men out in the workaday world. After striving for something extraordinary for 10 years, they found that extraordinary eventually becomes... ordinary. Boring, even. It’s a story about four people yearning for nine-to-fives and real life, whatever that is, and rediscovering what matters. They had to leave, in order to come back. It’s about things going wrong, but more things going right. It is also about a bus. Of all the things you would hope for from a tourbus, be it a rickety old…

THE TIES THAT BIND

ROD STEWART EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY (1971) “This was a big album from my childhood because it was my mom’s favourite record. At first, I was surprised at how scratchy Rod’s voice sounded, but then I started to love it. Those Rod Stewart records on Mercury all have this slightly gritty sound to them but they’re beautiful. With Rod’s voice, there’s something hard and soft about it. Maggie May was the song that really knocked me out, it just took me out of myself. I started to get into Elton John after that, he had songs like Crocodile Rock that a kid could hold on to, whereas Maggie May was so mysterious, like I was peering into the adult world.” TALKING HEADS 77 (1977) “One year for my birthday, my older brother gave me…

Sphere Of Influence

“Let me play my leg hair for you,” offers Juliette Jackson, pulling her knee towards her face and lifting up her right trouser leg. “I’ve actually shaved recently though, so it might not sound the same…” Slowly and methodically, The Big Moon’s songwriter, vocalist and founding member starts rubbing her hand back and forth over her shin to demonstrate how the London four-piece’s towering second album is that much more experimental when compared to their devoutly indie debut. “I was working on a new song at my friend’s house while he was on holiday and the only place I could set up my laptop and speakers was on a coffee table. So I was sitting on the floor with my legs up and… it was just there.” She gestures to…

Sphere Of Influence

“There’s a lot of bullshit out there,” muses 27-year-old Dermot Kennedy. “A lot of fake, vacuous… silliness.” The Irish troubadour, a teenage busker who built his following the old-school way – the streets of Dublin, open-mic nights, relentless tiny-show touring – considers today’s rise of the troubadour an antidote to often-soulless contemporary culture. We’re in the Hyatt Hotel foyer in rainy Amsterdam, seated side-by-side on a sofa. “People say I’m sincere. And maybe it’s because I’ve been at the bottom rung of music.” My, he’s handsome: shaven-headed, enormous blue eyes, large and dazzling teeth. He talks like a seasoned cynic, despairing over a music industry prone to “short cuts”, to labels following the money, who sign new artists “who don’t even have music yet, just viable products with a marketing team”, to singer-songwriters emulating…

The Q Review is the definitive music guide. Its hand-picked writers are the undisputed experts in their fields, and they rigorously adhere to Q’s world-famous star-rating system. ★★★★★ CLASSIC This is a work of genius. Essential for any collection. ★★★★ GOOD Solid as a rock. You will not be let down. ★★★ FAIR A decent attempt, but not ripe. Investigate at your own peril. ★★ POOR Ill-conceived, under-cooked. Please return to the drawing board. ★ RUBBISH This will boil your blood with fury and disgust.…

Jerry Lee Lewis Live At The Star-Club (1964) The Killer emerged from a cousin-related career slump when a show recorded at Hamburg’s legendary Star-Club niterie on 5 April, 1964 captured him in full live fury. ★★★★★ The Clash Combat Rock (1982) Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon moved on from the multiple-vinyl excesses of London Calling and Sandinista! with this stripped-back renewal of their political purpose. ★★★★ The Raconteurs Help Us Stranger (2019) After Jack White strayed into strange hip-hop beatmongery, his return to full-tilt he’ rock d got action into on the 10-years-coming a row third with Raconteurs a LP was just particula the ticket. ★★★★…

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

GREEN DAY FATHER OF ALL… REPRISE/WARNERS, OUT 7 FEBRUARY Ever since Green Day came of age with 2004’s American Idiot, their every album has felt like the upshot of a whole lotta soul-searching, at times even hand-wringing and navel-contemplating. This time, albeit very consciously, the vibe is a whole lotta shakin’, as the Californian pop-punk trio attempt to cast off the mid-life crises and contemporary political agonies with a 26-minute blast of often startlingly unreconstructed rock’n’soul. When they were last launching an album, the punchy/punky Revolution Radio, it was autumn 2016, five weeks before the presidential election which ultimately voted in Donald Trump, and scarcely a show or interview went by without mainman Billie Joe Armstrong vociferously denouncing perhaps the ultimate American Idiot. Three-plus years into that roller-coaster presidency, a rejuvenated Armstrong confessed to…

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

THERE’S A RIOT GOIN’ ON

KESHA HIGH ROAD RCA, OUT 31 JANUARY The title of Kesha Sebert’s fourth album is not a reference to moral superiority. That much becomes clear around 40 seconds into the record’s pounding opener, an inebriated love letter to going out-out that returns the Californian to the rowdy brat-pop of her decade-old debut single Tik Tok. Tonight features everything that made the musician such a winning – and irritating – prospect in the first place: abrasive EDM-inflected beats, staccato sprechgesang, vocal fry, repeated references to booze, plus, in this case, a deliberately off-key chorus chant that recalls a sozzled 3AM karaoke session. High Road is packed with such wilfully inane party-starters, but Sebert’s recent struggles imbue these minor acts of rebellion with greater significance. Over the past five years, her hell-raising persona has been superseded…

THERE’S A RIOT GOIN’ ON

High Road is such an upbeat record – what made you decide to revisit the party anthems that you made your name with? “Parts of my life have been really difficult and it’s all been very public. I want people to know that you can go through hard things and you can move on and you can reclaim your joy. That’s what this record is about – [last album] Rainbow was in the emotions of what I was going through, and this is me coming out the other side, saying that those experiences are not going to destroy my love and lust for life.” This album sees you continue your writing partnership with your mother. How does your relationship impact the music you make together? “We have a rapport that you don’t have…

A FITTING TRIBUTE

MAC MILLER CIRCLES PARLOPHONE/ WARNER MUSIC, OUT 17 JANUARY Released following his very public split with Ariana Grande, 2018’s Swimming saw Pittsburgh-born rapper Mac Miller take a major creative step, adding emotional weight to an increasingly ambitious, funk-infused sound. Yet its promise was cut short by Miller’s fatal overdose in September that year aged just 26, robbing modern hip-hop of one of its most soulful and surprising young voices. Thankfully, his collaboration with co-producer Jon Brion during this period also yielded Circles. Recorded in his adopted home of Los Angeles and conceived as a “sister” album to Swimming, it’s a beautifully meditative, if at times sombre, listen. There’s a feeling Miller’s walking an inner tightrope, its confessional mood announced on the opening title track as he deadpans, “Well, this is what it looks like…

A FITTING TRIBUTE

THE BEWITCHING HOUR

DESTROYER HAVE WE MET DEAD OCEANS, OUT 31 JANUARY Nobody could accuse Dan Bejar of clutching his lyrical talents close to his chest. Within the first minute of Crimson Tide, the airy goth-pop meditation that opens his 12th Destroyer album, he’s compared himself to “the laziest river/A vulture predisposed to eating off floors” before deciding “no, wait, I take that back/I was more like an ocean/ Stuck inside hospital corridors.” Words just spill from Bejar – not messily, but in brilliant little pools of imagery and portent. As with David Berman and Silver Jews, these suggestive, allusive lyrics are inevitably the focus of any Destroyer album, line after line jumping out with roses between their teeth. Yet Bejar also practises a curious musical discipline, 2011’s Kaputt bearing witness to his James Murphy-level ’80s-pop Anglophilia,…

THE BEWITCHING HOUR

PET SHOP BOYS HOTSPOT KOBALT, OUT 31 JANUARY At the risk of sounding like those clickbait articles that invite you to “feel old” by enticing you to see what, say, Zammo from Grange Hill looks like now, let’s set the controls for 1985 and see what 35 years ago looked like in the year that West End Girls heralded Pet Shop Boys’ arrival. From here, we’d be looking at 1950, a year which saw Doris Day and Bing Crosby number among the biggest sellers that year. All of which is worth pondering, even on cursory acquaintance with Pet Shop Boys’ 14th album. If you make the right choices early on in life, it seems that they can sustain you for the best part of a lifetime. Their third in a row produced by Stuart…

Stormzy Heavy Is The Head #MERKY RECORDS Since his 2017 debut, Stormzy has gone from being UK grime’s finest exponent to national treasure. But mainstream success hasn’t dulled his creative edge, with this multifarious second album widening his musical scope and lyrical perspective. A bravado display of banter and brains. The Big Moon Walking Like We Do FICTION The London quartet decided to really shake things up on their second album. Their way with a perfect pop hook is still there, but core writer and vocalist Juliette Jackson has swapped love songs for life songs, framing them in an expansive sonic landscape. A real contender for one of the year’s best. Georgia Seeking Thrills DOMINO Georgia Barnes first made waves with her 2015 single Move Systems, a spunky, M.I.A.-indebted call-to-arms. It’s an attitude that remains on her second album, Seeking Thrills,…

There’s an emotional honesty to Flea’s writing. Ending before the Red Hot Chili Peppers have even played a note,1 Acid For The Children (GRAND CENTRAL, ★★★★) is a memoir as wilfully unconventional as its author – the band’s livewire bass player, Flea. Written in short, vivid chapters it opens in the shadow of his Australian parents’ failing marriage, before discovering liberation in the Los Angeles high schools where he met future bandmates Anthony Kiedis, Jack Irons and Hillel Slovak. Much feral teenage waywardness follows, fuelled by his habit of “geezing”, or shooting up cocaine, with Kiedis. But there’s also a winning emotional honesty and irrepressible spirit to his writing, especially after he scores a gig with West Coast punk outfit Fear and finds music amongst the mayhem. Early in Flea’s book there’s…

DEFUNC TRUE GO£49.99 Defunc may sound like a late-’90s boy band formed by someone who was booted out of the original line-up of 5ive, but they are actually a Swedish audio company. Their take on AirPods-style buds are very good, with a punchy sound that holds up at top volume, a reasonable price and a design that means they stay in your ear. Which is quite a handy advantage with headphones, really. ★★★★ ROXi £99.95 “And she pours herself another cup of coffee…” Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there, I was too busy banging out some Mike + The Mechanics on the ROXi, a music entertainment system that is essentially a karaoke machine with over 35 million songs to choose from. It offers fun for all the family or, just you on your…

RACHEL AROESTI Q WRITER “Channel 4’s BLAPS may be hideously named, but the short-form comedy strand is a brilliant showcase for fledgling talent – from the current crop, Sam Campbell’s absurdist sketch show 1 GET REAL DUDE is a total joy. For something more naturalistic, I strongly recommend THE COCKFIELDS, a moving and mordantly funny sitcom which sees its star and co-creator Joe Wilkinson ditch his usual oddball shtick to play the straight man. Noah Baumbach’s MARRIAGE STORY also deals in agonising emotional truths – a grimly captivating tale of divorce that feels both timely and timeless.” CHRIS CATCHPOLE ASSISTANT EDITOR “2020 is barely out of the traps and there’s already a glut of great music to enjoy. New albums by Caribou, Destroyer, King Krule and a particularly brilliant set by CORNERSHOP are top of…

WHAT'S ON Absolute Radio THIS MONTH...

TIME TO LISTEN: WILKO JOHNSON Absolute Radio, 19 January, 8pm Danielle Perry’s penultimate guest on her Time To Listen series is the Dr Feelgood guitarist. Wilko Johnson defied the odds and miraculously survived a terminal illness diagnosis. Hear Wilko’s inspiring story and some of the music that has inspired him, including Bob Dylan and the Stones, in this half-hour special programme. TIME TO LISTEN: BADLY DRAWN BOY Absolute Radio, 26 January, 8pm The final guest on Time To Listen is Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, who talks about the songs that remind him of the good times and helped him in the bad times, with choices from the likes of The Smiths, Lana Del Rey and Bruce Springsteen. Twenty years since his Mercury Prizewinning debut, The Hour Of Bewilderbeast, Badly Drawn Boy is performing…

WHAT'S ON Absolute Radio THIS MONTH...

This month Sunday Night Music Club host Danielle Perry on the pros and cons of planning ahead.

“So we’re well into 2020 now and whenever a new year dawns – let alone a new decade – it’s interesting to see how this year is going to take shape. Which new names will suddenly become national darlings? Who will play the secret set at this year’s huge, iconic Glastonbury festival? What story arc will we be looking back at this time next year? The funny thing is that most of that is already confirmed behind the scenes, to a degree – big bands have their schedules, flights and hotels booked up to two years in advance. I’m sure Glasto’s Emily Eavis and co have an idea already of who will headline in 2021. The more I learn of the music industry, the more I’m in awe of its…

This month Sunday Night Music Club host Danielle Perry on the pros and cons of planning ahead.

Letter Of The Month

Going It Alone Dear Q, I greatly enjoyed your 50 Albums Of The Year [Q407] rundown. It helped that this was something of a vintage year, with a host of stone-cold classics. But what really struck me was the sheer prevalence of solo acts throughout your list. It got me thinking why this is. I came up with a few reasons – the first of which is the growing sophistication of laptop technology. When you can make music in your bedroom, why open yourself up to the hassle of arguing with bandmates? And then there’s the question of staying profitable – the fewer people, the greater the share of the ultimate profits. And looking at that Top 10, it’s clear that Little Simz, Billie Eilish and Weyes Blood all agree with…

Letter Of The Month

Q has teamed up with the good people at Defunc to offer TWO readers the chance to win a pair of splendid Defunc TRUE GO wireless earbuds. The TRUE GOs are quality earbuds which feature a great sound, secure and comfortable fit, and a premium microphone. Using the unique MultiTip silicone tips with a bud heel and touch control makes these earbuds easy to wear for long periods of time. The TRUE GOs are also IPX4 water resistant so are the perfect sports companion as well as for everyday use. Using the touch control on the head part allows users to activate key phone and computer functions with a simple tap including track selection, phone calls and on/off. The microphone also allows a fully hands-free experience and with 14 hours active…

Records Behind The Records Dear Q, Ever since I started buying your magazine 20 years ago, I’ve always looked forward to your December “Albums Of The Year” issue. But this one was even better than usual, due to your excellent idea of having some of the included artists from your 50 list choosing playlists of the music that influenced their album. Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend, in particular, was eye- and ear-opening. After all, which other artist could have encompassed Conway Twitty, Hans Zimmer, Underworld and Jerry Garcia on the same playlist? Eclectic doesn’t even begin to cover it! Richard Davies, Brighton Pause For Thought Dear Q, As the planet continues to warm, it’s great to see a band of Coldplay’s size really taking the issue of climate change seriously by opting to “pause”…

“ Brian Eno told me Italian food is like French cuisine but without the bullshit. ” Jehnny Beth

When was the last time someone called you Camille? Probably two minutes ago. [Partner and musician] Johnny Hostile calls me Camille and we’re rehearsing together at the moment. My close friends call me Camille. I always start with Jehnny and then, when I like the person, they can use Camille. It’s another friendship level. They can use it if I’m ready. When was the last time you accidentally pocket-dialled another musician? I actually think it was Romy from The xx who pocked-dialled me. I was hearing her conversation but I immediately hung up because I didn’t want to hear, it was too private. I don’t even think she knows, if she reads this she’ll find out. She wasn’t saying anything rude about me, but I didn’t want to hear. I was like, “I’m…

“ Brian Eno told me Italian food is like French cuisine but without the bullshit. ” Jehnny Beth

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