MOJO January 2019

Lisa Businovski Of photographing MOJO’s Debut Album Of 2018 (see p44), Lisa says: “It was a blast documenting the lovely Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever during their Melbourne shows, topping off an awesome week after being a finalist for the first ever Australian Music Photographer Award.” Go to lisabusinovski.com Andrew Male MOJO’s erstwhile longtime Deputy Editor, Andrew writes about music, books, film, radio and TV for Sight & Sound, The Guardian, Radio Times and The Sunday Times. For MOJO this month he explored music, love and society with Kamasi Washington, and talked jazz, meditation and Lenny Bruce with Van Morrison in Belfast. Mark Paytress Since cornering Captain Beefheart backstage as a schoolboy in 1975, Mark has supped tea at home with Yoko Ono, shared carrot stew in Morocco with Anita Pallenberg, and got very plastered with…

Gwenno RADIOPHONIC CELT What music are you currently grooving to? Hen Ogledd, Richard Dawson and Rhodri Davies’s band. You can dance to it and I love the lyrics. Also Julia Holter, Tirzah and Adwaith, who we gigged with recently. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? I always go back to I Hear A New World, by Joe Meek. It combines all the elements I love, of production, sentiment, ambition – it pushed things in an incredible way. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? In about 1988 I heard the Randy Crawford song Almaz and I really liked how depressing it was. I tried to get it in Kelly’s Records in Cardiff but I ended up buying a Randy Crawford record without the song on…

HOW TO RESPOND TO A WORLD ON FIRE? AS WE NEAR THE END of 2018, and assess the year’s greatest music, a spirit of discontent is palpable. From hardcore upstarts Idles, to the liberated R&B of Janelle Monáe, through to the most faithful of retainers, Paul McCartney, insurrection has proved a critical force on a radical array of MOJO’s favourite artists. Our Top 75 Albums of 2018 often show that anger remains an energy, but also that music can be a celebration of rebellion, of different identities and cultures. Hopefully with these, and with our extensive selection of the best reissues, books and much else that excited us these past 12 months, we can turn you on to a wealth of essential releases. There’s much more in this issue, of course,…

THIS DECEMBER 5, London’s 100 Club hosts Soul Grooves with Horace Panter, where The Specials’ bassman and band will play R&B, funk and jazz. “It’s a fundraiser for an organisation called Tonic Music For Mental Health,” says Horace, “There’s a Specials connection there, as [Specials vocalist] Terry Hall is one of the patrons. It’s a condition that he’s aware of. I’ll be very happy to play.” “Jerry’s planning something, but he won’t say what yet…” NEVILLE STAPLE The Specials will connect again next year, marking 40 years since their first album and 10 years since they reformed, minus founding mastermind/keyboardist Jerry Dammers. On February 1 the band – now centred around Hall, Panter and guitarist Lynval Golding – release Encore, the first Specials album to feature Hall since More Specials in 1981. Encore’s…

“Something clicked after No No No,” says Beirut mainman Zach Condon. He’s talking about the keyboard-led 2015 album which stripped out the Eastern European influences that had been his metaphor since 2006’s breakthrough Gulag Orkestar. “It took me towards the end of recording to realise, if I just tuned out of the kind of tremendously powerful negative voices in my head, I found that I still had what I loved most about [the music]. Then I just got really excited.” Having written in isolation, he began work on the follow-up in late 2016, entering Relic Room studio in Manhattan with No No No producer Gabe Wax, regular rhythm section Nick Petree and Paul Collins, and brass players Ben Lanz and Kyle B Resnick. They recorded using busted amps, vintage tape machines…

… NOEL GALLAGHER (right) has been in Abbey Road with David Holmes working on the follow up to 2017’s Who Built The Moon. He’s described the results as “’70s disco” … TONY IOMMI is heading back in the studio for what might be an instrumental album …Richie Hawtin will release a new PLASTIKMAN set next year …to celebrate four decades since their ’79 debut, the STRAY CATS will record a new LP in Nashville. “Seems like the exact right thing, right time, right place, and right band for the gig,” observed drummer Slim Jim Phantom … THE HOUSE OF LOVE will follow the thirtieth anniversary performances of their debut LP with further activity next year. Says guitarist Terry Bickers, “There’s a whole album’s worth of material ready to go which has…