Mercury Rev, MJ Lenderman, John Murry & Michael Timmins and more appear on our On The Highway compilation
All copies of the September 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – On The Highway – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Mercury Rev, MJ Lenderman and John Murry & Michael Timmins to Enumclaw, Harlem Gospel Travelers and Krononaut. Now dive in…
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1 Enumclaw
Not Just Yet
This young group from Tacoma, Washington state, summon up a mighty noise to kick us off this month. Taken from their second album Home In Another Life, “Not Just Yet” careens headlong like a thrilling amalgamation of Drive-By Truckers and Nirvana.
2 MJ Lenderman
She’s Leaving You
Still just 25 years old, Lenderman’s reputation has been growing for years now, most notably with his 2022 album Boat Songs and his work with Wednesday. Manning Fireworks is his latest record, and full of literate, lilting indie-rock like this delight.
3 Nick Lowe
Different Kind Of Blue
Indoor Safari is the first Lowe album in a decade, a set of new songs and reworked demos recorded with his loyal Los Straitjackets band. Here’s a sultry, lush ballad, originally written for 2001’s The Convincer.
4 X
Big Black X
The LA punks are bidding farewell with their final album, Smoke & Fiction, before a goodbye tour. Naturally, the album is a victory lap rather than a late-in-the-day reinvention, and tracks such as this one find John Doe and Exene Cervenka as blood-pressure-elevating as ever.
5 Nathan Bowles Trio
Gimme My Shit
Nathan Bowles, Rex McMurry and Casey Toll have united as an instrumental cosmic-folk trio on Are Possible, their first album together. This highlight lopes along for a brilliant eight-and-a-half minutes, Bowles’ banjo incessant and chiming.
6 El Khat
La WaLa
Led by former classical cellist Eyal El Wahab, the Arab-Jewish outfit, now based in Berlin, conjure up a thrilling maelstrom of sound with homemade junkyard instruments and Middle Eastern ululations. Here’s one of the peaks of their new LP, Mute.
7 Amy Rigby
Last Night’s Rainbow
Hang In There With Me is the latest from this New York State-based indie-folk singer-songwriter, and another demonstration of her peerless abilities. In just two minutes, she weaves a tale of the dull ordinary world and the occasional magic that can enliven our lives.
7 Amy Rigby
Last Night’s Rainbow
Hang In There With Me is the latest from this New York State-based indie-folk singer-songwriter, and another demonstration of her peerless abilities. In just two minutes, she weaves a tale of the dull ordinary world and the occasional magic that can enliven our lives.
8 John Murry & Michael Timmins
Silver Or Lead
New documentary The Graceless Age: The Ballad Of John Murry is charmingly soundtracked by Murry himself, teaming up with Cowboy Junkie Timmins. Here’s a fragile, sparse version of his A Short History Of Decay track, with Murry in the moment in the studio.
9 Moon Diagrams
Fragment Rock
When he’s not drumming in Deerhunter, Moses Archuleta makes diverse, occluded music as Moon Diagrams. Cemetery Classics is his second album, co-produced by James Ford, and songs like “Fragment Rock” come enigmatically shrouded in echo and reverb.
10 Mercury Rev
Ancient Love
Born Horses is the first proper Rev album since 2015’s The Light In You, and it showcases a partially changed group. There are new members, Jonathan Donahue’s vocals are deeper and darker, and the music is more synth-based and new age, as the floating “Ancient Love” shows.
11 The Jesus Lizard
Alexis Feels Sick
Another returning group, this Texas/Chicago noise-rock outfit are back with their first album since 1998’s Blue. They haven’t changed a bit, as this slice of raging, lopsided garage suggests. Check out page 10 to hear from them.
12 Peter Cat Recording Co
Suddenly
New Delhi’s finest indie-rockers, this group led by Suryakent Sawhney mix colourful genres with ease on their new album Beta: on this track, as our reviewer writes, the group take “The Beach Boys to a tropical nightclub”.
13 Myles Cochran
Making Something Out Of Nothing
Raised in Kentucky and now resident in the UK, Cochran creates his own brand of ambient Americana on his new, second album You Are Here. It’s cinematic at times, with echoes of Brian Eno, Ry Cooder and Bruce Langhorne.
14 Harlem Gospel Travelers
Somebody’s Watching You
This New York trio delve through the archives of lost gospel-soul treasures, assisted by producer and mentor Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed, and reshape in their own, more modern image. Rhapsody is their latest LP, the follow-up to 2021’s acclaimed Look Up!.
15 Krononaut
Silver Silver (Edit)
Guitarist Leo Abrahams and drummer Martin France come from different worlds – in short, experimental ambient and jazz – but their second collaboration as Krononaut once again marries their skills perfectly, with the result at once propulsive, drifting and gently psychedelic.
