Before we get into the traditional half-year celebration of what’s been great in 2014 so far – from albums to films, games to fashion – let’s pause to consider, just for a few minutes, some of the very worst records to have plagued the Clash stereo over the past six months.

Because, if nothing else, we can all learn from these releases: to not suck so awfully.

(Now, of course these are not the absolute worst albums released in 2014 so far. Okay, maybe Kasabian. But they are certainly poor records that Clash has covered. So...)

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Coldplay – ‘Ghost Stories’
(Released May 16^th, Parlophone)

“Separation is writ large across the themes of ‘Ghost Stories’ – and knowing what came next in Martin’s personal life, perhaps that was always to be expected. What’s not is just how lifeless so much of this material is, how instantly forgettable these songs are. Which, from a band that made ‘The Scientist’, ‘Clocks’ and ‘Viva La Vida’, is simply criminal.” 4/10

Read the full review

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Kasabian – ‘48:13’
(Released June 6^th, Columbia)

“This album might satiate the seasoned Kasabian fan, but for anyone else it just comes across as the dated output of false prophets. With maximum attitude but minimum threat, they present themselves with the empty aggressive gestures of sheep in decidedly wolfish clothing.” 2/10

Read the full review

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Clean Bandit – ‘New Eyes’
(Released June 2^nd, Atlantic)

“If the album had a concept (which it doesn’t) it would probably be ‘round the houses’, as each track tries its damnedest to latch onto any dance genre of the last decade. ‘Heart On Fire’ is the garage revivalist track you’d find in a Logic tutorial, ‘A+E’ is a throwaway ode to UK funky, and when Stylo G wanders in for the commercial dancehall of ‘Come Over’, you can’t help but think he might have got the wrong room.” 3/10

Read the full review

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Lily Allen – ‘Sheezus’
(Released May 2^nd, Regal/Parlophone)

“‘Sheezus’ often gets lost down its own self-ironic rabbit-hole, the product of Allen over-straining to reestablish herself as a distinct voice rather than the magnetic lyricist that sparkled prior to her ‘retirement’ four years ago.” 5/10

Read the full review

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Pharrell Williams – ‘G I R L’
(Released March 3^rd, Columbia)

“In part, the feminist themes of ‘G I R L’ are intended as a reaction to ‘Blurred Lines’, yet Pharrell suffers from more than a few grey areas himself on ‘Hunter’, which utilises some fairly disturbing imagery. ‘Just because it’s the middle of night / That don’t mean I won’t hunt you down,’ is just the tip of a fairly sizeable iceberg of unsavoury lyricism.” 4/10

Read the full review

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Coming soon: Clash’s favourite albums of the year so far. They’re good. Well, we think so.

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As The National prepared to tour in support of their 2010 album ‘High Violet’ (which, somehow, Clash only awarded a 6/10), frontman Matt Berninger had a moment of inspiration: why not invite his younger brother Tom to join the band’s road crew?

“I thought it would be good for him because he needed a job and he’d never been to Europe, he was in a rut, and I thought it would shake-up his life a little bit,” explains Matt. “I also missed him. We hadn’t been together much in about 20 years.”

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Mistaken For Strangers, trailer

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The new film Mistaken For Strangers, directed by Tom, captures the experience. It shows a firm contrast between the focused Matt and his almost horizontally laidback sibling. Tom’s litany of roadie failings are mostly minor misdemeanours – including forgetting to guestlist Werner Herzog – which result in him being fired from the tour. As the younger Berninger accepts, The National’s rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle wasn’t as hedonistic as he desired.

“There was a lot of alcohol and a lot of late nights, but mainly it wasn’t as... wild?” he accepts. “They had a job to do every night and I didn’t, necessarily. Well, I did, but I really didn’t work very hard on that and so I partied by myself. And occasionally I filmed it.”

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Tom’s filming, initially envisaged as a short of undetermined nature, evolved into a feature that focuses on the brothers’ relationship rather than the band. Which is fortunate, laughs Matt, as the band were growing anxious about the “weird and unflattering” footage that Tom had gathered.

Despite Matt’s idea not working out as planned – “Hiring Tom in a role that he wasn’t suited for was both unfair to him and to our tour manager,” he says – both Berningers are adamant that it was a positive experience. Their connection is best demonstrated in the film’s closing scene in which Matt walks into the audience during a performance of ‘Terrible Love’, with Tom following close behind.

As Tom concludes: “He’s my older brother and he’s maybe leading the way and I’m always going to be the younger brother, tripping and falling but also holding him up. We’re always going to be there for each other.”

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Words: Ben Hopkins

Mistaken For Strangers is in British cinemas from June 27^th. Find more information here. 

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At about this time, anyone lucky enough to be going to Glastonbury is desperately scouring through sheets of paper containing line-up times like an office worker in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Mercilessly, they’re making a completely unrealistic schedule – of which they will transpire to attend around 10% of. Like a drink-abstaining trip to the pub, you can head to Glastonbury with the greatest intentions in the world, but once you get there, it’s just a different gravy. The best thing to do is plan your key beacon points for the week: what you really must see. Between those, just see what happens. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up doing tantric equine yoga with an old guy in a sequined tanga. If you’re unlucky, you’ll end up at Paolo Nutini.

Put down the paper, and reject those battery-sapping apps (mate, you’ll be flat by day two) – here are Clash’s own beacon points for Glastonbury 2014.

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Matthew Bennett says…
The Radiophonic Workshop, 5.30pm, Friday @ The Glade

You’ve not arrived at Glastonbury until you’ve had your mind decimated. So get on the scoreboard early by lying down in the wooded Glade, stare into the mirror-warped sky and permit these pioneers of electronic music to wash across your mind like a medium-scale local flood. Founded in 1958 to create all the sci-fi sounds that had never existed, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was an overfunded Imaginarium in Maida Vale Studios, where dark electronic dreams mixed with new technologies conjuring to generate sound. More recently, agit-pop provocateur Matthew Herbert has taken over the helm so get your cortex prepped for the delectable inevitable.

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Anna Wilson says…
ESG, 6.30pm, Saturday @ The Park Stage

In a perfectly pitched seamless segue from day to night, the sassy sister queens of the South Bronx bring their straight up post-punk funkadelic fierceness to The Park Stage. Allow the pulsing polyrhythms, feral bass and emotive vocals of the legendary 99 Records coterie to take you on a dynamic, delirious trip into underground 80’s New York via dance classics such as ‘UFO’ and ‘Moody’. A succulent smorgasbord of sweat-inducing seminal sounds.

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Robin Murray says…
Mogwai, 11.00pm, Saturday @ The Park Stage

Sure, you’ve probably seen Mogwai before – but then, that’s precisely why you should go again. The Scottish post-rock band never fails to thrill, with their mastery of the quiet-LOUD template allowing them to both deafen you and send chills down your spine. Equally, their recent creative spell – covering everything from soundtracking cult French TV shows, to re-issues, to full album projects – means that the group has a mountain of material to showcase. Plus, have you had a look at the billing for the Pyramid Stage at the same time? Thrash icons Metallica. And as Mogwai themselves might put it, Metallica: are shite. 

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Joe Zadeh says…
Låpsley, 2.15pm, Sunday @ BBC Introducing Stage

Last week, Låpsley was doing her school exams. This week, she’s playing Glastonbury. Aye, you and me, we should be doing better. The 17-year-old Liverpool singer/producer came to our attention at the start of 2014, when Chess Club Records producer Oceaán mentioned her during an interview. Turns out she’s been embroidering nocturnal ballads for about eight months now, and her SoundCloud is surprisingly brimming for a young, unsigned artist. Liverpool’s GIT Awards quickly tagged her as a One To Watch and she’s garnered radio play and features galore since. The opiated R&B of ‘Station’ is where to start your love affair, a wavering synth, a soft beat, and Låpsley quilting harmonies out of pitch-shifted vocals. Even her ‘Blue Monday’ tribute – usually a cover song car crash – is a tidy and smooth patchwork. Catch her live at Glastonbury, and aside from the most musically savvy of Merseysiders, you’ll be the first to say you’ve done so.

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Felicity Martin says…
Despacio, Thursday/Friday/Saturday, 8pm/7pm/7pm @ Silver Hayes

Make your way to the underground dance haven that is Silver Hayes, where you’ll find Despacio belching out some serious grooves. The 50,000-watt mega soundsystem is the project of James Murphy and Soulwax, whose expert hands man this beast. The trio is hosting a tent for the mutant stack of seven, 3.5-metre tall McIntosh speakers, with three marathons of polished disco selections from the Thursday to Saturday. It’s all the power of the Pyramid stage, condensed into a somewhat cosier environment. Learn more about the fastidious project in our catch-up with David Dewaele. 

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If you’ve not already left for Pilton, take wellies, yeah? It’s going to chuck it down. 

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I might have got carried away. Reviewing ‘You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine’ at the time of its release, in the autumn of 2004, I said of the Canadian duo’s debut LP: “You won’t hear a more exhilarating, dizzying record for a long time to come.” I wrote something distinctly cringe-worthy about sexiness. I slapped 10/10 on it and called the set the best rock ‘n’ roll album of the year.

This upset some people. Nobody in the Death From Above 1979 camp, obviously. The team at 679, who’d licensed the LP from Last Gang Records for UK release, were made up. But a mate’s brother, he was pissed. He saw the 10/10 and bought it and probably still hasn’t forgiven me. He didn’t like it. When I was in New York, a few years after the album’s release, I went to the restaurant he ran. I’m not certain as I didn’t go around the whole room, but I think there was a bigger service charge on my bill compared to everyone else’s. Also, I’m not sure that it’s customary for owners of such establishments to bid farewell to customers with a middle finger.

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‘Romantic Rights’

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Yeah, cool story bro, no doubt (exact facts of which may have been altered for effect). Truthfully, I have dipped into ‘You’re A Woman…’ from time to time over the last decade – it’s been a mainstay on each of my iPods, keeping its place on the roster regardless of storage capacity. (And you’d be surprised just how often I do have to shake that selection up, even on a 160Gb Classic.) But I’d not paid this explosive collection a great deal of focused attention until word crept forth that its makers, Toronto’s Jesse F Keeler (bass) and Sebastien Grainger (drums, vocals), were to release a follow-up. ‘The Physical World’ is set for a September release – oh look, some news. 

So, time for a quick reappraisal. “Brutal enough to make your arse explode,” reads a quote from Kerrang! on the cover of ‘You’re A Woman…’’s special edition (a double-CD affair backed by remixes from Justice and Erol Alkan, and a couple of non-LP tracks). I’m on my second uninterrupted listen through now, and – while it’s fair enough that I do know these songs pretty well, which might be a factor – my bowels remain unmoved. There’s nothing going on down there. Perhaps it’s age, and I’ve just not noticed, and when I stand up I’ll realise that, aha, all along I’d been resting in a right mess. But, I think, I’m okay.

Back to my own words from 2004 instead, then. “Exhilarating”? Well, I’m smiling like a lunatic, rattling my fingers along to Grainger’s beats and mouthing the lyrics like I’m screaming them (on mute, of course – I’ve neighbours to consider). So yes, this is still a mightily thrilling listen. I’m sat down right now, so I can’t say the “dizzying” element is playing much of a part in the enjoyment process. Hang on, I’ll get up…

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‘Black History Month’

- - -

(Pants are clean, thank goodness.)

…Okay, the only correct response when upright and in the presence of ‘Little Girl’ was to do a series of spins and dips in my front room, using the laminate wooden flooring as a slippery disco for haphazard moves. The result: yeah, I’d say I’m a little dizzy now, actually. Part of that is due to the head-rush of actually standing up– come on, really, I’m a journalist. But this music can still connect alright, with no little potency, with bite harder than 90 minutes with Lui… no, no. No football. No football.

‘You’re A Woman…’ is raucous rock refined to perfection – it was then, it is now. It rattles and shakes with pop dynamics beaten silly by drums that come on like a World War shelling of the senses and riffs that deal blow after blow until the bruises blossom and the blood comes through thick like molasses. What a beautiful mess it leaves in its wake, behind kinetic cacophonies like ‘Pull Out’, ‘Go Home, Get Down’ and ‘Going Steady’. It’s super streamlined – nothing added to a mix that resonates with real purity, with a soul scorched by stage bulbs and soaked in alcohol sweats.

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‘Blood On Our Hands’

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It has relative hits: ‘Romantic Rights’ rides in on a crunched bassline capable of starting a party at a bus stop, and ‘Blood On Our Hands’ is blurred blues-rock turbulence that tramples all over (much of) the best of The White Stripes. And, equally, there are lows, kinda. ‘Sexy Results’ is a closer of sinister swagger, but it comes across as a little too creepy compared to the blistering breakdowns that precede it, a little too slow.

The best rock ‘n’ roll album of 2004? In a year that also witnessed the release of ‘Funeral’, of ‘Sonic Nurse’, of ‘Franz Ferdinand’, of ‘Antics’, of Comets On Fire’s astounding ‘Blue Cathedral’ (a massive personal favourite to this day)? Oh hell yes. Carried away? That’s exactly how I feel right now. Ten years on, ‘You’re A Woman…’ still gets me shaken all over like few long-players can, that few ever will. So go home, put it on, get down and ‘Turn It Out’ – I’ll see you the other side of some righteous reminiscence. It’s worth those extra dollars.

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Words: Mike Diver

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Listen to ‘You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine’ in full via Deezer, below…

Swan Song invites Clash’s favourite artists to tell us about their ideal last day on this Earth of ours. Here, we’ve Mac Miller, the man behind one of 2013’s most-celebrated rap albums, ‘Watching Movies With The Sound Off’ (review), and a new mixtape we’re really quite into, ‘Faces’.

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‘The Star Room’, from ‘Watching Movies…’

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Where would you like to wake up?
I would probably like to wake up at the house I grew up in.

What would you like to achieve on your last day?
The amount of recording and songs that would be made on my last day on Earth… That’s really all that I would do. That’s kind of my whole recording style: you could die at anytime, so record like you never know if you’re going to wake up the next day.

You host a Last Supper – what’s on the menu?
You ever seen (the movie) Hook? That dinner would be like what my Last Supper would be. 

Who would be invited?
Charlie Murphy. I love my mom, but maybe she doesn’t wanna go. Maybe she’s in the middle of a book. But Charlie Murphy would most definitely be there, so would Rick Rubin. I’ve never met Charlie Murphy though, so I can’t say for sure that me and him would be friends, but it seems like we could be friends.

What’s the last song you’d want to hear?
The Beatles’ ‘A Day In The Life’.

What would be your biggest regret?
I really honestly can’t think of any regrets. And that’s not some weird spiritual thing, I’m positive that I’ve a lot of shitty things in my life.

What would be your deathbed confession?
That some dude actually sits here and writes all my raps for me, and I’ve always been fake. Everybody has been right this whole time that I’m a piece of shit with no talent, and someone else actually writes everything for me.

What would your final words be?
Thank You, Based God.

What would you have written on your gravestone?
“Here lies a piece of shit, he’s pretty shitty.” I don’t even want a gravestone though. I kinda want to just go do something weird, like in the ocean. I think the whole idea of darkness surrounding death is something that only really got created by the living.

Who would you like to meet at the Pearly Gates of Heaven?
John Lennon and George Harrison. Oh actually, I take that back, I want to meet my mom’s dad. I never got to meet my mom’s dad.

Describe your vision of Heaven.
I like to think of Heaven as a million different things. But I’m pretty certain about Hell. I think Hell is just that you’re stuck in a nightclub for eternity, and all the girls want to have sex with you. It doesn’t make me comfortable seeing girls try and go out of their way to be sexual because they think it’s what I want; I’d actually rather you just relax.

If you could be resurrected the next day, what would you come back as?
I wanna be a whale. I saw a whale the other day and they’re just out here chilling. You can’t really f*ck with a whale, and they don’t really f*ck with you. They seem pretty peaceful.

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Interview: Grant Brydon
Photo: Liam MF Warwick

‘Faces’ is out now and available here.

Related: more Swan Song features
Related: Mac Miller interviewed in 2013

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Furry of face and woolly of hat, Johnny Lynch is the modest mogul behind the much admired Fence Records (until last year) and new label Lost Maps, while also making sweet, sweet soundz as The Pictish Trail. He’s also hooked up with Moshi Moshi for a full release of the semi-seminal Pictish albums, ‘Secret Soundz Vol. 1 and 2’, out now. And another new venture, the Howlin’ Fling Festival, launches on his home island of Eigg in July, with Beth Orton, Steve Mason, Alexis Taylor, and the whole Lost Maps roster – quite a campfire choir. 

Meanwhile, he’s just back from tour. So, Mr Trail, tell us some tales…

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The Pictish Trail, ‘Wait Until’

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Best Trip…

“The best tour is always the last one I’ve been on. I really love being on the road. It all depends who you are touring with, as opposed to the places you travel to, really – and I’ve been lucky that most of the tours I’ve done over the past few years have been with good friends. 

“My whole attitude to touring evolved about six years ago, when I did my first headline tour as Pictish Trail, accompanied by my pal, Rozi Plain. She was amazing – really full of energy and enthusiasm. Particularly about breakfast. “JOHNNY,” she’d squeal, as she zipped up her sleeping bag each night, “IN APPROXIMATELY EIGHT HOURS WE ARE GOING TO EAT A DELICIOUS BREAKFAST! GOOD NIGHT!” 

“Breakfasts are now one of my favourite aspects of touring. Breakfast! It’s the meal that hangovers made you forget.”

Worst Trip…

“One of the worst trips was with a previous band, that I played guitar in, years ago. We had the supposed ‘luxury’ of a tour manager – who was a complete arsepiece from day one. Totally incompetent, as well as being relentlessly misogynistic, lazy, arrogant, and a pervert. Plus he made a really annoying slurping sound whenever he drank a beverage. Ugghhh. 

“I had to leave the band, in the end – his attitude towards women was intolerable, and it was starting to rub off on the rest of the group. I don’t know if he was just trying to fit in, be ‘one of the lads’, but he made a month’s worth of touring feel like a freeeeaking eternity. I’m no killjoy, I like to party as much as the next guy – but disrespecting women is not my scene.”

My favourite foreign venue…

“Playing La Cigale in Paris was a standout treat. The venue is the perfect shape, and it’s in an amazing location, really close to the Sacré Coeur and some great places to eat. I was supporting Kate Tunstall, and so it was a completely packed-out show. The stage is incredibly well designed so that everyone can see you, making interaction with the crowd really easy – which, when you’re doing a solo show, is really important to me.”

I’m surprisingly popular in…

“I don’t know if I can say I’m ‘popular’ anywhere, really. I know that I get my biggest crowds in Edinburgh and London, but I wouldn’t say I’m popular in either of those places. Somehow, though, I've managed to make a full-time career out of music for the past 10 years… so maybe I’m surprisingly un-popular? Ha! Ach, I’m always surprised to see anyone turn up at my shows – truly. Music’s all I can do, really... so I’m not able to give it up, now.”

The best, or worst, exotic foodstuff…

“For the most part, a tour budget will dictate what you can and can’t eat. We recently played in Dundee, on a Lost Map showcase tour, and we all went for dinner at a gourmet burger place. There was about seven of us in the group, and the burgers were all quite small, and overpriced. Luckily, Suse from Tuff Love found a pube in her chips, so we got her burger for free, and all the rest at half price. Cha-ching. She had to throw half her chips away, mind.”

The most interesting item I’ve brought home…

“I’m not a big one for souvenir shopping.  I’ll buy records, because record shopping is one of my favourite things to do, but that’s about it really. I tend to lose more stuff than I gain – except weight. If I come back home with all of my musical equipment still working, I’m happy.  This never happens, though.”

The most intriguing human I’ve met on the road…

I briefly met Wayne Coyne at Camp Bestival a few years ago. Total dude. He was stood at the side of the stage during our gig, and came up to me at the end of the set and was all like ‘DUDE, YOU WERE TOTALLY F*CKIN' ROCKIN’ OUT ON THAT GUITAR, MAAAAN! F*CKIN’ AWESOME!’

“That meeting really couldn’t have gone any better. I’m a big, big fan. Even if you’re someone that doesn’t like The Flaming Lips, you can’t deny what an incredible creative force of nature that man is – he’s living, breathing proof that creativity does not die with age. The ideas he’s brought into fruition, even over the past five years, are stunning to me. The Flaming Lips are a huge inspiration.”

My essential travel item…

“Uuuuughhh, I hate myself for saying it, but it’s my phone. I use it for emails; for bugging people on Facebook and Twitter about coming to the shows; as a Sat Nav so that I can find the shows; as a personal stereo; as a fart-noise app; recording ideas for new songs; booking accommodation online, etc. If I could do my entire set on an iPhone, I probably would. Don’t hate me.”

My essential travel tip…

“Always have a positive attitude. If you’re feeling down, remind yourself that life is good, and that you are a good person. This will make you feel better, and it will make those you are touring with feel better. Being moody and grumpy will only spoil your journey, and your show. NOW GO GET ‘EM, TIGER!”

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Interview: Si Hawkins

The Pictish Trail’s new single, ‘Long In The Tooth’, is released on August 18^th. Johnny plays at the Old Queens Head in London on July 1^st, with Rozi Plain and Tuff Love – all sorts of information and that can be found at his official website. 

Related: more Good Trip, Bad Trip features

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Games are great, and if you don’t think so, get out. They allow us escape, exploration. They indulge our fantasies, and focus our realities that bit sharper. They entertain and educate. The interactive medium, right now, is the most progressive form of artistic expression out there. And yeah, you can shoot stuff up real good, too.

All of these games are particularly good. They make up Clash’s 7 Of The Best (of 2014 so far).

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Mario Kart 8
(Wii U. Developed by Nintendo EAD/Bandai Namco. Published by Nintendo.)

A delight to play with friends in the flesh, complete strangers online, or alone against AI racers or your own fastest lap times, Mario Kart 8 is everything Nintendo needed it to be.

This is the best Mario Kart yet, and its loving remixes of tracks from previous iterations, combined with 16 excellently realised new courses full of anti-gravity sections, makes for great longevity – you’ll be beating your quickest performances for months to come. Customisation options for your chassis, wheels and glider means that each track can be raced in different ways – go for grip over top speed, or take a chance on swift acceleration at the cost of weight enough to stand up to the bumps of powered-up rivals.

The first properly HD entry in this long-running series (dating back to 1992), Mario Kart 8 looks beautiful, running at a consistently smooth 60fps on single-player, and experiences no discernable lag when played online. A triumph, basically, and one that even the repeated impacts of spiky blue shells can do nothing to tarnish.

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Monument Valley
(iOS and Android. Developed and published by Ustwo)

Small but perfectly formed, Monument Valley is the most gorgeously designed, gently probing mobile puzzler seen for some time. Based on the impossible architecture of MC Escher, its stages require the player to manoeuvre walls and stairways, rotating entire buildings to open new paths for the game’s silent protagonist, Ida. There’s a story to the game, but it’s never forced onto you – take as much of it as you want from clues left on later stages, and from the limited prose of a ghostly guide.

What is certain, regardless of whether you construct a meaningful narrative from proceedings, is that Monument Valley will resonate on an emotional level – its art and design matched to its ambient soundtrack convey a palpable melancholy. It takes some cues from predecessors – there’s many a critic who’s identified some Fez DNA in here, and a healthy glug of Echochrome physicality – but such is Ustwo’s commitment to realising a concise experience that can be enjoyed in a single, rewarding sitting, that this game really does stand apart from any contemporary peers.

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South Park: The Stick Of Truth
(Multi-platform. Developed by Obsidan Entertainment. Published by Ubisoft.)

Did anyone see this coming? Games based on the South Park franchise have been terrible in the past. But The Stick Of Truth benefitted from the direct scriptwriting involvement of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and all of the role-playing experience that Obsidan has to offer. The result is a hybrid RPG that uses real-time combat alongside timed cool-downs and menu systems more synonymous with the Final Fantasy games. It’s also hilarious – and that’s coming from someone who’s not watched the show in years.

Some of the action cuts a little close to the bone for those of a sensitive disposition – the Khloe Kardashian foetus boss fight is the stuff of nightmares. But a wealth of good-humoured nods and winks to gaming conventions and genres, beside a torrent of clever in-jokes and gameplay that challenges without offering insurmountable odds – you’ll want to play to the end, for the story to tie together its multiple surreal tangents (spaceships, Nazi zombies, Game Of Thrones-style warfare) – makes this a surprisingly compelling affair.

Easily the best game to carry the South Park brand, although it’d only need to be half as good as it is to carry that honour.

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Sportsfriends
(PlayStation 3, PS4, PC, Mac. Developed and published by Die GUte Fabrik)

First impressions count. The new Thief sluggishly revealed itself, and there’s no shame in admitting to falling away from its questionable thrills. Watch Dogs opened with a cavalcade of waypoints and quest options so overwhelming that it was easier to just tune out and go on a rampage. Sportsfriends, though, struck with the sweetest kiss.

This multiplayer four-pack of bonkers quasi-sport events is an absolute blast from the first moment the controller’s in your hand and you’re thwacking a ball on a washing line (I guess) from one side of the screen to the other with what’s a cross between a pole vaulter’s most essential piece of kit and… a great big floppy dong. That’s Super Pole Riders, but equally squeals-worthy is BaraBariBall, where the aim is to dunk a ball into the opposing team’s water while avoiding their attacks. Someone, somewhere, rightly called it Super Smash Bros. meets Speedball 2. And if they didn’t, we’re having that.

And then there’s Johann Sebastian Joust. Which no amount of on-this-screen explaining will do justice to. So, look here instead. 

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Kiwanuka
(iOS and Android. Developed and published by CMA Megacorp)

Another mobile puzzle game, but unlike Monument Valley, Kiwanuka may well short-circuit your brain attempting work out just how to progress. The pitch is Lemmings on acid, which is reductive for sure but does summarise this game’s aesthetic dimension, as the player controls a leader figure with a magical staff, whose powers are used to guide a gaggle of followers to a level-completing doorway.

Initially, it’s easy, showing you how to best manipulate this crowd of acolytes into towers and bridges, enabling the traversal of otherwise deadly terrain (or lack of – a lot of the time there are just Big Gaps Everywhere). But pretty quickly the difficulty ramps up and it becomes a game of quick reactions as much as lateral thinking. A quick tap here to break a bridge might seem suicidal, but it is actually the only way to drop your little fellows down to safe ground. So tap already, tap.

Addictive to the extent where even some repetitive (powered by dubstep!) music can’t have you putting your iPad down – mercifully, this isn’t an Impossible Road-style mute-is-the-only-option experience – Kiwanuka is a rare treat on an App Store full of hollow-promise F2P titles. Pay your money and take away your game, all neat and tidy, likes. You need nothing more.

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Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
(Multi-platform. Developed by Kojima Productions. Published by Konami)

Never should quality be confused with quantity in gaming, unless you’re one of those complete freaks who gets all of their kicks from grinding through RPGs in order to level up so highly that the first boss you battle proves as difficult as scraping mud from a shoe. Ground Zeroes is short, well done you for noticing. It’s so short that its main missions – all two of them – can actually be finished in less than four minutes. That’s both of them, in under four minutes. Seriously. Here’s the proof. 

So, £20 for a game that could be over quicker than the time it takes to listen to Ed Sheeran’s latest number one single (assuming you can stomach it) – doesn’t sound like brilliant value for money, does it? But Hideo Kojima’s prologue to 2015’s next-Metal-Gear-proper The Phantom Pain offers great depth and acres of replay value if you choose to explore it. The single environment offered – a 1970s US black site based in Cuba, named Camp Omega here but serving as a transparent Guantanamo analogue – offers a wealth of strategic options to complete its pair of core mission objectives. Sneak, slaughter, shuffle, put ‘em all to sleep – this game world is yours to exploit how you see fit, and it’s never a dull place to be, even on a third or fourth playthrough. For most people, an initial run through the game will take between 60 and 90 minutes – and after that comes a series of bonus missions to undertake.

Ground Zeroes strips back its maker’s cinematic tendencies – the top-and-tailing cut scenes are relatively brief for Kojima, who thought nothing of inserting a 71-minute sequence of them into Metal Gear Solid 4 – and focuses instead on raw action, of a kind flexible to suit any play style. It’s visually arresting, spotlights dancing over rain-soaked clothing and weapons, and Keifer Sutherland’s introduction in the lead role of Snake isn’t as jarring as fans of David Hayter’s performances were fearing. It positively oozes quality, so to dismiss it on account of brevity is to miss out on a brilliant distillation of Metal Gear Solid’s enviable qualities.

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Valiant Hearts: The Great War
(Multi-platform. Developed and published by Ubisoft)

War is hell. Valiant Hearts tells us that much: through its uncomfortable audio of screams and explosions, a distinct contrast compared to the cartoony look of its UbiArt Framework engine (also used on Rayman Legends and Child Of Light), and a great deal of background information about the game’s settings and events. Set in World War I and taking its narrative cues from letters written between friends and loved ones during the globe-consuming conflict, this is an important game which educates through immersion.

Some might think its presentation of this-actually-happened facts heavy handed – games are supposed to be enjoyed, after all, and there’s no pleasure taken from learning of the Germans’ use of poison gas during the second battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915, or the true horror of what happened at Verdun, where over 700,000 soldiers fell. Yet, this reality frames the player’s navigation through the battlefield and its trenches, during which time conflict is minimal, the game focusing instead on puzzles. Nothing is too difficult – Ubisoft Montpellier, the team behind Valiant Hearts, wants to speak to you on a personal, emotional level, to explain how these men and women, children and animals (a dog is a key companion), suffered so that the next generation didn’t have to. Or so they hoped.

And Ubisoft has really succeeded. Valiant Hearts is small, and could be easily overlooked with so many more war-themed games on the market. It doesn’t put you behind a gun too often, something that will confuse those raised on a steady diet of Call Of Duty games. It’s not the most thrilling few hours you’ll spend in the company of a controller in 2014 – but it does really drive home the sacrifices made during The Great War, sending the player away permanently changed.

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Words: Mike Diver

(Mike writes about games, sometimes, when he’s not on Clash – here and here, mostly.)

Related: The Clash Games Column

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A quick headcount in the office: one, two, three… seven. Well, that’s handy. Now, everyone write about just one favourite album of 2014 so far. Bingo. These are the personal favourites of the in-house Clash team. They’re all thoroughly decent.

(Click artist names for related articles.)

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Chet Faker – ‘Built On Glass’
(Future Classic, released April 14^th)
Chosen by Joe Zadeh

By nature, loungey jazz pop doesn’t often make you sit up and go, “Holy f*ck, this is bloody good loungey jazz pop.” But, honestly, this album will hit you like John Coltrane’s ‘Crescent’ being hummed a cappella by 200 Aaliyahs at a Brooklyn block party in the ’90s.

Alone, in a small converted cooling room in North Melbourne’s meat market, Chet Faker (real name Nicholas Murphy) dipped his toes quite regularly in the warm waters of insanity while making this record, scrapping two album’s worth of tracks en route, and paddling slowly towards the blinding light of what he perceived as artistic satisfaction. Which makes you feel all the more grateful that he made it. He named the album ‘Built On Glass’ and it’s a titular harbinger for what is encased within: total transparency.

With a soulful voice carved into shape by three years of shows, whisky and answering questions about his beard, Murphy paints his lyrics like an impasto, filling the tracks with naked flame heartache, mountain-top admissions of love and twisting tales of betrayal, all derived from the changes that a career in music has enforced on his life. It’s irresistible charm shagging unbearable anxiety under the moonlight glow of one overarching motif: that with unique luxuries come unique problems.

As an electronic producer with a Cthulhu-sized appreciation for soul, R&B and jazz, his sound is rich and motley. On tracks like ‘Talk Is Cheap’, the jazz is abundant, and it opens with a melancholic saxophone melody, before an opiated hip-hop beat drops into place. At the other end of the scale, ‘Blush’ has a touch of garage before flipping into a hypnotic prang out, and ‘1998’ is essentially a Chicago house revenge track.

Consequently, and the reason it’s my album of 2014 so far, I’m still finding crevices of quivering melodic satisfaction tucked away in this record’s expanses.

‘Talk Is Cheap’

Listen on Deezer

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Sharon Van Etten – ‘Are We There’
(Jagjaguwar, released May 26^th)
Chosen by Robin Murray

Given the intensely personal, often quite fraught subject matter, it’s almost impossible to know where to start with ‘Are We There’. Sharon Van Etten’s voice, of course, is powerful yet limber, bringing to life those lyrics – and what lyrics they are – with near effortless grace.

But perhaps it’s only right to take the album as a whole, as a distinct document obeying no rules but its own. Opening with the lush lustre of ‘Afraid Of Nothing’ this damaged beauty soon meets the raw, emotional intensity of ‘Taking Chances’. In Van Etten’s world, behind each smile is a cracked visage, with each damaging personal crisis being superseded by a wonderful sense of grace.

Album centre-point ‘Your Love Is Killing Me’ is a lengthy, meditative search for meaning amidst a damaged, abusive relationship. The lyrics are terrifying – “break my legs so I don’t run to you” – not only in their physically punishing nature but also in the belief that Van Etten will, even after all this, go straight back to her lover.

A relatively straightforward indie-rock song in its structure, the use of such forms only serves to underline Van Etten’s lyrical message. ‘Tarifa’ opens with little more than gently strummed guitar chords, allowing her voice to take free rein, hurling itself from pillar to pillar in the process. ‘Nothing Will Change’ is simple and direct – the shortest song on the album, it’s akin to a jazz ballad in its softly retained feeling.

Closing statement ‘Every Time The Sun Comes Up’ is a soft, elegiac ending, suggesting that – after all this pain – some kind of solace must come. It’s here, in this lingering mixture of beauty and pain that Van Etten seems to reside: the two bleeding into one another, and naked truth the result.

‘Taking Chances’

Listen on Deezer

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Wen – ‘Signals’
(Keysound, released March 31^st)
Chosen by Felicity Martin

From its inception, grime has been protest music. Channelling the high-rise tension of tower blocks back in the early ’00s, the tone of the genre was one of aggression – but also liberation. Fast-forward to the present day and we’re wallowing in the aftermath of the riots, with cuts confronting the urban youth more troublingly than ever.

There’s no doubt that, as a genre, grime is still a vibrant entity – look at the furore surrounding Lord of the Mics VI, the melodic explorations of the Boxed gang, and inspiring MCs such as Novelist coming through.

Yet the debut LP from Owen Darby AKA summons the ghosts of arguably a more dynamic past, when MC culture was more immediate. “Man on lockdown… fam’,” cry disembodied voices on ‘Intro (Family)’. “Pull-up…” On ‘Nightcrawler (Devils Mix)’, Owen takes a scalpel to Wiley and Ghetts’ on-air beef.

With an illuminated traffic sign as its cover, ‘Signals’ is strictly a record of the streets: a love letter to road. Pirate radio snippets are cut and pasted onto grime that’s not quite its usual format – shifted into a slower, 130 BPM template. This is a stilted impression of a darker, more “austere" London.

Despite its crowds and bright lights, the city can be a cold and brutal place. It breeds detachment – familiar faces are few, and to convey this, Owen’s tool is fragmentation. The stark minimalism of ‘Signal’’s soca percussion nods to UK Funky, dubstep and grime in one addictive flow. Like the producer’s B-side refix of Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Strings Hoe’, dread-ridden strings appear in abundance, plucked out of a violin and held in space.

“It’s UK, it’s real,” urges the album’s introduction. By calling on grime’s ghosts to punctuate the tracks of his record, Wen worships not just the past, present and future of grime but UK ‘bass music’ (as unfortunately nebulous a term as that is). “Big up my family,” the opening track thunders. The scene is there – albeit not in its exact same form as it was in 2004. But, like the inevitability of signage on our roads, it’s unlikely to fade any time soon.

‘Vampin’’

Listen on Deezer

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Ought – ‘More Than Any Other Day’
(Constellation, released May 5^th)
Chosen by Mike Diver

From nothing: a blinding light. That moment when someone reveals the morning sun from behind blackout blinds, streaming into and burning through your retinas; a bulb sparks the darkness into retreat and the effect is briefly, brilliantly dizzying, ever sense electrified but peripherals lost to dazed distortion. That’s turning ‘More Than Any Other Day’ on for the first time. Absolute focus, complete attention.

This Montreal-based foursome meant nothing to me a second before pressing play on their debut album, a stirring set released through Canadian indie institution Constellation. A second into opener ‘Pleasant Heart’, I was already hooked. Just a guitar – a not-quite-right-sounding guitar, all broken glass and razor wire and metal on metal. And then beats, pounding a march, and a yelp – a triumphant, here-we-are emptying of lungs. And then the lyrics came worm-like, wriggling, beneath everything, only to leap to the fore as passion overcomes them.

It gets better, and better. ‘Today More Than Any Other Day’ celebrates every man in the street, every corner store, every breath and step and minority and conversation. “Everything is going to be okay,” we’re told – and bloody hell, do these men ever hope it. Don’t wallow, callow youth, this world is yours to shape. Get out and get at it. ‘The Weather Song’ is the album’s most immediately yes track, a number that finds its way to extremities and dances them silly. And on it goes.

“A change, I want it!” ‘Gemini’ is a teeth-gritted closer, a final demand. It screams itself to breaking point. And all I want to do is pick up its pieces and go around again, eyes now open to a dazzling band that, eight songs earlier, was just a name on a download I might never have clicked.

‘Today More Than Any Other Day’

Listen on Deezer

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The Phantom Band – ‘Strange Friend’
(Chemikal Underground, released June 2^nd)
Chosen by Simon Harper

This entry could quite easily have been so different had the entirety of ‘Xscape’, the ‘new’ Michael Jackson album, lived up to the promise of nostalgic disco-pop opener ‘Love Never Felt So Good’. But the regrettable decision to include a song titled ‘Do You Know Where Your Children Are’ turned this posthumous at-first-fun album into a Frankenstein’s monster whose bolts quickly unscrew.

Fortunately then, the wild laboratory creation of Glasgow sextet The Phantom Band takes the lead as my most gratifying beast of 2014 thus far. This third album takes its lead from the wealth of ambitions that made 2010’s ‘The Wants’ such a dizzyingly impressive and intriguing record.

‘Strange Friend’ wades tenaciously through a mercurial swamp of sounds and styles, which at times trips you up and sucks you in to its brilliant lure. Call it Kraut-folk, prog-funk, or maybe psycheCeltic (sorry!); whatever the pigeonhole, its unpredictable twists, turns and textures make for a listen that’s constantly fresh with repeated listens.

Rick Anthony’s baritone burr anchors the capricious creature, introduced wonderfully in his strident delivery over motorik opener ‘The Wind That Cried The World’. From there, we’re propelled through ‘Clapshot’ and the angularly anthemic ‘Doom Patrol’ before the rustic ‘Atacama’ tempers the pace. Things get cosmic on ‘(Invisible) Friends’ amid swirling synths, and plaintively pretty on ‘No Shoes Blues’, while the vivid funk of ‘Women Of Ghent’ tempts us willingly into eccentric closer ‘Galápagos’, as a brisk percussive workout leads eerily into an apocalyptic concluding drone.

Spontaneous and enigmatic, with reckless rhythms and driving dynamics,  ‘Strange Friend’ has proven a timely accompaniment to impulsive summer days, and will hopefully endure henceforth.

‘The Wind That Cried The World’

Listen on Deezer

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tUnE-yArDs – ‘Nikki Nack’
(4AD, released May 5th)
Chosen by Matthew Bennett

Merrill Garbus makes music that feels exactly like the typography of tUnE-yArDs. It’s all bold angles and invading sound levels, a warm tumble of noise. If we didn’t know she was a former puppeteer from New England we’d be convinced she is a musical queen from Africa’s Serengeti.

We also aren’t sure how Garbus has tamed her mischievous panoply of drums, but we’re thrilled she did. I saw her incredibly promising set at South By Southwest in 2011, though her paroxysm of ad hoc looped drums, joyous ukulele and bold choral sorties were spasmodically a mess.

So ‘Nikki Nack’ does exactly what we needed it to do. Along with bassist and co-producer Nate Brenner she’s refined the expansive pop visions of her low-fi debut ‘BiRd-BrAiNs’ and more sturdy 4AD follow-up ‘w h o k i l l’ to further compress her skill and style.

After the modest opening of ‘Find A New Way’ we are greeted by her first great new record ‘Water Fountain’ – a garrulous denotation of sunshine flavours further intensified by her lyrics awash with themes of sex and drought.

‘Time Of Dark’ starts with loose, plunging passages of percussion before she transforms into typically bold soaring chorus. Once again she reinforces her commitment to a most singular vocal delivery.

Likewise ‘Hey Life’ hears her insistent rhymes deliver machine gun pace before she hooks us with an album peak – “I don't wanna run out / So I'm runnin' runnin' / Hey hey hey hey life / Why do you keep me around?” – sung with unforgettable style.

‘Sink-O’ keeps us off balance and tottering on our heels with its equally magnetic delivery. But then there’s the bizarre incidence of the interlude. The album’s halfway point hears ‘Why Do We Dine On The Tots?’ trundle in from stage left, a theatrical skit of an old man wondering why they must eat their children. This is must what it must feel like to be delusional.  As abruptly as it arrives it departs and we are channelled into a second half of equally ambitious proportions.

‘Stop That Man’ references New Order’s drum machines and themes of citizen arrests and gender. ‘Left Behind’ is a boisterous charge at gentrification while ‘Wait For A Minute’ applies her typically frantic pace to the topic of procrastinating as Garbus gazes into the mirror to idle away her J. Alfred Prufrock moment of existential angst. 

‘Nikki Nack’ is a journey structured by pace and space. It is irrepressible, life affirming, polyrhythmic, harmony drenched and powered by her visceral chanting. It is an African-inspired charge straight at our heads. And what it lacks in subtlety it more than compensates for in rhythmic dexterity and loquacious audacity.

'Water Fountain'

Listen on Deezer

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BadBadNotGood – ‘III’
(Innovative Leisure, released May 5^th)
Chosen by Anna Wilson

The admirably contrary contemporary Canadian jazz trio made quite the industry splash covering leftfield hip-hop and electronic artists over the course of their last two albums. Collaborations with Odd Future and Frank Ocean were daring and bold, and subsequent releases veered from startling reinterpretations of songs by Kanye West and Nas to the soundscapes of My Bloody Valentine.  

On this third release, all songs are self-written and wittily original. They continue to embrace their ambitious spirit, but arguably some of their previous rawness and anarchic aesthetics have been eschewed in favour of tighter composition and impressive musicianship. But what seamless musicianship it is. They’ve moved beyond improvisation to create something unique: a suite of songs simultaneously meandering and loose yet tense and tightly coiled. There may be less jamming, but these songs are in super-sharp focus.  

Recorded entirely with analogue equipment, ‘III’ has that honey soaked halcyon, classic jazz sound but with the pin sharp production of Frank Dukes (50 Cent, Danny Brown). Incorporating for the first time additional bass, percussion, strings and seriously lush saxophone interludes, it veers from ice-cold synth pop to dirge and Zappa-like humorous ingenuity, all in the blink of an eye.

Not every song works – some are a little conservative, even utilitarian. But overall there’s a fierce amount of talent and creativeness here that is missing on most instrumental albums these days. It’s just as indebted to progressive fusion, post rock and Krautrock in its time signatures and unusual melodies and phrasing as it is to contemporary jazz. Intelligent, and impressively inventive.

‘Can’t Leave The Night’

Listen on Deezer

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Related: More 7 Of The Best features, including more ‘Of 2014 So Far’ pieces

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Summer is a tricky little bastard at the best of times, but Tomas Barford from Danish synth-pop act WhoMadeWho, seems to have snared it with an exclusive 'Summer Pop' DJ mix for Clash.

Hitting somewhere between the leftfield electronica/pop blend of jazz-techno outfit of Brandt Brauer Frick and the huge, wholly appealing melodies of synth-poppers Hot Chip, WhoMadeWho have come a long way since their self-titled debut album in 2005.

Their rise may have been aided by ‘accidentally’ headlining Benicassim in 2007 (when scheduled headliners Klaxons were delayed on route to the festival), but they capitalised on it perfectly, and have grown into a fully formed songwriting outfit with a lot of crossover appeal and some hefty pop songs in the bank. Latest album ‘Dreams’, released earlier this year, showed the band’s songwriting at its most accessible.

Barford’s Clash mix rolls, bounces, glitches, ebbs and flows on a thoroughly sunny and summery tip, taking in hazy electro, spacey R&B, kaleidoscopic house and much more. We couldn’t tease a tracklist out of Barford, the scamp, so you’ll have to unearth these nuggets yourselves, but we promise it’ll be an enjoyable exercise.

Listen to it now... Grab it HERE.

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WhoMadeWho play at Tauron Nowa Muzyka festival in Katowice, Poland, from August 21st - 24th. More info here.

Words: Tristan Parker

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Plenty of people make music videos. And some of them make us go wow, just a little. Sometimes even a lot. Here are seven of those sometimes…

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clipping. – ‘Work Work’

The Sub Pop-signed trio’s ‘CLPPNG’ album was unlucky not to feature in our 7 Of The Best: Albums Of 2014 So Far. This striking, beautiful, shattering video for ‘Work Work’ ensures their place here, though.

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Katy Perry – ‘Dark Horse’

So bright you need blinds on your retinas. The blues, the golds, the pinks, ‘Dark Horse’ is a video that makes maximum use of HD potential, as much an eye-worm as it is a catchy pop tune.

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Yung Jake – Look’

Complete opposite end of the budget spectrum after the above, but just as can’t-look-away of impression. That’s one smart phone.

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The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – ‘Until The Sun Explodes’

Pure Saturday morning cartoon vibes – so much so we’re sure the cast of Ulysses 31 is going to gatecrash this crew’s party times at any moment and spill misery on the cake. Rather them than Jem, mind.

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Young Fathers – ‘Get Up’

Another act with a phenomenal 2014 LP already to their name – ‘Dead’ came out through Big Dada in January – SAY Award winners Young Fathers focus their live performances on pure, astounding physicality. And ‘Get Up’ captures this quite brilliantly, beside a distressed narrative. See the eyes. You don’t doubt these guys.

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Hawk House – ‘Chill Pill (Experiment 2)’

In, out, in, out – slow-bump it all about. London’s rising rap trio – one of the hits of this year’s Great Escape in Brighton – set their meditative beats to a gently mesmerising monochromatic visual akin to something you might expect accompanying a single from The xx. Smooth.

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St Vincent – ‘Digital Witness’

Just as intoxicating on the eyes as Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’, but painted in more pastel shades. Plus, we’re pretty sure Annie Clark feasts on everyone’s brains once the cameras stop rolling. Look at her in the corner, all ashamed.

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Naturally, there should be some honourable mentions here. But that’d ruin the whole 7 Of The Best thing. More articles like this, focusing on the best that 2014 has had to offer so far, here.  

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Really, it's much more than we could ever have expected.

Manic Street Preachers’ new album ‘Futurology’ – their 12^th studio set, no less – is packed with the kind of spit, fire and daring which most bands lose within their first tour.

Absorbing post-punk and ‘new pop’ influences, it’s an album which continually looks outward, projecting a pan-European ideal fusing the remains of the former Eastern Bloc with their native Wales.

The album is awarded 8/10 by Clash here, with reviewer Gareth James writing that it’s “the Manics doing what they do best, with added Krautrock, Georgia Ruth and Green Gartside. A rum cocktail, indeed.”

Gifted time with both James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire, Clash promptly swotted up on the Russian Futurists and Norwegian Expressionist painting. The results of that conversation will be published soon.

We also asked you lot for a few questions – it’s nice to be nice, like. The responses were swift and varied. Ignoring pleas to play certain towns and cities, as tour dates will no doubt be announced soon enough, we gathered together some of the daftest and most oddly insightful questions submitted.

So ahead of our full feature on the making of ‘Futurology’, here’s Manic Street Preachers vs Clash Readers.

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Manic Street Preachers, ‘Walk Me To The Bridge’

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Ian Wade: Given their reformation, do you still hate Slowdive more than Hitler?

Nicky Wire: I’ll be diplomatic here and say that it was actually Richey’s quote and unfortunately he’s not here to be asked. But I understand his pettiness.

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Rod Needham: How many sugars do you take in your tea?

James Dean Bradfield: I take a quarter of a teaspoon. I do it myself. If somebody offers to make me a cup of tea I just say: ‘No, I’ll do it myself.’ I am a tea pedant.

N: I hate tea. I really despise tea.

J: I have at least eight cups a day – I’m a tea dragon. That’s just one of my nicknames.

N: I made a cup of tea in the studio for someone just the other day and James literally rushed over and chucked it away! You said it was like something you’d give children... you called it baby’s tea!

J: It was like baby’s tea!

N: I don’t drink tea.

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Owen Wilkinson: Are B-sides dead?

J: B-sides are dead but we went and created at least nine extra tracks for this album so we’re going to find something there. There’s one, actually, which I think could have been on the album. But it’s another instrumental and we couldn’t have another instrumental on there.

N: There’s one called ‘Anti Social Manifesto’, which was close as well.

J: So they may be dead, but we’ll keep on doing ‘em.

N: We certainly seek out our own. I guess it’s hard to find anyone else doing it.

J: It’s always important to fans, especially when you’re young. Whether that’s ‘Angels and Devils’ by Echo & The Bunnymen, which was the B-side of ‘Seven Seas’. Or ‘Did You No Wrong’ which was the B-side to ‘God Save The Queen’. Two utter, quintessential moments that you would never have found on any album, but they gave you something else.

I just levitated when I discovered ‘Angels and Devils’; I just played it over and over and over and over again. I sat upstairs in my bedroom until I got that voice from downstairs shouting: ‘James! Turn that off!’

N: I think ‘Well I Wonder’ was a B-side before it was on ‘Meat Is Murder’. I remember ‘Asleep’ by The Smiths, a B-side of ‘The Boy With The Thorn In His Side’, I think it is. F*cking amazing. Just Morrissey and a piano. ‘Asleep’ was gorgeous.

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Cieran Owens: What’s your opinion of Plaid Cymru and of Welsh independence, given the Scottish referendum?

J: I think Plaid Cymru have been left in the wake of the SNP. You’ve Rhun ap Iorwerth, who’s just been elected up in Ynys Môn, up in Angelsey – he’s seen as the shining light of Plaid Cymru, that he could actually make it seem like a party that’s not a one-issue party anymore. People from outside see it as being a one-issue party, partly because of the language issue. Which is obviously an important part of what they are. But I suppose they’ve got to express to other people in Wales, let alone outside of Wales, that they’re more than a one-issue party.

Alex Salmond just seems like such a committed politician. He’s left everybody in his vapour trail, in a way, because everybody just seems less committed when you compare them to him. Leanne (Wood)’s doing a good job for Plaid Cymru, she’s the first non-natural Welsh speaker to actually become leader of the party. A lot of people see Iorwerth to be the guy to tip them over the wall, put their heads above the parapet and make them seem like a proper political party. So that’s the view. That’s not my opinion – that’s the view.

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I think we have changed people like The Smiths changed people, like The Clash changed us...

- - -

Fionn Wright: Do you think the Manics – or any band – have had any genuine political impact? And Nicky, what’s your favourite dress?

N: Oh, wow… starting with the most important one, what’s my favourite dress? As David Gedge would say. It’s a white number which I bought in Cuba in a hotel lobby. I was in Cuba and I basically had a cross-dressing breakdown.

J: It was actually quite serious!

N: I felt pretty oppressed. I sat in my room and put tonnes of make up on, put this dress on and then sat looking at myself in the mirror... and then we had to do a photo session. I gave that dress away in a competition for Jo Whiley on Radio 1 and apparently it got lost in the post, which was even more frustrating because I wish I still had it!

What was the other question? The less-important one? Politics! I think we have changed people like The Smiths changed people, like The Clash changed us. I think we’ve spoken to enough fans who’ve went on and become journalists and such like to know that some of the references we’ve used have become pointers, to give them that little nudge in a political direction.

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Graeme Tennent: Which three bands – past or present – would you like to go on tour with?

J: Well, we’d have to support them. I’m not sure, really! Off the top of my head… the original line up of Deep Purple. A great band.

N: But Jon Lord’s dead so I’m not sure if that’s feasible.

J: Can we get them back from the past?

Yes…

J: We’ll have them. Nicky?

N: Abba! Just a great, great band. And particularly if they looked the same now as they did then. Some of the lyrics, though, especially the lyrics about the break-up of a relationship, are just absolutely wonderful, really incredible stuff. And the sessions guys they had are fantastic, I mean, those basslines…

J: How many is that? We’ve got one more? I think… Super Furry Animals! To have them back, playing that catalogue… we’d gladly support them.

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Words: Robin Murray
Photos: Alex Lake

Related: Manic Street Preachers: The Complete Guide

‘Futurology’ is released on July 7^th and reviewed here.  Manic Street Preachers online.

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There’s a new Transformers movie out: Age Of Extinction. Reviews so far have been, well, mixed at best. But then, what was anyone expecting? The fourth instalment in a mega-money-spinning series that is now said to run to six releases, enjoying a second-trilogy reboot of sorts, Age Of Extinction again pairs the titular morphing metal titans with director Michael Bay, while the script is handled – as it was for the atrocious Revenge Of The Fallen (2009) and barely any better Dark Of The Moon (2011) – by Ehren Kruger. Face it: this was never going to be a Nolan-like rebirth.

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Transformers: Age Of Extinction, trailer (2014)

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And yet, here I am, eager to see Age Of Extinction. The simple common sense of adulthood – don’t waste what little money you have on crappy cinema experiences – has been, once more, beaten down by my childhood nostalgia running amok. I’ve seen all of Bay’s previous Transformers movies, and only the first, of 2007, really had anything going for it that made for a pleasurable addition to an already vast, multimedia franchise. It ticked fan-service boxes, with its throwback transformation noises and blend of frenetic action and goofy humour, balancing relatable human characters (for the most part) with ginormous robots bashing bolts off each other.

What came next: pure CGI carnage porn, with the bare minimum of a plot to hold the flying sparks and severed limbs together. These were Kruger’s creations, and they were terrible. No reason to believe that Age Of Extinction isn’t another stinker – and a current rating of just 18% on Rotten Tomatoes says, yep, something is definitely whiffy about it. A 90-minute toy commercial fleshed out with a few chase scenes and instances of human peril: sure, we can all get behind that at the summer box office. But 165 minutes? There isn’t enough Bayhem in the known universe, from here to (the Transformers’ home planet of) Cybertron and back, to fill that sort of running time.

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I’m Optimus Prime!

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So why this pull I’m feeling? Why am I going to, eventually, give Age Of Extinction the time that I know I’m going to regret giving it as soon as the credits roll? Because the 1980s, basically. The kids of today, aged anywhere between three and their early teens, know Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Ironhide and so many other core-canon characters of the Transformers series – but they know them very differently to how anyone aged, say, 30-and-some upwards will. This isn’t about to become a hackneyed, golden-age reminiscence, spouting on about how Generation 1 is so very superior to everything that followed it. Because that’s been done to death, and there’s something else to consider here, anyway. Transformers was always crap.

There, I said it. Whereas Star Wars, another massive role-play presence in the playground of the mid-’80s, was a film first and a bunch of got-got-need toys after, many of which were gobbled up by older siblings anyway, never to be shared, Transformers was only ever a toy line, ruled with merciless efficiency by Hasbro. Anything else was window dressing, marketing, pressure on parents to pick up a new-design Optimus Prime from Woolworths because now he came in a ‘Powermaster’ guise. (There has been an almost uncountable number of toy Primes over the years, including an A Bathing Ape-branded model, and an extremely limited-run release cast in vacuum-metalized gold. Slick.) In the 1980s we had the animated TV show, the comics, the lunchboxes and the stationary and the wallpaper, but it all added up to just one thing: buy our toys.

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No, I’m Optimus Prime!

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Which we did – or, rather, our parents did. I recall, fondly, the Christmas that I opened my own Prime – a toy that’d soon enough lose both arms to younger brothers. Equally, I was thrilled to receive Soundwave as a present – whereas Prime was the wholesome leader of the heroic Autobots, the good guys of the Transformers power dichotomy, Soundwave was the ice-cool communications expert of the enemy Decepticon forces, who came packaged with a cassette-tape-that-turns-into-a-bird companion. His battery turned into a gun. He was awesome.

When transformed into his stereo disguise, the Soundwave toy was much bigger than Prime as a truck. Which was hilarious for a six-year-old, as I’m sure you can imagine. He sounded great in the TV show, too, voiced through a whole box of effects by Frank Welker (who also provided dialogue for the characters Megatron and Rumble, as well as lead roles in the Scooby Doo and The Real Ghostbusters cartoons, and the parrot from Deep Blue Sea). But I’m getting off point: Transformers was always crap.

The cartoons were terrible, in that cheesy all-American way where the good guys prevail with a chuckle and the baddies end up slightly bruised by the experience but ultimately ready to return next week only to shit things up all over again. But the Marvel-produced comics that we got in the UK were actually pretty decent. For a while they towed a Hasbro party line, keeping things colourful, cheerful. But when they earned the right to get dark, oh my. Some 332 issues were published, and by the end of the run it was very much a case of how many ‘Bots would be left standing, as writer Simon Furman took great glee from eradicating characters from proceedings. It could be traumatic for a young reader – and do I ever still recall those robo-zombies. Shudder.

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Zombieeeeees!

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There was precedent: in 1986, the first Transformers film came out. When critics talk of Age Of Extinction being the fourth movie, they omit this animated affair, commissioned to shake up both the toy line and the TV show, which had debuted two years earlier. Hasbro wanted new products on the shelves, so some old favourites had to go: see ya, Prime and Megatron, both of whom are written out in a tears-spilling death-match showdown, and hello to new faction leaders. The movie’s plot is unremarkable, taking cues enough from Star Wars – unlikely hero, a mystical force, the destruction of entire planets, Leia’s hairdo – but delivers enough fairy tale-like tangents to ensure that, unlike Revenge Of The Fallen, it’s at least clear what the hell is going on.

Nevertheless, The Transformers: The Movie was completely panned on release. Orson Welles, in his final professional role as the gigantic Unicron character, a consumer of worlds, was completely dismissive of it, and Variety called it “unintelligible, noisy and unoriginal”. True– if you were coming to it with no prior knowledge of the stories. True– but even (in the new movie!) Mark Wahlberg gets down to this. And totally true– see that whole Star Wars thing above. And yet, it today enjoys more than just a cult following: head back to Rotten Tomatoes and you’ll see it has an 88% audience approval rating, and 7.4 on IMDB. Something, clearly, connected. However crappy the reality of the movie was. And it was pretty crappy.

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The Transformers: The Movie, trailer (1986)
(Check out this one, too, with lots of non-Movie animation)

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But not so crappy that I don’t still get a rush when I hear ‘The Touch’, or feel my skin prickle when certain scenes are on show – I’ve watched the 1986 film with my oldest son, and have found this scene in particular a pretty harrowing flashback, and also a reminder of the movie’s terrific/terrible cock-rock soundtrack (although this somehow still fills me with awe). As it stands, the ’86 (perfectly well) animated picture has the highest IMDB rating of any Transformers film – a pretty damning statistic for anyone involved with the Bay-helmed live-action releases. And no great shakes in and of itself, on account of the movie being crap. Entertaining crap from the perspective of an old-boy fan(boy), but definitely crap.

So why am I going to see Age Of Extinction, a 34-year-old father of two in a queue to watch almost three hours of not-even-there machinery go to war? Because, embarrassingly, it’s long been in the blood. Transformers is no guilty pleasure, as I’m quite upfront with enjoying many of the older stories and naming favourite characters (always Ironhide and Sideswipe from the Autobots, Shockwave and Soundwave from the ‘Cons) – but watching the last two movies has been horrible. Yet something draws me back, like the great maw of Unicron itself, and I’m unable to resist. I am being sucked into it. Kruger, Bay, come at me. I’ve more memories ready to be trampled. Can’t wait.

Aw, crap.

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Transformers: Age Of Extinction will be reviewed in the Clash Film Column before long.

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North Korea in not being amused shocker…

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That was the week in which...

North Korea declared war on James Franco and Seth Rogen.

It sounds like a tagline for one of Michael Bay’s brash and brainless flicks, or an unreleased episode of South Park, but it’s seemingly true. The BBC has reported that a North Korea foreign ministry spokesman stated: “Making and releasing a movie on a plot to hurt our top-level leadership is the most blatant act of terrorism and war and will absolutely not be tolerated.”

The film in question is The Interview, a film in which Franco and Rogen play two celebrity reporters who are recruited by the CIA to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Of course, it can’t be a particularly fun experience to discover that a whole bunch of people thousands of miles away have spent millions of dollars on a film that’s intended to make strangers laugh at your death. But it could be worse: they could’ve sent him a copy of The Number 23 on Blu-ray.

Assuming the whole story isn’t some sort of huge-scale joke intended to dramatically boost the film’s profile in one fell swoop, a far nicer result would be for Kim Jong-un to embrace his enemies. Franco could dramatically revitalise Jong-un’s sense of style and especially his haircut, and taking some tips from Rogen’s all-round blokey charm could reverse his ogre-ish reputation.

Maybe Franco and Rogen could reach out first: HEED THIS OPPORTUNITY! YOU CAN CHANGE NORTH KOREA FOR THE GREATER GOOD OF HUMANITY!

The Interview, trailer

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The Big Film: Cold In July

There are moments when Cold In July lives up to its stellar reputation and others where it appears to be the most bewilderingly over-rated film of the year. It commences with a moral quandary recalling A History Of Violence before quickening the pulse for some Cape Fear-style stalking. It then drifts into an almost satirical tribute to John Carpenter’s greatest hits and moves towards a conclusion that feels like a particularly challenging level of Hotline Miami. And it’s far odder than such a summary can explain.

Sporting a comedy mullet, Dexter’s Michael C. Hall leads as Richard, a shop-keepin’ everyman who blows away a burglar. The law says it’s okay and the community treats him like a hero, which leaves him even more confused by the emotional turmoil that his actions provoke. There’s not a great deal of time to worry about it, however, for his ‘victim’ is gaining an afterlife vengeance courtesy of his sinister father (Sam Shepard). Soon enough, the two became allies in one of the daftest plots twists of recent memory and are joined by a larger-than-life private investigator (Don Johnson) who immediately overshadows everyone with his blend of Texan clichés and extreme violence.

Director Jim Mickle can certainly capture tension and foreboding with the help of a Carpenter-style synth-heavy soundtrack and some gloomy cinematography. If you can forgive its dafter excesses, the plot moves in some entertainingly strange directions (notably with a nod to the long-forgotten world of VHS video nasties) en route to a finale that, contradictorily, is as predictable as they come. It’s good. It’s bad. It’s ugly. It’s Cold In July.

Cold In July, trailer

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Also Out: Mistaken For Strangers

Since Spinal Tap, stars have been mythologised, psychologised and rediscovered by the rockumentary director. Nick Broomfield played detective as he picked through the evidence which surrounded the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, while Dig! and Some Kind Of Monster witnessed the implosion of the very bands under inspection. This latest addition to the rock doc genre, although ostensibly about The National’s 2010 tour, almost entirely neglects to include the band – fleeting figures in a film that instead concerns itself with unpacking fame, sibling rivalry and family.

In an effort to help his younger brother (and straight-to-video-filmmaker) find direction in his life, the band’s frontman Matt Berninger enlists Tom as a roadie. In this task, as in so many others, Tom is simultaneously enthusiastic and inept, preferring instead to point a camera at himself rather the band. Back stage, on tour buses and in bars, beers are drunk, tears are shed and arguments had as Tom picks through the footage of this band – itself made up of brothers – and slowly comes to terms with the nature of creativity and success in this strange and affecting movie. Words: Kingsley Marshall

Mistaken For Strangers, trailer

Related: Tom and Matt Berninger in conversation

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New Talent: Tye Sheridan

Who? A 17-year-old Texan who has already built an enviable filmography.

What’s he been in? After debuting in Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life, Sheridan excelled with a key role beside Matthew McConaughey in Mud and also with Nic Cage in Joe.

What’s coming up? There’s almost too much to list: The Forger with John Travolta, horror mash-up Scouts vs. Zombies, Last Days In The Desert with Ewan McGregor, the all-star Dark Places, and The Yellow Birds with Benedict Cumberbatch and Will Poulter.

They say:“Tye is just an exceptional talent. We know that and we’ve seen it time and again in his performances. I like to work with young people because young people haven’t had their dreams kicked out of them yet. They’re full of confidence and imagination and vision and when they score, that all gets empowered. Tye was a great example of that.” Nicolas Cage

He says:“That’s one of the coolest things about acting, I think, that you can be someone you’re not. I mean, that’s not you on the screen. Some of these characters are nothing like me. I’m not violent at all. I’ve never been in a fight. And it’s like, every film that I’ve been in I’ve gotten into some kind of fight. It’s cool because it gives you a challenge and you get to experience things that you normally wouldn’t in your own personal life.” Metro (US)

Joe, trailer

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Shorts

Eli Wallach (pictured) died at the age of 98 leaving a stunning filmography: The Magnificent Seven, The Misfits, How The West Was Won, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, The Godfather III and many more. His final films included Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and The Writer.

Last weekend’s UK box office #1 went to the tearjerker The Fault In Our Stars. Clint Eastwood’s Jersey Boys and Kevin Costner’s 3 Days To Kill both hit the top 10 but took a combined total of approximately half of that of the still popular 22 Jump Street. If everyone who attended the same The Art Of The Steal press screening that I did had paid a tenner for the privilege, it would’ve added around 5% to its opening weekend total. Which is a long-winded way of saying that nobody much saw it.

A Kickstarter project is underway to finance a documentary about Shirley Collins, an English folk singer who joined the renowned songhunter Alan Lomax on a musical voyage of discovery across America’s Deep South. Much more more info can be found here. 

Finally, it seems that El Topo / Holy Mountain director Alejandro Jodorowsky and Kanye West are pals. Jodorowsky read West’s Tarot and described him as “a beautiful child-like soul”, which seems like a rather backhanded compliment.

Como dos buenos amigos, Kanye West y alejodorowsky. pic.twitter.com/kqo3DZrcZ4

— Alejandro Jodorowsky (@alejodorowsky) June 18, 2014

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Words: Ben Hopkins, except where indicated

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John Oates, half of one of pop’s most enduring duos, shares tips on success and longevity as part of Clash’s Rock And Rules series…

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‘Private Eyes’ (US number one, 1981)

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Learn Your Craft

“The best thing to do for a musician or songwriter who would like to pursue it as a career is to listen to the people that they respect and admire. Try to learn from them initially and then hopefully have an original sound emerge from that. That’s the tried and true method that’s been used over the years.

“I’m not a fan of the American Idol instant stardom type thing. I believe in learning your craft and paying your dues and practicing. I’m very old school in that regard. So if I had any overall broad advice it would be that.”

Stick To Your Guns

“You should always believe in yourself. Having self-confidence and believing in your own personal creative vision is very important. It’s difficult to stick to your guns and be true to yourself because there’s a lot of pressure to sound like whoever’s ‘happening’ at the moment, which is a common pitfall for a lot of artists and there’s a lot of pressure from the business side to do that. Being a true original is very difficult, but everyone should strive for that.

“We made all kinds of different records; we made soul records, we made R&B records, we made experimental rock records. It took years for us to evolve to the point where we created our own unique sound. We were fortunate to have grown up during a time when record companies actually allowed you to make creative mistakes.”  

Keep It Real

“We’ve never had a master plan but went with our gut feeling. We just tried to do what we thought was musically good. We had a certain criteria for what we consider to be good. We based it on what we liked. We didn’t base what we liked on radio, or other people’s opinions, or record companies telling us what was good. We just made our music and hoped for the best.

“You have to be true to yourself, that’s what soul music is all about. Soul music comes from the heart. It comes from the soul of the person who is putting it out there. It’s got to be truthful and real. But if you want to try different things and experiment and spread your wings then you have to be responsible for the success or failure of your experimentation.”

Control Your Image

“I might have taken the music a little bit more seriously in the ’80s and reconsidered the stupid music videos that we did. We didn’t care about music videos and we didn’t think of them as important, yet these things actually live on forever, on the Internet, for the rest of your life. So if I were to do it all again I’d take a little bit more care and artistic control over the music videos.

“But other than that I’m very happy with our body of work and I think we’ve accomplished something that not many people can accomplish: staying together for a really long time, writing songs that are still being played on the radio, that people still want to hear after 40 years. That’s a major accomplishment in itself, so I’m proud of all that.”

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‘I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)’ (US number one, 1981)

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Interview: Anna Wilson

Hall & Oates play Latitude Festival, which runs July 17^th-20^th. Click here more information. Hall & Oates online.

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It’s all too easy to feel like you’ve lost a friend when a musical hero dies. Their work has affected you so deeply, and has been in your life so long that they’ve become an innate part of your DNA. Too many heroes have left indelible scars upon their passing, but, thanks to one unforgettable day in late-2012, the impact Bobby Womack made on me – and indeed Clash’s reciprocated love – was profound and genuine. Today, I’ve lost someone who inspired me, who touched me with his humility, openness, and evident passion.

Photo shoots are notoriously long and often challenging days, especially when working with musicians. There is often a tangible tension in the air, as everyone orbits the star, trying to make them happy, trying to get great results while never wanting to make them uncomfortable. Bobby Womack was shot for the cover of Clash Issue 81, our end-of-year edition, in which his new album ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’ (his first in 12 years, co-produced by Damon Albarn and XL boss Richard Russell) was voted our favourite of the year. This significant achievement validated a creative renaissance and the rejuvenated spirit that Albarn and Russell encouraged from Bobby, and he was so moved and motivated by the honour that he arrived on set absolutely ready to roll, with complete trust in everything we asked him to do.

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Behind the scenes: on the set of Clash’s Bobby Womack photo shoot 

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It turned out to be the best cover shoot I’ve ever been a part of. We’d been advised by his PR to ensure that we shouldn’t expect too much activity – he was 69, he had just conquered pneumonia and colon cancer, and was still in recovery. Our concept, therefore, kept things focused on the most expressive part of him: his face. Our research suggested he was man that loved his hats and shades, so we collected a vast range of adornments and spread them out on a table. Ranging from Westwood’s tall Mountie hats (way before Pharrell) to his own corduroy cap, he had the pick of headwear. His eyes, meanwhile, could be decorated with octagonal frames, designer shades, and a variety of sculptures made from found object by eyedress artist Cyrus Kabiru.

It was a startling and disparate collection, and we didn’t know what his reaction would be. Some image-conscious young hipster may have run a mile. Bobby beamed as he scanned the assortment; “Whatever you want me to wear, I’ll wear it,” he grinned, genuinely excited. “You just give it to me, and I’ll put it on.” (Later, in our interview a week or so later, with time to reflect, he told me: “I was talking to my ex-wife last night and I was telling her out of all of the interviews, the commercials, and especially pictures [I ever did], I wear glasses and I said I never had anybody come up with that idea. It was real fresh to me… I really got off on it.”)

The day progressed with Bobby sat down for the duration, as around him the photographer, Rory Van Millengen, and Rob Meyers, Clash’s Creative Director, buzzed around him, moving the lights or replacing his accessories so he needn’t moved. All the while, he’s regaling those on set with amazing stories from his past - remembering his mentor, Sam Cooke; remembering how friend and former bandmate Jimi Hendrix would hide his sandwiches when food was scarce on the tourbus; remembering his initial horror when first hearing The Rolling Stones had covered his song, ‘It’s All Over Now’.

It was a glimpse into history. It was a man so comfortable in his surroundings, so proud of his life, so happy to be able to share it, that he just glowed – sitting so still and serene – like Buddha, with devotees hanging upon his every word. “It truly was an honour to be embraced by his world for even that short day,” Rob commented today. “I’ll never forget his kind and inspirational words.”

In turn, our shoot would make a similarly substantial impact on Bobby. It spearheaded his return to the limelight, turning heads with our unique and stunning photography, and introduced him to a new generation of fans. It was the perfect album for the times - his gruff soulful voice had lost none of its emotive qualities, while Albarn and Russell’s thoroughly modern and complementary accompaniment was a marriage made in Heaven. So pleased was everyone with the results, XL reissued ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’ with Rory’s photography on the cover. We were honoured.

An excerpt from our cover story is online to read now, here, and we’ll run the whole interview with the original photography soon. Discover for yourself the insight of a man thrilled to be back doing what he loves, and the story that led him there. I just wish he could have carried on. He said in our interview that he almost felt guilty that he was still around to make music, while Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass, Wilson Pickett and so many of his old friends weren’t, and that his role now was to “carry the ball” for them. He did so much more than carry it: he scored a touchdown.

While we await the cause of death, I take comfort in the fact that even despite his recent illnesses he created this final work of art, and even though he regretted that his biggest fame would arrive so late in life, he was still intent on enjoying it. “The break that should’ve came 30 years ago is coming now, and my body is falling apart,” he said. “My dream – the way it should have been – has just come along. I give the credit to God, because I don’t know what kept me around, but I’m gonna make the best of it.”

Thank God he did. Rest in peace, Bobby.  

BOBBY WOMACK ON SOUL TRAIN, 1971 - 'THAT'S THE WAY I FEEL ABOUT CHA'

Words: Simon Harper

The dreamy Sébastien Tellier is back with a new album, ‘L’Aventura’, released on July 14^th. It follows 2013’s ‘Confection’, awarded 9/10 here. 

Tellier’s been in Brazil – to be fair, who hasn’t, one way or another, of late – and his new record reflects some influences found in South America. Recent single ‘L’Adulte’, for instance, clearly showcases some of those foreign flavours, new to the Frenchman’s work.

Have a listen to the track below, ahead of Tellier’s take on this week’s batch of new-release singles.

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Sébastien Tellier, ‘L’Adulte’

Sébastien Tellier, ‘Aller Vers Le Soleil’ (also from 'L'Aventura')

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The Black Keys – ‘Bullet In The Brain’

“That’s not bad for an old-fashioned song. It smells like the wood of folk guitars. I like the voices and electronic guitars drowned in reverb. I felt good listening to this song.”

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Coldplay – ‘A Sky Full Of Stars’

“An exaggerated sad feeling comes from this song. The sky is supposed to be filled with stars, but seems very empty with a melody like that.”

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Liars – ‘Pro Anti Anti’

“It’s too simplistic to be appreciated. What I like in music is chords and melodies, and there’s none in that track.”

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Sia – ‘Chandelier’

“The most insipid music I’ve heard this month. Hats off to you! Where did you find this shit? Ten years late at all levels.”

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Jon Hopkins – ‘We Disappear’

“Very good music for a documentary about organic farming. I don’t understand this song’s art direction. It looks like a guy with a tracksuit and smart shoes.”

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Phantogram – ‘Fall In Love’

“We expect a good track with the intro, but I got bored fast. A million try to do like the others…  Mmm mmm.”

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‘L’Aventura’ is released on July 14^th via Because. Find Sébastien Tellier online here. 

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Seven outstanding cinema releases of the year so far, as chosen by Clash’s film contributors.

(Please note that selections are based on UK release dates.)

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12 Years A Slave

With 12 Years A Slave, Steve McQueen created a masterpiece – a film that is both savage and tender in equal measure. The true story of Solomon Northup’s kidnapping in pre-Civil War USA is one of horrific happenstance that sees a loving family man torn from his comfortable life in New York and forced into Southern state slavery. Chiwetel Ejiofor brings a quiet solemnity to Solomon that is much in contrast with Michael Fassbender’s maniacal plantation owner who revels in his own barbarism and prides himself on being able to ‘break’ his property – slaves. And although backs were broken in the fields and spirits pushed beyond breaking point, hope is a constant for Solomon in an experience that both appals and amazes. Gareth Kolze-Jones

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Dallas Buyers Club

This is an exceptional and essential piece of modern cinema. As Ron Woodroof, a Texan who reacts to his HIV-positive diagnosis in the early days of the AIDS epidemic by seeking alternative forms of treatment, a physically atrophied Matthew McConaughey cements his place as a truly fine actor – a continuing reinvention following strong performances in Killer Joe and Mud. The whole film feels ripped from the vitality and urgency of the American New Wave of the 1970s, and in channelling that energy becomes one of the most important movies of the last 10 years. Andrew Law

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Her

As far as sci-fi cinema is concerned, there’s nothing new about falling in love with your computer. Yet for all the antecedents, it’s never been done quite like in Spike Jonze’s self-penned film Her. Set in a near-future Los Angeles utopia, Her is a captivating pastiche of light-hearted rom-com and hard-hitting societal examination, centred on the relationship between Theodore and his Operating System love interest Samantha. It’s through this well-worn conceit that the film negotiates its true interest – that distinctly modern complaint that Theodore nails when he says, “Sometimes I think I’ve felt everything I’m gonna feel.” In Her, we perhaps have Jonze’s first masterwork – a wry meditation on love, lust, and life. Jack Enright

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Nymphomaniac

So many strands of Lars von Trier’s previous films quietly influence his controversial double-bill Nymphomaniac that it feels like the Dane’s personal greatest hits collection. There’s the grim despair of sex and control falling into disequilibrium that he previously mined in Breaking The Waves; there’s the absurdist humour of The Boss of It All; the explicitness of Antichrist; the sheer audaciousness of The Kingdom. Being a professional contrarian and all-round madcap bastard, only Lars could use sex addiction as the starting point for his most thought-provoking, emotional and funny film to date. Ben Hopkins

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Pulp: A Film About Life, Death And Supermarkets

Pulp’s last hurrah – a homecoming gig in Sheffield – is the starting point for this documentary, but its main focus is not the Jarvis Cocker fronted five-piece. Its scope is far wider. Taking a fascinating, witty and affectionate look at the city’s ‘common people’, Pulp: A Film About Life, Death And Supermarkets mirrors the no-nonsense ordinariness of its subjects, and it’s ultimately a film about all of those things. It shows real life and real people, erasing any of the self-indulgent pomp and ceremony associated with rock and roll as it anchors Pulp to their roots. Echoing the subject matter of their songs, it gives more of an insight into the band than many a more conventional rockumentary would. Kim Francis

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The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson’s films tend to ramble and roll as his characters loquaciously debate everything from the foibles of their upbringing to existential discussions of their place within the wider world. Essentially a shaggy dog story by nature, The Grand Budapest Hotel uses plenty of the director’s usual collaborators who are again spoiled with the wealth of their dialogue, but the plot bombs forward with a manic energy that stretches across both eras and geography. It makes for an experience that’s definitely Wes Anderson, but also one that feels a step apart from his prior work. Ben Hopkins

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The Wolf Of Wall Street

Even the most cynical mind can’t watch The Wolf Of Wall Street without briefly considering that with money, power, woman and brotherhood, Jordan Belfort’s life must’ve been awesome. Yet only the most hedonistic, emotional vacant soul could view the film as a blueprint for life. Expertly seesawing this celebration / condemnation of emotionally vacant, money-fuelled hedonism, The Wolf Of Wall Street isn’t Scorsese’s finest film (look at the competition) but it could well be his most enjoyable. A howling, hilarious rush through bad behaviour and a scathing satire on the moral vacuity of the 1990s stockbroking scene, it’s rammed with killer performances (Jonah Hill perhaps even overshadowing Leonardo DiCaprio) and shoots past with a gonzoid energy that fully justifies its three-hour running time. Ben Hopkins

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Related: more 7 Of The Bests for 2014 so far

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The music world lost a legend on June 27^th, as celebrated soul man Bobby Womack died at the age of 70. He’d been due to release a new album, ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’, later this year – the follow-up to his sensational 2012 comeback, ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’.

Said collection, co-produced by Damon Albarn and Richard Russell, was Clash’s album of the year for 2012 – and, accordingly, we featured Womack on our year-end cover. The interview from that issue (81) has never before appeared in full online, with complete photography. To mark the great man’s passing, here it is.

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Look, if you gonna go and reach, reach…

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You know someone is important when their personal assistant is a professional Barack Obama lookalike. Yes, even fake presidents follow in the wake of Bobby Womack: soul superstar, bona-fide legend, and full-time survivor. But when both men walk onto set for Clash’s cover shoot, shit gets real.

They’ve come to East London all the way across town from their record label’s Notting Hill base on a day packed with duties, and we’re fully expecting them to be grumpy for doing so. Added to this fact, we were expecting Bobby to be indignant at the suggestion he get changed for the camera – trust me, we’ve dealt with enough difficult divas and cooler-than-thou indie kids to know that image is precious.

So it was refreshing, and something of a relief, that while perusing our vivid assortment of vintage, designer and decorative glasses and hats, Bobby simply conceded: “Whatever you want me to wear, I’ll wear it. You just give it to me, and I’ll put it on.” Meanwhile, Arthur, Bobby’s aforementioned right-hand man, is whooping with laughter, claiming: “This is gonna be one to remember!”

He’s not wrong. What follows is three hours of the easiest and most fun shoot Clash has ever experienced, where in between swapping hats and shades, Womack entertains the studio with stories collected from his 60-year career (more on which later), some involving Sam Cooke, others Jimi Hendrix, but all delivered with a beaming smile.

We’re here today because Clash has judged Womack’s latest album, ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’, made in collaboration with Damon Albarn and XL founder Richard Russell, our favourite long-player of the year. “That’s great news,” Bobby responds, genuinely grateful of the honour.

It’s an album that crowns his career, which bridges generations, genres and technologies, and one that nearly killed him. It’s music that affects the depths of your soul, that makes you want to dance, that makes you want to cry.

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‘Whatever Happened To The Times’ (2012)

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From the title track’s dark, humbling sermon, we experience the paralysing pain in ‘Please Forgive My Heart’, where Womack pleads over sparse piano and penetrating, warm beats. ‘Deep River’ is a stripped-back gospel original, just Bobby, his guitar, and a direct link to decades past, and then Lana Del Rey adds her ghostly refrain to ‘Dayglo Reflection’.

We hear the 2012 equivalent of Jackie Wilson in the irrepressible ‘Love Is Gonna Lift You Up’, while the pounding techno punch of closer ‘Jubilee’ comes complete with Womack’s seasoned baritone layered all over itself. Forward-thinking the album certainly is, and we’re in love with it. Looking back at its genesis, however, Bobby admits he could never have predicted its impact.

“Matter of fact, I didn’t have no idea at all. I just knew that it was different than anything that I had ever done. I mean, working with Damon and Richard, it was just different - their approach was different.” How so?

“One thing different was the way that we would come up with songs. I’d never sit down and work on material, except for when we got in the studio. They would throw something at me, and the next day I would come back with the song. It was just great, and it was very fresh. Plus, I had never cut with a band so small – it was only about three pieces. So I would say, ‘God!’ And they kept saying, ‘Yeah, I just think the most important thing is your voice should be out there. You got an incredible voice’.

“So, I was just saying, look, if you gonna go and reach, REACH! You can’t say, ‘No, don’t do it that way!’ We didn’t have that argument! We just went right in and kept going. It was magical.”

The Womack/Albarn partnership dates back to when Damon got in touch with Bobby asking him to contribute vocals to the Gorillaz album ‘Plastic Beach’ in 2009 – he sang lead on first single ‘Stylo’, and ‘Cloud Of Unknowing’. When Womack confesses to never hearing of Albarn’s outfit, you can believe him – even when talking about them now, he calls them ‘Gorilla’. Bless.

“I told Damon to send me some material and let me hear it. Now, my daughter just walks in when I was listening to the tapes, and she said, ‘Dad, what are you doing listening to Gorilla?’ I was shocked. I say, ‘You know them?’ And she said, ‘Dad, that’s one of the hottest groups in the country. What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Is that against the law? I’m just listening!’ So she said, ‘Well, I sure wish you would cut with them.’ She said, ‘Dad, that’s the way you can get back in it!’”

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If I’m still living, I wanna keep living. I wanna try out the new things…

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Impressed by Damon’s work ethic, clean lifestyle and professional attitude, Bobby found himself a new partner, and even agreed to tour with Gorillaz, accompanying them across the globe, even though he’d only perform his two songs each night. “They said, ‘You only gotta be on stage 10 minutes’,” Bobby remembers. “I said, ‘Ten minutes? It takes me that long to burp!’”

But it was an impetus that re-awoke Bobby’s passion and drive, setting himself up for something more. After all, he’d practically retired after his last record, ‘Christmas Album’, in 2000.

“All the people that I grew up with – Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass, Wilson Pickett – all them people are gone! I say, if they left me here to carry the ball, I gotta do it where they feel proud of what I’m doing. And that right there kept me in the game, and just waiting on the opportunity – if it ever came along, I would open up. And it came along, and I opened up. If I’m still living, I wanna keep living. I wanna try out the new things.”

All of which led to Bobby, Damon and Richard convening in London and New York to start work on an album with sessions that blurred the lines of master and protégés. There’s a video on YouTube that provides an insight into what happened behind the scenes with the trio. We see Damon handling piano and keyboards and Richard programming the drums, both immersed in the man and the moment, and Bobby freestyling over their choppy beats. They look like they’re having a ball. Life was good.

Then, things took a turn for the worse. Already diagnosed a diabetic, in early 2012, while putting the finishing touches to this album, the 68-year-old was struck with a string of health problems. He was hospitalised for three months, where he was in a coma for 14 days, had pneumonia three times, and told he had prostate cancer (the tumour was removed, and later proven to be non-cancerous). He hid his medical problems from the public, and thought this exciting new venture would never see the light of day.

“I thought, ‘Boy, isn’t this a drag?’ Now the break that should’ve came 30 years ago is coming now, and my body is falling apart. My dream – the way it should have been – has just come along.”

In turn, having faced death, this became the most important album Bobby had ever worked on. “They allowed me a chance to be me. That means when you grow from materialistic things, your attitude changes as a writer, your attitude changes as a person, your attitude changes period. And I think for the better.”

Apparently healthy now – “but not like I wanna be” – Bobby still has ambitions left. “It’s like somebody breathing life into a dream that you’ve always had,” he says. Yet he can’t guarantee there will be a follow-up to ‘The Bravest Man…’.

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To say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re gonna do another album’, I say, who knows if I’ll still be around…

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“Because, from my sicknesses and all the things that I went through in my life, I say you can’t predict what’s gonna happen tomorrow. I live for today and try to put as much into today, but to say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re gonna do another album’, I say, who knows if I’ll still be around?”

The thought of losing Bobby at this juncture is heartbreaking. Not only would a reprise of this twilight promise be unfulfilled, but the world would lose a true musical icon, a conduit to a bygone era and departed heroes. Another long, rich and intriguing branch of music’s family tree will cease to grow.

It began to bloom in Cleveland, 1952, when Bobby was just eight-years-old, drafted into a gospel vocal group with his four brothers by his Baptist minister (and aspiring guitarist) father, Friendly Womack, with little choice: “My father just said, ‘Hey, you gonna do this or I’m gonna beat you into the next week’, and if you didn’t want that whipping, you wouldn’t say no.”

The Womack Brothers were a sensation on the gospel circuit, and even though Curtis Womack was the lead singer, it was his younger brother Bobby that would steal the spotlight. The group caught the eye of Sam Cooke, himself then a member of gospel group The Soul Stirrers. After leaving to go solo and follow a secular musical direction, Cooke soon launched his own label and publishing company, SAR Records, and in turn signed The Womack Brothers, converted them to secular (against the wishes of Friendly), changed their name to The Valentinos, and relocated them to Los Angeles.

Bobby was the group’s main songwriter and guitarist – a role with which he’d moonlight with Sam Cooke on tour and in the studio. Womack was brought to international attention when The Rolling Stones covered his Valentinos hit, ‘It’s All Over Now’, a move which still rankles Bobby.

“I was saying, ‘Let them get their own song! Write your own song!’ And [Sam Cooke] said, ‘Bobby, you don’t understand. You’ll be a part of history through them.’ He said, ‘You’re giving them their first shot in America and all around the world.’ And I kept saying, ‘Yeah, but I still don’t want them to record the song.’ And he said, ‘Bobby, I own the publishing!’”

Decision made, Womack surely benefitted from the song hitting number one in the UK and its consequent royalties, but what runs deeper is the racial implications of white artists stealing the music of black artists. Despite the Stones’ intention of paying tribute to Womack, it’s one more example in a long line of unfair treatment to artists never given the chance of exposure.

“I look at the black artist as they come a long way,” Bobby sighs. “But it’s a lot of people paid heavy, heavy dues, and was never recognised for anything.”

Following Sam Cooke’s murder in 1964, Bobby was left reeling. The Valentinos were put on ice while he tried to forge his own career – which was marred right at the beginning by controversy when he married Cooke’s widow, Barbara. (Furthermore, Bobby’s brother Cecil went on to marry Sam and Barbara’s daughter, Linda; the pair would later record as Womack And Womack.)

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‘Across 110^th Street’ (1972), as used in the movie Jackie Brown

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Session work with Aretha Franklin, Sly Stone and Janis Joplin led to his own deal with United Artists in the early-’70s, and a proto-funk, raw soul-rock direction that delivered hits such as ‘Harry Hippie’, ‘Woman’s Gotta Have It’, ‘Lookin’ For A Love’, and ‘Across 110th Street’, from the soundtrack Womack composed to the film of the same name.

The latter is a song that still packs a punch – its gritty descriptions of life in the ghetto (“Been down so long, getting up didn’t cross my mind”) are no less potent today, and is testament to Bobby’s incisive and profound talents. He recalls to Clash how he had to persuade his label to let him do a soundtrack – they weren’t sure, however, if this film was right for him.

“I can write about the ghetto – I was born in it. I lived in it all my life. It’s nothing new. And so it happened. And even today, I say the ghetto still will never go out of style. People can still relate to that song. That song was written 40 years ago, but look what it says. Look how we’re living today. So I think all of that comes from being somewhere, and you’re there for a reason. I like to make the reason a positive reason for it to work and give other people hope, and the only way you can do that is through music.”

Bobby’s success waned from the late-’70s, partly due to the effect his brother Harry’s 1974 murder had on him, and then throughout the ’80s, as a drug dependency made his output unpredictable and his personal life precarious.

“I used to play it because I loved to play it,” he reasons, “but once I started seeing that the guitar had a way of making more money for me and putting me in a bigger position, then I lost the craving and the creativity for wanting to play the guitar, unless it was going to bring a song. You see what I’m saying? So when you lose that, you lose the true you.”

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Because creative people are so creative, they think they can figure everything out, and drugs is one thing you can’t figure out…

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A spell in rehab changed his perspectives and his fortunes, and saved his life. “I would like to be able to enlighten new artists and new entertainers that’s coming up: don’t even stop and waste your time,” he advises. “Because creative people are so creative, they think they can figure everything out, and drugs is one thing you can’t figure out. While you’re figuring it out, you know you’re hooked. Creative people are the worst when it comes to that. I seen Marvin Gaye walk past a lot of stuff, but he could not walk past that. The bigger he got, the bigger it got, until you knew what was going to win in the end. The drugs will win.”

As is evident, Albarn’s phone call was the light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. It pulled Bobby through, and out into a world that’s entirely grateful to see him back, and all the better for his experience and hard-earned advice.

“I say one thing to the young generation: if you love this business, you must have a passion for it, because your passion will be tested every day,” he stresses. “Most artists get ripped off before they get started, and when they really learn the business, they’ve already made tonnes of money. If they still can go behind that, they wasn’t doing it for the money, they was doing it because they love the music. And you will get through it.”

His own love reignited, his star shining brighter than ever, Bobby Womack is right where he belongs: lost in music. ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’ is not only a most appropriate title, it’s a testimony to a life dedicated to the pursuit of music and the joy it can bring to others. We hope, Clash signs off, that Bobby can stick around to continue his good work.

“Well I’m hoping too,” he nods. “Matter of fact, I don’t even think of it like that. Even though it comes on my mind, I just say, ‘God, let me just do a tour around the world, then I’ll let it go’. But I just feel the best is yet to come.” Hallelujah.

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RIP Bobby Womack, 1944-2014

Words: Simon Harper
Photography: Rory Van Millingen (website)
Fashion: Zoe Whitfield
Creative Direction: Rob Meyers

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If you only know two Faith No More songs, they’re probably the once omnipresent rap-rock prototype ‘Epic’ (1989) and their hit version of ‘Easy’ (1993) – and they certainly don’t sound like providing enough substance to build an entire career from.

Delve deeper, however, and you’ll find that the San Franciscan quintet spent much of their initial six-album career flirting with genres and switching without notice from sweet to savage. The eternal rumours of a new album have again recently surfaced, but for now we’ve run through their back catalogue ahead of their show as special guests to Black Sabbath at London’s Hyde Park this Friday (details).

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‘We Care A Lot’ (1985)

Some debut albums find bands wearing their influences a little too blatantly, and Faith No More’s ‘We Care A Lot’ rarely deviates from their initial desire to breed PiL with Killing Joke. Nonetheless, plenty of the band’s hallmarks were already on display, notably Mike Bordin’s tribal-leaning percussion and Roddy Bottum’s “the longer the note, the more the dread” approach to keyboards. Chuck Mosely, the replacement for the then-unknown Courtney Love, tops the sound with his characterful-if-monotone vocal delivery and bitingly sarcastic lyrics. The production could be sharper and the songs certainly lack consistency, but the original version of the title track as well as ‘Why Do You Bother’ and ‘As The Worm Turns’ demonstrate some early potential.

‘We Care A Lot’ (1988 single version)

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‘Introduce Yourself’ (1987)

Admittedly Mosley’s vocal range is limited, but he certainly has something unique going on throughout the band’s second album. For a man who later released a solo album titled ‘Will Rap Over Hard Rock For Food’, Mosley’s style is an oddly engaging acquired taste. It’s more of a relentless rhythmic chatter rather than a rap, but his quirky gothic lyrics – and especially the spoken-word sections on ‘Death March’ and ‘The Crab Song’ – are utterly distinctive. The material demonstrates a greater knack for dynamics and hooks with ‘Chinese Arithmetic’ being a standout of the Mosley years and a re-recorded ‘We Care A Lot’ (see the video above) providing the band’s first minor hit. Greater metallic punch from guitarist Jim Martin and Billy Gould’s increasingly common diversions into slap-bass would both prove to be regular traits over the following two albums.

‘Anne’s Song’ (1988)

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‘The Real Thing’ (1989)

By the time of the third album, Faith No More had jettisoned Mosley and replaced him with Mr. Bungle’s Mike Patton, who joined the album’s process when most of the songs had already been written, leaving his writing contribution to lyrics only. Evidently a vocalist with greater technical skill than Mosley, Patton hadn’t yet found the voice that would later serve him so well and sang with a nasally, bratty high-pitch that would rarely surface on later albums. The result was a bigger sound with Bottum’s energising keyboards making ‘From Out of Nowhere’ their most immediate pure rock song, the title track their most openly progressive, and the half-rapped hit ‘Epic’ setting the tone for what would later be known as nu-metal. A faithful cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’ and the sheer aggression of ‘Surprise! You’re Dead!’ only emphasised their crossover appeal.

‘From Out Of Nowhere’ (1989)

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‘Angel Dust’ (1992)

As the band finished work on their next album, the president of their record label visited the studio, heard the results and concluded: “I hope nobody bought houses.” Almost lunatically different from their previous hit album, ‘Angel Dust’ went in weird and wonderful directions including a Tom Waits-style trailer trash approximation (‘RV’), a track which sounded like a soundtrack to a sleazy seventies cop show (‘Crack Hitler’) and an unlikely mash of keyboards, cheerleaders and oral sex (‘Be Aggressive’). Patton’s vocal versatility saw him switch from a croon to a growl at will, while Bottum’s use of samples and increasingly prominent keys almost swamped the guitar riffs. For all its personality disorder sonic adventures, it’s a cohesive work that ends, conversely, with a straight cover of John Barry’s ‘Midnight Cowboy’ theme.

‘A Small Victory’ (1992)

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‘King For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime’ (1995)

The sacking of Jim Martin lead to a Spinal Tap of a revolving door of guitarists as Mr. Bungle’s Trey Spruance recorded ‘King For A Day…’ but then chose not to tour. After the originality of ‘Angel Dust’, the band’s fifth set highlights a greater range of genres in a more obvious collection of songs with a handful of relatively straight rockers punctuated by jazzy soul (‘Evidence’), ironic country (‘Take This Bottle’) and the sprawling title track in which Patton extends from Right Said Fred whisperings to a piercing scream. Perhaps deliberately contradictory, it’s a collection that encompasses random yelping about scatological desires on ‘Cuckoo For Caca’ as well as the band’s most underrated moment when the already dazzling ‘Just A Man’ hits the biggest of finishes with the help of a gospel choir.

‘Evidence’ (1995)

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‘Album Of The Year’ (1997)

While Faith No More’s other albums were marked progressions from their predecessors, their final work feels more of a step sideways with at least a third of the songs possessing a previously hard-to-pinpoint FNM sound and others merely being competent rather than inspiring. It still surprises on occasions, with ‘She Loves Me Not’ coming across like a Boyz II Men pastiche, but it’s still best when the combination of melody, aggression and doomy keys comes to the fore on ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and ‘Last Cup Of Sorrow’. Those tracks matched the best of any of their prior work, but it’s ‘Stripsearch’ that’s the ace in the pack: atmospheric bass-heavy trip-hop taken to a fresh realm by new guitarist Jon Hudson’s climactic biting riffs.

‘Stripsearch’ (1997)

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Everything Else

Faith No More’s excursions into lounge covers were usually at least interesting: The Commodores’ ‘Easy’ was the biggest hit (and was later added as a bonus track to ‘Angel Dust’); a take on Bacharach and David’s ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’ provided Patton’s finest pop vocal; and their take on The Dead Kennedy’s ‘Let’s Lynch The Landlord’ is one of the oddest interpretations that you’ll ever hear. Collaborations with other bands – Sparks (‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ and ‘Something For The Girl With Everything’) and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (‘Another Body Murdered’ from the Judgment Night soundtrack) – were of the love ‘em or hate ‘em variety. In terms of live material, any pro-shot post-reformation video will feature a wider representation of their back catalogue than the one official stop-gap live album, 1991’s ‘You Fat Bastards: Live At The Brixton Academy’.

‘This Guy’s In Love With You’

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Words: Ben Hopkins

Faith No More play London’s Hyde Park, with Soundgarden and Black Sabbath, on Friday July 4^th. Details. Find the band online here. 

Related: more Complete Guides

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Clash went to Glastonbury. We definitely saw some music. Heard some, too. Here are our highlights:

Friday, June 27th (Rudimental, tUnE-yArDs, M.I.A., DJ EZ, Jungle)

Saturday, June 28th (Jack White, Machinedrum, Kelis, Metallica, Disclosure)

Sunday, June 29th (Dolly Parton, James Blake, Massive Attack, Connan Mockasin, Jaguar Skills)

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All words: Felicity Martin
All photography: Carys Lavin

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