Fiona Apple

Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD. All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in…

he biggest female vocalists of today including Fiona Apple, Patty Griffith and Nikka Costa, come together to pay tribute to the legendary, Cy Coleman. Cy Coleman's work encompasses countless Broadway hits as well as standards performed by iconic artists such as Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Lucille Ball and Tony Bennett. A career spanning well over four decades, Cy Coleman left us with an extensive collection of truly timeless hits. The album peaked at number 32 of Billboard's Jazz Albums chart.

Not only is The Nightmare Before Christmas one of the best musicals of the past two decades; it may well be Danny Elfman's masterpiece, successfully integrating his main influences (from Cab Calloway to Nino Rota) into a fantastic whole. The first disc of this reissue features the original soundtrack, its songs still teetering between dark humor and poetic flights of fancy; this so-called kids' music is at least as sophisticated and skilled as anything you're likely to hear on Broadway. The second disc includes demo versions of four songs on which Elfman plays and sings everything, and five new covers of some of Nightmare's best-loved songs. Marilyn Manson successfully applies his spooky Weimar-circus style on "This Is Halloween" while Panic! At the Disco's lushly orchestrated take on the same tune is closer to the original. Fiona Apple's poignant "Sally's Song" is enhanced by very nice string charts, and She Wants Revenge does a disco take on "Kidnap the Sandy Claws." Best perhaps is Fall Out Boy's cover of "What's This?" which sounds like an unexpected cross between the Beach Boys and Queen. A highly recommended set.

Sharon Van Etten’s career since the release of her second album, 2010’s Epic is well-known; critically lauded albums, films, and television shows have continually displayed her expanding artistry. Upon its release, Epic laid a romantic melancholy over the gravel and dirt of heartbreak without one honest thought or feeling spared. Her songs covered betrayal, obsession, egotism, and all the other emotions we dislike in others and recognize in ourselves. Van Etten's grounded and clenched vocals conveyed a sense of hope - the notion that beauty can arise from the worst of circumstances. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this special album’s release, and to acknowledge the convergence of Van Etten’s present and past work, she asked fellow artists she admired to participate in an expanded reissue, where each artist would cover one different song from epic in their own style. Some are musicians Van Etten herself admired in her early days (Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams, and Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon of Big Red Machine), some are peers (Courtney Barnett, IDLES), and others are part of a younger generation of innovators (Shamir, St. Panther). What they all share is embodied by Epic - a musician frankly communicating themself through the power of music.

Echo in the Canyon is a 2018 documentary film written by Eric Barrett and Andrew Slater, directed by Andrew Slater. The film stars Jakob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Stephen Stills, Roger McGuinn, Michelle Phillips, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Lou Adler, John Sebastian, Beck, Fiona Apple, Norah Jones, Regina Spektor, Cat Power, Jade Castrinos.

If there’s one thing both an elf and a dwarf could agree on, it’s that a little aesthetic brilliance goes a long way. This is why we’re so thrilled to share that Mondo, in partnership with Amazon Studios and Sparks and Shadows, is releasing a gorgeous limited-edition version of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s season one soundtrack. This 10 CD set is an expansion of Mondo’s previous two CD-version of the soundtrack. While the original soundtrack is also gorgeous, this new collector’s edition takes the epic sounds of The Rings of Power to a whole new level./quote]