Second album / collaboration between Luke Haines (Auteurs / Baader/Meinhof / Black Box Recorder) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.). Peter Buck plays guitar and feeds LSD to a broken Moog synthesiser. Luke Haines sings songs about God, provides an occasional strum on his guitar and blows Pan’s flute. Scott McCaughey plays the bass and mellotron and Linda Pitmon bangs the ritual drum. Lenny Kaye drops in and has a nightmare in the key of doo-wop. During the last two years, over lockdowns, Luke Haines and Peter Buck retreated to a cold war bunker and recorded this double album / manifesto, monster-piece and masterpiece, in answer to the question: Why are all the Kids super bummed out?
Invited by Deutsche Grammophon to reinterpret Bach’s six cello suites for their Recomposed series, cellist/composer Peter Gregson has come up with beautiful tributes to these 18th-century masterpieces. Following each movement’s natural harmonic curve and rhythm, Gregson explores different approaches, using electronic effects that ripple beneath Bach’s lines (the first movement of Suite No. 5) or taking single bars, transforming them into minimalist gems. Elsewhere, he plays alongside a small cello ensemble, creating playful dances and sumptuous textures. Sometimes, as with the Menuet from Suite No. 1 or the Sarabande from No. 5, Gregson barely touches Bach’s original notes—an homage to the music’s timelessness.