Inside our latest free Uncut CD – Take A Load Off: 15 tracks of the month’s best music

The Weather Station, The Delines, Richard Dawson, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and more feature on our latest free CD.

The 15-track compilation, Take A Load Off, showcases the month’s best new music, and comes with our issue dated February 2025.

See below for more on the full tracklisting…

ORDER A COPY DIRECT FROM US HERE

1 Chris Eckman

Buttercup

The Land We Knew The Best is our Album Of The Month, and finds the former Walkabouts guitarist and singer making some of the best music of his life in his adopted home of Slovenia.

2 Jim Ghedi

Sheaf & Feld

The English singer and guitarist tackles the degradation of his hometown Sheffield on his new album, Wasteland – here’s one of the record’s highlights, a raging and heavy amalgamation of elemental rock and folk.

3 The Weather Station

Humanhood

Tamara Linderman’s latest, Humanhood, is one of her finest yet, a mix of stellar songs and fluid instrumental improv. The rhythmic, kinetic title track is a triumph too, which is no mean feat considering the gems in her catalogue.

4 Yazz Ahmed 

Waiting For The Dawn

A Paradise In The Hold is the long-awaited latest from the jazz composer and trumpeter, inspired by her British-Bahraini heritage and the Persian Gulf island’s history of music and pearl diving.

5 Richard Dawson

Boxing Day Sales

Despite Dawson’s joke that this is his attempt at a festive hit, “Boxing Day Sales” is a clever, compact look at consumerism from his upcoming album End Of The Middle: “You can’t afford to not own this/Go on, you owe it to yourself…” 

6 Prison

Eyes For Keys

Downstate is the latest LP from the Endless Boogie universe, with Sarim Al-Rawi, Matt Lilly and Paul Major teaming up with myriad guests for a set of feral, pounding and exploratory rock grooves.

7 Luther Russell

Happiness For Beginners

When he’s not playing with Those Pretty Wrongs or SBT, Russell makes his own albums; his new LP Happiness For Beginners mines the propulsive, melodic gold of early REM and The Replacements, and this, the title track, is a perfect demonstration of the jewels found within.

8 The Delines

Nancy & The Pensacola Pimp

Mr Luck & Ms Doom might be the greatest record The Delines have produced to date, with Willy Vlautin on top form as a songwriter. “Nancy…” is closely linked to his 2024 novel The Horse, and a highlight of the LP.

9 Echolalia

Blood Moon

Here’s a lovely cut from the self-titled debut by this Nashville supergroup, featuring Spencer Cullum and Andrew Combs, incongruously recorded on the Isle Of Wight. Dominic Billett took the songwriting lead for this, a sleepily gorgeous ballad featuring pedal steel and drum machine.

10 Jean Claude Vannier

La 2CV Rouillée (The Rusty 2CV)

Jean Claude Vannier Et Son Orchestre De Mandolines is the latest record from this most mercurial of French composers and arrangers. Strings are out, replaced by massed mandolins and accordion, but Vannier’s genius still shines through on cuts like this.

11 Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)

Van Etten’s band now get equal billing, and their self-titled album finds the quartet exploring airless electro-rock of an infectiously goth-y variety. Check out this highlight.

12 Bonnie “Prince” Billy

London May

The Purple Bird is a rare Will Oldham record made with a producer, David Ferguson, and a team of crack Nashville session players. Such is Oldham’s expressive voice, and the depth of his songwriting, though, that it’s never slick or compromised: his unique vibe is front and centre.

13 Sunny War

Cry Baby

Sunny War’s new album, Armageddon In A Summer Dress, follows hot on the heels of 2023’s Anarchist Gospel, and finds the LA-based singer-songwriter once again working with producer Andrija Tokic. Valerie June and Crass’ Steve Ignorant guest on a surprising and multi-layered record.

14 Squid

Crispy Skin

Bristol post-punks Squid return with a new album, Cowards, that concerns itself with the nature of evil. On “Crispy Skin”, they do that over a background of Terry Riley synths, krautrock rhythms and fidgety guitars, to great effect.

15 Nadia Reid

Baby Bright

Now based in Manchester, the New Zealand singer-songwriter has branched out to supple soul on her fourth record, Enter Now Brightness. “Baby Bright” is a lilting, gorgeous thing, pointing to Bon Iver or the Spacebomb family as much as it does Reid’s own previous work.

THE FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE OF UNCUT, STARRING THE BAND, THE YARDBIRDS, SHARON VAN ETTEN, KEITH RICHARDS, THE VERVE, ASWAD AND MORE IS AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW