Van morrison

The newly reconfigured band throw open the doors on an expansive sixth album. By Victoria Segal. Illustration by Quinton Winter.

WE WERE THE first band of our generation that started to grow up,” Billy Corgan says, reflecting on the making of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 grand opus, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. “The b

In 1974, Mike Oldfield defied the critics and hit the top of the UK charts with Hergest Ridge, the ambitious follow-up to his unexpectedly successful debut Tubular Bells . To coincide with the release of the 50th-anniversary edition, the musician, his siblings and collaborators recount the story of an album created by an overwhelmed 21-year-old taking refuge near the Welsh borders.

1975 was JONI MITCHELL ’ s roller-coaster year: 12 months of romance and heartbreak, adventure and retreat, cocaine and Rolling Thunder. And in the middle of it, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns , her doubling-down on jazz rhythms, exotic melodies and songwriting-as-literature, with (for now, at least) a simpatico crew in tow. “It was just a good vibe,” they tell GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN . “And Joni was at the centre of it, at the peak of her powers.”

Rather gear collection of punky outsider artists’ BBC work recorded between 1978 and 1980.

THERE ARE VARYING degrees of guitar hero, but Carlos Santana is a name you’d expect to find near the top of any list. Like Jimi Hendrix, Brian May or Slash, Santana has transcended guitar music and pe