Various: Sounds of the New West

This cover CD, issued with the September '98 copy of Uncut magazine turned out to be pretty prescient. Let's see — in 1998, I doubt I had even heard of Vic Chesnutt, Calexico, Josh Rouse, Silver Jews, The Handsome Family, The Pernice Brothers, Lambchop or Will Oldham. Since then I've seen all of them play live, apart from the last two, whose albums I've bought. So no big surprise that it's been followed by More Sounds of the New West and Sounds of the New West, Volume 3. I haven't got those ones, but they seem to stick closely to the original formula (you can't continue to be prescient just by repeating yourself).

The CD has a cover version of the title track from On the Beach by The Walkabouts, which I don't remember hearing before. I've got a Radiohead cover version of On the Beach, which I bootlegged off 6 Music, and which is better — in fact, better than anything else I've heard by Radiohead [note: if you're a Radiohead fan, you probably realise that I'm baiting you here, and, since you are wise and peaceful by nature, you will not rise to this bait]. Also Emmylou Harris does a cover version of Neil's Wrecking Ball, with Neil on backing vocals.

MusicBrainz entry for this album