Features

This is pretty good, I think. Wasn’t terribly enamoured by the last thing I heard from Karen Elson, the Mildred & The Mice seven-inch, but this is nice, faintly menaced country pop, with some kinship, perhaps, to Neko Case.

Thanks for your forbearance and kind words with regard to Joanna Newsom; it’ll be interesting to hear your thoughts as you hear and live with “Have One On Me” for a while.

One of the albums I played most in 2009 was “II” by Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas, and in fact I got pretty hooked on everything Hans-Peter Lindstrøm had done. It was easy to assume that Lindstrøm, allegedly the musician, was the more prog and kosmische inclined, while Prins Thomas, allegedly the DJ, brought the disco imperative.

It may be a stretch to call Joanna Newsom’s third album her down-to-earth pop record. "Have One On Me" does, after all, extend across three CDs of generally very long songs, features a harp duelling with a kora, and a dream sequence in which the singer arrives before her lover “on a palanquin made of the many bodies of beautiful women.” On the back of an elephant.

Great start this morning, as I’ve just cracked open the new Prins Thomas album, which seems to carry on right where Lindström & Thomas’ “II” left off. In other goodish news, this long-running dickaround will finally be resolved in the next couple of days. I imagine you’ve all guessed what it is now?

There’s a certain grim obligation, whenever tackling Steve Mason’s music, to harp on about The Beta Band’s first three EPs, and the distinctly spotty work which has followed them in the intervening 13 years. It’s a lot harder, though, to try and explain exactly why that initial clutch of songs are so much better.

Worth mentioning the subtitle of this straight off: “Experimental German Rock And Electronic Musik 1972-83”. “Elektronische Musik” is a 2CD comp that pulls off a fine trick that'll be familiar to those of you who’ve enjoyed other Soul Jazz surveys (not least last year’s amazing “Freedom, Rhythm And Sound” revolutionary jazz comp).

Strange beast, this, since I don’t have details about when and where this new Bill Callahan live album was recorded. Weirdly, the 11 tracks on “Rough Travel For A Rare Thing” don’t include anything from last year’s “Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle”, which would suggest that the performances date from between “Woke On A Whaleheart” (“Diamond Dancer” is here) and that exceptional album. But then again, Callahan has long proved he’s much too capricious a performer to make any such obvious assumptions.

Exciting news this week, with the auspicious arrival of three CDs of new music from a big favourite round these parts. Anyone care to hazard a guess who it might be?

A bit of a respite from underground jams today, with a couple of very different takes on folk.