Features

Not for the first time, a new record involving Neil Young arrives for review, and it strikes me yet again how much this man gets away with. Here, on “Déjà Vu Live”, his curmudgeonly vim has compelled David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash to perform a bunch of songs from his “Living With War” album; presumably, this must have been one of his demands before he signed up for the 2006 CSNY tour.

One of the most popular things on the Latitude blog this past week has been Terry Staunton's "Overheard Conversations"; the most tantalising snippets of chatter he caught while wandering around the festival site. A few of you have been adding your own ones, too: we're particular fans of the "posh goth" who said, ""That's the last time I arrange my wardrobe according to the BBC's 5-day weather forecast."

A bit snowed under with auspicious new things today, amongst them the CSNY live album, Damon Albarn’s “Monkey: Journey To The West”, a new Bonnie Prince Billy live set and, perfect for this heat, Brightblack Morning Light’s superb “Motion To Rejoin”.

Welcome to Waitsville. A place where bad jokes are good, Vaudeville never died, and the talk is of smoking monkeys, weasels and the mating habits of the preying mantis.

It’s the moment half way through the set when she arrives, with a swish of the curtain, on stage astride a giant silver skull, wearing a flowing red trouser suit and cap, that we realise we just aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto.

Plus Endless Boogie, She & Him and our recommended releases catch -up!

I guess we’ve finally mentally returned from Latitude, so it’s the time of the week to unveil Uncut’s office playlist. A few nice new entries that I need to spend more time with, and only a couple of obvious weak links here. Dive in. . .

In the interests of science, I've just had a look at all the blogs we filed at the festival over the weekend, and put together a chart of your favourites, based on the number of page impressions each one has had. Here's the Top Ten:

I guess if there’s an emerging newish music in Uncut’s world, it’s a kind of gauzy, harmonious strain of Americana typified this year by the Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes albums and, a little while back, by the second Grizzly Bear album. I trust you’re not sick of this stuff, because there’s another good one on the way.

Just back from the Mercury Prize shortlist announcement which, as you might imagine, was a hotbed of hype and low-level grumbling about the 12 nominations. I was doing some media-slag punditry, a lot of which revolved around the high-profile absentees: Coldplay, Duffy, The Ting Tings, Kate Nash and the one which actually annoyed me, Portishead. But before I start ranting, here’s the shortlist if you haven’t seen it yet: