Blogs

Fleet Foxes: “Helplessness Blues”

Perhaps you’ve already picked this up, but the title track from Fleet Foxes’ “Helplessness Blues” has popped up as a free download at the band’s website in the last day.

The Psychic Paramount, Daughters Of The Sun, Metal Mountains

Plenty of interesting psych stuff accumulated here over the past few weeks, while I’ve been distracted by a bunch of other things. A bit of a roundup today, kicking off with Daughters Of The Sun, whose “Ghost With Chains” is forthcoming on Not Not Fun.

Low: “C’Mon”

Since I saw them play a series of shows at the Union Chapel in Highbury a good decade ago, I’ve always felt that Low’s music suited churches. Not because of the religious connotations as such, more because they were so suited to the space, stillness and reverberations inherent in those kind of buildings.

PJ Harvey: “Let England Shake”

The past few days I’ve been reading, on Rob Young’s recommendation, Alexandra HarrisRomantic Moderns, an excellent survey of how British artists and writers in the mid-20th Century tried to reconcile a modernist impulse with the residual lure of English cultural traditions.

Trish Keenan RIP

Spent the past few hours hoping against hope that the unconfirmed stories weren't true... [youtube]Zw5ztuhEat4[/youtube] ...

Date Palms: “Of Psalms”

As I mentioned on Friday, I’m indebted to David for turning me onto this album by Date Palms. Quickly, it reminds me of a bunch of my favourite music - Alice Coltrane, Terry Riley, Pandit Pran Nath, Cluster, Sun Araw, Brightblack Morning Light, PG Six – while combining the influences into something relatively original.

The Fall; “This Nation’s Saving Grace: Omnibus Edition”

Fans of The Fall are, as a rule, hardy beasts. Complaint may come naturally to them, but then so does loyalty. John Peel’s famous encomium, “They are always different, they are always the same,” is the perpetual excuse for their favourite band, which disregards a certain erosion of Mark E Smith’s charms.

Elle Osborne: “Good Grief”

Happy new year: I trust everyone had some kind of decent break. I read Robert Byron on Tibet (for climatic context, possibly), watched Robinson In Ruins, played a fair bit of Pharoah Sanders and The Watersons, and rediscovered that a body clock wrecked by parenthood can be very useful during an Ashes series.

Captain Beefheart RIP

Awful news this morning. I posted a link to this a few months ago, but I think it needs to be seen again today.

The Judges Discuss: Joanna Newsom, “Have One On Me”

The last transcript from our 2010 Uncut Music Award deliberations...
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