Features

A busy few days, with No Direction Home last weekend, thenMikal Cronin in Dalston on Monday, and a lot of good records to play while we’re winding up the next issue (I’ve embedded a couple of choice Youtube links this week in the list).

I missed Mikal Cronin’s UK debut by a few hours, having to leave the excellent No Direction Home festival before he played. From a muddy field in North Nottinghamshire, though, to a hipster pub in Dalston, and the first London show for this Californian early-20something and his terrific band.

Beneath Welbeck Abbey, an expansive estate in North Nottinghamshire thus far untouched by any sort of National Trust daytripping, there is a vast network of underground tunnels, wide and stretching for miles around the roots of Sherwood Forest. Somewhere down there, according to my mother, there’s even a ballroom that she visited for a dance the best part of 60 years ago.

I first came across the English folk singer Sam Lee just over a year ago, when I wrote about a tribute album to Peter Bellamy. Alongside more familiar names like The Unthanks and Trembling Bells, it was Lee’s version of “Puck’s Song” that stood out, as he cut a fine path through an artful mix of old folk recordings and incantatory drones.

The reunited Beach Boys' return to the stage is reviewed in the latest issue of Uncut, out now – and as their new album "That's Why God Made The Radio" is also fresh in shops, it seemed time to revisit this piece from Uncut's June 2007 issue (Take 121)… Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine guide us through their perfect ‘pocket symphony’, three minutes and thirty-six seconds of avant-garde pop. Interviews and intro by Rob Hughes. ________________________________

A short week after all the jubilee bullshit, but a pretty hefty postbag these past two days, and some notable downloads, too, as you’ll see from this list.

In 2005, I went to a talk Ridley Scott gave to ahead of the release of his Crusader epic, Kingdom Of Heaven.

A day or two before Julia Holter’s show at Café Oto, I tweeted something fairly dumb about not understanding why she hadn’t received anything like the same amount of hype as Grimes this year, based on my admittedly rather idiosyncratic idea that, amidst the reveries and abstractions, Holter has a knack for subtly accessible pop music.

Punk's high priestess on poetry, pot and psychedelia

Sixteen entries on the playlist this week, and I should point out that the latest session from the Natch project is, as usual, a free download that’s definitely worth picking up.