Features

Various circumstances mean I have to miss Hiss Golden Messenger’s show at Club Uncut on Wednesday, so I went to see Michael Taylor’s first UK show at King’s Place, a rather refined venue beneath The Guardian offices, last Friday.

A few years ago, I came across an album called "Love, Peace & Poetry 9: Turkish Psychedelic Music", one of those compilations that suddenly opens up a new corridor of musical investigation.

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.

A few more nice things this week, not least the new Chris Forsyth album, which features some assistance from various bits of the Helix/Hans Chew axis. I think I might tackle them both for my next magazine column, but bear with me.

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.

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.

The past few days I’ve been reading, on Rob Young’s recommendation, Alexandra Harris’ Romantic 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.

Apologies for the lengthy radio silence: a lot of hassle distracting me from blogs last week, not least the small matter of Uncut upping sticks and relocating to the Ninth Floor of the Blue Fin Building. Amidst all the crates, though, some pretty significant new records have turned up. Take a look at this lot…

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

Some biggish 2011 releases rolling in now, including one which I may draw a discreet veil over. I’m trying, too, to check out a few of your recommendations, following the Date Palms revelation.