I got a message the other day from Erin Palmer, encouraging me to go and see Jandek at South By Southwest. Unfortunately, I've had to cancel my trip to Texas, so if anyone sees the Jandek show, please let us know. Erin, it transpires, is the daughter of Bruce Palmer, the giant bassist who drove down to LA with Neil Young in his hearse and went on to join Buffalo Springfield. Hearing from Erin (whose blog is at droppinthed.blogspot.com, incidentally) reminded me of a great record I haven't played in a while: her father's solo album, "Cycle Is Complete". It's weird, given Palmer's history, that "Cycle Is Complete" isn't better known, but it's a pretty out-there record - kind of long, frayed psychedelic jams that have a striking affinity with some of the looser new free-folk troupes like Sunburned Hand Of The Man. Check it out. I also picked up an email from Charlie, who runs the terrific Elliott Smith site, Sweet Adeline. I will try and write some more about "New Moon" when I get a chance - I'm aware my post was a bit sketchy. But unfortunately, hardly any watermarked copies of the disc are out there at the moment, so I've had to pass mine on to a reviewer. When I get another, I'll post a follow-up. I'm actually away from my desk for a day or two, and more importantly, away from my pile of new releases, so Wild Mercury Sound may be rather erratic this week. One old thing I've turned to this weekend is the first album by Bill Fay, especially "Be Not So Fearful" (I can't remember if it's actually on the original pressing, but it's certainly included on the Eclectic CD reissue). Wilco played that song a few times live, and there's been talk for a while of them backing Fay on his first recordings for decades - though both Bill and Jeff Tweedy seem anxious not to impose on the other, from the conversations I've had with them. I can't recommend Fay's three albums highly enough; I think my colleague Rob Young called him the missing link between Dylan, Nick Drake and Scott Walker, which makes sense to me.

I am risen, Lazarus-like, from a couple of weeks in flu-ravaged purgatory, a desperate condition accompanied by much attendant chest-rattling coughing and colourful spluttering. So apologies for my recent absence here. What passes for normal service will hopefully resume next week, with a return to the daily blogs as advertised at the top of this page. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXZM3pq045Q

As I mentioned yesterday, Wild Mercury Sound is taking a holiday in Texas next week. The pile of new albums will have to wait a while; I've got fine things by Rufus Wainwright, Battles, The 1990s and Alberta Cross here that I haven't had time to write about yet. Next week, though, I'll be filing slightly frantic daily reports from the South By Southwest festival in Austin, as I try and see a good dozen or so newish bands a day. I've just been having a quick look through the list of artists playing, and I really want to check all these out, for a start. Tempting as a band called Psychedelic Horseshit might be, there's a lot of certifiably good psych on at SXSW this year: people who figured on Uncut's "Comets, Ghosts And Sunburned Hands" comp like Entrance and Sunburned Hand Of The Man themselves; some who didn't quite make the cut for that one, like MV + EE With The Bummer Road and Charalambides; legions of Devendra-affiliated acid-folk singers, the most interesting of whom may turn out to be Jana Hunter. A lot of heavier stuff looks good, too, with an outside show featuring Mastodon and Boris being especially tempting. I've been tipped off about a band called Lesbian (not to be mixed up with Lesbians On Ecstasy, who are also playing), who I think might be some kind of stoner metal thing. They're all blokes, incidentally. There also seems to be a resurgence of hardcore this year, thanks to the fantastic Fucked Up and Britain's own Gallows, who are shaping up already to be one of the buzz bands of the week. What else? I'm looking forward to some good Americana from Jenny Lewis associates The Watson Twins, from Brooklyn Cosmic American types Oakley Hall (very excited about finally seeing them) and from a solo Jason Isbell, the strongest of Drive-By Truckers' three great frontmen. I also want to catch Brazilian Baile funk party band Bonde Du Role, LA lo-fi pop maven Ariel Pink, Beirut (who'll be one of dozens of new Arcade Fires, I'll wager). And of course Jandek, the mysterious Texan who has intrigued underground music fans for years. Let me know about anything good, and I'll try and check it out. See you there, maybe?

I'm just getting my head around the new Elliott Smith compilation, and there's a lot to take in. "New Moon" features 24 songs stretched over two CDs, dating from the mid '90s. Ostensibly, I guess they're demos; mostly Smith plus acoustic guitar recorded without fuss at a variety of basements in the Portland area. But the clarity and quality is obviously stronger. Like everything Smith released in his lifetime, these are stealthy, insidious songs that are worth living with. What's immediately obvious is Smith's fecundity at the time. After a couple of listens, it's likely that most of these songs would hold their own on the "Elliott Smith" and "Either/Or" albums for which they were demoed. There are no revelations as such, no unexpected experiments in style. Instead, they compound our impression of Smith as one of the great songwriters of his time, whose simple and affecting strummed melodies mixed warmth, prettiness, unsettlingly quiet rage and an emotional intensity all the more potent for the casual, unmelodramatic way in which it was delivered. I'm playing the album for the second time now, and virtually every song seems striking. "Looking Over My Shoulder" has that sort of offhand, McCartney-esque jauntiness at which Smith excelled, especially when he juxtaposes it with a clenched-teeth whisper about "another sick rock'n'roller acting like a dick." There's a great song called "Angel In The Snow", a skeletal take on "Miss Misery" - the song that he gave to the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, which made his name commercially, and which he then staunchly refused to play. There's also a lovely version of Alex Chilton's "Thirteen", which reminds me of the first time he turned up in the UK just before "Either/Or" was released: a bunch of wonderful solo shows; interviewing him in some cafe off Tottenham Court Road, talking to this amiable and courteous man who gradually explained, through a series of hints and allusions, that he'd been recently incarcerated in a mental hospital. Significantly Joanna Bolme, who was caring for him on the trip, sat in on the interview. Looking back, her calm fortitude was awe-inspiring. But Smith had that kind of charismatic vulnerability that encouraged people to look after him. It's obvious in his songs, in these ones as well. "What are you doing hanging out with me?" he sings in "Whatever (Folk Song In C)", one of his classic self-deprecating shrugs. Elsewhere, there are the usual allusions to drugs ("High Times", "New Monkey"), relationships ending, lives ending. "New Moon" tells us little new about Smith, but it further justifies why we hold him in such high esteem. It also, perhaps, explains why he had to fatten up his sound for "XO" and "Figure 8". These seem to be unflinchingly fine songs, but you also get the sense that the tonal range he worked in was so narrow, he had to incorporate bigger arrangements to keep himself interested. He couldn't really escape being the introspective troubadour - I'm not sure he could write music any other way - but he needed to dress himself up in some bolder clothes for a while, at least. Let me play this some more and get back to you. First, though, I'm off to South By Southwest in Texas next week, and I'll be blogging from the festival every day. Tomorrow, I'm going to try and put together a list of bands I'm looking forward to seeing; if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know. I saw over 50 bands there last year, and I'm keen to beat that score next week.

Perhaps he's been inspired by the way his other half, Joanna Newsom, goes about her work. Perhaps he's up to some clever contract shenanigans. Whatever the real reason, it's pretty easy to read high creative significance into Bill Callahan's decision to drop the Smog brand and release this fine new album, "Woke On A Whaleheart", under his real name. More even than his old running mate Will Oldham, Callahan has been a supremely untrustworthy narrator on the winning sequence of albums he's released over the past decade or so. Believe what he's singing, and Callahan has routinely emerged as a faintly homicidal misanthrope, a cruel campfire Lou Reed with a thing about rivers and horses. “I told her I was hard to get to know,” he claimed in “I’m New Here” on his last LP, "A River Ain't Too Much To Love", “and near impossible to forget.” Fair point. Has working under his real name changed Callahan? Well, the first track on this new one suggests a change in water imagery, at least, called as it is "From The Rivers To The Ocean". On a cursory listen, the cruelty which has often been so prevalent on Smog records appears to have been toned down. It'd be a bit risky to claim this is the belated unveiling of the real Bill Callahan. But the publicity photo which accompanies my promo copy - taken by Newsom, perhaps significantly - features him smiling. He certainly sounds mellower on this nine ambling tunes, too. Again, I haven't had a chance to scrutinise every lyrical nuance - I'll save that for the reviewer - and with a baritone like his, anything he sings sounds pretty sombre. But on the likes of "Honeymoon Child", Callahan certainly gets closer than usual to tenderness as he sings, "You bring out the softness in everyone". It's a lovely-sounding record all round, given woody resonances by co-producer and ex-Royal Trux dude Neil Hagerty and fiddler Elizabeth Warren. "Woke On A Whaleheart" (how much does that sound like a Newsom title, incidentally?) reaches a jolly country climax with "A Man Needs A Woman Or A Man To Be A Man", an unlikely outpouring of good loving vibes set to a cowboy lollop that pastiches Johnny Cash. And, I suspect inadvertently, reminds me of Val Doonican's "Walk Tall". Not a record that springs to mind most days, it's fair to say.