Destroyer

Among the many highlights of Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ “Raising Sand”, I kept coming back to their take on Gene Clark’s “Polly Come Home”. Had they, and I guess their producer T-Bone Burnett, captured the uncanny gravity of Low on purpose, or by some equally uncanny accident?

A bit of anal-retentive listmaking today: my favourite 30 albums of the year so far (though I imagine I’ve forgotten one or two, and there’ll be a bunch more good ones that I haven’t heard as yet).

A couple of months ago here, I raved some about a self-titled album on Woodsist by White Fence, who turned out to be a guy from LA called Tim Presley with some kind of connection to The Strange Boys. I neglected to mention, however, that Presley was also the leader of another band, Darker My Love, who I’d never really heard, to be honest. I suspect the gothic implications of the name put me off.

One of those weeks where the distractions of putting a magazine together and, right now, England vs Pakistan, have conspired to limit blogging activity. Michael Yardy: I am dumbstruck.

A beautiful day, in London at least, and one which inspired me to find some salute-to-the-sun music for heading into work. “Unbroken Chain” and “What Would I Want, Sky?” worked pretty harmoniously as I was crossing Millennium Bridge; just wondering if something akin to spring has changed your listening habits in any way?

One of those weeks when a big bunch of new things arrive simultaneously, I’m pleased to say: I think there are only three of this lot that have been on previous playlists.

Quite a good run for the Kranky label of late, with a bunch of albums I’ve enjoyed a lot from Ken Camden, Jonas Reinhardt and Disappears. For the past week or so, though, I’ve been really taken with “Endless Falls” by Loscil, discreetly asserting itself as maybe the pick of the bunch.

Because, as I have just had pointed out to me, I have foolishly mistakenly read their name as MegaFUN, when the three members of MegaFAUN hove into view, led by a large bearded man with a banjo and a big grin, I somewhat feared they would prove to be relentlessly hearty, the distressing musical equivalent of bouncy castles, red noses, playground japes, a particularly unwelcome wackiness. The kind of jollity, in other words, that makes you want to run screaming from its larkish presence.

Neil, Bruce and Blur are joined by stellar supporting cast

I found myself in the centre of a mild media hurricane yesterday, thanks to the musical map of Britain published in this month's Uncut becoming something of a hot topic. If you heard me trying to explain the principle of beats per minute on a local radio station, or trying to convince all of Scotland that they only listened to Runrig, I can only apologise.