Cave nick and the bad seeds

Magazine and Newton Faulkner also confirmed for Latitude 2009

A quick caveat first. I only have seven tracks of this new Jarvis Cocker album, “Further Complications”. According to the lengthy note from Jarvis which accompanies them, the other eight aren’t “in a fit state to be listened to at the present time.”

500 artists set to play at five day showcase festival

With blogging, of course, you publish and be damned, then, once damned, you publish again. So it is with the Top 75 I unleashed on an unsuspecting world on Tuesday, only to soon realise that it was, basically, a bit of a cock-up.

Just arrived this morning and straight onto the stereo, a new album from Beirut, that seems to consist of half recordings with a 19-piece Mexican funeral band, and half bedroom synthpop. I’m not sure what the synthpop’s going to be like, but it’s started well.

As you may have heard, we've just launched the Uncut Music Award, to find the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the last 12 months. We'll be posting all the latest news about the award here, but first we should explain the details.

25 albums from the past 12 months vie for the prize chosen by 10 judges including Peter Hook and Edwyn Collins

Thanks to everyone who’s submitted their lists in response to the Best Records Of 2008 brainstorm from last week. Some excellent albums rising to the surface, and it’s especially nice to see love for No Age, Fleet Foxes and Elbow, three records which narrowly missed my original cut.

It occurred to me this morning, in an anal sort of way, that we should probably talk about the best records of 2008's first six months. To that end, I've just been through my blog archive and come up with my ten favourites of the year up 'til the end of June.

A strange one, this. Nick Cave has been workaholically juggling multiple projects over the past couple of years: The Bad Seeds, of course; his comparatively pensive soundtrack work with Warren Ellis; and the rambunctious, Stoogesy garage rock of Grinderman. A betting man or woman might have put money on him turning up at Latitude in the company of the Bad Seeds, on the back of their superb “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” album from earlier this year.