Strange telephone call a couple of hours ago, from someone called Bobbie who was looking for some coverage of her band. It turned out, amazingly, to be Bobbie Watson from Comus, of all people, who have reformed for a gig in March. It'd be logical if this was one of those heritage reunion events at the Festival Hall. But I guess Comus' reputation as the most arcane and perverse of the original acid-folk bands endures, since this show is on a boat cruising from Stockholm to Helsinki. This, it seems, is the 21st Anniversary Schizoid Boat, something which purports to be a prog festival headlined by Comus and Swedish metallers Opeth, who have a history of dabbling in esoteric folk (I remember Linda Perhacs directing me to a cover version of one of her songs a few years back). Anyway, the details for the boat trip are at the link above, and it seems all but one (Lindsay Cooper) of the original Comus line-up are, so to speak, on board. There's some talk of a live DVD being filmed though, more promisingly (especially for those of us who get seasick in the bath, let alone on a cruise round Scandinavia in March), Bobbie reckons there might be more gigs to come if this one goes well. The curator of this year's Meltdown will, I suspect, be watching carefully. Meanwhile, after the Michael Rother binge of the past month, Phil has directed me towards a terrific Kraftwerk bootleg that you can download from http://duesseldorfhbf.blogspot.com/2007/07/kraftwerk-1971-live-at-radio-bremen.html . "Live On Radio Bremen" allegedly dates from 1971, and seems to feature a line-up featuring Florian Schneider alongside Rother and his future-Neu! henchman, Klaus Dinger, but no Ralf Hutter, who was apparently on a six-month hiatus. I suppose there are similarities with that "Beat Club" bootleg of the Kraftwerk/Neu! group, but bits of "Radio Bremen" resemble a heavy stoner rethink of the first two Kraftwerk LPs - the opening "Heavy Metal Kids" has an unlikely processional stomp to it that reminds me, oddly, of the Flower Traveling Band. Dinger's measured propulsion is immediately recognisable, but Rother's guitar is dirtier, harsher, and pretty much wilder than we're used to. Best thing here is Track Three, a fantastic version of "Ruckzuck" from the first Kraftwerk album: Schneider's flute and the intense, broken rhythms are recognisable, but again there's a hairiness, a closer affinity to orthodox heavy psych, which moves this brief incarnation of Kraftwerk even further away from the hygienised synth automata of legend. It sounds filthy, and great - even if you know the band's stuff pre-"Autobahn", you'll still be in for a shock.

Watching TV over the Christmas and New Year period, chances are you might have caught Johnny Depp in a number of films. I'm pretty sure I spotted all three Pirates Of The Caribbean movies spread out across various terrestrial and satellite channels, plus the overlooked Secret Window and -- a personal favourite -- Finding Neverland, a very moving take on the relationship between author JM Barrie and the children who inspired him to write Peter Pan. In a way, these films are emblematic of the Depp's dualistic approach to his movies. In Pirates, he's performing; in Window and Neverland, he's acting. Sweeney Todd, his sixth collaboration with director Tim Burton, falls into the former camp. You have to forgive me, I should say, if I'm fairly broad in my assessment here -- I saw it way before Christmas, but have been under the cosh of one of these embargos that forbids me from writing about it, under pain of death, until now. It's a big, brash turn, full of swagger and brio, well suited to Burton's extravagant Gothic melodrama from Stephen Sondheim's musical. Depp's Sweeney is a serial killing barber whose victims are turned into pies by his accomplice Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter). Necks are slit, large quantities of blood slosh across the screen and a number of jolly songs are sung along the way, often in chirpy Cockernee accents. It's a faintly ludicrous proposition -- but, admittedly, no more so than the idea of a lonely inventor building himself a son but dying before he could complete him, leaving a pair of giant shears where his arms should be. In fact, Burton pretty much lets himself go here, the whole thing having a rather gleefully demented feel to it. It's not quite Herschell Gordon Lewis or Lucio Fulci, but it's pretty grisly stuff all the same; thick arterial blood flying in crimson arcs, human flesh baked into pies, that kind of thing. Depp, shrewd as ever, manages to draw pathos out of the Grand Guignol. Deathly pale with panda bear rings round his eyes, Depp's Sweeney is a walking ghost, his life leeched from him by the death of his wife and lost daughter. He's more of a melancholic figure than some zealous, hellbent lunatic out for revenge, despite his early declamation that "They all deserve to die!" There are, I have to admit, too many songs for me (yes, I do know it's a musical), but Burton and Depp are clearly having great fun here -- in the new issue of UNCUT, Burton explains how he and Depp are "in the same zone from the beginning." Sweeney might not be Depp's greatest character for Burton (that would be Edward Scissorhands or Ed Wood), but the exuberance and grim humour of this spectacle make cohesively for one of their strongest collaborations. To close allow me this random aside. I see that Depp's scheduled to play American gangster John Dillinger for Michael Mann soon. As a huge fan of both Depp, Mann and John Milius' brilliant version of the Dillinger story (due, largely, to a fantastic performance from Warren Oates), I am extremely excited. Anyway... Sweeney Todd opens in the UK on January 25.

The music business is in unseasonal heat today, with the publishing of the BBC's Sound Of 2008 poll. The winner, unsurprisingly, is Adele, who's OK. But I must admit I'm a bit suspicious of the whole self-perpetuating hype of all this - I agree with most of this piece from The Observer from last month. Tellingly, Kitty guessed eight out of ten right in the BBC list, proving how predictable these things have become. To admit some culpability, though, I was one of the voters in the BBC poll, though I did the online equivalent of spoiling my ballot paper by voting for things I was really interested in, rather than things that'll actually become big (like, say, Adele, Duffy, Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong etc). For what it's worth, my "tips" were No Age, Wild Beasts and Yeasayer. I must admit, I've jumped on the No Age bandwagon pretty late after reading the compelling Sasha Frere Jones piece on them in The New Yorker (and what a great writer he is, apart from that dubious indie/racism thinkpiece which generated some wearying debate last autumn). No Age - as their terrific "Weirdo Rippers" comp on FatCat proves - are an innovative punk duo from LA, who remind me variously - and sometimes simultaneously - of vintage DC hardcore, My Bloody Valentine, and a surprisingly poppy take on the avant virility of Lightning Bolt. Can't wait to see them live. Wild Beasts I've written about before here; they're a pretty conventional British indie band in many ways, but it's the extraordinary tonsil origami of the singer which makes them so interesting - and so difficult to sell, I fear. Yeasayer I've covered here, too. I see MGMT and Vampire Weekend both made it into the BBC chart, but of the new Brooklyn bands (there's a good piece on them all in the new Uncut, incidentally), Yeasayer strike me as the most intriguing. But let's see what you think. How about posting your tips here, and see if we can reach some kind of alternative consensus?