Alia musica

Nick Cave, Blondie's Debbie Harry, Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell, Warren Ellis, Lydia Lunch and more are all set to appear on 'The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project - The Journey is Long' album, a tribute to the frontman of cult 1980s alt.rock band The Gun Club, who died from a brain haemorrhage in 1996.

I’m increasingly conscious that one of the main criteria for inclusion in this column appears to be a penchant for very long tracks. When writing about The Necks, a questing trio from Australia, it is especially easy to come up with a timetable rather than a review.

It is hard not to be nostalgic on nights like this. About an NME night when Pulp were on the bottom of a bill headlined, I think, by Kingmaker. About the party for “OU” at the Leadmill, with a problematic balloon launch and a large papier mache head, and the party for “Do You Remember The First Time” at the ICA.

When I have to talk to interns about live reviewing, I often advise against reviewing crowds, unless something really unusual happens. It’s hardly unusual for a crowd to be excited and passionate – they’ve just paid ten, 20, 30 pounds to see one of their favourite artists, it’s what they expect to do.

Polly Harvey shifts from the personal to the national...

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.

Their final album, but a great introduction to a world of esoteric, hallucinatory music...

The last transcript from our 2010 Uncut Music Award deliberations...

Previously: 50-35

Bottoms up! Pianos, soul and a remarkable triple album...