Neon

Hearty congratulations this morning to Elbow, of course, who proved last night that they're the least-disliked band in the British music business.

See a rare solo show ahead of next month's new Lambchop release

Josh Homme and co say this is the last outing for Era Vulgaris

James Blackshaw and Cate Le Bon also confirmed as supports for September 10 show

Latest findings from the pan-European pop boffins

Occasionally, I think we do records a bit of a disservice by striving so hard to contextualise them. This occurred to me again over the weekend, when I was listening to Stereolab’s 11th (or ninth, it’s hard to count for sure, as Stephen Troussé points out in his perceptive review in the current Uncut) album, “Chemical Chords”.

It’s the moment half way through the set when she arrives, with a swish of the curtain, on stage astride a giant silver skull, wearing a flowing red trouser suit and cap, that we realise we just aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto.

Just back from the Mercury Prize shortlist announcement which, as you might imagine, was a hotbed of hype and low-level grumbling about the 12 nominations. I was doing some media-slag punditry, a lot of which revolved around the high-profile absentees: Coldplay, Duffy, The Ting Tings, Kate Nash and the one which actually annoyed me, Portishead. But before I start ranting, here’s the shortlist if you haven’t seen it yet:

Plus Radiohead, Elbow and Plant and Krauss make the 2008 shortlist

The reconnaissance branch of the Uncut team arrived at Latitude Festival yesterday and realised almost immediately that we were not alone in wanting to hit Henham Park Estate early this year. Thousands of music fans poured into the site a day early to set up camp and drink in the atmosphere before the serious business of deciding what to see on the packed line-up!