Pulse

As the year comes to an end, I’m putting the finishing touches to a Wild Mercury Sound Top 75 of 2008, which I’ll post here sometime next week. In the meantime, you can muck about with the Uncut hivemind’s 50 favourites by visiting our Rate The Albums feature: let’s make an effort to hype the Endless Boogie album up the charts, people (even though they had to cancel last week’s London show due to some kind of visa problem).

Post Springfield and before the Goldrush, two nights with Neil and his guitar in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Louis Vuitton don ditches the rapping and the soul and is left with… well, not much, actually

A good day for the world, then. Not sure whether this week’s Uncut playlist really reflects the global mood, though I did bring in “Attica Blues” to play this morning. A bunch of unprepossessing-looking indie promos don’t really cut it on a day like this.

The Louisville recluse delivers a triumphant live album from his 2006 British tour. Not so dark

Slowing the tempos, the Followills speed their ascent to the rock pantheon

Stormy, heavenly and hymnal – it’s like they’ve never been away

Elton and Bernie’s double shot heard ‘round the world

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.

Thoughtful, twisting, talent-heavy thriller of child abduction...from Ben Affleck?