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The Shins have added a second London show to their European tour, meaning they will now play London's HMV Forum on March 22 and 23.

Oscar nominated George Clooney leads funny, sophisticated drama...

It would be nice – and indeed, it’s sometimes professionally expedient – to pretend that we all work in splendid isolation, following our own idiosyncratic paths in directions that no other journalists travel.

The Shins have announced plans for a five date European tour, which will include one stop off in the UK, on March 22 at London's HMV Forum.

It is a sad fact of life that a man from any walk of life – even the often preposterous world of music – will struggle to be taken seriously if he wanders about wearing a beard the size of Gibraltar, decorating his face with white stars and red war paint, growing his hair down to his waist, then dying it yellow on one side of the parting and blue on the other. So it is with Roy Wood, still best remembered for his terrifying dayglo clan chief appearance than the succession of superb pop songs he wrote for The Move, ELO, Wizzard and – perhaps most impressively - as a solo performer.

14 brilliant tracks, including Grizzly Bear, Ganglians, Plush, Van Dyke Parks, Gruff Rhys and Sufjan Stevens

Spielberg-produced sci-fi spectacular...

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist talks about 'rebirth' album 'I'm With You'

It occurred to me yesterday that I’m pretty bad at covering singles here, having neglected one of my favourite tracks of the year – Radiohead’s “Supercollider” – as a consequence, and also having passed over a bunch of rather good Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy one-offs (the latest in that sequence, “There Is No God”, arrived at the end of last week).

Kind of out of practice with blogging, I’ve been so distracted by other stuff these past few weeks. I have a long list of stuff to cover, though, and this album by Weyes Blood & The Dark Juices seems a good place to start.