Some very satisfying words in album titles this week, if you’ll forgive the fairly tangential way of starting a blog: “Veckatimest”, “Bitte Orca”, and today, “Balf”. “Balf Quarry” is the new album from the Magik Markers – according to the sleevenotes, “A stone quarry in Hartford, CT which has mined traprock since the earliest days of the city.”

First off, an important plug for Allan's blog, where he's posted a preview of the new Bob Dylan album, "Together Through Life". No copy in the Uncut office as yet, but I'll try and write something myself when it turns up.

Weird prompt, but a TV ad last night for the forthcoming Formula One coverage reminded me that I’d been sat on Pocahaunted a bit too long. Specifically, it was the snatch of the BBC’s old theme tune, Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain”, which Pocahaunted covered to mesmeric effect on their “Chains” album last year.

The first Monday morning of spring seems a good time to finally tackle the new Grizzly Bear album, “Veckatimest”, which I know I’ve been promising for a while. Without getting into some blog hype thing in the tradition of the Animal Collective (it was Grizzly Bear who reputedly leaked a couple of AC tracks and caused a lot of the fuss, if I remember right), “Veckatimest” is looking from here like the best album of this bit of 2009, at the very least.

Well, this is a surprise. The White Stripes might have made their comeback on American TV the other week, but it seems Jack White's most pressing engagement right now is yet another band, pleasingly called The Dead Weather.

A lot of records on the playlist this week, I think, probably due to the fact that I’ve kept a note of what we’ve been playing for three full days. I guess the big one here is “Veckatimest”, the new Grizzly Bear album, which we now have a copy of. Incredible record, which I’ll be writing about soon, possibly tomorrow.

I don’t want to simplify a harrowing business. But when, in the middle of this concert with his Spatial AKA Orchestra, Jerry Dammers has a go at “Ghost Town”, the idea that this man would ever rejoin The Specials seems, frankly, insane.

I don’t want to simplify a harrowing business. But when, in the middle of this concert with his Spatial AKA Orchestra, Jerry Dammers has a go at “Ghost Town”, the idea that this man would ever rejoin The Specials seems, frankly, insane.

With the news this morning that Neil Young has been confirmed to headline both Glastonbury and Hyde Park Hard Rock Calling in June, I’ve finally got my head around his new album, “Fork In The Road”, as promised.

One today that I think might interest a few of you. “Embrace” is the debut album by a Santa Cruz sextet called Sleepy Sun, who you could place as very much part of a new wave of Californian heavy psych. Since we were talking about the area’s titan trees on Friday, this quote from the band stood out: “It comes more from Northern California itself more than any scene or city. There is truly nowhere on Earth like our little corner of the country where the redwoods smother the ocean.”