Another busy week; busy enough to put me off expending any energy on the ritual travesties of the Mercury Music Prize. Then again, I guess holding out hopes for a Voice Of The Seven Thunders nomination would’ve been more deranged than optimistic; and there have been worse shortlists. Fingers crossed for Wild Beasts, or, indeed, for “critics’ favourites” the XX. Finally playing These New Puritans, as I type…

Profuse apologies, once again, for sketchy service over the past week or so: a lot of grappling with the print mag on my plate, which has meant the blog’s been passed over, unfortunately.

Quite an interesting list this week. A little glossing necessary, maybe. Maximum Balloon is the David Sitek side project, which I must confess to having been pretty sceptical about (much love for TV On The Radio notwithstanding), but which, on the basic of the five tracks I’ve heard, sounds terrific. Not unlike TV On The Radio, especially when the guys from TV On The Radio sing.

Chances are if you’ve heard of Cornbury, you’ll know they call it “Poshstock”, an upper and middle class weekend jaunt in the bucolic Oxfordshire countryside which boasts Waitrose as a sponsor, Jamie Oliver as the chef de jour and a guest list that habitually includes Princes Charles, William and Harry, Jeremy Clarkson, Kate Moss and PM David Cameron, who showed up again this year, family in tow, bemoaning the fact that he’d missed the Blockheads.

I was looking through an old Red House Painters file a while back, and came across a review of their debut album in which Allan compared Mark Kozelek’s songwriting to that of Dino Valente.

The sticker on the front of my promo of Superpitcher’s second album describes Aksel Schaufler as “Cologne’s melancholy techno-pop maestro”. It has been about six years since the first Superpitcher album, but Schaufler’s worldview doesn’t appear to have improved much. If Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor sometimes comes across as an indie boy lost on the dancefloor, Schaufler’s persona is akin to a sociopath on the verge of a panic attack.

Some respite, finally, from the Great Lost goose chase – though I probably should reassure JB23 that Miracle Legion’s “Me And Mr Ray” makes it into the 50 list we’ve published in the new Uncut.

As promised… Yesterday I posted Uncut’s original Top 50 Great Lost Albums. This week’s new issue of the mag will feature the responses of our readers, with another 50 albums that are currently unavailable.

Previously: Uncut Readers' Great Lost Albums Part One, Uncut's Great Lost Albums.

This week’s new issue of Uncut features another 50 Great Lost Albums – those that are unavailable new or as legal downloads right now – chosen by the mag’s readers. Consequently, I thought it’d be useful to put our original Top 50 online, as they appeared in issue 156 of Uncut (Neil Young was on the cover, narrowing it down a little).