Over the next few days, we'll be running full transcripts of the judges' meeting to decide the winner of 2009's Uncut Music Award. Today we begin with their thouhts on the winner, Tinariwen's "Imidiwan: Companions".

I imagine that when Dave Grohl, John Paul Jones and Josh Homme talk about Them Crooked Vultures (and there’s the first interview in tomorrow’s NME, apparently), there’ll be much talk of a creative partnership, a meeting of equals and so on.

A strange experience this morning. As I write, I’m listening to what seems to be a perfect recording of the Mountains show I saw last night at Club Uncut. As with a previous tour, which resulted in the superb “Etching” album, Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp rehearsed a new piece for the tour, recorded an early take on it, then produced CD-Rs to sell after each show.

I heard the other day that a brand new Animal Collective single was purportedly on its way, which samples Phil Lesh’s mighty “Unbroken Chain” one of my favourite Dead songs. First, though, there’s a reissue of 2003’s ghostly “Campfire Songs”; an album which, I guess, may come as something of a shock to people who’ve only been exposed to Animal Collective’s last couple of albums.

Back from a week away, then, to discover that a few records have managed to limp through – at least digitally – in the face of the postal strike. Prominent here I guess are that rarity, something promised by Neil Young that actually turns up, and Them Crooked Vultures, with Josh Homme playing Alpha Male with John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl.

Reading the odd review of BBC’s Electric Proms the other week, and the default concept of chucking in orchestra/choir to create an “event”, I started wondering whether the pairing of Grizzly Bear with the London Symphony Orchestra was such a good idea. After all, the songs on “Veckatimest”, even the ones with strings, are so airy and lacking in bombast. Sometimes, I find myself barely noticing the instrumentation, with the focus so intently on those ornate vocal melodies.

A quick heads-up on the next free Uncut CD today, which Allan has compiled (with a few suggestions from me) to go with the new issue’s Velvet Underground cover story.

Some stuff to mop up today, beginning with the excellent Glass Rock album on Ecstatic Peace! that’s been cropping up in a few of our playlists recently.

“Uncut never ceases to find ways to analyze music by dumping on anything American,” notes a correspondent on the still-entertaining Bob Dylan Christmas thread, which isn’t one of the more typical criticisms we hear levelled at the magazine. He also accuses me of using the word “Americana” “as if it’s a swear”. Wow.

Following our announcement that Mountains would be playing Club Uncut on November 5, we received an email the other day from a duo called Pausal who, to be honest, none of us had ever heard of.