Just had a quick read of the blog on Hot Chip’s “Made In The Dark”, to make sure I don’t repeat too many points on this one about “One Life Stand”; endless stuff about the paralysing insidiousness of many of their songs, and so on.

A note on last week’s playlist from Nick, praising the new Cluster album in the face of what he descibes as “kosmische-light” (lite? leit?). Quite tempted, actually, to use that as part of some self-sabotaging branding project. Wild Mercury Sound: Hyping Kosmische-Lite Since 2007.

When writing about The Necks, it’s easy to end up with more of a timetable than a review. Their pieces traditionally last for around an hour (“Silverwater” stretches to 67 minutes), and are slowly evolving improvisations where the Australian instrumental trio intuitively manoeuvre round each other, subtly adjusting their themes as they go.

As you might have seen by now, Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion” has done rather well in Uncut’s Best Of 2009 poll. “MPP” came out in early January, and a continuously active year has now climaxed with a reissue for “Campfire Songs” and this, “Fall Be Kind”, a fairly extraordinary new EP.

Joe Pug? No, I hadn’t heard of him either, before he opened tonight for The Low Anthem. Count me as a fan now, though. Pug’s a potentially major song-writing talent, as evidenced on his Nation Of Heat EP, available online and really quite brilliant. But who exactly is he?

Citay’s first self-titled album, from 2006, posited Ezra Feinberg’s Bay Area collective as a fractionally heavier wing of the acid-folk movement, filled as it was with a kind of mellow, medieval-tinged rock that seemed indebted to the acoustic dalliances of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Here are links to the judges discussing all eight of the albums shortlisted for the prize. Let us know what you think of their final verdict, maybe? The right decision?

From being a fairly obsessive fan of Devendra Banhart, I’ve found myself lacking much to say about “What Will We Be” in the months since it first turned up in the office. It’s far from a bad record, but the few times I played it, it felt oddly weary, even uncharismatic, compared with its predecessors; “Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon” is often identified as the jump-off point for a lot of Banhart former fans, but I still think that one stands up as a terrifically spirited album, full of life.

Today, the judges chew on "Wilco (the album)".

The penultimate transcript today, on The Low Anthem's "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin".