As is the brutal way with deadlines on monthly magazines, yesterday afternoon I had to send out a request to all of Uncut's writers for their albums of the year lists, so that we can start the long and meticulous process of compiling a Best Of 2014 chart.

I hadn't planned to write about the Necks show last night: plenty of other things to do; a review of Frazey Ford's album ready to publish; a sense that, after my previous reviews of The Necks, I didn't have much else to say.

At the conclusion of Se7en, his second film as director, David Fincher memorably gave us Gwyneth Paltrow’s severed head in a box. In many respects, he has been producing heads from boxes ever since.

Instant albums do not, as a rule, encourage reflection. There is surprise, sometimes indignation, a social media flame war, a lot of static about delivery systems. Once the 38 minutes of, say, Thom Yorke's "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" have passed, it can all suddenly be over. What happens next?

When Sinéad O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, she brought into focus her gifts for music, controversy and self-publicity in one fairly explosive package.

Among my post last week, I received a nice care package from Ace Records that included one quite weird Duke Ellington album ("My People"); Volume 3 of their "Where Country Meets Soul" series (I cannot recommend Ralph ''Soul'' Jackson's version of ''Jambalaya'' highly enough); and, maybe best of all, "Cracking The Cosimo Code", a collection of extraordinary music originating from Cosimo Matassa's New Orleans studio in the 1960s.

I received an email last week from an old college friend, with a link to the Souncloud page of Liam Hayes & Plush, and an amused/irate message along the lines of, "One of your two jobs in life was meant to be to flag me when he releases anything/makes any move out of his lair."

The last major works by one of Hollywood's greatest modern actors.

On Sunday, Kate Bush inadvertently staged a one-woman assault on the British charts. This week, 11 records in the Official UK Albums Chart are by Bush – not bad, really, for a woman who has only really released nine new studio albums in the past 36 years.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks at End Of The Road 2014 - review British Sea Power at End Of The Road 2014 - review Connan Mockasin & St Vincent at End Of The Road 2014 - review Cate Le Bon & Sam Lee at End Of The Road 2014 - review