When I reviewed Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago” last year, I ended the piece by saying, “Whether [Justin Vernon] is heading out of his father’s cabin towards a long, significant career is hard to predict, and the perverse romantic in me almost wants him not to bother trying. “For Emma, Forever Ago” is such a hermetically sealed, complete and satisfying album, the prospect of a follow-up – of a life for Vernon beyond the wilderness, even - seems merely extraneous.

A fair few interesting things in this week’s haul, not least a rare record from Plush, now billed as Liam Hayes & Plush, the complete Sly & The Family Stone set from Woodstock, a pretty wild mixtape from White Denim and, maybe best of all, the new album from Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver, this time operating with a bunch of other musicians under the name of Volcano Choir.

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I’m not necessarily the best judge of which bands are likely to make some kind of significant hipster/commercial breakthrough. But listening to this Ganglians album, “Monster Head Room”, on Woodsist, it surely makes sense that they should be right at the forefront of this new indie/lo-fi/garage scene that’s coming out of the States right now.

When these two Hyde Park shows were announced last December, we ran a piece in UNCUT celebrating the return to active service of Blur, where David Cavanagh quite reasonably asked the question: which Blur are coming back? After all, here was a band who had undergone many creative iterations during their recording lifetime; equally, so much had happened since the four of them last played together, in July 2000, it seemed appropriate to wonder what Blur would do with these shows. Could they really reconnect with the moptops who made the buoyant baggy pop of “There’s No Other Way”? Would they really revisit “Parklife”, a song intrinsically linked to an era and movement they’d subsequently gone to considerable lengths to distance themselves from? And what about the more abstract, edgier material from the later albums – what place would that have in Hyde Park?

Very pleased to see the love is spreading for Sun Araw, judging by the comments here when I mentioned “Heavy Deeds” the other day. A few days on, I’m still feeling it’s one of my favourite albums of the year so far.

Apologies for the crass plug, but if you’ve seen the new issue of Uncut, you’ll have seen an amazing picture of Tim Buckley, playing solo to a 35-strong audience at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center in New York.

“It’s hot as a witch's tit in this room,” says Club UNCUT headliner Jesca Hoop. “I’m going to have to retune my guitar real quick… cos it sounds like a witch's tit. So if you’ve ever wondered what a witch's tit sounds like, then this is it.” Today has been the hottest day of the year so far in the capital. Despite the welcoming evening cool outside, temperatures in the newly-refurbished Upstairs At The Garage in north London are unforgivingly high. But in some respects, you couldn’t have wished for a better line-up at Club UNCUT in heat like this.

In the new edition of the always interesting Yeti magazine, there’s a good and provocative piece about Jack Rose and the Black Twig Pickers, in which the author Justin Farrar calls out “All the shaggy indie hippies and underground freakers out there dabbling in Appalachian folk, country music and roots rock.”

Apologies for the service interruption last week. I returned to the office yesterday to find a bunch of new things, not least the immense new Sun Araw, which on first listen sounded more or less one of the best things I’ve heard this year – though it might’ve been because it’s music so perfectly suited to this serious heat.