The Neil Young/”Fork In The Road” business I wrote about yesterday seems to be moving on apace, as things suddenly seem to do in Young’s world. Thrasher’s Wheat now have a video and lyrics of the song.

Not for the first time, we’re starting to get an inkling that Neil Young might have been distracted from releasing “Archives” again. The latest digression was signalled on his run of American shows before Christmas, when something like ten new songs gradually made their way into the setlist.

Another follow-up on a request this morning: a grapple with the great reverberant sprawl of “RTZ”, two CDs of Six Organs Of Admittance’s early work and marginalia.

Fairly predictably, I suppose, I’ve been watching the unravelling Best New Bands Of 2009 business with some bafflement. Not that my taste was ever going to chime completely with this sort of thing, of course (in my ballot for the BBC poll, I did actually include Florence & The Machine, alongside Telepathe and Crystal Antlers, for what it’s worth).

Yesterday’s playlist provoked a bunch of requests from a few of you, requesting more info about the new things from Bon Iver, Six Organs Of Admittance, Arbouretum and Alela Diane (the Neil Young presence is caused by an Uncut staffer buying a bunch of CDs on the cheap, incidentally, rather than any new reissue campaign. Looks like “Toast” has slipped off the schedules again, by the way, while we’re on the subject of Neil’s capricious archives management).

Three days into a new working year, and I've put together the first office playlist of 2009. Usual rules apply, in that what we play isn't necessarily what we like - though that said, I can't spot any total stinkers among this 16.

This late period in Clint Eastwood’s career is a source of pretty endless fascination for me. At a time when most filmmakers have either called it a day, or are spoiling their reputation with increasingly disappointing movies, Eastwood has proved, conclusively, that he’s still capable of greatness as he nears 80. The run that started with Million Dollar Baby shows no signs of abating, and this slew of movies are among the best of his career.

Sometime before Christmas, I mentioned an artist called Sun Araw whose 12-inch, “Boat Trip”, I was very keen on. Happily, I’ve now got hold of his most recent album, “Beach Head”, and I’m pleased to say that’s awesome, too.

Apologies for the long hiatus; I tried to stay away from computers for as long as possible over the holidays. Not a complete break from music, though, thanks to a four-year-old alternating between his versions of “Barbie Girl” and various Joanna Newsom songs, and a bunch of records I kept close to me for the fortnight.

Read the full transcript here, more on the occult and a broken heart