I was writing a headline for a piece on Crystal Castles in the current issue of Uncut and, after reading the feature a few times, ended up with this: “Scars. Skulls. Disease. Videogame blips. From Canada!”

Once again, it’s worth listening to the estimable opinions of Guy Garvey from Elbow who, you’ll remember, previews the Latitude festival in the current issue of Uncut. “Blondie’s my going-out music,” says Guy. “I don’t go to clubs very much, but if I decide I’m going out I put on a bit of Blondie first. I know it’s hard to picture, but I can cut a rug if I need to. I put ‘Atomic’ on every time.”

Not much time to muck about this morning (not least because the test match starts again in half an hour). So here’s the playlist of stuff that has graced the Uncut stereo over the past couple of days. One of those weeks, I should say, where a mention on the playlist really doesn’t automatically equate with an endorsement. . .

At first glance, it might seem strange to find Shane Meadows shooting a “legacy project” recording Eurostar’s move from Waterloo to St Pancras. Meadows, after all, is best known for a raft of movies that’ve chronicled suburban working class life in and around his native Nottingham. He’s hardly, you’d think, the obvious candidate to shoot a promo film intended to, ah, push the boundaries of brand communications. And for a company whose most memorable contribution to advertising featured Kylie skipping gaily round Paris.

There are a few records around the Uncut office at the moment that I think I could responsibly class as disappointing, not least the new Mercury Rev album, which ambitiously finds them trying to reinvent themselves as whimsical cosmic ravers.

Thanks to everyone who’s submitted their lists in response to the Best Records Of 2008 brainstorm from last week. Some excellent albums rising to the surface, and it’s especially nice to see love for No Age, Fleet Foxes and Elbow, three records which narrowly missed my original cut.

It begins with a flutter of guitar, a dusting of cymbals. Then a female, faintly ethereal vocal arrives, accompanied by bells. At first, it sounds like she might be distant kin to the acid folk scene which still percolates away in the US; there’s a very vague resemblance to Meg Baird and Espers, perhaps. But then again, she’s not singing in English, and there’s something discreetly exotic about the song, “Dawn Over The Clouds”.

Just playing the new Love As Laughter album, as recommended by one of you on the albums of the year thus far thread, when Sam Jayne serendipitously sings, “Listen to the radio play ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’.” Serendipitous because I’ve just posted John Robinson’s excellent review of Neil Young’s Hop Farm jam yesterday over at the Live blog.

His grey hair blows wildly in the breeze. His dishevelled clothing suggests an eccentric who’s been around a very long time. There’s a determined expression on his face which suggests he may be old, but he’s not going anywhere soon…

PAUL Simon and Crowded House were the billed main headliners but if the phalanx of photographers snaking its way across the field during The Bangles’ Saturday set is anything to go by, the biggest star at this, the fifth Cornbury Festival, is an inconspicuously turned out gent and a lady we take to be his wife who are making their way, as casually as possible, down into the throng around the stage.