After raving about the new Alasdair Roberts and White Fence albums on the past few lists, I’m pleased to have some tracks from them this week, along with really excellent new arrivals from Kevin Morby and Ryley Walker.
Something nice in the post this morning: a copy of Donald Fagen’s memoir, “Eminent Hipsters”. It’s not always the greatest idea to judge a book by its chapter titles (though I do always think that Clive James’ “A Prong In Peril” and “The Sound Of Mucus” are a good example of delivering what they promise), but definitely looking forward to “Henry Mancini’s Anomie Deluxe” and “The Cortico-Thalamic Pause: Growing Up Sci-Fi” Gonna have a wingding, or such like, at the weekend, and will report back.
Conspicuously wealthy blues collectors probably know about this by now, but a copy of Tommy Johnson’s “Alcohol And Jake Blues” has surfaced – only the second that’s ever been found – and is on sale at Ebay. It’ll be interesting to see how bidding shapes up before the auction closes around 10 tonight (UK time): at time of writing, the highest offer is $16,800.00.
Jams, folks. Please take ten minutes to watch the excellent clips below from Natural Child and Chris Forsyth. The image above is the cover of Forsyth’s tremendous forthcoming album, which I’ll try my damnedest to write about in the next day or two.
Can’t hang around today as deadline hassle mounts, but lots to listen to here: an Atoms For Peace mix, something from Nicolas Jaar’s fine new Darkside project, a precious and ancient demo from Roddy Frame, a remix from The Avalanches, and my favourite track from Light In The Attic’s New Age comp, among other things.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, a big backlog of music to work through here. And while I try and offer some fractionally different recommendations away from the usual media pile-ons (Oh look, Haim etc), this Janelle Monáe album is terrific and I totally recommend having a listen on The Guardian’s stream: very much in the zone of “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill” (especially “Victory”).
No sooner has one Mark Kozelek album turned up than, ridiculously, another one is announced. www.caldoverderecords.com claims another Sun Kil Moon album is due January 14 next year, also featuring Steve Shelley, Jen Wood, Will Oldham and Owen Ashworth. In even less a shock, it promises that Kozelek “sings about his childhood years and his life today.”