A surprising amount of good post was waiting for us at the office yesterday, which means a lot of stuff we've played thus far this year has been brand new. There are a handful of disappointments on the list which follows, but the undisputed favourite at the moment is the new Stephen Malkmus album. I'll try and write something more substantial about the Jicks' monumental jams in the next few days. In the meantime, here's the rundown:
Some good stuff in the post today, notably the first four Michael Rother solo albums which, in an act of gross self-indulgence, I played back-to-back. And also the new Elbow album: track six, which I think is called "Weather To Fly", is one of those songs that's so fine and delicate it made me stop work and gaze poetically out of the window for its duration.
An office playlist today, since I've been putting the finishing touches to the next issue of Uncut and writing another - more coherent, hopefully - review of Led Zeppelin for the mag. John Robinson, our Reviews Ed, has mainly been at the controls this afternoon, running through a few new releases and currently dusting down The Beastie Boys' "Check Your Head", which is fine by me. Neon Neon, incidentally, is yet another new album from Gruff Rhys, this time a synthpop/hip hop/R&B concept album about John DeLorean, in collaboration with Boom Bip, a kind of substitute Danger Mouse. Sounds pretty good, anyway.
Not much time to post today, so here's an office playlist for your delectation. Thanks to everyone who posted their playlists last week - we can definitely do that again here if you're in the mood. I should also mention a few things I'll try and blog about before Christmas, if only in a fairly unsavoury attempt to book some return visits from you over the next couple of weeks.
Feeling a bit queasy right now, after watching five minutes of Jean Michel Jarre's new DVD while wearing 3D glasses. I can't vouch for the whole disc of "Oxygene", but Jarre seems to eschew the youthful sort of 3D stunts and go instead for shots of him and his mates playing some lovely old synths. Quite strange, not least because it seems to have had the unusual effect of making me both bored and dizzy at the same time.
Some thought-provoking responses to my No Music Day blog yesterday; scroll down to the bottom of my waffle and have a look. I particularly like Nigel's idea of Total Music Day, where we concentrate utterly on records without any distractions. Though realistically - as he acknowledges - that'd be as tough to pull off as No Music Day.
Mild frenzy at Uncut today as we put the finishing touches to our end-of-year issue. As a consequence, I've not had a chance to do the full blog, but here's the music we've played in the office. Favourites?
I've been keeping a list of the records we've played for the past couple of days. Kept away from American Music Club's "Golden Age" after some heavy rotation last week, and I'm contemplating having another go at its predecessor, "Lovesongs For Patriots", after some insinuated reprimands on the blog.
The new Cat Power album just arrived - or at least a stream of it arrived onto my computer - so that's playing as I write this morning. Sounds pretty good, with a remarkable version of "New York New York" to kick things off, but I'll blog about it properly in the next few days.
The post seems to have finally sorted itself out, so a decent load of new records arrived at Uncut yesterday, making today's playlist feel a good bit fresher than some of late. Regular readers should be reassured that, though, Radiohead is uncharacteristically absent, I'll probably put it on after this Butthole Surfers reissue has finished. Some things shouldn't change for a while yet, I guess.