Features

It came as something of a surprise the other day to discover that it’s been something like eight years since Jim O’Rourke released a new solo album. In the interim, he’s not been entirely quiet, as involvement with Sonic Youth and the Loose Fur project with Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, as well as sundry other lower-profile activities prove.

Over the next few weeks, there’s probably going to be a lot of words expended on how much the Arctic Monkeys have radically changed on this, “Humbug”, their third album. There’ll be a lot about the influence of Josh Homme, about the lack of perceived immediate hits and so on. Plenty of more parochial music fans may well see “Humbug” as a Great British band absolving their local cultural responsibilities and becoming seduced with America and the desert rock sound nurtured so assiduously by Homme over the past decade and a half.

As you can see, plenty of interesting new things have turned up since I last posted a playlist, not least new albums from Jim O’Rourke and, amazingly, Os Mutantes. This week’s problem, though, is the immense distraction of two wonderful-sounding new boxsets from Rhino; one dedicated to Big Star, the other a four-CD set called “LA Nuggets”.

Apologies, but not much time to file a proper blog today, as deadlines for the mag loom. One of today’s jobs is to write a review of the forthcoming DVD release of “Flight Of The Conchords”: Series Two, so here’s my favourite song from those ten episodes, “Carol Brown”, with a video by guest director, Michel Gondry. Like the best Conchords songs, this one transcends mere comedy, or neat pastiche, and sails straight into the rare territory of fundamentally excellent music. Enjoy…

The sixth Cornbury Festival rode out the recession in grand style this weekend with 20,000 or so local music fans rocking up to the picturesque Cornbury Estate near Charlbury in Oxfordshire for a bill that featured diverse headline turns from Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green, Sugababes and Scouting For Girls.

Putting aside my morbid suspicion of quirky cover versions for five minutes, have a look at this: an enjoyable take on Joy Division’s “Transmission”, filmed at Jeremy Deller’s Procession for the Manchester International Festival last weekend.

I interviewed Michael Mann for the current issue of UNCUT, ahead of the release of Public Enemies. Call it reader service, but I thought those of you who're interested in such things might like a chance to read the full transcript (it's about 3,200 words, of which we only ran 1,000 in the issue). Anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy.

Having recently resurrected seminal album Foxbase Alpha for a handful of live shows, St Etienne are getting ready for a short festival tour, including Latitude 2009. Here, singer Sarah Cracknell tells Uncut about the trials of bringing children to festivals, the memory flashbacks playing older material and what we can expect from their Uncut Arena show...

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.