Beyond the Ebay landfill mountains of luminous “Ghostbusters” singles, there were a weird few days this week when it seemed as if no-one had actually located a copy of Neil Young’s “A Letter Home” on Record Store Day. After everything, did it actually exist? Had Neil, in his current capricious mood, personally had it removed it from the stockrooms of record stores on Friday night?

One of the books I’ve enjoyed most in the past couple of years is “Pulphead”, a collection of John Jeremiah Sullivan’s longform, creative and not always entirely reliable journalism.

Bit of a rush in the face of deadlines this morning, but a strange list – not all of it recommended, really – with a notable discovery in Mike Cooper, whose early ‘70s albums work well as companion pieces to those of Michael Chapman. Anyone who knows his work, and knows more, drop me a line.

Some highlights to see/hear this week: Neil Young playing “Thrasher” for the first time (technically, second time I think) in 36 years; well over an hour of amazing Can footage from 1970; the new Jack White track; and Olga Bell’s album, which seems to suggest that I prefer the Dirty Projectors, or at least their spin-offs, when the singing is in Russian.

Lots to get stuck into this week, though I think it’s worth drawing special attention to the superb William Tyler EP and, in the week the Pixies announce a newish album, a pointedly excellent Kim Deal track with Morgan Nagler.

After a very long wait, the second album on Matthew E White’s Spacebomb label has turned up… and it may not be quite what most of you would have envisaged…

I’ve alluded a few times in recent weeks to the excellence of the forthcoming “Spiderland” boxset, and especially to the Lance Bangs documentary, “Breadcrumb Trail”, which it contains. “Breadcrumb Trail” tells the odd, low-key, long-obfuscated tale of Slint, revealing much without entirely dismantling the band’s mystique, and focusing on the band’s drummer Britt Walford.

Being a bit of a broken record here: a proliferation of Hurray For The Riff Raff albums this week, since I’m writing a review of the fantastic “Small Town Heroes” at the moment. Plenty of new stuff as well, though, at least some of it recommended, with strong reference to Toumani Diabaté and his son Sidiki’s kora duets, and to the tantalising extract from a Fennesz album that’s being explicitly pitched as the follow-up to “Endless Summer”…

Another song this week from what’s rapidly shaping up to be one of my favourite 2014 albums, Hurray For The Riff-Raff’s “Small Town Heroes”. Have a look, too, at the trailer for Lance Bangs’ Slint documentary, “Breadcrumb Trail”, which is the music film I’ve enjoyed most since the Source Family doc.

For a while this week, it looked like I might be able to post a playlist entirely consisting of new entries, at least until I got dragged back into playing the Ryley Walker. But hey, look at all this, not least the clip of Shirley Collins’ first live performance in 30 years, which just showed up.