First up, if you’ve been enjoying the Nick Cave business in the new issue of Uncut, something useful showed up on our Twitter feed the other day: a Spotify playlist of our Top 30 Cave tracks compiled by Wavey Davey 001. Thanks for that.
Another busy week; busy enough to put me off expending any energy on the ritual travesties of the Mercury Music Prize. Then again, I guess holding out hopes for a Voice Of The Seven Thunders nomination would’ve been more deranged than optimistic; and there have been worse shortlists. Fingers crossed for Wild Beasts, or, indeed, for “critics’ favourites” the XX. Finally playing These New Puritans, as I type…
Profuse apologies, once again, for sketchy service over the past week or so: a lot of grappling with the print mag on my plate, which has meant the blog’s been passed over, unfortunately.
Quite an interesting list this week. A little glossing necessary, maybe. Maximum Balloon is the David Sitek side project, which I must confess to having been pretty sceptical about (much love for TV On The Radio notwithstanding), but which, on the basic of the five tracks I’ve heard, sounds terrific. Not unlike TV On The Radio, especially when the guys from TV On The Radio sing.
Some respite, finally, from the Great Lost goose chase – though I probably should reassure JB23 that Miracle Legion’s “Me And Mr Ray” makes it into the 50 list we’ve published in the new Uncut.
Possibly there may be other matters preoccupying English readers today (and some American ones, come to that), and I can’t pretend that all the records here – the new MIA album, for instance – might be suitable for taking the potential pain away.
First up, thanks for the fantastic response to the Best Of 2010: Halftime Report. Please keep your own charts coming, and I’ll try and collate them into some kind of masterlist in the next few days.
As I maybe mentioned the other week, I’ll put some stuff up here soon about the whole ongoing Great Lost Albums thing. It also occurred this morning, though, that I should have a crack at a 2010 halftime Top 20 or 30, as I managed last year.
A good week for new arrivals, actually, though there is one record here that, somewhat unexpectedly, I never want to hear again. Hopefully you’ve got your hands on the new issue and the “Transition Transmission” CD; pretty nice one, I think.