Morning, all. Just playing the excellent Telepathe album one more time, as I file the playlist from the last couple of days. I should get round to filing a review of that one next week, all being well. In the meantime, here's this week's pretty handsome selection. Don't forget to download the free Bob Dylan MP3 from http://bobdylan.com. A tantalising first taste of "Bootleg Series No 8: Tell Tale Signs", I'd say.
A couple or so months ago, I was grappling with Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “Lie Down In The Light”, and wrote about Will Oldham’s increasing penchant for setting his voice up against more conventionally mellifluous female foils. That point seems worth making even more today, with the arrival of a new live album by the great man, “Is It The Sea”.
Not for the first time, a new record involving Neil Young arrives for review, and it strikes me yet again how much this man gets away with. Here, on “Déjà Vu Live”, his curmudgeonly vim has compelled David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash to perform a bunch of songs from his “Living With War” album; presumably, this must have been one of his demands before he signed up for the 2006 CSNY tour.
One of the most popular things on the Latitude blog this past week has been Terry Staunton's "Overheard Conversations"; the most tantalising snippets of chatter he caught while wandering around the festival site. A few of you have been adding your own ones, too: we're particular fans of the "posh goth" who said, ""That's the last time I arrange my wardrobe according to the BBC's 5-day weather forecast."
A bit snowed under with auspicious new things today, amongst them the CSNY live album, Damon Albarn’s “Monkey: Journey To The West”, a new Bonnie Prince Billy live set and, perfect for this heat, Brightblack Morning Light’s superb “Motion To Rejoin”.
Welcome to Waitsville. A place where bad jokes are good, Vaudeville never died, and the talk is of smoking monkeys, weasels and the mating habits of the preying mantis.
It’s the moment half way through the set when she arrives, with a swish of the curtain, on stage astride a giant silver skull, wearing a flowing red trouser suit and cap, that we realise we just aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto.
I guess we’ve finally mentally returned from Latitude, so it’s the time of the week to unveil Uncut’s office playlist. A few nice new entries that I need to spend more time with, and only a couple of obvious weak links here. Dive in. . .
In the interests of science, I've just had a look at all the blogs we filed at the festival over the weekend, and put together a chart of your favourites, based on the number of page impressions each one has had. Here's the Top Ten:
