Features

Thanks for all your comments on the REM blog I posted yesterday. I thought it might be useful if I tried to answer a few of your questions – as best as I can, anyway.

With the Texan flag pinned proudly to their stage amp, post-grunge instrumental four-piece Explosions In The Sky played a solid hour-long set to a rammed London Astoria, to finish up their long delayed UK tour last night...

OK, then, I must admit I’ve been sceptical about this one, so disillusioned by “Around The Sun” (three good, if woefully overproduced, songs notwithstanding) that I didn’t even bother to check out any bootlegs of those “live rehearsal” gigs from Dublin last year. . . More fool me, it transpires.

Some big new entries on this latest playlist, not least the arrival of REM's much-anticipated "Accelerate".

By some immeasurably strong act of will, I’ve refrained from banging on about the Boredoms round these parts for the best part of three months – ever since, in fact, they played the best show I saw in 2007.

Wandering around Pitchfork yesterday, I came across this story about one of my old favourites, John 'Speedo' Reis.

Great title, for a start, though I have little idea what it means. I just put “Mountain Battles” on for the third, maybe fourth time, and I’m beginning to get the hang of it. For a start, it sounds like something of a departure.

The Oscar-nominated star of film sensation 'Juno' tells us about her future plans, Canada and The Moldy Peaches

After all the mature, relatively sedate stuff I’ve been writing about recently like Roedelius and the Imaginational Anthems “Primitive American Guitar” comp, something a bit livelier today.

A fair number of reissues in this one, that I've compiled over the past day or so. But there's also a couple of auspicious new releases just in, that I'll be writing more about in the next few days.