A few bits and pieces to mop up today, beginning with one last thankyou to everyone who has posted on the end of year blogs – or, come to that, who's commented on any of the things I’ve written in the past 12 months. It’s been a genuine pleasure to hear from almost all of you; and of course heartening to discover other people interested in the same music.
The new issue of Uncut should be out any day now, featuring our thoroughly extensive Best Of 2009 coverage: the Top 50 albums of the year, best reissues, best comps/boxsets, films, DVDs, books and so on.
“Uncut never ceases to find ways to analyze music by dumping on anything American,” notes a correspondent on the still-entertaining Bob Dylan Christmas thread, which isn’t one of the more typical criticisms we hear levelled at the magazine. He also accuses me of using the word “Americana” “as if it’s a swear”. Wow.
The second annual Uncut Music Award launches today (September 23) as we reveal our longlist of albums in the running for the prize to reward the "most inspiring and rewarding musical experience" of the past year.
Some very satisfying words in album titles this week, if you’ll forgive the fairly tangential way of starting a blog: “Veckatimest”, “Bitte Orca”, and today, “Balf”. “Balf Quarry” is the new album from the Magik Markers – according to the sleevenotes, “A stone quarry in Hartford, CT which has mined traprock since the earliest days of the city.”
