Freak scene

Spielberg-produced sci-fi spectacular...

Hard shell, soft centre: the Motörhead man laid bare in warts’n’all doc… well almost...

Dizzying third long-player from Dream Syndicate mainman’s main band...

A few months ago, I managed to smuggle a track by Oneohtrix Point Never onto an Uncut CD; a David Bowie-themed compilation of vaguely futuristic music. Oneohtrix is the project of a guy based in New York called Daniel Lopatin, who reconfigures various kosmische tropes with some ‘80s sci-fi vibes and comes up with a kind of New Age music for underground noise fans.

Following on from Friday’s blog, another round-up today of some records that’ve taken me an embarrassingly long time to write up.

For the past week or so, my inbox and mailbag have been assailed by labels and PR companies hyping their Tips For 2011, in readiness no doubt for the Brit Newcomer award and the BBC New Artists Poll. Annual frenzies, really, in which a lot of journalists diligently try and help out the music industry by anointing Clare Maguire or whoever as the next Ellie Goulding, and the odd sullen arrested adolescent like me effectively spoils their ballot paper by voting for the likes of Sun Araw.

A ‘below stairs’ view of the 1972 American tour...

For some reason – bias, probably – it feels like it can be harder to track down good British underground artists than American ones. My attempts to put together lists of new British bands I like, for whatever reason, can consequently be a bit harrowing. But the likes of Forest Swords are making the process a fraction easier this year. And over the past couple of weeks or so, a couple more have been flushed out.

At times, sifting through a modern record collection, it can feel as if all roads lead eventually to Josh Homme. Entryist indie bands like the Arctic Monkeys employ him to help them pack extra rock muscle.

As yesterday’s playlist indicated, the Avey Tare solo album has arrived, and I’ll do my best to write something about it in the next day or two. In the meantime, though, those of you attracted to the wilder shores of the Animal Collective might be interested in this one, the latest effort by a shadowy but productive band from Finland called Kemialliset Ystävät (“Chemical Friends”, I am informed).