Volume all star

Last month, I travelled over to Duluth, Minnesota to interview Low for the issue of Uncut that comes out later this week. While I was there, I emailed a couple of questions about the band to Nels Cline (via Wilco’s publicist), who guests on the wonderful new Low album, “C’Mon”.

Further far-out adventures in crate-digging exotica...

Primal Scream have long held firm to the belief that the past is a hostile foreign country, much of it best left unvisited. It’s a condition that extends, for the most part, to their first two albums. Rarely – if ever – do they perform any of those tracks live, while 2004’s Dirty Hits compilation did a very good job of pretending nothing existed prior to the band’s self-declared Year Zero: Screamdelica. But it’s a strange policy, really. After all, without that self-titled second album – in particular the ballad “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” – Screamadelica arguably wouldn’t exist, and we wouldn’t be here tonight.

This week has mostly been about Steve Coogan. The Trip – his BBC series with Rob Brydon – has prompted much discussion here in the Uncut office. As has the return of Coogan’s most famous creation, Alan Partridge – who as I’m sure you know by now is back in a series of short episodes released online.

Belatedly following this fine haul, another really good list this week, involving as it does a couple of high-security things which I can’t discuss at the moment and plenty I can.

Dark-hearted Swedish murder-mystery thriller...

Quite a good one, this week: I think I can be more or less positive about everything here, actually, with the vague exception of the Yellow Swans live comp, which is a bit too industrial for me (John Cale, as it happens, described them thus: “The Swans’ sound grates on your nerves - like you’ve put your head in a jet engine.” Thumbs up!).

A startling amount of responsible journalism behind this week’s playlist: we’ve had a bit of a session getting up to speed on a bunch of mainstream 2010 tips; discovered Lil Wayne should’ve probably stuck to hip hop; tried again to stay awake through the Midlake album and generally done our jobs more or less properly, I suppose.

Quickly this morning, a bunch of new things we’ve been playing, as the February and March promos start arriving. A lot of comps, it seems, and a couple I don’t like at all.

We count down from 100 to 51...