A house

First off, a brand new Brightblack Morning Light track, complete with visuals, has appeared, and it’s fantastic. The second Brightblack album – West Coast acid-folk-funk infused with gris-gris and a sort of horizontal, post-Spiritualized drone-funk, if any of that makes sense – was a huge hit here at Uncut during the ferociously sticky summer of 2006, and “Hologram Buffalo” is every bit as good.

Tracklisting for 6th record plus UK tour dates

Full tilt second album from ex-Libertine

Guy Garvey & Co play twelve live dates across the UK

Plus read Uncut's verdict on the Roundhouse shows

An exciting, slightly confusing package arrived for me last week, addressed to John Mulvey at Melody Maker; a magazine which hasn’t existed for, what, eight years, and which, in any case, I never worked for. Beneath the address, though, was a tantalising tagline: “Compliments of Van Dyke Parks”.

Strange to relate, but not long ago, plenty of people were tipping Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong as the next big thing. I was looking at the BBC Sound Of 2008 list a few minutes ago, to check up on the progress of their tips, and the Music Hack Hivemind appears to have managed a pretty good strikerate thus far this year.

Texas trio will play Glastonbury and Boosh festival

Round these parts there’s a feeling (generated mostly, it must be admitted, from my desk) that Joanna Newsom’s second album, “Ys”, is one of the very best albums released this decade. It was with immense pleasure, then, that we discovered Newsom would be playing a special Sunday lunchtime set at Latitude.

Muddy Waters, Bukka White and Howlin' Wolf on new DVD