Vile day here in London, improved to some degree I'd hope by the arrival in UK shops of the new edition of Uncut. It has Nick Drake on the cover, as you probably know if you're a subscriber and your copy arrived over the weekend.
Some logical excitement here this week about the impending Leonard Cohen and Aphex Twin albums; in the event you've missed it these past couple of days, you can hear Cohen's superb "Almost Like The Blues" further down this blog.
Last year, Warp Records embarked on a campaign for Boards Of Canada's "Tomorrow's Harvest" comeback that was notable for its obtuseness. Unmarked 12-inches were hidden in record stores, strings of numbers and inexplicable broadcasts were strewn enigmatically across the internet. At one point, I recall some talk of red moons and feverish online triangulations pointing to a bookshop near Edinburgh as the centre of the universe. It was all fun, and the album at the end of it all was great, but perhaps it wandered a little off course as it went on.
Rick Parfitt will miss his first ever Status Quo gig due to illness.
The band recently cancelled six concerts on their European tour because 65-year-old Parfitt was rushed to hospital. Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass in 1997 after doctors said he was in danger of dying as a result of his lifestyle. After surgery, Parfitt said he was not planning on becoming a "born-again Christian" and would still have the "odd pint".
This is the full text of my interview with Hurray For The Riff Raff in New Orleans, that appeared in the print edition of Uncut a couple of months ago. I've added a lot of music to listen to as you read; not just by Alynda and the Riff Raff, but by some of the other New Orleans musicians who are critical to the story.
Another issue in the bag yesterday, which'll be in UK shops on August 26, and which features, if you're in the mood for guessing games, someone who's never been on our cover before.
After a week away, I've been catching up these past few days, and also trying to remember what I talked about before I went on holiday. Best place to start, maybe, is the Natalie Prass record that Matthew E White has been sitting on for well over a year (he played me some of it at Spacebomb in March 2013). Fantastic song, which I described on Twitter as a kind of nuts Anita Baker/Willie Mitchell/Feist/Charles Stepney thing with a beat that would've been samplefood for Dre 15 yrs ago. Sticking with that for now. Also the red kite feather we found on holiday in Avebury feels serendipitous.
Damon Albarn has said that Blur may never finish the album they began working on in 2013.
Albarn recorded new music with his Blur bandmates in Hong Kong in May last year.
However, in an interview published in this week's NME which is on newsstands tomorrow (July 30) and available digitally, Albarn says that because he likes to work in shorter, more concentrated periods of time he fears that he may never return to the tracks the band made while in Asia.
Blur will release a recording of their 1995 gig at The Budokan in Tokyo this August.
The album, titled Live At The Budokan, will come out on August 11. The album artwork can be seen above while a live version of 'Yuko And Hiro' can be heard via the video at the bottom of the page.
