Bag

I’ve always thought that the British music press’ reputation for ‘building them up and knocking them down’ is a bit erroneous, though it’s undoubtedly true that there’s a possibly obsessive fetishisation of the new that can sometimes bias against longer-serving bands. Maybe ‘build them up, get distracted by something else, then more or less forget they exist’ might be a truer reflection of what happens.

A slightly weird list today, in that I was out of the office yesterday and didn’t actually hear the last few records here; I just cribbed them from the office playlist on our Twitter page that John Robinson posts.

Evan Dando sings Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons, Leonard Cohen with help from friends

Walking On A Wire spans 4 decades

Martyn's 1973 opus remastered, plus an album of extras

Serge Pizzorno claims he’s “definitely warming” to Douglas Hogg and his moat

I was making some notes on the new Sonic Youth album, “The Eternal”, this morning, when it occurred to me that writing “pop” down again and again was pretty absurd – one of those delusional fallacies that people who don’t listen to too much actual pop have, I guess, when a rock band starts working in a notionally punchy way.

A glorious, ramshackle rag-bag stuffed with good times, black humour and great swathes of accordion

Cheshire trio capitalise on the Elbow effect

Explosive third from Karen O and co.