This late period in Clint Eastwood’s career is a source of pretty endless fascination for me. At a time when most filmmakers have either called it a day, or are spoiling their reputation with increasingly disappointing movies, Eastwood has proved, conclusively, that he’s still capable of greatness as he nears 80. The run that started with Million Dollar Baby shows no signs of abating, and this slew of movies are among the best of his career. The news of his latest, Gran Torino, arrived in a flurry of excited whispers that it could be the long-rumoured sixth Dirty Harry film. Certainly, the one-sheet poster, a moody black and white image of Eastwood, cradling a shotgun, leaning against the Gran Torino (Harry’s car of choice), certainly suggested we might be in for some kind of Harry-in-retirement story. But as it turns out, although Gran Torino isn’t the fabled sixth Harry movie instead it’s a movie that addresses aspects of Eastwood’s own mythology in a way you might not immediately suspect. Eastwood (who also directs) plays Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean war veteran. He’s also endemically racist, which doesn’t help the fact his Detroit neighbourhood seems now to be totally populated by immigrants, who he unapologetically refers to as “gooks”, “Chinks” and “spooks”. Kowalski is a man from a different age, who’s resolutely refused to change to suit our more politically correct times. He’s also frankly terrifying when riled, revving up some of Harry’s old charm by making lines like “Get off my lawn,” sound as threatening as “Make my day.” Of course, Gran Torino focuses on the gradual humanisation of Kowalski, and offers redemption of a kind for this fairly unpleasant man. His Hmong neighbours are caught up in gang war – first with the Mexicans, then with their own people – and Kowalski finds himself drawn slowly into first helping them defend themselves and then befriending them. But it’s what Gran Torino says about Eastwood’s own mythology that I find pretty fascinating. Principally, I’m struck by how much it feels like a comment on a classic Eastwood staple, his character as some kind of vehicle for vengeance, that’s there in the Leone movies, and through the Revisionist westerns like High Planes Drifter, Pale Rider and Unforgiven. I find Unforgiven, perhaps, the clearest reference point here, certainly the idea of a man forced by circumstance to resume his violent ways. But there’s a definite sense of Eastwood inverting this, particularly in the third act, and by extension blindsiding the audience’s expectations of what’s to come. It's also strangely playful; the sight of Kowalski growling at his inappropriately-dressed grandchildren during his wife's funeral service is both funny and again a sly subversion on the intolerance of the conventional Eastwood character. So what does Gran Torino say about Eastwood at 78? Most obviously, that he’s still a capable man of action (interestingly enough, Gene Hackman and Paul Newman both passed on this before Eastwood signed on). But perhaps most intriguingly, how he’s prepared to revisit and subvert his own tremendous mythology. We can take it as a given, of course, that the film is excellent. Gran Torino opens in the UK on February 20. You can watch the trailer here.

Sometime before Christmas, I mentioned an artist called Sun Araw whose 12-inch, “Boat Trip”, I was very keen on. Happily, I’ve now got hold of his most recent album, “Beach Head”, and I’m pleased to say that’s awesome, too. Sun Araw, it seems, is the solo project of a Californian guy called Cameron Stallones who, as I mentioned last time, is part of the very neat Magic Lantern (just got hold of their first LP on Woodsis, too, which suggests they might be hearty descendants of Comets On Fire, which is obviously fine with me). Again, in that previous blog I went on a fair bit about tribal psych dirge or whatever and mentioned he’d been compared with Panda Bear (a bit of a stretch), then went further myself and made a comparison with New Kingdom. Anyway, “Beach Head” is basically more of the same. The thermometer just before Old Street roundabout measured -2°C when I went past it on the bus this morning, so the jungle squawks and prevailing mugginess of these four long tracks was, I guess, a bit of an odd soundtrack. But actually, it sounded perfect: measured, hypnotic and ideal for travelling, even if your ultimate destination is the office rather than the Heart Of Darkness or whatever. There’s some spidery freakout guitar in the distance from time to time, mingling with the creaking organ and strangulated distant chants. What keeps grabbing me, though, is that sort of holy processional thump and an incredibly unfunky, lugubrious treatment of funk that reminds me of Sunburned Hand Of The Man at their most linear and maggot-brained, especially of “Jaybird” I guess. Further out, there's an amazing psych album from early '70s Brazil by Lula Cortes & Ze Ramalho called "Paêbirú" which suggests Amon Duul relocated to the Amazon fainforest. There's some of that vibe here, too. I have Stallones’ first LP, “The Phynx”, which is reputedly as dreamy, though I’m too hooked on “Boat Trip” and “Beach Head” to move on to it just yet. Will report back, as ever.

Apologies for the long hiatus; I tried to stay away from computers for as long as possible over the holidays. Not a complete break from music, though, thanks to a four-year-old alternating between his versions of “Barbie Girl” and various Joanna Newsom songs, and a bunch of records I kept close to me for the fortnight. A couple that worked particularly well were “Primary Colours” by the Eddy Current Suppression Ring and the sampler of the forthcoming 13th Floor Elevators box set. “Primary Colours” is one of those records I’ve come to rather late, in spite of being tipped off about the band by our man in Australia, Jon Dale, something like a year ago. It’s also one of those records which initially seems to be kind of disposable fun, daft thanks to the names of the band (Brendan Suppression, Eddy Current, Rob Solid, Danny Current), but becomes tenaciously insinuating after a few plays. Ostensibly, it’s Aussie garage rock played with energy and precision by four men who met at a vinyl-pressing plant, in the bug-eyed and skinny tradition of all those bands on the “Do The Pop!” comp. But there’s a lot more going on there besides that kind of wired Nuggets/Doors/proto-punk thing, however much Brendan Suppression might leer and drawl. There’s a lot of “Blank Generation” bones and indignation, perhaps more Hell-era Television than the Voidoids, especially on the opening “Memory Lane”. Better still, the band go into these scrambled unravellings from time to time that put them into more of an avant-garage continuum rolling back through The Fall in their mid-‘80s pomp to Malcolm Mooney-period Can. Check out “Colour Television” or “I Admit My Faults” (neither if which figure on their myspace, somewhat inevitably) – the best new garage band I’ve come across in a good while, I think. And one which sounds very nice when played next to this 13th Floor Elevators sampler. “Sign Of The 3 Eyed Men” looks like a monstrous and desirable object, being a 10-CD anthology of the sainted psych-punks. As usual, I can’t pretend to be a scholar of bootlegs and marginalia, so you’ll have to forgive me for not analysing what is authentically unreleased here; I know there have been fidelity issues around some Elevators repackages in the past, which don’t seem to be the case here if the 13 tracks on the sampler are anything to go by. What’s most striking, perhaps, is that while it’s easy to get distracted by the erratic mythology of Roky Erickson, the basic truth about his band was that they were remarkable for their menace and vigour, not least live – killer versions of “Roller Coaster” and “You Don’t Know” attest to as much here. Hopefully someone at International Artists will bless me with the full thing. If and when, I’ll report back. In the meantime, happy new year, and a belated thanks for all of your comments and insights through 2008 – apart from the dorks screaming for me to leak the Animal Collective album, of course. That’s out in a week I think (and finally leaked too, I believe); please let me know what you think, after all the hyperbole I’ve slung its way over the past couple of months or so.