A lot of new arrivals this week, the best of which on first listen seems to be the Tinariwen album. Considering how many Super Furry Animals fans have loitered here in the past, I should probably also point out that Gruff Rhys guests on the new Simian Mobile Disco album.
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.
According to Daniel Rossen, sat onstage in front of a notably packed Club Uncut, this is only the second ever ‘proper’ gig by Department Of Eagles. The first, it transpires, saw the band expanded to a five-piece, augmented by a couple of the Dirty Projectors and another of Rossen’s bandmates in Grizzly Bear.
I found this morning a decent MP3 stream of the Dead’s Obama benefit show from last month, which has just started playing as I write. The tracklisting looks great – including “Slipknot”, “Help On The Way”, “Franklin’s Tower”, “Dark Star”, “St Stephen” and, fantastically, “Unbroken Chain”.And the starting “Truckin’”, which has been going for a good while now, sounds pretty healthy. Maybe some of the more experienced Deadheads among you could hunt it down and let me know what you think.
Driving home from the Leonard Cohen show on Friday night, I looked in my bag for something suitable to put on the car stereo, and settled fairly quickly on the new Fennesz album, “Black Sea”.
Yes yes I know it's only a couple of days since the last one, but I have an interview to prepare for in an hour or so, and yesterday's post brought a bunch of stuff we should probably talk about, or at least flag up, now. Namely. . .
