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.
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reunited to perform on stage at the 56th Grammy Awards.
McCartney and Starr took to the stage at Los Angeles' Staples Center and played "Queenie Eye", a recent single from McCartney's latest album New. The performance marked 50 years since The Beatles' career-making performance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
As Mark Lanegan prepares to release a career-spanning compilation, Has God Seen My Shadow? An Anthology 1989-2011, early in 2014, we look back at March 2012’s Uncut (Take 178), where the Screaming Trees frontman and solo artist discusses the highs and lows of his catalogue, from collaborating with Kurt Cobain, attempting to thrown session tapes into a river and embracing the synthesizer. Interview: Alastair McKay
As you may have seen, this week’s NME features the 2013 edition of their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. For this one, they also accepted votes from a bunch of the mag’s alumni, including me, so I thought it’d be an easy, albeit self-indulgent, blog to reproduce my Top 50 albums here.
My Bloody Valentine have been added to the T In The Park bill.
The festival, which takes place in Balado, Kinross between July 12-14 will be headlined this year by Mumford & Sons, Rihanna and The Killers. Also included in the raft of artists set to appear are Foals, Haim, Phoenix, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Calvin Harris and Beady Eye, along with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Dizzee Rascal and Kraftwerk.
John Dwyer has the sort of discography so deep and complicated that one suspects even he must have trouble keeping up with himself. As a consequence, it might be a mistake to try and divine paths and trends in career which his encompassed Coachwhips, Pink and Brown, Landed, Yikes, Burmese, The Hospitals, Zeigenbock Kopf and Sword + Sandals (according to Wikipedia, anyway, if I can emphasise my spotty knowledge any more) as well as Thee Oh Sees.
Scott Walker will present his most recent album, 2012’s Bish Bosch, as a unique three-dimensional experience at the Sydney Opera House.
Running from May 24 to June 10, Bish Bosch: Ambisymphonic has been developed by Walker with mixed media artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard.
