Ocean

Mint! Inspired, moving study of the decline and fall of America’s independent music stores...

…and there are four unreleased albums imminent, including the original Chrome Dreams!

Brooding Celtic country from Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody – Peter Buck, Jacknife Lee and M Ward saddle up...

Billy Preston, Jackie Lomax, James Taylor and Mary Hopkin albums are included in revamp

'Mount Wittenberg Orca' is due out on June 30

One of my highlights at Club Uncut last year was an epic show by Philadelphia’s Kurt Vile, which spiralled off into some phenomenally unstructured solo reveries, during which Vile seemed to be carving an unusual and comparatively original new space for folkish singer-songwriters.

Just remembered today that I should post this: my column from the last issue of the mag, devoted to Wooden Shjips and Ripley's awesome spin-off, Moon Duo. The new issue of Uncut is out this week, though my column on Sir Richard Bishop was necessarily spiked to make room for the Alex Chilton tribute; I'll run that here in the next day or two.

Great start this morning, as I’ve just cracked open the new Prins Thomas album, which seems to carry on right where Lindström & Thomas’ “II” left off. In other goodish news, this long-running dickaround will finally be resolved in the next couple of days. I imagine you’ve all guessed what it is now?

A few bits and pieces to mop up today, beginning with one last thankyou to everyone who has posted on the end of year blogs – or, come to that, who's commented on any of the things I’ve written in the past 12 months. It’s been a genuine pleasure to hear from almost all of you; and of course heartening to discover other people interested in the same music.

Some surprise, really, that Wolf People, a new London band just signed to Jagjaguwar, have decided to stick with their name, given the seemingly innumerable number of Wolf-related bands currently around.