Stetson colin

Three weeks and a few hours ago, I found myself on a small plane from Richmond, Virginia, to Washington DC. Most of the other passengers were members of the Harvard baseball team, who had spent the past three hours being harassed by schoolgirls making innumerable Harlem Shake videos. I, though, was sat next to a woman from Colorado, who was studying the use of horses in Gestalt therapy.

Today’s looking like it might shape up as Stephen Stills day: as I write, we’re on track 16 (“Helplessly Hoping”) of his new career boxset, with 60-odd more to come.

That pretending-not-to-be-annoyed-by-the-Mercurys morning of the year. But as way of distraction, here’s this week’s rather late office playlist.

Part two of my 2011 favourites. Check out 100-76 here.

'The Suburbs' beats off competition from Austra, Braids and Timbre Timbre to take prize

Given we’re coming up to the end of June, I figured it should be time for this annual bit of anal-retentive album-crunching. A lot of fine records here , though not necessarily the 30 I might have envisaged at the start of 2011; as I’ve alluded to before, I feel like there have been a lot of eagerly-anticipated letdowns this year.

Apologies for the lengthy radio silence: a lot of hassle distracting me from blogs last week, not least the small matter of Uncut upping sticks and relocating to the Ninth Floor of the Blue Fin Building. Amidst all the crates, though, some pretty significant new records have turned up. Take a look at this lot…