Music

BEAK - BEAK: A side project from Portishead's Geoff Barrow, it's a decent, krautrock infused effort, before it became fashionable again.

Grizzly Bear - Vecktamest: I suppose I should have listened to this much accliamed album before listening to their last album Shields, which was a good album, but I couldn't really understand the fuss, I undertsand it better having now heard this excellent album, superb,

Lee Bannon - Alternate endings: A US techno/hip hop goes drum and bass, it's a good album though it doesn't take the genre anywhere new.

Pixies - EP2: Even though they have now brought all the new albums out in album form, I'll sstick with experiencing them as EP's. I loved the first and love this second effort, it starts with a bang, Blue eyed Hexe is a stonker, though the rest don't quite live up to that, it's still another more than solid effort.

Stephen Malkmus and the jicks -Wig out at jagbags: Though i have only got into Pavement over the last five or six years, i love them. This Stephen Malkmus effort is very good, though i wouldn't bracket it at Pavement level.

The Souljazz Orchestra -Inner fire: First time I've heard this Canadian band, there's a lot going on, soul, jazz, latino, world music, but it all swings, cracking album.

Various artists -  Divided and united - the songs of the civil war: This really grew on me, I expected to like it, I love the incidental music on those American civil war documentaries, especially Ken Burns celebrated epic. But i never realised how many well known tunes were born of that bloody conflict.

Warpaint - Warpaint: It's a reasonable follow up to their debut album Fool, but despite some crtics thinking this was a move forward, it's not as successful an effort as that post punk Joy Division inspired disc.