Singles
Standing against the torrent of World Cup records comes a motley crew : attempting to hitch a ride on the back of Dangermouse's later project Old School Rules gets lifted from Dangerdoom's The Mouse And The Mask, last year's best hip-hop album (hello, pale indie boy here), Ed Harcourt digs a Sunday morning vibe, apparently with Graham Coxon turning up somewhere, on Visit From The Dead Dog, Rufus Wainwright sideling and occasional Johnson to Antony Joan As Police Woman similarly lays back and enjoys The Ride, Boards Of Canada provide a similar service only for extreme OCD sufferers on the typically deceptively active Trans Canada Highway EP and Nottingham's slow burning Love Ends Disaster! do nothing of the sort with an EP of stunning ambition somewhere between the Psychedelic Furs, Sonic Youth and Hope Of The States, at guesses, called Faster Faster. A band who actually did change the landscape also get a release this week, as thirty years on from its top 30 entry and Top Of The Pops performance Mute reissue Can's mutant disco stormer I Want More on limited edition vinyl.
Albums
The Futureheads' News And Tributes has had what we'll politely call a mixed response and 679 seem to have forgotten to promote it until tonight's Channel 4 4 Music Presents..., but really they needed to further their sound to stop them falling into the growing in size pigeonhole being created for them of all-out angular monsters. It doesn't all work, but when it does it's something quite special and can properly be labelled under 'grower'. Similarly, Green Gartside's retreat to his bedroom with a set of keyboards to produce Scritti Politti's White Bread Black Beer, a stripped down version of the melted plastic soul that made his name commercially plus the offbeat lyrical concerns of his earlier work. We're fans of Elvis Costello but have never really warmed to his extra-curricular (ie not making rock'n'roll records with at least Steve Nieve) activities. Always worth a shot, though, and Costello and Allen Toussaint's The River In Reverse is their tribute to then recently flooded New Orleans, half Toussaint classics and half new songs, essentially Costello and the Imposters versus Toussaint's piano and Memphis horns. If Costello's modern vocal style takes some getting used to, what about Stuart A Staples down the years? The erstwhile Tinderstick takes time off from trying to get Vic Reeves beaten up for ensuring every review contains a 'club singer' jibe to tread much the same lush musical path as before on Leaving Songs. Finally, it says it was out last week on this link, we know, but his own website reckons it's out on the 29th, so fair enough - Grandmaster Gareth found a cult following for his Minute Melodies through Peel's patronage when his last solo album came out in 2002, and while Misty's Big Adenture has taken his time since the analogue keyboards, odd electrical devices and jumbled samples have come back out for The Party Sounds Of Grandmaster Gareth.
Book
Is it really (Guinness Book Of) British Hit Singles And Albums time again? You know the drill by now, up to number nineteen with that mid-90s one with all the stupid mistakes consigned to those with good memories. The biggest ever, as they always say, with a number ones timeline to celebrate it hitting the thousand chart toppers. Less exalted but by no means any more useless, John Lydon's Metal Box - The Story of Public Image Ltd (Phil Strongman) is the awkwardly titled story of PIL apparently featuring interviews with many big players. Not Lydon, though, we'd guess.
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