In shops tomorrow: 10/7

Singles

Funny how the hype machine works, isn't it? (Not The Hype Machine, we imagine that works by standard webcrawler procedures) Right back at what seems a million years ago at the start of 2006 it was all Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and as such they were talked up into a top 30 album chart placing and booked for most of the top UK festivals before anyone pointed out that actually they weren't very good live. This week well acknowledged album highlight The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth crawls out on 7", barely noticed. That's because it's all about Tapes 'N Tapes these days, who like CYHSY! offset a not totally consistent album with some remarkably assured highs, none more so than the two-step Surfer Rosa of Insistor. Amazing what a hit with someone else can do for a campaign, as no sooner has Dangermouse become a hitmaker on WEA then Lex issue a Dangerdoom EP, and in the week its basis Adult Swim comes to UK digital TV as well. Old School Rules was one of The Mouse And The Mask's highlights as MF Doom and Talib Kweli do battle over cartoon beats and by rights should have challenged Gnarls Barkley for radio play. Obviously, it hasn't. As well as sticking Ladyfuzz's Oh Marie out again Transgressive put out what we think is the first non-limited release by the ever great Jeremy Warmsley, locating the dark edge of the sunshine acoustic pop of I Promise. A different approach to the beats-enhanced singer songwriter comes from Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, which was actually the headline of an interview with Sam Duckworth in the Telegraph last week. Well, it's eye catching. We really are reaching our fill of singers aged around 20 with Clash and Billy Bragg upbringings and one side of I Spy/Call Me Ishmael far outstrips the other. We're not going to tell you which, mind. A less wracked, and more musically expansive, approach comes from up north as just in time for the end of the World Cup Jim Noir's Adidas advert-soundtracking Eanie Meanie gets a reissue. Other vinyl-only release of the week is the grand old tradition of the split single, this time between Newcastle glam-bruisers the Motorettes' Relax It's The 80s and isn't-it-about-time-you-put-out-something-to-follow-Nightjoy twisted post-punk of Kubichek!, a 10" on local hero label Kitchenware. Where is Martyn Stephenson these days?

Albums

And yet another end of year album list contender! It's not as if Guillemots' Through The Window Pane was ever going to be produced in a 'raw', 'edgy' fashion, but the sheer scope and ambition of the vision driven by Fyfe but clearly shared by his bandmates still knocks your preconceptions clean away. With actual, non-processed emotion to spare just in Dangerfield's voice, with inventive orchestral flourishes from the off and variously reminders of all points from Talk Talk via Rufus Wainwright to Leonard Bernstein, alternatively rueful and euphoric. All 702 seconds of Sao Paolo will be the album closer of the year, we're stating that already. What else? We put a Metric track in last year's Advent Calendar Of Music thinking Live It Out had had some sort of UK release. The fact it's listed here this week suggests otherwise, as you'll have spotted, and even then it's taken the good burghers of Drowned In Sound to pick it up. Going back to it it's actually more consistent then we gave it credit for at the time, and Emily Haines is a properly acerbic, drop dead cool frontwoman. Thom Yorke's The Eraser seems to have crept quietly up on us all, despite the TV advertising (post-ironic, presumably) and, well, the fact it's Thom Yorke. Haven't actually heard any of this but we're less down on Radiohead's electronic moments then most so must do so. Also requiring careful treading is Fiery Furnace Matthew Friedberger's double solo collection Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School, respectively a Furnacesque proper oddball pop collection and an Eno-esque, gulp, "sonic novel". Sufjan Stevens shares his inventive offcuts on The Avalanche - come on, you've still got loads of states left - Cosmic Scouser veterans Tramp Attack bring their country-skiffle to LP at last on Call In Sick, and in the repackaging pile only idiots don't already have the 2CD anthology but let's have a Ramones Greatest Hits anyway - what's the hook here? - but anyone interested at all in where US college rock went after the ripped jeans departed CBGBs should invest in Sebadoh III. Lou Barlow had been joined by foil Jason Loewenstein by now and was taking lo-fi into post-modern folky territory at times while still being angry and concerned about everything and covering it all in the trademark scuzz. The new bonus CD starts with Gimme Indie Rock. You're still waiting?