The Weekly Sweep

Anathallo - Hoodwink (Myspace)
Still no news of international activity for Floating World, which means it'll have to become a ghost member of whenever we do our albums of the year countdown. Still a marvellous, sprawling album that we heartily recommend on import

Clinic - Harvest (mp3 on blogsarefordogs)
What we love about Clinic is that all their albums sound much the same but they still sound like nobody else. Fourth album Visitations is just spookier than Winchester Cathedral in a Wicker Man soundtrack sense (the original one, you know what we mean)

The Delgados - Everything Goes Around the Water (YouTube)
Peloton still gets the occasional play here, but we're technically referring to the mildly rawer, definitely equalling the recorded effort version on the consistently excellent BBC Sessions album

Field Music - In Context (YouTube)
As close as they've come to the Wire-meets-Beach Boys description printed prominently on their Myspace, if we're accepting that to mean Beach Boy melodies rather than expansiveness and Wire insistence as opposed to dissonance

Future Of The Left - Real Men Hunt In Packs (Myspace)
The most anticipated new band in Britain? So received opinion is they essentially sound like a heavier if vaguely more controlled McLusky, which only makes them several hundred times more exciting than the rest of British rock's contenders

Goodbooks - Turn It Back (mp3)
Bear in mind this is the sort of thing they're giving away for free. Warms the cockles of your anticipatory heart, doesn't it? Not only the proper sort of anthemic pop, but with a pulse and an ending that comes a chorus too early

Grizzly Bear - On A Neck, On A Spit (mp3)
Making up most of our listening over the last week has been Yellow House, the new album by these Brooklyn-based psych-folkers who here sound like the midpoint between Animal Collective, Jim O'Rourke and Devendra Banhart. People will go mad about this soon enough

Guillemots - Trains To Brazil (Mercury Prize performance YouTube)
Glorious, but obviously not going to be the massive hit it deserves to be. Maybe it's from watching that excellent Stiff Records documentary on BBC4 over the last couple of nights, but we kind of feel that way about a lot of the really good stuff around at the moment

Jeremy Warmsley - I Believe In The Way You Move (YouTube)
Stop now and go and have a look at that video if you haven't already seen it, because it's one of the best you'll see all year

Klaxons - Magick
Completely contradicting what we said up there, we're detecting a Clinic influence alongside the usual No, Really, What The Fuck Links Any Of These New Rave Bands Together? on this new one from The NME's Most Hyped Apart From The Horrors But At Least Klaxons Are Listenable

Larrikin Love - Happy As Annie (YouTube)
Coloured with a radio edit that excises the word 'flocking', the official invention - well, reinvention technically as it's a re-release, but never mind - of Romany punk. Banjo solo!

Los Campesinos! - It Started With A Mixx (Myspace)
It's ironic, of course, that the whole internet is now wondering whether they shouldn't be given time to develop more of such nuggets of greatness, given all the hype so far has been message board driven

Luke Haines - Leeds United (live YouTube)
Half of the forthcoming double A-side, Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop is still great in its own right (video) but its Yorkshire Ripper-themed twin returns Haines to his themes of malleable anger and anti-nostalgia

The Pipettes - Judy (YouTube)
Although evidently we share little of said anti-nostalgia, ho ho. There's something of a black heart behind the gleaming pop exterior here too, mind, not least in the best ever delivery of the line "are you still looking for a fight?"

Scritti Politti - Dr Abernathy
It finally struck us last week that White Bread Black Beer will be high in the aforementioned end of year list, one of the main reasons being this big epic that switches from homespun reflectiveness to big psychedelic guitars in the blink of an eye. All made in Green's bedroom

Tapes N Tapes - Cowbell (mp3 from The Yellow Stereo)
Rumbustuousness from the hype band that steadfastly refuse to properly take off anywhere else

The Victorian English Gentlemens Club - Impossible Sightings Over Shelton (YouTube)
Zane Lowe played this as part of Fresh Meat the week before last and afterwards had to make a special plea to the show's chatroom to actually be positive in their comments. The chatroom went on to pick some fourth rate Razorlightism as their favourite. There's a thesis in that

Vincent Vincent And The Villains - Johnny Two Bands
On EMI now and apparently playing on the soon to be revived TOTP2 at the end of October, which must mean there's an audience on its way after a prolonged period of buzz around their modernist take on early rock'n'roll. Shut up about crepe soles already

Voxtrot - Mothers, Sisters, Daughters And Wives (live YouTube)
This has been hanging around the mp3 clique for ages but is only just getting a UK release. Best not to get in the way of it either and its propulsive link-making between early REM, mid-80s British indie (evening, Mr Marr) and Interpol

The Young Knives - Another Hollow Line
Best last four tracks of any album this year? Still right near the top of our listening pile, this is the one that starts Voices Of Animals And Men's closing run, showing off their folkpop influences as well as a soupcon of Blur's more low-key moments