Weekender : taking it to the limit

FREE MUSIC: We included this in yesterday's Weekly Sweep but it's too good a song to let slide in among nineteen others. Coltrane Motion are a Chicago-based duo, one building, programming and piecing together the keyboards and effects at home, the other adding guitar and accroutrements to form what they describe as "booty breaks dipped in indie guitar fuzz with a mess of synths, samplers, & laptops tearing it all to pieces". What it actually means on new album Songs About Music is noisy retro-futurist psychedelic synths being deliberately overheated by the ghost of shoegazing. Twenty-Seven should make sense of it.

HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Cowboy Racer are apparently from 'Amsterdam/London/Oxford/Brighton/ Tokyo'. It's the Amsterdam bit that provides the band's most interesting detail, as it's the return of Salad singer Marijne van der Vlugt from the world of, as far as we can tell, professional voiceovers to front curious, alternately subtle and thumping electronica, Marijne sounding much as she did those ten years ago.

VISUAL REPRESENTATION: After that Stooges footage the other week, we got thinking about the modern nature of the rock live act and the way band and audience interact. Literally, in the case of Greg Puciato of Dillinger Escape Plan (to be honest you can watch this one on mute and turn off after fifteen seconds, but what seconds of visuals) or the man-mountain of onstage madness that is Les Savy Fav's Tim Harrington (key moment - when the travelling without moving commences at 2:03. And in case you're wondering after watching the locale, yes he did) Of course you've got your At The Drive-In, and we'll forego Jools this time for Arcarsenal from the 2001 Big Day Out (bear in mind, by the way, that Cedric Bixler-Zavala was a heavy heroin user at this point. What's your excuse, Doherty?), the Butthole Surfers - not enough fire in that one - and Minor Threat, in which the tiny room has gone apeshit even before Ian MacKaye and co have launched into their version of Wire's 12XU. And if none of that appeals, what about Keith Richards smacking a bloke with his guitar?

VIRAL MARKETING: Anyone else see the Icky Thump video review on the Guardian Music minisite? What a hilarious concept - talk about the video as if it were happening in the north east of England! Like the phrase 'ecky thump'! How the hours towards the pub must have flown. Here's Effect And Cause off Jools.

FALLING OFF A BLOG: We can't quite put our finger on what it is that makes Horse Latitudes so much of a standout - there's certainly an extra layer of sophisticated prose, but also a pleasingly opaque upload selection which at the moment includes Sparky’s Magic Piano, cult funk fusionist Betty Davis, Rosie Thomas, Chicago jazz, Dusty Springfield from her Pet Shop Boys-helmed revival, Soul Limbo and the Troggs Tapes. "If that bastard don't go I'll fucking retire!"

EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: This has doubtless been up for ages but we've only just come across it - a 1994 compilation of Sound Of Music covers including the BMX Bandits, Terry Edwards, Blueboy and a load of sub-indie bands lost to time.

IN OTHER NEWS: And those artist specialist blogs just keep on coming. Blursongs is four in, and the Bang reclamation starts here; One Imaginary Blog is doing the Cure roundelay. For comparison the daddy of them all, established six years ago, is the thorough and catchily titled Pet Shop Boys Song By Song Commentary.