Brilliant cartoon by Tom Gauld.

You can see more of his stuff on his Flickr page

Just got back from a wonderful weekend at the End of the Road Festival where we lucked out with some glorious weather.

One of my highlights of the weekend was getting the chance to see Richmond Fontaine, a band that I’ve loved for years. Their new album ‘We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River‘ is wonderful – you can buy it here and I really recommend that you do

Here’s a track about getting a phone call from an old friend.

Occasionally you build an idea in your head of something that proves to be woefully inaccurate and so it was on first reading about and seeing photos of The xx. I convinced myself that they would be a garage rock band in the vein of a multitude of scene bands who wore black and had haircuts that looked difficult to maintain.
But on hearing The xx album ‘xx’ I discovered that I was very wrong.

I wholeheartedly recommend that you listen to this wonderful, minimal, brooding album that despite the use of those words has a real sense of joy and positivity to it. The tracks ‘Islands’ and ‘Infinity’ I pretty much have fallen in love with and its the first album in a long time that had got me genuinely excited about people making music again.

A friend of mine sent me a link to the Sustain-Release Private Press this morning. It is the private press of UK artist Richard Skelton. He creates beautiful individual packages for each of his releases that combine artwork, literature and most importantly his music.

In these times of the increased concern of how music should be delivered to the consumer it is wonderful to see someone forging their own path, creating something that turns music into a tactile, coveted, complete object that absorbs the listener both visually and aurally.

I’m confident that there will not be a better song than “Stillness Is The Move” by Dirty Projectors released this year.

Phoenix are one of my favourite bands – I always remember when they were first played to me – it was on a trip from Brighton to Falmouth back in 2000. My good friend Bruce Ingram played us their debut album on our crappy car stereo in a 4 wheel drive vehicle that was smaller than a Ford Fiesta. I’ve been a fan ever since.

Their new album ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix‘ is not only awesomely titled- it also sounds fantastic.

Take a look at their online place