Up now over at RHUM.

Fair to say I’m not hating it so far… 43 more free tracks to come, allegedly.

I’ve just posted a short review of A Stranger Here by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott over at Rhum: link.

A track from Dylan’s new album Together Through Life, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”, is currently available from bobdylan.com.
You will be shocked to learn that I really like it.  It has a nice bass groove, great, free roaming guitar, and and gravelly, intense vocals.  It sounds murkier and more bluesy than Modern Times did, in a [...]

A review of the new Gomez album, A New Tide by yours truly is up over at Rabbit Hole Urban Music.
Executive summary: I like it, but I miss the Good Old Days™.
Right this way if you’d like to read it.

You may recall this rambling post about the new Art Brut album – if you have any interest, you can hear one of the new tracks here. They still have the signature Art Brut sound, although the production sounds very crisp to my ear.
The review is fairly harsh, but I will reserve judgment – [...]

I thought this was an interesting little article about the present state of the music industry and where it’s heading.
In summary, the big labels know that people paying $30/album and $2/track for recorded music is not going to last forever, and have plans in place to deal with that eventuality. Those plans seem to [...]

I really enjoyed “Music That Makes You Dumb“, an admittedly psuedo-scientific analysis of intelligence vs musical preferences.  Basically, one Virgil Griffith has assembled data on music taste based on U.S. college campuses, then compared that data with the high school scores required to get into each college to produce an assessment of the correlation between [...]

For a while there, Bob Dylan seemed to be slowing down with age.  In his youth he was an album factory, cranking out 8 albums between 1962 and 1967, and 9 albums between 1969 and 1976.  But in (ahem) modern times, he dropped off the pace – from 1993’s World Gone Wrong it was four [...]

I was lucky enough to see Neil Young at the Adelaide Big Day Out.  Erin and I photographed the day for Rhum.
Some of my Neil Young shots (click for bigger versions):

I thought no-one could do a less appropriate cover of a great song than Scarlett.  I was so very wrong.
Edit: I like this description.  What the hell is with The Watchmen anyway?  So far I have seen nothing to explain its apparent status as a cult ‘alternative’ comic book.  So far it looks rather like [...]

So, Leonard Cohen.  What can I say?  It was incredible.  I was not ready for how amazing his voice is live.  Despite playing to a crowd of strangers in a far off place on a scorching hot day, his warmth and genuine humanity shone through everything he sang and said.
He appeared to be genuinely happy [...]

It was fabulous. More soon.

This is a good little article for anyone interested in Belle & Sebastian and, in particular, their earlier days. There is a focus on the first to B&S albums, Tigermilk and If You’re Feeling Sinister.
I tend to agree with the conclusion that the band may have inadvertently traded some of their poignancy and emotional [...]

You may have read about how Apple, in its benevolence, is finally releasing its entire music catalogue in a digital rights management-free format – i.e., you can copy them freely as you see fit. Sounds great (especially from the perspective of Apple’s marketing humanoids): a stylish cutting edge tech company finally breaking the music [...]