Expanding a little on some of the stuff I put in the right-hand sidebar...

• the halo benders - god don't make no junk : I've been going through one of those phases where I'm enjoying hearing Calvin Johnson's bottomless baritone (eg. his song on the Total Lee! tribute, or the guest vocals on the Heavenly track just a few minutes ago), and this CD was on the top of one of the piles of things I'd removed from the changer. I'd picked it up early in the year after sampling a couple of tracks on Epitonic that sounded interesting enough (especially when you find the CD going second-hand). I've yet to fully appreciate the Doug Martsch angle (despite one-time efforts from Darren), but I'll get to that eventually, honest. Besides the fun fun fun Don't touch my bikini that you can hear at Epitonic, the closing track Big rock candy mountain has some great spidery guitar set against a relentless drum march.

• registered nurse - young husbands : having noticed they're playing the entire album live this Friday, I realised it'd been a while since I'd listened to it despite carrying it around with me for the past few weeks. Their debut Strippers was such a hard act to follow that it's going to take me some time to fully immerse myself in this. Where the old album had rather brash, loud songs (such as the wonderful title track) scattered amongst the quiet and brooding ones, the new album's loud(er) tracks seem a bit less raw, and we've got a pile of shorter tracks instead - lots of intstrumentals among the songs. talk to see you smile, probably the most radio-friendly track on the album, reminds me a little of the Underground Lovers, who Richard Andrew played with about a decade or so ago. Nautical Miles is the standout quiet/brooding track built around a 5-second guitar bit that won't leave my head, overlaid with an almost deathly moan that rattles my bones. I find it a little hard to recommend albums like this to a lot of people I know - I don't think it'd scratch their itch the way it scratches mine, the way it bounces back and forth between loud and soft - though I hope they'll be pleasantly surprised, somehow.

• pizzicato five - made in usa : I don't know how it got there but I had part of a song planted in my head, and it turned out to be I wanna be like you - a blissfully laid-back little duet, of sorts. It's the perfect happy little album to stock your CD changer to. It's perfect good mood music. In case of emergency, break glass, and all that.