Thomas Köner's latest, La Barca, has sneaked out almost unannounced. Not enough time to listen properly yet, but here are the approximate locations of the co-ordinates masquerading as track names:

Hour 1 - Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
Hour 2 - Nice, France
Hour 3 - Venice, Italy
Hour 4 - Hoyo Negro crater, La Palma, Canary Islands (Spain)
Hour 5 - Monte Palatino, Rome, Italy
Hour 6 - Damascus, Syria
Hour 7 - Paris, France
Hour 8 - Bab al-Louq, Cairo, Egypt
Hour 9 - Spitsbergen (Norway), Arctic Ocean
Hour 10 - Jerusalem, Israel
Hour 11 - near Bar,…

A quick note to say that Richmond's finest purveyors of dusty, hushed indie-folk Spokane have a retrospective album, A Small Commotion available for free download.

Just a quick pointer to say that Keith Kenniff, of Helios, Goldmund and Boy in Static fame appears to up and running under his own name at http://www.myspace.com/keithkenniff with four lovely tracks - my reference points being Bedhead/The New Year, Red House Painters, Drunk/Spokane, Simon & Garfunkel and even a bit of The Lilac Time.

So, with it being the winter and all, and me being away from home, I thought I'd take some suitably wintry music with me, namely Thomas Köner's Nuuk, Biosphere's Cirque and Svarte Greiner's Knive - all of which have a sort of dark icy foreboding. Great.

The only problem is that this kind of music doesn't really work when wandering among the vineyards of the Languedoc on a cloudless, sunny day, in a t-shirt - which is what I was doing today.

http://www.industrialandmarine.com/sunny.jpg

Perhaps I'll have to move to Spitsbergen.

A couple of weeks ago a mate of mine started up a sort of CD tree/swap thing between mutual friends of ours. It had a few rules; the tracks all had to be on film soundtracks, but must not have been written specifically for that film. And they all had to have lyrics.

For someone (me) who spent a good deal of his younger days making endless compilation tapes and CDs for people, and putting a good deal of thought into them, the must-have-lyrics rule seemed a bit restrictive, mainly because it excluded a lot of interesting and diverse music…

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, my musical world revolved mainly around gloriously theatrical flour-abusers Fields of the Nephilim - a perfect complement to the bleak brownness of the north of Scotland where I grew up. While I was walking around in my long coat and scarecrow hat, on my radar appeared another band which was particularly popular amongst my friends - it was called Swamptrash. At the time I thought they were just a local band; I didn't even know what kind of music they played.

Fast forward about a year, I'm sitting in someone's rusty Mini Metro…

Today's topical track is Boards of Canada's June 9th, one of their sounds-like-1978 tracks. Listening to it now, its retro squelchiness reminds me a bit of The Human League. Next BoC topical track will be in 3 months' time (5-9-78 - which, er, sounds like 1978).

That wasn't very exciting, now was it?

Now then, this is where it's at. Eingya by Helios (aka Keith Kenniff aka Goldmund) is the peak of my musical year - so far. It's somewhere between the ubiquitous Boards of Canada, Arovane's wonderful Tides album, and the dusty somnolent folk of Spokane. In a small way, it reminds me of Mogwai - but without the sense of despair they occasionally produce - and the shamefully underrated Kettel. Atmospherically, it's got the same heat-haze soporific quality I (and I'm probably the only one) find in Einstuerzende Neubauten's Haus der Luege album.

But enough…

Brief Autechre update:

I feel equal parts immense pride and immense shame that nothing I've heard by Autechre even comes close to the sheer greatness of 1 Thing by Amerie*

I suspect that these two artists are only comparable in my head. Now, if I was to do an A-Z list…**

*This is probably down to the genius drum sample from Meters which accounts for most of the track. It makes me want to go and hit cardboard boxes like a drunk spider in a dustbin factory.

**Don't worry, I shall be avoiding that bandwagon.

Boards of Canada? Check. Aphex Twin? Check. Squarepusher? Check. Jega? Check. Autechre? Nope.

I have a big problem with Autechre. I don't like it. Well, I think I don't like it. It's like food - lots of people saying 'this is really tasty, you should try it', and me saying 'ok, let's try it, sounds like the kind of thing I'd like' then finding out it's just…average.

Now I wonder if this is down to the fact that a lot of Autechre fans I've spoken to seem so precious about it. I keep hearing how influential they are, how so-and-so…