Update (1:54pm EST): Pavement mp3 fixed.

Pavement - "Pueblo". (Part 2 of a continuing series in which I finally begin to get Pavement. And try to tell you what it is I'm getting.) There's so much inertia to this song - long spools of electric guitar, Malkmus lazy-singin'. Minutes of real-life languor, everyday languor, get-up-and-go-to-work languor, falling asleep on the bus as the dawn breaks through the window gloss. And so what's amazing is how easily Pavement shakes off this weight when it chooses to: the cut and crest of the choruses' guitars, the gold and silver streaks. Every time it happens - at 1:12 and again at (especially) at 2:50, - I want to stand up and sing the national anthem, any national anthem, something about land and freedom. They're fireworks, this song's choruses. They're copper salts, black powder, magnesium, tumbling & then scattered ashen in the sand.

[finally get around to buying Wowee Zowee]

OHM - "Spoon Me". Swedish electropop that pigeon-toes around the dancefloor, Jenny Barna casting panda-glances at nobody but her sweet baboo. And thank goodness. The world would be a much less dangerous place if lead singers restrained their glances to their sweet baboos. Still, this tune is only chaste inasmuch as a dancefloor can be chaste - there's certainly nothing stopping you from taking your own baboo (and let's hope (s)he's sweet) and pigeon-toeing around as well. Bend like a stork, shake like a swan. Barna's singing is a peculiar mix of The Knife's Karin Andersson and The Innocent Mission's Karen Paris, but Barna's the one of the three I think I'd rather take to a picnic. We'd each take our baboos. And the strobe lights.

[more info - album due in September]

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After my talk of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus a few days ago, some of you might be interested to see the great clip from the film that Goodie Bag has posted, with Johnny Dowd playing in a barber shop.

The Edinburgh band Amplifico is very gamely trying to raise money to record an album by releasing a series of videocasts and streaming gigs. They have a blog and all sorts of very lovable hijinks at their Webathon website. Best of luck.

Ed from Grizzly Bear has launched a (mp3!) blog. For those of you who didn't get enough of him when he guest-posted here last year, now Ed's back with holiday pics, tour-talk, Hot Chip & Vetiver & Beirut & DJ Jazzy Jeff. (And have I mentioned that their new album is great? It's great. I will probably talk more when it comes out.)

And finally... My favourite contemporary comic strip seems to have returned to form .