The Boggs - "Plant Me A Rose". White out. The world sends a blizzard and you wonder what the sky is trying to undo, what it's trying to blot with snow, what it'll write across the city after it has made everything disappear. I fire flares, put on my most brightly coloured clothes, I stand with my lover on a street-corner, touching red lips. You will not undo this, sky. Blizzards have their limits; their limits are right here.

Kris Ellestad - "Hour of the Rat". Coat of arms gets slipped through your mail-slot. Coat of arms arrives down your chimney. Girlfriend slaps a coat of arms on your cheek. You're finding coats of arms everywhere: pull back your bedspread, shake your fruit-tree, open your father's memoirs. A coat of arms is like a mirror. It's like a person's heart, subdivided, allegorized. Clumsier metaphors have never adorned flags. // And this sour keening racket is the work of Kris Ellestad, from Calgary, leading his shambles off a cliff. I can't figure out of it's a fanfare or a falling-down, Medieval England or post-hashtag Brooklyn. It's folk-music with the sense taken out, a garden turned into a face. [buy No Man Land / more by Kris]

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Our friend Ilse, who was responsible (I think) for Shotgun Jimmie's torrid pipecleaner promo, has made a stop-motion video for an unreleased Ladyhawk track. Watch it here. It makes me think that when objects come alive, they simply want to do simple things, well. (That's what I want to do, too.)

Thank you to all those who entered our Withered Hand contest. I'm emailing the victors, and the runners-up have been listed. Fingers crossed that Withered Hand makes it past US visa folks and into the country - follow the drama here.

(thanks to patricia for the image - source)