I’ve been getting my fingers mucky this evening, as part of a raking team at church doing over the garden. It’s a rare week of (mostly) no travels, so I felt it would be nice to help out.

The evening reminded me of two things: firstly what a wonderful community Hilton Church is, and secondly how much I hate anything to do with gardening.

And now for some music.

Justin‘s recent post about In Rainbows reminded me that I had yet to get round to buying Radiohead’s latest offering, and so I did so the other evening via iTunes – for considerably more than the £0.00 I could have paid if I’d remembered to buy it when it came out. It’s good, but I am not sure I would rave about it quite yet as Justin has done – I’m only a couple of listens in, and since Radiohead went all weird they’ve been difficult to instantly like. Which is no bad thing, but it’s just a bit too early for me to comment until I listen a bit more. The other “weird” albums have grown on me, though, so I am sure In Rainbows will do so similarly.

I also bought the new Royksopp album (excellent – lively, catchy, quirky, but a bit too much voice for my liking), and the new Jon Hopkins album “Insides” (thanks to Niall‘s recommendation from darkest Azerbaijan). Good album, some sublime sounds as usual, but a couple of unnecessarily angry tracks and one that shamelessly reminds you of his recent Coldplay collaboration. Niall says the album “goes surprisingly well on a rig, when the loud flaring has stopped and the rig has become (relatively) quiet again”. I will just have to take his word on that one.

Just to continue the theme, I also bought the new Kyte EP, Lights Outside Here, a few weeks ago. Now this I can extensively rave about. Soft, gentle, soothing but energetic electro-pop that really relaxes and cheers at the same time, and I can’t believe Kyte are so unheard of.

(Okay, that wasn’t much of an extensive rave. It is only an EP, though, not a full-length album.)

Kyte’s Lights Outside Here has been fiercely mud-wrestling with Malcolm Middleton‘s latest album Sleight of Heart for supremacy on my iPod in recent weeks. The more I listen to Malcolm Middleton, the more I think he’s a latter-day Bob Dylan – compelling and thoughtful music, gorgeous lyrics, a melancholic feel, and an unashamedly unimpressive voice. Like his previous album Into The Woods, Sleight of Heart is full of beautiful ballads, dark humour, and a canny knack for seeing the pessimistic in everything. Penultimate track Love Comes in Waves is the hauntingly poetic highlight.

What else do I need to tell you? Ah yes, this article on BBC News has pointed me to this jaw-dropping video of a stunt cyclist in Edinburgh. Well worth a peek.

There’s been progress on the wedding-planning front too, but that’s not exclusively my news, so I’ll perhaps not blog about it right now. Where that sort of dilemma stands this blog after I am married, I have no idea and will have to think about it. I’ll not be giving it up, though, that’s for sure (my blog, I mean, not getting married or thinking – not that I’ll be giving them up either. Anyway, moving on…).

I’ve also been doing lots of writing, but more about that soon.

And finally, I’ve got round to uploading some more photos to Flickr. I went out a few nights ago to make the most of the beautiful weather and still night-time conditions, but never got round to uploading anything of what I took. I’m quite pleased with the results.

Right, that’s quite enough from me. How are you, my dear reader?