My Bones Hurt?

Musical Revelations Of The Week:

Super Furry Animals - Absolutely everything they've ever done - Listening to 'Hey Venus!' this week has once again convinced me that this band have NEVER done anything less than excellent. I've spent the last couple of days working through all of their albums, and even 'Guerilla', the record I tend to put at the bottom of the SFA pecking order, sounded fantastic. Every time Gruff et al release a newie I think the same thing; 'God, SFA are great. They're really underrated, I should listen to them more.' Which I duly do, absolutely love all of their records and then move on again. The Super Furries seem to be condemned to being one of those bands that everyone says they love but never quite achieve legendary status. With 'Hey Venus!' they really should.

Daniel Pemberton - Tvpopmusik - Loads of bits and bobs that Mr Pemberton has composed for TV shows, in longer versions along with other assorted instrumental bits. Shame there's no League of Gents theme, but the music from That'll Teach 'Em sounds superb, freed from the irritating connotations of that tittish headmaster.

Maps - We Can Create - Bollocks to the fact that I've talked about this before. It got a Mercury nomination this week, and I can only hope that that leads to a number of people checking it out that might otherwise not have done so. T'is a tremendous record, and if you're a vinyl nut there's a quite beautifully pressed 2x10" edition available while stocks last.



Non-musical Revelations Of The Week:
Jekyll - Another brilliantly written episode. Laugh-out-loud funny and full of suspense almost simultaneously, this series has been a joy. Final episode next week. I don't imagine it'll make much sense, but then who cares when it's this entertaining?
Scrubs - Back to that start via the DVDs for me. Season Six is currently being shown on E4, and is meeting the high standards one has come to expect from it and as a result I thought I'd nip back to the start and remember why I fell in love with it. It's the nature of the ensemble performance that does it. The plots ensure that virtually everybody is used in every episode, and the throwaway gags that are peppered through the not-especially-complex plots range from genius wordplay to the most vintage slapstiok imaginable. Word is, Season Six will be Zach Braff's last, so this could be the final run of greatness. E4, Thursdays, 9pm. Or the first five seasons on DVD from all good retailers and lots of shit ones too.
101 Great Welsh Tries - Ok, something of niche item here, but I enjoyed it. I say I enjoyed it, but I speak mainly about the tries themselves. The talking head bits with Robert Jones and Clive Rowlands are at best funereal and at worst bloody pointless. I tried watching it at double speed and suddenly Rowlands was almost talking at the speed the rest of us use normally. Still, some great footage.