So, I'm not dead...

...just lazy. And slightly apathetic.

Yeh.

Since i've been away, the right honourable Sufjan Stevens has released what may prove to be my favourite album of the year 'The Age of Adz' (pronounced Odz, apparently) is nothing short of brilliant, and gets better with every listen.  Especially 'Impossible Soul' the 25 minute closing track, the word epic doesn't even begin to describe it, and of course there was the "ep" 'All Delighted People' (over an hour long, not an ep Suffy) which is well worth investing in via the man's bandcamp (where you can also stream '...Adz') page if you haven't already.  Only a couple of quid too.

Other stuff engaging my ears recently, has included Janelle Monae, whose 'ArchAndroid' (concept - see wikipedia's description after the jump) album, is eclectic to say the least, taking in Funk, Soul, RnB, Folk and Grindcore, it's an absolute blast, and in 'Tightrope' has the best James Brown song James Brown didn't record, as you can see below.

And Finally Warpaint, the LA quartet have been together around 6 years and whose début LP 'The Fool' is due out this Monday, it's all kinds of ace, and has just the right amount of scuzz and weirdness for me, you can stream it at HypeMachine until it's release, and here's a little freebie courtesy of Rough Trade Records, in the shape of lead single 'Undertow'.
Before you ask, it reminds of of 'Polly' by Nirvana

Apologies for how crap this post looks! I'm not clever enough to change the size of the video!

The ArchAndroid is the follow-up to Janelle Monáe's debut EP Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase)(2007) and consists of the second and third parts to her Metropolis concept series.^[1] Partly inspired by the 1927 film of the same name,^[2] the series involves the fictional tale of Cindi Mayweather, a messianic android sent back in time to free the citizens of Metropolis from The Great Divide, a secret society that uses time-travel to suppress freedom and love.^[1] In an interview for the Chicago Tribune, Monáe said that she was inspired by the quote "The mediator between the hand and the mind is always the heart".^[2] discussed her incorporation of the android as a metaphor for a minority and the role of the story's protagonist in an interview for Blues & Soul, stating "she represents the MEDIATOR between the have’s and the have not’s, the minority and the majority. So in that way she’s very similar to Neo, the Archangel from ‘The Matrix'. And basically her return will mean freedom for the android community"