Rappers Delight Club - "Hum". The Rappers Delight Club is the "musical sideproject" of a young man who works with elementary high-school kids. Or rather, it's the musical sideproject of a bunch of kids who sometimes work with an enthusiastic adult. In short: this is four minutes of the looped Elmo themesong, but with kids laying it down. They rap like monsters, like beasts, like cheese-shop clerks. Like kids, really - and beyond the ceaseless sparkle of the song, there's the plain flact of their flow. "In terms of making money / I'm a gorilla / I rap so well / they call me rapzilla." Oh yes, yes yes. Minah is my favourite - she's a queenah. Or this: "I'll be sizzlin' / like the chicken noodle soup / I sold more cookies / than your whole girlscout troop." It's endlessly quotable - no, it transcends mere quotes. You want to be these kids, eight-nine-ten-eleven, strutting and whooping and rapping like it's as easy as tying your shoes. The beats are kinda lame but they stomp all over them, squeaky-sneakered. (And if you crave better beats, check the looped Wes Anderson sample on "Tick Tock".) This doesn't sound for a second like some PSA for literacy: it's just joy, friendship, play, immaturity, nonsense. It's all the things you want to stuff in your pockets with the jacks, yo-yos and that extra box of raisins.

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Okkervil River - "Happy Hearts (ft. Daniel Johnston)". Tonight, after more than four years of chasin', I will finally see Okkervil River for the first time. It will not be in the environs I would have imagined, four years ago. Not in a chandeliered Montreal hall nor by a muddy Russian river. Instead it will be in Glasgow, at a place called King Tut's Wah Wah Hut. But the band will play and me, I will watch. And hopefully I'll be able to take a moment to dance - or just to fall down in a heap, like a happy heap of coats.

One thing is certain: this song will not be performed, at least not like this. I would hope that readers of this blog are already intimately familiar with Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See. It's one of my favourite records that have ever been made: an album of browns, greys, blacks and reds; of whites; an album that's yearning and loving and reckless with feeling. "Happy Hearts" is a duet between Okkervil River's Will Sheff and fellow Austin songwriter Daniel Johnston. In interviews, Sheff's talked about picking Johnston up from his parents' house, recording the track at the studio, then going together to buy comic books and hamburgers. Remember this, listening to a song about heartbreak.

My flatmate J dislikes "Happy Hearts": he can't warm to Johnston's crackling voice. But for me it is beautiful - a more human, less hidden counterpoint to Sheff's serious tone. And by the time the track reaches its climax, Sheff spelling out the letters of the thing he most wants in life*, Sheff's been converted to Johnston's mode. He's unable to hold back any more: he's alive, alive, feelings flush on his face, a smile as near to his lips as a frown. In the end is it a sad song? Johnston wraps everything up, the sorrowful refrain repeated yet again over play of banjo, pump of organ. Yet there's no darkness here. Instead, there's just footsteps near the door, a knock on the window, a long white night where you might fall in love with the trail of someone's skirt.

* unconditional love

[buy / see Okkervil River on tour across Europe]

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A fantastic post by Eric at Marathonpacks about prog-rock and a wise bathroom scrawler.

Bows + Arrows writes with flourish about Lily Allen's terrific "LDN", thereby saving me the trouble.

Congratulations to Matthew of Fluxblog on his new column for the Associated Press.

I have a short interview with Final Fantasy in this month's issue of The Skinny. Also some live reviews of Bettye Lavette (ok), Silver Jews/Alasdair Roberts (AMAZING - longer review forthcoming), The Balanescu Quartet (ok), and Akron/Family & Adem (excellent & lame).

And... Anyone attending All Tomorrow's Parties Weekend 2 - such as, perhaps, the residents of Said the Gramophone's two chalets - may want to look at this mp3 guide to all the artists at the weekend. (Oh and chalet people, I am sorry I have been out of touch - I will send an email this weekend.)

This reminds me: I've been really, really busy lately and if anyone's sent me an email and not had a reply, I do apologise. I've had sweet things on my mind.