Handsomeboy Technique - "Season of Young Mouss". It was strange enough when the Go! Team exploded into my life last year, a joyous ragamuffin music I had never even conceived of before. But imagine my surprise when I discover that there's another band baking the cupcakes that the Go! Team have been selling, a rival team of Eighties bricoleurs and nostalgic twee-sters. And they're from Japan.

Yes, Handsomeboy Technique are gloriously doubledutching and furiously dancing, all of it garnished with a cherry-faced naivete, a childish pep. "Season of Young Mouss" has jazz flute breaks and spoken-word sampling, gamelan and rap and a "duh dit-dit doo" songline. It's fantastic, really, and Adelie Land deserves to be sitting on the top of cool-kid playlists across the land. There's a little more dance-music to "Season of Young Mouss" than on most Go! Team gunk, but surely that's a good thing when you feel like dancing. (Besides, tracks like "Adelie Coast Waltz" offer peachy-and-wistful alternatives.)

I can find almost nothing in English that has been written about Handsomeboy Technique. So honestly, we'd better get started.

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King Creosote - "Grace". On October 3, Full Time Hobby release Dream Brother, a tribute to Jeff and Tim Buckley. The contributors are first-rate, from Sufjan to Micah P Hinson, Kathryn Williams to Adem, Matthew Herbert and the Magic Numbers. I'm not convinced that many of them achieve what they hoped - the Buckleys' originals shine a little too bright to be eclipsed (or even clouded), - but it's interesting to hear them try. I really enjoy Matthew Herbert & Dani Siciliano's take on "Everybody Here Wants You", and Sufjan is appropriately tender, but really it's King Creosote who steals the show.

This is unexpected. "Grace" is my favourite song by either Buckley, and it didn't seem likely I'd hear a cover which felt anything but redundant. Let alone a cover with accordion. But here we are.

King Creosote's made something dark as sea-water. His "Grace" has a Siren's eyes, her smile. The menace of the lyrics is plain, here; there's no missing the macabre promise that the narrator makes. No missing the way he sings of his love, his anaesthetised indifference to her sorrow. Creosote's had just enough wine for his voice to tilt with the demands of the song. His accordion's been polished. Carrion birds are circling. Oh aye, it will be a waltz - but a dead man's waltz, beautiful as a good drowning.

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Also at StG -

I do hope you saw Dan's fantastic post yesterday, and I must also point you to the gorgeous Roy Harper track that Jordan posted on Friday.

Elsewhere -

At Tuwa's Shanty, listen to the powdered-sugar dumb-and-happy trot of "Sunday Morning", by Billy Preston.

"We, Emmanuel Light, Love Ocean", by the Inconsolable, is one of those instrumentals of such circular sadness that you could curl up with it and spend an afternoon of melancholy.

Calexico's Elliott Smith cover, at Chromewaves (look on the left sidebar), is surprisingly good [if a little traditional]. I am not usually a Calexico fan.

If you liked the Gareth Auden-Hole song I posted a month ago, he's got more up here. Rattle-creaking, flowering folk-pop.

Catch vids of the recent Arcade Fire appearances with Bowie on Fashion Rocks, and on Letterman, at Smudge of Ashen Fluff.

And a hearty, heartful, heartfelt first-time happy birthday to the lovely Svetlana Citta Bilerman. Welcome to the big ole' world.