Bonnie Prince Billy, tonight, at Babylon in Ottawa.

What a strange, lovely show. It would indeed have been more wonderful if the two hours had been honed down to a transcendent forty-five minutes, but instead we got this peculiar elfin man warbling and lulling and coo-ing at us, taking requests and making spasmodic faces. seeing him live, i finally understood why bjork had taken him on tour - he's got that same words-from-other-places music that mrs gudmundsdottir does. flashes of absolute genius among long moments of pleasant yearning. it was very very hot. will oldham has small, round eyes that you don't really see in the master and everyone album cover. as he sings, he often looks like a rosy-cheeked gnome, eyes in the air, and the effect is seriously reinforced by whistling solos. his voice is amazing - breaking from reed-high to a vigorous tenor. and he seemed to have all of his seven hundred million songs memorized.

towards the end of the show, he began to play "2/15," from the EP with the Dirty Three's Mick Turner (aka the Marquis de Tren). "When you ask me to sing it feels my heart would burst with pride," played oldham to the silence of the room. sweetness. then, as we watch, he breaks all our hearts (and his own): "Drunk with the joy of singing, I forget myself and call you my friend." in that candleglow goldcrisp moment, he segues most beautifully, oh-so-beautifully, into the rainwashed build-to-joy of "New Partner," my favourite song of will oldham's and one of my favourite songs in all the world. $18 right there. thank-you thank-you.

i had hoped he'd be selling the new one for a good price, and the amalgamated sons of rest EP (with songs:ohia). no dice. mail-order it will have to be.

i was packing today. listened to Punjabi MC's record over and over. a tabla-bouncing beat-spiked delight.

the new (leaked) belle and sebastian track really is something special. "Step Into my Office Baby" is full-and-all-and-out autumn pop, vibrant and dazzling and whole. melancholy: gone. lazy crush: there, but with sunhazy harmonies. yes - about those harmonies... the "bum bum bum"ing over stuart murdoch's soft-sung bridge has all-of-its-own gotten me excited about belle and sebastian again. hooray! where's my cardigan?