I stayed up far too late last night writing the Okkervil River review. I'd been ready to write it for more than a week - my feelings composed, some metaphors and things floating around... but it just wouldn't go. I tried last Monday and last Thursday, and simply got blocked. And last night it was a struggle too. Not because the music is boring to think (or write) about, but because I felt I simply couldn't articulate my thoughts on the record. It all came out as a muddle - and I imagine it still does. Oh well.

It didn't help that I got sidetracked while exploring Okkervil River's cover artist, William Schaff. He does beautiful, haunting work - themes of death and religion and literature. Okkervil River's last two album-covers, but also the last Songs:Ohia record, and the insert for Godspeed's Lift Your Skinny Fists.

The Mercury Music Prize nominees are out. Although many other people bash the "Booker" of British Music, I think that it's recognized some fine artists pver the past ten years (both as nominees and as winners): The Bees, Gomez, Doves, Talvin Singh, Badly Drawn Boy, The Streets, the Delgados, Pulp, Portishead, Kathryn Williams,

This year, the nominees are:
RADIOHEAD - 'Hail to the Thief'
DIZZEE RASCAL - 'Boy In Da Corner'
THE THRILLS - 'So Much for the City'
SOWETO KINCH - 'Conversations with the Unseen'
FLOETRY - 'Floetic'
THE DARKNESS - 'Permission to Land'
COLDPLAY - 'A Rush of Blood to the Head'
MARTINA TOPLEY-BIRD - 'Quixotic'
ELIZA CARTHY - 'Anglicana'
ATHLETE - 'Vehicles and Animals'
TERRI WALKER - 'Untitled'
LEMON JELLY - 'Lost Horizons'

I've only heard the Coldplay, Radiohead and Dizzee Rascal; Coldplay and Radiohead are apparently the favourites. While Coldplay was a worthy nominee for Parachutes, if they win for Rush of Blood, I'm going to have to put on some angry-music, if you know what I mean. Dizzee Rascal doesn't seem to be for me - the music's too mechanical and sharp, he descends too often into the crude - but I can hear the innovation in his sound. What I know of Eliza Carthy does not impress (pleasant-but-that's-all folk fusion), and Lemon Jelly hardly seems award-worthy. Ultimately, the only nominee I'm curious about is Athlete: has anyone heard the record?