David Tattersall and André Herman-Düne - "Our Perfect Lovers". Argh; I got CDs everywhere. In binders, stacked on the stereo, piled on the couch, all over my desk. CDs I've owned for years, CDs I've just bought, CDs that arrived in the mail, CDs I need to review for people, CDs I already reviewed... Things get lost and forgotten them remembered and celebrated. I pick up the phone and then notice an album underneath. I open the blinds and find CDs on the windowsill. I'm not complaining - having CDs everywhere is hardly a bad thing. But I am bemoaning. I'm a bemoaner. Because things get misplaced and then I spend two weeks not enjoying something I could have been.

Case in point: "Our Perfect Lovers". I went to see Herman Düne play in Glasgow at the beginning of the month and it was a fantastic gig. Like I say in an upcoming issue of ze Skinny:

French-residing Swedes in a crowded Glasgow bar, and they’re making a gangly folk-sound that’s part birthday party and part broken-down car. It’s four men with bags under their eyes: David-Ivar is chicken-legs and unfeathered elbows, playing guitar and hooting. André is bedraggled, long-armed; he smokes a wilting cigarette. There’s a drummer and a percussionist too, who sometimes swaps in on trumpet. And they play their songs: twisty songs with mispronunciation and pop-culture references, so tender and so human, songs about birds and winter ice and long-distance love. Sometimes a tune goes on a moment too long, but then a few beats later there’s a stamp of snare and a guitar solo outta nowhere, golden and thrilling. So we dance, we nod, we think of our silly lives, our chicken-legged and bedraggled lives, and we hear them sung: right there, in front of us.

Anyhow, "Our Perfect Lovers" is a Tattersall tune, with backup vocals by madam Clemence Freschard. And it's a song about using a salt-shaker to christen a tomato. The tomato's name? Chewbacca. The singers adore Chewbacca. They adore Chewbacca in a quiet, slightly trembly way, like a clothes-line looking longingly at the knickers and collared shirts that just blew away on the wind, twistywhirling down the streets.

It looks like you can buy The Streets of Philadelphia by following the instructions on this page. And look at what else is available! André Herman-Düne sings the songs of Dido! Et cetera! Holy. Moly.

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The Guillemots - "Trains to Brazil". The UK's going crazy for the Arctic Monkeys but man it makes me so glad that they're going at least a little crazy, buzzy and chattery, about The Guillemots. Forget snickery working-class wit and songs about your mate's girlfriend: The Guillemots sparkle with bombast and gaiety and whimsy. Whimsy is such a fine tradition in british rock'n'roll - see The Beatles, see (yes) The Cure, - but it's so rare on the rock charts these days, where we're overrun by greyfaced sincerity and nudge-nudge-wink-winking tracksuit chaps. The Guillemots sound so much like they're having fun, exulting in the chorus and the horn toodle-oos, the piano trills and phone-rings. They're yelling along at the back of the room, hammering along on the drums, bobbing their heads back and forth and then stampstampstamping when the bass-drum comes back. The Mystery Jets had the right idea but The Guillemots truly cheer. They take the song wherever it wants to go, so playfully: to the train-station, to the parade float, to the swan lake, to the surprise party.

James sent me this and when he was writing about "Trains to Brazil", a month ago, he pointed to "Come on Eileen", the Arcade Fire, and ELO's "My Blue Sky". Me, I point to that time when you ran, ran straight down those wet streets, straight as an arrow, and as you ran from where you were coming from to where you were going you realised there was a true and real smile on your face, just there, true and real, like I said. And you were running straght as an arrow and you jumped, for no other reason but because.

(I see Dodge talked about The Guillemots too, just a couple weeks ago. Blogosphere on the case!)

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We are humbled and so, so warmed to learn that we are a finalist at the 2006 Bloggies, in the category of Best Writing. This is thanks to you. So thank-you. (Truly.) I'm a little surprised at how happy this made me. (Us? Who knows.)

The competition includes the formidable Dooce, who is also nominated for Lifetime Achievement, and another blog that posts photographs of celebrities and then talks digustedly of their "Incredible Sinking Breasts". Needless to say, our mixed metaphors stand little chance of victory. If you are kind, however - if you are a friend of this blog, or a lover, - please do vote for us.

Very few of my nominees made it to the final list. Which is baffling and makes me feel embarrassed. Nevertheless, if you are looking for some more people to vote for, might I recommend the foodblog Chocolate & Zuchini (best european weblog), indie-rock news-and-reviewblog Chromewaves (best canadian weblog), Indie Interviews (best podcast), You Ain't No Picasso (best teen weblog - oh matt, you are so cu-ute!), and Boing Boing (motley things).

Aaron Wherry wrote by far the most extensive and compelling essay on the Canadian election, Ashlee Simpson and Barack Obama that I have read this week. It is definitely advanced and quite possibly a Marvel.

The Lipstick of Noise is a poetry mp3blog!!!!!!

Come Pick Me Up is a new mp3blog with an emphasis on unsigned acts. Please therefore ignore the front-and-centre post on Ryan Adams. There are so many mp3blogs these days, of such diverse quality. Some have bold and beautiful writing; others have an amazing perspective, casting light onto genres I would never otherwise hear; others simply have great taste. And the rest are awful. Don't tell me about another MySpace band that sounds sorta like a given indie rock band. Share only treasures with me. Come Pick Me Up has taste, and is worth reading. Go.

Owen-Final-Fantasy says he's a couple of days away from finishing his new album, He Poos Clouds. "It sounds funny, glorious and much like career suicide. Every time we work on it me and Leon get feelings of jumping off cliffs. ... Pitchfork will hate it, the UK will ignore it and France will call it the Album Of The Year." I have been privately advised that a proposed alternative title was Alan Rickman: The Album. Grab some fresh FF live stuff here.

Beautiful China.