June 2017.

I'm listening to Sex After Cigarettes. It's a dreadful name for a band but the music is great. The Guardian (Alex Petridis is, I think, one of the few really good music journalists writing today). It's deeply in the thrall of Beach House who, I have only recently realised, are themselves deeply in the thrall of Slowdive. When Slowdive were first making records 25 years ago I imagined they were dreadful (I don't think I really bothered tuning in) but their new eponymous album has really worked its way into my head. Francis and The Lights' lp Farewell Starlite! is great too. If you liked their song with Bon Iver and Kanye West you'll like this. Max Richter's compilation for Rough Trade's Behind The Counter series has been a joyful voyage of discovery for me, too; a lovely three record set with sleeve notes by Richter. There are bits of Alt J's RELAXER that I really like and other bits I just don't get (yet?). But my biggest enthusiasm this month is Burial's epic 12 minute track Come Down to Us. I'm late onto this but it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.

Podcasts are helping pass the time particularly when I'm in the car. Adam Buxton has taken a break until after the summer but there are plenty of good episodes to trawl back through. I don't find some of his guests particularly compelling but he's just so unbelievably good at it that I think he's the PODCAST KING. Marc Maron's WTF is always brilliant and his recent interview with Mark Mulcahy was particularly, unexpectedly good; oh, and the interview with Wheeler Walker, Jr is incredibly funny, too. 

I have just started reading A Little Life by Hanya Yangihara on the advice of my daughter Tara who loved it. So far, so good. I read the Next Draft newsletter every evening; if you have even a passing interest in US current affairs it's a must. It's free to subscribe to. For me it fills the same space as The New Yorker which I read every week. I think my favourite book in the last few months is John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies; he wrote The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas but this couldn't be any different. Having said that, is it just me that notices big thematic chunks of The Royal Tenenbaums in this book?