Chicken

Since I'm feeling a bit more chill today - and think there'll be plenty of respect shown elsewhere for the rather wonderful new Peaking Lights album - I'll just take this opportunity to big up the new album by Giant Giant Sand, 'Tucson' (GGS being an extended version of Giant Sand a la Lambchop with a bit of mariachi brass and a string section and the like...) The sound is as rich a stew of diverse Americana as you'd hope for, with an immediately pretty likeable slightly sunblasted cowboy shuffle that's slower to reveal the full extent of all of it's considerable treasures. There's a really good place towards the end where a dusky desert piano jazz duet ('Not The End Of The World') gives way to a nice bit of romantic film noir mariachi ('Carinito'), for example, that just makes me smile ... Giant Sand are a bit off-putting to the casual observer since they've been going for yonks and are massively prolific but I reckon this is their best since Howie's 'Sno' Angel' album and maybe even top three with that and 'Chore Of Enchantment' (how's that for an in if you need one...?)

On the subject of giant stuff, I'm reading Irvine Welsh's massive new/old book 'Skagboys', which is a bit like 'Giant Giant Trainspotting' (or 'Trainspotting Redux') but a lot better read than that might make it sound (though I do find myself hoping that the formless, episodic nature of it won't pall over it's several hundred pages...!) - plus it's a slightly embarrassing call when you go to a meeting about Reading Development and have to say what you're reading at the moment in the icebreaker!