Okay, so, yeah, they’ve been hyped… a lot, five star review in The Guardian, 9.0 on Pitchfork (unheard of apparently), but I bought their album today and it’s bloody good.  Those harmonies! That sixties feel! Breugel on the cover! They’ve won me over.

While we’re at it, some highlights from Venn in no particular order: the delicate plucking and buzzing of Hauschka’s doctored piano; the homely folk, Robert Wyatt covers and Tyneside lilt of Rachel Unthank and the Winterset; Flying Lotus blowing away the hangover at Thekla on Sunday night; the non-Murcof Murcof set at the Planetarium, the jangly, wounded sound of Wildbirds and Peacedrums; The Feral Choir, which pulled me out of a bed I’d fallen into too few hours before; The Skate Park (need I say more – wandering the streets at 5am with the Arnaud Rebotini ringing in my ears); the sun, the shandy, the hanging about.