Contact High

Because Thursday is the new Friday, lets dance.

Tuning fork

Architecture in Helsinki sound like a marching band who have been lost in the jungle for six months with nothing but their instruments, rain water and an endless supply of native fruit (with hallucinogenic properties). At times serene, other times hyperactive and bewilleringly delightful. The chaotic clash of ideas, hramonies and instruments, is always incredibly original and infectiously danceble.

I am excited for their new album. Yippee!

The Strokes you continue to woo me so with your jagged riffs, solid high hat drumming and delightfully messy audio production. Bon bon bon! Most music blogs are heralding the band's return to form - but I don't think they ever lost it, every release has made me dance like a cat on a hot tin roof or buy a leather jacket so I too can strike rock n' roll poses.

I'm also keen to sink my ears into Bright Eyes new release The People's Key.

Golden

There are few things better than lying on the grass, listening to music in a warm patch of afternoon sunshine. Perhaps if the music were live and maybe if you were on holidays with a bunch of your mates. Yup that sounds nice. Very nice indeed. The organisers of the Golden Plains Music Festival think so too:

"It is staged in Autumn so the weather is warm and stable. Afternoon goes on all day; the sun like honey on the trees, then a giant spike of excitement goes kabloooey at nightfall. The Summer Fool is spent by March so GP is oblivious to that particular strain of vain folly.

Camp wherever you like, bring almost everything and anything if you want – you can bring a couch (perhaps with matching armchairs and an occasional table, with a drawer) and plant it in the Amphitheatre for the weekend, and soak. it. all. up. For a long weekend."

This isn't a commercially sponsored event, the fun isn't forced into a strict timetable, "so there’s room for traditions to evolve naturally and spontaneously. So far those to do so include The Boot, whereby for some unknown reason the crowd ’salutes’ their favourite performance of the festival by holding one of their shoes/boots/footwear of choice aloft.... Then there’s The Lampshade and The Door, both of unknown origin."

Believe it or not there are still tickets available and I haven't even mentioned how amazing the line up is (Joanna Newsom,Belle and Sebastian, Best Coast, Wavves, Architecture in Helsinki, The Middle East, Boy & Bear). I'm getting hot sweats just thinking about it.

It's times like these I wish I wasn't saving my moola.

[images via Aunty Meredith]