PopJunkieTV

1 This is exactly why Spotify was invented. Always interesting to hear what the fella is up to - not sure I want to pay a tenner for the privilege.

2 This is exactly the sort of thing that a musician in their mid 40s should be doing - An album that mixes opera, church and folk music and tells the story of an enlightened, but slightly controversial Elisabethan scientist.

3 He still has a way with pop songs - The Marvelous Dream is IMO the best song written this year.

4 I'd still like him to write another great pop album. The great English folk pop album with loads of strings, kind of like Five Leaves Left, but with quirkier melodies - He could probably do it in his sleep too

5 I do like Damon's vision/expression of Englishness - Sure we love our values and history, but part of being English is to be proud of living in what is one of the most tolerant multi racial and multi cultural societies on the planet and being excited about how that rubs against our existing culture. The Good, The Bad and The Queen was real state of the nation stuff.

6 I doubt if Dr Dee will be my most played album this month. The Good, The Bad and The Queen, might be though.

I don't know a huge amount about him other than he is Dutch, but Clear The Air is prime 1968 psychedelia given a modern twist. All sorts of odd instruments that fly in and out the mix and the melody is wonderfully trippy. It reminds me a little of some of the tracks on the very cool Beaulieu Porch album which will be with us very soon.

If anything the second track, A House On The Moon, is even groovier with its phased vocals, tinkling harpsichords and mellotron style keyboard. Can't wait for more

Last week I first heard Move It On Over by LeGrand Mellon and was instantly smitten. I assumed that Legrand Mellon was some odd 60s female fronted LA band. I couldn't have been farther off the mark. After perusing the Spectropop archives I found that Legrand Mellon was/is in fact the name of woman from New York, and that Move It On Over was one of trio of excpetional singles she recorded in the mid 60s.

So what does she sound like? Well think early Nancy Sinatra and perky beat pop with a cocktail lounge undercurrent. You know the type of stuff that ends up on the sounbtrack to spy movies as it is playing when our international men of mystery enter some upper class nighclub.

Legrand could also certainly pass for a Bond girl too and you can see why some enterprising record label owner though that they may have discovered a new star.

As for the tracks Move It On Over is the killer, a beaty shuffler that half way through changes gear as LeGrand lists all the reasons why she is sooo over her lover. It is a perfect pop tune and one that has been hijacked by The Primitives who have included it on their new Echoes and Rhymes album.

The Sound of Blues is a delicate piano-led tune that half way through takes all kind of odd turns. Legrand also delivers wonderful versions of Baby Please Don't Go - kind of slow and bluesy - and Summertime- upbeat swinging you could imagine it soundtracking an early 60s Brit new wave film.

Legrand apparently also recorded a tune called Growing My Own, which apparently sounds like a little like Astrud Gilberto. I'd love to hear this, so if anyone has an MP3 please get in touch.

After her singles Legrand apparently became a bit of a New York society girl and is working for charity even though she's now 73. She still looks amazing though http://hashaiti.blogspot.co.uk/2010_07_01_archive.html

These tracks need to be properly reissued very very soon.

I have a real soft spot for The Primitives. They were the first band I ever interviewed - it was in a toliet but that's another story - and they ended up being my main musical crush for much of the late 80s. In my book Stop Killing Me is the perfect mix of The Ramones and The Monkees and quite possibly the equal of anything either band ever recorded. Crash was a near perfect pop single too and their debut Lovely was a whole heap of fun.

I really enjoyed seeing the band play live a year or so ago, but expected that I'd never hear from them again.

Then the band appear with a new album, and it is absolutely brilliant. I very much doubt if I will play anything as much as this in 2012 and this is a year in which many of my favourite bands; The Soundcarriers, Magic Theatre, Superimposers and more have music in the pipeline.

The genius of Echoes and Ryhmes is that it is a covers album, but one in which, unless you have a masters in 60s beat and psych, almost all the songs will be new. Even then the band take the more familiar choices, in this instance Nico's pre Velvets 66 single I'm Not Saying, and revinvent them. The smart bit is that I'm Not saying is transformed from being a perky piece of folk punk to a droney dirge more akin to the band she ended up singing for. And it works superbly.

In fact Echoes and Rhymes is a work of genius on two levels. On face value it is just a wonderful listen, a collection of uptempo pop songs that really do sound like The Primitives of yore. But the album will also have you scurrying off to Spotify and YouTube to trrack down the originals ironically most of which aren't anywhere near as good as The Primtives' take on them.

My favourite song, Sunshine On My Rainy Day Mind, a slow burning psych tune by a US singer called Polly Niles. The original is superb, but The Primitives version is just a bit zippier and fresher.

Almost as good is Move It On Over, a soulful beat tune originally recorded by the brilliantly named Legrand Mellon in 1965. It is utterly addictive.

YouTube has the band's cover of The Witch, a track originally recorded by an obscure German duo, who sound as scary as they look.

If you like 60s pop, beat, psych, Northern Soul then this is an absolute must buy. Can't wait to see them do it live in May

I have a real soft spot for The See See. Feed Your Head was my fave single of 2010 and last year's album Late Morning Light, had plenty of good tunes.

The band are back with a new single, album and a few dates too. And I love the Teenage Fanclub channeling The Byrds vibe of the single, Gold and Honey. It has a wonderfully messy guitar outro and is IMO the band's finest tune since Feed Your Head.

There's more here http://www.facebook.com/TheSeeSee

What is it with the Swedes? How did they get to be this good at pop? What with new Jens Lekman stuff on the way, a genius Acid House Kings single (with TVP Dan) and now this, they are starting to eclipse the music that comes from these shores. Not good.

Actually very good. This lot look about 12, but have managed to create one thrilling pop single which is a bit 80s indie, a bit Nancy Sinatra and whole load of fun. There's there more tracks on Spotify too - http://open.spotify.com/artist/2e6FUbqkOmtBobnGMCgYcZ

Nope I had never heard of him either (well until a month or two ago) but Anton Barbeau is a prolific artist with a small but influential coterie of admirers. From his CV (started in Soft Boys covers band, moved to Cambridge for the vibe, namechecks from Julian Cope and Stuart Lee) you'd expect him to be peddling straight out of Itchycoo Park English psych, but Barbeau never quite ditches his American (he's from Sacramento) roots. There's plenty of Beatley pop here, albeit with a Californian hue, but also a whiff of the odder wing of grunge (Blind Melon, Jellyfish etc) as well as recent bands like the Dilletantes and Morning After Girls.

This compilation rounds up the best of nearly twenty years of music from his garage days in California through to hanging out with eccentric English troubadours and most of it is really rather good.

The tracks that hit home fastest are Fuzzchild, a quality chunk of English psych with an unusual extended droney chorus and Losing You Makes Crucifixion Easy, a jaunty acoustic strum apparently inspired by The Pretenders.

Barbeau also seems to benefit from a good partner as other highlights include a gorgeous duet of sorts with Allyson Seconds on If I Could Bring You Trouble and a thrashy rocker Octagon from the rather good album King of Missouri which Anton made in the mid noughties with Bevis Frond.

Also on board is the brilliantly titled This Is Why They Call Me Guru 7 from what many of his devotees consider his best work 2006's In The Village Of The Sun.

Anyone who likes the quirkier side of psych will find plenty to revel in here. As an intro to a very under-rated musician this is bang on.

I fell in love with the Still Corners the moment I heard their glorious Endless Summer single last year. Think 60s psych and groovy film soundtracks with a side of shoegazing all topped off by some wonderfully whispery female vocals. They are for me a musical Instagram pic - glorious colours, blurred round the edges, vaguely nostalgic but utterly beautiful.

Anyhow they have a new album, Creatures of an hour, coming very shortly and if it keeps the standard up set by the singles Cuckoo and Into The Trees it will be superb.

The band's Tumblr site is also worth a visit as they have a really great playlist on there which mixes some of my old favourites' Del Shannon, Barry Gray and Sunforest with some brilliant European film music. Check it out here http://stillcorners.tumblr.com/

Here's Into The Trees

and Endless Summer