At the start of the year I wanted to make this site more than just a random music blog and try and get a bit more involved in the Edinburgh music scene. Basically, I’ve not lived here long and I wanted to make some friends. Also, from a purely ideological point of view, I think that it’s all very well to talk music and so on, but actually being able to genuinely support people who you know and like and who are really trying to make things happen is a good thing to be doing.  I wanted, I think, to feel like I was making a more concrete contribution.

I think that I have achieved that, in the sense that the Edinburgh music scene has been incredibly welcoming, and there is definitely something of a community feel starting to build here (steady on, Adam) but I do think that on occasion this has been to the detriment of my far-flung international audience.

Campfires & Battlefields introduces me to at least as much music as going to random gigs in Edinburgh. I get emails pretty regularly from him with this recommendation or that one. And let’s not forget that it was he who introduced me to Fleet Foxes, Loch Lomond, The Felice Brothers, Samamidon and numerous others who feature very highly in my recommendations for the year’s best albums.

I don’t want to get to the point where it is just me and my pals talking about our own little worlds, and anyone from outside that circle feels that they are in any way less welcome to join in.  Simply put, I want this place to stay as open as possible, whilst still being something that my regular readers and commenters can think of as ‘theirs’ – a bit ambitious perhaps.

Anyway, while I was away in Portland C&B sent me a superb collection of new things which I am only now getting round to listening to. No disrespect to the man himself, but sometimes I am just a bit flaky that way. So here are what I think are the best of the stuff he sent. I am off to eMusic to see if I can download a few of them to listen to over the weekend. As should you be.

Caleb Engstrom – Nothing Cloud Lion
The Weather Station – East (A bit of Jolie Holland in here)
Very like the Willard Grant Conspiracy, but seeing as they are one of my favourite bands, I’m hardly complaining about that: Sam Lowry – Like the Kudzu Ivy
Forest Mountain Hymnal – Tremlett Spring