Clever music.... .... and a new album from Weezer

Five albums to listen to this week (or maybe four within the strict rules, but one is a bit of a mystery):

First is Caribou - Our Love: if you only listen to one album this week, make it this one and make sure you concentrate when you listen. Caribou is basically one Canadian bloke that does electronica with smarts. I've listened to a couple of tracks already, and it's clever stuff, as you would expect from someone with a doctorate in pure maths from Imperial College. He also made his first album whilst working for HP's research facility in Bristol, so as well as being an ace at music, he's also cleverer than you. Or me, at least.

Next is Zola Jesus - Taiga: I'm going to see her in Camden next month, so this needs a good listen. It starts off just like her previous stuff, sort of dark and deep synths and wail(y) vocals but it then moves into the sort of Scandi synth pop that Robyn does. And as anyone who knows me knows; I like Robyn.

There's always a band that you don't want to like, but can't help liking. The band that made an album when you were young*, that got played and played and you never got sick of it. They then made another album, and another, and another - and you felt the same about each one, even though they were all the same basic album. Well now they've made their ninth and I'm probably going to play it over and over and over again - it's Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In The End.

*it's a relative term

Anais Mitchell - xoa - is the wildcard this week, and included because I married someone called Annie Mitchell, and that's all really. If you like folk, American folk, you'll like this one.

Finally an album that I'm sure came out last year, as I've heard most of it before, but it's appeared in the list of today's new releases so that's why it's here. When I'm at a festival (ok Latitude for I don't go to any other festival) I often mark up a few acts that I might pop in to listen to, just to see what they are like live, and often discover music that sticks with me. Only once however have I been completely ignorant of what I was going to see, and then so transfixed by that music that I couldn't leave until it was finished, even though I had other stuff I had planned to see. A piano, a singer, two cellos and a violin (or viola maybe) can make a great racket you know! Have a listen to Agnes Obel -Avantine and turn the volume up to 11.