All nicely settled down at about 7pm for my Mac mini music system test drive, now with added touchscreen monitor (which is a little superfluous until Tiger comes out and I can write a groovy iTunes controller for it).

First up was KT Tunstall’s new album Eye to the Telescope. It’s always worthwhile finding out about a new artist before taking the plunge. This is a good starting point. Good signs: Plays piano, guitars, percussion and a few other instruments; Writes songs obsessively. Bad signs: Appeared on Jools Holland’s BBC2 thingy. So we’re dangerously close to Radio 2 territory. Visions of another Katie make my heart sink. Cheered up by the video to Black Horse & The Cherry Tree which is kind of (s)punky. See it twice before I decide to buy the album.

The album is great. Damn fine actually. Spent the whole duration listening to her voice, rather than appreciating the musicianship and the spacey-ness of the arrangements. That said, the songwriting is very accomplished and her backing vocals are perfect. Universe and U is a mind-blowing song, but boy, do I love her voice.

Next up was Kristin Hersh’s Sunny Border Blue. Why? Because it would feel right at home next to KT’s album (which curiously it is in my iTunes library) and at that time I was horribly chilled out and didn’t fancy changing the mood. Now I could write (and probably have written) pages about this album, so just a few highlights: The couplet in Flipside “How dare you save my life / then try to break my heart”, Listerine and it’s heartbreaking lyrics. And her cover of Cat Stevens’ Trouble seems to get more astonishing every time I hear it.

So that was it. Time to watch Pi. What a peculiar film. Sssspooky in places and unsettling. Great soundtrack and visuals. Complete bollocks, mind.