Some are born great, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Anyone who’s sat through all nine buttock-numbing hours of Lord Of The Rings knows that.

But it seems that there is also another category – that of the person who just makes life up as they go along and seems to discover great things as they blunder from one happy accident to the next.

Dam Mantle is one of these people. He probably doesn’t know it yet. His PR blurb tells me that he’s a polymath of sorts: student, artist, musician, remixer, yadda yadda.

Most interesting of all this …

Hours turn into days, and another week of new bands rattle by. When will this relentless pace ever cease? It’s Friday now, and time to slow down. Deep breaths.

Speaking of slowing down, the oft-spurious, always-compelling scurrilous gossip website Popbitch claims that the NME’s circulation has dropped to a lowly 32,000 a week. This may well indeed be true – the sight of a person actually purchasing a copy has become hens-teeth-rare.

To put that figure in perspective, I know a music blogger who receives over 32,000 visitors each day. Ouch. Hey – the world’s changed quickly. No-one pays …

What, another electronic-music based band with an explicit reference to pharmacuticals in their name? Anyone would think that this kind of music has a close association with illegal substances or something.

Drugg must have been a bit miffed with the rise of D/R/U/G/S – now there’s a lawsuit waiting to happen – and maybe they reacted by pursuing a more obtuse musical angle to underline the differentiation. If that’s so, I’m more than glad for the confusion.

Shackled, ironically, is exactly not that -  a more comfortably formless and unattached song is unlikely to be heard outside of  a …

In an attempt to further solidify my early descent into middle age, on Saturday night I stayed in and watched the endlessly wonderful Groundhog Day on TV.

The following night, after the Oedipal whirlwind that is Mother’s Day had abated, I flicked on the set, and Groundhog Day was on again; same Hog-time, same Hog-channel.

I couldn’t figure out whether I was more confused or impressed by the thick irony in this example of truly post-modern TV programming.

Listening to new music is often like Groundhog Day, except not as funny and with fewer Bill Murray-esque wearisome, crumpled faces. …

The act of band naming is a wade through a mire that, befittingly, makes either no difference or all the difference in the world to the band in question.

We all know that the competition for Worst Named Band is fiercely fought between Puddle Of Mud and Nickleback, both of whom managed to scrape the barrel stencilled ‘Utterly Facetious’ in their bids for the prize.

The recent craze for punctuation in band names – see Los Campesinos!, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. etc – is, sadly, an ongoing phenomenon, though admittedly, it looked  pretty zingy when Godspeed You! Black …

Post-Rock: the strange, febrile cousin of Rock ‘n’ Roll. I’ve pondered on its relevance before without really coming to a conclusion. Initially, I put this indecision down to sheer flightiness, but have now realised that this non-committal wandering is actually quite post-rock in itself.

You see, the genre is wrapped in a quandary fully formed by its very existence. Post rock takes the guitar/drums/bass template of every rock band and stretches it into a wider, distressed, more distorted being. And this is both its downfall and its saving grace.

Here’s the one accusation most often levelled at Post-rock: that it …

Today, ANBAD is going to blow your mind. Straight in, then: do you know how big a billion is? Not that big, right? Banks write them off all the time.

Well, listen: it’s big. It would take 30 years to count to a billion. And while your brow crumples thinking that over, take a second to consider the googol. A googol, by the way, is a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

And here’s how big it is: a googol isn’t just more than the number of atoms in the human body, it’s bigger than the number of atoms in …

The churlish part of me fervently hopes that Andy Kane is based on a real person. Sullen Glaswegians Fridge Magnets tell a story that is short and to the point – that boy no-one liked is an idiot, and now hangs around with other unlikeable idiots:

“He never got picked first for 5-a-side… And now he’s 17 and growing a ‘tache/ And hanging around with sophisticated Uni twats”

There’s something refreshing about such ungentle sentiments, and liberating about partisan discussion of someone’s failings. It’s even more fun to hear it all discussed in a broad Glasgow accent, wet with bile …

Any seasoned new band listener will tell you that the phrase ‘post-rock’ sets the alarm bells ringing. The phrase ‘experimental post-rock outfit’ will raise anxiety levels to a point where playing a CD of something deeply bland and morbidly inoffensive (Coldplay’s X&Y, twice a day, with meals) is the only cure.

It’s not that post-rock is so bad per se, it’s just that the genre is rarely done justice, and often serves as an outlet for failed jazz musicians – individuals so self indulgent that even a major terrorist incident couldn’t interrupt their 27-minute freeform clarinet solo.

So …

Now, how to end the week? In a blaze of crucfyingly harsh Thrash/Dubstep-hybrid noise? Or a sub-heartbeat soundscape flutter? Look, I’m lying: the amount of planning that goes into ANBAD could be etched onto the back of a gnat, and yet this haphazard approach works more often than not.

For example – Today’s New Band, Chicken Feed, make music that’s gossamer-thin, delicate and sugary: it turns out that they’re the perfect week-ending wind-down soundtrack. If you were planning a big night out, I’m sorry. But a good snooze is just as cool, yeah?

Duck Egg Diner, emerging from a …