For me, this one’s filed under news-I-completely-wasn’t-anticipating.

Gomez have unexpectedly posted a note on their blog that announces that not only are they thinking about their next album, but they’ve also finished tracking it and are nearly done working the mixing stage.

They let slip that the album has been (co?)-produced with Brian Deck (of Red Red Meat, produced Iron & Wine, Califone and, erm, The Grates) and that they’ve managed to get Amy Milan (Stars, Broken Social Scene) singing on some tunes.

Given the departure from their usual ramshackle style on their last album How We Operate, it will be interesting to see what happens with this one!

So, no doubt you’ve heard from everyone and their mums that Trent Reznor has gone crazier than ever and is offering his Nine Inch Nail’s latest album The Slip completely for free. For any quality – even 24 bit/96kHz WAVs.

What I’m finding even more staggering than Trent giving out the music for nothing is that I’m actually really liking this record so far – it feels far from being a throwaway experiment. It’s a real, cohesive NIN record, and so far (on my third play now) it feels solid from start to finish.

I’m not a Nine Inch Nails fan, but the fact that this was handed out in this manner has meant that I’ve actually given it a go when I might not have, and if these first impressions hold out then I’m pretty sure I’m going to go buy it in hard-copy form when it hits stores.

Even better, I feel like I’ve been able to make my own judgement on what I think of it rather than being biased by the plethora of reviews that usually land by the time a record is released or a leak surfaces. That feels nice – even if I do have a gnawing subconscious insecurity that Pitchfork will probably give it a 4.1 now that I’ve decided I like it. Well, who cares?

After much anticipation and a lot of often mis-informed hype, it seems that Portishead really are back.

And even better, they’ve been decent enough to finally bring some weight to all those ‘new album’ rumours by actually playing one of their new songs!

Let the salivating commence…