Youtube isn't just for fat kids trying out dance moves, you know

This is Stile Antico, the new kids on the block currently dominated by The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars

The Silence of Sound

For a change in the summer months, I'm not alone in the office. It's rather pleasant - we're all quite relaxed, the place is in turmoil as offices are moved, and there's an end of term atmosphere, though term ended weeks ago. Our least favourite student, a serial cheat, has finally been defenestrated and it's raining - all in all, a perfect day.

One difference is the silence. I usually have music playing, but one of my office colleagues is a punk rocker (he's been in The Prefects and then The Nightingales for 30 years, and the other is an early music fan (Monteverdi for preference). I swing both ways in the this regard, but can't please both of them, so I've opted for silence. Perhaps it's a good thing - over-familiarity may breed contempt for everything other than the absolute best (e.g. The Field Mice - how do you like them apples, Cynical?, Reich, Tallis and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci), so perhaps playing less but paying more attention would be a useful exercise. I listened to Let's Active before they turned up this morning and was highly impressed. They're Mitch Easter's early-80s band, while he was producing seminal REM albums. Imagine indiepop mixed with Southern Gothic.

Sarah's just come into the office and presented me with another book! Hurrah! Archie Brown's The Rise and Fall of Communism, which was on my list.

Back in Stumville

I'm now back in Wolverhampton. How the very sentence thrills me. What is good is finding more presents from Santa Amazon in my office. In particular, Vince Cable's The Storm, his centrist analysis of the current financial disaster. (keep paying those fees, kids. Vole needs books). It's too rightwing for me, but then most things are.

I also got Stile Antico's anthology of Middle Ages/Renaissance settings of the Song of Songs (the erotic stuff that somehow got into the Bible - hear some on that link). I know this will bore or befuddle many of you, but I love all sorts of music, and Lassus, Palestrina et al. are up there with the Field Mice and Elastica in terms of genius. (I'm joking: you can't compare them). They're all good, but Stile Antico sing works of genius staggeringly well. Only The Sixteen (what a stunningly arrogant and, dammit, justified name) and the Tallis Scholars compete on that particular and rarefied playing field.