What a lot of music that's come into my life lately…

I'm listening to the end of the Frames recorded live in Dublin. (Frames lead singer Glen Hansard is the guy in the movie Once, and if you haven't seen Once yet, stop reading right now and get your butt to a cinema, it's that good!) Anyhoo, back to the album. The energy of that night in '02 is pouring out anew into my apartment in North Hollywood. It's a crowd of fans singing along with each song, and it may be all new to me but I'm right there with them.

Before Dublin I was listening to some Eldar. He's a jazz pianist prodigy who's quite brilliant. I heard the end on one song on the radio the other day driving home and was intrigued enough to run out and get the disc. This kid – and I do mean kid, I think he was 18 when this was recorded – sounds like he has an extra set of hands tickling the ivories. There's some blazingly fast fireworks of sound going off here, but also some true jazz improvization. Check out the song Moanin'.

Also just got Ash Wednesday by Elvis Perkins after seeing them on Letterman the other night. This is a great singer/songwriter album that's like a big box of words spilled out on the floor and collected beautifully in an idiosyncratic way.