Anyway, I was in WH Smith's the other day, thoughtfully stroking my bear as I flicked through a copy of Melody Maker, thinking how sad it was that their writers aren't allowed to use long words any more, and wondering if I'd ever be old enough for NME, when I had a small epiphany: I must seize control of my own destiny!!! Which is why I'm hijacking Scalarama to tell you about recent activities at Shinkansen, on the grounds that you might like some of it, because I like some of you. Basically, I'm going to try describing some records in an effort to make you give me money for them. So why not just play along, and make it easier for both of us, huh? Give all the tears and I told you so's a miss for once. (It's only a small bear... very affectionate...)

Actually, before I begin, some of you may be asking yourselves what is this Shinkansen of which he speaks so eloquently and enticingly? so... I shall briefly tell you that it's a small, perfectly formed but often suspiciously bruised record label currently in hiding under a false nose in a small flat just off Lambeth Walk, it believes that Baxendale's Top Deck should be sung loudly every morning in assembly and that Mogwai are a bunch of rather stupid totally evil middle-class prog-rock hippies who must be dealt with very soon, and it releases records like:

TREMBLING BLUE STARS' Doo-Wop Music, which came out in August on lovely transparent blue vinyl, the a-side being a trip-hoppy doo-woopy dubby affair with Bob on lead vocals, and the b-side being not at all like that and sung by Annemari. Bob and Annemari, for those of you who don't know, previously having been two spinning blades inside the Moulinex of pop that was The Field Mice. I hear those voices and I see us dancing close and slow - the music always takes me where I know I shouldn't go - a last waltz round a haunted ballroom, throat prickling in the smoke of burning timbers; curtains waft apart, billowed by a warm summer breeze that's thick with the scent of jasmine; a small penguin watches damp-eyed from behind a crumbling, flower-less urn, and sighs. Hey, come on, you know you've been there - we all have. Indeed, you probably saw me, standing behind the aspidistra - tall, blonde... stovepipe hat and whiskers... wooden leg (not my own)...

And next month there'll be a new TBS EP, featuring: Dark Eyes (a 3½ minute pop-classic: choruses, harmonies, middle-eights, garishly costumed phalanxes of tap-dancing hippos sobbing their way through a rousing finale of I Will Survive - ); A Slender Wrist (one of Bob's occasional vaguely mystifying attempts to rewrite the Beatles' Revolver album - a slender wrist, hair in her eyes, falling in her eyes - sorry, I keep singing, don't I? Feel free to hit me if I do it again.); Her World Beneath The Waves (one of Bob's occasional attempts to write a song about Norfolk - grey sky, grey sea, rough clumps of bleached grass tangled with windblown sand; beyond the dunes, the Cocteau Twins toy languidly with shrimp-nets and reverb among the rock-pools); Half In Love With Leaving (slow and brooding, a drawn-out wash of noise, a melancholy roar - brrrrrr... is it cold in here, or is it you?).

And a whole new album, Broken By Whispers, will follow after Christmas and, curiously, will be released in the USA by Sub Pop. I know, it surprised us too. But apparently they're no longer like that.

MONOGRAPH are a 4 piece from north London whose third single, Don't Gimme Shelter - a new version of a song they first did on their Peel Session - came out last month. More importantly, their debut album, Lorelei, came out this very week and, although their trademark electric blur punked-up Guided By Voices type pop-thing hasn't been abandoned entirely, across the fifteen yes FIFTEEN songs there's a whole gamut of other gamuts, including a strong acoustic element, e.g. on the gorgeous Long Stretch and Finding New Rest For The Ghost, on both of which Rob duets with Martine from Broken Dog. Meanwhile, I reckon New League Of Nations, with its aching, tugging chorus, is prime candidate for why wasn't it the single? status. I don't know the answer, by the way.

CODY used to be from Oxford, but now seem to be from Oxford, Glasgow and Italy, which is really annoying if you're trying to get them a gig at the Bull & Gate and cover petrol costs. Their first single, Simple, came out on Shifty Disco, and was rather wonderful in a Stereolab- without-soon-wanting-to-start-gnawing-your-own-leg-off sort of way. After that came Dark Blue on Kooky, followed by two EPs on Shinkansen, Anticyclone and Rounder, and the title track of the latter - all 8 minutes of it - is surely the band's sublimest moment yet: imagine sparse, swooping electronic rhythms and guarded whispers building to a climactic, hypnotic, multi-layered swirl of overlapping voices. Now imagine that it's taking place inside a slowly melting cathedral of electric guitars. Now imagine a regular tetrahedron turned inside out and folded along a line joining the top vertex to a point two-thirds of the way along the bottom edge. Now imagine I'm your mother, and meet me outside the cloakroom after Spearmint. Curiously, the EP also got a really good write-up in Melody Maker, courtesy of guest reviewers Hepburn. And second track Cuts & Grazes, a more orthodox popsong, even managed to get played on The Evening Session. It was that orthodox.

Like both Trembling Blue Stars and myself, HARVEY WILLIAMS was pulled bloodied but unrepentant from the tangled wreckage of the Sarah Records umbrella, under whose metaphorical shade he'd not only played guitar for The Field Mice but also recorded under his own steam as Another Sunny Day. Said umbrella having been long ago tossed into a skip, Harvey is now to be found happily soaping himself behind the equally metaphorical - no, really, trust me, it's a metaphor - Shinkansen shower-curtain, and this summer he bared himself to the world on California, a mini-album featuring an octopus I mean octet of sad and bitter songs about life, love and, unusually for Harvey, fish. As with most of our bands, he's much more highly respected outside the UK than within, for reasons which I won't go into here except to say we know where you live*: he's off to play the USA again in December, and there's a small tour of Sweden at the end of this month, apparently including an outdoor venue in Stockholm, which sounds awfully chilly. (Seems there's an indoor arena too, but the stage is much smaller. I've tried reassuring the promoters that this'll be OK, as Harvey only has a very small act - and, indeed, in cold weather it's even smaller - but I think I succeeded only in scaring them.)

OK. I've run out of words. Today has been yesterday as far as you're concerned, you've been an appalling audience, please take all your belongings with you and mind your heads as you go. And please leave noisily, as this is King's Cross.

* actually, that applies only to those on our mailing-list, but you take my point...