Whither next? New Music 2010 - Part 19

After a week away from posting, but certainly not listening or reading, this will likely be a rather hybrid post.  It is in some ways driven by my ongoing infatuation with the music that has made 2010 worthwhile for me. I can and will mention much more of that but, while thinking about it, I have started to think a bit more about what the next twelve months might bring.  These are just very first thoughts and they may quite likely change, and possibly more than once, before I feel that I am willing to comment decisively as the year-end approaches. That said, and however it develops between now and then, the prospect does not depress me at all...
It will, I think, continue to be a very interesting ride and here are a couple of tracks, making the rounds now, that hint at just some of what might be in store.

• James Blake  - 'Limit To Your Love'.   This is in fact a cover version - of a song by Canadian artist Feist who I really rate in any case.  The spare beauty of this interpretation is quite astounding --- not least for the haunting silences.  It is another that I must add to my list of astonishing cover versions, and dangerously risky ones at that, but again it is one that works beautifully.
• Sleigh Bells - continuing the Brooklyn electro-whatever theme of the last few years  - will make an impact with their album 'Treats' (already released) and I expect to see them on the bill at Latitude 2011. Where you get into this really depends on your current perspective, which will also be a theme in 2011 I believe. If you want the rock-influenced, and it is little more than that, then Infinity Guitars, the current single, would be no bad place to start. On the other hand you would never have imagined that they would ever become Sleigh Bells, given the members' utterly disparate previous band history.  On careful listening, and even then perhaps only if you already know, it is just possibly less difficult to comprehend!
• Rock music - well surely, in some or all of its variety, it is due something of a come-back? It might not be on my terms, or yours, but sooner or later it will return.  I'm fascinated by two apparently different bands, both of which however share something derived from Seattle grunge even if it is used in different ways.  In other ways they could hardly appear to have less in common - Dinosaur Pile-up is four lads from Leeds and Los Angeles' Warpaint is an all-female four-piece - but you should never pay much attention to detail such as that...

I suspect that this is not even going to be a fraction of one half-of-it!