Caught in the Net: TV on the Radio whet our appetite

It's proving a bumper season for returning art-rock bands. Radiohead recently delivered their first new album in three and a bit years; The Strokes will soon end a five-year hiatus with a new album; now Brooklyn's finest, TV on the Radio, emerge on the horizon with their fourth album, Nine Types of Light, which arrives on 14 April. Last week Seattle radio station 107.7 The End premiered the first song to emerge from the album at ind.pn/erPcrr. The song is called "Will Do", and it's a laid-back effort that slowly rumbles along. It feels like a cousin to the show-stopping ballad "Family Tree", from their 2008 LP Dear Science. Though not as dramatic/epic as that one, with it's chiming sounds and soulful vocals, it's quietly affecting and whets the appetite nicely for the rest of the album.

The ubiquitous Ghostpoet

The UK MC Ghostpoet's impressive debut LP, Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam, was released earlier this month on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood label. It's a record full of low-key electro beats marrying nicely with the MC's low-key rapping, bearing the influence of Roots Manuva and Tricky, among others. Not content with a brand new album, Ghostpoet also has an going series of free mixtapes, "ghosttapes", the latest, his fourth, can be heard at independent.co.uk/artsblog.

Gold standard

I was a big fan of Gold Panda's debut Lucky Shiner when it came out last autumn, so it pleasing to see more music, of sorts, emerging from the electronica producer's quarters. A standout track from Lucky Shiner was called "Marriage", which passes in a burr of synths and beats. This week the "Marriage" EP was released digitially – it comes with the original track and remixes by Baths, Star Slinger, Forest Swords and Halls. The EP can be bought at www. luckyshiner.com, where it is also streaming. A vinyl version will be released on 16 April for Record Store Day. Also on the site is a pretty video for the track.

Beck catalogue

Since Beck relaunched his website, www.beck.com, a year or two ago, the main focus has been on his Record Club endeavours, wherein he invites a group of musicians into a studio for a day to record cover versions of an entire album; occasionally interspersed on the site with these recordings are conversations between Beck and various figures, including Tom Waits and Will Ferrell. In February, the latest of these conversations – "Irrelevant Topics" – was published. It is a chat with the comedian Demetri Martin, with topics ranging from water and burning wood to epic moustaches and the stand-up comedian who played second fiddle to the Beatles when they made their US TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.