Caught in the Net: Plane sailing for Kathryn Bint

Kathryn Bint

Kathryn Bint is well-connected, it seems.

The Chicagoan psychedelic folk singer (above), now based in London, trades under the moniker One Little Plane and has a new album out in May on Text Records, the label of Kieran Hebden (he of Four Tet). Hebden also produced the LP, Into the Trees, while Radiohead's Colin Greenwood shows up to play bass. On the basis of "She Was Out in the Water", the gorgeous first song to appear from the LP, she is equal to the exalted company. Hear the track, led by gently skipping guitar strumming – with hints of Hebden's deft touch – and Bint's hushed vocals at snd.sc/y3UQ9X.

Rekindling the Womack magic

Just as XL Recordings reawakened Gil Scott-Heron's recording career with an acclaimed 2010 album, it is now trying the same feat with soul legend Bobby Womack. The label will release his first album in 13 years, The Bravest Man in the Universe, in June. It is produced by XL boss Richard Russell and Damon Albarn, who previously worked with Womack on the last Gorillaz album. Already streaming on bobbywomack.com (and free to download) is a new song offering a taste of what's to come, with "Please Forgive My Heart" pitching Womack's distinctive vocal stretches over mournful piano and sparse electronics.

The true sounds of folk music

In what is a major achievement, the Alan Lomax Archive and the Association for Cultural Equity last week completed its launch of the ACE Online Archive, offering a vast bank of Lomax's recordings to stream for free online. The famed American folklorist and ethnomusicologist, who died in 2002, spent decades capturing field recordings of folk and indigenous music from around the world. The site is streaming 17,000 such works collected by Lomax from 1946 until the 1990s – earlier 1930s field recordings are the provenance of a different organisation and are not yet digitised. There are also videos, photos, essays and Lomax artefacts and ephemera on there. As I said, a major achievement – pretty damn impressive, in fact. Find it all at culturalequity.org.

El-P is back with an aural cure

Indie/experimental rap star El-P is returning with his first rap album in five years (there was an instrumental production record in between). Cancer for Cure lands on 22 May. This week, he showcased a track from the LP in the shape of a song that, in its title at least, takes its cue from a joke involving Robert Downey Jr's character in Tropic Thunder – the song is called "The Full Retard". A free download is at fatpossum.com/news/245. It's a typically cacophonous, doom-laden and stress-inducing affair.

l.ryan@independent.co.uk