The silent man speaks

J Mascis has always been someone more comfortable communicating via his guitar than through speech, so the interviewer's task of eliciting candid responses - or indeed responses of any kind - from the Dinosaur Jr frontman is usually very much a thankless one. However, Kurt Vile isn't your ordinary interviewer, having idolised and then performed with Mascis before becoming firm friends with him - and so in a chat for Rolling Stone manages to coax him into some interesting insights about touring and working with Kevin Shields (apparently Mascis did the sound for My Bloody Valentine when the Isn't Anything tour stopped at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey) and the perhaps surprising admission that 1997's Hand It Over is his second favourite Dinosaur Jr album after You're Living All Over Me. As good as those are (indeed, as good as they all are), mine would have to be Where You Been.

Incidentally, it should go without saying, but the new album Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not is very good indeed. That opening salvo of 'Goin' Down' and 'Tiny' has me gripped every time, and I'm also loving the meaty riff of 'I Walk For Miles'.