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My introduction to Even came via some performances by singer-songwriter-guitarist Ashley Naylor on SBS's RocKwiz. I found his solo performance very entertaining but when the first couple of lines of Get Off My Cloud came out of his mouth I was stunned. It was just so clear that Naylor "got" the song - he's obviously a big fan of music. So I went searching for some of Even's albums.

Any Better Time is another album sent to me by my friend Dan. He grew up living across the road from singer-songwriter Christine Santelli and he thought I might like this roots-infused album that she has recorded. Santelli has a voice that sounds like it is full of cigarettes and whisky. Various tracks on this album encourage comparisons with people like Bonnie Raitt and Melissa Etheridge but Santelli occupies her own space, playing an interesting mix of folk-country-rock... or something like that. This is her seventh album and it is very good.

How did I not know about this album? My friend Dan, who I share a lot of musical interests with, recently sent me a bunch of albums that he has enjoyed listening to over the years, including Stephen Stills' self-titled album.

I've been listening to lots of music lately but haven't reviewed anything for a long time. I'm hoping to change that and get back into the swing of things. What better way to start than to listen to an old favourite and rave about it?

SunDirtWater is the recent album by Australian band The Waifs. This album finds the band in stunning songwriting, musical and vocal form, and they are joined by some impressive guest musicians. On this album they manage to fuse their Australian sound with some of the best of American roots music. I would not have thought this would be possible... without listening to this album... again and again. This is one of the finest albums in my collection.

On Sunday I went for a fairly long drive by myself and loaded up with a few albums to help get me there and back. Most of the albums I chose were selected to keep me awake but some others were just things I felt like listening to. I thought I'd run through them...

West is Lucinda Williams' current release. I bought this after greatly enjoying 2 of her previous albums and have been listening to it a lot.

I've written about this album before. On this uninterrupted listen of Secret Machines' Now Here Is Nowhere several things struck me: