The Ovni album is in the can, and boy is it unbelievably sodding good. This raises the interesting propsect of what can you do with a classic album these days. After several weeks of being told what a fantastic sound it is, and how amazing the tracks are, and how brilliant the group looks.... there's still no offers in the in tray. This has nothing to do with Ovni, and everything to do with Universal, EMI, Sony and Warners doing their very best impression of headless chickens. Listen guys, if you don't know hwo to sell an labum that sounds like this, get another job. Seriously.

Title says it all really, well done Mr Pecker sir....

In other news this week, Maika Makovski has confirmed her debut show in London, which will be on 11 March at The Troubador. Tickets are on sale from this link here and when you buy one you get a free MP3 from the new album.

La Brigada, meanwhile, have announced two album launch nights at the really rather lovely Foment Vilnovi in Vilanova i la Geltru. You can join the Facebook page group for these shows at this link here.

What else? There's a new Pinker Tones remix flying around for Tom Tom Club, which they appear to have completed whilst simultaneously writing a new album, producing the Delafe y Los Flores Azules album and presumably finding a solution for the middle east problem . The Ovni album's still not quite finished, although the tracks we have heard are earth shatteringly brilliant and more commercial than a box of five pound notes going for a quid. And if that wasn't enough for one week, David Devant & His Spirit Wife make one of their regularly sojourns into the live circuit with an appearance at the 100 Club on Thursday 4 Feb.

You know how artists quite often say "this is the best work we've ever done" or "we've really upped our game" or "you won't believe this new record"? Well, over the last two months a succession of records has come across the Outstanding desk which actually live up to those boasts for a change....

2010 looks like being a great year for anybody with ears. February is already a busy month with 22 February set aside for a national celebration in Spain for the release of the self titled Maika Makovski album. Produced by John Parish, it's 11 tracks of really quite amazingly swooping vocals, swampy guitars, rocking bass and drums. Live they are a treat. On record.... well, it's just a great record.

23 February - the very next day! - sees the release of Les Paraules Justes by La Brigada. Their last album received accolades left right and centre and was chosen by Mondo Sonoro as the best Catalan language album of 2009. It's always interesting to examine albums as "Catalan" or "Spanish", but here at Outstanding we tend to think of albums as "is the music any good?". Their first album was a bit of a triumph, this new one is much much better than that.

Over the next few weeks we're going to be updating the blog much more regularly so you can see what we're up to. I've been trying to think of a theme for this year (as The Pinker Tones are also in the studio and Ovni are currently mixing the final tracks for their album). I think it might be "Outstanding - we have no idea what the music industry is doing, but here's some good music".