King Biscuit Time - I Walk the Earth (Regal, 2000)

OK so we were told we had to tidy up. Not just the sprawling catacombs of the ATL building (*cough*), but yes hands up we are probably - along with our Radio 1 colleagues - the worst offenders. We always felt that our mad creative whirl excused the piles of CDs and half eaten samosas, but apparently not. When people start to grimace when they walk past your desk it is probably time for a spruce.

The main (and possibly blindly obvious) thing that came to mind though, on spending half of an entire day cleaning and pruning the ATL CD archive, was that there are just so, so many casualties in the trenches of rock music. Yes, some deserved to be put against the wall, some should perhaps even have done the decent thing and leapt in front of a salvo themselves, but others we give a full 21 gun salute.

Each drawer throws up its own tricky decisions. Do we really need every single Sleater-Kinney CD ever released? Does anyone? Who are Groop Dogdrill again? I can allow pretty much all the guff late period Lightening Seeds CD singles to go, but you may prize the Longpigs and Lift to Experience from my cold, dead fingers.

So anyway, this week's 'Thing' to make you go 'Hmmm' will be one of those spared the remorseless twanging towards what we know as the 'hospital box'. It is an offshoot from the Beta Band, a Scottish indie outfit who caused critics to swoon and furrow brows in equal measures back in the late 90's (my goodness, how old are we?).

This side project was called King Biscuit Time, named after a famous old time US radio show, and saw vocalist Steve Mason continue to create lo-fi heartbreak anthems. As ever, its got lashings of reverb, stuttery beats and looping layers of melody. Priceless. Currently, it nestles nervously right in between the Killers and Kings of Leon, and that's excactly where it will stay. Kaiser Chiefs, do we really need your digipack bonus disc?

You should see Hugo Duncan's desk by the way. Freakishly clean.