So today the blog shifts back into travel mode for a week. I’m off to Amsterdam as part of the Bloggers In Amsterdam promotional junket thingee, so if you didn’t like my posts from abroad last September, well, come back in a week or so. This is actually the first of a few trips I’ll be taking in the next little while – in mid-March, I’m off to Austin, Texas for SxSW and then a week after I get back from that, it’s off to the other side of the world for a couple weeks in Japan and Taiwan. There’s no hitch with that trip, it’s just family and vacation and whatnot. By my math, I believe I will actually be out of the country for fully half of the next two months. But I figure to still be posting dispatches from the Far East when the opportunity presents and happily, I will still be online through this week in Amsterdam because unlike the last time I went to Europe, it won’t be costing me $0.25 a minute to do so, so in addition to thoughts on Holland, I’ll be keeping tabs on music land as well.

This trip comes not a minute too soon as the past four months have been really intense as far as work goes, and last three weeks in particular I’ve been working almost non-stop, every day. But I’m now officially emancipated (read: unemployed) again, and not a minute too soon. I’ve barely been managing to keep my head above water the last month and it will be good to have some time to sift through the general state of bedlam that is my life. Like, seriously. You should see my room.

If you’ve sent me email for mp3 requests or submissions, or CDs, or whatever, and haven’t heard back from me, I apologize but answering email that wasn’t a matter of life and death has been pretty low priority for me. Hell, sleep has been a pretty low priority. But with luck, after next week things will settle into a more bearable pace for me and I’ll get back on top of things. And, as you would expect, there will be no 24 commentary next week. Or it’ll be late.

And now I will clean out the last bits of music news I’ve got before heading off.

New York’s Ambulance LTD have released the title track from their forthcoming EP (due March 14) for download:

MP3: Ambulance LTD – “New English”

The release date of Drive-By Truckers’ A Blessing And A Curse has been moved up a week to April 18.

KyndMusic talked to Broken Social Scene’s Andrew Whiteman and Justin Peroff before one of their recent shows at Webster Hall in New York City.

Matt Pond PA, continuing their North American tour on borrowed gear and good vibes (their gear all got ripped off in Brooklyn) speak to hour.ca. Via For The Records. And Bradley’s Almanac has their show in Boston last week recorded and up for grabs.

Snow Patrol are doing one of those preview tours in really small club things for their new album Eyes Open, out April 11. In Toronto’s case, they’ll be at the Mod Club on March 30. Tickets are on sale Friday for $27.50, but you know it’s probably already sold out.

Billy Bragg, whose Volume 1 box set is out next week and who will be at the Opera House on March 11, puts together a recommended listening list for Amazon.com. Via LHB.

np – Raised By Swans / Codes And Secret Longing