To help banish those post-losing to England in the Six Nations we have a seriously bumper Free Music Friday for you starting with a cracking download from Ms. Roxanne de Bastion.
‘Red & White Blood Cells’ is the first taster from The Real Thing, the album Ms. dB recorded in Berlin with Strokes and Regina Spektor man Gordon Raphael.

We suspect it’s the start of a long and torrid love affair.
 

 
Our other favourite Free Music Friday thing – how’s that for a tongue-twister? – this week is a short but very sweet downloadable acoustic set from The xx.
 

 
The Strokes are streaming the first official single from their Comedown Machine album – and this time it sounds nothing like A-ha’s ‘Take On Me’!
Have a listen to the rather frisky ‘All The Time’ and let us know what you think.
 

 
This week’s album streaming action starts at [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html[/link] where the latest offerings from Endless Boogie, PVT, Maston, Parquet Courts, Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer, BRZZVLL, Mazes, Darwin Deez, InnerAct, Pissed Jeans, Grouper, Dutch Uncles, Jesca Hoop and Gallops can all be checked out; [link]music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/spinner#/1[/link] adds Foals, Matt Costa, The Deer Tracks, Lisa Germano, Texas Is The Reason, The Rouge. Mother Mother, Caught A Ghost and Loveskills to the mix; and [link]www.npr.org/series/98679384/first-listen[/link] has newbies from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Maxmillion Dunbar, The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down and the Rogue’s Gallery crew who include Iggy, Keef, Tom Waits, Shane MacGowan and Gavin Friday. A scurvy bunch if ever we’ve come across one!
 
Next to [link]feralaudio.com/10-new-year-tradition[/link] where you can download Neil Hamburger’s brilliant New Year’s Eve radio show, which includes some seriously strange tuneage from today and yesteryear.
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s washed-up cabaret mate also cameos in this latest vid from Clownvis Presley. Rather than us explain, just watch!
 

 
[link]stereogum.com/1255641/hear-iron-wine-debut-caught-in-the-briars-the-waves-of-galveston-on-austins-kutx/mp3s/%20%E2%80%A6[/link] is home to a fabulous new acoustic tune from Iron & Wine; Californian psych-poppers Thee Oh Sees are in similarly generous mood at [link]stereogum.com/1255771/thee-oh-sees-minotaur/mp3s%20%E2%80%A6[/link]; and Purity Ring cover Soulja Boy’s ‘Grammy’ – no, really! – at [link]stereogum.com/1258021/purity-ring-grammy-soulja-boy-cover/mp3s[/link]
 
We know Valentine’s was yesterday, but it’s never too late for a scabrous (anti) love song. This one is served up free by Hey! Hello! who look suspiciously like Ginger Wildheart and Victoria Liedtke.
 

 
The artists known as !!! dish up a free taster from their electrofunk-y Thr!!!er album. If ‘Slyd’ is anything to go by, we’ve made a new friend!
 

 
Christmas comes extremely early for Bell X1 fans with the chaps streaming ‘Starlings Over Brighton Pier’, the first taster from their new album, which follows in the summer.
It’s a real heartbreaker of a love ‘n’ lust song with Mr. Noonan in fine falsetto form.
 

 
Ghostpoet is giving away ‘MSI MUSMID’, a cryptically-titled sampler from his Some Say I So I Say Light – he’s been at the weed again we reckon – album, which is out in May and judging by this is going to be a belter.
 

 
 
Former Coal Chamber bassist Nadja Puelen introduces his new outfit, Vera Mesmer, with suitably muscular free tune ‘Down The Hole’.
 

 
Noise Trade weigh in this week with Don’t Stop Now, a fab four-track EP from American singer-songwriter Willy Mason who’s Ireland-bound next month for shows in Dublin and Belfast.
 

 
Missed Jake Bugg’s cracking encore version of ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ last Sunday in The Academy? Fear not because here’s him doing the Man In Black proud on French radio.
 

 
Pete Townshend has taken to YouTube to tell fans here how much he’s looking forward to the ‘orrible ‘oo playing Quadrophenia in its entirety in the Dublin O2. Many of you will be aware that the character of Jimmy in the screen version is loosely based on Cork’s ‘Irish’ Jack Lyons, a face on the ‘60s mod scene.
 

And So I Watch You From Afar have unveiled another tune from next month’s All Hail Bright Futures album. It’s called ‘Big Thinks Do Remarkable’ and – prepare for a very big shock – has a sung chorus. No, really! We have to say it rather suits them. Otherwise it’s hyperactive guitar business as usual.
 

As our man Edwin McFee reports in the current issue of Hot Press, Other Voice’s first foray to Derry was a massive success. Star turns included Neil Hannon whose take on ‘Sunrise’ was beyond gorgeous.
 

 
Also floating the FMF boat this week is the fab new Delorentos video, shot on location in Spain where the chaps have become pretty damn sizeable. We know this because we got to hang with them and Wilco last year in a Murcian bullring.
 

 
Also Made In Spain is this fab new promo from Track Dogs, the Madrid outfit featuring expat Irishman Garrett Wall.
 

Track Dogs - Dust Devil

• Track Dogs - Dust Devil

 
To celebrate them playing Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens in July, here’s the Forever Still short film that Beach House assembled last year in Texas, and which features four of the tunes from their sumptuous Bloom album.
 

 
Bitter Rocc has just released the short that accompanies his Chris Haze-assisted epic, ‘Fallin’.

A Love/Hate-style slice of gritty Dublin life, it’s the perfect appetite whetter for the Bitter Rocc news we’ll be bringing you over the next few weeks!
 
 

 
And that’s where we have to sling our Free Music Friday hook for another week. Keep those lovely links coming to @stuartclark66