Gavin James, Glen Hansard, School Of Seven Bells, Soulwax & Yoko Ono star in Free Music Friday

After a week of not having to worry about the rugby, Free Music Friday is on tenterhooks waiting to see if Ireland can pull a big performance out of the bag tomorrow at Twickenham. We reckon that Joe Schmidt should forsake the usual team talk, and play the chaps our latest collection of downloads, streams, vids and trailers which is guaranteed to inspire, motivate and fend off marauding English packs - or we'll give you your money back!

We are blown away by SVIIB, the School Of Seven Bells album that was being recorded at the time of Benjamin Curtis' tragic death, and which his bandmate and onetime girlfriend Alejandra Deheza has finished off. A record of real grace and beauty, it's a fitting tribute to a man who also blew Free Music Friday socks off with his previous outfit Secret Machines.

Another favourite FMF thing this week is the career-spanning acoustic set that Wilco treated American NPR listeners to this week. Another viewing essential is the 16th birthday party for the station's All Songs Considered show, which includes turns from Dan Deacon, Sharon Van Etten, The Suffers and Glen Hansard.

Soulwax have come up with the wizard wheeze of creating a Various Artists album, which is actually them adopting 15 different guises including that of Royal Blood-alikes The Shitz, bleep merchants Erasmus and the punk and disorderly Burning Phlegm. It's the soundtrack to Belgica, a frantic-looking Dutch film which will be making its subtitled way here soon hopefully.

iframe>

Those lovely PictureHouse boys limber up for their April 17 show in Dublin's Unitarian Church with the release of a free four-tracker, which documents the last time they visited that corner of Stephen's Green.

Fresh out this morning is the woozily seductive new tune from The Raveonettes, 'Run Mascara Run'. We've fallen in love with Sharin and Sune all over again!

Gavin James has premiered a new clip for 'Nervous', which was shot by Christian Tierney on the streets of Dublin and the stage of the Olympia Theatre where the Other Man In Black recently played an awesome series of sellouts. Gav's good on his own, but with the Dame Street crowd he's magic!

Yoko Ono is letting you try her Yes, I'm A Witch Too collaborative album before you buy. A re-working of her critically-acclaimed 2007 long-player of roughly the same name, it includes contributions from the likes of Danny Tenaglia, Death Cab For Cutie, Peter Bjorn And John, Sparks, Portugal. The Man, Cibo Matto and tUnE-yArDs, Ebony Bones and Moby.

Some very bright spark has put together a collection of the tunes Kanye West sampled for his The Life Of Pablo album. Nelly's 'E.I.', Whodini's 'Friends', Ghostface Killah's 'Mighty Healthy' and Nina Simone's 'Do What You Gotta Do' are among the quality fare.

Former Hold Steady man Craig Finn and Titus Andronicus both have songs titled 'No Future', which they've covered to celebrate going out on the road together.

The hot streams continue with the latest from M Ward, and Polica whose United Crushers is a new wave-y electro stunner.

Some of the former 79 Cortinaz crew have morphed into and conjured up this brilliant '80s electronica stomper, which is yours for the price of a download.

Jacknife Lee has come up with this epic 18-minute remix of the new exmagician single, 'Job Done', which never outstays its welcome and includes all sorts of sonic chicanery. Have your mind well and truly blown at [link]purevolume.com/news/PREMIERE-exmagician-Job-Done-Remix-Jacknife-Lee[/link]
The original tune is lifted from Scan The Blue, Daniel Todd and James Smith's first album under their new guise.

Primal Scream's mate Andrew Weatherall blows us away with his genre-bending Convenanza album, which should be checked out immediately at
[link]theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/feb/24/hear-andrew-weatherall-new-album-convenanza-stream[/link]

Video of the Week comes from the Body & Soul-bound Santigold, which lets you put yourself at the heart of the [link]cantgetenoughofmyself.webcam[/link] action.

There's a big bang of paranoia about the new video for Massive Attack and Young Fathers' 'Voodoo In My Blood', one of the killer tunes from the former's Ritual Spirit EP. It's the work of Ringan Ledwidge, a director best-known for his advertising work, which includes the controversial 2014 Sainsbury's World War I Christmas truce clip. The actress who encounters a mysterious orb in the subway is Rosamund Pike who bears a striking resemblance these days to Portishead's Beth Gibbons.
Our sense of unease is profound.

Footage of The Strypes being all sorts of wonderful last year in Tokyo has hit the 'net. Thanks to the ever vigilant folk from Strypes Mania for drawing our attention to it!

Following several teaser clips, Rihanna has unveiled the full Drake-assisted video for 'Work'. It's a sumptuous affair with the two stars partying hard enough to impress even Andrew WK.

And that's where we bring this week's Free Music Friday to a close, start chain-praying to Our Lady and hoping that tomorrow's Six Nations runout doesn't go the way we fear it will. In the meantime, keep them links coming to @stuartclark66