When not going from despair to ecstasy watching the Boys In Green – or, in Mr. Clark’s case, Woy’s Barmy Army – Free Music Friday has deftly assembled another unbeatable collection of downloads, streams, vids and trailers for your Euros soundtracking delectation.
Hopefully by the time we next meet Fabien Frenchman and Ingi Icelander will have been smited, and quarter-final opponents that aren't Germany, Croatia or Spain confirmed.

Portishead pay touching tribute to murdered MP Jo Cox with this video accompaniment to their cover of Abba’s ‘SOS’. Featuring a mainly motionless and monochrome Beth Gibbons, it ends with the “We have far more in common than which divides us” quote of Cox’s, which has become a rallying cry since her death.

The Flaming Lips, Dr. Dog, Dylan LeBlanc, Banners and Seratones star on the 11-track mixtape looking forward to next month’s Sloss Festival in Birmingham, Alabama.

Also awaiting your Noise Trade attention are the eponymous seven-tracker from Social, an Atlanta outfit who mine the same ‘80s electropop vein as Empire Of The Sun used to, and Live At The Rockwood Music Hall, a four-song explanation of why Greenville, South Carolina’s Marcus King Band are such a hot southern rock property.

Kieran Hebden celebrates Four Tet’s millionth Soundcloud follow with this wonderfully eclectic freebie track and a name yer’ price compilation of 1996-2013 rarities.

It’s a Free Music Friday “howaya” to Trick Mist whose mean ‘n’ moody ‘Crumbs Abound’ gets a suitable video accompaniment.

Sons Of Southern Ulster have put together a brilliant cut ‘n’ paste video to go with ‘The Pop Inn’. Sadly, we’re old enough to recognise those luxuriantly-sideburned, beanie hat-wearing glam stompers near the start as The Rubettes.

To the streams now and you can cop a pre-release earful of the new records from Nickel Creek solo flyer Sara Watkins, British pop-punkers Martha and 21-year-old YouTube sensation Jacob Collier.

American NPR also treat us to live shows from the Longitude-bound Lucius and Neko Case, k.d. lang and Laura Veirs who performed their wonderful collaborative album in its entirety in a very cool-looking Portland club.
[link]npr.org/event/music/482313223/watch-lucius-live-in-concert[/link]
[link]npr.org/event/music/482505160/first-listen-live-watch-neko-case-k-d-lang-and-laura-veirs-perform-their-new-alb[/link]

The much-missed Ambience Affair have morphed into DIVAN and recorded an album with ElVy producer Brent Knopf. The first taster suggests that a real treat awaits.

The quality Irish tunes don’t end there with “a bluesy bastard of a track” from New Valley Wolves who, forget ‘11’, have it turned all the way up to ‘12’.

This week’s [link]adultswim.com/music/singles-2016[/link] freebie is ‘Sannhet’, a thundering wall of noise offering from Short Life.

Ron Howard’s authorised The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years documentary is receiving its world premiere in London on September 15. The first trailer suggests we’re in for a treat!

Just when we thought we couldn’t love Deerhoof any more than we already do they go and cover Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ with full metal racket gusto.

Video of the Week honours go to Bastille whose newly premiered ‘Good Grief’ features a decapitated Dan, a bank robbery, a burning house, gun-toting quiz show contestants, roller girls and a kitchen-sink thrown in for good measure. It’s the first taster from their Wild World album, which includes an Angel Haze collaboration.
Mud permitting, they play the Glastonbury Other Stage on today.

We’re delighted to bring you the official unveiling of ‘Bayonets’, the excellent new tune and vid from Red Moon Bayonets who are also doing their live thing on August 6 in the Workman’s Club, Dublin.

In shops today is ‘On Avoiding People’, the highly addictive new single from We Cut Corners. It’s taken from their third album, which follows later in the summer, and contains wordplay of extreme dexterity.

American DJ, producer and lower-case fan gnash treated BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge listeners to a nifty cover of Bea’s ‘Hold Up’ t'other day.

We finish with – cue fanfare – our very first but definitely not last Retro Video Treat, which is Hawkwind’s LSD-drenched 1971 hit, ‘Silver Machine’. Lead vocals are handled by the pre-being sacked and forming Motörhead Lemmy while the lady throwing psychedelic shapes is Stacia Blake, now an artist living across the road from the Electric Picnic site in Stradbally.

And that is your considerable Free Music Friday lot for another week. Dare we to dream of Euro glory? Try bleedin’ stopping us! Keep both the faith and those links coming to @stuartclark66