The new record from Chicago’s Fruit Bats is called Spelled In Bones and out in June, presumably on SubPop again. Consisting of basically the duo of Eric Johnson and Gillian Lisée (though they do have a deep pool of musical compadres to enlist help from, what with Johnson having been a member of Califone), their 2003 album Mouthfuls was unjustly overlooked – maybe because of the god-awful cover art. Come on Sub Pop, you can do better than that!

Hidden behind the boring-ass cover laid ten tracks of lovely, understated folkish-based pop songs, featuring great vocal harmonies and just a dash of electronic sonic gibbery (I just made that word up). Other applicable adjectives – warm, laid back, lush, etc. Recommended for fans of The Shins or the Elephant 6 bands, though less tripped-out. They put on a pretty good show too – I caught them in May ’03 at the B-Side. Hopefully they’ll tour through again to support the new record.

MP3: The Fruit Bats – “A Bit Of Wind”

Just when I was worried that my February concert calendar was looking a little sparse, we discover Chapel Hill’s self-proclaimed “stoner pop” practitioners The Comas are at Lee’s Palace on February 16 to promote last year’s Conductor. I’ve only heard a little of their stuff, but I like it. I will be there.

And even better than that, Bettie Serveert are touring Attagirl (out either January 25 or February 2 depending on who you ask) through Lee’s on February 10! I think this is their first time back through Toronto in years, at least since 1997’s Dust Bunnies. I know for certain they haven’t been through since they left Matador. Either way, YAY.

Somewhere Cold talks to Rachel Goswell about her musical influences and finds out that the new Mojave 3 record could be out before Summer, though with minimal creative input from her (on account of her being busy promoting Waves Are Universal).

Itty-bitty Rachael Yamagata videos here. Pity about the resolution – at least the Windows Media versions are scalable, though. From Achtung! Baby.

And another 24 post… So the scene under the bridge? Masterful. In any other situation, it would be a given that the good guy would rescue the hostage, but past seasons of 24 has already established that Jack doesn’t operate by standard good guy code and is willing to do whatever he has to for the greater good. He could very well have left Andrew to die and it would have been perfectly in character. Very nice. Also interesting was the opportunity to see Chloe do some actual acting. She almost stopped annoying me for a few minutes. Oh, and Jack knocking over a gas station for national security? I love it. I am a little concerned that they’re interjecting useless personal crisis stuff for the CTU staff – that was one of the big problems with last season, assuming that the audience actually cares about anyone but Jack, but hopefully that sort of thing will remain incidental. But overall, for the first four hours, 24 has scored a big thumbs up from me. Of course, now the hard part of only getting one hour a week begins. Gaaaahhh. Oh, and that sleeper cell kid has totally gotta shoot his mom. I mean, come on – she bumped off his girlfriend, and she was a cutie. End spoilers.

Apologies if today’s post seems a little rushed – I only started it at like 12:30 last night. Yesterday was a frazzle-riffic sort of day.

np – Spacemen 3 / Playing With Fire

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