Check out the minisite for The Cardigans’ new album, Super Extra Gravity. There will eventually be song samples but for now, you can see the sass-tacularly sexy video for the first single, “I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer” featuring a blonde-again Nina Persson. Yeah, you need to register to see it, but come on – a big multinational conglomerate like Universal? They already know who you are. There’s no point in trying to hide. Or you can just watch the whole thing anonymously here. There’s some behind-the-scenes photos from the making of the video here.

The new official bio makes it sound like Super Extra Gravity is going to be all over the map in terms of sound and style, quite a contrast from the consistently lovely melancholy of Long Gone Before Daylight. As Nina puts it, “Compared to our mature last album this is an obnoxious teenager”. Sounds good to me. The new album is out in Europe October 17 and in Canada on October 25. Keeners should know there’s a deluxe edition being released overseas that comes with a making-of documentary DVD. Each international edition will also haev exclusive bonus tracks. Completists weep. CDWow has both UK editions available for pretty reasonable prices, though. There is no current planned release of the album for the US. American fans get the shaft again.

JAM! thinks The New Pornographers are an excellent example of the musical socialism that defines so many current Canadian collectives, but Carl Newman prefers to think of them as “a benevolent dictatorship”. The Pornos will rally the faithful to their cause at the Phoenix this Sunday.

Delays delays delays. Wilco’s Kicking Television double live album has been delayed a fortnight and will now be coming out November 15.

Check it out – I am linking to Bob Mould, who is linking to me, who is linking to him, who is… whoa. Heavy. And here’s an interview with Bob from EQ, courtesy of Bob.

Lee’s Palace will host a fairly buzzy bill on November 12 – West Yorkshire (that’s in the UK, kids) family act The Cribs are in town with Brooklyn space-rockers Longwave and Los Angeles stoner rock duo Giant Drag. Eclectic? Very much so. Tickets are $13.50. I saw Giant Drag at SxSW this past March, and they were… entertaining. Not so much musically but I’m pretty sure singer-guitarist Annie Hardy was one something (or several somethings) because her between-song banter was totally out there and fairly hilarious. And she rates rather highly on the “cute girl with a Gretsch-o-meter”.

And speaking of SxSW – who’s going next year? I’d like to, but am contemplating costs, logistics, arrangements, etc etc. Anyone from around T.O. got any interesting ideas for getting down there? My wristband hookup from last year now has little itty bitty babies to tend to, so I don’t think I’ve got anything covered on that end either. And if anyone would have a spare photo pass… Huh. That looks like a lot of work. Maybe I’ll just stay home.

I believe I’ve identified the source of those goddamn annoying flash ads that have been showing up on my site lately – I used to use Nedstat for a site counter, and they’ve recently become WebStats4U – that’s fine. What’s not fine is THIS new policy of serving up ads on top of sites running their meters. I agreed to nothing of the sort, and maybe they think they’re doing a favour by saying “nothing will be implemented directly into your website like banners, buttons or links”. Hi, fuck you. You paste a goddamn ad across the face of my site and then act like you’re respectful of my property? Go to hell. I’ve removed the WebStats4U counter from my site and recommend that anyone else who has one of these things on their sites either a) remove it posthaste or b) demand a cheque from them for using your site for advertising.

np – My Morning Jacket / At Dawn