Elbow released their latest Leaders Of The Free World in Canada and the rest of the world last year, but it’s only getting a US release on February 21. The wait will be worth it, though, because in addition to a top-notch album, there’ll be a limited edition that also comes with an expansive DVD featuring videos, studio footage, etc. The DVD was also part of the package with the UK edition, but this will be the first domestic North American release. I believe the DVD will be available on its own up here in Canuckistan, but don’t have the details handy at the moment. If I can dig up the info, I’ll update this here post. In the meantime, the good folks at V2 have given me a few streams from the DVD for you to check out:

WMV: Elbow – “Station Approach”
WMV: Elbow – “Forget Myself “
WMV: Elbow – “Puncture Repair “

While some are sad about the news of Charlotte Hatherley leaving Ash, I for one welcome the news. Why? Because I like Charlotte’s solo stuff and don’t really like Ash. Simple. Her second album is due out this Fall and she (along with Elbow from up above) are scheduled to appear at SxSW in March. Yay.

And speaking of SxSW, the powers that be have once again updated the attending bands list and AngryRobot has again converted it into an actually readable format. Haven’t gone through it closely to see if there’s anyone I’m really excited about seeing yet, though.

According to this thread at Shoegaze.com, Playboy of all places, has declared shoegazing to be the next big thing in rock, supplanting the way overripe garage rock sound. While I think they may be overstating the case a bit, you can’t deny that the genre has experienced a renaissance in recent years, at least in terms of critical re-appraisal. And surely the new wave/post-punk corpse is picked clean by now? Musical necrophiliacs need to move on to the next exquisite corpse, and delay pedal manufacturers are rubbing their hands in anticipation. And if you need a quick history lesson, I refer you back to Are You Familar’s periodic and ongoing history of shoegaze – parts one, two, three, fourand five.

Chart talks to Metric about their new video for “Poster Of A Girl” and opening for The Rolling Stones.

And finally, best news of the week? The National. At the Horseshoe. March 22. AND I WILL BE IN TOWN, though just barely. Seriously, that’s in the middle of a miniscule five-day-or-so window in which I’ll be in the country. SO BEST. And to get you stoked, So Much Silence has their session for WOXY from last September all MP3-ed up for you to enjoy.

np – Ride / Going Blank Again

It’s been over a year since I last checked in on Scotland’s Dot Allison, but there hasn’t really been much to report in the interim, at least not much concrete. The former One Dove chanteuse has been pretty quiet since putting out 2002’s We Are Science, preferring to collaborate with others and touring with Massive Attack. She was also a member of Babyshambles for a time but maybe the gruelling schedule of scheduling and cancelling shows got to be too much for her…

But thankfully, she’s hasn’t let her own work go by the wayside. In this French interview from last year . she said she was working a third solo album and “the direction is quite alt. country/folk. Not so electronic this time, quite organic with more guitar and traditional intrumentation” and was described by Andy Weatherall as ” Emmylou Harris meets the Velvets” (the full translated excerpt from the interview can be read here). That sounds pretty good to me, but release date info isn’t yet forthcoming. She has completed an EP (Beneath The Ivy) which is yet unreleased and continued to work on the album, which has a title of Agent Provocateur, so that’s something.

She’s also maintaining her own MySpace page and a journal on her message boards. There’s also some choice downloads available on her site, though oddly in M4A and MP4 formats – best download them straight to your desktop and play them from there, rather than in the browser. Two of the tracks are demos (presumably) from her new album, one is a collaboration with everybody’s favourite tabloid fodder Pete Doherty and the last is a track done with Massive Attack that appeared in the Jet Li film Unleashed, aka Danny The Dog.

M4A: Dot Allison – “Paper Rose” (demo)
MP4: Dot Allison – “Quicksand” (demo)
MP4: Dot Allison & Pete Doherty – “I Wanna Break Your Heart” (demo)
MP4: Massive Attack with Dot Allison – “Aftersun”

Drowned In Sound gets a few minutes to talk to Stuart Murdoch about Belle & Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit, out February 7.

Broken Social Scene kick off their sold out, two-night stand at the Kool Haus tonight, and The Toronto Star and The Toronto Sun talk to Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, respectively, about the pressures of making Broken Social Scene and the hometown shows. Hey – Stars and Suns. HA!

Nellie McKay talks to The Village Voice about leaving Columbia, her childhood and animal rights work. The Washington Post also has an interview while The Washington Times chastises her for what it sees as immature behaviour and throwing hissy-fits. I’m inclined to agree, to an extent. Or more like, the days of major labels indulging artists who haven’t sold craploads of records are long, long gone. Unless getting dropped is exactly what Nellie hoped to accomplish, I don’t know what else she could have expected.

When Mocking Music compiles what they call “The Top Ten Most Interesting Indie Covers & Remixes . . . Ever!”, it seems their definition of “ever” is about a year and a half. But still, they offer downloads and commentary so it’s worth a look. Via For The Records.

np – The New Pornographers / Electric Version

Los Angeles’ Cerulean isn’t a band that’s gotten a lot of profile in any of the internet circles I travel in, but they have gotten a lot of love amongst devotees of The Big Takeover mailing list, where I first heard of them, thanks in no small part to their sonic similarity to BTO faves Catherine Wheel. Singer/guitarist Rick Bolander’s pipes are definitely reminiscent of Rob Dickinson’s, though with less of that uniquely British sense of drama. There’s parallels to be drawn musically, as well – they deftly combine gentler, atmospheric moments with driving, anthemic rock action and while it’s not the most fashionable sound right now, but it’s not that far removed. And I know there are those for whom this sound is like manna from heaven (do you have original LP pressings of Heaven Up Here and Script Of The Bridge?) and am pretty sure some of them read this site, so for them – check it out. They released their third full-length album No Sense In Waiting last year, and have generously posted a couple tracks from it online to check out. They’ve also got the requisite MySpace page if you want to be friends.

MP3: Cerulean – “Quiet Release”
MP3: Cerulean – “Here Is Hoping”

IndieInterviews has a podcast interview with Chris Hrasky of Explosions In The Sky – I don’t usually listen to podcasts (for reasons dull and uninteresting), but this is one I will probably have to take the time out for.

Fountains Of Wayne tell Billboard they’re going back into the studio to record the follow-up to Welcome Interstate Managers. Adam Schlesinger will also be teaming up with fellow Scratchie Records cohort James Iha to try and make America cool. Good luck, guys. And it’s interesting how Iha isn’t mentioned in this report about a Smashing Pumpkins reunion… Oversight? Or conspiracy?

The Stranger talks literature and music with Colin Meloy on the eve of his solo tour. And if he’s not coming near your town, You Ain’t No Picasso has his in-studio performance at KEXP yesterday all ripped and zipped for you to download.

Coming to town – Howe Gelb at the Horseshoe on March 5 and Liars at Lee’s on June 21.

I was asked to contribute to this/last year’s eye music critics poll. the final results of which are now up here, with commentary here and here. I don’t think a whole lot of my picks really made it in there, but that’s okay. I got my name in the big list and that’s what really matters. And if you’d like to be a music journalist and have your opinion polled, PopMatters has a quick test to see if you have what it takes. Hey, Tommy LaSorda did it – maybe you can too!

Newsarama talks to the brain trust behind Justice League Unlimited, which is still frustratingly in limbo. However Comic Book Resources reports that new episodes will begin airing on YTV up here in Canada starting February 1. And don’t forget that the complete first season will be out on DVD on March 21.

I don’t care what the zookeepers say, this will all end in tears. I bet they’ve got a pool going.

np – Bedhead / Transaction De Novo

The latest issue of Rolling Stone once again features a grizzled old rocker on the cover, but since it’s a grizzled old rocker I like, I won’t complain. Neil Young’s mug will be staring out from the cover of RS for the next two weeks, and they’ve put together a few special online features in conjunction with it. The excerpt from the cover story they’ve posted online only covers well-worn territory of Young’s childhood, but hopefully the full article offers something more insightful. Which isn’t to say I’m going to buy a copy, I haven’t bought a copy of Rolling Stone in many many years and don’t think I could bring myself to do so now. The full piece will be online eventually.

A more interesting feature is their list of the best Neil Young songs you’ve never heard. Appropriately, I’ve never heard most of these songs save for “I’m The Ocean”, “Soldier” and “Stringman” but can attest that those tunes definitely stand up with anything else Neil has penned. Maybe I should make an effort to the rest of those listed, though that probably means I’d have to listen to Re*Ac*Tor… To roung things out, they’ve also dug up an old interview conducted by Cameron Crowe circa 1979. I haven’t gone through the whole thing yet, but it definitely looks like a piece worth taking the time to read, seeing as how it catches Neil on the cusp of entering his most… eccentric decade to date.

And finally, the website for the Jonathan Demme concert film, Neil Young: Heart Of Gold, doesn’t have much yet besides the trailer, but promises more content before the film’s theatrical release on February 11.

Stylus has given themselves a makeover for the new year and, well, it looks kinda Pitchfork-y. I was no fan of their old design, it was a real pain trying to dig through their archives to find old posts and whatnot, but the new look is rather uninspiring either. But at least they kick things off with a review of the reissue of Slowdive’s Just For A Day reissue, declaring it the cure for the common cold. I picked up the reissue at the end of last year and have to say, the remastering is quite nice – the old version was so quiet – but the bonus disc is worth the price of admission alone. I would have liked to get the double-disc edition of Souvlaki as well, but there are so few extras on there that I don’t already have (thanks to the bonus tracks on the original North American SBK edition) that I couldn’t justify it.

Billboard talks to The National about meeting and playing with Bruce Springsteen at a recent concert paying tribute to his Nebraska album. Brooklynvegan has pics and a review of the event in New York City last week. The Billboard piece mentions that the band will be doing “a short east coast and west coast run” of touring in late March. Man, how much do you want to bet that there’s going to be a Toronto date in the last week of March… when I will once again be out of the country. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I was in Estonia or something when The National was in Toronto back in September… I haven’t. Man.

The Journal News gets acquainted with Emily Haines of Metric. Via LHB.

Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater and Okkervil River fame tells Chart there’s no such thing as indie rock, just budget rock. The new Shearwater record, Palo Santo, is done and will be out in May.

Paste reports on the making of the butterfly-powered video for The Shins’ “Saint Simon”.

np – Dot Allison / Afterglow

Cat Power hasn’t necessarily rocked my world in the past, but the new album is totally winning me over. You can hear the whole thing on her MySpace page, and while I’m sure some will bemoan her moving away from the skeletally weary folk of her earlier releases, I for one welcome her adoption of fuller instrumentation and melodicism. The album is out next Tuesday, and the press machine is revving up. Australia’s The Age and New York Metro have interviews with the notoriously reticent Chan Marshall while The New York Times profiles both her and Beth Orton and reviewing their respective new records. Finally, keep an eye out for the first video from The Greatest for “Living Proof”, shot by Harmony Korine – Tim O Thompson reports that “it’s a bit racy”. You hear that? That was the sound of a nation of indie boys fainting.

And on the topic of Matador-affiliated, formerly press-shy indie royalty The Sunday Herald has an old-fashioned sit-down with Stuart Murdoch and comes away with an impressively expansive and in-depth interview with the Belle & Sebastian leader. And in addition to the release of their new album The Life Pursuit on February 7, there’s the release of Put The Book Back On The Shelf, an anthology of comics based on B&S songs. I am having trouble finding real accurate info on the release date – I’ve found listings for every week in February – but The Beguiling and Soundscapes seem fairly certain that it’ll be out by February 8th, because that’s the day they’re holding a release party for both the CD and the book at Andy Poolhall out on College St. Some of the artists will be in attendance, so it’s your chance to hang out with indie kids AND comic geeks… or show up with a bazooka and put us all out of our misery. You know you’d be doing us a favour.

And at the other end of the spectrum, some artists who have trouble keeping their gobs shut… Oasis are at the Air Canada Centre on March 20. Didn’t know they were on tour over here? Me neither, but there you go. The Arctic Monkeys, who have probably already sold out their show at the Phoenix the next day to Toronto’s infamous slavering Anglophiles, will open. Because, you know, they’re already here.

And also on March 20 – Six By Seven’s Club Sandwich At The Peveril Hotel gets a formal release but the band has 500 copies on sale now through their website, some even autographed. The release is described as “a mixture of high quality master recordings, demo’s and slightly unfinished masterpieces” and contains tracks that were intended for the follow-up to their swan song Artists Poets Cannibals Thieves, which never came to be. Did I ever post about my attempts to buy a copy of that album over eBay? I won an auction for a copy from some dude/shop in the UK and sent payment via Paypal. A couple weeks later, I get a package in the mail that certainly feels like a CD, but when I open it up, it turns out that it’s an empty jewel case with a 10 pound note in it along with a written apology that they couldn’t find the CD in their store so here’s my refund. Somehow paying me in a foreign currency and shipping it as a small parcel made more sense to them than just refunding my Paypal. Attempts to contact the seller just got me profuse email apologies, but no explanation as to what the hell they were thinking. And so I carry that ten quid around with me in my wallet as a reminder that, well, some people are just fucked. And I still don’t have a copy of the record.

And more news from the UK – Eamon Hamilton has left British Sea Power to concentrate full-time on Brakes.

24: I think it goes without saying that President Logan should be removed from office and replaced with David Palmer’s corpse. Or Sherry Palmer’s corpse. Or a potted plant. I wonder if the producers were given a directive to somehow come up with a President who makes the real one look good by comparison? And that kid is SO not 15 years old, though he does cry like a little girl. Oh look! Sam Gamgee in a suit! Silly hobbitses. The airport siege went pretty well, though I don’t really see what sort of threat the terrorists really were, considering that all they had in those explosive vests was confetti. And biohazard weapons? Yawn.

np – Chapterhouse / Whirlpool