Scottish lads and lasses Camera Obscura return to town next week for a show Sunday night at The Phoenix. Though it’s ostensibly to support last year’s Let’s Get Out Of This Country, they’ve already been through twice already and everyone and their mother already loves the record so their work on that front is done. I assume they’re just coming over to do some shopping, have some roti. Maybe catch We Will Rock You.

But whatever the reasons, no complaints (as long as it’s not procrastination in recording a follow-up record). They put on a lovely show, even in the larger rooms as January’s Opera House engagement proved, and with The Last Town Chorus opening it’s sure to be a great one. And, courtesy of Against The Grain and Merge Records, I’ve got three pairs of passes to give away to Sunday night’s show (that’s August 26) and it’s all-ages so everyone can enter. To do so, fire me off an email to contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Camera Obscura” in the subject and your full name in the body. And if you know, tell me what the best month to visit Scotland is – I’m thinking about getting out of this country. Contest closes at midnight, August 23.

MP3: Camera Obscura – “Let’s Get Out Of This Country”
MP3: Camera Obscura – “If Looks Could Kill”
Video: Camera Obscura – “Let’s Get Out Of This Country” (MOV)
Video: Camera Obscura – “Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken” (MOV)
Video: Camera Obscura – “If Looks Could Kill” (YouTube)
MySpace: Camera Obscura

Late night so this one’s gonna be short. Mainly, I want to remind everyone that this weekend is the Toronto Comics Arts Festival taking place Saturday and Sunday at various locales around town but mainly at Victoria College in the University of Toronto (where, incidentally, they’ve been shooting The Incredible Hulk). Guests of particular note this year include Paul Pope (Batman: Year 100 and cover boy of this week’s eye), Becky Cloonan (Local, American Virgin), Darwyn Cooke (The New Frontier and local boy!) and Dave Sim (Cerebus, batshit crazy).

The TCAF is fun in that it’s like a comic-con but no one dresses up in terrible costumes. Instead it’s (mostly) normal people getting together to talk and celebrate the joy of comics, primarily but not exclusively indies.
I hope to catch some of the panels if time permits but mostly I’ll likely just wander the tables and maybe make some spontaneous purchases of gewgaws I really don’t need.

And note that in the evening, Bryan Lee O’Malley – creator of Scott Pilgrim – will be demonstrating his musical talents with a performance of his one-man band Kupek at Sneaky Dee’s. There’ll also be some other performances from other comics creators who do the music thing – renaissance men and women, we call them. And exciting Scott Pilgrim news in that book four, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (which is apparently set largely in Sneaky Dee’s) is due out this Fall. Full details will be forthcoming in September. YAY.

Torontoist, The Toronto Star, Comic Book Resources and BlogTO all have previews of the fest.

IGN talks to Rilo Kiley drummer Jason Boesel about their new record Under The Black Light, out Tuesday. I’ve already mentioned how disappointed I am with the record and that opinion seems to be the general consensus among those I’ve talked to. A shame. But hey, decide for yourself – they’re streaming the album in its entirety on their MySpace starting today (if it’s not up yet, check back later) and through the weekend. They’re also at the Phoenix on September 18.

Couple shows announced – Montag, The One AM Radio and Lymbyc Systym are at the Whipper Snapper Gallery on August 31 and Ohbijou have a show at Lee’s Palace on November 9.

eye takes stock of the rapidly diminishing number of CD stores in Toronto, noting that Penguin Music will be closing its doors at the end of November. The Annex, once a veritable flea market of used CD shops looks like it’s soon just going to be Sonic Boom (Flash & Crash and Second Spin recently closed up and CD Replay looks on life support) and only CD Exchange remains on the Queen West/Soho strip (Neurotica is still hanging on out past Bathurst). It’s really an alarming development but not a surprising one – it’s news to no one that the brick and mortar music retail industry is in dire straits. I remain optimistic that a city the size of this one can support the remaining independent shops. I would hope Rotate and Soundscapes aren’t going anywhere, nor Sonic Boom or Vortex, but the day where I’m the crazy old man down the street who refuses to give up his physical music media and go all digital may not be as far off as I’d have hoped.

New Zealand’s Goldenhorse appeared in my MySpace “friend request” list one morning a few months ago and on a whim, as I sometimes do, I clicked through to their profile rather than deny the request, as I usually do. And it’s a damn good thing that the music player was working because while I was checking my mail or something, the sound of gloriously jangly guitars astride galloping drums began cascading out of my speakers and when the vocals came in, well that was it. The song was “Run Run Run” and if I have musical buttons that can be pushed, that song did it. I had their self-titled album downloaded from eMusic before I left for work and had a hard copy via eBay within a couple weeks.

As it happens, Goldenhorse are not an unknown new act bursting onto the scene – they’ve been together since 2000 and Goldenhorse, released in late 2006 in Europe and this past February in the UK, is a compilation of songs from their first two records, Riverhead and Out Of The Moon, released in 2002 and 2005 respectively and both of which have gone platinum (or multi-platinum) in New Zealand. But despite their success at home, they seem to be almost completely unknown elsewhere – I didn’t think it was possible for a band to not register at all at Elbo.ws or Hype Machine, but they don’t.

And that’s a damn shame because Goldenhorse craft some stunning pop music that happily incorporates rock, country and orchestral stylings and rides Kirsten Morrelle’s elastic and expressive voice (and that wonderful Kiwi accent) to great effect. Given that it’s not a proper album, Goldenhorse isn’t as cohesive as I’d normally like but as a collection of singles or potential singles, the high points – and there are many – more than compensate. In addition to “Run Run Run”, still far and away the highlight of the record and maybe one of the best singles I’ve heard this year, there’s the folkish bounce of “Maybe Tomorrow”, the sweetly plaintive “Out Of The Moon”… Really, almost everything in these thirteen tracks has something to recommend it be it a particular melodic twist, a perfectly placed swell of strings or even just the way Morrelle pronounces a certain syllable.

You can also tell the older tracks from the newer ones as there’s a distinct shift in songwriting and production choices between material from the two albums, the newer material showing more focus and perhaps a harder edge which bodes well for album number three which is currently being recorded. Whether that record gets a proper international release or not, now that Goldenhorse is on my radar I won’t be missing out on it.

Some digging has turned up an interview with JAM! circa Canadian Music Week, 2004 when the band was in Toronto for a show at the Rivoli (their debut Riverhead was/is released domestically here).

MP3: Goldenhorse – “Don’t Wake Me Up”
MP3: Goldenhorse – “Fish”
Video: Goldenhorse – “Run Run Run” (YouTube)
Video: Goldenhorse – “Maybe Tomorrow” version 1 (YouTube)
Video: Goldenhorse – “Maybe Tomorrow” version 2 (YouTube)
Video: Goldenhorse – “Wake Up Brother” (MOV)
MySpace: Goldenhorse

Saturday Looks Good To Me’s new one Fill Up The Room has been quietly pushed back from the original release date of September 11 to October 23. They are, however, streaming a new song from the record on their MySpace.

Wireless Bollinger talks to Patrick Wolf about his creative process and what we might expect from the next album.

There’s another track available from the Guilt By Association from whence this week’s MP3 of the week comes – Petra Haden doing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” a capella. As good as you might hope. And contrary to what I say in the writeup for the MP3 of the week, the record didn’t come out last week – it’s now slated for a September 4 release.

MP3: Petra Haden – “Don’t Stop Believin'”

And NME brings word of another interesting covers compilation coming our way, this one more mainstream start-studded and celebrating 40 years of BBC Radio 1. Radio 1. Established 1967 is out September 30 and will feature such interpretations as Editors doing The Cure’s “Lullabye” and Maximo Park redoing Justin Timberlake.

Under The Radar talks to Rogue Wave about the creation of their new album Asleep At Heaven’s Gate, out September 18. I’ve got an MP3 from the record below and Stereogum has another. They’re at the Mod Club on October 26.

MP3: Rogue Wave – “Lake Michigan”

Vue Weekly talks to Nels Cline of Wilco, whose western Canadian tour has been derailed due to Cline catching chicken pox. For real. He got a doctor’s note and everything.

Mercury Prize nominee Fionn Rega returns to Toronto for a show at the Horseshoe on September. On November 8, Say Hi To Your Mom, The Velvet Teen and The A-Sides stop in at Sneaky Dee’s. Jose Gonzalez will warm up the cold night of December 7 with a show at the Mod Club (via For The Records).

And my Okkervil River finally showed up yesterday! YAY.

Kind of a slow day, which is actually good for me because it meant this post took far less time to write than usual. Which gave me time to finish the last Harry Potter book. Which was surprisingly satisfying.

We begin with a dip in The Besnard Lakes. Pitchfork brings word that the band’s 2003 debut album Volume 1 will be reissued by Jagjaguwar come October 23. You can check out a video from their debut below. The band are also releasing a 12″ single/EP on September 11 with “Casino Nanaimo” as the a-side and a nine-minute, live of the floor version of “Disaster” as the b-side. And finally, Sound Opinions has made available to download in podcast form a session the band recorded for them last week. Via Gorilla Vs Bear, who’s helpfully converted “Disaster” into MP3 form already.

Video: The Besnard Lakes – “The Spy Turned Musician” (MySpace)

And to their fellow aquatically-named labelmates, Okkervil River, who are sporting a shiny new website that is streaming The Stage Names in its entirety. A a good thing since I STILL haven’t gotten my copy in the mail. Pre-orders, shme-orders. Wireless Bollinger (I have no idea what that is) has an interview with Will Sheff about the myriad influences that inform the record. Under The Radar also offers up an interview with Will about the album. The Stage Names is currently rocking a solid 82% on Metacritic, for the curious among you who put stock in such things.

The New York Times profiles Ms Nicole Atkins, who still has no release date for Neptune City but hopefully sometime before her show at Lee’s Palace on October 14 opening up for The Raveonettes.

Soundscapes -the local record store turned music journalist – has an interview with Annie Clark, aka St Vincent. They’ve also got one with Los Campesinos! I forgot to link last week.

Drowned In Sound talks to Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai about copycats – both being and having. The band are working on their next album between festival appearances and hoping for an early ’08 release.

The AV Club shuffles Paul Smith of Maximo Park’s iPod. He also talks to The Sydney Morning Herald.

Cracked has assembled a fascinating list of its top ten movies never made because Hollywood sucks.

Everyone loved the first The New Pornographers record, Mass Romantic. Everyone who loved non-stop flume rides of power pop goodness, anyways. This is a statement of record. And even though the follow-up Electric Version was, for my money, just as good and just as monkey barrel-fun, some folks found reasons to say it was inferior to its predecessor. These people are wrong.

But with their third record, 2005’s Twin Cinema, they chose to mix up the recipe a little and schisms appeared in the Porno nation. While still bristling with hooks, Cinema mixed up the tempos far more than the first two records and was a relatively more downbeat affair. Some interpreted this as the band stalling and failed the appreciate the beauty in those moments of calm. These people probably hoped that Twin Cinema was an aberration and that with their fourth record, they’d return to their breakneck ways. Those people will be disappointed.

Challengers, out next Tuesday, not only finds the New Pornographers again hanging out on the calmer side of things but getting comfortable there. The production is less ’70’s electric guitars and synth-heavy, instead favouring textures and orchestration that far more ’60s in origin. Neko Case is again set to handling the more mid-tempo, melancholic tunes and while Dan Bejar’s contributions are still the perkiest and oddest on the record, even those are less madcap than his past offerings.

But where Challengers flags in the BPM department, it makes up for it in the melodies and the songwriting. It’s slow and stately and almost regal-sounding and while it could probably stand to have just one or two more upbeat numbers, it’s hard to criticize what did make the cut. There’s no immediate standout single, no “Letter From An Occupant”, no “Laws Have Changed” – maybe not even a “Bleeding Hearts Show” but as a complete album it’s a top effort that reinforces Carl Newman and company’s position as one of the finest pop bands around.

NPR has named “Adventures in Solitude” their song of the day and you can stream it there or listen to the whole album below, courtesy of MuchMusic. They kick off their Fall tour next month and stop in at the Phoenix in Toronto on October 21, and to confirm – this is the full band lineup, Dan and Neko included.

Finally, courtesy of Last Gang Records, I’ve got a slew of New Pornography to give away. There’s one grand prize consisting of a poster autographed by the whole band and a copy of Challengers on CD and four runner-up prizes of just the CD. That’s five chances to win! Six if you head over to the Last Gang website and enter their contest for a copy of the Challengers executive edition. To enter the contest over here, email me at contests AT chromewaves DOT net with “I want some new pornography” in the subject line and your full name and mailing address in the body and if your entry makes it past my spam filters, you’re entered in the draw. This contest will close at midnight, August 20 and is only open to residents of the Dominion of Canada.

MP3: The New Pornographers – “My Rights Versus Yours”
MP3: The New Pornographers – “Myriad Harbour”
Stream: The New Pornographers / Challengers
MySpace: The New Pornographers

Pitchfork rounds up what’s going on with Mr Patrick Wolf, now on the record as being pro-nudity. In case we weren’t sure. But good news about planning a (North?) American tour for this November.

LAist talks to Blake Sennett of Rilo Kiley. Their new one Under The Black Light is out next week and I’m sorry to have to report that it’s not very good. The lead off track, which you can stream below, is great but the rest of it…? Eh. More on that at a later date. They’re at the Phoenix on September 18.

Stream: Rilo Kiley – “Silver Lining” (QuickTime)

Some show announcements – Iron & Wine is at the Danforth Music Hall on September 25, the very day of The Shepherd’s Dog‘s release. Vancouver synth-poppers Bella have two dates coming up in Toronto – October 23 at the Horseshoe (that’s a New Music Tuesday which means free) and October 28 at the Drake Underground. Their new record No One Will Know is out September 18. Los Angeles’ Sea Wolf returns for a show at the El Mocambo on November 9 to promote their debut full-length Leaves In The River out September 25 and finally, Caribou have a date at the Opera House on November 10, which should console those who didn’t get tickets to their secret show at the Rivoli on September 30. Andorra is out August 21. And finally, The Acorn will be at The Horseshoe on November 24 – it stands to reason that there’ll be an earlier date with the Wood, Wires & Whiskey tour with Elliott Brood and Plants & Animals – there’s a five day gap in the schedule between Ottawa and London – but I guess nothing’s official there yet. Glory Hope Mountain is out September 25.

MP3: Iron & Wine – “Boy With A Coin”
MP3: Bella – “Give It A Night”
MP3: Caribou – “Melody Day”
Video: Caribou – “Melody Day” (YouTube)
MP3: The Acorn – “Flood Pt 1”