AmazonPeople probably don’t believe Joe Pernice, he of the gorgeously depressive folk-pop, when he says he’s a huge fan of early ’80s British new wave with its mechanical tones and synthetic textures. And so perhaps to prove it, he covers it. A lot. Or he did, anyways – his latest release It Feels So Good When I Stop is almost all covers and while it ranges from ’70s AM pop through classic country and ’90s college rock, his Anglophile side is pretty much ignored. But then, the album is meant to soundtrack his new book of the same name, and it’s not autobiographical, not at all. No sir.

Digging back through his Pernice Brothers and Chappaquiddick Skyline periods, however, reveal a trifecta of superb covers from the era – New Order’s “Leave Me Alone”, The Chameleons’ “Up The Down Escalator” and this one of The Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Way”, released as a b-side to the “Clearspot” single. Maybe someday Joe will release another covers album comprised solely of this stuff. But probably not.

Pernice plays a combination show/book reading at the Dakota Tavern on September 24 while The Psychedelic Furs are teaming up with The Happy Mondays for a nostalgia tour that hits the Kool Haus on October 14. The Chicago Tribune has an interview with Pernice.

MP3: Pernice Brothers – “Love My Way”
Video: The Psychedelic Furs – “Love My Way”

Michael EverettWith the success of acts such as Beirut, Gogol Bordello and DeVotchKa, the introduction of Balkan, Klezmer and Gypsy sounds into indie rock circles isn’t as exotic or novel as it once was. But done as well and faithfully as Albuquerque’s A Hawk & A Hacksaw – led by former Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes, if you need the pedigree – do it, it can still sound fresh and enticing. It might be a bit too traditional for those who dig these sounds in crossover context and a bit too untraditional for those who like it old school/world, but for those with an open mind, it can be heady stuff.

AHAAH released their sixth album this year in Delivrance and are on the road to showcase it. They’ll be at the Drake Underground on September 16 – $12.50 in advance, $15 at the door – and courtesy of Against The Grain, I’ve got three pairs of passes to give away. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want A Hawk & A Hacksaw” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, September 14.

A Hack & A Hacksaw’s “Foni Tu Argile” was declared NPR’s “Song Of The Day” last month.

MP3: A Hawk & A Hacksaw – “Foni Tu Argile”
MP3: A Hawk & A Hacksaw – “Kertesz”
MP3: A Hawk & A Hacksaw – “Maremaillette”

Jamie CampbellThe music business is a strange place, full of weird and esoteric companies fulfilling weird and esoteric roles, so if you’re not really sure what a publishing company does, you are excused – just smile and nod as I wish Bearsuit Publishing, run by the good folks at Indie Music Filter, a happy second anniversary.

But what should be of immediate interest to you, dear reader, is the fact that they’re celebrating the milestone with a party. A big party at the El Mocambo on September 16 – next Wednesday – featuring a terrific lineup of acts headlined by The Coast and also featuring The Meligrove Band, Girl + The Machine, Brent Randall & His Pinecones and Emma-Lee.

Tickets for the to-do are $12 in advance or $15 at the door, but courtesy of Bearsuit I’ve got a pair of passes to give away to the show for free – all you have to do is send me an email at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to wear a Bearsuit” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, September 14, and don’t worry if you don’t know anyone from the guest of honour – you can have as much cake and ice cream as you want*.

* This is no way implies or guarantees the presence of free, all-you-can-eat cake or ice cream.

MP3: The Coast – “Killing Off Our Friends”
MP3: The Coast – “No Secret Why”
MP3: The Coast – “Tightrope”
MP3: The Meligrove Band – “Monkey Mask”
MP3: The Meligrove Band – “The Victory”
MP3: Brent Randall & His Pinecones – “Strange Love (Don’t Be Lazy)”
MP3: Emma-Lee – “Never Just A Dream”

FacebookThere’s a good run of albums, there’s career consistency and then there’s Yo La Tengo. The New Jersey outfit has been turning out full-length gems for almost a quarter-century now, and while some are held in higher regard than others, their consistently high standard has been nothing short of astonishing. And this isn’t a case of a band finding a style they excel in and working on variations of that theme, at least not unless you consider “restless creativity and experimentation in the realms of pop music” to be a single theme. So in sitting down with their twelfth proper album Popular Songs, you would have an excuse to not be surprised by what they have to offer, but none to not be delighted.

2006’s I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass was a welcome dose of energy for those afraid that the two preceding records were finding the band settling into a comfortable, somnambulant zone, bringing back not only the band’s noisier side but also their genre-hopping aesthetic. It wasn’t as many individually sublime moments as their previous highwater mark I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, but as a collection it was a more than worthy addition to their discography. If this was as good as Yo La Tengo could be 20 years in, then we should consider ourselves lucky. But if Ass was the luck equivalent of finding a $20 bill in the street Popular Songs is like winning the lottery.

Okay, that’s probably overstating it but Songs has a certain something that you didn’t even realize Ass lacked. It’s hard to articulate exactly what that is, but it’s the ineffable quality that distinguishes a classic Yo La record from just a great one. I’ll put it down as a sense of fun. Ass had the sense of the band exploring terrain that they hadn’t visited in a while (and tinged with the sense of looking for a way to stay interested) and that sense of curiosity yielded its own rewards, but now it sounds like they’re comfortable again and are having fun with it. Everything that makes Yo La Tengo wonderful is present in abundance – the quiet, extended meditations (“The Fireside”), the skronky garage pop (“Nothing To Hide”), the gentle folk of “When It’s Dark”, the jazzy grooves (“Periodically Double Or Triple”) – and all points in between. For most bands, it’s probably too much to expect them to turn in one of the best albums of their career after the 20-year mark. Once again Yo La Tengo have defied expectations.

Spinner talks to the band about the secret of their longevity as well as the secrets of their songwriting. Paste also has a feature peice and also gets Ira Kaplan to offer up a recommended listening list.

Yo La Tengo are at the Opera House in Toronto on October 3.

MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Here To Fall”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “When It’s Dark”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Nothing To Hide”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Avalon Or Someone Very Similar”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Here To Fall”
MySpace: Yo La Tengo

DCist salutes Velocity Girl’s wonderful Simpatico! record, talking to most of the band about the making of the album. I loved that record. Must put it back into rotation this weekend.

Video: Velocity Girl – “Sorry Again”
Video: Velocity Girl – “I Can’t Stop Smiling”

Decider talks to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.

Wye Oak have released a new video from their excellent second album The Knot.

Video: Wye Oak – “Sight, Flight”

Billboard talks to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Robert Been about the live CD/DVD set – creatively titled Live – due out November 10. Their new studio album is targeted for a Spring 2010 release.

The upcoming tour that pairs like-it-loud Asobi Seksu with like-it-low Loney Dear and Anna Ternheim was a bit of a head-scratcher until it was announced that Asobi would be releasing an acoustic album entitled Rewolf November 10, recasting old songs originally done loud in a quieter setting. The Village Voice confirms that the band is taking this setup live, so expect to see them as you’ve never seen them before when they play the Horseshoe on October 14 – no bad thing if you’ve already seen them many times before.

The Flaming Lips’ continues to talk smack about Arcade Fire to The Independent. Embryonic is due out October 13.

The Times Daily checks in with Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers. They just released a rarities and b-sides comp entitled The Fine Print last week and will have a new studio album out in February.

Under The Radar mind-melds with Telekinesis.

New Grizzly Bear video.

Video: Grizzly Bear – “While You Wait For The Others”

The endlessly prolific The Fiery Furnaces, whose latest album at the time of this writing is I’m Going Away but may well be something new by the time you read this, will be at the El Mocambo on November 7, tickets $20.

MP3: The Fiery Furnaces – “The End Is Near”

Obviously not ones for verbosity, San Francisco’s buzzy, fuzzy poppy Girls have set a September 22 release date for their debut album Album and Fall touring bring them to the El Mocambo on November 10.

MP3: Girls – “Lust For Life”
Video: Girls – “Lust For Life”

The Quietus talks to Warren Ellis about the second Grinderman album, which should be out sometime next year.

Doves have rolled out a new video from Kingdom Of Rust

Video: Doves – “Winter Hill”

Little Boots recorded a Black Cab Session in Austin during SxSW in March. So THAT’S what the Tenori-On does! And technically, Austin cabs are not uniformly black but that’s neither here nor there. Little Boots plays Wrongbar on Monday night.

Video: Little Boots – “Stuck On Repeat” (live on Black Cab Sessions)

BeatRoute talks to Arctic Monkeys. They’re at the Kool Haus on September 29.

Shanghaiist chats with Handsome Furs.

Blare grabbed an interview with Jay Ferguson of Sloan a couple weeks back at V Fest, where he revealed there were plans to release a new digital EP this Fall and that he’s done with making CDs. Not albums, just CDs. The band also just announced they’ll be playing a free show outside the Air Canada Centre next Wednesday night, September 16, before the Leafs-Bruins pre-season game. This may well be the highlight of the season for Leafs fans.

And speaking of free public shows, that Neil Young performance that was supposed to happen at Yonge-Dundas Square on Monday is off. You can stop lining up now. Why? The Toronto Star, who reported the event in the first place, got a hold of Young and he says he had no idea he was supposed to perform in the first place and was never going to be in town. Hmm. The Jonathan Demme concert film Neil Young Trunk Show is still coming to the Film Festival though, so you can try an line up for that.

Trailer: Neil Young Trunk Show

Pitchfork invites an array of indie-rock luminaries to make “best of” lists for the century so far.

Alina HardinIf Alela Diane’s to-do list for 2009 had release a critically acclaimed album and tour relentlessly behind it, then it would be understood if she opted to take it easy through the tail end of the year. After all – her latest record To Be Still, with its timeless folk roots and clear-eyed songwriting, began collecting accolades as soon as it was released back in mid-February and she was on the road to promote it through much of this year. Yes, rest would be well-earned.

But not to be. Come October 6, she’ll release Alela & Alina, a new EP available on 10″ vinyl and in digital form. As the title implies, it’s a collaborative effort pairing her with Californian singer-songwriter Alina Hardin and while it sounds very much in the vein of To Be Still, the tight high harmonies provided by Hardin on the six new compositions do add an extra layer of loveliness to the proceedings. You can hear one of the new tracks at Diane’s MySpace.

And with the new release comes another excuse to tour, which Diane is of course doing. She’ll be spending September in the UK and Europe, but after a short break she’ll be setting out on an extensive North American tour. It’s unclear if Hardin will be joining her on the trek, but even if not, Diane has lined up a more than worthy tourmate in Marissa Nadler, herself no stranger to delicately beautiful folk music and who released a new album in Little Hells earlier this year. I’ve only managed to catch Diane live once, at a Soundscapes in-store back in February, and have never seen Nadler live despite her being no stranger to Toronto, so I’ve definitely got November 16, when they’ll be at the Horseshoe, circled on the ol’ calendar.

There’s interviews with Alela Diane over at Wears The Trousers, For Folk’s Sake and The Guardian.

MP3: Alela Diane – “White As Diamonds”
MP3: Marissa Nadler – “River Of Dirt”
Video: Alela Diane – “White As Diamonds”
MySpace: Alela Diane

Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater talks to Muso’s Guide about their just-completed new album which is currently targeted for a February 2010 release.

Woodpigeon’s recent European jaunt has yielded a five-part series of dispatches, each with an accompanying new recording. Enjoy.

MP3: Woodpigeon – “Say Say Say” (Michael Jackson cover)
MP3: Woodpigeon – “Lonely Kiss” (The Consonant C cover)
MP3: Woodpigeon – “I’m Not Saying” (Gordon Lightfoot cover)
MP3: Woodpigeon – “Rambler Gambler”
MP3: Woodpigeon – “Reynisdranger Lullaby”

Pitchfork gets some background from John Darnielle on the Biblical themes pervading The Life Of The World To Come, the new album from The Mountain Goats, out October 6.

This week sees the release of Grand Archives’ new album Keep In Mind Frankenstein, which is streaming at Spinner. They play the Mod Club on October 15.

Stream:Grand Archives / Keep In Mind Frankenstein

Spinner talks to Big Star drummer Jody Stephens about sifting through the archives whilst assembling the Keep An Eye On The Sky box set, due out next Tuesday.

BeatRoute talks to Tad Kubler of The Hold Steady, playing a two-night stand at Lee’s Palace on September 26 and 27.

Spinner and here get to know Two Hours Traffic. Territory is out now and they’re at Lee’s Palace on October 16.

Dan Snaith gives eye an idea of what to expect at tonight’s Caribou Vibration Ensemble show at the Opera House as well as the new Caribou record, due out next Spring.

Malajube have made a date for the Horseshoe on October 24, tickets $13. They talk to Exclaim about some upcoming soundtrack work.

MP3: Malajube – “Porte Disparu”

Danish orchestral-pop collective Choir Of Young Believers will stop in at the Horseshoe on October 25 as part of a North American tour in support of their debut album This Is For The White In Your Eyes. Tickets for that show are $10.

MP3: Choir Of Young Believers – “Action Reaction”
MP3: Choir Of Young Believers – “Next Summer”

Just here in July, Wales’ Future Of The Left are back for a date at the El Mocambo on November 3 in support of Travels With Myself And Another. Tickets for that show are $10.

MP3: Future Of The Left – “Arming Eritrea”
Video: Future Of The Left – “The Hope That House Built”

Wolfmother are at the Kool Haus on November 11. The new album Cosmic Egg is out October 13.