With Dean and Britta well-accounted for, it’s time to check in with former Luna guitarist Sean Eden. Though he’s had a solo project – or at least a name for one (Weeds Of Eden) – for a while, we’ve yet to hear anything from him besides his two sublime contributions to Luna’s swan song Rendezvous. There’s a few tracks on his MySpace but it looks as though that, for the moment at least, he’ll be busy killing time in NYC outfit Elk City.

But while it’s Eden’s presence on their new record New Believers that drew me in, it’s not his show – the centre of attention is squarely on singer Renee LoBue. While musically the record pogos from style to style, from New Wave to power pop to torch songs to country, LoBue applies her brassy and powerful pipes with equal aplomb. It works better in some cases than others, but the album is consistently decent and the high points are sky-high. Case in point, leadoff track “Cherries In The Snow” in which LoBue ranges from a soulful purr to a growl before bursting into a buoyant chorus of “Ooh la la la”s and if that wasn’t enough, before it’s over Eden takes a solo that quite literally brought me to tears. In a metaphorical sense.

But while Elk City may as well be a new band to me, they’ve been around for some time albeit without Eden and new bassist Barbara Endes in the fold. Obscure Sound has a piece on the band from their origins as Melting Hopefuls in 1990 through the original lineup of Elk City with guitarist Peter Langland-Hassan up to today’s incarnation and considers whether the changes have been for the better or not.

MP3: Elk City – “Cherries In The Snow”
MP3: Elk City – “Los Cruzados”
Video: Elk City – “Cherries In The Snow” (YouTube)

This week’s Take-Away Show features Andrew Bird wandering the streets of Paris, guitar and violin in hand and whistling while he works. His new album is Armchair Apocrypha and I think I’ve neglected to post anything from it yet, so I’ll take care of that now. It’s quite a good record and makes me think that if there’s a finite amount of musical talent in the world, Andrew Bird is solely responsible for several thousand other people on the planet being tone deaf.

MP3: Andrew Bird – “Heretics”

PopMatters has a long interview with Ted Leo, The Kansas City Star has a short one. Ted and his Pharmacists are at the Mod Club next Wednesday night.

Pitchfork tries to get into the mind of Bjork. Remember when Bjork went batshit on a reporter in the airport in Thailand? That was awesome. Her new album Volta is out May 8 and she’s headlining day one of Virgin Fest here in Toronto on September 8.

Spoon’s Britt Daniel discusses indie rock and scoring with The Asbury Park Press. Their new one Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is out July 10.

WOXY recently had Yo La Tengo in the house to record a Lounge Act session and they’re currently streaming the whole thing. The Akron Beacon Journal and The Republican talk to bassist James McNew.

Some shows – Ottawa instrumental post-poppers My Dad Vs Yours are at the Drake on May 3, The Nightwatchman, aka Tom Morello of RATM, does the solo thing at the Horseshoe on May 16, Japanese noise-rock gods The Boredoms are at the Phoenix July 2 (tickets $22.50) and Battles, who I think were here just a few weeks ago, return for a show at Lee’s Palace on July 16.

Goldenfiddle has the first official shot of Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan from the new Todd Haynes film I’m Not There. Those can go along with these unofficial photos of same. The film looks to have a release date of September 21.

24: Way to screw things up, Doyle… JUST LIKE IN DENVER. Man, why do I still watch?