Friday, January 11th, 2008
Cherry Tulips
My internet crapped out on me last night before I had time to get anything put together, so only the briefest of updates for today.
Champaign, Illinois’ Headlights are back with their sophomore album Some Racing, Some Stopping on February 19 and the first sample of it is now available. “Cherry Tulips” is still sugar-sweet pop built on Erin Fein and Tristan Wraight’s harmonies but it backs away from the gleeful noisiness present on Kill Them With Kindness and The Enemies that garnered them a “next-gen shoegazer” tag and takes a more classic, retro-sounding approach that happily suits them just as well.
Of course, this is just one song – the rest of the record could be 9-minute drones. But based on this and what they’ve already shown themselves capable of, those of us who abandoned the USS Rilo Kiley after their last record may have found a new ship. And as this quick video promo shows, we’re all welcome aboard.
Even though they were touring machines for the first record, they never made it up this way – here’s hoping that 2008 gets Canada some Headlight-y love. Update: Thanks to Mike for pointing out in the comments that Headlights have confirmed a show in Toronto on March 2 at the El Mocambo along with Evangelicals. Nice.
MP3: Headlights – “Cherry Tulips”
Almost guaranteed to have nothing but 9-minute drones is Smalltown Supersound, a rerelease of older material from Norwegian noisemakers Serena Maneesh. Details on the double-disc, May 5 release can be had at Pitchfork.
Vancouver’s Ladyhawk are also back with their second album Shots set for a March 4 release. The Fader has the first MP3 from the record and they’re doing a cross-Canada tour in March with a stop at the Horseshoe on March 22 with Immaculate Machine.
MP3: Ladyhawk – “I Don’t Always Know What You’re Saying”
The Sydney Morning Herald talks to Matt Berninger of The National.
Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo chats with Creative Loafing.
Bradley’s Almanac is sharing a vinyl-to-MP3 rip of Bedhead’s final-ever release. Their new incarnation as The New Year should have a new album out this year sometime.
Spinner talks to Steve Earle (in town at Massey Hall March 4) about his contributions, both musical and thespian, to The Wire and The New York Times watches the season five premiere with some real-life gangsters and dealers to get their take on the show. Verdict? Bad times coming for The Bunk.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t so brief.
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1/11/08 7:08 pm
I saw Headlights perform most of their new stuff live. They haven’t so much strayed away from their core sound as they have expanded it. There’s some folk and country influence thrown in there as well as the shoegaze stuff. They’re also performing as a five-piece now.
1/11/08 8:00 pm
Your Internet crapped out last night too?
It’s a bit of a relief to know that the bad connection wasn’t confined to my apartment….
1/11/08 8:13 pm
Headlights, with Evangelicals are playing March 2 at the El Mo according to rootmeansquare.com – you’re wish has come true. Now, if only Jens Lekman, and British Sea Power would schedule some dates for T.O.
1/11/08 9:00 pm
that’s cool news, Mike. Pity that I think I’m just getting back into town that day and probably won’t be in any shape to go out that night – but I’ve seen them. Good to know that other Torontonians will now get the changes.
Chuck – yeah, called Rogers and they said it was a known problem since around 11:30PM and were working on it. So I went to sleep.