Jesse DylanI promised you I was done with Iceland updates, and really you don’t get more un-Icelandic than Tom Waits. Of course, the only thing Tom Waits is really like is, well, Tom Waits and even then one era of Waits can be wildly different from the next. I say this as someone who’s only very recently begun exploring his expansive catalog and still has a long ways to go – but at least now I find his work intriguing rather than off-putting, as I once did. That’s progress.

I’m definitely glad to be coming around in time for the release of Bad As Me next Tuesday, his first album of all-new material in seven years. It’s available to stream right now at badasme.com if you’ve got an invite code and at first listen it sounds like a pretty good balance of out-there stompers and barstool laments. It’ll take some time but I can see myself getting into this. And if Waits elects to tour for this record and come to Toronto for the first time in what, at least a decade? Double bonus. I hear his performances are incomparable.

There’s interviews with Waits about the new record at Pitchfork, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and if you want to give Bad Like Me an advance listen, I’ve got five invite codes to hand out. They’re meant for friends but hey – you guys are my friends. Whoever you are. And if none of these codes work for you, I guess you’re too late… or you’re not my friend. Either way.

3vb-rhuym | 3cb-w6v03 | 6ob-gd8lz | l4b-6340m | ozb-p31m4

Stream: Tom Waits – “Back In The Crowd”
Stream: Tom Waits – “Bad As Me”
Stream: Tom Waits / Bad As Me

Rolling Stone is streaming the final R.E.M. single, taken from their forthcoming career-ending best-of Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage 1982-2011, out November 15. For their part, Spin has dug up some video footage of the band playing Neil Young’s Bridge School benefit in 1998.

Stream: R.E.M. – “We All Go Back To Where We Belong”

NPR and CMT talk reunions with The Jayhawks.

NPR solicits a Tiny Desk Concert from Wilco.

JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound, who caught some ears last year with a swinging soul cover of Wilco’s “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”, will be in Toronto on November 29 for a free show at The Horseshoe – that’s the same night as Kathryn Calder, so that’s double the reason to not stay home that night. Their new album Want More is out Tuesday but available to stream now at Paste.

MP3: JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound – “Everything Will Be Fine”
Video: JC Brooks Uptown Sound – “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”
Stream: JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound / Want More

Stuff talks Galaxie 500 with Dean Wareham.

The AV Club and Edmonton Journal interview Ryan Adams, in town at the Winter Garden Theatre on December 10.

Blurt talks to Eric Bachmann of Crooked Fingers while The AV Club has one more rooftop performance video to share. They play The Drake Underground on November 8.

Dead Meadow will warm up for their show at Lee’s Palace later that evening with an acoustic in-store at the Annex location of Sonic Boom on October 24 at 4PM. The Pitch has an interview.

MP3: Dead Meadow – “Good Moanin”

Spinner, North County Times and Willamette Week talk to Stephen Malkmus, who has released a new video from Mirror Traffic.

Video: Stephen Malkmus – “Senator”

Matt Berninger of The National puts together a playlist of sad songs for dirty lovers for Rolling Stone.

The Alternate Side has an interview and session with Beirut.

The Georgia Straight profiles The Head & The Heart.

Pitchfork reports that Mazzy Star, after many years of saying they were back together, finally have something to show for it in the form of two new songs entitled “Common Burn” and “Lay Myself Down”, due to be released digitally on October 31.

The Washingtonian and DCist talks to Mary Timony PopMatters to Carrie Brownstein of Wild Flag while NPR has got a stream of last night’s show in Washington DC.

Ume have released a new video from their recently-released album Phantoms.

Video: Ume – “Captive”

CBS gets to know Savoir Adore, who are releasing a new 7″ single. Details can be found at Neon Gold and the A-side can be downloaded below.

MP3: Savoir Adore – “Dreamers”

Frank YangHello all. Have you been keeping well? That’s great.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a working holiday the past week in Iceland, the working part being Iceland Airwaves and the holiday being everything around it, and I just got back in last night, hence the light posting last week. Festival coverage will begin tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to go through photos and gather my thoughts, but having arrived in Reykjavik a couple days before the Fest for tourist purposes, I’ll offer up the equivalent of holiday snaps today. And for real holiday snaps, head over to Flickr, I’ll be posting more there as the week goes on. And for reference, the “we” on this trip were Carrie of Live Baby Live, Lauren of No Shame Promotions, and Lauren of Amplify This; a finer group of traveling companions I could not ask for.

The list of things we’d planned to do in Iceland but didn’t get to is pretty long: marvel at the glacier bay at Jökulsárlón, drive at least a portion of the Route 1 ring road, gape at the majesty of the Aurora Borealis, walk the basalt beaches of Vík í Mýrdal, go snorkeling over the continental divide at Þingvellir, witness Geysir, the namesake of geysers around the world, visit an island of puffins, and meet up with many other music journo types from around the world also in Reykjavik for Airwaves. And yet even with so many things on the to-do list left unchecked by the time I left, the past week will go down as one of the most memorable ever: I got to luxuriate in the world-famous Blue Lagoon twice. I had my third ridiculously fancy prix fixe meal of the year as well as some super-tasty hot dogs, I saw some of the most spectacularly desolate yet beautiful landscape in the world, I befriended a pair of gorgeous Icelandic ponies (well I think we’re friends now), I visited the site of one of the oldest parliaments in the world just down a trail from a thousand year-old man-made waterfall. I learned that the rules of roundabouts work differently in different countries. And oh yeah I crashed my first car. Those last two points are not entirely unrelated.

So to begin. Following a Monday night red-eye that was only barely long enough to qualify as such and discovering our rental apartment which looked all kinds of awesome online was even moreso in person, we took advantage of what was forecast to be the only sunny day of the trip to explore the compact capital and put the excessive amount of camera gear brought across the Atlantic to work. Then it was back to the airport to pick up the European quarter of our contingent and on the way back to town, a short – okay long – pit stop at the Blue Lagoon. It’s not unreasonable to expect the experience of the lagoon to be overstated, but the truth is that it’s really an astonishing place. I can’t comment on the therapeutic benefits of it – though I will say my messed-up shoulder certainly didn’t mind the experience – but drifting in a milky, lava-heated, silica-saturated man-made lake is something else. Going on the Tuesday turned out to be a smart move as crowds were sparse, and getting there for sunset was just luck. And word of advice? If you’re wearing contact lenses, don’t dunk your head. It’s sea water and sea water and contacts? Do. Not. Mix. There’d been an ambitious plan to drive out of town later that night for Northern Lights spotting, but the frailty of being human won out over the marvels of nature and instead of aurora-chasing, it was sleep.

Wednesday was also ambitiously planned – 10 hour road trip anyone? – but in this case, nature was victorious thanks to its ability to whip up gale-force winds and horizontal rain. Compound that with Iceland’s rather spare approach towards highway signage and you get us missing an off-ramp on the highway and while technically we were still going to reach our destination, we were on the extra-scenic, 600-mile longer route. All of which is to say that within an hour and a half of setting out, Mission: Glaciers had been aborted and we went to an outlet mall and supermarket instead. Don’t judge. The weather remained intermittently dismal back in town but sightseeing still happened, though said sights were largely wet and grey. But the fish & chips were remarkable and antique shops well stocked with interesting gewgaws and in all, what was supposed to be a day spent on the road was instead down chilling around town and in out apartment and you know what? Totally fine with me. Things would start getting crazy the next day – or more accurately that night. We’ll get to that tomorrow.

And for those of you wholly disinterested in my travels, well here’s a handful of concert announcements I didn’t get around to posting last week.

On November 13, British trio Peggy Sue will be at The Garrison as part of a short North American tour in support of their second album Acrobats, which will be out over here on October 25. And if you think you knew what they were about based on their debut Fossils & Other Phantoms, think again. Someone bought themselves some amps.

MP3: Peggy Sue – “Cut My Teeth”

This is probably coming too late to be of any use as it’s likely sold out, but Bon Iver announced a second show at Massey Hall for December 7, the previous night having sold out faster than you could say, “hey remember when Bon Iver made a video set in Iceland?”.

MP3: Bon Iver – “Holocene”
Video: Bon Iver – “Holocene”

If you were wondering when and where Toronto would fit in St. Vincent’s touring itinerary for Strange Mercy, the answer is December 15 at The Phoenix. And if you were wondering how much, the answer is $20. And if you were wondering what she might say if asked questions by Arizona Central, The Vancouver Sun or The Province, well now you know.

MP3: St. Vincent – “Surgeon”
Video: St. Vincent – “Cruel”

Justin EvansAfter a prolific career of twenty years, an artist can be forgiven for choosing to settle into some manner of creative comfort zone or perhaps repeating themselves. And while Eric Bachmann isn’t necessarily continuing to break new artistic ground, he’s covered enough terrain over the years that even revisiting past efforts remains a wonderfully unpredictable exercise.

Reach back to Archers Of Loaf for some ragged and jagged proto-indie rock, early Crooked Fingers or his solo work for stark yet rich folk-rooted singer-songwriter fare, later Crooked Fingers for gorgeous Spanish-inflected rock or polarizing studio experimentation. He hasn’t revisited the instrumental sound-sculpting of the Barry Black project but give him time. But not right now as he’s got more balls in the air now than perhaps he ever has, simultaneously looking back with a much-heralded Archers reunion and album reissue series and forwards with a new Crooked Fingers album – Breaks In The Armor – out next Tuesday.

Toronto was treated to a preview of the latest incarnation of Crooked Fingers when Bachmann stopped by while shepherding Archers gear between cities in July and, given that they were just a two-piece consisting of himself and Liz Durrett, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that Armor would be a stripped-down affair and a hard turn from the unfairly panned Forfeit/Fortune. And if that were the case, it’d have been fine – few do stripped down as affectingly as Bachmann – but Armor is a surprisingly fleshed-out record that sounds less like it’s revisiting past records than pulling inspiration from all of them simultaneously.

If you had to choose one reference point in the Bachmann oeuvre, Armor would be most reminiscent of Red Devil Dawn, which marked the transition of Crooked Fingers as pseudonym for a mostly-solo act to a full band project but rather than sounding at all transitional, it sounds arguably like the most representative Crooked Fingers record yet. Drum machines keep time on the simpler numbers, as on opener “Typhoon”, but when live rhythm is needed to allow a song like “The Counterfeiter” to really soar, the drums are there. And that little atonal guitar skronk that opens “Bad Blood”? Little bit of Archers right there, I’d say.

Bachmann has consistently flown under the radar of popular acclaim and finally seems to be receiving his critical (and commercial) due thanks to the Archers Of Loaf reunion, but one hopes that it doesn’t overshadow the fact that he’s still putting out excellent new music. Someday, Eric Bachmann will be properly recognized as being one of the great American songwriters of the last twenty years and Breaks In The Armor will be another strong argument why. I won’t go so far as to say that’s the best Crooked Fingers record to date – there is a place in my heart from which Dignity & Shame will never be dislodged – but it’s certainly one of the strongest and most consistently satisfying.

Spin talks to Bachmann about making the new record following a sabbatical from music to teach English in Taiwan and is also offering a stream of the whole thing while The AV Club has a video performance of “Your Apocalypse” filmed on a Chicago rooftop. Their Fall tour in support of the record kicks off later this month and hits The Drake Underground in Toronto on November 8.

MP3: Crooked Fingers – “Typhoon”
Stream: Crooked Fingers / Breaks In The Armor

Filter makes an argument for Bachmann’s greatness via his Archers Of Loaf work. And did anyone see Archer last week? “Archers Of Loaf-crosse”? Eh? EH? What do you mean you don’t watch Archer what the hell is wrong with you.

California’s High Places have announced a date at The Garrison on November 14 in support of their new record Original Colors, out Tuesday. Tickets are $11.50 in advance. Eater has an interview with the duo about, well, eating.

MP3: High Places – “On Giving Up”
Video: High Places – “Altos Lugares”

Brooklyners White Rabbits have been pretty quiet since the success of 2009’s It’s Frightening. But there are signs they’re getting ready to release something new – such as their scheduling a date at The Horseshoe for November 30, tickets $15.

MP3: White Rabbits – “Percussion Gun”

I’m not sure what is more confounding – the people getting worked up about Lana del Rey or the people getting worked up about the people getting worked up about her. But she of the enormous hype, controversial backstory, contentious lips and just-okay-but-hardly-spectacular two songs is bringing her show to Toronto’s Mod Club on November 30, tickets $12.50 and on sale at 10AM Friday. For a taste of the buzz, check out the interviews with her at The Quietus, The State, GQ, New York Magazine and Pitchfork (who also have a think piece about her divisiveness) and to let the music (and visuals) speak for themselves, her entire recorded output in video form.

Video: Lana del Rey – “Video Games”
Video: Lana del Rey – “Blue Jeans”

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – who know a thing or two about both edges of the hype machine – are hoping you call their third album Hysterical a comeback and go see them when they play The Opera House on December 9. That one will cost you $20.50 in advance.

MP3: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – “Same Mistake”

The director of the video for St. Vincent’s “Cruel” talks to Pitchfork about the making of the clip.

The AV Club chats with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

The Sun has an extensive interview and Exclaim a short one with Ryan Adams, whose new record Ashes & Fire is out on Tuesday. The Alternate Side also has an interview as well as a session. Adams is at The Winter Garden Theatre on December 10.

eMusic has posted the results of their Twitter-powered interview with Mates Of State, The Baltimore Sun publishes the results of a stock questionnaire and The Charlotte Observer settles for a simple conversation.

NYC Taper has posted a recording of Nicole Atkins’ recent set at Webster Hall in New York, and if you stop by her website on October 6, she tweets that there’ll be a free live EP to be had.

NPR has posted a WFUV session with Beirut.

And finally, rest in peace, Bert Jansch.

Jonathan TaggartAs one of the most social media-savvy musicians in the country, it’s not unreasonable to say that Dan Mangan reads his own press and so he’s probably seen the phrases “everyman”, “coffee shop”, “roots-rock” and variants thereof in regards to his breakout 2009 record Nice, Nice, Very Nice many, many times. And while these descriptors were usually meant in most complimentary ways – one does’t make the Polaris shortlist on the back of negative press – his just-released follow-up Oh Fortune gives you the impression that he didn’t take those writeups as incentive to stay the course.

From the very first heavily-reverbed piano chords which open leadoff track “About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All” before giving way to strings, it’s clear that this record is built on a different game plan than its predecessor. Throughout, there’s plenty of elegantly orchestrated horns and woodwinds, but also feedbacking, layered, wall-of-noise guitars – often all side-by-side or on top of one another – and if that sounds like the complete opposite of what you’d have expected a Dan Mangan record to sound like, well I suspect that’s the point. This is not a record that can be pigeonholed as the work of a singer-songwriter or folkie; it’s brimming with full-on pop ambition and if Mangan had kept such lofty musical aspirations in check before, he’s certainly enjoying the artistic freedom that success engenders now.

But for all of that, as soon as the vocals come in it’s unmistakably a Dan Mangan record. Not having the most elastic voice becomes an pro rather than a con as it remains warm and comforting like a woollen blanket, delivering poignant and poetic lyrics that; another Mangan trademark still intact, if perhaps darker in tone this time out. And it’s Mangan’s voice and the words it carries that act as a sturdy, reliable centre amidst the swirling sonic proceedings; it’s as if between Very Nice and Fortune, Mangan was transplanted from the setting of a comfortable stool in his local into… well, it’s hard to say, exactly. The atmosphere of Fortune is consistent but difficult to pin down, also certainly part of the overarching strategy to head off preconceptions and expectations and forces the listener to consider the record on its own merits rather than what they figured a new Dan Mangan record would sound like.

It’s no small thing to shift gears or change lanes immediately after a breakthrough record; the temptation to stick to what worked – at least for the follow-up – must be immense, particularly when what worked was a time-tested, meat-and-potatoes sort of approach. So Mangan should be praised for going as conceptually far afield as he has on Oh Fortune without abandoning his core strengths and lauded for making it work so well. If it wasn’t clear from any of the above, Oh Fortune is an excellent record, expansive in scope yet efficiently delivered and both musically and lyrically rich. No, there’s nothing as immediate as “Robots” but in lieu of that degree of immediacy, you get songs that continue to reveal themselves over repeated listens. Oh Fortune confirms Mangan as one of this country’s best new songwriters and, as a bonus, forces those who’d seek to dismiss him as too conventional to find a new line of criticism. Maybe that he’s too tall. Because he’s pretty tall.

Southern Souls, The Vancouver Sun, The Winnipeg Free Press and Exclaim have interviews with Mangan and he chats with Rolling Stone about his just-released new video; there’s also three four videos from a full-album performance Mangan gave at the CBC presently online, with more to come. His Fall tour brings him to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on October 28.

MP3: Dan Mangan – “Oh Fortune”
Video: Dan Mangan – “Rows Of Houses”
Video: Dan Mangan – “About as Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All” (live at CBC)
Video: Dan Mangan – “Rows Of Houses” (live at CBC)
Video: Dan Mangan – “Post-War Blues” (live at CBC)
Video: Dan Mangan – “Oh Fortune” (live at CBC)
Stream: Dan Mangan / Oh Fortune

Also out this week is Ohbijou’s Metal Meets. Exclaim and Toro talk to bandleader Casey Mecija about making the new record. They play a release show at Trinity-St. Paul’s on September 30.

Boasting a similar album title and gracing this month’s Exclaim cover is Feist; Pitchfork also has an interview. Metals is out October 4 and she plays Massey Hall on December 1. Update: And now the album is available to stream if you sign up for her mailing list. Preview the album AND get emails from Leslie!

Stream: Feist / Metals

Canadian Interviews is playing host to a tour diary from Bruce Peninsula. Open Flames is out October 4 but streamable now at Exclaim – they also have an interview and review – and they play an in-store at Soundscapes that evening, then a proper show at Lee’s Palace on October 27.

Stream: Bruce Peninsula / Open Flames

Their record release show for Tosta Mista safely in the books, Hooded Fang have announced they’ll play a free show at the Sanderson Branch of the Toronto Public Library (Bathurst and Dundas West) on October 1 at 2PM. They’ve also put out a new animated video.

MP3: Hooded Fang – “Den Of Love”
Video: Hooded Fang – “Brahma”

Dev Hynes’ Blood Orange has been announced as support on the upcoming tour for CANT, the solo project from Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear, as well as being part of his band, all of which means that he’ll be at The Garrison on October 21. And to mark it, a new MP3 from Coastal Grooves is available to grab courtesy of Stereogum.

MP3: Blood Orange – “Champagne Coast”

J Mascis will be in town on November 4 as part of the Sleepwalk Guitar Festival taking place at The Great Hall all that weekend and ex-Television guitarist Richard Lloyd leads off the Saturday night bill followed by The Sadies. And if you were wondering just how “ex” Lloyd was with respect to Tom Verlaine and Television, this exchange documented at The Daily Swarm seems to indicate that bridges are pretty well burned. Tickets for each evening show are $25, all-day and weekend passes also available.

MP3: J Mascis – “Is It Done”
MP3: The Sadies – “Another Year Again”

English songwriting legend Ray Davies has made a date at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for November 25 in support of last year’s See My Friends though it’s unlikely any of his big-name collaborators will be joining him for these shows. Tickets are $49.50 and $69.50 plus fees.

Video: The Kinks – “Waterloo Sunset” (live)

Young Galaxy have been added to the Austra show at The Phoenix on December 1, as well as the rest that tour. They’ve also released a new video from Shapeshifting, an animated sequel to the clip for “We have Everything”.

MP3: Young Galaxy – “Peripheral Visionaries”
Video: Young Galaxy – “Peripheral Visionaries”

The War On Drugs are coming back to town, making a date for December 9 at The Horseshoe; tickets $13.50 in advance. The Washington Post and DCist have interviews and NPR a World Cafe session.

MP3: The War On Drugs – “Come To The City”

Tokyo Police Club, Born Ruffians and Said The Whale appear to be a winning combination as a second show has been added at The Phoenix for December 9, the one for the night before presumably just about sold out. Tickets are again $25 in advance.

MP3: Tokyo Police Club – “Party In The USA”
MP3: Born Ruffians – “Sole Brother”
MP3: Said The Whale – “Camilo (The Magician)”

Ryan Adams’ first show back in Toronto since Summer 2007 – he’s retired and come back out of retirement in the interim – will take place on December 10 at The Winter Garden Theatre; tickets are $45 plus fees, fan presale goes Thursday at 10AM and general onsale Friday, same time. His new record Ashes & Fire is out October 11; Exclaim takes a look back over his prolific career.

Video: Ryan Adams – “New York, New York”

Putting lie to my post in July when they announced it, The Radio Dept. have cancelled their entire Fall tour, which was to include a November 17 show at The Mod Club, “due to family related matters”. They hope to pick up again in 2012, perhaps even with some new material to share. Yeah, right.

Salon, Spinner, The Atlantic, Billboard, Paste, JAM, and aux.tv talk to Jeff Tweedy of Wilco while The Atlanta Journal-Constitution talks to Nels Cline and The Line Of Best Fit to Glenn Kotche. NYC Taper has a recording of their second of two Central Park shows available to download and CBC’s Q has a video studio session with the band.

Spinner talks to Ben Gibbard about the new Death Cab For Cutie video from Codes And Keys.

Video: Death Cab For Cutie – “Stay Young Go Dancing”

Filter, The National Post and NOW have features on Girls.

Spinner talks to The Drums, in town on October 1 with an in-store at Sonic Boom at 7PM and a show at The Mod Club a little later that evening.

Fat CatThere’s been a few pieces recently about the growth of anti-marketing in music, with artists hiding behind disguises or pseudonyms and refusing to engage the media by giving interviews or offering a backstory. Scotland’s Twilight Sad can’t undo the profile they’ve gained in the past four or five years of making deafening, gloriously miserable rock music but on their just-announced third record, they’re at least trying to get folks to avert their eyes – or at least that’s what one surmises from their decision to name it No One Can Ever Know.

Or maybe it’s just a reference to the dark and gloomy secrets that vocalist James Graham has dredged up as lyrical fodder… which is funny because if you were to follow him on Twitter you’d know that he’s actually pretty funny, mostly occupying his thoughts with comic books, movies and retweeting people who hate his band. Either way, the album will be out in February – precise date still to be determined – and the first single, “Sick”, will be made available in mid-November. In the meantime, they’ve released a different song from the record as a preview and those expecting a wall of guitars as per their earlier works might be surprised in the shift in direction as it starts out sounding like Portishead and ends off going all New Wave. I approve.

MP3: The Twilight Sad – “Kill It In The Morning”
Trailer: The Twilight Sad / No One Can Ever Know

The National Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Examiner, Montreal Gazette and Magnet have interviews with Laura Marling, who plays The Great Hall tonight.

The Grid, Montreal Gazette, Chicago Sun-Times and Interview check in with Peter hook, in town with The Light at The Phoenix on September 24.

Room 205 has the second instalment in their video session series with Yuck. They’re at The Horseshoe on Sunday night, September 25.

Folks outside the UK won’t be able to hear but 30-second clips of NME‘s stream of Brett Anderson’s new solo record Black Rainbows, but they can read the whole of his song-by-song annotations on the record, which is out September 26. He also offers The Guardian a “How I wrote” lesson for his song “Brittle Heart”.

NOW interviews Horrors guitarist Joshua Hayward. He and his band are at Lee’s Palace on September 27.

Wild Beasts are giving away a new non-album track just because. They’re at The Mod Club on September 29 and submit to a Q&A by The Daily Texan.

MP3: Wild Beasts – “Thankless Thing”

BBC6 talks to James Blake about his plans for album number two. He’s at The Phoenix on September 30.

A double-shot of good news from Veronica Falls; not only is their excellent just-released self-titled debut available to stream in whole at Stereogum, they’ve added a headlining show at Parts & Labour on October 2, the night after they open up for The Drums at The Mod Club; tickets $7 in advance.

MP3: Veronica Falls – “Come On Over”
Stream: Veronica Falls / Veronica Falls

Geoff Barrow tells Rolling Stone that work will begin on Portishead’s fourth album in January of the new year. They’ve got two nights at The Sound Academy on October 9 and 10.

Spinner has an extended sit-down with the always chatty Noel Gallagher. His solo debut Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds is out November 7 and he plays Massey Hall that evening and the one after.

The Oracle With Jessica And Elizabeth – which is a blog run by Emma-Lee Moss of Emmy The Great and Elizabeth Sankey of Summer Camp – have an interview with Charlie Fink of Noah & The Whale. They’re at The Phoenix on November 8.

Speaking of Jessica and Elizabeth’s alter-egos, Pitchfork has a track from Summer Camp’s debut Welcome To Condale which was previously only available to stream; the album is out November 8.

MP3: Summer Camp – “Better Off Without You”

And Artrocker and Clash talk to Emmy The Great about her sartorial sense and taste in books, respectively, while For Folk’s Sake settles for talking about her music.

Lanterns On The Lake have their tour guide hats on, taking Clash on a track-by-track tour of their just-released debut album Gracious Tide, Take Me Home and Drowned In Sound on a guided tour of their hometown, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

James Dean Bradfield reflects on the years covered by the forthcoming Manic Street Preachers compilation National Treasures with XFM. The collection is out October 31.

Kele Okereke tells NME that the Bloc Party hiatus is indeed over – but the rest of the band appears to have forgotten to invite him to rehearsals. And perhaps with a notion that his solo project could be become his sole project, he’s released a new video from his forthcoming EP The Hunter, out November 7. Though with Lucy Taylor taking lead vocals on the track, it’s possible he’s also been fired as singer for himself. But seriously, Bloc Party fans, don’t worry – this blog post implies that he was, as they say, taking the piss in that interview.

Video: Kele – “What Did I Do”

Blurt chats with Ritzy Bryan of The Joy Formidable.

Peter Brewis of Field Music tells BBC6 that their new record should be out in January of next year.

Male Bonding have released a new video from Endless Now.

Video: Male Bonding – “Tame The Sun”

For a limited time, 4AD is giving away a download of their limited-edition 4AD Sessions 2008-2011 compilation, which will only be available physically on a limited edition of 1000 vinyl pieces. It features performances from the likes of Iron & Wine, Stornoway and Blonde Redhead. Needless to say, it’s worth the price of your email address.