Scotland’s Delgados hung it up a year ago, which would make about now the proper time for an attic-clearing collection of singles, b-sides, rarities, etc. The Complete BBC Peel Sessions is not that collection, but instead as the title suggests, a collection of all the band’s sessions for the late, great BBC DJ who was a huge fan of the quartet, as well as an early session for Radio Scotland. And for those, like me, who already have the similarly-titled BBC Sessions disc, fear not – only five of those eleven tracks are duplicated on the new comp. It’s not wholly redundant. Yet.

Over two discs and 29 tracks, it covers the breadth of the band’s career from their first single through to the swan song of Universal Audio and combined with the expansive and enjoyable liner notes by bassists Stewart Henderson, offers a very good overview of the career of a band that never quite got the due it deserved. It’s amazing how much a leveling of production can affect the songs across a band’s career – the older songs are still scrappy but more polished while the Great Eastern and Hate-era material sounds spare and stripped down without the Fridmann touch. But perhaps most interesting is how consistent the band sounds – even though they went through some serious stylistic and songwriting-style changes, you could easily put this collection on shuffle play and believe that whatever combination came out was off the same record. This isn’t meant as a slight or to suggest they didn’t grow, just that they had a certain uniqueness of sound and creative vision that was there from the get-go.

As for what the band members are doing a year hence, they continue to run Chemikal Underground records and both Alun Woodward and Emma Pollock are pursuing solo careers. Nothing of Alun’s work has come to light yet but Emma has a deal with 4AD and an album due out sometime this year. A demo is streaming off her MySpace page.

The Chemikal Underground website has a couple of Delgados goodies for download – one is an acoustic, Emma-only demo of “I Fought The Angels” from Universal Audio and a musical rendition of Robert Burns’ poem “Parcel Of Rogues”, arranged and recorded for a Burns Night special broadcast and which also appears on The Complete BBC Peel Sessions. There’s also a video for “Everybody Come Down”, again circa Universal Audio.

MP3: The Delgados – “I Fought The Angels” (demo)
MP3: The Delgados – “Parcel Of Rogues”
Video: The Delgaods – “Everybody Come Down” (MOV)

Continuing on with the retrospective angle – a Mercury Rev collection called The Essential Mercury Rev: The Weird Years 1991-2006 will be out in the UK on October 2. Considering it covers the many incarnations of the band, from the psychedelic sonic anarchy of the David Baker era through the polished dream-pop of the Jonathan Donahue records, it should be an interesting if jarring listen.

Meanwhile, fellow psych-vets (as in veterans, not veterinarians) The Flaming Lips are putting together a live record, due out for release next year. The idea of a band that is far more interested in the spectacle of a live show than the musical performance releasing a live album is interesting to say the least. Good thing it comes with a DVD. Billboard has more.

And if you (I) weren’t feeling old enough with favoured bands being boxed up and compiled, observe this new compilation from Sanctuary Records – Like A Daydream: A Shoegazing Guide, a collection of noise and effects pedal fetishism covering the big guns to the also-rans. Obviously not comprehensive – it’s just 16 tracks and no My Bloody Valentine, but not a bad sampling. Maybe I can get a copy and just let it run at the Shoegaze Tribute Night at The Boat on August 23, which I’m apparently DJ-ing. More on that at a later date. But what I want to know is, is this collection a replacement for the Shoebox box set that Andy Bell mentioned a couple years ago? I hope not, though considering that Sanctuary is drowning in red ink, I doubt a box set with questionable sales appeal is on their schedule anytime soon. Alas.

Here’s a pleasant trend – record label blogs. Both Merge and Matador have dived headlong into ye olde blogosphere in the past week, launching the Merge Blog and Matablog, respectively. It should be noted that the honchos for each label, Mac McCaughan and Gerard Cosloy, also have their own blogs – Portastatic and Can’t Stop The Bleeding. Mac’s focuses on but isn’t limited to his musical project of the same name whereas Gerard’s is heavy on sports.

So I’m going to Lollapalooza next weekend. A last-minute thing thanks to one of my sponsors but instead of seeing Land Of Talk, Starflyer 59 and Husky Rescue here in Toronto over the long weekend as I planned, I will be seeing Sleater-Kinney, The Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and, well, Husky Rescue in Chicago. Woot.

np – Okkervil River / Down The River Of Golden Dreams

Bringing along a so-called buzz band along to open for you on tour can be a two-edged sword. On one hand, it makes your show that much more attractive to the hipster crowd and surely helps attendance but on the other hand, you run the risk of half the crowd leaving before your set or even worse, being upstaged by the support (assuming the buzz is well-founded). That was a risk that Sunderland, UK’s Futureheads seemed willing to take when they invited Minneapolis blog darlings Tapes’N’Tapes along to open a leg of their North American tour in support of sophomore effort News And Tributes.

The Tapes’N’Tapes bandwagon is not one that I’ve bought a ticket for yet. I tried to catch them at SxSW earlier this year but the buzz was already strong enough at that point that the club was beyond full and spilling out into the street. I’ve heard The Loon a couple times and it didn’t really make a huge impression one way or another. In other words, this would be their big chance to impress – and they did. All the press that compares them to Pavement is really misleading – yeah, there’s some similarity in the elliptical lyricism and guitar work, but whereas Pavement really did what they could to earn their title of slacker kings, Tapes’N’Tapes were anything but slack – quite the contrary, they were tight and taut and more than a little fierce. There was bounding around the stage, neck veins bulging, tubas wielded with reckless abandon… All around pretty impressive. I will have to give the album another listen – maybe sometimes bloggers get it right. Who’d have guessed?

I’d call myself a mild fan of the Futureheads. Got and enjoy the first record, haven’t gotten around to hearing the second one yet. But I’ve heard they put on a good show so what the hey. The bar had been set fairly high by the openers but luckily for the ‘Heads (and the audience) they were up to the task. With their super-tight, four-part harmonies, jaggy guitars and boundless energy, the Futureheads kept up an exhaustingly uptempo pace over the course of their hour and change set. I was reminded why I don’t play The Futureheads all that much – it makes me tired! But the band were gregarious and entertaining, and even the “Hounds Of Love” audience singalong, though cheesy, was fun. The crowd, at least those that didn’t leave after the openers, were into it and I daresay a loverly, if sweaty and wearying, time was had by all.

Gig photos here. Media below, and also check out this AOL session with the Futureheads and Minnesota Public Radio session with the Tapes. Also, Bradley’s Almanac has the Futureheads show in Boston earelier this month MP3-ed and ready to download. Exclaim! also has a piece with Tapes’N’Tapes where they dispute the whole Pavement thing and The Chicago Tribune gets head ‘Head Barry Hyde to predict the future. With his head. Torontoist has also got an expansive (if less precognitive) interview with Barry.

MP3: The Futureheads – “Skip To The End”
MP3: The Futureheads – “Worry About It Later”
MP3: Tapes’N’Tapes – “Insistor”
MP3: Tapes’N’Tapes – “Cowbell”
MP3: Tapes’N’Tapes – “Omaha”
Video: The Futureheads – “Skip To The End” (MOV)
Video: The Futureheads – “Worry About It Later” (YouTube)
Video: Tapes’N’Tapes – “Insistor” (Real)
MySpace: The Futureheads
MySpace: Tapes’N’Tapes

Sloan’s new album Who Taught You To Live Like That will be out September 19 and will apparently clock in at a mighty 29 songs which either means a double album or really short songs. With that many tunes, there’s no excuse to not have the songwriting duties evenly split and that’s what they’ve done – good news for Andrew Scott fans since he was shut out of 2003’s Action Pact. The first single and title track (a Jay Ferguson composition) is streaming on their MySpace and was a free download from iTunes Canada last week.

Look for a New Pornographers date in Toronto this October as part of Exclaim! and Mint Records’ 15th birthday tour. They’ll be bringing Immaculate Machine and Novillero along for the ride.

And suave Frenchmen Phoenix have scheduled a show at the Mod Club for September 8. Via For The Records.

np – The Delgados / The Complete BBC Peel Sessions

Keeping up with Jason Molina’s various projects is a full-time job, and thankfully it’s not mine. I’ll leave that to Wikipedia. But while he could very well have a million records complete and ready to release under whatever name he so chooses, what is fact is this – Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go is a vinyl-only release under his own name coming out August 22 and it will be followed very closely on September 12 by Fading Trails, a new proper Magnolia Electric Co album pulled together from a number of different recording sessions in a number of different places. According to this message board thread, it pulls together tracks from some/all of the albums mentioned here. Now what this means for the stated plans to release those albums in their individual entirety, I have no idea.

Where Molina finds the time to record all this material and tour as much as he does is a mystery to me. The Magnolia Electric Co is currently on tour out west (for which MEC guitarist Jason Groth is keeping a tour diary at Marathonpacks) and after taking a breather in August (probably to record), will be back on the road in September through eastern and central North America. The Toronto stop will be at Lee’s Palace on September 12 and feature a very very solid bill including Shearwater and Julie Doiron.

But one of the upsides of his prolificacy is downloads. There’s lots and lots of downloads. Secretly Canadian has select cuts from many of the Molina projects they’ve released available to download, there’s a couple more unreleased bits on their MySpace and the official website has a massive live show archive. And here’s a couple samples of the new forthcoming records.

MP3: Jason Molina – “Get Out Get Out Get Out”
MP3: Magnolia Electric Co – “Lonesome Valley”

And at the polar opposite end of the musical output spectrum is Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. Five years it’s taken him to follow up It’s A Wonderful Life though I suppose I should be thankful that he has at all. Billboard talked to Linkous about Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain, out September 26, and there’s a new song from the album streaming off the official MySpace.

One of the bands Magnolia Electric Co is touring with right now is Vancouver’s Ladyhawk, whom I saw on their own last weekend. They’ve just made another MP3 from Ladyhawk available, and I gotta say this album is really really growing on me.

MP3: Ladyhawk – “War”

Check out the Golden Smog family tree, in ginormous JPG form. Exclaim! also has an chat with Smogger Kraig Johnson.

And completely unknown to me till yesterday, Land Of Talk will be playing the Drake next Thursday night – August 3 for those of you without a calendar handy. Awesomeness. I may or may not be in town but if I am, I will be there fo’ sho’. The Ghost Is Dancing, whom Chart talked to about their new EP, and Foxfire Forest open. Tickets $8 advance, $10 at the door.

And to file under “wha?”, NOW is saying that Gnarls Barkley have been added to the Sonic Youth/Go! Team show at the Kool Haus on August 8 despite having their OWN show there on the 9th and playing the Virgin Festival on September 9. To say nothing of the fact that Sonic Youth tickets are cheaper than the Gnarls Barkley ones… methinks either someone in the listings department has their wires/dates crossed.

Bradley’s Almanac has the whole of Camera Obscura’s show in Boston back in July 6 available to download. Brad rules the school – whoops, wrong Scottish twee-poppers.

Separated at birth – Bob Dylan’s Modern Times and Luna’s Hedgehog/23 Minutes In Brussells 7″. The joys of stock photography brought to you by the Galaxie 500 mailing list.

And in the me me me department – The New Music was at my apartment yesterday shooting an interview with yours truly. It will be a short segment but if/when it airs (perhaps next month) I will get it up on YouTube, providing I don’t come off too dorky. It was an interesting/different experience, that’s for sure. And the new issue of Wonkavision also has an interview with myself and some other music bloggers in a piece about workable solutions for the situation in the Middle East. It’s riveting stuff.

np – Eric Bachmann / To The Races

Philadelphians Human Television would have had a reasonable excuse for being out of sorts for their first Canadian show – a lightly-attended Monday night gig at Sneaky Dee’s coming at the tail end of a North American tour that’s kept them out on the road for over a month would be tough for anyone to get psyched for. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the card that they’d need to play to explain away their lacklustre performance.

From what I’ve heard of their debut full-length Look At Who Your Talking To, I’d expected a high-energy, youthful pop dynamo that could easily shake off any road fatigue. There’s no denying their songs are sweet, janglesome and relentlessly hooky but the band that was on stage playing them on Monday was almost catatonic. Seriously, it was like a black hole of stage presence up there and almost uncomfortable to watch – no one moved, almost every song was introduced with, “this next song is called…” and while the actual execution of the songs was fine, there was no joy behind them – just workmanlike proficiency. They did loosen up a bit towards the end of the set, even straying from script to talk to the crowd (just a little) and work up some dorky charm, but really too little too late. Really a shame, because the songs are great and deserve better presentation that this. Maybe this show was an anomaly but from this Village Voice piece, it doesn’t sound like a scintillating live show is a real high priority for these guys. Ah well.

The local openers fared better. The Amber Room, a group of Vancouverites relocated to the Big Smoke, have been around since 2001 so you can’t really accuse them of being johnny-come-latelys to the whole Joy Division/Chameleons tribute act scene but they’ve got the membership cards nonetheless. The tunes didn’t really impress but they gave it their all despite having a mostly-empty room to play for. And they come by their skinny Brit affectations honestly – the singer actually is a skinny Brit.

Middle act The Early Morning had some technical difficulties that truncated their set and got them started a little wobbly. From where I was standing, the singer was having real pitch issues and the trio was not terrifically in synch with their drum machine. When you’re playing with programmed beats, you really have to be spot on because it’s not going to adjust and let you catch up. Thankfully for the band, they got sorted out about midway through and were pretty solid for the rest of their show. They’re a little hard to describe – Magnetic Fields raised on Jesus & Mary Chain instead of Tin Pan Alley? Electro and a little goth-y.

Human Television’s Billy Downing talks to DailyBulletin.com about their new record. Gig photos here. Check out media from all the bands on the bill below. And say that 10 times fast.

MP3: Human Television – “I Laughed”
MP3: Human Television – “In Front Of The House”
MP3: The Early Morning – “I Won’t Forget This”
MP3: The Amber Room – “Secrets”
Video: Human Television – “In Front Of The House” (MOV)
Video: Human Television – “Look At Who You’re Talking To” (MOV)
MySpace: Human Television
MySpace: The Amber Room
MySpace: The Early Morning

BrooklynVegan offers up an interview with Jens Lekman. The New York Times enjoyed one of his always-enjoyable shows.

And thanks to Stereogum for pointing out that Little Miss Sunshine is more than just the new Greg Kinnear film. Not that you’d need any reason beyond that to see it opening night, but it’s also scored by DeVotchKa. Bonus. Note that on the film’s website there’s places to sign up for free first-come, first-serve screenings of the film which opens today. FREE GREG KINNEAR. It’s like Christmas in July.

Trailer: Little Miss Sunshine
Video: DeVotchKa – “Til The End Of Time”

The Beautiful South will be at the Phoenix on November 1. I really used to like these guys. In high school I played the tape I had of Welcome To The Beautiful South to death. DEATH. These days, not so much.

Pitchfork reports that Mat Cooke Brooke has left Band Of Horses, which was pretty evident from his absence on their recent tour.

np – Lambchop / Damaged

Having already seen the first two installments in Korean director Chan-Wook Park’s so-called “revenge” trilogy – Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (review) and Old Boy (review), it went without saying that I’d be seeing the final film – Lady Vengeance – eventually. But this wasn’t something I was especially looking forward to. I mean I was, I really enjoyed the first two films, but they were also some of the most violent and shocking films I’d seen in recent memory. I did not anticipate the last one would be a breezy walk in the park (pardon the pun).

Somewhat to my surprise, Lady Vengeance is actually easier to take than the first two. Mr Vengeance was unrelenting with misfortune upon misfortune laid on the characters, often quite bloodily, but without a real hero or villain to the piece – there were just casualties and bad luck. Old Boy was a more conventional action/thriller though ratcheted up to outrageous levels of audacity (hammer fight!). Lady Vengeance, on the other hand, is actually quite a black comedy. Like void of space black, but still. Geum-ja Lee has just been released from prison after serving 13 years for kidnapping and killing a 5-year old boy. But, of course, she didn’t actually do it so she’s spent the time plotting revenge on the real guilty party and once on the outside, puts her ruthless plan into effect. Hilarity and bloodshed ensues.

Actually there’s far less violence to this film than the others and the overarching theme is more one of redemption than of revenge. Those who liked the bloodiness of the first two might be disappointed by this, but there’s still a goodly amount of Park’s trademark stylish unflinchingness and audacity – he’s not gone soft. He’s actually grown quite a bit, offering up a truly complex and complicated protagonist in Geum-ja. It’s not as tightly plotted as its predecessors (or maybe over-plotted) and the jumping around in time and place isn’t as tidy as one might like but the payoff is still there, particularly in the final act (which, incidentally, is where most of the blood is as well). There’s revenge, yes, but there’s also a goodly amount of heart in this film, and not just in the sense of being ripped out of one’s ribcage and spurtling blood all over the place.

Trailer: Sympathy For Lady Vengeance

Eric Bachmann talks to Aversion about living in a van down by the river. His solo record To The Races is out August 22 and you can see the guy from Crooked Fingers and Archers Of Loaf at the Horseshoe on September 16.

Also in town that night at Lee’s Palace are Mates Of State. Stereogum proves he’s good for more than just celeb gossip by ponying up an interview with Kori Gardner.

And further down the road, Jolie Holland is at the Horseshoe on October 13.

Looking a little closer in time, if you need something to do tomorrow night your main choices would be Mission Of Burma at the Horseshoe or The Futureheads at the Phoenix. Chart talks to Roger Miller from the former and while the latter is technically headlining, people seem much more interested in openers Tapes’N’Tapes. The AV Club and Chart have interviews with the band and AOL is streaming their album The Loon, which is being re-released this week. But there is one Futureheads interview at Philadelphia Weekly.

Stream: Tapes ‘N Tapes – The Loon

Sad news from The Concretes – in the week of an aborted, somewhat disastrous North American tour (though one that started well enough), frontwoman Victoria Bergsman has left the band to pursue a solo career. While Maria Eriksson and Lisa Milberg are both perfectly capable vocalists, the appeal of the Concretes was definitely in the sum of the parts and though the band intends to continue, I have my doubts as to how well either party will fare on their own. It’s hard to replace Bergsman’s peculiar brand of anti-charisma.

Happier news from defunct bands – Goldenfiddle points us to this, which confirms that the Pavement reissues will continue this Fall with a double-disc redo of Wowee Zowee. Looks to be the same deal as the first two – remastered album, loads of demos, b-sides and live stuff. Look for old copies of Wowee Zowee in your local used CD bins soon.

np – Golden Smog / Another Fine Day