The Meligrove Band / Planets Conspire (V2) Mississauga’s Meligrove Band made their name with 60s-friendly punchy power-pop but on Planets Conspire, their debut for V2, they take draw on the 70s for inspiration, offering up an album with a distinctly psychedelic, prog-rock-ish vibe. With Jason Nunes’ anguished vocals, a surprising amount of piano pounding and general needle-in-red production, the finished product sound like late-period Supergrass produced by the Flaming Lips and fronted by a Ben Folds having a really bad week. They’re still making sugar pop confections, but there’s the distinctly salty aftertaste of tears. It may not be as immediately catchy as their past works, but in the long-term, it’s a far more interesting and rewarding listen. Planets Conspire comes out January 17 and the band is holding a CD release party at the Mod Club January 13. You can stream many tracks from the album on their website. WMA: The Meligrove Band – “Everyone’s A Winner” WMA: The Meligrove Band – “Isle Of Yew” The Meligrove Band @ MySpace

Imogen Heap / Speak For Yourself (RCA Victor) England’s Imogen Heap must love the cinema, if not for the films themselves then for the royalty cheques that they bring in. Her band Frou Frou has had songs in Shrek and Garden State and her solo work has appeared in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe and The O.C. It’s not surprising her music would be so popular as soundtrack fodder – it sounds tailor-made to be background music. With Heap’s smooth, elastic voice, tasteful electronic flourishes and and super-slick production, it’s all terribly pleasant sounding and has no burrs or edges whatsoever that might catch the listener/viewer’s ear and distract them from the drama/comedy/credits unfolding onscreen. Heap is in town on January 12 for a completely sold-out show at the El Mocambo and you can stream a couple songs off her website. Imogen Heap @ MySpace

The Spectacular Fantastic / Goes Underground (Ionik Recordings) The Spectacular Fantastic may hail from the rock’n’roll hotbed Cincinatti, Ohio, but judging from the sweet pop of their new album Goes Underground, their hearts and minds are on the west coast. Goes Undergound is a sweet, laid back slice of retro-pop that combines California sunshine with good old fashioned midwestern folky jangle and a healthy dose of fuzz for good measuer. Good pop music, no fuss, no muss. You can stream the album off their website and they’re offering a complete EP for download – free of charge – here. MP3: The Spectacular Fantastic – “Darkest Hour” MP3: The Spectacular Fantastic – “Runaway” (Del Shannon cover)

np – Catherine Wheel / Chrome

Sometimes my posts take weird twisty turns whilst being written. I had intended to devote this one to acts that have seemingly gone missing in action in terms of releasing new music or even doing anything, yet haven’t actually split up or anything (at least to my knowledge), but it’s ended up a distinctly Swedish-themed post instead.

Mainly, I wanted to inquire if anyone had any information on The Radio Dept, who have been very quiet since releasing the This Past Week EP last January. Well a little digging of my own turned up an unofficial MySpace page run by a fan with no concept of aesthetics or not abusing CSS. It’s quite painful. The same person who maintains that page also runs a message board for the band, and the information there indicates a follow-up to Lesser Matters is indeed en route this Winter, confirmed by Labrador and reported by Hits In The Car as coming out March 29. Credible? I don’t know, but I like the sound of it. The recording is done, and it’s just sorting out international distribution and titles. If that all gets worked out favourably, perhaps we could see some North American touring later this year? Maybe? Oh, and while there’s not much traffic on the aforementioned message board, it may be worth registering because people are posting yousendit links to live stuff and rarities, like this song from some ultra-rare Swedish compilation. It’s called “The Hide Away” and it’s freaking gorgeous.

MP3: The Radio Dept – “The Hide Away”

So while that bit of news doth slake my thirst for Radio Dept info, I can’t find a damn thing about their labelmates Douglas Heart. Their cover of Slowdive’s “Alison” for the Never Lose That Feeling shoegaze tribute last year was the last I heard from them. This habit of Swedish bands not having proper websites is really rather annoying.

NPR chats with Jens Lekman, who appears to have backtracked on his promise last Fall to give up music and get a proper job, which is good news for everyone. I picked up his Oh You’re So Silent Jens compilation over the holidays, and though I usually have to be in the right mood for it, the reviewers are right. It’s great.

And finally, this JAM! piece on the dearth of new music releases in the next few months mentions that the Cardigans’ Super Extra Gravity will get a domestic release on February 14. The rest of the piece is fairly amusing when you compare what they (seem) to be looking forward to and what I am. The News Tribune is a little more optimistic about the upcoming year in music, though I have to say that the She Wants Revenge album is beyond awful. Ugh. Can we please, please PLEASE stop with the Joy Division necrophilia? Goddamn. And on topic, John Sakamoto’s Anti-Hit List also looks ahead to this year’s releases aurally.

Anyway, back to The Cardigans, the band has completed a video for the second single, “Don’t Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)”. It’s not one of the best tracks on the album – “Good Morning Joan” or as Angels Twenty suggests, “In The Round”, would have been better singles. They’re certainly better songs. But I’m going to use this as a segue – it seems that that Yahoo’s video search index has decided that their video for “I Need Some Fine Wine…”, which I linked in my year-end post, is a suitable search engine match for seemingly EVERY query imaginable. Seriously, you’ve no idea how many hits I’m getting from them for people searches for all manner of random videos. And sometimes, those searches are for some very disturbing things which I won’t repeat here. But if you’re one of the people who got here via one of those searchees – and you know who you are – SHAME SHAME SHAME.

To learn more about Swedish pop music, visit your local library – or just go to Hello Surprise. And I guess I’ll save my “missing in action” post for another day.

2006’s first next big thing, coming courtesy of the UK, natch, is the horribly named Arctic Monkeys. They’re releasing their horribly titled debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, in North America on February 21. They’ll be in Toronto touring said record one month later, on March 21, at the Phoenix. Remember the good old days when every band was “the” something? I miss those days.

np – The Meligrove Band / Planets Conspire

Torontonians haven’t seen Isobel Campbell since she sulked offstage from Belle & Sebastian’s May 2002 show at the Kool Haus… and then quit the band a couple of weeks later. And I’ve not forgotten her “food poisoning” which forced the band to cancel what would have been their Toronto debut back in the Fall of 1998. I, for one, still remember seeing the shabbily handwritten note tacked to the front door of the Opera House, declaring the show cancelled. I’m not saying I hold a grudge, I’m just saying.

But that’s all in the past. We’ll get a chance to see what she’s been up to when she plays a show at Revival on March 4. She just released the Ramblin’ Man EP this week as a preview of her album with Mark Lanegan, Ballad Of The Broken Seas, which is out January 30. She also has a second solo record due out later this year called Milk White Sheets. I reviewed the Ramblin’ Man EP last month, and despite feeling rather lukewarm about it, I’m still curious to hear the album – the combination of her and Lanegan is too weird to dismiss out of hand. In the meantime, you can stream the EP here.

I have no doubt that Campbell wants to establish herself as an artist in her own right, and not just be know as the girl who quit Belle & Sebastian, but I can’t help but think the timing of her album release and tour, with respect to that of her old band, is a little more than just coincidence. Her album is coming out a week before B&S’s The Life Pursuit and her tour brings her through Toronto just a week after her old bandmates, perhaps cannily trying to pick up some of the media coverage the B&S juggernaut will be churning up? And yeah, it’s finally official, so I can finally speak freely about the tour. Belle & Sebastian and The New Pornographers, February 25 at The Docks. This will be the first date of the North American tour, so expect excitement and jitters and maybe some flubs. And lots of cuteness. No ticket info yet, but I figure it’ll cost in the $40-$50 range. Steep, but what can you do. And finally, Stuart Murdoch and Chris Geddes talk to Scotland On Sunday about recording the new album in Los Angeles and trash talk Franz Ferdinand in the process. Nice.

Canadian Music Week will be taking place March 1 through 4 this year. The list of artists attending this year’s fest is now up, and it looks like the usual suspects. No slight to the performers intended, but almost all of those acts gig around town regularly anyways, so I don’t get particularly psyched about the idea of seeing them play shorter sets for probably higher admission prices. But I guess someone has to pay for those shiny banners they hang outside the clubs. Either way, I’ve put in an application for media accreditation for the festival. Just for kicks. My quest for same from SxSW has been fruitless so far, so maybe CMW will be a little less strict and help me feel less worthless.

Ladytron are at the Opera House on April 20. I… I can’t think of anything clever or snide to say about this. I briefly had something about people all dressed in black, but then it just slipped away. I’m tired. Via For The Records.

The New York Times contemplates the futility of year-end lists.

I get the spotlight in the latest Muzzle Of Bees’ “Get To Know Your Blogger” feature.

Salon pays tribute to Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s run on Daredevil, which will be wrapping up this month. The piece rightly declares them the best creative team to tackle the character since Miller/Mazzuchelli, though as good as their work has been, I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for “Born Again”, if for no other reason than it was my first trade paperback ever. Via The Great Curve.

Just four days in and I’ve already missed a day on my photoblog. There’s just not that much compelling stuff to shoot in the office or at home, and Lord knows I’m not outside when it’s daylight and there’s things to look at. I don’t think I’ve even seen the sun this calendar year. Very bleak. Update: Okay, it’s sunny today. And about 10 degrees colder than yesterday. Stupid Winter.

np – Steve Earle / El Corazon

It was a packed house at the Rivoli on this drizzly January night, filled with folks anxious to see and hear Neko Case preview her new album Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. The ads had promised an intimate showcase of the new material, and the 150-capacity club certainly guaranteed things were intimate. But any notions that it’d be an acoustic, coffee house-y sort of affair were out the window when the doors opened and we were greeted with a full band setup on stage. Accompanying her on this night were many of the musicians who helped her record the new album, including Rachel Flotard of Visqueen. I was a little surprised, since to my knowledge she’s never brought her band up this way. But more on her later.

I’d seen Neko twice before, and I gotta say, the third time was definitely the charm. Both previous shows were great, but the first show, from which The Tigers Have Spoken was taken, Neko was understandably nervous and seemed really intent on the performance and the second was also great, but the coziness of the Rivoli trumps the biggish Phoenix any day of the week. On this night, she and her band, who for the first time weren’t The Sadies. sounded sublime. She claimed to be suffering from a cold but you wouldn’t know it from her vocals, which were as huge and gorgeous as ever. The set started with some old “Favourite”s (sorry), and gradually worked in more of the new material, which sounded terrific, even over the incessent squeaking of the club’s ventilation system. It was definitely good to hear her older material, since she’d passed over most of it when recording and touring The Tigers Have Spoken, and the sound in the club was superb as always (save for the aforementioned fan).

Neko seemed to be having a great time with the smaller audience, cracking jokes and engaging in an extended Bryan Adams-centric comedy routine with Flotard. As much fun as it was seeing Case and Kelly Hogan play Bob and Bing at last year’s show, I have to say that Flotard is a helluva lot funnier. The best, however, was Neko’s story in the encore of visiting a game farm and seeing the gameskeeper getting scalped by a giraffe showing off for his mate. Seriously, it was the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time. And it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long, long time. It was interesting what a wide demographic the audience covered, from indie kids through old-school country fans. And as good as the new album, out March 7 (check out the album art here), sounds like it’s going to be, I imagine that audience is only going to get larger. But even so, I hope she’ll still be able to pull off small club shows like this one amidst the bigger ones because the intimate vibe is just so perfect. Just four days in and already one of the best shows of the year, and I’ll stand by that come December.

My camera must know that I’ve been researching upgrades, it’s being sulky. My photos do not make me especially happy, despite the fact that the available light seemed pretty good. But what I got is what I got. And that Rebel XT is looking mighty attractive…

Local Over The Top Fest promoter Eric Warner gives NOW a peek at some of the shows he’s trying to bring to Hogtown in the next little while and tosses around names like Devandra Banhart and Silver Jews just wishful thinking – nothing confirmed. But first up is the 2006 OTT launch party at The Great Hall next Wednesday, featuring Final Fantasy, Akron/Family (whom NOW and The Toronto Star also profile) and Great Lake Swimmers.

Stylus reconsiders Spiritualized’s Pure Phase.

Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers contributes the official bio for the new Centro-Matic album, Fort Recovery, out March 7.

The Globe & Mail looks at how digital music has been the death knell for home stereo equipment. It probably goes without saying that I like all my stereo components and even though I tried the DVD-as-CD-player thing for a while, my dedicated CD player sounds much much better. So while I am quite happy to be the exception, I fear the article is more right than not – people just don’t care how stuff sounds anymore. They just want as much of it in as small and disposable a package as possible. Which is unfortunate.

np – Shearwater / Winged Life

Back in November, My Mean Magpie segued off a Mojave 3 post I made to bring Denmark’s Sarah Hepburn to my attention, the connection being that her debut solo album, Stars & Haze, was recorded with Neil Halstead and members of Mojave 3. The only samples he could find online was a video for the song “Hey… OK?”, which I commented sounded very un-Mojave-like, so he sent me a few more tracks from the album to sample. And a couple months later, I actually listened to them – and was impressed. Her singing voice usually stays in hushed and husky Nico-ish territory but that restraint masks some impressively elastic range, but thankfully she uses her vocal powers judiciously and always for good, not evil. Judging from the samples Five sent me and those on her MySpace page, it would seem that Stars & Haze runs a stylistic gamut, but centers around a rustic, country-ish feel that’s really quite lovely and soothing. And this is where the Mojave 3 connection comes into play – “Which Way From Here”, in particular, sounds like it could have been an Out Of Tune outtake. It’s a shame that the album is nigh impossible to get except to order directly from Europe for no small chunk of change.

Video: Sarah Hepburn – “Hey… OK?” (WMV)

Hepburn also used to play in a somewhat more rocking Danish out fit called Glorybox. At least, it’s my understanding that they were more rocking. The track on their MySpace isn’t especially rocking. Maybe the Danes have a different frame of reference for rock?

Those of you who watch TV may have recently noticed a commercial for Capital One, whom I understand are a bank or fishmonger of some description, that features a classic pop-sounding tune with the chorus “Hand in my pocket hand in my pocket hand in my pocket” and so forth. Well it turns out that that tune was written and recorded by Toronto’s own Jim Guthrie, of Royal City, Islands and Jim Guthrie fame. And he’s put together a full song-length version and made it available to download from his website. What a nice fellow.

Also on the local artists – The Airfields have uploaded a new demo to their MySpace page, which should whet your appetite for their new 6-song EP which should hopefully be due out on Humblebee in early March, in time for their opening slot for The Wedding Present at Lee’s Palace on March 10. There’s also been some roster shifts in Airfields-land, with head Diablero Pete Carmichael taking over bass duties.

JAM! and The New York Times report on Nellie McKay’s rather non-amicable departure from Columbia Records.

The Ultimate Avengers animated film has a website, and with that website comes a trailer, and with that trailer comes… muted enthusiasm? The video is really too small to really make anything out, but I think it looks pretty cool. Hopefully the writing for the movie is better than the writing for the trailer… it’s out on DVD Feburary 21.

np – Cinerama / Va Va Voom