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Friday, May 23rd, 2008
Serving the dual purpose of saving me the trouble of digging and getting me excited, Touch & Go has released some details on the third album from The New Year. The self-titled record will run ten tracks and be released on September 9, meaning those of us who attend the Kadane Brothers show at Sneaky Dee’s on July 14 will get an almost two-month sneak preview of the new material… probably more substantial than this video trailer which starts out with a cymbal track from the new record but segues into an old song. The band talks a bit about the new record on their MySpace blog and have also, in their typically efficient fashion, just released a new video… for a song from their last album.
And I love how the band consistently puts out publicity photos that are too wide for my format… anytime I make a New Year post, someone’s head gets cut off. Sorry, guys.
Video: The New Year – “The End’s Not Near”
Pitchfork seems not to have read any of the numerous mentions Okkervil River have made about releasing a companion disc to The Stage Names this year, because they treat the news of the release of The Stand Ins, the aforementioned companion disc, as the band’s new studio record. But whyever they’re confused isn’t important – new Okkervil River release September 9. Mark it down.
Also new with a release date – Lykke Li’s full-length debut Youth Novels will get a North American release on August 19. The Times engages her in conversation.
BrooklynVegan, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Portland Mercury, PopMatters and Wired play catch-up with Swervedriver, whose reunion tour kicked off last night and who will be at Lee’s Palace on June 13, where the lineup will also include The Besnard Lakes, Sweden’s Last Days Of April and Uncut and where I will (hopefully) be buying this shirt.
The AP, via JAM, talks to Radiohead. They’re at the Molson Amphitheatre on August 15.
Pitchfork solicits a list of stuff from Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchinson. LiveDaily also has a video session with the band.
The Gutter Twins are both optimistic and non-committal about their future in conversation with Billboard.
Chart reports that stalwart Hamiltonian shoegaze outfit A Northern Chorus have decided to call it a day. They will play a couple of farewell gigs, one on June 27 at the Horseshoe in Toronto, the other June 28 at the Casbah in Hamilton.
Music For Gourmets interviews Anna-Lynne Williams of Trespassers William about China Mountain, her new solo album released under the name of Lotte Kestner.
PopMatters and The Guardian interview a couple of ladies with a penchant for cover songs – Laura Cantrell and Cat Power, respectively. Cat Power will play Rogers Picnic at Historic Fort York on July 20.
Wilco are streaming the audio from all three nights of their recent stand in St Louis.
JamBase talks to Constantines, playing day one of V Fest on September 6.
Le Blogotheque, The Telegraph and Wireless Bollinger interview Bon Iver, in town at Lee’s Palace on July 22.
New Band Of Horses video.
Video: Band Of Horses – “No One’s Gonna Love You”
White Hinterland will be on the bill with Eef Barzalay at the El Mocambo on June 27.
Paste and Metromix catch up with The Submarines, who are at the Drake Underground tomorrow night with Headlights.
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
I have mixed feelings about soundtracks. More specifically, about the phenomenon when a perfectly good and respectable band is taken from their organic, upward trajectory on which they were fueled by simply making good records, and launched into a whole new orbit thanks to having a song featured in some film at the cost of being henceforth known as “the band with that song from that movie”.
Okay, in the case of Denver’s DeVotchKa that’s not wholly the case – they didn’t just have a song in the indie comedy Little Miss Sunshine, they scored the film. And while I wouldn’t have thought that their fusion of Gypsy, mariachi and western stylings would have been the most obvious musical accompaniment for a film about a dysfunctional family taking a road trip to a children’s beauty pageant, they definitely gave it a distinctive flavour. So when the film became a breakout hit and Oscar nominee, DeVotchKa’s profile was increased accordingly.
At the time this all started to go down, they were two years removed from their excellent How It Ends and just releasing their Curse Your Little Heart covers EP, so it’s difficult to say how far along they were in writing their next record or what sort of effect that the Sunshine success (and pressure) had on their creative process but after carefully considering A Mad And Faithful Telling, the answer is evidently “not much at all”.
Mind you, it’s probably impossible for DeVotchKa to sound like anything but DeVotchKa. Not without ditching the sousaphone, accordion, horns and strings, pouring copious amounts of red wine down the drain and flattening Nick Urata’s pompadour (the source of his powers). And really, why would you want to? Like its predecessor, Telling is a drunk, dizzying and romantic romp through the music of the world without ever sounding like world music. It’s a touch less grandiose in scope, less over the top but what it loses in spectacle it gains in focus and songwriting. Where Ends was all about the cinematic sweep from start to finish, the compositions that make up Telling are better able to stand on their own. Episodic, rather than epic.
It’s a record that’s strong enough that I’d like to think that, had Little Miss Sunshine not happened, would still have managed to find the audience it deserves but that probably presumes a little too much justice in the world. So, instead, I will accept that people will come to DeVotchKa thinking that they’re “the band with that song from that movie” but am confident they’ll walk away thinking of them as, “the band that just made me fall in love and broke my heart in the span of three minutes”.
DeVotchKa has just kicked off their North American tour which, sadly, bypasses Toronto this go-around. But they’ve got some local flavour with them in the form of opener Basia Bulat and with an appearance set for August 3 in Montreal at the Osheaga festival, I can only hope a local date is in the offing for around then.
MP3: DeVotchKa – “Transliterator”
MP3: DeVotchKa – “Along The Way”
MySpace: DeVotchKa
And it’s fitting that I mentioned DeVotchKa, justice and festivals in the preceding couple paragraphs because DeVotchKa have just been announced as headliners of the Monolith Festival, taking place September 13 and 14 at Red Rocks in Denver, alongside Justice. DeVotchKa will close the Saturday, Justice the Sunday, and they’ll be joined by acts such as TV On The Radio, Neko Case, Band Of Horses, Vampire Weekend and scads of others across five stages in a ridiculously beautiful setting. And the reason I’m singling out this festival announcement amongst the dozens of others littering my RSS reader is that Monolith helped sponsor this year’s Hot Freaks party at SxSW and in return, we helped out with their lineup, offering suggestions, critiques and the occasional “ZOMG THEY’RE THE BEST BAND EVER”. I think it all turned out alright.
And a little closer to home, Exclaim has assembled their annual festival guide, your definitive resource to standing in a field all across Canada.
Super-exciting news – not only will there be a new Radio Dept release this Summer in the form of the Freddie & The Trojan Horse EP, set for released on June 4, but Pitchfork already has the title track from the single available to download and swoon over. While I was initially disappointed in Pet Grief, I’ve since grown to appreciate its glacial beauty. That said, this new song has some more of the kick that made Lesser Matters such a joy. The full-length is due in September. I am stoked.
MP3: The Radio Dept – “Freddie & The Trojan Horse”
The Jealous Girlfriends’ new self-titled record is currently streaming at Spinner. Catch them June 3 at the El Mocambo. And the “Class of 2007” feature in The L Magazine wherein I first discovered the band has been followed up with “The Class of 2008”, their picks for the NYC bands set to break out this year.
Stream: The Jealous Girlfriends / The Jealous Girlfriends
The New York Post talks to Feist and Pitchfork has the video from her appearance and performance the other night on The Colbert Report. Feist plays the Sony Centre on May 13 and the Air Canada Centre on November 3.
Thick Specs gets guest columnist Jay Ferguson of Sloan to talk about the resurrection of murderecords, the label on which they will release Parallel Play on June 10.
Speaking of labels, Drowned In Sound reports that the Beggars Group has gotten a little more compacted, with the Beggars Banquet and Too Pure imprints being rolled into the 4AD which makes labelmates of the likes of The National, The Mountain Goats and Stereolab, who will release their new album Chemical Chords on August 19 (bearing the 4AD logo). Pitchfork talked to Tim Gane about the new record and there’s already a preview MP3 available to download.
MP3: Stereolab – “Three Women”
Also in the Beggars family but in the Rough Trade division are The Long Blondes. They’ve got a new video from Couples and will be at Lee’s Palace on May 22.
Video: The Long Blondes – “Guilt”
This past weekend I caught one of my most-looked forward to movies of the year this weekend in Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay – and it was as smart, dumb, crude, outrageous and offensive as I could have hoped. And it featured a song by another artist appearing at the Monolith Festival – Mickey Avalon – that I was obsessed with for, well, about the duration that it was playing in the film. And yeah, it gets less funny with each listen but that first time? Whoo.
Trailer: Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Video: Mickey Avalon – “My Dick”
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
The AV Club has declared this week “Spring Music Week” and as such, are running features about newish artists releasing records worth hearing this Spring. Leading things off is a piece on Seattle’s Fleet Foxes who have already released their Sun Giant EP and will be following that up with their self-titled debut full-length on June 3.
And if you missed their rather stunning performance at the El Mocambo last month, it looks like you’ll have another chance to see them before too long. It’s not official, but is you consider this tour routing for A Hawk & A Hacksaw, which stops in at the El Mocambo on July 16 and this announcement at Muzzle Of Bees that has both A Hawk & A Hacksaw and Fleet Foxes in Madison just two days later on July 18, it’s a reasonable leap to assume that the two bands are touring together and that Fleet Foxes will be in town that day as well. That and I was told they were coming back around then.
Obviously I will confirm/disavow this information when actual facts become available, but for now if you’re the sort to plan your Wednesday nights three months in advance… pencil this in.
MP3: Fleet Foxes – “White Winter Hymnal”
MP3: A Hawk & A Hacksaw – “Portlandtown”
The AV Club also delves into the iPod of DeVotchKa leader Nick Urata.
The Rosebuds are giving away a remix album of their last release, Night Of The Furies, in honour of… well, just because. It’s called Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep and you can grab it at the Merge Records store. The Rosebuds are in town May 16 opening up for British Sea Power at Lee’s Palace.
The Daily Collegian talks to John Vanderslice while The Riverfront Times gets him to assemble a Springtime mix for them, which they’ve put into Muxtape form.
If you were shut out of Adele’s show at the Rivoli last month, and certainly many were, take heart – she returns on June 6 for a show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, which is apparently at the CNE grounds somewhere. Full dates at Music Snobbery and there’s a new video from 19, which will be available domestically on June 10. ICWales offers an interview.
Video: Adele – “Cold Shoulder”
Last week I was only able to offer up some new audio from the El Perro Del Mar and Anna Ternheim portions of the bill that hits the Mod Club on May 11. Well make that complete set now that there’s a new MP3 from Lykke Li’s Little Bit EP, out May 6. Update: New video, too.
MP3: Lykke Li – “Dance Dance Dance”
Video: Lykke Li – “I’m Good, I’m Gone”
Richard Thompson, hopefully fully recovered with his tussle with a scorpion, will play a solo show at the Danforth Music Hall on July 6.
Pitchfork interviews Spoon.
The Blakes, in town at the Horseshoe next week for a show at the Horseshoe on April 25, answer 20 questions from PopMatters.
The tour dates on MGMT’s MySpace reveal that they’re going to be playing Toronto’s V Fest on the Saturday, September 6. BlogTO talked to them in advance of their show at the Mod Club last night.
The Daily Swarm sleuthes out news of a Japan-only My Bloody Valentine box set comprised of new editions of Loveless and Isn’t Anything, both remastered by Kevin Shields, a disc collecting the band’s EPs of the era, a disc of unreleased tracks (!) and a DVD of video clips. SURELY this material will be made available in other markets in some form? I mean, come on?
Friday, September 14th, 2007
Though my body’s in Texas for ACL, my mind is currently about two weeks from now in Montreal, at this year’s Pop Montreal festival, taking place October 3 through 7. I attended last year and had a terrific time and expect the same this year, but this time I’ve got an extra stake – I’m curating a showcase.
It’s part of a series of shows in conjunction with the good people at Said The Gramophone and I Heart Music we’re calling The Bleating Heart Shows and my installment is happening on October 4 at the Green Room le Gymnase and will feature The Brother Kite, up from Providence, Rhode Island, Toronto’s Airfields, My Dad Vs Yours from Ottawa and hailing from Montreal by way of Toronto, Danielle Duval.
I’m very excited about every band on the bill but have to admit that it’s The Brother Kite, whose Waiting For The Time To Be Right I fell in love with on first listen and have maintained a devoted if not wholly monogamous relationship with. I wrote it up earlier this year and had been patiently waiting/hoping for a local show so that I had an excuse to write them up some more, but since that didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon I decided to make it happen myself. “But wait,” you say, “a Pop Montreal showcase hardly counts as local!” You’re right, which is why I’m happy to report that The Brother Kite will make their Toronto debut on October 5 at the Tiger Bar with Fjord Rowboat. Of course, I won’t be there – still in Montreal – but I am confident that all of you Hogtown peeps will be in attendance to welcome them. Just give their Beach Boys-meets-Ride power-gazey-pop a listen and I’m certain you’ll be won over as well. Specifics on that show are still forthcoming, but rest assured – the next couple weeks will have me going on and on and on about these shows.
As for the other acts on the bill, my affection for The Airfields is very very well documented so there’s not much more that needs to be said there – but I will anyways, as the show draws near. I haven’t seen My Dad Vs Yours in a while but am eager to hear what they’ve been up to since last year’s After Winter Must Come Spring in establishing the genre that some of us (me and another guy, I think) call post-pop. And Danielle Duval is a new discovery for me but I heard stellar things about her set at Hillside earlier this year and she and her band will bring some much-welcome old school rock and soul to the bill. And Toronto show-mates Fjord Rowboat do a tremendous job of keeping the classic shoegazing flame alive without being trapped by the past.
As I said, I’ll be talking this show and these bands up more over the coming weeks but for now, keep the 4th open if you’re in Montreal and the 5th if you’re in Toronto. Regret it you shall not.
MP3: The Brother Kite – “Get On Me”
MP3: The Airfields – “Lonely Halls”
MP3: My Dad Vs Yours – “Bellicose”
MP3: Danielle Duval – “Bright Galactic”
MP3: Fjord Rowboat – “Carried Away”
Video: The Brother Kite – “I’m Not The Only One” (YouTube)
Video: The Airfields – “Red Fox” (YouTube)
Video: My Dad Vs Yours – “No Farm No Food No Future” (YouTube)
MySpace: The Brother Kite
MySpace: My Dad Vs Yours
MySpace: The Airfields
MySpace: Danielle Duval
MySpace: Fjord Rowboat
Pop Preview: The Brother Kite
Pop Preview: The Airfields
Pop Preview: My Dad Vs Yours
Pop Preview: Danielle Duval
Pop Montreal show poster by Cheryl Cheung
Brother Kite/Fjord Rowboat poster by Renée Nault
And of course, I was mostly kidding when I said my mind was in Montreal – I’m in Austin for pete’s sake, and it’s ACL time. The Austin Chronicle has been previewing the fest with interviews with some of the big names playing including Bjork (who headlines tonight, is staying in our hotel and who the Blogotheque guys apparently scared when they asked her to do a Takeaway Show at poolside), Steve Earle, Andrew Bird (who are thankfully not playing against one another anymore) and Bob Dylan, who closes the whole thing out on Sunday night. Things kick off today and the first act I’m for sure going to catch is Blonde Redhead, who brought it so completely at V Fest last weekend. Athens Exchange has an interview and they’re also featured in a special NYC-to-Austin edition of Spinner 3×3. Nicole Atkins discusses Neptune City with The Shreveport Times. It’s finally out October 30 but I’m hoping she’ll have some to sell when she’s at Lee’s on October 14. She’ll also kick things off for me on Sunday here at ACL. 11:45AM! Arcade Fire and Austin360 has words with Matt Berninger of The National, on stage Sunday afternoon.
On Milwaukee has an interview with Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, in town next Friday night at Lee’s Palace and doing a DJ after party at Tiger Bar after the show. Logistical issues have meant that I won’t be trekking to Hamilton to see them Saturday night at the Pepper Jack Cafe, but that means I can see Basia Bulat’s CD release shows at the Music Gallery instead (contest for passes still open). Chart talks to Basia about the unexpected (but wholly deserved) success of Oh My Darling, out Tuesday.
Hey, Rachael Yamagata is coming back to town! Hey… she’s opening for Mandy Moore. See, this is what happens when your musical tastes drift too close to the mainstream. You get caught in the undertow. That’s happening September 22 at the Danforth Music Hall. Still no word on her new record, I imagine she’s along on this trek because she worked on Moore’s latest record.
The Meligrove Band play a super-intimate show at Sneaky Dee’s on October 4. The Cure play a not-so-intimate show at the Air Canada Centre on May 15, a make up for their cancelled Fall tour.
Dane101 talks to Peter Hayes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, in town at the Kool Haus on October 1.
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007
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?
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