Dan StackI quite literally swooned when I first heard Baltimore duo Wye Oak via “Warning”, the first promo MP3 from their debut album If Children in January 2008 – for a completely unknown band to hit all the right buttons for me at first listen was a pretty remarkable thing. And yet the album itself failed to build on that excitement for no one particular reason.

Best I can reason is that while the ingredients of their sound – plaintive country-folking hurt mixed with crashing, ‘gazey guitars and droning synth tones, topped with Jenn Wasser’s aching vocals – seem tailor-made to trigger my endorphin receptors, the record seemed too hesitant to really connect. It was like the band felt like a couple of kids suddenly invited to the grown-up’s table, and were a bit overwhelmed by it all. Which, for a pair of musicians barely into their twenties suddenly signed to one of America’s top independent labels, they essentially were.

And so when I heard “Take It In”, the achingly gorgeous promo MP3 from their second album and again swooned, I wasn’t sure whether that would carry over to The Knot, out this week, as a whole. Short answer – it does, and quite heartily. The Knot is a much bigger album than its predecessor. Sonically, the louds are much louder, the quiets much quieter and the textures richer and more varied – and emotionally, the highs more ecstatic and the lows more despairing. The reluctance that permeated If Children has largely been replaced with a greater confidence, and while it may be true that The Knot still drifts in points towards the monochromatic, there’s no question that it marks a big step forward for the band and begins to deliver on their immense promise. Wye Oak are at the grown-ups table because they belong there.

The Baltimore Sun has a feature piece on the band. There’s no local date at the moment but their tour itinerary takes them through the US, across to Europe and back again in the Fall. I saw them >at SxSW last year and while they don’t have immense onstage charisma, it’s amazing to watch Andy Stack work both the drums and keyboards simultaneously. I recommend catching them if they’re in your neck of the woods.

MP3: Wye Oak – “Take It In”
Stream: Wye Oak / The Knot
MySpace: Wye Oak

Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn, who probably quite sensibly records simply as Mirah, will be at the Mod Club on October 6 in support of her new record (a)spera with ex-Decemberists Norfolk & Western.

Here’s an odd pairing – the stately folk-rock of Grand Archives and the ADD-prog hijinks of The Most Serene Republic. But paired they are for a North American tour that will be at the Mod Club in Toronto on October 15. Grand Archives’ new album Keep In Mind Frankenstein is out September 8, The Most Serene Republic’s …And The Ever-Expanding Universe is out now. The National Post has an interview with Milton’s finest.

MP3: Grand Archives – “Silver Among The Gold”
Video: The Most Serene Republic – “The Old Forever New Things”

Metric have set a live date on October 20 at Massey Hall with The Stills as support. That is a looooong way from their September 2003 show at the Horseshoe where they didn’t even bother with advance tickets.

A Place To Bury Strangers are making their musical manifesto very clear with the title of their second album – Exploding Head is due out October 6 and will be their first for Mute Records. They’ve already lined up a Fall tour to promote, including an October 27 date at the Mod Club in Toronto. They’re changing up dance partners all the while they’re on the road, but that show will feature Dead Confederate and All The Saints as support.

The Phoenix has a feature piece on Wheat, who have released a new video from White Ink Black Ink. I’m still giving a copy of the album away – come and get it.

Video: Wheat – “Changes Is”

Beatroute talks to Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo.

Frank Black tells Music Radar that “As far as any new Pixies records, I’m literally in the dark,” so anyone flocking to Virgin Festival at Burl’s Creek on August 29 had best be prepared to only hear the classics. Try to contain your disappointment.

Magnet does the over-under with The Velvet Underground’s catalog.

And oh yeah, this was news to me so it might be news to you; that free Dears show at Harbourfront this Sunday is a matinee show – they’re on the Sirius Stage at 3PM. And Laura Barrett is on the Redpath Stage at 4:30PM, since you’ll already be there.

Kenneth CapelloThough Midnight Boom came out almost a year ago, The Kills aren’t done with it yet – not even close. The sultry “Black Balloon” will be released as the lead track on an EP due out March 23 in most of the world but April 14 in North America, and be backed up with a selection of acoustic tracks.

They’ve also cut a video for the song, the fifth from the album – that’s almost half the songs on the record with their own promo clips, if you’re counting. Sure, their cheap and cheerful aesthetic makes knocking them out easier than it’d be for acts beholden to higher production values, but it’s still a testament to the top-to-bottom excellence of the album. And the scary part is, almost all the remaining tracks could realistically be worked as singles as well.

And with a new release, of course there needs to be touring. The duo will be taking their ridiculously potent live show right across North America this Spring including a May 7 stop at The Phoenix. Support will be The Horrors and Magic Wands, neither of whom I know but who can’t possibly be worse than the band they brought with them last time, Telepathe. They simply cant. Music Snobbery, however, suggests The Horrors might be just as awful for other reasons and doesn’t give good odds on them even making it far enough along in the tour to visit Toronto.

And anyone worrying about rumours that he-Kill Jamie Hince’s fiancee Kate Moss was going to start recording with the band, fear not. She-Kill Alison Mosshart told The Daily Mail that was simply not going to happen.

MP3: The Kills – “U.R.A. Fever”
MP3: The Kills – “Cheap & Cheerful”
Video: The Kills – “Black Balloon”
Video: The Kills – “Tape Song”
Video: The Kills – “The Last Day Of Magic”
Video: The Kills – “Cheap & Cheerful”
Video: The Kills – “U.R.A. Fever”
MySpace: The Kills

Exclaim talks to Bishop Allen about new album Grr…, which will be out March 10 but which has two tracks available to enjoy now.

MP3: Bishop Allen – “Dimmer”
MP3: Bishop Allen – “The Ancient Commonsense Of Things”

A Place To Bury Strangers have a new video.

Video: A Place To Bury Strangers – “My Weakness”

With Christmas On Mars finally done with, CMJ asks Wayne Coyne what’s next for The Flaming Lips – back in the studio this Spring, hoping to have an album out by Summer. XFM are also running a video interview/documentary series on the band.

SFist talks to Dean Wareham about the 13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests project for which Dean & Britta are doing live scores for at screenings across the US. The film will be coming out on DVD on March 24. And no, Dean and Britta will not come to your house to play for you while you watch it.

For those of you in the UK, BBC is streaming the video of Elbow’s performance of The Seldom Seen Kid alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra from last December. For the rest of us, well, we’ll have to wait for the CD/DVD package. Though the DVD will almost certainly be region 2 and PAL. Which means those of us in North America will never see it. Hrmm…?

MusoGuide finds out what’s up with The Twilight Sad, currently at work at album number two. And did you know their limited-edition Killed My Parents and Hit the Road tour album of odds, sods and covers was now available on eMusic? Me neither, until now. Depressed Scots make me happy.

Another new video, this one from Oasis.

Video: Oasis – “Falling Down”

Pitchfork has got an MP3 from Bruce Peninsula’s A Mountain Is A Mouth, finally out in physical form. Don’t forget their in-store at Soundscapes this evening starting at 7PM, though if you want to get in and/or see, I recommend being there considerably earlier. The band alone will take up half the store.

MP3: Bruce Peninsula – “Crabapples”

Spinner talks to Gary Louris about Ready For The Flood, the album that brings he and Mark Olson to the Mod Club tonight. He also reveals that an extensive Jayhawks reissue project is underway.

Frank YangI’m going to have to stop using my line about any British band being able to fill a venue in notoriously Anglophilic Toronto… this past Wednesday night at the El Mocambo, The Rumble Strips were not only able to draw just a couple dozen people, they couldn’t even get their support act to show up.

Okay, in the case of tourmates Birdmonster, it was less the Rumble Strips’ fault than the border guards who wouldn’t let the San Francisco outfit into the country (I think this is at least the second time they’ve been turned away – a topic they address in a MySpace blog in a manner that pretty much guarantees they’ll never be let in…) but otherwise, I was perplexed as to why the low turnout. Sure, they’re not exactly NME darlings, but the horn-driven soul-pop of their debut Girls & Weather (reviewed here) is eminently likeable and it was hardly an expensive ticket. Was it the cold? Got news for you, Toronto, it’s only going to get worse. Wimps. I was out, and on my BICYCLE no less. Anyway.

But, as the sage show business advice goes, you play for the people who show up – not the ones who don’t – and so even to the thin house, The Rumble Strips weren’t going to phone it in. They did indeed bring it, albeit quietly at first. They led with a new song that was decidedly more sedate than anything you’d find on their debut, one of a few that would be scattered throughout the set and none of which were as immediate as the Girls & Weather material – which is as much of a commentary as I feel fit to make after a single live listen. Cue the more introspective sophomore effort? Everything else, however, was pure extroverted pop goodness.

Everything that makes The Rumble Strips distinctive on record – the horns, the hooks, Charlie Waller’s voice – somehow comes across even stronger live. The rhythm section sounds huge, with duties frequently divvied up between Matthew Wheeler on drums and bassist Sam Mansbridge on what they call “Rumble Drum” but is actually just the floor tom beat extra hard, and is super-tight. The horns… well another thing I’m going to have to stop saying is that I don’t like horns, because I loved theirs. In fact, all the band’s orchestrations and arrangements were impressive to witness. One strength that I hadn’t noticed on record but was quite evident on stage was their harmonies. Waller’s huge vocals – pitch perfect with loads of character – obviously take center stage, but three of the other four also quite ably stepped up to add their voices to the mix.

But above all else, they brought the songs. Each listen to Girls & Weather only makes me grow fonder of uptempo, feel-good, sad-sackery – with so many strengths and such personality, I am really astonished that they weren’t able to draw out more of the curious to go along with the converted who did show up. And though it’s damn near impossible to turn a room that’s only 5% full into a party, The Rumble Strips certainly tried.

Photos: The Rumble Strips @ The El Mocambo – October 29, 2008
MP3: The Rumble Strips – “Time”
MP3: The Rumble Strips – “Motorcycle”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Girls And Boys In Love”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Alarm Clock”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Motorcycle”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Oh Creole”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Time”
MySpace: The Rumble Strips

The Independent profiles Noah & The Whale, who will be returning to Toronto for a show at the El Mocambo on December 9.

The Quietus interviews A Place To Bury Strangers. NPR is streaming part of their CMJ set last week.

Pitchfork talks to Portastatic’s Mac McCaughan.

Austin360 asks three questions of Decemberists drummer Nate Query.

The Drive-By Trucker/Hold Steady-powered “Rock & Roll Means Well” tour kicked off last night, and while the November 11 show at the Phoenix is sold out, a small block of tickets was released earlier this week via Ticketmaster and at last check, were still available. And I’m still giving away a few pairs. The Courier-Journal profiles The Hold Steady, The Winston-Salem Journal talks to the Truckers and Nashville Scene and The Village Voice talk to them both.

Paul Westerberg reflects on the legacy of The Replacements for The Guardian.

NPR welcomes Okkervil River to their studios for a World Cafe session.

Exclaim! and Get Wokingham have interviews with Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner.

An Aquarium Drunkard and The Colorado Springs Gazette interview members of DeVotchKa.

One of the Jonas Brothers interviews Elvis Costello for Rolling Stone.

The Grace Potter & The Nocturnals gig originally scheduled for the El Mocambo on December 10 now appears to be happening at Lee’s Palace.

Matador has made their Fall 2008 sampler available to download and it includes tastes of new and upcoming releases from Belle & Sebastian, Shearwater and Fucked Up.

Photo by Frank Yang

There is an upside to having never been especially fashionable, and that’s you never go out of fashion. Case in point, The Wedding Present, whom over the course of their twenty-plus year career (including the Cinerama years), have never really enjoyed the heights of critical or popular acclaim but have never suffered the sting of backlash, either. Instead, they’ve simply plugged along, touring relentlessly and ne’er releasing a dud of an album and thereby accumulating a large and loyal following – bands could do far worse than to emulate their career path. A path that brought them to Toronto on Friday night in support of their new record El Rey, their first visit in two and a half years.

Playing the final date of their support stint, openers Dirty On Purpose joked about this being their annual visit to Lee’s Palace, though I suspect they really meant their annual visit to a near-empty Lee’s Palace. Though their profile has grown considerably since their first visit in March 2006, this time they were victims of an early start time that I suspect not a lot of people knew about. It’s been a couple years since the release of their debut album Hallelujah Sirens but the Brooklyn quartet has not been idle, releasing the Like Bees EP at the start of this year and following that closely with the Dead Volcanoes EP, available for free download at RCRD LBL. Both recordings implied a creative shift towards giving their pop sides a more equal footing with their noisier inclinations, and that was also evidenced in their live show which was a touch more polite-sounding than I’ve heard them before. At least until the set-closing instrumental “Monument”, which culminated in a minor stage trashing but considering that only consisted of one tossed guitar and a knocked over cymbal stand, even that was kind of polite.

You want to talk about consistency with The Wedding Present? On this night, Dave Gedge was wearing pretty much the same outfit he was in March 2006 and in April 2005. And with the exception of the addition of a healthy dose of El Rey material and considerably less from 2005’s Take Fountain, the set list could also have been from that show if not in exact song, then in song selection methodology. An even-handed sampling of the entire back catalog with an emphasis on masterpiece Seamonsters and a single nod to the Cinerama years. Truly it’s a testament to the solidity and reliability of Gedge’s muse that the new material stands up so well alongside the old, though when one’s creative well is built on the foibles of faithless men and women, there’s always plenty to draw on.

And, just like every gig, there were shout outs for requests which, as he’s done their entire career Gedge deflected (this time by claiming he’d love to oblige but said bassist Terry De Castro worked very hard on the set list and would be upset if they deviated). But for every favourite not aired, another gem was played instead and it’s hard to imagine anyone being disappointed overall by the song selection. And, of course, the performance was again excellent. After seeing just Gedge and De Castro play a set during SxSW, I appreciate how much second guitarist Chris McConville and drummer Graeme Ramsay, who joined post-Take Fountain and recorded and helped write El Rey, bring to the band. Though it’s still Gedge’s words and delivery that seal the deal, they come across so much better with the massive-sounding rhythm section driving home the point.

And, of course, there was no encore.

Redwood City Daily News has an interview with the Gedge.

Photos: The Wedding Present, Dirty On Purpose @ Lee’s Palace – October 3, 2008
MP3: The Wedding Present – “The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girl Friend”
MP3: Dirty On Purpose – “Mind Blindness”
MP3: Dirty On Purpose – “No Radio”
Video: Dirty On Purpose – “Audience In The Room”
Video: Dirty On Purpose – “Car No Driver”
MySpace: The Wedding Present
MySpace: Dirty On Purpose

JAM has an interview with Noel Gallagher of Oasis, conducted last month in happier times when all his ribs were still intact. Dig Out Your Soul is out tomorrow.

Filter talks to Jason Pierce of Spiritualized.

Metro asks British Sea Power five questions.

The Quietus and Drowned In Sound discuss Snowflake Midnight with Mercury Rev. The companion album Strange Attractor is also now available for free download by signing up to their mailing list from their website. The Rev are at the Opera House on December 9 with Dean & Britta.

Billboard examines the success of My Bloody Valentine’s just-completed North American tour. And now, with no more live dates on the horizon, it’s time to get back in the studio.

Wired discusses the influence of the shoegazing movement on a young Oliver Ackerman, who would go on to form A Place To Bury Strangers. Tuscon Weekly also has a feature.

The Black Cab Sessions welcome Joey Burns of Calexico while Prefix has an interview.. They’re at the Phoenix on November 18, though probably arriving by bus rather than cab.

Chart talks pottery with Matthew Sweet. Exclaim asks him about his music.

Photo by Frank Yang

Dear every other touring band in the world: we appreciate your interest, but your services are no longer required. We have Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

My ticket to their show at the Kool Haus had been sitting on my corkboard for something like six months, and with every listen to Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, to say nothing of my ongoing explorations of his back catalog, I couldn’t wait for Wednesday night to come fast enough. Cave’s live show has long been regarded as legendary and as a recent convert, I was most anxious to see the spectacle for myself.

The openers were Black Mountain, who were making the most of their visit to the 416 with two shows – three if you include their Polaris gala performance – in five days. As they took the stage, one helpful audience member called out, “please don’t suck!” – no worries there. Despite myriad opportunities, I’d never seen the Vancouver quintet live before and was quite handily impressed. Despite their sludgy, stoner-rock reputation they weren’t unnecessarily loud and displayed considerable musical nimbleness in delivering tracks from In The Future, highlighted by Stephen McBean’s guitar heroics and Amber Webber’s unearthly vocals. And it’s quite an endorsement that the full house of Cave devotees seemed to quite enjoy their set, sending them off with an enthusiastic “you guys were pretty good!”. Which they certainly were.

But on this night, the bar for performance would be set considerably higher than “pretty good”. With the Bad Seeds taking up every square foot of the expanded Kool Haus stage – and if I can make a comic geek joke, Warren Ellis looks an awful lot like Alan Moore – Cave bounded on stage and turned “Night Of The Lotus Eaters” from a relatively low-key, mood piece on album into a searing and sleazy opening salvo that would set the tone for the show. Cave, natty in a purple pinstripe suit, prowled and pounced around the stage looking like the mad preacher offspring of Mephisto and Elvis here to welcome the apocalypse and convince the audience that they should as well. By rights, the persona that Cave inhabits in song and on stage should come off as theatre but he inhabits it so bloody well that there is no questioning it.

Not all was fire and brimstone, though. If his demon-possessed orator wasn’t able to convince you to join his merry voyage of the damned, then with jacket doffed and extra shirt button undone, his seductive balladeer would surely seal the deal. Not that he needed to try that hard to get the crowd to follow him anywhere or even at all – judging from the many declarations of love from the audience, all returned by Cave of course, they were his from note one. Credit must also go to the Bad Seeds, an absolutely crack musical outfit capable of moving from anarchic skronk to elegiac beauty at the drop of the hat, but at the end of the day it’s about Cave, who is definitely one of the most charismatic performers I’ve ever seen.

The one hour, forty-five minute set was pretty much a perfect blend of old material and new, one third drawn from Lazarus and the rest from the entire breadth of his 25-year career. He even seemed to take requests, delivering an elegant “Ship Song” in response to a placard in the audience, though set lists from the rest of the tour implied that it’d have made an appearance anyways. But gestures like that, as well as designating a girl in the audience as “keeper of the towel” – as in the increasingly sweat-soaked implement that he and she tossed back and forth throughout the show – are what make Cave such an engaging frontman. Well, that and an incredible voice, presence, catalog of songs and mustache.

For the encore, Cave and company delivered the two lead tracks from the double-disc masterpiece Abbatoir Blues and The Lyre Of Orpheus, the former turned into a squall of punk rock anarchy and the latter a lurching bit of audience call-and-response, and as a show finale, a scorched earth “Stagger Lee”. Oh mama. So worth the wait.

With Cave’s entire catalog being remastered and reissued in expanded form, I’m waiting a bit before delving further into his works but having now gotten a taste of what awaits me beyond The Best Of and what I’ve already gotten – I just ordered up the Abbatoir Blues Tour set – I can’t wait. The Globe & Mail has an interview with Cave and there’s more joyous reports from Wednesday night’s congregation at eye, Exclaim!, The Toronto Sun and Chart.

Photos: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Black Mountain @ The Kool Haus – October 1, 2008
MP3: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!”
MP3: Black Mountain – “Tyrants”
Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!”
Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Night Of The Lotus Eaters”
Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “More News From Nowhere”
Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Midnight Man”
Video: Black Mountain – “Wucan”
MySpace: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
MySpace: Black Mountain

Oasis’ new record Dig Out Your Soul is currently streaming in its entirety over at the band’s MySpace. It’s out for reals on Tuesday. NME has a piece on Gold And Silver And Sunshine, the making-of doc that’s going to accompany the album in some form, and JAM has some more from Noel Gallagher on the infamous stage attack from last month. Speaking of which, the band have announced a North American tour in December… and curiously, there’s not Toronto date? I wonder why?

Stream: Oasis / Dig Out Your Soul

Radiohead have selected the winner of their “make a video for In Rainbows” contest and made it the official video for “Reckoner”. Which they’re also holding a remix contest.

Video: Radiohead – “Reckoner”

Dave Gedge of The Wedding Present talks about life in California to LiveDaily and reveals to The Georgia Straight that after recording El Rey with Steve Albini, they went back and re-recorded the whole of their debut George Best with him. The Wedding Present are at Lee’s Palace tonight and if you’re going, remember it’s an early show – doors 7:30, Dirty On Purpose at 8:15 and Wedding Present at 9:30 – all over by 11.

Filter discusses matters sartorial with Flight Of The Conchords.

The Secret Machines have offered up the first taste of their new, self-titled album, out October 14. They’re at Lee’s Palace on October 22.

MP3: The Secret Machines – “Atomic Heels”

The Denver Post talks to Oliver Ackerman of A Place To Bury Strangers.

Last seen opening up for The Dandy Warhols, Los Angeles’ Darker My Love are at the Horseshoe for their own show on November 30, tickets $8.50.

QRO interviews The Coast, who are also profiled by The Guardian.

Sloan’s Jay Ferguson chats with The Muse.

The Wilmington Star-News rightly acknowledges both parts of a kick-ass tour crossing the continent, talking to both Okkervil River’s Will Sheff and Crooked Fingers’ Eric Bachmann. The latter’s Fortune/Forfeit is out on Tuesday.

The Tripwire interviews Jose Gonzalez.

The Stranger stops being strangers with Silver Jew David Berman.

After ceasing publication in the real world this past Spring, No Depression is back as a newfangled website, and they’ve got a feature on Basia Bulat. Welcome back.

Earlier this week Pitchfork put together a listing of all the medium and major album releases still due in 2008. I also maintain such a calendar for my own purposes but less interesting than what they noted that I didn’t – a new Wheat album on November 11 and a Cat Power EP on December 9 that shows she’s still in covers girl mode, guess The Sun isn’t coming this year – was what is apparently not showing up this year after all. I don’t necessarily know if these would show up on the ‘Fork radar, but I had been anxiously awaiting First Love from Emmy The Great and Clinging To A Scheme from The Radio Dept, both of which had been originally targeted for a September release. Obviously that’s not happened. My fingers are crossed that at least one will surface before the year’s out, but more than likely their reserved spots in my year-end list will have to carry over to ’09.