SethA Yo La Tengo show can be a pretty variable thing – even without taking into account the spinning wheel of randomness that dictated the course of their recent tours – seemingly depending on how the band is feeling and regardless of what record they have to promote. I’ve seen them play ultra-extended and often tedious versions of the likes of “Blue Line Swinger” and “Nuclear War”, usually when it seems Ira isn’t in the best mood and might even be taking it out on the audience, and also seen nearly transcendent sets that balance out their pop and experimental sides, replete with jokes, jams and synchronized dancing.

I can tell you one thing, though – when the band visits Toronto next on April 21, you’ll get none of the above. And that’s because it’s nothing like a regular tour stop, but instead an appearance for the closing gala of the Images Festival, wherein they will perform The Sounds Of Science. For the unfamiliar, that’s a series of short nature films made by the avant-garde French director Jean Painlevé in the 1920s and 30s about aquatic life which the band created a score for a screening at the 2001 San Francisco Film Festival and have performed only very occasionally as well as releasing as the album The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science and the DVD Science Is Fiction: 23 Films By Jean Painlevé (though the DVD features completely different compositions). I have the former and while I can’t claim it’s one of my more listened-to Yo La records – okay, I hardly ever play it – it’s quite lovely and this will be a unique experience.

Tickets for the screening, which will take place at The Toronto Underground Cinema, are $25 in advance. And no, they probably won’t play “Sugarcube”.

MP3: Yo La Tengo – “The Love Life Of The Octopus”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Sea Urchins”

Norwegian-born, Sweden-based singer-songwriter Ane Brun will pay us a rare visit on May 10 when she plays The Great Hall in support of her new record It All Starts With One, which will be getting a North American release soon. Tickets for the show are $16.50 in advance.

Video: Ane Brun – “Worship” (featuring Jose Gonzalez)

Playground interviews Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds.

DIY has a feature piece on The Big Pink.

SXSW poses some questions to James Graham of The Twilight Sad.

The New York Times profiles Jonny Greenwood’s activities both within and without Radiohead. He’ll be with them when they play Downsview Park on June 16. I assume.

The Joy Formidable have released a nice little session video to coincide with their just-started North American tour, which finishes with a sold-out show at Lee’s Palace on April 2.

Video: The Joy Formidable – “The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie” (live in session)

Rolling Stone talks to Steve Earle about his appreciation for The Rolling Stones.

NPR is streaming the whole of the new Lost In The Trees album A Church That Fits Our Needs ahead of its formal release next Tuesday. They’re at The Drake on April 6.

Video: Lost In The Trees – “Red”
Stream: Lost In The Trees / A Church That Fits Our Needs

eMusic and NPR interview Andrew Bird.

Filter and DIY talk to James Mercer of The Shins. Port Of Morrow is out March 20 and they play The Molson Amphitheatre on August 4.

The AV Club’s Undercover series returns, kicking off with Sharon Van Etten and Shearwater – or “Shearwater/Van Etten” – covering Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Stevie Nicks. Awesomely.

Texas bound! Seeya.

Frank YangIt’s said that for bands seeking exposure, television is the new radio as far as reaching a mass audience is concerned. Sheffield’s Slow Club can probably speak a little to that, having done pretty well as far as advert and show soundtracking goes. Not having cable or watch much/any broadcast TV, I had no idea about this – I found the duo the old fashioned way by having their 2009 debut Yeah So show up in my mailbox – but it did explain why instead of finding The Rivoli a quarter-full with Anglophiles on Sunday night for their Toronto debut, it was instead jammed full with Chuck fans.

Geting taken on tour with a more popular band is also a good way to garner new fans, so Air Waves lucked out there. But getting put in front of an audience is only half of it – you still have to win them over, and on that count the Brookyln quartet didn’t do so well. Frontwoman Nicole Schneit started things off solo and her fumbled guitarwork and off-key singing set the tone for the rest of their show. Bringing on the rest of the band helped mask those shortcomings to a degree, but if you cared about things like melodies or being on pitch in your music, it was still pretty poor; the songs themselves might not have been so bad but the delivery was difficult to get past. They have their fans, that much is obvious – the members of Slow Club in the audience were their loudest cheerers and Rebecca Taylor joined them on backing vox for one song – but I simply couldn’t fathom it.

At the other side of the spectrum, Slow Club made the very best of first impressions with Taylor and Charles Watson opening with an acoustic cover of Pulp’s, “Disco 2000” – a bold move but they pulled it off masterfully and then, bringing out the rest of the band, went straight into the rollicking “Where I’m Waking” off second album Paradise. That’s right – they had a band with them. Though they pulled off the duo thing with great aplomb when I saw them at SXSW 2010 and the old-school purist in me would like to bemoan the format change, it’s impossible to argue that the extra hands didn’t really improve things. The guitar-and-drums thing fit the spirit of Yeah So perfectly, but the more fully-rendered Paradise really did need the extra manpower to do justice.

While Watson stuck to guitar and vocal duties and really proved himself the anchor of the group, Taylor was constantly shifting roles – singer, guitarist, second drummer, first drummer – but always the focal point and frontwoman. The hour-long set – the band’s first sellout in North America, Watson was pleased to announced – focused mainly on Paradise material and also previewed a couple of new songs which continued on in the more soulful direction of Paradise and according to Taylor would appear on a forthcoming EP. The band’s more manic folk-rock tendencies from their debut were nodded at via the Paradise singles but their more sophisticated – albeit still energetic – side was primarily on display. Still, it was nice to see it back down to Charles and Rebecca for the encore as they headed into the audience, unamplified as they do, for a lvely reading of “Gold Mountain” before heading back onstage for a rollicking, “Giving Up On Love” to close things out. I had kind of hoped/expected to have their first show here to be a cozier, more intimate affair but hey – a big party was pretty good as well.

Photos: Slow Club, Air Waves @ The Rivoli – February 19, 2012
MP3: Air Waves – “Knockout”
MP3: Air Waves – “Keys”
Video: Slow Club – “If We’re Still Alive”
Video: Slow Club – “Where I’m Waking”
Video: Slow Club – “Two Cousins”
Video: Slow Club – “It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful”
Video: Slow Club – “Trophy Room”
Video: Slow Club – “Giving Up On Love”
Video: Slow Club – “Come On Youth”

I thought for sure they’d go for an arena date, but the Florence & The Machine date in support of Ceremonials for Toronto will be August 2 at the Molson Amphitheatre. Update: Tickets are $24.50, $39.50 and $49.50 plus fees, on sale Friday, The Walkmen are opening.

Video: Florence & The Machine – “No Light, No Light”

eMusic gets to know Veronica Falls.

The Quietus interviews Trailer Trash Tracys.

i-D talks to Greg Hughes of Still Corners, who’ve just debuted a new video from last year’s Creatures Of An Hour.

Video: Still Corners – “Endless Summer”

Clock Opera continue to pave the way to the April 9 release of Ways To Forget with videos; there’s a stripped-down performance clip of the current single and four-part “making of” series to watch at their YouTube channel.

Video: Clock Opera – “Once And For All” (under the floorboards session)

The Wedding Present have released the first video from their new album Valentina, out March 20. They’re at The Horseshoe on March 25.

Video: The Wedding Present – “You Jane”

Magnet kicks off a week of The Big Pink as guest editors with a band Q&A feature.

Field Music discusses the economics of being in a band with The Guardian.

Saint Etienne have released a video from their forthcoming album Words And Music By Saint Etienne, due out on May 21; full details on the album were just released and can be read over at The Line Of Best Fit.

Video: Saint Etienne – “Tonight”

Lightships – the new project from Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love – has released another video from their debut Electric Cables, coming April 3.

Video: Lightships – “Sweetness In Her Spark”

The Futureheads talk to NME about the process of recording their new a capella album Rant, out April 2.

NME has excerpted some choice passages from an upcoming feature interview with Noel Gallagher, and amongst other things the former Oasis songwriter says these days he’d rather collaborate with Damon Albarn of Blur than Radiohead.

Know who else is willing to collaborate with Albarn? Graham Coxon. The pair debuted a new Blur song the other night at a War Child benefit show, and while it’s a bit slower/ballad-y than anyone should hope a new Blur record would be, it’s unequivocally gorgeous. There’s a good quality video of the performance at Consequence Of Sound, NME antes up with a video of the full band doing a run-through of “Tender” before tonight’s appearance at The Brits and Alex James offers some thoughts on Blur as an ongoing proposition at The Sun. And oh yeah, the band is playing the closing ceremonies for the Olympics, says DIY.

Video: Blur – “Under The West Way” (live)

NPR is streaming the new Fanfarlo album Rooms Filled With Light ahead of its February 28 official release, and a third live session video has surfaced. The band are at The Mod Club on March 24.

Video: Fanfarlo – “Bones” (live session video)
Stream: Fanfarlo / Rooms Filled With Light

The Line Of Best Fit are streaming the whole of the new The Mary Onettes EP Love Forever, along with song-by-song annotations from the band. It’s out February 28.

MP3: The Mary Onettes – “Love’s Taking Strange Ways”
Stream: The Mary Onettes / Love Forever

Niki & The Dove’s debut album finally has a title and a release date, at least in Europe. Instinct will be out on May 14 on the eastern side of the Atlantic.

FacebookAfter writing up some bands lately whose names have either undersold or misrepresented the music they present, it’s rather refreshing to have an artist whose public identity promises exactly what they have to offer. And that artist is Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny. A grandiose name, to be sure, and one that’s matched by the title of their just-released debut album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose.

There’s no way that labels like those could herald anything less than grandiose ambitions, so the question is really whether the 21-year old Newcastle-Upon-Tyne native who gives the band their name can deliver on them. And the answer is an unequivocal, “yes”. Nature has given Houghton not only a richly smoky voice and operatic range, but a tremendously vivid imagination upon which to draw on for her songwriting. All these gifts are combined to impressive effect on Cellophane Nose, which is by turns whimsical and dramatic, dark and technicolour and enchanting throughout.

Houghton’s roots as a folkish/singer-songwriter are perceptible in the record’s quieter moments, but more often they take a backseat to the ornate, often baroque-ish arrangements that adorn everything. By rights they should be overpowering, even with veteran producer Ben Hillier on hand to keep things on track; a case of too much too soon for an artist let loose in the sonic costume shop filled with horns, strings, choirs and harpsichords. And yet, rather than collapsing under the weight of it all, Cellophane Nose finds Houghton not only standing straight and tall in all her finery, but galloping off towards greater things. Hooves of destiny, indeed.

DIY and The Quietus have interviews with Beth Jeans Houghton.

MP3: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Dodecahedron”
Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Sweet Tooth Bird”
Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Liliputt”
Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Dodecahedron”

NPR is streaming the whole of the new Field Music LP Plumb, ahead of its release next week. MusicOhm also has an interview with the David half of the Brewis brothers.

MP3: Field Music – “A New Town”
Stream: Field Music / Plumb

Though The Big Pink’s second album Future This has been out a few weeks now, the band has only now made a track from it available to download. So download it. And read these interviews with Milo Cordell at The Skinny and The Province.

MP3: The Big Pink – “Give It Up”

The video for M.I.A.’s new single surfaced last week, just in time for her appearance at the Super Bowl halftime show this weekend. It’s her video that’s got everyone talking, right? Right?

Video: M.I.A. – “Bad Girls”

The Line Of Best Fit welcomes Lianne La Havas for a video session; her debut album is due out in the Spring, to be preceded by the Forget EP on March 6 in North America.

Video: Lianne La Havas – “Forget”

Daytrotter sessions up with Anna Calvi.

The 405 enlists Summer Camp’s Elizabeth Sankey as an advice columnist.

A Heart Is A Spade and STV have interviews with The Twilight Sad and Le Blogotheque offers up a Take-Away Show with the band. No One Can Ever Know is out today and they’re at Lee’s Palace on February 29.

Band Of Skulls will follow up the release of Sweet Sour next week with a North American tour that hits Lee’s Palace on May 15, and if you can’t wait that long they’re also at The Phoenix on March 30 opening for We Are Augustines. The band takes Gigwise and Spin through the new record track-by-track, with Spin also offering a stream of the whole thing. And over at The Independent, bassist Emma Richardson talks about her painting.

MP3: Band Of Skulls – “Sweet Sour”
MP3: Band Of Skulls – “The Devil Takes Care Of His Own”
Video: Band Of Skulls – “Sweet Sour”
Stream: Band Of Skulls / Sweet Sour

Ca Va Cool caught up with Los Campesinos! on their recent Canadian tour for an interview.

In conversation with The Daily Mail, Noel Gallagher reveals he thought that the Iron Lady was great. No, not the movie.

Liam Gallagher of Beady Eye sounds off to The Daily Mail about fashion, fitness and family.

The Quietus talks to XTC’s Andy Partridge about the making of English Settlement.

Dose gets to know First Aid Kit, in town at The Great Hall on April 4.

The video for the first single from Ladyhawke’s forthcoming Anxiety is now out. The album arrives March 27 in North America.

Video: Ladyhawke – “Black White & Blue”

FacebookOn paper, London’s Big Deal doesn’t really bring a lot to the table. Two guitars – one acoustic, one electric – and two voices – one American male, one English female – and that’s about it. There’s not much in the way of virtuosity in the former and neither Kacey Underwood or Alice Costelloe’s vocals would stop anyone in their tracks either alone or in harmony. To hear it described, you’d be forgiven for expecting it to lean towards being rather conventional and/or pedestrian.

And yet their debut album Lights Out carries with it enough ineffable magic to demand you take notice, despite being rather determinedly low key. Some of that could be attributed to the duo’s backstory, assuming you know it (late-twenties Underwood taught the teenage Costelloe to play Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr on guitar and they ended up forming a band) and the questions about whether their relationship is strictly friends and bandmates or something more (a Guardian interview from last Summer rather firmly dismisses that speculation), but even without any of that colouring things, Lights Out is much more than the sum of its parts.

Both singers possess a certain intrinsic yearning and weariness to their voices that’s particularly effective for the lyrics that hint at (or even overtly reference if metaphorically) a bare, emotional intimacy. Combine that with the warm, wooly sonic blanket that’s created by Underwood’s lightly fuzzy electric guitar and Costelloe’s strummed acoustic – capable of switching to delicately interwoven guitar lines or rocking distorted leads for for punctuation – and out of these basic ingredients come a dozen tracks that don’t range too far apart but instead do their work by drawing you right in. Their band name might be a bit tongue-in-cheek but don’t underestimate for a minute how much Big Deal have to offer.

Lights Out is out on Tuesday. The Guardian declared them “New Band Of The Day” a couple of weeks ago.

MP3: Big Deal – “Chair”
Stream: Big Deal – “Homework”
Video: Big Deal – “Distant Neighbourhood”
Video: Big Deal – “Chair”
Video: Big Deal – “Homework”

NPR has a session and interview with Elbow recorded at WFUV, while Noise11 talks to bassist Pete Turner about their anthem for the 2012 London Olympics.

Loud & Quiet acts as an intermediary for Ghostpoet to interview The Big Pink.

Check out a session video by Beth Jeans Houghton, whose Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose comes out February 28.

Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny – “Sweet Tooth Bird” (Lightship Session)

The Yorkshire Evening Post and The Courier-Mail talk to Noel Gallagher.

NOW ran an interview with Los Campesinos! ahead of this weekend’s two-night stand at Lee’s Palace.

Music News interviews James Graham of The Twilight Sad. No One Can Ever Know is out February 7 and they’re at Lee’s Palace February 29.

The Alternate Side has posted a video session and interview with Loney Dear.

DIY and NPR mark this week’s release of The Lion’s Roar by running interviews with First Aid Kit. They play The Great Hall on April 4.

Swedish electro-pop outfit Miike Snow have made a May 1 date at The Sound Academy in support of their forthcoming album Happy To You, out March 27. The first single is available to stream over at Spin.

Stream: Miike Snow – “Paddling Out”

Interview gets to know Iceland’s next great pop hope, Of Monsters & Men.

Filter marks their ten-year anniversary by reaching back into their archives for a 2002 vintage interview with Bjork.

And while on the topic of things Icelandic, check out this mini-documentary film on Iceland Airwaves. I actually think I watched a version of this on the plane on the way back from last year’s festival, but they’ve since spliced in footage from 2011. And I may even see myself at 7:00… In any case, watch it and then make plans to go. You know you want to.

Video: Iceland Airwaves – a Rockumentary

Ladyhawkemusic.comNME has an interview with Pip Brown, aka New Zealand synth-pop star Ladyhawke, who is getting closer and closer to officially following up her super-tasty 2008 self-titled debut. Anxiety is set for a March 20 release and according to Brown, is synth-free and much more guitar-heavy in the style of ’90s bands like Blur and Pixies; well, at least she’s keeping things retro.

There’s no preview track or advance single yet – “Black, White and Blue” will be released on February 19 – so at the moment, the only taste of Anxiety available is the trailer below, and I dunno, don’t I hear synths in there? Hmm. Oh, and if the trailer doesn’t work in the streaming player thing, click through on it to watch directly on YouTube. There’s also a collaboration with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans entitled “Just One Kiss” that will see the light of day at some point, though it doesn’t appear to be on the official tracklist so maybe it will be a non-album single. NME also talked to Burgess late last year about that tune.

Trailer: Ladyhawke / Anxiety

The new single from Loney Dear’s gorgeous Hall Music is available to both watch and download. Do both.

MP3: Loney Dear – “Loney Blues”
Video: Loney Dear – “Loney Blues”

The Line Of Best Fit has a video session with First Aid Kit as they ramp up to the January 24 release of The Lion’s Roar. They’ll play The Great Hall on April 4.

Having had to cancel their North American tour last Fall, The Boxer Rebellion are trying again and have set a course that includes a May 2 date at The Mod Club, tickets $18.50.

MP3: The Boxer Rebellion – “No Harm”

The Big Takeover talks to Greg Hughes of Still Corners.

Why should you care who Lightships is? Because it’s the solo project of Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love. There’s details on the project at the Fannies website and there’s a video for the first single from the debut album Electric Cable, out April 2.

Video: Lightships – “Two Lines”

Artrocker reports that Suede are releasing a live CD/DVD of their reunion show at the Royal Albert Hall last Spring, set for release on the second anniversary of the show on March 24. And while Brett Anderson confirmed to BBC6 that the band are recording new material, he also reiterated his position that unless the new songs are up to snuff, they won’t see the light of day.

Drowned In Sound interviews The Horrors.

Sky Larkin have posted an update on what they’ve been up to lately – hoping for something new in 2012 – and also posted the final video they’ll be releasing from 2010’s Kaleide.

Video: Sky Larkin – “Tiny Heist”

The National Post chats with Milo Cordell of The Big Pink while news.com.au gets some of Robbie Furze’s time.

We knew it was called Valentina and would be arriving in March, but The Wedding Present have finally announced details about the new record, which will be out as of March 20 – just in time for their March 25 visit to The Horseshoe.