Inez van Lambsweerde & Vinoodh MatadinRelatively quiet since 2007’s Volta, Bjork is finally back with a new album… I think. To be honest, the press releases around her new project Biophilia haven’t exactly been designed for quick parsing, and that’s because the album component of Biophilia is just that – a component.

There will be a conventional album, presumably available in CD and LP formats, that is due out this Fall – September 27 is the unofficial release date being bandied about. There will also be ten apps corresponding to the tracks fo the record to add interactive elements to the compositions – there’s no specifics on device or platform, but presumably Mac OSX and iOS and Windows will be supported, possibly/probably more. Touring will be done unconventionally, consisting of six-week residencies in eight different cities worldwide over a course of three years and taking place in intimate, in-the-round performance spaces and utilizing a range of custom-built instruments intended to recreate the sound and atmosphere of the apps. A feature-length documentary about the creative process behind the whole Biophilia experience will be released. The www.bjork.com website has been redone and is now all trippy, though to be honest I’m not sure what to do with it.

Blurt has helpfully reprinted the full text of the press release, which should offer some more insight into what’s what. Pitchfork and Sterogum also have interviews with the artist which shed some light on what she’s doing and why. The first of the aforementioned residencies is already underway in Manchester, England – not sure where the other seven will be but I’m not putting money on Toronto, or even anywhere in Canada necessarily. But while we may miss out on that aspect of the Biophilia experience, we can still hear the songs – the first single is available to stream right now, and a Michel Gondry-directed video is forthcoming.

Oh Bjork, you so crazy.

Stream: Bjork – “Crystalline”

The Concretes have put out a new video from WYWH.

Video: The Concretes – “My Ways”

It’s funny – while Wild Beasts’ last record Two Dancers took me a while to warm to – though I did – their new one Smother I warmed to right away, despite it seeming to garner a more tepid critical response. Either way, looking forward to seeing them live for the first time on September 29 when they return to the Mod Club as part of a North American tour. Oxford Student has an interview with the band.

MP3: Wild Beasts – “Albatross”
MP3: Wild Beasts – “Loop The Loop”
Video: Wild Beasts – “Albatross”

Though The Horrors machine is ramping up in anticipation of the release of Skying, Faris Badwan’s underappreciatedCat’s Eyes side-project has found the time to release a new video for a non-album cover of “The Crying Game”.

Video: Cat’s Eyes – “The Crying Game”

Following up the release of the first MP3 from their forthcoming debut album Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, Lanterns On The Lake have put out a video for the same song. The record is out September 19.

MP3: Lanterns On The Lake – “You’re Almost There”
Video: Lanterns On The Lake – “You’re Almost There”

GQ solicits a list of ten style essentials from Liam Gallagher of Beady Eye.

Drowned In Sound and DIY have features on Nick McCabe and Simon Jones’ post-Verve band The Black Ships. They’re giving away their first EP Kurofone in exchange for your email though forewarned – it’s a single 25-minute, 273MB WAV file. I’ve compressed it into something a bit more manageable for you because if you dig on early Verve, it’s worth a listen.

MP3: The Black Ships – “The Kurofone EP”

Donewaiting grapples with Let’s Wrestle, interview-style.

Octopus Windmill interviews Amor de Dias.

Australia’s Howling Bells have given their third album a title of The Loudest Engine and a release date of September 12. Details at Wears The Trousers.

YouTubeSeventeen years. Seven. Teen. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew that this performance by Bjork and PJ Harvey was old – I’ve had it as long as I can remember – but I didn’t realize it was that old. I’d thought it came from around the turn of the century and that having the two of them perform together at the Brit Awards was meant to be a summit of two of the premiere artists of the day, but instead it comes from 1994 and was a showcase for two of the music world’s most promising new acts – Bjork was only one record into her solo career with 1993’s Debut and Harvey had just turned PJ Harvey from a trio into a solo act following 1993’s Rid Of Me.

Of course both of them would turn out to have stellar careers and remain vital artists. Anyone who thought that Debut was out in left field had no idea just how far out there Bjork could and would go and Harvey has reinvented herself and her sound with pretty much every record impressing all the while. So it’s probably a good thing that a recording of the two of them performing a Rolling Stones cover together – Harvey handling the slow-building blues seethe while Bjork gets all unhinged overtop – was captured for posterity because I don’t think it’ll ever happen again.

Harvey’s new record Let England Shake is out this week and her live webcast performance of the record takes place tomorrow afternoon at 3PM EST at deezer.com. Bjork hasn’t released a new studio album since 2007’s Volta, every indication is that she’ll have something new out before the year is out. The Rolling Stones are releasing a massive box set entitled The Rolling Stones Singles (1971-2006) on April 11 and may or may not tour for the millionth time this year. This year’s edition of The Brit Awards takes place in London on Tuesday.

Seventeen years. Damnation.

MP3: Bjork & PJ Harvey – “Satisfaction”
Video: Bjork & PJ Harvey – “Satisfaction”
Video: The Rolling Stones – “Satisfaction” (live on The Ed Sullivan Show)

Valerie PhillipsWhen Why You Runnin’, the debut EP from Rock Island, Illinois native Elisabeth Maurus – aka Lissie – was released late last year, she was heralded as a bright new voice of the alt.country scene and indeed, her emotive voice and songwriting had the right balance of twang and rasp that she could well have become the next big crossover act for the genre. The problem with this was that in many ways, alt.country has become as rigid and codified a style as the Nashville scene that it was initially a reaction to in the late ’80s, and for an ambitious new artist, may not be a pigeonhole they want to get stuck in before they’ve even gotten their careers started.

That’s my speculation about why Lissie’s debut album Catching A Tiger is what it is, and that’s a big, genre-hopping record that pops and rocks as much as it twangs. It might have caught some off-guard, but really shouldn’t have – after all, its release was preceded by a series of viral videos that featured Lissie covering decidedly non-country acts like Lady Gaga, Kid Cudi and Metallica. There was definitely an aspect of calculated marketing to these selections, but that took a back seat to the fact that Lissie did a great job of making them her own, and that sentiment largely covers Catching A Tiger as well.

The production is pretty slick – overly so in parts – and the attempts to make songs in certain styles sound authentic, like the ’50s AM radio-filtered “Stranger”, try too hard, but Lissie’s voice and songwriting are strong and versatile enough to transcend any excess studio tinkering. She has a gift for inserting a big chorus where you’re not expecting a big chorus and thus making tracks like “Loosen The Knot” and “Cuckoo” indelible from the very first listen. Her folkier side isn’t neglected either, though it’s largely represented with the three tracks carried over from Why You Runnin’. Their placement alongside the more stylistically rangy selections of the record makes them more impactful, however, and by the time the gospelly “Oh Mississippi” closes things out, it’s clear that the decision to bust out of the pigeonhole before even being put in it was the right one – she’d have busted out of it sooner rather than later anyways.

The Dallas Observer and Spinner have interviews with Lissie, who is currently on tour in support of Catching A Tiger – she’ll be at the El Mocambo in Toronto on October 19.

MP3: Lissie – “Little Lovin'”
MP3: Lissie – “Everywhere I Go”
MP3: Lissie – “In Sleep” (live)
Video: Lissie – “When I’m Alone”
Video: Lissie – “Cuckoo”
MySpace: Lissie

American Songwriter, Washington City Paper and The Cornell Sun talk to Sharon Van Etten, who’ll be at Lee’s Palace on November 5.

The lead single from Nicole Atkins’ sophomore effort Mondo Amore is now available to download, widget-free. The record is out January 25.

MP3: Nicole Atkins – “Vultures”

Anyone who missed seeing S. Carey open up for The Tallest Man On Earth last month, take heart – he will be returning on his own tour, supported by White Hinterland, for a show at the Horseshoe on December 19. And honestly, I can’t think of a better bill to welcome Winter and close out (probably) the 2010 touring calendar – Carey’s All We Grow is a beaut.

MP3: S. Carey – “In The Dirt”
MP3: S. Carey – “In The Stream”
MP3: White Hinterland – “No Logic”
MP3: White Hinterland – “Dreaming Of The Plum Trees”

Spinner talks to Chris Chu of The Morning Benders about their high-profile support slots this year. They headline their own show at the Mod Club on November 5 and some of footage of their/his ice cream-powered in-store/out-store show in August has been posted as a video session over at the newly-minted TapeDek.

Offbeat interviews Local Natives; they’ve got a sold out show at Mod Club on October 19.

Pitchfork gets a musical history from Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus.

My Morning Jacket bassist Tom Blankenship tells Spin that their next album, currently in production, will be a return to the reverb-drenched atmospheric rock of their early records.

The Chicago Tribune talks to Guided By Voices’ Tobin Sprout about how the current reunion came together and where it might go from here.

Pitchfork takes the recent GQ interview with Steve Albini as a launching pad for contemplating the long-term effects of Sonic Youth’s major label tenure on the indie world.

CMJ reports that when Iron & Wine’s new record Kiss Yourself Clean comes out next January, it will be on a major label – they’ve signed to Warner Bros in North America. Their indie cred remains intact in the rest of the world, where they’ll be handled by 4AD.

Spinner interviews Warpaint, who have a new video for the first single from The Fool, out October 26.

Video: Warpaint – “Undertow”

Black Book interviews both Bjork and Antony Hegarty of Antony & The Johnsons, the latter of whom has a new record out in Swanlights. A video from said record was just released.

Video: Antony & The Johnsons – “The Spirit Is Gone”

Claudia Dehaza has left School Of Seven Bells for “personal reasons”. Ben Curtis and Alley Dehaza intend to carry on with the band, though without those sisterly harmonies it can’t help but be a wholly different beast.

With Jim Bryson acting as a touring member of The Weakerthans for some time now, it’s only fair that the Winnipeggers help out on the Ottawa-based artists’ next solo record, and so it is that the Weakerthans are functioning as Bryson’s backing band on his new record The Falcon Lake Incident. The record is due out next Tuesday, October 19, and they’re marking the occasion (sort-of/not really) halfway between their respective homes with some free shows – one on Tuesday night at the Horseshoe at 10PM and another by way of in-store at Sonic Boom on Wednesday at 6PM. And on top of that, John K Samson will play a solo set as part of the screening of their tour documentary We’re The Weakerthans, We’re From Winnipeg at the Royal on Monday night, October 18. If you need more Weakerthan action than that in a week, then I can’t help you. No one can.

MP3: Jim Bryson & The Weakerthans – “Wild Folk”
Trailer: We’re The Weakerthans, We’re From Winnipeg

And apparently their perfect sendoff at The Horseshoe in December 2007 wasn’t perfect enough – The Lowest Of The Low are getting back together for two gigs at Lee’s Palace on December 3 and 4. The occasion is the 20th anniversary of their beloved debut Shakespeare… My Butt which is getting a fancy-pants remastered reissue on November 23 and will include a DVD with a 45-minute documentary about the band entitled LowRoads 91-08. I waxed nostalgic about the record and what it meant to me in Summer 2007, but think I might let these shows pass me by. I’ve said thanks and goodbye already.

MP3: The Lowest Of The Low – “Bleed A Little While Tonight”
Trailer: LowRoads 91-08

Frank YangHeading into Saturday night, I had a managed to go a full six weeks without hitting a club show – only partly by design – and feeling on the cusp of official “shut-in” status and a full week of activities coming up, I figured that it was a good time to start getting back into game shape with a trio of bands with whom I was only passingly familiar – enough so to think that it might be a good show, but not enough to really know what to expect.

Leading off were Brooklyn’s Laura Stevenson & The Cans, who at the core are sweet, jangly and slightly twangy pop-rock but get a bit orchestral and right noisy around the edges. Namesake Stevenson has an immediately likeable crystalline voice and her bandmates do a fine job of providing the proper accompaniment to keep things dynamic and interesting. Apparently not enough to keep the folks standing beside me from believing that loudly quoting 30 Rock jokes was more entertaining than what was going on onstage, but what can you do. Stevenson’s record A RecorD is available for free download with donations welcome. You should do both of these things.

New York duo Cults came into the night with the highest buzz-to-recording ratio, the enthusiasm that met their “Go Outside” 7″ earlier this Summer being responsible for their being able to tour the continent before they’d released anything else and do it as a full six-piece band instead of just the core two-piece with taped backing tracks. And while they had more than the four songs released so far to fill up a set, it may have been a blessing that being held up at the border and arriving at the club late forced them to truncate their show a bit. While the newer material fit the Motown-in-Summer mould that the single did, none of it was as instantly catchy and their relative green-ness as a live act was also evident – what made Madeline Follin’s vocals sound sweet and girly on record came across thin on stage and co-conspirator Brian Oblivion had the annoying habit of constantly brushing his hair back behind his ears while playing. That aside, they were clearly comfortable as live performers – no given – and they’ve got a good sound so one hopes they’ll improve with time. What I got most out of their set, though, was just how much I miss Saturday Looks Good To Me, who did what Cults do so much better and were summarily ignored for it. Oh SLGTM.

I’d given Maps & Atlases’ latest Perch Patchwork a number of listens in advance of the show to try and get a handle on exactly what the Chicago quartet were about and… well, I’m pretty sure I failed. Were they math-rock? Prog-rock? Jam-rock? Pop-rock? Folk-rock? Just rock? The answer, apparently, was yes. Maps & Atlases somehow straddle all of these genres and while you can’t say their union is seamless – some sounds weren’t meant to go gently together – they largely make it work thanks to the fact that they’re all astonishing musicians and they seem to think what they’re doing is perfectly normal. Constantly shifting tempos and time signatures rendered by heavy yet nimble percussion and mad guitar tapping figures underneath, high and lonesome vocals and plaintive melodies overtop. Certainly, no one sounds like them and like most distinctive bands, they drew a modestly-sized but wholly enthusiastic audience who cheered wildly for every feat of musicianship, of which there were many. I didn’t fall in love with them, but I was impressed. And that was enough.

Photos: Maps & Atlases, Cults, Laura Stevenson & The Cans @ The Horseshoe – August 7, 2010
MP3: Maps & Atlases – “Solid Ground”
MP3: Cults – “Go Outside”
MP3: Cults – “Most Wanted”
MP3: Laura Stevenson & The Cans – “Holy Ghost!”
Video: Cults – “Oh My God”
MySpace: Maps & Atlases
MySpace: Laura Stevenson & The Cans

Spinner has an Interface session with The National.

NYC Taper has a recording of Spoon set opening up for Arcade Fire at Madison Square Garden in New York last Wednesday.

In conversation with Spinner, Interpol’s Sam Fogarino discusses Interpol and the band’s journey from indie to major to indie again. The record is out September 7 and they’re at the Kool Haus tomorrow night.

NPR is streaming a World Cafe session with Laura Marling.

St. Louis Today chats with Phoenix guitarist Laurent Brancowitz. They play the Ricoh Coliseum on October 26.

NPR interviews Bjork.

Jenna WakaniSince first seeing her in a little basement pub at Pop Montreal 2006, it’s been a real treat watching Basia Bulat’s career blossom. 2007 saw her gig relentlessly – I saw her a half-dozen times and wasn’t even really trying – and release her debut Oh, My Darling to much acclaim both at home and abroad and earn a place both in my favourites of the year and the almost-as-prestigious 2008 Polaris Music Prize shortlist. As debuts go, it yielded a pretty good narrative and so it’s not surprising that the follow-up, Heart Of My Own, takes what worked best and builds on that.

Whereas Darling has it’s share of bigger, more orchestrated numbers, it was evident that the songs had started out more homespun, and a few of them simply grew into something more grandiose. it’s notable that rollicking single “In The Night” didn’t appear on the initial European tracklisting but would be regularly held up as a high point in reviews of the North American edition. Heart follows that trajectory, clearly benefiting from the constant touring as a full band, with all the instruments, voices and ideas that came with it.

Utilizing many of the same players and again recorded under producer Howard Billerman’s auspices, Heart maintains the sweetness of Darling, but delivers it with considerably more sophistication, exuberance and sass. The rhythms, arrangements and textures at play are all considerably more complex without sacrificing any of the simplicity that’s at the heart of Bulat’s appeal. That sense of growth also applies lyrically – where Darling‘s protagonist was very much the ingenue, Heart finds her older and wiser; not necessarily more cynical, but certainly more experienced. Oh, My Darling was the first, impressive step from an artist with a clear vision of the sort of folk-pop she wanted to create; Heart Of My Own offers no creative left turns, just a determined, confident stride forward. It’s simply what comes next.

Bulat talks to Spinner about finding inspiration in the Canadian north and gives an in-studio interview and performance for The National Post.

Heart Of My Own is out on January 26 and Basia Bulat has a show at Trinity-St. Paul’s this Saturday night, January 16. Tickets are $20 in advance but courtesy of Secret City, I have a pair of passes to give away to the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Basia Bulat” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, January 13.

MP3: Basia Bulat – “Go On”
MP3: Basia Bulat – “Gold Rush”
MySpace: Basia Bulat

Suitcase Orchestra and Chart talk to Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon. Die Stadt Muzikanten is out tomorrow and they play the Drake Underground on February 11.

Great Lake Swimmers are keeping a tour blog of their ongoing trip to China at Spinner. They play Trinity-St. Paul’s on February 6.

Beatroute chats with An Horse. They play an in-store at Criminal Records on January 20 at 6PM.

Sadly, the Charlotte Gainsbourg show at the Phoenix January 26 announced just last week has been cancelled. No reason has been given and other dates on her North American tour still appear to be a go, so one can only surmise that there’s a conflict with something else, or she has a hate-on for Toronto. Her new record IRM is still out that day and The Guardian has an interview.

The Mountain Goats are featured in PitchforkTV’s “Cemetery Gates” video session this week.

Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs talks to Variety about her soundtrack work on Where The Wild Things Are.

Shout Out Louds singer Adam Olenius discusses their new album Work, out February 23, with Spinner.

Bjork’s recent concert film Voltaic, documenting shows in Paris and Reykjavik, will be getting a theatrical screening in Toronto on January 22 at the Acacia Centre, formerly the Golden Classics Cinema in Chinatown. Tickets are $10 in advance at Soundscapes, Queen Video and online.