Jean-Baptiste MondinoThanks to the fact that the United Kingdom exists five hours into the future, I woke up yesterday morning just in time to see the short list for this year’s Mercury Prize – awarded annually to the best album in the UK and Ireland – commandeer my Twitter feed for a short while. The process by which the shortlist and winner is selected isn’t entirely clear to me – it’s not as transparent as Canada’s Polaris Prize – but in a way that mysteriousness makes it more interesting.

Even though the “how” isn’t clear, a few years of Mercury-spotting has made the “what” pretty easy to peg, at least in a manner of speaking. History shows that about half the list is the cream of the Brit-indie pop/rock crop and the other half is pulled from all manner of other genres, from jazz to pop to hip-hop to what have you and the net result is eleven or twelve – interesting there’s no fixed size to the short list – albums that offer a good amount of grist for the conversational mill. The dozen records competing for the prize are:

Adele / 21 / Video: “Rolling In The Deep”
James Blake / James Blake / MP3: “To Care (Like You)”
Anna Calvi / Anna Calvi / MP3: “Blackout”
Elbow / build a rocket boys! / MP3: “Open Arms”
Everything Everything / Man Alive / Video: “Final Form”
Ghostpoet / Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam / Video: “Cash And Carry Me Home”
PJ Harvey / Let England Shake / MP3: “Written On The Forehead”
Katy B / On A Mission / Video: “Carry Me Home”
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins / Diamond Mine / Video: “Bubble”
Metronomy / The English Riviera / Video: “The Look”
Gwilym Simcock / Good Days at Schloss Elmau
Tinie Tempah / Disc-Overy / Video: “‘Til I’m Gone”

I can only speak to first-hand experience with about half the list, but it’s not unreasonable to think that the winning album will be amongst that subset. Indeed, many have already narrowed it down to a two-artist race between Adele and PJ Harvey, and if it’s down to those two I’d give the edge to Polly Jean if for no other reason than last year’s XX win was the eminently obvious choice. I don’t necessarily see them doing that again. And while I’d have no problem with either, both of their records being massive achievements by a number of standards, I’d be pretty happy to see Anna Calvi sneak up the middle to take it. I do love her self-titled debut and am sad that her appearance at Osheaga next week will not come with a stop down the 401. Perhaps a Mercury win would encourage her to do another North American tour and give me the opportunity to finally see her live. I also continue to love Elbow’s latest but think the odds of them winning for two albums in a row are pretty slim – they don’t have the underdog card to play anymore.

In any case, the winner will be announced on September 6.

Washington City Paper talks to Wild Beasts, whose Smother seems to be the consensus surprising omission from this year’s short list. They also do a couple video sessions for WNYC and The Fader and will be at The Mod Club on September 29.

Spin talks to Daniel Blumberg and The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to Max Bloom, both of Yuck.

Emmy The Great talks to Clash about her personal grassroots campaign against News International.

Interview and The Sydney Morning Herald talk to Patrick Wolf about his new record Lupercalia while The Independent finds out how he and Patti Smith became friends.

JAM has a feature on White Lies, in town at The Phoenix on August 3.

NPR has a World Cafe session with Beady Eye.

The Grid is starting rumours that Noel Gallagher will be in town for a show the week his solo debut Noel Gallagher and the High Flying Birds is released in North America, which is to say November 8. Bookie’s not one to just make stuff up, so keep an eye out. Also, in conversation with The List, Gallagher says he takes no joy in Beady Eye’s failure to tear up the charts.

The Guardian talks to Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow of Portishead, who have two shows at The Sound Academy on October 9 and 10; word is the first night is sold out and the second not too far behind.

Artrocker chats with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans.

eMusic talks reunions and reissues with Brett Anderson and Mat Osman of Suede.

According to The Guardian, the New Order split is about as final and acrimonious as you imagined it to be.

French dance-pop veterans Tahiti 80 are back with a new record in The Past, The Present & The Possible and a tour which brings them to The Horseshoe on September 22, tickets $13.50 in advance.

MP3: Tahiti 80 – “Keys To The City”

M83 has finally revealed specifics on and an MP3 from their next album, which will be a double-set entitled Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Pitchfork has details on the record, which will be out on October 18. M83 plays Lee’s Palace on November 18, tickets $20 in advance.

MP3: M83 – “Midnight City”

DIY has a profile of I Break Horses, whose debut Hearts is out August 15.

Spinner talks to Lykke Li.

Adult Swim is giving away a new song from The Tallest Man On Earth. Just because, I guess.

MP3: The Tallest Man On Earth – “Weather Of A Killing Kind”

In a perfect world, this would be an item about a new Jens Lekman album and world tour including a local date. But it’s not a perfect world so instead, it’s an item about a new EP entitled An Argument With Myself, due out September 20, and a US tour that doesn’t cross the border. The Secretly Canadian press release consists of an interview with Jens.

Stereogum has the first MP3 from the new Loney Dear record, entitled Hall Music and out on October 4. There’s also rumours/promises of North American dates in November.

Labrador Records, purveyors of the finest in Swedish pop, have put out a free label sampler entitled Stockholm Belongs To Us which collects tracks from all their active roster. Needless to say, it’s wonderful.

Consequence Of Sound and Pitchfork both have more details on Bjork’s Biophilia project, the album of which will be out September 27 and the app of which was released today – The Guardian takes it for a spin.

And speaking of Bjork, guess who’s going to Iceland Airwaves this October? Lots of people. Me amongst them. It’s unlikely I’ll be able to swing tickets to Bjork’s Reykjavík Concert Hall shows, but hey. Iceland!

Frank YangAt the entrance to Parc del Forum is a typically strange-looking piece of Barcelonan architecture, wedge-shaped and indigo-coloured, and within it is a series of stark white hallways leading to a huge auditorium. This is the L’Auditori and on the Saturday afternoon of Primavera Sound, it hosted the performance that I had been looking forward to only a little bit less than Pulp the night before: John Cale leading the BCN216 orchestra in a performance of his Paris 1919 album – a recipe for greatness if ever there was one.

The ingredients for said recipe were the kilt-clad Cale handling vocals and keyboards whilst leading the 19-piece orchestra and a three-piece rock band through a sumptuous reading of his 1973 album, with Cale’s huge voice carrying its musical riches, both joyous and melancholic, to the furthest corners of the packed concert hall. Also, I’m used to hearing the album with the clicks and crackles of the LP and its seventies-era studio fidelity – to behold it in such bold, rich and three-dimensional tones was really a revelation. Truly, this is an album that deserves to be ranked as one of the all-time greats, and anyone who disagrees simply hasn’t heard it.

It’d be nice if the same could be said about the material that Cale used to pad out the set; after the orchestra decamped, Cale strapped on a guitar to kick off a set that was both traditional and experimental rock. I won’t claim to be anything resembling an expert on Cale’s solo repertoire, but while some of it was interesting and there were indisputable moments of beauty contained therein, the strongest impression was that it was musically overcooked thanks to some excessive solos. It got better when the orchestra returned to fill things out, but the remainder of the set certainly didn’t measure up to the album recital that preceded it – that was just magical.

It’s a shame I didn’t sneak out of the theatre earlier because it would have meant catching more than a couple songs of Warpaint’s set over on the Llevant stage. I was surprised they were playing the second largest stage at the festival, but perhaps I underestimated the benefits of all their European touring. Our time together wasn’t long but a little bit of their intensely chilled-out space rock is better than none, and few bands look like they have as good a time on stage together as Warpaint does. Bonus points to Jenny Lee Lindberg for rocking the Rosie The Riveter livery up there.

It’s kind of a shame there’s so little grass at Parc del Forum, as lying on a patch of green watching the sun set behind the stage would have been the ideal setting for Fleet Foxes’ Spanish debut (according to them). After all of the big productions that the San Miguel stage had hosted thus far, their stripped down yet soaring folk-rock was a nice change of pace. Robin Pecknold’s voice not always able to soar past the dense instrumentation in the mix, but when needed, like on “White Winter Hymnal”, the extra lift from the band’s harmonies and audience singalong saved the day. It was also interesting to note that “Helplessness Blues”, the title track from their not-even a month-old new album, has already been elevated to set closer. Bold.

The original game plan had been to pop back to L’Auditori to see at least some of Mercury Rev’s live recreation of Deserters Songs, but an excessively long turnover between the audience for the last show and this one prompted me to bail and instead indulge my German industrial rock joneses with Einstürzende Neubauten back at the Ray-Ban stage. Except it turns out I don’t actually have and German industrial joneses and so after a couple times it was time to head back to the San Miguel stage and grab some pavement in anticipation of PJ Harvey.

As keen as I was to finally get to see Polly Jean Harvey live and as much as I liked her latest album Let England Shake, I was well aware that this latest release might not be the best album to see her perform live, particularly in a festival setting. And any hopes that she might revert to rocker form for just one evening were shelved when she took the stage, resplendent in white Victorian gown and armed with an autoharp, under intense spotlights at far stage right while her bandmates were set up at far stage left and opened up with the title track of the new record.

The stark, restrained performance was as theatrical in its own way as the Flaming Lips’ set a few nights earlier, with Harvey’s movements and positioning onstage extremely calculated and deliberate and interaction with the audience kept to an absolute minimum. The set comprised almost all of Let England Shake, with its meditations on war and history setting an odd tone against the Primavera backdrop – particularly for those in the crowd trying to dance to descriptions of the horrors of World War I battlefields, but also a fascinating one.

Even when Harvey delved into her varied back catalog, with the oppositely-themed To Bring You My Love the most visited, the songs were recast in Let England Shake dress, some even rearragned to be led on the autoharp. Trying to reconcile the chasteness of what I was seeing with the sensuality of Harvey’s persona circa 1995, from whence I remembered those songs, was an interesting exercise. Some of the old Harvey raucousness began to creep in later on with Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea‘s “Big Exit” and To Bring You My Love‘s “Meet Ze Monsta” proving that for all the white she could and would still get dirty, but rather than mark the mark the start of a fresher, rawer and more crowd-pleasing portion of the show, it was the end. There was no encore.

And there, at a little past midnight on Saturday evening, did my first Primavera Sound experience end – while there was still plenty to see, an early morning flight out dictated that getting out then to be the prudent thing to do. I won’t say it’ll be my last Primavera, though – besides the perks of getting to visit Barcelona, it was an impressively-run festival (I can say this because I didn’t partake in the cash-card fiasco that marred day one for beer-drinkers) with a ridiculous lineup.
Big but not too big, if they assemble another perfect storm of acts I want/need to see (Ride/Slowdive/Lush reunions in 2012 holla) then I can certainly see myself returning. And if you’re never been but have considered it, I heartily encourage you to do so. For the curious, all my set and atmosphere shots (from the crowd) are up on Flickr, as are all my pics from Barcelona and London over the last couple weeks. If you’re a holiday snaps kind of person.

And the wrap out the week…

The Quietus talks to Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue about Deserter’s Songs and also their new album plans.

Exclaim reports that New York Euro-poppers Ivy have completed a new album, their first in seven years since In The Clear. No title or release date as of yet but the first single will arrive next week.

Aquarium Drunkard interviews The Radio Dept. guitarist Martin Larsson.

The Line Of Best Fit meets I Break Horses, whose debut Hearts is out August 15.

DIY interviews Emmy The Great, whose second album Virtue is released on June 13. Any postal service strike had better be over before my copy arrives or there may be some… unpleasantness.

Video: Emmy The Great – “Iris”

Drowned In Sound talks Lupercalia with Patrick Wolf. The new record is out June 20 in the UK.

NPR is streaming a KCRW session with Hot Chip.

Shoko IshikawaIf you’ve been reading this site for a little while, you may have noted that as of this Saturday – rapture notwithstanding – I’ll be en route to (hopefully) sunny Barcelona for a week and then on to London for a few days as a chaser. And if you’ve been reading this site for a while longer, you may recall that no other band more vividly conjures memories of my last visit to the England than The Clientele. Which is why the existence of Amor de Días, which is the musical pairing of Clientele frontman Alasdair MacLean and Lupe Núñez-Fernández, the Spanish half of Pipas, seems like it should be the perfect soundtrack for this trip.

As you might expect from the pairing of two artists known for delicately-rendered, beautiful pop, their debut Street Of The Love Of Days is an idyllic, gossamer-sounding collection of songs that somehow manages to sound equally English and Spanish without overtly trying (okay, the lyrics sung in Spanish was probably deliberate, but you know what I mean). And though the album is about four years in the making, recorded in the downtime between other projects, it feels breezy enough that if told it was tracked over the course of a week in some countryside villa, you’d have no reason to doubt it. No reason except for the understated but meticulous craftsmanship thats gone into it, that is – though the instrumentation is primarily acoustic, lightly orchestrated and relatively sparse, the dreamlike atmosphere that it’s used to create is sumptuous. This is the sound of long days, open skies and grassy fields; not necessarily what my actual trip will entail, but if it’s as peaceful and lovely as this record, I will happily take it.

All that said, this silver lining is not without its cloud – while I am heading over to their home and native lands, Amor de Días will be coming to mine and I will be missing their show at The Horseshoe on May 25, where they’ll be opening up for fellow musical couple Damon & Naomi. Everyone who’s said how envious they are of my trip ought to go to this show if just to spite me.

Allmusic gets the pair to list off some of the influences on their sound, complete with video samples, while TBD talks to Núñez-Fernández.

MP3: Amor de Días – “Bunhill Fields”
MP3: Amor de Días – “New Wine”
Video: Amor de Días – “Late Mornings”
Stream: Amor de Días / Street Of The Love Of Days

WBUR talks to Damon & Naomi about the Galaxie 500 days. And back in the duo’s present, News & Observer talks to them about their new record False Beats & True Hearts is out now and available to stream. As noted above, they’re at The Horseshoe on May 25.

MP3: Damon & Naomi – “Walking Backwards”
Video: Damon & Naomi – “Nettles & Ivy”
Stream: Damon & Naomi / False Beats and True Hearts

Spin sits Will Sheff of Okkervil River and Steve Earle down together for a chat while The Chronicle Herald and Riverfront Times talk to Sheff and Earle on their own, respectively. Okkervil are at The Phoenix on June 10, Earle at the Molson Amphitheatre August 20.

Pitchfork talks to Whitey McConnaughy, director of the cats-gone-wild video for Superchunk’s “Crossed Wires”.

Video: Superchunk – “Crossed Wires”

Check out the first MP3 from the new David Bazan record Strange Negotiations, due out May 24. He plays Lee’s Palace on June 14.

MP3: David Bazan – “Wolves At The Door”

Also in town on June 14, though at The Mod Club, are The Antlers. PopMatters has an interview with frontman Peter Silberman.

Spin, The Chicago Tribune and JAM talk to Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard. They play The Phoenix tonight and the Molson Amphitheatre on July 29. Codes & Keys is out May 31.

The Sentimentalist interviews The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, in town at The Opera House on August 2.

The Radio Dept. will be reissuing their entire catalog – all three albums – on vinyl come June 7, excellent news for those who like their fuzzy pop in the highest fidelity. Lesser Matters, Pet Grief and Clinging To A Scheme will all be available on wax come June 7 and this is particularly good news since Pet Grief has never been available on LP. Thank the band with a hug when they play The Horseshoe on May 29.

MP3: The Radio Dept. – “Why Won’t You Talk About It?”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “The Worst Taste In Music”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “Heaven’s On Fire”

It’s good of NME to want to introduce you to Sweden’s I Break Horses by way of a download of their track “Hearts”, but if you maybe don’t want a 39MB .WAV file, I’ve gone ahead and made an MP3 for you below. Think grand, M83-ish synth-gaze. It’s nice.

MP3: I Break Horses – “Hearts”
Video: I Break Horses – “Hearts”

Pitchfork has got a couple new MP3s from jj, who’re giving them away just because.

MP3: jj – “No One Can Touch Us Tonight”
MP3: jj – “Ice”

The Washington Examiner and Phoenix profile Lykke Li, in town at The Phoenix for a sold-out show on May 22.

Blurt reports that New York-based Japanese pop act Cibo Matto have reunited after more than a decade for a tour and a new album, due out sometime next year. In the meantime, catch them at The Mod Club Lee’s Palace on July 16, tickets $20 in advance.

Video: Cibo Matto – “Know Your Chicken”

Also Japanese-bred, New York-based and just a little odd are Peelander-Z; they’re coming back to town for NXNE and will be at The Silver Dollar on June 18 at midnight. Tampa Bay Online has an interview with Peelander Red and for the uninitiated, The AV Club has a Peelander primer.

MP3: Peelander-Z – “Tacos Tacos Tacos”

Grinderman have a new video. It’s animated. It’s not for kids.

Video: Grinderman – “Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man”

And continuing with the Nick Cave, just out and currently streaming are the four latest Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds reissues, though not the bonus material. And the fancy remastering may not have survived after the digital streaming compressions. But if you’re in the mood for some Bad Seeds and don’t have any handy, it’s your lucky day.

Stream: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Let Love In
Stream: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Murder Ballads
Stream: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / The Boatman’s Call
Stream: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / No More Shall We Part

Spinner talks to Howling Bells frontwoman Juanita Stein about making album number three, due out sometime this Summer.