Broken BellsSo I’m sitting here on Wednesday night with a headache and a pile of links and no particular idea what I’m going to do with them. Got some contests and the last of the SxSW stuff to dole out over the long weekend, but for today, it’s gonna be one of those housecleaning posts.

Starting with the announcement of Broken Bells’ first North American tour, which includes a June 2 date at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto. The collaboration between workaholic producer Danger Mouse and Shins frontman James Mercer yielded a self-titled debut last month and while the little bit I heard of it at SxSW – from the street while they played in a parking garage – didn’t especially wow me, it’s been reasonably well-received and I feel like I should, as a Shins fan, at least give it a fair shake. The band’s set at the NPR showcase from SxSW is available to stream for anyone wondering how it translates live. Support on this tour will come from The Morning Benders, who themselves are presently on tour and will be in town at The Drake on April 14.

Video: Broken Bells – “The High Road”

Moving on to stuff coming through town over the next few months – Serena-Maneesh’s appearance tomorrow night has been moved from The Great Hall to the Drake Underground; appropriate since the Norwegians’ new record S-M 2: Abyss In B Minor was recorded in a cave. Cave? Underground? Get it? Bah.

Rolling Stone declares Swedes Love Is All to be “breaking” and talks to frontwoman Josephine Olausson. They bring their new record Two Thousand and Ten Injuries to the Horseshoe on Saturday night, April 3.

MP3: Love Is All – “Bigger, Bolder”

NOW, hour.ca and The Chicago Tribune interview The xx, in town at the Phoenix on April 4 and again at the Kool Haus on April 20.

In addition to two shows at Lee’s Palace next week – April 6 and 7 – the Drive-By Truckers will be doing an in-store across the street at Sonic Boom on the 7th at 5PM in what’s being billed as “Patterson Hood & Members of Drive By Truckers”. In other words, expect to see Hood with an acoustic guitar and a passel of songs, and maybe some of his bandmates will show up if they feel so inclined. I warn you though, Cooley, that if you try to stand on the monitors while taking a solo you WILL hit your head on the ceiling – you can have that one for free. Spinner has a chat with Hood about his Southern roots.

State and Owen Pallett, who plays the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on April 8.

Donewaiting interviews Fanfarlo frontman Simon Balthazar. They play Lee’s Palace on April 9.

Plants & Animals are celebrating the April 20 release of their second album La La Land with a free show at the Horseshoe that night. Beatroute has an interview.

The Province and The Montreal Gazette profile Dan Mangan, in town at the Horseshoe on April 22.

The Fly and MOG talk to Jonsi about his new solo record Go, which is due out next Tuesday. The whole album is currently streaming at NPR and he has two dates at the Sound Academy on April 30 and May 1.

Stream: Jonsi / Go

The Fly talks to Caribou main man Dan Snaith about his new record Swim. It’s out April 20 and he plays the Phoenix on May 3.

The Joy Formidable frontwoman Ritzy Bryan gives The Fly a sneak preview of their upcoming full-length follow-up to last year’s A Balloon Called Moaning; a record which is getting a North American release on May 4, the same day they play a free, sure to be awesome show at the Horseshoe. Strange Glue has the remainder of their North American tour dates.

Bad Veins have been added as support for Two Door Cinema Club’s show at Wrongbar on May 17. This will be their first time in Toronto, after their show with Now Now Every Children last Summer was snookered by a dead van. Spinner has an interview with the Cincinnati duo.

MP3: Bad Veins – “Gold & Warm”
MP3: Bad Veins – “Go Home”

The Sadies will celebrate the release of their new record Dark Circles with a show at Lee’s Palace on May 22; tickets $18 in advance. They’ll also be your Canada Day entertainment at Harbourfront Centre – July 1, yo.

Exclaim converses with John K Samson of The Weakerthans, who play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on May 26.

Spin has a stream of a new song from the second Born Ruffians record Say It, due June 1, and they also note that there’ll be a show at the Horseshoe in Toronto on May 28.

German electronica duo Mouse On Mars have a date at the Drake Underground on June 1, though their next record isn’t due out until next year. Sometimes you just have to get out of the house, I guess.

Video: Mouse On Mars – “Actionist Respoke”

His two nights at the Drake Underground on June 11 and 12 will be super-cozy, but Robyn Hitchcock takes intimate a step further in this Black Cab Session.

Tiger Weekly talks to Ted Leo, who brings his Pharmacists to Lee’s Palace on June 26.

And now to the stuff not coming through town in the next while – Black Mountain frontman Stephen McBean gives Exclaim a sneak preview of their next album, tentatively entitled Wilderness Heart and due out later in the Summer.

Soundproof and Spinner talk to Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon, who has offered a tribute to Alex Chilton in the form of a cover of “Thirteen”.

MP3: Woodpigeon – “Thirteen”

Bad Panda Records Q&A’s Great Lake Swimmer Tony Dekker and offers up a free live track to download.

MP3: Great Lake Swimmers – “Gonna Make It Through This Year” (live)

Woodhands have released a new video for the best tune – in my humble opinion – from Remorsecapade.

Video: Woodhands – “Dissembler”

The Line Of Best Fit and Drowned In Sound talk to Joel Gibb of The Hidden Cameras.

Tokyo Police Club have set a June 8 release date for their second album Champ and are giving away the first MP3 from it on their website; The Brock Press talks to keyboardist Graham Wright about the new record.

An acoustic version of one of the tracks from Bettie Serveert’s new record Pharmacy Of Love is up for grabs.

MP3: Bettie Serveert – “Semaphore” (acoustic)

Yours Truly has a video session with Taken By Trees.

4AD reports that Camera Obscura and Richard Hawley will be releasing a split-7″ on May 17 wherein the former covers the latter’s “The Nights Are Cold” while the latter remixes the former’s “The Sweetest Thing”. Clearly, I must have this.

NME reports that Glasvegas drummer Caroline McKay has left the band.

The Line Of Best Fit and The Fly have interviews with Laura Marling, whose I Speak Because I Can is out next week in North America, though for now it doesn’t appear there’s any vinyl edition of said album on the horizon. Bah.

Editors bassist Russell Leetch talks to The Line Of Best Fit.

Ever NalensThis isn’t quite an introduction as I first said hello to A Sunny Day In Glasgow back in December 2006, but considering they’re far from the same band they were at the time of their first EP, I think we can let it slide. When I first took notice of the Philadelphia outfit, they were a family unit – Ben Daniels on songwriting and instrumentation with twin sisters Robin and Lauren on vocals – with some clear genetic predilection for blending wispy melodies with fuzzy, clattering programming and cut-and-paste production, the net result sounding like a proud standard-bearer for electro-twee-gaze, if such a genre ever existed.

And while that sounds like the sort of thing that would be target-marketed to my musical sensibilities, I found their 2007 debut Scribble Mural Comic Journal a little too much of a head trip to really fall in love with. The melodies, while present, were buried under reverb and white noise and the song structures deliberately bent into disorienting shapes. Clearly this was deliberate aesthetic and musical choice on their part, and points should probably be given and not taken away for not doing the easy “pop” thing, but I never found myself wanting to listen to it much.

The follow-up, last year’s Ashes Grammar, continued along the path forged by the debut but with enough added clarity and growth to make it a far superior effort, at least by my standards. The aural gauze that swaddled all of Comic Journal has been thinned out enough that it’s easier and more enjoyable to pick out the many tones and textures at play. The vocals are still deliberately ghost-like, but given stronger melodies to wrap themselves around, they can’t help but make their presence more strongly felt. It’s a record that manages to be much more what I wanted to hear from them and yet remaining very much what they envision for themselves – win-win.

So of course as soon as the record came out, the band went off and reinvented themselves, personnel-wise. Through a series of circumstances, both sisters left the band and a new lineup more suited to touring was assembled around the one constant of Ben Daniels. It was this ASDG Mk2 that I saw a couple weeks ago at SxSW and who surprised me just how direct-sounding the live renderings of their songs are. Granted, reproducing the records verbatim would be as difficult as it is pointless, but it was still a bit of a shock – pleasantly so – how willing and able they were reinvent themselves as a relatively straight pop band on stage.

Due to an inability to tell time, I only caught the tail end of their performance but it was enough that for all the live music options in Toronto this coming Friday night, April 2, I’ve committed to catching their local debut at the Garrison. Tickets for the show are $10 in advance but courtesy of Collective Concerts, I’ve got a pair of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to spend A Sunny Day In Glasgow” in the subject line and your full name in the body, and have that in to me before midnight, March 31.

aux.tv, The Daily Free Press and Spinner have interviews with ASDG leader Ben Daniels.

MP3: A Sunny Day In Glasgow – “Sigh Inhibitionist”
MP3: A Sunny Day In Glasgow – “Ashes Grammar/Ashes Math”
MP3: A Sunny Day In Glasgow – “Best Summer Ever”
MP3: A Sunny Day In Glasgow – “Watery (Drowning is Just Another Word for Being Buried Alive Under Water)”
Video: A Sunny Day In Glasgow – “A Mundane Phone Call To Jack Parsons”
Video: A Sunny Day In Glasgow – “So Bloody Tight”
MySpace: A Sunny Day In Glasgow

NOW and The Boston Herald have feature pieces on Beach House, playing a sold-out show at the Opera House tomorrow night and then returning for the Toronto Island Concert on June 19.

Faster Louder talks to Neil Halstead about the legacy of Slowdive. A legacy which is being anthologized (again) in a new collection entitled Shining Breeze, out April 26 in the UK. There’s details on the collection over here – looks like it’s a mix of album and single/EP tracks, but nothing that wasn’t made available via the reissues in 2005 or the presumably out of print 2004 best-of Catch The Breeze.

California Chronicle interviews The Big Pink.

Field Music talks to eye.

The Pipettes have released a new video from their forthcoming record Earth vs Pipettes, due out on June 28.

Video: The Pipettes – “Stop The Music”

NME chats with Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine, who has released a new video for “The Dog Days Are Over” from Lungs. I thought the original one was fun and fine, but if you’ve got budget to spend I guess you may as well. Florence is at the Kool Haus on April 10.

Video: Florence & The Machine – “The Dog Days Are Over” (new version)
Video: Florence & The Machine – “The Dog Days Are Over” (old version)

The Music Magazine talks to Emmy The Great about how things are progressing on album number two. Answer: slowly.

BBC6 and Clash talk to Laura Marling about her new record I Speak Because I Can, out in North American on April 6. There’s a couple videos of the song “Rambling Man” now available – the official video and a Black Cab Session recorded at last year’s SxSW festival.

Video: Laura Marling – “Rambling Man”

Spinner talks to Mumford & Sons about their just-released Interface session.

Toro Y Moi has had to cancel Tuesday night’s appearance at the Drake Underground as a result of having his gear nicked in New York the other night. Headliners The Ruby Suns are still performing.

Sloan will be marking Record Store Day on April 17 with an in-store at Sonic Boom, time TBA. Blurt has a piece on why Record Store Day and record stores in general are awesome.

Rufus Wainwright will be performing at the Elgin-Winter Garden on June 15. His opera Prima Donna is running that week as part of LuminaTO, but it seems this date will be a concert from Rufus himself. Update: PR just confirmed the 15th is a solo Rufus show and a second show has been added for June 17.

Frank YangThe Saturday night of Canadian Musicfest featured a considerable shift in musical gears, starting out with the gentle, harp-led orchestrations of Joanna Newsom at the Phoenix – not a CMF show and which will be written up tomorrow – and ending with some big, loud guitar rock at Rancho Relaxo. Who says I don’t have varied tastes?

An expedient streetcar and longer-than-expected set meant that I was able to catch a couple songs from Montreal’s Kill The Lights. It almost seems wrong to say I’d seen them before, as June 2006 seems like a lifetime ago and the band has undergone changes in the interim, most notably losing co-lead singer Steph Hanna sometime in the past few years (I haven’t been keeping up). That said, Kill The Lights circa 2010 didn’t sound too different from what I remembered; their collective music collection clearly overlapped with mine in and around the drone-rock/shoegazer end of things, but they took their influences in a decidedly more extroverted if somewhat anonymous direction. Spending some time with last year’s Fog Area revealed more nuance than was particularly detectable live – they like it loud – and some more personality. The best moments sound like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club with a more electronic sheen and a bit more jump in their step; the rest is just kind of forgettable.

Photos: Kill The Lights @ Rancho Relaxo – March 13, 2010
Video: Kill The Lights – “Prince Pang”

I’d seen Providence, Rhode Island’s The Brother Kite in Austin, New York City and Montreal but never Toronto, even though I was the one who put together the show for their last visit here back in Fall of 2007 (I was still at Pop Montreal when they played Tiger Bar). It’s not that I was following them around, necessarily, it’s simply that our paths crossed at various festivals and why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to see the band who put out one of my favourite records of the past decade in 2006’s Waiting For The Time To Be Right any chance I got? But that they were here again and playing just down the street from home was extra sweet. No airfare required!

Not surprisingly, their set drew a fair bit from their new record Isolation, wholly in the can but still in search a loving home to release it into the world. Though the new material takes a leaner, more spacious approach than the Ride-meets-Beach Boys lushness that made Time such a joy, it’s still immediate and wonderful – what does it say about a band that they can step away from a winning formula and still impress almost as much? It was great to hear new material from them and the contrast it provided to the older material, with its soaring guitars and melodies, made the familiar songs sound even more majestic. It remains a crime that a band this good remains so unknown and underappreciated, but I did take some satisfaction as looking at some of the impressed faces around the room and knowing that they were at least now that much better-known and appreciated.

A few tracks from Isolation (as well as their other two albums) are available to stream at their website.

Photos: The Brother Kite @ Rancho Relaxo – March 13, 2010
MP3: The Brother Kite – “Get On, Me”
Video: The Brother Kite – “I’m Not The Only One”
MySpace: The Brother Kite

Spinner, Owl & Bear and SxSW profile Slow Club, one of my must-see acts for SxSW this week. They’re playing Eastbound & Found on Thursday at 3:15PM (and other days/places but let them plug their own shows).

The Guardian profiles Laura Marling, whose new album I Speak Because I Can is streaming in its entirety over at The Times, a week before its March 23 UK release and three weeks before it comes out in North America on April 6.

Stream: Laura Marling / I Speak Because I Can

The Futureheads’ new album The Chaos will be getting a North American release on June 1.

Video: The Futureheads – “Heartbeat Song”

Nota bene: Florence & The Machine’s April 10 show at the Phoenix has been moved to the Kool Haus. Original tickets still valid for the new venue and 1000 or so more tickets are now available.

Rock rules at the Mod Club on April 28 as Band Of Skulls and The Whigs roll into town. The Whigs released their new record In The Dark today; stream it over at Spinner, who also have an interview with Band Of Skulls.

MP3: Band Of Skulls – “Blood”
Stream: The Whigs / In The Dark

The Guardian, AV Club, SxSW and NPR have interviews with Frightened Rabbit, who have a date at the Opera House on May 4.

And what, you may ask, could possibly prompt me to miss Frightened Rabbit’s second Toronto show in a row? Well, the fact that Welsh trio The Joy Formidable, one of my top new discoveries of the past year or so, will be playing at the Horseshoe that same evening – May 4 – as part of Nu Music Nites (read: free). Now I love me some Frightened Rabbit, but I’ll be seeing them this week at SxSW and they will be back. I would like to believe that the world will discover how excellent The Joy Formidable are and they, too, will be touring the world regularly but… just in case, I’m going to this show. And if you’re not at Frabbits, you should too. The Alternate Side has an interview and video session with the band. Their debut mini-album A Balloon Called Moaning is due for a North American release in March or April and their as-yet untitled first full-length is due out in June.

MP3: The Joy Formidable – “Austere”
MP3: The Joy Formidable – “Greyhounds In The Slips”
Video: The Joy Formidable – “Popinjay”

Jamie Lidell has set a date for the Mod Club on June 12, tickets $20. His new record Compass is due out May 18 and Paste has a chat.

MP3: Jamie Lidell – “Multiply”

BBC talks to The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess about their decision to mark the 20th anniversary of their debut Some Friendly with a reissue and tour.

The Music Magazine has an interview with Jake Evans, the one member of Bad Lieutenant who was never in New Order.

Frank YangHad Tuesday night’s Laura Marling show taken place at originally-intended venue of the Drake Underground rather than its final locale of Lee’s Palace (just under three times larger), then there’d have been throngs of disappointed fans either milling around outside the Parkdale hotel or moping at home instead of nearly packing the Annex club (and burrito outlet), eager to hear Marling preview material from her forthcoming second album I Speak Because I Can, due out April 6. And though this wasn’t Marling’s first visit to the city, her stock has risen considerably since her Toronto debut at the Rivoli in October 2008 so for many, this was probably their first opportunity to see her live.

Just as he did a year and a half ago, multi-instrumentalist Marling co-conspirator Pete Roe was an unscheduled opener. Unfortunately, unlike last time I wasn’t there in time to see his short set. There’d still be plenty of Roe through the night, however, as he would remain onstage for pretty much the entire night as in addition to playing with Marling, he was making his debut as a touring member of Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel. The Denver outfit was apparently down a few members on account of a broken-down van, but what pieces they had on hand were plenty to make a great impression. As one look at the bearded Rateliff might have tipped off, their sound was decidedly traditional and rootsy but with enough character to stand out. Gothic-sounding without being grim and infused with a good sense of melody, they definitely marked themselves as an act to keep an eye out for when they release their new record later this year.

The advance word on I Speak Because I Can is that Marling has gotten dark, and in more ways than just her hair – an opinion borne out from the very first song of her set, the galloping new single “Devil’s Spoke”. From the sounds of the new material that made up most of her set, Marling has checked some of her more pop inclinations in favour of a more dramatic approach and it serves her well. Selections from Alas I Cannot Swim were held to just a few singles, but the new material sounded so good and was so clearly evidence of an artist who’s grown significantly in the past couple of years that there wasn’t going to be any complaining. In fact, most in attendance seemed so pleased to simply be seeing Marling perform that by and large, the audience actually shut up while she played.

Backed by Roe and The Wheel for the opening and closing portions of the set and performing solo for the middle, Marling was a far more confident performer than the girl I saw in 2008 or even last March at SxSW. Largely gone was the thousand-yard stare or sense of being somewhere else entirely, and in its place were more jokes and storytelling and general engagement with the crowd, and though she didn’t entirely realize where she was when she introduced her cover of Neil Young’s “The Needle And The Damage Done”, at least we know she wasn’t pandering to the city. And while she does the, “we’re just going to play our encore without leaving the stage” announcement every show, we got to hear “Alas I Cannot Swim” get charmingly waylaid by what she called, “unexpected giggles” and forgetting the words. A perfectly imperfect way to finish the show, and enough to satisfy until the new record and another visit arrives.

Panic Manual, MuchMusic and The Singing Lamb also have reviews of the show. Daytrotter posted a session with Nathaniel Rateliff last December.

Photos: Laura Marling, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel @ Lee’s Palace – February 9, 2010
MP3: Laura Marling – “Ghosts”
Video: Laura Marling – “Devil’s Spoke”
Video: Laura Marling – “Night Terror”
Video: Laura Marling – “New Romantic”
Video: Laura Marling – “Ghosts”
Video: Laura Marling – “My Manic & I”
Video: Laura Marling – “Cross Your Fingers”
MySpace: Laura Marling
MySpace: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel

NPR has a World Cafe session and MTV and The San Francisco Examiner interviews with Mumford & Sons, whose Sigh No More is out on February 16 in North America, the day after they play Lee’s Palace.

There’s now a track from Joanna Newsom’s forthcoming triple-album epic Have One On Me available to download. The album is out February 23 and she plays The Phoenix on March 13.

MP3: Joanna Newsom – “Kingfisher”

JAM has a profile on Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine. She is at the Phoenix on April 10.

Field Music talk to Spinner about their love of the album format, evidenced by their new double-set (Measure), due out next week. They will be at the Horseshoe on March 19.

The Control GroupSadness is Sarah Assbring’s stock in trade, a point I’ve rather drilled home in my reviews of her output as El Perro Del Mar – the 2007 self-title and 2008’s From The Valley To The Stars. While both records were beautiful in their downbeat demeanor, you couldn’t help but hope that Assbring would find a way to cheer up, if only for her own emotional well-being.

Unfortunately for Assbring – but fortunately for her listeners – delectable heartache is still the order of the day, and her third album Love Is Not Pop is again chock full of it, but the record stands a good distance apart from its predecessors for other reasons. Rather than the spare, ’50s doo-wop stylings that defined her previous work, Pop draws on a distinctly different aural palette. The core songwriting style and Assbring’s signature forlorn vocals remain, but the introduction of electronic textures and rhythms and Shields-y glider guitar overtop the spare (but occasionally orchestrated) arrangements is unexpected and welcome. Of course, the fact that the album proper is only seven tracks long, and the rest is padded out with remixes adds to the impression that this is a fresher, more sonically adventurous and dance-friendlier El Perro Del Mar. Actually, danceable might be a bit of a reach, but the extra tracks do showcase Assbring with an extra spring in her shuffle.

El Perro Del Mar is at the Mod Club on February 21 as part of a co-headlining tour with fellow Swede Taken By Trees, with the latter closing out this particular show. This is exciting as Victoria Bergsman – she who is Taken By Trees – isn’t especially predisposed to life on the road and hasn’t been to Toronto since the last visit from The Concretes. Unfortunately, it’s meant that Anna Ternheim, previously slated to open for El Perro Del Mar, will no longer be appearing. But maybe it’s a bit of a consolation that another MP3 from Taken By Trees’ East Of Eden is now up for grabs and is, appropriately enough, entitled “Anna”.

MP3: El Perro Del Mar – “Change Of Heart”
MP3: El Perro Del Mar – “Change Of Heart” (Rakamonie Remix)
MP3: Taken By Trees – “Anna”
Video: El Perro Del Mar – “Change Of Heart”
MySpace: El Perro Del Mar

Also Swedish but totally not sad are Love Is All. Their new record Two Thousand and Ten Injuries is out MArch 23 and they’re at the Horseshoe on April 3. Check out another track from the new album.

MP3: Love Is All – “Repetition”

Danish orchestral post-rock outfit Under Byen will release a new album in Alt Er Tabt on April 6.

Magnet Q&As Los Campesinos!, whom they’ve made guest editors of their site this week. Hope they hid all the breakables. Spinner, Islington Tribune, CMJ and Wales Online also have conversations, but don’t hand over the keys to the car. Los Campesinos! are at the Phoenix on April 20.

Laura Marling talks to NOW, The Visalia Times Delta and The San Francisco Examiner about making her new album I Speak Because I Can, out April 6. She plays Lee’s Palace on Tuesday night.

Chart, The Georgia Straight, The National Post, The Aquarian, San Jose Mercury News and The San Francisco Examiner talk to various members of Editors, who play the Phoenix on February 16.

Spin asks Dev Hynes about the secret origin of Lightspeed Champion. His second album Life Is Sweet! Pleased To Meet You, out February 16.

State has a word with Massive Attack, who’ve released a new video from Heligoland, out next week.

Video: Massive Attack – “Splitting The Atom”

Ska fans prepare to skank: The Specials reunion tour will include a stop in Toronto – the two-tone pioneers play the Sound Academy on April 19 – tickets $36.50 for floors, $46.50 for VIP balcony and The English Beat have a date at Lee’s Palace on May 18, tickets $23.50.

Video: The Specials – “Message To You Rudy”
Video: The English Beat – “Mirror In The Bathroom”

Pitchfork talks to Phoenix’s Thomas Mars about how it feels to be a Grammy Award winner.

The Music Fix has details on the next batch of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds reissues, which will arrive in 5.1 surround sound and with a plethora of bonus goodies, on April 5.

Aux.tv has assembled a guide to the many, many online video session sites out there in the wilds of the internet. Not comprehensive – five more started up while I was typing this sentence – but a good start.