Laine HurleySo after long, long last we’re less than a month out from the release of Emmy The Great’s debut album First Love. Longtime readers (or anyone who’s been here for the past year) know that I’ve been anxiously awaiting this record for what seems like forever, making do with a makeshift compilation of singles, compilation tracks, demos and live recordings.

But the February 2 release is locked in – it’s already available to pre-order via Rough Trade (with bonus live disc!) and the final tracklisting was recently announced – and I’m pleased that I’m only familiar with six of the 13 tracks, so more than half the record will still be new to me. And I’m also pleased that “24” made the cut – it’s one of my favourite Emmy songs, using the television show as a launching point for a poignant and pointed farewell to a dysfunctional relationship. It’s Emmy at her most mesmerizing, an opinion that puts me completely at odds with this otherwise mostly positive Gigwise review of the album. What can I say, besides that I’m right and he’s wrong.

The MP3 is an audio rip of a videotaped performance from the online program Welcome To Our TV Show, which appeared to be just documents of living room concerts from English artists – watch the Emmy clip (starts at around 1:10) but there’s lots of good stuff to enjoy in the archives.

The Daily Growl has also declared this an Emmy day, and is offering audio rips of a recent BBC session to add to the collection. Which will also bring my percentage of the album’s songs heard up a tad.

MP3: Emmy The Great – “24” (live on Welcome To Our Show, January 2008)
Video: Emmy The Great – “24” (live on Welcome To Our Show, January 2008)

As for the show from which the song draws its inspiration, I justifiably washed my hands of the whole thing after the abominable sixth season but was still persuaded to check out the 24: Redemption TV movie that ran a couple months ago… and it wasn’t bad. Stuck with a two-hour timeline, it was lean and focused and actually pretty engrossing, so I’ll be giving it one more chance when the new season starts up this Sunday night – but it’s on a very, very short leash. The fact that this season is set in DC rather than LA gives hope that the useless mooks from CTU won’t show up too much, but there’s plenty of time for things to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Trailer: 24 season seven

NME lists off their top 10 new acts to look out for in 2009, led by Florence & The Machine, who I’ve already told you to look out for. BBC also thinks she’ll do well this year, placing her third in their “Sound of 2009” new music list.

Pre-orders of Sky Larkin’s debut The Golden Spike will get you the album in MP3 form immediately, as well as a live recording of the album to go along with it. It’s out February 9.

Rumour is now fact – Glasvegas will make their Toronto debut on April 3 at the Mod Club. Tickets are $21 and go on sale this Saturday, January 10. There’s interviews with the band at The San Jose Mercury News and Kansas City Star.

Filter has a typically entertaining interview with Oasis’ Noel Gallagher.

XLR8R gets nostalgic about shoegaze, gets in touch with members of Ride, Chapterhouse, Lush and Slowdive amongst others and charts the scene’s rise, fall, and recent resurrection.

The Guardian checks in on former Long Blondes guitarist Dorian Cox, still recovering from the stroke that felled him last Summer and led to the band’s dissolution.

Electroqueer talks to Patrick Wolf about forthcoming album Battle and getting beaten up by security at a Madonna show.

Robyn Hitchcock discusses the new Venus 3 album Goodnight Oslo, due February 17, with Chart.

WilcoJust before everything shut down for the holidays, a dispatch arrived from Wilco HQ detailing some of the band’s plans for the new year. Some of it was already known, in particular that work has begun on album number seven and is targeted for a Spring release.

But they also let out a bit of new news, namely that they’ll be releasing their first official concert DVD in the new year. You may recall that the shows that went into the Kicking Television live set were supposed to be taped for a companion DVD but that was scratched because of dissatisfaction with the quality of things. Well they enlisted the talents of Brendan Canty and Christoph Green of Trixie Films, producers of the Burn To Shine video series and the Sunken Treasure Jeff Tweedy live DVD, to accompany them on their Winter 2008 tour and this time, the fruits of their labours have been deemed fit to release.

And so a DVD release entitled Ashes Of American Flags will hit stores sometime in February or March of next year. More details and previews coming in the new year, and it’s worth noting that the shows recorded for this set came immediately after the band’s five-night stand at the Riviera in Chicago where they explored every nook and cranny of the Wilco catalog – check out the set lists of a couple of the shows that will be part of the DVD, and get excited.

And Jeff’s son Spencer has a blog and, well, it’s more interesting than this one.

MP3: Wilco – “Ashes Of American Flags” (live on Austin City Limits)

Spin declares Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold as their “voice of the year”.

Wireless Bollinger interviews Death Cab For Cutie.

Sterogum is offering the first download from Malajube’s new album Labyrinthes, out February 10.

WOXY is offering a double-CD’s worth of free downloads comprising the best of their Lounge Act studio sessions, featuring acts such as Ra Ra Riot, The Kills, Okkervil River and Lightspeed Champion.

The Washington Post talks to Thao Nguyen, whom they declare one of their “best of 2008”.

Nickel Eye, aka Nikolai Fraiture, aka the bassist from The Strokes, brings his solo project to the El Mocambo on January 20. Low Vs Diamond accompany. Fraiture discusses the project with Billboard.

Dig For Fire has a video feature/interview with Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine.

Though The Long Blondes called it a day back in October, they still had a final farewell gift for their fans in the form of a Christmas song.

MP3: The Long Blondes – “Christmas Is Cancelled”

Frightened Rabbit contemplate various contemporary Christmas songs for The Guardian.

Photo via Murmur

Those fancy double-disc deluxe edition reissue sets have become fairly commonplace recently as the labels try to take advantage of the type of people willing to buy the same album over and over again while they’re still alive, but that doesn’t mean they’re not – at least sometimes – getting it right. Case in point, the announcement that R.E.M.’s debut album Murmur will be getting said treatment this Fall.

Pitchfork has your specifics, but basically you’re looking at the standard remastered album on disc one – maybe the same remaster job as the last couple times Murmur was re-released? – and for the second disc, a complete live show recorded here in Toronto circa 1983. The gig was held at a no-longer existent dive called Larry’s Hideaway which if memory serves (and by memory I mean Google – I was 8 at the time and wouldn’t have had the experience with Toronto’s live music dives that I do now) was located just a few blocks from here at Carlton and Jarvis. Anyone know if the place still exists in some form and if so, what it is now? I’m curious.

The Murmur deluxe edition is out November 25. Update: Blurt has some thoughts on what they view as a flawed reissue (thanks to Eugene for the link).

Video: R.E.M. – “Radio Free Europe”

Though guitarist Damian Cox has recovered from his stroke well enough to blog, he’s not sure if or when he’ll be able to play guitar again so as a result, The Long Blondes have called it a day. Details at NME. Singles, the compilation of their early singles, is out in the UK today.

MP3: The Long Blondes – “Once And Never Again”
MP3: The Long Blondes – “Here Comes The Serious Bit”
MP3: The Long Blondes – “Guilt”

Relix has specifics on M Ward’s new record Hold Time, due out February 17.

Pitchfork has an interview with a surprisingly lucid and non-crazy pills Kevin Barnes. Of Montreal’s new one Skeletal Lamping is out tomorrow and they’re at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on October 28.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune talks to Lucinda Williams.

Pop Reckoning and Paste interview Rachael Yamagata.

Sloan’s Chris Murphy talks to The Halifax Chronicle-Herald. They’re at the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night.

So while I usually try and actually get a substantive post up for Mondays, this week will instead kick off only the slim bits above and a weak-ass apology. Rather than actually do any listening or writing this weekend, I was instead coding, trying to get a fairly significant upgrade to this here site working and while it’s tantalizingly close, it’s not there yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Hopefully before I leave for New York, at the very least.