MySpaceJust yesterday morning I was listening to The Cardigans’ wonderful and underappreciated Long Gone Before Daylight, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard any news about the new record from A Camp, Nina Persson’s solo project, in a while. Cue NME, who yesterday reported that said record – Colonia – will see the light of day on February 2 in the UK and Europe. Not sure if there’s a North American schedule on the books yet, though.

Don’t know if the background music at their website is any indication of the direction of the record, but there’s also a photo gallery of the band in the studio to whet one’s appetite. I had heard that they wouldn’t necessarily be continuing the alt.country vibe that made the now eight-year old (!) A Camp debut so delicious – Mark Linkous isn’t driving things this time – and while that’s sort of a shame, the fact that there’s a new record coming from Persson, Cardies or otherwise, is good news any way you look at it. Core collaborators on the record are Niclas Frisk and Persson’s husband/Shudder To Think guitarist Nathan Larson and there are guest spots from James Iha and Joan Wasser, amongst others. And the album cover looks like this. That’s all I got right now. So until there’s more, here’s a live Neil Young cover I posted a while back and the vids from the first album.

MP3: A Camp – “On The Beach” (live)
Video: A Camp – “I Can Buy You”
Video: A Camp – “Song For The Leftovers”
MySpace: A Camp

State interviews Lykke Li, set for a date at the Phoenix on February 6.

Following up on last year’s Guilt By Association covers compilation featuring the likes of Superchunk, Luna and The Concretes covering songs they deemed to be guilty pleasures, Pitchfork has details on the sequel. Volume two doesn’t have quite the star power of the first and its mandate is shifted slightly to encompass Top 40 pop from the ’80s through today (guilty pleasure or not), and as such you’ve got the likes of Frightened Rabbit, My Brightest Diamond and Matt Pond PA amongst the coverers and Toto, Billy Joel and Katy Perry amongst the coverees. Though the CD isn’t out until February 17 of next year, you can stream it below and it’s already available digitally from the likes of eMusic. A third volume is also already in the works. Check out the My Brightest Diamond contribution to the new comp, as well as the Journey cover by Petra Haden that opened volume one.

MP3: My Brightest Diamond – “Tainted Love”
MP3: Petra Haden – “Don’t Stop Believin'”
Stream: Guilt By Association 2
MySpace: Guilt By Association

Clash Q&As Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison and Pitchfork reveals that the band has contributed a track to a compilation that accompanies Australian zine The Lifted Brow. And since said zine is far from cheap ($40!), don’t feel bad about downloading said track, also from the ‘Fork.

MP3: Frightened Rabbit – “Last Tango In Brooklyn”

Chart discusses Intimacy and mythology with Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke.

Drowned In Sound has posted part two of their interview with Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff.

Beach House have rolled out a new video. Just in time for Winter.

Video: Beach House – “Used To Be”

Prefix interviews The Rosebuds.

Blurt offers a short feature on Wolf Parade.

Creative Loafing talks to Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene. They’re playing two nights at the Sound Academy on November 27 and 28.

Also now doing a two-fer at the former Docks is the Jingle Bell Rock tour featuring Metric, Tokyo Police Club, The Dears and Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains. There’s now a December 12 show to go along with the originally announced December 13 date.

Caribou has revealed what he did with his $20,000 in Polaris Prize winnings – part went to finance the next album and the rest went to charity. Next year, I think the money needs to go to someone seriously decadent. Artistic merit be damned, that money should be spent on hookers and blow.

Matthew Sweet talks pottery with Blurt.

Frank YangThe Dakota Tavern, a little subterranean rec room of a bar, has fried chicken. This is a very exciting fact to me, as I’ve been at a loss as to where to get non-gross, non-fast food fried chicken in this town. This assumes, of course, that the quality of foodstuffs there measure up to reputation the Tavern has as both a cool, rootsy watering hole and a friendly, intimate venue. It was these qualities that made it the perfect locale for a warm-up show in advance of the “Hurtin’ And Flurtin’ Tour” that would take co-headliners Kathleen Edwards and John Doe across America, starting tonight.

While I expect the tour itself will be decidedly more put-together and probably feature full backing bands, I would hope for the sake of their audiences that Edwards and Doe continue to eschew the traditional opener/closer roles and play as they did Monday night to a packed house, alternately playing together and separately. This format allowed them to display their obvious musical and personal chemistry, backing each other up and harmonizing on a choice selection of covers and songs of their own, including “The Golden State” off of Doe’s latest A Year In The Wilderness on which the two duet marvelously. They apologized in advance for being a bit under-rehearsed, and while they definitely were that, they were also quite relaxed and having a great time of it. The tightness will come – the rapport was already there.

I’m not as well-versed in Doe’s repertoire as I probably should be – I know some X material and had a couple of his solo records in university, but that’s about the extent of it. That lack of familiarity didn’t keep me from thoroughly enjoying his songs, though – the man has been at it for some 30 years and is damned good at what he does. I had expected from the company he was keeping that he’d be operating in a more country-rock vein, but I guess he saves that for The Knitters – his solo material was thoughtful, melodic and direct singer-songwriter fare, seasoned with charming and witty banter. And the mention that he was in the process of cutting an album with The Sadies was particularly exciting to hear.

But it was Edwards who really impressed. I’ve counted myself a fan since her debut Failer, but my interest had drifted since then and I’m on record as having found her latest effort Asking For Flowers, Polaris-nominated as it may have been, decidedly underwhelming. I had, however, never seen her live. Came close a number of times but it’d just never happened. And based on this performance, I have to wonder if I might have been even more favourably inclined to her stuff than I am because she was really terrific. It’s difficult to say exactly what’s different about hearing her live than on record because production-wise, her albums have always been pretty straightforward, but for whatever reason her songs – and in particular the characters contained within – really came alive. I think I now more fully appreciate her more intangible qualities, that certain resonance that she has beyond just her songs and her voice. It really was an eye- and ear-opener.

Though there’s no local – or even Canadian – dates on the formal tour, Edwards has already started planning her 2009 and it includes a date on February 13 at Trinity-St Paul’s Centre, a venue that – as lovely as it is – couldn’t be further in vibe from the Dakota. I guarantee you they don’t serve fried chicken.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interview with Kathleen Edwards.

Photos: Kathleen Edwards & John Doe @ The Dakota Tavern – November 3, 2008
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “In State”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Back To Me”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Copied Keys”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “One More Song The Radio Won’t Like”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “National Steel”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Six O’Clock News”
MP3: John Doe – “The Golden State”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “The Cheapest Key”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “In State”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “Back To Me”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “Hockey Skates”
MySpace: Kathleen Edwards
MySpace: John Doe

Beirut mastermind Zach Condon will be releasing two new EPs of material next year on February 17 – March of the Zapotec under the Beirut banner and Holland under the Realpeople nom de plume. Details at Paste.

Okkervil River’s Will Sheff makes a mixtape for Drowned In Sound, makes conversation with Filter.

JAM talks to Emily Haines and James Shaw of Metric about the process of getting their heads together to create album number four, currently looking for an early 2009 release. They’re headlining that big Canuck-rock shin-dig at Sound Academy on December 13.

Spinner’s Interface welcomes Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s to their studios.

Daytrotter offers up a Born Ruffians session for download. And congratulations to Andrew, who won the tote bag and stuff.

In addition to headlining the Make Some Noise concert at the North York Central Library on November 15, Gentleman Reg has got a show scheduled at the Drake Underground for December 4, tickets $12. The release date for his new album Jet Black is still a moving target (though you can hear new material at his MySpace) but there’s a new 7″ single out now and an EP intended to introduce Reg to US audiences entitled Little Buildings is set for release south of the border on November 11.

And speaking of things south of the border… congratulations America. You did a hell of a thing. Though between you and me, I think I was more choked up when Jimmy Smits won the White House on The West Wing. Yeah, sometimes I’m weird like that. But still, bravo.

Frank YangThere had been a plan, back at SxSW earlier this year, to follow – “stalk” is such an ugly word – Emmy The Great to as many of her various day shows and performances as possible. As it happens, I failed utterly and was only able to see her play once, at her official showcase but it was as good as I’d hoped.

And so I planned to spend Saturday afternoon in New York City again following Ms Moss around and though I got a late start, having to hoof it from Greenwich Village to the Lower East Side – I was actually running through the subway at 14th and 8th – I managed to make her first show of the day on the roof of The Delancey. Now while I’m sure the building housed a proper stage somewhere in its environs, but the roof was just a shadowy patio with dense foliage with Emmy set up to one side with only a very basic PA – the very opposite of fancy. But she and her band do scrappy, stripped-down arrangements well – they were like a gang of buskers – so the setting wasn’t any real sort of detriment, though the sound could have been a bit better and they were basically playing in darkness. With only a handful of people paying attention – I guess 1PM was a bit early for the last day of CMJ, most likely everyone was still hung over in bed – they zipped through a set that contained songs both familiar and not, but presumably focused on the songs that had made the cut for her debut album, First Love. It was short but sweet and highlighted by drummer Pete Baker adding percussion to “Gabriel” by banging his shoe on a plastic drum case.

It was a few hours till the next engagement so I wandered the Lower East Side a bit before impending foul weather drove me to the venue – the cozy upstairs lounge at Pianos – early. This turned out to be fortuitous as the acts preceding her were certainly worth my time. The Dutchess & The Duke, a Seattle outfit built around the dual voices and guitars of Kimberly Morrison and Jesse Lortz who sound like a ’60s blues-rock band who decided to become a folk-pop band and turned out to be quite good at it. There’s melody and harmony a-plenty, but also a gruff sort of swagger that gives it all a nice bit of edge. Though they played a short set on account of a late start, but it made an impression – when I got home I dug up their new album She’s The Dutchess, He’s The Duke and will spend some time with that.

The were followed by Brooklyn’s The End Of The World, a four-piece best described as dealing in an appealing blend of classic rock and country-noir – not especially groundbreaking, but well-written and executed. Their set fell victim to a drum kit seemingly hell-bent on self-destructing, but what they did manage to get through was promising. Their new album French Exit is out November 4 and in addition to the MP3 below, another is available for frees at RCRDLBL.

Emmy’s second set of the day started out much like her first, but with a better sound system behind her and a much larger audience in front of her. Interspersing her casually confessional folk songs with hilarious between-song banter (requests for “M.I.A.” were met with, “she’s not here – she’s knocked up”), she and her band were entertaining and beguiling. It was initially disappointing when she broke a string midway through and it turned out they didn’t have a spare, but instead she borrowed bandmate Euan Hinshelwood’s guitar and completed the set solo, including absolutely stirring readings of “24” and “City Song”, the latter accented by Hinshelwood’s note-perfect harmonies. I don’t know if they’d have made the set otherwise, and if so if they’d have been as affecting, so let’s just say thank goodness for happy accidents.

I had been saving a place on my year-end list for First Love, but with its September release now moved to January of next year, I guess it’ll have to keep for another year. Based on what I saw and heard this past Saturday afternoon, I have no problem keeping that particular seat warm – this record is going to be an absolute gem.

Photos: Emmy The Great @ The Delancey, New York City – October 25, 2008
Photos: Emmy The Great, The End Of The World, The Dutchess & The Duke @ Pianos Lounge, New York City – October 25, 2008
MP3: Emmy The Great – “Easter Parade”
MP3: Emmy The Great – “Two Steps Forward” (live)
MP3: Emmy The Great – “MIA” (live from Black Room Sessions)
MP3: Emmy The Great – “The Hypnotist’s Son” (live from Black Room Sessions)
MP3: The End Of The World – “I Don’t Wanna Lose”
MP3: The Dutchess & The Duke – “Reservoir Park”
Video: Emmy The Great – “We Almost Had A Baby”
Video: Emmy The Great – “Gabriel”
Video: Emmy The Great – “Easter Parade”
Video: Emmy The Great – “MIA”
MySpace: Emmy The Great
MySpace: The End Of The World
MySpace: The Dutchess & The Duke

Duffy has a new video for a single that doesn’t appear on Rockferry, but does appear on the forthcoming deluxe edition of Rockferry, due out November 24. It’ll feature seven new tracks, including the aforementioned single. Details at MTV.

Video: Duffy – “Rain On Your Parade”

Patrick Wolf gives NME some details about half of his next record, which will be a double-album. Battles will feature his much-discussed collaboration with Alec Empire while the as-yet untitled other half will be much mellower in mood. He’s aiming for a February release.

Thousand Islands Life talks to Great Lake Swimmer Tony Dekker about choosing the Thousand Islands as the recording locale for their fourth record.

John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats talks to The Arizona Daily Star while both Darnielle and collaborator Kaki King discuss their EP Black Pear Tree with The North County Times.

Okkervil River’s Will Sheff talks The Stand-Ins with Chart. And congratulations to Corey Higgins, who won the Insound poster.

Only a trickle of concert announcements rolling in as the year winds down, but while there may not be so much in terms of volume, ones like this certainly make up for it in density – case in point, the “Jingle Bell Rock” tour which features Metric, Tokyo Police Club, The Dears and Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains winding their way across Canada in a one-horse open sleigh. Look for them December 13 at the Sound Academy and experience the special kind of hell that is being on the waterfront at night in December.