Book your reservations now, revelers: former James Addiction/Porno for Pyros frontman has a party planned that should make all that new rave hoopla look like your 1st grade Chuck E. Cheese s birthday non-bash. It s called , and as , it could be the best work I ve ever done.
Satellite Party transmit their debut full-length-- a concept record, titled Ultra Payloaded Satellite Party, about partying it up on a satellite orbiting the Earth-- on May 12 (Columbia). The eleven-track set features contributions from a whole mess of folks, including New Order bassist Peter Hook, Red Hot Chili Peppers Flea and John Frusciante, Thievery Corporation, film composer Harry Gregson-Williams, and the mysterious pop product known only as Fergie.
Stoners will be especially pleased to learn that Jim Morrison makes an appearance on Ultra Payloaded as well: Farrell unearthed a previously unheard Morrison spoken-word vocal for the album s closing track, Woman in the Window .
Other Party jams include Celebrate , Awesome , Mr. Sunshine , and first single Wish Upon a Dog Star .
As for the disc s sound, thus spake Farrell: [It s] this great hybrid of sound, using electronics and hip hop beats and the power and strength of rock n roll, and even symphony.
We know that [2007] is our year, Farrell also told Pitchfork last October, so expect plenty of touring, late night TV appearances, promotional events, and partying. For now, the Party is slated to rock the ESPN Winter X-Games tomorrow in Aspen, Colorado and Coachella in April-- and don t be surprised to find them at Farrell s own Lollapalooza this summer.
Upon realizing that Bowery flophouses don't have the best acoustics, the band settled on recording in a computer store instead Colin Meloy and his band of folksy, proggy, pop-rockers-- , maybe you ve heard of them?
-- have become pretty ubiquitous recently due to their ability to capitalize on some and their willingness to shill for (and, okay, ) on occasion. The Decemberists are continuing the latter pursuit on their exclusive-to-iTunes EP, which is currently available from the digital music store.
The six-song set was recorded at the Apple Store in New York City s SoHo neighborhood in November during CMJ.
(Apparently, Live From the Apple Store just didn t have the same ring to it). It includes songs from each of the band s full-lengths, three of which are from last year s . According to Pitchfork s own from the show, these songs feature the band in stripped-down acoustic storytelling mode with the Apple Store s excellent sound system coaxing out the nuances of the Decemberists folksier side.
And according to trusted iTunes commentator Anonymous , the sound that the decemberists make is like no other, i love colins voice, and i think all the songs have a good melody, its easy to listen 2, wats not 2 love.
. He s also got a good thing going with , too.
That band s sophomore LP, , is due in Canada on February 6, the U.S. on March 6, and Europe on March 26, on .
It was produced by Martin Kinack and Whiteman at various stops across Canada, including, in The album s first track, , is available for free download from the Arts Crafts website by clicking on the link at the bottom of this story. Don t like what you hear? Think you can do better?
the chance to cover, remix, or reinterpret My Sword Hand s Anger as a . Submissions will be judged by an Arts Crafts panel, and one winner will receive studio equipment, a pair of tickets to an Apostle of Hustle show, and a signed 12 copy of National Anthem. Hustle will spend the next few weeks presenting OUIJA, a weekly residency at Toronto s Rivoli and Kingston s Grand clubs.
Whiteman and bandmates Julian Brown and Dean Stone will, according to their MySpace , [do] two sets of both intimate minor-key mood music and flourishing interstellar guitar jams. In addition, they ve created what they call the Jukebox Effect , encouraging fans to e-mail their Myspace page with requests for songs the band should cover. A new song sacrificed each week!
they promise.
Having ascended Mount Eerie, planted his lo-fi flag at its peak, and tobogganed down its frosty slopes, is ready for something new. And by something new, we mean something old.
Elverum-- who once went by Elvrum-- has journeyed deep into the attics of his past to retrieve another name he once used: the Microphones. It s under that moniker that the enigmatic folky released the bulk of his recorded material (much of it for ), and it s that moniker that earned him distinction as the creative force behind Pitchfork s #1 album of 2001, .
To celebrate the return of the Microphones, Phil has pressed a brand new 7 .
The self-released vinyl frisbee, and in stores this March, includes a couple nuggets of song-advice from Phil: Don t Smoke and-- one we should all be taking very seriously right now-- Get Off the Internet .
The name flip-floppery shouldn t come as too much of a surprise. Elverum did, after all, tell Pitchfork The whole [Microphones] break-up thing is a ridiculous joke .
Seems Mount Eerie s not done for good either, however, as our man Phil has a couple concerts scheduled in February under that name.
Does this mean we ll soon be hearing from Songs: Ohia again too? compilation market continues to grow.
Last year, , , (and two more Kidz Bop collections) hit shelves. And the trend shows no sign of stopping in 2007. Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is reportedly working on a collection of kids songs, .
s Play will be out April 17. Frankly, Tindersticks are probably one of the last bands on earth we would expect to curate a children s music compilation, given their general malaise and all. But we guess kids can get sad too.
Forster (the Go-Betweens), Tindersticks, Staples solo, and more. Prince Billy s cover of Puff, the Magic Dragon Oldham s Puff, the Magic Dragon will go up against Broken Social Scene s version from See You on the Moon in a which sounds better when you re stoned? competition taking place in the Pitchfork office supply closet later this evening.
for the Young at Heart will be limited edition, packaged with a -illustrated which Cocker recites on the disc.
Can You Make an Album in 28 Days? Well, can you?
That s what the is asking, and a whole heap of musical acts from around the world have said Yes! in their respective languages.
Now in its second year, the Record Production Month Challenge dares bands and solo artists to use February s 28 days to record an entire album of original material.
prompted the creation of full-length records from an impressive 165 bands-- totaling over 1600 original songs-- all of which you may stream .
This year the Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Challenge opens its gates to an international pool of participants-- meaning anyone anywhere with even the crudest of recording equipment can partake. Read the complete challenge doctrine , then get ye registered .
So, like, who wins? Everybody who completes the challenge, man. Like the concurrent (February Album Writing Month) event and November s (both of which influenced the founding of RPM), the aim is motivation, and thus the prize is the fruits of your very own artistic labor.
Check out Pitchfork scribe , in which he interviews RPM s founders and challenge participants while exploring the inspiring psychology surrounding the event. Then break out the notebook, the Casio, and the 4-track and get cracking-- you might not wind up with Loveless, but who knows, you could be the next Beat Happening. Any joke about bargaining with the devil is surely tasteless: we are saddened to report that Uwe Nettelbeck, founder and overseer of krautrock legends , passed away on January 17.
The disheartening news arrives via a post by Faust member on his website, .
Peron wrote, besides being a sharp-witted but yet charming and loving husband/father/grandfather, [Uwe] was an outstanding cook, a writer who always generated deep emotions and interest and a genius selfless music producer.
I thank you Uwe for all you have done for our music.
Faust is your work, no doubt.
Your work will outlast all of us. May your soul rest in peace.
Nettelbeck, a producer and one-time music journalist, founded Faust in W u mme, Germany in 1971. The group was one of Virgin Records first signings and went on to record several highly-influential albums over the next few years, including the seminal Faust and Faust IV, before disbanding in 1975. Several of the original members have since regrouped under the Faust banner to tour and record.
No further details of Nettelbeck s death are known at this point. Fellow Faust founding member Rudolf Sosna passed away in 1996.
The present incarnation of Faust-- which includes Peron, original member Werner Zappi Diermaier, and Ulan Bator s Amaury Cambuzat-- has a record of new material on the way in March 2007 (mixed by Colin Potter and Nurse With Wound s Steve Stapleton), as well as a DVD.
Hear new song Lass Mich below. By this time, you re that , , and Murph are back in full force. (When Lou isn t too busy with that , that is.
) But they ve gone beyond the reunion tour(s) for, um, Beyond, their -engineered full-length due out May 1 on .
Beyond was recorded at Mascis Bisquiteen studio in Amherst, Massachusetts, and according to a press release, it s both some of the best music Dinosaur Jr. have ever made and an adrenaline-inducing ride, not of nostalgia, but of bona fide excitement.
Well then, color us excited and full of adrenaline.
On May 29, Dinosaur Jr. will release their DVD Dinosaur Jr.
: Live From the Middle East. Nike will make the Dinosaur Jr. skate shoe available in a limited edition in February.
So hurry up and get in line, because we know demand for those kicks will be high. Right. Jennifer O'Connor Tours, Joins Sykes, Dump for 7" Club Acclaimed songstress is all primed to go over some mountains and across some valleys this winter, on a month-long tour in support of, you guessed it, 2006 s lovely .
Joining Ms. O Connor for the jaunt: the Bright Eyes-esque excitable folk musings of former Miracle of 86 frontman Kevin Devine (who headlines), Filter magazine-adored Pablo, and erstwhile Vagrant Records dudes Koufax (whose Brightside should totally be on your iTunes, people).
What s more, Jennifer jumpstarts her own Kiam Records imprint-- on which she released her first couple solo discs-- this January with a new limited edition collaborative 7 series.
For a mere $25 (including shipping), she ll treat series subscribers to five different 7 s over the course of the year, each featuring a joint effort and individual tracks from O Connor and a quality act of her choosing. Those quality acts include Jesse Sykes the Sweet Hereafter, Dump (aka James McNew of Yo La Tengo), Mascott (ex-Helium and Sparklehorse player Kendall Meade), Hotel Lights (ex-Ben Folds Five drummer Darren Jessee), and Boston rockers Choo Choo La Rouge.
The first 7 pairs O Connor with Choo Choo on a tune called Little Airplane Heart and should be out soon (on red vinyl, no less).
Join the club by Paypal-ing $25 to jennifer@jenniferoconnor.net and keep your eyes peeled for a new Kiam website and more releases to follow in the near future. So rad!
!!!
's Offer Talks Myth Takes, Out Hud, Politics, Welfare
I like to think of myself as somewhere in between the second coming and dog shit. People don t dance no more-- particularly people of the scrawny, white variety-- but thanks to dance-punk acts like the Rapture and , they re at least trying.
When !
!! release their much-salivated-over, third full length-- Myth Takes, their first for worldwide, due March 6-- those people will have ample reason to try the two-step once again.
And, while they re at it, brush up on their chin-stroke: The disc s ambitious, often electrifying production and arrangements should have pundits minds cranking and jaws flapping just as much as its infectious grooves and gnarled guitar lines keep those hips gyrating. Just check out the disc s scintillating centerpiece, , and color us stoked.
Pitchfork caught up with Nic Offer by phone this week as the !
!! (and ) vocalist/ party-starter was about to catch a plane-- on a quest, no doubt, to stir up some ruckus in exotic far-off locales.
Sort of.
Pitchfork: Where are you off to?
Nic Offer: London for the beginning of the year, for the European promo trip.
Pitchfork: Who directed it?
Nic: The official disco-punk director, , the one who does LCD, Juan Maclean, Supersystem, Rapture, and now he did us. His treatment looked great, and actually he was a great guy to work with.
We couldn t really turn him down. You find it s good to work with people who are a bit hungry, you know? And he definitely is.
And I guess he likes disco-punk.
Pitchfork: So what s the treatment?
Nic: It s kind of tongue-in-cheek; he wanted it to look like a Kenneth Anger film, or Performance, the Mick Jagger movie.
So he s got us in all kinds of 60s garb...
To me it seemed like such a New York story, but everybody came away with the haunting effects of the moon-- that seemed to be the image people got from the song. It s pretty tongue-in-cheek, and it s going to give a lot of people a reason to hate us.
Pitchfork: Do you think a lot of people hate you right now?
Nic: Anyone who gets any level of press has to deal with some level of hate, and I think we re especially hateable-- and when you see the video you ll know what I mean. There s going to be people who just don t get it. If you look at it and think we re taking ourselves seriously, you re going to fucking hate us.
But we had a blast, it was ridiculous and really fun. So, whatever.
Pitchfork: So Myth Takes, is that the way someone with a lisp says mistakes?
Where does the title come from?
Nic: You know, I m really into meanings-- to have exactly five meanings, and that s what that one does. So of course it means that.
Pitchfork: Fair enough. So how does Myth Takes depart from !!
! s previous work, if at all?
Nic: Lyrically we tried a less-direct approach.
I feel like with the last record [2004 s ] I tried to say everything very plainly. And it seemed like it was too in people s faces. So I tried to say what I felt was a similar message, but told more through stories.
Sometimes it seems like you get your point across more by taking a more abstract view. Sometimes the point hits harder-- comes through more directly. It was definitely fun to take that approach, and I felt fresher writing that way.
And it opened up a new side of me...
and I ve been exploring more since then.
Pitchfork: What inspired you to take that new route with your writing?
Nic: Uh, bad reviews.
Pitchfork: So you pay attention to your press?
Nic: No, I mean, you don t, but you catch a drift. I personally don t read anything on the internet-- I mean, aside from you guys [Pitchfork].
You kind of have to pay attention to you, because you re the barometer of all the internet stuff-- but I can t weed through the internet, because I can have my ego blown to gargantuan sizes and then shattered within seconds. It s all there. I always say, if you believe all that stuff, you either think you re the second coming-- or total dog shit.
So I like to think of myself as somewhere in between the second coming and dog shit.
They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and…OK, I'll stop now Having gone quadruple-platinum in Britain (that means, like, 4000 copies sold, right? Kidding!
), Brighton youthquakers are heading to North America to attempt to replicate that success. Their tour, which kicks off at Coachella and crosses the continent during the first two weeks in May, is the band s second trek to our shores, following an extremely brief jaunt last fall. The string of dates is in support of the Kooks debut album , released in the States on in October, as well as a forthcoming iTunes EP.
That EP, available January 30, features live acoustic performances of album tracks Ooh La , See the World , Sofa Song , and She Moves in Her Own Way , as well as new songs Need to Be and Miss You , as well as a cover of...
Gnarls Barkley s Crazy . Noooooo! Not another one!
is about to become even better. In April, will release a three-disc deluxe edition of s breakthrough album . It will include the album on one disc, the live DVD Silent Shout: An Audiovisual Experience and music videos from the and Silent Shout albums on a second disc, and a third CD featuring the music from the live DVD.
Silent Shout: An Audiovisual Experience was released on its own in Europe back in November, . It captures Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson performing live ( ) on April 12, 2006 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and was directed by . Check out We Share Our Mother s Health from the DVD by clicking .
, on February 20 in the U.S., Mute will release the latest single from Silent Shout, Marble House , on CD and 12 .
(It comes out February 19 in Europe on .) The single is backed by remixes from Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, Planningtorock, Rex the Dog, Emperor Machine, and Booka Shade, as well as the Marble House video.
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