My new martial arts hobby has completely sapped my musical and domestic ambitions, not to mention my shoulder. The best rock stars aren t just great musicians-- they re also interesting people with a lot to say. s James Murphy is certainly an interesting person.
Does he have a lot to say? Well, judge for yourself: Murphy recently began blogging for England s paper, and so far, he s been sounding off on topics such as (aka ultimate fighting), , and..
. . (Thanks to for pointing out this literary treasure trove.
)
Murphy s third post appeared today, a self-conscious-about-not-writing-about-music rant where he satirizes himself ( stick to ripping off the Talking Heads ) as much as the commenters who complain about his tone and choice of topics.
He s not done blogging yet, but Murphy will continue to rack up the frequent flyer miles when, next week, he kicks off his tour in support of the March 20 release of .
Bjork, Sigur Ros, Mum on Screaming Masterpiece DVD Bj o rk, Sigur R o s, the Sugarcubes, M u m, and Amiina are among the high-profile artists showcased in , a documentary about the Icelandic music scene that will hit DVD shelves at last March 6 via .
Writer and director Ari Alexander Ergis Magn u sson used the film to explore the scene s history through tour footage and in-depth interviews. The resulting 87-minute DVD comes with over two hours of extra interviews.
Screaming Masterpiece has appeared at over 20 international film festivals, and was also part of our own pre-Pitchfork Music Festival last summer.
Junior Boys, Metric, Final Fantasy Rekindle Stars' Fire
Plus: Kevin Drew, Apostle of Hustle, Dears, Russian Futurists, Stills, Montag, Young Galaxy Now we loved 2004 LP just fine as it was, a lush palette of heartfelt heartbreak anthems. But we ve got to admit, this sounds pretty damn cool: whilst we await the Fire followup (due in fall 2007, if you trust the band s website), Stars have invited a cadre of Friends to recreate the Canadian pop romantics best LP to date.
Do You Trust Your Friends?
( waaaay back in June 2005 and last summer) arrives May 22 on and is a track-for-track renovation (thus deemed by the press release) of Set Yourself on Fire. The Friends in question? A fairly trustworthy lot, many of them A C affiliates: Junior Boys, Metric, Final Fantasy, Broken Social Scene s Kevin Drew (with Camouflage Nights) and Apostle of Hustle, the Dears, the Russian Futurists, the Stills, Minotaur Shock, Montag, Young Galaxy, Jason Collett, and the Most Serene Republic.
Each takes a stab at a Fire favorite, sequenced exactly the same as the original album (with those dastardly Dears breaking album centerpiece What I m Trying to Say into a two-part mega-jam). You can still check out Junior Boys reworking of Sleep Tonight over in .
Stars themselves, meanwhile, have been feverishly working on their follow-up to Set Yourself On Fire, according to their website, at Vancouver s Warehouse Studios.
In related news, Stars swings down to SXSW in support of last year s solo foray, . And she s hardly the only Star off in sideprojectland: Torquil Campbell s dropped last year in Canada. That album finally gets a U.
S. release March 27 via Montreal s . tour dates in support of their forthcoming LP are finally beginning to roll in.
..and they re all overseas.
, the band is also scheduled to appear at Bonnaroo in June, putting the boys right where they need to be to tour North America this summer. So we ve got our fingers crossed. string of dates, Wilco will make their way through the UK and Europe.
This run is slated for late May, and wraps up with a performance at Barcelona s . Sky Blue Sky is due May 15 via . Check out that handsome cover!
The National's Berninger Talks Boxer, Baseball, CYHSY
Sufjan Stevens, Doveman lend talents to new National LP Just this week, we the title, tracklist, and release date of s fourth album, Boxer. The 12-track set arrives May 22 via and features, according to Billboard.com, Mr.
tickling the ivories on Racing Like a Pro and Ada , Clogs violist contributing arrangements, Doveman s handling keyboards, and NYC folkie lending backing vocals.
Even more recently, we spoke to the band s singer, Matt Berninger, about Boxer, his band s relationship with 2005 tourmates Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, how they feel about their hometown, and why the Mets are less heartbreaking than the Reds. Pitchfork: You guys seem to like black-and-white photos as album covers.
Matt Berninger: It was actually taken at [producer] Peter Katis wedding. It wasn t something we thought about ahead of time. We were sent the photo and kind of fell for it.
We ve gotten lucky with those photos, but I guess it is starting [to be] a trend.
MB: [laughs] Yeah there is something about it that does seem..
.not of this age, or something. It almost looks set-up and surreal, but it was just taken about a year ago.
Pitchfork: So what can you tell us about the record? How does it sound? Is it a continuation of , or a separation from it?
MB: I think it s different. It s still us, but it sounds, to me, quite a bit different. I think it s more cohesive.
Alligator had high peaks of loud songs, and really slow, quiet songs; this has that, but maybe not quite the extremes. It s less of a rocky ride. It has a certain consistency to it.
Pitchfork: Is it thematically more cohesive as well?
MB: There are songs about a lot of different things, but things pop up over and over again, or styles of writing about things, both musically and lyrically. A lot of the music is a little more meditative.
I think a lot of the way Aaron [Dessner] and Bryce [Dessner] and Scott [Devendorf] and Bryan [Devendorf] were writing music was more chilled out [and] meditative. There is this kind of rumble through the whole thing, and I think musically that s something that was naturally what people were doing. As far as what I m doing, I guess there s something about it that s more chant-y.
I don t really do any screaming the way I did on Alligator. We don t know if that s going to disappoint people, but we didn t feel like it was necessary. They re baaaaack!
The announced on their website late last night that their sixth album, which bears the excellently bizarre title of Icky Thump, will be released as soon as corporately possible. It was recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, and includes the songs Catch Hell Blues , Little Cream Soda , Rag and Bone , You Don t Know What Love Is (Just Do As You re Told) , I m Slowly Turning Into You , and Icky Thump . , the new album will be delivered via the Stripes new home, Warner Bros.
They will support it with appearances at Bonnaroo as well as Germany s Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in June. In typical White Stripes fashion, the album details were revealed via a . See below for the full text.
Break out the extraneous w s, y s, and double letters, because ex- frontman has yet another solo album on the way-- and this one s an almost all-Welsh affair.
While U.S.
audiences have to sink our teeth into , which landed here this past October and in the UK last February via , Childs already has a second quirky pop platter to serve up: Bore Da, out March 5 on the same label.
According to Childs website, trisyllabic Bore Da -- which you may stream at the man s -- translates to Good Morning . If you think that s wack, consider that Bore Da s seventh track, Cwtsh , translates to Hug .
Well alright then.
Check out the complete tracklist below, with English translations in brackets, and catch Childs playing to audiences in his native Wales and neighboring England beginning tonight. Be sure to drop by the merch table afterwards and give him a nice big cwtsh.
One of 2005 s great unsung gems, s found the viola-toting Juilliard-escapee hand-crafting a lush, sensual, orchestral disco record for Morgan Geist s respected imprint.
Polar-- born Michael Kelley, and still active under his given name in the classical world s -- returns later this year with the Hanging Gardens follow-up, an as-yet-untitled 11-track affair featuring guest vocalist Claire de Lune and members of the Kelley Polar Quartet, who ve released several EPs on Environ.
A tour is in the works-- but before all that, Kelley has a Chrysanthemum set to bloom this March.
Environ will release said tune as the first single from the LP, backed with another album cut, Rosenband , and alongside an instrumental version of each tune.
Kelley disclosed the apocalyptic inspiration behind Chrysanthemum in a recent e-mail to Pitchfork. The tale begins one day in sixth grade and includes a reasonable expectation that the world was going to end in a giant ball of radioactive fire, as well as fountains of blood from severed head[s] and horny teenagers going at it in the back-seat of a car.
My oh my! Check out the complete story after the jump. Califone Tour the Great American West.
.. and Wisconsin That s right, the esteemed quartet heads to the Golden State this May for a string of shows, then hits up some of indie rock s more unappreciated Western cities-- like Reno, Nevada and Bend, Oregon-- in the subsequent days.
That rootin tootin Califone caravan will wind its way northward, then inexplicably hightail it to scenic Wisconsin for a pair of cheesehead gigs.
Tim Rutili and company tour these states in support of last year s still-lovely , which landed at a very respectable #27 on Pitchfork s list. will bring about peace in the Middle East next week, when she gets the entire populations of Israel and its neighboring countries to all sing along simultaneously to that one song with the line about cleavage, cleavage, cleavage at her concerts in Tel Aviv on March 10 and 11.
Then, after a couple anti-climactic weeks, the piano-playing singer/songwriter will tour North America starting in late March. She ll also hit Coachella and Bonnaroo.
which was released February 14 and is only available via iTunes.
She also dropped a live EP, titled Live in California 2006 earlier this month. It is available on CD and digitally on iTunes.
will test their newly formed five-man lineup on the road starting tonight, when their first full tour in support of There s No 666 in Outer Space kicks off in San Francisco.
Since we , Hella have added plenty of shows to the tour.
Though , not all of the press for the album has been positive. In fact, our own Brandon Stosuy panned the record in Spin.
Hella have taken the criticism in stride, however, making a featuring Brandon s review. Fiona Apple, Jon Brion to Play L.A.
Benefits for a friend, will join on stage at his favorite Los Angeles venue, , on March 5 and 9. , was diagnosed with cancer last summer, and to lend a hand with the financial burden associated with his treatment, Fiona, Brion, Dave Palmer, David Garza, Nickel Creek s Sean and Sara Watkins, and more will perform at the pair of benefits. Proceeds will go to Gungi and his people that you just love, really actually LOVE, within five minutes of meeting him, Apple wrote on her .
As you may know, I am a girl prone to low days. I don t know how many times I got to soundcheck in a grumpy, nasty, teary rut, and when I saw Gungi, all nearly seven feet of him, across the empty theatre, and we waved to each other and he asked me how I was, I immediately got a jolt of life..
.His face is a pep-talk!.
..His eyes are He s my friend.
I love him. He s helped me a lot when I have been in trouble. Now, he is in trouble, and I want to help him.
..If you can come to either of the shows at Largo, they should be pretty fun.
..and if you don t come, then maybe you d like to donate 5 bucks or something.
..whatever you decide, I thank you, for being there for me, for giving a damn, and for making noise and for listening.
In related news, Jon Brion will play a one-off show at the committee. The is a Department of year while doing research on a project of their own design. global force for mutual understanding.
Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover?
Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.
News RSS