The glacial pace of music makes for easy comparisons to the landscape of Iceland, but non-Icelandic fans don t have to resign themselves to just imagining those mountains and fjords anymore, thanks to a new book documenting the band s 2006 tour of their home country.
On June 1, music quarterly (A+R) will unleash In a Frozen Sea: A Year With Sigur R o s. Longtime fan Jeff Anderson created the book, A+R s first, by following the band on the last leg of its tour in support of last year.
Anderson collected observations and conducted exclusive interviews to go with the 32-page book s photographs of the band, the landscape, and combinations of both.
In a Frozen Sea comes packaged in a 12 vinyl jacket and will be available from A+R s and select stores. A+R will also release the book in a special edition that comes with 12 LP versions of A g tis Byrjun, ( ), Takk, and Smaskifa, which is previously unreleased in the format.
The special edition will have a limited run of 5,000.
Those who just can t wait until June for In a Frozen Sea can visit A+R s for an interactive Sigur R o s experience. Though it doesn t seem to be up just yet, the website will offer Sigur R o s music and videos as well as message boards for fans.
Aspiring artists can also submit their own music for feature on the site, and a panel of judges-- including Sigur R o s and producers Alan Moulder and Flood-- will decide which artists make the cut. You can hush all your nag-nag-nag-naggin : meta-punk-rockers s It s a Bit Complicated finally has a full tracklist. Now you know definitively what eleven barked-out Eddie Argos nuggets ll be running through your head at inopportune moments for the next several months.
It s got a cover, too, with-- for some reason-- instruments of geometry. So that s that, then; all you ve got to do is sit on your hands til June 26 when and/or actually give you the thing.
Of course, if you can t wait that long, you ve got options; by now, you re all read up on the band s , which you can scoop up Stateside May 22.
And then, of course, there s the Infinite Livez Vs Stade album , which has absolutely nothing to do with Art Brut the band, but could very well tide you over regardless. Erlend Oslash;ye and his ( We play our music live. Sing along if you know the words, proclaims their website) will tour Europe with their in tow this spring and summer.
The Whitest Boy Alive will bring Norwegian trio along for some sun on several dates in late April/early May; they warm-up tonight at the launch party in Copenhagen.
Oslash;ye reprises his day job in , meanwhile, for a set at the Slottsfjell Festival in Tonsberg, Norway on July 20. You may also hear the Kings guesting on Omstart , a track off latest, .
, that album lands Stateside at last via Everloving Records on April 24. Modest Mouse, Shins, Decemberists Swag in Art Auction
Plus: Janet Weiss, Corin Tucker, Dandy Warhols, and..
.Bon Jovi \m/ , an arts magnet school in Portland s public system, is rife with the cool, artsy kids. And these cool, artsy kids-- along with some high-profile, indie rock favorites-- have donated some items in benefit of the school; they re no mere pinch-pot ashtray castoffs, either.
In addition to a fly-fishing trip and jaunts to the Sonoma wine country, a series of hand-decorated mini-guitars and other swag from the likes of the Decemberists and Carson Ellis, Modest Mouse s Isaac Brock, the Shins, Stephen Malkmus and newest Jick Janet Weiss, Sam Coombs of Quasi, and the Dandy Warhols will go up for the good cause. UPDATE: STEPHEN MALKMUS DID NOT DESIGN THE GUITAR, JUST JANET WEISS. IT S PRETTY SWEET!
CHECK OUT THE PHOTO BELOW!
The Art Rocks auction takes place in two parts: the first-- organized by Sleater-Kinney pillar and Buckman parent Corin Tucker-- goes down web-ways April 22, when online bidders can stake their claim on those hand-decorated mini-guitars via (keyword: Buckman).
The second part, an actual live auction which we hope includes a motor-mouthed auctioneer, occurs April 27 at Portland s Melody Ballroom.
There you can score vacation getaways, arts and crafts from kids and local artisans, a signed Bon Jovi guitar, and the prize to end all prizes: a set of maracas actually used by the Dandy Warhols. We kid you not. Alas, no portion of the proceedings is dedicated to a date auction ; you ll just have to get Isaac drunk and try to make out with him on your own time.
It can t be that hard, really.
Islands, Final Fantasy Contribute to Tomlab 7" Series
So do YACHT, Tussle, Erase Errata s plot to issue a 7 single for each letter of the alphabet is smacking Sufjan s states thing around; while Suffy dreams up new flute charts for California or Delaware or whatever it is, Tomlab s made it all the way to T and plotted their way through the end of the alphabet. Previous entries have in the series have included Grizzly Bear, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, and the Blow, and the level of quality isn t letting up now.
For Q, (of ) spits up two sides of fizzy pop that would ve sat well on Of Montreal s Hissing Fauna record. R goes to San Fran funky drummers , whose Second Guessing is treated to a remix from -hard . get S, which boasts, in Flesh the first Islands track ever recorded.
And who can forget T, on which get windy and woozy. All four are available now.
As for the rest of the alphabet, well, Tomlab s all set for s U and s V in August, s W, (oh, the irony!
) X, s Y, and s Z in October, and sometime in the future. Starting with the Shrigley disc, Tomlab s switching to umlaut mode. Shrigley gets A , with several more dot-topped Please, God, let them be from Bj o rk and M o tley Cr u e.
Joanna Newsom to Open for Bjork! Though it may seem that your pals at Pitchfork are too immersed in fever to talk about anything else (tell yr friends: Declare Independence might just be the jam of the summer), we do have other records we re looking forward to; say, s , out April 24 on . So when we found out that these two creative juggernauts would be joining together for a couple of dates on s previously-announced tour, well, we were beside ourselves for a minute.
Then, we collected ourselves, and wrote a story about it.
Jo s only doing two dates on the Bj o rk tour that we know of, although we d like to strongly encourage whoever paired these two to keep up the good work. Seriously, who else but J-New is up for the challenge of warming up a crowd of Bj o rk-aniacs?
It s a toughie...
though we d also like to suggest Antony.
In other Bj o rk news, there s more Volta slowly trickling out over the internet, including of the Earth Intruders video, set for proper release April 24. She ll also share another amazing double-bill this weekend as the musical guest on a soon-to-be-legendary Saturday Night Live episode with host Scarlett Johansson.
And, of course, Volta drops May 7 in Europe and May 8 here. Wooo!
Marissa Nadler Signs to Kemado, Kicks Off Tour
U.
S. edition of Songs III set for August release Stevie Nicks is the first influence lists on , and it ain t hard to see why. Her long hair, flowing clothes, and music all fit the Nicks archetype pretty well, minus a little bit of the witchiness.
The unwitchy but still beguiling Nadler recently released her new album, , via in Europe. Now the Providence-based singer has signed to for an August 7 physical release of a slightly altered version of the album in the U.S.
and Canada. Kemado also plans to set Bird aflight digitally this month.
Nadler will go her own way on tour starting tomorrow night in Helsinki.
All of her current dates are in Europe for now, but Marissa plans to travel the U.S. West Coast in June.
A full U.S. tour is in the works for August.
Bluesfest Gets Stripes, Kanye, Cat Power, Built to Spill
Plus: Bob Dylan, Metric, Final Fantasy, Tokyo Police Club, Manu Chao, Bird and the Bee With their government-sanctioned health care and relative lack of pollution, what do Canadians know from blues? Not as much as they know about crowd-pleasing, indie-leaning rock n roll, as it turns out.
The -- bending its notes over five stages from July 5-15 at Ottawa s LeBreton Flats Park-- packs quite a wallop in its non-blues lineup: , , , , and are amongst the none-too-downtrodden, which also sports the oft-bluesy strains of , , and .
Still, though, they ain t exactly Muddy and the Wolf, but we doubt you ll mind.
So, okay, there s some fine blues, too-- Buddy Guy and Robert Cray top that particular list-- plus a couple folk legends and plenty of your typical-fest throwback fare like Steve Miller Band and the Village People. In fact, no matter the genre, these Ottawa folks have outdone themselves.
A full schedule for your glancing pleasure is up on the festival , but the highlight reel s after the jump.
Thanks to reader Andrew Ryall for the heads-up. The good ship will be docking shortly.
The Brazilian trio s debut album, , arrives in physical formats on June 5 in the U.S. and June 4 in the UK and Europe via .
The catch is that the album is available for download right now on iTunes, which is a little strange. However, for those who like their BdR DRM-free, two months is no time at all.
Bonde have added a bunch of European shows to their tour; scope those, along with the tracklist for With Lasers, below Before crumbling to dust/solo projects after just three brief years and one full-length album together, minimalist Welsh indie-poppers managed to leave an appropriately imposing legacy and an indelible mark in the annals of post-punk.
According to a report, the influential trio will reunite for a May 27 performance at the -- their first proper live appearance in some 27 years (numerologists, start your engines!). The literature/arts fest event takes place at Clyro Court in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, near the English border; although the festival lineup isn t confirmed yet, Young Marble Giants are listed on the festival s draft schedule.
This reunion gig apparently came about at the behest of , who are believed to have a reissue of the Giants lone LP, Colossal Youth, planned for the near future.
The Hay Festival itself runs from May 24 thru June 3 this year in the bookish border town. It features a flurry of readings, panels, discussions, and films with and/or involving men and women of letters, such that you can t help but leave afterwards feeling, well, really super duper smart and stuff.
Young Marble Giants, meanwhile, haven t exactly been strangers-- the original trio of Alison Statton, Stuart Moxham, and Philip Moxham, along with honorary fourth Giant Andrew Moxham, reconvened back in 2004 at Wales BBC Radio studios for a documentary shoot. They ve also contributed to one another s projects over the years. Do you have a news tip for us?
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