Dancing About Architecture Indie Music News Report 10.06.09
Posted by Ian Wright on 10.06.2009
Details of the new Final Fantasy album, loads of new music, James Murphy gives details of the next LCD Sounsystem album, Bruce Springsteen to play classic albums in full, Thom Yorke forms a new band and more.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
The indie-pop album of the decade by far.
You news, you lose
What kind of name for a farmer is "Lewis"?
Conventional music biz wisdom is that releasing an album in the 3 months encompassing the time from November to January (also known as "winter" in some parts of the world) is a big no no as prior to Christmas it'll get crowded out by compilations, best-ofs and novelty records and after that everyone is poor after blowing all their case on shit for family members they can barely stand.
Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett isn't subscribing to that line of thinking though as his third album Heartland will be released on Domino on January 12th.
Talking about the album Pallett described it by saying, "The songs themselves form a narrative concerning a farmer named Lewis and the fictional world of Spectrum. The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator."
Oh wow, a concept album.
Tracklisting:
01 Midnight Directives
02 Keep the Dog Quiet
03 Mount Alpentine
04 Red Sun No. 5
05 Lewis Takes Action
06 The Great Elsewhere
07 Oh Heartland, Up Yours!
08 Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
09 Flare Gun
10 E Is for Estranged
11 Tryst With Mephistopheles
12 What Do You Think Will Happen Now?
Free new music of the week: 1
From the previously reported "Long Count" project involving The National's Dessner brothers, The Breeder's Deal sisters and other.
A few weeks ago Bruce Springsteen And the E-Street band played a gig in Chicago featuring the entirety of Born To Run played all the way through in sequence (never fear though, Bruce filled out the rest of his standard 3 hour set with material from his other albums, nobody got short changed or short gigged on the night, I'm looking at you Pixies with your 65 minute long Doolittle gigs in Dublin last week).
Turns out that Springsteen liked the idea so much that for the course of his 5 night stand at Giants stadium which concludes this week he's doing the exact same thing with Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town (his best album) and Born In The USA all getting an airing in full on various nights. There's two nights left to go and if you happen to have tickets for it Thursday is a Born To Run night and Friday is a Born In The USA one.
While we're on the subject a new song was debuted at Giant's Stadium and there's a video of it up on the Bruce Springsteen website.
Free, new music of the week: 2
Liz Harris, aka Grouper posted 2 new songs, "Hold The Way" and "Vessel" on her MySpace page last week.
James Murphy spent some of last week handing out oh so tantalising tidbits on Facebook indicating that 2010 might be a busy period for LCD Soundsystem. Murphy posted a number of status updates that said things like "i think new album in march. so there." And on the subject of touring he wrote, "as many places as we can. places we've been to a bunch (hello, dearest glasgow!) and hopefully places we've never been (mexico? serbia? china?) with what i think will be the best version of the band yet."
He's also encouraging people to buy the vinyl version of the band's new single, "should be a certain number of free downloads of the new single when it's ready. i must say, though, that we're trying to make the vinyl include a free download, so i recommend that. mainly because we worked really hard on the art and the mastering, and we're proud of it."
When it comes to the working "really hard on the mastering" Murphy went on to say who the band had worded with, "the art is photos by ruvan Wijesooriya and graphics by dfa superdesigner mike vadino of bureau. the mastering for the vinyl (and digi) is by my engineer hero, original mentor, and best vinyl cutter ever, bob weston of shellac at chicago mastering. i'm honestly really excited."
So to sum up, as Murphy posted himself, "record: march. tour: after."
Also, there's a big old [sic] concerning all Murphy's posts above.
Free, new music of the week: 3
The Pavement reunion is next year, until then Spiral Stairs will be keeping himself busy with his first solo album The Real Feel which is out on Matador on October 20th.
"Maltese Terrier" has already been available online for a while but last week a second song "True Love" was posted on the Matablog. Click here to download it.
Thom Yorke & Flea, together at last. What the fuck?
There was a bit of head scratching around these parts when it was announced last week that Thom Yorke was putting together a band to tour with his solo material that it would include long time Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Beck/R.E.M. drummer Joey Waronker, percussionist/multi-instrumentalist Mauro Refosco of Forro in the Dark and uh Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist Flea.
Now I know that Flea is a fantastic musician and all but he's terribly prone to slap bass funk bullshit, it might work but it just feels wrong. Like if Win Butler were to start a side project and recruit Yngwie Malmsteen on guitar for it.
Anyway the band played their first gigs over the weekend in LA including an "open rehearsal" at the tiny Echoplex venue on Friday. Yorke and co. performed his 2006 album The Eraser in full as well as a number of new songs and Radiohead b-side "Paperbag Writer". And of course, there was someone there to film it. And of course, they ended up on Youtube.
Set list:
01 The Eraser
02 Analyse
03 The Clock
04 Black Swan
05 Skip Divided
06 Atoms for Peace
07 And It Rained All Night
08 Harrowdown Hill
09 Cymbal Rush
Encore one [Thom solo]:
10 Open the Floodgates
11 Lotus Flower
12 Skirting on the Surface
13 Judge, Jury, Executioner
Encore two [full band]:
14 Paperbag Writer
15 The Hollow Earth
16 Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses
The YouTube video of the week
New Los Campesinos video.
If you can you should go to these gigs.
Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street band
10-08 East Rutherford, NJ - Giants Stadium (Born to Run)
10-09 East Rutherford, NJ - Giants Stadium (Born in the USA)
10-13 Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum
10-14 Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum
10-25 St. Louis, MO - Scottrade Center
10-26 Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center
11-02 Washington, DC - Verizon Center
11-03 Charlotte, NC - Time Warner Cable Arena
11-07 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
11-08 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
11-10 Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena
11-13 Auburn Hills, MI - Palace at Auburn Hills
11-15 Milwaukee, WI - Bradley Center
11-18 Nashville, TN - Sommett Center
11-20 Baltimore, MD - 1st Mariner Arena
11-22 Buffalo, NY - HSBC Arena
Spiral Stairs
10-14 Seattle, WA - Sonic Boom (Ballard location)
10-15 Seattle, WA - Neumos *
10-16 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge *
10-18 San Francisco, CA - Treasure Island Music Festival
10-19 Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour *
10-20 Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern *
* with Bob Mould
Final Fantasy
11-06 Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon *
11-07 Minneapolis, MN - Cedar Cultural Centre *
11-10 Seattle, WA - Showbox *
11-11 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom *
11-14 San Francisco, CA - Fillmore *
11-15 Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda Theater *
11-18 Austin, TX - Antones *
11-19 Dallas TX - Granada Theater *
11-20 Nashville TN - Mercy Lounge *
11-21 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse *
11-23 Orlando, FL - The Social *
11-24 St. Augustine, FL - Café 11 *
11-27 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club *
11-28 Philadelphia, PA - Theater of Living Arts *
11-29 Boston MA - Wilbur Theatre *
12-01 New York, NY - Webster Hall *
12-02 Brooklyn, NY - Bell House *
# with Timber Timbre
* with the Mountain Goats
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Talk Radio
Clues - Clues
Crystal Stilts - Alight Of Night
