Dancing About Architecture 12.08.09

Posted by Ian Wright on 12.08.2009

Hear the new Final Fantasy single, the new Frightened Rabbit album, Fugazi live recordings, news on the the new Cat Power album, Steve Albini and the poor vs. the USPS, Neutral Milk Hotel videos and more.

The bit at the start

Hi all, I'm a little tired tonight as I'm just back from the My Bloody Valentine curated All Tomorrows Parties festival in England this afternoon. I'll have more to say about it next week but for now all I'll say is Lightning Bolt live, holy shit.

On with the news.

Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.

Buck 65 – Talkin' Honkey Blues



Best Nova Scotian white boy underground hip hop album ever.

You news, you lose

Download the first single from the new Final Fantasy album.

"Lewis Takes Action" is the first single from Heartland which is out on Domino on January 12th. You can download it (and by doing so enter a competition for one of 25 signed 7"s) here.

Scaring Bunnys

March (1st in the UK 9th in North America) will see the release of the third Frightened Rabbit albums on Fatcat records.

The Winter Of Mixed Drinks was produced by Peter Katis (Interpol and The National) and features string arrangements by labelmate Hauschka and will be preceded by two singles, "Swim Until You Can't See Land" which is out now and "Nothing Like You" which will hit shelves on February 22nd.

Tracklisting:

01 Things
02 Swim Until You Can't See Land
03 The Loneliness and the Scream
04 The Wrestle
05 Skip the Youth
06 Nothing Like You
07 Man/Bag of Sand
08 Foot Shooter
09 Not Miserable
10 Living in Colour
11 Yes, I Would

In other FR news, the band have added a new live member. Gordon Skene, ex of Make Model has signed up to play guitars.

Sir … sir … excuse me sir, could you stop that please?

A really cool little nugget popped up on Chunklet last week. A 40 minute mp3 of live stage banter from Fugazi gigs recorded back when they were a touring concern.

The band were rather notorious for their mid-set condemnation of moshers and crowd surfers (and meatheads in general) at their gigs and of course there's some of that in there. But there's also funny stuff where the band recount tales of picking up injuries on the road and dealing with scalpers (what kind of asshole scalps $5 tickets?). Listening to it (and you can by clicking the link above) makes me really regret that I never got to see them play live.

Seeing in the dark.

Right thinking people agree … Chan Marshall made her best music when she was playing mostly on her own and when she was deeply unhappy. Or at least she made The Greatest with a full band at a point in her life when she'd quit drinking and was in a reasonably happy point in her life and to be frank it was only so so.

Well for the next Cat Power record she may be returning to her good music roots (though hopefully it doesn't mean that she's back to a bad place mentally) because recently she told Australia's Courier-Mail "It's just me this time... I don't know if I should push all these [new] songs away and actually try to write and record it with the band. I don't know what to do. But I'm at a point where my heart tells me, 'Chan, you haven't played piano or guitar for four or five years,' and I do have guilt about that. People ask me, 'When are you going to play by yourself?' I have problems with strange yearnings and guilt." She also added, "I'm also frightened because some of them are sad again and I feel really nervous about that."

Hmm, okay then. Well maybe it's something to look forward to.

More Neutral Milk Hotel live videos.

A few weeks ago videos from a NMH gig in 1998 in New York's Knitting Factory appeared online on the Merge Records blog. Well in the past week another few videos from that gig showed up.







Boo S. Postal Service.

For the last decade or so noted recording engineer (he hates being called a producer) Steve Albini (also of Rapeman, Big Black and Shellac) and his wife Heather Whinna have been distributing Christmas gifts to poor families in the Chicago area.

The funds for the gifts are raised through The Second City theatre's annual benefit gig which has over the years featured guest appearances from the likes of Jeff Tweedy, The Breeders and Shellac. The (actually kinda cool) way that it works is that Albini and Whinna consult letters sent to the post office which are addressed to Santa Claus that are asking for a Christmas miracle to help them through difficult times. Then they surprise families on Christmas Day bearing gifts.

However according to the Chicago Tribune a change in U.S. Postal Service policy has put the skids on this charitable venture. Citing privacy issues, the Postal Service has decided to no longer allow access to the names and contact information of people who mail into their Letters to Santa program, which makes it a lot harder for potential donors to reach needy families. Gifts can still be sent, but they must be sent through the mail, rather than in person. Whinna told the Tribune, "Just the idea of mailing a gift, it almost makes me think the postmaster general has never been to a housing complex. If there's no human contact, it will kill the program."

The YouTube video of the week

New video for "Longform" by the excellent Dodos.



If you can you should go to these gigs.

Fucked Up

02-12 Oberlin, OH - Dionysus Disco (Oberlin College) *
02-13 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle *
02-14 Bloomington, IN - Video Saloon *
02-15 Newport, KY - Southgate House *
02-16 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar *
02-17 Philadelphia, PA - Barbary *
02-18 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's *
02-19 Brooklyn, NY - Europa *
02-20 Boston, MA - Middle East Downstairs *
02-23 St. Catherines, Ontario - L3 Nightclub ^

* with Kurt Vile
^ with Leatherface

Pavement

03-01 Auckland, New Zealand - Town Hall
03-04 Sydney, Australia - Enmore Theatre
03-06 Meredith, Australia - Supernatural Amphitheatre (Golden Plains Festival)
03-07 Adelaide, Australia - Thebarton Theatre
03-08 Perth, Australia - Metro City
03-10 Brisbane, Australia - Tivoli
03-12 Melbourne, Australia - Palace Theatre
04-07 Tokyo, Japan - Studio Coast
04-08 Tokyo, Japan - Studio Coast
04-10 Osaka, Japan - Zepp Osaka
04-12 Nagoya, Japan - Zepp Nagoya
05-04 Dublin, Ireland - Tripod
05-05 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
05-07 Paris, France - Le Zénith
05-08 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
05-10 London, England - Brixton Academy
05-11 London, England - Brixton Academy
05-12 London, England - Brixton Academy
05-13 London, England - Brixton Academy
05-15 Minehead, England - All Tomorrow's Parties
05-18 Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique
05-19 Berlin, Germany - Astra
05-20 Prague, Czech Republic - Palac Akropolis
05-21 Vienna, Austria - Arena
05-22 Munich, Germany - Muffathalle
05-24 Rome, Italy - Atlantico Live
05-25 Bologna, Italy - Estragon
05-27 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Festival
05-29-31 Quincy, Washington - Sasquatch! Festival
09-21 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
09-22 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
09-23 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
09-24 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage

Frightened Rabbit

12-09 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Mandela Hall *
12-13 Manchester, England - Ritz *
12-14 London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire *
12-22 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
03-04 York, England - Duchess of York
03-05 Manchester, England - Club Academy
03-06 Aldershot, England - West End Centre
03-08 Bristol, England - Thekla
03-09 Oxford, England - Academy 2
03-10 London, England - Koko
03-12 Birmingham, England - Academy 2
03-13 Sheffield, England - Leadmill 2
03-14 Norwich, England - Arts Centre

Writing under the influence

Without which this column would not have been possible:

Talk Radio
Tom Waits – Tom's Tales

The bit at the end

That's me for this week, short one I know but as I said, I'm wrecked today after the weekend. I lost my voice the first night and it didn't get any easier from then on.

I got tickets to see Pavement in Dublin in May, my nominated second bought them for me when I was on the plane to England. I'm now looking at seeing them 3 times in a year. Which may be a bit much but fuckit, I love them.

England got an absurdly easy draw in the world cup, the bastards.

You can follow me on twitter, I'm endlessly fascinating.

Semi permanent plug for my blog, over the last week and the one to come I'll be cpunting down my favourite albums of both the year and the decade.