I don't have much information about this track, recently posted on the Clientele's MySpace page. Along with the Television cover "The Fire", it's one of two B-sides found on the "Bookshop Casanova" single, which, according to the band, will be a digital-only release for the time being. While "The Fire" sounds like a B-side, an experiment with a slightly grittier sound, "Girl From Somewhere" is brilliant and stands easily with the best songs on God Save the Clientele. There's a distinctly Byrdsian cast to the velvety harmonies that has them floating eight miles high above the jangly guitar line, and the production sounds a bit rougher than the more refined sound of God Save, evoking the band's earlier singles (which makes sense since, per the band, it was written years ago). It's a good reminder that there are certain things the Clientele does better than any band around.

Stream:> The Clientele: "Girl From Somewhere"
[from the "Bookshop Casanova" single; out now on Merge]

Screaming like a banshee out of Brooklyn and Chicago, These Are Powers play noisy, crunching, metal-on-metal post-punk that the band members call "ghost-punk". A couple of lumbering bass notes, some shrill, skronky guitar squeaks, and the alternately pummeling and clattering drums whir in lockstep through what sounds like a haunted, abandoned factory building (or shop class). These Are Powers are a three-piece, with two lead vocalists-- guitarist Anna Barie and "prepared bass" guitarist (that explains the "metal-on-metal", then!) Pat Noecker-- backed by drummer Bill Salas.

It's Noecker's turn on "Cracks in the Lifeline", from debut full-length Terrific Seasons on Atlanta and Washington, D.C. label Hoss (Excepter, Atlas Sound, Wzt Hearts), and he addresses the skronky machinery in measured, declarative shouts, culminating in a loud shriek from someone I'm guessing is Barrie. Noecker chants the title, and then the track gives itself over to buzzes and clanging. These Are Powers have opened for noisy Philly punks Clockcleaner and on New Year's Eve at Chicago's Empty Bottle for anthemic Florida pop kids Black Kids. They also make good fart jokes.

MP3/Stream:> These Are Powers: "Cracks in the Lifeline"
[from Terrific Seasons; out now on Hoss]

We hope that you are enjoying the holiday break as much as we are, as we give A Charlie Brown Christmas and Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You a few more spins before tucking them back on the shelf for another year. Forkcast has been as quiet as the proverbial house awaiting St. Nick, but Belle & Sebastian have posted a new song on their MySpace page called "Are You Coming Over for Christmas?"-- their first recording since The Life Pursuit-- and it's worth catching before the season ends. It's a warm and sweet little thing, with Stuart Murdoch exchanging vocals with Celia Garcia over a backing of gently strummed guitar, light drums, cooing background vocals, and assorted reeds and horns. When "Fox in the Snow" comes up next in the MySpace player, it doesn't sound too bad either. "Are You Coming Over for Christmas?" is streaming now and will be available for a free download on MySpace and the band's official site for the 24 hours of Christmas day.

MP3/Stream:> Belle & Sebastian: "Are You Coming Over for Christmas?"

So, Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of 2007 list is up, and our Top 100 Tracks hit yesterday. We are taking a break for the rest of December and we'll be back in full force on January 2nd. Forkcast updates during this time will be few. In the meantime, read about albums, listen to some great tracks, watch videos, take Pitchfork's first-ever readers poll, and check out what some of our favorite artists liked this year.

You know what just about everyone seemed to dig in 07? M.I.A.'s Kala. Yesterday the video for "Paper Planes" arrived with some controversy. MTV, like Letterman's show before it, had a problem with the percussive gunshots on the chorus, prompting a lengthy screed on M.I.A.'s MySpace blog ("STOP THE PAPER PLANES VIDEO SABOTAGE!!!!!!!!!"). Here's the video, as she intended. In addition, M.I.A.'s label, XL, has posted the first in a promised series of short videos documenting her current UK tour. The clip has the usual mix of candid and performance footage, with bits featuring tour-mates including Rye Rye and Afrikan Boy. Also: gunshots! Have a safe and happy holiday.

M.I.A.: "Paper Planes"

Pitchfork is on holiday break for the rest of the month, but be sure to check out our year-end lists (Top 100 Tracks of 2007 is up today, albums list to follow tomorrow). Forkcast updates during this time will be few, but a new Christmas song by Sufjan Stevens is online, so what the heck. Last week we pointed you toward "Christmas Eve Nite" by Danielson, posted on the Sounds Familyre label's blog as part of a project offering a free Christmas song each day for 13 days. Today, they've posted a ramshackle version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" by Sufjan, recorded over Thanksgiving weekend this year.

MP3:> Sufjan Stevens: "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"

Another pleasant surprise from Sweden. When the Tough Alliance single "First Class Riot" turned up in a snowboard commercial the other day, we half-joked about the ad getting listed as the next item in the, ahem, varied catalogue of the label run by the electropop duo, Sincerely Yours. Nope, instead was the suggestion that Stockholm should put a horse's head under the chimney of every art gallery in its limits and flood the streets with cocaine-- "as a Christmas present to humanity." After that, though, the label posted a new single from one of its best and most interesting performers, the Honeydrips.

The project of Gothenburg, Sweden's Mikael Carlsson, formerly of Dorotea, the Honeydrips previously released an online single called "Åh, Karolin". It was a Swedish-language chanson based on Pierre Bachelet's music for 1974 softcore erotic film Emmanuelle. I'm not immediately sure what reference the newly posted "Hej Då Karolin" might be making, but it's another one sung in an unfamiliar tongue, with Carlsson's fey vocal crackling from the lo-fi recording amid Field Mice-like acoustic guitar and sampled orchestration. One thing's for sure: "Just another lovesong... not," the label's website says. The Honeydrips' Here Comes the Future came out earlier this year and includes TTA Guest List fave "Fall From a Height", previously posted here as a remix by fellow Gothenburger the Field.

MP3:> The Honeydrips: "Hej Då Karolin"
[Here Comes the Future is out now on Sincerely Yours]

This track by Chicago's Cave starts off like a nice little dance-and-shout jam, well-deep bass and mid-range guitar chasing one another's tails in criss-cross figures. The drums follow the lead, pushing a motorik regimen with élan but little fanfare. The guitar eventually finds its high end, clipping away like dub on heavy uppers. Synthesizers and chant-in-a-closet vocals peel off of the riff's back. Xylophone steals the synthesizer's thunder around the four-minute mark, although you're now just dancing with a different kind of smile.

But the bottom finally falls out, the shit finally hits the fan, and the rubber finally peels from the proverbial road and warps the pick-ups on the guitar that shape-shifts the song for its next three minutes. The rhythm doesn't care about the guitar, and the guitarist certainly doesn't give a fuck about the rhythm. Imagine Thurston Moore and J. Mascis trading 8s through big amplifiers in an alley behind a German disco around 1973. The synthesizer protests, and the rhythm eventually scratches its itch by tightening its gaps. But when the guitar sears itself into ashes with a minute left, leaving the track mostly where it started, you'll only have one thought: "Bro, more guitar."

"Hello. My name is Geneviève and I am a French-speaking person from Québec in Canada." So begins the bio on the K Records page for the woman who makes music as Woelv. I will refrain from commenting on the wolf-iness of the project's name, but there's no doubt that this track, from her K Records album Tout Seul dans la Forêt en Plein Jour, Avez-Vous Peur?, is a haunting miniature of home-recorded death-folk. The music consists only of a bass that seems to be moving quietly down a dim highway on padded feet. The voice swings from a barely-audible whisper to disturbing shrieks that wind around layers of harmony. The lyrics are in French, a language I don't speak, but I imagine them to be heavy and bleak. It's a wonderfully moody track, and it sounds better after dark.

[from Tout Seul dans la Forêt en Plein Jour, Avez-Vous Peur?; out now on K]