Various Issue New Material in Various Ways

UK-based enigma Various (aka Various Production), known to hitch disparate styles to their first-rate dubstep buggy, sure like to make things difficult, don't they?

As if the name weren't confusing enough (Google seems to have gotten wise, but just try typing "Various" into the Pitchfork search engine), now the XL-signed phenoms are planning to release an album's worth of new tracks in a manner best suited to scavenger hunts, Smashing Pumpkins kiss-offs, and Coldplay tour announcements.

Lucky for you and I, they've spelled things out in fairly plain King's English via a mysterious link on the XL website. Beginning this week and continuing through the three weeks thereafter, Various will issue the new tunes to three exclusive online retailers. One per retailer per week, multiplied by four weeks of exclusive digital download action, yields 12 choice new Various cuts in all. Details below.

The retailers in question are iTunes, Rough Trade's digital shop, and UK electronic clearinghouse Boomkat. Each song also comes with a unique piece of digital artwork-- presumably not unlike the kick-ass black and white-with-a-touch-of-red renderings that grace The World Is Gone and the heaps of Various vinyl releases.

And speaking of those vinyl releases, Various have yet another in the pipeline. "Phortune" comes backed with "Limbs" and arrives September 17 on the band's own imprint. That same day they'll also serve up another Boomkat exclusive, a 12" boasting "Chief", "Suj Mix", and "Bun". The Boomkat version of this release will be screen-printed and limited to 200 copies.

Those who sleep on it can still pick up the regular edition of the "Chief" 12" on October 1. Additionally, XL will release the first remix of "Hater" in an unspecified physical format (possibly involving plastic) on September 24. [MORE...]

White Williams Unfurls Smoke on Debut LP
Tours with Battles, Dan Deacon, Girl Talk

New York City via Cleveland scenester Joe Williams will release Smoke, the debut album from his White Williams moniker, via Tigerbeat6 on November 6.

For his tour this fall in support of the album, Williams will join up with Dan Deacon and way-back pal Girl Talk on their joint jaunt. He'll also play a handful of dates with Battles in November.

Williams' next show is September 5 in New York City. [MORE...]

Oakley Hall Follow You on New LP, Tour

Brooklyn sextet Oakley Hall, recently adopted into the Merge family, will release its first full-length for the label (and fourth overall) on September 11. I'll Follow You is the follow-up to the band's not one but two 2006 albums, Second Guessing and Gypsum Strings.

Sure, four albums released in just over three years is quite an accomplishment by itself, but the band seems intent on keeping up its productive pace with I'll Follow You's accompanying North American tour, scheduled for this fall.

The tour begins September 4 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Joining the band on select dates will be the Clientele, Black Mountain, the 1900s, the Teeth, and Whalebones. [MORE...]

Bonde do Role, Black Angels Play Swerve Festival
Also: Oh No! Oh My!, Thee More Shallows, Snowden, Illinois

Bonde do Role and the Black Angels are among the artists who will play at the inaugural Swerve Festival this year, which will take place at the Barnsdall Art Park and the Echoplex in Hollywood from September 28-30. Other musical performers include Oh No! Oh My!, Thee More Shallows, Snowden, Illinois, and Foreign Born.

Since Swerve is an offshoot of FUEL TV, it also offers plenty of visual stimulation in the form of art exhibits and showings of music videos, short films, and even a few feature films (including Anton Corbijn's Ian Curtis biopic, Control). Plenty of workshops and other activities are also planned.

Guitarist Colin Mee Explains Why He Left Deerhunter
"I don't want to be overexposed. I don't want the world to know what our excrement looks like or what we are selling on eBay or whether we got robbed. I think that it devalues the music."

Photo by Greg Silver

The gloriously abnormal Deerhunter is now a foursome, following the departure of guitarist Colin Mee. This morning, reader Michael King, who attended a Deerhunter show in the nation's capital yesterday, sent us this:

So last night at the Black Cat in DC Deerhunter showed up minus guitarist Colin Mee. [Frontman] Bradford [Cox] played his Fender Jazzmaster through the whole set (except for "Dr. Glass"). His only mention of the missing Mee was that they were now a four piece and this was their first show as such (He mentioned this about four different times throughout the show offering no details or reason for the line-up change). I can't say the music suffered (the music was a bit different though) but Bradford's stage antics were all but gone because of his new guitar duties.

Indeed, Deerhunter's MySpace already indicated the change: "Deerhunter is now (as of 8/29/07) back to being a four-piece."

We got in touch with Mee regarding the situation. Here is what he had to say:

"What happened was that initially I told them that I couldn't play a couple of shows that we had booked next weekend in Portland and Seattle because it was too much of a strain on my schedule. It wasn't necessarily my intention to quit.

"Brad basically reacted by saying that if I did that I was giving up my position in the band, which is pretty much what I expected. I told them that I thought the last few shows we did were a little subpar and I figured they could still do the shows without me and get paid or whatever if it wasn't going to be good even if I was there. I just felt that we had booked too much stuff to support one album just because of the money that was being offered us and whatever networking opportunities went along with that, which I was never involved in.

"By the end of the year we would have toured with basically the same set six or seven times over a two year period, which I would have been fine with, but this particular few weeks was just too much for me considering my other time commitments.

"This sense of being overwhelmed was exacerbated by the fact that I felt we were receiving (and creating) too much press that had nothing to do with any new music being created. I don't want to be overexposed. I don't want the world to know what our excrement looks like or what we are selling on eBay or whether we got robbed. I think that it devalues the music and it is just a way to maintain attention when the music should just speak for itself.

"I understand that is not the way the media works but I found it disgraceful and sensationalistic. I felt misrepresented and that the band was being portrayed as opportunists. I was willing to tolerate it, however, but I am not going to put my life on hold for this."

No dates have been cancelled or rescheduled on Deerhunter's ever-expanding world tour. The full itinerary is available after the jump. [MORE...]

Patrick Wolf Announces North American Tour

Glitter and face paint and Photoshopped swaths of ethereal pastel haze, oh my! Patrick Wolf is fixing to unleash his inner diva on North America this fall, and you'd do well to make the young man's acquaintance.

Wolf's latest reconnaissance mission onto North American shores commences September 30 in Philadelphia and wraps up a few weeks later in Los Angeles. And in keeping with his recent rant against age-restricted shows, Wolf and his handlers have taken special care to keep as many of these upcoming gigs all ages as possible. Indeed, only the San Francisco one is 21+. Sheesh, way to ruin it for everyone, San Fran.

Wolf also alludes, via his MySpace, to forthcoming dates in Japan, Australia, and the UK, so don't be surprised to find another Patrick Wolf tour story in these action-packed pages soon.

And after that? Wolf writes of starting "a self imposed non public phase of my next year when I will dissapear [sic] into the studio to make my fourth [album]" in the same recent MySpace post. Then again, Wolf writes a lot of things, but we're fairly confident he's being straight with us this time. [MORE...]

Interpol Release "Mammoth" New Single

Come September 3, Interpol will have a new single to Admire. "Mammoth" will come to UK residents in four formats, via Parlophone: download, enhanced CD, gatefold seven-inch vinyl, and etched seven-inch vinyl.

The B-sides on the CD version of the single are the Erol Alkan rework of the title track, an orchestral version of "Pioneer to the Falls", the "Mammoth" video, and a photo gallery. The gatefold seven-inch B-side is a live version of "Evil" from a show at London's Astoria this past July, while the etched seven-inch naturally features just the etching on the B-side. The download consists of the solitary track.

Interpol still have a buttload of tour dates remaining this year. Their next show is September 8 in Toronto. [MORE...]

Tiny Masters of Today Pal Around With YYYs, Liars, CSS

Surely it's been said before, but it bears repeating: Tiny Masters of Today are exactly that. Tiny. Barely-teenaged bro Ivan and sis Ada-- two years Ivan's junior-- threw a few tracks on MySpace some months back, which caught the attention of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion/Jena Malone drummer Russell Simins. (Simins would end up drumming for TMT both in concert and on Bang Bang Boom Cake, their debut album.)

Eventually, other oldsters caught on. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, CSS, and Liars became friends, and none other than David Bowie compared them to Suicide and (flatteringly, we'll assume) gloriously terrible amateur rock legends the Shaggs. They truly are tiny masters of today...but do they pack their own lunches?

Bang Bang Boom Cake, already out in the UK from Mute, is coming to the U.S. and Canada from World's Fair imprint Great Society. The disc features guest appearances from Karen O and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches, Fred Schneider of the B-52s, and Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes.

In addition to touring the globe and releasing an album long before they discover the healing power of Clearasil, the band is also trying its hand at knob-twiddling. The Tiny Masters of Today remix of Liars' "Clear Island" will appear on a forthcoming single plucked from the Liars LP, and Liars have returned the favor with a remix of the Tiny Masters' "Hey, Mr. DJ", which will appear on the single for that song, due September 17 on Mute.

CSS also remixed "Hey, Mr. DJ", which can be downloaded below. Of TMT, Adriano Cintra from CSS said, "I first heard Tiny Masters on MySpace. I got really crazy about them, I wanted to have younger brother and sister like them. Kinda of, hey, let's make party songs for when we get older...now I am older and I'm glad I got Tiny Masters as friends!"

Makes you wish you played a lot less Earthworm Jim when you were 13, don't it? [MORE...]

Brunettes Troll the Globe

Photo by Brad Fafejta

I tell you, the fall touring season sure is getting hairy. Blonde Redhead's about to flaunt those lovely locks at venues the world over, the Long Blondes have been the subject of autumn tour Gossip, and now New Zealand's giddiest sons and daughters, the Brunettes, will let it all hang out as they take to the road next month. Were you one for awful puns, you could call this a tour to dye for!

Ahem. So, the Brunettes' trek, in support of Sub Pop debut Structure & Cosmetics, kicks off September 5 in Vancouver, skips the pond in early November, and doesn't come home to roost until November 28 in Brighton. By then their roots will have grown out and good God, they'll have no choice but to change the band name and never look in a mirror again. [MORE...]

Sufjan, McBean on Chris Schlarb's Asthmatic Kitty LP
"Schlarb" is a really fun word to say

How does one flip a life as a UPS driver, a beatmaker, and a father into that of an indie-folkie/free-jazzbo? Perhaps only renaissance guy Chris Schlarb can say for sure. Papa Schlarb, when not running the Sounds Are Active label or performing in the free jazz groups Create (!) and I Heart Lung, has been raiding his address book for Twilight and Ghost Stories, his guest-laden Asthmatic Kitty solo debut.

Schlarb's 40-minute, single-track composition is out December 4. He's joined in his quest to test your patience by Sufjan Stevens (who contributes piano), Black Mountain's Stephen McBean (who "muses inaudibly about music boxes"), Castanets frontguy Ray Raposa, Dirty Projectors main man Dave Longstreth, Liz Janes, Half-Handed Cloud's John Ringhofer, Future Rapper's Michael Kaufmann, Sandy Ewan of Weird Weeds, and many others. It was recorded in parts on a Parisian hill, in an Icelandic home designed by a Nazi, and all over these United States.

Long Blondes Plot Tour With Gossip

Heard the latest? A U.S. band turned unlikely UK sensation and a UK band that ought to be a sensation over here are joining forces for a fall tour. Scandalous!

The Gossip, fresh off press conquests overseas, make a triumphant return to the homeland this November. And they're bringing along one hell of a war prize: the Long Blondes, responsible for the still catchy-and-sharp-as-sin Someone to Drive You Home (which finally landed Stateside this past June). Also along for the ride is recent Kill Rock Stars signees Panther.

And get this: the Gossip are touring Europe at this very moment, and the Blondes have at least one Gossip-free North American date. Brush up on those and all the joint dates announced thus far with but a tap of the pointer finger. [MORE...]

Photos: Black Lips [Manchester, England; 08/30/07]

Photos by Ryan Muir

Atlanta's Black Lips are a long way from home. We've been following the boys' well-documented trek around Israel and Palestine, which was just the beginning of a tour that's taking them all over the UK and back for a two month-long jaunt around the good ol' U.S. of A-- managing to avoid any Peachtree Streets along the way.

Their first stop in Britannia was last night's gig at Manchester's Roadhouse. Check out the rest of their tour dates below, and see if those crazy flower punks ever make it back home.






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