Cluster Plot First U.S. Tour in Ages

Legendary krautrock duo Cluster will return to the U.S. for a round of shows this month. The excursion marks the first time Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius have played most of these cities together in quite some time.

Cluster's U.S. dates find them paired with a whole bunch of different guests at various stops, including Ariel Pink, Wooden Shjips, White Rainbow, Tussle, Howlin Rain, and Arp. The band's Baltimore show goes one step further: It's a freaking festival in their honor! The previously reported Full House Fest boasts a bill that includes Cluster themselves ("at sunset"), Lungfish's Daniel Higgs, Black Dice's Eric Copeland, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and Tickley Feather, among others.

Cluster also have European dates before and after their U.S. tour, while Harmonia-- aka Cluster plus Neu!'s Michael Rother-- play a couple of their own shows, including the imminent ATP vs. Pitchfork event. And hey, Roedelius has a few solo gigs too. Find all that below. [MORE...]

A Place to Bury Strangers Too Loud for Record Press

All the nice people at Meal Deal Records wanted to do was release a limited-edition UK-only A Place to Bury Strangers 10" EP sporting "To Fix the Gash in Your Head", "Ocean", and remixes of both tracks from Lillica Libertine and Clapp, respectively. It was supposed to come out on Monday, May 5.

Then, as usual, A Place to Bury Strangers had to go and be all loud and shit. According to an NME.com story confirmed by a publicist, the "red noise levels" on the master tape for "Gash" were so high that the process of transferring them to disc resulted in the destruction of the equipment manufacturing the record. To add insult to injury, the press was one of the few 10" presses left in the UK. You guys ever think about turning it down just a notch?

All is not lost, however. The 10"s are now due in stores this coming Monday, May 12.

Hopefully things will go more smoothly on the road for APTBS. They're over in the UK right now getting ready for ATP vs. Pitchfork festival this weekend, and then are off to the races with Nine Inch Nails in August. [MORE...]

Why?, Cryptacize Cover Dylan, Steely Dan on Split 7"

Unusual musical animals and old pals Why? and Cryptacize have joined forces with Asthmatic Kitty to release a 7" as part of the label's "Unusual Animals" series on July 22. Cryptacize cover Steely Dan's "Peg" and Why? cover Bob Dylan's "As I Went Out One Morning" on the slab, making it an extra special treat. In keeping with tradition, the record comes with an unusual animal on the cover: a West Indian manatee.

Cryptacize will support their debut album, Dig That Treasure, on tour this spring and summer. Why? will do the same for their own new album, Alopecia. [MORE...]

My Brightest Diamond Adds Shark Goodies, Tour

My Brightest Diamond's switch from Horse to Shark means Shara Worden has a lot of spring cleaning to do in preparation for her sophomore album's June 17 release on Asthmatic Kitty.

For starters, she released A Thousand Shark's Teeth's first single to the digital realm yesterday (May 6). The four-track "Inside a Boy" single comes with remixes from Tim Fite and Son Lux, the latter of which is already up in Forkcast.

MBD's other big recorded offering is a bonus EP that comes with Teeth pre-orders. The EP's six tracks consist of alternate versions of album tunes and one non-album outtake.

To top it all off, My Brightest Diamond hit the road this May and June for some U.S. headlining dates and European festivals. [MORE...]

The Vaselines Reunite!
Play Sub Pop 20th anniversary and Tigerfest; SP20 also adds Eric's Trip, Les Thugs

Though they have only 19 official recordings to their credit and broke up just after their lone full-length was released, the Vaselines have etched a special place in the hearts of many. Chief among these is a certain Kurt Cobain, whose popular grunge rock outfit Nirvana famously covered no less than three of those 19 Vaselines jams, including one (in slightly modified form) before a sizable television audience on "MTV Unplugged".

But enough boring backstory: the Vaselines are reuniting! The Scottish act, helmed by Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, will reconvene for at least two festival performances in 2008. Hooray!

The first goes down May 16 at Dunfermline, Scotland's Carnegie Hall as part of Tigerfest. A bona fide Scottish lovefest, this gig will find the Vaselines sharing the bill with Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake and the Pearlfishers' David Scott, all while backed by members of Belle & Sebastian!

And hey, the second appearance ain't too shabby either. The Vaselines will help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's onetime label home Sub Pop at Redmond, Washington's Marymoor Park on July 12. Sub Pop also, of course, helped keep the Vaselines on the map by releasing The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History back in 1992. You scratch my back, I'll rock yours.

Already rife with reunions from the Fluid, Green River, Seaweed, Red Red Meat, and now the Vaselines, Sub Pop's SP20 bash has turned up the nostalgia a couple more notches with the addition of defunct French punks Les Thugs and reunion-happy Canadian alt-rockers Eric's Trip. As previously reported, the fest takes over the aforementioned park near Seattle from July 12-13.

New Beck LP: 10 Tracks, 30 Minutes, Due This Summer

No title, release date, tracklist, or cover art just yet, but that Danger Mouse-produced, Cat Power-assisted Beck LP will indeed be coming at us a whole lot sooner than we thought a week ago. Clocking in at just over a half an hour, the ten track LP is due "this summer" from Interscope in the U.S.

Given how much we don't know about the project at this juncture, let's take an inventory of the rest of what we do know. Sez a press release: "The result [of Beck and Danger Mouse's collaboration] is a tightly assembled group of songs that range in lyrical tone from introspection and social commentary to off-the-cuff wordplay and lighthearted humor."

So it's a Beck album, then.

And the music? "Musically, the album's ten tracks vacillate between economy and experimentation, hybrid and pop classicism, while consistently manifesting Beck and Danger Mouse's shared interest in psych-rock, folk, electronic minimalism, and orchestration."

So it's a Beck album, then.

Beck's forthcoming summer tour? Still all laid out and ready to roll since our last report. [MORE...]

No Age Add Dates With High Places and Abe Vigoda
Plus: Photos from last night's No Age/High Places gig in NYC!

Photos by Drew Katchen

Nevermind all those nice adjectives folks heaped on Nouns-- No Age are all about the verbs at the moment. Shriek, thrash, holler, pummel, grin, leap, innovate, crowd-surf...these are but a few of the things you'll see No Age do in the live setting, and the duo is now poised to do those things in even more places with the recent addition of a number of North American dates.

The latest gigs find No Age buddying up with recent Thrill Jockey signees High Places (full disclosure: High Places include the sister of a former Pitchfork staffer) and their Smell-y, Skeletal pals Abe Vigoda. This very apt triptych kicks things off in the U.S. capital on July 8 and keeps rolling more or less straight on through to the Pitchfork Music Festival, at which both No Age and High Places will appear.

All three acts have plenty of dates besides, and No Age and High Places certainly ain't no strangers either. The two two-pieces rocked the crap out of New York City's Bowery Ballroom last night as No Age celebrated yesterday's release of Nouns on Sub Pop. Catch all the hot photo and tour date action below.

No Age








High Places



[MORE...]

My Bloody Valentine Remaster Loveless, Isn't Anything

Fifteen-odd years of near total silence, and now they just won't shut up! Fresh off news of the big reunion, the European tour, the insane All Tomorrow's Parties spectacle, and the North American visit, My Bloody Valentine are all up in our grills yet again, harping on about how their two unimpeachable classic albums-- Loveless and Isn't Anything-- will soon get the deluxe remaster treatment.

As initially reported on Wired's Blog Network and now confirmed by a Sony BMG UK rep, the only two MBV albums that matter (This Is Your Bloody Valentine was practically an EP anyway) will hit UK shops June 16 in newly remastered formats. While the Isn't Anything remaster spans only one disc, the Loveless one comes as a double-disc: the first disc remastered from both DAT (digital audio tape) and analogue tape, and the second remastered from just analogue tape. No needless bonus cuts or anything, just two gems in all their pristine, self-contained glory.

Vinyl editions of these remasters are expected to follow in the UK, and the Sony BMG rep suggests the band and label are mulling "other possible releases for later in the year." Ooh, maybe that long-rumored EP/rarities box? Or the new MBV album Kevin Shields teased us about late last year? We'll be gazing holes into our sneakers while we wait to find out.

Kevin and co. will be staring straight through to the soles of theirs as well, beginning June 20 in London. [MORE...]

Allen and Burnham Leave Gang of Four

Rhythm-heavy post-punk legends Gang of Four have lost their original rhythm section. Again. Bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham are choosing to focus their energies on pursuits other than the quartet, which reunited in its classic form in 2005. A post on Allen's blog, Pampelmoose (via an email from Allen), reveals the details of those other pursuits, and from its tone, there seems to be a healthy absence of hard feelings all around:

"The original and best-loved line-up of famed post-punk icons Gang of Four reunited in 2005 to great acclaim, but are no longer. Bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham are moving on, although singer Jon King and guitar player Andy Gill will continue, focusing on writing and recording new music as Gang of Four. Burnham last performed with the band at All Tomorrow's Parties in the UK in December 2006, while Allen played a few shows alongside a session drummer in 2007, and recently worked on new material with King and Gill.

"Allen says, 'At the beginning of April, I decided that I could no longer continue to be a member of Gang of Four. My ability to give 100% to the band is limited and I feel that if I can't do so, then I shouldn't continue. As I expand my research and thinking about contemporary music distribution on Pampelmoose.com, and as I focus on online technology and social networking at Nemo Design here in Portland [Oregon], I find myself conflicted about how the band's new music should be released. To retain any credibility for Pampelmoose.com about what the future of music distribution will look like, I have to move on and not hold back Jon and Andy's music plans. I have had a side project for a while now with John Askew of Tracker and Menomena's drummer Danny Stein [Seim--Ed.] called Faux Hoax (pronounced 'Folks'), and I look forward to fun times finding ways to get our music into peoples' hands in unique ways.'

"Burnham writes, 'It was a great couple of years of intermittently reminding people old and new, far and wide, just how powerful the original four of us were together. Age only increased our power and focus onstage, and it was a rare pleasure to work with the original band once again. Being in a band requires handling the business side of it too, and that became boring and the constant travel became debilitating. I am soon to start my doctorate, as well as broadening my teaching at more than one college here in Massachusetts, so my free time has become increasingly limited, making it difficult to be involved with them going forward. Musically, I am recording and writing with members of Boston noise-merchants the Bags and I have also been doing some recording lately with [former Minutemen/current Stooges bassist] Mike Watt. I wish Jon and Andy luck with their new musical endeavors; I am sure they will be interesting."

We wish the best to all parties involved, but it's hard to contain our surprise at the fact that Allen is quitting to focus on his blog. That is some serious dedication.

Gang of Four, minus Allen and Burnham, have a number of dates scheduled in the coming months, including an appearance at the Massive Attack-curated Meltdown festival in London on June 20. [MORE...]

Jose Gonzalez Tours Again, Releases "Teardrop" Single

Photo by Akmal Naim

With his "Green Tour" and the Earth Day release of the In Our Nature Remixes EP behind him, José González shows no signs of slowing down. He's already got a new single for us, and he's gearing up for another North American tour.

Mute released González's "Teardrop" digital single yesterday, May 6. The Massive Attack cover is taken from José's 2007 set In Our Nature and comes bundled with a B-side called "Four Forks Ache".

As for the tour, González's Bonnaroo appearance on June 13 serves as the start of a full-blown jaunt across North America, Mexico included. Following that tour, González has a bunch of scattered shows, mostly at European festivals. [MORE...]

New Pornos, Battles, Goldfrapp, Ice Cube Do Dour Fest
With Pinback, the Fall, the Raveonettes, Ellen Allien, the Notwist

Yes, the name's just a bit more off-putting to we English-speaking types than, say, the Fun Fun Fun Fest. Still, the 20th annual Dour Festival belies all connotations but one: it'll go down July 17-20 in Dour, Belgium.

And if this lineup doesn't sound like a blast, well, you're dour enough without it. Joining Dour for the the big 2-0 are the New Pornographers, Battles, Goldfrapp, Ice Cube, Pinback, the Fall, the Raveonettes, Ellen Allien, the Notwist, Why?, Enon, Foals, the Meat Puppets, Modeselektor, Bonde do Role, SebastiAn, Fujiya & Mijaygi, Miracle Fortress, Mystery Jets, Oxbow, Subtle, the Glimmers, Shout Out Louds, Boys Noize, Earth, Future of the Left, the Teenagers, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Do Make Say Think, Gogol Bordello, Men (the Le Tigre spin off) doing a DJ set, the Whitest Boy Alive, Tiga, Lady Saw, Heavy Trash, Alter Ego, the Enemy, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, and many many more.

See? Plenty of reasons to be Dour, grinning all the while.

Fennesz, the Field, Modeselektor, Tim Hecker Do Mutek
With Radio Slave, Quiet Village, Flying Lotus, Cristian Vogel, Kode9 & Spaceape

At five downtown Montreal venues over five stimulating days comes the ninth annual Mutek Festival, stretching innumerable extension cords betwixt the samplers, synths, laptops, and such of a wide spectrum of the electronic music community's brightest lights.

Joining this year's Mutek are Carl Craig, the Field, Radio Slave, Modeselektor vs. Pfadfinderei, Christian Fennesz, Cristian Vogel, Tim Hecker, Quiet Village, Kid Koala, Interstellar Fugitives, Nôze, Morgan Packard, Flying Lotus, Murcof, Kode9 & Spaceape, Sleeparchive, Chloé, Németh, Ben Frost, and Knifehandchop. And this, really, is just a blip; check out the full lineup of multimedia Mutek goodness over at the fest's website. Mutek 2008 runs from May 28 to June 1.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Carl Craig's appearance at Mutek has been cancelled due to personal family reasons.

Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover? Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.)