Wolf Parade Announce Summer Tour

Photo by Carlie Armstrong

There's still no title on that sophomore album of theirs, but Wolf Parade have already rolled out a tour in its support. After Sub Pop releases the record on June 17, the Canadian foursome will take North America by storm starting with a July 7 show in Pontiac, Michigan.

Other than that, it's waiting season until we find out the name to replace Kissing the Beehive on the album cover.

Spencer Krug's Sunset Rubdown still have European dates scheduled for May and June. [MORE...]

Video: Wolf Parade: New Song (live at the Wolfe Island Festival)

Kevin Barnes, High Places Play Over the Top Fest
Plus: Silver Apples, Peter and the Wolf, Rock Plaza Central, Wye Oak, Simply Saucer

Sigur Ros Line Up Summer Tour Dates
Ditch the Hopelandic on new album?

Video: Sigur Ros: Heima [from the Heima DVD]

The Field's Band, Gear Denied Entry to U.S.; Tour Nixed

Photo by Jason Bergman

All Axel Willner (aka the Field) wanted to do was come to America for a little bit, make everybody Go Sublime, and then peace out back to Sweden. But United States immigration officials had other ideas.

They didn't like the looks of Willner's new touring band, so they have barred the band members and all of their gear from entering the country. A gearless, bandless Field has been forced to cancel his entire tour, including tonight's stop at Skidmore College and his set at Coachella on Sunday. (We believe the tour's two Canadian shows have also been canceled.)

Thanks to Clay B from Skidmore for the heads up.

Willner offered this apology: "I'm truly sad to inform that my West Coast tour has been cancelled. My band didn't get into the country and I feel that I can't perform as interesting as I need to without them. Hopefully we'll be back on the East Coast pretty soon without any problems and do the new set up that I hope people will appreciate. My biggest apology goes out to all the people that were looking forward as much as us to attend the shows that were planned. Next time."

Not your fault, dude!

One hopes things get cleared up before Willner heads back over the pond for the Mutek festival in Montreal at the end of May. That East Coast tour that Willner mentioned is being lined up for June.

The Field's UK and European dates are still all on as scheduled. [MORE...]

Video: The Field: Everyday [live at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival]

Strategy Issues New Album, Co-Curates Ambient Comp
Comp features Yellow Swans, Valet, Nudge, White Rainbow, Wzt Hearts, Grouper

Stream: Strategy: Stops Spinning [from the Future Rock LP]

Ono, Lennon Sons Hit Expelled Folks With Lawsuit

Video: John Lennon: Imagine [from the Imagine LP]

MSTRKRFT, DFA Remix Chromeo on Fancier Footwork

Video: Chromeo: Bonafied Lovin (Tough Guys) (live on Jimmy Kimmel Live)

Boris Line Up North American Tour
Joined by Torche, Wolves in the Throne Room at virtually every turn

MP3: Boris: My Neighbor Satan [from the Smile LP]
Video: Boris: Statement [from the Smile LP]

Coachella 2008 Starts Today
Festival in this photo may be more crowded than it appears

Photo by Anoulay Tsai

Sure, you'll have to get yourself way the hell out into the SoCal desert, drop at least a c-note on SPF and bottled agua and some sort of silly hat, wreak maximum havoc on your joints and your ear canals and, just possibly, your sanity. But this weekend, there's nowhere else in the world you'll get to see Richard D. James and Prince Rogers Nelson occupying the same zip code.

The 2008 edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival kicks off today in Indio, California, and boy howdy, are tens of thousands of people about to have the time of their lives. (At least until the Smiths reunion next year, amirite?)

The mightily impressive lineup's old hat by now, but it's worth looking at again, if only to make those who won't be gettin' all red with sunburn green with envy. [MORE...]

Stereolab's Tim Gane Talks Chemical Chords
"My idea was to make pop tracks in a dense style, perhaps something like Motown or the girl group sound. But have ideas coming at random."

Part of the joy at the heart of any new Stereolab album is unraveling the many vagaries contained within the music. Their records are pleasant at first, but labyrinthine upon inspection. Still, if you ever have the opportunity to have Stereolab co-founder Tim Gane personally explain just what went into the making of one of these things, I'd advise it.

Chemical Chords-- the band's first proper LP since 2004's Margerine Eclipse-- strikes one as rather straightahead (if unusually poppy) if you've heard any Stereolab in this millennium. But after Gane illuminates the lightning-round writing sessions and truly unorthodox recording methods that built the disc, it's impossible to hear it the same way. Indeed, Tim Gane is a craftsman, and, yes, occasionally rather technical in his descriptions of his artistic process. But would you expect anything less from the guy from Stereolab?

Chemical Chords isn't out until August 19 in the U.S. and August 18 worldwide (via Duophonic UHF Disks/4AD), but consider Gane's words crib notes to study in the meantime.

Pitchfork: How did you decide it was time for another album? It's been four years since the last full length, and two since the EP collection Fab Four Suture.

Tim Gane: The last bunch of records were just singles that became an album because the label wanted us to tour, and we thought we could compile those into an album. I was kind of bored of albums. But I did the singles anyway, just to mess about with things. Then I jumped into doing a soundtrack for a film [Marc Fittousi's La Vie d'Artiste]. I wrote quite a lot.

Straight after that, I began to work on the album. I was fresh to do an album, and I felt like I had lots of ideas. I felt it in my throat. I had ideas to just do lots of tracks, put them together, hopefully get the whole thing all together. In fact, it was quite weird. The soundtrack overhung by a long time. I thought that I would have six weeks to two months to prepare stuff for the album, and in fact, I had one week. In the end, it turned out quite well.

Pitchfork: That's quite a constraint. How did it come together?

Gane: The album that's closest to this in the way that I wrote it was [1996's] Emperor Tomato Ketchup. I had changed an idea into something else. Everything came very quick, and a lot of music came together very, very fast. This one was identical, it was even faster, because of what happened with it. I didn't have time to write songs. All I had time to do was prepare some little drum loops, little things like this to enter the studio with.

Myself and the engineer, Joe [Watson], we started with only drums without the drummer, because Andy [Ramsay] couldn't do it. So it's kind of weird. We built all these little drum tracks up and I took them back home-- I'm living in Berlin at the moment. I spent two weeks just writing chords neutrally on the guitar, on the keyboard without any kind of particular rhythm or anything, and then we came back to the studio here and just applied the chords onto all the different rhythms that we built up. I was interested to see how the rhythms changed the chords or what, sometimes speeded them up, doubled them up, cut them by half. I found it was a cross between making your own music and listening to someone else's music.

So we built up about 50 songs of just chords with rhythms, and we then recorded them only on piano and vibes, which are two instruments we haven't really used very much. At that point, we had fifty songs that were just piano and vibes and these kind of crappy drums that me and Joe did. I liked it because it was different. I like to think we're writing something different. Then all the songs became fleshed out. [MORE...]

Video: Stereolab: Jenny Ondioline [from the Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements LP]

Steve Albini Recording New Scott Weiland Album
No, really

Few names in music are linked with artistic integrity as often as Steve Albini's. And few folks wouldn't know artistic integrity if it started eating their eyeballs quite like Scott Weiland. Yet ying and yang have come together to birth, yes, the next Scott Weiland solo album.

As Weiland noted in a recent interview with kindred spirit Howard Stern, he's currently recording the follow-up to 1998's 12 Bar Blues with Mr. Albini and No Doubt drummer Adrian Young [via Idolator].

And yes, Weiland's publicist has confirmed that everything in the previous sentence is indeed true. (Remember, Steve Albini produced a Bush album back in the day.)

The Weiland opus is tentatively due for November release. Don't know about you, but I sure hope he sings about masturbation on this one too.

Ask Albini what the hell he was thinking when Shellac turn up at a European venue near you. Their recently expanded touring itinerary lies just after the jump.

And OMG, and did you hear? Stone Temple Pilots have reunited and they are touring all over this spring and summer like it's their job. Which, um, it is. Pardon me while I ceremonially crank that "Vasoline" MP3 I got off Napster when I was 16. [MORE...]

Video: Scott Weiland: Barbarella [from the 12 Bar Blues LP]
Video: Shellac: Live at the Touch and Go 25 Festival
Other: Steve Albini: The Problem With Music [essay]

Liars Spice up Radiohead Tour With Headlining Shows

Video: Liars: Juan's Basement

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