Ghostface, Diplo, Hot Chip Judge Plastic Little Contest
Winner gets "a photo of your mom hanging out with Plastic Little"; second place gets "A photo of your mom hanging out with the first place winner"

In anticipation of their The Remix of the Remix LP, planned for a fall release on Free News Projects/ToneArm Records, Plastic Little are holding a remix contest in collaboration with the folks at Turntable Lab. The contest's title? The "Remix of the Remix of the Remix of the Remix Remix Contest".

Judges of the competition include Ghostface Killah, Hot Chip, Diplo and his Hollertronix partner Low Budget, Spank Rock, and Plastic Little themselves.

The members of the Philly hip hop group are currently offering two a capellas that feature eight bars each from Ghostface Killah, MF DOOM, Spank Rock, Amanda Blank, and Plastic Little MCs Pack of Rats, Jon Thousand, and No Body's Child via shesmature.com.

The a capellas will be available for remixing purposes until April 20, when the contest's semi-finalists are announced. The semifinalists will then receive the full a capellas to remix, and a panel of celebrity judges will determine the contest's winner from the full remixes.

The contest's full rules and prizes, taken from a press release, are listed below. [MORE...]

OOIOO Embark on Rare U.S. Tour, Get Remixed by Eye

Over there in Japan, they do things a little differently. Instead of the usual chorus to "Old MacDonald", they sing "OOIOO". And instead of the plucky banjo and fiddle arrangement, it has this sort of free-form, tribal feel, with lots of erratic shrieking. Oh, and they don't call it "Old MacDonald" at all-- round there it's referred to as Taiga.

Yep, we're totally full of crap. But one thing remains true: Experimental rhythm quartet OOIOO, led by Yoshimi of Boredoms and pink-robot-battling fame, kick off a brief but welcome U.S. tour on March 20 in New York City. They'll play six dates over here in support of last year's Thrill Jockey LP Taiga, aka [OMG] one of Sufjan Steven's favorite records of 2006!!! [/OMG]

Even more exciting, Boredoms' Eye has remixed a pair of tunes off Taiga-- "UMO" and "UMA"-- for a new EP informatively titled Eye Remix EP. Look for it in CD and 12" formats on April 24 via Thrill Jockey.

OOIOO also released a DVD music video collection in Japan back in January. [MORE...]

Mahogany Launch Tour, Play Gigs With Bloc Party
Prep European edition of Connectivity! and other releases

Woohoo! Welcome to the very first positive Mahogany news story on Pitchforkmedia.com. The last one-- and only other Mahogany story to date-- dealt with gear theft (ick). This one addresses matters significantly more uplifting and exciting and awesome and radical.

Matters such as the fact that little Mahogany have been asked to open a bunch of shows for big, bad Bloc Party in the United Kingdom. Huuuuge shows. It's pure conjecture on our part, but these are probably the biggest gigs Mahogany has booked to date. They'll attempt to cling to their humble roots by playing a few headlining club shows leading up to and surrounding the Bloc Party dates. Before all that they open for Clinic in Philadelphia, tonight.

The band's new UK fans and those fans' penpals over in Europe will get the opportunity to pick up Mahogany's latest, the exquisite Connectivity!, in May via London's Track & Field Organisation. Darla released said LP in the U.S. this past fall.

Then keep your eyes peeled for a Mahogany split with like-minded Resplandor, from Peru (where Mahogany head for a May 26 gig), and a remix 12" as part of Clairecords' Claire's Echo limited vinyl club. That piece of wax features reworkings from Ulrich Schnauss (who'll join Mahogany for a London gig) and Bloc Party remixers Dave P. & Adam Sparkles.

Mahogany hail from Brooklyn and deal in glorious dream pop sounds, by the way. They have two bassists. This reporter probably likes them more than you do, and he's okay with that. [MORE...]

Basement Jaxx, Pet Shop Boys Remix Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono has assembled another impressive guest list to follow up her Yes, I'm a Witch reinvention album. Basement Jaxx, Pet Shop Boys, and Felix Da Housecat all contribute to remix disc Open Your Box, which Astralwerks will release April 24.

In contrast to Yes, I'm a Witch, on which collaborators kept Ono's original vocals and wrote new music in accompaniment, the remixes on Open Your Box are slightly more traditional. They take the originals-- including "Everyman Everywoman" twice and "Walking on Thin Ice" three times-- and aim straight for the dance floor. [MORE...]

Junior Boys, Metric, Final Fantasy Rekindle Stars' Fire
Plus: Kevin Drew, Apostle of Hustle, Dears, Russian Futurists, Stills, Montag, Young Galaxy

Now we loved Stars' 2004 LP Set Yourself on Fire just fine as it was, a lush palette of heartfelt heartbreak anthems. But we've got to admit, this sounds pretty damn cool: whilst we await the Fire followup (due in fall 2007, if you trust the band's website), Stars have invited a cadre of Friends to recreate the Canadian pop romantics' best LP to date.

Do You Trust Your Friends? (first discussed waaaay back in June 2005 and then last summer) arrives May 22 on Arts & Crafts and is a track-for-track "renovation" (thus deemed by the press release) of Set Yourself on Fire. The Friends in question? A fairly trustworthy lot, many of them A&C affiliates: Junior Boys, Metric, Final Fantasy, Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew (with Camouflage Nights) and Apostle of Hustle, the Dears, the Russian Futurists, the Stills, Minotaur Shock, Montag, Young Galaxy, Jason Collett, and the Most Serene Republic.

Each takes a stab at a Fire favorite, sequenced exactly the same as the original album (with those dastardly Dears breaking album centerpiece "What I'm Trying to Say" into a two-part mega-jam). You can still check out Junior Boys' reworking of "Sleep Tonight" over in Forkcast.

Stars themselves, meanwhile, "have been feverishly working on their follow-up to Set Yourself On Fire," according to their website, at Vancouver's Warehouse Studios.

In related news, Stars' Amy Millan swings down to SXSW in support of last year's solo foray, Honey From the Tombs. And she's hardly the only Star off in sideprojectland: Torquil Campbell's Memphis dropped A Little Place in the Wilderness last year in Canada. That album finally gets a U.S. release March 27 via Montreal's Good Fences Records. [MORE...]

New R. Kelly Album Due in May
T.I. guests on new single "I'm a Flirt (Remix)"

The crown prince of Cloud Cuckoo Land, r&b god R. Kelly-- whose fall from grace landed him in some zany lyrical nether-realm that culminated with 2005's "Trapped in the Closet" saga-- has a new LP on the way. As reported on Billboard.com, Kelly will issue the as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2005's TP.3 Reloaded on May 29.

The new album will include latest single "I'm a Flirt (Remix)", featuring guest verses from T.I. and T-Pain. It's a remix because the piano romp originally appeared under the same title on Bow Wow's 2006 LP The Price of Fame. On Kelly's version (stream below!), we learn to keep our women far away from the self-proclaimed "king of r&b" because he's "a dog on the prowl when I'm walking through the mall." Furthermore, "The moral of the story is cuff your bitch/ 'cause hey/ I'm black, handsome, I sing, plus I'm rich." You've been warned.

Kelly recently missed a court appearance for his child porn trial because his appendix burst. Apparently, he was trapped in the hospital.

Vitalic, Trentemoller, Mylo Remix Moby's Best

Moby will release a remixed version of his 2006 hits collection Go: The Very Best of Moby in the UK on March 5. He has assembled an impressive list of remixers to contribute to the project, including Vitalic, Trentemøller, Mylo, Ferry Corsten, and himself.

Mute will release Go: Remixed in CD and download formats with slightly different tracklists for each. The CD will feature Moby's Old Skool Mix of "Feeling So Real" and a rework of his James Bond theme mixed by CJ Bolland, and the download will substitute Bob Sinclair's Main Vocal Mix of "We Are All Made of Stars" and the Manhattan Clique edit of "Escapar (Slipping Away)". Both versions include the previously unreleased Manhattan Clique remix of "In My Heart".

Moby will celebrate the release of the remix compilation with three DJ dates in Europe, the first of which is March 8 at a secret location in Brussels, Belgium. We feel safe in assuming that the location is not a McDonald's. [MORE...]

Scissor Sisters, Gossip on A Touch of Class Remix LP

New York DJ duo and production team A Touch of Class-- aka Oliver Stumm and Domie Clausen-- will release A Touch of Class Still Sucks! via their own A Touch of Class Recordings on February 27.

The remix album is a follow-up to their 2003 debut full-length, A Touch of Class Sucks! (self-loathe much guys?), and it features remixes of Scissor Sisters, Erasure, the Gossip, and Le Tigre in their non-beatmatched, extended 12" versions.

Stumm and Clausen have a U.S. tour in the works. [MORE...]

Hot Chip, Carl Craig, Kode9 Remix Junior Boys on EP
Junior Boys flesh out North American tour

If you're especially curmudgeonly, you might equate remixing songs with flogging a dead horse. And if you're Junior Boys, you might cleverly title your forthcoming remix EP The Dead Horse. So it goes.

As previously mentioned, Hot Chip contributes to the EP, reworking So This Is Goodbye gem "In the Morning". Other tweakers include Detroit techno doge Carl Craig, dubstep sensation and Hyperdub label founder Kode9, ambient mobster Marsen Jules, and Tensnake, aka Marco Niemerski of German techno duo Arp Aubert. Domino delivers the five-track set on CD April 10, with a double-12" following May 8 (sans the Jules remix).

To celebrate The Dead Horse's passing, Junior Boys are on the road right now, wrapping up a series of UK shows and crossing the Channel for Europe shortly. They've also added a bunch of dates to their previously reported North American tour, including a pair in Mexico and some post-Coachella action. [MORE...]

Rakes Release Ten New Messages, One New Remix EP
Tour UK and Europe from March to May

The Rakes will release their second album, Ten New Messages, in England via V2 on March 19. First single "We Danced Together" will precede it with a March 12 release. Though they are still deciding on a permanent U.S. label since V2's American arm called it quits, Dim Mak has shown quite a bit of interest, going so far as to release the Rakes' Remixes EP on February 20 in the U.S.

The Rakes will tour the UK and Europe for a couple of months beginning on March 19, the day of Messages' release, at Nottingham's Rock City [MORE...]

Exclusive: Lindstrom to Produce New 120 Days Jams
Boredoms, !!! members to remix Lindstrom on forthcoming EP

It's a Norwegian affair: spaced-out disco maestro Hans-Peter Lindstrøm has joined forces with spaced-out friends, labelmates, and countrymen 120 Days, producing tracks set to appear on the quartet's upcoming sophomore LP.

Fans of one another's work-- and both signed to Smalltown Supersound-- Lindstrøm and 120 Days have rendezvoused in the studio with designs on fashioning three new cosmic jams. Look for those songs on a special 12" later this year, and on the follow-up to 120 Days' 2006 self-titled debut sometime after that.

In other news, Lindstrøm will soon release a 12" with vocalist and collaborator Isabelle Sandoo. He also has a remix EP on the way via Smalltown. Titled The Contemporary Fix, this one's a topsy-turvy affair: Eye from Boredoms, Justin Van Der Volgen from !!!, and labelmates Bjorn Torske all give esteemed remixer Lindstrøm a taste of his own medicine.

120 Days are out there right now, cris-crossing the world. They'll hit up North American, as previously reported, with Ratatat in March. Lindstrøm, meanwhile, works crowds in Japan with frequent partner Prins Thomas. Click "MORE" for another lovely, exclusive portrait of Hans-Peter and the 120 Days boys in the studio. [MORE...]

Blood Brothers Announce North American Tour

The Blood Brothers have announced that after yowling through Europe this month, they will return to North America for a lengthy tour in support of last year's Young Machetes LP.

The Brothers' trek begins in mid-March in Salt Lake City and concludes with an appearance at East Rutherford, New Jersey's Meadowlands Sports Complex in May for Bamboozle 2007 (which also includes a bunch of bands your little sister likes.)

As previously reported, Blood Brothers bassist Morgan Henderson contributed to the forthcoming Minus the Bear remix compilation under his O, Hunter alias. The disc, titled Interpretaciones Del Oso, is a full-blown reworking of Minus the Bear's Menos el Oso (2005). It is due February 20 via Suicide Squeeze. [MORE...]

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.)