Photos: M.I.A.'s Jamaican Vacation

M.I.A. went to Jamaica last week to make the video for "Boyz", the first single from her forthcoming album Kala, and she was kind enough to share some photos from the shoot. We didn't think we could get any more excited about the follow-up to Arular after hearing "Bird Flu" and "Hit That", (UPDATE: "HIT THAT" IS NOT ON THE NEW M.I.A. ALBUM) but oh man...to paraphrase a certain former M.I.A. tourmate, this shit looks B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Check out that bathing suit!

Kala is out August 21 on Interscope (not June 26, as previously reported), and M.I.A. is busy lining up festival dates to promote it, starting in May at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Preston, England.

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Devendra, Jana Hunter Help Matteah Baim's Sun Shine

No, we're not just posting random photographs for the heck of it now; that waving figure to the left of these words is actually folk chanteuse Matteah Baim, casting her electric guitar into the briny deep. That kind of unfiltered spirit is on display all over Baim's Death of the Sun, out May 7 on DiCristina Stair Builders.

Death of the Sun is the first solo album from the former Metallic Falcons axewoman. Baim and CocoRosie's Sierra Cassady disbanded the Falcons a little while back, but Death of the Sun finds Baim in the equally good company of Jana Hunter, Devendra Banhart, Rob Lowe (Lichens, 90 Day Men), and more.

Baim has a pair of live dates remaining in May and June. [MORE...]

Numero Group Compiles Grand Bahama Goombay
Weren't those the little red dudes you made Mario jump on?

The fine folks of Chicago's Numero Group have plumbed deep in the sun-baked crates of the Caribbean and yanked up Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay, a compilation of Bermuda Triangle-borne boogie sure to make that floral-patterned shirt you're wearing seem somewhat less ridiculous. Operative term: somewhat.

The comp features a whole slew of lesser-known artists from a bygone era of Baha-mania, in the mold of 2005's Belize City Boil Up. Only, y'know, that was Belize, and this is the Bahamas.

Grand Bahama Goombay can be yours May 8 on CD and LP. The vinyl version comes with a bonus track: an instrumental version of Sylvia Hall's "Don't Touch That Thing". [MORE...]

Sage Francis Does Death Dance on Tour
New LP features contributions from Jolie Holland, Buck 65, Alias

Personal journalist Sage Francis will release his newest album, Human the Death Dance, May 8 on Epitaph.

The MC roped in Jolie Holland, Alias, and Buck 65 for collaborations on Death Dance, and the album also includes songs written specifically for a forthcoming movie titled Pride & Glory.

The album's first video-- for the Ginsberg- and Bukowski-name-checking "Got Up This Morning"-- features cameos from Buck 65, Atmosphere MC Slug, Brother Ali, and Jolie Holland, who sings on the track.

Francis will embark on "The Death Dance Tour" with a live band in tow and buddies Buck 65, Alias, and Buddy Wakefield also on the bill. The tour begins May 23 in Cambridge, Mass., but it is book-ended by in-stores and Francis' appearances at Rock the Bells. [MORE...]

QOTSA, NIN, Hella Members on New Goon Moon LP

Goon Moon-- the slop-metal mega-group featuring current Nine Inch Nail Jeordie White (aka Twiggy Ramirez of Marilyn Manson fame) and Chris Goss (ex-Queens of the Stone Age, Masters of Reality)-- will issue Licker's Last Leg May 8 on Ipecac.

Licker, the second full-length from Goon Moon, ropes in guest spots from Hella's Zach Hill, QOTSA front-bro Josh Homme, and NIN/Devo/Vandals drummer Josh Freese. In "The Golden Ball", Goon Moon packs a five-part mini-epic, and in "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You", Licker also sports what may very well be metal's first Bee Gees cover. [MORE...]

Keren Ann Preps Keren Ann for U.S./UK, Tours

Featherweight French-language Norah Jones-y sigh-popper Keren Ann has taken the self-referential route with her fifth album by naming it after its creator. She's also taken fast-lane into the English-speaking world's heart by filling that album with songs in the very language you are reading right now.

Keren Ann's already in stores in most of Europe, but it'll hit the UK June 4 thanks to Capitol/EMI, and Stateside May 8 on Blue Note. Hey, that's Norah's label! BFFs 4 life.

Keren's also traveling around North America for a spell in June. [MORE...]

No Age Tour, Unveil Weirdo Rippers

That No Age, they're going places! From an unsolicited shout-out from Deerhunter dress-donner Bradford Cox to a recent distribution deal from FatCat Records to some well-received SXSW gigs, ex-Wives Randy Randall and Dean Spunt are sitting awful pretty. And things are only getting sweeter: their debut full-length Weirdo Rippers hits Europe and such June 11 and North American August 28 from FatCat.

No Age'll venture out on a European tour this summer with fellow L.A. punkers Mika Miko; dates for the tour are still firming up, but Californians will get a few cracks at No Age over the next month. [MORE...]

Excepter, Dirty Projectors Members Play NYC Art Maze
Plus: Fischerspooner's Bromley, Ohsees, Skeletons & the Kings of All Cities, Ecstatic Sunshine

A stage, a floor, a speaker, a band; they are the near-universal trappings of live music. Mix a little NYC avant-garde art in there, however, and you've got some new twists and turns. Quite literally, in the case of "You Are Here", a mixed-media installation at the 44th Street Chashama Gallery featuring a maze-like sculpture and a mess of experimental rock bands.

Visitors to the May 6-27 run of "You Are Here" will travel through a maze assembled by Trouble and the B-keepers (aka Zs saxophonist Sam Hillmer and artist Laura Paris), in which they'll happen upon musicians doing their thing. The maze'll be up nearly all of May, which, of course, means a plethora of musical acts will wind their way through during the performance's run.

Noise-makers such as Dirty Projectors mastermind Dave Longstreth (May 14), Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities (May 19), Ohsees (May 13), Ecstatic Sunshine (May 6), Zs (May 27), Ben Bromley of Fischerspooner (May 10), J. Graf of Metalux (May 26), John Dwyer of Coachwhips/Pink and Brown (May 12), John Fell Ryan of Excepter (May 6), and Excepter offshoot Lake (May 27) will be among those soundtracking the labyrinth.

A bunch of other bands/DJs/multimedia artists inhabit the dead ends all May long. Drop by on the days mentioned above, or, for perhaps even more fun, amble through the maze entertainment unbeknown.

Ryan Adams' Easy Tiger Tracklist Revealed
Note to self: don't suck

The tracklist for Ryan Adams' ninth (is it really only ninth?) studio album Easy Tiger was just posted to Billboard.com, featuring such melon-scratchers as "Halloweenhead" and "Oh My God, Whatever, Etc." And what's a guy with an album named Gold doing a song called "Tears of Gold"? OMG, whatever, etc.

Curious titles aside, standout songwriter turned web jester turned Stonehenge crumbler Ryan Adams seems to have taken a bit more time than usual on this Easy Tiger of his, even enlisting the help of your mom's fave-rave Sheryl Crow. If their duet, "Two", even remotely approaches the heights of her Kid Rock-boosted "Picture", we're all in for a treat when the next dentist appointment rolls around.

Adams still has four Mid-Atlantic tour dates planned, all yours (along with the tracklist) after the jump. [MORE...]

Arcade Fire to Release "Intervention" Single
Calexico cover on B-side

In the wake of the Hasselhoff video and the possible very-not-hot arrest of Paris Hilton, seems like intervention's on everybody's mind.

So, too, goes the Arcade Fire, who will supplement their current globe-conquerering tour with a 7" single for "Intervention," out on the North American continent July 10 from Merge. (May 21 in the UK.) It's backed by Calexico's take on Neon Bible's "Ocean of Noise."

Of course, we're still just days from the May 8 U.S. release of the "Keep the Car Running" single.

Hey, Arcade Fire tour dates! Haven't posted those in a while. [MORE...]

Anticon Artists Exhibit Art, Release Records, Tour
Alias Collects John Vanderslice, Lali Puna, 13 & God Remixes

Anticon's roster of experimental beat freaks is all over the map, musically and geographically. With tours from Sole, Alias, and Thee More Shallows kicking off in the coming weeks, the Anticon army is set to invade the U.S. in full force. Add new records, a festival, an art show, and one-off dates from Dosh, Why?'s Yoni Wolf, and Bracken to the mix, and you've got an Anticon infestation to look forward to.

First up is an art exhibition called Florida Is a Death Metal Los Angeles (\m/ !) that will open at the Unitard Gallery in Los Angeles on May 12. The show is the second in an Anticon-related series of exhibits, and this installment features visual art by Doseone, Odd Nosdam, Yoni Wolf, Fog's Andrew Broder, Pedestrian, Passage, the Bomarr Monk, Telephone Jim Jesus, Ravi Zupa, Audio Dregs/Fryk Beat label head E*Rock, and Voodoo-Eros label head Militia Shimkovitz, among others.

The exhibit's opening day party will include performances by Jel and Bat Rays, along with poems from Doseone and some turntable action from Odd Nosdam. YACHT was supposed to play as well but had to bail after being asked to open the LCD Soundsystem tour.

A few days later and a couple hours north, in San Francisco on May 18, Yoni Wolf will play with Odd Nosdam (DJing), Telephone Jim Jesus, Bat Rays, and Half-Handed Cloud, with visuals by Video Savant as part of the Mission Creek Arts and Music Festival, which takes place May 10-20 at almost a dozen San Francisco venues.

Mission Creek also features sets by Lavender Diamond, RJD2, Acid Mother's Temple, Comets on Fire, Edith Frost, Daedelus, Mia Doi Todd, and a group called RRIICCEE made up of the Warlocks' Corey Lee Granet, Hole's Eric Erlandson, and Vincent Gallo (??).

In the way of more traditional projects, Alias will release his Collected Remixes on CD and limited red double vinyl on May 15. The collection includes his remixes for John Vanderslice, Lali Puna, 13 & God, and the One AM Radio, among others.

Sole will release his new Mansbestfriend album, Poly.Sci.187, on May 29, and he has a trio of dates with Skyrider left this month.

DJ Mayonnaise will return to the label on July 17 with the cheekily titled Still Alive, his first full-length in eight years.

Thee More Shallows will launched their tour in support of their Anticon debut Book of Bad Breaks last night, and Alias will start his own tour with Sage Francis and Buck 65 on May 23.

Each Anticon act's tour dates are listed below in chronological order of start date. [MORE...]

Peter Hook Pretty Much Confirms New Order's Demise
The good news: you may now stalk him on MySpace

Seems New Order really have heeded the sirens' call and sailed off into oblivion. Speaking to UK radio station Xfm recently, the legendary quartet's bassist Peter Hook more or less confirmed what has been hinted at for some time now: the band is finished.

Hook was asked about his collaborating with Satellite Party, to which he replied: "I spoke to Perry [Farrell], and he asked me to play bass, as he'd heard about New Order splitting up. Well yeah, me and Bernard [Sumner] aren't working together."

Xfm then inquired whether the split was permanent, prompting Hook to say, "Bernard went off for a break with Electronic [with Johnny Marr], but that was different. But it's like the boy who cried wolf this time." We're not entirely sure what he means by that, but it doesn't seem to bode particularly well for our love vigilantes.

Hook has certainly found plenty else to occupy his time of late. In addition to Satellite Party, Hook has his Freebass supergroup with fellow low-enders Andy Rourke (the Smiths) and Mani (Primal Scream/Stone Roses). The Freebass boys are presently auditioning singers.

Hook's also been playing out recently with David Potts (his former bandmate in Revenge and Monaco), he and New Order have music in the forthcoming Ian Curtis biopic Control, and he DJs regularly (upcoming dates ahead). Perhaps most interestingly, Hook recently hopped on the cyber train and established his own MySpace page, complete with long-winded, poorly punctuated blog entries. In one of these, he begins a paragraph (capitalization his): "SAW A COUPLE OF OLD FRIENDS FROM NEW ORDER DAYS..." One usually doesn't speak of his "such-and-such days" until those dates are behind him. Alas! [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.)