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Low Reschedule West Coast Shows

Their records may be a little slow, but when it comes to business, Low are anything but. The momentous Minnesota trio, currently trolling around Europe for the next few weeks before embarking on a string of dates with Son Volt associates Wilco, have rescheduled the West Coast dates we reported a few weeks back they'd been forced to postpone due to their stint on the Wilco wagon. Those dates (still two-night runs at four of the left coast's famed venues) have, as promised, been pushed back to September. [MORE...]
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Report: Bjork [New York, NY; 05/02/07]

Photos by Kathryn Yu; text by Ryan Dombal

If the true worth of an artist is directly related to the amount of goose bumps they induce-- as artistic authority Jennifer Lopez suggested on "American Idol" a couple weeks back--then Björk is without a doubt the greatest singer performing today. (Speaking of which, could somebody start a web petition to get Björk on "Idol" as a mentor? Potential advice: "When you sing, think of an acorn being bashed into a million pieces and then being put back together by a pack of bears who walk on their hands. Be that acorn.")

Bright flags decorated with fish and frogs hung high above Björk's motley touring crew, giving last night's Radio City Music Hall show the feeling of a particularly eccentric national convention. A convention, that is, featuring Antony, thumb pianos courtesy of openers Konono No. 1, a 10-piece female Icelandic brass ensemble wearing glow-in-the-dark dresses, electronic wizards Mark Bell and Damien Taylor, drummer Chris Corsano, pipa guru Min Xiao-Fen, and keyboardist Jónas Sen.

Though most of the six songs played from perplexing new album Volta sounded more at home on the live stage than on record, show opener "Earth Intruders" still isn't the floor-shaking call-to-arms Björk wants it to be. But the veteran iconoclast quickly won the crowd over with its follow-up, a hushed take on "Venus as a Boy" refashioned as a sparse keyboard piece. Several other songs were revamped to accommodate this tour's unique personnel: Medulla favorite "Oceania" turned into a winning marching-band-meets-lounge pop hybrid and Homogenic's "Joga" proved to be the night's highlight, its swooping strings replaced with beautifully arranged brass. Originally an all-vocal heavy metal freakshow, "Where Is the Line?" didn't fare as well when translated through real instruments but, relatively speaking, it was still considerably wicked.

Björk concert perk No. 237: Not even the biggest asshole even attempts to sing along for more than a few lines, because it's just not possible. Simply, her voice remains astounding. And when Antony joined her for a mesmerizing take on their Volta duet "Dull Flame of Desire", it sounded like a missing hymn. As Björk swayed to and fro while Antony started to jump up and down, it looked like the two most awkward weirdos in high school finally getting their due at the annual talent show. Björk may be 41, but she bobbed, weaved and head-banged like a hyperactive tween the entire night.

The set ended with a rumbling take on the new Thomas Jefferson-approved rave-up "Declare Independence", which sounded like an apropos national anthem for the strangely inviting Land of Björk, where voices carry and goose bumps are aplenty.

Setlist:

"Earth Intruders"
"Venus As A Boy"
"Aurora"
"I See Who You Are"
"Oceania"
"Dull Flame of Desire"
"All Is Full of Love"
"Pleasure Is All Mine"
"Pagan Poetry"
"Joga"
"Where Is the Line?"
"Army of Me"
"Innocence"
"Wanderlust"
"Pluto"
"Anchor Song"
"Declare Independence"

Björk's tour continues with two more New York City shows this coming Sunday and Tuesday. Dates and more photos below.






[MORE...]
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Gang Gang Dance Sashay Around the U.S.

Brooklyn-based boogie-backers Gang Gang Dance's all night super rockin' disco party won't stop 'til the break of dawn; they've got projects aplenty, from the Retina Riddim DVD out May 22 via The Social Registry, an as-yet-untitled EP, and a similarly title-free album.

We don't know too much about the album that Brian DeGraw didn't already share with us when we chatted with him the other week, but we are up on a few more EP details: it's about 20 minutes long, features the live GGD fave "Nicoman", and will be headed shelfward on both CD and 12" near the end of the summer.

And if that wasn't enough soft-shoe action, there's a Gang-ly tour afoot, with dates at discos and roller rinks the nation over. [MORE...]
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Caribou Chats Andorra, Funk/Prog Past, Trampolines

As previously reported, Dan Snaith's latest opus as Caribou-- Andorra-- hits August 21 via new Caribou home Merge in North America, and the day before in Europe via City Slang.

Pitchfork caught up with Snaith for a little chat about the characters who inhabit Andorra, his collaboration with Junior Boy Jeremy Greenspan, palette-cleansing trampoline lessons, and his sordid past in a short-lived "white suburban P-Funk" band.

Snaith visited the real Andorra, a tiny tax-haven of a European nation with a chart-topping life expectancy, while traveling last year. "I was there passing through the South of France into Spain," he told us. "I kind of imagined what the name evoked: It sounds like the name of a place and the name of a person as well-- which is very romantic and has a lot of vivid or imaginative connotations for me.

"While I was recording," he continued, "these characters living in my imagination ended up in the songs. I recorded in this kind of introspective fashion where I'd be imagining something much more than the bedroom that I was actually recording in. I kind of wanted a place for all these characters to live and that's why I wanted the name of the album to be a place." Hence, Andorra.

If talk of characters has you queasy, you may put your Caribou-goes-concept-rock fears to rest. "The characters are just kind of sketched to the degree that they're needed to, to write the song around," said Snaith. "It's not like there's a narrative that runs through all the songs or anything like that."

You may put your autobiographical naval-gazing fears to rest as well. "I find it more exciting to look inside somebody's imagination," Dan offered. "That's how I see this album, as being a window, and those kind of fictional things are imagination going on inside my head. It's more of a headspace album than it is documenting people that I actually know-- but certain elements may creep into it from my life, I suppose."

Indeed, longtime fans should be thrilled to find a record that's "not going to really really surprise people that've heard my last two records"-- and one that has Dan at his most focused: "Since January 2006 until a month ago," explained Snaith, "for the first time in my life, I wasn't having to do two things at the same. I wasn't in school [where Snaith completed a Ph.D in mathematics] and working on music. It was just recording, recording, recording."

Snaith, who admits "I tend to be an obsessive, controlling personality," indeed controlled the album's creation, playing, recording, and producing everything on it. The results, in Dan's words: an album "packed [with] as many musical ideas as possible. As many strong melodies and harmonies. I tried to make every single second maximized as much as possible, cram as many musical ideas as possible." [MORE...]
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Be Your Own Pet Offshoot Turbo Fruits Prep Debut
Selling limited edition single on BYOP tour now

Photo by Becca Gillespie

While Be Your Own Pet are adventuring around North America this month with Arctic Monkeys, two of the band's members are hawking a single from a side project of theirs called Turbo Fruits. Call it a pet project, if you will. Or don't. Makes no difference to us.

BYOP drummer John Eatherly and guitarist Jonas Stein go by Turbo John and Turbo Stein in the trio, which is rounded out by otherwise nameless bassist Turbo Max.

Their aforementioned three-song single is available at the BYOP/Arctics shows, but because it is limited to an edition of 200, they request that people limit themselves to buying only one each. Please be nice. The band will release their self-titled debut album in a much larger edition (we hope) on July 17 via Ecstatic Peace (Ark Recordings in the UK).

Turbo Fruits have one show scheduled in New York City for May 14, i.e., right in the middle of the Be Your Own Pet tour with Arctic Monkeys. After that tour is over, Be Your Own Pet will hit the studio this summer to record the follow-up to their own excellent self-titled debut from last year. [MORE...]
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JAMC, Stooges, Devo, Sunn O))) Do Jarvis' Meltdown
Plus: Roky Erickson, Clinic, Scout Niblett, Cornershop(!), Melanie(!!), Motörhead(!!!)

Photo by Anoulay Tsai

You always knew Jarvis Cocker was brilliant, but in the back of your mind, you wondered if he was a bit whacked (he is, after all, the cat who penned the poker-faced paean to infidelity "Pencil Skirt"). Both sides of the Cocker coin are at play with the announcement of the lineup of the previously mentioned, Jarvis-selected Meltdown Festival, June 16-24 at London's Southbank Centre. It's brilliant, sure, but it's also a bit whacked.

It begins with a bang; Jarvis has pegged thunderous kill-meisters Motörhead to kick off the festival's first night. The same evening sees swarthy ivory-tickler Gonzales, and roller-girl/folk-relic Melanie Safka.

There's no shortage of left-field choices over the rest of the fest, either, with the kid's TV theme cover act KPM Allstars, dirge-metallurgists Sunn O))), "Brimful of Asha" Punjabi-poppers Cornershop, purportedly recovering acid casualty Roky Erickson (his first UK gig), a freak folk supergroup with members of Espers, Fursaxa, and Fern Knight (The Valerie Project), and-- in perhaps the most conventional selection contained within this overlong sentence-- Devo. Standing out amongst all that oddball stuff is tough, but the "Lost Ladies of Folk" collective manages the task, gathering together 60s era starlets Bonnie Dobson, Wendy Flower, and Susan Christie.

There's a smattering of the standard summer 07 fest-fare, too: reunions abound with the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Stooges, alongside Clinic, Scout Niblett, and, of course, a set from Jarvis himself. You know you're in for a wild week when Jarvis seems straight-laced by comparison. Perhaps that was his intention?

In other Jarvis news, he'll be the subject of a June 10 episode of ITV's "The South Bank Show", discussing his life's work with host Melvyn Bragg. Fellow pop savant Scott Walker will speak to Jarvis' credentials on the show as well. And Jarv's hitting the road for a spell following the fest, dates for which are available after the jump. [MORE...]
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Polyphonic Spree Plot Army Campaign

The newly macabre Polyphonic Spree will kick off a U.S. tour in Nashville on May 7. The tour is in support of their previously reported new album, The Fragile Army, which comes out June 19 on the Spree's new label, TVT.

The Fragile Army's tracklist has changed slightly since our last report. The seventh song is now Wait EP track "Mental Cabaret" instead of "Oh I Feel Fine", and the tenth song is actually called "Watch Us Explode (Justify)", not "Watch Us Explode/Justify". Spree is in the details.

Right now, the band/choir/robe enthusiast club's calendar is pretty wide open after May, with just three festival dates scheduled for this summer. Don't be surprised if more dates crop up soon. [MORE...]
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Pit Er Pat Kick Off Tour With Priestbird, White/Lichens

For a month or thereabouts, Chicago-bred jagged-edged synth-freakout act Pit Er Pat will separate the syllables in a string of live dates taking them to the four corners of this great nation. They'll fire through tracks from last fall's Pyramids, and share stages with the floral and faunal likes of White/Lichens (aka Lichens + White/Light) and Priestbird.

As previously reported, their May 3 date (tomorrow, for you calendar nuts out there) is a part of Toronto's Over the Top Festival, featuring the outlandish antics of, among others, Mount Eerie and Flosstradamus. Pit Er Pat's set has them keeping good company with Julie Doiron. [MORE...]
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Clipse, Timbaland, Diplo Join Lil Wayne on Mixtape
By the time you finish reading, Lil Wayne will have recorded eleventy-hundred new mixtapes.

Sometimes it seems like Lil Wayne just accidentally talks while a song is playing and-- whoops, another mixtape! However, we have yet to see a mixtape from him that includes as wide a variety of contributors as his forthcoming None Higher: We Got the Remix Special Edition with DJ Benzi.

Benzi-- whose website strangely features his music right alongside paparazzi-esque pictures of celebrity women-- has worked with Clipse, Twista, Rick Ross, and Pitbull on previous mixtapes, and for None Higher, he brought remixing guests to the table ranging from the Neptunes, Clipse, and Timbaland to Diplo, A-Trak, Ghislain Poirier, and Nick Catchdubs. David Banner contributed production on "Monster", and None Higher also includes guest spots from Jay-Z, Devin the Dude, and Bun B. According to Benzi, "almost all" of the material is unreleased, and much was culled from his extensive archives.

Benzi will make None Higher available as a free download at the end of May, and he plans to release both a limited edition hard copy and a 12" of None Higher tracks and instrumentals at the same time. [MORE...]
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Built to Spill Announce All-American Dates
All-North American, that is

Photo by Maria Tessa Sciarrino

Baseball, apple pie, power chords, and noodly guitar solos; nothing says good, clean American fun like the Idaho power-pop impresarios in Built to Spill.

And, after a previously-announced jaunt around Europe this May, they'll return to the States for the fireworks and a mess of red-blooded dates (and, okay, a hop up Canada way) sure to inspire patriotism or, at least, a few shreds on the ol' air-axe. And what could be more patriotic than that?

We've been assured that Doug and the fellas are putting all that Yank elbow-grease to work on the follow up to last year's top-heavy You in Reverse. Makes you proud, dunnit? [MORE...]
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Mike D Talks New Beastie Boys Instrumental Album
"It would be a great record to eat pie to."

The six years it took for the Beastie Boys to follow Hello Nasty with To the 5 Boroughs may have doubled their usual time between full-length releases, but with their new album, The Mix-Up, scheduled for a June 26 release on Capitol, Mike D told Pitchfork that the trio are "going back to our regular average."

He also said the album's title "is a bit of a double entendre, if you will. Any record we make is always about combining different ideas or different influences we have, and then with this record, it's an instrumental album. There are no vocals, no samples. We played everything. But as different as that might be from To the 5 Boroughs, it's equally different from instrumental songs we've done before, like the ones that were on The In Sound From Way Out! That was kind of one direction and this one [has] different influences, like Public Image Ltd., Gang of Four, the Slits, Killing Joke."

Even though The Mix-Up is a "post-punk instrumental" album, the Beasties have no plans to ditch vocals for good. In fact, they are currently planning another version of the album that will feature collaborations with "a pretty wide array" of "mostly newer" vocalists.

Mike explained that The Mix-Up took shape out of the need for variety. "On To the 5 Boroughs, we all put down the instruments and sat behind the computers and made music that way. [On] this record, we went 180 again and said, 'Okay, let's not sit behind the computers. Let's just play some music together and kind of see what happens that way.'

"What we do a lot is listen to music together, things that we're inspired by, everything from post-punk to Afrobeat to hip hop to whatever. We're almost as much music fans as we are a band that makes music." [MORE...]

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Interpol Announce North American Dates

What a heady month April was for Interpol! They met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in hopes of furthering cooperation between the two collectives, and embarked on an adventure worthy of the Hardy Boys, recovering an ancient Iraqi sculpture in Lebanon that was taken from the national museum in Baghdad. Gee willikers!

Oh, so apparently there's this police organization called Interpol that totally stole the name of the moody New York rockers. Still, Interpol the band had quite an April, too, what trickling out details surrounding their third opus (titled Our Love to Admire and due July 10 on Capitol), a set at Coachella, and the debut of Sam Fogarino's chocolate-covered strawberries recipe. Maybe they didn't crack the case of the missing head of King Sanatruq I of Hatra, but they did write a song called "No I in Threesome", and that kind of linguistic detective work would make Nancy Drew swoon.

What'll the summer have in store for these stealthy, synthy, sharp-dresed sleuths? A whirlwind world tour, that's what, including a number of just-announced North American dates. [MORE...]

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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.)

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File-icon Thu: 05-03-07: 10:38 AM CDT
Low Reschedule West Coast Shows

File-icon Thu: 05-03-07: 09:54 AM CDT
Report: Bjork [New York, NY; 05/02/07]

File-icon Thu: 05-03-07: 07:00 AM CDT
Caribou Chats Andorra, Funk/Prog Past, Trampolines

File-icon Wed: 05-02-07: 04:30 PM CDT
JAMC, Stooges, Devo, Sunn O))) Do Jarvis' Meltdown

File-icon Wed: 05-02-07: 03:00 PM CDT
Clipse, Timbaland, Diplo Join Lil Wayne on Mixtape

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