Most Serene Republic Increase Population in October

Come October 2, The Most Serene Republic-- that other Canadian several-tet with a penchant for pretty progginess-- will issue their second full-length disc, Population, on the Arts & Crafts imprint. The self-produced Population gathers a baker's dozen fresh MSR tracks, sequences them just so, and digs them into CD, LP, and digital download formats for your listening satisfaction.

What's more, they've rented an extra-capacious van to tour in! The group has a handful of dates both north and south of the border over the next few weeks, with more reportedly on the way. What they've got, they're gonna give you after the jump. [MORE...]

Tokyo Police Club Prep New EP

Canadian traitors (read: recent Saddle Creek signees) Tokyo Police Club will emphasize the latter part of their name with the release of the fanclub-esque Smith EP. It's out via Paper Bag on November 6 in the U.S. and October 23 in their homeland.

A follow-up to last year's A Lesson in Crime EP before the band's full-length debut arrives next year, Smith is a rarities collection of sorts. It makes "Box" and "Cut Cut Paste" available on CD for the first time and rescues "A Lesson in Crime" from mere Japanese bonus track status. Also included are an exclusive RAC remix of "Be Good" and videos for three TPC tracks.

The Club will convene live in October, starting with two dates opening for Bloc Party. The first of those shows (and of the beginning of their whole tour) is in Providence, Rhode Island on October 2. [MORE...]

Cat Power, A Place to Bury Strangers Play DAM! Fest
Plus: Craig Wedren, Cloud Cult, Dirty on Purpose, Slaraffenland

"U-S-A! U-S-A!" This is the chant attendees of the upcoming District's Awake! Music Festival must scream before every performing band's set, according to the rules listed on www.okayyougotuswejustmade   thatup.com/butseriously.

Nonetheless, since the fest takes place across various venues in beautiful Washington, District de Columbia from October 11-15, it couldn't hurt, right? When in Rome, etc.

As for the recipients of those cheers, here's a helping of them:

Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues, A Place to Bury Strangers, Craig Wedren, Cloud Cult, Stellastarr*, iLiKETRAiNS, Dirty on Purpose, Hallelujah the Hills, Slaraffenland, the Big Sleep, the Teeth, So Many Dynamos, Foreign Islands, Dragons of Zynth, Via Audio, Casper and the Cookies, Southeast Engine, and the ubiquitous TBA.

Antony Does Music for Fashion, Needs Your Help
We all suffer for fashion, or whatever

Photo by Chico De Luigi

So we all know Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons fame) is a fashionable guy, and we all know he's a musical guy-- but how often do we get to witness these two of Antony's many talents combined?

SHOWstudio will give us just that opportunity come September 26 and 27, when the "online fashion broadcasting company" enlists Mr. Hegarty to create some original music for some model types to strut their stuff to. Antony's music will appear in a film showcasing "Readings", aka the spring/summer 2008 collection of fashion designer Hussein Chalayan.

Here's where you come in: SHOWstudio, Chalayan, and Antony are looking for treatments for the music Antony's about to record. Writes SHOWstudio chief/fashion photographer Nick Knight: "The spirit of this should be experimental and pragmatic: the sounds might be as simple as clapping, speaking, tapping filled glasses of water, or singing; they might involve random objects or instruments such as tambourines, guitars, or pianos. But [the] more out of the box the better! We invite you to suggest whatever Hussein Chalayan's written concept inspires in you."

Chalayan's concept entwines ancient icons and the modern day cult of celebrity; it's reprinted in full just after the jump. Act fast though! Antony's tapping fingers hit the water glasses tomorrow, so make haste and submit your treatments here.

Antony, as you know, has of late been dabbling in new recordings, film projects, guest vocal turns, and the like-- just basically spreading his bountiful artistic seed all willy-nilly. [MORE...]

Photos: Supersilent [Bergen, Norway; 09/21/07]

Photos by Eirik Lande

Listening to Norwegian avant-jazz combos may be more dangerous than you thought! Supersilent's gig at Bergen's USF Verftet this past weekend was meant to be a celebratory affair: a party in honor of the numerically-minded outfit's latest LP-- the just-released 8 on Rune Grammofon-- and a return to the same stage where the now decade-old group played its very first show.

Yet, according to Pitchfork photographer Eirik Lande, during a particularly noisy part of Supersilent's set, a fire alarm went off-- and proceeded to slip right back into the cacophony undetected. Folks only knew to hightail it when the club finally cut the stage lights. Lucky for those in attendance, this turned out to be a false alarm (guess the band was just on fire, ohhhh!), and after a chilly, unplanned 15 minute intermission, band and crowd returned and continued right where they left off.

Supersilent head to China in October. Be careful.






[MORE...]

Austin City Limits TV Schedule Finalized
Chances your mom likes this news item more than most: 78%

"Austin City Limits"-- the long-running PBS music show your TiVo loves to watch while you're out sloppin' it up on Saturday nights-- will kick off its 33rd season October 6 with a performance from the incomparable Norah Jones. But, um, it gets a bit more exciting after that.

A week after Ms. Jones is a two-fer featuring the Decemberists and Explosions in the Sky, with subsequent performances from Arcade Fire, Wilco, Bloc Party, Roky Erikson, Regina Spektor, Femi Kuti, Lucinda Williams, Crowded House, and Kings of Leon, among many others. Encore presentations of shows featuring Van Morrison, Gretchen Wilson and P4K news team fave Miranda Lambert also grace the schedule, which wraps with a dispatch from San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Hey, that's hardly strictly Texas!

Additionally, the folks at "ACL" are hard at work revamping their website, which when complete should store a wealth of expanded content ("the stuff Forkcasts are made of"). Thanks, dudes! [MORE...]

Photos: Metric / Crystal Castles [New York, NY; 09/21/07]

Photos by Matt Ziegler

They must keep the stage at New York City's Webster Hall awfully clean, as both Metric's Emily Haines and Crystal Castles' Alice found occasion to roll around on it when the pair's joint tour hit the Big Apple this past weekend. Either that or these two just don't mind getting down and dirty in the interest of an ass-kicking rock show.

Indeed, both acts are out kicking ass on a trek across the U.S. that continues tonight in Chicago. Take it from Crystal Castles though: using a keyboard box to supplement your keyboard stand is both thrifty and cool.

Dates, photos, and the answers to all of life's questions lie below.

METRIC

CRYSTAL CASTLES



[MORE...]

Photos: Diplo / Simian Mobile Disco / Switch [Seattle, WA; 09/20/07]

Photos by Nilina Mason-Campbell

That whole "indie kids don't dance" thing seems about as outdated right now as "Walk the Dinosaur", what with Girl Talk, Dan Deacon, M.I.A., Spank Rock, and this guy, Wesley "Diplo" Pentz, touring pretty much non-stop.

For this gig late last week at Seattle's Neumos, Diplo was joined by a couple more terpsichorean-friendly acts, including tourmate Switch and Simian Mobile Disco (who were giving their skinny varicolored Stonehenge lighting setup a rest and rocking this one as a straight DJ duo). And in case you haven't seen it before, do scope Diplo's namesake diplodocus tattoo above and below. Tight!

Dates and photos aplenty lie just ahead.

DIPLO




SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO




Backstage

[MORE...]

Polaris Prize Goes to Arcad-- WTF? Patrick Watson?!
We're as suprised as you are

The votes are in, and the winner of this year's Polaris Music Prize-- along with $20,000 big ones and the respect and adulation of his Canadian countrypeople-- is...um... Patrick Watson's album Close to Paradise. Yeah.

Paradise beat Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, Feist's The Reminder, The Besnard Lakes' The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, Junior Boys' So This Is Goodbye, Julie Doiron's Woke Myself Up, Chad VanGaalen's Skelliconnection, Miracle Fortress' Five Roses, The Dears' Gang of Losers, and Joel Plaskett Emergency's Ashtray Rock to claim the title of "BEST CANADIAN MUSIC OF 2007 EVER." Guess Canadians like this guy?

Mr. Watson follows in the fleet footsteps of Mr. Owen Pallett, whose He Poos Clouds record under the Final Fantasy guise took the top honor last year.

Photos: Bunny Meets Les Savy Fav

About a month ago, a little girl entered Les Savy Fav's video contest for "The Equestrian" and showed us all how an awesome video could be made with little more than a bottle of peroxide, a heavy dose of pep, and a room full of stuffed animals.

Well, her "in the key of Bunny" entry (it seems Bunny is the girl's name) won that contest, and for her troubles, she and director B.A. Miale (the redheaded woman in the pictures) got a trophy, one thousand bucks, and the chance to appear on stage with LSF.

Jamie Goodridge, Bunny's mother, documented the whole extravaganza with some excellent photographs on her MySpace blog, and they are below for your viewing pleasure.

For LSF tour dates, check out our photos of the band from earlier today.

[MORE...]

White Magic Thank Their Lucky Dark Stars on EP
Satan says, "You're welcome."

Photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg

Like their music, White Magic's sorcery is a low-key affair. We're talking Level 1 Wicca stuff, Level 2 at the most. So for the follow-up to their 2006 debut full-length, Dat Rosa Mel Apibus, instead of gathering all the ingredients for a new LP (eye of newt is so expensive nowadays!), they've crafted a little EP they call Dark Stars.

Chicago's trusty Drag City will release the EP in both CD and 12" formats on October 23. But White Magic will cross paths with the City of Broad Shoulders even sooner through their September 26 performance at the Empty Bottle, as part of The Wire's previously reported Adventures in Modern Music festival.

The arrival of October will also bring two other new White Magic tracks. The first is "New Egypt", which is featured on a limited edition Southern Records Latitudes compilation that comes out in the UK on October 8. The other is a cover of Bob Dylan's "As I Went Out One Morning", member Mira Billotte's contribution to the soundtrack of Dylan biopic I'm Not There. That soundtrack comes out on October 30 via Columbia. [MORE...]

James Blackshaw Tours With Jose Gonzalez

Perhaps you overlooked James Blackshaw's fantastic fingerpick-and-feedback opus The Cloud of Unknowing when it emerged in early June. Shucks, you wouldn't be alone: even we put it on our Overlooked Records 2007 list. But if you're planning to step out in style for an earful of subdued Swedish sighs on José González's forthcoming U.S. tour, you may become immediately ingratiated to young Mr. Blackshaw doing his thing.

Nah, James is no crazed González groupie: he's opening for José on a good bit of the songster's forthcoming solo dates, both in the States and the UK. James'll really let the white noise roll on a few gigs of his own he's got lined up in between stops on the González express. It all begins September 27 in NYC. [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.)