The Year: 1983
The Album: Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen
Who it Influenced: The Hold Steady, Titus Andronicus, The Constantines, Foo Fighters, Mark Lanegan, Interpol

Chances are, if you're going to a summer festival this year, you're going to be watching the Afghan Whigs. On many bills, they're pretty high up, a feted entry on the line-up effectively filling the 'reformed '90s rockband' slot previously occupied by Pavement, Pulp et al.

For younger listeners, maybe this doesn't seem strange: the Afghan Whigs have a bunch of celebrated records —1993's Gentlemen has had book written about it— and were a part of that happy orgy of Sub Pop acts who inked to major labels and played Lollapalooza. I mean, they were peers of Soundgarden and Nirvana, say no more.

Except, in their day, the Afghan Whigs were defined by their underdog status. Their fans came to worship them whilst building up a weird inferiority complex; the lack of (relative) commercial success leading Whigs lovers to believe they appreciated and understood Greg Dulli and co in a way that casual listeners just couldn't get.

And never was there more a case for this than with Gentlemen, which for all its lack of an MTV-blasted hit single, was an astonishing LP: a full-length narrative study in infidelity, sex and drug addiction, and deceit that only revealed itself over sustained listens.

• Full review: Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen

Bill Fay will release a brand new album in August. Life Is People will be released on the 21st of August by Dead Oceans, and marks the reclusive English songsmith's first new studio record in over four decades.

Fay's last LP was 1971's amazing, apocalyptic Time of the Last Persecution, an on-the-edge album worshipped by modern-day songwriters like Jim O'Rourke, Jeff Tweedy, and Okkervil River's Will Sheff.

Life Is People finds Fay reuniting with guitarist Ray Russell and drummer Alan Rushton, who played on Time of the Last Persecution, as well as working with a host of young musicians, a string quartet, and a gospel choir. That its eponymous cut is called a "Cosmic Concerto" seems to suggest the sound of the record, as well as suggesting that 40 years haven't done much to change one of English songwriter's most unique talents.

Life Is People Track List:
1. "There Is A Valley"
2. "Big Painter"
3. "The Never Ending Happening"
4. "This World"
5. "The Healing Day"
6. "City of Dreams"
7. "Be At Peace With Yourself"
8. "Jesus, Etc."
9. "Empires"
10. "Thank You Lord"
11. "Cosmic Concerto (Life is People)"
12. "The Coast No Man Can Tell"

Photo © Steve Gullick

Everyone favorite bearded-entertainer, one-man electro showman, and Francis Ford Coppola collaborator has a brand new album. Dan Deacon —the Baltimore musician behind such delirious LPs as 2007's Spiderman of the Rings and 2009's Bromst will release his ninth full-length on the 28 of August, via Domino.

The album is called America. As provocation, not patriotism. The press-release for the record offers: "the album demonstrates anger, confusion, and apocalyptic anxiety over corporatism and war, but finds consolation in the geography of the United States and in recent social movements both domestic and international."

The record finds Deacon employing a range of acoustic instruments —guitars, brass, strings, woodwinds— and moving away from the brash sound of Bromst. "The A-side is all pop songs; it's all killer no filler," Deacon told me last year, of the then-in-the-works album. "The B-side is one 20-minute piece divided into five movements and there's no pop song structure; it's a lot of development over time. It's both my poppiest and most experimental record."

The first single from America, "Lots," can be downloaded at the Dan Deacon website. Deacon has a handful of festival appearances and a European toured for September lined up, but expect plenty more tour dates before 2012 is out.

America Track List:
1. "Guilford Avenue Bridge"
2. "True Thrush"
3. "Lots"
4. "Prettyboy"
5. "Crash Jam"
6. "USA I: Is a Monster"
7. "USA II: The Great American Desert"
8. "USA III: Rail"
9. "USA IV: Manifest"

Tour Now and Sunrise:
July 7: Des Moines, IA - 80/35 Festival
July 12: New York, NY - Pier 84
July 14: Cincinatti, OH - Bunbury Music Festival
July 21: Antigonish, NS - Evolve Festival
September 1: Chicago, IL - North Coast Music Festival
September 7: Raleigh, NC - Hopscotch Music Festival
September 19: Prague, Czech Republic - Meet Factory
September 20: Berlin, Germany - Festsall Kreuzberg
September 21: Hamburg, Germany - Reepers
September 22: Eindehoven, Netherlands - Area 51
September 23: Amsterdam, Netherlands - Bitterzoet
September 24: Brussels, Belgium - Botanique
September 25: Paris, France - Le Trebando
September 26: London, England - Scala
September 28: Manchester, England - Islington Mill
September 29: Brighton, England - The Haunt

How to Dress Well will release a new LP, Total Loss, later in 2012. In the Northern Fall. Circa September. It will be Tom Krell's first release for Acéphale Records, and marks the longplaying follow-up to his swiftly-influential debut, Love Remains.

The first single from the set, "Ocean Floor For Everything," furthers Krell's signature How To Dress Well sound; sounding, again, like an R&B power-ballad drowning in the bottom of a well.

Stirring further back into life after a quiet first-half-of-2012, Krell will take How to Dress Well on tour through North America, giving audiences the greatest karaoke performances of their lives...

Krell's Bells:
June 5: New York, NY - TBD
June 7: Toronto, ON - The Drake
June 8: Montréal, QC - Il Motore
June 9: Brooklyn, NY - Public Assembly
June 13: Vancouver, BC - Waldorf Hotel
June 14: Portland, OR - Holocene
June 15: San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
June 16: Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
June 23: Calgary, AB - Sled Island Festival

Photo © Jesse Lirola