Anthony's Alternative Music Blog

Hyperactive, mildly spastic Welsh twee-pop jamboree Los Campesinos! have already issued one of the most brilliant indie sets of 2008: their charm-loaded debut disc Hold On Now, Youngster.... Deciding to keep on keeping on whilst the keeping-on's still good (or, um, something like that), those crazy Los Camp! kids have recently revealed that their second album, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, will be their second album of 2008; announcing its imminent arrival for October 13.

In celebration of their swiftly-disseminated second disc, Los Campesinos! have planned one almighty hype-startin' tour of both British and Emerald Isles; playing eight October dates with Sub Pop's red-hot Los Angelino noiseniks No Age, and Matador's in-the-red, overdriven lo-fi jam-kids Times New Viking. When it comes to assembling touring parties of 2008-hype-bands cranking out short, sharp songs, three, it seems, is the heavenly option.

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed Track List
1. "Ways To Make It Through The Wall"
2. "Miserabilia"
3. "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed"
4. "Between An Erupting Earth And An Exploding Sky"
5. "You'll Need Those Fingers For Crossing"
6. "It's Never That Easy Though, Is It? (Song For The Other Kurt)"
7. "The End Of The Asterisk"
8. "Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown # 1"
9. "Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time"
10. "All Your Kayfabe Friends"

This decade, the Baltimore-born, New York-raised, globally-based freak-folk outfit Animal Collective have earned a reputation as one of the most forward-thinking, consistently impressive, utterly unique voices in modern music. Having delivered such classics as 2004's Sung Tongs and last year's brain-meltingly good Strawberry Jam, the quartet have operated at a level above and beyond the artistic pale. And to cap off the oughts, AC have announced details of their latest longplayer.

Entitled Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective's ninth studio album was recorded at Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, Mississippi (a studio used, of recent, by those moodists of the NYC, The Walkmen). Though, thus far, guarded in equal parts secrecy and mystery, the forthcoming Merriweather Post Pavilion does feature recent live-favorite "Taste." Needless to say, by January 20, 2009, when the Domino Record Co. serves it up to the world, all shall be revealed.

Merriweather Post Pavilion Track List
1. "In The Flowers"
2. "My Girls"
3. "Also Frightened"
4. "Summertime Clothes"
5. "Daily Routine"
6. "Bluish"
7. "Guys Eyes"
8. "Taste"
9. "Lion In A Coma"
10. "No More Runnin"
11. "Brothersport"

I guess Diplo and I have been listening to the same discs (or, y'know, compressed audio-files) this year. The Philadelphian party-king —best known for his long-term relationship with M.I.A., his exuberant shilling of Brazilian funk-carioca, and his increasingly-lengthy dancefloor-slaying mash-up sets— recently announced a 24-date North American tour in which his main supports will be two of my favorite outfits of 2008: New York's Telepathe and Los Angeles' Abe Vigoda.

Abe Vigoda's second LP, Skeleton, is starting to firm as one of the best albums of the year. Released in July on Post Present Medium, the label run by Dean Spunt of LA's fawned-over white-noise duo No Age, the raucous, rollicking record has proved both enduring and endearing: its snaky guitar lines, caterwauling vocals, and rarely-restrained sense of joy making for a set worthy of repeat plays.

Telepathe (pictured) are a duo from Brooklyn, born of the same scene that raised Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, TV on the Radio, and countless others. TVOTR honcho Dave Sitek is a huge fan of Telepathe, having invited them to remix and play support slots for his barnstorming band. Not to mention having produced their forthcoming debut LP (tentatively-titled, um, Dance Mother F**ker, release-date TBC). Early tastes, like the killer single "Chrome's On It," are utterly thrilling; showing the pair using the shiny synths and sinuous electronics of commercial rap to fashion tribalist incantations.

“We listen to a lot of hip-hop on the radio,” Melissa Livaudais, one half of Telepathe, told me in a June interview. “I got really into syncopated rhythms, and dance-hall stuff, and heavy-bass disco. I just started listening to all this music, cataloguing it in my mind. We weren’t trying to be hip-hop producers, but being influenced by contemporary music, stuff that’s out in the world right now, feels exciting to me.”

And exciting, indeed, is what this mad Mad Decent jamboree shall be.

Photo © [Eliza Douglas]

All Tomorrow's Parties —a 'boutique' festival curated by headlining artists, and held in an ever-changing array of holiday camps on varying continents— will make its maiden voyage to Australia in January. After the recent success of the first-ever ATP New York (helmed by shoegaze kingpins My Bloody Valentine), come the early ought-nine the fest will sail from its home, in England, to its farthest colonial outpost. And curatorial reins have been handed to Nick Cave, the devilish renaissance-man whose stature in his hometown, Melbourne, is something close to godly.

ATP will hold a fully-fledged two-day summer camp-out, on January 9 and 10, at Mt. Buller Ski Resort, roughly three hours outside of Melbourne. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds —currently finishing off their first North American tour in five years— are, of course, the headliners.

And, as programmers, Naughty Nicholas and co have picked a particularly eclectic mix of artists: legendary synthesizer trailblazers Silver Apples, recently-reformed kraut-rock supergroup Harmonia (populated by members of Neu! and Cluster), doped-up gospel-psych institution Spiritualized, British wall-of-sound noiseniks F**k Buttons, and shamanist Japanese psych sisters Afrirampo amongst the ranks.

The following weekend, January 17 and 18, ATP will stage the same single-day festival, on back-to-back days, on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour (with free ferry ride to the islet included in ticket price!). And, in between the two outdoor-concerts, from the 12th to the 16th, a series of ATP-themed shows will take place in Brisbane's Powerhouse, with a larger-scale outdoor jamboree planned for January 15 at the Riverstage in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.

For abundant, in-depth details, one need turn only to the informative ATP website, which is, quite amusingly, already hawking 'earlybird' tickets to ATP NY 2009 (only 11-and-a-half months to go!).

Photo © [Polly Borland]

Chad VanGaalen is a poster-child for recycling. The 30-year-old Canadian is a notorious homebody, forever tinkering away in the basement of his Calgary house. There, when not beavering away at, say, the three albums he’s released on Sub Pop, VanGaalen can be found tending to his collection of self-built instruments, which he’s fashioned from society’s refuse as part of an art-world-inspired, trash-as-treasure aesthetic.

VanGaalen's brand new album, Soft Airplane, is a lyrical study on death, which also makes it about recycling: the natural world's continuous loop of death, decomposition, and rebirth lingering in his often odd tales.

I recently interviewed Dr. VanGaalen, who discussed his days busking, his work with fellow Calgarians Women, and the influence of the lo-fi movement on his embrace of at-home practice and archaic tape-machines.

The self-styled songsmith's peculiar brand of ad-hoc pop is ripe for some free-like sampling at Sub Pop HQ, too. Whilst a legally-admissible MP3 of the sweetly banjo-pluckin' ode-to-dying "Willow Tree" is a fine score, those wishing to truly get a handle on VanGaalen's ways should open their eyes to the lurid video for "Molten Light." Animated by Chad himself, it serves as a direct, disturbing window onto the grotesqueries of the songsmith's subconscious.

Photo © [Marc Rimmer]

Slowburnin' Baltimore duo Beach House play music that's all syrupy and narcotic, languidly laying out notes in an oozing, opiate haze rich with golden auburn notes. Across their two records, the two not-lovebirds —vocalist/organist Victoria Legrand, slide-guitarist Alex Scally— have evoked classic comedown icons like Nico and Opal, fashioning an insular world in which to lure the listener.

Thus far, their output has been wholly of the compact-digital variety, but the band have just announced their virgin vinyl pressing: a 7" entitled "Used to Be," to be minted upon Carpark Records. The title-track is a brand new jam, but its flipside is a super-early four-track recording of "Apple Orchard," a song found on their first, self-titled disc. Meaning: this record backs the brand new with the really old, provided a potted history of the pair on a single wax platter.

Though they've spent most of '08 tripping across both hemispheres, on tour, Beach House will prepare some public more performances in support of the single, announcing a new run of dates. And, for those wishing to dig up more dirt on the dreamy dream-pop duo, Scally recently took part in some sweet interviewing, where he, amongst other things, clarified that there are no actually beaches in Baltimore.

Bostonian songstress Casey Dienel began the year with a bang, issuing Phylactery Factory, her first album under the name White Hinterland, in March. She's now set to end the ought-eight in similar style, following on with an extra-playing five-track set sung wholly in French.

Her October 21-due EP is entitled Luniculaire. If you're scrambling for your French dictionary, fear not; Luniculaire is not a French word, but a portmanteau wedding together "lunaire" (lunar) and "funiculaire" (funicular, as in railway).

Along with two Dienel originals, penned in French, the 23-year-old has the sand to tackle tracks made famous by French icons Françoise Hardy ("Mon Amie La Rose"), Serge Gainsbourg ("Requiem Pour Un Con"), and the incomparable Brigitte Fontaine ("J'ai 26 Ans," from her legendary LP Comme à la Radio, an unhinged collaboration with Areski and the Art Ensemble of Chicago that I'm saving a place for in the Definitive Albums section).

Dienel and crew recently visited the Daytrotter studio to lay down a sweetly set of live-ly songs. And, Rocktober will find her taking the White Hinterland show on the road, with Dienel's first-ever European Tour, which culminates, fittingly, with shows in Paris and Brussels.

Luniculaire Track List
1. "Requiem Pour Un Con"
2. "Chant de Grillon"
3. "Mon Ami La Rose"
4. "Lunirascible"
5. "Orphaned"

Photo © [Tod Seelie]

Eight years and four albums into things, New Yorker moodists The Walkmen are in career form. Their latest longplayer, You & Me seems, with every successive spin, to be firming as their best-record-yet. It's certainly been their most successful; its spike of digital sales on its initial online release helping the record bother the Billboard chart (#29 digital! #71 regular!).

The quintet's 2008 has also included a couple of visits to Daytrotter HQ in scenic Rock Island, Illinois. After knocking out a set of Leonard Cohen songs early in the year, last month the Walkmen dusted off a foursome of tracks pulled from the fearsome, track-marked back-cat of gonzo Royal Trux/Howling Hex honcho Neil Michael Hagerty.

Given how good things're going, Hamilton Leithauser has every right to strut. The Walkmen's dude-ish, hoarse-throat'd vocalist —so peripatetic during their anthemic liveshows— sat still long enough, earlier this week, to field a session of searing questions. Read on, gentle children.

In 2003, Max Tundra told me: "I’m fairly insecure about my music at the best of times." Clearly, for the artist actually named Ben Jacobs, the past six years haven't been the best of times. Since releasing his ridiculous(ly good) Mastered by Guy at the Exchange album in 2002, Jacobs has been slaving away at his next effort. The years ran like rabbits, he started suffering carpal-tunnel syndrome, and found himself so derailed by rampant second-guessing that many assumed he'd become the Kevin Shields of manic tweelectro-funk, lost in the eternal torture of the impossible follow-up.

It's with no sense of small wonder, then, that I'm currently listening to Parallax Error Beheads You, the forthcoming third album from the tiny Londoner. The 10-song set —whose photographer's-injoke title evokes, for me, Alan Pakula's prescient mid-'70s paranoia thriller The Parallax View— is a lurid collection of hyperactive pop-songs on which Jacobs draws influence from Frank Zappa, Prince, and old-school computer-programming. Suggestive of its long, troubled gestation, it turns out to be a lyrical study in mortality, climaxing in a frenetic, autobiographical, guitar-solo-ing 11-minute opus named, no less, "Until We Die."

The folk at Domino, positively kvelling with marketing pride, are serving up a steaming-hot special-edition of Parallax Error Beheads You. Inspired by the line "a pint of chicken soup comes falling from my eye" from one of the many death-centric odes herein, "Number Our Days," they've cooked up one cockeyed idea: the 'kosher' format.

Thus, a limited edition 'soup can' version of the album will be released. By which I mean: an actual soup can. In some sort of inversion of Warhol, Max Tundra presents you not with a representation of the object, but the object itself; Domino offering a Tundra-themed can of heat-at-home Kosher Chicken nosh that comes replete with download-codes for the songs. The album will be unveiled, in both broth and non-broth versions, at various points of the remaining ought-eight around the world (October 11 in Australia, the 20th in the UK, sometime mid-November in the USA).

Parallax Error Beheads You Track List
1. "Gun Chimes"
2. "Will Get Fooled Again"
3. "Which Song"
4. "My Night Out"
5. "Orphaned"
6. "Nord Lead Three"
7. "The Entertainment"
8. "Number Our Days"
9. "Glycaemic Index Blues"
10. "Until We Die"

Mogwai are a curious musical proposition: talkative off the pitch, traps shut on it. Those kings of post-rock favor an intense instrumentalism that, when played on stage, rarely finds them saying a word. On albums, guest vocalists have popped up on occasion, but for the most part the Scottish quintet have displayed a considerable consistency: they play music, not sing songs.

Yet, away from their brooding, epic, wordless works, Mogwai have earnt a reputation for being needling pranksters, publicly ranting about such dubious cultural institutions as Blur, Test Icicles, and Pitchfork Media. Not to mention the comedy that comes from naming their subject-free songs things like "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead," "I Am Not Batman," and "Punk Rock/Puff Daddy/Antichrist."

Before this weekend's All Tomorrow's Parties festival in New York —which will find Mogwai playing at the same jamboree as their heroes, recently-reunited shoegaze originators My Bloody Valentine— I spoke to Mogwai founding father Stuart Braithwaite. Across the course of our conversation, he shared such sage wisdoms as: "A lot of people who write instrumental music, if they were being honest, would have to say their music wasn’t actually about anything. But a lot of people lie!"

The chit-chat comes in anticipation of the next-Tuesday release of Mogwai's sixth studio album, The Hawk Is Howling, by the morally-upright upright mammals of the Matador Records clan. Thanks to said label, curious listeners can try before they buy, too, with a compressed audio file of the surprisingly bubbly "The Sun Smells Too Loud" being blithely bandied about. So, stick a sock in it and soak it up.

Photo © [Steve Gullick]