Music: This Week's New Releases

Portishead: "Go on, drink it..."

Compiled By Noah Mallin

Portishead come back after 11 years with their atmospheric gloom-mongering intact. Their new one, Third (It's their third album, natch) is readily identifiable as the work of the pioneering trip-hop threesome but the beats have grown more abstract and the rich production is studded with off-kilter glitches and unexpected detours. Here's the video from "Machine Gun":

Philly's leading hip-hoppers The Roots continue in a serious vein with Rising Down. The new set won't feature the song "Birthday Girl" which the band's fans decided was just too darn commercial and lighthearted (though not creepy despite the fixation on the age of consent) to fit into the harsh survey of modern life that is the new record. Here's the video for "Risin' Up":

Santogold has been getting a great deal of hype around N.Y.C. for their self-titled debut. The duo of frontwoman Santi White and John Hill have weathered many an M.I.A. comparison but the album actually has a fair share of guitar based songs to go along with tracks helmed by Diplo and M.I.A. producer Switch. Here's the video for "L.E.S. Artistes":

Back in the early 70s Tom Petty was just a guy in this band Mudcrutch who moved out to L.A. in search of fame and fortune. The record company was all, "Dude, you don't need those guys Tommy -- you're the real star...ditch those losers..." And he was like, "Uh...Okay," and took off with guitarist Mike Campbell after one album. Guess the guilt has been eating him up 'cause he got the old band back together to record a new album. Here's the video for "Lover of The Bayou":

Finally Madonna does her embarrassing Mom who dresses too young and fakes a British accent routine on the lamely innuendo'ed Hard Candy (Mtume did it better with the song "Juicy Fruit" way back when..)

Music: This Week's New Releases

Black Francis: "Yer in me power..."

Compiled by Noah Mallin

Last week brought us a new album from ex-Pixie Kim Deal's band The Breeders; This week brings us ex-Pixie Black Francis (nee Frank Black) and his new album, the awesomely rocking Svn Fngrs. As we all know, two weeks of ex-Pixies albums means five more weeks of winter. Here's the video for new track "I Sent Away":


Air celebrates the tenth (!) anniversary of their acclaimed Moon Safari with a three-disc CD/DVD re-issue featuring live tracks and remixes. Here's the Spike Jonze directed video for "Kelly Watch The Stars":


M83 issues another album of cinematic popcraft with Saturdays = Youth. Here's the video for "Graveyard Girl":


Finally a DVD of rare live Clash performances, The Clash Live: Revolution Rock continues Sony's mission of uncovering every last scrap of Clash related material out there. Here's a preview of the doc which previously aired on PBS:

Music: This Week's New Releases

The new offerings in the music world this week sound more like an update from an Afghan record store what with Mountain Battles and a new Cave dispatch.

Leading the way is a new album by the sisters Deal, otherwise known as The Breeders to us mere mortals. I don't think it's overpraise to call my first encounter with Mountain Battles delightful, a compendium of all the things I've come to rely on Kim (and Kelley) Deal for and a few new tricks to boot. Here's a home-made video for "Overglazed":


Nick Cave laughs in the face of those who say you can't rock and age gracefully. He and his Bad Seeds issue Dig! Lazarus, Dig! I don't think it's overpraise to say this may be one of their best albums. In addition Cave has a fantstaic mustache. Enjoy the title track:


Sub Pop gives us two very special releases, the freaky-folksy friendly EP from Fleet Foxes they call Sun Giant and hot UK act Foals' post-punk debut Antidote. I don't think it's overpraise to say that each of these albums will make someone's Top 10 list -- somewhere. Could it be you? Here are the Fleet Foxes doing "Summertime":


And the Foals' herky-jerky "Cassius":

Music: This Week's New Releases

Compiled by Noah Mallin

Here are some of the interesting new music choices this week. As always, if the vids show up as not available hit refresh in your browser.

R.E.M. mark the box labeled crunchy guitars on their new album Accelerate. Here's the video for "Supernatural Superserious" and no, that's not Moby:


The Annuals slide their Wet Zoo EP across the counter at ya. Here's Annuals doing an oldie --"Brother", way back in 2006 at The Bowery Ballroom:


Retro garage blues punks The Black Keys get pulled into the current century by producer Danger Mouse on Attack & Release. Here's the Black Keys doing "I Got Mine" off the new album live. What, no girl drummer?


Wacky tobacky enthusiast Willie Nelson gets the career retrospective treatment with the 4CD boxset One Hell of a Ride. Here's Willie looking like a scruff with Enrique's papa together in slim-o-vision:


Ministry cover ZZ Top, Bob Dylan, and Tom Waits on their really really last album (for now) Cover Up. Here's the sickest version of "Lay Lady Lay" ever:


The soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's concert film Shine a Light on the Rolling Stones -- shot in Wrinkle-Vision and featuring guests Jack White, Christina Aguilera and Buddy Guy. Here are the aged rockers doing the title track to Some Girls, somewhat sanitized lyrically:

Music: New Release Tuesday

The Raconteurs are voting for McKinley this year...

Those rascally Raconteurs rush release their new one, Consolers of The Lonely today. Naughty iTunes spoiled the retro unheard release fun by accidentally offering downloads over the weekend. Here's the video evidence, a new song called "Salute Your Solution":


The B-52's are all "Mwahh hah hah hah we're not dead fool!" with new release Funplex. Here's a fan video for the song "Funplex":


Reformed drug enthusiast Evan Dando delivers a remastered deluxe edition of his band The Lemonheads' most beloved album, It's a Shame About Ray. Check him out at the height of his indie-Fabio-ness in the "My Drug Buddy" video:

Music: New Release Tuesday Gets Violent with Destroyer, The Kills, and more!

The Kills veiled threat...

The Kills come back for more with new album Midnight Boom and they've discovered the ol' poppy poppy by adding some boopy- boppy. I mean to say their embrace of electronic flourishes enhances their new found delight in melody. Oh hell, judge for yourself with new video for the first single "U R A Fever":



Dan Bejar asserts his independence from Canadian supergroupdom by releasing yet another album of intense singer songwriter action under the Destroyer name. It's called Trouble in Dreams. Here's Destroyer doing "It's Gonna Take an Airplane" back in '06:


Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward team up as She and Him on their utterly charming new album Volume 1. Dare I dream for a Volume 2 ? Here they are doing "Black Hole" at South by Southwest last week:


Cute little riot guys and gal Be Your Own Pet unleash Get Awkward. Because they are hip to the whole youth thing, being youths themselves they went the viral webisode route rather than making a vid. See it:

Music: Raconteurs Celebrate the Change of Seasons by Springing New Album on Unsuspecting Public

Jack White's other band, you know, the one he sneaks into motels with for a little string-bending while Meg's not around, has stunned the music world by announcing their new album Consolers of the Lonely will be released next Tuesday. Amazingly the set was only finished on March 1st. There will be no preview for the media.

Presumably The Raconteurs are taking this unusual task to replicate the old days of records being released without leaking onto the net and being consumed as a whole by excited fans eager to hear the next note from their favorite band.

Music: New Music Tuesday

Kaki King

Kaki King is kind of the Joe Satriani of indie folkie guitarists. Like guitar wankster Satriani she's at the point in her career where she has to write actual songs and sing and she delivers on the new album Dreaming of Revenge. Here's the light-trail-happy video for "Pull Me Out":


Pioneering indie rapper Del Tha Funkee Homosapien returns with new album 11th Hour. Here's the video for new single "Workin' It":



Weirdo genre-defyers Why? hit us up with new one Alopecia which sports the song "Vowels Part 2", seen here live:

New Music: New Release Tuesday

Malkmus in the middle -- of some Jicks

This week features the recording debut of former Pavement honcho Stephen Malkmus' new Jicks -- his backup band now includes former Quasi and Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. They get all granola-y and jamlike with the new one Real Emotional Trash. Here they are doing "Out of Reaches" at a soundcheck:



Bauhaus feels it necessary to bring us all down again with what they claim is their last album -- also their first since reuniting after many years of solo earth-wandering. It's called Go Away White and it's not a very nice thing to say to Jack and/or Meg. Here's the video for oldie "She's in Parties":


Mark Lanegan and Afghan Whig-ster Greg Dulli team up their super bachelor powers for the new album under the name The Gutter Twins. Here's "Idle Hands" live at the Bowery ballroom in New York:



Black Crowes return from the H.O.R.D.E tour circuit with Warpaint -- a finalist for Maxim's album of the year no doubt. I would show you a video from rocking new tune "Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution" but the idiots at RED Distribution, the Crowes' label, have disabled embedding because they have no clue how this business of actually promoting a record works in the 21st century.

Music: This Week's New Music Releases

Alison Goldfrapp

Goldfrapp take a chill pill and eschew the dancefloor with their mellow new disc Seventh Tree. Here's the video for "A & E" which I am assured does not feature Peter Graves:


Edgy R & B diva Erykah Badu comes back from a long lay-off with New AmErykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War which oddly is also the name of a folder on George W. Bush's desktop. Here's the video for "Honey" which opens up in what the ancestors used to call a "record store." Hmmm...


Dreamy shoegazey types Beach House lay some Devotion on us. Here's the sparkly video for "You Came to Me":


Cowboy Junkies simulate a cough-syrup flashback with Trinity Revisited, a re-recorded version of their soporific best seller The Trinity Session -- this time with special guests such as Vic Chestnutt and Natalie Merchant.here they are with Ms. Merchant doing "Working on a Building":



Give Dolly parton credit for self knowledge (and parody) -- her new one is called Backwoods Barbie. In amongst the Nashville bric-a-brac are covers of Smokey Robinson's "The Tracks of My Tears" and Fine Young Cannibals "She Drives Me Crazy." Here's the "Better Get to Livin' " clip featuring the always welcome Amy Sedaris:


Don't forget: If the vids don't play, refresh your browser!

New Music: This Week's New Releases -- Raveonettes, Nick Lowe, AMC, and more!

The Raveonettes: Take a picture -- it'll last longer...

One of the best jobs I ever had was working in a used CD store in Ithaca, New York. I worked for a man named Sven Smith (if you're out there in Blogistan Sven, drop me a line) who had impeccable taste in music and entrusted me with his store for days at a time while he explored the wonders of morphine or hydroponically grown weed. Among his heroes was Nick Lowe, who shared his fondness for well-cut suit jackets. It was through Sven that I learned to appreciate Lowe's first solo album, 1978's Jesus of Cool (retitled Pure Pop For Now People in the States so as to prevent incidents of record store firebombings at the hands of future Mike Huckabee voters). Both titles describe it to a T.

Lowe's first and best is re-issued this week on Yep Roc with lots of juicy extras, some of which come from his Bowi EP, so named in response to David Bowie's concurrent Low LP. Lowe said he wanted to get Bowie back for naming an album after him and not even spelling it right. Here's Lowe in an awesome Riddler-esque jacket doing "I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass":


Mark Eitzel reactivates his American Music Club moniker for a new album of moody sullenness and top-notch songwriting. The new album is called The Golden Age, that sarcastic bastard. Here's the video from their album Engine for the song "Rise":


Ex-Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty shows us what he thinks of red-eye reduction settings and dental hygeine with the first video from his new album The Golden Delicious, "27 Jennifers":


Atlas Sound, which is the more melodic alter ego of Deerhoof dude Bradford Cox, release their new one entitled Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel. Like, heavy man. Here's the vid for "River Card":


The Raveonettes finally unleash last year's Lust Lust Lust on hard up Americans. Here's "Candy":

Music News: Scarlett Johansson Unveils Tom Waits Cover Album Tracklist -- Continues To Bedevil Older Men

Oh ScarJo, where will it all end? Not content to wrap Bill Murray and Woody Allen around your perfectly formed little finger you've now managed to entice Tom Waits into giving his blessing to your new album and lured Dame David Bowie into warbling along on a few tracks. Here's the tracklist:

"Fawn" "Town With No Cheer" "Falling Down" "Anywhere I Lay My Head" "Fannin' Street" "Song for Jo" "Green Grass" "I Wish I Was in New Orleans" "I Don't Want To Grow Up" "No One Knows I'm Gone" "Who Are You?"

"Song for Jo" is an original, and the whole shebang is produced by TV on The Radio's Dave Sitek and features guitar work from non other than TVOTR and Yeah Yeah Yeah's axeman Nick Zinner. Bowie sings on "Falling Down" and "Fannin' Street."

Music News: This Week's New Music

Jill Sobule: Alright, you kissed a girl -- now what?

British Sea Power returns this week, if not to the waves then to the dwindling number of record stores nationwide with Do You Like Rock Music? Why yes, yes I do! A more appropo question in light of their new bigger sound would be "Do you like stadium rock" to which I say, "Um, Sometimes..." Here's the creepy puppet-filled video for "No Lucifer":


Straight from a Vasser girl's dorm room circa 1995 comes the tracklisting for Neil Young tribute Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young For Charity. You get your ex-Throwing Muses (both Donnely and Hersh) , Veruca Salt, Jill Sobule, Britta Phillips and more. Oh and it goes to benefit the breast cancer prevention industry.
Here's the Fabio-fortified video for Sobule's hit "I Kissed a Girl", in retrospect a clear harbinger of our future moral decline:


Robert Pollard oh-so-casually releases one of the 75 albums he is likely to plop out this year with Superman Was a Rocker. Here's Pollard from 2006 doing one of the best of the 25,000 songs he's released in the last few years, "I'm a Widow":


Alert the kids! On second thought...Michael Jackson sees his high-water mark Thriller re-issued in a 25th Anniversary edition. Oh fuck it, ever see a reptile dance? Well now's your chance. Oh and there's a bunch of lizards too:

Music: New Release Tuesday

Nada Surf 's Matthew Caws

This week's new releases are headed by Hot Chip, who take their Beta Band-as-imagined-by-LCD Soundsystem electronic indie rock into poppier realms with Made in The Dark. Here's the first single, "Ready for the Floor":


Bob Mould, Ex- Husker Du -ster and Sugar frontguy and former writer for the World Wrestling federation launches his latest solo album, The Distrct Line: Here's some propaganda from his label Anti in which todays wimpy indie rockers (including Death Cab's Ben Gibbard and Interpol's Sam Fogarino) lionize Grandpa Bob:


Nada Surf and head songwriting honcho and frontman Matthew Caws continue to polish their cred with the relatively upbeat Lucky LP, featuring this song, "Whose Authority." Not only is it a supremely awesome New York video but it also features Pete -- you know, from Nickleodeon's quirkfest The Adventures of Pete & Pete:


Fresh off of their shout-out on HBO's The Wire (such a brutal moment with McNulty looking like an old fart trying to connect with his kids over The Ramones), Dead Meadow lay off the bong for a moment to produce their latest Matador album, Old Growth which clearly refers to the drummer's beard. See for yourself with the clip for "What Needs Must Be":

Music: This Week's New Releases

The holiday season is gearing up which means repackaging, repackaging, ooo a last minute hip-hop blockbuster or two, and yet more repackaging.

That being said there are a few releases of note this week.

On the actually new front is Bonnie "Prince" Billy's covers album Ask Forgiveness. No forgiveness necessary buddy, especially not when you're covering R. Kelly and Bjork. Here's the video for "Cursed Sleep" from his last album:


Also new is an EP From the wonderful British Sea Power called Krankenhaus? Here they are doing "Atom" from the new EP live in 2006:



The pick of the recycling front is yet another installment of Motown's wallet draining, ear expanding drool inducing singles box set collections, this one covering the epochal year 1968.
Click on this link to see the incomparable Marvin Gaye singing "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" a capella.

Steely Dan man Donald Fagen boxes his three solo albums together along with a DVD in The Nightfly Collection. Here's the classic video to "New Frontier" from the album The Nightfly, an MTV staple in the early 80s:


Led Zeppelin shake their super-fans down for a second week in a row with their remastered The Song Remains The Same soundtrack. Here's the trailer for the film:


Finally Damon Albarn's Gorillaz supergroup collects their D-Sides for your listening pleasure. Here's the video for "Rockit" from the collection:

Music: This Week's New Releases

Fresh from rampaging through downtown Boston Celine Dion assaults the ears with yet another album -- the new release titled Taking Chances. What sort of chances are the stick figure like Canadian thrush taking? She tells Billboard that "Maybe no one thought I was capable of doing anything else, but I've got Heart and Doobie Brothers and Janis Joplin and Creedence Clearwater Revival inside of me, too." Here's looking forward to her covering, oh I don't know, "Ramble Tamble".

Here's Jennifer Saunders doing Celine (not like that you pervs)


Alicia Keys, fresh off of her namecheck on Bobby Dylan's last album comes out with Songs in A Minor, a title that's perilously close to an R. Kelly disc.

Here's Alicia gabbing with VH-1 about the new album:



Duran Duran take time off from model hunting to release a new one, Red Carpet Massacre. Even though as my wife points out without Andy Taylor they are more like, well, Duran. This time they have drafted Timbaland (!) and Justin Timberlake (!!) for a different sound. As a man not named Taylor explained to Billboard: "I'm always personally really inspired by working with urban producers, moreso than rock producers" If you guessed that was keyboardist Nick Rhodes (rather than, say, Sasha Frere-Jones) then you are a pretty darn good guesser.

Here's a behind the scenes vid with aforementioned urban producer Timbaland:



Led Zeppelin are the band that cares. Despite a hurt finger for Jimmy page and a totally awesome album/tour with Alison Krauss for Robert Plant they have taken the time to repackage their catalog for the umpteenth time with the two-disc Mothership. Ka-ching!

The Hives don't cover Michael Jackson on their new offering Black and White.

Here's the video for new song "Tick Tick Boom":


Robyn Hitchcock gets some of his eighties catalog reissued with added rarities and slapped into a honking new boxset with the 5-disc set I Wanna Go Backwards. Missing are his A&M albums, back when A&M had cool bands like Hitchcock, The Mekons, and Soul Asylum to treat like crap. Still this ones a stocking stuffer/Hannukah bush berry/ Kwanzaa unicycle treat.

Here's the super cheapo vid for "The Man with the Lightbulb Head":

Music: This Week's New Releases

Jay-Z shows off this weeks colors

Busy executive on the go Jay-Z knows how to stay relevant. Perhaps soon to step aside Time Warner head honcho Richard Parsons and Merrill Lynch's former CEO Stanley O'Neal (still sporting fresh tire tracks on his back) could learn from their fellow CEO of color Jay-Z how to hang on to the top job. Rap about the old days of slinging bags and popping caps. American Gangster, the soundtrack to the oh-so-very serious Denzel Washington/Russel Crowe Shaft Goes to The Oscars-esque film of the same name, is getting the comeback hype that Jay's last album squelched. The diff? He's rapping about drug dealing again rather than being rich and having it made as the head of Def Jam records. The market has spoken!

Meanwhile Grizzly Bear's Friend EP has the Pitchfork set all in a tizzy despite being a bunch of remixes and alternate versions of already seen stuff. But CSS slides a cover on in there and you know that's gonna be good.

Sigur Ros's new one Hvarf/Heim has a name that sounds like the sound my cats make when they have a nasty hairball. Other than that I'm sure they will bring the icy coolness to autumn as per usual.

Music: New Release Tuesday -- What to Expect

Spears: "Guys don't let me blackout again...oh wait, cool album name alert!"

This will probably be neither the first nor last time that the words "Britney Spears" and "blackout" have appeared in a sentence. But how often has it happened in connection with a new album? Sadly Blackout (the album) is not a concept album in which Britney tries to reconstruct the events leading up to her waking up on the red tile floor of a 7-11 face-down in a pool of her own vomit. It has however been moved up a few weeks to thwart downloaders who want to deny Britney a big opening week.

Also back from the brink are the Backstreet Boys, this time minus original member Kevin Richardson who...ah hell, who really cares? Especially when The Eagles can top that story!

Yes 70s L.A. sleazy listening rockers The Eagles are back with Long Road Out of Eden their first all-new album since The Long Run lit up the charts while Jimmy Carter was President. Oh yeah, and it's only available from Wal-Mart on their own custom label. Self-righteous Walden Woods- saving Eagle Don Henley was unavailable for comment on this turn of events but Miami Vice multi-episode guest starrer Glenn Frey sets the record straight in this week's Billboard:

"I am in the business of selling records and I want to be in a place where we have the opportunity to sell the most records. It's also nice that Wal-Mart pays us a very lucrative royalty; a royalty that no record company could come close to matching. But that's because we are not a loss leader at Wal-Mart. If the Eagles put out a record at Warner or any other major record label, part of the reason they can't pay up is we've got to pay for all of the bad acts they sign and release."

Way to stick it to the next generation of Husker Dus Glenn!

Easily the coolest release of the week is the soundtrack to Todd Haynes Dylan fantasy biopic I'm Not There which features Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Steve Malkmus, Willie Nelson and many more.

Sometime Television guitar duellist Richard Lloyd re-appears with The Radiant Monkey.

Ex-Band-mate Levon Helm releases Dirt Farmer.

Music: This Week's New Releases

Neil Young

This week's new music is headed by grizzled vet Neil Young's sequel to a record that never came out, Chrome Dreams II. Like many Neil records following the original aborted Chrome Dreams, II is a Frankenstein's monster of songs from here and there including the epic 18 minute plus "Ordinary People" from his 1988 Bluenotes era.
Here's an odd photo montage of rusted cars set to "new" track "Dirty Old Man":


The non-brothers Ween return with La Cucaracha which sadly is not a Latin-tinged affair but happily is still Ween. Oh, did I mention David Sanborn guests on the track "Your Party"? Here is the live version of new song "Learnin' to Love":



Led Zeppelin frontman and aging eclecticist Robert Plant teams up with bluegrass megastar Alison Krauss for Raising Sand, a collab that's already garnering raves from the music press intelligentsia. Here's a promo vid:



Black Dice blow their load with Load Blown.

Rhino release their redundant Brit Box boxset of Britpop.

Re-issues include Can's Anthology, alt-country pin-up girl Neko Case's first album The Virginian, and Of Montreal's early and very interesting If He is Protecting Our Nation...Who is Protecting Big Oil?

Music: This Week's New Releases

R.E.M.

This week's new music releases lead off with Athens Georgia's own R.E.M., a band who up until now had nary a live album in their catalog (though they have a couple of excellent live DVD's.) This album documents their recent mini-tour which also produced some new songs and is cleverly named Live.

Fellow Athen-ites Pylon see their album Gyrate re-issued with some bonus tracks.

The Reissue masters at Rhino give us a double-disc set of Aretha Franklin rarities with the lengthily monikered Rare And Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of The Queen Of Soul.

Jimmy Eat World try again to recapture the magic of 2001's breakthrough single "The Middle" with the Butch Vig produced set Chase the Light.

Finally, Kenna also tries to get back some of the buzz that surrounded him back in the early-aughties with Make Sure They See My Face.