Band of Horses Saddle Up for Studio, Enhance Lineup
Joined by ex-members of Archers of Loaf and Modest Mouse

Finished reading Ashford Tucker's excellent Band of Horses interview over in the Features section right now? Good. Now on to the latest from Ben Bridwell and co.

Not ones to horse around (ack!), the band will re-enter the studio this March to record the rather-very-much-anticipated follow-up to last year's rather-very-much-adored debut Sub Pop LP Everything All the Time.

According to a post on the Band's website, they'll shack up in Asheville, North Carolina's Echo Mountain Recording to lay to tape a "brand spanking new BOH album of songs." No word quite yet on what those songs will sound like, but Horses do happily report that San Diego-based photographer Christopher Wilson (whose work adorned Everything) will provide artwork for this release as well.

As previously reported, Band of Horses stampede through the South this March, carting along spirited country-rockers Cary Ann Hearst and the Gun Street Girls. They also join fellow animal acts Modest Mouse, Grizzly Bear, Sparklehorse, Echo & the Bunnymen, and many more at the ATP vs. the Fans festival, going down UK-ways in mid-May.

If you catch one of these gigs, be sure to offer a warm welcome to the latest BOH recruits: Pacific Northwest stalwart Robin Peringer (who has done time with Modest Mouse, Elliott Smith, 764-HERO, and Bridwell's pre-Horses pals Carissa's Wierd) on guitar and Matt Gentling (ex-Archers of Loaf) on bass. [MORE...]

The Books Announce Spring Tour

Nothing says spring like the occasionally tense audio collages of Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto, aka the Books. Okay, maybe their music isn't the perfect fit for the season, but since their last piece of recorded music was the self-released Music for a French Elevator and with no full-length since 2005's Lost and Safe, we'll settle for the duo's recently announced springtime tour.

Though they have a single show at New York City's Webster Hall in January, the Books' tour begins in earnest in Ottawa, Canada on April 12. Along the way, they'll play an opera house, a couple of arts centers, and even a school of sorts: Chicago's Old Town School of Music, where they'll end the tour on April 28.

As of right now, a new Books record does not appear to be in the works, unfortunately. [MORE...]

Jarvis Gets U.S. Release Date, Tours Europe
U.S. releases for fellow Rough Traders Brakes, the Veils, 1990s too

Looks like Rough Trade Records and the World's Fair Label Group's hot new licensing relationship is off to a damned good start-- these two lovebirds are already expecting.

As previously reported, the adored UK imprint hooked up with the NYC-based distributor to help foster its latest releases and escort them across the pond for North American audiences to devour in carnivorous fashion.

First up is the tasty debut release from Jarvis, surname Cocker, the man behind Pulp. Jarvis' Jarvis arrives April 3 with reasonable domestic pricing and that rather hilarious video for "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time". The original version of Jarvis stormed the UK charts this past November.

Not long after, the Veils' Nux Vomica gets a U.S. un-Veil-ing (har har), and they're tacking on a bonus track ("Night Thoughts of a Tired Surgeon") and a video ("Advice for Young Mothers") to celebrate the blessed April 24 event. Brakesbrakesbrakes' (aka Brakes) The Beatific Visions follows up on May 8, with 1990s' TBA full-length debut closing out the first round of releases on May 22.

To celebrate his record's journey to the New World, Jarvis is touring the old: catch him in a European nation near you this winter. Or don't, for as you should know, Jarvis joins Björk, Interpol, Sonic Youth, Arctic Monkeys, El-P, Peaches, Tokyo Police Club, a reunited Jesus and Mary Chain, and a whole heaping mess of others for the 2007 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, playing the fest's opening day (April 27) in sweltering Indio, California.

Finally, as previously reported, Jarvis lends his distinctive vocals to "One Hell of a Party" from Air's latest LP, Pocket Symphony, out March 6 on Astralwerks. [MORE...]

Hella Kick Off Tour, Get Ready for Outer Space
They've got you feeling hella good, so let's just keep on dancing

Sure, Hella's tour doesn't really swing into full force until March, but we don't want to deprive fans in California of the knowledge that the five-deep band of prog-metal noise dudes are playing a couple of pre-tour shows in their home state. Tonight, January 23, they hit Visalia, tomorrow, January 24, they play L.A., and on February 28, they play San Francisco as part of the Noise Pop festival. Then in March, after a stop in Petaluma, their extra-Californian travels begin.

Speaking of launches, Hella's previously reported debut as a five-piece and first record for new label Ipecac-- There's No 666 in Outer Space-- will come out January 30. [MORE...]

LCD Soundsystem to Fans: Send Silver to #1!
It's, like, a movement

In what he assures fans is "not some fucking 'viral marketing' campaign thought up by someone at any label," LCD Soundsystem man-of-gumption James Murphy has announced to fans (via the DFA's message board; special thanks to reader Nichole Benavente for the tip) his intentions to disco-infiltrate the top of the U.S. Billboard charts on March 20.

That's right: Sound of Silver is going for the gold.

Murphy's been batting the idea around the DFA boards since early December, but with each subsequent posting (confirmed by his publicist) he's upped the zeal-- and the stakes. Back then he humbly sought top 40 placement, a couple weeks ago he set his sights on the top 10, and as of this January 18 posting, it's number one or bust for the DFA beat-connectors.

This is no mere pipe dream, mind you, and Murphy has the math to prove it. According to the LCD deacon, the soundtrack to the Beyoncé-boasting, Golden Globe-winning musical Dreamgirls moved 60064 units last week and held on to the number one Billboard spot (never mind that it did so with the lowest #1 sales in SoundScan history). LCD Soundsystem's self-titled debut, meanwhile, has sold an impressive 60559 copies since it hit shops in June 2005. 60559 is a hair more than 60064, so by that logic:

"straight up, if everyone who bought the first record bought s.o.s. the week it's released, then we're totally #1. [MORE...]

Photos: Mission of Burma [New York, NY; 01/19/07]

Mission of Burma took off on one of their intermittent mini-tours over the past two weekends, hitting Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, and New York City. Pitchfork photographer William Kirk caught Friday night's show at New York City's Irving Plaza, capturing Burma in all their furious glory.

Sorry, no nude pix here. Just lots and lots of rocking.

[MORE...]

Jesus and Mary Chain to Play Coachella!

Man, fuck the Police! This is a reunion we can get behind.

It has just been confirmed that shoegaze gods the Jesus and Mary Chain (who don't even have a real website) will perform at this year's Coachella, joining Rage Against the Machine, Björk, Interpol, Jarvis Cocker, the Arcade Fire, and, like, every other cool band in the galaxy in Indio, California on April 27-29.

We know that the JAMC played Lollapalooza a million years ago, but the idea of these guys performing outside in the sunshine is still kinda weird to us.

Touch and Go Revisit Festival With Video Awesomeness

Chicago got the royal treatment when it came to indie-centric festivals last summer, with more beloved bands gracing our fair city's parks and parking lots than most two-bit hipsters-- and their paychecks-- could handle.

But if you made just two festivals last year, hopefully this was one of them (and this was the other): Capping off the delirious festival season, the Touch and Go Records 25th anniversary bash-- held in early September in conjunction with the Hideout's 10th annual Block Party-- provided a hearty share of the summer's best rock memories: Scratch Acid reuniting for a ferocious performance, Big Black teasing us with an EP's worth of songs, Negative Approach whipping the kids into a frenzied whirlpool, the original Man or Astro-man? lineup launching us into the retro-cosmos, and current T&G acts like Calexico, Ted Leo, and CocoRosie serving up their best-- and the list goes on.

Since Touch and Go 50 is a little ways off, why not relive those memories from last September's bonanza in fancy video format? Beginning today and continuing for every Monday for the next 32 weeks or so, Touch and Go will post choice performance footage on their website from pretty much every single performer on the venerable label's festival roster. Today's installment serves as an overview/introduction, including some words from T&G founder Corey Rusk and the Hideout's Tim and Katie Nicholson Tuten, along with a medley of concert snippets-- and let us say, the footage looks fantastic. Tune in next week for Ted Leo, and come back each week to follow for new audio-visual surprises.

In case you missed them, do scope Touch and Go's festival photo gallery and Pitchfork's photo coverage. And don't worry-- while the label is looking back, they're still looking forward too: Ted Leo's previously reported Living With the Living goes live March 20, while CocoRosie's third LP, The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn, arrives April 10.

Kristin Hersh Talks New Album

Kristin Hersh's back catalog stretches for miles, encompassing releases by her bands Throwing Muses and 50FootWave, as well as several solo records. But we're pretty sure that nothing in her discography was ever titled after a piece of spam email...until now.

Tomorrow, January 23, Yep Roc will release Learn to Sing like a Star in the U.S.; 4AD will put it out overseas on January 29. (An EP, In Shock, lands today, January 22 on 4AD. It features the album track "In Shock" as well as three non-album tunes.) According to Hersh, she also has new Throwing Muses and 50FootWave albums in the works, as well as an Appalachian folk project.

So, that title. Hersh explained it in a recent interview with Pitchfork, saying, "It's hard to pretend that there's anything artful about titling a CD. It's an artificial grouping of songs. Even titling a song is sometimes a little fakey if you ask me!

"But this just kept coming up; it just wouldn't shut up...this stupid 'American Idol' thing or whatever the hell it was. I couldn't ever bring myself to click on it, but as soon as it became meaningless-- you know, I'd heard the syllables so many times-- that's when it got pretty to me...I mean, like, stars--it sounds like something out of a Madeleine L'Engle book or something."

In the interview, Hersh also spilled a lot more information about the album, as well as talked about signing to Yep Roc, her upcoming tour, and what's going on with Throwing Muses and 50FootWave. [MORE...]

Silver Jews, Avey Tare, Enon, Black Dice on RBR Comp
Also: The Jewish (!), not a Silver Jews side project

Since 1995, Nicolas Vernhes has produced everybody from the Fiery Furnaces and Cat Power to Les Savy Fav and Ted Leo at his Rare Book Room Studio in Brooklyn. And he has convinced a bunch of artists he's worked with to return the favor, by contributing new material for his new label, Rare Book Room Records.

The label's first release will be a double disc compilation tentatively titled RBR 001 ("til I come up with a better one," Vernhes says) and featuring contributions from Fischerspooner, Animal Collective's Avey Tare, Enon, Blood on the Wall, Tara Jane O'Neil, Black Dice, and yes, a band called the Jewish.

Vernhes has not yet set a release date for the compilation (though he "expects [it] to be ready in the next month or two") "because it is a complicated and time-consuming project." Part of the reason why the process has been so time-consuming is that Vernhes "made sure to record extended intros and outros so the songs merge together into one long, but indexed, piece of music. This solution was developed so that the songs [would] flow into each other organically, eliminating the jarring and sometimes random feel to some compilations."

The tracks already recorded for RBR 001 are listed below in alphabetical order by artist, since the compilation does not yet have a tracklist. Artists who have yet to record include Oakley Hall, Fischerspooner, Enon's Toko Yasuda, Dan Brown, Theo Angell, Holy Hail, Love As Laughter's Sam Jayne, "and probably a few more."

The Silver Jews track was originally the B-side to a UK single from American Water, but other than that, every song on the compilation is previously unreleased.

Rare Book Room's second release will be a full-length by compilation contributors Palm in the Claw. [MORE...]

Kanye West Applies for Graduation With Chris Martin

Going straight from Late Registration to Graduation is missing a few steps in between (what about Skipping Class? Changing Meal Plans? Drinking So Much You Wake Up the Next Day at the Airport Wearing a Badge That Says, "Hello, My Name Is: Sloppy McBlzioiuarhgh"?), but Kanye West has never been one to follow the beaten path.

Unless that path has been beaten by Jay-Z. According to Billboard.com, West has chosen Coldplay's Chris Martin to appear on "Homecoming", the first single from Graduation, the higher education-obsessed producer and MC's third album.

Graduation is tentatively scheduled for a Def Jam release later this year, and though Kanye did admittedly great things with Maroon 5's Adam Levine on Late Registration's "Heard 'Em Say", we're still a little skeptical about the Chris Martin collaboration. (Jigga's "Beach Chair" wasn't all that.)

The good news, however, is that West has re-teamed with producer and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, telling Billboard.com, "We'll be working together again on the new project. Jon wasn't just a producer-- he was such a good friend and a great person to bounce ideas off of in the studio. It was the whole experience."

Back in the world of semi-troubling collaborations, MTV.com reports that Kanye has plans to remix Fall Out Boy's "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race", the first single from their forthcoming Infinity on High LP. The album features production from Babyface and a verse from Jay-Z on one track, and pin-up Boy bassist Pete Wentz hopes to get Kanye's remix on the disc as well, even though it's scheduled for a fast-approaching February 6 release. Wentz also said Fall Out Boy have plans to put their own spin on one of Kanye's new songs.

We can only imagine who Kanye might collaborate with next. Might we suggest, um, the guy from Travis?

Maximo Park Reveal Our Earthly Pleasures

The rhythmically restless Brits in Maxïmo Park have delivered on the promises Paul Smith made in his August interview with Pitchfork and given their second album an April 2 release date on Warp Records. Our Earthly Pleasures-- the follow-up to 2005's A Certain Trigger-- has 12 songs, including first single "Our Velocity".

Warp will release the single March 19 with exclusive B-sides in various formats. The album was produced by Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters, Throwing Muses).

Maxïmo Park also have a handful of tour dates scheduled in the coming months, and they'll be heading to places as far-reaching as Moscow and Istanbul. [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.)