Calla Bloom Anew With Strength in Numbers, Tour

Photo by Scott Irvine

According to the 1-800-Flowers website, Calla Lilies "signify magnificent beauty" and make "a fantastic and lasting impression." That's all well and good, but how many wimpy flowers can rock your lily-white face off, bro?

Brooding New York trio Calla can, and have for years now, and probably will again come February 20, when the trio unleashes its latest LP via Beggars Banquet.

Strength in Numbers collects 13 new jams, including several with typically Calla-esque single-word titles. Some more numbers: Calla self-produced the album and recorded it in three different locations (New York City, Austin, and Athens, Greece); it comes in two formats (CD and vinyl); and Calla presently have 28 North American tour dates lined up in support of Strength. Euro tour to follow.

Treat your sweetheart (or yourself) to the acoustic pluck of Strength in Numbers' seventh track, "Bronson", in mp3 form below. [MORE...]

Modest Mouse Announce More Shows

Modest Mouse have finally announced a few dates in the U.S. (and Mexico and England) in support of the Epic release of We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank on March 20. The fun starts in Mexico City on March 10 and ends June 1 in Barcelona, but considering how few dates there are, you just know there have to be more coming.

Thanks to reader Seth Boid for the tip! [MORE...]

CocoRosie Ready for Adventures, Euro Tour

Photo by Julia Gillard

Double, double, toil and trouble, people: the weird sisters of CocoRosie are at it again, tossing disparate genres and wacked-out lyrics into their freak-folk cauldron and pouring that molten concoction all over our faces. On April 10, siblings Bianca and Sierra Casady conjure up their third LP, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, a twelve-track affair once again born under the moon of Touch and Go Records.

The sisters then hop on their broomsticks for some tour adventures in the old countries, surrounding the album's release. No word yet on North American dates, but we hope they play, like, Salem.

Bianca's Voodoo-EROS imprint, meanwhile, has some more magic in store for 2007. V-E will release the debut LP from Brooklyn sleaze-chic rapper Bunny Rabbit, titled Lovers and Crypts, on February 20. And let me tell you: If sex and cussing are your bread and butter, you've just found your album of the year. [MORE...]

Lady Sovereign Expands World Tour

Little lady, big tour: Lady Sovereign has expanded the trek in support of her debut album Public Warning. In addition to her previously announced North American jaunt with Gwen Stefani and Akon, Lady Sov will hit the UK, Europe, Australia, and Japan this March and April. She also has a one-off date scheduled for this evening in London. [MORE...]

Exclusive: Arcade Fire to Rock NPR

Good news for everybody shut out of the Arcade Fire's five-night New York City residency next week (and for that matter, those shut out of the London and Montreal residencies as well): NPR's "All Songs Considered" will broadcast the band's February 17 show at Judson Memorial Church.

So next Saturday night, grab a computer, some speakers, a bunch of friends, and a bicycle helmet. Break into a local church, and boom: instant Arcade Fire show.

Klaxons Invade North America

Get ready: Klaxons are coming to America.

The UK sensations have announced a 13-date North American tour, which concludes with a previously reported Coachella stop in late April. The jaunt is in support of Klaxons' debut LP, Myths of the Near Future, due on Pitchfork's side of the pond March 27 via Rinse/DGC.

That album is already out in the UK, where the band is touring right now. [MORE...]

Flying Canyon's Cayce Lindner, R.I.P.

Cayce Lindner, frontman for self-described "California doom folk" band Flying Canyon, took his own life yesterday, February 6. No further details are available regarding his death, nor do we know how old he was.

Lindner, who lived in the Bay Area, was in the bands the Golden Hotel and the Goodwill Tapes before forming Flying Canyon with the Jewelled Antler collective's Glenn Donaldson and Shayde Sartin. He was also a filmmaker.

Sidney Alexis Lindner, Cayce's brother, fronts the Portsmouth, New Hampshire band the Hotel Alexis. He was also in Golden Hotel with Cayce.

Last fall, Soft Abuse released Flying Canyon's enchanting self-titled debut album. Our own Brandon Stosuy wrote, "Lindner and friends carve out an erudite haze that foregoes caricature and wardrobe changes in favor of melody, inventive instrumentation, strong songwriting, and an honest, riveting charisma."

Soft Abuse's Chris Berry said, "We are deeply saddened and we're thinking of his friends and family."

Twilight Sad Unveil Debut, Tour North America, UK
Start own cover band, The Gloaming Melancholy

Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters: apart from being a damn long time, a mouthful to say, and a, um, fingerful to type, that's also the title of the debut full-length album from emotive Glasgow quartet the Twilight Sad. FatCat lifts the curtain on the nine-track release-- which follows up last fall's excellent self-titled EP-- on April 24.

The fresh-faced, thick-accented foursome recorded Fourteen Autumns at their home city's Chem 19 and Ca Va studios, and mixed the opus at Connecticut's Tarquin Studios with Peter Katis (Interpol, Spoon). It includes a trio of tunes from the EP, and six new epics. Pretty much all of them have totally emo titles, so start naming your blogs after them now, kids.

The Twilight Sad had better perk up, however, because they have quite a long tour road ahead of them. They'll sweep through the UK with Micah P. Hinson before crossing the pond for SXSW and a stretch of subsequent dates with Mary Timony, and later, fellow Glaswegians Aereogramme and Canada's A Northern Chorus. Adorably enough, they play both Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England on this tour.

Finally, don't miss the Twilight Sad's contribution to FatCat labelmates Semiconductor's forthcoming DVD, Worlds in Flux. The disc hits U.S. shops April 3 (February 26 everywhere else), and includes the Sad's score to some Semiconductor animation, alongside specially-comissioned scores from Max Richter, Ensemble, Christian Vogel, Our Brother the Native, and more. [MORE...]

Exclusive: Flaming Lips, Metric Reveal Playboy T-Shirts
Plus: Oh No! Oh My!, Illinois

Playboy...t-shirts. There's a paradox in there someplace, no?

While we (ahem) rack our brains over that one, you may feast your lustful eyes on some red hot Playboy pix of designs for t-shirts that will soon cover naked girls (and boys), courtesy of the hotties in the Flaming Lips, Metric, Oh No! Oh My!, and new Ace Fu signing Illinois (from Pennsylvania, go figure).

As you may have read the last time you googled "Playboy + Wayne Coyne", the notorious nudie mag commissioned a bunch of indie favorites (and Lil Jon) to design novelty t-shirts putting "their own personal stamp on the Playboy brand and logo." Those shirts will appear in the March edition of Playboy-- aka the special Sex and Music Special Issue-- which hits newsstands discreetly tomorrow.

You'll soon be able to purchase the t&a-- excuse me, t-shirts-- at select retailers or online at www.shopthebunny.com, and Playboy will auction the prototypes this autumn, with proceeds benefiting LIFEbeat: The Music Industry Fights AIDS.

Check out the Lips' quasi-NSFW design, Metric's word-association piece, and the others after the jump. [MORE...]

Indie Rock Movie Half-Cocked Comes to DVD
Stars Tara Jane O'Neil, Ian Svenonius, Cynthia Nelson, Grifters

Filmmakers Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky will release two of their films on one DVD through their Rumur imprint on February 13.

Half-Cocked (1994) is a 16mm black-and-white film about kids who form a band and tour the country in a stolen van, and it features appearances from Tara Jane O'Neil (Retsin, Rodan, Sonora Pine), Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Weird War), Cynthia Nelson (Retsin, Ruby Falls), and other members of Nation of Ulysses, Rodan, the Grifters, and Lungfish.

The second film, Radiation (1998), portrays a Spanish tour promoter for American bands. It was shot in Spain and features cameos from Will Oldham and members of Stereolab and Come.

Bonus materials in the two-feature DVD package include a making-of documentary, music videos for Gaunt, Spaceheads, Standard, and Red House Blues, and over 400 photos.

There will be several screenings of Half-Cocked across the U.S. in February, beginning tonight February 7 in Richmond, Seattle, and Boston. The latter is a six-day run at the Video Underground. [MORE...]

Smashing Pumpkins Reveal Album Title, Release Date

Smashing Pumpkins announced via MySpace bulletin this morning that they will release a new album, Zeitgeist, on July 7 of this year. 07-07-07! How'd they land that lucky date? Well kids, it's a Saturday, proving that Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, and whoever the hell else is in the band think they are above and beyond the ways of the music industry (most albums come out on Tuesdays, see). Thanks to various reader tips for keeping us posted on this info.

Since we last reported, the Pumpkins revealed two more European festival dates, one at Nickelsdorf, Austria's Nova Rock Festival, and one at Interlaken, Switzerland's Greenfield Festival. [MORE...]

Maximo Park's Smith Talks Pleasures, Displeasures
"I was listening to [Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury] this morning. I was shouting, 'I don't fear Tubbs and Crockett,' all the way down the street...And I was saying something about being a snowman..."

Maxïmo Park will release their previously reported new album, Our Earthly Pleasures, via Warp on April 2. "Our Velocity" is the album's first single (with a recently Forkcasted video here), and it's due out March 19. Lead singer Paul Smith described the sound of the record in an exclusive interview we did with him in August, but we recently caught up with him to get the scoop on the U.S. release of Our Earthly Pleasures, his opinions of some of his peers, and what he's been listening to lately, including a mutual favorite: Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not revealing any secret information by saying we'll be on Warp again and that [Our Earthly Pleasures] will come out [in the U.S.] around the time [of the UK release], if not on the same day," Smith said. Maxïmo Park also plan to tour the U.S. soon. "I think we'll do one or two tours, depending on if people are interested or not."

Since Maxïmo Park were originally grouped with a whole crop of British bands who recently released sophomore albums (see: Field Music's Tones of Town, Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City, and, slightly less recently, the Futureheads' News & Tributes), Smith also gave us his thoughts on where his band currently stands among their cohorts.

"I know Peter [Brewis] from Field Music quite well, and we were fortunate enough to support Bloc Party and the Futureheads on tour. They're part of our history. Even if I hated them, I'd still be affectionate toward those times, and as it stands I think the unfortunate thing is that we're often lumped in with another section of bands that we don't really have anything in common with, like Kaiser Chiefs or Hard-Fi. Bands like Bloc Party and the Futureheads and Field Music have always tried to reach out for something. [Bloc Party frontman] Kele [Okereke] is always talking about r&b music and stuff that I love, and Field Music don't really care what's cool. They just make records that are totally representative of their tastes, which go in directions not thought of before. And the same could be said of the Futureheads; their first record to me was really exciting. And it made you think about what you're doing. You actually felt challenged by the music, as well as exhilarated. [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.)