Before the holidays, a Swedish website surprised us with the world premiere of “Hey (Shut The Fuck Up Boy),” a new Peter Bjorn & John song ostensibly from their upcoming album. We can’t be sure because we don’t understand Swedish. Tonight comes the leak of a second song via Kanye West’s blog. It’s cool though, they gave him PERMISSION.
When we posted about L.A. prog-gospel crew Bodies Of Water’s “Under The Pines,” we mentioned that at least in name, the song reminded some of us (me) of old-time Siltbreezers the Strapping Fieldhands’ In The Pineys EP. The video, written and created by Bodies David & Meredith Metcalf and directed by Andy Bruntel, finds David looking like a fieldhand, albeit not so strapping. Story wise, it’s good to see Meredith putting her past acting skills to use. But dog (and sweetmeat) lovers might want to avert their eyes.
Apple always knows how to grab headlines for its sense of theater and savvy in rolling out new products, and the company’s last ever MacWorld presentation was no exception. Except in the sense that it was totally an exception, because the big news coming from San Fran is a variable track-pricing model in the iTunes store? (Now in three flavors: run-periodic-tasks.69, run-periodic-tasks.99, and .29.) That, and all its 10 million songs will be available in DRM-free format by March, which is great news if it was 1999 and also if you still pay for music (and if you do, we salute you because check out these deals). No fun gadgets, nothing that will significantly impact your music lifestyle unless it’s your dream for Garageband 09 to offer music lessons from Sting, John Fogerty, and Norah Jones for .99. That dream has finally come true, so nice work. There is a new 17″ MacBook Pro with environmentally friendly batteries, but I won’t mention it because this is a music blog. HOWEVER, there was one great thing to come out of this last MacWorld:
Last January we saw Sam Beam perform “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” by his lonesome. A year later, he’s reprising The Shepherd’s Dog closer on Leno with band in tow. If you haven’t seen Twilight it might seem strange that he’s making the Late Night rounds for an album that came out in the Fall of 2007, but beyond teenage vampire movies, the song’s take on the loss of innocence/an idealized America, materialism and fat cats devouring flightless birds is all the more chilling amid the dust of our fucked economy and feels like the better reason to be singing this particular song. You can watch it at Hulu.
Stooges founding member/guitarist Ron Asheton was found dead at his Ann Arbor home this morning. There’s no official cause of death yet, but Rolling Stone — who rightfully listed him as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time — reports that it looks like he had a heart attack. He was 60. Read more at RS while you listen to The Stooges and Fun House.
Matt’s reclaiming his good name from the realm of the pronouns next month with Hold Time, a 14-track followup to 2006’s excellent Post War. We’re excited. The album’s got a nice little guest list — Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Lucinda Williams, DeVotchka’s Tom Hagerman, Ben Gibbard’s girl — although the title track sounds like Matt alone (sounding a little like good buddy Jim James). It’s a beautifully produced affair, with strings and distant pianos and a languorous tempo, all suspended animation and golden croon. M. directs, helpfully adding subtitles to black-and-white slow-motion footage of a futuristic people-mover. It’s all in the contrast.
Considering the publicity wonders The Grey Album worked for Danger Mouse, we’re surprised it’s taken so long for someone to cook this one up. (Girl Talk did it for like 30 seconds, so that doesn’t count.) Enter the enterprising DJ Minty Fresh Beats, who’s mashed instrumental tracks from OK Computer, Kid A, and In Rainbows with various Jigga raps on a set titled Jaydiohead. Download it at jaydiohead.com. The sound you hear in the interim is a million DJs slapping their foreheads at once.
One of the videos we missed while sipping nog and sleeping off NYE was the Glasto (and possibly Bonnaroo)-bound Boss’s clip for “Life Itself,” from his forthcoming Working On A Dream. The “Life Itself” clip follows up on “My Lucky Day“’s shot of the E Streeters in the studio with an in-and-out of focus Bruce, again in recording mode, strumming and singing with gravitas. It’s a sad relationship song, but the imagery seems to build off of the line that reads “Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart,” screening shots of stone-faced Americans in all their diversity while white picket fences and elm trees and shadows of birds in flight dissolve in and out of frame. Heavy things.
Looks like it. Sounds like it, too, if you spent your holiday with Animal Collective’s latest on repeat like most everybody with torrent expertise. The album’s out tomorrow but a couple reviews are already in, and they are glowing. SPIN went four-star style in a review from Andy Beta:
From [opening thumper “In The Flowers”] forward, these stalwart innovators … elude all experimental-noise, freak-folk, and indie-rock tags, and create a startling, pounding, effulgent sonic template….
Call it searching for the perfect peak. Merriweather plays like the summation of a long, strange trip, combining the group’s career touchstones: harmonic Beach Boys pop, African tribal chants, minimalism, minimal techno, psychedelia, and dub.
Pitchforkmedia.com went a little higher.
As we’ve mentioned in the past (2007), Robert Schneider’s not afraid of the graceful sellout. So, no, we’re not surprised that he and his E6 cohorts just scored a Pepsi commercial. (Heck, we already knew how much E6-related bands loved steak.) We’re more surprised it’s 2009 and the Apples In Stereo are still alive and getting work. See, for instance, the use of New Magnetic Wonder’s “Energy” in Pepsi’s slick new-for-2009 rebranding campaign. The logo’s color scheme remains red, white, and blue, but the spot’s theme is about delivering soda pop (aka good cheer) the world over.
