Record Releases - March 23, 2010

Out this week:

March
03/23/10	808 State 808 State Archives Parts 1-4	ZTT/Salvo
03/23/10	Alison Mose The Way of the World	ANTI-
03/23/10	Archie Bronson Outfit Coconut	Domino
03/23/10	Autechre Oversteps	Warp
03/23/10	Bettie Serveert Pharmacy of Love	Second Motion
03/23/10	Bill Callahan Rough Travel for a Rare Thing	Drag City
03/23/10	Blank Dogs Phrases EP	Captured Tracks
03/23/10	Bonnie "Prince" Billy & The Cairo Gang The Wonder Show of the World	Drag City
03/23/10	Bright Eyes & Neva Dinova One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels	Saddle Creek
03/23/10	Catherine Howe What A Beautiful Place	Numero Group
03/23/10	Dignan Porch Tendrils	Captured Tracks
03/23/10	Dillinger Escape Plan Option Paralysis	Party Smasher Inc
03/23/10	Double Dagger Masks	Thrill Jockey
03/23/10	Girls Names 12" EP	Captured Tracks
03/23/10	Goldfrapp Head First	Mute
03/23/10	Jonsi Birgisson Go	XL Recordings
03/23/10	Kid 606 Songs About Fucking Steve Albini	Important
03/23/10	Kleenex/LiLiPUT Live Recordings, TC-Clip & Roadmovies	Kill Rock Stars
03/23/10	La La Vasquez Debut 7"	Captured Tracks
03/23/10	Let's Wrestle In the Court of the Wrestling Let's	Merge
03/23/10	Love Is All Two Thousand and Ten Injuries	Polyvinyl
03/23/10	Merzbow 13 Japanese Birds Complete Set	Important
03/23/10	Mose Allison The Way of the World	ANTI-
03/23/10	Mugstar ...Broken, Sun…	Important
03/23/10	Mux Mool Skulltaste	Ghostly International
03/23/10	Nebula / Quest for Fire Split 7"	Tee Pee
03/23/10	Radar Brothers The Illustrated Garden	Merge
03/23/10	Robedoor Burners	Important
03/23/10	Serena-Maneesh S-M 2: Abyss in B Minor	4AD
03/23/10	She & Him Volume Two*	Merge
03/23/10	The Dillinger Escape Plan Option Paralysis	Season of Mist/Party Smasher Inc.
03/23/10	The Unthanks Here's The Tender Coming	Rough Trade
03/23/10	The Weakerthans Live at the Burthon Cummings Theater*	Epitaph
03/23/10	Yeasayer O.N.E. 12"	Secretly Canadian

Free Summer Shows at Millennium Park!

What a summer this will be, with the continuation of the free Monday after-work summer concert series in beautiful Millennium Park. And what a lineup this will be:

May 24: Hypnotic Canadian psychedelic rockers the Besnard Lakes with local punk heroes the Ponys

May 31: Venerable downstate guitar wizards Hum with rockers Volcano!

June 7: Singer-songwriter team She and Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward) with Chicago's Hollows
June 14: Afrobeat giant Tony Allen with Great Lake Swimmers
June 21: Indie-rock duo the Books with Via Tania
June 28: Huntsville with On Fillmore and Wilco guitarist Nels Cline

July 5: Indie rockers The Thermals with local buzz band Disappears
July 12: Canadian electronic musician Caribou with Budos Band
July 19:Hometown hip-hop heroine Kid Sister with Konono No. 1
July 26: Gospel goddess Naomi Shelton with Bomba Estereo

Caribou - Swim

Caribou’s gone and made a new record. It’s called Swim. I can’t imagine swimming to while listening to it, unless I was swimming in a wave pool with regularly occurring waves of varying amplitudes superimposed over irregularly occurring waves of similar amplitudes while dodging tugboats. Themes repeat endlessly here, going in and out of phase, while variations on those themes pop in and out, and occasionally flutes and cowbells and screaming woodwinds stick their silly sounds in as if to say “Hi I’m going to completely alter your perception of what this song really is trying to do hahaha you thought this was a normal dance song.”

All this makes it sound like Swim should be very chaotic, and on first listen it is, but repeated listens on headphones with the volume blasted a little too high reveal a definite, masterful order to each track. It probably even looked beautiful on the screen as it was getting mixed. Probably the best track on here is “Leave House.” It features flute, retro drums/synths (with some sort of weird digital reverb!) and wispy vocals, and it’s not the least bit annoying. This is a triumph of production and songwriting.

So yeah, it’s a Caribou record. It’s not packed with retro-psychedelia like his previous record, or glitchy weirdness like his earlier records, and I do admittedly miss the drum freakouts a bit, but it’s about as good as a record as one dude can make.

It’s awesome. It comes out on April 20. Buy it. Grade: A.

15 Second Record Review - Broken Bells by Broken Bells

This indie world-darling side project of James Mercer (Shins) and Danger Mouse (every band ever to exist) somehow falls short of expectations while also delivering 3-4 stellar pop songs. The 2 singles and maybe two additional tracks effectively combine poppy catchiness with a melancholy sophistication. The rest of the album is a murky slush of uninspired, of-the-moment indie menu-music. Two sides of a coin, so it merits a mixed grade. B-

15 Second Record Review - Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night by Besnard Lakes

The followup to their excellent sophomore effort Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, BL Are the Roaring Night is even more sweeping and truly masterful. The same aesthetic is present here - that sort of orchestral forrest rock, but with a raw subtlety not found in bands of the archetype (Blitzen Trapper, Midlake) - but the new album punctuates the plodding tempos with occasional bursts of guitar and vocal emotion that equals or exceeds anything I've heard this year. Simply stated, this is an early candidate for album of 2010 and is an absolute must-buy. A+

This Weekend In Shows (TWIS)

Quite a bit comin' atcha this weekend, including some potentially good stuff:

	Thursday, March 11, 9:00pm		We Were Promised Jetpacks @ Lincoln Hall
	Friday, March 12, 7:30pm		Muse/Silversun Pickups @ United Center
	Friday, March 12, 8:00pm		Jeff Tweedy @ Vic
	Friday, March 12, 9:00pm		Pelican @ Beat Kitchen
	Friday, March 12, 9:00pm		Vivian Girls @ Sub-T
	Saturday, March 13, 12:00pm		Flosstradamus/Dark Wave Disco/Hoot Internet @ Lincoln Hall
	Saturday, March 13, 7:00pm		Ted Leo @ Bottom Lounge
	Saturday, March 13, 8:00pm		Jeff Tweedy @ Vic
	Sunday, March 14, 6:00pm		Orphaned Land @ Bottom Lounge
	Tuesday, March 16, 8:00pm		The Very Best @ Bottom Lounge

Record Releases - March 9, 2010

Oh boy oh boy oh boy - what a great week for record releases! I'm hitting up Amazon hard core tonight after work. Stuff with a * is good. Stuff with a ** should be super duper.

03/09/10	Acrassicauda Only the Dead See The End of The War	VICE
03/09/10	Alberta Cross Broken Side of Time	Ark Recordings / ATO
03/09/10	Aloha Home Acres*	Polyvinyl
03/09/10	Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Beat the Devil's Tattoo*	Abstract Dragon / Vagrant
03/09/10	Broken Bells Broken Bells**	Columbia
03/09/10	Burning Star Core Papercuts Theater	No Quarter
03/09/10	Choir of Young Believers Claustrophobia	Ghostly International
03/09/10	Coconuts Coconuts	No Quarter
03/09/10	Crazy Dreams Band War Dream	Holy Mountain
03/09/10	Daughters Daughters	Hydra Head
03/09/10	Deru Say Goodbye To Useless	Mush
03/09/10	Diamond Rings Wait & See b/w On Fire 7"	Tomlab
03/09/10	Frightened Rabbit The Winter of Mixed Drinks**	FatCat
03/09/10	Gonjasufi A Sufi and a Killer	Warp
03/09/10	Gorillaz Plastic Beach*	Virgin
03/09/10	Jason Collett Rat A Tat Tat	Arts & Crafts
03/09/10	Jatun Blanket of Ash	Other Elecricities
03/09/10	Javelin 2 12"	Thrill Jockey
03/09/10	JJ No 3*	Secretly Canadian
03/09/10	Mantler Monody	Tomlab
03/09/10	Method Actors This is Still it	Acute Records
03/09/10	Miles Kurosky The Desert of Shallow Effects	Majordomo / Shout Factory
03/09/10	Mimicking Birds Mimicking Birds	Glacial Pace Recordings
03/09/10	New Young Pony Club The Optimist	The Numbers
03/09/10	Ortolan Time On a String	Soundsfamilyre
03/09/10	Pavement Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement*	Matador
03/09/10	Tanlines Settings	True Panther/ Matador
03/09/10	Ted Leo and the Pharmacists The Brutalist Bricks*	Matador
03/09/10	The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night***	Jagjaguwar
03/09/10	The Bundles The Bundles	K Records
03/09/10	The Morning Benders Big Echo	Rough Trade
03/09/10	The Splinters Kick	Double Negative
03/09/10	Titus Andronicus The Monitor**	XL Recordings
03/09/10	White Hinterland Kairos	Dead Oceans
03/09/10	Zola Jesus Stridulum	Sacred Bones

White Mystery @ Beat Kitchen 2/6/10

 White Mystery is like the White Stripes. A semi-ironic brother-sister duo with one talented musician and a penchant for gussied-up garage rock. Unlike White Stripes, it is the drummer with talent in this band. Also unlike White Stripes, this band sucks. There's a certain home town aw-shucks quality to WM, especially at this show where parents, friends, and grade-school teachers of theirs were in attendance. But the music, at least on this night, was a total mess with ear-piercing off-key squealing vocals paired with off-tempo, mundane guitar plodding. Some creative songwriting occasionally was presented, but overall, I just don't understand the hype. It'll take a great deal more polish if this is to be anything beyond garage punk, or if garage punk is the preferred aesthetic, a great deal more originality and talent. D

New Shows, This Weekend In Shows (TWIS)

Not much new added to the SHOWcal, but a tasty little Local Natives show in May at Schubas sure sounds nice. This weekend and next week have a few fun times, including Califone performing the soundtrack to frontman Tim Rutili's film "All My Friends Are Funeral Singers" live, while you also get to watch the film. Should be interesting. I also look forward to seeing Via Audio again after they blew me away a few years ago on a triple bill with High Places and The Blow over at Empty Bottle. On a downer, the Black Joe Lewis show was cancelled.

	Friday, March 5, 10:00pm		Black Joe Lewis @ Lincoln Hall
	Friday, March 5, 10:30pm		Robyn Hitchcock @ Schubas
	Sunday, March 7, 8:00pm		DJ Spooky @ Lincoln Hall
	Tuesday, March 9, 8:00pm		Via Audio @ Schubas
	Tuesday, March 9, 9:00pm		Califone @ Lincoln Hall
	Wednesday, March 10, 9:00pm		Califone @ Lincoln Hall
	Wednesday, March 10, 9:00pm		Surfer Blood @ Schubas

Record Releases - March 2, 2010

Here's what drops today. Stuff marked * is SHOWCOWGO recommended:

03/02/10	A Sunny Day in Glasgow Nitetime Rainbows EP	Mis Ojos Discos
03/02/10	A Weather Everyday Balloons	Team Love
03/02/10	Athlete Black Swan	Original Signal
03/02/10	Bardo Pond Bufo Alvarius	Fire
03/02/10	Catburglars Catburglars	CriminalIQ
03/02/10	Claw Toe Ingrown Ego	CriminalIQ
03/02/10	Cliffordandcalix Lost Foundling	Aperture
03/02/10	Clogs The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton	Brassland
03/02/10	Crystal Ark City Never Sleeps 12"	DFA
03/02/10	Fauna The Hunt	Aurora Borealis
03/02/10	Fenn O'Berg In Stereo	Editions Mego
03/02/10	Fresh & Onlys 12" EP	Captured Tracks
03/02/10	Golden Triangle Double Jointer	Hardly Art
03/02/10	Indignant Senility Plays Wagner - Part One	Type
03/02/10	Jaguar Love TBD	Fat Possum
03/02/10	Japanther Rock N roll Ice Cream	Menlo Park
03/02/10	Josiah Wolf Jet Lag	Anticon
03/02/10	Loscil Endless Falls	Kranky
03/02/10	Malachai Ugly Side of Love	Domino
03/02/10	Peasant Shady Retreat	Paper Garden Records
03/02/10	Polar Bear Peepers	Leaf
03/02/10	Privacy Songs	Marriage Records
03/02/10	Rogue Wave Permalight	Brushfire
03/02/10	Sam Amidon I See the Sign	Bedroom Community
03/02/10	Shy Child Liquid Love	Wall of Sound
03/02/10	Soft Moon Debut 7"	Captured Tracks
03/02/10	The Ruby Suns Fight Softly*	Sub Pop
03/02/10	The Sticks The Sticks	Upset! The Rhythm
03/02/10	The Whigs In The Dark	ATO
03/02/10	These New Puritans Hidden	Domino
03/02/10	Woods I Was Gone 7"	Woodsist
03/02/10	Yellow Swans Going Places	Type
03/02/10	Young Governor Call Me When The Cat Dies 7"	CriminalIQ
03/02/10	Yrsel Requiem For The Three Kharites	Aurora Borealis

OK Go Video Features Increadible Rube Goldberg Sequence

I'm not a big OK Go fan, but I am a big Rube Goldberg fan. This is pretty damn good: