Animal Collective

I figure if nothing else this post may get me some traffic. EVERYONE seems to be going a little nutty over the new Animal Collective album "Merriweather Post Pavillion". Now lets hope, cross fingers, pray to God that we can get some tour action down under!

Pitchfork give the new album 9.6 out of ten:

"What they've constructed here is a new kind of electronic pop-- one which is machine-generated and revels in technology but is also deeply human, never drawing too much attention to its digital nature. It's of the moment and feels new, but it's also striking in its immediacy and comes across as friendly and welcoming." LINK

Tunes from the new album are (of course) on myspace, or check out the video for standout track "My Girls" at the Animal Collective site because i can't embed it properly from Vimeo and their label, Domino, have removed it from You Tube which is weird and fricked-in-the-head.

I Love Love

Pitchfork TV have a great documentary about influential American band Love online now, free for one week only.

"Love Story offers a detailed retrospective of the influential band Love. Directed by Chris Hall & Mike Kerry, the documentary features extensive interviews with Arthur Lee and other original band members. Available at Start Productions."

Thanks to Zan for the tipoff.

Love's Forever Changes, is of course dissected and discussed. If you don't already have it in your collection, its an absolute must-own...

"One of rock's most overlooked masterpieces, this third album by the L.A. folk-rock outfit led by inscrutable singer-songwriter Arthur Lee sounds as fresh and innovative today as it did upon its original release in 1968. With David Angel's atmospheric string and horn arrangements giving the work a conceptual underpinning, Lee explores mainstream America's penchant for paranoia ("The Red Telephone") and violence ("A House Is Not a Motel") with songs that are as sonically subtle and lilting as they are lyrically blunt and harrowing." -Amazon

A tall touring troubadour

photo by Karl Gunnarsson

Its just dawned on me that Sweden's Tallest Man On Earth visits our Great Brown Land this week, playing in Sydney tonight, Canberra on Thursday and then my hometown on Saturday night at The Toff. I must remember to get a ticket...!

I've been consistently listening to and loving Kristian Matsson's beautiful debut album Shallow Grave for weeks now. The Dylan references are beyond obvious but apt, and as Pitchfork's glowing review of the album points out, he seems to have "mined the American south for inspiration, and his frantic strumming and front-porch poetry recall everyone from the Carter Family to Lead Belly to, most noticeably, country bluesman Mississippi John Hurt." It's mesmerising, compelling and, dare i say it, authentic folk music.

Full Australian dates and some tunes on Tallest Man On Earth's myspace or check out the amazing tune "Pistol Dreams" below...

Reformat The Planet

Thanks to Create Digital Music blog comes this link:

The appeal of newer music apps for phones, current-generation mobile game systems, and PDAs is portability first. But for the Game Boy music scene, it’s as much about a distinctive sound, and acquiring Game Boys as a kind of unique synthesizer. Our friend and mobile game musician Peter Swimm points us to the new documentary Reformat the Planet. It’s available for a week free on pitchfork.tv, with screenings to follow. It’s a pretty nice survey of the New York corner of the scene, at least.

It recently screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival but get over to Pitchfork TV to check out this ace doco for one week only.

Even after 14 years

In other Pitchfork related talk i'm getting slightly creamy about the upcoming ATP vs Pitchfork festival in the UK in early May. Sebadoh, Born Ruffians, Girls Against Boys, Caribou, Hot Chip, Bon Iver, Jens Lekman, Yeasayer, Les Savvy Fav, Hold Steady and more. Damn!

Also coming along for the ride and representing for the antipodeans is those dirty uncles of power-pop EVEN. They've been doing their well-respected thang for 14 years, and Ash and the lads have got a new self titled album (reviewed here) which they launch in Melbourne at The East Brunswick Club on the 24th of April. They then zip around Australia before jetting to UK to play ATP in early May. While in London they'll also support Sebadoh at Koko on the 6th of May and do their own shows on the 12th at Old Blue Last and the 15th at the Brixton Windmill.

New tracks from the self titled album up on their myspace and full details and oz dates are on Mess and Noise.

I Want My PTV

PITCHFORK unveiled their spankin' new online TV channel (well, the BETA version) this week with an exclusive radiohead performance, some 'usual-suspect' music vids and access to the Pixies doco - loudQUIETloud - for next few days. Oh, and some funny behind the scenes action.

I'm yet to dig into it properly, and on my connection the buffering required is beyond annoying, which might just be a problem my end. It'll be interesting to see how they get on, and whether they can go beyond a NYC/USA content bias (ie. although Cut Copy's latest vid is up there can expect to see any other OZ/NZ content popping up?)

Judge for yrself... Pitchfork.tv

Pitchfork

Daily Swarm pointed me to a great article/q&a with Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber.

"Hot on the heels of big dual announcements – the long-rumored launch of Pitchfork.tv and the company’s first foray into commercial music licensing (selecting part of the soundtrack for Take-Two Interactive’s Major League Baseball 2K8 video game) – and with the lineup announcement for this July’s Pitchfork Music Festival imminent, Schreiber sat for a lengthy interview with the Chicago Sun-Times’ Jim DeRogatis and spoke about the company’s past, present, and future."

Read the full interview here.

Sun Kil Moon

Pitchfork report that Mark Kozelek will be releasing the new SUN KIL MOON album "April" on, wait for it, April 1st. And Will Oldham will guest on a couple of the tunes! I saw Mark play some of his new work a few months ago and I'm pretty excited about the release, his first since the collection of Modest Mouse covers Tiny Cities... and the first album of original music since 2003's exceptional Ghosts of The Great Highway which was re-released last year with bonus tracks. Mark has also been producing the new album for Alan Sparhawk's Retribution Gospel Choir. I've loved the distortion drenched shift in LOW's music over their last two albums. And the tunes on their myspace take the logical step into tough Crazy Horse territory. Just amazing.

You can stream 'Moorestown' from the new Sun Kil Moon album at Caldo Verde.