MySpaceI don’t remember if I read somewhere that Charlotte Hatherley has synesthesia (the condition wherein your visual cognition is tied to your aural and, amongst other symptoms, you see colours or shapes when you hear sounds – experienced by the likes of Lightspeed Champion and Ida Maria, amongst others), but even if she doesn’t you could be forgiven if you assumed she did. Her first two solo records, Grey Will Fade and The Deep Blue, obviously referenced colours in their titles and her while her third record New Worlds has no chromatic reference in its name, the music within is fairly obsessed with all the shades of the rainbow.

Almost every song references a colour, either as literal, metaphor or adjective, and that theme acts as a common thread between the ten songs which run a stylistic gamut from spiky rockers (“Colours”) to dreamy ballads (the front half of “Alexander”l) with forays into circus music (the unexpected “Firebird”). Whereas her debut was a pretty straight-ahead, hooktacular bit of power pop, The Deep Blue dialed down much of the instant gratification quotient in favour of songs that favoured a more leisurely and eccentric New Wave-friendly approach. While it was unfailingly melodic, full of tasty guitarwork and with its share of high points, its eclecticism came at the expense of some cohesion. New Worlds hangs together much better, making it a much smoother and enjoyable ride as it twists and turns from hook to hook and successfully balances Grey‘s pop/rock-friendliness with Blue‘s more experimental inclinations. To do either well is difficult enough; to do them both as naturally and effortlessly as Hatherley has proven herself able with record number three is a feat.

New Worlds was supposed to be the first Charlotte Hatherley album to get North American distribution but that’s shaken out to be just digital (eMusic and iTunes in the US, iTune-only in Canada), so those of use still enamored with physical media had to go the import route anyways. Still, rumours persist of some North American (read: US) tour dates in the new year – a Charlotte show is on the list of things I would get on a plane for. Okay, it’s not an especially exclusive list, but still.

MP3: Charlotte Hatherley – “Colours”
MP3: Charlotte Hatherley – “White”
Video: Charlotte Hatherley – “Alexander”
Video: Charlotte Hatherley – “White”
MySpace: Charlotte Hatherley

Spin declares Fanfarlo to be a “hot new band”, and if that’s not enough to convince you to come out and see them at the El Mocambo on December 15, then I don’t know what is.

I asked (rhetorically) what reason Billy Bragg had to be touring Canada this month – well besides serenading the masses, he’s also found the time to address Parliament on the subject of copyright and perform for picketers outside the Canadian Museum of Civilization. He also chatted with The Vancouver Sun.

Same Some has an extensive interview with Patrick Wolf.

Pitchfork talks to the director of the video for Jarvis Cocker’s “Further Complications” about the making of the clip.

Video: Jarvis Cocker – “Further Complications”

The Line Of Best Fit has details on Massive Attack’s next album, entitled Heligoland and due out on February 8.

Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce talks to The Quietus about how working on the 10th anniversary reissue of Ladies & Gentleman We Are Floating In Space influenced the writing of the next Spiritualized record, currently in progress. The reissue is out December 9 in a variety of formats, including this ridiculously cool blister pack edition.

Adam Franklin discusses the feelings around Swervedriver’s first hometown show in over a decade with The Oxford Mail. Oxford being their hometown. If that wasn’t clear.

The Independent profiles Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine.

There’s a trio of Noah & The Whale remixes for “Love Of An Orchestra” available to grab for free – enjoy reinterpretations by Max Tundra, Night Waves and Gold Panda.

Both Drowned In Sound and The Skinny declare that 2010 will be the year of the (Frightened) Rabbit. Their new album The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is out March 1 and Stereogum has radio rips of a couple new songs to download.

JAM talks to Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos.

Camera Obscura’s forthcoming Christmas single is now available to stream over at 4AD. The Jim Reeves cover is out on 7″ and digitally on December 8 and they play the Phoenix this Thursday night – congratulations to Scott and Andrea, who won passes to the show.

Frank YangInitial buzz around Florence & The Machine was largely built on a handful of singles, live recordings and performances that positioned Florence Welch as a big-voiced musical eccentric (or as I put it last November, “batshit crazy”) surely set for a career of creative left turns and cul-de-sacs that would delight as often as it confounded. But the surprise – in these quarters, at least – came when it was announced that Florence had signed with major label Island for her debut, majors never really being the most adept entities at marketing “crazy”.

But they are better at marketing “glitz” and there’s far more of that in evidence than psychosis on Florence’s first long-player Lungs, a bright and shiny showcase for Welch’s pipes. Stylistically, it’s hard to pin down as it veers from garage rock to gospel/soul wailers through big pop productions, the only common denominators being Welch and her flair for the dramatic, not to mention an apparent determination to include as much harp as possible, everywhere. Credited to a brace of different producers, there’s definitely a whiff of “by committee” about the proceedings, some numbers are more show than song and are sometimes delivered with more bombast than necessary, but when the combination of Welch’s primal voice and pop hooks connect – and that’s still far more often than not – the results are remarkable. While some/many have their knives out for Welch for whatever reason – the amount of hype that buoyed her rise to fame, her admittedly over-played and over-calculated kooky public persona, whatever, they’ll find no traction in criticizing her talent – the packaging may be debatable, but the goods are for real.

And those goods were well on display on Monday night before a completely sold-out Mod Club, the final night of a North American tour that included four shows in addition to her CMJ appearances. Hardly a grueling itinerary, but that was perhaps to our advantage as Welch still had plenty of energy and nothing to conserve it for. Though starting small with “Between Two Lungs”, the show quickly picked up in scale and volume, thanks to a five-piece backing band – including harp – that was a far cry from the raw duo format she first turned heads with at SxSW – and hit an early peak a few songs in with a vigorous “Kiss With A Fist” before stepping away from Lungs briefly for a b-side and Cold War Kids cover, all delivered with that huge voice that was as powerful live as one would have imagined and hoped. Throughout the show, Welch managed to maintain her theatrical bearing, all arm gestures and flourishes, while connecting with her audience, genuinely and appreciatively. I fully expect that she organized the mass leaping for “Dog Days Are Over” at every show, but that doesn’t make her obvious glee at watching some 500 people bouncing up in down in unison any less real – it was a thing to see and my obvious high point of the night. Judging from the collective swoon that met the encore, for many others it was her reading of “You’ve Got the Love” that was the singular, crystalline moment of the night. I think all could agree, however, that “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” was a superb finale, pretty much encapsulating everything that is great and grand about Florence & The Machine – the voice, the drama, the songs and yes, of course, the harp.

eye has an interview with Welch while The Toronto Sun, Panic Manual and The Globe & Mail offer reviews of the Mod Club show.

Photos: Florence & The Machine @ The Mod Club – November 2, 2009
MP3: Florence & The Machine – “I’m Not Calling You A Liar”
MP3: Florence & The Machine – “Kiss With A Fist”
MP3: Florence & The Machine – “Postcards From Italy”
MP3: Florence & The Machine – “Girl With 1 Eye” (live)
MP3: Florence & The Machine – “Hospital Beds” (live)
Video: Florence & The Machine – “You’ve Got The Love” (The xx remix)
Video: Florence & The Machine – “You’ve Got The Love”
Video: Florence & The Machine – “Drumming Song”
Video: Florence & The Machine – “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)”
Video: Florence & The Machine – “Kiss With A Fist”
Video: Florence & The Machine – “Dog Days Are Over”
MySpace: Florence & The Machine

Rolling Stone declares La Roux a “breaking” artist.

The Music Magazine has an interview with Charlotte Hatherley, whose new record New Worlds should be available everywhere but is sadly available almost nowhere (at least in physical form). But is worth seeking out.

IFC has an interview with The Clientele frontman Alisdair MacLean while WFMU has a studio session available to stream.

Good news from Drowned In Sound – Lightspeed Champion will release his second record Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You on February 1 in the UK and February 16 in North America – The Quietus has an interview with Dev Hynes about what to expect off of album number two. He’s also the guest vocalist on the new single from Basement Jaxx.

Video: Basement Jaxx featuring Lightspeed Champion – “My Turn”

Eastscene caught an interview with Sky Larkin during their visit to Toronto last week.

Noah & The Whale have just released a second video from First Days Of Spring.

Video: Noah & The Whale – “Love Of An Orchestra”

The Tripwire converses with The Horrors.

The Line Of Best Fit talks to Editors bassist Russell Leetch about this, that and the other thing.

State interviews White Lies.

The Herald and The Independent catch up with former Suede frontman Brett Anderson, who’s just released his second third solo record in Slow Attack.

Frank YangSince the schedule for SxSW was announced way back in March, I had one particular showcase circled and immutable on my schedule – Echo & The Bunnymen at Rusty Spurs on the Saturday night. One of the perks of attending SxSW is the opportunity to see big bands in venues much smaller than they’d normally play, and though the Liverpool legends were playing some bigger shows during the festival, the opportunity to see them for the first time in a tiny Texan gay cowboy bar was too good to pass up. And while that show was fine, it was a mild disappointment relative to my tremendous expectations. I had somehow wanted an arena-scale show in a club-scale setting (even though Echo & The Bunnymen have never really achieved arena-scale success), and they delivered a good club-scale show. Classic songs for sure, but considering I heard that some of their larger shows during SxSW were epic, I had to think that maybe they were a band who played up – or down – to their environs.

From that point of view, it followed that this past Tuesday night’s show at the very proper Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto would be something special and the promise of an orchestrally-enhanced reading of the band’s highwater mark Ocean Rain all but clinched it. It had to be a fantastic show – it promised too much to not be, and considering the high ticket price, the 1000 or so folks in attendance would rightfully be expecting one. The show was divided into two sets, the first for “the hits” and the second for the Ocean Rain recital, and the former was largely as advertised, leaning heavily on their early material – their debut Crocodiles comprised a third of the set list – but also including highlights from the post-reunion records. Some might think that pulling two from their latest record The Fountain to be excessive, but the fact is that lead single “I Think I Need It Too” was one of the highlights, not least of all because it was written with lead Bunnyman Ian McCulloch’s reduced vocal range in mind.

Ah yes, the voice – let’s get that out of the way right now. PopMatters is correct when they suggest that Mac’s voice is a rough, gravelly shadow of the magnificent instrument it once was. He can’t hit those notes anymore, occasionally wheezes where once he bellowed and as such, some of those indelible melodies have been rejigged to accommodate the new reality – the chorus of “Bring On The Dancing Horses” now bows where once it soared. But the songs remain as potent as ever and Mac delivered them with a swagger and charisma that went a good way towards compensating for the years – and I mean that vocally, not physically. Echo & The Bunnymen live is a most stationary experience, with McCulloch’s repertoire of stage moves consisting of standing still at the mic, getting a drink of water and occasionally crouching down. But back to the voice – as I mentioned in the review of that show back in March, he still has reserves of that old power that he can tap into at key moments, as he did in the chorus of “The Cutter” and in doing so, by god, turned the clock back a quarter century for a few, brief shining moments.

The reading of Ocean Rain, however, was one sustained 40-minute shining moment. Supported by a 10-piece (I think) string section, Echo & The Bunnymen made a fine case for it as one of the best records of the ’80s and anyone hearing “Silver”, rendered as majestically as it was on this night, would have great difficulty coming up with an argument against it. It’s true that strings applied injudiciously can render songs cheesy or overly pompous, but here they were just perfect – if anything, they made me wish for more and wonder what these shows must have sounded like with full orchestras at the Royal Albert Hall or Radio City Music Hall. Performing in front of projected black and white images of the band in their youth, their crystal days, the proceedings had a lovely, elegiac tone and felt as much like a tribute from McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant to their former bandmates, the retired Les Pattinson and late Pete De Freitas. If there was any complaint, it was that the suite ran too short but the record clocks in at under 40 minutes – there’s not a lot that can be done about that, short of calling for an impromptu orchestra jam and no one wants that.

Though they could have justifiably called it a night after that – there’s no way to top the album’s title track as a finale – they still returned for a two-song encore, finally ending the almost two-hour show (including intermission) with “Lips Like Sugar”. Finally, this was the grand, epic Echo & The Bunnymen show I’d been hoping to see. If you get the chance to see them, choose the grandest venue possible and if they promise to bring the strings, don’t dare miss it.

The Toronto Sun, Chartattack, Exclaim and eye have reviews of the show while The National Post considers the trend of bands performing classic albums in their entirety, using Echo & The Bunnymen as a case study. You can also grab a track from the new record over at RCRDLBL, in addition to the one linked below.

And yes, the photos from the show are nigh pointless – Mac hates light, and the folly of it all was compounded by having to shoot from the back of the theatre. But that’s okay, I got him good back in Austin to check those out if you want to see how well he’s aged.

Photos: Echo & The Bunnymen @ The Queen Elizabeth Theatre – October 20, 2009
MP3: Echo & The Bunnymen – “I Think I Need It Too”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “The Killing Moon”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “Bedbugs & Ballyhoo”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “The Cutter”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “The Game”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “Seven Seas”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “Bring On The Dancing Horses”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “In The Margins”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “It’s Alright”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “Back Of Love”
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “Lips Like Sugar”
MySpace: Echo & The Bunnymen

Out digitally this month in line with the UK release, Editors’ new one In This Light & On This Evening will get a proper physical North American release on January 19 and will yet-to-be-specified bonus material not available on the UK release. This news comes the day my import of the UK release arrives, of course.

altsounds talks to Charlotte Hatherley about her new record New Worlds. Stereogum also has a new song from the record available to newsletter subscribers and a brief chat with Charlotte about the tune.

The Quietus has an interview with Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine and walks away unimpressed. Massive commenting ensues. Florence plays the Mod Club on November 2.

Paste catches up with Alasdair Maclean of The Clientele.

The Daily Growl solicits a list of seven songs from Rose Elinor Dougall.

Spinner talks to The Horrors.

eMusic and Interview have features on El Perro Del Mar, who’s just released a new video from her latest album Love Is Not Pop. She opens for Peter Bjorn & John at the Phoenix on November 11.

Video: El Perro Del Mar – “Change Of Heart”

Chartattack, The Detroit News, Metro and NOW chat with The Raveonettes. They’re at the Phoenix tonight.

HeroHill gets five funky stories from Iceland’s Sprengjuhollin, who have two dates in Toronto this weekend – Saturday night at the Rivoli and Sunday at Rancho Relaxo.

Frank YangThe last time Joe Pernice took a Toronto stage, he promised that as a new resident of the city, he might find himself playing more gigs around town and that he’d see us soon.

That was over four years ago.

Being fair, Joe has hardly been idle in that time. He released another Pernice Brothers record in Live A Little, became a father and wrote his first novel It Feels So Good When I Stop, which was the occasion for him to again get up, guitar in hand, in front of an audience of his neighbours – literally, as the Dakota Tavern was stumbling distance from his west-end digs.

Opening up was Kate Boothman, a local who had accompanied Joe on a couple of the US dates of this brief tour. Her short set didn’t do much for me, her folkish compositions failing to take off mostly on account of her rather flat vocal phrasing. The one tune she did with Julie Fader on harmonies fared better, so perhaps she works better when fronting her band Sunbear – people who’d stick around would find out as she’d be playing a full-band set after Joe went on.

Seeing as how the occasion for the show was both the release of the book and Joe’s latest record – a soundtrack of sorts to the book comprised of covers of songs mentioned in the book – the evening was being billed as a combination performance/reading, a format which actually worked really well. The evening started with Pernice, looking not a little like a fitter Elvis Costello, reading a passage from the novel and though he’d thank us at the end for being patient with him for doing so, it was our pleasure – his dry delivery really gave the book (which I have but still haven’t read sorry sorry sorry) life and I, for one, found it wholly engaging. This was followed by a set of covers from the soundtrack record and another reading, all interspersed with Pernice’s razor-sharp and self-effacing wit. Though his songwriting persona is famously bummed out (or “exquisitely sad”, he is truly one funny guy.

The real gold came next, though, as Pernice followed up with a lengthy set of his own material. The solo acoustic configuration precluded a lot of the regular Pernice Brothers material, as rich and full band-arranged as those tend to be, so instead the Dakota was treated to a trove of riches from the other eddies of Pernice’s career – the Big Tobacco solo record, the Chappaquiddick Skyline one-off project and to close it out, a suite of Scud Mountain Boys tunes that reinforced just how wonderful and consistent Pernice’s songwriting has been for so long. All told, Pernice played for nearly two hours – remarkable considering that Pernice Brothers live tended towards shorter sets – filled with songs, stories and banter. And before leaving the stage, he once again mentioned that now that he’s a Torontonian, maybe he’d play some more gigs around town. Alone or with band, book it and we’ll be there Joe. Just don’t wait another four years to do so.

The Globe & Mail has a feature piece on Joe and his book with outtakes from the interview available over at Zoilus. NOW and The Los Angeles Times also have pieces on Pernice. Now that the promotional rounds for the book are about done, Pernice is getting back to work on the already-started next Pernice Brothers record. Look for that sometime in the new year.

Photos: Joe Pernice, Kate Boothman @ The Dakota Tavern – September 24, 2009
MP3: Pernice Brothers – “Somerville”
Video: Pernice Brothers – “Somerville”
Video: Pernice Brothers – “Baby In Two”
Video: Pernice Brothers – “The Weakest Shade Of Blue”
Video: Pernice Brothers – “Working Girls”
MySpace: Pernice Brothers

Nick Cave is another musician whose recent foray into fiction – in his case his second novel The Death Of Bunny Munro – has been generating press. There’s conversations with Cave about the book at The Winnipeg Free Press, Time, CBC, The Toronto Star, The National Post and The Montreal Gazette, which also offers a full transcript of the interview. The Ampersand also got a musical endorsement for Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers.

The Times talks to Steve Earle, who is working on his first novel I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.

NPR talks to Fanfarlo about their literary inspirations (their name comes from Baudelaire) while Tourdates also has an interview with frontman Simon Balthazar and if you’ve still not heard it (shame!), Clash is streaming the album right now.

Stream: Fanfarlo / Reservoir

This Is Nottingham has an interview with Charlotte Hatherley, who has released a video for the second single from her third album New Worlds. It will be out October 20.

Video: Charlotte Hatherley – “Alexander”

The Dodos have a new video from Time To Die. Look for them at Lee’s Palace on October 17.

Video: The Dodos – “Fables”

The Rural Alberta Advantage stopped in at Minnesota Public Radio for a streaming session and gave an interview to Decider. They’re also in the new issue of Spin but that piece isn’t online yet. They play Lee’s Palace on November 4.

The first MP3 from El Perro Del Mar’s new album Love Is Not Pop, out October 20, is now available to download. There’s also an interview at the Buenos Aires Herald. She opens for Peter Bjorn & John at the Phoenix on November 11.

MP3: El Perro Del Mar – “Change Of Heart”

Daily Finance chats with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Merge Records about their 20th anniversary as an independent music label. Babelgum is also hosting a whole slew of video footage from the XX Merge festival in Carrboro back in July.

The National Post has a nice little feature on Canadian sportscasting legend and inveterate music fan – that IS him you see at all those gigs around town – Dave Hodge.

Kevin WestenbergThis has already been covered ad nauseum everywhere – I saw it mentioned in some washroom graffiti yesterday – but I think my music blogging license gets revoked or something if I don’t report on it and anyways, it’s quick and easy and allows me to spend the evening watching television.

Everyone was abuzz last week when a song that sounded too much like Radiohead to not be Radiohead began circulating online without any official comment from the band’s camp. Naturally, everyone went batshit – they’d already released a new tune last week and recent interviews implied that they were tired of the conventional album release model and had some fresh ideas on how they’d release future recordings, so the idea that this was just the tip of a Radiohead-sized iceberg wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. Adding fuel to the fire was the discovery of an URL in some ASCII artwork that accompanied the leaked track that pointed to www.wallofice.com, which in turn pointed to w.a.s.t.e., Radiohead’s official webstore. By end of day Friday, the consensus was that the band would be releasing a new EP or album entitled Wall Of Ice on Monday, all sneaky-like, and all the ills of the world would be cured. Pitchfork has a summary of all this if you seek more detail.

Anyways, Monday rolled around yesterday as it often does following Sundays and lo and behold, there was indeed a new Radiohead release available for free on their website. One song – “These Are My Twisted Words” – which was the exact one that had been circulating since Friday and which started all the brouhaha. It’s a good one, for sure, and alongside Harry Patch gives a tantalizing taste of where Radiohead are, creatively, but hardly the grand event many had been hoping for. And what about www.wallofice.com? Well assuming that that is, in fact, a Radiohead-sanctioned site, it now scolds everyone for rumour-mongering and generally being the internet. So, it seems by completely ignoring all this hubub until now, I may the one and only online outlet to remain in Thom Yorke’s good graces. Nyah!

Anyways, assuming that the ‘Head are done messing with peoples’ heads is probably unwise. When they take their time off, they’re almost deathly silent, but when they get up to stuff, they get up to a lot.

ZIP: Radiohead – “These Are My Twisted Words”

Moving on.

Maximo Park frontman checks in from Germany with another tour diary dispatch for Spinner. Think their September 18 date at Lee’s Palace will merit an entry of its own? No, probably not.

Channel News Asia has an interview with Emmy The Great, who has been keeping Summer festival diaries for The Guardian and Clash.

The Horrors have released a new video from Primary Colours. They’re at Lee’s Palace on October 14 and am hoping to score some decent tickets for the just-announced second Wilco show at Massey Hall on the 15th so I can see these guys the first night. Won’t be around for the presale tomorrow though – anyone want to grab me a ticket? I’m good for it, honest.

Video: The Horrors – “Mirror’s Image”

Also with a new video is Fanfarlo, who bring their delightful Reservoir album to North America on October 6. Paste declared them one of their “Best of what’s next for 2009″ and they’re not wrong.

Video: Fanfarlo – “The Walls Are Coming Down”

Arctic Monkeys insist to BBC that their new album Humbug, out August 25, is not more “mature”. They are at the Kool Haus on September 29.

The Dumbing Of America has an interview with Charlotte Hatherley, whose New Worlds will be out in the UK on October 19.

The Times has a profile on Patrick Wolf.

NME reports that Placebo have canceled their entire upcoming North American tour in support of Battle For The Sun, including the October 6 date at the Sound Academy in Toronto, while frontman Brian Molko recovers from a virus contracted in Asia. Sidestepping joke about hoping Molko gets real drugs and not fake ones…. now.

The Boston Globe talks to Richard Thompson about his new box set Walking On A Wire: 1968-2009, which is out today. You can stream a sample of songs from the collection at Spinner.

Stream: Richard Thompson / Walking On A Wire (selections)

If you ever wondered exactly what you were getting when you paid for “remastered” reissues, check out this absurdly detailed report on what was done for the upcoming Beatles remasters, coming out September 9. I’m no big advocate of buying the same records over and over again, but if you’re a Beatles fan, these may well be worth the dosh.