A Camp sets release date for Colonia

MySpaceJust yesterday morning I was listening to The Cardigans’ wonderful and underappreciated Long Gone Before Daylight, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard any news about the new record from A Camp, Nina Persson’s solo project, in a while. Cue NME, who yesterday reported that said record – Colonia – will see the light of day on February 2 in the UK and Europe. Not sure if there’s a North American schedule on the books yet, though.

Don’t know if the background music at their website is any indication of the direction of the record, but there’s also a photo gallery of the band in the studio to whet one’s appetite. I had heard that they wouldn’t necessarily be continuing the alt.country vibe that made the now eight-year old (!) A Camp debut so delicious – Mark Linkous isn’t driving things this time – and while that’s sort of a shame, the fact that there’s a new record coming from Persson, Cardies or otherwise, is good news any way you look at it. Core collaborators on the record are Niclas Frisk and Persson’s husband/Shudder To Think guitarist Nathan Larson and there are guest spots from James Iha and Joan Wasser, amongst others. And the album cover looks like this. That’s all I got right now. So until there’s more, here’s a live Neil Young cover I posted a while back and the vids from the first album.

MP3: A Camp – “On The Beach” (live)
Video: A Camp – “I Can Buy You”
Video: A Camp – “Song For The Leftovers”
MySpace: A Camp

State interviews Lykke Li, set for a date at the Phoenix on February 6.

Following up on last year’s Guilt By Association covers compilation featuring the likes of Superchunk, Luna and The Concretes covering songs they deemed to be guilty pleasures, Pitchfork has details on the sequel. Volume two doesn’t have quite the star power of the first and its mandate is shifted slightly to encompass Top 40 pop from the ’80s through today (guilty pleasure or not), and as such you’ve got the likes of Frightened Rabbit, My Brightest Diamond and Matt Pond PA amongst the coverers and Toto, Billy Joel and Katy Perry amongst the coverees. Though the CD isn’t out until February 17 of next year, you can stream it below and it’s already available digitally from the likes of eMusic. A third volume is also already in the works. Check out the My Brightest Diamond contribution to the new comp, as well as the Journey cover by Petra Haden that opened volume one.

MP3: My Brightest Diamond – “Tainted Love”
MP3: Petra Haden – “Don’t Stop Believin’”
Stream: Guilt By Association 2
MySpace: Guilt By Association

Clash Q&As Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison and Pitchfork reveals that the band has contributed a track to a compilation that accompanies Australian zine The Lifted Brow. And since said zine is far from cheap ($40!), don’t feel bad about downloading said track, also from the ‘Fork.

MP3: Frightened Rabbit – “Last Tango In Brooklyn”

Chart discusses Intimacy and mythology with Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke.

Drowned In Sound has posted part two of their interview with Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff.

Beach House have rolled out a new video. Just in time for Winter.

Video: Beach House – “Used To Be”

Prefix interviews The Rosebuds.

Blurt offers a short feature on Wolf Parade.

Creative Loafing talks to Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene. They’re playing two nights at the Sound Academy on November 27 and 28.

Also now doing a two-fer at the former Docks is the Jingle Bell Rock tour featuring Metric, Tokyo Police Club, The Dears and Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains. There’s now a December 12 show to go along with the originally announced December 13 date.

Caribou has revealed what he did with his $20,000 in Polaris Prize winnings – part went to finance the next album and the rest went to charity. Next year, I think the money needs to go to someone seriously decadent. Artistic merit be damned, that money should be spent on hookers and blow.

Matthew Sweet talks pottery with Blurt.

Autumn De WildeSo obviously I’m on record as having thought that Rilo Kiley’s last record (and according to some, their last record) Under The Black Light was a massive disappointment. It sounded like both principals were disinterested and just phoning it in, and made me think that maybe frontwoman Jenny Lewis’ solo career – at that point consisting only of the rather lovely and understated country-soul gem Rabbit Fur Coat – was going to be the actual way forward.

Which put her second solo effort, Acid Tongue, under that much more scrutiny. Was the weak and indifferent songwriting on Black Light an aberration or had the wellspring of inspiration that had served so well up to that point actually dried up? Well, it’s definitely a better record than Blacklight, but coming from me that’s not necessarily saying much. It thankfully eschews the genre-hopping of that last Rilo Kiley record and returns again to the rootsier trappings that suits Lewis’ voice best, though not in as quiet a manner as Rabbit Fur Coat. Acid Tongue is a bolder, brassier record with its share of rollicking moments, but what it gains in energy over the first solo record, it loses in vulnerability.

As her success has grown, it seems Lewis’ willingness to expose herself in her songwriting has diminished or what does make it through is thoroughly encrypted. And that’s fine, emotionally naked, heart on sleeve songwriting isn’t for everyone but Lewis has indulged before and the results have been stirring. So instead of a confessional, she’s enlisted a slew of guest stars – Elvis Costello, M Ward and Zooey Deschanel among them – and hosted a party instead. A party where the theme is loose but impeccably played, ’70s-style country-rock. And parties are great, everyone likes parties, but I’ve always been the sort who preferred the quiet 3AM conversations that follow when things have died down.

The AV Club, The Guardian, The List, Blurt, The Independent and The Skinny talk to Lewis about her new record.

MP3: Jenny Lewis – “Acid Tongue”
MySpace: Jenny Lewis

Feist talks to The Winnipeg Sun about visiting the Arctic. She visits Massey Hall on November 1 and the Air Canada Centre on November 3.

Paste talks to Lucinda Williams.

The Denver Post and Colorado Daily Q&A Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.

Chart talks to Matthew Sweet.

The McGill Tribune interviews Travis Nelson of Okkervil River.

Gotham Acme talks to Joey Burns of Calexico. They’re at the Phoenix on November 18 and with original support act Bowerbirds having cancelled on account of exhaustion, the opener will now be Cuff The Duke.

In response to my “nothing to write about” comment yesterday, Radio Free Canuckistan gently reminded me that The Awkward Stage, who released the wholly underappreciated Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights earlier this year, are at the Horseshoe tonight as part of a west coast-acular bill with Said The Whale, Vancougar and Sylvie. Pulse Niagara has an interview with Awkward frontman Shane Nelken, The Toronto Star features Sylvie.

MP3: The Awkward Stage – “Anime Eyes”
MP3: Vancougar – “Obvious”
MP3: Sylvie – “Please Make It Home”

Photo by Frank Yang

There is an upside to having never been especially fashionable, and that’s you never go out of fashion. Case in point, The Wedding Present, whom over the course of their twenty-plus year career (including the Cinerama years), have never really enjoyed the heights of critical or popular acclaim but have never suffered the sting of backlash, either. Instead, they’ve simply plugged along, touring relentlessly and ne’er releasing a dud of an album and thereby accumulating a large and loyal following – bands could do far worse than to emulate their career path. A path that brought them to Toronto on Friday night in support of their new record El Rey, their first visit in two and a half years.

Playing the final date of their support stint, openers Dirty On Purpose joked about this being their annual visit to Lee’s Palace, though I suspect they really meant their annual visit to a near-empty Lee’s Palace. Though their profile has grown considerably since their first visit in March 2006, this time they were victims of an early start time that I suspect not a lot of people knew about. It’s been a couple years since the release of their debut album Hallelujah Sirens but the Brooklyn quartet has not been idle, releasing the Like Bees EP at the start of this year and following that closely with the Dead Volcanoes EP, available for free download at RCRD LBL. Both recordings implied a creative shift towards giving their pop sides a more equal footing with their noisier inclinations, and that was also evidenced in their live show which was a touch more polite-sounding than I’ve heard them before. At least until the set-closing instrumental “Monument”, which culminated in a minor stage trashing but considering that only consisted of one tossed guitar and a knocked over cymbal stand, even that was kind of polite.

You want to talk about consistency with The Wedding Present? On this night, Dave Gedge was wearing pretty much the same outfit he was in March 2006 and in April 2005. And with the exception of the addition of a healthy dose of El Rey material and considerably less from 2005’s Take Fountain, the set list could also have been from that show if not in exact song, then in song selection methodology. An even-handed sampling of the entire back catalog with an emphasis on masterpiece Seamonsters and a single nod to the Cinerama years. Truly it’s a testament to the solidity and reliability of Gedge’s muse that the new material stands up so well alongside the old, though when one’s creative well is built on the foibles of faithless men and women, there’s always plenty to draw on.

And, just like every gig, there were shout outs for requests which, as he’s done their entire career Gedge deflected (this time by claiming he’d love to oblige but said bassist Terry De Castro worked very hard on the set list and would be upset if they deviated). But for every favourite not aired, another gem was played instead and it’s hard to imagine anyone being disappointed overall by the song selection. And, of course, the performance was again excellent. After seeing just Gedge and De Castro play a set during SxSW, I appreciate how much second guitarist Chris McConville and drummer Graeme Ramsay, who joined post-Take Fountain and recorded and helped write El Rey, bring to the band. Though it’s still Gedge’s words and delivery that seal the deal, they come across so much better with the massive-sounding rhythm section driving home the point.

And, of course, there was no encore.

Redwood City Daily News has an interview with the Gedge.

Photos: The Wedding Present, Dirty On Purpose @ Lee’s Palace – October 3, 2008
MP3: The Wedding Present – “The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girl Friend”
MP3: Dirty On Purpose – “Mind Blindness”
MP3: Dirty On Purpose – “No Radio”
Video: Dirty On Purpose – “Audience In The Room”
Video: Dirty On Purpose – “Car No Driver”
MySpace: The Wedding Present
MySpace: Dirty On Purpose

JAM has an interview with Noel Gallagher of Oasis, conducted last month in happier times when all his ribs were still intact. Dig Out Your Soul is out tomorrow.

Filter talks to Jason Pierce of Spiritualized.

Metro asks British Sea Power five questions.

The Quietus and Drowned In Sound discuss Snowflake Midnight with Mercury Rev. The companion album Strange Attractor is also now available for free download by signing up to their mailing list from their website. The Rev are at the Opera House on December 9 with Dean & Britta.

Billboard examines the success of My Bloody Valentine’s just-completed North American tour. And now, with no more live dates on the horizon, it’s time to get back in the studio.

Wired discusses the influence of the shoegazing movement on a young Oliver Ackerman, who would go on to form A Place To Bury Strangers. Tuscon Weekly also has a feature.

The Black Cab Sessions welcome Joey Burns of Calexico while Prefix has an interview.. They’re at the Phoenix on November 18, though probably arriving by bus rather than cab.

Chart talks pottery with Matthew Sweet. Exclaim asks him about his music.