Frank YangSo this is the first time in nine years that I am NOT in Austin for SXSW; reasons for this are myriad, but the broad strokes can be inferred from this. So while this means rather than embarrassment of concert riches to choose from, my live music options amongst bands not deep in the heart of Texas were decidedly shallower, but still pretty great – after all, Veronica Falls were back in town.

It was at SXSW 2011 that I first made the acquaintance of the Anglo-Scottish quartet, proceeding to catch them at home and abroad, with their show at The Garrison last February the last show I caught in support of their self-titled debut, and just as well – as much as I loved the record, there was only so much mileage to be squeezed out of a single 36-minute collection.

That wasn’t an issue on Tuesday night when they returned to The Garrison with their second album Waiting For Something To Happen exactly one month old and still fresh and delightful. It strikes the perfect balance of keeping what made their debut a gem – the throwback ’80s-styled indie-pop exulting under moodily overcast skies – and improving it with catchier hooks, stronger vocals in all departments – melodies, harmonies, expressiveness – and just enough extra stylistic boundary-pushing. It was everything I would have wanted in a follow-up, and that it gave them excuse to come back to town was all the better.

Openers Cold Showers keep a pretty low online profile – it took more digging than it should have to establish they hail from Los Angeles – but putting a finger on their sound wasn’t nearly as difficult. Their dark, post-punk sound mines the territory of early Cure and Joy Division, but they manage to avoid sounding dismissively derivative. Built on a bed of muscular, mechanical drumming, prone to measured bursts of noise, and surprisingly melodic while maintaining a persistant broodiness. Not the most exciting, presentation-wise, but it sounded good.

It was funny to go back and re-read my writeup of last year’s Veronica Falls show at The Garrison because I noted the problems the band were having with their on-stage monitor mixes – funny because a year later, they still seemed to be having the same issues. But still, except for the drums sounding a bit overloud – more because of Patrick Doyle’s right foot than any sound reinforcement issues – the house mix sounded fine. Though hardly overly-polished on record, live they added an appealing extra layer of grit to the proceedings and were incrementally more energized than they were whilst supporting their debut; frontwoman Roxanne Clifford was bouncing around the stage, whipping her hair about, and even cracked smiles when not grimacing at the sound coming from their monitors. Having twice the material to draw from meant this show was nearly twice as long as their last visit, with the set list split almost evenly between the two records and for the encore, they acquiesced to a fan request for “Starry Eyes”, a b-side that pre-dated their debut. It would have been nicer to see more people on hand – I wouldn’t have put the attendance much more than who came out last year – but at least the fans were ardent.

Photos: Veronica Falls, Cold Showers @ The Garrison – March 12, 2013
MP3: Veronica Falls – “Come On Over”
MP3: Veronica Falls – “Found Love In A Graveyard”
Video: Veronica Falls – “Teenage”
Video: Veronica Falls – “My Heart Beats”
Video: Veronica Falls – “Bad Feeling”
Video: Veronica Falls – “Come On Over”
Video: Veronica Falls – “Beachy Head”
Video: Veronica Falls – “Found Love In A Graveyard”
Video: Cold Showers – “BC”

Spinner talks to Billy Bragg about his new album Tooth And Nail, in stores next Tuesday. He plays the Danforth Music Hall on May 3.

NOW talks to CHVRCHES in advance of their Canadian Musicfest-opening show at The Mod Club on March 20.

For Folk’s Sake and The Chicago Tribune have interviews with Richard Thompson, in town next week at Massey Hall on March 22 opening for Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell.

British Sea Power have gone with the title track as the first video from their new record Machineries Of Joy, out April 1.

Video: British Sea Power – “Machineries Of Joy”

The Alternate Side has posted a video session with Jessie Ware. She makes her local debut at The Opera House on April 6.

British soul singer Laura Mvula – fourth on this year’s BBC Sound of 2013 poll – will make her local debut on April 20 at The Drake Underground in support of the just-released debut album Sing To The Moon. DIY has a feature piece.

Video: Laura Mvula – “Green Garden”

Johnny Marr offers DIY some thoughts on the likelihood of a Smiths reunion, and they’re not encouraging if you’re someone holding out hope for a Smiths reunion. Best just head to his show at The Phoenix on April 27 if you want to see Marr live.

Rolling Stone has premiered the new video from Foals’ Holy Fire; the NSFW warning seems pretty much a given by this point. They play The Kool Haus on May 11.

Video: Foals – “Late Night”

GQ has an interview with Kele Okereke of Bloc Party, who’ve just released a crowdsourced new video from Four. They’ll play Garrison Commons at Fort York as part of Field Trip on June 8.

Video: Bloc Party – “Truth”

The Fly has a feature piece on one of the possible saviours of British guitar rock, Peace; they’re in town on June 15 as part of NXNE.

The Line Of Best Fit reports that Pet Shop Boys have already completed a follow-up to last year’s Elysium; Electric will be out in June and of course there’s a trailer.

Trailer: Pet Shop Boys / Electric

The Vaccines have rolled out a new clip from their second album Come Of Age. They’re sort-of in town on August 24 in Simcoe taking part in the Mumford & Sons-led Gentlemen Of The Road Stopover fest. Mumford & Sons also have a new video from their own second record, Babel.

Video: The Vaccines – “Bad Mood”
Video: Mumford & Sons – “Whispers In The Dark”

TOY have rolled out another new video from their debut, TOY.

Video: TOY – “My Heart Skips A Beat”

The Twilight Sad has made a new song from the No One Can Ever Know sessions available to stream.

Stream: The Twilight Sad – “Tell Me When We’re Having Fun”

PopMatters chats with Patrick Wolf.

Consequence Of Sound and Blurt talk to Robyn Hitchcock about his new record Love From London.

Over at Talkhouse, Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg has an excellent essay/review about David Bowie’s new record The Next Day and the evolution of Bowie’s voice through the decades.

muteEnglish singer-songwriter Polly Scattergood’s 2009 self-titled debut may have been an indulgent, precious, and overdramatic work that sounded very much like the diary entries of a 22-year old put to music, but it was also impressively assured for the same reason, assuredly declaring “this is who and what I am right now” and doing it by way of sophisticatedly melodic electro-pop and expressive vocal work. Even if it didn’t do it for you, it was hard to deny that it heralded the arrival of a new talent with much potential that merited attention as it grew and matured.

The follow-up will arrive sometime this Summer, but a couple samples have already been released to both remind listeners of what she’s about – four years is an eternity to be away these days – and show how far she’s come. Two tracks aren’t quite enough to judge the latter point, but they’re both solid tunes and as far as getting me to revisit the debut and remember to pay attention to when the album finally comes out? Mission accomplished.

MP3: Polly Scattergood – “Wanderlust”
Stream: Polly Scattergood – “Disco Damaged Kid”

MTV Hive interviews Foals about Holy Fire, out next Tuesday.

7Digital and The 405 chat with Veronica Falls about their new record Waiting For Something To Happen and DIY gets a track-by-track walkthrough of the new album It’s out next Tuesday and they play The Garrison on March 12.

Spinner talks to David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick about new album The Next Day, out March 12.

Scottish synth-pop trio CHVRCHES have announced a March 26 digital release for their first North American EP Recover, and are streaming the lead track from it. They play The Mod Club on March 20 as part of Canadian Musicfest.

Stream: CHVRCHES – “Recover”

The House Of Love have released the first single from She Paints Words In Red by way of video. Getting quiet excited for this record as well as the fact that international shipping on the limited-edition vinyl was four pence.

Video: The House Of Love – “A Baby Got Back On Its Feet”

The Line Of Best Fit debuts the new single from Little Green Cars by way of video session; they play The Drake on March 28.

DIY and The 405 interview Frightened Rabbit, who have put out a new video from the just-released Pedestrian Verse. They play The Phoenix on March 31.

Video: Frightened Rabbit – “Today’s Cross”

The Skinny and MusicOmh interview Ritzy Bryan of The Joy Formidable while Aritzia asks her which five songs she wished she’d written. The Joy Formidable are at The Phoenix on April 12.

Anyone wondering why it’s taken Mumford & Sons so long to bring 2012′s Babel to town can blame their decision to eschew conventional touring in favour of their Gentlemen Of The Road events. Southern Ontario finally gets our turn, though, as they’ve announced a “stopover” for the weekend of August 23 and 24 in Simcoe, Ontario on the shores of Lake Erie, a little under two hours outside of Toronto. There will be two days of music with Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and Dan Mangan amongst those playing the Friday The Old Crow Medicine Show, Hey Rosetta!, and The Vaccines as well as Mumford themselves on Saturday with more acts to be announced. Two-day passes run $109.

Video: Mumford & Sons – “I Will Wait”
Video: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – “Home”

NPR has posted a video session with Bat For Lashes.

Neil Halstead drops in at Daytrotter.

The Phoenix interviews Peter Hook.

Frank YangIf there’s any lessons a band can take from Ash, first and foremost would be a) to never mind fashion and stick to what you do well, and b) to get started young. The benefits of both of these points were on display Saturday night when the Northern Irish trio rolled into Lee’s Palace for their first Toronto show in seven years. To the former, they had a massive and impressive repertoire of high-energy, ultra-melodic punk/metal-laced pop to draw from and to the former, well if you’re so fortunate to be celebrating your twentieth anniversary as a band then you would probably want to be has as young and spry as the 35-year old Tim Wheeler, even with the flecks of grey in his beard.

While I can think of some acts I’d have rather seen open for Ash – former guitarist Charlotte Hatherley, say, or Wheeler’s girlfriend Emmy The Great – Halifax’s Kestrels were more than fine as well. As I wrote in July, their debut A Ghost History has more than enough ’90s-vintage college rock/shoegaze DNA in it to be a good fit, and there was even a formal connection what with Wheeler making a guest guitar appearance on the record. As is not unusual for bands of their ilk, their live show was exceedingly loud, and many of the pop-friendly nuances on the record were smothered with distortion and volume. The rhythm section, with its thick, fuzzy bass chords and nimble, 16th-note drumming, was an effective balance of heavy and agile and Chad Peck’s guitar leads were less melodic lines than bursts of noise run through a wah pedal. They probably could have done themselves a favour by turning down just a bit, but their enthusiasm was warranted – it was their last show of the year after touring heavily in support of their album and as Peck noted, Ash was his favourite band since forever so getting to open for them – and then take over Wheeler’s guitar roadie duties later – made for a pretty unique experience. If ever there was a night to leave it all on stage, it was this. And they did. Loudly.

Though chronologically, Ash fit right into the first wave of Britpop, I never really thought of them as such – and not just because Northern Ireland isn’t technically part of Britain, so the genre was a misnomer anyways. No, it was more their youthful energy and punkier inclinations didn’t really fit with the sort of Anglo sophistication that I wanted from the likes of Blur or Pulp, and so while I appreciated the singles I heard over the years, I didn’t start making up the lost time until recently. Definitely in time to thoroughly enjoy their show, though. Obviously feeling no inclination to be difficult, the set was wall-to-wall hits – both actual and should have beens – drawn from throughout their career but focusing largely on their 1996 debut 1977 with appropriate consideration given to 2001′s Free All Angels and 2004′s Meltdown, and ranging from the relatively gentle “Shining Light” to the positively raging “Clones”. And while not sold out, the show was well-attended with no small number of Irish fans and not singing along with anthems such as “Goldfinger” or “Girl From Mars” was simply not an option. They also drew heavily from their recent ambitious A-Z singles series – the triple vinyl North American release ostensibly the reason for the tour – and tracks like “Arcadia” and “Binary” proving that even after twenty years, their simple formula of riff and melody – and recently, the occasional electronic flourish – still pays tremendous dividends.

As you would expect a band with as many years and miles under their belts as Ash, they were unbelievably polished and powerful, bassist Mark Hamilton not missing a not while striking body-contorting rock poses through the whole night and Wheeler, when not singing, was bounding around the stage and confirming that the road case oddly placed front and centre stage was indeed for jumping on and rocking out. And after nineteen songs and 90 minutes, it was also the place for the trio to stand up and take a well-earned bow.

Oh, one more lesson bands can take from Ash? Flying Vs rawk.

Exclaim also has a review of the show and A Music Blog, Yea has an interview with Tim Wheeler.

Photos: Ash, Kestrels @ Lee’s Palace – November 17, 2012
MP3: Ash – “Return Of White Rabbit”
MP3: Ash – “Burn Baby Burn”
Video: Ash – “Carnal Love”
Video: Ash – “Binary”
Video: Ash – “Kamakura”
Video: Ash – “The Creeps”
Video: Ash – “War With Me”
Video: Ash – “Neon”
Video: Ash – “Ichiban”
Video: Ash – “Space Shot”
Video: Ash – “Pripyat”
Video: Ash – “Tracers”
Video: Ash – “Arcadia”
Video: Ash – “Joy Kicks Darkness”
Video: Ash – “True Love 1980″
Video: Ash – “Return Of White “
Video: Ash – “End Of The World”
Video: Ash – “Polaris”
Video: Ash – “You Can’t Have It All”
Video: Ash – “I Started A Fire”
Video: Ash – “Renegade Cavalcade”
Video: Ash – “Starcrossed”
Video: Ash – “Orpheus”
Video: Ash – “Clones”
Video: Ash – “There’s A Star”
Video: Ash – “Candy”
Video: Ash – “Sometimes”
Video: Ash – “Burn Baby Burn”
Video: Ash – “Shining Light”
Video: Ash – “Warmer Than Fire”
Video: Ash – “Wildsurf”
Video: Ash – “A Life Less Ordinary”
Video: Ash – “Oh Yeah”
Video: Ash – “Goldfinger”
Video: Ash – “Angel Interceptor”
Video: Ash – “Girl From Mars” (US)
Video: Ash – “Girl From Mars” (UK)
Video: Ash – “Kung Fu”
Video: Ash – “Uncle Pat”
Video: Kestrels – “The Past Rests”
Video: Kestrels – “There All The Time Without You”

Here’s one to file under “happy coincidences”. Just yesterday morning, I was listening to The Joy Formidable and thinking that it had been too long since I saw them live, having skipped their show in April and also planning to give next Sunday night’s support slot for The Gaslight Anthem a pass. And then, lo and behold, they announce a last-minute headline gig at The Mod Club for next Monday, November 26. It’s a free show as part of CFNY’s holiday concert series, so head to theedge.ca for details on how to win tickets. Expect to hear material from their new album Wolf’s Law, out January 22.

MP3: The Joy Formidable – “Wolf’s Law”

Kate Nash has announced her Death Proof EP will indeed be out this Fall as promised – as of right now, in fact. DIY has details on the release, which will be out on November 19, and Consequence Of Sound has some specifics on Nash’s third studio album, entitled Girl Talk and targeted for a March 2013 release. Spin talks to her about her new video for the title track of the new EP.

Video: Kate Nash – “Death Proof”

Florence & The Machine have squeezed another video out of Ceremonials and premiered it over at Nowness.

Video: Florence & The Machine – “Lover To Lover”

Played the new Veronica Falls track to death already? Head over to They Shoot Music where the band play a live version for a video session in addition to an old song. The new album Waiting For Something To Happen is out February 12.

4AD has details on the second album from Stornoway, to be entitled Tales From Terra Firma and due out on March 11.

Pitchfork has a Takeaway Show with Jessie Ware, filmed last month in Paris.

Blurt talks to Beth Orton.

The first track from Foals’ new album Holy Fire, out February 12, is now available to download.

MP3: Foals – “Inhaler”

Esben & The Witch are also giving away the first teaser of their second album Wash The Sins Not Only The Face, out January 21.

MP3: Esben & The Witch – “Deathwaltz”

For Folks Sake and The Stool Pigeon talk to Neil Halstead.

The Guardian asks the question so many have wondered – how did Mumford & Sons get so damn big?

Wales Online reports that Manic Street Preachers have gotten to work on a new album, though it won’t be out until 2014 at least.

Blur have released a clip from their not-farewell Hyde Park concert, documented on the forthcoming CD/DVD Parklive set. It’s out December 3.

Video: Blur – “Under The Westway” (live at Hyde Park)

Wired reports that Beautiful Noise, the documentary film on the shoegazing movement featuring interviews with many principals of the scene that has seemingly been in production forever, is finally finished and turning to Kickstarter to fund its distribution. $25 gets you a copy of the DVD… and you know you want it.

Trailer: Beautiful Noise

Memphis IndustriesIt’s been interesting tracking the musical evolution of El Perro Del Mar, the musical project of Sweden’s Sarah Assbring. Her 2006 self-titled debut cast her as the mournful ghost of a ’50s doo-wop girl while the 2008 follow-up From The Valley To The Stars invited fuller arrangements into the mix – even getting jaunty at points – while keeping the sentiments beautifully downcast. 2009′s Love Is Not Pop was took great strides towards feeling more modern, mostly via studio-slick musical arrangements, and while surprisingly short compared to Valley – seven tracks versus its predecessor’s 16 – assuming that that the three dancey remixes appended as bonus tracks to the US edition were just filler would have been a mistake; they were more of a signpost.

In the three years between that release and her fourth album Pale Fire, Assbring seems to have completed the transition from old-school chanteuse to dance diva and also invested in a lot of keyboards in the process. Pale Fire is an unabashedly synthetic record, built on beats and loops and existing in a haze, sounding largely like a remix album of a more conventional work. Assbring’s retro stylings have been wholly subsumed by the dedication to the groove, but her signature sadness is still detectable – it seems the dancefloor isn’t necessarily any less lonely a place than one’s bedroom.

Assbring doesn’t have the sort of voice one would typically associate with dance music – it’s not an especially powerful or sensual instrument – but it’s that dissonance that helps Pale Fire stand out from the current crop of electro-pop, and when when Pale Fire reverts to a more traditional sonic form, as on “I Was A Boy”, the other would-be peers just fall away. Given the number of guises that Assbring has donned over the course of her career, it’d be presumptuous to think that Assbring will dwell in Pale Fire‘s aesthetic for too long, but it does feel like the end of the transformation that she’s been undertaking since Valley; maybe she’ll keep it on for a little while.

Pale Fire is out next week but now streaming in whole over at Hype Machine. A Heart Is A Spade has an interview with Assbring.

MP3: El Perro Del Mar – “Hold Off The Dawn”
Video: El Perro Del Mar – “Walk On By”
Video: El Perro Del Mar – “Innocence Is Sense”
Stream: El Perro Del Mar / Pale Fire

Interview talks to Joachim Läckberg of Sambassadeur, who may be releasing a new single in “Memories” in a few weeks but aren’t looking to put out their next album until late next year. Teases.

The Line Of Best Fit note that Icona Pop’s self-titled debut will be released in their native Sweden as soon as next week, November 14. A worldwide release will follow next year. They open up for Marina & The Diamonds at The Kool Haus on December 1.

Those who’ve been following along with Sigur Rós’ Valtari Mystery Film Experient and wish they could see the works on a bigger screen may be interested to know that a goodly number of the films – at least 17 – are being compiled and taken on the road for some worldwide screenings over the course of a weekend in December. Toronto gets ours on December 8 at The Bloor.

And if that’s not enough Scandi-music film action for you, 4AD has released some details on The Ghost Of Piramida, a film that documents Efterklang’s visit to the abandoned Russian town of Piramida, from which their latest album drew inspiration and its name.

Foals have confirmed the February 12 release of their next record Holy Fire with the release of the first video from the record.

Video: Foals – “Inhaler”

Pitchfork has more specifics on the solo debut from Johnny Marr; The Messenger will be out on February 26 of next year.

Justin Young of The Vaccines offers an interview to Drowned In Sound. They play The Phoenix on February 4.

The 405 meets Field Music.

NPR has a World Cafe session with Beth Orton.

Mumford & Sons enlisted Stringer Bell – that’s actor Idris Elba, for non-Wire watchers – to star in the new video from Babel.

Video: Mumford & Sons – “Lover Of The Night”

The Quietus talks to Neil Halstead about all things Slowdive, Mojave 3, and Neil Halstead. Denver Westword also has an interview.

Drowned In Sound makes a case for the importance of Manic Street Preachers’ debut Generation Terrorists, turning 20 and out in deluxe reissue form now.

The National Post and eMusic talk to Bernard Sumner and Gillian Gilbert of New Order, respectively.

The Irish Times, Burton Mail, Gigwise, and The Edinburgh Evening News talk to David Gedge of The Wedding Present.

Clash and Exclaim have features on Tame Impala, in town at The Phoenix on November 12.

Frank YangIt’s really a travesty that Neil Halstead’s isn’t venerated as a musical trailblazer. This is, after all, a man whose work in Slowdive was groundbreaking for both the shoegazing and ambient electronic genres and who created some of the finest alt.country moments from the UK via Mojave 3, the say nothing of the increasingly deep catalog of works under his own name, most recently with Palindrome Hunches. And yet for the recognition that he should but mostly does not get, he seemed perfectly content to just roll into the Dakota Tavern on Monday evening, guitar in hand, to play some songs and just play some songs. Must be that surfer lifestyle.

Supporting Halstead on these dates was Californian Jim Hanft, who in turn brought with him collaborator Samantha Yonack. Hanft offered up some decent singer-songwriter fare, and any points deducted for having an overly affected rasp and twang in his delivery was made up for by his genial demeanour and willingness to move around and make use of the stage. For her part, Yonack earned her almost-equal billing both with her harmonies and impromptu roadie skills, on display when Hanft accidentally unplugged his guitar during one of the aforementioned wanders. Not the most memorable stuff, but pleasant enough.

Halstead was last here in November 2008 for Oh! Mighty Engine, and just like his solo record have gotten progressively more stripped-down, so to has his live show become simpler in execution. Whereas that show featured a couple backing players, this time Halstead was joined by an accompanist on only a handful of songs – crucially so, with the simple bass, guitar, and piano embellishments adding a lot – but mostly just himself. And as always, that’s all he really needed.

As is typical with his solo shows, the set was divided up fairly evenly between solo and Mojave 3 material, though I think that the balance this time out leaned more to the band material. Playing without a written-out set list, Halstead was agreeable to shouted requests and surprisingly to me, whose fandom stretches back to the Slowdive days, a lot of the requests were for his solo material (and one request for “Souvlaki Space Stating” was indulged to the point of playing the opening chords and demonstrating that he had a delay pedal handy). I suppose that made sense with the crowd being younger than I would have expected – these people weren’t Slowdive or Mojave 3 fans first, but Neil Halstead fans. What a thing it must be to have three distinct and beloved catalogs to work from. The audience also gave Halstead a song back, singing him, “Happy Birthday” in honour of his turning 42 the day before.

Though Mojave 3 had technically been in action this year – some lineup had played a few gigs in China, of all places, this Summer – it had been a good six years since they last toured through and it was so great to hear those songs again: “Prayer For The Paranoid”, “Who Do You Love”, “In Love With A View”, “Some Kinda Angel”, “Life In Art”… all moments of gorgeousness that I’d somehow let slip from my memory. In addition to refreshing my Mojave affections, my appreciation for Halstead’s solo works also increased as the performance went on – it’s easy to begrudge those solo records for not being Mojave 3 or Slowdive records, for not showcasing Halstead’s talents at crafting widescreen sonic landscapes, but that would ignore just how good a pure songwriter Halstead now is, and how he doesn’t necessarily need all that presentation to make beautiful and affecting music.

After closing the main set with a gorgeous, “Full Moon Rising” off of Palindrome Hunches, Halstead returned and soliciting more requests, addressed the Slowdive reunion question which he himself set up in August – fitting, since this was the city that hosted the final two Slowdive shows in 1994. And while I’d like to think that it was all part of a carefully planned campaign to lead up to an official return in the near future, his explanation that he was being interviewed at 7AM in China and that a Slowdive return had never officially been off the table but wasn’t necessarily any closer to a reality than it ever was seemed more likely; he closed the discussion by suggesting those really keen on it happening should petition Rachel Goswell for it to happen, and then for the first time since I’ve been seeing either him or Mojave 3 live – some 13 years – he played a Slowdive song. And then another. His solo acoustic arrangement of “Alison” had already surfaced thanks to the free tour EP at Noisetrade, but the rendition of “40 Days” was new to my ears and beautiful. The magic the man can work with just the addition of a delay pedal is remarkable; someone needs to hand him a Telecaster, stat. “Hi-Lo and In Between” from Sleeping On Roads closed the show after a good hour forty-five and Halstead bid farewell, at least until the next time.

The Singing Lamb also has a review of the show. Metro and The Philadelphia Inquirer have interviews with Halstead.

Photos: Neil Halstead, Jim Hanft with Samantha Yonack @ The Dakota Tavern – October 8, 2012
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Tied To You”
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Digging Shelters”
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Full Moon Rising”
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Paint A Face”
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Two Stones In My Pocket”
MP3: Mojave 3 – “In Love With A View”
MP3: Mojave 3 – “Return To Sender”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Hey Daydreamer”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Digging Shelters”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Elevenses”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Witless Or Wise”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Paint A Face”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Queen Bee”
Video: Mojave 3 – “Breaking The Ice”
Video: Mojave 3 – “Some Kinda Angel”
Video: Mojave 3 – “Love Songs On The Radio”
Video: Jim Hanft – “Television”
Video: Jim Hanft – “Superhero”

Gold Flake Paint and DIY have interviews with Frightened Rabbit, in town for a sold-out Mod Club show tonight.

Ellie Goulding goes over her new album Halcyon for Billboard. She brings it to the Sound Academy on October 14.

CBC Music talks to The xx, coming to Massey Hall on October 23.

Spinner interviews Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes. Her new album The Haunted Man comes out October 23 and a six-song preview is now streaming at The Guardian.

Stream: Bat For Lashes / The Haunted Man sampler

Ritzy Bryan of The Joy Formidable talks to DIY about their new album Wolf’s Law, out January 23 of next year. They’re at The Sound Academy on November 25 supporting The Gaslight Anthem.

The Vaccines have a new vid from Come Of Age. They’re at The Phoenix on February 4.

Video: The Vaccines – “I Always Knew”

Muse will bring whatever ridiculous over-the-top live spectacle they dream up – think “The Wall” – for their new album The 2nd Law to the Air Canada Centre on April 9. NPR has a brief interview with the band.

Video: Muse – “Survival”

The National Post and Under The Radar have features on Two Door Cinema Club.

NPR has a World Cafe session and JAM and State interviews with Beth Orton.

Bloc Party have released a new video from Four.

Video: Bloc Party – “Kettling”

Echo Lake have put out another video from their debut Echo Lake.

Video: Echo Lake – “Another Day”

Billboard and BBC have features on Mumford & Sons.

Adele’s theme song for the new James Bond film Skyfall is now available to “watch” via lyric video. Which is kind of like the movie’s opening credits but with lyrics instead of credits and no silhouettes of femme fatales. It opens in North American on November 9.

Lyric Video: Adele – “Skyfall”

Austin City Limits is streaming their season premiere episode, featuring a little band called Radiohead.