Cat Power’s new album Sun will come out September 4, but you can listen to it now via NPR’s “First Listen”.  Sun is a sonic departure from Chan Marshall’s norm.  Check it out.

We posted in June the Bahamas performance of Lost in the Light on Conan only to have the video vamoos.  Thankfully Conan  re-broadcast the performance last week featuring Afie Jurvanen, his drummer and a bevy of back-up babes (notably including the Watson Twins).  Check out this Canadian band in fine form below.

Dan Deacon’s impending new album, America, will come out on Domino Records on 8/28 and is already garnering more buzz than any of his prior seven (7!) albums.   As you will see and hear, Deacon mines the fertile Flaming Lips/Animal Collective musical vein on the new album.  Check out below the official video for True Thrush off of America.  About the video we are told:

“The video co-directed by Ben O’Brien and Dan Deacon is based on a drawing game popular in the Baltimore art collective Wham City, which is in turn based on the game “telephone.”

For the video, Dan and Ben filmed a simple 13-second scene. That scene was then shown to the next team. After seeing the video that team had 1 hour to recreate it — characters, props, set, costumes, and actions — as close to exactly as possible from only their memory.”

You can go HERE to get more information and buy the album.

After True Thrush, next check out another track (Lots) off of the new album, and then a fun slice of Deacon’s live act (from SXSW courtesy of NPR) at bottom (the analog drumming and percussion are particularly commendable).

None other than the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle recently touted Christine Fellows’ devastating song, Vertebrae [Full disclosure:  Darnielle also touted Amy Grant’s Out in the Open and Chris Rice’s Calling Out Your Name–nonetheless….].  Darnielle called Vertebrae “the cryingest song ever,” and we can’t disagree.  For those that have lost parents or loved ones recently (or not), check out her performance of the song at the annual (New Bruswick, Canada) Sappyfest below.  The lyrics follow.

Christine Fellows—Vertebrae:

“A photo essay of a family in mourning
perforated ever so slightly to better let the lights
seep through
Sunday traffic clears a path
we float inches above the road
close our eyes and drive so slow
like we never need to get home

To clear the doorstep of flowers
throw open the blinds in his empty room
avert our eyes from his fingerprints
is there something I’m forgetting?

fall to my knees in the hospital parking lot
on the way in, arms full of branches
I am dead fall, dead fall
Last time I came here to visit him
I ran sunburn through the halls
my arms full of tiger lilies
I don’t remember this
I was told to go home

To clear the doorstep of flowers
throw open the blinds in his empty room
avert my eyes from his fingerprints
is there something I’m forgetting?

(Why, when you know you should go, is it so hard to
leave?)

Came this far to say goodbye, to make things right
instead I fiddle with his blankets
fetching coffee no one would drink
I am not prepared
Through the hush of debts and the roar of engines
struggled to recall, this is how it ended
this is how it ends

Home,
turn the key in the door and fall
for what it seems like an awfully long time
there’s something I’m both remembering and forgetting
a name on the tip of my tongue”

The uber-talented Brit producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, REM, Pavement, Travis, etc.) and Atoms For Peace member has teamed up with AFP’s mad-skills drummer, Joey Waronker, and London artist Laura Bettinson to form the band Ultraista.  Ultraista will be releasing its self-titled debut October 2nd on Temporary Residence.  The band has just released new song Bad Insect, the third track released from the album.  The song features Godrich’s electro-fandangle, Waronker’s usual and Bettinson on vocals.  After Radiohead and AFP, all else will will sound comparatively light and breezy.  But Bad Insect is a very listenable species indeed.  After Bad Insect, check out two other Ultraista tracks, Static Light and Smalltalk.

We previously posted what we believed to be Band of Horses’ Official Video for their new song Knock Knock.  Turns out we were deceived.  Check out the just-released Official Official Video for the song below, courtesy of NPR.

The director and band leader had these things to say to NPR about the video:

Director, Jared Eberhardt:

“A band spends all this time and energy making an incredible album. For a video director, the challenge is breaking into the club as an outsider and gaining the trust of the band. It’s the best when I feel I am partnering with the band, using their sensibilities combined with my own to do the part they can’t.

The “Knock Knock” video was the perfect combination of three things. First of all, as a fan, I had a genuine interest in making something that felt like the band had made it themselves. I didn’t want it to feel too slick. Second, I grew up in the area where we shot the video; when BOH wanted to shoot there, I already had all the locations picked. And third, I wanted to pay tribute to the old nature films I remember from school. Those old films were all about a bunch of guys going to exotic places and staging adventures, with very little craft or consideration to lighting or aesthetics: shooting in the middle of the day, staging scenes in really artificial ways, strange eye lines from reading cue cards, etc. It was really fun and sometimes difficult to get my head around trying to make things look bad, but not too bad.”

Band of Horses singer Ben Bridwell:

“We had some really great treatments sent to us from different directors, but this one stood out as the most interesting and fitting for our personalities. Jared really made us feel at ease, even in the planning stages before the shoot. He listened to our concerns and took extra care to make us feel like we stayed within our element, while at the same time pushing us to get good performances. It was a hell of a long day, but an exciting adventure for us in getting to see these beautiful parts of Utah and being around the great group of people that Jared hired for the shoot.

It seems fitting that we’d finally get to shoot a video around Salt Lake City, as we’ve got a song that pays tribute to the area called “The Great Salt Lake” from our first album. Better late than never.”

Check out below Lord Knows, a new song from the dandy Dum Dum Girls off of their impending EP, End of Daze.  The song treads nicely in Neko Case territory, but the Dum Dum’s (don’t believe it) add their own sorcery and spin via the sweetest wall of harmonies we’ve heard in quite some time.  And the Dum Dum Girls go:  “I want to live a pure life. I’d say it’s about time. Don’t judge me for the things I’ve done.”  We won’t judge, except to say this song is a beauty.

While we’re on the Dum Dum Girls, after Lord Knows check out an unplugged version of their great song, Coming Down.

Most know A.C. (“Carl”) Newman as a key component of the pop-complex known as The New Pornographers.  Together with Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, Neko Case and backers, The New Pornographers have made some of the headiest pop-rock crafted in the 21st century.  Some may be unaware, though, that Newman has also released two of the best solo albums we have laid our ears upon, 2004’s Slow Wonder and 2009’s Get Guilty.

Now comes the grand news that on October 9th, he’ll release his third solo album, Shut Down The Streets, on Matador Records.  Newman came through an emotional period prior to recording the album, and he’s lived to sing about it on Shut Down the Streets, all as explained to Pitchfork recently:

“This record was written during a very heavy time in my life. I was right in that in-between space where I’d just lost somebody [his mother] that’s amazingly important to me, and I was also anticipating the arrival of somebody incredibly important, too. It made me think a lot about family, life and death, happiness and sadness, and how to reconcile them all. All the big questions. The months before and after Stellan was born, I couldn’t think about writing at all. I’ve always been like that; I don’t work that well when there’s distractions taking an enormous emotional toll on me. Other people do, apparently. Eventually, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got a kid to support now. Get back to work.'”

The new album was recorded in Woodstock, NY and features Neko Case.  Perhaps given the recording environment, the album is said to bear the influence of classic ‘70s folk and pop, a departure from the New Pornographers’ sound.

Check out the evidence on first track, I’m Not Talking, released off the new album below and go HERE to download it.  It’s a smooth-talking, rapturous song that bodes well for the album.

Newman’s Fall Tour listings follow the song.

A.C. Newman–I’m Not Talking:

on tour this Autumn :

10/21 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace (Exclaim! 20th Anniversary Concert Series)
10/22 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
10/23 – Allston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
10/24 – Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
10/25 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
10/26 – Washington DC @ Black Cat
10/27 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
10/28 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
10/29 – St. Louis, MO @ Duck Room at Blueberry Hill
10/30 – Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
11/1 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
11/2 – Winnipeg, Canada @ West End Cultural Centre
11/5 – Edmonton, Canada @ Starlite Room
11/6 – Calgary, Canada @ The Republik
11/8 – Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret (Exclaim! 20th Anniversary Concert Series)*
11/9 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile*
11/10 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge*
11/12 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent*
11/13 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex*
11/14 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah*

*with special guest Harriet

Justin Vernon must just have songs laying around.  Either that or he appreciates choral music?  Or maybe it’s just that he’s gotten wrapped up in the buzz about The Silver Lake Chorus and their choral arrangements of indie music.  Produced by Ben Lee, their debut album features original songs written especially for TSLC by indie artists such as Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Carl Newman (The New Pornographers), Aimee Mann, Sia, The Bird & The Bee, Tegan & Sarah, and Of Montreal.  They are led by artistic director Sam Rader and music director Mikey Wells.

The group is now self-releasing From The Snow Tipped Hills, written for them by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, & Wreckage, written for them by A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers, both available online September 14.

Check out Vernon’s From The Snow Tipped Hills below as performed by The Silver Lake Chorus. Magnifique.

Check out Damien Jurado directing and cajoling a Haldern Pop Festival audience into singing with him on a new song entitled Let Us All In.  It takes a bit to get going, but eventually pays off handsomely and feels like Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=te4VrC2ulHA