Today's Hotness: Asobi Seksu, Spank Rock, Gorilla Biscuits

>> Normally the receipt of a promo CD wouldn't really warrant mention here in Today's Hotness, but we are stoked to have in our possession the forthcoming Asobi Seksu record Citrus. We've been playing pretty heavily the two pre-release cuts we got hipped to a couple months back, but the entire record delivers much more: It's a powerful set of bilingual neo-shoegaze gems expertly rendered. But more about that later. What we'd like to mention here ever so briefly is that even the package of the record is gorgeous. While Citrus is probably destined for appearances on year-end lists, its package is easily the most gorgeous we've seen so far this year. And for those of us of a certain age the package still means something, kiddies. Anyway, watch Two And 1/2 Pounds Of Bacon for an Asobi Seksu track this weekend -- probably "Red Sea," the cacaphonous ending of which is the most glorious thing we've heard in a very, very long time. Or "Goodbye," a pop dream that resides somewhere between Head On The Door-era Cure and Belle & Sebastian's "Sleep The Clock Around." And don't even get us started on the blazing last minute of "Exotic Animal Paradise." Citrus is out May 30 on Friendly Fire. Moving on...

>> You can stream the new Spank Rock record Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo via the Philebrity player. And we highly recommend you do so. Particularly check out track 6, "Bump." It has some intense rhyming from notable pottymouth/motormouth Amanda Blank. The track is totally buggin.' We don't really follow the hip-hop at all, but this record has already gotten a lot of attention and is likely going to go big before the summer fully kicks in. Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo hit racks April 7 on Ninja Tune/Big Dada.

>> Second-gen hardcore legends Gorilla Biscuits, which features popular hardcore guy Walter Schriefels, will reunite for shows to support the expanded reissue of the widely acclaimed full-length Start Today. Back when we were in high school, you could find the cool kids by looking for the GB t-shirts. Anyway, full deets on the GB stuff here at PunkNews.

>> Look for the currently allergy-besieged Bob Mould and his acoustic guitar in the UK toward the end of June. Or so says the Bobinator here.

>> Do as we did late this afternoon and pre-order the forthcoming Dinosaur Jr. reissues and the limited edition (we think) acoustic CD on the cheap from Plan9. Word on the FreakScene message boards here is that the price at Plan9 for all three beats Amazon by like $10USD.