July 31, 2006

Today's Hotness: The New Year, Bonnie Prince Billy, Modest Mouse

The New Year>> Brainwashed reported here yesterday that The New Year, the musical heir to the Bedhead legacy, is writing music for a planned third release. Former Bedheaders Matt and Bubba Kadane plan on recording the new material with members of former collaborators Macha. The New Year, whose sophomore release The End Is Near we reviewed here for Junkmedia in May 2004, are playing a pair of live dates this coming weekend. Hit the link to Brainwashed above for details.

>> We've been sent quite a few links to videos recently. Domino is sharing a very engaging video for Bonnie Prince Billy's "Cursed Sleep" single in Quicktime, Real or Windows Media format. Highly recommended, particularly since the song's fleshed-out production is reminiscent of our favorite Palace Music era. Elsewhere, you can preview the video for the Thom Yorke single "Harrowdown Hill" here, although we think this may be one of the clips we found on YouTube several weeks back while we were minding our business. Anyway, the single streets on XL Aug. 21. Finally, AOL Music, whose album stream corral is completely bereft of interesting tunage this week, has updated their Network Live feature with footage of your favorite Sunderlanders The Futureheads rocking the audience at LA's Henry Fonda theater recently. Check it out here.

>> PunkNews reminds everyone that veteran feel-bad indie rock act Modest Mouse is currently recording a planned set in Mississippi. An additional detail or two is here and here. With the state of the world as crappy as it is right now, we think we need Modest Mouse now more than ever. "This plane is totally crashing! This boat is obviously sinking!" and so forth.

>> It's not news, but we thought we'd mention that we're having our first listen to TV On The Radio's Return To Cookie Mountain as we're working on this and it is totally blowing our mind. All that album of the year talk you've heard? Yeah, that's not bullsh*t.

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