Today's Hotness: Alva Noto/Ryuichi Sakamoto, Islands

>> This may not be the freshest news, but it was news to us when we got a recent electronic mail transmission from the Warp posse. Raster-Noton has released a new collaboration between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The pair's hypnotic 2005 set Insen was one of our ten favorite records last year, and apparently the duo is mounting a second tour in support of the record. To give fans something new on which to aurally chew, Raster-Noton issued May 5 the Revep EP, which includes three tracks: "Siisx," "Mur" and "Ax Mr. L." The latter track reworks one of Sakamoto's most well-known compositions, the theme to the 1983 David Bowie flick "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence." You can hear MP3 samples here, and check out the latest Insen tour dates here. Noto and Sakamoto only have two U.S. dates booked so far, so folks in New York and Santa Fe can consider themselves lucky people.

>> Remember the other day how we told you to keep an eye out for Asobi Seksu's new video for "Thursday," a hot track from the dream-pop band's excellent recent set Citrus? And then we posted the tourdates too? Well, they obviously feel a bit more love for the PorkFork, because the popular Internet publication has an exclusive on the video -- well, as exclusive as a link to a URL can be. Was the sound from the video ripped from vinyl? We think we hear a little crackling. Maybe we're just hearing things.

>> BrooklynVegan's got your Islands Fall 2006 tour dates right here. The band kicks off several weeks' worth of dates at Boston's Middle East Rock Club.

>> Matador reports that Cat Power will issue recordings of a live session exclusively through ITunes Sept. 5. So there you go.