November 2, 2006

Today's Hotness: Sonic Youth, Jai-Alai Savant, Thrill Jockey

Sonic Youth>> In July we wrote this item pointing to some information at Zoilus to the effect that Rather Ripped was the final album Sonic Youth owed to Geffen under its contract. Now we're not so sure that's the case. How else to explain the forthcoming odds 'n' sods collection Billboard reported on here the other day? Certainly Sonic Youth wouldn't ink a while new contract with Geffen just to release some b-sides and rarities. So we're guessing the compilation, which is called The Destroyed Room: B-Sides And Rarities and will be released Dec. 12, is in fact the band's final commitment to Geffen. Ahh -- we just looked at the Billboard item again and it has been updated to reflect that fact.

>> Pun Canoes reports here that former Franklin-ite Ralph Darden's latest project The Jai-Alai Savant will finally issue its debut full-length Flight Of The Bass Delegate in March 2007 on Gold Standard Labs. City Slang will issue the set in Europe. Darden also DJs under the moniker Major Taylor, and will release a mix CD titled Major Taylor's Need Exchange Program before the end of the year. A Major Taylor EP is also planned.

>> Earlier this week Coolfer here pointed to this article in the Chicago reader discussion Thrill Jockey Records' plans to launch at the end of this month a digital music storefront. Label head Bettina Richards says other labels on board for the venture include Morr Music, Editions Mego and Touch. The store will sell digital albums with cover art and liner notes delivered as .jpg files; perhaps more importantly the audio files will be encoded at 256Kbps, a substantially higher resolution than the crappy-sounding 128Kbps files vended by ITunes.

>> There's a whole mess of Bad Brains news in this Billboard piece filed today. Better just click through and read the whole thing.

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