Today's Hotness: Black Stoltzfus, Johnny Foreigner, Xiu Xiu

>> Awesome things about the return of Quentin Stoltzfus, the man behind the indie rock act formerly known as Mazarin. 1) The new name for his act, Black Stoltzfus, is vaguely piratical 2) There is now a picture of Stoltzfus dunking at this re-branded MySpace page linked a little further on, which we've stolen and placed supra for your enjoyment 3) The little slogan thingy on Black Stoltzfus' MySpace page gleefully proclaims: "Hi! We used to be called MAZARIN." Stoltzus and posse have scheduled a small run of tour dates with art-poppers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, many of which already appear to be sold out. The first of these is Nov. 12 at the Middle East in Cambridge, Mass. See all the dates and more at Black Stoltzfus' MySpace shed here. Incidentally, we thought the last Mazarin record We're Already There was stellar; we reviewed it for Junkmedia here back in '05.

>> It looks like like "Junior's ting" has become a real song. Observe. Johnny Foreigner's Arcs Across The City streets Nov. 26 on Best Before Records in the UK; you can already pre-order it from Amazon.co.uk here.

>> Songs that gave us chills: the live version of Joy Division's "Ceremony" as performed by Xiu Xiu at this year's CMJ conference. The Sound Of Indie has the recording posted here. We've loved Xiu Xiu's take on the track since Spoilt Victorian Child posted it here way back in April 2005.