Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, Guitar, Frightened Rabbit

>> [Image Credit: Lewes Herriot] Believe it or not, there will be a fourth single from Johnny Foreigner's cataclysmically great debut Waited Up Til It Was Light. In the UK, anyway. According to an email, the band's label Best Before will release Jan. 12 the double A-sided single "DJ's Get Doubts" b/w "Lea Room." Which means that five of Waited Up Til It Was Light's 13 tracks will have gotten the single treatment, while, miraculously, some of the best tracks ("Absolute Balance," "This End Is A Beginning") remain relatively, and curiously, uncelebrated. We had written previously here and perhaps elsewhere that the Birmingham, England-based noise pop trio's prior single "Salt, Peppa and Spinderella" was the fourth from Waited Up, but we just went to our discs and checked and, no matter how we count, that doesn't add up. "Sometimes In The Bullring" was released as a single by Laundrette, but that was an older version of the track released prior to the band's signing with Best Before. So anyway, the ballad "DJ's Get Doubts" (which is nice, but not as strong as "All Mosely Gardens" in our opinion) and the raucous rocker "Lea Room" (named for the band's driver/tour manager guy, who can be spotted just offstage in all of those awesome live videos we hyped up on our Twitter feed later last month) are next in the spotlight. No word on when, if ever, any of these Johnny Foreigner singles will be issued in North America, where Waited Up Til It Was Light was issued to zero fanfare in July (well, some fanfare -- our review is here). Incidentally, the same email from Best Before referenced above noted that superlative Glaswegian indie rock sextet Dananananaykroyd has completed recording its full-length debut, and the set is currently being mixed by The Machine in Hoboken, New Jersey.

>> Surfing On Steam reports here that German electrobliss duo Guitar will release a new set titled Come Summer Come Blues early next year. In addition, Clairecords has recently reissued two Guitar sets, 2004's Honeysky and 2005's Salty Kisses, and there is a note at the Clairecords site stating that the label also intends to reissue It's Sweet To Do Nothing. According to this MySpace blog the new set contains eight tracks that apparently harness Guitar principal Michael Lueckner's love of bluesmen Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Big Bill Broonzy. We reviewed Guitar's Sunkissed for Junkmedia six years ago right here; our first exposure to the act was its contributions to the excellent Morr Music-curated Slowdive tribute comp Blue Skied An' Clear which was released in September 2002. One of the best tracks on Blue Skied An' Clear [review here] is Guitar's MBV-influenced stomper "House Full Of Time," which we're posting below.

Guitar -- "House Full Of Time" -- Blue Skied An' Clear
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[buy Guitar music from Clairecords right here and EMusic here]

>> A propos of nothing... you know what would be a great mash-up? Do the kids still go for the mash-ups these days? We honestly don't know. But anyway, a clever remixer could take B. Fleischmann and Ms. John Soda's absolutely sublime cover of Slowdive's "Here She Comes" and combine it with Frightened Rabbit's stunning "Floating In The Forth" and make something perty. Yeah.

Today's Hotness: Andrew Bird, Guitar, Mazarin, Mogwai

>> We'd never considered that multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird's music was something we'd really like to see performed live, but that was quickly changed by his trio's performance on "Letterman" earlier this week. We watched the tightly wound and ticking performance of his delightful tune "Plasticities" several times before banishing it from our TiVo, and we've posted the TouYube clip above even though we expect it will be yanked due to the Viacom lawsuit any moment now. What we find exciting, besides Bird's performing quirks, is his and his sidemen's buzzing performance. Bird and his drummer in particular regularly switch among an array of instruments within their reach. When Bird isn't loading violin samples into a pedal, playing guitar, striking a xylophone or singing, he also throws in some whistling. It's fun to watch, and it has made us want to see more. Bird's latest set Armchair Apocrypha -- the set on which "Plasticities" appears -- was released by Fat Possum last month, and KoomDogg reviewed it for us here. Here's an MP3 of another cut from the record:

Andrew Bird -- "Heretics" -- Armchair Apocrypha
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>> The last couple of releases from electropop act Guitar have snuck up on us. Word of Michael Lueckner's latest (and fifth, so we guess that would be four that have snuck up on us, including two that were only released in Japan) set under the Guitar moniker comes to us via this post at the solid Missouri-based blog Built On A Week Spot. The post contains the track "Sine Wave," which marks a bit of a return to the guitar-drenched sounds of early tracks such as "House Full Of Time," although the guitars rest in the background and give ample room for a rickety, popping percussion track and vocals. Anyway, the new set is called Dealin With Signal And Noise and it will be released May 15 on Onitor. The label also released Guitar's sophomore set; its debut Sunkissed was issued on Morr Music in 2002 and we reviewed it here for Junkmedia.

>> The artist/s formerly known as Mazarin (explanation here) are enjoying a bit of an afterlife courtesy of lifestyle brand Puma. The shoe and apparel maker is using Mazarin's "For Energy Infinite" in this new television commercial that you may or may not have seen. Us, we haven't seen it. The song is from Mazarin's excellent 2005 release We're Already There, which we reviewed for Junkmedia here. In more important news, leader Quentin Stoltzfus says the band is writing new music, trying to come up with a new band name, and plans a new MySpace and web site for the future.

>> In addition to the forthcoming Dinosaur Jr. show that we can't believe will be an in-store at the Urban Outfitters in Harvard Square (and have you seen this awesome video yet?), there are some other sorta different music events in Boston on the horizon. The new ICA will be screening the "Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait" documentary May 6 and 10. The film features a soundtrack by Scottish post-rock behemoths Mogwai. You can watch eleven clips from the film here; you can buy tickets here.
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