Today's Hotness: Icy Demons, Ringo Deathstarr, 65DaysOfStatic

>> Bob Extrawack! suggests Oxfam America's Cyclone Relief and Rehabilitation Fund as the vehicle for your donations to help ameliorate the suffering in Myanmar. More info here. And now on to the music...

>> We've got a huge backlog of stuff to share that will probably not be cleared until we get a couple more posts up, so we're just jumping in anywhere. Jazzy post-rock outfit Icy Demons return in July with a third set titled Miami Ice. The Chicago-and-Philly-rooted band's sophomore collection, Tears of A Clone, was issued on Scott Herren's Eastern Developments imprint. But the new nine-song collection will be issued July 15 on Obey Your Brain, a new label set up by Icy Demons bandleaders Chris Powell (also in Man Man and Need New Body) and Griffin Rodriguez (Need New Body, Bablicon). On the new set the pair are joined by musical luminaries including Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker and Prefuse 73/Sam Prekop collaborator Josh Abrams on bass. You can hear three of the new tracks -- "Spywatchers," "Buffalo Bill" and the title track -- at the band's MySpace dojo here. We reviewed Icy Demon's Tears Of A Clone here in 2006. Here's an MP3 of our favorite jam from the set, the album-closer "The Flea Garden."

Icy Demons -- "The Flea Garden" -- Tears Of A Clone
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[buy Icy Demons records from Newbury Comics here]

>> A brief note from Texas shoegaze giants Ringo Deathstarr reports the band's planned next release will likely be an EP released digitally and on vinyl. Please, God, let it be 10" vinyl, as that is the coolest vinyl format that is still useful (sorry Boyracer, but that 5" was so small it was hard to keep track of). The quartet is also in pre-production on a new self-made music video, likely for the track "Sweet Girl," although "Down On You" is in the running as well. In the meantime you can watch a nice live clip of the band performing "Sweet Girl" over at Switchburn right here. The Deathstarr's next live appearance is June 3 at Emo's in Austin with the mighty and resurrected Swervedriver.

>> While our familiarity with the band doesn't go beyond a few listens to their first (The Fall Of Math, recently reissued) and last (The Destruction Of Small Ideas) records, we are very surprised about how-dance oriented the new 65DaysOfStatic EP is. Of course, the fact that the EP is titled The Distant And Mechanized Glow Of Eastern European Dance Parties should have been more of a hint than it was. Based on the title -- because even at 34 we still make stupid assumptions now and again-- we were hoping to hear something akin to Silkworm's devastating "There Is A Party Tonight In Warsaw." But Sheffield, England-based 65DaysOfStatic's new EP is as close to a rave mix as we've probably subjected ourselves to in about 15 years. We expect there is a big audience for music of this stripe, particularly across Europe. But we're not feeling it. The quartet this past week commenced a strand of dates opening for legendary alt-rock act The Cure; the tour comes to Boston's Agganis Arena Monday night. The Distant And Mechanized Glow Of Eastern European Dance Parties was issued April 29, and you can stream it in its entirety here.

>> We're just getting going with our new laptop, but here are two things we are excited about: 1) the onboard sound (that is the quality of the sound coming from the built-in speakers) on our new Dell 1720 is far superior to that produced by our five-year-old Dell 5150; 2) the optical drive rips discs at up to 17x, almost three times faster than our old drive. Cool.

Today's Hotness: The A-Sides, Prefuse 73, The Answering Machine

>> Philadelphia's The A-Sides said here a family emergency precipitated the cancellation of its set Thursday night at Cambridge, Mass.'s Middle East Rock Club. So obviously we won't be covering it as we said we would here. The quintet had been slated to support Calla. The A-Sides promised to make up the date during a planned U.S. tour in October. The band will release its sophomore set Silver Storms on Vagrant next month. In a more recent blog post here A-Sides posted a live clip of themselves performing the new cut "We're The Trees." Check it out.

>> Electronic music phenom Prefuse 73 will release the new set Preparations in late October on Warp. The label reports that the first single "The Class of 73 Bells" will be released Sept. 17. It features Prefuse principal Scott Herren collaborating with New York psych band School Of Seven Bells and Battles drummer John Stanier. Mr. Herren will tour the UK and Europe with a band in October, and U.S. dates are planned.

>> Christian Fennesz's solo debut Hotel Paral.lel will be reissued by Editions Mego Sept. 24. Mego released the initial version of the set ten years earlier. Hotel Paral.lel is apparently "an investigation into the sonic possibilities residing in guitar-based digital music, recorded just before mobile computing devices became the norm." The reissue appends two items to the original twelve: the song "5" was originally released as a 7" in 1996 on Syntactic; a video for the album track "Aus" is the other addition. More information including the details on a a pre-order discount are located here.

>> The release of Okay Paddy's new EP Where You Went?, which we recently reviewed here, has been moved to Sept. 4. As planned, label Prison Jazz today released a pretty solid EP from another act, New Motels, entitled Domestic Life.

>> According to a blog post here, scruffy English pop luminaries The Answering Machine are breaking in a new drummer, which sets our mind slightly at ease, because there is something spooky about a guitar band that has no drummer, yeh? Anyway, the new drummer is not named, so maybe he or she still has to prove him or herself or survive some odd hazing or something. The Answering Machine has scads of tour dates booked between now and early November, so the new drummer will certainly have plenty of chances to settle in with the band between now and then. Check all the tour dates at the band's MySpace yert here.

>> It's been far too long since we've mentioned Birmingham, UK-based noise pop trio Johnny Foreigner. So the latest and greatest is that the band will be recording some tracks in London early next week. Can't wait to hear them. Also, in case we didn't already say so, Johnny Foreigner is now booked to support not one, but two Meneguar UK tour dates: Sept. 26 in Leeds and Oct. 4 in Cambridge. Those will be amazing shows. Someone shoot video.

>> With music bloggers all up in the news nowadays, we were wondering when our next star turn will be, which made us wonder what the deal was with Boston's NEMO fest this year (we sat on a panel last year moderated by DoneWaiting.com's Rob Duffy). Anyway, according to the NEMO Internet Home Page, the conference will not be held this year. Here's part of the message: "We have decided to take a year off from the NEMO Music Festival while we focus on the 20th Anniversary of the Boston Music Awards, the [Popular Coffee Retailer] Music Makers Competition, the Verge College Music Conference and other entertainment related projects. We plan to revamp NEMO and do something bigger and better in 2008." You can read more here.