Pitchfork

[Posted Thursday, November 6th, 2003 02:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

According to the official Monitor Records website, indie rock piano-man Cass McCombs, who so far as we know is not related to the Mama responsible for unleashing "California Dreamin'" and an apocryphal ham sandwich on the world, has added a grip of tour dates to his existing fall schedule. Having just wrapped up a handful of U.S. dates with the Shins, Papa M, and the Anomoanon, McCombs now boldly ventures overseas, where his stagemates will include the New Pornographers, The Fire Theft, and the Fiery Furnaces.

McCombs has plenty to celebrate across the pond-- most notably, his signing to 4AD outside the U.S., where the Not The Way EP will see release next week and his Monitor full-length A will be unleashed sometime in January.

McCombs' bio on the Monitor Records website boldly plunges into new micro-genres where more sober heads would fear to tread: his style is described as "post-nostalgia" and "new-old-school." We have no idea what that means either, but it sounds pretty fierce, if by fierce you mean perplexing. McCombs's deliberately paced, piano- and reverb-drenched singer/songwriter fare distinguishes itself from the pack by dint of a formal cohesiveness often absent from the genre, and by his curiously opaque lyrics, which will manifest to the listener as sweetly sincere or mutedly ironic depending on said listener's sensibility-- think (Smog). Le new tour dates:

11-10 London, England - Metro (w/ Fiery Furnaces)
11-11 London, England - Cargo (w/ The New Pornographers)
11-13 Colchester, England - Arts Centre
11-14 Manchester, England - Star & Garter
11-16 Nottingham, England - The Social
11-17 Glasgow, Scotland - Barfly (w/ The Fire Theft)
11-18 London, England - Water Rats
11-19 Brussels, Belgium - Botanique (w/ Twinemen)
11-21 Paris, France - Le Nouveau Casino

Monitor's Brian DeRan tells us to be on the lookout for more U.S. dates from McCombs in the spring, possibly joining The Shins and/or Modest Mouse on their 2004 tours of duty.