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Warn Defever, His Name Is Alive main man and producer extraordinaire, took charge of twiddling knobs for fellow Michigan group NOMO's upcoming album, New Tones. The record, number two from the Afropop group, is slated for a May 9 release via Ubiquity. "We blend minimalist keyboard loops, fuzzed-out bass, soulful group vocals, and rolling blasts from an electric mbira," explained band leader and multi-instrumentalist Elliot Bergman in a press release. "Throw in a horn-led midnight funeral procession and hopefully you have a deep listen that's also a soul shaking dance party for the people."

Soul shakin' new tones include "The Book of Right On", a Jonanna Newsom cover, and the rest of them:

01 Nu Tones
02 Hand and Mouth
03 Fourth Ward
04 Reasons
05 New Song
06 Divisions
07 We Do We Go
08 One To One
09 If You Want
10 The Book of Right On
11 Sarvodaya

Bringing His Name Is Alive and NOMO closer than Defever and a shared homestate is their upcoming jaunt together, coined the "Dreams Really Do Come True Tour." HNIA will be headlining the trek in support of January's Detrola, which is pretty special considering they haven't taken a U.S. leadership position quite like this in ten years. Their website even brags that the 2006 tour will see "sing-alongs, storytelling, cloud amps, the "HNIA-POD," an iPod that contains over one thousand HNIA songs (every LP, CD, CDR, TAPE, EP, 7", and compilation track), and home-made electric thumb pianos." No doubt about that. While we're unsure as to whether Defever's name will come up on the next presidential ballot, we can tell you this for certain:

n 05-15 Cambridge, MA - TT the Bear's *
05-16 New York, NY - The Mercury Lounge *
05-17 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's *
05-18 Pittsburgh, PA - Garfield Artworks *
05-19 Philadelphia, PA - World Café Live *
05-20 Baltimore, MD - Gspot *
05-21 Washington, DC - Black Cat *
05-22 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 *
05-23 Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn *
05-25 New Orleans, LA - The Republic *
05-26 Houston, TX - The Proleteriat *
05-27 Dallas, TX - The Cavern *
05-29 Tucson, AZ - Solar Culture *
05-30 San Diego, CA - The Casbah *
05-31 Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland *
06-01 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill *
06-03 Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern *
06-04 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge *
06-06 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court *
06-07 Denver, Co - Hi-Dive *
06-08 Omaha, NE - O'Leaver's *
06-09 St. Paul, MN - 400 Bar *
06-10 Madison, WI - The Annex *
06-11 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle *
06-17 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick *

* with NOMO

NOMO have a few shows of their own scheduled, before they join the HNIA tour. And they are:

05-09 Lansing, MI - Mac's Bar
05-10 Grand Rapids, MI - Calvin College Fine Arts Center
05-11 Kalamazoo, MI - Rocket Star Cafe
05-12 Chicago, IL - Sonotheque
05-13 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig

* Pitchfork Review: http://pitchforkmedia.com/record reviews/n/nomo/nomo.shtml">NOMO: NOMO
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