Once you've caught your breath after watching the new Justice video "Stress" (incredible technically, no doubt, and as visceral as it gets, but who would want to watch it again?), why not chill out and catch this friendly conversation between Pitchfork's Dave Maher and Justice's Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé. Dave asks about the famous symbol and the band's interest in religious references, and we also get to take a spin through Xavier's iPhone (Good man: lots of Bee Gees).

And man alive, speaking of D.A.N.C.I.N.G., Pitchfork.tv was there to capture the last ESG show ever in September, at the Abbey Pub here in Chicago. You've got to earn it, one of their sadly overlooked early songs went, and boy, did they ever.

Just another weirdly titled single from Lil Mama, but this time it's the one you knew was coming. No "Lip Gloss"-ing it over: Lil Mama gets conscious on "L.I.F.E. What It Is (Strike a Pose)", the latest video from the young Brooklyn rapper's finally arrived album-length debut, VYP: Voice of the Young People. The message is positive, but it's easier to cheer people up with a fun, sassy tune than it is to tackle issues in a pop song and make it profound (just ask Will.I.Am). So here we see Lil Mama in what looks to be her eastern Brooklyn neighborhood, playing a pregnant teenager with an abusive boyfriend. She says, "And I don't really blame the man/ I blame my mother for not teaching me the right kind of man." Tough medicine. The chopped-up soul vocal rising above the track's funereal synths is a nice effect, like a siren but less obvious and more sonically engaging. It's inspiring that Lil Mama's taking her self-proclaimed role as Voice of the Young People so seriously, but from an aesthetic standpoint, Ms. McClarkson might be better at that stuff-- for now. (via Idolator)

[from VYP: Voice of the Young People; out now on Jive]

When we first checked in with Titus Andronicus on Forkcast last July with "Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, New Jersey", they were ending the song's lengthy prologue with a defiant "Fuck! You!" before launching into the noisy, ramshackle main section. A lot has happened to them since, including a BNM nod last week for their full-length The Airing of Grievances, but this non-album track from the band's MySpace page shows they're just as foul-mouthed as ever. It begins modestly enough, with a tinkly chord progression on what sounds like a dusty and slightly out-of-tune upright, but the sentiment is barbed and the lyrics ooze frustration: "If you talk and no one's listening/ It's almost like being alone/ So it's all right, the way you piss and moan." Somehow, they turn these words into a sing-along.

MP3:> Titus Andronicus: "To Old Friends and New"
[from MySpace]

Sarah Records may be long gone, but even as the beloved indie-pop label's influence persists in groups from the Honeydrips to Voxtrot, members of a couple of the better-known Sarah bands have formed a sort of modest supergroup. Bobby Wratten of the Field Mice and Trembling Blue Stars joins Carolyn Allen and Gerard "Caesar" McInulty of the Wake (who also recorded for iconic post-punk label Factory Records) in the Occasional Keepers, recently releasing second album True North on British imprint LTM. Opening track "If the Ravens Leave" curls up in the hearth-warmed electronics and bedsit earnestness that have been the hallmarks of Wratten's groups, overseen here by Saint Etienne producer/multi-instrumentalist Ian Catt. Wratten murmuringly describes the birds' departure "beneath the moon's glow," as minimal guitar stabs, sustained synth chords, and programmed beats-- accompanied eventually by chiming guitars and, later, a skeletal bass line-- evoke a cozy intimacy. It's the middle of a long night, the middle of a long day, and the radio weather report butts up against the stereo's "Stardust" as Wratten envisions kingdoms falling. Twee is a humble kingdom, for sure, but one that has managed to quietly piss off hostile attackers for multiple generations of bands now.

Stream:> The Occasional Keepers: "If the Ravens Leave"
[from True North; out now on LTM]

"I know all about fear and desire/ I know all about lust, et cetera," the Long Blondes' Kate Jackson memorably asserts on one of several highlights from the Sheffield, UK band's 2006 Someone to Drive You Home. The serious bit: The Long Blondes know a thing or two about "Guilt", as well. This song is one of the better ones from the group's disappointingly uptight new offering, "Couples", sounding a bit like its predecessor's surging "You Could Have Both" after a slinky electro makeover and enough time to get resigned to Jackson's "contingency plan." Remixer Pantha du Prince doesn't keep much more of the original than the textured sighing of Jackson's wordless opening vocals, plus this warning: "You know what it's like/ This happens to everyone". In reimagining the track after his own style, Prince (aka Hendrik Weber) fits it with house beats, bell-like chimes, and low-key melodies, for the kind of dreamy ambient listen Aphex Twin might've considered including on 1995's I Care Because You Do. Which, come to think of it, would've been a great Long Blondes song title.

Bonus: And here's the dog-filled video for the Long Blondes' original "Guilt".

[from "Couples"; out now in the UK and due 05/06/08 in the U.S. from Rough Trade]

Don't look for big-budget special effects in the scrappy indie rock of Blood on the Wall, or in this video, either. The first clip from Liferz, this year's follow-up to 2005's well-named Awesomer, splices together footage from three SXSW performances as the Brooklyn trio romp through album opener "Hibernation". The humble visual aesthetic makes sense from a group seemingly fixated (and why the hell not?) on the college-rock of the Pixies and Sebadoh. "Hibernation" introduces Blood on the Wall sounding ragged, muscular, and more in love with the 1990s than VH1, though we're hardly talking about the same 90s here. It's not all just shots of the band rocking out on Austin's various daytime and nighttime stages, either. OMG, a kitty!

[from Liferz; out now on The Social Registry]

It's tough not to use the word "beautiful" when speaking of Adem Ilhan's music, because it is just that: beautiful. Here, the carnivalesque and glitchy intensity of Aphex Twin is transformed into Scarborough Fair when he reinterprets "To Cure A Weakling Child" and "Girl/Boy Song" (inverting the title of the latter, apparently with Richard James' permission) as a medley. The result is that it's actually difficult, nay, impossible to imagine James' unnerving smirk while listening to this version (though James is obviously great in his own uniquely pretty yet oddly jarring way). Adem, who is a bandmate of Kieran Hebden in Fridge, maintains the wonderful, dreamy lilt of the original melodies while smoothing over the edges.

MP3:> Adem: "To Cure a Weakling Child / Boy/Girl Song"
[original track from Takes; due 05/12/08 on Domino]

Five years since Spiritualized's last record, tepidly received garage-rocker Amazing Grace, versatile psychedelic traveler Jason Pierce goes back to the orchestra-aided earnestness and redemption of landmark Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space with "Soul on Fire". The video for the track, from the forthcoming Songs in A&E, is more ice than fire, alternating between leisurely shots of Pierce lying prostrate against a bleak, snow-swept landscape and scenes where he's in a hospital, the drugs not working, apparently. "Freedom's just another word/ When you've no one left to hurt," Pierce sings in his high, weary voice, against the kind of quietly soulful, folk-flecked arrangement Blur used to great success on 13 singles "Tender" and "No Distance Left to Run". Good enough for me; now ask Kris Kristofferson.

[from Songs in A&E; due 05/19/08 in the UK and Europe on Universal/Spaceman and due 06/03/08 in the U.S. on Fontana International/Spaceman Records]

Alexandre Kassin was the last to take the headlining role in the trio he shares with Moreno Veloso and Domênico Lancelotti. The structure they've chosen for the group is to release each record with a different member's name up front, +2. This song shares the breezy subtropical vibe of the trio's other work, and Kassin has a perfect, sweet Brazilian falsetto that ably carries the melody as electronic buzzing and tweaked-out guitars gradually creep their way into the post-bossa nova arrangement. The simple, monosyllabic chorus bridges language barriers with ease, though the Portuguese verses are hardly any less accessible to non-speakers.

Lots of music from the Fiery Furnaces up at Pitchfork.tv today, including the latest installment of "Pitchfork Live". We caught the band last fall at the Mercury Lounge on the eve of the release of their album Widow City; some of these videos might look familiar because we Forkcasted a couple in the weeks leading up to the album. Naturally the 10-song setlist is heavy on Widow City tracks, which the band bring off live in an interesting way, but there's also a hugely charming version of the "Evergreen" from EP. We also put the odd and pretty awesome clip for Widow City's "Ex-Guru" into the archive.

The Fiery Furnaces: "Pitchfork Live"

The Fiery Furnaces: "Ex-Guru"

Something a bit Coen Brothers about this video for the lead single from Tapes 'n Tapes Walk It Off, as a man with a cardboard rifle goes on a crime spree.

[from Walk It Off; out now on XL]