Pitchfork

Something evil this way comes. "Cloud of Evil" is the scene-setter for the second album from Frog Eyes/Swan Lake bard Carey Mercer's Blackout Beach solo project, Skin of Evil, the follow-up to 2004's Light Flows the Putrid Dawn. Mercer's oracular bleats, largely indecipherable save for scattered fragments like "golden crescent of the sky" and "raise the sacrficial goblets", are out in front, accompanied by a guttural call-and-response backing vocal and booming choral harmonies. At one point Mercer appears to be describing a character named William, who is reportedly the boyfriend of Donna, the album's lover-crushing protagonist. The instrumental accompaniment adds reverberant guitar fragments and hissing, minimalist beats. Wicked. Or wicked enough, anyway, until the album explains the rest of Mercer's lofty tale.

MP3:> Blackout Beach: "Cloud of Evil"
[from Skin of Evil; due 12/02/08 on Soft Abuse]

Last week Pitchfork news reported on the new Björk single "Nattura", which features Thom Yorke on backing vocals and which was recorded to help protect the Icelandic environment. According to text on the promo, the song "highlights a grass roots movement in Iceland to reclaim the country’s natural resources and wilderness from the hands of big business and pollution." Someone has uploaded the song to YouTube, which of course means that it may not be the final version and could disappear at any time.

"Nattura" is described as "more of a protest and rallying cry than a lecture," and the aggressive drums and Björk's piercing vocals certainly bear that out. The only other sound heard, practically, is what would seem to be Yorke's voice, distinctive but certainly heavily processed as it floats in the background. It's a pulse-quickening song that flies by in three and a half minutes.

As reported earlier, "Nattura" shares its name with the website Nattura.info, a gathering place for the Icelandic environmental movement, and you can read more about Björk's thoughts on Nattura here.

(Stream removed. Per Björk's management, 100% of funds raised from the sale of this single will be used for environmental causes in Iceland, and the YouTube will be taken down shortly.)

[from the "Nattura" single; due 10/20/08 from One Little Indian]

Nitsuh Abebe spoke recently to Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier of the brilliant Stereolab, whose latest album, the fine Chemical Chords, affirms their mindboggling consistency. They touch on subjects like analog vs. digital, the best place in their vast catalogue for a novice to begin, and the intricacies of the band's working methods. Check back tomorrow for Part 2.

Photo by Matt Ziegler

That Smashing Pumpkins song that is to be released as a single via Guitar Hero? Chicago's Q-101 played it, someone upped a rip to YouTube, and now you can listen to it in rather abysmal sound quality. Personally, I haven't enjoyed a note of this band's music since "1979" (which by now seems like it came out in 1979), so who cares what I think. Which is to say that to these ears it sounds absolutely awful, but the Smashing Pumpkins fanbase might hear it differently.

[from the "G.L.O.W." single; available as a downloadable add-on for forthcoming video game Guitar Hero World Tour]

Pallers is neighborhood in Åhus, Sweden, not a Swedish word for buddies. It's also the name of a new duo on Stockholm's Labrador imprint. Far from the realm of Kansas, Boston, or Chicago when it comes to geographical band names, Pallers' debut single "Humdrum" is dreamy, Saint Etienne-esque electronic pop, with programmed beats and warm, flickering synths washing over spiky, reverbed guitars and androgynously intimate vocals that could explain why the band was briefly known as Sara and Jenny. "I can only be the way you are," goes the hook. The melodies are as vibrant as you'd expect from this indie-pop-oriented label, but there's a lot to admire in the production, too, from little details like the rattling percussion or murmured half-words at the intro, to the shuffling snares on the verses. For the final minute or so, "Humdrum" wordlessly explores the type of slow-disco space inhabited by the likes of Studio or Lindstrøm. A couple of dudes who sound like old pals by now.

MP3:> Pallers: "Humdrum"
[from the "Humdrum" 12"; due 12/03/08 on Labrador]

Writing about this song in his review of Apollo Sunshine's Shall Noise Upon, Joe Tangari said that it "recalls one of the Ira Kaplan-sung songs from a Yo La Tengo album" and that the band "shares Yo La Tengo's fondness for mixing shy, retiring indie pop with moments of ear-blistering noise." The video for the track is a rough and handmade-looking collage that moves an uncountable number of things-- pictures of the earth, musical instruments, fish, butterflies-- through the space.

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

[from Shall Noise Upon; out now on World's Fair/Headless Heroes]

Is Chicago, is not Chicago: Pit Er Pat may have a getaway in mind on "Evacuation Day", but as with various other bands from the Windy City, this synth-wielding three-piece still sound like they're searching for a place beyond genre. From upcoming Thrill Jockey album High Time, "Evacuation Day" takes this-is-not-a-drill urgency and stretches it across six-plus minutes of thorny, eerily mid-tempo post-rock.

Fay Davis-Jeffers coolly intones unnerving lyrics as an electric guitar picks out single notes. Founding Alkaline Trio member Rob Doran's jazzy, dark-hued bass-playing should keep most evacuees moving. Recording in Pit Er Pat's own studio meant the band had time to throw in more esoteric percussion instruments than you could probably name, only increasing the track's sense of alienation. Still, if there's a reason to ignore the evacuation warnings and stay put, it's Butchy Fuego's cunning drum work; when disaster finally hits, you'll be sure to be off balance. And that's fine. Just as long as it's not Chicago.

MP3:> Pit Er Pat: "Evacuation Day"
[from High Time; due 10/21/08 on Thrill Jockey]

First Kanye debuted his video on "Ellen", then Britney debuted hers on "20/20". Who will be the first pop star to debut a clip on "60 Minutes"? We'll see, but in the meantime, here is the "Director's Cut" of "Womanizer", which in this case means it's exactly the way Joseph Kahn (of "Toxic" and "Stronger") wants it. What that seems to amount to is: Britney in costume as a sexy waitress, a sexy office worker, and a sexy limo driver, and then Britney out of costume, nude, in a sauna. Probably NSFW, but this version has apparently been shown on MTV.

Video:> Britney Spears: "Womanizer"
[from Circus; due 12/02/08 from Jive/Zomba]

The first two songs from Beyoncé's forthcoming I Am... have hit the interweb. First up is the video for midtempo "If I Were a Boy", in which Beyoncé fantasizes about what a relationship might be like from the other side of the gender line. Starting off with some spoken words "Intimacy...commitment...honestly..." suggesting that this is a "big issue" kind of song, the story finds Beyoncé as a tough cop in a questionably revealing uniform taking down bad guys and kicking it with her co-workers and paying too little attention to her lover. And then there's a twist.

Video:> Beyoncé: "If I Were a Boy"

Then there's the leaked "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". Pop and hip-hop tracks that combine simple, memorable hooks with unusual, percussion-driven production have been the surest route for years now to combining commercial and critical success. Beyoncé has been right there, riding Swizz Beatz's, uh, beats on B'Day's "Upgrade U" and "Ring the Alarm". "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" rings the alarm for the institution of marriage, this time with "Umbrella" man Terius "The-Dream" Nash among the writer/producers. Eighth-note handclaps and Rainforest Café squeaks 'n' yelps back up vwerping synths and Beyoncé's insistent, catchy oh-oh-ohs. Move over, "to the left, to the left": "If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it." But then she turns around and says worldly things aren't for her, so this isn't just a materialist thing; it's love L-U-V. Oh yeah, and her lip gloss is poppin'.

Bonus! "Single Ladies" now has a (very simple) video.

[from I Am...; due 11/18/08 on Columbia]

Roots Manuva could be seen as UK hip-hop's John the Baptist, spreading the gospel of British rap and then finally converting some skeptical U.S. critics with his 1999 debut Brand New Second Hand. Then everybody found the Streets, Dizzee Rascal, and grime, and Manuva was left to contemplate his Mercury Prize nomination. From Manuva's solid 2008 album, Slime & Reason, single "Let the Spirit" is a bit of change for the polemical rapper, building funky electro-soul around handclaps and a lighter-than-air sung chorus more than the usual pointed rhymes.

As that description suggests, "Let the Spirit" is also natural remix material for Hot Chip. The London electro-poppers must have found a lot to like in the original track: They ride its thick bass groove, near-Timbaland percussion, and prickly disco guitars for the first couple of minutes. But that's just prelude for a track that's alternately celebratory and dark, balancing euphoric house beats or burbling dive-bombing synth bass lines against Manuva's introspective flow. "Ever more bouncy," Manuva says. Sounds like Scripture to me.

[original version from Slime & Reason; out now on Big Dada]