Pitchfork

Many a hipster nerd should be well acquainted with the concept of impossible shapes, those crazy optical illusions the teachers handed out to expand your mind during gifted class. There were many variations, like the never-ending block, the Mobius card, and pretty much everything Salvador Dali ever did.

Those same hipster nerds are probably aware of the Impossible Shapes, the band. The Indiana quartet also comes in several incarnations, one of which is Normanoak, solo project of frontman Chris Barth. Barth is currently wrapping up work on his second album under the Normanoak name, due to come out mid-2006 on Secretly Canadian as a follow-up to 2004's Born a Black Diamond.

Normanoak began a fall tour last week along with another solo project, Lord Fyre, (not to be confused with Frye boots), who is Seth Mahern from John Wilkes Booze (a band which in itself contains three Impossible Shapes members). Is your brain teased yet? Dates are what the winter does:
11-29 Ft. Worth, TX - 1919 Hemphill *
11-30 Las Cruces, NM - The Bean*
12-01 Tucson, AZ - ITL Café *
12-02 Pasadena, CA - Occidental College *
12-03 Oakland, CA - Mama Buzz Café *
12-06 Portland, OR - TBA*
12-07 Olympia, WA - Phoenix House *
12-08 Missoula, MT - Crazy Daisy *
12-10 Denver, CO - Rhinoceropolis *
12-11 Lawrence, KS - Replay Lounge *
12-12 Cedar Rapids, IA - The Irish Democrat *
12-13 Moline, IL - Lazer Mansion *
12-14 Indianapolis, IN - The Duplex *
12-16 Bloomington, IN - Green Fuzz Mansion *

* with Lord Fyre and AuroraDoreyAlice

In other Impossible Shapes news, the band has announced they will re-release Tum on March 7 on Secretly Canadian. The album came out last year on St. Ives Records as a limited vinyl release with only 300 copies distributed. As for the Shapes' other primary songwriter, Aaron Deer, his solo project Horns of Happiness is getting set to release his Secretly Canadian (notice a trend here?) debut Would I Find Your Psychic Guideline on February 7. Here's the Horn-y tracklist:

01 Dowser Hunters
02 Would I Find Your Psychic Guideline
03 "Skin Sight"
04 Polyglot
05 Coal-Wasted Avalanche
06 "untitled"

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