Infinite Mixtape #37: Peter Bjorn and John: Young Folks [ft. Victoria Bergsman]

Swedes do it better, especially when "it" is sun-kissed, whistle-while-you-frolic indie pop. Commaless trio Peter Bjorn and John (never to be confused with 70s schmaltz-pop wizards Tony Orlando & Dawn) serve up an exquisite slice of "it" with single "Young Folks" (from their Wichita UK release Writer's Block), a superlative summertime ditty replete with maracas, happy-go-lucky bumbling bass, and an infectious whistled melody that can't help but incite smile riots.

The chorus soars and the lyrics flirt with youth-appropriate romantic nihilism ("All we care about is talkin'/ Talkin' only me and you"), but it's guest vocalist (and ex-Concretes singer) Victoria Bergsman who owns here: Her dour, pouty vocal enters atop distant storm-cloud synths to provide some much-needed shade from all that chippery. RIYL: endless summers.

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#0037 > Peter Bjorn and John: "Young Folks [ft. Victoria Bergsman]"
[from Writer's Block; Wichita]
Info: [Peter Bjorn and John] | [MySpace] | [Wichita]

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// Previously on The Infinite Mixtape:
#0036: Flying Canyon: "In the Reflection"
#0035: Califone: "The Orchids"
#0034: Beach House: "Apple Orchard"
#0033: The Thermals: "A Pillar of Salt"
#0032: Grizzly Bear: "Lullabye"
#0031: Swan Lake: "All Fires"
#0000: All Previous Infinite Mixtape Entries

Sufjan Stevens Pens Personal Essay for Topic Magazine
Flannery O'Connor Smiles Down Approvingly from the Clouds

Before Sufjan Stevens was an acclaimed sell-out-venues-in-mere-hours musician, he was a writer. But you knew that already. Who else but an introspective, Flannery O'Connor-loving fellow with a creative writing MFA would pen song titles like "A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze"? Or "Come to Me Only With Playthings Now"? Carl Sandburg visits him in dreams, people!

For the current issue of Topic magazine (a quarterly journal of creative non-fiction), Stevens traded his banjo for a pen, writing ebulliently on this month's topic: music! The 1,500-word personal narrative opens with a description of one of his first musical gigs-- an instrumental moment with pots, pans, and spaghetti:

"In the obscure backrooms of my memory, there is a gauzy portrait of me drumming pots and pans on the kitchen floor. I am a bumbling infant, top-heavy, lower-lipped, thumb-suckling, encountering gravity for the first time, buffered by an afghan laid out on the linoleum, banging the consequential music of kitchen utensils: a chopstick on a glass lid, a plastic spoon on a rice steamer, the tap dancing of a whisk on a box of spaghetti. This is my first performance. I am eleven months old. I am a drum major. I am a ragtime rhythm section. I am a wild animal knocking rocks on the hard shell of mother earth, the prehistoric paradiddle. I am nerves and muscle gaining strength."

The issue also features a photo of dapper Stevens on the cover-- and the real news here is that tricked-out 'stache! Dude! What the shit!? To read the full story, pick up issue #9 of Topic.

From these humble percussive beginnings to a massive, ocean-spanning tour-- catch Sufjan live this autumn. Dates after the jump. [MORE...]

Oxford Collapse, Chin Up Chin Up Tour
Joggers on board for five dates

Two bands + two albums + two labels + one release date = a tour to remember? Let's try that one out: Oxford Collapse + Chin Up Chin Up + Remember the Night Parties + This Harness Can't Ride Anything (respectively) + Sub Pop + Suicide Squeeze (respectively) + October 10 =...oh look-- a tour to remember! Good math, dudes!

In honor of their upcoming releases, both Brooklyn's Oxford Collapse and Chicago's Chin Up Chin Up will collapse upward on the road together, joining forces in early October for a trek across the U.S.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the two will split, only to meet again later in the month. During this time, Oxford Collapse will run with Portland's the Joggers, who recently announced a handful of tour dates (including one OC-less gig on September 9 at Portland's Musicfest Northwest Festival). Chin Up Chin Up will tag along for the previously reported Cursive/Thermals jaunt. [MORE...]

Lily Allen Releases “LDN” Single, Again
Holds remix contest, tours UK with Scissor Sisters

"LDN" was the first track most of us heard from Lily Allen's recently released (in the UK), Pitchfork-recommended Alright, Still, and aside from its blog popularity, this is probably because it was, technically, the first single from the album. But that first pressing was limited to 500 copies on 7" vinyl, an amount and format that left the majority of us out in the cold.

Thankfully, Allen is throwing a bone to those of us who didn't hop on the "LDN" train the first time around by releasing it again, this time on CD as well. The single comes out September 25 in CD and 7" formats. One version of the CD single will include "LDN", a cover of the Kooks' "Naive", the "LDN" Warbox Original Dub, and the song's video. The other CD single version and the 7" will feature granny-dissing favorite "Nan You're a Window Shopper" as a B-side.

A plethora of remixes and a live version of "LDN" (including the aforementioned Warbox Original Dub, the Wookie Remix, the Switch Remix, the South Rakka Remix, and a Live at Bush Hall version) will also see digital release shortly, but if you'd rather try your own hand at an "LDN" remix, Allen is holding a contest for you to prove your mixing mettle. She's made the raw pieces of the song available to fans via her website, so work your magic, and Lily might just reward you with "a spanking new pair of Lily's self-styled exclusive Nike IDs," according to her website. So you may not be able to get into her pants, but at least you can get into her shoes.

Need inspiration? Scope the technicolor "LDN" video here.

Finally, Allen will support New York's Scissor Sisters on their November tour of the UK. Don't forget that she also has her own previously reported dates (including a handful in North America) in October.
[MORE...]

Table of the Elements Fest Hits Atlanta
Featuring Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad, Jonathan Kane, and more!

Georgia-based experimental/modern composition label Table of the Elements will host its fourth festival this Labor Day weekend (August 31 through September 4) at Atlanta's Eyedrum venue, and boy do they have a shit ton of festive activity planned. This year's shindig, titled "Bohrium," (past festivals names have included "Manganese", "Yttrium", and "Dubnium") features all manner of creatively-themed music performances, interspersed periodically (ha ha) with independent films and at least one goat roast.

Bohrium's highlights include legendary avant-guitarist Rhys Chatham's new heavy metal band (!) Essentialist (featuring members of Jonathan Kane's February, Bear in Heaven, and San Agustin) making their world premiere on the last night of the fest. From there, Essentialist will embark on a two-week tour of the U.S. before heading into the recording studio to work on a new album (to be released in early 2007). This October, TotE will release Chatham's 1971 piece Two Gongs, and in December, A Crimson Grail, his 2005 orchestral work for 400 guitars. [MORE...]

Lemonheads Return with Album and Tour

Having recently signed to emo-powerhouse- no-more Vagrant Records, the newly re-formed Lemonheads will release their first full-length in almost ten years on September 26. In the near-decade between 1996's Car Button Cloth and this self-titled affair, lead Lemon Evan Dando has been performing more or less as a solo act, releasing an album in 2003 called Baby I'm Bored.

The latest Lemonheads incarnation features Dando and two members of the Descendents: Bill Stevenson (drums) and Karl Alvarez (bass). They're joined on the new album by special guest contributors Garth Hudson (The Band) and the mighty J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr., Witch). Dando and Stevenson co-produced the album, which was recorded in Fort Collins, Colorado at Stevenson's Blasting Room Studios.

The resurrected Lemonheads will take to the road this winter, playing to thirtysomethings across the U.S. Dates-- and The Lemonheads tracklist-- ahead after the jump.

But first, just what do the Lemonheads sound like after all these years? AOL has posted a taste from the forthcoming record, new tune "No Backbone", which you may download and test drive by clicking here. Or stream a few more new traxx here. [MORE...]

MP3 Premiere: The Decemberists: “Summersong”

Continuing in the vein of 2004's The Tain EP, the Decemberists have crafted their fourth full-length, The Crane Wife, to be an enormous folk-prog monsterpiece. It's a beautiful thing, really, and between it and the Hold Steady album, October 3 cannot come fast enough.

Fortunately, you don't have to wait until then for a taste of the Crane Wife pie, as Capitol/EMI have been kind enough to give Pitchfork an exclusive MP3 to share. Ladies and gentleman, we are proud to give you..."Summersong".

This song has none of the multi-part progginess of others on the record. It's a simple, accordion-tinged ode to the end of summer. "Summer arrives/ With a length of lights/ Summer blows away/ And quietly it gets swallowed by a wave," Colin Meloy sings. This couldn't have come at a better time. Enjoy!!

Ben Folds Preps Rarities Collection, Tour

When Ben Folds isn't detailing the male anatomy on the bathroom walls of Dresden Dolls haters' abodes (see: MySpace blog entry), he's pumping out a rarities collection, touring with an orchestra, planning the follow-up to 2005's Songs for Silverman, and working out the kinks on another live record.

And, um, blogging about vandalizing bathroom walls with wiener drawings. Phew! Looks like Pitchfork will be hanging onto our security deposit this time around.

On October 24, Sony BMG will release supersunnyspeedgraphic, the lp, a collection of Folds songs ganked from rare EPs (Super D, Sunny 16, Speed Graphic, and The Bens EP), B-sides, covers (The Cure's "In Between Days", the Darkness' "Get Your Hands off of My Woman", and Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit"), and film soundtrack appearances. The tracks have been remastered, reworked, and relocated since their original releases. All tweaking went down at Folds' Nashville studio with bassist Jared Reynolds and drummer Lindsay Jamieson.

The piano man will begin recording another album entirely in October, and reportedly feels like "blowing shit up in the studio at the moment." Okay, dude. Folds is also toying with the idea of bringing in 100-piece choirs, using piano only, using eight pianos at once, and maybe utilizing some cheap synthesizers he purchased on eBay.

Early next month, Folds will launch an orchestral tour of Australia. Then it's off to the U.S. for a handful of college town dates and a slot at the Vegoose Festival in Las Vegas. A live recording of the Folds/orchestra pair-up is in the planning stages. [MORE...]

Byrne Recruits Banhart, Bunyan for Carnegie Hall
Plus: Vetiver, CocoRosie, Adem, Alarm Will Sound

Hi yo! It has been revealed that David Byrne will curate 2007's Perspective series, running February 1-4 at New York's famed Carnegie Hall.

The event's initial itinerary includes an evening of songs from Here Lies Love - A Song Cycle, Byrne's new collaboration with Fatboy Slim, based on the life of former Philippines First Lady and footwear fiend Imelda Marcos and the servant who raised her. Also on the agenda: a performance of The Knee Plays (a 1985 theater project created by Byrne and Robert Wilson), a night of nü-folk with Devendra Banhart, Vetiver, Vashti Bunyan, CocoRosie, and Adem, and an eclectic closing gig with with Alarm Will Sound, Camille, Haale, and a handful of as-of-yet unannounced artists.

As previously reported, Byrne took part in 826 NYC's Revenge of the Book Eaters benefit last Thursday where, for a mere $15,000, he and Sufjan Stevens joined forces for a cover of Lefty Frizzell's "Saginaw, Michigan". The man gets around! See the story here.

Photos: So Many Dynamos [The Note; 08/24/06]

Palindromic spazz-core phenoms So Many Dynamos crash-landed at Chicago's the Note last Thursday, shell-shocking bystanders with Dismemberment Plan-derived seizure pop from their latest, Flashlights (due next month via Skrocki Records). Dudes looked ordinary and innocuous enough setting up, but once the lights went out, the St. Louis-based fourpiece let out the electricity in fits and jolts-- jittery, stop-start guitars, clipped shouts, hairpin rhythmic turns-- like so many, er, energy-producing machines. Yeah. Impressively, they sustained that manic energy throughout, and this remarkably consistent performance suggested So Many Dynamos are at least sharing a rung with Thunderbirds Are Now! on the admittedly tall ladder to the vacated Plan throne.

The gents celebrate the release of Flashlights by reuniting with the road next month. Dates and photos after the jump. [MORE...]

Andrew Bird Scores Dance
Tours to benefit Chicago Short Film Brigade

Always onboard to help out a chirping friend, Andrew Bird will soon contribute to Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak's latest dance performance, My Name Is a Blackbird.

While he isn't pulling on his own pair of tights quite yet, Bird, along with fellow musicians Mark Booth and Dave Pavkovic, is rolling with the drama crowd. All three artists will collaborate with Shanahan, providing the soundtrack to the Blackbird project, which will formally premiere at Chicago's the Building Stage on April 12-29, 2007. [MORE...]

Infinite Mixtape #36: Flying Canyon: "In the Reflection"

They call their music "California doom-folk" and their record label, Soft Abuse, namechecks Alexander "Skip" Spence and David Crosby as points of reference. Yep, we're pretty burned out on hippies too, but separate Jewelled Antler-affiliated Flying Canyon's external trappings from the music they create and their dusky, shifting melodies aren't far removed from the interstellar slowcore of the Galaxie 500/Codeine school.

Yet while free of San Fran's famous hairy-fairy whimsy, this isn't exactly "doom-folk," as pitched: The spare arrangement of "In the Reflection" (opening track from the band's self-titled debut, out October 3)-- a languid kick-and-snare, soft-strummed acoustic, and spectral vocal harmonies-- makes an ethereal backdrop for frontman Cayce Lindner's impressionistic, tranquil lyrics.

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#0036 > Flying Canyon: "In the Reflection"
[from Flying Canyon; Soft Abuse]
Info: [MySpace] | [Soft Abuse]

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// Previously on The Infinite Mixtape:
#0035: Califone: "The Orchids"
#0034: Beach House: "Apple Orchard"
#0033: The Thermals: "A Pillar of Salt"
#0032: Grizzly Bear: "Lullabye"
#0031: Swan Lake: "All Fires"
#0030: Killer Mike: "That's Life"
#0029: Ratatat: "Lex"
#0028: Sally Shapiro: "I'll Be by Your Side"

Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover? Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.)