Antony Collaborates With All Sentient Life, Plans New Album

Despite the lack of any concrete news regarding a follow-up to 2005's I Am a Bird Now, Antony has been a very busy man over the past year or so, and his schedule doesn't look to let up at all in the future. In fact, he's doing so much that it's almost impossible to keep up. Fortunately, a Secretly Canadian website update offers a peek into Antony's diary:

Today

Bask in the glow of successful collaborations with Lou Reed (those "Berlin" concerts -- New York City ones soon to be made into a Julian Schnabel-produced film), Joan as Police Woman (as backing vocalist on last year's Real Life), and Current 93's Michael Cashmore (on mini-album The Snow Abides, along with Cashmore's bandmate David Tibet).

Rewatch both movies from last year that featured my songs with the Johnsons: Alessandro Angelini's L'Aria Salata and Paolo Sorrentino's L'Amico di Famiglia.

Continue editing the film version of "Turning" with Charles Atlas. Wonder how we will cut over sixty hours of touring and interview footage.

February 24-25

Wish conductor Gavin Bryars and the singers and musicians of Opera North the best in their performances of my and composer Nico Muhly's score for one of Shakespeare's sonnets. Send a thank-you note to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and try to make it to the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon for one of the concerts if I can.

March 9

Play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. Not sure if Muhly's directing or not, but collaborating with him for this show sure was swell.

Spring

New albums! Buy Björk's new one, which features my duet with her, and continue recording my third album with the Johnsons. Try to expand upon my current theme: "ghosts and nature."

Tour Europe?

Summer

Visit Belsay Manor to see how the sound installation I worked on with William Basinski turned out.

Buy new bathing suit.

Will Sheff "Talks" Lost Voice, New Okkervil Album
"I've spent stretches of several days where I only talk with a pad of paper and a pen."

As reported earlier this week, one too many emotive yelps sent poor Will Sheff's voice a-packing. Vocal chord strain forced the Okkervil River frontman to to cancel his solo tour with Josh Ritter and suspend work on the band's new album.

Figuring Sheff might be trolling the interweb a little more frequently right now, Pitchfork caught up with the man for a brief e-mail interview, in which he revealed what happened to that expressive voice of his, what fans can expect from the new LP, and just how definitive the Black Sheep Boy Definitive Edition (out March 6 on Jagjaguwar) is.

But first, that lost voice: Following several months of intense touring last fall, Okkervil River set to work preparing for the new album. "We rehearsed every day, four hours a day for about a month," wrote Will. "An unintended and painfully ironic consequence of all that work was that, by the time I stood in front of a microphone to record the vocals for the record, I could barely get a sound out of my mouth."

Sheff visited an ear, nose, and throat doctor-- "he had all these signed head-shots of local opera singers hanging on the wall"-- for the first time in his life. As the specialist told Will, while things could have been worse, "my vocal chords were inflamed and fatigued and I'd developed a couple other problems that just had to do with using my voice too much. He put me on two different medications and prescribed a month of vocal rest."

"Since then," Will told Pitchfork, "we've stopped all work on the record and I've just been sitting around Austin waiting, trying to use my voice as little as possible."

It hasn't been easy. "I've spent stretches of several days where I only talk with a pad of paper and a pen. Whenever I'd go to the grocery store or something, I'd run into friends; they'd walk up to say hello and I'd have to stick a pad of paper in their face with the words 'Sorry - I lost my voice!' on it, and they'd say, 'oh!' and try to ask me a few questions about it. I'd try to scrawl a few responses down before we'd both kind of back away from each other wearing embarrassed looks." [MORE...]

Calla Bloom Anew With Strength in Numbers, Tour

Photo by Scott Irvine

According to the 1-800-Flowers website, Calla Lilies "signify magnificent beauty" and make "a fantastic and lasting impression." That's all well and good, but how many wimpy flowers can rock your lily-white face off, bro?

Brooding New York trio Calla can, and have for years now, and probably will again come February 20, when the trio unleashes its latest LP via Beggars Banquet.

Strength in Numbers collects 13 new jams, including several with typically Calla-esque single-word titles. Some more numbers: Calla self-produced the album and recorded it in three different locations (New York City, Austin, and Athens, Greece); it comes in two formats (CD and vinyl); and Calla presently have 28 North American tour dates lined up in support of Strength. Euro tour to follow.

Treat your sweetheart (or yourself) to the acoustic pluck of Strength in Numbers' seventh track, "Bronson", in mp3 form below. [MORE...]

Modest Mouse Announce More Shows

Modest Mouse have finally announced a few dates in the U.S. (and Mexico and England) in support of the Epic release of We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank on March 20. The fun starts in Mexico City on March 10 and ends June 1 in Barcelona, but considering how few dates there are, you just know there have to be more coming.

Thanks to reader Seth Boid for the tip! [MORE...]

Lady Sovereign Expands World Tour

Little lady, big tour: Lady Sovereign has expanded the trek in support of her debut album Public Warning. In addition to her previously announced North American jaunt with Gwen Stefani and Akon, Lady Sov will hit the UK, Europe, Australia, and Japan this March and April. She also has a one-off date scheduled for this evening in London. [MORE...]

CocoRosie Ready for Adventures, Euro Tour

Photo by Julia Gillard

Double, double, toil and trouble, people: the weird sisters of CocoRosie are at it again, tossing disparate genres and wacked-out lyrics into their freak-folk cauldron and pouring that molten concoction all over our faces. On April 10, siblings Bianca and Sierra Casady conjure up their third LP, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, a twelve-track affair once again born under the moon of Touch and Go Records.

The sisters then hop on their broomsticks for some tour adventures in the old countries, surrounding the album's release. No word yet on North American dates, but we hope they play, like, Salem.

Bianca's Voodoo-EROS imprint, meanwhile, has some more magic in store for 2007. V-E will release the debut LP from Brooklyn sleaze-chic rapper Bunny Rabbit, titled Lovers and Crypts, on February 20. And let me tell you: If sex and cussing are your bread and butter, you've just found your album of the year. [MORE...]

Exclusive: Arcade Fire to Rock NPR

Good news for everybody shut out of the Arcade Fire's five-night New York City residency next week (and for that matter, those shut out of the London and Montreal residencies as well): NPR's "All Songs Considered" will broadcast the band's February 17 show at Judson Memorial Church.

So next Saturday night, grab a computer, some speakers, a bunch of friends, and a bicycle helmet. Break into a local church, and boom: instant Arcade Fire show.

Klaxons Invade North America

Get ready: Klaxons are coming to America.

The UK sensations have announced a 13-date North American tour, which concludes with a previously reported Coachella stop in late April. The jaunt is in support of Klaxons' debut LP, Myths of the Near Future, due on Pitchfork's side of the pond March 27 via Rinse/DGC.

That album is already out in the UK, where the band is touring right now. [MORE...]

Flying Canyon's Cayce Lindner, R.I.P.

Cayce Lindner, frontman for self-described "California doom folk" band Flying Canyon, took his own life yesterday, February 6. No further details are available regarding his death, nor do we know how old he was.

Lindner, who lived in the Bay Area, was in the bands the Golden Hotel and the Goodwill Tapes before forming Flying Canyon with the Jewelled Antler collective's Glenn Donaldson and Shayde Sartin. He was also a filmmaker.

Sidney Alexis Lindner, Cayce's brother, fronts the Portsmouth, New Hampshire band the Hotel Alexis. He was also in Golden Hotel with Cayce.

Last fall, Soft Abuse released Flying Canyon's enchanting self-titled debut album. Our own Brandon Stosuy wrote, "Lindner and friends carve out an erudite haze that foregoes caricature and wardrobe changes in favor of melody, inventive instrumentation, strong songwriting, and an honest, riveting charisma."

Soft Abuse's Chris Berry said, "We are deeply saddened and we're thinking of his friends and family."

Twilight Sad Unveil Debut, Tour North America, UK
Start own cover band, The Gloaming Melancholy

Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters: apart from being a damn long time, a mouthful to say, and a, um, fingerful to type, that's also the title of the debut full-length album from emotive Glasgow quartet the Twilight Sad. FatCat lifts the curtain on the nine-track release-- which follows up last fall's excellent self-titled EP-- on April 24.

The fresh-faced, thick-accented foursome recorded Fourteen Autumns at their home city's Chem 19 and Ca Va studios, and mixed the opus at Connecticut's Tarquin Studios with Peter Katis (Interpol, Spoon). It includes a trio of tunes from the EP, and six new epics. Pretty much all of them have totally emo titles, so start naming your blogs after them now, kids.

The Twilight Sad had better perk up, however, because they have quite a long tour road ahead of them. They'll sweep through the UK with Micah P. Hinson before crossing the pond for SXSW and a stretch of subsequent dates with Mary Timony, and later, fellow Glaswegians Aereogramme and Canada's A Northern Chorus. Adorably enough, they play both Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England on this tour.

Finally, don't miss the Twilight Sad's contribution to FatCat labelmates Semiconductor's forthcoming DVD, Worlds in Flux. The disc hits U.S. shops April 3 (February 26 everywhere else), and includes the Sad's score to some Semiconductor animation, alongside specially-comissioned scores from Max Richter, Ensemble, Christian Vogel, Our Brother the Native, and more. [MORE...]

Exclusive: Flaming Lips, Metric Reveal Playboy T-Shirts
Plus: Oh No! Oh My!, Illinois

Playboy...t-shirts. There's a paradox in there someplace, no?

While we (ahem) rack our brains over that one, you may feast your lustful eyes on some red hot Playboy pix of designs for t-shirts that will soon cover naked girls (and boys), courtesy of the hotties in the Flaming Lips, Metric, Oh No! Oh My!, and new Ace Fu signing Illinois (from Pennsylvania, go figure).

As you may have read the last time you googled "Playboy + Wayne Coyne", the notorious nudie mag commissioned a bunch of indie favorites (and Lil Jon) to design novelty t-shirts putting "their own personal stamp on the Playboy brand and logo." Those shirts will appear in the March edition of Playboy-- aka the special Sex and Music Special Issue-- which hits newsstands discreetly tomorrow.

You'll soon be able to purchase the t&a-- excuse me, t-shirts-- at select retailers or online at www.shopthebunny.com, and Playboy will auction the prototypes this autumn, with proceeds benefiting LIFEbeat: The Music Industry Fights AIDS.

Check out the Lips' quasi-NSFW design, Metric's word-association piece, and the others after the jump. [MORE...]

Indie Rock Movie Half-Cocked Comes to DVD
Stars Tara Jane O'Neil, Ian Svenonius, Cynthia Nelson, Grifters

Filmmakers Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky will release two of their films on one DVD through their Rumur imprint on February 13.

Half-Cocked (1994) is a 16mm black-and-white film about kids who form a band and tour the country in a stolen van, and it features appearances from Tara Jane O'Neil (Retsin, Rodan, Sonora Pine), Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Weird War), Cynthia Nelson (Retsin, Ruby Falls), and other members of Nation of Ulysses, Rodan, the Grifters, and Lungfish.

The second film, Radiation (1998), portrays a Spanish tour promoter for American bands. It was shot in Spain and features cameos from Will Oldham and members of Stereolab and Come.

Bonus materials in the two-feature DVD package include a making-of documentary, music videos for Gaunt, Spaceheads, Standard, and Red House Blues, and over 400 photos.

There will be several screenings of Half-Cocked across the U.S. in February, beginning tonight February 7 in Richmond, Seattle, and Boston. The latter is a six-day run at the Video Underground. [MORE...]

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.)