Dismemberment Plan Reunite for Robbins Benefit!
Pitchfork reporter breathes slowly into paper bag to keep from hyperventilating.

Someone please pinch me. Three and a half years after their voluntary break-up, the mighty Dismemberment Plan will reunite for a show at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C.

On April 28, the band will take the stage alongside Beauty Pill and Owls and Crows to play a benefit for Callum Robbins, the son of J. and Janet who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Tickets to the show cost $15, and all of the proceeds will go directly to the Robbins family. Special thanks to an on-the-ball reader for the tip!

No additional reunion activity is planned at this time, but we have all our fingers and toes crossed.

In other D-Plan related news, frontman Travis Morrison is still readying an album with his Hellfighters, titled All Y'all, for an April release. Plan bandmate Jason Caddell will produce the new LP. In the meantime, Morrison reports via a website update that he has joined the Washington National Cathedral choir and is enjoying the opportunity to eat brunch early on Sundays.

Plan bassist Eric Axelson and drummer Joe Easley have two shows this weekend with their new band, Statehood. Leigh Thompson recently joined the band on guitar, and though they have no definite recording plans yet, they are still writing new songs. [MORE...]

The Cure, Fatboy Slim, Digitalism Play Ultra Festival

The Ultra Music Festival has announced the lineup of its ninth annual rave/festival, and it includes the Cure, Fatboy Slim, Digitalism, Richie Hawtin, Miss Kittin, Brazilian Girls, Tiësto, Deep Dish, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Timo Maas, BT, Carl Cox, Goldie, Shiny Toy Guns, Photek, and Ferry Corsten, among other electronic giants.

The festival takes place March 23 and 24 in Miami's Bicentennial Park. In total, over 150 acts will play on the festival's nine stages. Check out a list of all who have confirmed so far here.

TV on the Radio Launch North American Tour

TV on the Radio are taking their show on the road, as they start a lengthy tour this evening in Providence, Rhode Island. Subtle, as previously reported, will hang around for roughly half the trek, and the Noisettes will handle the rest. The tour is scheduled to end in late April.

In related news, we'd like to remind you that TV on the Radio's David Andrew Sitek is featured on labelmate Beck's three-disc deluxe version of The Information, which landed earlier this week on Interscope. Sitek contributed a remix of Beck's "Dark Star" to the collection.

And have you heard Sitek's remix of the Knife's "Marble House" yet? It rules. [MORE...]

Photos: The Thermals [Chicago, IL; 02/28/07]

Talk to anyone who's ever caught the Thermals in Chicago and they'll tell a sad tale of lukewarm receptions and mismatched bills. So when Hutch Harris, Kathy Foster and company took the stage at a rowdy, sold-out Subterranean last night, it was just like starting over. Zipping through 22 cuts from all over their three LPs in under an hour, the Thermals were pure energy, leaving the huddled masses breathless and screaming.

Selections from their kid-tested, Pitchfork-approved The Body, the Blood, the Machine (Sub Pop) were crowd pleasers one and all, and even Hutch was moved; after a particularly effusive barrel through "St. Rosa and the Swallows", he implored the crowd, "I got all emo on that one. Did you feel it? Did you really feel it?" Indeed we did.

The Thermals tear through the U.S. all this month. Dates and more photo action ahead.






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James Murphy: Musician. Fighter. Blogger.
"My new martial arts hobby has completely sapped my musical and domestic ambitions, not to mention my shoulder."

The best rock stars aren't just great musicians-- they're also interesting people with a lot to say. LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy is certainly an interesting person. Does he have a lot to say? Well, judge for yourself: Murphy recently began blogging for England's Guardian paper, and so far, he's been sounding off on topics such as mixed martial arts (aka ultimate fighting), frequent flyer miles, and... blogging.

(Thanks to Idolator for pointing out this literary treasure trove.)

Murphy's third post appeared today, a self-conscious-about-not-writing-about-music rant where he satirizes himself ("stick to ripping off the Talking Heads") as much as the commenters who complain about his tone and choice of topics.

He's not done blogging yet, but Murphy will continue to rack up the frequent flyer miles when, next week, he kicks off his previously reported tour in support of the March 20 release of Sound of Silver. [MORE...]

Bjork, Sigur Ros, Mum on Screaming Masterpiece DVD
Pitchfork Headline Bureau still defiantly anti-accent marks

Björk, Sigur Rós, the Sugarcubes, Múm, and Amiina are among the high-profile artists showcased in Screaming Masterpiece, a documentary about the Icelandic music scene that will hit DVD shelves at last March 6 via Milan Records.

Writer and director Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon used the film to explore the scene's history through tour footage and in-depth interviews. The resulting 87-minute DVD comes with over two hours of extra interviews.

Screaming Masterpiece has appeared at over 20 international film festivals, and was also part of our own pre-Pitchfork Music Festival film screenings last summer.

Junior Boys, Metric, Final Fantasy Rekindle Stars' Fire
Plus: Kevin Drew, Apostle of Hustle, Dears, Russian Futurists, Stills, Montag, Young Galaxy

Now we loved Stars' 2004 LP Set Yourself on Fire just fine as it was, a lush palette of heartfelt heartbreak anthems. But we've got to admit, this sounds pretty damn cool: whilst we await the Fire followup (due in fall 2007, if you trust the band's website), Stars have invited a cadre of Friends to recreate the Canadian pop romantics' best LP to date.

Do You Trust Your Friends? (first discussed waaaay back in June 2005 and then last summer) arrives May 22 on Arts & Crafts and is a track-for-track "renovation" (thus deemed by the press release) of Set Yourself on Fire. The Friends in question? A fairly trustworthy lot, many of them A&C affiliates: Junior Boys, Metric, Final Fantasy, Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew (with Camouflage Nights) and Apostle of Hustle, the Dears, the Russian Futurists, the Stills, Minotaur Shock, Montag, Young Galaxy, Jason Collett, and the Most Serene Republic.

Each takes a stab at a Fire favorite, sequenced exactly the same as the original album (with those dastardly Dears breaking album centerpiece "What I'm Trying to Say" into a two-part mega-jam). You can still check out Junior Boys' reworking of "Sleep Tonight" over in Forkcast.

Stars themselves, meanwhile, "have been feverishly working on their follow-up to Set Yourself On Fire," according to their website, at Vancouver's Warehouse Studios.

In related news, Stars' Amy Millan swings down to SXSW in support of last year's solo foray, Honey From the Tombs. And she's hardly the only Star off in sideprojectland: Torquil Campbell's Memphis dropped A Little Place in the Wilderness last year in Canada. That album finally gets a U.S. release March 27 via Montreal's Good Fences Records. [MORE...]

Wilco Announce World Tour

Wilco tour dates in support of their forthcoming Sky Blue Sky LP are finally beginning to roll in...and they're all overseas. Of course, the band is also scheduled to appear at Bonnaroo in June, putting the boys right where they need to be to tour North America this summer. So we've got our fingers crossed.

After visiting Australia in mid-April for a short string of previously announced dates, Wilco will make their way through the UK and Europe. This run is slated for late May, and wraps up with a performance at Barcelona's Primavera Sound Festival.

Sky Blue Sky is due May 15 via Nonesuch. Check out that handsome cover! [MORE...]

The National's Berninger Talks Boxer, Baseball, CYHSY
Sufjan Stevens, Doveman lend talents to new National LP

Just this week, we announced the title, tracklist, and release date of the National's fourth album, Boxer. The 12-track set arrives May 22 via Beggars Banquet and features, according to Billboard.com, Mr. Sufjan Stevens tickling the ivories on "Racing Like a Pro" and "Ada", Clogs violist Padma Newsome contributing arrangements, Doveman's Thomas Bartlett handling keyboards, and NYC folkie Marla Hansen lending backing vocals.

Even more recently, we spoke to the band's singer, Matt Berninger, about Boxer, his band's relationship with 2005 tourmates Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, how they feel about their hometown, and why the Mets are less heartbreaking than the Reds.

Pitchfork: You guys seem to like black-and-white photos as album covers.

Matt Berninger: It was actually taken at [producer] Peter Katis' wedding. It wasn't something we thought about ahead of time. We were sent the photo and kind of fell for it. We've gotten lucky with those photos, but I guess it is starting [to be] a trend.

Pitchfork: It reminds me of the wedding scene in The Deer Hunter.

MB: [laughs] Yeah there is something about it that does seem...not of this age, or something. It almost looks set-up and surreal, but it was just taken about a year ago.

Pitchfork: So what can you tell us about the record? How does it sound? Is it a continuation of Alligator, or a separation from it?

MB: I think it's different. It's still us, but it sounds, to me, quite a bit different. I think it's more cohesive. Alligator had high peaks of loud songs, and really slow, quiet songs; this has that, but maybe not quite the extremes. It's less of a rocky ride. It has a certain consistency to it.

Pitchfork: Is it thematically more cohesive as well?

MB: There are songs about a lot of different things, but things pop up over and over again, or styles of writing about things, both musically and lyrically. A lot of the music is a little more meditative. I think a lot of the way Aaron [Dessner] and Bryce [Dessner] and Scott [Devendorf] and Bryan [Devendorf] were writing music was more chilled out [and] meditative. There is this kind of rumble through the whole thing, and I think musically that's something that was naturally what people were doing. As far as what I'm doing, I guess there's something about it that's more chant-y. I don't really do any screaming the way I did on Alligator. We don't know if that's going to disappoint people, but we didn't feel like it was necessary. [MORE...]

White Stripes Announce Icky New Album
Gross!

They're baaaaack! The White Stripes announced on their website late last night that their sixth album, which bears the excellently bizarre title of Icky Thump, will be released "as soon as corporately possible."

It was recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, and includes the songs "Catch Hell Blues", "Little Cream Soda", "Rag and Bone", "You Don't Know What Love Is (Just Do As You're Told)", "I'm Slowly Turning Into You", and "Icky Thump".

As previously reported, the new album will be delivered via the Stripes' new home, Warner Bros. They will support it with appearances at Bonnaroo as well as Germany's Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in June.

In typical White Stripes fashion, the album details were revealed via a silly, semi-cryptic message. See below for the full text. [MORE...]

Euros Childs All Set to Bore Da on Second LP

Break out the extraneous w's, y's, and double letters, because ex-Gorky's Zygotic Mynci frontman Euros Childs has yet another solo album on the way-- and this one's an almost all-Welsh affair.

While U.S. audiences have just begun to sink our teeth into Chops, which landed here this past October and in the UK last February via Wichita, Childs already has a second quirky pop platter to serve up: Bore Da, out March 5 on the same label.

According to Childs' website, trisyllabic "Bore Da"-- which you may stream at the man's MySpace-- translates to "Good Morning". If you think that's wack, consider that Bore Da's seventh track, "Cwtsh", translates to "Hug". Well alright then.

Check out the complete tracklist below, with English translations in brackets, and catch Childs playing to audiences in his native Wales and neighboring England beginning tonight. Be sure to drop by the merch table afterwards and give him a nice big cwtsh. [MORE...]

Kelley Polar Prunes "Chrysanthemum", New Album

Photo by Rupert A. Thompson

One of 2005's great unsung gems, Kelley Polar's Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens found the viola-toting Juilliard-escapee hand-crafting a lush, sensual, orchestral disco record for Morgan Geist's respected Environ imprint.

Polar-- born Michael Kelley, and still active under his given name in the classical world's Apple Hill Chamber Players-- returns later this year with the Hanging Gardens follow-up, an as-yet-untitled 11-track affair featuring guest vocalist Claire de Lune and members of the Kelley Polar Quartet, who've released several EPs on Environ.

A tour is in the works-- but before all that, Kelley has a "Chrysanthemum" set to bloom this March. Environ will release said tune as the first single from the LP, backed with another album cut, "Rosenband", and alongside an instrumental version of each tune.

Kelley disclosed the apocalyptic inspiration behind "Chrysanthemum" in a recent e-mail to Pitchfork. The tale begins "one day in sixth grade" and includes "a reasonable expectation that the world was going to end in a giant ball of radioactive fire," as well as "fountains of blood from severed head[s]" and "horny teenagers going at it in the back-seat of a car." My oh my! Check out the complete story after the jump. [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.)