Amon Tobin Schedules Tour

After one show at South by Southwest on March 17, Amon Tobin will take the film-inspired The Foley Room to venues across Europe and North America in April and May.

Most of Tobin's dates are DJ sets, but quite a few of those are in Surround Sound. For the Surround Sound sets, Tobin will mix material from The Foley Room with the music that inspired it, using his turntables more as samplers than as traditional turntables.

The tour begins April 3 in Montpellier, France and ends May 26 in Los Angeles. [MORE...]

Datarock Sign to Nettwerk, Revise/Reissue Debut
Kick off U.S. tour this week

Photo by Knut Åaserud

Hello hello! Today today we're pleased pleased to announce that Datarock have signed signed to Nettwerk-- normally home to tamer tamer fare like Sarah McLachlan and Hanne Hukkelberg. If you're seeing double double, good! Because Nettwerk has plans to release Datarock's debut debut, Datarock Datarock, in physical formats on June 12. iTunes users can scoop it up March 19, and the most zealous fans can score it right now via the duo's MySpace.

Datarock Datarock is actually a slightly revised/expanded edition (tracklist below) of the original Datarock debut, which the band released on its own Young Aspiring Professionals (YAP) imprint way back in 1912. Or maybe 2005. By revised, we mean that a few new jams have been added to the tracklist, and the most overtly gay numbers-- "Night Flight to Uranus", anyone?-- have been conspicuously removed. Where's Columbia's LGBT label when you need it??

Datarock play an impressive six SXSW shows before embarking on their previously reported U.S. tour. The duo then returns to its native Norway for scattered appearances. [MORE...]

Lungfish's Higgs Signs to Thrill Jockey

Thrill Jockey will release Lungfish frontman Daniel A.I.U. Higgs' Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot on June 5. The second in a series of full-color, 6" X 8" hardcover book/CD packages that so far includes Aki Tsuyuko's Hokane, Tarot features six tracks and 48 pages of Higgs' visual art.

According to the Thrill Jockey website, "The yggdrasil is the great tree of Norse myth that connects all worlds of cosmology... In his relentless pursuit of the indivisible, Higgs travels up and down this spine and hatches a new transubstantiation of sound and image into life form."

We smell a tour opening for Mastodon!

In addition to the book and CD, Thrill Jockey will also transubstantiate the album into a limited edition vinyl version.

Higgs is currently on tour in the UK, and he will return to the U.S. with Brightblack Morning Light in April. [MORE...]

Morrissey Announces American Tour

True to his depressive persona, Morrissey will spend the summer mostly indoors, and mostly in the dark.

From late April through at least the end of June, Moz will woo these great United States on a gargantuan tour, according to Morrissey authority True to You. Interestingly, he's sidestepping Coachella in order to play a casino in Sparks, Nevada. Oh, Morrissey!

Only the western half of the tour has been announced so far, save for June 30 date at Madison Square Garden. Look for the rest of the dates to be filled in later in the week.

Kristeen Young will open all shows. [MORE...]

Booka Shade Get Physical on World Tour

People of North America, get excited-- it's not often that acclaimed tech house duo Booka Shade grace these shores. After all, Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier are in-demand producers and remixers, with a riveting live act that's won them invitations to festivals the world over.

But don't take our world for it-- scope these jetsetters' 2007 tour itinerary below. After a two-week run on this continent, they bound around the world...for the next six months. Australia. Manchester. Roskilde. Portugal. Greece. Even Serbia, where we thought dancing was banned or something. It's all there. All in support of Movements, Pitchfork's 50th Favorite Album of 2006. And you can witness it first, right up against the booth, making an ass of yourself. [MORE...]

P4K Fest Discounted Three-Day Passes Sold Out, ATP Headliner to be Announced Friday

Wow, that was fast. Just a little over a day after tickets went on sale for the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival (taking place July 13-15 at Union Park in Chicago), our discounted three-day passes are all gone. See, we told you they were extremely limited!

You can still buy passes for all three days, but now they're up to full price. $50 gets you into Friday night's Don't Look Back collaboration with All Tomorrow's Parties, as well as Saturday and Sunday, when Cat Power, Clipse, Of Montreal, Iron and Wine, Girl Talk, Jamie Lidell, Grizzly Bear, Professor Murder, and Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound, among others to be announced, will perform.

Click on over to Ticketweb for tickets. A Saturday/Sunday pass costs $35, while Saturday or Sunday individual passes go for $25. Friday's ATP Don't Look Back series event is only $15. However, buying a three-day pass will save you money on service fees.

Speaking of Don't Look Back, we will announce that night's headliner-- one of three artists who will play their classic album in its entirety that evening-- this Friday, March 16.

And don't forget that Friday, March 16 is also the date of the Pitchfork Music Festival/Windish Agency party at Emo's and Emo's Jr. in Austin during SXSW. Festival artist Girl Talk will be there, along with Peter Bjorn & John, Do Make Say Think, the Pipettes, the Ponys, Rjd2, Menomena, Deerhunter, Simian Mobile Disco, Fujiya & Miyagi, Beach House, Marnie Stern, and Crystal Castles.

Keep up on all the latest festival news and details by bookmarking the Pitchfork Music Festival webpage and by tuning into the Pitchfork Music Festival podcast.

RTX Call the Western Xterminator
Specializes in eradicating John Wayne movies, Primal Scream albums

Post-Royal Trux group RTX, featuring frontwoman extraordinaire Jennifer Herrema, will release Western Xterminator, their follow-up to 2004's Transmaniacon, on March 20. It is the band's second album, both overall and for Drag City.

RTX will celebrate Western Xterminator's release with a party in Hollywood on March 30. Then, in May, they will take the party across the U.S. with Totimoshi, starting May 1 in Denver. [MORE...]

Newsom, Malkmus, Callahan, Vashti Play Green Man
Plus: Robert Plant, Vetiver, Gruff Rhys, Dead Meadow, Euros Childs, Tunng

Man, we hope this is just like Burning Man, except they set this guy on fire. Either way, the fifth annual Green Man Festival-- which goes down August 17-19 at Glanusk Estate in Wales' Brecon Beacons National Park-- is shaping up to be an event to remember.

Among the confirmed performers: Joanna Newsom, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Bill Callahan (fka Smog), Vashti Bunyan, Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals), Vetiver, Dead Meadow, Euros Childs (ex-Gorky's Zygotic Mynci), Tunng, the Earlies, Alela Diane, Starless & Bible Black, Monkey Swallows the Universe, and Richmond Fontaine. Bring mom and dad too: Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation headline the fest's second night! Newsom tops the first night's bill, while Malkmus-- who now counts Janet Weiss among his Jicks-- closes out the fest.

Tickets are on sale now.

Jaylib's Champion Sound Reissued, Expanded
Madlib compiles L.A.-themed mix

Stones Throw will reissue Jaylib's Champion Sound on May 8 as a two-CD set with a crateful of bonus tracks. The 2003 collaboration was a chance for producers Madlib and the late J Dilla to don the MC cap over each other's beats, with Talib Kweli, Percee P, Guilty Simpson, and Frank-n-Dank making appearances as well.

The first disc of the reissued Champion Sound features bonus tracks "Raw Addict" and "Pillz" at the end, and the second disc is devoted entirely to instrumentals and Madlib remixes, some of which are previously unreleased.

Madlib put his curating skills to work recently on a mix for Time Out and Deaf Dumb & Blind Communications' The Other Side series. The Other Side: Los Angeles is scheduled for a May 8 release and features tracks from such artists as Sun Ra Arkestra, Dabrye, and Madlib himself in various guises. It is the fifth installment in the CD/DVD series, which has and will include mixes by Fischerspooner, Black Strobe, and Ellen Allien.

For the DVD portion of the package, Stones Throw founder Peanut Butter Wolf provides his personal spin on life in L.A. An in-depth interview with Wolf about Stones Throw's tenth anniversary and several music videos from artists on the label's roster are also included. [MORE...]

Beirut Announce Shows, New Record 75% Complete

Zach Condon is the Google Champion!! Having officially triumphed over both the troubled Lebanese capital and the popular collegiate drinking game with which Zach's band shares its name, Beirut-- aka the No. 1 Google Search Result for "Beirut"-- are celebrating their world wide web victory with a few world wide engagements.

The jaunt, if you can really call it that, kicks off in Austin this week, as part of some big festival. Zach and friends next make up some New York dates he missed last fall whilst ill, then take on the world, coming as close to the real Beirut as Istanbul.

Be sure to corner these little gypsies backstage and ask about The New Album, which is apparently three-quarters complete. Look for it in late 2007 on Ba Da Bing in the U.S. and Beirut's new overseas home, 4AD, in the UK. Also keep your eyes peeled for an "Elephant Gun" UK single hitting shelves in June, and score those two previously reported exclusive early tracks via eMusic in the U.S. or Rough Trade Digital in the UK (bonus: the latter has a third old-school cut called "Monna Pomona").

In related news, hear Zach and company on the new Get Him Eat Him LP, and watch out for that Final Fantasy collaboration. [MORE...]

King Kong Release New LP, Tour

Louisville weirdoes King Kong will go concept-free on Buncha Beans, their first album in five years. Though previous records have included storylines about a caveman and his love for a yak and a spaceman and his obsession with the imaginary Planet Kong, Beans is simply a collection of songs with some of the requisite King Kong themes, including animals and weather.

Will Oldham's brother and fellow Kentuckian Paul Oldham helped produce Buncha Beans at his Rove Studio.

Drag City will release Buncha Beans on March 20, when King Kong will not coincidentally begin a little tour of the Midwest and East Coast in their hometown. [MORE...]

Exclusive: Interpol Announce Canadian Tour

After years of waiting, long stretches of silence, and the ramping up of fan expectations, Capitol Records recording artists Interpol have finally announced...a Canadian tour!

With Interpol's third album tentatively scheduled for release "early this summer", the first people to hear new material won't be the crowds at Coachella or NYC's hipster elite. Rather, they will be the citizens of Ottawa, Ontario, where the band will launch a brief pre-Coachella trek in mid-April.

Interpol are working on the album right now with producer Rich Costey, who has worked with everyone from Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party to Rage Against the Machine and My Chemical Romance to Fiona Apple and the Swirlies. Should be interesting. [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.)