Aliens Issue Astronomy in U.S., Tour Europe

Astronomy for Dogs, the debut release from Scottish mod-psych act the Aliens, will finally touch down on U.S. shores June 19 thanks to the folks at Astralwerks.

The U.S. release of the ex-Beta Band members' first full-length outing is exactly the same as the earlier UK issue, sans the bloated import fees and the faint stink of haggis.

The wayfaring, kilt-wearing Aliens have embarked on a rather lengthy UK tour; they'll also issue a multi-format "Robot Man" single June 25. [MORE...]

Robyn Releases "With Every Heartbeat" Single
Don't even get her started on her bada-boom-booms

Putting the world of pop stars to shame in the creativity department isn't enough for sassy lassy Robyn; she's gotta go and flood the marketplace with her supersleek jams and too-hip namechecking. (She did, after all, get the Knife to work with her before most anybody had even heard of 'em).

Hot on the heels of the UK release of the Robyn album, the crash and burn girl will issue a single for Pitchfork's 57th favorite song of 2006, "With Every Heartbeat," her collaboration with Kleerup. It's out June 16 from her own Konichiwa Records.

The disc features half a dozen remixes of the track from some shit-hot producers and a nifty rainbow cover, seen above. No word on a release of "Every Heartbeat" outside of Europe, but, ahem, Robyn, we Americans would totally buy your music and catch your shows if you'd only let us.

To that end, Robyn's got a couple U.K. dates on her radar, with more in the works. [MORE...]

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone Mopes On Tour
Mini-Moog for the Uncomfortably Agoraphobic too blue to leave the house

Sad sacks, you have your orders: gather en masse at this summer's string of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone gigs, and collectively ponder just what there is to be glum about. If you're alone in a crowd at one of Owen Ashworth's many summer dates-- including one this weekend at New York City's Popfest-- well, this misanthropy of yours may be endemic. Get some sun, Poindexter!

Speaking of which, Ashworth's website promises a stint of Sunshine State-only dates in the fall, with a Nova Scotian Land Mission tour to follow.

Two more things to note: Owen will be hawking a limited edition Antenna Farm Records 7" at the following gigs, and all dates feature Ashworth's stubbornly rad backing band, the Donkeys. Painfully alone my ass! [MORE...]

Shapes and Sizes Impress Sufjan, Circle North America

Montreal's peculiar popsters Shapes and Sizes know how to do the buzz-garnering thing; they've got plenty of chatter going behind their just-released Asthmatic Kitty LP Split Lips, Winning Hips, a Shiner, and their fine taste in tourmates can't hurt getting the word out. The band will hop on the National bandwagon in early June, and follow that with a month of dates with fellow oddballs They Shoot Horses Don't They.

In yet another entry in his burgeoning career as hypeman, the Shapes have been sized up by labelmate/occasional musicmaker Sufjan Stevens. Suf-dogg recently penned up a long string of impressionistic non sequiturs after taking in the band's set at Brooklyn's Union Hall:

"They hardly let the songs take flight before shooting them down with the cunning of a duck hunter. But this is where things get interesting. The jumping and barking of hound dogs, the breathless sprint to the mallard, slumped and bloodied in a sanctuary of water, the howling reeds, the ghost of the wind. Well, my metaphor gets the best of me here."

No kidding. English majors looking for a break from that John Milton summer course can wrangle with the whole thing on the Asthmatic Kitty Sidebar. [MORE...]

The Streets Work on Fourth LP, Tour

We haven't heard much from Mike Skinner since he broke the record for the longest music video ever recorded with "Deluded in My Mind" all the way back in August. That's because he's hard at work recording the follow-up to last year's The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living in his Fat Control Room studio.

The new album, Skinner's fourth as the Streets, is composed entirely of live instruments. In a recent episode of his online TV show "Beat Stevie", Skinner said the album features "stories about people and places that could have existed since the beginning of time," including "one about a guy who's about to jump off a cliff, one about a kid who's running-- his dad tells him to flip a coin to decide what he's going to do next," and another without a beat ("just me and a harp"). In the SkinnerBlog on his website, he writes, "All my new songs are really fast at the moment." He also mentions off-hand (and we think hypothetically) that the final Streets album will be "the one after this."

The only song title Skinner has given up is the title of his favorite on the album: "Turn Your Life on the Flip of a Coin". He hopes to release the album by this Christmas.

Skinner will take a break from recording this summer to go on the Streets' tour of Scotland in July, which is bookended by an opening gig for Muse in June and a handful of European festival dates in August. Though no other dates are scheduled just yet, he plans to get to the rest of Europe, England, and the U.S. after that.

Finally, Skinner recently remixed a track called "Either Way" by his Birmingham buds the Twang, and they filmed a video for the remix in Brighton with Skinner protégé Professor Green, who also guests. [MORE...]

Menomena Invade Europe
Sign to City Slang overseas, tour

Front page photo by Alicia J. Rose

The friendly men of Menomena are all set to become intimately acquainted with the citizens of the Old World now that they have finally signed to a European label. Their deal with the Berlin-based City Slang is the first label or distribution deal the band have had overseas, and they are prepared to celebrate properly with the imminent release of the "Wet and Rusting" 7" followed by the release of Friend and Foe in late summer or fall.

Menomena will even make their way to land of Euro Disney for the very first time to play a handful of dates toward the end of their previously reported summer tour. That tour, which kicks off June 1 in Seattle, also includes an appearance at the Pitchfork Music Festival on Sunday, July 15 (click here for tickets).

The band have a couple of rockin' posters for the tour, both of which were designed by Tyler Stout and prominently feature drummer Danny Seim's pug/Menomena's manager, Ms. Geddy Lee, as the ghost from the Ghostbusters logo and as Luck Dragon Falkor from The Neverending Story. A third and final installment in the series will be available this fall.

In addition to the posters, Menomena hope to have the vinyl version of Friend and Foe in tow for the tour. They are preparing it now and trying to make sure its artwork rivals the mix-and-match creativity of the CD's artwork.

Finally, the band recently finished the video for "Rotten Hell", and they plan to unveil it soon. [MORE...]

Maserati Craft Inventions, Kick Off Tour

Even though their debut, The Language of Cities, came out in 2002, Maserati's new album is only the second proper full-length release from the Athens, Georgia instrumental quartet. The sophomore record is called Inventions for the New Season, and it comes out June 19 on Temporary Residence Ltd.

Maserati have replaced Phil Horan with Gerhardt Fuchs (!!!, LCD Soundsystem, the Juan Maclean) on drums, and longtime friend-of-the-band Andy Baker produced Inventions at his home studio in Athens.

Inventions will come in CD and gatefold double LP formats. The LP will have more extensive artwork than the CD, and the first 1,000 copies of the LP will come on transparent, red-and-white splattered vinyl.

Maserati race out on a U.S. tour in support of the album tonight (May 25) in Louisville. Their first handful of shows is in support of !!!, which means Fuchs will be on double drum duty.

Finally, Maserati are already planning an Australian tour for November. [MORE...]

Hallelujah the Hills Sign to Misra, Prep Debut, Tour

Assembled from the splinters of little-heard, much-beloved Bostonites the Stairs, recent Misra signees Hallelujah the Hills will issue their full-length debut, Collective Psychosis Begone, on June 5.

Matching the Thermals' Big Gulp pop ebullience with Bob Pollard's gift for claustrophobic harmonies and the Wrens' beauteous brood, the stalwart six-piece will hit the road for a few weeks spinning around the right side of the U.S. this summer. Those who miss the band on this tour are in luck; Hallelujah the Hills have (either ambitiously or facetiously, we're not sure) promised their new label 32 more albums before splitting, which should result in at least another tour or two. [MORE...]

The Broken West Tour the North, South, East, and West

They claim they can't go on, but they did go on... go on tour, that is! (Ouch.)

The Broken West, City of Angels born and power-pop bred, have seedy motels to crash in, the strange scents of long-forgotten cheeseburgers to rediscover in their van, and copies of their Merge-issued debut LP I Can't Go On, I'll Go On to hock. Their tour of North America is in progress now, and along the way, the zippy guitar-rockers will stand upon some of the very stages acts like the National, the Comas, and Fountains of Wayne will take mere minutes later. [MORE...]

Thunderbirds Are Now! Tour
Thunderbirds Are Yesterday! Plot Comeback Tour With Several Original Members

Detroit's own speakers of declarative rock statements, Thunderbirds Are Now!, are gearing up to launch a tour of both the middle and actual West.

Still recontextualizing the zeitgeist behind last fall's Make History record, the Frenchkiss band's heading out with the Junior Varsity and Street to Nowhere. The 'birds will cap off this jaunt with a homecoming set at the Detroit Comerica CityFest July 5; they'll also get crackin' on their post-History LP. [MORE...]

Blitzen Trapper Tour With Hold Steady, Self-Release LP

Portland, Oregon continues to hemorrhage great bands, and shows no signs of bleeding itself dry just yet; think of a record from the past six months you've been digging (sans any Swedish vocal twinge), and the joint probably stinks of fir trees and Clyde "The Glide" Drexler.

Blitzen Trapper are presently clawing their way to the top of the Portland pile, and the buzz around their Wild Mountain Nation is as deafening as it is deserving. Finding the unlikely ground between spazz-rock and chicken-fried stomp, Wild Mountain Nation's so fine, Blitzen Trapper don't even need a label to move the sucker. The band'll peddle the self-issued album themselves starting June 12.

The reindeer-grabbers will soon step out on a bunch of dates with noted soft-rocking teetotalers the Hold Steady and Bucks County, PA's banjo-and-beats blenders Illinois. [MORE...]

Photos: The Clientele / Beach House [Hollywood, CA; 05/24/07]

Photos by Akmal Naim

Supporting this month's Best New Music-garnering LP, London's Clientele played a packed show at Hollywood's Knitting Factory last night. Alasdair MacLean and company-- including the band's newest permanent member, multi-instrumentalist Mel Draisey-- gracefully rocked a set half-comprised of songs from their excellent third full-length, God Save the Clientele.

Warming up the stage was another Pitchfork-approved act, the down-to-earth duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, together known as Beach House. They droned and intoned most of last year's self-titled debut, but also offered a couple of new songs, including "Wedding Bell" and one apparently involving a monster.

THE CLIENTELE




BEACH HOUSE



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