Kelley Polar Claims Sky Is Falling on New Album

It's been just over a year since our initial mention of I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling, ethereal disco artist Kelley Polar's follow-up to 2005's Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens. Way back when, the disc had no name, no release date, hardly anything but the ability to cause strong pangs of anticipation in its potential listeners. It still has that, of course, but now it has all those fun details too.

Polar's I Need You to Hold On is due March 4 on Environ, the label owned by frequent Polar collaborator and Falling mixer Morgan Geist. Rhapsody and iTunes users can scoop it up right now, though.

Meanwhile, a tour featuring Polar's new live band is expected to follow sometime this year, and Polar himself will be at Brooklyn's Studio B tomorrow night (March 1) for an Environ label "Bar Mitzvah", along with DJ sets from Metro Area, Dan Selzer, and Junior Boy Jeremy Greenspan.

In other Kelley Polar news, he got his hands on Caribou's "She's the One", remixing the track for a recent single. [MORE...]

Ellen Allien Preps Boogy Bytes Mix, New Album

Bpitch Control label head Ellen Allien will add herself to the company of Sascha Funke, Modeselektor, and Kiki as the curator of the newest volume of her label's Boogy Bytes mix series. Boogy Bytes Vol.04 will feature tracks from Funke, Ricardo Villalobos & Patrick Ense, and German sound-manipulator AGF, among others.

Bpitch will release the mix in Europe on March 31 and in the U.S. on April 15 March 31. The U.S. release will feature the Martin Buttrich remix of Friendly People's "Music Is Improper", as opposed to the Damien Schwartz remix on the European version.

UPDATE: The Damien Schwartz remix is on the U.S. version as well.

Ellen Allien also teamed up with AGF to produce SOOL, Allien's new album, which comes out via Bpitch at the end of May. She has a ton of tour dates around the world to keep her busy until then. [MORE...]

Photos: Wilco [Washington, DC; 02/27/08]

Photos by Will Marsh

En route to tickling our funny bones tomorrow night on "Saturday Night Live", perennial favorites Wilco rolled through Washington, DC's 9:30 Club for the second consecutive night on Wednesday.

Jeff Tweedy and his merry band of music-makers will continue making said music in a merry fashion following Saturday's "SNL" performance. The Sky Blue Sky-gazers resume in Nashville on March 2, and keep pushing along on a steady clip through the end of the month. An August 8 make-up date in Charleston awaits as well, and a new tune from the crew will turn up on that there "Heroes" thinger.

WILCO







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Black Dice Line Up European Tour

Photo by Akmal Naim

Clickety clack, Europe! Clear a little corner, warm up your tossin' arm and get ready for a rousing round of Black Dice. The New York noisemakers have big plans to bring a Load of their electroid madness over much of the continent, as the band embark on a tour sure to beguile and bewilder in equal measure. It kicks off tomorrow night in Düsseldorf, Germany.

In other Black Dice news, they've got a track on the Living Bridge compilation, and No Age singer/drummer Dean Spunt's PPM label recently issued Eric Copeland's 2007 solo joint Hermaphrodite on vinyl. [MORE...]

Original Killing Joke Lineup Reunites for Album, Tour

30 years after forming and 26 since they last played live together, the original lineup of influential post-punk band Killing Joke has reformed for a new album and a tour. (Via Paper Thin Walls.)

The album will come out this summer, but details remain scarce. The tour, however, is a carefully planned affair. It currently consists of a month of dates across the world this fall, with a fair number of two-night residencies. On the first night of each residency, vocalist/keyboardist Jaz Coleman, guitarist Geordie Walker, drummer Paul Ferguson, and bassist Martin "Youth" Glover (who you might know from his production work for the Verge and the Orb) will tear through their first two albums-- 1980's Killing Joke and 1981's What's This For?-- in their entirety. The second night will feature the foursome doing the same for 1994's Pandemonium and their singles released on Island Records in 1979 and 1980.

Finally, Let Them Eat Vinyl is in the midst of reissuing Killing Joke's catalog on LP. The campaign continues over the next few months with reissues of Revelations, Fire Dances, Night Time, Outside the Gate, and Brighter Than a Thousand Suns. [MORE...]

Annuals Release Split EP With Themselves

Photo by Autumn de Wilde

On Wet Zoo, the first release we've heard from this North Carolinian lot for quite some time, Annuals will be splitting the EP with... Annuals?! How in the heck does that work?

Easier than you'd think. The Wet Zoo EP features a trio of all-new contributions from Annuals and a pair from a band called Sunfold. Thing is, Sunfold is Annuals, with one fairly major difference: instead of Annuals main man Adam Baker taking the reigns, the Sunfold recordings are spearheaded by Annuals lead guitarist Kenny Florence. Apart from that distinction, it's the very same band, with a very different name, with what we're told is a "very different, more guitar-heavy" sound, on the very same split EP.

Got that? It took three of us all afternoon to write that paragraph.

Wet Zoo, with its five frolicsome tunes of frontman-switcheroo, is due April 1 on Ace Fu and Sony imprint Canvasback Music. The band, meanwhile, are due in Raleigh tonight for a gig, to be followed a month later by another North Carolina gig, and followed a month after that by Coachella. An Annuals full-length is in the works for 2008, and more dates are on the way from both bands. Though, for their sake, hopefully not at the same time. [MORE...]

Jose Gonzalez Launches Tour, Issues New Single

Photo by Akmal Naim

I'm told that neon is one of the most environmentally sound ways to advertise intoxicating agents and places that sell them. Perhaps this is something noted environmentalist José Gonzaléz knows well? Set to kick off his Reverb-assisted "Green Tour" of North America, José just affixed exclusive B-side "Neon Lights" to a new digital single for "Killing for Love" from last year's In Our Nature LP. If it was called, I dunno, "There Is an Iridescent Light That I Never Turn Out", we might have cried foul, but you can't argue with science. (Unless, of course, you're employed by our current Presidential administration.)

But I digress. Tonight in Miami, José will bring those fiery lyrics and a passion for conservation to the first of many stages he'll take as part of this "Green Tour". Once that wraps at the end of March, he'll head to the UK for a smattering of shows before heading into festival season.

And, in a nice little tidbit that wraps up all the strands of this story, José's set at London's recent iTunes Live semi-festival-- sans environmentally-compromising packaging-- oughta be available for download via you-know-where fairly soon (in the UK only, mind). [MORE...]

Hallelujah the Hills Return to the Road

The time is nigh to give it up for the praiseworthy idol of your choosing: Hallelujah the Hills are returning to the road.

The boys of Boston, whose Collective Psychosis Begone helped make 2007 just a little less nutty, are fresh off a stint in a real live studio and ready to inspire reverence anew. They'll kick things off tonight (February 29) in Brooklyn alongside fellow extollers of virtue Evangelicals and Headlights. Praise is due! Earplugs optional.

Curious about all the clamor? Click here and nab some MP3s of the band performing the entirety of Collective Psychosis Begone at Cambridge, Massachusetts' Middle East Upstairs back in January. [MORE...]

Bonde do Role Recruit MCs on Reality TV, Plan Tour

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come to meet the new Bonde do Rolê. Following the departure of MC Marina Vello back in December, remaining Rolêrs Pedro D'eyrot and DJ Gorky have gone and found themselves not one but two new permanent bandmates.

Please extend a warm welcome to Laura Taylor and Ana Bernardino, who will share vocal duties in Bonde do Rolê 2.0. If Taylor and Bernardino seem especially tenacious on the mic, know that they had to earn their place in Bonde do Rolê the hard way: on reality television.

Working with MTV Brasil, D'eyrot and Gorky conducted a televised search for their new MCs, eventually choosing Laura and Ana from some 100 initial applicants. In addition to actually performing, contestants had to live with the Bonde boys in Gorky's garage for one whole week, compete at karaoke, and yes, engage in a pretty unique twist on mud wrestling. "Me and Pedro were dressed as pigs and the girls had to catch us," recounts Gorky. "In the end we were all super dirty, but it was a lot of fun!" Check out performances from the victors here.

The newly reconfigured Bonde will waste no time attending to their public, as they have a fairly extensive North American tour kicking off April 24 in Miami and running well into May.

Marina, meanwhile, has kept on truckin' too. She's featured on a forthcoming single from Brazil's Edu K called "Me Bota Pra Dançar". Look for it on record racks March 28 via Man Recordings. [MORE...]

Lupe, Lil Wayne, Pimp C on New Bun B Album

For his solo follow-up to 2005's Trill, and his first release since both Underground Kingz and his partner Pimp C's passing, UGK's Bun B will get by with a lot of help from his friends.

According to a Billboard.com story and verified by a press release and Bun B's MySpace, Bun has enlisted a veritable army of guests for the record, including Lupe Fiasco, Lil Wayne, Slim Thug, David Banner, 8Ball and MJG, Mya, Chamillionaire, Sean Kingston, Rick Ross, Webbie, Mike Jones, Z-Ro, and Junior Reid. There is also an appearance from Pimp C.

The album, titled II Trill, features production contributions from Clinton Sparks, JR Rotem, Scott Storch, Jazze Pha, Mr. Lee, Bigg Tyme, Black Out Movement, Enigma, and Chops.

Rap-A-Lot/Asylum will release II Trill on April 29, and Bun B will spend the time until then on a U.S. tour. His next show is tonight, February 29, in Fayetteville, NC. [MORE...]

Los Campesinos! Announce North American Tour
Add UK and European dates aplenty

There's you. There's me. And then there's Los Campesinos!, those Welsh wonders with their Pitchfork Recommended debut LP Hold on Now, Youngster... And of course, there's dancing. Not to mention singing, shouting, and perhaps even a little drinking.

Los Campesinos! have offered up a real glut of new opportunities to get you, them, and dancing in the very same spot, as they've bolstered their itinerary with a spring North American tour and more gigs in the UK and Europe.

Currently in Germany, laying copies of their star-studded "Los Campe-'zine'os" on anyone willing to keep 'em away from the lager, the Campesinos! will make their way to South by Southwest, spend a couple days in Sweden to close out March, head back to the UK in April, and hit France with the Go! Team as they slide into May. They'll be knee deep at ATP vs. Pitchfork May 9-11, then head off to Jersey in mid-May to kick off those North American touring plans.

With all that set, now all they've gotta do is get Hold on Now, Youngster... into stores in North America. (It's currently available as a digital release here, and is on shelves in Europe courtesy of Wichita.) With a little help from Arts & Crafts, they'll knock that one off the list April 1. [MORE...]

Dave Clark Five Singer Mike Smith, R.I.P.

Mike Smith, lead vocalist, keyboardist, and sometime songwriter for British Invasion act the Dave Clark Five, passed away outside London yesterday (February 28) at the age of 64, according to reports in The New York Times and elsewhere.

Smith died of pneumonia, stemming from a spiral cord injury he suffered a few years ago that left his lower body paralyzed. The Dave Clark Five were among the selections for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, and Smith was planning to attend the induction ceremony in New York City on March 10.

Though their notoriety was relatively short-lived, the Five produced quite a few instantly-recognizable hits in their day, including "Because" and "Catch Us If You Can". For a time in 1964 the quintet-- named after drummer, manager, and founder Dave Clark-- was considered a viable threat to the Beatles' reign over the pop charts, and they had played "The Ed Sullivan Show" a dozen times by 1966.

Following the Dave Clark Five's breakup in 1970, Smith continued working in music, and had been performing with Mike Smith's Rock Engine in recent years.

Born Michael George Smith in 1943 in Edmonton, England, the beloved musician is survived by his wife.

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