Stereolab's Tim Gane Talks Chemical Chords
"My idea was to make pop tracks in a dense style, perhaps something like Motown or the girl group sound. But have ideas coming at random."

Part of the joy at the heart of any new Stereolab album is unraveling the many vagaries contained within the music. Their records are pleasant at first, but labyrinthine upon inspection. Still, if you ever have the opportunity to have Stereolab co-founder Tim Gane personally explain just what went into the making of one of these things, I'd advise it.

Chemical Chords-- the band's first proper LP since 2004's Margerine Eclipse-- strikes one as rather straightahead (if unusually poppy) if you've heard any Stereolab in this millennium. But after Gane illuminates the lightning-round writing sessions and truly unorthodox recording methods that built the disc, it's impossible to hear it the same way. Indeed, Tim Gane is a craftsman, and, yes, occasionally rather technical in his descriptions of his artistic process. But would you expect anything less from the guy from Stereolab?

Chemical Chords isn't out until August 19 in the U.S. and August 18 worldwide (via Duophonic UHF Disks/4AD), but consider Gane's words crib notes to study in the meantime.

Pitchfork: How did you decide it was time for another album? It's been four years since the last full length, and two since the EP collection Fab Four Suture.

Tim Gane: The last bunch of records were just singles that became an album because the label wanted us to tour, and we thought we could compile those into an album. I was kind of bored of albums. But I did the singles anyway, just to mess about with things. Then I jumped into doing a soundtrack for a film [Marc Fittousi's La Vie d'Artiste]. I wrote quite a lot.

Straight after that, I began to work on the album. I was fresh to do an album, and I felt like I had lots of ideas. I felt it in my throat. I had ideas to just do lots of tracks, put them together, hopefully get the whole thing all together. In fact, it was quite weird. The soundtrack overhung by a long time. I thought that I would have six weeks to two months to prepare stuff for the album, and in fact, I had one week. In the end, it turned out quite well.

Pitchfork: That's quite a constraint. How did it come together?

Gane: The album that's closest to this in the way that I wrote it was [1996's] Emperor Tomato Ketchup. I had changed an idea into something else. Everything came very quick, and a lot of music came together very, very fast. This one was identical, it was even faster, because of what happened with it. I didn't have time to write songs. All I had time to do was prepare some little drum loops, little things like this to enter the studio with.

Myself and the engineer, Joe [Watson], we started with only drums without the drummer, because Andy [Ramsay] couldn't do it. So it's kind of weird. We built all these little drum tracks up and I took them back home-- I'm living in Berlin at the moment. I spent two weeks just writing chords neutrally on the guitar, on the keyboard without any kind of particular rhythm or anything, and then we came back to the studio here and just applied the chords onto all the different rhythms that we built up. I was interested to see how the rhythms changed the chords or what, sometimes speeded them up, doubled them up, cut them by half. I found it was a cross between making your own music and listening to someone else's music.

So we built up about 50 songs of just chords with rhythms, and we then recorded them only on piano and vibes, which are two instruments we haven't really used very much. At that point, we had fifty songs that were just piano and vibes and these kind of crappy drums that me and Joe did. I liked it because it was different. I like to think we're writing something different. Then all the songs became fleshed out. [MORE...]

Video: Stereolab: Jenny Ondioline [from the Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements LP]

Steve Albini Recording New Scott Weiland Album
No, really

Few names in music are linked with artistic integrity as often as Steve Albini's. And few folks wouldn't know artistic integrity if it started eating their eyeballs quite like Scott Weiland. Yet ying and yang have come together to birth, yes, the next Scott Weiland solo album.

As Weiland noted in a recent interview with kindred spirit Howard Stern, he's currently recording the follow-up to 1998's 12 Bar Blues with Mr. Albini and No Doubt drummer Adrian Young [via Idolator].

And yes, Weiland's publicist has confirmed that everything in the previous sentence is indeed true. (Remember, Steve Albini produced a Bush album back in the day.)

The Weiland opus is tentatively due for November release. Don't know about you, but I sure hope he sings about masturbation on this one too.

Ask Albini what the hell he was thinking when Shellac turn up at a European venue near you. Their recently expanded touring itinerary lies just after the jump.

And OMG, and did you hear? Stone Temple Pilots have reunited and they are touring all over this spring and summer like it's their job. Which, um, it is. Pardon me while I ceremonially crank that "Vasoline" MP3 I got off Napster when I was 16. [MORE...]

Video: Scott Weiland: Barbarella [from the 12 Bar Blues LP]
Video: Shellac: Live at the Touch and Go 25 Festival
Other: Steve Albini: The Problem With Music [essay]

Liars Spice up Radiohead Tour With Headlining Shows

Video: Liars: Juan's Basement

Awesome Color Serve Up Second LP for Ecstatic Peace

MP3: Awesome Color: Eyes of Light [from the forthcoming Electric Aborigines LP]

French Kicks Go Swimming on New Album, Tour

MP3: French Kicks: Abandon [from the Swimming LP]

Nomo Prepare New LP, Contribute to Art Installation

Video: Nomo: Nu Tones (live at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival)

Beck Announces Summer Tour
Playing Hollywood Bowl with Spoon and MGMT way off in September

2007 was a bit of a slow year for Beck. Though he dropped a "Timebomb" on us all unexpected-like and made nice with Jack and Meg for that "Conquest" single, the prolific funkateer mostly kept to himself and kept the rest of us guessing.

But it's 2008 now, and the information keeps pouring in. First there was the reissue of his finest hour to date, 1996's Odelay. Then there's the follow-up to The Information, which Beck is working on with Danger Mouse. And, now, Beck's lined up a nice little tour for himself, with a mess of European festival dates in June and July followed by a run through the States in August and September.

Apart from hitting Outside Lands, Bumbershoot, and Austin City Limits, he'll headline a gig at the Hollywood Bowl in September at which Spoon and MGMT will also appear. And find some time to tell us what the hell this was, right? 'Cause we are dying over here. [MORE...]

Video: Beck: Timebomb [single]

Dresden Dolls Compile Odds and Ends on Comp, Tour
Amanda plays with Boston Pops, Brian plays with Franz Nicolay

Video: The Dresden Dolls: Coin-Operated Boy [from the Dresden Dolls LP]

Bonnie "Prince" Billy Sheds Light on New Album, Tour
The Guatemalan Handshake, starring Will Oldham, due on DVD

Photo by Matt Jordan

Surprise! Bonnie "Prince" Billy will release a brand new album next month on Drag City. Okay, so it's not quite a zero-lead-time shocker on the order of Radiohead/Nine Inch Nails/The Raconteurs, but this being April 24, May is lurking just around the corner.

We don't have a set release date yet, however, or a tracklist. But we do know that the album is called Lie Down in the Light and it features a song called "So Everyone", a demo version of which can be heard below.

Light is technically the proper follow-up to 2006's The Letting Go, though bountiful Billy has snuck out a few discs since then, including live album Wilding in the West, demos collection Wai Notes, and covers extravaganza Ask Forgiveness.

And April may be nearly out the door, but before it goes, we'll get a DVD release of The Guatemalan Handshake. The Todd Rohal-directed 2007 feature-length film stars Will Oldham as a "human doormat" gone missing, with all sorts of hilarity ensuing. The DVD descends April 29 via Benten Films, and Will even pops up in some of the bonus behind-the-scenes footage.

Finally, Bonnie "Prince" and his retinue will make diplomatic visits to Scandinavia, Germany, and Eastern Europe this summer. [MORE...]

MP3: Bonnie Prince Billy: So Everyone (demo) [from the forthcoming Lie Down in the Light LP]

Patti Smith and Kevin Shields' Coral Sea Coming to CD

On two magical nights-- June 22, 2005 and September 12, 2006-- punk godmother Patti Smith and My Bloody Valentine genius Kevin Shields took the stage together at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Their collaboration was called the Coral Sea, and took both its name and inspiration from Smith's 1996 book The Coral Sea. The book and the performance served as tributes to the legendary late artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who was Smith's close friend. (He took the iconic photograph that appears on the cover of Smith's 1975 debut album Horses.)

Fortunately for those of us who couldn't make those shows, Smith and Shields have put together a double-disc set chronicling the two performances. The Coral Sea will be released on July 11 on PASK, a new imprint run by Smith and Shields.

The live album has no tracklist; it consists of Smith’s spoken word performance accompanied by Shields on "guitars and effects," according to a press release. Although Cat Power appeared at the 2005 performance, she is not featured on the album.

The stage at one of the Coral Sea performances, featuring an image of Mapplethorpe

No word on whether or not the duo will take the stage together ever again, but both of them have plenty going on in their own rights. Shields has that whole reunion thing and that ATP thing to attend to. Smith is the subject of the new documentary Dream of Life, has an art exhibition on view at Fondation Cartier in Paris, collaborated with Patrick Wolf, and wrote a song for the new Augusten Burroughs book. [MORE...]

Video: My Bloody Valentine: Only Shallow [from the Loveless LP
MP3: Patti Smith: Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones cover) [from the Twelve LP]

Atlas Sound, Hot Chip's Taylor Remix Sian Alice Group
Band preps two EPs, hits the road

MP3: Sian Alice Group: The Dusk Line [from the forthcoming The Dusk Line EP]

CSS New Album Title: Donkey

Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Wow, that CSS album we mentioned when we ran down their tour dates a week ago was even more imminent than we realized.

Donkey, the sophomore platter from the Brazilian quintet, is due in stores in July, and in the Great Album Title Hall of Fame right about now. The disc was recorded in the band's native São Paolo during a four-month respite from their ever-exhaustive touring plans.

UPDATE: WE'VE GOT A RELEASE DATE! JULY 22 ON SUB POP!

Those looking to hop on this Donkey a little early have but a few days to wait. On April 28, the song "Rat Is Dead (Rage)" will be available on their website for download free of charge, and it will also hit the radio.

The band kick off that sizeable tour of theirs May 5 in Cardiff, Wales. [MORE...]

Video: CSS: Music is My Hot Hot Sex (iPod ad) [from the Cansei De Ser Sexy LP]

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.)