Excellent Online

'Since I Left You' was released on November 27th, 2000.  We're just a few months shy of a full TEN years between releases and there are reports from the band's webmaster that they might have an album done "soon".  The only thing that remains are some guest vocals by Areil Pink.  Plus they will probably have a very tough time getting the sample clearance, their debut (and only) album had over 3,500 samples!!  So this year might finally see the Avalanches return, but as a friend said to me, "that's really cool news, but for all I know it could be 10 more years for Ariel Pink to do the vocals."  *sigh*

Me neither!  Apparently he formed a new group called, "The United Nations of Sound" which is a great name.  And he has an album coming out on July 19th.  On NME's site you can also view a video with some studio footage and a sample of some of the tracks.  Finally, you can check out the lead off track of the album, "Are You Ready?" over at youtube which I dub the britpop version of "Mamma Said Knock You Out" by LL Cool J.

Remember back in the 90's when the term "techno" didn't describe all the new "electronic dance music" bands?  So someone (probably MTV) came up with the new sexy name, "Electronica", to describe The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Orbital, and Underworld?  Yeah, awesome music, crappy genre name though.

The Chemical Brothers have an album review up on BBC Music:  "Horse Power is mental in a superb off-your-box polyphonic rave assault style, giving way to the My Bloody Valentine-inspired Swoon with shards of weaving noise fizzing across grin-inducing acidic bliss-pop"  Yeah, I'm really excited for this album.

Also, Underworld has announced the details of their new album, "Barking".  It's their first album in 3 years and they received some help from Paul van Dyk and Dubfire (who's known for being 1/2 of Deep Dish).  The album is expected to be released on September 13th and I'm hoping a tour will follow.

The Chemical Brothers have been around for a while.  Their first record, "Exit Planet Dust" came out 15 years ago and they have a new record, "Further" coming out on June 8th.  They've been known to have great collaborators on their records like Noel from Oasis, Richard Ashcroft, Beth Orton, and Tim Burgess.  For their seventh album they're cutting the collaborations and this will be the first album with no outside vocals.

The first single is called Swoon, and the video is pretty fantastic as usual.  I heard this track and bought tickets to see them at the Hollywood Bowl later this year.

Well, we jumped the gun a few weeks back and told you that the beloved Trashcan Sinatras had a session coming on the equally beloved Daytrotter website... and then it never showed up.  Today that session - including an UNRELEASED TRACK - went live.  Go adore it!

So after Blur pretty much definitively said that they were done following last year's heralded reunion shows, we were left again mourning the loss of our Britpop heroes once more to a sea of less-than-great solo projects, failed bids at Parliament, and worse-every-time Gorillaz records. That's why we were all in shock to see Blur release a quick limited edition 7" last month as part of the global hoo-ha to celebrate International Record Store Day. While the 7" was only available in the UK (boo! hiss!), we were stunned at how good the track "Fool's Day" was, which made their decision to again split all the more painful. BUT WAIT... because Blur/Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn is in NME today waxing poetic about the prospect of MORE new Blur releases... but only in the form of the occasional 7", as the members claim they're waaay too busy to bust out with a whole new album. We'll take what we can get.

It's rare to see an "opening band" worth talking about.  In my life of concerts, the only other time when an opening band has blown me away was Yo La Tengo when they opened up for Teenage Fanclub back in 1993.  Film School opened up for Swervedriver on their reunion tour back in 2008 and were absolutely brilliant, they had that perfect mixture of shoegaze/pop and it wasn't a refreshing new sound by any means, but it was so much fun to listen to.

At the time they were on tour supporting their 3rd album, "Hideout".  Since then they've been in the studio working on their follow up, "Fission".  It's set for a July 20th release date and I expect tour dates to follow.

Go give them a listen over at Amazon, you won't be disappointed.

Absolutely one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs is "Shake The Disease" and the Rogue Wave cover on KCRW was nothing short of stellar.  Watch it below.

We previously talked about Autolux's new label, TBD Records, and they have finally announced an August 3rd, 2010 release date for their followup to "Future Perfect".  This has to be one of the longest waits between albums.  "Future Perfect" was released on September 21st, 2004 which makes it just short of six years between full-length albums.  In an interview with Alarm magazine, lead guitarst Greg Edwards has this to say about recording:  "The traditional instrumentation of music is never interesting to me, I don’t respond to it. We try and use bass and guitar to create sounds that don’t necessarily sound like those instruments, to have a chaotic element but also have a strong melody and something that we can actually play again and again."

Interpol are making some announcements over the coming weeks.  But the important one is that you can click "read more" and download their new track, "Lights", below.  You have to put in your birthdate and email address and then they'll send you a link via email.  I've downloaded the track and it's not bad.  I'm looking forward to new Interpol music.