K Recs just added The Soft and the Hardcore, by Tender Forever, to their online store. TF equals Melanie Valera. She’s from France.

::: Tender Forever – Then If I’m Weird I Want To Share :::

Br. Danielson and the Famile are gonna be all over the place next year. Secretly Canadian will be releasing their new record, Ships, in May, while March will see three different 7-inches released simulataneously (one on Anticon, one on KRS, and one on Sounds Familyre (natch)). The Famile is 34-strong for this new album; the complete list of members is here.

SC also notes a Danielson Famile documentary(!) coming out next year, and plus also, I recommend going here to check out “The Memory Blocks” dot com, a really great project put together by Famile member Christiaan Palladino.

Yes, I noticed. There are ads over there on the right side of the page now. Listen, don’t even make a big deal about it. Pretty much *everyone* has ads. And if bothers you that much, just close your right eye or something. And keep in mind, any sort of monies that come thru via those ads will go directly into some of the great CBR projects I’m getting lined up for the next year.

Speaking of which, I guess I should probably go ahead and “officially” announce CBR 002.

CBR 002
(Nov/Dec 2005)
Pet Politics – In My Head EP

Pet Politics, aka Magnus Larsson, is a Gothenburg, Sweden-based musician that I learned about from my friends over at Popsheep (and thus, Note To Jay Popsheep: there’s a free copy of this disc with your name on it). Unless things go horribly awry, this will be 4-songs, in a hand-numbered edition of 200, in a hand-screened Arigato sleeve.

And it will be dirt-cheap.

::: Pet Politics – The Ghost Mary & Her Friends :::

(*And as far as CBR 001 goes, The Cheese Stands Alone. they’re all gone.)

There’s only a very small number of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin/Michael Holt splits left, so to anyone still planning to pick one up: feel free to choose which cover you’d like. Just include your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice when you place your order.

Ben sent me over this link for Jeremy Warmsley‘s “5 Verses” video. You know, I really like JW’s music, but I’ve really only heard the 2 songs yet. Jeremy, you’re going to send me a disc, right?

Anyway, Jeremy will be appearing on XFM tomorrow at 11pm London-time, and also, if you’re quick, you can probably head over to the Transgressive Records site and get a copy of his new debut EP, 5 Interesting Lies, on limited-edition (500) 10-inch vinyl.

You know what? I think that Jarvis Cocker & the Radiohead guys’ song from that new Harry Potter movie almost totally sounds like it could be a Franz Ferdinand track, if the instrumentation was changed just slightly:

::: This Is The Night :::

Hey, remember when Jarvis Cocker changed his name to ‘Darren Spooner’?

For those who absolutely love Destroyer (you know who you are), seeing the
tracklist for Februrary’s Destroyer’s Rubies is actually an exciting thing. So:

1. Rubies

2. Your Blood

3. European Oils

4. Painter In Your Pocket

5. Looters’ Follies

6. 3000 Flowers
7. A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point

8. Priest’s Knees

9. Water Colours Into the Ocean
10. Sick Priest

The press materials for XTC‘s new Apple Box collection talk about how 1999′s Apple Venus and 2000′s Wasp Star were originally intended to be released a double album, but commercial pressures forced them to release them successively as separate albums. But see, now with this new boxset, you no longer have to go out and buy Apple Venus and Wasp Star as two separate discs, because now you can just buy the boxset and get them on…uh…well…two separate discs. Hmm. Am I missing something here? Anyway, Apple Box also contains 2 other discs, containing demos for the albums, plus all new artwork, 64 page booklet, etc. Plus also, you get links for two all-new XTC songs, including this one:

::: Spiral :::

You can order the box from XTC’s Idea Records website.

Secretly Canadian is releasing the next disc by Chicago’s Catfish Haven. Here’s the title track from the EP, which will precede the LP by several months:

::: Please Come Back :::

(And, if you missed it the first time, you can also grab “Paper Thin“, my favorite track from their ’04 disc, Good Friends.)

Stereogum has posted another track from Cat Power’s upcoming disc, The Greatest. Has the Starbucks-sipping set already discovered “CHAN”, or are we only now just on the threshold? Surely they’re getting tired of their Sufjan/Iron and Wine/Garden State soundtrack by now.

And speaking of Iron and Wine, Mr. Beam appears, with a host of others (including Calexico, Unbunny, the Impossible Shapes, and more), on Tract Records’ new Will Oldham tribute, I Am A Cold Rock. I Am Dull Grass, which will be out in December.

You can now order Kickball‘s new disc, ABCDEFGHIJKickball, from their website. 2002′s s/t disc and 2003′s super-excellent Huckleberry Eater are also available. They’ve also got a MySpace page now that includes a few old tracks and a few from the new one.

This is probably only of interest if you live in Toronto, but The Hidden Cameras have teamed up with Toronto Dance Theatre for a music/dance piece called In The Boneyard. It runs Nov. 22nd – 26th at the Harbourfront Centre.

Vinyl releases to keep an eye out for in the next few months:

Nov:
Jens Lekman – Oh, You’re So Silent, Jens (Secretly Canadian)
Sufjan Stevens – Illinois (Ashtmatic Kitty)
Pinback – s/t ltd-ed. double-vinyl (Ace Fu) Sigh.

Dec:
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – s/t (CYHSY)
Saturday Looks Good To Me – All Your Summer Songs re-issue (Polyvinyl)

Dig it, the new mix is up. This month’s banner comes from Mr. Ryan Hale. Ryan’s on holiday right now in Thailand, drinking cobra blood & etc, but you can still go check out his work over at thisimageofman.com.

Kaleb pointed me to a few tracks from the new CD by The Deathray Davies‘ singer/songwriter John Dufilho. Good, poppy stuff.

::: What Are You Waiting For? :::

Kaleb’s got another track posted here, and if you want to pick up the disc, it’s $10.50 ppd from the Glurp Store.

And Solomon sent over this link, ostensibly for a band called Blue Green Whale, who do that sorta atmospheric instrumental stuff. I really like this track.

This is really great: Merge has announced that people who buy the vinyl of that new Clientele album, Strange Geometry, will find a coupon inside allowing them a full mp3 download of the album.

Brilliant.

Merge, you rule. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Anyway, also, Merge, since you seem open to these new ways of thinking w/r/t this digital music stuff, here’s another idea: You know how labels send out promo copies of an album months before the official release? And then those copies inevitably end up getting ripped and shared digitally (months before the official release)? How about this: At the same time promo copies go out in the mail, you immediately also make the album available for purchase from iTunes. You don’t need to stop any of that other normal prep work that may be going on, like finalizing artwork, putting together PR stuff, etc. — just make the album available on iTunes *in addition* to all that.

My theory here is that people aren’t necessarily trading these pre-release discs because they’re just trying to get stuff for free, or want to rip off Merge et al., it’s because they want to hear the music, and, like, NOW. So take advantage of that fact!

Just an idea.

I just saw over at Songs:IL that a new Charlemagne record came out last week. I had no idea. Looks like Carl lost the ‘stache, but the music seems to still sound good regardless. Go figure. Anyway, Detour Allure is out on Sidecho Records, and they’ve got 4 mp3s (!) for download. If you’re only gonna check out one, I recommend this one:

::: Your Scars :::

Remember back in the September mix, track 9? It was “Zodiac Song” by Diamond Caverns w/ Red Hunter. Well, Red is the man behind the Whiskey & Apples label, and I recently got a copy of the new disc from his Peter & The Wolf project, and man, it’s a great, great disc, in that soft and folky vein. Highly recommended.

:::Couches By The Sea :::
:::Silent Movies :::

Pitchfork gives Rehearsing My Choir a 4.0. I’ll be interested to compare all the ratings of this on Metacritic. Should be interesting.

I want to point out that that Spoon “Monsieur Valentine” video from the other day was not an “official” video, btw. If I didn’t exactly make it totally clear at the time, it’s because I wasn’t exactly totally clear at the time.