Emerald City, the new album from John Vanderslice, is out on July 24. His previous album, Pixel Revolt is an incredibly rich and evocative work, and I’m very much looking forward to hearing the new one beyond these two samples.

Here’s a song off the new album for starters:

And here’s a video for the first single off the album, “Time to Go”:

And finally, it’s been ten years since Radiohead wowed a global audience of geeks in their dorm rooms with OK Computer, and to celebrate the music blog Stereogum commissioned covers of all the tracks from a bunch of indie artists. Mister Vanderslice drew “Karma Police”:

Why not preorder a copy of Emerald City today?

Holy cow, the new music parade just keeps marching along! Here are two more upcoming albums from bands I like!

When the Jesus and Mary Chain followed up their debut album Psychocandy with Darklands an interviewer asked them why all the feedback and noise and fuzz of the former was absent on the latter. The response: “We already made Psychocandy.”

The previous Liars album, Drum’s Not Dead, was a primal, percussion-heavy symphony of reverbed drums and shouts. The new self-titled album goes somewhere else totally and, to provide bonus points for the anecdote above, spends a lot of time in JAMC territory, strangely enough. However, they evoke that sound more than the casual aping of The Raveonettes and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The album is a lot more like regular old RAWK, including one track that could easily be a Zeppelin cover.

You can get Liars on August 28th, and in the meantime you can hear this track now:

Further away, nothing will be the same after September 11, because that’s when Proof of Youth, the new album by The Go! Team drops.

I’ve described their sound before as “A kung-fu movie soundtrack performed by the pep squad” and the track I’ve heard off the new album adds perhaps a bit of blaxploitation in there. I’ve no doubt it’s more of the same as what we got before, but I really liked what we got before. Here’s the video:

Sometimes it’s okay to make Psychocandy again.

While doing a Google Image Search yesterday for the Shriekback symbol, I came across this interesting bit of information:

They have a new album out! I had no idea! I need to put some money into my PayPal account before I can get a for-real, keeping-Barry-Andrews-fed-and-sheltered copy, but in the meantime I have procured it from dubious sources because hey, Shriekback!

It’s…uh…it’s…

Well, unfortunately it’s not very good. There’s a heavy dose of their 1987 album Go Bang here, and little of the remnants of Big Night Music that salvaged that one. Maybe I just need some more listens. I liked their previous recent efforts, Cormorant, and Having a Moment, so I’m not too concerned, though.

Anyway, here’s a sample track that’s not too bad. You can order the whole deal here which, despite my stated feelings, I plan to do.

We all know Whitney Houston’s hit song, “The Greatest Love of All”. (And for bonus fun, listen closely to it. She literally cannot wait to get to the yelly parts and barrels through the last notes before them.)

But do you remember — without looking it up — what the greatest love of all is, according to the song?

I ask simply because Madonna has a new song out, available for download. It’s a weird track for her, as it sounds more like a track six off some new pop tart’s album, to be sandwiched in between “Do It Right (Do Me Tonight)” and “Come Party (In My Mouth)”. It would be the slower track to show her versatility.

It’s soft and it’s sweet and then towards the end she references the Greatest Love of All (the Love, not the song.) That’s what made me think of Whitney’s opus.

So once again: according to the song, what is the Greatest Love of All?

The newest member of the Cool New Music “Tape” family has arrived. I’m Throwing You Off the Russian Sledge is the 29th entry in the series. The title refers to this, which is why I posted it a while back. See? I’m super sneaky like that.

Here are the songs that didn’t get thrown to the wolves:

List One

1. Bright Eyes - At The Bottom Of Everything
2. The Pipettes - Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me
3. Teddybears - Hey Boy
4. Of Montreal - A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger
5. Mint Royale - Show Me
6. David Sugar - We Weren’t Put Together
7. PINE*am - Gymnopedie 0.1
8. Balun - Snol
9. bitter:sweet - The Mating Game
10. Pnau - Journey Agent
11. The Go! Team - Ladyflash
12. Liars - Drum And The Uncomfortable Can
13. Maximo Park - Acrobat
14. Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
15. The Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
16. John Vanderslice - Dear Sarah Shu
17. The Books - Smells Like Content

List Two

1. Lyrics Born - Callin’ Out (live at KEXP)
2. Daft Punk - Technologic
3. Bloc Party - Helicopter
4. The Thermals - An Ear For Baby
5. Fountains Of Wayne - Someone To Love
6. Sonic Coaster Pop - Future Electric Machine
7. ZX Spectrum Orchestra - Dollar Power
8. Apples In Stereo - Energy
9. The Decemberists - O Valencia
10. Andrew Bird - Heretics
11. The Avett Brothers - Talk On Indolence
12. Cake - Pentagram
13. Mark Schwaber - On Your Way
14. The Minders - Same Time, Same Place
15. Suzanne Vega - Frank & Ava
16. Shriekback - Waterbaby
17. Oh No! Oh My! - Walk In The Park
18. Youth Group - Skeleton Jar
19. Yo La Tengo - Black Flowers
20. The Mountain Goats - Up The Wolves
21. Her Space Holiday - The Past Presents The Future

I’m throwing you off the Russian sledge. And you over there — quit laughing, because you’re probably next.

Last night we caught geek-fave rockers They Might Be Giants at the Iron Horse. This of course was the second time we had seen them in Northampton, but the first time they were actually playing music instead of walking around minding their own.

It was a great show. They were in good form, the music sounded great, and they were cracking wise all the time. At one point Emily Dickinson phoned, despite being currently dead.

It was also a treat because they played a bunch of stuff from their upcoming album The Else, which releases via iTunes on May 15 and in three-dimensional physical object form on July 10. John Flansburgh thanked us in advance for applauding for these previously unheard songs, despite our ambivalence towards them. I actually wasn’t overly ambivalent; I liked the new stuff.

Here’s the list of songs they played. I think I remembered them all. The ones with stars upon thars are from The Else. They’re in alphabetical order, but they weren’t performed in this order:

Alphabet of Nations
Ana Ng
Asbury Park (I Got Kicked in the Head at the Stone Pony)
Birdhouse in Your Soul
Careful What You Pack *
Contrecoup *
Damn Good Times
Doctor Worm
Drink!
Experimental Film
Fingertips
Iron Horse Venue Song
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
James K. Polk
Meet James Ensor
Memo to Human Resources
New York City
Older
Particle Man
Take Out the Trash *
The Cap’m *
The Mesopotamians *
The Shadow Government *
Twisting
Upside Down Frown *
We’re the Replacements
Why Does the Sun Shine
Withered Hope *

And here’s something to tempt your tummy: an mp3 of one of them new songs. Keep it under your hat, please.

Well, Mix CD, but you get the idea. The time has come my friends. Much delayed due to the great music meltdown and my own laziness, I now have selected 50 tracks for my latest compilation CD. Trouble is, these 50 songs come to 3:17 (197 minutes) and they need to come to 150 minutes to fit onto two CDs. So something’s gotta go. What should it be?

Also, if there’s something fairly recent you think should be here, let me know and I’ll try to give it a listen.

Andrew Bird - Heretics
Apples In Stereo - Energy
Balun - Snol
bitter:sweet - The Mating Game
Bloc Party - Helicopter
Bright Eyes - At The Bottom Of Everything
Cake - Pentagram
Daft Punk - Technologic
David Sugar - We Weren’t Put Together
Faunts - Instantly Loved
Fountains Of Wayne - Someone To Love
Fujiya & Miyagi - Ankle Injuries
Gnarls Barkley - Gone Daddy Gone
Her Space Holiday - The Past Presents The Future
Hurra Torpedo - Total Eclipse Of The Heart
John Vanderslice - Dear Sarah Shu
Liars - Drum And The Uncomfortable Can
Lyrics Born - Callin’ Out (live at KEXP)
Mark Schwaber - On Your Way
Matthew Sweet And Susanna Hoffs - Care Of Cell #44
Maximo Park - Acrobat
Mint Royale - Show Me
Of Montreal - A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger
Oh No! Oh My! - Walk In The Park
OK Go - Get Over It
PINE*am - Gymnopedie 0.1
Pnau - Journey Agent
Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
Secret Mommy - Kool Aid River
Shriekback - Waterbaby
Sonic Coaster Pop - Future Electric Machine
Suzanne Vega - Frank & Ava
Tapes N Tapes - Insistor
Teddybears - Hey Boy
The Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
The Avett Brothers - Talk On Indolence
The Books - Smells Like Content
The Decemberists - O Valencia
The Flaming Lips - My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion
The Go! Team - Ladyflash
The Maggies - Dead Jones
The Minders - Same Time, Same Place
The Mountain Goats - Up The Wolves
The Olympic Hopefuls - Let’s Go
The Pipettes - Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me
The Thermals - An Ear For Baby
West Indian Girl - What Are You Afraid Of
Yo La Tengo - Black Flowers
Youth Group - Skeleton Jar
ZX Spectrum Orchestra - Dollar Power

(I think that offering 50 mp3s for download would probably stretch the boundaries of fair use, but almost all of this stuff you should be able to find via youtube, myspace, elbo.ws, or the Hype Machine.)