Wednesday Music News

09/04/2013

Katherine Humphreys

Perhaps you have seen the mysterious graffiti painted on the ground around the city. What looks a bit like random letters in a circle is actually Arcade Fire's underground press for their upcoming album Reflektor - and today they released another piece of the puzzle. In a short film we see the band mixed with the ocean, while a set of strings and drums plays over - something will be happening on September 9th at 9pm, and we don't want to miss it. [Pitchfork]

Someone is watching MGMT - and it goes a whole lot higher than the NSA. But the NSA does reveal that the new MGMT album is so good, that's why they're spying on them. In a short movie MGMT encounters a possum and a "bug" in their recording space, as well as reveal 5 new songs from their upcoming album which will be released on September 17th. [Pitchfork]

Phil Elverum is releasing an album of re-recorded tracks from his past two albums - which feature the addition of auto-tuning the vocals as well as lyrical additions which help with "expanding and clarifying the ideas" of the old. Today we can hear the new "Lone Bell" from Pre-Human Ideas, which will be out on November 12th. [Pitchfork]

Savages have recorded a new video for "I Am Here" with director Joshua Zucker-Pluda where they employ a sonic experiment used by experimental composer Alvin Lucier in 1969 in order to "reveal the hidden resonant frequencies of the performance space," Zucker-Pluda explained. The band performed once in the space - an intense but still clear performance - before taking the recording and playing it over itself until the space had warped the sound, or the space was warped by the sound, so that only the deepest sonic frequencies still hold on. Watch the video below, but you can also listen to both the first and last versions of the process at Pitchfork.

California's Wooden Shjips have announced and upcoming album Back to Land to be released this November. Since their last album one member has moved to Portland, which is the first location the band has recorded at that wasn't San Francisco. Can't wait to see what the PNW has done to their classic hazy psychedelia. [Impose]

Eleanor Friedberger's song "That Was When I Knew" tells the story of some hero-worship - "She made her exit arms in the air, I was unprepared when I couldn't get her out of my head." In the video there are fewer Soft Machine records in the literal and a whole lot of dancing with surreal light flares and whimsical geometry as Friedberger dances along to her own track. [Stereogum]

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