The Twilight Sad have finally announced the details of their hugely anticipated sophomore album Forget The Night Ahead. Trailed by opener ‘Reflections Of The Television’ – which dropped on Pitchfork during May, and forthcoming single ‘I Became A Prostitute’ which is out on August 3rd, the new album will be released in the UK on 5th October via FatCat Records. The full track list is as follows:

1. Reflection Of The Television
2. I Became A Prostitute
3. Seven Years of Letters
4. Made To Disappear
5. Scissors
6. The Room
7. That Birthday Present
8. Floorboards Under The Bed
9. Interrupted
10. The Neighbours Can’t Breathe
11. At The Burnside

As long-time supporters of The Twilight Sad, TLOBF have been given the video to the new single ‘I Became A Prostitute’ days before anyone else. Along with ‘Reflections Of The Television’ (which you can stream here), ‘Prostitute’ marks a visceral return for the Kilsyth quartet. According to sources close to the band, Forget The Night Ahead material is even more harrowing than predecessor Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters – so if you think lines like “the kids are on fire in the bedroom” were dark, prepare to scared shitless.

The video for ‘Prostitute’ is, unsuprisginly, harrowing in it’s own right. A montage of what looks like 1920’s footage of Burlesque clubs from Eastern Europe set against the unmistakable backdrop of James Graham’s Scottish howl and primal force of rhythm section Andy MacFarlane, Craig Orzel and Mark Devine. Never have the band sounded so vital. Continue Reading

Greymachine is set to be one fucking brain smashing heavy band. Let’s look at the evidence: Justin Broadrick, Jesu main main and former Godflesh frontman, has teamed up with Isis leader Aaron Turner to form a band called Greymachine. Not only that, but they’ve recruited Diarmuid Dalton (of Jesu / Godlfesh) and Dave Cochrane of Head of David.

To give you a feel of its black hole sucking heaviness, you can download the 10 minute track ‘Vultures Descend’ here. Beware, this is not for the faint hearted.

The track will be part of the album Disconnected, set for a 3rd August release via Hydra Head.

Disconnected:
01 Wolf at the Door
02 Vultures Descend
03 When Attention Just Ain’t Enough
04 Wasted
05 We Are All Fucking Liars
06 Just Breathing
07 Sweatshop
08 Easy Pickings

Jamie T has announced he will play his biggest tour to date in October 2009, with a twelve date tour of the UK followed by two dates in Ireland.

Jamie T has just finished a sold-out tour of the UK, his new EP ‘Sticks ’n’ Stones’ is out now. His second album Kings & Queens is scheduled for release late summer.

October
01 BRISTOL  O2 Academy  (0844 477 2000)
02 SOUTHAMPTON   Guildhall  (023 8063 2601)
03 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy    (0844 477 2000)
05 NEWCASTLE   Northumbria Uni   (0844 826 2826)
06 NOTTINGHAM Rock City   (08713 100 000)
07 NORWICH UEA    (01603 508050)
09 GLASGOW Barrowland (08444 999 990)
10 PRESTON  Uni 53 Degrees  (01772 893000)
11 SHEFFIELD O2 Academy (0844 477 2000)
13 MANCHESTER Academy (0161 832 1111)
14 LEEDS O2  Academy (0113 245 4650)
15 LONDON Brixton O2 Academy (0844 477 2000)
23 BELFAST Limelight (0870 243 4455)
24 DUBLIN   Wheelans (0818 719 300)

BLK JKS highly-anticipated debut album, After Robots, will be released on 21st September on Secretly Canadian. This is the follow-up to their initial EP, released last year, which quickly became a favourite at TLOBF Towers.

Following highly-praised sets at SXSW, BLK JKS have gone on to share stages in North America and Europe with a  disparate array of artists including Femi Kuti, Dirty Projectors, Santigold, Michael Franti and Cody Chesnutt.

More info when we get it folks…

Richmond Fontaine have announed the release of their eighth album We Used to Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River. The album is to be released on Décor Records (American Music Club, Franz Nicolay) and will be followed by a full UK tour in September. Willy Vlautin will also be over playing a set at the Latitude Festival on July 19th.

Since the bands last album Thirteen Cities (Feb 2007), Richmond Fontaine have been writing what they say is their strongest work yet with their most memorable tunes to date. The album is all written by singer/songwriter, Willy Vlautin who has already released two fiction novels to great acclaim in the past two years ‘The Motel Life’ and ‘Northline’ on Faber & Faber and his third novel ready for release in Feb 2010. The album will be preceded by the 7” single “You Can Move Back Here” out July 20th.

Willy’s rough guide to the tracklisting: Continue Reading

Rough Trade records have announced the release of East Of Eden, the new album by Taken By Trees. It will be released on September 7th. The album will also come with a short film that was shot in Pakistan while recording.

Taken by Trees is the nom de plume of Victoria Bergsman, previously known for her work with The Concretes and Peter Bjorn & John’s worldwide smash hit single ‘Young Folks’. This new offering follows in the footsteps of Taken By Tree’s acclaimed debut album Open Field which was released in 2007.

Tracklisting:
1. To Lose Someone
2. Anna
3. Watch The Waves
4. Greyest Love Of All
5. Tidens Gång
6. Wapas Karna
7. My Boys
8. Day By Day
9. Bekännelse

Maximo Park have announced a set of tour dates for Autumn:

October
07 Glasgow, Barrowland
08 Manchester, Apollo
09 London, Royal Albert Hall

Tickets go on general sale at 9am on Friday 3rd July from:
www.seetickets.com, www.gigsandtours.com, www.gigsinscotland.com

While some of our writers can be found skating around Trafalgar Square this afternoon (Good luck Shain!), TLOBF are celebrating Canada Day by bringing you Volume 2 of our Oh! Canada compilations featuring the very best of new Canadian talent. There’s some old friends in disguise (Silkken-Laumann feature a familiar vocalist and his room mate, guesses in the comments section!), new material from The Most Serene Republic, Ford Peir and Hannah Georgas, a track from the soon to be reissued Wintersleep back catalogue and a bunch more besides. As ever keep your eyes out for interviews and reviews from featured artists in the coming months in TLOBF’s Oh! Canada Column. There’s even a few nice surprises hidden amongst the links!

Happy Canada Day!

Oh! Canada Volume 2:
1. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don’t Haunt This Place
2. Japandroids – Young Hearts Spark Fire
3. The Got To Get Got – Gettin’ Dirty In The Afterlife
4. Royal City – Bad Luck
5. Deep Dark Woods – All The Money I Had Is Gone
6. Snailhouse – (Not) Superstitious
7. Melissa McClelland – God Loves Me
8. Ford Pier – Sick Of The Good Times
9. Elliott Brood – Write It All Down For You
10. Hannah Georgas – The Beat Stuff
11. Ryan Driver – That’s Which Way The Water Falls
12. The Superfantastics – Lullaby Punches
13. Said The Whale – This City’s A Mess
14. The Most Serene Republic – Heavens To Purgatory
15. The Olympic Symphonium – Intentions Alone
16. Immaculate Machine – Sound The Alarms
17. Wintersleep – Fog
18. Geoff Berner – One Shoe
19. Silkken-Laumann – Soleil Moonfrye
20. Years – Are You Unloved?

DOWNLOAD
[mp3] Oh! Canada Volume 2
PC: right click and choose “save as…”
MAC: CTRL + click and choose “save link as”

TLOBF would like to thank all of the bands and labels who have given us their music to share with you. If you like what you are hearing, get in touch and let us (and them) know.

O2 venues across the country are being put to good use as a raft of new tour dates have been announced for some of TLOBF’s favourites artists.

Bat For Lashes has announced two dates for October, expect more soon:
10 – O2 Academy Liverpool
13 – O2 Academy Leeds

Franz Ferdinand have also confirmed a date at London’s Brixton Academy on 24th October.

One of the best live acts of the moment, Dananananaykroyd, are set to play some of their biggest shows to date, playing the London Scala (27th Oct) and O2 Academy 2 Oxford (25th Oct).

Remember, if you’re on O2 you can get Priority Tickets to any of the above shows 48 hours before general release.

Tickets on sale now. Click here to register. Terms apply.

Oh. Yes. This has made my week.

Those lovely people organising the Supersonic Festival have pulled one out of the bag here. SUNN O))) have been confirmed as extra special guests at this years festival!!

Look out for an interview with the people behind Capsule, the promoters of Supersonic, in the coming weeks.

In the meantime:

TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM:
http://www.theticketsellers.co.uk
24 hr order line – 0844 870 0000 – Calls cost max 5p per min from BT landline

Rough Trade East – London
Swordfish + Polar Bear – Birmingham
Plugd Records – Cork

DAY TICKETS NOW ON SALE

Weekend tickets – £70

Friday 24th July 9pm – 2.30am
Day Ticket – £15
includes Army Of Flying Robots / Atomized / Drum Eyes / Kylie  Minoise / PCM / Scorn / Taint / Venetian Snares

Saturday 25th July 4pm – 3am
Day Ticket – £35
includes Dialed In – Bobby Previte vs VJ Benton-C Bainbridge / Corrupted / Diaganol / Flower/Corsano Duo / Growing / Iron Lung / Kim Hiorthoy / Light Trap / Marnie Stern /   Master Musicians Of Bukkake / Monotonix / Nisenenmondai / Remember   Remember / Rose Kemp / Skullflower / Tartufi / The Accused / Thought  Forms / Thorr’s Hammer / Tweak Bird / Zu

Sunday 26th July 2pm – 12.30 am
Day Ticket – £35
Includes 65 Days Of Static / Arbouretum / Caribou / Chris Herbert / Earthless / Goblin / Head Of David / Jarboe / Khyam Allami  / Nancy Wallace / Pontiak / Pram / Pre / Theo / The Memory Band / zZz

"When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Hog"

Oh no! Poor Jens!

Mr Lekman has contracted the nasty “swine flu” virus. Hero of TLOBF caught the virus whilst out on tour in South America earlier this month. He’s currently recovering at home in Sweden.

As he does with most things, Lekman first revealed his illness on his blog:

“I picked home one last souvenir from South America, it’s called the H1N1 virus. Wrongfully known as the Swineflue.

“I was crossing the Atlantic when things started getting really bad, the fever was hallucinogenic and shaking me like a leaf and I grabbed the sleeve of the Air France steward. ‘I’m not feeling well, I should see a doctor’ I said and the reply came as a brilliant mix of death anxiety and french rudeness: ‘Uh, yes… Terminal D… go there maybe… when we land’. After that the stewards and stewardesses took long detours. A ring of empty seats formed around me. Peoples eyes were kind but determined, they read ‘Poor you, I really wish you all the best but if you come near me or my kid I will have to stab you with this plastic fork’. I got up and went to the bathroom where I fainted.

Now I’m in quarantine for ten days. I can see the summer through my window and it’s just perfect. Summer is always best through a window.”

Lekman is still scheduled to play Norway’s Træna Festival next month, as well as a pair of shows in Portugal.

Get well soon Jens! If you get bored, why not make us another one of your mixtapes? Two Thousand & Fine is still on heavy rotation round these parts.

We’ve got a pair of tickets to Brighton’s premier live festival – Loop, which takes places around the City between the 10th and 12th July. The line-up is really impressive, featuring such acts as Fever Ray, The Field, Fanfarlo and The XX.

Full line-up:
Fever Ray / Matthew Herbert Big Band / Squarepusher / múm (live & DJ) / Telepathe / The Field / The Juan Maclean
The XX / Datarock / Esser / Joakim and the Disco / Fujiya & Miyagi / The Glimmers / We Have Band
Emilíana Torrini / The Invisible /Tunng / Plugs /Zomby /The Qemists / Riton / CasioKids / Fanfarlo
Mirrors / Man Like Me / Hatcham Social / Thomas Truax / The Sian Alice Group / James Yuill / Elizabeth / Battant / John the Savage / Win Prizes/ Caspar C / Linus Loves

For a chance to win, just send an email to competition@thelineofbestfit.com with “Loop the Loop” in the subject line. Winners will be announced, and the competition closed, on the 6th July.

For a taster, he’s the official Loop video:

There’s more info on the Official Loop site plus, if you’re not lucky enough to win a pair of tickets, you can still buy some on the ticket website.

The follow up to their storming debut Waited Up ‘Til It Was Light, Johnny Foreigner have announced the title and release date of their much anticipated sophomore album: It’ll be called Grace And The Bigger Picture and it’ll be released on 26th October.

This week also sees the release of ‘Feels Like Summer’  – a taster track from the forthcoming album, and the band are offering a FREE 3-track download  available now from their new website including ‘Feels Like Summer’ and two brand new exclusive tracks.

Don’t forget you can see them live in October at the following dates:

OCTOBER
05 – Nottingham – Bodega
06 – Oxford – Jericho
07 – Birmingham – Flapper & Firkin
08 – Exeter – Cavern
09 – Brighton – Audio
10 – London – Garage
12 – Sheffield – The Harley
13 – Manchester – Deaf Institute
14 – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
15 – Glasgow – King Tuts
16 – Liverpool – Korova
17 – Cambridge – Soul Tree

Six Organs of Admittance, aka Ben Chasny, has announced plans to release a new album on Drag City, a follow up to last year’s 3xCD compilation.

It’s called Luminous Night and it features contributions from producer Randall Dunn, was has worked with SunnO))) and Eyvind Kang, plus some of clever multi-instrumentalists including Hans Tueber, Tor Dietrichson, Matt Chamberlin and Dave Abramson.

Luminous Night will see the light of day on August 17.

Wednesday 15th July sees the return of War Child’s annual Army Of You London showcase, bringing together some of the most exciting names across the UK’s thriving new music scene, this year at The Tabernacle, Notting Hill -  an iconic venue which has hosted such musical legends as Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones, and which recently underwent a £750,000 refurb.

Previous sell out Army Of You gigs have brought performances from artists including The Noisettes, Friendly Fires, Does It Offend You Yeah? and The Rumble Strips. Building on War Child’s heritage of working with the most exciting up and coming new acts, this year’s headliners will be Filthy Dukes with additional live performances from We Have Band, The Phenomenal Handclap Band and Crystal Fighters.

The live acts will be supported by special DJ sets from Mat Horne, StopMakingMe, Leo Greenslade and Firas, as well as acoustic sets in the courtyard from 6pm from Jeremy Warmsley and Alan Pownall.

Advance tickets are available priced £8 plus booking fee from www.wegottickets.com
and www.seetickets.com (BBQ food not included in ticket price).

The event also has its own Facebook page.

Good Books have announced they are to split. Their last performance was at the Glastonbury Festival this weekend where they played the John Peel Stage on Sunday. The band released their debut album Control in 2007.

“It’s been a fantastic few years, but the world keeps turning, and in the massively original words of Wet Wet Wet, ‘They say all good things come to an end’.”

Their musical endeavours continue. Christopher Porter is playing bass in Klaus Says Buy The Record while JP Duncan will work under the name of JOCKS (http://www.myspace.com/jocks) and Max Cooke continues with his production work.

Following Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown, Southbank Centre have announced a packed programme of gigs and events between June and September.

Starting with burlesque singing sensation Camille O’Sullivan (28/29 June), gigs in the Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall include Emmy The Great (19 July), Marianne Faithful (20 July), Black Box Recorder (23 July), folk legend Buffy Sainte-Marie (28 July), The National (10 August), Laura Marling (11 August), An Evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan (19 July), another chance to see Magazine on 1 September and Emiliana Torrini (13 September).

Southbank Centre’s third London Literature Festival (2 – 16 July) features appearances by Kate Nash and Peggy Sue (11 July) and Southbank Centre Artists in Residence Bellowhead bring to life Coleridge’s classic poem The Ancient Mariner in a free performance. The festival also features Shakespeare’s sonnets set to music by Gavin Bryars and guest composers Antony Hegarty, Mira Calix and Natalie Merchant.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landings, Silent Arena returns to Southbank Centre in a new setting with an extraterrestrial theme (17 July) and The Heritage Orchestra play the music of The Clangers alongside other lunar delights on (20 July).

Gurrumul, one of the most important Aboriginal voices, makes a rare London appearance (21 July) and Keith Jarrett (25 July)  returns to the Royal Festival Hall.

Southbank Centre Ticket Office 0871 663 2538 / www.southbankcentre.co.uk

“If We Can Create was the birth of Maps this second album, entitled Turning The Mind, is the fully formed manifesto.”
- James Chapman 2009

Maps - aka James Chapman – has announced details of the release of a new album, Turning The Mind, released on Mute on 28th September 2009.

The album was recorded with Tim Holmes (Death in Vegas) at the Contino Rooms in London and is Maps’ second album and follows the Barclaycard Mercury Prize shortlisted debut ‘We Can Create’ (2007).

Maps has recently debuted the new stripped down electronic line-up at the Great Escape and Stag & Dagger festivals and has announced a number of dates for the summer, including a support slot on the forthcoming M83 tour.

July
06 – Brighton Concorde 2 (with M83)
07 – London Koko (with M83)
08 – Leeds Cockpit (with M83)
18 – Southwold Latitude

September
13 – Isle of Wight Bestival

Now, you might be wondering who Yim Yames is… will, it’s Jim James from My Morning Jacket! See what he did there…

In August, Yim Yames will be releasing an EP of George Harrison covers, renditions of four cuts from Harrison’s classic album All Things Pass as well as two of the Beatles tunes that he penned:

1.) Long Long Long
2.) Behind That Locked Door
3.) Love You To
4.) My Sweet Lord
5.) Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)
6.) All Things Must Pass

For those who can’t wait until August to hear Tribute To, you can get a taste by checking out ‘Behind That Locked Door’, currently available for download on YimYames.com.

Topspin will also give fans the opportunity to download the entire EP via YimYames.com a full month before it hits stores.  Beginning on July 7th fans can purchase and download a digital copy of the album immediately, and pre-order the CD and a limited edition vinyl for delivery on the August 4th release date.

A portion of the proceeds from the EP will go to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, an organization that provides shelter to farm animals that have been rescued from cases of abuse, neglect, and abandonment.  Fans who order the limited edition vinyl will also receive a t-shirt and brochure from WFAS so they can learn more about the charity.

Muse have confirmed the release date for their fifth album The Resistance which will come out on 14th September on Warners.   The band are currently adding finishing touches to the album which they have self-produced in Italy and is currently being mixed by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Massive Attack, U2).

The band sold out all 85,000 tickets for their November UK tour in under half an hour when they went on sale last week.   The UK leg will kick off at the Sheffield Arena on November 4th and finish with two nights at London’s 02 Arena.