Cat Power started the year with Jukebox, her second album of cover songs and a tribute to the great vocalists who had influenced her over the years.

And now, to end the year, Cat Power is to release another set of covers, recorded at the same productive sessions as Jukebox, and now finally released.

The remaining unreleased tracks are to be aired this December in the form of Dark End Of The Street, a six-track gatefold double-10″ and download EP (tracklisting below).

Tracklisting:
1. Dark End Of The Street (James Carr/Aretha Franklin) *
2. Fortunate Son (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
3. Ye Auld Triangle (The Pogues) *
4. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now) (Otis Redding)
5. Who Knows Where The Time Goes (Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention) *
6. It Ain’t Fair (Aretha Franklin) *

* denotes entirely unreleased song

‘Long Island’ is The Wave Pictures’ best song. Sure, Instant Coffee Baby was good but its oddly-apparently-written-out-of-history predecessor Sophie had LONG FUCKING ISLAND, a magical 3-and-something-minutes stream-of-consciousness stomp through… well, like, “the last swimmers crawled up from the pool, looked at my beautiful belly and drooled” and stuff like that. I think I would go even so far to say that it is one of the best songs written *of all time*, fully aware of the hyperbole but I don’t even care. I mean The Wave Pictures have done some other really good songs but ‘Now You Are Pregnant’ is beautiful and magical yeah but its just ever-(ever-so-slightly) you know, *obviously* beautiful and magical, whereas ‘Long Island’ is waaaayy off-kilter and counter-intutive. And the stuff on ‘Instant Coffee Baby’, a lot of it like the title track and ‘Avocado Baby’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ and such are top-quality songs, but I’m not going to list them with the all-time greats. ‘Long Island’ though, wow… when trawling their back catalogue for good bits of ‘Instant Coffee’ hey, maybe they should have considered that gem. Only thing is the version of ‘Sophie’ is pretty much there already, but they could have slapped it in somewhere for sure.

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The last time we mentioned Beirut on this here site, it was to report the cancellation of their European tour, Mr. Condon taking some time off to get his shit together.

Well, it looks like he might have sorted himself out as he’s got a pair of EP’s ready for release next year.

On February 17 in the U.S. and February 16 in Europe, Condon’s own Pompeii Records will issue a pair of EPs from the Condon, packaged together but spread out over separate CDs.

The first, March of the Zapotec, collects six new tracks partially recorded in Mexico recently by Beirut, while the second, Holland, is credited to Realpeople and features five new recordings from Condon’s early incarnation.

Beirut: March of the Zapotec:
01 El Zocalo
02 La Llorna
03 My Wife
04 The Akara
05 On a Bayonet
06 The Shrew

Realpeople: Holland:
01 My Night With a Prostitute From Marseille
02 My Wife, Lost in the Wild
03 Venice
04 The Concubine
05 No Dice

Bear Hands are a post-punkish New York indie guitar band. They’ve been together for about 25 minutes (or a year, whaetever) and they’ve just surfaced with this first ‘proper’ release – The Golden EP.

Now, I’ve had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about guitar music recently. Among the more thought out arguments that I’ve been trumpeting is that rock and indie and it’s derivatives have become “mostly boring, generic shit” and just ‘”hype band after hideous hype band!”.

Some people were actually beginning to take me seriously, I could tell they were thinking “Well, this guy writes music reviews in his spare time and his face is getting really red as he talks, maybe he’s onto something.” Then what happens?  Well first the bloody Kings of Leon release another brilliant volley of rock songs and then I pick up a CD by a trendy, hyped post-punk band to do a review on and end up liking it. And now I look like a dick.

So yeah The Bear Hands EP is pretty darn good. It’s exhibits some good lo-fi indie rock know-how, backed up by something of the poppy swagger we’d expect from someone like We Are Scientists. Moments of very nearly discordant, arythmical Modest Mouse-esque groves threaten to penetrate at any moment, but Dylan Rau’s slick phrasings and smooth-as-you-like vocals hold everything together in a very accessible fashion.

The whole thing comes off sounding as much like four-American –guys-who-are in-a-band-and-are-much-cooler-than-you as any new indie rock band out of Brooklyn should be expected to. And I like it, it’s solid but not anything really special.

But then again, what the hell do I know?
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Bear Hands on Myspace

Originally intended as a precursor to this year’s acclaimed Vetiver album Thing of the Past, FatCat have announced the release of a companion CDEP, More of the Past, and a limited 7″ single, ‘Hey Doll Baby’ (b/w ‘Miles Apart’).

The album comprised a set of cover versions of songs by some of bandleader Andy Cabic’s favourite artists. The EP contains a further six songs - all previously unreleased - that inspired them; five on the CD along with one 7″-only song, ‘Miles Apart’.

CDEP Track listing:
1. See You Tonight
2. Hey Doll Baby
3. Before the Sun Goes Down
4. Just to Have You
5. Hills of Isle Au Haut

7″ Track listing:
A1. Hey Doll Baby
B1. Miles Apart

Vetiver on Myspace

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are to release an EP in preparation for their new album due January next year. Titled Festival Thyme it is due out on October 21st in the US on the band’s own Richter Scale imprint for Justice Records, with Superball Music handling the groups releases in the UK and Europe. The EP will be released in digital and CD formats and there will also be a special picture disc 10″ for the US only, the vinyl will replace a song from the other formats with a cover of the Replacements ‘Within Your Reach’. ‘Bells Of Creation (Machete Mix)’ is apparently from the new album (in a different mix, obviously).

CD/MP3 tracklist:
1) Bells Of Creation (Machete Mix)
2) Inland Sea (EP Edit)
3) Festival Thyme
4) The Betrayal Of Roger Casement & The Irish Brigade

As you can see from the track titles they are keeping things suitably pompous, we can only hope for more of the over the top prog pretensions they have been specially dealing in with their last two albums.

Well, it’s been a while since we had some Mountain Goats related news on here, so we’ve got a double header of info, from John Darnielle himself.

The new Mountain Goats EP– the one I mentioned a few weeks back, with the limited gatefold vinyl and the special cover art and the pay-whatcha-like download option (about which we’ll tell you more once we sort everything out)– is called Satanic Messiah. It has four songs on it, one per side at 45 rpm, the way God intended. Two songs are mainly piano and voice; the other two are mainly acoustic guitar and voice. This is the lineup:

A1 Satanic Messiah
A2 Wizard Buys a Hat
B1 Sarcofago Live
B2 Gojam Province 1968

The other news– at which I hinted on my Flickr, here– is that Kaki King and I, under a cloak of great secrecy, snuck into Baucom Road studios in western North Carolina last month and recorded the six-song Black Pear Tree EP together with Scott Solter producing. The record is presently at the pressing plant and the idea is to have copies ready on vinyl for tour, with a sleeve designed by Horse & Buggy press, and the first 200 on colored vinyl. People who know how I feel about Kaki’s music can imagine what an honor it was for me to get to work with her. Here are the songs we played:

A1 Black Pear Tree
A2 Mosquito Repellent
A3 Bring our Curses Home
A1 Supergenesis
B2 Roger Patterson Van
B3 Thank You Mario but our Princess Is in Another Castle

We are both really excited to share this record with everybody. So excited in fact that here’s one of the songs. On this one, I played piano and sang; Kaki played drums and glockenspiel, and also sang harmony. The song is sung from the point of view of Toad. If you know who Toad is, that’s all I’ll need to tell you. If you don’t who Toad is, you better recognize.

Good stuff! So, two EP’s worth of new stuff en route. Well, that’s just improved my Monday morning.

As phoenix like rises from the ashes go, this was one to wet most people’s appetite. Zack De La Rocha, one of the preeminent and political lyricists of the 20th Century teaming up with Jon Theodore, one time stick man for The Mars Volta and whom the phrases “complex time signatures” and “hit it fucking hard” sit equally well on his resume. So two men with impressive back catalogs, but both of whom have failed to ignite and capture former glories on recent releases. Will their resurrection as One Day As A Lion prove a fruitful one?

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Frankmusik AKA 22-year-old Vincent Frank might be in the studio working on his debut album with Stuart Price AKA Jacques Lu Cont but the album format was never going to be elastic enough to fit in all his musical hyper-activity.

Let him present The Heaths of Thornton (www.theheathsofthornton.co.uk) Named after the insalubrious part of Croydon Vince calls home, the website is Vince’s personal blog, where he’ll debut lots of unheard material, demos, remixes, video footage, artwork, DJ mixes; ‘everything that I have in my head’ as he puts it.

Once you’ve signed up to be a member of the club, you will be able to download for free a series of EPs. The site counts down the days, hours and second to the next one. He’ll be dipping into the hard-drive of the Apple G5 in his bedroom to post up his latest productions, studio outtakes, demos, or maybe one of his fidgit house reworkings of a classic Timbaland jam. Right now you can download his version of Omarion’s ‘Ice Box’. With a million ideas pin-balling around his musical mind expect more surprises with every EP.

Vince has remixed the likes of Telepathé and CSS lately. Sometimes he’ll remix one of his myspace friend’s tracks (in fact this is how the Telepathé remix originally came about). With Vince also lending his production and writing skills to a whole wave of new left-field pop stars like Little Boots, Tinchy Stryder and Sisley.

The Heath Of Thornton is also were Frankmusik’s Secret Liaisons are announced. The Liaisons are get togethers all over London hosted by Frankmusik on the piano, where he is joined by friends from the Heaths Of Thornton (you can request a performance on the site). The secret Liaisons take place at random settings across the capital. The next one will be at Soho’s underground burlesque bar, The Black Gardenia on August 6th. The secret Liaisons are only announced and promoted through The Heaths Of Thornton.

Frankmusik Youtube Page: http://www.youtube.com/frankmusikuk

Frankmusik Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/frankmusik

Frankmusik Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com

Moshi Moshi Records are to undertake the low carbon release of the next EP from The Wave Pictures, available for digital download only on 6th October.

Recording – scheduled for 28th August – will take place in a solar powered studio at ‘The Premises’ in London. The band will walk to the studio - as will the engineer - and at the end of the day’s recording the studio will upload the tracks to the server of their digital distributor, for release through iTunes and other digital download stores.

No CDR’s or paper press releases will be generated. The process will even be filmed on solar-powered camera.

Moshi Moshi co-founder Michael McClatchey explains, “We thought it would be a useful experiment to see what we could do to reduce the carbon emissions associated with releasing a record. The initial aim was to make it carbon-neutral but it soon became apparent this would be impossible given the power needed to run the servers for delivering the tracks in to itunes. Nevertheless I believe this should still be the ‘greenest’ record release yet.

“When I mentioned the idea to The Wave Pictures they asked if they could be the ones to do it, and suggested they could walk to the studio from their house.”

Moshi Moshi consulted the environmental working group Julie’s Bicycle on the process. Julie’s Bicycle is a not for profit organisation, with a core aim to identify and champion activities across the music industry that will lead to the development of a low carbon industry.

Alison Tickell, Director of Julie’s Bicycle: “We are really pleased that Moshi Moshi is taking these positive steps towards reducing the carbon impact of their latest release. Their studio of choice is solar powered, they are reducing the impact of their travel and have taken account of the recommendations of our First Step report into the UK Music Industry Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, 2008). It’s this kind of intelligent response to the issue that is going to ultimately catalyze the changes to a low carbon music business that we all need so badly.”

Details on specific tracks for the EP release will be announced shortly.