photos by Ryan Muir

Happy Holidays! I take on more than I can handle. That results in a lot of unposted content. In the name of catching up, while also taking it easy during this final week of the year, here's some of that lost material.

Then, rising Montreal outfit Clues gave a packed house of industry insiders a glimmer of this city's future sound. Fronted by the confident falsetto of Alden Penner (formerly of eccentric indie act Unicorns) and also led by Brendan Reed, who used to drum in Arcade Fire and Think About Life, these five indie kids channeled Led Zeppelin's guitar grooves, Vampire Weekend's poppy song structure and Sunset Rubdown's angular vocals and unpredictable soundscapes.

Just two years after their very first live show, which actually took place at Pop Montreal 2007, Clues have honed their chemistry and sharpened their sound. Those who missed the band live should consider, ahem, searching around for their self-titled debut which their hip hometown imprint Constellation Records released earlier this year. [Spinner]

The show being reviewed is the BrooklynVegan showcase that happened at this year's Pop Montreal festival in October, where Clues shared a bill with Micachu. Clues also taped some Take Away shows with Vincent Moon (pictured above) for La Blogoteque during the festival. Those videos with more pictures from both events, below...

Continue reading "Clues @ Pop Montreal 2009 - pics & Take Away Show videos "

DOWNLOAD: The xx - Basic Space (Micachu Remix) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Speech Debelle - Better Days (Revox) ft. Micachu and Wiley (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Micachu & The Shapes - Lips (MP3)

Micachu & The Shapes @ Siren Fest 09 (more by Chris La Putt)

Icelandic singer Bjork chats with All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen about some of her favorite artists and spins an eclectic mix of music. Hear selections from Syrian musician Omar Souleyman, the post punk duo Eyeless in Gaza, fellow Icelandic singer Olof Arnalds, The Pokrovsky Ensemble and the wildly eccentric, London-based rock group Micachu and the Shapes.
[NPR, June 2009]

The Micachu song Bjork picked for that session was "Golden Phone," the video for which is posted below.

Now, Micachu & The Shapes are back in North America for a set of dates including two NYC shows coming up very soon. At the first gig on Friday, October 2nd, they'll be playing at Brooklyn's Littlefield with Julianna Barwick and Mon Khmer. Tickets are on sale.

The second gig, an October 3rd Wordless Music show at (Le) Poisson Rouge, will feature ACME (American Contemporary Music Ensemble) who will be "performing string quartets written by Micachu (aka Mica Levi) and Jefferson Friedman. Tickets are on sale.

ACME plays another show the next week at Galapagos Art Space where they tackle the music of John Cage, Andrew Hamilton, Frederic Rzewski and Louis Andriessen. Tickets are on sale..

Before Micachu & The Shapes get to NY, they stop in Montreal where they will play a Pop Montreal showcase co-presented by BrooklynVegan (me/us). Also on that October 1st bill is Clues and Slim Twig. Check out the poster below.

All Micachu & The Shapes tour dates are below, with their "Golden Phone" video, a "special acoustic session in front of Tempelhof Airport in Berlin in August 2009" and a clip of Jefferson Friedman's "String Quartet No. 3," which ACME will be playing on the 3rd. Check them out...

Continue reading "Micachu & The Shapes - on tour now, playing BV Pop Montreal & two NYC shows (Littlefield & Wordless w/ ACME)"

Olof Arnalds @ Prospect Park in June (more by Chris La Putt)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* The Rapture @ Matchless
* Blood Orange @ Bruar Falls
* We Are Ivy League @ Union Hall
* Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival
* Son Volt, Sera Cahoone @ Irving Plaza
* Aretha Franklin @ Radio City Music Hall
* The Horrors, Crocodiles @ Bowery Ballroom
* The Sounds, Foxy Shazam @ Roseland Ballroom
* Ramona Falls, Music Video, We Are Country Mice @ Pianos
* Olof Arnalds, Nadia Sirota, Emilyn Brodsky @ Union Pool
* Face to Face, Pegboy, Polar Bear Club @ Gramercy Theatre
* Richard Lloyd & The Sufi-Monkey Trio @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* Datarock, Esser, JDH & Dave P, Karin Park @ Highline Ballroom
* Fun., Miniature Tigers, New Numbers, DJ F-Word @ Mercury Lounge
* The Weakerthans, Rock Plaza Central, Tomte @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
* Drink Up Buttercup, The Art of Shooting, Candle Of Paradise @ Glasslands
* Country Music Fest w/ The Defibulators, Sammo, Alana Amram @ Southpaw
* Grooms, Videohippos, Starring, PC Worship, Anamanaguchi, Dome Theater @DBA
* Nudie Jeans Fashion Party w/ Lykke Li (DJ), Bjorn of Peter Bjorn & John (DJ) & Lemonade (DJ) @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* New Languages Fest w/ Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, House of Mirrors, The Respect Sextet @ McCarren Hall

There's a free VICE / Nudie Jeans Fashion Party with DJ sets from Lemonade, Lykke Li and Bjorn of Peter Bjorn & John at Le Poisson Rouge.. RSVP. 11PM doors, 21+ Free Colt 45 and Well Liquor Open Bar from 11PM-12:30AM. Flyer below. There's a VICE / something else party with a set by the Rapture in Brooklyn.

Fun. is Nate Ruess (The Format), ex-Anathallo multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost and Steel Train's Jack Antonoff.

Son Volt dropped a new album this summer, and now they come to NYC's Irving Plaza for a show with Sera Cahoone.

The Horrors play with Crocodiles at Bowery Ballroom tonight. Both bands return in October.

The Weakerthans play two nights in NYC now. Tonight is at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Rock Plaza Central and Tomte. A live Weakerthans video from 2006 below...

Menomena guy Brent Knopf fronts Ramona Falls, which comes to town this weekend, starting with Pianos tonight. Menomena played ATP NY on Sunday.

Olof Arnalds winds up her recently NYC trip with a show at Union Pool that also includes Nadia Sirota and Emilyn Brodsky.

Face to Face, Pegboy (ex-Naked Rayguy) and Polar Bear Club are currently on a tour that stops at Gramercy Theatre tonight.

Television's Richard Lloyd plays with The Sufi-Monkey Trio at (Le) Poisson Rouge tonight.

Scarlett Johansson is playing a benefit at Carnegie Hall with lots of interesting people. Scarlett and Pete Yorn played "Relator" on French TV. That's below.

Tim Heidecker stars in Clues' new video for "You Have My Eyes Now," which is posted below.

Little Boots was in town last night. Coverage of that coming soon. In the meantime, her interview with Nardwuar below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Thursday?"

by BrooklynVegan Mike

DOWNLOAD: Clues - Perfect Fit (demo) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Clues - Perfect Fit (album) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Clues - Remember Severed Head (MP3)

And it really kind of depends on the forthrightness in which I feel like giving a literal kind of account of everything.

Clues (Penner, right)

When the Unicorns disbanded in 2004, Nicholas Thorburn, aka Nick Diamonds, came out of the gate rather quickly with Islands and has remained ubiquitous with multiple projects including Reefer and Human Highway. Alden Penner seemed to fade in the shadows, popping up here and there with low-key projects. In May, though, he returned in a big way with Brendan Reed and a clandestine crew of artists and musicians with Clues. Their self-titled album, released in May on Constellation, is an extension of the Unicorns but heavier with more defined arrangements. Two songs (and one demo) from that disc are posted above.

The group is currently on their first extended tour. Included in that is Clues' first NYC show (after a having to cancel an election night show in the fall). The gig takes place at Santos Party House on Wednesday, June 17th, with Drink Up Buttercup and Bridges & Powerlines opening. Tickets are still on sale.

We spoke with Alden about the new album. Well, we tried to. It was obvious that he doesn't feel comfortable talking about his music directly. He chooses his words carefully while at the same time dismissing them the moment they leave his lips. With that said, the interview was a lot of fun and one of the most entertaining I had ever done.

---

I read that the genesis of Clues began in 2004 when both you and Brendan [Reed] recorded a seven-inch together. What were the steps after that?

Alden: We had this 7-inch, and did a bunch of touring here and there. The two of us, along with his sister. In the following year, I did a bunch of things like soundtrack music [The Hamster Cage]. There were a lot of things that happened in our lives that weren't distinctly related to the band. In that frame of time, I think there wasn't even a name for the band until 2007 so these rudimentary steps went into who knows what purpose. Those years were spent just doing stuff. I think we started talking about albums and his website, Villa Villa Nova that Brendan sort of started, which is sort of hatched within the dilemma of how to make music accessible without feeling like you're exposed in some artificial way. I think that is another way of having the band encompass all these other bands as well. Clues ambition is to be the most ferocious of all of those bands and absorb all of it. It's not so clear how that's gonna happen. In 2007, that is what we were talking about, how to be all bands and how to have all previous bands be our band and be this mega-band sort of thing. Dreams like that take some time to develop. We'd recorded a bunch of things with the intention of putting it in album form but I think because it wasn't formed externally and more of a back-and-forth sort of thing. Once we started bringing other people in to come work, it created its more current character. It's more band like than it was before.

continued below...

Continue reading "an interview with Alden Penner of Clues (ex-Unicorns)"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Clues - Perfect Fit (demo) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Clues - Perfect Fit (album) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Clues - Remember Severed Head (MP3)

Over four years after the break up of The Unicorns, founding member of that band Alden Penner will release the debut of his new project, Clues. That record, also called Clues, will come out on Constellation Records on May 19th. Check out two tracks from the album above (with a previously posted demo) and let us know if you think it sounds at all like Unicorns/Islands.

The band, who played SF's Noise Pop '09 earlier this year, will tour North America in support of the new record. That tour includes a Wednesday, June 17th show at Santos Party House. Tickets for the NYC show are on sale. Hopefully they all make it here this time.

Full details on the new album, including track list and artwork, plus all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Clues (ex-Unicorns) - new MP3's & 2009 tour dates (Santos)"

ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS, A.C. NEWMAN, NO AGE, GOBLIN COCK, CLUES and DEAR AND THE HEADLIGHTS set to headline Noise Pop 2009. Noise Pop Festival film screenings will include JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON and AGILE MOBILE HOSTILE - A YEAR WITH ANDRE WILLIAMS. The 17th annual Noise Pop Festival will take place February 24 through March 1, 2009 in San Francisco.

Antony and the Johnsons recently played the Apollo Theater in NYC. Read about it HERE. AC Newman just played the Bell House in Brooklyn. Read about that HERE. No Age was just at the Market Hotel. That one is HERE. Clues were supposed to play NYC, but didn't, and Goblin Cock is promising many more tour dates than just this one. More Noise Pop details below...

Continue reading "Noise Pop 2009 - dates & initial lineup (Antony, Goblin Cock, AC Newman, Clues, No Age, more)"

According to a member of the band, "1/2 of our band was delayed at the US border then had 3 flats in a corner of the Adirondacks where all rental agencies were closed! Anyway, the rest of us were pretty disappointed but the party was still a pretty great gathering celebrating staring at tv screens. We're looking into doing a make up show... maybe this week?" Ryan Muir was there to cover the show and thought he saw Unicorn Alden Penner there, but it must have been wishful thinking as he waited for hours for Clues to go on. Unicorn Nick Thorburn was in the audience though.

In the meantime, Clues are now on a short tour that has them moving back up north and Islands play a few shows this weekend.

DOWNLOAD: Clues - Perfect Fit (MP3)

"While countless new bands have imitated the pop sounds made famous by Montreal's music export, CLUES counts among its members originators of that sound. In CLUES, Alden Penner (Unicorns) and Brendan Reed (Arcade Fire) continue pioneering music, expanding Montreal's pop music lexicon with reference to the post-punk and experimental music traditions. The band's shows are frenetic and theatrical: multiple drummers, unique instrumentation, and a bent Commodore 64. In 2008, Ben Borden, Lisa Gamble, and Nick Scribner of Montreal's music / art scene joined CLUES. During shows and on recordings, the band share and trade off on their collection of instruments, creating grand versions of experimental pop songs." [PR]

In September we reported that their debut album would be released by Constellation Records in Winter 2008. The new date is "Spring of 2009". More interestingly, Clues will play their first-ever NYC show this Tuesday, November 4th, Election Day, at the Exit Art Gallery. All dates below...

Continue reading "Clues (Alden Pennner) are playing NYC and other places"

by BrooklynVegan Mike

DOWNLOAD: Clues - Perfect Fit (MP3)

The Unicorns have attained a mystique since their break-up in 2005. Since that time, Nick Thorburn, has been anything but low key, launching Islands, Th' Cornn Gang Human Highway with Jim Guthrie, and even Juiced Elfers. What might be lost on all of this activity is that Thorburn wasn't the only creative drive behind The Unicorns spazz-pop.

The other ex-Unicorn, Alden Penner, has been making music in Montreal for a long time, in various projects including Adam and Alden, All Makes Parts and Collision and his solo work, which is what he'll be performing on October 4th at this year's Pop Montreal festival. He opens for Dominique Grange and Jacques Tardi.

At last year's Pop, Alden introduced Clues, a project featuring Brendan Reed (formerly of Arcade Fire) and Bethany Or. They're currently finishing an album with producer Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, The Unicorns, Islands, Beirut, Final Fantasy) - to be released at Villa Villa Nola and on Constellation Records in winter 2008.

Alden's music is wistful, gentle, and a little bit quirky. Imagine the Unicorns with the volume turned down. He plays with pop music conventions in a manner that would suggest that he's taking the piss out of everything, but like Beck you can hear the amount of effort put into each song. Though he doesn't have much in the way of "official" releases, there is a 7" he released on Art School Dropout in 2005, and he scored the soundtrack to The Hamster Cage. There are also many bootlegs floating around the net. I strongly recommended you to check 'em out. One MP3 is available for download above.

Video of Alden performing as Clues at PM 2007, below...

Continue reading "Alden Penner plays solo & with CLUES, MP3, Pop Montreal"