by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: The Cave Singers - Seeds of Night (MP3)
DONWLOAD: The Antlers - Bear (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Antlers - Two (MP3)

The Cave Singers

Friends; we have finished our new record and it is currently kiting toward the pressing mill. We hope you are well, and finding life filled with a bit of love.

Album should be coming out on August 18th, yeah, I know, BBQ Time! Let's light it up and cut it up and steal our own cars of the future. Love is love.

Keep on keeping on. Cave Bros.
[Cave Singers' Myspace, March 25, 2009]

The Cave Singers (ex-Pretty Girls Make Graves) have a month-long April tour planned. That includes 2 NYC shows this week. On Wednesday, April 1st (TONIGHT), the band plays Union Hall in Brooklyn with Pepi Ginsberg (Tickets). Then, Thursday, April 2nd the Cave Singers play Mercury Lounge with Pepi Ginsberg (again), Phantogram, and Brooklyn's The Antlers (Tickets).

The Antlers are also playing Music Hall of Williamsburg on April 7th with Here We Go Magic and Hymns (Tickets)

The Antlers' great new album called Hospice (pictured) is out now. Grab two tracks from that album for free at the top of this post.

Nearly all other dates on The Cave Singers' upcoming US tour are with Golden Boots and Dr. Dog (who'll be at the Clearwater Festival in June).

The Cave Singers' last record was its debut Invitation Songs, which came out on Matador in 2007. A video and all tour dates below...

Continue reading "The Cave Singers - new album soon, 2009 tour dates, 2 NYC shows - 1 w/ The Antlers (who are also playing MHOW) "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks - "The Hungry Saw" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks - "Yesterday's Tomorrow" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks - "The Other Side of the World" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Paper - "Out of It Into It" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Week That Was - "Learn to Learn" (MP3)
DONWLOAD: The Antlers - "Bear" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Antlers - "Two" (MP3)

Tindersticks

The most exciting show of the week for me has to be the return of Tindersticks, who play the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on Friday (3/6). The band rarely tour the States, having last been here five years ago for their album Waiting for the Moon. In the interim, frontman Stuart Staples put out a solo album in 2005, fueling break-up rumors. It was more like break in half: the band lost three members, leaving Tindersticks as a trio comprised of Staples, guitarist Neil Fraser and percussionist/keyboardist David Boutler.

The three have been busy lately. Not only did they put out last year's very good The Hungry Saw, but just finished soundtrack work for Claire Denis' new film 35 rhums. (Tindersticks previously worked on Denis' 2001 film Trouble Every Day.) Despite the shrinking membership, Tindersticks sound just as dark, lush and cinematic as before on The Hungry Saw. Like Nick Cave, Tindersticks' seem to get better with age. For these North American shows, Tindersticks will be touring as a seven-piece, including the amazing-in-his-own-right Terry Edwards on brass.

Tickets for the Brooklyn Masonic Temple show are still available,. Longtime BV fave Dawn Landes opens. Meanwhile, Tindersticks singer Stuart Staples is featured in this week's Pitchfork Guestlist.

The Week That Was

South by Southwest is only two weeks away, which means UK, European, and Canadian bands on their way there will start playing NYC shows soon. Next week is kind of insane, so in an effort to cover some of it early, I'll remind you again that The Week That Was play Mercury Lounge this Monday, March 9. Here's what I wrote a while back:

TWTW are one of the two splinter groups created when Sunderland, UK's Field Music decided to retire that moniker but still basically make music together. David Brewis released a phonetics-obsessed solo project under the name School of Language(which toured here last March). His brother Peter created The Week That Was, a concept album equally obsessed with (lyrically) The Media and (sonically) the Big '80s production style of Kate Bush and Trevor Horn. It's a brilliant album that made my Top Five of 2008. Both David Brewis and Field Music keyboardist Andrew Moore, plus about five others on percussion and strings. They'll only be a quartet at Mercury Lounge, but if they even come close to replicating the album's wall-of-sound, it will be worth attending.

Tickets are still available and I highly suggest you do. Also on the bill: Boston's underrated Hallelujah the Hills, Philly's Arc in Round, and Brooklyn locals Monuments. The Week That Was are doing a few other dates around the U.S. as well as a few at SXSW and all dates are at the bottom of this post.

Paper

Backtracking a bit, the first of those three consecutive PAPER shows at Cake Shop start tonight (3/4). It's the Swedish band's first-ever U.S. gigs and they've already been here a few days, blogging about their adventures in the city, systematically cataloging their food intake, complete with number ratings. Pretty funny. Of the three shows, Friday's (3/6) looks the most interesting to me, with Japan's Zazen Boys (who we featured earlier in the week) and Your Nature who, until just recently, you may have known as Frankopollis. But tonight's show (3/4) has local dance-rockers Holy Hail and Phones, which features members of White Rabbits and The Subjects. Not to short Thursday's show (3/5), of course, which has Talk Normal, Graffiti Monsters and Never Tune.

The Antlers @ Cake Shop during CMJ (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

And lastly, Thursday night (3/5) at Union Hall, The Antlers are having the record release party for their new album, Hospice, which is out this week and has been getting a whole lot of blog love. It was recently named "Best Album of 2009 So Far" by the folks at NPR's All Songs Considered. Personally, I don't start ranking things till at least April but I will say Hospice is definitely worth checking out. (There are a couple tracks from it at the top of this post.) I am curious to see how its dense, multi-layered sound will come off live. It's a nice night of music, actually, with North Carolina's chamber pop band Physics of Meaning, and the country jangle of Brooklyn's Brilliant Mistakes.

Like usual, tour dates and video follows after the jump...

Continue reading "Tindersticks, The Antlers, Paper, The Week That Was, Your Nature (formerly Frankpollis) & more in This Week in Indie"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: The Physics of Meaning - "Why Can't We Fall in Love Forever? (Anything is Possible) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Physics of Meaning - "Aeroplanes and Hurricanes (MP3)

The Physics of Meaning will visit Brooklyn's Union Hall on March 5th as part of a winter tour that started in the band's hometown of Chapel Hill, NC, exactly a month before. Also on the bill are locals The Brilliant Mistakes and The Antlers, the latter of which will be celebrating the release of their new LP, Hospice, at the show.

Fronted by violinist Daniel Hart, who also does time with John Vanderslice, St. Vincent, and Pattern is Movement, the chamber-pop Physics of Meaning played a series of CMJ shows last year, including an Oct 22nd CMJ party, put on by Gothamist at the Bell House, and a KEXP Live set, documented in the video below. As an aside, John Vanderslice is playing NYC on March 27th with The Mountain Goats. He'll be totally solo at that show though, unlike when he was here in April with Daniel as a member of his band.

This spring and beyond, The Physics of Meaning plans to record a follow-up to 2008's Snake Charmer and Destiny at the Stroke of Midnight (samples above, and streaming here). The band also recently waxed its second, forthcoming Daytrotter session(check out its first visit from June '08 here).

Video and all tour dates below...

Continue reading "The Physics of Meaning - 2009 Tour Dates, MP3's "

Photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

Women

The marathon, which concluded on Saturday night, was created in 1980 by the weekly college-radio newsletter once called College Music Journal and now known as CMJ New Music Report. It started as a pre-Web way to share information, practical knowledge and contacts among the many do-it-yourself bands discovered and nurtured by noncommercial college radio, groups that at the time were just beginning to create lines of communication between local scenes. [NY Times]

Cake Shop and Pianos are a set of conveniently located neighboring LES venues that each host bands almost non-stop during CMJ week. Throw in the Livng Room, and Ludlow between Stanton and Rivington can be a very efficient area to spend time during the days of the festival. Kyle spent Tuesday at the Pop Tarts party at Cake Shop before heading to Music Hall for the official BV showcase. Among the many bands on the Cake Shop bill were Women who went on to play many more shows throughout the week including the BV one at Knitting Factory on Saturday afternoon/evening. More pictures from Tuesday (10/21) afternoon below...

Continue reading "Women, etc.. @ the PTST day party @ Cake Shop - pics"