The Sunday Round Up (January 27, 2013)
There were lots of album announcements this week, among them Vampire Weekend, Neon Neon, We Are Wolves and Born Ruffians.
Vampire Weekend have yet to announce the name of their album, which will be released May 6th. There was a bit of an internet stir when all of the fact checkers of the world apparently all went to the bathroom at the same time and the online music press became convinced that, due to a fan-wanked album cover, the record was going to be called Lemon Sounds.
Neon Neon, the collaboration between Welsh psych-pop group Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys and producer Boom Bip, have named their album Praxis Makes Perfect. It’s out at the end up April.
Montreal dance-punk band We Are Wolves, have announced that they’ll be releasing La Mort Pop Club in February on Dare To Care and digitally through their Bandcamp. You can stream the first track off that record at Bandcamp as well.
The forthcoming Born Ruffians album, of which we have already seen a couple singles, will be called Birthmarks and released April 16th through those wonderful folks at Paper Bag Records.
As an addendum, Tokyo Police Club have posted on their Facebook page, “Don’t be alarmed but I’m pretty sure that we’re making a really good record. Like, really good. Guys.” We can only hope that means we have another announcement on the horizon.
In music video news, Foals have released the video for the second single from their upcoming record Holy Fire, My Number. The trippy performance video is reminiscent of a party scene from Skins or Misfits, with a bunch of tripping audience members and some wicked slowed down dance shots.
Here in Canada we have the Polaris Prize, and now we have the Prism Prize, for the best Canadian Music Video. l Sponsored by Toronto’s The Grid (formerly Eye Weekly) and Canada’s music magazine, Exclaim, the $5000 CAD prize will be awarded during Canadian Music Week, the festival that takes over Toronto every March. You can watch and vote at the website now. The top ten will be announced on February 14th, and website features a handy countdown!
The New York Times has an essay adapted from the upcoming memoir of Joy Division/New Order member Peter Hook. The book will be called Unknown Pleasures and published by HarperCollins; the essay, which you can read here, is called We Were Joy Division.
Last but not least, a lot of pilot announcements are being made, and it seems some household favourites have some exciting new projects in development. The Duplass brothers, writer/directors of Jeff, Who Lives At Home, have signed with HBO to produce a single-camera comedy called Togetherness, according to Paste Magazine. You may know Mark Duplass as the sarcastic divorcee Pete on FX’s brilliant comedy The League, or from his role in last summer’s Safety Not Guaranteed with Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza (which I have yet to see – travesty).
In more pilot news, it seems SNL writer and brilliant stand-up comic John Mulaney, who released his second comedy CD/special New In Town last year, is also developing a comedy pilot, but with NBC. Paste has you covered on the details here.
That’s the round-up for this week.