January 15th, 2009 8:15am
Cut Off Your Hands’ “You And I”
Brad FafejtaLast Summer I started getting hit up via IM by someone - associate, friend, fan, I don’t know - eagerly extolling the virtues of one New Zealand outfit named Cut Off Your Hands. Now getting ambushed out of the blue like that isn’t really the way to endear yourself - or whomever you’re promoting - to me, but I was feeling magnanimous and went and gave their MySpace a listen. And wasn’t impressed. It sounded like the sort of hepped up, jerk-and-stab New Wave/post-punk that seemed inescapable a couple years ago and now just seemed dated. I told anonymous PR dude it wasn’t turning the crank, he said he understood but also mentioned that the tracks I’d heard were demos, and that the band were working on the proper album with producer Bernard Butler… so yeah, that got my attention and I filed it away for future reference.
That future turned out to be late last month, when a copy of the finished product - You And I, in stores on Tuesday - showed up, and out of my deep respect for Butler and his work, I gave it a spin. And another. And another. To my surprise, I found if not addictive then quite enjoyable - even though the observations I’d made some months previous were still correct, I didn’t mind so much. In fact, the fact that they were mining a sound that was no longer so fashionable was part of the appeal - they sounded less like an outfit chasing a trend than one simply doing what they do.
Read more at Chromewaves →MP3: Cut Off Your Hands - “Turn Cold”
Video: Cut Off Your Hands - “Expectations”
MySpace: Cut Off Your Hands
Howling Bells have released a new and rather awful video from their sophomore album Radio Wars, which had been set for a February 9 release, but which I’m thinking is now unlikely. It’s almost still certainly going to be a late Winter/Spring release, but probably not quite so soon.
Video: Howling Bells - “Cities Burning Down”
Oasis have turned their “let’s have buskers play songs from our new album” PR stunt in New York City last Fall into a little documentary. This took place just after the assault on Noel Gallagher in Toronto, hence his conspicuous absence from the proceedings.
Video: Dig Out Your Soul In The Streets
The Quietus reports that British Sea Power’s next album will be a soundtrack for the 1934 documentary Man Of Aran and consist of new and reworked old material. It is due out in the Spring. It will probably be odd.
Chart, The Courier Mail and The Age talk to Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce.
The Bay Bridged and Black Book have interviews with The Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner. They’re looking to release a new album for September.
The Quietus reports that Sonic Youth should be done their next album, currently entitled The Eternal, in time for a June release. This will be their first for Matador.
Peter Bjorn & John will release Living Thing on March 30.
eye has posted the results of their annual music critics poll, and going over the results, I’m wondering why I even bothered participating. Exactly one of my picks in any category made the final tallies.
Likewise, my suggestion for the CBC Radio 2 “Playlist For Obama” - Destroyer’s “My Favourite Year” - also doesn’t appear to have made the cut. My original suggestion was actually anything by Godspeed You! Black Emperor but it was decided that a 20-minute instrumental was probably too long to use. More like too AWESOME.
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