At the A.V. Club, comedian Eugene Mirman answers reader questions about sex, life, and love. And the CMJ staff blog reviews his book release party for The Will to Whatevs.

Paste's artist of the week is singer-songwriter Alela Diane.

BBC News profiles Saint Etienne.

PopMatters interviews the Handsome Family.

Jason Isbell talks to the Nashville City Paper about his grueling tour schedule (he will perform over 200 shows this year).

"Sure, there are times when you get tired of the grind, and that's when you know you've been on the road too long," Isbell said. "But this is your job as well as your life and something you love. People get up every day and go to work doing things a lot harder and less enjoyable than playing music, so there's no way I'd ever complain about what we do."

The Guardian examines the importance of television series exposure to bands' success.

In Skins' quest to portray authentic middle-class hipster youth, it has pushed the boat out with its soundtrack. There are around 150 songs in each series, many of them by acts liable to leave even the most au courant of music programmers, as well as fans, scratching their heads. It's a fair bet Skins represents the first TV exposure for Oregon ambient act Eluvium, Liverpool indie-ska band We Need Leads and North Shields pop group Moira Stewart, and an even fairer one that it's the first channel flagship drama to open to the strains of Son the Father by hardcore Toronto punks F**ked Up - as series three did. When Skins isn't busy pushing a playlist of early-adopter rock, dub and dance, it's doing a fine job of helping to break bands - and spearheading an increasingly relevant market for the record business: promoting music through TV dramas.

nyctaper is sharing mp3s of These Are Powers' album release show for All Aboard Future (out tomorrow).

Daytrotter's Monday session features in-studio mp3s from the Spinto Band.

The New York Times reviews Morrissey's new album, Years of Refusal.

But the listener enters a typically strange deal with Morrissey. As always, he depends on others to write his music, particularly his long-time collaborators Boz Boorer and Alain Whyte. It’s a lopsided relationship. Unless you’re such an English major that lyrics blot out the rest of a song, you’ll be coming to grips with instrumental songwriting that’s slightly anonymous, slightly passe college rock built to be consistent with an old pattern, his signature sound. It’s merely part of the system. “Years of Refusal” feels vibrant as an art of words and images; it’s somehow weaker as music.

At Hypebot, the brains behind indie music label Asthmatic Kitty share their opinions of the music industry and what works for them.

MySpace Welsh trio The Joy Formidable know how to get media attention. Last Summer, they had a video for debut single “Austere” banned from YouTube on account of it being comprised of video clips of people… well, I’d rather not have my site indexed for THOSE particular keywords but even though it was just a fan-made clip, the band gave it their seal of approval by posting it on their own website. And it’s probably NSFW. The band also made an official clip, but it’s far less controversial. And now, they’ve opted to take their debut album A Balloon Called Moaning and give the whole thing away for frees via NME. It was already released in a limited edition box set which sold out in a heartbeat and will be out in physical form tomorrow, but you can have it digitally now.

MP3: The Joy Formidable - “Austere”
MP3: The Joy Formidable - “Cradle”
Video: The Joy Formidable - “Austere”

If you missed the numerous edits to last week’s post about Polly Scattergood, allow me to sum up - rather than her debut album being entitled Other Too Endless and being released on March 9, it will now be self-titled and be coming out on May 19. But there’s a new video for the next single, which would have been the title track but is now just a song. A great song.

Video: Polly Scattergood - “Other Too Endless”

Emmy The Great week at Drowned In Sound wrapped up with another set of interviews conducted by Emmy. First off, she talks with Aidan Moffat, formerly of Arab Strap and who’s just released a new album in How To Get To Heaven From Scotland. There’s also a piece with Darren Hayman, formerly of Hefner and also with a new solo record in Pram Town, a talk with Mica Levi of Micachu. And to wrap up, a heart-to-heart with Dev Hynes, aka Lightspeed Champion, about the genius of Steve Martin. She also lets Metro have a look at her iPod (though they evidently look at her as they’ve run a picture of Los Campesinos with the piece, and helpfully identify the one of them as Emmy) and gives an interview to Virgin Music.

George Washington Brown – “It Still Rains”

What are the odds of Quarterstick (Touch and Go) signing not one, but two San Francisco-based avant-rock trios? Must’ve been pretty good, because that’s exactly what they did, and releases from both bands will be out next week.

Sholi – “All That We Can See”Sholi, who I think of as “the band whose cover depicts an exploding garbage can (albeit a pretty multicolored one),” debuts with a self-titled disc chock full of ambitious avant/indie rock tunes. I say “ambitious” because, well, just listen to this track, but remind yourself that’s only 3 guys.

Mi Ami – “New Guitar” And space-Noiseniks Mi Ami grace us with their new disc, Watersports, next week. Their cover art doens’t inspire that same “oooh-look-at-da-pretty-colors” reaction, but rather something more along the lines of “oooh-look-at-da-Vegas-showgirl’s-backside.”

Papercuts – “Future Primitive” From You Can Have What You Want (whose cover art I find especially cool), out 04/14 on Gnomonsong.

Josephine Foster - “I love you & the Springtime Blues” He always smelled like dried soup when he came in from outside. He would kick off one boot normally, and then flip the other one off against the wall, like an 8-year-old. And if it was wet outside, a little line of brown water would fling off the toe in a circle, or off the laces. He would take off his hat and run his fingers through his hair, and hang his hat on the hook before his jacket, so his jacket would cover the hat. He would smile, which I one day saw for the first time, realising he didn't have to smile, so I appreciated that.

Read on...

Handsome Furs - “Evangeline” I've started smoking my pencil stubs, snorting my hand sanitizer, shooting up my compost, and freebasing my wallet. I'm selling my collected works in a single bound volume, called “It Ends In A Tie”, and I'm moving the fuck out of here. Nothing can grow when it's stuck in the same place. You don't see it, but even the trees in the forest take a step to the left every so often.

We have a drawing set up with Insound this week. You can go there, sign up for their mailing list, and get put in a drawing to win a digital version of the new Handsome Furs album Face Control and a t-shirt. It's Gramophone-specific, so you do have a chance of winning.