Sufjan Stevens – “Sofia’s Song” Suf’s ode to Sofia Coppola, written back when he was a college kid.

Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig talks to Entertainment Weekly's Music Mix about the band's forthcoming sophomore album.

"It's definitely going to be a recognizably Vampire Weekend sound, but there are going to be new sounds. We're trying to challenge ourselves not to use the same bag of tricks that we used on the first album -- different instruments, stuff like that."

The Guardian lists the UK's best smaller music festivals.

Pop Tarts Suck Toasted lists the top album openers of the 90's.

The Guardian reviews the new Bob Dylan album, Together Through Life.

M. Ward talks to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The Independent profiles Peaches.

Peaches has never been about shocking audiences for the sake of it, so it stands to reason that, with three albums to her name, she should be broadening her horizons. Her music, she says, is "about feeling empowered and having fun. It's also about questioning standards and authorities. That has always been my point. It's certainly never been about hating men. On the contrary I try to include everyone in what I do."

Read an excerpt of Wish You Were Here: An Essential Guide to Your Favorite Music Scenes -- From Punk to Indie and Everything In Between. (via)

Drowned in Sound continues "shoegaze week" with a profile of Slowdive.

On sale for $1.99 at Amazon MP3: Andrew Bird's excellent 12-track album Armchair Apocrypha (one of my favorite albums of 2007).

Tiga - “Shoes” I enjoy this song because of, and not in spite of, the fact that it very much sounds like something Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim would do on Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! as a joke. Though it’s clear enough that Tiga is taking the music a lot more seriously than they would, it’s also pretty obvious that the vocals are intentionally campy and ridiculous. Basically, as the track funks along, Tiga flirts with and flatters a lady in relatively strange ways, and she rejects him at every turn, and the end result is a track in which it’s difficult to tell whether this is part of some odd sexual game they are playing, or if he’s a weirdo getting shot down for good reason, or if she’s just this incredibly aloof and unfeeling ice queen.

Buy it from Amazon.

Annabel MerhanMs Annie Clark - St Vincent - will release her second album Actor in a couple weeks on May 5, and while I’m a bit reluctant to invoke the “Disney-esque” adjective that so many other early reviews have, I must admit that it really is appropriate.

The way that Clark’s trilling voice delivers melodies that skip and soars overtop richly-appointed arrangements, you could imagine these songs soundtracking any animated Disney film (or all of them, since they’re pretty much identical). Of course, you’d have to work in a few scenes of fast-cut ultra-violence to accommodate the moments when her buzzsaw-toned, guitar-shredding interludes makes their appearances, but hey - that’s what the kids are into these days.

The combination of conventionally pretty and so-wonderfully-abrasive-they’re-pretty textures seem like they could get gimmicky, but Clark does it so naturally and guilelessly that you can’t imagine she’s doing it just to be contrary or to muck things up for the sake of muckery. This is actually how she hears things unfolding in her head, and we’re just fortunate to be able to share in the experience along with her. I quite liked St Vincent’s debut Marry Me, but with the way the follow-up is more focused without giving up the adventurousness or eccentricity that defined the debut, I think I’m already well on the way to liking record number two even more than the first.

MP3: St Vincent - “The Strangers”
Video: St Vincent - “Actor Out Of Work”
Stream: St Vincent / Actor

Drowned In Sound and The Winnipeg Free Press have interviews with Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Fazer talks to Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw of Metric.

Alison Mosshart talks to Billboard about balancing her main gig as frontwoman for The Kills with her new project with Jack White, The Dead Weather. Mosshart was taken to hospital during a gig in Denver earlier this week but she’s alright and The Kills will still be at the Phoenix on May 7.

Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura lists off her favourite things for Pitchfork.

Billboard discusses Romanian Names, out May 19, with John Vanderslice.

The Horrors – “Who Can Say”

Welcome to the Era of the Awesome Vinyl Reissue. Philadelphia art collective Free News Projects has just released a beautiful double 12″ picture disc version of Wolf Parade‘s recent album, At Mount Zoomer. All of the materials feature the collaborative work of artists Elizabeth Huey and Matt Moroz.

Limited Edition of 1500, 45RPM 2 x 12″ picture discs with offset printed cover on heavyweight archival paper.

Buy it at Free News Projects →