Magnolia Electric Co. – “Josephine” From the album Josephine, due on 7/21 from Secretly Canadian.

GlassnoteSo ever since my indie-pop clubbing days - and we’re talking almost a decade ago now - there was a song that I thought was “Too Young” by Phoenix, and it informed my entire opinion of the band - namely that they were far too slick and catchy and melodic to be trusted. And that’s largely been the impression I’ve had through most of this century until just recently, so when I actually found the video for “Too Young” and realized that I had never heard this song before, well my reality changed just a bit on two counts. One, that to the best of my knowledge, I’d never actually heard Phoenix before their latest record and two, that I have no idea whatsoever what that song that’s been embedded in my head all these years actually is.

And that’s really funny because even though I went into Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix with fresh ears, though not realizing it, my impression of the just-released record from the French quartet was that it was far too slick and catchy and melodic to be trusted. I am, however, much less suspicious these days and so rather than back away cautiously from the perfectly-assembled pop package, I have happily embraced it. Wolfgang is the sort of record that makes you glad you’ve invested in a decent sound system - the production is absolutely meticulous without crossing the line into antiseptic. There’s not a stray sound or squeak, each palm-muted guitar strum and cymbal crash has the perfect decay so as to not disturb the frequencies of the one that follows and Thomas Mars’ vocals are pitch-perfect without any tell-tale autotune artifacts. It sounds perfect.

Read more at Chromewaves →

Video: Phoenix - “Lisztomania”
Stream: Phoenix / Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Prefix reports that in conjunction with their now-underway North American tour, A Camp are releasing a digital EP of covers entitled Covers EP on June 9 via iTunes and June 16 via other digital outlets. If you’d ever wanted to hear Nina Persson sing Pink Floyd, your ship has come in.

Los Campesinos! drop hints about album number three, currently in progress, to Pitchfork.

Manic Street Preachers provide a track-by-track video annotation of their new record Journal For Plague Lovers to NMETV.

The first video from The Rumble Strips’ forthcoming Welcome To The Walk Alone, out July 13, is now out. Clash reports that the song was inspired by a mugging attempt on singer Charlie Waller.

Video: The Rumble Strips - “Not The Only Person”

Another “live session in an unusual setting” series has cropped up online, and Off The Beaten Tracks makes itself notable with an episode featuring Frightened Rabbit, complete with new song.

Ear Farm interviews The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.

Matthew says that Friday (tomorrow) is going to be the last day that he’ll accept orders for his wonderful Flux Tees. So this is your last chance to pick up one of those awesome t-shirts and support the most-excellent Fluxblog (the great grandaddy of music blogs)– Get to it!

Not content to rest on their laurels, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart will be releasing a new (colored vinyl) 7-inch, “103” b/w “Falling Over” on 7/28 (on Slumberland, of course).

I’m thrilled to announce that Vancouver’s Apollo Ghosts are a welcome new addition to the Catbird Records family. If you’ve been following things at all around here, I’m sure you recall my endless glowing praise for their debut LP, Hastings Sunrise (full Listen@MBV stream here). So, when they approached me with news that they had a new EP and wanted it on Catbird, what choice did I have but to jump at the chance?!?

The new Apollo Ghosts EP is called Forgotten Triangle, and it’s 5 brand-new (and totally awesome (obvs)) songs, recorded at the Catbird-revered JC/DC Studios. Comes in a Catbird Mini-7 sleeve, with artwork by yours truly. 25 randomly selected orders will get a special limited-edition version, with photo print insert. It’s $5 on CD, or a mere $3 for a 320kbps MP3 download.

MP3: Apollo Ghosts - “Palm of My Hand”

But that’s NOT ALL.

Being that they sold out of their initial pressing of Hastings Sunrise (300 LPs), I’m happy to tell you that the record has been repressed. And this time, in a beautiful 180-gram teal and white marbled vinyl. But there’s a caveat: this is a VERY limited pressing– just 100 copies (and we’ve only got 50 (our friends up north at Geographing have the other 50)). At the rate these things have gone in the last 18 hours, I don’t expect these LPs to last very long at all. So if you’re thinking about getting one, do it NOW. The LPs also feature a poster insert and a free download card, and will set you back just $15 (that’s practically a buck a song, considering Hastings‘ 14 tracks).

PLUS ALSO: being that Hastings Sunrise wasn’t even originally available on CD, we’ve taken care of that too. You can grab it on CD (in Catbird Mini-7 sleeve) for $7, or do the download thing for $5.

MP3: Apollo Ghosts - “Dobermans” / “Land of the Morning Calm”