Roger SargentIt’s been some time since The Charlatans could be considered “buzzworthy” by any objective measure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s commendable that they’ve endured as long as they have, outliving most of their contemporaries in the baggy/Britpop eras and assembling a respectable oeuvre of singles and albums, but I will wager they’ve never been anyone in the world’s favourite band and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

They did manage to garner more headlines than they have in years last year, though, when they opted to release their tenth album, You Cross My Path, as a free download (physical formats that you had to pay for followed a couple months later). The record was also notable for being surprisingly decent. They’d lost me with 2001’s funk-soul pastiche Wonderland and I’d assumed that the plot remained lost, but Path was very much an example of the Charlatans doing what they’d always done well, melodic, danceable and anthemic and if you listen closely, cribbing shamelessly from pretty much every era of British rock.

MP3: The Charlatans - “Oh! Vanity”
Video: The Charlatans - “Oh Vanity”

Colorado Daily and The Colorado Springs Independent have interviews with Doves.

Dots & Dashes talks to Patrick Wolf about new album The Bachelor, out June 1.

White Lies discuss the state of the music industry with BBC.

Florence & The Machine’s debut Lungs has a UK release date of July 6 but according to Pitchfork, it’s not going to be out in North America until October 13. Yeah, I’ll wait for the domestic release. Sure.

Clash asks Fanfarlo on how they like to pass the time while waiting.

With their North American tour set to kick off tonight in New York, A Camp took some time to talk to NME, New York Magazine, New York Press and Magnet, where Nina Persson and Nathan Larsen are also playing guest editor this week.

The Boston Globe talks to Gentleman Reg, who will be opening up many of those A Camp shows.

While in town this week, The National stopped in at the CBC to record a performance of one of their new songs, formerly entitled “Karamazov” but now dubbed “Runaway”. Gorgeous stuff.

Video: The National - “Runaway” (live on QTV)

Lightning Dust – “I Knew” From the new album Infinite Light– the second long-player from Lightning Dust (Black Mountain’s Amber Webber and Josh Wells). It’s out 8/4 on Jagjaguwar.

Tiny Vipers – “Dreamer” From the forthcoming Life on Earth, out 7/7 on Sub Pop.

Frank YangIt may well have been a case of cabin fever that spurred The National to schedule a short east coast tour starting off in Toronto last Thursday. Two years removed from the release of Boxer and still a ways away from the follow-up - rumoured to have a working title of Shine and not due out at best until late 2009 and more likely 2010 - it’s not unreasonable to think they needed a break from the studio to stretch out their legs and maybe road-test a few new songs.

And so while the motivation for the show seemed simple enough, it was still significant in that it represented a definite, quantifiable step up in the band’s draw - whereas their last headlining show in October 2007 was at the 1000-capacity Phoenix, this time they were playing the twice-as-large Kool Haus and had easily sold it out.

Read more at Chromewaves →

Photos: The National, Colin Stetson @ The Kool Haus - May 21, 2009
MP3: The National - “So Far Around The Bend”
Video: The National - “So Far Around The Bend” (live)

The New York Times has a big feature on Grizzly Bear, whose Veckatimest is easily the big new release of the week. The band recently partook in a Black Cab Session and have rolled out a new video.

Video: Grizzly Bear - “Two Weeks”

NPR hearts themselves some St. Vincent, streaming her recent show in Washington DC as well conducting an interview.

The Lemonheads’ new covers record Varshons hits stores on June 23.

Religious Girls - “White Mage” They were standing completely still. Kind of posing, completely rock solid still. It was hard to tell they were real people, because they were standing next to fake museum ancient people, like those mannequin-type wax people, churning butter or hunting or something. But obviously they were real people. They were wearing now-time clothes, and they weren't in the exhibit, they were outside it. It just caught me off guard. They were seething. He was breathing really slowly but really hard, and she was breathing like she was under water, she would hold it in and then tilt her head up to take a breath. She had curly hair that went out in a triangle from the top of her head, and a baggy t-shirt, and shorts, and he had jeans and a golf shirt and his hair looked like it was made to hold sunglasses. You could see there was a relationship between them. Not like the wax people who looked like unused puppets, no these people had a connection between them that was bright and visible, like when people hold a flag between them at a soccer game. You could see their connection, it was all fingerprinted and greasy, and it had the sense that it was really well used. It was stretched tight between them and it was dripping. Dripping like carrying a bag of melty ice. Finally she turned around and faced him, her hands kind of on her hips but holding her big bag.

“So?”

And, to me, this is the way I remember it, it was like some sort of cue. The big fake birds that were circling, fake vultures flying high above fake dog skeleton, started really flying, started really screeching. The big fake half elephant covered in fur, started moaning, the fake leaves in the painted trees started rustling. And the fake people started lurching and bounding.

And these real people didn't notice! They didn't blink an eye when it happened. She just stared right at him and he just stared right back, even though all this other noise and other stuff was happening.

“Okay.” he said, and it all, everything at once, stopped.

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