Annabel MehranIt’s been a long week – I hope you’ll allow me to decompress with some much-needed link dumping.

And it’ll begin with St. Vincent, who wraps an extensive leg of North American touring tonight in Brooklyn before spending July in Europe in support of her second album Actor. Then come August, it’s back onto the highways of America for a short northeastern jaunt which will wrap with an August 8 show in Toronto at the Horseshoe, a gig which perplexingly isn’t yet sold out, so if you’ve been dithering about whether to go or not, the following should these video sessions with Ms Clark which surfaced over the past week should certainly nudge you off the fence, and if you’ve already got the date saved, they’ll serve to simultaneously whet and appease your appetite to see St Vincent live.

Her Lake Fever Sessions set sees her dazzling in a solo acoustic setting, while the inaugural “Cemetary Gates” series at Pitchfork TV sets Clark and her band in a Brooklyn graveyard (well, in a church in a graveyard), plugged in and presumably with a mandate to wake the dead. She was also on Letterman last night, performing “Marrow” – it’s probably too much to hope that the horn section is coming on tour with her – and You Ain’t No Picasso posted up an interview conducted a few weeks back in Kentucky.

Video: St Vincent – “Marrow” (live on Letterman)

Oregon Public Broadcasting welcomed Neko Case to their studios for a session and interview. Her tourmate Jason Lytle just released a new video.

Video: Jason Lytle – “It’s The Weekend”

SpinEarth talks to Emily Haines of Metric.

Patterson Hood discusses his new solo record Murdering Oscar with Paste and The Washington Examiner. You can currently stream the whole thing at Spinner.

Stream: Patterson Hood / Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs)

Aquarium Drunkard and Paste talk to Jay Farrar about Son Volt’s new record American Central Dust, out July 7.

Acoustic Guitar asks Elvis Costello about his acoustic guitar (and other stuff).

Interview talks to Swedish singer-songwriter Anna Ternheim. Her new record Leaving On A Mayday will be out in North America on August 11.

MP3: Anna Ternheim – “To Be Gone”

Here’s a peculiar bill – The Happy Mondays and The Psychedelic Furs are teaming up for a North American tour this Fall. I call it peculiar because the two acts were hardly contemporaries and probably wouldn’t have shared the same fanbase even if they were. But I guess they have the demographic now – nostalgic Anglophiles who wish they were twenty years younger.

The Dodos have announced a full North American tour for this Fall in support of their new record Time To Die, out September 15. Their tourmates will be kiwis The Ruby Suns.

MP3: The Dodos – “Fools”
MP3: The Ruby Suns – “Tane Mahuta”

Carey Mercer makes music as Frog Eyes, Swan Lake, and Blackout Beach. Here’s a Blackout Beach song from the latest album, Skin of Evil.

Blackout Beach – “Nineteen, One God, One Dull Star”

I first heard Skin of Evil back in March on a long, long bus ride on bad roads in Laos. The country had been burning and there wasn’t any wind, so the sky everywhere was smoky for a week. When this song came on the bus broke down. Three donkeys ran by. It started raining ash; like the outside world was in art class, and the exercise was to “do” Mr Mercer as a three-panel comic. And it didn’t get it, really, but it was cool. As long as we have the real songs (and we do).

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Broken Records – “Until the Earth Begins to Part” (Live at the Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh)

Good musicblogging chap Song By Toad must have some sort of *amazing* camera setup, considering all of the superb artist / music / performance video he’s amassed over on his Vimeo page. Shown above is a performance at Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre by the band of Scots known as Broken Records — doing the slow-simmering anthemic title track from their upcoming record, Until the Earth Begins to Part, which is due from 4AD on 7/7.

70 Soviet Album Covers. Awesome.

Cameron Wittig

Bon Iver side-project Volcano Choir to release album “Unmap” in September

It wasn’t enough that Drag City rescued the scant recorded output of 1970’s Detroit’s African-American proto-punks Death; it wasn’t enough that the tunes turned out to be flat-out awesome; it wasn’t enough that For The Whole World To See has proven to be so popular that Drag City has had to repress the vinyl at least 4 times since the album’s release in Feburary. Nope, it wasn’t enough… so just to push the amazing story of Death’s return just one level higher, the band has booked shows for September. Only 2 dates so far, one on 9/25 at the Magic Stick in Detroit, and one on 9/26 at the Empty Bottle in Chicago– but this is a pretty rare opportunity. If you get the chance to go, go.

MP3: Death - “Politicians In My Eyes”
MP3: Death - “Keep On Knocking”

(h/t to Renton, thx)

Fight Like Apes - “Tie Me Up With Jackets” One of my favorite things about MayKay’s lyrics is her perverse penchant for mentioning unlikely food and beverages in her songs, with a particular emphasis on the way they smell. In my experience, odor is rarely evoked in music, and when it is, it’s usually a casual reference to something that smells very good. MayKay, on the other hand, seems interested in grounding emotional moments in unflattering contexts, suggesting that our most romantic experiences and dramatic epiphanies cannot exist in a vacuum devoid of the junk of life. “Tie Me Up With Jackets” is full of meatballs, apple schnapps, odd in-jokes, and disses of obscure bands, but no amount of clutter can obscure the big passionate heart beating at the core of the song. The sentiment comes out all weird, but there’s no mistaking her love and desire.

Buy it from Amazon.