The Hidden Cameras - “Ratify the New”
The Flaming Lips - “The Captain”

These songs have fictional physics. The kind of dream science that anything can happen if you just start small. These songs move slowly like the sun. They move like mountains tapped on the shoulder, turning around to see who it is. They rip up the roots, in slow motion, their regular motion is slow motion. They move like whales organizing to change the tides. They fold up forests and lay creases at the valleys. They use sky in their speech and whole planets in their eyes. They magnify the enormous, louden the deafening, repeat the obvious.

[The Hidden Cameras' Origin:Orphan relased Sept. 22 on Arts & Crafts / free Hidden Cameras EP with pre-purchased show tickets / The Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin re-issue with non-album tracks]

Frank YangWhat I hadn’t mentioned in Monday's writeup of The Balconies’ debut album was that I had been trying to catch the band live for some months now, based on numerous rave reviews, but while they’d played no shortage of shows in the area, I’d not been able to make any of them until now. The fact that I’d been able to familiarize myself with their album was just a happy coincidence.

And to everyone who’d offered those rave live reviews and perhaps set up unreasonable expectations… you were right. The trio, playing their first gig as a Toronto-based band, performed with an energy and tightness that belied their relatively short existence together. Songs that I wasn’t sure about on the album sounded great, as really their whole set did from start to finish. As impressive as the recorded document is – it really does manage to reproduce their on-stage sound – The Balconies live came off with a certain swagger that wasn’t quite captured in the studio. Blessed with an abundance of tunes, talent and charisma, The Balconies may be new in town but if you haven’t made their acquaintance yet, just wait – they’re too good to stay any kind of secret.

Photos: Everything All The Time, The Magic, The Balconies @ The Horseshoe – August 26, 2009
MP3: The Balconies – “300 Pages”

Dirty Projectors are heading back on the road this Fall in support of Bitte Orca -- full dates at The Music Slut. The band will also be releasing a new EP in the UK on September 29 called Temecula Sunrise – details at Pitchfork.

MP3: Dirty Projectors – “Rise Above”
Video: Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is The Move”

Chairlift have released a new video from Does You Inspire You. Last time I was in New York, I saw the health club poster with the phrase that the album title is lifted from. I’m actually back in New York next weekend – anything going on? Actually Chairlift is playing. Maybe it’s a sign. Or a poster. Aaaaah.

Video: Chairlift – “Ceiling Wax”

Pitchfork talks to Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips about the edition of All Tomorrow’s Parties they’re curating in New York’s Catskills from September 11 to 13. There’s also interviews at The Fredericksburg Freelance-Star and The Washington Examiner. Their new album Embryonic is out October 13.

Richard Hawley talks to Spinner about getting into the necessary headspace to write his latest album Truelove’s Gutter, out September 22.

Pitchfork gets to know The xx, while The Quietus examines how the state of technology allowed the band to come to be. XX is out October 20.

eye talks to Trent Reznor about his decision to hang it up after this final round of touring.

Montreal Mirror, JAM and Uptown interview Franz Ferdinand.

Spinner has posted up the next (and last?) in its series on the state of independent music in Canada, this piece looking towards the future with the likes of Fucked Up, Crystal Castles and some fresh-faced kids who go by Metric.

Deerhunter/HEALTH/Crystal Antlers/KOKO
Middle Boop, 2009
Ltd. Ed. Print Available →

The Guardian reviews Noah and the Whale's sophomore album, The First Days of Spring.

Some lovelorn songwriters make you wince at the acuity of their observations and the keenness of their pain; others wrap their misery around themselves like a feather duvet. Noah and the Whale, with producer Emery Dobyns, have crafted perhaps the most luxurious-sounding break-up album since Beck's Sea Change, a quantum leap from the DIY feel of their debut.

Shoes for the indie rocker: Sub Pop Nikes.

The Washington Post's Post-Rock blog interviews Gregg Gillis of Girl Talk.

The Irish Independent interviews composer Nico Muhly.

Back in the day, classical music was in one corner, indie pop in the other. You must feel blessed to be working in an era when the two are allowed mingle.

I was born in 1981 and a lot of the big style battles of the '60s in classic music had ended. I think the borders are more permeable now. There's always been this thing where you had The Beatles for instance working with [sitar maestro] Ravi Shankar. The difference now, I think, is that with iTunes you can navigate horizontally across albums. You know, this same young composer working on a solo project has this other thing you might like. Ten years ago you'd never have been able to do that...

CMJ Relay interviews singer-songwriter Cory Chisel.

FACT Magazine lists the 20 best post-rock albums.

Future Islands – “The Happiness of Being Twice”
An insane/joyous/superfun video featuring a ton of Baltimoreans, New Yorkers, Chicagoans, and North Carolinians, all shot on green screen and composited together to build one big happy family.
(via No Conclusion)

Taken By Trees - “Greyest Love Of All” If you know what you want — and most likely, what you want is to be loved — it can be so hard to settle your mind and feel comfortable with what you have in the moment. I do not know what your life is like, but I can think of very few moments in my own in which I’ve been fully satisfied. It’s a horrible pattern, things never seem to line up for me. It is so deeply aggravating, it feels so completely unfair, and it warps my perceptions. “Greyest Love Of All” is about this feeling in some way, this discomfort with circumstances and inability to be pleased with the way things are in the present tense, even if there’s plenty of good in exactly what you have. It’s sung from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in, but I like to think of it almost like a prayer to one’s self.

Buy it from Amazon.