LHB’s Shorties (The Mountain Goats, AA Bondy, and More)

Pitchfork interviews John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats about his new album, The Life of the World to Come.

Pitchfork: You named all the songs after actual Bible verses. How much time did you spend with an actual Bible, going through it, looking for verses that tied in directly with what you were already writing about?

JD: It went both ways. Sometimes I would write a song and I would think, "Well, let me read for awhile and see if I come across something." I know the Bible pretty well. I'm not one of those guys who can immediately start quoting every book, but usually I know where to look to find certain themes. With a song like "Psalms 40:2", I had been looking through the Psalms; the Psalms are so awesome. I saw the line "He has raised me from the pit", and I liked the sound of that. Started messing around with a guitar, started ad-libbing a little story for the first verse and then, when I got to the chorus part, sang the lines direct from the Psalms, more or less. So it varied.

On sale at Amazon MP3: A Fine Frenzy's new 12-track Bomb in a Birdcage album for $3.99

Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life blog offers an exclusive excerpt from Nick Cave's new novel, The Death of Bunny Munro.

Aquarium Drunkard interviews singer-songwriter A.A. Bondy.

On sale at Amazon MP3: Phish's new 11-track Joy album for $3.99.

MySpace is streaming the new Stars of Track and Field album, A Time for Lions (out September 15th).

Drowned in Sound names Late of the Pier's Fantasy Black Channel the winner of its Neptune Prize (an alternative to the Mercury Prize).

Pitchfork has musicians (including John Darnielle and Britt Daniel) list their favorite albums and songs of the 2000s.

Beggars Group will release albums in China through local labels.

Fingertips (the music blog, not my wife's health and wellness blog of the same name) interviews Andrew Spencer Goldman of the Fulton Lights.

- David Gutowski