We previously posted what we believed to be Band of Horses’ Official Video for their new song Knock Knock.  Turns out we were deceived.  Check out the just-released Official Official Video for the song below, courtesy of NPR.

The director and band leader had these things to say to NPR about the video:

Director, Jared Eberhardt:

“A band spends all this time and energy making an incredible album. For a video director, the challenge is breaking into the club as an outsider and gaining the trust of the band. It’s the best when I feel I am partnering with the band, using their sensibilities combined with my own to do the part they can’t.

The “Knock Knock” video was the perfect combination of three things. First of all, as a fan, I had a genuine interest in making something that felt like the band had made it themselves. I didn’t want it to feel too slick. Second, I grew up in the area where we shot the video; when BOH wanted to shoot there, I already had all the locations picked. And third, I wanted to pay tribute to the old nature films I remember from school. Those old films were all about a bunch of guys going to exotic places and staging adventures, with very little craft or consideration to lighting or aesthetics: shooting in the middle of the day, staging scenes in really artificial ways, strange eye lines from reading cue cards, etc. It was really fun and sometimes difficult to get my head around trying to make things look bad, but not too bad.”

Band of Horses singer Ben Bridwell:

“We had some really great treatments sent to us from different directors, but this one stood out as the most interesting and fitting for our personalities. Jared really made us feel at ease, even in the planning stages before the shoot. He listened to our concerns and took extra care to make us feel like we stayed within our element, while at the same time pushing us to get good performances. It was a hell of a long day, but an exciting adventure for us in getting to see these beautiful parts of Utah and being around the great group of people that Jared hired for the shoot.

It seems fitting that we’d finally get to shoot a video around Salt Lake City, as we’ve got a song that pays tribute to the area called “The Great Salt Lake” from our first album. Better late than never.”

Check out below Lord Knows, a new song from the dandy Dum Dum Girls off of their impending EP, End of Daze.  The song treads nicely in Neko Case territory, but the Dum Dum’s (don’t believe it) add their own sorcery and spin via the sweetest wall of harmonies we’ve heard in quite some time.  And the Dum Dum Girls go:  “I want to live a pure life. I’d say it’s about time. Don’t judge me for the things I’ve done.”  We won’t judge, except to say this song is a beauty.

While we’re on the Dum Dum Girls, after Lord Knows check out an unplugged version of their great song, Coming Down.

Most know A.C. (“Carl”) Newman as a key component of the pop-complex known as The New Pornographers.  Together with Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, Neko Case and backers, The New Pornographers have made some of the headiest pop-rock crafted in the 21st century.  Some may be unaware, though, that Newman has also released two of the best solo albums we have laid our ears upon, 2004’s Slow Wonder and 2009’s Get Guilty.

Now comes the grand news that on October 9th, he’ll release his third solo album, Shut Down The Streets, on Matador Records.  Newman came through an emotional period prior to recording the album, and he’s lived to sing about it on Shut Down the Streets, all as explained to Pitchfork recently:

“This record was written during a very heavy time in my life. I was right in that in-between space where I’d just lost somebody [his mother] that’s amazingly important to me, and I was also anticipating the arrival of somebody incredibly important, too. It made me think a lot about family, life and death, happiness and sadness, and how to reconcile them all. All the big questions. The months before and after Stellan was born, I couldn’t think about writing at all. I’ve always been like that; I don’t work that well when there’s distractions taking an enormous emotional toll on me. Other people do, apparently. Eventually, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got a kid to support now. Get back to work.'”

The new album was recorded in Woodstock, NY and features Neko Case.  Perhaps given the recording environment, the album is said to bear the influence of classic ‘70s folk and pop, a departure from the New Pornographers’ sound.

Check out the evidence on first track, I’m Not Talking, released off the new album below and go HERE to download it.  It’s a smooth-talking, rapturous song that bodes well for the album.

Newman’s Fall Tour listings follow the song.

A.C. Newman–I’m Not Talking:

on tour this Autumn :

10/21 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace (Exclaim! 20th Anniversary Concert Series)
10/22 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
10/23 – Allston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
10/24 – Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
10/25 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
10/26 – Washington DC @ Black Cat
10/27 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
10/28 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
10/29 – St. Louis, MO @ Duck Room at Blueberry Hill
10/30 – Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
11/1 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
11/2 – Winnipeg, Canada @ West End Cultural Centre
11/5 – Edmonton, Canada @ Starlite Room
11/6 – Calgary, Canada @ The Republik
11/8 – Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret (Exclaim! 20th Anniversary Concert Series)*
11/9 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile*
11/10 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge*
11/12 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent*
11/13 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex*
11/14 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah*

*with special guest Harriet

Justin Vernon must just have songs laying around.  Either that or he appreciates choral music?  Or maybe it’s just that he’s gotten wrapped up in the buzz about The Silver Lake Chorus and their choral arrangements of indie music.  Produced by Ben Lee, their debut album features original songs written especially for TSLC by indie artists such as Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Carl Newman (The New Pornographers), Aimee Mann, Sia, The Bird & The Bee, Tegan & Sarah, and Of Montreal.  They are led by artistic director Sam Rader and music director Mikey Wells.

The group is now self-releasing From The Snow Tipped Hills, written for them by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, & Wreckage, written for them by A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers, both available online September 14.

Check out Vernon’s From The Snow Tipped Hills below as performed by The Silver Lake Chorus. Magnifique.

Check out Damien Jurado directing and cajoling a Haldern Pop Festival audience into singing with him on a new song entitled Let Us All In.  It takes a bit to get going, but eventually pays off handsomely and feels like Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=te4VrC2ulHA

The Joy Formidable put out a powerful-punch of an album (The Big Roar) last year, and then blazed through concert halls everywhere.  We confess that while their sound grabbed us initially, by the time the band came through Santa Barbara we had grown weary of their somewhat monotonous (though still riveting) distortion sonances.  So it comes as a relief that Wolf’s Law, the first track to be released post-Big Roar, evinces a quantum shift in sound with different instrumentation (now including strings and piano) and more-subdued vocals from singer Ritzy Bryan.

And the official video has some cool effects too.  Check it out below.

The beguiling Polica performed their song Dark Star on The Jimmy Kimmel Show last night.  Check it out below.  Slick compared to the radio show performances, but compelling nonetheless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWi3hcqdiS4&feature=em-uploademail

The prodigiously talented electro-psych band, Animal Collective, is soon to release its ambitious new album Centipede Hz.  Centipede Hz follows on the heels of the band’s breathtaking last album, Merriweather Post Pavilion.  Centipede Hz is currently streaming on Animal Collective‘s site.  Go there and stream the entirety of the new album, conveyed via videos.  Check out this audio-visual magical mystery tour, and then submit your own custom mixtape to be eligible to win a vinyl pressing of the album. More info on that on mixcloud.

There’s a lot of shimmering sound to chew on with the new album, but the trademark Animal Collective quality continues to shine through.

It’s been a long time since we took time to tout a tome.  It’s not like we’ve stopped reading, but there just simply aren’t enough posts in a day (reasonable minds may differ). Simply put, Jess Walter’s most recent book, Beautiful Ruins, is the most enjoyable read we’ve had in quite some time.  If you need a great novel to finish out the summer’s days, this is it.

Jess Walter is an award-winning storyteller (Citizen Vance, The Zero) who is facile in all genres, including non-fiction.  But with Beautiful Ruins, he’s outdone himself.  Walter introduces us to a dozen characters whose lives are, knowingly and unknowingly, intertwined over a span of 70 years, ranging from a dying actress and Richard Burton on a movie set and elsewhere in Italy in 1962, to an Italian innkeeper, to a Hollywood producer, to the producer’s idealistic assistant, to a heartbroken World War II veteran.  Together with their spouses, lovers, progeny and friends, Walter weaves a tale of success, failure, heartbreak, resignation and resolve.  You know:  life.  In the course of doing so, Walter uses every literary trick in the proverbial book to capture the human condition, though all in service of the story and never merely for show.  Early on, the chapters alternate between the various eras to great effect.  Eventually Walter uses virtually all literary tropes available to tell the tale:  poetry, short story, movie pitch-piece, memoir, play, screenplay…they’re all there.  And all are used in service of the captivating storylines.  If it sounds at all mechanical, it is not.  The highly entertaining pages fly by.  Walter is at his best capturing conversation and using pathos and bathos (some of Burton’s lines had us laughing aloud) to illumine the characters and their interlaced lives.  And he does it so well and so deftly that you won’t realize how entertained you’ve been in the process.

We will be shocked if, as a result of this must-read novel, Walter doesn’t take home many of the literary prizes available for 2012.