Stephen Malkmus: The Soft Focus interview

Ian Svenonius hosts a show on VBS.tv called Soft Focus. The latest installment of the show is an interview with Stephen Malkmus. Watch the first clip above. To watch parts 2 through 4 click over to the site.

Mono, Hymn To The Immortal Wind

As a post-rock fan I sometimes find myself slightly concerned with the genre and, more specifically, it's front runners. It's easy to imagine these bands all together in a medium sized room where they each pick a corner and start painting the floor backwards towards the middle. It feels like at some point they are going to end up bumping into each other, effectively running out of creative space.

As much as I love, love, love listening to post-rock I have to be honest with myself. Not everyone can do it well. Far less bands can do it great. And those that can do it great I want them to do it great forever and I'm always afraid there's going to come a day when they can't but they keep going anyway.

I can't really say I've consciously thought this about Mono, but I guess in a way I'll always sub-consciously think about it whenever someone like them puts out a new record. That's why I think I put off picking this one up until now, a few weeks after it's release. What if this was it? What if this is the one where they run out of steam?

Me of little faith.

As it turns out, this record is everything that is right about Mono and everything that's right about the music they choose to make. Sweeping, cinematic, breathtaking...all of the adjectives that have already been heaped upon them so many times before...they all apply here. But at the same time this album feels different than the last. And that's the key part for a post-rock band. With Hymn To The Immortal Wind not only have Mono possibly made their best record in their ten year career, they also manage to ease all anxiety that they could possibly stop making the most epic music you've ever heard anytime in the near (or far) future.

"Ashes In The Snow"

"Follow The Map", directed by Dimitri Galuret:



Hymn To The Immortal Wind is a double LP and is out now on Temporary Residence Limited.

Fleet Foxes "Mykonos" 7"

What a gem of a song "Mykonos" is. Originally included on the Sun Giant EP it's now getting it's very own 7" release.

Sporting the beautiful cover shown above, the b-side is a cover of "False Knight on the Road".

You can pre-order this now from Sub Pop.

Fleet Foxes are on a much deserved touring break and are back on the road in June with some European dates.

"Mykonos":

Now Available On Wax: Tweak Bird Reservations EP

He took his sweet ass time, but I Hate Rock N Roll finally has that Tweak Bird Reservations EP pressed on green vinyl and ready for order. This is a co-release with White Noise.

If you aren't familiar with Tweak Bird take a peek at this live video. It pretty much tells you what you need to know. Yes- they are playing in a mall!



Go ahead and order this bad boy before they are all gone.

Tweak Bird are currently out on a hefty tour with Big Business. Check out the dates over on their MySpace and if they are playing anywhere near you, you really need to get your ass out to the show.

Morrissey, "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" Live Video

Morrissey -Something Is Squeezing My Skull


Morrissey and company perform the opening track from Years of Refusal.

Pink Mountaintops, Outside Love: pre-order, get the digital download now

It's not news to any collector that labels have been very rewarding to their consumers who support their vinyl releases. Digital download cards included in the record sleeve have been increasing at an amazing rate over the last two years. Pretty much everyone is doing it these days.

Jagjaguwar is doing you one better when you pre-order the new Pink Mountaintops, Outside Love, by giving you immediate access to the mp3's. You can also preview the entire album now over at their MySpace page. Suffice it to say, if you liked the previous offerings from PM or you're a Black Mountain fan you're probably going to want to pick this up.

You can also preview / download two songs from Outside Love over at the Jagjag site:

"Vampire"

"While We Were Dreaming"

Outside Love is out on May 5th.

Blitzen Trapper a capella / The Soft Pack preview unreleased song

Not sure what this Ahead of the Curve over at mtvU is exactly, or why their videos are so darn short. Must be a show on their college station that they want you to tune into. Anyways- they have two 45 second long videos that caught my attention.

First is Blitzen Trapper performing "Sleepytime in the Western World" with just their voices. I think their label buddies Fleet Foxes seem to get the most attention for their harmonies, but this video shows that BT is great at it as well:




Secondly, they have a preview of The Soft Pack performing an 'unreleased' song. I've pretty much loved anything I've ever heard from these guys, but I'm not so sure about this one. I know it's hard to form an opinion on less than a minute of music, so we should all reserve judgement for now: