Portland songstress Shelley Short is giving away a track from her fourth album, A Cave, A Canoo, out October 13th on Hush Records. The enchanting, semi-eponymous piano ballad “A Cave” is available here for downloading/listening. The super-limited edition LPs of the album were hand painted by Short’s brother, Faulkner, and will be released through Anonymous Records.
The cover images were hand painted (optically) in an edition of 300 and most of the 25 various images were taken with a Zero image 6x6 pinhole camera in Portland, OR, Astoria, OR, Long Beach, WA, Paris, FR, Chicago, IL and Colonia, Uruguay. These LPs are only available through Shelley at her concerts but you can enter a contest to win a copy.
All you have to do is e-mail Short a snapshot of your pet dressed in a “wildly hillarious costume or embroiled in a similarly hysterical situation.” The contest is being judged by Short and some of her pet-friendly pals.Please send all submissions to petportraits09@gmail.com. Short wants to also say that “no animals should be harmed in the making of these pictures (obviously).” The winner will be announced October 1st.
St. Petersburg, Florida’s Blind Man’s Colour has a new dreamy video for “Shells,” which appears on the experimental sound sculpters’s debut, Season Dreaming. Heather Pusey helms this video full of colorful faces in the dark and fireworks that recall the duo’s late night oceanic canoe trip. The release information and album credits that pop up around the 2:25 mark are a little disconcerting though. If I wanted a commercial I would have turned on the TV. No matter, BMC has some live dates in their home state soon. We featured BMC in our Summer ‘09 issue. Season Dreaming is out now on Kanine.
Chairlift debuted their new music video for the moody atmospheric “Ceiling Wax” on My Old Kentucky Blog today. The elegantly simple (or low budget) clip was directed by lead vocalist, Caroline Polachek and was filmed by Ethan Silverman (friend/tour manager). Guitarist Aaron Pfenning’s sister is the dancer and the band is inside those squirmy trash bags. Sounds more like the description for the group’s eco-warning cut “Garbage.” Man, that plastic is gonna take forever to decompose. Oh well.
The Brooklyn trio’s 2008 debut, Does You Inspire You is out now on Columbia. We interviewed them way back in the Fall ‘08 issue. They must be pretty sick of playing “Bruises” almost every night of their tour. I smell a recording respite soon.
Earlier this week, Friendly Fires dropped in on Jimmy Kimmel’s show to promote the deluxe version of their self-titled debut, which will include new single “Kiss of Life.”
The band performed “Kiss of Life” (above) after a “we’re here with Rob Zombie” introduction. The synth-y rockers seem pretty stoked to be playing for the horror filmmaker/musician. As the show wrapped up, the band also played a rendition of earlier single, “Jump in the Pool.” The deluxe version of Friendly Fires is due out on September 1st. For more FF action, be sure to check out our live review of the group’s August 24th performance at L.A.‘s El Rey Theatre.
The spooky good U.K. trip-hop O.G.‘s Massive Attack are previewing tracks from their as-yet-untitled fifth album by releasing a four-track remix EP on October 5th. As we reported yesterday, the Virgin release is crawling with high profile guest spots (par for the course for most MA releases).
It’s called Splitting The Atom and you can hear the moody title track above, which premiered last night on Zane Lowe’s show on BBC Radio 1. The title song features some guest singing from roots reggae champ Horace Andy. This steez is as creepy and chilled-out as they come. I would not want to mess with anyone that sounds like that. Massive Attack’s fifth LP is scheduled for release sometime in February of next year.
Just in time for the fall, here’s an animated Nir Ben Jacob-directed clip for The Walkmen‘s noirish song that takes us to a dark blue farm and some frightened rabbits. Eventually a farmer shows up to blow up the place with his confetti musket, hunting dog at his side. Stereogum made the astute Watership Down comparison last week. All in all, pretty devastating stuff… The Walkmen are hopping about the U.S. right now. You & Me is out now on Gigantic Music.
The Dutchess & the Duke
“Hands” MP3
Aug 26, 2009
Pitchfork debuted The Dutchess and the Duke new cut “Hands” earlier today. “Campfire punks” Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison, are releasing a new batch of tunes on Hardly Art called Sunset/Sunrise. It’s the follow-up to last year’s stellar introductory LP, She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke, and you can expect it October 6th. “Hands” interweave the duo’s vocals nicely over a Spanish guitar-esque waltz. Then they stoke the percussive fire for a bit and relax for the song’s glowing sunset (how appropriate). D&D recorded the analog-loving LP earlier this year with Gris Gris’ Greg Ashley in his Oakland studio, The Creamery. You can check out the Seattle band’s tour dates here.
No Age
“You’re a Target” MP3
Aug 26, 2009
No Age‘s forthcoming EP from Sub Pop, Losing Feeling, has a download a new download for your ears. The MBV-like closing track, is called “You’re a Target” and opens with some pedal loops noodling before descending into what the L.A. duo does best: all-out aural destruction. Download the killer track above, but be sure to click on over to Sub Pop to listen to the EP in full (email sign-up required). Losing Feeling is out on October 6th.
Portland songstress 
Pitchfork
No Age
