Optical Atlas

Happy Halloween, everybody.  Just a short note today, since I’ll be busy preparing the front porch to terrify the local neighbor kids. The online magazine Bridgerack has posted a feature on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.  It’s a brief overview of the album which provides a good introduction to it.   The website also has an interview with Don Hertzfeldt (an animator you love, if you’ve seen his shorts) and pieces on David Lynch and Bill Watterson, and more.  Thanks to Finn for the head’s-up.

The Booty Patrol has made available for download the long-in-the-works tribute album Aluminum Plums. This 10th anniversary tribute album features 25 tracks which span of Montreal’s entire career. Amidst the lineup is the esteemed Casper and the Cookies, who take on “Penelope,” and Japanese pop ringmasters Elekibass, doing “Springtime is the Season.” You can download the album for free in either MP3 or lossless FLAC format.

1. Jeff Maksym “Dustin Hoffman Offers Lame Explanation For Missing Bathtub”
2. A Candlelight Vigil “She’s A Rejector”
3. Aisle Six “Vegan In Furs”
4. Elekibass “Springtime is The Season”
5. Becky Lovell and Dena Zilber “Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks”
6. Ben Hogan “Look At The Bell”
7. DMQ “Family Nouveau”
8. Sorry Stories “Autobiographical Grandpa”
9. Lesbian Afternoon “Disconnect the Dots”
10. Alex Madore “Jennifer Louise”
11. Emily Pike “City Bird”
12. Gay Harlequin “Kissing In The Grass”
13. Terrified Terrifics “Du Og Meg”
14. Dustin Hoffman Has Formed An of Montreal Cover Band “Kevin, I Wish You Were Born In Brazil”
15. Indie Blockedappella “Will You Come And Fetch Me?”
16. J&H “Requiem For O.M.M.2″
17. Vince Nicotra “Montreal”
18. Dena Zilber “Good Morning Me”
19. Manticore Am I “Charlie And Freddie”
20. Ketchup Fart “Landscape Mixdown”
21. Transcendence To Sigma “Cato As Pun”
22. Brandon Creath “Oslo In The Summertime”
23. Chadney “Suffer For Fashion”
24. Prash “Chrissy Kiss The Corpse”
25. Casper And The Cookies “Penelope”

(Yes, I’m being lazy and just copying my post from the of Montreal blog. Hey, my work break is only 15 minutes…)

Continuing to garner lots of praise and some very serious hype, our friends The Poison Control Center have been busy hitting CMJ, releasing their debut album, and now touring with Casper & the Cookies. Check out some seriously great live footage shot at KEXP at New York Noise. Particularly check out their performance of the new indie anthem “Magic Circle Symphony.” See them live:

Nov 3 2007 Turf Club, St. Paul, Minnesota
Nov 4 2007/5:00P Vaudeville Mews: Under the Microscope!, Des Moines, Iowa
Nov 5 2007 O’Leavers Pub (Patrick solo), Omaha, Nebraska
Nov 6 2007 The Bluebird, St. Louis, Missouri
Nov 7 2007 KRUI, Iowa City
Nov 7 2007 The Picador, Iowa City
Nov 8 2007 The Note (Patrick solo), Chicago, Illinois
Nov 9 2007 The Venue, Lafayette, Indiana
Nov 11 2007 Baker Theater (Patrick solo), Athens, Ohio
Nov 12 2007 The DAME, Lexington, Kentucky
Nov 14 2007 The Basement (Patrick solo), Nashville, Tennessee
Nov 15 2007 The Soul Bar, Augusta, Georgia
Nov 16 2007 GA TECH U. “Under the Couch,” Atlanta, Georgia

Dark Meat’s Jim McHugh has a nice appreciation of HAM1’s The Captain’s Table in this week’s Flagpole.  You can read it online here.  Both McHugh and HAM1’s Jim Willingham are excellent wordsmiths, so it’s nice to see one playing off the other.

HAM1 recently played the 40 Watt with Vic Chesnutt, and you can download the set at Southern Shelter.

The October 21st Elephant 6 Show podcast is now available for download in our E6 Radio archive.  Personally I think this is the best one yet.

This week the Onion A.V. Club is spotlighting Beulah’s third album, The Coast is Never Clear, as part of their series “Permanent Records: Albums from the A.V. Club’s Hall of Fame.”  It’s an interesting analysis which places the band’s notorious moodiness in contrast to its concise lyrics.  I won’t argue with the selection – I think it’s a great album – but it should also be noted that this is the moment when Beulah fans were suddenly split down the middle, some disliking their new, slightly more polished sound.  This was also a record that sat around for a long time before it was released, due to a dispute with their former label (it eventually came out on the fledgling Velocette Records).  For me, I can’t separate the album from 9/11/01, the day it was released.  Later that month I was driving through the Utah salt flats while playing the record, and at a rest stop saw that someone had formed the word “Peace” using stones and pebbles on the clean white ground.  (I don’t know what that has to do with Beulah’s album, but at any rate, that’s what I think of.)  You can read the A.V. Club’s write-up here. 

This year’s Next to Last Fest in Athens features “a farmer’s market, progressive speakers, and performance art” (that sounds like a Saturday morning by the capital building here in Madison, actually). It will also boast performances by Circulatory System, Dark Meat, Hope for Agoldensummer, Daedelus, Liz Janes, Chris Schlarb, Diane Cluck, and Daniel Clay, with more artists to be announced. Proceeds from this year’s event will go to Common Ground, a progressive social action group. Tickets are on sale now for $15 for one day and $20 for a two-day pass, but you can get in for considerably less (free) if you volunteer. Here’s the announcement from their website:

We need your help! Yes, you, the one with the hands. In exchange for a short shift, volunteers will receive a free pass to one of the days with the option to upgrade to a 2-day pass for $5 and they’ll be able to park for free on the day of their shift. Volunteer for 2 shifts, and get a 2-day pass with free parking both days, or 2 single-day passes. Get involved by sending your name, phone number, email, and any shift preferences to: nexttolastfest@gmail.com