Optical Atlas

I see that Southern Shelter has posted the March 29th Elf Power show from the 40 Watt.  It’s their record release show, and a warm-up for their tour (dates here), so fittingly there’s plenty from their new album In a Cave.  You can download the MP3s or FLAC files here.

The New Sound of Numbers has two shows lined up in Athens for the next month: they’ll be playing at the 40 Watt on April 3rd (this Thursday) with Supercluster and A. Che Why at 9pm, and at the Go Bar on April 19. Supercluster, by the way, is Pylon’s Vanessa Hay, backed on the project’s first release (the Special 5 EP) by a band that includes TNSON’s Hannah Jones, Casper & the Cookies‘ Jason NeSmith and Kay Stanton, and Circulatory System’s W. Cullen Hart and John Fernandes. A track was posted in last week’s update to the Optical Atlas jukebox, and you can order the EP from AthensMusic.

Speaking of AthensMusic, the site is now selling the eighth annual AthFest compilation, which includes Madeline, Ham1, Titans of Filth, The Inflatable Orchestra, and more. For a full track listing and ordering info, go here. Preorders ship April 29.

The Apples in Stereo and A Hawk and a Hacksaw are among the acts to play this summer’s Pitchfork Festival in Chicago. There will be 41 scheduled acts in total for this festival, which runs July 18-20 at Union Park, and also announced so far are Vampire Weekend, Dinosaur Jr., !!!, Mission of Burma, M. Ward, and many more. Tickets can be purchased here.

Speaking of the Apples, I neglected to post the winner of the “Can You Feel It?” remix contest. Here it is, as originally posted in the band’s IMEEM blog:

Finally, thanks to reader Jeff Taylor who writes in to note that Neutral Milk Hotel was featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered as part of their reader-driven “A Band to Call Your Own” survey. You can see that right here. (It’s nice to also see one of my faves, How I Became the Bomb, getting some love.)

The Optical Atlas streaming jukebox has been updated with 10 more tracks, including songs from the new Apples in Stereo, Elf Power, and Midget & Hairs albums, plus a new Instruments cut from the Build Your Army with Potatoes compilation.  And lots of sonic weirdness too.  Enjoy.

You can download (in FLAC and MP3) a live set from The Instruments at the Southern Shelter blog, from the Caledonia in Athens on 10/11/06.  Speaking of Ms. McIntosh, she’s been expanding her interests lately: she served as road manager for The Clientele last year, and this year she’ll be playing with Gnarls Barkley on tour, and will probably be appearing with them on Saturday Night Live on April 12!  A big congrats to Heather for that.

Last week I posted here that I noticed the Sunshine Fix Green Imagination promo videos were available for sale ($1.99 apiece) on iTunes. Now Bill Doss has written in to explain that they really ought not to be sold to anyone. Here’s how he puts it:

I am in a laundry. I’ll try to explain…

The videos you discovered on iTunes, and I appreciate the word being spread, were actually never meant to be sold at all! They were originally meant to come free with the album Green Imagination.

I’ll furtherily try to explainify…

Somehow, back before the dawn of cheese doodles and ankle bracelets, anarchy reigned supreme.

Y’know the type;

cats and dogs living together,
a spongy old man with onions and liver,
all your good days done drowned in the river,
and in silence are reborn…

And so, to conclude, the videos (not to mention musictown) landed on the shores of iTunes without whit or whim of merrily whimsy. All was sad in the town of musicvisionlande. Much haste was made. There was a truckload of haste! Now we anxiously anticipate word from the valley.

So please, if you please, tell the goode people of Atlastown that those videos will soon be made available for all to see, one for all and all for gum. No money down, no spaghetti crown.

Please and one million thank yous, kind sir!

So there you have it – these videos, originally bundled with a limited-edition version of Green Imagination – will soon be able to be downloaded for free by everyone. Here’s one of them, “Sunday Afternoon”:

The latest (March 28) issue of Entertainment Weekly features a pamphlet “bonus edition” inside the magazine, “Entertainment Weekly: The Indie Rock 25.” Sorting through the past 25 years of indie rock, EW picks the essential album for each year, touching upon Built to Spill, Guided By Voices, Belle and Sebastian, Pavement, Sleater-Kinney, the Shins, and many more. For 1998 the magazine astutely picked Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Below is a scan. Thanks to Patrick for letting me know!

I think it says something for the devotion of Neutral Milk Hotel fans that the fan-curated tribute series, Fanfare for Neutral Milk Hotel, has just released its fifth volume, entitled All Your Miracles.  And this for a band that hasn’t released any material in ten years, and only has two albums to its credit.  You can download Fanfare right here.  Thanks to Jared for the head’s up.  If you want your track to be on the inevitable sixth volume, your best bet is to keep an eye on the Townhall board.