Optical Atlas

of Montreal’s performance from the 2007 Coachella festival (along with other 2007 highlights) will be rebroadcast tomorrow, April 16th, at 4pm CST at the AT&T Blue Room.  April 25-27 the Blue Room will webcast live from Coachella 2008.

For all those waiting for the website to come back up today, I apologize – there were some issues that hopefully have now been resolved.  We have two new episodes of WGSU’s The Elephant 6 Show for you, from April 2nd and April 11th.  In addition, DJ’s Becky and Dave have a contest this week through which you can win an autographed, homemade Elephant 6 tote bag signed by Andrew Rieger of Elf Power.  Details are in the April 11th episode, or so Becky tells me – I haven’t listened to it yet because I’ve been busy trying to get this website running again.  You can download all the latest E6 Show podcasts here.

Named after a province in Sweden, Dark Småland, the third full-length album from The Instruments, follows on the heels of the band’s covers of Joy Division (on a limited edition 7″) and Brigitte Fontaine (on the recent comp Build Your Army with Potatoes), and seems to absorb their influences into their most moody work yet. But it’s also a shimmering album, starkly setting Heather McIntosh’s impeccably lovely orchestration against her deliberately droning, repetitive vocals, which increasingly, it seems, sound like a retreating echo in some distant, dark cavern. Assisting McIntosh this time around are friends from Elf Power, Olivia Tremor Control, and Neutral Milk Hotel: Derek Almstead, Eric Harris, Peter Erchick, Will Cullen Hart, John Fernandes, and Jeff Mangum. Dark Småland is being released May 13th by Orange Twin Records, and you can listen to a sample MP3 below.

1. Ode to the Sea
2. Ode Pt. 2
3. Sounds Electric
4. Arabesque
5. Mountain Sons
6. Pastorale
7. First Signs
8. Paths of Low Flying Birds
9. Cello Ballad
10. Early Lights
11. Northern Skies
12. Papillon

Quite innocuously, John Fernandes posted at the tail end of a fifteen(!)-page thread at the E6 Townhall the following message:

i just posted some new music on the circulatory system myspace page.
progress is now being made on the record, a possible ’side one’ has been put together with help from charlie of 63 crayons.
hopefully the new album will be released this fall. 

That “Charlie” would be Charlie Johnston, who played with Circulatory System at last summer’s Athens PopFest.  The new songs posted at MySpace are fucking great! (Three cheers for John for posting them.)

In case you missed it, by the way, Marci Mars (wife of Robert Schneider) posted this on the thread last January:

my husband robert has been mixing it with will, and it seems that they are making good progress. i’ve only heard bits and pieces, but robert says it’s mind blowing. he made it his new year’s resolution to help will finish it.

So new Circulatory System, my friends?  Now. Right now. There is no other time…

This week’s Saturday Night Live features Ashton Kutcher!  Wait, that’s not the exciting news.  This week’s SNL features Gnarls Barkley, and playing with them will be Heather McIntosh of The Instruments, Circulatory System, Elf Power, and Japancakes (among other projects for whom she’s contributed cello over the years).  She’s been touring with Gnarls in support of their new album, The Odd Couple.  Also, I’m taking bets on how long before of Montreal appears on the show…I’m guessing early next season.

The Optical Atlas Streaming Jukebox has been updated with 10 more tracks, including one from the rare Kahimi Karie/Olivia Tremor Control EP, Once Upon a Time, released in Japan in 2000. (I actually uploaded the wrong track, “Monsters,” when I meant to upload “Do You Know the Time?” Hey, it’s not my fault – the MP3 titles were all in Japanese! But I decided to keep “Monsters” because it’s a great song too…and I’m lazy.)

Elf Power’s new album In a Cave will be listed as the #1 most played record in CMJ’s college radio charts this coming week. This from Elf Power’s MySpace blog.

You Ain’t No Picasso has announced the lineup of Kentucky’s FreeKY, a festival celebrating the 20th anniversary of Radio Free Lexington.  It should be no surprise that Lexington’s own Robert Schneider will be performing at the festival, but it is news that he’ll be playing it twice, as both The Apples in Stereo and his new children’s music project Robbert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine.  Also performing will be Big Fresh, Hair Police, Jolie Holland, and more.  The festival is held on Saturday, April 26, from 11am – 11pm at the Downtown Transit Center.  More info here.