Pitchfork

Love is noise, Richard Ashcroft tells us in the Verve's newest single. Judging from the video, love also might have something to do with synchronized displays on vast sporting fields, helicopter shots of snow-covered peaks, and pyrotechnics in an alleyway behind two people making out.

[from the "Love Is Noise" single; due 08/19/08 on Parlophone]

"As jingles go, the beat should get your shoes tapping, but it doesn't sound like an example of artists taking the corporate dollar to make something they couldn't profitably do on their own," we wrote about this tune, commissioned by Converse, when it first started circulating. If the track isn't likely to make any year-end singles lists, the video/ad is somewhat clever, with a nifty computer effect where multiple 2-D versions of the trio move around the screen. That's one more dimension than Julian Casablancas brings to his vocals at any rate.

[from the Converse "Three Artists, One Song" ad campaign]

Writing about this track when we premiered it on Forkcast in March, Marc Hogan noted that "The guitars build from their campfire beginnings to ragged, searing squeals, backed by pirouetting, wordless backing vocals and punchy drumming." The song's video, premiering today on Pitchfork.tv, tracks the arc of the song closely. Robinson begins alone, strumming and singing to the camera, but is gradually joined by still figures surrounding him as they materialize from the darkness. They don't do much, singing a line or two here and there, but their presence seems to speak to the complexity of Robinson's tale-- they're like a shadow cast of characters revealed as the song gradually unspools. Cat Solan directs.

[from Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson; out now on Say Hey]

In February, Pitchfork news reported on comments by from Isaac Brock made to Rolling Stone's "Smoking Section" column about an upcoming Modest Mouse EP. One of the songs mentioned in the article was called "Satellite Skin", and whatever the current status of this EP, performances of the song on the band's current tour are showing up in YouTube. This one looks to date from the last week or so, and while sound and picture quality are not ideal, you do get a sense of how this punchy and initially appealing mid-tempo number works.

A proper album by Brian Eno and Philip Glass ranks near the top of my dream collaborations. The "Heroes" and Low symphonies don't count, nor does the live transcription of Music for Airports Glass wrote for the Bang on a Can All-Stars: I'm talking about original collaborative work, something like The Pearl with Glass as Harold Budd. As Eluvium, Matthew Robert Cooper seems to dream of this collaboration, too, setting drones of Eno-caliber beatitude against piano and string themes of Glass-caliber austerity. But "Miniature 3" is not an Eluvium track. By releasing it under his own name, Cooper signals a collapse of his usual dichotomy-- theme and atmosphere blend into one liquefied mass. "Miniature 3" evokes the gusty expanses of Christopher Bissonnette, or the hugely scaled ambiance of Stars of the Lid. Chords crest and break in super-slow-mo, and archipelagic bass tones wink in and out of a sea of stringed resonance. The longing that is so pronounced in Eluvium is here recessive and subtle, more insinuation than clarion call-- the sound of a melody yearning for its orchestra.

MP3:> Matthew Robert Cooper: "Miniature 3"
[from Miniatures; due 08/05/08 digitally and on limited vinyl from Gaarden]

Lukestar's first video from their solid second album Lake Toba showed them walking around the woods of Norway. Their second video, for the title track, shows them walking around the woods of Comic Book Land. Clouds, birds, and butterflies break the frame, and the band members cross a bass neck like it's a suspension bridge from an Indiana Jones. The acoustics have to be good up on top of cartoon mountains. Directed and animated by Mads Hornsletten and Steffen Sæther-Larsen, the clip reinforces the song's soaring chorus and the band's image as somewhat otherworldly.

The run-up to the 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival continues with a look back at this performance of Menomena's Friend or Foe highlight "The Pelican" from last year's shindig.

[original version from Friend and Foe; out now on Barsuk]

"You made a believer out of me," Can's Malcolm Mooney sings on one of the band's oft-imitated krautrock classics, Monster Movie's 20-minute love mantra "Yoo Doo Right". But falling in love, Man Man detail on Rabbit Habits' "Doo Right", can also have the opposite effect, in this case robbing singer Honus Honus' narrator of his previous abilities-- like, you know, breathing underwater. If these zany Philadelphians haven't made a believer outta you yet, their appearance on "Black Cab Sessions" ought to be enough to win you over. Clambering into the backseat with keyboard and horn section, Man Man treat the show as a dare rather than yet another venue for stripped-down acoustic sessions. "My collective memories are in shambles/ And so are my scruples," Honus howls. Not only does the band need to come up for air now and then, but they also occasionally have to rely on electricity, so the performance stops short when the power goes out. The point, however, has been made.

[original track from Rabbit Habits; out now on Anti-]

Thank fucking Christ, indie-rock band names have finally evolved out of the animal kingdom (Wolf Parade, Animal Collective, Deerhoof, Deerhunter) and into the expletive empire. Here's a handy primer. Fuck Buttons: Bristol, England-based blissed-out noiseniks behind Best New Music-worthy LP Street Horsssing, probably won't make you say "Fuck buttons!", because what the fuck? Holy Fuck: Toronto instrumental band, may or may not make you say "Holy fuck!", depending on taste. Fucked Up: Toronto post-hardcore sextet, former Pissed Jeans tourmates, just might actually have you saying, "Aw, dude, fucked up!"

On "No Epiphany", the first available mp3 from forthcoming Matador full-length The Chemistry of Common Life, Fucked Up are still, yup, fucked the fuck up, motherfuckers. Distorted guitars and richocheting drums change gears like a semi around singer Pink Eyes' colon-cleansing belches, but the whole thing is also bathed in shoegazing guitar textures and Cocteau Twins-esque backing vocals. What is this, a weekend at a beer spa? Per Pink Eyes, there's something about how the Son of God is a "great fucking eternal façade," though it's certainly not easy to decipher dude's growls. So you'll want to crank that shit up even louder. Any questions?

MP3:> Fucked Up: "No Epiphany"
[from The Chemistry of Common Life; due in the UK 10/06/08 and in the U.S. 10/07/08 on Matador]

As if Lil Wayne's endless parade of guest verses wasn't enough, recently the New Orleans rapper has been showing up on other artists' tracks without even having to come up with fresh lean-assisted verbiage. In the tradition of David Banner's newish "Shawty Say", Los Angeles' Flying Lotus, aka Steven Ellison, samples Wayne's voice on "Robo Tussin", another surreal, exotica-flavored track from the Warp-signed hip-hop producer. The Wayne sample in question is basically the entirety of his verses from free-flowing Tha Carter III single "A Milli". The concept puts a clever twist on what has become something of a hip-hop rite lately; everyone from Jay-Z to your grandma has rapped over the Bangladesh-produced "A Milli" instrumental, so why shouldn't Ellison, who trades in instrumentals, redo "A Milli" as part of a different soundscape? Recognizing that the grain of Wayne's voice can be as distinctive and enjoyable as his highly allusive lyrics, Ellison plays with the pitch, rendering Weezy F. Baby less goon-- or goblin-- than gremlin. Pulsating tones and hallucinogenic squiggles drift over languid organic beats. "Robo Tussin" has a sense of humor, too, letting Wayne's "you ain't got shit" float on repeat to complete his simile about how "you're like a bitch with no ass." Walking and sitting would probably be as difficult as shitting, but "Robo Tussin" may be best heard lying down, super-supine.

MP3:> Flying Lotus: "Robo Tussin"
[from MySpace; original track from Tha Carter III, out now on Cash Money/Universal/Young Money]