Pitchfork

Shouldn't come as too much of a shock, but Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel-- a guy who values his privacy and doesn't often appear onstage-- joined his old friends on the "Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour" for their stop last night at New York's Knitting Factory. The video and sound are a bit hard to make out, but it looks as though that's him on the right in the flannel shirt shouting along through Olivia Tremor Control's terrific "The Opera House" (there's no missing Mangum's former bandmate, the bearded Scott Spillane, anyway). He's also there at the tail end of "I Have Been Floated", a song from OTC's Black Foliage, and joins in on Elf Power's "The Arrow Flies Close". He didn't do any of his own songs, apparently, but nice to see everyone up there partying like it's, well, 1999. (Big thanks to Brian at the Daily Cross Hatch for the tip and video).

"The Opera House"

"I Have Been Floated"

"The Arrow Flies Close"

This week's One Week Only feature on Pitchfork.tv is the DVD accompaniment to Liars' terrific 2006 LP, Drum's Not Dead. The punnily titled Drum's Not Bread collects director Julian Gross' multimedia footage-- grainy live shots, quirky claymation narratives, and trippy split-screen montages-- to soundtrack Liars' blistering album. Available for purchase at Amazon.

The list of interesting videos added to the archive at Pitchfork.tv this week begins with the clip for Animal Collective's "Who Could Win a Rabbit". You got a tortoise, a hare, a couple of bikes, and production design out of an uneasy dream.

Animal Collective: "Who Could Win a Rabbit"

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

Writing about Cool Kids' "Delivery Man" earlier on Forkcast, Marc Hogan said, "The colorful video reminds us that parents just don't understand, depicting Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish rapping, being pizza guys, and standing around with birds on their shoulders."

Cool Kids: "Delivery Man"

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

Andrew Gaerig had this to say about Sébastien Tellier's Sexuality: "His fourth album moves toward erotic synth-pop in what might be a more stereotypically French pursuit, but Tellier's willingness to engage the material without contempt or parody leads to an album of unexpected charm and grace." The video for "Devine" fits his aesthetic.

Sébastien Tellier: "Devine"

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

An oldie but a goodie. Low's "Monkey", from their 2005 album The Great Destroyer.

Low: "Monkey"

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

More videos, you say? Another half a dozen good ones added to the Pitchfork.tv archvies this week.

Video:> Múm: "Will the Summer Make Good For All Our Sins"

Video:> Tokyo Police Club: "Graves"

Video:> Throw Me The Statue: "Yucatan Gold"

Video:> CSS: "Move"

Video:> Xiu Xiu: "I Do What I Want, When I Want"

Video:> Foals: "Olympic Airways"

Video:> Max Tundra: "Will Get Fooled Again"

TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe sings, as you know, and he also acts from time to time, as you might also know. In Jonathan Demme-directed Rachel Getting Married, he does both. I haven't seen the movie and I'm hardly a film critic, so I can't speak to Adebimpe's acting chops, but his unaccompanied rendition of Neil Young's "Unknown Legend" is raw, powerful stuff. Makes me wish I was on a desert highway myself, or else back at Roskilde hearing old Neil serenade us with this Harvest Moon favorite while My Bloody Valentine's "You Made Me Realise" still rang in my ears. (via The Playlist)

[from the Rachel Getting Married OST; out now digitally on Lakeshore Records]

Well, this makes sense. Radiohead let their fans buy the stems for In Rainbows track "Reckoner"; Kanye West gave away the stems for his Ellen-approved 808s and Heartbreak track "Love Lockdown". Just add water, right? Mash-up artist DJ Earworm has combined the two tracks by probably the most widely admired artists in rock and hip-hop, respectively, and the result sounds pretty much as you'd expect.

I'm not sure the sleek, moody Jonny Greenwood guitar lines are in perfect sync with West's Olympic-opening-ceremony percussion, but the tingling melancholy of the Radiohead track is a surprisingly natural fit for the heartbroken recriminations of "Love Lockdown". Looks like releasing your song's stems could be the new "let fans pay what they want for your new album." Hey, they're kind of smart, these Radiohead and Kanye guys, huh?

MP3/Stream:> DJ Earworm: "Reckoner Lockdown" (Radiohead vs. Kanye West)
["Love Lockdown" is expected to appear on the forthcoming 808s & Heartbreak; In Rainbows is out now on ATO in the U.S., MapleMusic in Canada, XL in the UK, and Hostess Entertainment in Japan]

MGMT were the ones role-playing on Oracular Spectacular highlight "Time to Pretend", self-awarely sending up the same rockstar dreams that Oasis made true for themselves on Definitely Maybe's "Rock 'n' Roll Star". The video for "The Youth", also from Oracular Spectacular, reassigns the role-playing to, well, actual youths-- youths of America, one assumes. Directed by Eric Wareheim from Adult Swim's "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!", the clip shows sequined-out kids standing in for the MGMT men, dancing and lip-syncing to the dandyish harmonies. "The youth is starting to change," all right. (via Steady Burn)

[from Oracular Spectacular; out now on Columbia]

Whatever "Sugar City Magic" is, the Ryan Juszkiewicz-directed video for this closing track from Bound Stems' sophomore disc, The Family Afloat, suggests it ain't Black Lips' Magic City. That's probably healthy, though: There's sunshine and fresh air aplenty both in the clip and in the urgent, slightly mathy song. You've got the Chicago five-piece performing on the lawn, white picket fence and all. "My friends still gather 'round the block," they go shout in unison from the neighborhood street, and multi-instrumentalist Janie Porche chimes in later with the album's title phrase. Economic apocalypse may soon have many of us feeling like Ma Joad; here, Bound Stems keep the fambly together for one last block (not Bloc) party.

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

[from The Family Afloat; out now on Flameshovel]

A designer by trade and a singer by talent, DM Stith had been hanging around the Asthmatic Kitty offices for a while before the label signed him, doing layout work for My Brightest Diamond albums and apparently absorbing the lessons of his future peers. "Just Once", a seven-minute, three-act work from his forthcoming debut EP Curtain Speech, displays a close understanding of Shara Worden's aching theatricality and Sufjan's intricate pop arrangements, but shows a sensibility that's much more personal.

The song's first part is almost violently quiet, sustaining a steady current as hushed acoustic guitar and synths lick at the lyrics. As it flows by, the song catches new sounds like flood debris: handclaps, emphatic strings, menacing cello, ghostly backing vocals, and what could be the world's most sinister kazoo. It has the same undertow as Nick Drake's "Riverman", a comparison reinforced by Stith's hushed-but-intense vocals and careful phrasing. Around the four-minute mark, the song explodes into an intense bluster and makes explicit what was previously only insinuated. It's a needlessly ostentatious ploy-- the waterfall after the rapids-- and afterwards, the third part settles right back into its uneasy current, as if Stith knows that "Just Once" is less remarkable for its sound than for achieving the effect of shouting so quietly.

MP3:> DM Stith: "Just Once"
[from the Curtain Speech EP; due 12/09/08 on Asthmatic Kitty]

Beck's Danger Mouse-produced latest LP, Modern Guilt, already feels like it came out a long time ago, whether because of its out-of-time 1960s psych touches or just due to all the crazy news that's happened since its summer release. Mr. Hansen could've looked something like this on a "Late Show With David Letterman" appearance at various points in the past decade-plus, too, but this time he does a stu-stu-stuttering take on Modern Guilt's paranoid trip "Gamma Ray". Who's got the "cactus crown"? That one.

[from Modern Guilt; out now on XL/ Interscope]

Check it out, MTV has to call Fucked Up "Effed Up". (Insert Nelson Muntz audio clip here.) That doesn't stop the Matador-signed Toronto post-hardcore six-piece from fucking shit up-- ahem, metaphorically-- in the "MTV Live" bathroom during a throat-obliterating performance of "Twice Born", from brand-new album The Chemistry of Common Life. Yes, there's plenty of Viacom-sanctioned destruction and mayhem, but the clip is worth watching more for Fucked Up's intense performance and fist-pumping riffs. As another foul-mouthed motherfucker probably also never got to say uncensored on regular cable: "You better watch out 'cause I'm gonna say FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK." Sorry, Mom.

[from The Chemistry of Common Life; out now on Matador]