Pitchfork

Photo by Ryan Muir

On our last day in the office before the holiday break, we received an early Christmas/Hanukkah present: A chat with Win Butler of the Arcade Fire. Butler and his band laid low for most of 2008 (give or take a few Obama rallies), taking a well-deserved break after years of nearly nonstop recording and touring. But expect to hear a lot from the Arcade Fire in 2009. The band is working on a new album, and Butler, his wife and Arcade Fire co-leader Régine Chassagne, and Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett, did indeed write the score for The Box, the forthcoming film from director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko).

Last week, the band digitally released Miroir Noir, a film documenting the making of their 2007 album Neon Bible and the tour in support of it. The film will be released on DVD in March, with pre-orders available now.

We talked with Butler about Miroir Noir, The Box, and, of course, the next Arcade Fire album. Oh, and last night, someone broke into his car and stole his iPod. So if you're in Montreal and you hear somebody bragging about all the cool stuff Win Butler has on his iPod, turn them into the police immediately, please.

Modestly successful Irish rock'n'roll band U2 have announced that their 12th album, No Line on the Horizon, will be released by Interscope on March 3, 2009 in North America. Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Steve Lillywhite contributed production. It appears that will.i.am did not. Guess Kanye was wrong.

Billboard.com reports that the Horizon tracklist is expected to include "Moment of Surrender", "Unknown Caller", and the title track.

Also, U2 were recently added to the list of contributors to the War Child benefit album Heroes, out in February.

Every year, Sufjan Stevens records a Christmas record. His first five albums were collected on the box set Songs for Christmas, released by Asthmatic Kitty in 2006. But he hasn't stopped making them. Indeed, Sufjan made Christmas records in 2006, 2007, and, yes, 2008, passing them out to friends and family.

2008's edition, Volume 8, is subtitled Astral Inter Planet Space Captain Christmas Infinity Voyage, and it contains takes on such traditional Xmas tunes as "Angels We Have Heard on High" and "Do You See What I See", as well as the originals "Christmas in the Room" and "The Child With the Star on his Head".

There are no plans to release Volume 8, though Asthmatic Kitty has plenty of Sufjan-related Xmas fun going on over on their website.

After spending time putting his stamp on various small screens and shiny discs, Brian Eno is hitting the big screen. Upcoming Film Scores reports that Eno will contribute original music to The Lovely Bones, the film adaptation of Alice Sebold's 2004 novel. (Via The Playlist and The Guardian.)

Though this information has yet to be confirmed, Eno did mention that he was scoring The Lovely Bones in a recent interview with Abu Dhabi paper The National.

The film is directed by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong) and stars Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, and Stanley Tucci, according to IMDB. It's a story about a family coping with a daughter's rape and murder, as narrated by the daughter herself, from heaven. Cheery!

The Lovely Bones is set to hit theaters in December 2009 according to The Playlist.

Sigh. Here's the latest entry in an ever-growing series I like to call "wow, people on teh internetz iz dumb":

Yesterday, the Quietus ran a story with the headline "Animal Collective Call for Album Leak". They reported to have received an email from Brian "Geologist" Weitz, calling for assistance in leaking the forthcoming Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, in full:

"it has come to my attention that 2 full length tracks off of our upcoming album, merriweather post pavilion have surfaced online. david, noah, and I please ask that someone assist us and leak all of the remaining tracks on the album.

the album is intended to be heard as a whole, and nothing bothers us more than individual tracks leaking and ruining the the overall album experience

          -brian Geologist"

Within the story, the Quietus expressed some reservations as to whether or not the email was actually legit. Of course it wasn't. Even if Animal Collective were oh-so-desperate to leak their album, would they really need help doing it? Please.

Animal Collective's label, Domino, confirmed to us that the email was a hoax. The Quietus ran a retraction story, "Animal Collective Don't Want Album Leaked Shocker". Apparently, someone hacked into the band's email account. (This has yet to be confirmed by the band or Domino.) UPDATE: Confirmed.

Last night, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound weighed in on the situation on his blog:

After much drama, Morrissey has settled on a U.S. label. (But really, what in Morrissey's life doesn't involve drama?)

Lost Highway, the primarily Americana label known for artists such as Ryan Adams, Lucinda Williams, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson, will release Morrissey's forthcoming album Years of Refusal in conjunction with Morrissey's own Attack imprint on February 17, 2009 in the United States. (It's out February 16 via Decca/Polydor in the UK.)

How stoked do you think Ryan Adams is now that he's on the same label as Morrissey?

As previously reported, Years of Refusal will be preceded by the UK single for "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris", out February 9. It features the B-sides "Because of My Poor Education" and "Shame Is the Name". "Shame" features backing vocals from Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders.

Morrissey has lined up a lengthy world tour in support of the album, including a spring run across America.

And no, the Smiths aren't getting back together, despite whatever rumor you might have heard this week.

As you may have read, rowdy Brits Art Brut have enlisted Pixies legend Charles Thompson (more famously known as Black Francis or Frank Black) to man the boards for their new album. Band and producer are currently entrenched at Wavelength Studio in Salem, Oregon, crafting Art Brut Versus Satan, the follow-up to 2007's It's a Bit Complicated. Versus Satan is tentatively due out in April on Downtown; according to Art Brut frontman Eddie Argos' highly entertaining blog, songs slated to appear on the album include "Alcoholics Unanimous", "Summer Job", "Art Brut Versus Satan", "Rebellious Henchman", "Moved to L.A.", "D.C. Comics and Chocolate Milkshake", and "Mystery Bruises".

Though the recording sessions are only slated to last 12 days ("punk as fuck," says Argos), Art Brut have managed to squeeze in plenty of fun during their time in Salem. According to the Salem Statesman Journal, Art Brut have stormed the local bar the Space twice: during open mic night, they played Weezer covers to a bewildered audience, then returned later in the week to play a full set of Art Brut songs.

Live music on T.V. this week:

Monday, December 15:

E!: Chelsea Lately: Ludacris

Tuesday, December 16:

NBC: Late Night With Conan O'Brien: Fleet Foxes
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!: the Cure
CURRENT: La Blogotheque: the Dodos, Grand Archives
FUSE: Fall Out Boy: Live from the Chicago Theatre

Wednesday, December 17:

CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Broken Social Scene
CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Death Cab for Cutie
FUEL TV: The Daily Habit: the Hives
SUNDANCE: Spectacle: Elvis Costello With...: Bill Clinton

Thursday, December 18:

CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Of Montreal
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: the Cure
NBC: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: Zooey Deschanel

Saturday, December 20:

NBC: Saturday Night Live: Adele (rerun)
PBS: Austin City Limits: Bloc Party, Ghostland Observatory (rerun)
FOX: Fearless Music TV: Made out of Babies, KristeenYoung, the Jealous Girlfriends, Sybris

No Fun Fest, the annual gathering of all things noisy and, er, really fucking noisy, has announced the lineup for its 2009 incarnation, going down May 15-17 at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg. It is, as it ever was, an impressive bunch, and the perfect way to gauge just how much fun you won't be having should you attend.

Sonic Youth will perform as a band, as opposed to just various members' solo and side projects, in addition to sets from Merzbow,  Bardo Pond, Thrones, Blank Dogs, Axolotl, Bastard Noise, Conrad Schnitzler's Con-Cert, Chris Corsano, Carlos Giffoni, Skullflower, Marcus Schmickler and Peter Rehberg (aka Pita), Rafael Toral with C. Spencer Yeh and Trevor Tremaine, and many others.

The exact order of acts will be announced next month. Coordinating schedules: probably the least fun of all.

"In a Box" or "In My Pants", the Lonely Island-- the comedy team of "Saturday Night Live" cast member Andy Samberg and "SNL" writers Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone-- have got dick joke music videos on lock.

"It's getting a little embarrassing," Schaffer said in a recent conversation with Pitchfork. "We're like, 'We have so many other songs, but they're not the popular ones.' People seem to like the potty humor. We're a mirror. If society sees it and goes, 'Too much dick humor,' they need to look in the mirror and go, 'Why am I demanding this?'"

The world is about to discover how much more Lonely Island has to offer, as last week it was announced that Universal Republic will release their CD/DVD debut, INCREDIBAD, on February 10. The album is set to include "SNL" Digital Short classics like "Dick in a Box [ft. Justin Timberlake]", "Lazy Sunday [ft. Chris Parnell]", "Natalie Raps [ft. Natalie Portman & Chris Parnell]", and "Iran So Far [ft. Adam Levine]", plus newer tunes like "I'm on a Boat [ft. T-Pain]", "Sax Man [ft. Jack Black]", "Boombox [ft. Julian Casablancas]", "Dream Girl [ft. Norah Jones]", "Santana DVX [ft. E-40]", "Who Said We're Wack?", "Punch You in the Jeans", "We Like Sportz", "Shrooms", and first single "Jizz in My Pants", which made its debut on "SNL" a week ago. UPDATE: It's on iTunes now.

In addition to INCREDIBAD and dick humor, we talked to Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone about the music they love (including their favorite T-Pain songs), their roles on "SNL", amazing/bad/horrific album covers, and being forced by Justin Timberlake to watch 'N Sync videos on YouTube.