Pitchfork

Happy Chinese New Year, everybody. May your Year of the Ox be Fucked Up. But first, the raucous Canadians in Fucked Up are sending off the old year with a 12" and digital EP featuring 11-minute A-side "Year of the Rat". Yes, this thing has been in the works for a while. Recorded at the end of 2008, the track is a guitar-stacked epic apparently intended to memorialize the year when everybody kept talking about change and stuff... think Hawkwind. It's tough to make out all the lyrics as Pink Eyes barks them, but it's hard to mistake the political quotes at the end as coming from any other lunar year. Good riddance, Rat-- choose your poison.

[from the Year of the Rat EP; due 03/24/09 on What's Your Rupture]

Live by the Auto-Tune, die by the Auto-Tune, but for the love of Roger Troutman, never go halfway with the Auto-Tune. Outkast half Big Boi is in a tricky position, because his fan base presumably includes a lot of people who contrast rappers like him against so-called ringtone rappers like Soulja Boy and their kid-friendly ilk. But Big Boi can't worry about pleasing the "real rap" heads and aging post-college jam-band fans-- at least, not unless he wants to please only them. Besides, he already gave throwback-seekers last year's soulful current-events anthem "Something's Gotta Give" and lyrically nimble "Royal Flush". 

But "Ringtone"-- from Big Boi's apparently still-forthcoming solo album, Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty-- is no "Lollipop" or "Love Lockdown". The mediocre hook isn't even sung with T-Pain-style Auto-Tune, which comes up pretty much only as a call-and-response backing vocal, except for a brief, innocuous midsection. And touches of nylon-string guitar brush up against the Miami-spangled synths and West Coast bass lines, like a sop to the anti-ringtone contingent. All this would be redeemable if the song were clever (haven't individualized ringtones been around for, like, a while now?) or if Boi's verses were spectacular (they're fine, but not particularly memorable). If you absolutely must use as a song about ringtones as your ringtone, please allow me to suggest the Los Campesinos! We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed drunk dialer "It's Never That Easy Though, Is It? (Song for the Other Kurt)". No Auto-Tune, but at least it's all-out. (via OnSMASH)

MP3:> Big Boi: "Ringtone"
[from Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty; forthcoming on LaFace/Zomba]

You know that thing where you play a lot of Tetris and then when you stop playing you keep seeing Tetris? I'm guessing that has happened to UK dream-poppers It Hugs Back. Or else to Martin Rhys Davis, who directed the stop-motion clip for "Now & Again" from the back-hugging four-piece's forthcoming 4AD debut Inside Your Guitar. In the video, the band members let their guitars chime and squeal, and their ba-ba-bas float out androgynously, as giant Tetris pieces assemble and reassemble themselves around them. The new album follows last year's The Record Room: First Four Singles compilation for sister label Too Pure. 

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

[from Inside Your Guitar; due 04/07/09 on 4AD]

Attention, superfans. So there's something called Cubs Fantasy Camp. You get a seven-night stay in Mesa, Ariz., at the same hotel as the Chicago Cubs use for spring training. You get instruction from former major-league players, an engraved Louisville Slugger bat, and a personalized uniform with your name and the number of your choice. You even get your own baseball card.

What it probably doesn't mention in the brochure: If you attended the camp this year, you got to see Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder belt out a karaoke rendition of U2's The Joshua Tree standard "Where the Streets Have No Name". People who know me know that I have spent most of my life since the time I started buying my own music having people force these two bands on me. I think I'm allergic. But I have to admit that this is a pretty charming, likable moment-- and one we could probably only ever share in the era of streaming online video. (Thanks to J. Dooner for the tip.)

[original version from The Joshua Tree; out now on Universal]

You know the new Prefuse 73 album is called Everything She Touched Turned Apexian. You saw the Third Planet From Altair-worthy cover art. Do you really need me to tell you that the 26th track-- that's right, 26th-- from busy man  Guillermo Scott Herren's latest sounds kind of, well, out there? Well, all right: "Preparations Kids Choir" is a woozy bit of crackle-and-fuzz rapless hip-hop, with munchkin voices befitting Warp labelmates Battles and fluffy haze befitting (hey) Warp labelmate Flying Lotus. "But these are kids," a sampled male voice intones seriously at one point. That boy needs therapy.

[from Everything She Touched Turned Apexian; due 04/14/09 on Warp]

So now we know why Young Jeezy told Dennis Miller he'd "rather watch Jimmy Kimmel any day." Morrissey fans are everywhere, man. They should be-- especially after the release of Years of Refusal, the Mancunian moper's best album in ages. In this clip from "Jimmy Kimmel Live", Moz and the band give a rollicking, "r"-rolling rendition of their new LP's great, punchy opener, "Something Is Squeezing My Skull". You can forgive Moz for sounding a little out of breath; we know he's still in good shape (link NSFW). Taxis excite him. The audience adores him. Boz Boorer gets to chant "hey". And there's a big giant gong to smash in the end. You heard the man, people: Don't give him anymore.

[original version from Years of Refusal; due 02/16/09 in the UK on Decca/Polydor and 02/17/09 in the U.S. on Lost Highway]

Kanye West isn't the only one feeling the new Peter Bjorn and John single. Tatted-up balding biker street-dancing dudes with giant coifs have "Nothing to Worry About" in the second clip from Writer's Block follow-up Living Thing. I'll have to ask A.O. Scott, but I think the technical term for a cinematic work like this is "quirky as fuck".

[from Living Thing; due 03/30/09 in the UK on Wichita and 03/31/09 in the U.S. on Almost Gold Recordings/StarTime International]

Last year they had the Grammys, they left Lil Wayne in Miami. This year the self-proclaimed best rapper alive has eight nominations on the strength of 2008's Tha Carter III. CBS is sending Weezy out on the Grammy promotional rounds, from Katie Couric the other night to "Late Show With David Letterman" last night. Here he is reading the top 10 list as Letterman and Paul Shaffer do their thing. Amy Winehouse, the Jonas Brothers, and Madonna all get zinged, but really, Wayne is a lot funnier when he's rhyming instead of reading.

Dum Dum Girls is one girl-- woman, in the parlance of our times (female-American, if you're not into the whole brevity thing). According to the internet, her name's Dee Dee and she's a librarian from Los Angeles. According to the band name, she likes Talk Talk. But she sounds more like one of the girls. Or the Sharades' Joe Meek-produced 1960s girl-group track "Dumb Head". Clearly, she was a Sarah Palin voter.

On Dum Dum Girls' self-titled debut EP, Dee Dee shows she has the range to pull off an "Unchained Melody"-tinged lo-fi ballad, but more typical are full-throttle garage rockers like "Catholicked". With tin-can-on-a-string recording quality a la recent bands from Times New Viking to Nodzzz and Wavves, she won't be likely to win over many "American Idol" judges. But beneath all the reverb and fuzz is a catchy tune and evocative (if difficult to discern) lyrical theme involving teenage love and a chest stuffed with emotions. "My sins are my own," Dee Dee proclaims. Thanks but no thanks, sweet baby Jesus. Play it loud. (via RCRD LBL)

MP3/Stream:> Dum Dum Girls: "Catholicked"
[from the Dum Dum Girls EP; out now on Zoo]

It's dark inside of New York's Le Poisson Rouge, where the Barcelona-based El Guincho played last December, but the music is pure sunlight. Alegranza! highight "Palmitos Park" and several other tracks are below, and you can catch the whole set (along with Part 1) at Pitchfork.tv.

"Palmitos Park" / "Kalise"

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

"Sueltan Lobos"

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

"Polca Mazurca"

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.