Pitchfork

[Posted Friday, September 12th, 2003 02:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

You may remember that we reported back in June on the imminence of a new Modest Mouse album. But Edmonton, Alberta alternative Vue Weekly is reporting that the album is on hold, at the mercy of the Mice's corporate masters, Sony/Epic. They hate those Meeses to pieces, apparently. The album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News , turns out to be appropriately named. Initially due for a September release, it's now been pushed back until the spring of 2004.

Chief Mouseketeer Isaac Brock is not best pleased by these developments. He told the Vue that he and his bandmates were often in the studio until dawn trying to ensure that the record was done in time for the September release date, and that he's less than enamored of his new major label home, which also released the acclaimed 2000 release The Moon and Antarctica: "There's no more of a budget [to record]," he lamented. "We had more of a budget before we signed to a major label deal." Isaac, have you met Aimee Mann?

But the Mouse is undaunted, and continues to tour, regardless of the vagaries of indentured major-label servitude. Brock doesn't especially like to tour ostensibly in support of a new album, anyway, claiming that "For us, touring is not a device to move units and shit. We tour because we enjoy it, and I can't think of why a band would not think that way. Touring is at least 75% of the fun of being in a band." He doesn't elaborate on the remaining 25% of fun, but you can probably figure it out. And the delay has also given the band a chance to shop the tracks around in search of further production help. Dave Fridmann and the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne reportedly remixed some album cuts last month, but don't look for some kind of anime concept album to emerge from this mess; I-Bro don't play that way.

But still, it's got to be a little worrying that the last MM album came out in 2000, and the subsequent silence has been punctuated only by the smatterings of 2001's collection Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks and the side project Ugly Casanova (with members of Califone and Holopaw). While Modest Mouse's albums have been almost obsessively dedicated to recording the travelogue of their touring odyssey, it looks like the odyssey is currently having to take precedence over the cataloguing of it.

And Brock's not giving much away as to the shape of the new product: "I really don't know how to toot our own horn," he says, "so sometimes you make up things that are more interesting because lies can be so much prettier. I really don't know what to say other than that it is a really different record for us. But I really don't know how to describe it." We do learn from the Vue, though, that the new album will feature some pretty new instrumentation, including horns, strings and banjo, along with "backing from a New Orleans jazz band playing something akin to a Dixieland funeral march." Tour dates:

09-12 Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom
11-02 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore *
11-03 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore *
11-04 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore *
11-06 Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues *
11-08.Long Beach, CA - The Queen Mary (ATP™ Pacific 2003) *
11-11 Tempe, AZ - Nita's Hideaway
11-15 Colorado Springs, CO - 32 Bleu
11-17 Boulder, CO - The Fox Theater
11-19 Salt Lake City, UT - Liquid Joe's
11-20 Salt Lake City, UT - Brick's
11-21 Boise, ID - Neurolox
11-22 Boise, ID - Neurolux

* with the Shins

.: Pitchfork Review: Modest Mouse: The Moon and Antarctica