Fiery Furnaces Gear Up for North American Tour
Become first indie rock band to incorporate rap-like product placement in songs; just disappointed Nelly beat them to the punch on "Air Force Ones"

Nick Patch & Ryan Schreiber report:
With Pitchfork-- and, it would appear, the music press in general-- unable to say quite enough really, really nice things about their new sophomore full-length, Blueberry Boat, New York-based prog-pop four-piece The Fiery Furnaces have announced plans to head out on a North American tour this September. This will be their second U.S. tour so far this year, with the first having been a preliminary jaunt anticipating the album's release. Kicking off at Boston's Paradise Rock Club, the 11-date tour will take the band all over the Northeast and Midwest, encompassing dates in New York, Chicago, Washington, and Bloomington, as well as Montreal and Toronto. More dates are expected to be announced as we draw ever closer to showtime. For now:

08-24 Edinburgh, Scotland - The Venue
08-26 Nottingham, England - Stealth Club
08-27 Leeds, England - Leeds Festival
08-29 Reading, England - Reading Festival
09-10 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
09-11 Montreal, Quebec - El Salon
09-12 Toronto, Ontario - Mod Club
09-15 Bloomington, IN - Second Story
09-17 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
09-18 Minneapolis, MN - 400 Bar
09-19 Madison, WI - The Annex
09-21 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig
09-23 Columbus, OH - Little Brother's
09-24 Washington, DC - Black Cat
09-25 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom

These shows come on the heels of overseas dates the band recently played with Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand (reportedly paired off due to their shared affinity for alliterative band names), and a fiscal quarter essentially jam-packed with gigs. For those of you sleeping during the Furnaces' last jaunt, you can expect to be all shook down by some kaleidoscopic medleys that bring even more ruckus than their studio albums. We're also keeping our fingers crossed for some more of the entertaining intraband tension displayed by siblings Matt and Eleanor Friedberger in the Fiery Furnaces interview we threw up on the site yesterday. The spar will be ref'd, as always, by drummer Andy Knowles and bassist/synthist Toshi Yano.

And there's more on the horizon: In our interview with the band, Matt and Eleanor reveal that their next two albums are already in the planning stages: The first, Matt says, will see their grandmother (!!) joining the band to sing duets with Eleanor "about the hopes that Eleanor has as a young person, and then my grandmother will tell her the failures and cruel blows fate delivered. They'll be the same person in the song-- sort of an "after time passes" kind of a thing." The second will be a "rollicking record with long verses," which the band has reportedly told the press will be "very 50s," featuring beatnik-influenced lyrical stylings. Says Matt: "Eleanor and I, for the last year, we've listened to a lot of Bob Dylan."

Obviously, there are no set release dates for either of these discs, and given the success of Blueberry Boat, it may be a while until the band even has time to re-enter the studio. Still, they do seem awfully ambitious-- after all, it hasn't even been a full year since they dropped their debut, Gallowsbird's Bark, in September of last year-- so for all we know, one of these could be out as soon as spring of next year.

In the meantime, the Furnaces have also released a double-A-sided CD single to promote the release of Blueberry Boat. In a very Beatlesque move, the disc features two songs unavailable on the full-length: "Single Again" and "Evergreen". A seven-inch is also available, backed with the previously unreleased "Sing for Me".