Pitchfork: Head of Femur Have an Album on the Way

SpinART Records tells us that Nebraska-via-Chicago's Head of Femur assembled an ad hoc Indie Pops Orchestra (on record, that is, not necessary physically in the same room at the same time with matching tuxes and bandstands) for their forthcoming second album. The album is Hysterical Stars, it comes out May 24, and some 28 musicians play or sing somewhere on it. Not just any 28, either-- among that group are members of Mayday, the Flying Luttenbachers, Hella, Bobby Conn and the Glass Gypsies, the Sea and Cake, and (just to freak out the normals) the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

And that's in addition to the pedigreed principals of the band: singer/guitarist Matt Focht of Bright Eyes, guitarist/bassist Mike Elsener of Solar Wind, and keyboardist/drummer Ben Armstrong of Commander Venus. In the two years since their debut, Ringodom or Proctor, the core band itself has freakishly grown into a ska-like octet, the better to realize their Cecil B. DeMille ambitions and iridium-dense arrangements. The tracklist:

01 Elliott Gould Is in California Split
02 Ringodom or Proctor
03 Manhattan
04 Percy
05 Skirts Are Takin' Over
06 The Sausage Canoe
07 Oh You're Blue
08 Song for Richard Manual
09 Born in the Seventies
10 Easy Street
11 Sometimes Friends
12 Do the Cavern
13 Jack and the Water Buffalo

The sprawling Head of Femur road show will visit Canada in May and then return to their homeland for a summer tour, assuming they can find a van big enough. Dates have yet to be announced.