Pitchfork

July 25 is a special date for Joan of Arc. This year, it will be the tenth anniversary of their very first show, and they're celebrating with two new releases on that very date.

Eventually, All at Once, the band's new album, will be released on Record Label. The label's website says "a good analogy [for the record's creation] would be childbirth; a nine-month gestation period followed by a few hours of labor, or in this case five days of recording in February 2006." The fact that it was recorded in songwriter Tim Kinsella's childhood home might explain the "casual folk-drone" feel of the album.

Eventually, All at Once:

01 Eventually, All at Once
02 I'm Calling Off All Falls From Grace
03 Miss Cat Piss and Peppermint
04 You Can't Change Your Mind
05 Living Out in the Sea of Umbrellas
06 Many Times I've Mistaken
07 The Words Have Cast Their Spells
08 If All These People Can Understand Money
09 Scratches a Pencil
10 Free Will and Testament

The other July 25 release the band has planned is a rarities comp on Polyvinyl. According to a press release, "The Intelligent Design of Joan of Arc collects for the first time ever all the rare, out-of-print, vinyl only, comp tracks, and Japanese bonus tracks the band has released in their 10-year history." It also continues to uphold the band's high standard of long, overwrought titles (I mean, sorry about the girlfriend and all, but still).

The Intelligent Design of Joan of Arc:

01 Didactic Prom
02 Please Sleep
03 Trial at Orleans
04 Busy Bus, Sunny Sun
05 Stemingway and Heinbeck
06 A Picture Postcard
07 Forensic Economics
08 You (Single)
09 I'm Sorry I Got Drunk Before My Solo Set in Tokyo
10 My Girlfriend Dumped Me After the Free Trip to Japan
11 Please Don't Mistake My Arrogance for Shyness
12 For a Half-Deaf Girl Named Echo
13 George, Oh Well (Stand and Clap)
14 For the Skinheads and Hippies
15 You Say Tornaydo and I Say Tornahdo
16 Kissinger's Lament When Some Young Bunny or Bildeberg Whore Kicks Him Out of Bed for Snoring (In the Key of Me)
17 Violencii or Violencum
18 The Evidence
19 Song for Josh

Joan of Arc also have a handful of tour dates in September, so as to give the fans plenty of time to learn all the lyrics and sing along.

If only:

09-01 Dayton, OH - Night Owl
09-03 Allston, MA - Great Scott
09-05 Washington, DC - Black Cat Backstage
09-06 New York, NY - Knitting Factory
09-07 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church

Speaking of live shows, the band's website continues its tradition of offering recent live sets for sale by making available Kinsella's May 18 solo show at Chicago's Hideout, which features a couple of songs from the new record.

Not content with musical troublemaking, the Kinsella camp is stirring it up with the law as well. We already reported on drummer Nate Kinsella's arrest for indecent exposure during a Christian rock show Joan of Arc side project Make Believe played in Oklahoma last September, but the Joan of Arc website reports the recent creation of a "Help Nate With Insanely High Legal Fees" PayPal account to alleviate some of the monetary stress incurred in the legal process, which ended in a sentence of two months in an Oklahoma prison for Nate.

Make Believe are soldiering on, however, with an opening gig for Cursive on their July tour of the U.S. Apparently, Nate Kinsella has finished his sentence and will be back behind the kit for the shows.

Freedom!:

07-05 Champaign, IL - Canopy Club *%
07-06 Lansing, MI - Temple Club *#
07-07 Cleveland Heights, OH - Grog Shop *#
07-08 Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Small's *#
07-09 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge *#
07-10 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *#
07-11 Norfolk, VA - NorVA *#
07-12 Lancaster, PA - Chameleon Club *#
07-13 Newport, KY - Southgate House *#
07-14 Des Moines, IA - Vaudeville Mews *#
07-15 Omaha, NE - Sokol Auditorium *#
07-23 Chicago, IL - Wicker Park Street Fair ^

* with Cursive
% with Little Brazil
# with La Salle
^ with Dead Meadow