Pitchfork

Actors turned musicians! It's the new cool thing. Hot on the heels of Jena Malone's indie rock foray, we have screen thespian Michael Pitt, whose outfit Pagoda releases its self-titled, debut full-length via Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace imprint on February 27.

Pitt's got rock credentials, sort of. Dude was in John Cameron Mitchell's offbeat musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch as the titular queen's love interest Tommy Gnosis. He also played Kurt Cobain-esque doomed rocker Blake in Gus Van Sant's 2005 film Last Days, and he's even got one-up on exhibitionist Kevin Barnes-- if you've seen Bertolucci's incestuous cinephile flick The Dreamers, you've already seen the young man's naughty bits.

Pitt and his band-- which originally included fellow actor and "O.C." guest star Ryan Donowho-- celebrate the release of Pagoda with a February 27 gig at New York City's Tonic. The crew also heads to Austin next month for something called SXSW. Oh, and that Nirvana thing must have rubbed off-- just check out undeniably grunge-y album opener "Lesson Learned" below.

Pagoda:

01 Lesson Learned
02 Amego
03 Fetus
04 Voices
05 Death to Birth
06 Botus
07 Sadartha
08 Alone
09 Fear Cloud
10 I Do

Live:

02-27 New York, NY - Tonic
03-16 Austin, TX - The Mohawk