Brassland recording artists Clogs will launch their spring tour tonight in New York city with a very special two night run at The Kitchen, which will also feature an art installation from acclaimed artist Karl Jensen (see photo above). The Kitchen is an amazing venue — originally designed for dance events, it is a large room with amazing acoustics and a very intimate feel (capacity is only 120). To top it all off, Clogs will be joined by two of the best female singer-songwriters in New York, Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond) and Diane Cluck (Voodoo-EROS). Clogs will also join both Worden and Cluck for portions of their sets. Continuing in the spirit of collaboration, Clogs will join The Books on the road in San Diego for a few West Coast shows where Clogs will perform an opening set as a duo, with Paul and Nick from The Books adding their own flourishes to the set, and then will also perform with The Books to flesh out their live sound for their set. May will find the group sharing the stage with two other like-minded groups, Bell Orchestre and Rachel’s.

Tour Dates:

Fri March 31: NYC, NY The Kitchen (w/ Shara Worden)
Sat April 1: NYC, NY The Kitchen (w/ Diane Cluck)
Tue April 11: Princeton, NJ Princeton University Department of Music
(playing new music by Paul Lansky & Ingram Marshall)
Fri April 14: San Diego, CA The Casbah (w/ The Books)
Sat April 15: Long Beach, CA Fingerprints (in-store performance)
Sat April 15: Los Angeles, CA Knitting Factory (w/ The Books)
Mon April 17: San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall (w/ The Books)
Thu April 27: Cincinnati, OH Contemporary Art Center (Music NOW
Festival – collaboration w/ The Books)
Fri May 5: Chicago, IL Logan Square Auditorium (w/ Bell Orchestre)
Thu May 25: NYC, NY Merkin Concert Hall @ Kaufman Center (w/ Rachel’s)

Dan Bejar (Destroyer / New Pornographers), Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes) and Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade / Sunset Rubdown) have joined forces to create the new supergroup Swan Lake. The group has signed with the Jagjaguwar label and will release its first album sometime in late 2006. No tour plans have been made just yet, but it’s not out of the question (if the price is right).

Bejar’s second supergroup; Krug’s release from the snowy depths of the Montreal winter; Mercer’s first supergroup and second chance to work with the aforementioned princes: a thought as satisfying and unlikely as “Cascadia” or “Trotskyism”, Swan Lake works like a nervous writer’s group or a Wednesday night prayer gathering, which is another way of saying in February Krug flew back from visiting his bud in Japan, and Bejar caught the ferry from Vancouver as is his habit, and Mercer swept the doorway at his home in Victoria and fluffed the pillows for a month of friendship and record making.

Idea first conceived in Europe. Each member contributes 4 songs: 4 “suites” consisting of three songs: three members at 4 songs plus one collaborative effort for closure=13 songs (all “real” songs and not 1:30 ditttties). The group has already written and recorded most of the album, each songwriter is allowing the other 2/3 of the group to attack their songs at will, adding extra vocal tracks, guitar tracks, etc. Track Listing and album title (likely not called “A Gentleman’s Slam”) forthcoming. The original name for the band was Thunder Cloud, but after a little research it seems that that monstrous moniker has already been claimed, so the words “thunder” and “cloud” will likely show up in the title of the band’s debut release.

The all-female Icelandic quartet, formerly known as Amina, has changed the spelling of its name to Amiina (pronounced Ah-mee-na) and will be touring with Sigur Ros in the UK, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and the US over the next three months. The name change was a decision the band reached on its own, and was done in an effort to avoid being confused with several artists around the world with similar names (just take a look at AllMusic.com for examples). Amiina released an EP last year on the Worker’s Institute label and will follow it up later in 2006 with its first full-length, which is nearing completion now, but is still without an official title or final track listing. In addition to serving as the opening act for Sigur Ros, the band does double duty and performs with the band as its string section as well.

Amiina Tour Dates:
(all dates with Sigur Ros except where noted)

3-27 Manchester, England - Manchester Apollo
3-28 London, England - Hammersmith Apollo
3-29 London, England - Hammersmith Apollo
4-02 Nagoya, Japan - Zepp
4-03 Osaka, Japan - Namba Hatch
4-04 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya-Ax
4-05 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya-Ax
4-07 Hong Kong, China - Hitec
4-09 Perth, Australia - Perth Concert Hall
4-11 Melbourne, Australia - The Palais
4-12 Sydney, Australia - The Enmore
4-15 Brisbane, Australia - The Tivoli
4-17 Auckland, New Zealand - St. James
5-01 San Rafael, CA - Marin Center
5-03 Seattle, WA - Benaroya Hall
5-04 Portland, OR - Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
5-05 Boise, ID - Big Easy Concert House
5-08 Minneapolis, MN - Orpheum Theatre
5-09 Chicago, IL - Civic Opera House
5-10 Milwaukee, WI - The Riverside
5-11 Detroit, MI - State Theatre
5-13 Toronto, Ontario - Massey Hall
5-14 Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion
6-04 New York, NY - Bang on a Can Festival (without Sigur Ros)

Thank goodness for the migration of the metal monarchs, following the rainbows from West to East! Thank goodness for the Metallic Falcons, finally opening the ancient vaults of their adobe cathedral for all to see!

These two soothsayers of nocturnal activities, bound together by fate and blood and a lifetime of musical collaboration, produce a sound most simply described as “soft metal.” Bourne out of their experiences tramping around the Great American Desert, the Falcon’s debut album “Desert Doughnuts”, to be released by Voodoo-EROS, picks up where everyone else left off.

The record is a complete song cycle of fluttering heartbeats, pumping old leather harmonies, and lighter fluid flowing so hard it threatens to bust the album’s veins.

“Desert Doughnuts” contains samples from Nico’s last trip to Disneyland, pagan songs welcoming the solstice, small hearts waiting for morning, and a tender electric fire fanned to a smolder by the fevered longing of teenagers.

Listened to from start to finish, “Desert Doughnuts” is an emotional journey of Dungeons & Dragonsesque proportions. The saintly melodies are always close to your heart while the secluded drums buzz like a growing and waning desert hum; ringing loud in your ears from the absence of any other sound.

Since being transspecied from desert falcons, these transbrothers are now living in Brooklyn and are known as Sierra Casady (CocoRosie) and Matteah Baim (Voodoo-EROS). They are joined in this recording by friends Greg Rogrove (Tarantula A.D.), Antony (Antony & The Johnsons), Jana Hunter, and Devendra Banhart. The Metallic Falcons will perform at this May’s All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival alongside Banhart, Hunter, Vashti Bunyan, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. An early recording of their tune “Berry Metal” is featured on Voodoo-EROS’ archival compilation “The Enlightened Family” (2005).

Constructed with guitar riffs incisive enough to bring the curtain down on this world and fade up into a new one, filled with hand-rolled peyote cigarettes and sticky sage resin, old carburetors, clay-caked boots with second hand heels, and crystal colored irises– also second hand. The Metallic Falcons are angels with second hand wings. One set dark and one set light.

Finally, the sounds of a windy canyon echo as you give yourself to the wild deep abyss– track laid over track laid over track—colored by millions of years of sediment leaving their muted lines on the canyon walls.

The Falcons are modern clandestines (clan destines).

The Falcons are beer guzzling, pock-faced, desert sirens.

The Falcons are on a crusade/ on a quest for you/ going full speed to nowhere in particular.

The moment has arrived: “dawning in the desert cathedral.”

Tour dates:

05-14 East Sussex, England - Camber Sands Holiday Centre (All Tomorrow’s Parties)
with Devendra Banhart, Vashti Bunyan, Vetiver, Espers, Bat for Lashes, Jana Hunter, Danielle Stech-Homsy, Bert Jansch, the Watts Prophets, Tarantula AD, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Jandek