The highly anticipated collaboration between Fat Jon (Five Deez) and Morr Music artist Styrofoam. It could be the first collaborative album in history between a Belgian electro-pop artist and an underground MC from Cincinnati!

Two in a room. Surrounded by buttons and cables, by guitars, synthesizers, microphones. Fat Jon (Five Deez) and Arne van Petegem (Styrofoam) have recorded The Same Channel over the course of just a few weeks. Through days and nights, interrupted only by short coffee breaks and longer walks. In Arne’s studio in Antwerp, the two docked their soundships:

Fat Jon, the EmCee and DJ, Arne van Petegem, the guitarist and laptop-artist. They share a passion for their machines’ soul. All around the world. Cincinnati, Antwerp, Berlin. The two got to know each other five years ago.

In 2001 Arne van Petegem invited Fat Jon, still living in Cincinnati, Ohio at that time, to a workshop in Antwerp. What followed this first encounter was great respect for the music of the other and a deep, lasting friendship – as well as the idea of a common album. The Same Channel has grown out of this. A musical encounter indeed, but far away from crossover of the indieboy-meetshomeboy-clichés. This album drinks of a common cup, it thinks musical schools, worlds and last but not least passions together: the onomatopoeic guitars of Styrofoam, Fat Jon’s repetitive idiom, his talent for laconic stories. The klicks’n’cuts are carefully and intricately interwoven, and a production that – without laying it on thick – makes clear that two well-versed producers are at work.

“Scream It Out” is a nimble, catchy track, enticing and tricky in its alterations and modulations. “Space Gangsta” is a creeping track, Dub, smoothly cruising. “Upgrade” a nonchalant speechstaccato, surrounded by one of those enticing refrains by Styrofoam.

Fat Jon moved from Cincinnati to Berlin because of love. He is still part of the Cincinnati-based, progressive-Hip-Hop-collective Five Deez that releases on the Berlin-based label K7!. Small world, isn’t it? Fat Jon recently released the album Afterthought on Ample Soul/Libyus Music.

Arne van Petegem enlarged his indie-guitar background in the late 1990s by means of a sampler and a Roland Juno synthesizer – in order to combine the joys of guitar-songwriting and elektronika as Styrofoam. Since theoe days he has released four records on Morr Music, the most recent being Nothing’s Lost (2004).

Street date: Oct. 17, 2006.

Fat Jon & Styrofoam - The Same Channel track list:

Acid Rain Robot Repair
Bleed
Runnin Circles
Space Gangsta
Nervous Inaction
Upgrade
Scream It Out
The Middle
Generic Genes
Upgrade (Grace Period Mix)

The duo are streaming two tracks on their MySpace page:
www.myspace.com/fatjonstyrofoam

also check out the Video for “Space Gangsta” here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABHiZJMiVsI

for high-res photos, cover art and more info. please visit:
www.morrmusic.com/press-desk/

Domino Recordings US will release Entomology, an anthology from the Scottish post-punk quartet Josef K, on November 7, 2006. This is the third installment in Domino’s “The Sound of Young Scotland” series which has also included discs from Orange Juice and The Fire Engines. This will be the first official release from Josef K to see the light of day in the US, even though all of the recordings included are over 25 years old. Yes, it’s criminal that this music has never before been available to the US record buying public, but that crime is finally being corrected.

Led by vocalist Paul Haig, Josef K formed in 1979 in Edinburgh and disbanded in 1981, taking their name from a character in the Franz Kafka novel The Trial. They were contemporaries of bands like Joy Division and Gang Of Four and were heavily influenced by the Buzzcocks, Television, Talking Heads, Bowie, Roxy Music, The Velvet Underground and Pere Ubu. They released one album, The Only Fun in Town, on the legendary Postcard label, run by Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice in 1981. Prior to that they recorded and abandoned an entire album, Sorry For Laughing.

Although the band’s career was brief, the impact on those who heard Josef K was monumental. Younger Scottish bands ranging from Teenage Fanclub to Belle and Sebastian to Franz Ferdinand have all pointed to Josef K as a huge influence on their sound and as one of the greatest Scottish bands of all time. Outside of Scotland, their influence can be felt in the music of bands like Interpol, The Wedding Present, The Futureheads, Maximo Park, The Go-Betweens, etc. They were also a favorite of legendary BBC DJ John Peel, and three tracks from their Peel session from June 22nd, 1981 are included on Entomology. Also included on Entomology are seven songs from 7” singles, six tracks from the aborted album Sorry For Laughing, and six tracks from The Only Fun in Town.

Following the break-up of Josef K, vocalist Paul Haig pursued a solo career and has continued to release solo albums as recently as 2004. Guitarist Malcolm Ross immediately joined Orange Juice and also played with Aztec Camera. In 1982, drummer Ronnie Torrance and bassist David Weddell formed The Happy Family with Nick Currie (aka Momus) and became one of the first bands to sign with the now-legendary 4AD label.

Josef K – Entomology track list

1.RADIO DRILL TIME (Postcard 7″ Version)

2.IT’S KINDA FUNNY (Postcard 7″ Version)

3.FINAL REQUEST (B-side of “It’s Kinda Funny” single)

4.HEADS WATCH (taken from the aborted album Sorry For Laughing)

5. DRONE (taken from the aborted album Sorry For Laughing)

6. SENSE OF GUILT (taken from the aborted album Sorry For Laughing)

7. CITIZENS (taken from the aborted album Sorry For Laughing)

8. VARIATION OF SCENE (taken from the aborted album Sorry For Laughing)

9. ENDLESS SOUL (taken from the aborted album Sorry For Laughing)

10. SORRY FOR LAUGHING (Postcard 7″ Version)

11. REVELATION (B-side to “Sorry for Laughing” 7″)

12. CHANCE MEETING (Postcard 7″ Version)

13. PICTURES (OF CINDY) (B-side to “Chance Meeting” 7″)

14. FUN ‘N’ FRENZY (taken from the album The Only Fun in Town)

15. CRAZY TO EXIST (taken from the album The Only Fun in Town)

16. FOREVER DRONE (taken from the album The Only Fun in Town)

17. HEART OF SONG (taken from the album The Only Fun in Town)

18. 16 YEARS (taken from the album The Only Fun in Town)

19. THE ANGLE (taken from the album The Only Fun in Town)

20. HEAVEN SENT (Peel Session, June 22nd, 1981)

21. THE MISSIONARY (Peel Session, June 22nd, 1981)

22. APPLEBUSH (Peel Session, June 22nd, 1981)

New York City band +/- {Plus/Minus} has signed with the Berkeley label Absolutely Kosher and will release Let’s Build a Fire, its first release for the label and third album overall, on Oct. 24 of this year.

+/- {Plus/Minus} was originally conceived in 2001 as a vehicle for the songs of Versus guitarist James Baluyut. Teenbeat released the first LP, Self-Titled Long Playing Debut Album, on which James essentially played and recorded everything, in early 2002. The act quickly evolved into a full-fledged band, with the addition of fellow Versus member and longtime friend Patrick Ramos on guitar and vocals, and Austin, TX expatriate Chris Deaner on drums. Despite two-thirds of the group having roots in Versus, this new incarnation of +/- {Plus/Minus} was an entirely original construct, layering wistful pop with dynamic and complex arrangements and fusing rich, dense guitar sounds with polyrhythms drummed, strummed and programmed. With the release of the Holding Patterns EP and their sophomore album You Are Here in 2003/early 2004, it became abundantly clear that +/- {Plus/Minus} was applying pressure to the pop mechanism, assuring that it would indeed go “POP!”

The last several years have earned the band a powerful reputation as a live act (which resulted in a support invitation from Death Cab For Cutie in 2005). An extensive tour of Japan forced the band to issue a not-quite-complete version of their third album Let’s Build A Fire earlier this year through their Japanese label (which you may have heard thanks to the wonders of the Internet - completists and fans who shelled-out for the import will note a few tracks have been swapped out from the Japanese version, several were remixed and the whole thing was properly and painstakingly mastered).

After the tour and landmark shows at both SXSW and the Noise Pop Festival, +/- {Plus/Minus} began talking to Absolutely Kosher Records and finished work on Let’s Build A Fire, which is clearly the best record of their career thus far. The first four tracks on the album alone are gauntlet, a flawless snapshot of what makes +/- {Plus/Minus} so great. The title track starts off the record with crackling gramaphonic sound that is then shattered by a coolly exhuberant horn section and lumbering bass. The effect is as shocking as yanking the blanket off a sleeping person in winter. “Fadeout” sees them crack their knuckles and operate like a parlor magician, diverting your attention with sonic flourishes before you realize that your watch (or your heart) has been stolen. “Steal the Blueprints,” the album’s first single, impossibly ups the ante even further with every measured turn of sound or phrase intricately threaded through the whole of the song like the strings of a master puppeteer, never tangling, and all working the whole into a seemlessly beautiful choreography. While the originality of their composition and production deserves notice, at the heart of all of it is a naked and potent lyricism, as shown on “Leap Year” (one of four tracks penned by Ramos) and the gentle “This Is All I Have Left.” The entire album is rich with these elements and the end result is both startling and utterly captivating.

The band will be touring the nation this fall and early winter (including East Coast dates with the Wrens) in support of Let’s Build A Fire. CNN’s Anderson Cooper says in his iTunes Celebrity Playlist: “If you hear they are playing some small venue, go see them before they blow up.” Listen to Mr. Cooper.

Let’s Build a Fire Track List:

1.Let’s Build a Fire
2.Fadeout
3.Steal the Blueprints
4.The Important Thing Is To Love
5.Thrown into the Fire
6.Summer Dress 2 [Iodine]
7.Ignoring All the Detours
8.Profession
9.One Day You’ll Be There
10.This Is All I Have Left
11.Leap Year
12.Time and Space
13.For You

Australian pop ensemble Architecture in Helsinki are returning to the US again this Fall, beginning with a string of dates on their own and then meeting up with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at New York’s Central Park Summerstage on September 28. From that point on, they will spend about three weeks opening for CYHSY. The band has assembled a remix album, We Died: They Remixed that will only be available at their shows, featuring material from In Case We Die remixed by the likes of Hot Chip, Mocky, Safety Scissors, Squeak E Clean, DJ Medhi, Dat Politics, Isan and more! The band has already begun work on its third studio album, title still TBA, and plans to head back into the studio to complete it shortly after wrapping up this tour for a 2007 release. Expect the set lists on this tour to be heavy on the new material, as well as plenty of covers.

Sat 09/16 - San Diego CA @ Epicentre#
Sun 09/17 - Tempe AZ @ The Clubhouse#
Tue 09/19 - Austin TX @ Emo’s (Outside Stage)#
Wed 09/20 - Houston TX @ Warehouse Live#
Thu 09/21 - New Orleans LA @ Howlin’ Wolf#
Fri 09/22 - Athens GA @ 40 Watt Club#
Sat 09/23 - Nashville TN @ Exit In#
Mon 09/25 - Washington DC @ Black Cat#
Tue 09/26 - Boston MA @ Avalon*
Wed 09/27 - Northampton, MA @ Pearl Street (Downstairs)#
Thu 09/28 - New York NY @ Central Park Summerstage*
Fri 09/29 - Bennington VT @ Bennington College
Sat 09/30 - Philadelphia PA @ Trocadero*
Sun 10/01 - Cleveland OH @ House of Blues*
Mon 10/02 - Chicago IL @ Vic Theatre*
Tue 10/03 - Chicago IL @ Vic Theatre*
Wed 10/04 - Minneapolis MN @ First Avenue*
Thu 10/05 - Omaha NE @ Sokol Underground
Fri 10/06 - Englewood CO @ Gothic Theatre*
Sat 10/07 - Boulder CO @ Boulder Theater*
Sun 10/08 - Salt Lake City UT @ In The Venue - Small Room
Tue 10/10 - Seattle WA @ Showbox*
Wed 10/11 - Seattle WA @ Showbox*
Thu 10/12 - Portland OR @ Crystal Ballroom*
Fri 10/13 - San Francisco CA @ Warfield Theatre*
Sat 10/14 - Los Angeles CA @ Henry Fonda Theatre*
Sun 10/15 - Los Angeles CA @ Henry Fonda Theatre*

* = w/ Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
# = w/ The Blow