Good Weather For Airstrikes

So now that all the excitement and stress surrounding the music videos post is mostly behind us, here’s a big round up of what’s been going on since I last made a non-Best of 2005 post.NEW SHINS SONG(S)!
As most of you probably already know, The Shins are currently readying their newest album, which according to frontman James Mercer, will apparently be called either Wincing The Night Away or Sleeping Lessons, for release sometime this summer. The Shins aim to have the album completed and turned into Sub Pop by April 1st, which, with the state of the internet these days, will hopefully mean we’ll see a leak of the album shortly thereafter. Anyway, one song rumored to be on the album is “Won Too Many Fights” which has been floating around on the internet for a while in the form of a James Mercer solo performance from The Moonshine Festival. However, another live version of a song that’s supposedly on the album has recently surfaced from one of the band’s live performances on their recent Australian tour, recorded live on January 7th at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. The new song is apparently currently untitled, but there are rumors that it’s actually called “Circus Walk”. Though Mercer has made it sound like the new album will introduce a new sound for the band (he’s compared some of the songs to old My Bloody Valentine and even Fugazi), these songs, though only early live versions, are more of the same old Shins we know and love. Check it out below.

MP3: “Won One Too Many Fights” - The Shins
MP3: “Untitled (Circus Walk)” - The Shins“NEW” DEATH CAB SONG! (AND NEW VIDEO PROJECT!)
While this song’s not exactly new per se, as it’s been available as a b-side on the vinyl release of Plans since October, this is the first time I’ve ever found an mp3 recording of the song, which I’ve been looking for since first hearing the song on my vinyl LP of Plans. While it’s certainly not one of the best songs DCFC’s ever produced, it’s on par if not better than some of the songs on Plans (namely “Your Heart Is An Empty Room” and “Someday You Will Be Loved”), and would have been one of the more uptempo songs (think along the lines of “Sound of Settling” and “Crooked Teeth”) on the album had it made the official release.

Also, I just realized Death Cab’s Directions video series begins tomorrow, and I’m ridiculously excited. Not only are Death Cab about to release a new “old school, stop motion” music video for their next single “Crooked Teeth” (directed by Ace Norton), they’ll also be releasing a music video for every single song on the album, including b-side “Talking Like Turnstiles”, which as I’ve already mentioned, you should download below. Also, Norton’s video for “Crooked Teeth” will not be featured on the compilation, nor will Jon Watts’ video for “Soul Meets Body”. Rather, the two new videos will be made for those songs, by Cat Solen (”Crooked Teeth”), who directed GWFAS’ 65th best video of 2005 for Bright Eyes’ “At The Bottom of Everything”, and Rob Schrab (”Soul Meets Body”). The complete list of whose directing what is available below, and the first of the videos is set to be released on Death Cab’s website tomorrow:

• “Marching Bands of Manhattan,” directed by P.R. Brown
• “Soul Meets Body,” directed by Cat Solen
• “Summer Skin,” directed by Lightborne
• “Different Names for the Same Thing,” directed by Autumn de Wilde
• “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” directed by Monkmus
• “Your Heart Is an Empty Room,” directed by Jeffrey Brown; animated by Eliza Kinkz
• “Someday You Will Be Loved,” directed by Ace Norton
• “Crooked Teeth,” directed by Rob Schrab
• “What Sarah Said,” directed by Laurent Briet
• “Brothers on a Hotel Bed,” directed by Chris Grismer
• “Stable Song,” directed by Aaron Stewart-Ahn
• “Talking Like Turnstiles”, directed by Lance Bangs

MP3: “Talking Like Turnstiles” - Death Cab For Cutie

NEW FLAMING LIPS SINGLE!
I’ve never been the biggest fan of The Flaming Lips, outside of their obvious hits like “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1″ and whatnot, but I’m enjoying their new single “The W.A.N.D.” off of their upcoming album, At War With The Mystics (see full tracklist here). As I said, I’ve never been much of a fan of the Lips, so I can’t really compare it too well to their older material, but it basically just rides a nice dirty guitar riff for 3 minutes and 43 seconds to great success, a la We Are Scientists. Not their most ambitious offering, but enjoyable still.

MP3: “The W.A.N.D.” - The Flaming LipsNEW BLOC PARTY-RELATED NEWS!
Bloc Party’s DVD, God Bless Bloc Party, was released last Tuesday, and though I haven’t had the time to watch it yet, I’m immensely excited to. The DVD contains both a documentary featuring “interviews, backstage footage, and blistering live performances” as well as the band’s complete live festival performance at Belaforte, France from July 2005. Though I haven’t watched it yet, I went ahead and ripped the Belaforte performance, which clocks in at about 20 minutes, into iPod-compatible .mp4 format. In the live set the band performs “Like Eating Glass”, “Banquet”, “Blue Light”, “Luno”, and “Little Thoughts”, and it’s quite nice really. Someone could tell Gordy to put a little emotion into the performance though. Seriously, he needs to lighten the fuck up, he’s even a downer in the picture above.

In other Bloc Party-related news, experimental electronic-folk duo Tunng have decided to release their brilliant cover of Bloc Party’s “The Pioneers”, which has been floating around the internet for a while now, as a single/EP to tide fans over until they release their second album later this year. This marks the second time “The Pioneers” has been wonderfully covered, after Mystery Jets covered the song for a b-side on Bloc Party’s “The Pioneers” single, which can also be downloaded below. Tunng, which is comprised of Mike Lindsay and Sam Genders, strip down the herky-jerky guitars and urgency of the original in exchange for more laid-back electronic strumming. Does the guitar that comes in at about the 3:20 mark after the chorus remind anyone else of ska? No? Just me? That’s cool too. Anyway, feel free to download both covers below.

Finally, Divide & Kreate dropped one of the hottest mash ups of 2005 on the unsuspecting public when they released “Somebody Stole Your Beat”, which mashed up an instrumental of Bloc Party’s immaculate “Banquet” with an acapella of The Killers’ “Somebody Told Me”. This most holy union of two awesome songs only results in further awesomeness (most eloquent phrasing ever), so I must [highly recommend] you grab this one.

Video: “Live @ Belaforte, France” - Bloc Party [iPod Compatible]
MP3: “The Pioneers” - Tunng
MP3: “Pioneers” - Mystery Jets
MP3: “Somebody Stole Your Beat” - Bloc Party vs. The KillersNEW BLOGS!
Finally, I’d like to draw some attention to some brand new blogs started by a couple of my friends. First, my good friend Daniel J. Tyler has started a great new blog, The Truth Hanging From The Door, which has some great stuff for you guys to check out, especially considering the short period of time the blog’s been in existence.

Last, but certainly not least our dear friend and M3-contributor Zack Friendly has grown too big for his britches and now has a spin-off blog, All Things Go, run by him and his four BFFs Adrian, Austin, Ryan, and Alex Houston. Though I don’t know much of Ryan and Alex’s tastes, I can personally attest to the excellent quality of Zack, Adrian, and especially Austin’s eclectic tastes. Though you might not be able to identify with all of their widely-varied styles, you’re guaranteed to find something you like over there. Best of all, Zack, being the stand-up guy that he is, is letting me use some of his ezarchive hosting However, unlike From The Door, which has been rolling for a little while now, All Things Go is just getting started and only has some introductory posts up, so be sure to check back in the coming days/weeks and I’ll link to them again once their more substantive posts start popping up. Also, I designed the headers for both of those sites (though From The Door’s having some formatting issues so the header is not displayed), which are can be seen above, so I guess that’s a bonus if you enjoy my art (also: if you really enjoy my work, go here to check out the rest of my artwork).

And finally, just in case you were like the one person on the internet who missed it, here’s the torrent file for the Top 65 Music Videos of 2005 once again.

TORRENT FILE: Top 65 Music Videos of 2005

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.