It may have been a slow week with regard to news (unless you’re the sort that found the State of the Union entertaining), but as for music, there were enough new album announcements to tide us over for a year. The artists themselves seemed to be just as excited about the prospects, with a slew of sources publishing interviews and information on the upcoming releases. For your (anticipated) listening pleasure, a summary of the week’s heavier hitters.
The National will be releasing a new LP come May on 4AD. It’s currently 75% finished, with a three week deadline before it gets sent to be mastered. Singer Matt Berninger reported that the band is now in the process of figuring out “the magic middle ground between everybody’s ideas” on the songs. Playing much bigger venues than for previous album Boxer, the National will be opening for Pavement in Paris, an event that boggled even Berninger’s mind, “That was probably the band that made us want to be a band.” Sufjan Stevens will also make an appearance, doing backing vocals on a track with a “sort of odd, creepy vibe.”
The name of Panda Bear‘s latest effort was revealed, Tomboy, which is tentatively scheduled for a September release on Paw Tracks. Back in November, Panda dropped some hints about the album, which will be “a very electronic sound and very voice heavy.” It appears the new record will be moving away from the sample-heavy stuff of Person Pitch, with a darker tone and a more “dramatic or romantic” sound, according to the Bear himself.
No Age, who released the Losing Feeling EP last year, has gone back into Infrasonic Sound in LA to finish work on a new full length, expected for release this summer. The boys have been playing two of the new songs at most of their recent shows, one titled “Fever Dreams” and the other as of yet unnamed (though guitarist Randy Randall did suggest “Fuck Prop 8 in the Face” when speaking to Pitchfork about the upcoming record). Randall also mentioned that this time around they’d like to “not use samples just as a backing track but writing with them as another instrument.” Again working with engineer Pete Lyman, Randall reports the “songs coming together for the LP are definitely a brighter, more poppy version of us — but still noisy and in the No Age vein.”
Baltimore’s Yeasayer is ahead of the gang, with an official release date for their new record, Odd Blood, slated for February 9th (yes, as in less than two weeks). The band has already embarked on an extensive tour schedule in support of the album, as well as posting free downloads of two new tracks via their site.
Broken Bells has also got its shit together, with a self-titled new album hitting stores on March 9th. The duo, composed of Danger Mouse and the Shins’ James Mercer, released a free download of track “The High Road,” though the entire album was reportedly leaked a few weeks back. I’m sure Danger Mouse, no stranger to free streaming (his collaboration with Sparkle Horse, which EMI refused to release due to legal setbacks, magically appeared for the taking on NPR within weeks), could still use the support, so be a good fan and pick up a copy of the real deal.
