The state of things

I have a review of Brakes new album (released July 4th) that I've been sitting on for some time; it'll be published over at Artrocker as soon as I finish it up and send it to them.

I interviewed Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy) last week, and will be trying my best to convince the guys and girls at HoBO to forgive me for taking so long putting the resulting article together. For those who don't know of Owen, he is responsible for The Arcade Fire's string arrangements, as well as having artistic input into early Hidden Cameras releases, and some of Jim Guthrie's material. As usual, the interview will be published on this site after it hits print.

The first No Format event in Toronto was last night, and it went extremely well. We had a packed club; The Diableros and The Empires both played great sets, and things stayed wound up all the way 'til closing. Big huge thanks to Kim Hardy for helping organize the sound at the last minute after other plans never materialized. Go check out Arts & Crafts and support Kim and everyone else involved in the label -- Broken Social Scene, Stars, The Most Serene Republic, etc.

Later tonight I'm going to post a few tracks in appreciation of an album that, while borne out of the early-90s English alternative scene, still holds up today: New Fast Automatic Daffodils' Pigeonhole.