Arcade Fire certainly look like they're in the last phases of finishing up the new album after John Russell tweeted they had been mixing their material before they themselves started in that studio.
The whispers of a September release date are growing stronger.
Here's a mp3 recording of Arcade Fire at Glastonbury 2007 from my dvd of that same gig.
Coldplay Attempt Hostile Takeover of The Arcade Fire. "Bono [meaning Bono]", just one of many highlights. I laughed quite a bit at this witty piece. A lot of it has to with the fact the headline is (almost) true.
It makes me very happy to hear from people all over Europe who are flying in for Arcade Fire's first announced solo show at Dalhalla in Sweden. I know of people from Ireland, England, Italy, Denmark, Germany, France and Finland who are coming over just for this gig. To anyone making the trip over; feel free to drop me a line. Good fun reading about it. Hope the weekend is treating you all well.
Update
Adding Holland to the list. Has to be some Norwegians who'll cross the boarder, right?
Update #2
The Americans want in on the fun as well. Cool!
My excitement level can't even be measured. So happy. The free mp3 above sounds absolutely marvellous! 2010, I love you already.
The Knife, in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock, are to release the studio version of the opera 'Tomorrow, In A Year', on the 1st March 2010. Free download for all mailing list subscribers
Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme. They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds.
‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ is a unique musical project. Richard Dawkins’s gene trees have formed the basis of some of the musical composition, artificial sounds have been mixed with field recordings, with the music inspired by everything from the different stages of a bird learning its melody, to a song based on Darwin’s loving letters about his daughter Anne. These are compositions that challenge the conventional conception of opera music.
Pushing the experimental process further still, composer, choreographer, costume designer and set designer worked separately, only coming together 3 and a half months before the first performance of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ in Copenhagen on the 2nd September 2009. Described as “shifting the position of operartic art in a single leap”, further performances of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ are confirmed to take place in Athens (8-9 Jan), Stockholm (29 Jan-1 Feb), and Munster (5 June), with further dates to be announced.
Olof Dreijer says: “At first it was very difficult as we really didn’t know anything about opera. We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do. I really like the basic theatrical values of opera and the easy way it brings forward a narrative. We’ve approached this before in The Knife but never in such a clear way.”
The first track to be taken from the album, called Colouring of Pigeons, is free to download now for all mailing list subscribers
Tracklist: CD 1 01. Intro 02. Epochs 03. Geology 04. Upheaved 05. Minerals 06. Ebb Tide Explorer 07. Variation of Birds 08. Letter to Henslow 09. Schoal Swarm Orchestra
CD 2 01. Annie’s Box 02. Tumult 03. Colouring of Pigeons 04. Seeds 05. Tomorrow in a Year 06. The Height of Summer
If you missed Nico Muhly and Richard Reed Parry with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony I've got something for you - all you other clever people who did listen to it also of course. First up a recording of the whole thingy that was broadcasted. If you're only interested in Richard's involvement in the concert you're probably best off downloading this. It only features the interview with Richard and his orchestral piece "For Orchestra and Heart and Breath" which you can read more about here. Oh and both of these are mp3 recordings.
Win Butler, Régine Cassagne and Owen Pallett have made the score for Richard Kelly's new movie The Box. Last night the official website was launched and playing in the background is a piece of music taken off that score. It sounds incredible! My mind is racing through all sorts haunting landscapes. So, head over to http://thebox-movie.warnerbros.com and listen to the music and check out the pretty cool website. Then when your mind has been blown you download the song here.
[MP3] Win Butler, Régine Chassagne and Owen Pallett - The Box (Website Theme)
UPDATE: As if needed, here's confirmation it's indeed their score music.
Win låter så mycket mer allvarlig och uppriktig när Wake Up framförs akustiskt. Håren på armarna sticker rakt ut varje gång jag hör introt till trailern.
[MP3] Arcade Fire - Wake Up (Where The Wild Things Are Version - The Acoustic Intro)
De besökte CBC Radio i fredags och framförde dessa 3 helt underbara låtar från nya skivan As Seen Through Windows som kommer ut på Arts&Crafts den 10:e mars. Dark Lights - (mp3) The Gaze - (mp3) Water/Light/Shifts - (mp3) Så vackert att jag inte vet vart jag ska ta vägen.
Win berättar idag för BBC Newsbeat om Miroir Noir och bjuder även på en instrumental låt som heter Burning Bridges. En instrumental låt som bygger på den underbara Burning Bridges, Breaking Hearts.
Arcade Fire have been speaking about their debut movie Miroir Noir.
The DVD is the first time the secretive group have released extended video footage.
Miroir Noir, shot over a two year period, is the joint project of the Canadian band, director Vincent Morisset and cameraman Vincent Moon.
The film includes footage of Win Butler and co working on their second record Neon Bible, home videos and intimate live clips collected during 2006 and 2007.
Home videos
"Our goal was to capture the show a little bit, recording stuff and then to capture the excitement of the band live," lead singer Win Butler told Newsbeat. "A lot of it is like home movies which we shot while we were making the record [Neon Bible]."
The 70 minute documentary is deliberately shot in a low budget style - including camcorder footage of their church studio, backstage rituals and visits to the beach.
"For us it made a lot more sense to have one or two cameras and to it more punk style than have a giant camera crew," explained Win. "I always find live DVDs kind of boring.
"The problem with a lot of live band DVDs is that there's something very different to being in the audience and watching a video of being in an audience."
Notoriously private
The group are notoriously private. With that in mind they chose close friends to produce their first video output.
"Vincent Morisset [director] is one of Regine's really close friends from college in Montreal.
"Vincent Moon was actually at our first Paris show out front with a sign with his girlfriend saying 'Please we need tickets we need to get in', and Regine let him into the show.
"We've known those guys for a long time so it was easy to tune out and forget that there was anyone there."
Importantly Miroir Noir retains the band's cloak of mystery but does also display some previously masked sides to the group.
"There's a lot of humour in the film which probably isn't necessarily what people think when they think about our band," Win said."The joking around-ness is captured in a few places."
Meanwhile, the majority of the documentary features clips of the band's live show captured by Moon.
"There's a shot during Black Waves where Vincent Moon comes on stage and you see Jeremy drumming up close," explained Win. "There are a few points that have this visceral connection to the live shows that I'm really pleased with.
"If you saw us at a festival or somewhere from far back I don't know if you'd necessarily see the effort that's going into it."
Somewhat oddly the movie opens with a scene where the band are systematically put to sleep.
Win: "We wanted to see what it'd be like to try and hypnotise the whole band and play music while we were hypnotised.
"But apparently it's hard to hypnotise a bunch of jokers in a room when the hypnotist doesn't speak English as his first language."
The film principally captures the group's movements between 2006-2007 - the conclusion of the Neon Bible sessions and the unrelenting schedule of touring which followed.
"Right out of the gate it was so intense," recalled Win. "16 hours a day working like maniacs we went straight out and did 16 shows in two and a half weeks.
"It was a weird thing where the first half of the whole [touring] process was this trial of will where I was literally so sick I couldn't play.
"It felt like the second half we really kind of found our stride and started to figure some things out. It wasn't such a climbing Mount Everest type of experience."
Director's view
"The project was more about spontaneity and just capturing what was happening," explained Vincent Morisset. "It was not about touring and the life of a band on tour."
And his close relationship with the band meant he could, along with Takeaway show creator Vincent Moon, harbour some uncensored footage.
"I was part of the family - I know already their limits and where I could go," he said.
"We respected this space of privacy. This project was not about destructing a myth or saying, 'Hey these people are just really normal, eating their cereals in the morning'."
The band also revealed they've began working on material for their third album, demoing songs in Win's house and their church studio.
Nya låtarna ljuder helt underbart! Love it! Om bara den där efterlängtade skivan ville leta sin väg till mig och alla andra som väntar (o)tåligt också så vore livet ljuvt.
Si sådär ja, här kommer då den utlovade bootlegen från Carrboro!
01: Pro-Obama Speech By Will 02: Keep The Car Running 03: (Antichrist Television Blues) 04: Heroes (David Bowie cover) 05: No Cars Go 06: Haiti 07: Intervention 08: Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) 09: Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) 10: Rebellion (Lies) --------------------------------- 11: Wake Up
Inte så mycket att tillägga mer än att den här versionen av Intervention är fantastisk och Heroes är bara helt magnifik med vevliran i förgrunden. Har redan lyssnat igenom hela spelningen ett par gånger och fler kommer det bli!
Ni förstod väl att jag skämtade när jag sa att rapporteringen var avslutad nu... Inatt dök det upp en bootleg från andra spelningen i Carrboro! Kommer ladda upp hela bootlegen senare men för nu kan ni njuta av deras Heroes-cover.
För länge sedan i en världsdel långt härifrån.... bla bla bla... förband.... Wolf Parade.... Arcade Fire... mer bla bla... Nu är de tillbaka! Och här är första smakprovet från deras än så länge icke namngivna skiva som släpps den 17:e juni.
Som utlovat spelade jag in Arcade Fires konsert som sändes för bara någon timme sedan av den australiensiska radiostationen Triple J. Ruskigt bra som vanligt! Håll lite speciellt utkik efter Wins improvisation under (ATB) då han får hjärnsläpp och glömmer bort orginaltexten.
01 Wake Up 02 Keep The Car Running 03 Black Mirror 04 Neighborhood #2 (Laika) 05 The Well & The Lighthouse 06 Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) 07 Intervention 08 No Cars Go 09 (Antichrist Television Blues) 10 Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) 11 Rebellion (Lies)
