Blog: Pitchfork: Forkcast

Once again, Pitchfork has teamed with our friends at the Windish Agency to bring you a party in Austin, Texas! On March 20 at Emo's (603 Red River St.), 12 bands will take over both the main outdoor stage and the Emo's Jr. indoor stage from noon to 6 p.m. You should go if you're in the area...we hear several other bands are playing in Austin around the same time! The party features performances from indie disco queen Little Boots! Brooklyn fuzz-poppers the Pains of [...]

Human Highway haven't even started their tour yet, but already the mellow folk/country duo of Islands ' Nick Thorburn and singer/songwriter Jim Guthrie appear to be losing their heads. The video for "The Sound", from last year's Moody Motorcycle , was directed by Olivier Groulx, of Arcade Fire's "Black Mirror" video fame, and as with that clip there's an interactive element. The proper video, below, disassembles Thorburn and Guthrie's faces [...]

"A Lilt" is the subtitle of the third and final installment in Overture 's trilogy of videos from Ferndorf , the latest album by Dusseldorf pianist/composer Hauschka (aka Volker Bertelmann). "I Am the Big Pink Walrus-Looking Guy Whose Tusks Sound Like Booming Brass" would be one of my alternate subtitles. The woodland creatures Byrum and Kapok, whom you may remember from the clips for " Eltern " and " Heimat ", have [...]

What can you say about Tinted Windows , the totally real quasi-supergroup of former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, Taylor the cute Hanson, and Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger? Their future's so bright, they gotta wear shades. "Kind of a Girl", the first song from the new foursome, is straightforward power-pop-- as if there's any other kind. What kind of a girl is she? "The kind of a girl you can't get enough of." Buzzsaw Zwan-ish guitars, vocals halfway between [...]

Photo by Pascal Teixeira Phoenix 's 2006 album It's Never Been Like That is stellar for a lot of reasons: hooks galore, artfully wounded lyrics, meticulous arrangements. But it also must be one of the most re-playable records in recent history; the thing doesn't get old. It's like the pre-stroke Dick Clark of post-Strokes indie-rock records. And now the French four piece is finally releasing a follow-up, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix , May 26 in the U.S. via [...]

-- Last week, we reported on the existence of Tinted Windows , the bonkers-ass supergroup comprised of Hanson's Taylor Hanson, former Smashing Pumpkin James Iha, Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, and Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger. Well, not only does this absurd little power-pop hydra exist, but it's actually out there in the world, doing stuff. On April 21, Tinted Windows will release their self-titled debut album on S-Curve . They'll also play a few sets at SXSW, pop up on "Letterman" [...]

MGMT photo by Kathryn Yu Psych-pop duo MGMT don't exactly scream "politics"-- unless there happens to be a referendum on glittery stuffed dogs or vaguely Native American duds in the works, we're guessing these guys don't download Rachel Maddow podcasts on the regular. But the pair are now in the middle of a contentious copyright battle with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, according to Agence France Presse . [...]

London's the Big Pink -- the 4AD -signed duo of Robbie Furze (Panic DHH, Alec Empire) and Merok Records founder Milo Cordell-- go black and white and loud all over on this Pitchfork.tv-exclusive video from their forthcoming self-titled debut album. "The track nods to such sonic reference points as the shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine or Spiritualized's tender adventures in distortion but the track's chiming chorus and melodic nuance allow it a fragile beauty of its very own," Pitchfork contributor James Knight wrote of previous single " Crystal [...]

Photo by Matt Ziegler Their synthpop phase was more than a decade ago now, so maybe it's time for the Smashing Pumpkins to indulge in another time-honored aging-rocker career cliche: Going retro! Or maybe not. But in the next few months, the reconstituted 90s alt-pop heroes will make a couple of moves that smack of PBS respectability. For one thing, Billy Corgan will soon put in work to benefit public broadcasting in his hometown [...]

It's not a long way from breakneck to emotional breakdown. L.A.'s Crystal Antlers push onward from the Stooges-style psycho-punk abandon of 2008 EP highlights like "Vexation" on new song "Andrew", a rhythmically complex garage-rock screamer from the band's upcoming Tentacles . Dusty organs, grizzled guitars, and yowling vocals bring to mind the Black Lips and King Khan, not to mention the Animals or a few of the countless Nuggets bands. Drummer Sexual Chocolate [...]

• Crystal Antlers - Andrew

The scene in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou where Sigur Rós 's "Starálfur" bubbles up on the soundtrack is one of my favorite goosebump moments of the past decade of film, proof positive that the exact right match of song and visual can elevate even a mess of a movie like that one. So credit Irish writer/director Neil Jordan , the guy who made The Crying Game and Interview With the Vampire , with some truly [...]

Carefree days feel more and more distant with each skim of the ol' RSS reader, and The Boy Least Likely To 's happy-sad twee-pop aches all the better for it. The UK duo of Pete Hobbs and Jof Owen can be seen scampering around a field and cruising in goofy vehicles in the video for latest single " A Balloon on a Broken String ", from upcoming The Best Party Ever follow-up The Law of the [...]

Photo by Natalie Kardos Hey, Wilco 's back! We already knew that their Ashes of American Flags live DVD would come out in April and that indie retailers would get it early as part of the Record Store Day festivities. And we knew that the band had a bunch of tour dates coming up, including a [...]

It's been a rough couple weeks for Ticketmaster -- and thank God for that. Just as the biggest ticketing company in the country tries to join forces with Live Nation , the biggest live promotion company in the country, the world-conquering twosome has suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks that will hopefully cause the Justice Department to nix their proposed $2.5 billion merger sometime soon. Here's a round-up of their troubles: -- On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, [...]

Damon Albarn got away with teasing the music world about a Blur reunion for so long because the style-shifting London art-poppers were actually pretty great. Albarn and long-estranged guitarist Graham Coxon finally reunited for the first time in a reported nine years on stage at the NME Awards last night in London. They did a low-key keyboard-and-acoustic rendition of the very English geographical tear-jerker "This Is a Low", from 1994 Britpop standby Parklife , and there's nobody other than Coxon I'd rather hear strumming those [...]

Remember when everybody was losing their shit waiting for the latest Animal Collective LP to leak? "My advice to those who are so desperate for AC's album to leak is to pick up instruments and make your own version of what you would want it to sound like," wrote Bradford Cox of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound on his bands' blog, recalling how he used to do this while he was anticipating, say, Pavement's Brighten the Corners . "I would record a set of songs that I would [...]

For reasons that can probably all be traced back to Dave Navarro's constant shirtlessness , Jane's Addiction rarely get the respect they deserve. No Pitchfork 500 inclusion, for one! Jane's frontman Perry Farrell founded Lollapalooza . That means no Jane's , no early 90s alt-rock takeover, which means most of the people reading this would still be jamming Huey Lewis and Peabo Bryson in 2009. OK, maybe not. But still, Jane's Addiction were important! [...]

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart give us a brief travelogue from their tour of Sweden, debate which punny Pains merch would be the cheesiest, and reveal their "Moldy Peaches"-linked claim to fame. [Interview: Tyler Grisham] read more

Recorded during the same 1997 European tour that birthed their In Bern , this is the second collaboration between these two avant heroes. read more

Jagjaguwar band leaves behind most of its melodramatic art-rock moves, showing a newfound restraint and a rich and sumptuous sound. read more