Blog: Strangeglue

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit are set to release their second album Here We Rest on April 12 through Nashville-based Lightning Rod Records. And where better place to promote it than the South By Southwest Festival. Jason talked to Strange Glue about how much they're looking forward to SxSW and the year ahead: ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ -------- 1) How many times have you been to SxSW? I've probably done 7 or 8 in the last 9 years.

Former front man for The Horrors (not the British band), Paul Cary is back with a new lineup and a new set of haunting melodies. Following a split 7" with Thee Oh Sees, his first solo LP - Ghost of a Man has been met with critical acclaim.

Norwegian electro-poppers Casiokids are heading over for their third South By Southwest Festival this year. We caught them live a couple of years ago and Alice Shyy described the scene as "walking into a silly-awesome, instrument-switching, neon jungle-beat dance party.

The trailer for the upcoming Catherine Hardwicke film Red Riding Hood featured a short clip of a Fever Ray song, but now that the original soundtrack is out you can hear Karin Dreijer-Andersson's 'The Wolf' in full. It's embedded below.

Norman Palm lives and works in Berlin and Mexico City. He sings and writes tender songs, and is probably most famous for his slowed-down cover versions of Boys Don't Cry and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun which have amassed many a view on YouTube.

It's only been a few months since Gold Panda released his debut full-length, Lucky Shiner. Now, Derwin Panda is taking his instrumental soundtracks Stateside, with SxSW forming the middle part of a mammoth world tour. Here's what he had to say about this year's South By Southwest Festival: ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ -------- 1) How many times have you been to SxSW? Zero.

It was on a cold winter's morning, so the story goes, when two high school friends spotted a neon sign in front of a church in Brooklyn. "Apostolic Faith Mission" it read. If you took out Apostolic, put in Alcoholic, the two friends discussed, you'd have a pretty cool band name.

Great Lake Swimmers are one of those indie folk bands that seem to have been around for ages. Featuring a blend of acoustic instruments, rural soundscapes, and wistful vocals, they are led by songwriter/vocalist Tony Dekker. Having released four albums, (their last LP we scored at 9/10 when we reviewed it two years ago), Lost Channels was also shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize and nominated for a Juno Award.

If you're familiar with the Vivian Girls, you'll no doubt be aware of "Kickball" Katy Goodman. Having already teamed up with Cat Power to form the short-lived All Saints Day, Katy also formed her solo project La Sera last year.

Electronic-pop trio Kamp! formed in 2008 in Poland. They've put out a couple of EPs on their own Brennnessel label. Their sound is often described as melodic synthpop influenced by 80's new wave, 70's krautrock and 90's french house genres.

Les Jupes describe themselves aptly as: "Four kids from the middle of the North American continent, making modern music for people living in the past. " Their debut album, which was released in January is built on Michael Petkau Falk's warm baritone voice, charging through waves of psychedelia and driving rhythms.

If there's one artist you need to see at this SxSW week it's Teen Daze. Seriously we are THAT impressed. Teen Daze is an electronic musician from Vancouver, BC. In July 2010, he released his debut record, "Four More Years".

Elephant Stone is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Rishi Dhir, a founding member of Montreal pop/psyche veterans the High Dials. He also makes claim to be the sitar player for basically every outlaw psyche band out there (Black Angels, the Earlies, Hopewell, Brian Jonestown Massacre) The band has certainly been busy as a whole over the last few years.

Constantina aren't exactly a household name in the Europe or North America, but they seem to the perfect band to kick off our interview series of our favourite bands heading over to this year's South By Southwest Festival. The Brazillian seven-piece who rose from the ashes of four Belo Horizonte bands - Ana, Retórica, Moan and Filit, formed in 2003 to create "instrumental songs with subtle electronic interferences" according to their bio page.

After a gap of about a year, Sheffield indie darlings the Arctic Monkeys have announced details of a return to U. S soil. The news comes hot on the heels of the band releasing new song 'Brick By Brick' on their website last week (embedded below).

The Chemical Brothers have recorded the score for Hanna, Joe Wright's film about a 16-year-old who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin. The movie arrives April 8th, but before that, on March 15th in fact, iTunes will have an exclusive release of Tom and Ed's score.

Seattle songstress Jesse Sykes and her band The Sweet Hereafter have revealed the follow up to 2007's critically acclaimed 'Like Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul' with 'Marble Son', their fourth release from Fargo Records. Marble Son will hit all good U.

The superlative Cumbrian four-piece Wild Beasts have revealed 'Albatross' will be the first official single taken from their much-anticipated third album, Smother. Hayden Thorpe's operatic vocals remain untouched, but the band seem to have mellowed a little. Judge for yourselves below.

There are plenty of releases this week to feast your eyes and ears upon. There are welcome returns for big-hitters Elbow and R. E. M, while further down the pecking order there are excellent albums from Rival Schools, Wye Oak, Kurt Vile and Wild Palms.

The nice people at Rough Trade are in a celebratory mood today. It's nearing the release of Alela Diane's new album 'Alela Diane & Wild Divine', which arrives on April 4th. To compliment that fact, the label are giving away the first track on it, 'To Begin'.