On May 15th, Craft Spells will release a new EP, titled Gallery, on Captured Tracks. And while last year’s Idle Labor LP may have gone under the radar a bit, something tells me the new EP will not endure the same fate.

Why? Well, the strength of first single “Still Left With Me” surpasses anything that Craft Spells have done in the past and show a remarkable amount of growth for the young group. You can stream the tune below and check out the tracklist and tour dates as well.
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As is the case every time Andre 3000 appears on a new track, questions begin swirling around the possibility of a new OutKast album. Luckily, GQ posed the question directly to the man. Andre 3000 answered:
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Domino Records and Ribbon Music are teaming for a Record Store Day release of a literary and art zine that will include a series of multicolor flexi discs with new songs from Dirty Projectors, Real Estate, Cass McCombs, John Maus, and Villagers. It will be titled Smugglers Way.

Along with the new music, the zine will offer short writings by Real Estate’s Alex Bleeker, Clinic’s Ade Blackburn, and Wild Beasts’ Tom Fleming as well as a long poem by Laura Marling. The Kills’ Alison Mosshart, Twin Sister’s Andrea Estella, electronic artist/Brian Eno collaborator Jon Hopkins, and Villagers’ Conor O’Brien will all offer original art and itt will feature photography by Lower Dens’ Jana Hunter, a cover design by Bjorn Copeland of Black Dice, and an original score of music by Owen Pallett. Yeah, I guess Jesus was too busy to help out, too.
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All Tomorrow’s Parties New Jersey installment of I’ll Be Your Mirror will return to Asbury Park the weekend of September 21st-23rd for a festival co-curated by The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli and ATP. Today, the festival announced it’s initial lineup, and it is filled with both the kind of legends that ATP fests are known for and a few curve balls.

Chosen by Dulli to play the fest (besides his band) are comedian Louis C.K., The Roots, Jose Gonzalez, Mark Lanegan Band, Dirty Three, The Antlers, Emeralds, Sharon Van Etten, Vetiver, and more. ATP has selected a number of bands as well including The Make-Up, Hot Snakes, Factory Floor, Thee Oh Sees, Death Grips, and more. Check out the current lineup below and stay tuned for more bands to be added in the coming months.
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Sub Pop’s garage punk duo No Age are hitting the road again in March for a brief tour, presumably to preview some new material, since it’s been quite a while since Everything in Between. You can see all the dates on the poster above. Judging from the names of the venues these will be pretty intimate shows so even more reason to go!

The dates are also listed below.
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Photo by Philip Cosores

Following in the footsteps of Lana Del Rey and Sleigh Bells, The Shins will make an appearance on Saturday Night Live on March 10th. This will be the band’s second appearance on the popular late-night series.

One of the tune’s that James Mercer and co. will play is “Simple Song,” and the band recently unveiled a music video for it. You can now watch it below. Spoiler alert: it’s pretty awesome.
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If you live in L.A., you have had the chance all month to enjoy a free set from Electric Guest on a weekly basis. Now, the rest of the country will have the same chance, except, you know, not for free.

Electric Guest will play dates in a number of major cities, including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston. We have the full list of dates below and be sure to keep an eye out for their Danger Mouse-produced debut, Mondo, which will be released on April 24th via Downtown Records.
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Fans of At The Drive-In are set to have their hopes dashed today. When the band put, “ATTENTION ! To whom it may concern: AT THE DRIVE-IN will be breaking their 11 year silence. THIS STATION IS …. NOW ….OPERATIONAL” on their website, fans could be forgiven for thinking that some new music might be on the horizon.

Alas, such a possibility was dismissed by the band’s guitarist, Omar Rodriguez-López. In various interviews, with the like of NME and Kerrang, he said that the main reason the band were getting back together was for financial reasons, adding that, “At the Drive-In is more of a nostalgia thing.”
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Phil Elverum has been one of the most prolific artists of the past decade or so under his Mount Eerie moniker and before that as The Microphones. However, he has not released an album since 2009, which is odd for him, but it seems he plans to more than make up for it with two full length albums set for 2012.

The first is called Clear Moon (cover above) which comes out on May 22nd through his own P.W. Elverum and Son label. The companion album is called Ocean Roar and will be out later this year, with no confirmed release date given yet.

The press release for Clear Moon describes the sound as:

The sound is not lo-fi as it is sometimes called. It’s also not hi-fi. These are just crazy recordings, bigger and deeper than any real-life fjord. It’s 100% analog, and it is a sound that can only come from 15 months of studio solitude, crushing tape, riding waves of fake strings, finding new angles on “intensity”.

Which sounds very interesting indeed.

Looking at the track list for Clear Moon below, it appears that the song “Distorted Cymbals” — which was released on 7″ by K Records a couple of weeks ago — will not be on the album. If you missed it then you can hear the stand-alone track here.
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Just by looking at their Windows 3.1-themed website or by hearing that they’ve given their debut album the bizarre name Body Faucet tells you a lot about about Reptar – but mostly it tells you that they’re a really fun band.This was evident on their Oblangle Fizz Y’all EP and seems set to continue on Body Faucet if the first single “Sebastian” is anything to go by.

But, although Reptar can often seem like goof offs, they take their music seriously; “When we were recording the album, we tried to strike a balance between giving each song it’s own distinct character and identity and still having the album feel like a cohesive statement,” they say of Body Faucet. Of the sound of the album, the band describes it as

“It feels like a long journey between a bunch of different parts of the same dream, some of them based in reality, some definitely not based in reality, and some based in space. We tried to keep a physical feel to all of the songs, where each one makes you want to move in a different way, while at the same time trying to create a specific and distinct feeling and atmosphere for each one.”

The album comes out through Vagrant Records on May 1st (cover art above). It was recorded with Animal Collective/Washed Out producer Ben Allen. Check out the track list below (which includes some brilliant song titles) and make sure you listen to the song “Sebastian.”
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