A year and a half ago, I had a perfectly lovely telephone conversation with Isobel Campbell, the former Belle & Sebastian member who has recorded three ultra-satisfying albums of Nancy Sinatra pastiche with Mark Lanegan. And during that conversation, I learned something about Lanegan that seems to throw this entire career into stark relief: He [...]

The Late Night Tales artist-curated compilation series will issue a second mix by Belle & Sebastian on March 26th. Here's the track listing: 01 Broadcast: "Ominous Cloud" 02 The Wonder Who?: "Watch the Flowers Grow" 03 Joe Pass: "A Time for Us" 04 Mulatu Astatke: "Yekermo Sew (A Man of Experience and Wisdom)" 05 Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges: "Tudo Que Você Podia Ser" 06 Marie Laforêt: "Et Si Je t'aime" 07 Bonnie Dobson: "Bird of Space" 08 Dorothy Ashby: "Soul Vibrations" 09 McDonald and Giles: "Tomorrow's People" 10 Gold Panda: "Quitters Raga" 11 Broadcast: "Chord Simple" 12 The ...

(4AD/Remote Control) Not counting collabs, the first Mark Lanegan record in eight years After a varied career (frontman with Screaming Trees, clocking in as a member of Queens Of The Stone Age, teaming up with former Belle & Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell etc), Mark Lanegan is back with his first solo album since 2004’s Bubblegum. Like its predecessor, Blues Funeral blends Mark’s usual gravel-voiced deathly blues rock with drum machines, but Josh Homme and Greg Dulli aside, is much ligh ...

Requested by sweatyholidaysexwithdrawals • Compiled by Coja 01. Belle & Sebastian - “I’m A Cuckoo (Avalanches Remix)” (“I’m A Cuckoo” single) 02. Fool’s Gold - “Surprise Hotel” (Fool’s Gold) 03. El Guincho - “Antillas” (Alegranza) 04. Fair Ohs - “Jeanneret” (Women/Fair Ohs/Cold Pumas/Friendo Split 7”) 05. The Very Best - “Warm Heart Of Africa” (Warm Heart Of Africa) 06. Surfer Blood - “Take It Easy” (Astro Coast) 07. Camera Obscura - “Let’s Get Out Of This Country” (Let’s Get Out Of This Country) 08. The Black Keys - “The Lengths” (Rubber Factory) 09. Women - “Grey Skies” (Service Animal/Grey Skies 7 ...

I bet I can guess what you’ll be doing once June rolls around — cramming all of your friends into your creaky old station wagon and speeding down the highway to some sunshine-y, tie-dyed music festival and blasting Belle & Sebastian or The Shins the entire way, because they’re all charming and nostalgic and perfect-for-summer and shit. I have an idea, though. How about trading hippies for metalheads and checking out Hellfest? Sounds like a rollicking good time to me! Plus, sunn 0))) will be there. Nothing like a little doom to kick off your summer. Word on the street ...

Hospitality Hospitality [Merge; 2012] by Nick RS Rating: With Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) , The Kinks built the ideal pop concept album by cannily constructing an entirely convincing post-colonial landscape out of a collage of musical idioms and cultural signifiers from across the Anglophone world. By layering tambourine and twanging guitars over hymnlike structures and juxtaposing kazoo with harpsichord, Ray Davies made scarcely 50 minutes of wax feel like it might contain centuries of world history. Indie pop crew Hospitality’s self-titled debut hints at that sort of thaumaturgy, although its subject — the directionless inanity ...

Iron & Wine: The Creek Drank the Cradle, Kiss Each Other Clean, and Our Endless Numbered Days Heartless Bastards: Arrow Belle and Sebastian: The Boy with the Arab Strap Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (2) Hospitality: s/t Zomes: Improvisations Cate le...

El slacker olvida las rampas y toma las baquetas. Ramona sale de la tienda de comics y se acerca al micro. Él deja de memorizar los capítulos de Seinfeld y enciende el amplificador. Llevan poleras de Yo la Tengo y Belle and Sebastian. Intercambian mixtapes de bossa nova y pop mediterráneo. Llevan raros peinados modernos. [...]

New Music this Week Highly Recommended The Minor Leagues - Ghost Maps THE CLASS OF 2012 - Our commitment to helping expose top new music talent is made all the easier when the bands sound this good on first listen. Meet The Minor Leagues , a seven piece indie-pop band out of Cincinnati, with one of the best sounds I have heard come out of the young year. Their new album out this week, " North College Hill, " ( Datawaslost ) offers up a shimmering pop haunted by nostalgia. (My ears picked up these quirky advances and found them similar to The New Pornographers and Bishop ...

Gerard Love (*Teenage Fanclub* (http://www.teenagefanclub.com)) has a new project called *Lightships* (http://www.facebook.com/lightships.music), and he has teamed up with Bob Kildea (*Belle & Sebastian* (http://www.absolutepunk.net/belleandsebastian)) Dave McGowan (Teenage Fanclub), Brendan...

Swedish trio Turn Off Your Television take their influences from pop across the decades, and create beautifully sweet and twee tunes. ‘I Just Cleaned The Floor’ is one such track, and sounds like a long-lost Two Door Cinema Club hit (with just a hint of Belle & Sebastian). One for fans of jangly guitars and [...]

Stuart Murdoch is financing a God Help The Girl film on KICKSTARTER, and for certain modest donations, you can intertwine your life with Stuart’s, just like you fantasized about as a young lad or lass in your bedroom at night while parents fought, bullies bullied, and you dreamed of a happier place: Seriously, check out [...]

Hospitality Hospitality Merge Records [2012] Fire Note Says: Brooklyn trio Hospitality offer up a stylish indie pop debut. Album Review: Hospitality are a superbly rich sounding trio out of Brooklyn that just released their debut of sophisticated indie pop on Merge Records. The band is led by the likable Amber Papini that delivers her focused lyrics with a wisp of an English accent via Kansas City as she credits hours of practice imitating Richard Butler of The Psychedelic Furs. Her carefree attitude instantly hooks the listener here as the intelligent music arrangements and solid playing from the band helps make ...

I featured Hospitality's "Betty Wang" on my best songs of the year list for 2011, and now they've released their first album. Predictably, it's a keeper! Here's the charming opening track, which would not be out of place on a Camera Obscura or Belle & Sebastian disc. Time to start work on my list of best albums of 2012!

Less than one second into the superb Belle & Sebastian homage “Eighth Avenue,” on Hospitality ’s self-titled debut, there’s a tiny mistake—a botched guitar strum from a player whose grip slipped just so. Hospitality is a sharp, well-rehearsed guitar-pop collection, hardly the work of bedroom amateurs, so that chord sticks out: Like a pair of beat-up Chucks or a dog-eared book, it feels lived-in and personalized. Hospitality is full of these moments, flashes of raucous, messy humanity trampling through otherwise flawlessly melodic songwriting. “Friends Of Friends” is a reminder that saxophone blurts had a role in rock decades before ...