The Wind Up Birds From: Leeds, United Kingdom The Wind-Up Birds are from Leeds. They are named after a book by Haruki Murakami. They use good Yorkshire words like owt and nowt. They write songs about independent record shops, the reality of life, the monotony of work, and escape. They sound like the Fall stalking Art Brut in The Wedding Present's library. It's somehow fitting that, in the month that the Centre For Creative Arts launched their impressive project to release John Peel's record collection on-line, a gang of indie throwbacks, for whom Peel band would be ...

Admiral Fallow might just have found the winning combination for perfect indie-pop - scottish accents, flawless harmonies and perfect pop sensibilities. They share with us, amongst other things, the beauty of tour life, subsisting of Saucermeat Rolls, Prince and iPhone games. Tell us about yourselves and about Admiral Fallow? We are Admiral Fallow from Glasgow. There are 5 of us....Louis Abbott - voice, guitars
....Sarah Hayes - voice, flute, keyboards....Joe Rattray - bass....Phil Hague - drums and Kevin "Brillzo" Brolly - clarinet, keyboards, voice and percussion. Sarah is a girl and the rest of us are boys. We met at Uni a few ...

The Wind-Up Birds are from Leeds. They are named after a book by Haruki Murakami. They use good Yorkshire words like owt and nowt. They write songs about independent record shops, the reality of life, the monotony of work, and escape. They sound like the Fall stalking Art Brut in The Wedding Present's library. It's somehow fitting that, in the month that the Centre For Creative Arts launched their impressive project to release John Peel's record collection on-line, a gang of indie throwbacks, for whom Peel band would be a badge of honour, release their long awaited ...

Norwegian Wood, Tranh Anh Hung's adaptation of the Haruki Murakami novel of the same name, is in stores tomorrow. The Criterion Collection releases Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich. We Were Here is a documentary about AIDS that revisits the...

The San Francisco Bay Guardian interviews Jay Rubin and J. Philip Gabriel about translating the works of Haruki Murakami. SFBG: How do you align yourself with the author so that even the subtlest aspects of their work are communicated? JR:...

The great thing about our 'Under The Influence' series is that we get to pick the brains of the artists that we love in an attempt to find out what influences their music. Sometimes the connection between the artist and the music they list in this feature is a little less obvious than you'd expect, but that's the beauty of music, at least when you talk about artists that aren't afraid to experiment with their sound. The latter definitely applies to Power Animal , the 'North East Philly' band led by Keith Hampson. They list 'pajama party hat ...

New Build are Al Doyle, Felix Martin and Tom Hopkins. Between them, the trio are responsible for material from Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem and more. So when news broke that the three were working on a project together, ClashMusic started to get a little excited. New album 'Yesterday Was Lived & Lost' is a terrific collection of electronic hymns, matching typically expert production with a gilded, emotional edge. Out now, the release is being handled by Lanark Recordings - a reference which rang a few bells with the Clash team. 'Lanark' is, of course, a seminal novel by Glasgow based artist, writer and cultural bellwether Alasdair Gray. A few phone calls later, and New Build's Al Doyle began opening up about his literary tastes and influences. - - - What is your favourite book and why? I don't really have favourites of anything, but there are those things which I currently think about a lot, or that loom large in my life for whatever reason. At the moment I often think about scenes and characters from Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, which for some inexplicable reason I've neglected to read until very recently. Exquisite, unbelievable finely observed descriptions, huge and terrifyingly real characters - and a massively surprising and thematically disconnected third part to the trilogy, after a completely engrossing first two parts. In case you hadn't guessed, I loved it. Unique in literature as far as I know - it has more than a splash of Dickens, and some debts to the gothic novels of Gaskell etc I guess, but it inhabits it's own world and needs no company. It is complete. What other authors do you like? Sebald, Haruki Murakami, John Berger, Ishiguru, Kawabata, Lydia Davis, Siri Hustvedt, Alasdair Gray, Robert Walser, Laurence Sterne, Fernando Pessoa. Not a novelist, but I love the writing and sometimes the poetry of Clive James. What draws you to certain books? And I can't say the cover right? Most of the time I'll have heard a little something about them, or it will be a recommendation, or sometimes a review. I know when certain of my friends recommends a book I'll tend to like it. I'm also lucky enough to travel a lot, so when I'm in other countries, or out and about in the UK, I get to spend time in lots of great bookshops, where I'll often pick up something on instinct. Now and again it pays off. Have you ever discovered a real lost classic? What is it and why? Not sure how lost we're talking here. There are a few possibly less well-known books that have cropped up recently - 'Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky' by Patrick Hamilton: amazing portrait of some salubrious characters in early twentieth century London; 'The Book of Disquiet' by Fernando Pessoa (the title of our album comes from within this): famous in Portugal but neglected by English speakers; and finally 'The Mortdecai Trilogy' by Kyril Bonfiglioli; genuinely hilarious exploits of an alcoholic art thief. Good cocktail recipes therein. Do your literary influences have a ...

by Alex Peterson • February 2012 It’s no secret that chronic movie going gets a little tedious in the early months of any given year. After the holidays and before the summer, there isn’t much mainstream fare of even moderate quality to balance out the glut of toss-off flicks that Hollywood shovels into theaters between January and March. But, god bless it, every year Portland’s Northwest Film Center remedies the sad experience of being a professional film buff in February by offering an injection of adrenaline to get me over the hurdle that is covering big movies in ...

Drowned in Sound interviews Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt. Stream the BBC documentary Haruki Murakami: In Search of his Elusive Writer. (via) The Globe and Mail profiles singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten. At 3:AM Magazine, Andrew Gallix interviews Simon Reynolds. 3:AM:...

There's something deeply British, deeply traditional about Dry The River . Craftsmen, the band's music feels hand hewn, gently sanded into delicate shapes. Upcoming debut album 'Shallow Bed' was produced by Peter Katis - The National, Frightened Rabbit - and promises to do great things to the band's career. With hype beginning to surround the group, ClashMusic tracked down Dry The River singer Peter Liddle. Probing him about his literary influences, the frontman becomes the latest entrant into Their Library. - - - What is your favourite book and why? Tough question. These days we spend a lot of time in the backs ...

Download link is in the original post Sounds like: Mazzy Star, Grizzly Bear, Wooden Shjips, Lykke Li Song: Ohbijou - Mossy Lungs [download here ] What's so good? I’ve been sitting on this track for a couple days. It’s like I want to say more about it than words allow, or that “Mossy Lungs” says more about itself than the words let on. It’s the same feeling I get when I read a Haruki Murakami novel — the atmosphere is so encompassing, it’s like it creates its own world. Suddenly the sky has two moons and you’re ...

Norwegian Wood Dir. Tran Anh Hung [Red Flag Releasing; 2010] by Alex Preiss Rating: Although a long time coming and perhaps even overdue, it makes perfect sense that Norwegian Wood would serve as the first feature-length film adaptation of a Haruki Murakami novel. Mostly accessible and an all-time bestseller in Japan, Norwegian Wood offers an atypically conventional narrative by Murakami’s standards, completely eschewing the time-and-space leapfrogging and fantastical excursions that distinguish the majority of his works. Which is not to say that it’s bland or easily dismissible; in fact, grounding Murakami in reality may have forced him to ...

Here’s a brand new track from GRiZ entitled “Shogun. To learn more about GRiZ, check out the interview we did with him a few months ago here. Track description below, free download here: “‘Listen up – there’s no war that will end all wars.’ ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore “Past Dues” EP coming [...]

According to legend, if a shark stops swimming it will die. Which perhaps explains the forward motion behind La Shark . London indie newcomers, the release of 'Magazine Cover' on shiny 45 back in November thrust the band into a whirlwind of new shows and media attention. Taking a short break over the festive period, La Shark are bracing themselves for a year which could see them make massive impact. Suitably impressed, ClashMusic invited La Shark frontman Samuel Deschamps to enter 'Their Library'. - - - What is your favourite book and why? I really enjoyed Salinger’s short stories ‘To Ezme with Love ...

The most depressing day of 2012 is supposed to be January 16, taking into account things like gloomy weather, fading Christmas joy and general Monday malaise. However, what hasn't been considered in that theory is that Tran Ang Hung's "Norwegian Wood" actually comes out a full 10 days before the supposed most depressing day of the year, giving the 16th a run for its money. Like its source material from Haruki Murakami, this is a beautiful film that exquisitely captures grief and sadness, and unsurprisingly, it probably won't help you if you're suffering from seasonal affective ...