Indie rock/major label veterans Built to Spill release their first record since 2009’s There Is No Enemy, this April. The exact release date of Untethered Moon, their 8th studio record, is TBA, but the ever-active touring group hit the road for a short US tour around the record release. Continue reading
Re-reunited Swervedriver release their first record since 1998 on March 3, and the English alt-rock shoegazers hit the road at the start of the month. The band, who previously reunited in 2008, have released a couple songs from the new record, I Wasn’t Born To Lose You, and expanded the list of tour dates initially announced last month, including Great American Music Hall in SF on March 6th. Continue reading
Melbourne-based indie rocker Courtney Barnett (who NPR’s Bob Boilen calls “the best lyricist in rock music today”) is releasing her debut LP Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, on March 24 via Mom+Pop, and she’s announced a US tour in March starting in May. No Bay Area dates as of yet, but she does play the Bottlerock festival in Napa Valley on May 29th. She’s playing most of the other dates with Seattle female quartet Chastity Belt, including in LA at the Roxy on May 30th.
Speedy Ortiz announced the release of Foil Deer, their second full-length and follow up to last year’s Real Hair EP. The record comes out April 21 via Carpark.
Shit Luck for fans anticipating the first new Modest Mouse record in eight years, as Isaac Brock and co. have pushed back the release date of Strangers to Ourselves from March 3 to March 17. Perhaps they need the extra time to prep for their The Tonight Show appearance on that same day. Continue reading
LA via Philly brat-punk duo Rachel Gagliardi and Nicole Snyder, AKA Slutever, have released “Wide Open,” the second single from their Almost Famous EP. Nylon says of the single: “Mixed perfectly with both youthful naïveté and adult apathy, ‘Open Wide’ is a perfect growing-up anthem… Nestled in a space somewhere between punk rock and sweet pop.” Continue reading
Two Gallants — the San Francisco guitar-drum duo of Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel— release their fifth record, We Are Undone, on February 3rd via ATO, but you can stream the whole record now from The New York Times’ “Press Play.”
Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist/hype-man Will Butler is releasing his solo debut, Policy, on Merge Records on March 10th. Billboard describes Policy as “a sophisticated amalgam of styles: garage rock, synth-and-sax minimalism, and HoJo-lounge funk.”
Great news for Neko Case fans who love Neko Case so much that they’d love to buy a Neko Case record multiple times in different formats. The singer/songwriter/New Pornographer vocalist is re-releasing her outstanding 2006 record, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, on red vinyl. The record comes out on Record Store Day, April 18.
Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits) released an EP with his new band Operators last summer, with a full-length planned for later this year. Now Boeckner and his fellow Operators — keyboardist/vocalist Devojka and drummer Sam Brown — have released a new single, “”Ecstasy In My House.” Operators thoroughly impressed during an opening set for Zola Jesus at Bimbo’s in October, and the new single sounds like Boeckner’s got Operators moving in the right direction. Operators hit the road with New Pornographers in February, but they won’t be with the New Pornos during their Noise Pop show at the Fox Theater in Oakland on February 28th, and currently don’t have a Bay Are date on the schedule.
Three Match Breeze 