Man Man, DeVotchKa, etc.

There are a variety of ways to hear the new releases of the week. Largehearted Boy and Muzzle of Bees have compiled lists, as always, that are link-full.

And you can listen for a limited time to the stream of the new albums from The Breeders, Man Man, State Bird, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, DeVotchKa, Gnarls Barkley, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, and Tapes N Tapes, among others, at AOL Spinner‘s Full Listening Party here (I know, I know, it has that Time-Warner ick, but whatchya gonna do…).

If you’d rather have a guide than browse on your own, listen here to an excellent installment of NPR’s All Songs Considered that offers streamable tracks as well as a bit of commentary regarding the following artists and songs: The Raconteurs (Many Shades of Black), Man Man (Ballad of Butter Beans), Colin Meloy (Wonder) (frontman for The Decemberists), and DeVotchKa (New World).

The Raconteurs

The Raconteurs‘ second album Consolers of the Lonely is released everywhere all at once today; buy it.

Jack White and Brendan Benson know telling a story is an art (hence the name of their collaborative effort), and so they gave the press very little advance warning about the album and did not release advance copies or songs. It was driving the critics nuts to not be able to listen until the hoi polloi had access. It’s a ploy to get press; it’s egalitarian; but more to the point it prevents advance-leak burnout: fan downloads two songs, and therefore lose the fire to go buy the album on iTunes.

When I first went to the throw-back Raconteurs website in anticipation of the first album, Broken Boy Soldiers, I remember thinking (and telling my friends) that The Raconteurs could be the next evolutionary step in rock music. I was let down in a big way because the band is merely very good, not paradigm-shifting good. But I have circled back around with more sane expectations, and can now truly enjoy things like watching them rock out Level, from that album. I can’t wait to see them at Bonnaroo!

Check this video for Steady, As She Goes, that really captures what it sounds like to listen to Jack wail, though in its close-ups his face often looks similar to Michael Jackson’s. Download the album version of the song, or get this fantastic acoustic version of Steady, As She Goes. The hook is from Joe Jackson’s Is She Really Going Out with Him? (which I first knew from the Goldfinger cover : )

U.S. tour dates for The Raconteurs:

April 20 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
April 21 – Seattle, WA – Neumo’s
April 22 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
April 23 – San Francisco, CA – Bimbo’s 365 Club
April 25 – Indio, CA – Coachella
April 26 – Las Vegas, NV – The Joint
April 28 – Denver, CO – The Fillmore Auditorium
April 29 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theatre
May 1 – Dallas, TX – House of Blues
May 2 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s BBQ
May 3 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s BBQ
May 4 – New Orleans, LA – New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
June 13 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo

Brendan Benson writes songs that sound like The White Stripes‘ Coke Ad song. Download five songs of his if you’re not familiar. And, yeah, the ipod commercial for What I’m Looking For is his.

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In other news:

The new Gnarls Barkley album The Odd Couple is in stores today, earlier than expected.

Blikk Fang is a side project for a dude from MGMT and another from Of Montreal; the convoluted details can potentially be discerned from this muddy Pitchfork article. I listened to two downloadable tunes here and just didn’t care for them. However, it is news, for sure, and the collaboration of Jack and Brendon reminded me to post something about it.

Gnarls Barkley

After taking a break from being jacked-in to the internet, I found a few things that looked interesting … but were not.

The new Gnarls Barkley video of Run, heralding their April album release, aptly titled The Odd Couple. The video includes Justin Timberlake goofing around, which is marginally more entertaining than the song, in which Danger Mouse does a terrible job of featuring Cee-Lo‘s talents. (from Subterranean Blog)

Eddie Vedder and Janet Weiss (of the now-defunct Sleater-Kinney) sing a duet with a ukulele. Not what you’d hope. And, btw, she’s not the same Sleater-Kinney singer that backs up Eddie Vedder in the cover of Gordon Peterson’s Big Hard Sun from EV’s Into the Wild soundtrack — that’s Corin Tucker. (from You Ain’t No Picasso)

Basia Bulat, Wolf Parade, and The New Pornographers

I’m content to let other bloggers do some work for me today regarding three Canadian bands. Cheers to them.

You can download songs by Basia Bulat from her Radio3 performance in Toronto. I think she’s fantastic. They have been transformed into magically delicious mp3s for you from i (heart) music. Once you’re hooked, buy her album.

I await Wolf Parade‘s next album, due in June, with a variety of adverbs (anxiously, eagerly, demandingly, etc.). Snakes Got a Blog did the painstaking work of ferreting out the songs that WP have performed live that will probably be on the new album, turning them into digital format, making a set list, and then posting the whole chunk for download. Buy Wolf Parade’s last full-length album, Apologies to the Queen Mary here.

I dig the new video of Myriad Harbour by The New Pornographers posted by Gorilla vs. Bear (download the song there, too). Myriad Harbour comes from the CD Challengers, which you can buy here. The video reminds me of a combination of the two videos for the Gnarls Barkley song Crazy: this one (my favorite) and this one (better sound quality).