Make space on your coffee table, because on September 15th Algonquin Books is releasing Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records. Written by author John Cook and the founding father-and-mother themselves, Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance, the book will include first-hand accounts regarding the history of the independent label Merge Records, as well as exclusive stories about Spoon, Arcade Fire, the Magnetic Fields, Superchunk, Lambchop, and many other Merge veterans. Other goodies to be found inside include hundreds of band photos, album art, handwritten lyrics, concert posters, playlists, and an introduction by Ryan Adams. If it’s even half as poetic as his now notorious (and defunct) blog posts, that alone will make the book purchase worth it.

That’s right. Win Butler is done battling with Wayne Coyne and even more done being on an Arcade Fire hiatus. The band made a conscious decision to keep things low key after wrapping their Neon Bible tour. They had a few performances including the epic staff ball show during Obama’s inauguration festivities in DC this past January.

Over the last couple months, the band has been working on some new tunes and according to an interview in NME, Butler says, “It could be that we’ll play live [soon] and maybe we’ll end up bashing [another album] out fast. We’re in the middle of writing, things are coming together, it’s a great feeling.”

The good people at Merge Records have been gearing up recently for their big 20th anniversary celebration, an event that, like Sub Pop’s last summer, will celebrate the label’s entire discography. To kick the festivities off, The Triangle Youth Ballet will be performing Merge In Motion, a choreographed contemporary dance performance set to the music of the Arcade Fire, Spoon, Destroyer, Caribou, Polvo, The Magnetic Fields and a host of other roster standouts. The show’s going down at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC on July 18th with a special performance by the Rosebuds. Valuable ticket information can be found riiiiight here.

The members of Arcade Fire have signed 250 copies of the deluxe edition of the recently released Miroir Noir DVD and combined them with a limited edition hand silk-screened poster signed and numbered by the artist for a special package to benefit Partners In Health.
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Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has waved the white flag in the battle of indie-egos. As we told you back in March, Coyne had dissed the Arcade Fire pretty badly in an interview with Rolling Stone, fueling Arcade Fire’s Win Butler to verbally strike back. Now, Coyne has apologized for his words in Rolling Stone, and said the statement he made was misunderstood.
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