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 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.

The strictly limited deluxe signed edition with poster will be available exclusively at the bands website for $250 (plus shipping and handling), with all proceeds going to Partners In Health.

In addition to the DVD proceeds, Arcade Fire donated a share of ticket sales from every headlining show on the 2007 Neon Bible tour to Partners In Health’s program in Haiti, which focuses on delivering high quality healthcare to the poor. Members of the band have visited Haiti to witness firsthand the results of these donations, which also include sending thousands of children to school with hot meals, providing housing for the poorest patients, and increasing the agricultural capacity of those families.

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.

According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Coyne said he never meant his rude remarks to be aimed at the members of the Arcade Fire themselves, but at the people running their stages at a couple of festivals. Coyne said he wishes the incident never happened, and that he feels really bad about it.

“I like enough of their music,” Coyne said in the interview. “The idea that I’m somehow against them… I’m not!”

We are waiting for Win to give the yay or nay on Coyne’s most recent remarks, but it should put most of this silly argument to rest. If not, the next logical step after Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly would be for Coyne to speak with TMZ, and we all know what would happen then.

Blogs, online forums and fans alike were abuzz about Brooklyn’s four-piece, Suckers, long before the release of their self-titled EP on I Am Sound Records earlier this month. Much of this was based on the strength of their live shows — though these were were mostly limited to New York — and an old four-track demo that closely resembles the new EP. That even a brief exposure to their music enables you to grasp their fresh aesthetic has probably been their greatest advantage.

You will immediately recognize Quinn Walker’s voice as something special, and hear nothing that feels like the results of following conventions or fulfilling expectations. The drums aren’t afraid of spare use, and when played assertively in unison with an additional floor tom, tambourine and shakers, the effect feels like a finished thought. Even Quinn’s voice is often used as if it were another instrument, frequently coupled with Austin Fisher’s lower-range vocals, and sometimes used for rhythmic effects. None of it, however, feels experimental or inaccessible. Despite all its quirks, the music rides a natural, harmonious flow.

On the day their four-track self-titled EP came out, I visited the band at Austin Fisher’s apartment in South Williamsburg for some tea and a leisurely chat. Present were all four members: Quinn Walker, Austin Fisher, Pan and Brian Aiken.

Your band name makes me think you don’t want to take yourselves too seriously, and some of that is reflected in your song titles and lyrics as well. Is that an important aspect of the band?
P: It’s pretty important. Can’t take yourself too seriously, it could end up being really cheesy.

AF: When people take themselves really seriously, it just becomes funny and overstrained.

QW: I think we name things according to the sounds we make while we’re trying to come up with them, too. Oh, that sounded like “Shuffle!”

P: And none of us are super serious people. It comes out of our personalities, I guess.

AF: In terms of lyrics, it’s just whatever fits the mood of the song. It’s not a conscious decision to be anything.

QW: I apply a lot of my poems.

P: He’s like Jim Morrison.

QW: I’ve books of poetry I bring to the practice space and let them choose what they’d like to play as a song.

Do you ever have to pull back when it feels like it’s getting too serious?
P: Nothing ever gets too serious.

AF: It’s kind of intuitive.

P: We’ve gotten a little too silly.

QW: I think the lack of seriousness is more like blatant honesty, which I like and agree with.

Why is Cameron Hull on the cover of the EP?
P: We’ve been friends with him for a long time and we think it’s a silly picture.

AF: And he’s sitting in an apartment where all four of us have lived. Not that you can see the apartment at all.

You just like the aesthetic of the photo?
QW: Yeah. It’s supposed to be a beagle mask that I made for him but it keeps getting mistaken for a mouse or a cat.

Does the EP packaging come with lyrics?
Brian: No. We probably just didn’t want an extra page in there.

Are you comfortable with people reading your lyrics, or are they more of a rhythmic element you want them to just listen to?
QW: I feel comfortable with people reading lyrics.

AF: I kind of like it when lyrics aren’t printed on stuff ’cause then it requires your own interpretation. Like, any of the Rolling Stones lyrics, I don’t know what he’s saying half the time. It keeps it interesting.

P: You have to spoon-feed everything to everybody all the time. It’s nice for people to make their own decisions.

BA: Hm, interesting.

AF: [To Brian] Are you doing the interview now?

P: It’s like David Lynch doesn’t like to talk about any of his his movies ’cause they’re there for you to consume. That’s it. Take it. Watch it. What else do you need?

Was self-releasing ever an option or did teaming up with a label seem like a natural choice?
P: It was a natural choice because we’re not capable of doing it ourselves. Just because we’re too busy making music to focus on all the other business stuff. As soon as we got Brooke and Kenny as our managers, everything started to happen. It was like “Whoa, they’re doing a bunch of things that none of us ever wanted to do before.” So it was a big help.

Do you think self-releasing is sustainable?
P: More power to you, if you can do it. You have to be a business man to do that kind of thing, though. As musicians, it’s a lot easier when we can just focus on making music.

AF: It seems like when someone self-releases and they get popular enough, it becomes too much of a hassle and they at least get a distributor. Or, the opposite, when someone really big like Radiohead does it. It’s a lot of work. Shipping CDs and stuff like that.

BA: Making flyers.

P: Well I make flyers, but…

BA: Oh yeah. I was just thinking, when I was in high school bands and spending all this time making flyers and posting them on telephone poles. It was just like beating a dead horse.

Do you spend much time on MySpace?
P: I do the MySpace. I don’t spend a lot of time surfing around and networking, I just answer all the messages and things like that.

AF: I never look on it.

QW: I just check two or three days’ worth of emails on Austin’s computer when I have a chance while I’m here.

BA: I’ll tag a couple of groupies now and then.

QW: That’s a sexual reference, Brian. It’s true. That’s the highlight of this interview so far.

What kind of a role do you think a record label should play?
QW: I just want freedom to do what we want to do artistically, no matter what. Nothing else about it really bothers me that much. Doesn’t matter who it is, as long as they’re gonna work hard, show their support, and make good things happen.

AF: Yeah I guess the business model isn’t too important. I don’t think it’s gotten any worse for bands or the listeners now that the music industry is changing. It’s just kind of the same. Or even better, maybe.

QW: Probably better. The record label doesn’t really play a totalitarian role anymore. They’re so worried about making it themselves that they have to give artists more leeway in order to get them on their side and have them work with them. We’re not yet familiar with the whole thing though.

P: I’m still getting used to what the label does and what the publicists do.

You had Anand Wilder from Yeasayer produce the EP, but you had the foundation of it already down in the four-song demo that’s been floating around. How do you feel about self-producing or co-producing in the future?
QW: We definitely always like to co-produce.

P: Yeah, I’d say we co-produced the EP as well.

QW: The demo was all just us, and I recorded it on this crappy little machine I used to use for all of my solo albums. Anand used that as a guideline because he really liked it. He wanted to incorporate some of that and just make everything sound a lot better for these recordings.

P: I think we’re kind of producers in our own respects, but I’m looking forward to working with different producers in the future. It’s nice to have an outside perspective and somebody to oversee a whole project. If it’s all four of us trying to produce an EP, things might get messy.

QW: But if Anand ever sends me “Which Wire character are you?” quiz request on Facebook again, I’m never working with him. I hate those quizzes, they just pile up.

BA: It’s such a hassle for you. Life’s tough.

QW: I have to check all my email within a span of 30 minutes. It clogs up the airwaves. I already know who my Celebrity Boyfriend would be. Tom Arnold.

AF: John Goodman.

QW: John Goodman and Tom Arnold vie for my attention.

Apart from “Horn Song”, the tracklist of the EP is the same as the demo. What was it about these four songs on the EP?
QW: ‘Cause that’s what our manager Brooke Baxter told us.

P: They’re probably the catchiest.

AF: They’re also our set staples and it’s good to get them recorded, produced well, put them out there, so that we can be happy with how they sound and move on.

BA: Also, it takes a long time to develop songwriting as four people, and at the time of the recording we were still developing our collective songwriting process. I feel like those four were the most finished songs at the time. These guys wrote them before I came in.

P: Except for “Beach Queen.” We almost didn’t do “Easy Chairs.” That was a last minute decision.

QW: What were we thinking of doing instead?

P: We were thinking of doing a new one but nothing was up to par.

Those four make a good introduction.
P: Yeah and they’re all different enough from one another. They cover our sound pretty well at this point.

AF: We did all the basic tracks in one day. Then we did overdubs in two additional days. We really did it fast.

QW: We squeezed everything together.

Do you like that fast process?
AF: No. It’d be nice to have some time when we record the next thing. We basically did it live. I don’t think it’s necessarily how we did it when we were doing our own recordings. We’d rather use the studio more.

QW: Yeah, I really like the sound design aspect of the studio, which we didn’t have time for. You don’t want to hear the same live band on the album. I feel like the CD should be a lot different from the live performance. More over the top. Just make it as interesting as possible, do things the way you wanted to, things you can do in the studio but not on the stage.

P: We’d definitely like to use the studio as another instrument.

Brian, you’ve said that when you first joined the band, you were responding with regular rock beats, but you soon learned to think differently. Do you feel well-versed in the Suckers vocabulary of music now?
BA: Yeah, I do. When I joined, these guys already had a pretty established and developed sound. I was coming in from Connecticut and I wasn’t really familiar with all the music they were, so I would instinctively feel really regular rock beats. These guys were like, “No, play this whacky beat only on the floor tom.” It just seemed like trying to be quirky and innovative, but now that I’ve spent more time, I find this style not only artistic and innovative, but also something I can really emote with. Now I relate to it and intuitively make my parts sound like Suckers.

P: We’ve definitely gelled a lot better over the past year and a half.

QW: It’s natural, we don’t really have to direct each other.

Suckers has a distinctly strong foundation in vocals and percussion. How do you feel about bands where the singer is just okay or the drummer is just okay?
QW: Good drumming is really essential.

AF: I say get the drums right. When you start playing that regular rock beat, it makes all the bands sound the same.

P: If you have an interesting drummer, it definitely changes the way you sound. A really amazing singer is key, too. I guess it depends on how you use it.

BA: But you can’t have a bad drummer. Otherwise your band just has no spine. I know so many really good drummers, but they’ve been trained like black labradors to just play what they’re told, which makes the band sound generic. Whenever you have that call-guy musician, he’s just filling a part, whereas you really need to blend in and contribute something original to the sound.

QW: But Captain Beefheart songs are a good example of what good singing can do. There’s a lot of straightforward drumming in the later Captain Beefheart songs, but the way he sings them makes them sound totally unique.

AF: TV on the Radio’s first EP sounds amazing to me. That’s my favorite one, and there’s barely any drums.

QW: They’ve kind of gone back to that now.

You have some songs where there’s no clear lead singer, but there are some, like “Horn Song,” where one of you definitely takes the lead. In this case, Austin does. I’m just curious how some of these songs develop.
AF: I wrote that separately and brought it in, before Brian even came in. I think that was the first song we ever played with him, that he clicked with us on.

QW: Then we just formed around Austin’s stripped-down version.

AF: Now we just work more together. Improvising, and writing bits that we come up with, but sometimes one of us will bring in something with a rough structure and we’ll fill it in. For a lot of the songs we do now, the leader singer depends on who comes up with a melody. We switch a lot, too. The verse will be sung by someone and the chorus by the other.

Has there been an instance where one of you came up with a melody but thought the other would be a better fit?
QW: There’s certain stuff that I come up with that I think I’d rather have somebody else sing.

AF: It depends on whose vocal range it works on, too.

Quinn has a wealth of recorded material lying around, about 15 CDs. Sometimes you guys play “Save Your Love for Me,” which is an old Quinn Walker song. Has it been adopted by the band?
QW: Now it’s more of a band song, but it was a single of mine as a solo artist on Voodoo Eros. I’m trying to get away from re-doing anything I’d done prior to the band. New songs I write by myself can just become band songs now, but I’m not interested in re-doing songs written and recorded before the band. I just want to leave that as is.

BA: That song’s changed a lot of character, though, from him to us. The form’s changed, and the beginning’s all soft now. It’s not quite a different song, but it almost is.

QW: We used to rework my old songs when we first started out. There are a lot of those renewed songs.

AF: It’s harder to do that sometimes because it means you have to rearrange something that’s already been arranged, whereas when you start fresh, everyone can just bring in their own thing, and it’s more natural and more fun.

QW: We come up with like three new songs during practice anyway, so there’s not really any time to include the older stuff anymore.

BA: The thing is, when you write a song by yourself, you have the whole song there, whereas when you have four people, there are four opinions every step of the way. It’s slower, but it’s more interesting.

Usually bands start out by booking themselves and touring heavily, but for Suckers it’s been the opposite. You’ve barely toured but you’re already playing huge sold out shows. Is that something that can only happen in a place like Brooklyn?
QW: I hate booking shows.

AF: It’s definitely easier for that to happen in Brooklyn. I mean, we used to book our own shows around New York but we never toured because we never had any money, and nobody knew who we were, so it didn’t make much sense. Definitely, the advantage of living in New York is that everything is concentrated here. If you get a little bit of attention here, it gets magnified really quickly.

QW: Especially since we’re probably competing with more bands here than in any other place in the world. So if you’re getting some attention, you really stand out.

And there’s no traveling costs involved if you’re just playing in New York.
QW: Except, we have to use car services. It’s nice when there’s a friend in town with a truck or a van.

All of the reviews I’ve read of you have been favorable so far. Are you almost disappointed that you don’t have any negative reviews to read yet?
AF: We just watched a negative review. It was Brooklyn Paper’s “Smash or Trash”, and the older gentleman trashed us, and the younger gentleman was a fan.

QW: It was hilarious. I don’t consider them gentlemen.

BA: I want to see that.

That doesn’t sound like a real negative review though. Not like if you were trashed by Pitchfork.
P: Yeah, one guy was just like, “Arghh I don’t like this!” And one guy was just like, “Hey this is great!” And one guy was like, “I don’t have an opinion!”

QW: I got jaded by the whole thing with my solo album. At first you’re like, wow, this is so exciting, people are reviewing my album and talking about stuff. Then after a couple of weeks I decided I don’t need to read that stuff anymore. I was definitely more fond of the negative press because it was funnier. There was this one amazing write-up for my solo album on the Baltimore City Paper that had this whole spiel about how I’m an unconventional motivational speaker through my music, and that that’s what my aim really was. Like Tom Cruise in Magnolia.

Is everyone still working at their day jobs?
P: Those of us that have day jobs are still working.

QW: I’m still a male prostitute. At night.

Austin, what do you do at the Met?
AF: I work in the media department, on this project called the Timeline of Art History. I’ve been working in museums and the arts since I graduated from college. I don’t know how I did it.

And Pan, how did you become a clothing designer?
P: When I moved here, I went to film school. Right after that I needed a job ’cause I was broke. I found a screen-printing place that was hiring. I used to work as a screen-printer in Connecticut. He hired me and I worked there for a year and a half, and through that company I met a ton of street wear brands. I started doing design on my own. I quit my job there and now I’m a designer at Mishka. I design t-shirt graphics, and I cut and sew things like jackets, bags, pants.

So who doesn’t have a job?
BA: That’s me right now. I used to do data entry. It may have been a blessing that I got fired.

What about Quinn?
QW: I bartend at some places, and I do carpentry and painting when I can. Sell things. Prostitute myself. Actually I just got a request online for all of my early CDs, so that’ll make me some money. I just played solo in Montreal and got paid well for it. I live off things like that. Or pay people back with it.

BA: Yeah, that’s right.

P: The two people without a job have to pay each other back every week.

BA: Yeah we lend money to each other.

QW: I make enough to get by usually. The only thing I spend money on is booze, cigarettes and food. And rent. We’re gonna go into the cougar masseuse biz. We’re gonna call ourselves Predators of the Predators.

How did the tradition of face make up come about?
BA: Quinn peer-pressured me into it.

QW: I’ve actually been into make up since I was a baby. I’ve been dressing up since then. My parents thought I was really strange. I’d dress up in costumes and put underwear on my head, put my mom’s lipstick around my eyes. I want to take on a different personality on stage. I get into character. When you’re performing in front of people, you get into character no matter what, whether you’re wearing make up or not. The make up just speeds the process up.

BA: I do it ’cause Andrew from MGMT does it.

QW: I don’t even think Andrew does that. Brian’s just saying that because he idolizes Andrew.

P: We just keep getting MGMT comparisons. Especially with our clothes and our artwork.

AF: That’s why I’m trying to push us into the farmer style.

QW: We’re definitely treated like the little brother of Yeasayer, MGMT, Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, that kind of thing. All of the bands I really love.

Arcade Fire comparison seems kind of far-fetched.
P: Yeah, it’s just that people first hear “It Gets Your Body Movin’” and they hear the build-up. And they think, Oh they have a build-up in their song, they must sound like Arcade Fire.

I guess it’s also that none of these bands you’re being compared to have the regular indie-rock sound, so you’re all being lumped together.
QW: Yeah. We all get pigeon-holed with friends too. We get compared to Chairlift just because we’re friends with them. Amazing Baby gets pigeon-holed with MGMT just because they’re friends with them. It’s bound to happen no matter what.

AF: I guess it doesn’t help that we’re playing with MGMT pretty soon. But we are friends with them, so.

The line up for the five-day-long Merge Records 20th Anniversary Celebration has been announced, and the event to bound to be nothing but stellar with headliners like label-founders Superchunk topping the bill.

The festival — XXMerge as they’ve dubbed it — is set to take place on July 22 through the 26, in Carrboro, N.C. at the Cat’s Cradle and one night at UNC. Along with the previously mentioned headliners, M. Ward, Spoon, Conor Oberst, The Rosebuds, Destroyer, Guv’ner, Polvo, Pipe and The Broken West, are all scheduled to perform at the event. More bands will be added to the line up at a later date, and we’re hoping we’ll get to see the Arcade Fire or Camera Obscura add their musical stylings to the already stacked line up.

If the only “Clues” you’ve heard of has something to do with a board game and Tim Curry, fear not. We’ve got the info on the kids who are calling themselves Clues — among them ex-Unicorn Alden Penner and Arcade Fire’s Brendan Reed — and we’ll fill you in on the all the details, including their shunning of social networking a sneak peak at material from their self-titled debut LP.

The album is set for a May release, and until then the band is promoting the old-fashioned way, building its reputation through gigs, mostly around its Montreal homebase. You won’t find them on MySpace or Facebook, they don’t even Twitter. How will we ever understand them, if not for the internet!?

You can start by listening to “Remember Severed Head” from their upcoming debut. It’s an intriguing glimpse into what Clues is about as a band, and one that has us ready to hear more. They explore the possibilities of sound but pair that experimental attitude with a catchy hook and a killer melody and a desire to create movements within pop songs that results in one track becoming a true experience.

Clues – “Remember Severed Head”

Dedicated to those songs that I can’t stop playing, humming, or thinking about; the 4+ minutes you fall head-over-heels in love with. Past instances have included The Groovie Ghoulies’ “I’m Doin’ Fine,” Electric Six’s “Improper Dancing,” and Tender Box’s “Spectacular Spider-Man Theme.”

I don’t buy music every week, so when I go shopping I often pick up more than one album at a time. This is great and stupid, because while the one-stop shopping is an economic use of my time, I end up unfairly comparing two unrelated, dissimilar albums. If I’d purchased The Velvet Underground’s first album on its own without the accompanying purchase of Van Halen II, I have a higher opinion of it today. When I bought the pair — for whatever reason — I couldn’t get into the trippy stylings of the Velvets because I was head over kicked heels for VH II. Since then I have grown and adapted from my initial impression, realizing it was unfair: Not only is Velvet decidedly overrated and more than a little dated, but the run of the final three songs of VH II (”D.O.A.,” “Women in Love” and “Beautiful Girls”) are better than anything Lou Reed could pretend to care about writing. Velvet Underground can’t touch VH II’s ass-less chaps.

This comparison trend of mine was tested again when I received the dual gift of the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible along with The Faces‘ A Nod Is As Good as a Wink… To a Blind Horse, and if I’d been placing bets, I would have put it all down on the boozy bar rock of Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. Chuck Berry covers, dirty riffs, sexism… Wink is like a Stones cover album and should have swept me off my feet. I promised myself I’d listen to both albums all the way through once before allowing myself the privilege (or the handicap) of repeated listens. Wink won the first listen of the pair (which was chosen at random — I try to do these things fair since I understand my own psychosis better anyone).

But then I moved on to Neon Bible, which started with “Black Mirror”, and I forgot all about rooster hair cuts.

“Black Mirror” — in fact much of Neon Bible — is a fantastic musical creation forged from the qualities I find annoying in bands I don’t usually enjoy. The overt sincerity of U2, the airy musicality of the Talking Heads, the sing-it-to-Saturn of Bruce Springsteen, the symphonic back-up of Coldplay. Maybe it’s a ratio thing: I can’t get past these annoying bits with these bands because their music seems to offer little else. If things were more evened out, maybe I could actually manage to get through Achtung Baby. But somehow when these qualities join together in this Arcade Fire configuration, it sounds like the kind of noise that could consume the world.

At the risk of outing myself as a hack, “Black Mirror” is a classic example of an album launcher. Some Track One’s start an album only to get out of the way, and others announce the album’s presence and tell everyone to get on board fast. “Black Mirror” possesses an unrelenting drive, feeling at once out of control — like a stagecoach headed by rocket elephants — yet fully aware of where it’s heading. It may be aiming for a cliff, but it knew that from the start. The Arcade Fire have a major Bowie thing happening with most of their work, and that would be a hindrance if they didn’t wear it so well. One review of “Black Mirror” compared it to a reworking of the “Suffragette City” riff, but that misses the point. The song may cosmetically sound a little like “Suffragette”, but the culmination of all those textures brings intensity, depth, darkness and hope along with them. If anything, it feels like “Heroes”. Bittersweet, heartsick and romantic.

On the rare occasion I don’t repeat “Black Mirror” and actually allow another song the daunting task of following up, I half expect to hear Radiohead’s “The National Anthem”. This would theoretically fit the mood, but where Kid A is an experiment in anti-music, “Black Mirror” is about music-music. It’s as pro-music as you can get. Kid A is clinical and shattered, Neon Bible is lush and voluptuous. Radiohead tends to write music to comment on music itself, but there’s no barrier separating you from the emotions and excitement of The Arcade Fire. Neon Bible gives a million of these kinds of emotional payoffs, but “Black Mirror” demonstrates them in the kind of way that tells you everything you’d ever want to know about the band, or hope to find.

Tension runs through the entire song, and it’s never released, only eased. The singing, instruments and song entirely build up to a cliff before “falling” into the chorus once again. Each verse is a remount back up that hill. The best example of this comes right in the middle. We build and build with the lyrics, and that familiar piano lick trickles in late enough to remind us it’s there and to keep us climbing. Then the lyric doesn’t lead directly into the chorus, but takes us to the “That curse is never broken” section, and it doesn’t get broken for many measures after. Win Butler suddenly breaks into a French version of the titular chorus, deftly giving the song a plateau but still no free-fall into the dark waters beneath. The backing vocals rise to the forefront after the full orchestra takes us through the chorus once again. “The kiss is never broken,” and neither is this rhythm. Butler talks to his mirror as everything seems to crescendo until we finally hit the water and gasp for air.

Individually as pieces, the music isn’t complicated at all. It’s a simple rhythm guitar lick, straight-forward drums, bass line, piano lick. That’s where the true power of the song originates: it’s not inventing new wheels to play with. It’s using all the wheels we already knew were available in a way we could only hope to achieve. The placement of these elements shows mastery. “Black Mirror” is one of those songs that is so good and so consuming and so powerful and so magnificent that you can’t imagine a single person in the free world who wouldn’t enjoy it. This is the curse of music loving — of course there’s someone out there who won’t like it, and even worse there are some who will simply dismiss it as, “Yeah… that’s alright.” I can understand not liking something completely, but when a song like this demands the kind of respect and attention it so obviously does, a mere dismissal like that would result in glove-to-face slaps in a more gentile era.

“Black Mirror” marks a year’s worth of Greatest Song at This Moment articles, and I’m thrilled beyond words that I can continue to enjoy this song without having to uphold my self-imposed moratorium on each artist I consume. If anyone wonders about the thesis of this project (i.e. “Trying to answer WHY these songs are so great at these moments”), I have no better answer concerning “Black Mirror” than I would for Van Halen II. The answer is: They’re the best.

Watch the “Black Mirror” video.

It is one year ago this month that my most ridiculous faux-rock star crush was born. The sequined jacket, the gloves, the Ray Bans — Ricky Reed from wallpaper. was delivered into my life and thus sparked a deranged love affair to last for all eternity. If there is anything to thank Noise Pop for — who thus far through the years has been responsible for delivering to me a marriage proposal, copious amounts of vodka, and some hugs — this is also one reason. Get filled by the seed of Ricky Reed? Uh, yes please…

It was interesting to watch the end of wallpaper.’s set on Saturday. I’ve written and seen these guys more times than necessary and yet, it doesn’t get old. That’s not only praiseworthy, but curious. I think what’s most evolved about their live sets is that the preparation for it pays off, and the banter Reed evokes while swigging from a Trader Joe’s wine bottle makes an excellent pair. “This song is about humping, plain and simple,” slags Reed as he dons a fedora, grinding his hips so much I’m actually blushing.

After talking about how he wanted margaritas thrown his way and “If you snuck in, you’re gonna get tased before the night’s over,” their bit ended with “Evry Tm We Do It” and I could tell the crowd was just as amused as I was. 2008 was really good to wallpaper., and I’m eager to see what Oh-Shine brings to the Oakland duo.

[Clues]

I unfortunately discovered my battery was missing from my camera, so I bolted home before deciding to settle into Clues for the night. About six years ago, I accidentally bought a ticket to see The Unicorns; they were playing the same night as Leaves (don’t ask me how I confused the two) and my roommate and I stood bewildered at Café du Nord while these random Canadian guys were singing about people cutting their hair. Now ex-Unicorn Alden Penner was fronting this new outfit of old friends and a member of Arcade Fire, and you bet the buzz was wicked high. These dudes don’t even have a full-length out or even a MySpace page, let alone merch at the booth (I was told later they didn’t think it wasn’t a biggie).

It seemed it was all the more to prove as a result. I realized halfway into the show that I knew none of the song titles and nothing really about the history of the band, let alone what inspirations or difficulties there’ve been in playing together as well as who’ve they’ve ever toured with — because they haven’t. This Rickshaw Stop show was their San Francisco debut, and probably their fourth or fifth gig ever, based on the anxiety that was trying to be suppressed. Penner started out the night with a quieter ballad-type, “I have wings/But they’re not meant to be seen” striking me as both Hallmark-y but yet honest. And as the show evolved to members switching instruments periodically (it was like band musical chairs) and covering themselves in grandma blankets to jump into the crowd with, I have to say I ended up completely adoring what the five-piece are trying to accomplish: solid indie rock coupled with some trumpets and kitchen pot pounding. All good.

[Flosstradamus]

Somehow I made the switch to dance mode and popped over to Flosstradamus at Mezzanine, who had just flown in from Florida and came straight over to the venue from the airport. The guys laid out their DJ weaponry, which consisted of a laptop and some hang signals, to deliver beats for the crowd to dance to. Truthfully, I still don’t understand completely the idea of touring DJs; paying money for a show where you don’t actually witness any live talent being completed is a little mind-jarring. I do bow down to the live-mixing element, where the Chicago duo were able to “read the flow of the room” and then promptly lay on the next track for bodies to move to. After all, Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’” and Daft Punk’s “One More Time” are always songs that made me wanna booty dance. Or something.

It was getting late; I could feel my feet begin to give way and a pile of laundry was ready to greet me upon my arrival to home. Somehow, I knew I’d need all the energy possible for the closing night party the next day, and impressively, I ended up being right on the money…

Ever want to go back in time and merge Eraserhead with Max Headroom and set it all to a 70s folk-pop soundtrack? Well, then today’s your lucky day, because Human Highway has taken us there in the video for the single “The Sound”.

The mellow folk/country duo of Islands‘ Nick Thorburn and singer/songwriter Jim Guthrie handed over the directorial duties for “The Sound”, from last year’s Moody Motorcycle, to Olivier Groulx of Arcade Fire’s “Black Mirror” video fame. Much like that vid, there is an interactive element that sees Thorburn and Guthrie’s faces disassembled and floating in space with different shapes. Groulx has also set up a website that allows you to then move around the facial features to dictate the sounds being made. We don’t suggest trying this at their shows however.

Human Highway – “The Sound”

Overly caffeinated enthusiams abounds on Hold On Now, Youngster…, bombarding your eardrums with shout-along chant-tastic choruses, hand claps and a broad range of instrumentation randing from Glockenspiel to violins. Looking back to their previous EP, Sticking Fingers Into Sockets, I described Los Campesinos!‘ sound as if “Bis had babies with Arcade Fire.” That still remains spot on, although I’d add bits of The Go! Team and perhaps even Belle & Sebastian on a ridiculous sugar high. –Chip Adams

Arts & Crafts

Ever since the collective frenzy we all worked ourselves into worrying what was going to happen to the world when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000, New Years have become cause for worry and constant concern. Now as that fateful date approaches again, we find ourselves asking — what horrors does 2009 hold? Luckily, former Sleater-Kinney guitarist and writer/blogger Carrie Brownstein has the answers for us via an extremely informative psychic/astrological reading.

Brownstein’s music and culture blog for NPR, Monitor Mix, featured a video interview this week with Andy Gehrz, an astrologer and pyschic who offered up her predictions on what kind of havoc 2009 would wreak on the music world. Other than the fact that this kind of stuff is just funny, because she seems to really believe what she’s saying, Andy seems to think some pretty serious business is going to go down in the next 12 months.

Among other things, Pitchfork is going to buy Rolling Stone, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco will have a mid-life crisis, Arcade Fire is apparently going synth, and The Shins have some sort of cultural responsibility to live out that involves finding lesser-known bands and taking them on tour. Very noble. Beth Ditto and some unnamed girl from Georgia with a lot of tattoos will both enjoy lots of success, and in case you were wondering, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver is some breed of super Taurus.

But probably the most shocking predicition Andy made — she said other stuff about Lil Wayne getting a DUI and Kanye West making a political statement, but we said shocking — was when she suggested that Kris Novoselic and Dave Grohl will reunite Nirvana with a rotating cast of lead singers. As a tribute. Uh huh.

Check out the video for more very important predictions about The Fleet Foxes, Neko Case, Vampire Weekend and others. And maybe it’s just us, but there is something quite entertaining about a 30-something, red-headed, glasses-wearing, white, female astrologer saying, “I have something to say about Lil Wayne.”

Andy Gehrz, Astrological Detective
Monitor Mix