Arcade Fire: Reflektor video

Arcade Fire's Reflektor video is online now, as are pre-orders for the band’s new album from their website. Pre-orders get first access to ticket sales for special shows as well as the band’s forthcoming world tour. Which is great so long as you don't live in Australia, where the shipping-- for the vinyl record at least-- is more than the cost of the double-LP itself! Guess I'll have to battle for tickets along with everyone else.

Arcade Fire: Reflektor (featuring David Bowie)

Here it is, the first real taste of Arcade Fire's new album, the 8 minute single Reflektor. The 12" single featuring none other than David Bowie is due to be released today at 9pm, along with an Anton Corbijn-directed video.

Beware, this stream may not last long:

Tunes!

Fantastic listening to be had this week, take your pick of these excellent new releases:

Album Streams!

Belle and Sebastian's rarities collection: The Third Eye Centre:
Neko Case's excellent new album: The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You Links!
And over at NPR at the moment you can stream Volcano Choir's phenomenal new album, Repave.

And at Pitchfork Advance (if you can get it to work, I always have trouble), you can listen to the new Forest Swords record Engravings.

The Counselor trailer

As a huge admirer of Cormac McCarthy's writing, a fan of most of this stellar cast and a, let's say, conflicted relationship with Ridley Scott's output, I really, really want The Counselor to be great. I've no idea what it's about- other than a cast of shady characters becoming involved in shady dealings, but it thankfully bears more of the hallmarks of McCarthy's stripped-back brutality than Scott's recent grandiosity. So the signs are encouraging.

And if this film is done, it also hopefully indicates that new novel from McCarthy may be in the works. It's been too long since The Road was released, and there's only so many times you can read Blood Meridian before the rosiness of existence dims beyond repair. I joke, but it's true.

Check out The Counselor trailer below:

Spike Jonze's Her trailer

Four years after the great, misunderstood Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze returns with his latest feature Her, a film that seems to employs his usual adept handling of strangeness and heart in the story of a man (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with an operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johannsson).

I suppose it's the sort of concept that could have been turned into a wacky Vince Vaughn comedy (imagine: high jinks involving smart phones vibrating in trouser pockets, wireless networks sabotaging his date with a 'real' woman, browser histories popping up at inopportune moments etc. This thing writes itself! I need to get an agent and pitch this to a studio exec like now) but Jonze (in what is his first sole writing credit) is treating it in typically straight-faced fashion. It looks good.

And as a bonus- the music for the film is composed by Arcade Fire! Whether this is all new material or re-purposed tracks remains to be seen.

Here's hoping it's another winner from the endlessly interesting Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures! Keep 'em coming.

Black Skinhead vs Elephant

So good:

Check out this incredible mashup of Tame Impala's Elephant and Kanye West's Black Skinhead by producer Nate Belasco. It's really great.

Lou Reed reviews Yeezus

The best review I've read of Kanye West's great new album Yeezus is an impassioned piece by none other than Lou Reed. A feature on a great new site The Talkhouse, which has musical artists reviewing other musical artists.

It's a fantastic, honest read, and says a lot about how I also feel about Kanye's latest.
Here are a few of my favourite observations:

"There are moments of supreme beauty and greatness on this record, and then some of it is the same old shit.  But the guy really, really, really is talented."

"Very often, he'll have this very monotonous section going and then, suddenly —"BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!"" 

"It's like farting."

"At so many points in this album, the music breaks into this melody, and it's glorious — I mean, glorious."


Read the whole thing, and other great articles, here: http://thetalkhouse.com/reviews/view/lou-reed