Shoegaze fans, rejoice: My Bloody Valentine are coming back to the U.S. for what may be the most proper concert fest: All Tomorrow’s Parties, September 19th-21st, in lovely Monticello, New York, on the grounds of Kutshers Country Club. Can you think of a better place to roll around freaking out listening to looped feedback than a golf course?
If My Bloody Valentine alone aren’t enough to lure you to a weekend in the country (imagine the foliage!), read the rest of lineup, designed to make any indie rock fan who cut their teeth in the ’90s cream their figurative jeans: Shellac (Steve Albini), Mogwai, Polvo, Fuck Buttons, Autolux, the Drones, Low, Wooden Shjips, Edan, and Thee Silver Mount Zion Orchestra are slated to perform sets.
And how many times have you wished you could hear your favorite band play your favorite album in sequence, live? There will be plenty of that, too. Built to Spill will perform Perfect From Now On; Tortoise will re-enact Millions Now Living Will Never Die; the Meat Puppets will thrash out Meat Puppets II; and Thurston Moore will break Psychic Hearts.
Tickets go sale today (April 25) at atpfestival.com.
Venerable Glasgow label Chemikal Underground offers up a wide variety of seductive sounds, from the profane musings of Arab Strap to the delicate pop of the Delgados. The past decade has been a good one for Scottish music with bands like Belle and Sebastian and Franz Ferdinand burning up the alt-rock charts. Not to take anything away from either group (and it’s hard to take anything but good from a classic like B&S’s If You’re Feeling Sinister) but CU has been serving up a more challenging variant for years now, and has helped introduced the world to the highly-internalized work of Interpol, the late Aereogramme, and Mogwai, the instrumental stylists behind the soundtrack to Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait).
The good news is that even some of the less familiar names on this two-disc set have talent and personality to burn. Witness the feedback-laden pop of Magoo (”A to Z and Back Again”), the angelic folk of Suckle (”To Be King”), the raucous what-the-fuckery of Mother and the Addicts (”Oh Yeah…You Look Quite Nice”), the static-bedecked post-rock of Model Fighter (”Metallic Rutland”), or the spirited girl-group bop of Cha Cha Cohen (”Heck Singhi”). Truth of the matter is this: it’s all good…in the Scottish hood. (Iot’s worth pointing out that Cha Cha Cohen spun off the Wedding Present, while Suckle spun off the Vaselines.) Encompassing 11 years of audio and visual adventurousness, the CD features 17 tracks, while the even more impressive DVD consists of 28 videos, including six from the Delgados (the now-defunct quartet who runs the operation) and eight from Arab Strap (Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, both now solo). Though the retrospective eschews liner notes, the Delgados do provide a DVD introduction. CHEMO87CD+DVD comes highly recommended.