Not all of this news is brand new, but it’s all worth knowing about. At least, if you’re me or like the same bands as I do.

• The Dead Weather Announce New Album Details – Jack White’s current project The Dead Weather is set to release their second album, following 2009′s widely-acclaimed Horehound. It will be called Sea of Cowards, and will drop May 11th in the US. Pitchfork has the cover art and track listing at the link.
• Tokyo Police Club Announce Sophomore LP – Must be the time for sophomore albums, because Toronto-based Tokyo Police Club are releasing theirs, entitled Champ, on June 8th. They’re also embarking on a pretty extensive tour, most of it with Passion Pit.
• The Libertines to Reunite for Festival Performances – The Libs were one of my favorite bands several years ago, and I always kind of hoped they’d get back together at some point following their well-publicized and not-particularly-amicable breakup in 2004. This isn’t any more than a couple of reunited festival gigs, no album or anything in the works, and I have a feeling even this has all kinds of possible badness in store for it – as much as I love Pete Doherty’s music, he’s not what you might call a stable person. Hope this comes off better than I fear.
• MGMT’s Congratulations Streaming on Their Site – MGMT’s new album comes out tomorrow, but it leaked early so they put the whole thing streaming on their home page. It seems a little more mellow than Oracular Spectacular, but I quite liked it. Not sure how long they’ll leave it up after the album’s out, so check it out while you can.
• Two More Broken Social Scene Songs from New Record – Two more songs from Broken Social Scene’s upcoming Forgiveness Rock Record have been released, and Steregum has the Flash player to prove it. I really REALLY like “All to All,” though “Forced to Love” needs some more time to percolate around my brain, I think. Forgiveness Rock Record is out May 4th.
• Jason Boesel Talks About In-Progress Rilo Kiley and Jenny Lewis Records – Now, when I heard that coming from Rilo Kiley drummer Boesel, I got REALLY REALLY excited; Rilo Kiley is my favorite band, and their last record together was 2006, before they all sort of amicably split up to work on solo projects. I’d like nothing better than for them to get back together and work on something new. This is not quite that. The Rilo Kiley record is a rarities and B-sides compilation, which is still worth excitement, because they have a lot of B-sides and songs they’ve only done live that I’d LOVE to have in studio-produced form. Jenny is working on a new record with her boyfriend Johnathan Rice, but it’s unclear from the interview whether that means he’s working on her record, she’s working on his, or they’re doing a dual one (they’ve both worked on each other’s records before). Boesel is encouraging, though, that Rilo Kiley may reunite for a new project in the future, something I certainly hope comes true.

When we get a preview of new albums from both Broken Social Scene and The New Pornographers within the same week, I’d say that’s a good week. We’ve shared details on both these albums in these pages, and it looks like both are due to come out the same day – May 4th, 2010 (apparently the day Canadian supergroups have chosen to begin their world takeover). So we’ll let them share this post as well.

Broken Social Scene’s first record since 2005 is going to be called Forgiveness Rock Record, and as previously reported, will feature a core group of six (including Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew) as well as guest spots from their oft-collaborators Leslie Fiest, Amy Millan and Evan Cranley, Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, and others.

Pitchfork has the first track from the album streaming here – an almost-seven-minute-long track called “World Sick”. You can also get a link to download the song by clicking on the pink button on the banner to the left (which will sign you up for their email newsletter, but you can unsubscribe later should you so choose).

It hasn’t been quite so long since The New Pornographer’s last release (2007′s Challengers), but group members A.C. Newman and Neko Case at least have been busy working on solo projects in between – it’s good to see them all back together for the upcoming Together.

Thanks to Matador for the first track from the album, “Your Hands (Together)”, which I have to say is making me even more excited. It’s a bit fuller, a bit deeper than the majority of Challengers – the verse didn’t catch me completely, but as soon as the chorus started, HECK YEAH.

The New Pornographers – Your Hands (Together): The New Pornographers – Your Hands (Together)

So I guess I know what I’m doing on May 4th. And probably for a few days after that.

Canadian super-group Broken Social Scene has been touring and working on solo projects for leads Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew for the five years since their previous release You Forgot It In People, but they’ve just released some details on their not-yet-titled upcoming album, releasing May 4, 2010. Given the ever-changing size and line-up of Broken Social Scene, as members come and go and work with other bands, it’s always a question who exactly will be featured on an album – this time they’ve managed to supplement their core six-person group (Canning, Drew, Justin Peroff, Charles Spearin, Andrew Whiteman, and Sam Goldberg) with guest appearances from friends and often collaborators Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw (of Metric), Amy Millan and Evan Cranley (of Stars), and Leslie Fiest (of…Feist), among many others.

In an interview with Pitchfork, Kevin Drew cautions that most of these performers are less involved that in previous records, mostly coming in to lay vocals over already-written songs rather than collaborating from the beginning. That likely also means none of them will be involved in Broken Social Scene’s upcoming US tour. I would’ve loved to have the chance to see them all together, but Broken Social Scene is awesome enough on their own to be worthy of attention, celebrity guest performers or not.

Here’s a couple of older songs:

As of recent I’ve really started to get into the female artist scene: Neko Case, Nicole Atkins, Lykke Li, Cat Power, Santogold, Norah Jones. Hell, I’ve even been getting back into some of Sheryl Crow’s older stuff that I missed out on over the past ten years. One of my recent finds is Amy Millan. Her first record, “Honey from the Tombs” has been a somewhat regular staple on my iTunes playlist at work.

Today I get wind that her sophomore effort, “Masters of the Burial”, is on the way (September 8th) and Canadian/US tour to follow. She’s also been playing a little bit with another one of my favorite’s, Broken Social Scene. So if the name Amy Millan is new to you, here’s some goodness I dug up for you today from the interwebs…

new album tracks… show

tour dates/locations… show

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