Then I Just Smile

I'm a big fan of aol's new music preview because it allows you to listen to most major releases for free without signing up for anything. Still you would think a big corporate site would hire an editor to look over some of their material before it goes live. Take the blurb they have up this week for Lily Allen's album:




: I had never seen Keith Allen described before without the word "comedian" stuck somewhere in there which is something I can forgive but the unexpected Gwen Stefani credit is just wrong. Keep up the good work guys.

Stream Alright, Still here for the rest of the week.

Promiscuous Producer

In the last few days it has come out that Timbaland likely swiped music from a amateur artist for a ringtone and later used it for the backing music for Nelly Furtado's album track "Do It". This video and a followup make the case:



: So did he steal the track? Probably. However the interesting thing is how the story has quickly gone from being tracked in blogs and forums to specialized news sites like Side-Line and being covered in Rolling Stone. Interestingly the hip hop press that I've read suggests it's not a big deal that it isn't worth the controversy. Maybe they are right.

Bullet Points

• Congratulations to Orac of Electronically Yours who has now made the leap from fan to webmaster for the official Heaven 17 website. He does a great job keeping his all things Human League related site Secrets Online and EY current so this should be a pleasant change for the notoriously difficult Heaven17.com which oddly required people to sign up to read the section of the website that announced their Before/After album that was released last year.
• IAMX will be doing a limited tour of the US (with a few Canadian dates possible) at the end of March despite not having his latest record released here yet. Details should be found at his myspace once they are announced.
• The (mostly) reformed Information Society have finally gotten their website online and it is worth the wait with the opportunity to remix their new single and listen to hours of unreleased material. The unreleased tracks are a fantastic way to hear the band's sound and songwriting develop with songs dating as far back as their high school days. The new InSoc album Synthesizer is expected to be released in Brazil in early April so an announcement about the US release can't be far off.
• PopJustice notes that Rex The Dog has an album coming out as they casually reference his other alias which I couldn't find to save my life even a few months ago. They also link to an amusing video of Rex performing his new remix of The Sounds new single.
• Annie just signed a new deal in the UK and her new album is expected at the end of this year. PopJustice reports "It'll be very melodic song-based electronica - cutting edge pop and great melodies with a view to getting people dancing." Perhaps that means her sessions with James Iha have been jettisoned.
  

Musique Non Stop

Despite having first taken Daft Monk as my dj name back in my college radio days as a tribute I initially passed on Daft Punk's singles collection Musique Vol. 1 1993-2005 because I already had the bulk of the material on the collection. I recently gave the disc a listen and the track selection suggests a career arch:


: The graph does cheat a bit crediting "Musique" as appearing on Homework although it is only excerpted on the album, but when you consider that the included remixes pre-date the band's mid-period album Discovery by more than a couple of years it appears that the band peaked early and never recovered. That is not the case because Discovery is a stronger album than the singles would suggest that helped bring underground electronica back to the idea that songs were acceptable. However, despite the exception of the effortless "Technologic", the Human After All singles really call attention to why I never have any interest in revisiting the mess that is that album.

Daft Punk's myspace show a live date scheduled for later this year and their website promotes their movie Electroma which according to imdb "follows the history of two robots, the members of Daft Punk, on their quest to become human". The film apparently features no music from the duo and there is little information about a release date but you can watch the trailer here.

Who Needs Blog (Like That)

Producer Gareth Jones has spent the past few months locked in his home studio with Erasure recording their new album and blogging about the experience. Before making the jump to blogger the blog was hosted on his own site which has made following it a bit difficult, but it reveals Jones to have an apparent passion for food and bicycling as they get as much space as his musical escapades. Still there are some interesting moments that peel back the curtain behind the band’s creative process and it’s worth a look. Also of note is that Jones has a video camera and the occasional cameraman around so clips capturing everything from (muted) vocal sessions to Andy Bell talking about his weekend have turned up on youtube. I haven’t made it through all of them but this rather long clip of the band attempting to steal beats from Kraftwerk captures how I imagine studio time to actually be... a bit boring:



: Erasure's next release is the On The Road To Nashville live DVD documenting their decent into madness as they perform country-influenced arrangements of their synthpop hits. The new album is in the mastering stage so a proper announcement of a release date can't be too far off.

Video: Jarvis Cocker "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time"

Now that Jarvis Cocker has recorded his own version of "Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time", a song that originally appeared on Nancy Sinatra's comeback album a couple of years ago, there is a strong case that only he can interpret his own material (bar William Shatner). The video brings us Jarvis as our taxi driver who offers some friendly advice:



: Still no word on Jarvis being released in the US, but at least my fellow Americans can visit Jarvis at his myspace and enjoy some of his friendly podcasts.