Arcade Fire and Karen O: Go where the wild things are

Sun, 03/29/2009 3:29 PM  |  Music

Happy Sunday everybody! Did you have a little too much fun last night and your head is now paying for it big time? Well, I got the perfect hangover cure for you! Take 2 tomatoes, a can of beer, and some Tabasco sauce, mix it in a blender and drink it up while reading the latest cerebellum-tickling issue of Underground Hum Reverb!

Let the healing begin!

Reverb

International

Velvet-voiced Ex-Rilo Kiley lead/Postal Service collaborator/all around gorgeous songstress Jenny Lewis will taking to the road across America and further. The US leg of her 2009 Spring/Summer tour will begin at The Coachella Music festival and end in Salt Lake City.

Lewis is touring to support her lovely second solo album, Acid Tongue, which came out rather quietly last year, with very little fanfare. The creation of the album has been captured on film in a documentary titled Welcome to Van Nuys, which will be released soon. She'll be in Australia until early-mid April. Is it too much to wish for a Jakarta stop? *Wink wink. Nudge nudge*

Spike Jonze and the word "surreal" tend to go hand in hand, so it truly excited me when it was announced that he was going to direct the film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beautifully off-beat and heartwarming classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are. To add to the already piling enthusiasm I have for this upcoming film is the fact that there is now a full trailer available on YouTube! And it features Arcade Fire's deliriously gorgeous song "Wake Up". According to MTV News, the version of "Wake Up" in the trailer is "a new version, re-recorded specifically for the film."

Though no Arcade Fire music will be used in the actual movie, the film should still satisfy ear drums as well as eyeballs because Yeah Yeah Yeahs vixen Karen O is responsible for the Wild Things music along with composer Carter Burwell. Where the Wild Things Are is set for release on October 16.

It's been five years since Chicago-based post rock lords Tortoise released their last full-length album of new material, It's All Around You. So it's definitely time for the boys to drop another one. On June 23, the Thrill Jockey label will release Beacons of Ancestorship, Tortoise's sixth proper album. Thrill Jockey will also release the album's first song, "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In", on the upcoming compilation Records Toreism. And after the album comes out, the band will release a series of limited edition 5" vinyl records featuring new music.

Tortoise will also play at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago's Union Park on July 17, along with Yo La Tengo, the Jesus Lizard, and Built to Spill. Tortoise's set, along with the other bands', will be part of the "Write the Night: Set Lists by Request" series, which means that everyone who buys a ticket will get to vote on which songs they play.

Anyone who has read Neil Gaiman's young readers' novella Coraline knows that it contains material creepy enough to freak the living daylights out of any adult (myself included). I have yet to see the stop-motion film adaptation by Henry Selick, but I am certain that it will be a brilliant children's film in the sense that it should successfully induce nightmares and warp a child's mind irreparably, like any good kids' movie should do. But the film will probably look like Mary Poppins compared to the forthcoming theatrical version featuring music and lyrics by Magnetic Fields' mad musical scientist Stephin Merritt.

Based on Merritt's reputation for being off-kilter and more than slightly morbid, this Off-Broadway production, debuting May 7 at New York City's Lucille Lortel Theatre, should guarantee many fun mentally and emotionally scarring moments.

I totally wish I could see it one day. Merritt will not perform in the staged Coraline, but his influence will be felt.

The music is set to be played on a piano "orchestra" featuring a traditional piano, a toy piano, and a piano with tinfoil, rubber bands, and playing cards attached to its strings. Yummy.

National

Concert Publik Untuk Ruang Publik (Fundraising Concert for Kineforum)

Featuring performances by Sore, Efek Rumah Kaca, and Kunokini Genre: various

Date: Sunday, March 29, 2009Time: 7pm - 10pm

Venue: Komunitas Salihara, Jl. Salihara no.16, Pejaten, Pasar Minggu, Jakarta Selatan.

Tickets: Presale : Rp 50.000 * Student rate Rp 30.000 On the Spot : Rp 60.000 * Student rate Rp 40.000

For more info call: Kineforum at (021) 3162780 or Putri at 0856 10 96 528

Kineforum is a very cool place that dedicates itself to educating the public on non-mainstream local and world cinema. They're a not for profit institution so please help them out! Plus, the band line-up is pretty kickass.

That about wraps it up for this week's Reverb. Stay tune next week!

Meanwhile, do drop me a line at undergroundhum@yahoo.com and if you've got a band or know of any cool bands with gigs coming up, email me the full details and I'll be sure to include it in the next Reverb.

See y'all next week!

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