Details are emerging on the long-awaited solo album from Battles frontman Tyondai Braxton. The album, titled Central Market, is going to hit stores on September 15th through Warp Records. The album, described as less like Battles, is a down-tempo affair with a full orchestra. You can see the just revealed cover here to the left and you can preview a track from the album titled “Uffe’s Woodshop” over at Pitchfork.

Track List:

01 Opening Bell
02 Uffe’s Woodshop
03 The Duck and the Butcher
04 Platinum Rows
05 Unfurling
06 J. City
07 Dead Strings

Indie-pop star Jens Lekman has contracted a case of swine flu, according to a post on his blog, and the canceled shows…from his blog:

I picked home one last souvenir from South America, it’s called the H1N1 virus. Wrongfully known as the Swineflue.
I was crossing the Atlantic when things started getting really bad, the fever was hallucinogenic and shaking me like a leaf and I grabbed the sleeve of the Air France steward. “I’m not feeling well, I should see a doctor” I said and the reply came as a brilliant mix of death anxiety and french rudeness: “Uh, yes… Terminal D… go there maybe… when we land”. After that the stewards and stewardesses took long detours. A ring of empty seats formed around me. Peoples eyes were kind but determined, they read “Poor you, I really wish you all the best but if you come near me or my kid I will have to stab you with this plastic fork”. I got up and went to the bathroom where I fainted.

Now I’m in quarantine for ten days. I can see the summer through my window and it’s just perfect. Summer is always best through a window.

Get well soon, and come back to New York, Jens.

The Gypsy-Whistler Andrew Bird has announced a full string of North American tour dates with St. Vincent. Both artists have been all over the place lately in support of recent releases (well, Bird’s isn’t all that recent, but he always seems to be omni-present in the indie-rock world). Bird, on top of playing every other late night show imaginable, has also announced that he will be performing on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on July 7. St. Vincent performed on Letterman a couple of weeks back and played “Marrow,” my personal favorite from her recent album Actor. You can view her performance here.

Tour Dates:
9-29 Indianapolis, IN - The Murat Theatre
9-30 Columbia, MO - The Blue Note
10-3 New Orleans, LA - Tipitina’s Uptown
10-5 Birmingham, AL - Workplay Soundstage
10-7 Carrboro, NC - The Cat’s Cradle
10-8 Carrboro, NC - The Cat’s Cradle
10-9 Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel
10-10 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
10-12 Charleston, SC - The Music Farm
10-13 Knoxville, TN - The Bijou Theater
10-14 Cincinnati, OH - Bogart’s
10-17 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theater
10-18 Kalamazoo, MI - State Theatre
10-19 Columbus, OH - The Southern Theatre
10-21 Buffalo, NY - Asbury Hall At Babeville
10-24 South Portland, ME - S. Portland High School Auditorium
10-25 Philadelphia, PA - The Electric Factory
10-26 South Burlington, VT - Higher Ground
10-27 Providence, RI - Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
10-28 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
[tour dates via Music Slut]

Classical pianist Christopher O’ Riley has announced plans to release a new album this summer. The album, tentatively titled Out of My Hands, will be released on August 18th and will feature instrumental covers from groups such as Tears for Fears, REM, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Eliot Smith, and more.

O’ Riley is probably best know, outside of the classical realm, for his album True Love Waits, in which he gives an entire album to reinterpretations of Radiohead songs.

Unordered Tracklisting:
Mother – Tori Amos
All I Need – Radiohead
New Disaster – Elliott Smith
Heart Shaped Box – Nirvana
The Rip – Portishead
Us & Them – Pink Floyd
Woman In Chains – Tears For Fears
Blue Bell Knoll – Cocteau Twins
World Leader Pretend – R.E.M.
Videotape – Radiohead
Asleep – The Smiths
Lost Of Love – Reid Anderson

Sondre Lerche has announced plans to release a new album on September 8th. The album will be titled Heartbeat Radio. Those are all the details their giving at this point. Hopefully there are more on the way soon. I don’t like teasers.

Tracklisting:
1. Good Luck
2. Heartbeat Radio
3. I Cannot Let You Go
4. Like Lazenby
5. If Only
6. Pioneer
7. Easy To Persuade
8. Words And Music
9. I Guess It’s Gonna Rain Today
10. Almighty Moon
11. Don’t Look Now
12. Goodnight

Check out Grizzly Bear’s recent performance of “Cheerleader” from their new album Veckatimest.

Zach Condon and his cohorts in Beirut have lined up another La Blogotheque session that is fantastic. You can check out the video over at their website. If you’ve never checked out the site before this is a site to bookmark and frequent. Some of the best original musical content on the web.

Beirut is still out promoting their recent 2 EP releases March of the Zapotec and Real People | Holland, which were released as a single entity as well.

• Deer Tick recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• Love is All recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• And one more Daytrotter Session, from the Mt. Saint Helens Vietnam Band.
• A Sharon Van Etten live set from the Taper.
• White Lies recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• The Rest live at Monster Island from NYC Taper.
• John Fernandes live at Caledonia.
• Barbara Cue live at the Georgia Theatre.
• Daniel Martin Moore recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• What Laura Says recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• Roman Candle recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• Jeremy Jay’s live set from Primavera Sound.
• UME recorded a live set for WOXY Lounge Acts.
• Yourself and the Air recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• Motel Motel recorded a Daytrotter Session.
• A recording of Cracker live at the Highline Ballroom on June 25th.
• The Lions Rampant did a Lounge Acts session at WOXY.

[The Dusty Shelf is a weekly column that showcases a tragically overlooked album from the music snob's library.]

I can honestly say without a shred of doubt that there never was, is not now, and never will be another band like the Butthole Surfers.  What the hell were they? Some saw them as avant-garde pioneers, others not as musicians at all but as performance artists who made noise.  Fans herald their redefinition of what music can be, and detractors dismiss them as shock value shit rock.  In their three decades of existence, they’ve probably been all of those things at one point or another.

On stage, the Butthole Surfers were unparalleled in their weirdness.  Tearing apart stuffed animals on stage like crazed cannibals, filling inverted cymbals with lighter fluid and setting them aflame, and exploding condoms filled with fake blood all over their bodies, a live Surfers show was like the world’s most nightmarish acid trip, complete with video screens filled with the most disturbing imagery imaginable.

The Surfers’ actual music - if you could call it that - is far too erratic to pin down.  It can be serene, hilarious, eerie, terrifying, and nausea-inducing all in the same minute-and-a-half song.  If they experimented with visual proponents live, they were just as ambitious (or sick?) with their ideas in the studio.  The one album that best captures them at their deranged peak is their 1987 third album, Locust Abortion Technician.

Continued