Video: St Vincent - Actor Out Of Work

Actor Out Of Work is a choice cut from multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Annie Clark's staggeringly impressive second album as St Vincent.  Called Actor, the new opus is released through 4AD on 4th May. This time she's worked with various members of Midlake and associates of Sufjan Stevens.

On Actor Out Of Work she wraps a fantasy '50s technicolor melody snugly within an indie aesthetic of scrunchy guitars and thwhacking drums; see the video, below.

Clark plays a one-off gig at London's Hoxton Bar + Kitchen on 21st April; in the meantime you can read our review of Actor here, or download album track The Strangers for free here.

Video: Phoenix - Lizstomania

With their fourth album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix set to drop at the end of May through Bella Union, Air's former backing band Phoenix are already selling out venues. 

This week's sold-out London gig at the Hoxton Bar + Kitchen will be followed in June by a date at KOKO - also sold out - and they'll be taking in crowds at the Secret Garden Party, V and Camp Bestival too.

The infectious free download that was 1901 is followed by the album's first proper single Lizstomania. Like the album name, it suggests they want the world to know they're aware of the names of classical composers. OKAY. WE ARE.

A version of this track will appear on May's Kitsuné Maison compilation. The video for it is below... 

 

Get 1901 for free at their website.

The Pirate Bay trial verdict: guilty

Big day for big music news stories, this.  So here's another.  The Pirate Bay have been found guilty of breaking copyright laws.

The filesharing service, which was set up six years ago, has been facing a Swedish beak on piracy allegations centred on allowing access to torrents for filesharing purposes.  Its top brass intend to hold a press conference today (Friday 17th April) at 1pm Swedish time.  It will be streamed on the front page of their site: thepiratebay.org

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde have each been sentenced to a year in jail but are expected to appeal.  The site, which has tens of millions of users across the globe, includes a page detailing various legal threats they've received from everyone from Microsoft to Warner and from Apple to Dreamworks.

It's been pointed out elsewhere that anyone can use a search engine to find torrents too, so the verdict may have knock-on effects on how the search engines index files on the web.  Yet with YouTube announcing deals with major film studios to stream movies free of charge only yesterday and Spotify scarcely seeing a day pass without being trumpeted as the saviour of the recorded music industry, it's also possible that The Pirate Bay, like Napster before it, could find itself fighting yesterday's battle before very much longer.

Blur to play miniscule warm-up gigs

They're already set to play two Hyde Park gigs as well as headlining Glastonbury, T In The Park, Oxygen and the MEN Arena.

Now Blur have announced two warm-up shows, with the hint that there may be others, to members of their fan club at blur.co.uk.

On 13th June they play their home town of Colchester's East Anglian Railway Museum, the venue where they played their first ever gig.

The following week they head to London to play Goldsmiths Students Union on 22nd June.  Alex James and Graham Coxon were both students at the New Cross college.

Proceeds from both gigs will go to charity.

So.  Who's going?

Video: God Help The Girl - Stuart Murdoch's new venture

Belle And Sebastian head honcho Stuart Murdoch has a new music project called God Help The Girl. 

The band features singers including Neil Hannon (more on him soon), new discovery Catherine Ireton (we think that's her in the picture) and a 45 piece orchestra conducted by Withnail & I soundtrack composer Rick Wentworth. 

A self-titled debut is slated for a June release through Rough Trade, preceded by a single, Come Monday Night, in May. 

Stuart introduces the project in this 'ere video:  

More at the website: http://www.godhelpthegirl.com