Chairlift to re-release "Does You Inspire You" through Columbia

Chairlift, an electro-infused Brooklyn group I listened to but shamefully didn't get into until after they starred on an Apple iPod commercial, is re-releasing their debut LP Does You Inspire You on Columbia Records. The album drops on April 21 and before you say, "Why should care? I bought the record on Kanine last year," there's some added goodies.

The new record will contain two new tracks: "Dixie Gypsy," produced by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear, and "Le Flying Saucer Hat."

The band is also currently on tour:

Thurs. 3/19 Other Music Showcase @ Red 7 - 12AM
Thurs. 3/19 Gigotron/Videothing Showcase @ Club 1808
Fri. 3/20 Urban Outfitters Party - 5PM
Fri. 3/20 Under the Radar Party @ Flamingo Cantina - 3:15PM
Sat. 3/21 Filter Magazine Party@ 1PM
Sat. 3/21 This Side Up Sounds Party @ Red Eyed Fly

The Fate of '08 Decided!

A big "Thank you!" to all who participated in Future Perfect Radio's decision on the fate of our "Best of '08" channels. Without further delay, here is your decision:

The "Best of 2008" channel will continue to exist, but will not be present on the FPR homepage. To access the channel from now on, you must find it in the "Other Channels" section in the player. Too many people expressed interest in seeing the channel survive, and it would be nice to save the music in such a channel as an archive of what 2008 was. However, to make room for new channels, we'll be removing the link from the homepage by the end of the week.

The "Pitchforks' Top 100 Tracks of 2008" channel will be dismantled by the end of the week. We hope to do similar channels like this in the future, but not enough people came to back this particular one. Sorry!

Have ideas for new channels on Future Perfect Radio? Tell us by commenting here, or emailing us at programmers@futureperfectradio.com

Noise Pop 2009 Starts Tonight!

The 17th annual Noise Pop Festival begins tonight in San Francisco with a free opening night party at Mezzanine, a special Antony and the Johnsons show and an installment of City Arts & Lectures’ Talking Music Series with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats in conversation with author Tobias Wolff. And this is just the first night mind you.

Noise Pop runs from February 24 through March 1, 2009 at venues throughout San Francisco and feature headliners including Bob Mould, Stephen Malkmus, Josh Ritter (joined by a string quartet), The Mountain Goats, A.C. Newman, Sleepy Sun, French Kicks, Matt Costa, Thao Nguyen, Martha Wainright, From Monument to Masses, Thee Oh Sees, Kool Keith, Mike Relm, St Vincent, The Morning Benders, The Submarines, Ra Ra Riot, Dear and the Headlights, Port O’Brien, Portugal. The Man, Flosstradamus, N.A.S.A., No Age, Les Savy Fav and more!

The artists set to perform at Noise Pop 2009 have been collected by us at Future Perfect Radio and compiled into a special radio channel for your pleasure. Preview the festival, decide which acts to see, or -- for those of us painfully far away from San Francisco -- crank up the music, close your eyes and pretend you're there. The fun begins at Future Perfect Radio. Tune in today!

New Channels! Michigan, SXSW & Noise Pop '09

Attention Future Perfect Radio listeners! We now have 3 great new channels for you, bringing our total to 29.

Great Lakes Soundtrack - Featuring the best indie tunes from the great state of Michigan. Example artists include Mason Proper, Bug Lung Baby, The Silent Years, My Brightest Diamond, and PAS/CAL. This channel was built in response to an outcry from fans requesting a place for their Michigan favorites. Most of the artists come from fan suggestions -- so keep them coming, and send any channel ideas our way! Your idea may be the next channel on Future Perfect Radio.

SXSW '09 - A channel highlighting the bands playing at this year's South by Southwest music festival, set for March 18-22 in Austin, Texas.

Noise Pop '09 - Featuring the artists set to perform at this year's San Francisco music festival, running February 24 through March 1.

Check out these channels, and our 26 other selections, at Future Perfect Radio!

New Music Additions 2/20

Busy week here at Future Perfect Radio, here's the (long) list of new music just added:

Laura Barrett - Victory Garden
Port O'Brien - Winter
Western Civ - Shower the People You Love with Gold
Benjy Ferree - Come Back to the Five and Dime Bobby Dee Bobby Dee
The Old Ceremony - Walk on Thin Air
Flosstradamus feat. Caroline Polachek - "Big Bills"
Anni Rossi - Rockwell
Vine House - Young Regret
Sh! The Octopus - The Carrot Chase
The Calm Blue Sea - The Calm Blue Sea
Arbouretum - Song of the Pearl
The Isles - Troika
Shortwave Set - Replica Sun Machine
Elvis Perkins - Elvis Perkins in Dearland

The Fate of 2008

As we march steadily into 2009, we must bid goodbye to much of the music that filled us with so much joy in 2008. At the end of February, Future Perfect Radio's "Best of 2008" and "Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks of 2008" channels will be dismantled.

However, we'd like to get our listeners' opinions on this. Should these channels be removed completely at the end of February, or would you like them to be saved as a record of what made 2008 great?

Voice your opinion in the poll below, or in the comment section!

[polldaddy poll=1381773]

Damien Jurado announces tour dates

Damien Jurado will be performing throughout April and May across North America supporting his critically-acclaimed Secretly Canadian release, Caught in the Trees.

Jurado will be playing solo, but will be joined by supporting act Laura Gibson beginning on April 3rd.

4/1/09 Spokane, WA - Empyrean Coffee House
4/3/09 Boise, ID - Neurolux
4/4/09 Provo, UT - Velour
4/5/09 Denver, CO - Hi-Dive
4/7/09 Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room
4/8/09 Iowa City, IA - The Picador
4/9/09 St. Paul, MN - Turf Club
4/10/09 Chicago, IL - Schubas
4/11/09 Bloomington, IN - Russian Recording
4/12/09 Ann Arbor, MI - The Blind Pig
4/14/09 Toronto, ON - The Drake Hotel
4/15/09 Montreal, QC - Il Motore
4/16/09 Cambridge, MA - TT The Bear's Place
4/17/09 Brooklyn, NY - The Bell House
4/18/09 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Chapel
4/19/09 Vienna, VA - Jammin' Java
4/21/09 Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle
4/22/09 Birmingham, AL - The Bottletree
4/23/09 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
4/24/09 Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone Cafe
4/25/09 Nashville, TN - The Basement
4/27/09 Norman, OK - The Opolis
4/28/09 Denton, TX - Dan's Silverleaf
4/29/09 Austin, TX - Cactus Cafe
5/1/09 Tucson, AZ - Club Congress
5/2/09 San Diego, CA - Casbah
5/3/09 Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
5/4/09 Santa Barbara, CA - Muddy Waters
5/5/09 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
5/7/09 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
5/8/09 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe

Damien Jurado - "Gillian Was a Horse"

Sleepy Sun Debut LP and Interview

San Francisco's Sleepy Sun will release their debut LP Embrace on May 26th through ATP/R. They'll also be announcing a U.S. tour soon, so stay tuned!

Tell All Your Friends had a chat with the group, reprinted here:

Tell us about the origins of the band – how you met, how you found your sound etc.:

This band was conceived under a full moon in the lovely town of Santa Cruz, California. With the forest and ocean as our back drop, we were drawn to each other as fellow musicians, friends, and lovers. Our sound began with a more straight laced rock n roll feel but soon took on more depth and heaviness, drawing from early Black Sabbath, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Can, and Creation Records, to more contemporary local acts like Comets on Fire and Mammatus. There was a lot of jamming - a lot of free flowing, heady, "where am I?" - type jamming that definitely contributed to our sonic ascension.

Your biog says you're from the "occult influenced creative community of Santa Cruz" – please elaborate! Are you into the occult as a band? And how big is occultism in Santa Cruz?!

Santa Cruz is a community very much submersed into it's own culture-- although it's veneer may convey a sense of murky, burned-out-hippy life, there's a sparkling bubble kingdom if you know where to narrow your vision. Beaches are covered in Monarch butterflies for a few weeks every year, naked dancing to drums in the moonlight, rogue black metal shows under the cover of night and redwood elders, and dank caves that eventually meet the salty ocean water. It becomes very easy to 'lose your head in the clouds' so to speak in such a geographically rich territory. Sometimes all you want to do is paint your face with charcoal, red, and black, cruise the graveyard, scope some blasters, and check out with some durk pins. The Occult is what you make it.

And then you moved to San Fran. What made you decide to move there? Whats the current day scene like there?

We all love Santa Cruz. We really do. But if we didn't make the move out of there, things could have easily become stagnant. There's a circuit of about four to five venues in Santa Cruz that you can play before it's all tapped out, and two of which are all ages. On top of that, more than half of 21+ crowd leaves for summer vacation from University, so it's difficult to build up a following in sleepy Santa Cruz Co. San Francisco on the other hand is a city, and we hit the ground rolling and have been shoveling coal in the engine ever since. As per the SF 'scene', it's really all across the board-- hair metal, punk, indie, electronica, etc. are all coexisting across the peninsula. They're all alive in their own little niche bars, and you can start to see cross-over which is where the electricity sparks.

There's a psych-rock influence on your sound. Is the psych rock sound still alive and well in the Bay Area?

There is not a 'psych rock' scene per se-- '67 is long gone, and Haight St. is nothing more than a tourist trap banking on the name and history of the area to sell Mukluks and Dead shirts (p.s. the Dead totally rules). We feel psychedelic influence on our music comes more from Northern California itself more than any scene or city. There truly is nowhere on Earth like our little corner of the country where the redwoods smother the ocean...

Your 'battle cry' is "Let's get weird". When and where do you use this phrase, and where did it come from?

This is the phrase to use when you and your friends are bored with ordinary, humdrum folly-making. If someone drops this line, where ever you may be, the entire group must participate in an activity created on the spot, regardless of social norms or rules. If this means 'diming' a record entitled "German Beer-Drinking Music", wrapping a poor soul in toilet paper and plastic bags, fogging out the living room and reinacting American Gladiators with socks and pillows, then so be it.

What are your shared interests, both musical and otherwise?

Pizza, horticulture, Neil Percival Young.

What have been the big milestones in your career to date?

There's nothing like having your first piece of vinyl pressed. Also, playing pretty much any show put on by Folk Yeah! Productions. Opening for Rodriguez at the Great American Hall in our hometown the day we got back from tour was a dream, and Folk Yeah!'s Festival in the Forest in Big Sur was an unforgettable moment for all of us. That festival was as close as it gets to the communal musical vibe everyone assumes is going on in the Bay Area.

Where and when did you record the album?

Sleepy Sun traveled to Vancouver, BC in January 2008 to record 'Embrace' with Colin Stewart. We tracked for 11 days, took off four days to rest on the island of Victoria, and then hopped back on the ferry to the Hive to mix for another four days.

What was the aim for the album? What were you hoping to achieve?

Before travelling to BC to record, much time was spent brainstorming about how to compile the songs in a way that would set a singular vibe or tone or message. In other words, we aimed to record a cohesive collection of songs, inspired by full length albums intended to be listened to from start to finish. We didn't however go into the studio claiming outright that we were going to create a "psych-roch record", i guess that came naturally. In the studio, There was a conscious decision to change the songs, allowing them to bloom into sonic bulbs, radically different than we had been playing them live for the past year. I suppose you could say we sought to frame these songs in their new light-- we've certainly changed the way we play them live since the birth of 'Embrace'.

Talk us through some of the key tracks (the inspiration / any fun stories behind them etcm unusual recording techniques), especially future singles.

Electical-engineer Brian Tice recorded 9/10ths of the instruments on 'Golden Artifact' using an 8-track mixer in our living room in Santa Cruz (also known as the Dungeon, because of it's low ceilings, low lighting, and various smells attributed to a plethora of cats, sugar gliders and human rodents). All of the band lived in house during this period, and we sat down and hashed out the entire song in a few sittings. We setup the mixer, the mics were held together with tape and cobra-whiskey bottles, and hit 'record'. Our good friend Norman Krow mixed the original version to be placed on a compilation for the inaugural Loves in Heat Records festival. We brought along the data to Vancouver, BC and Colin Stewart worked his magic, and we re-tracked vocals and darker percussion.

After watching all the Hellraiser and all Jim Henson films in one sitting, Matt wrote the guitar verse for 'New Age' . Bret was currently studying in Europe, so the song (tentatively titled Cromag) bloomed into 15 minute epic sans vocals, compensated with shredding keys and hot air balloons. Once Bret returned from his overseas voyage, we started working on the track as a full band. It went through countless changes, but never sounded complete until a year and half of sitting on the back-burner (although occasional live performances existed for our own curiosity). This was the first song we attempted to record at the Hive Studios in Jan. 08' and we ended up ripping out half of the heavy, plodding guitar tracks and replaced with sparkling acoustics.

What are your hopes for the future of the band?

To do Wayne's World for a living.

News Round-Up: Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Rejetson "posthumous" release, Webcaster Royalties

Here's a wrap-up of the music news from February 16, 2009:

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour return to the U.S. this spring. New York is still recovering from their last visit, so this time is sure to be memorable to say the least. They'll be stopping by Chicago, California and a little music fest down in Austin. Tour dates and mp3 link below!

03/19: Austin, TX @ SXSW - Windish Showcase at Emo's Outdoors
03/21: Austin, TX @ SXSW - Chop Shop Showcase
03/22: New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
03/24: Toronto, ONT @ Wrong Bar
03/25: Chicago, IL @ Schubas
03/27: Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
03/28: San Francisco, CA @ 330 Ritch
03/30: San Diego, CA @ Casbah

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - "The Sun Ain't Shining No More"

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The now defunct London act Redjetson is prepping the release of their "posthumous" and presumably final album on April 20 through Gizeh Records. Other Arms follows the group's debut LP New General Catalogue in 2005. The group broke up last year.

Redjetson - "For Those Who Died Dancing"

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The Of Great and Mortal Men project rolls on with the promised 44th track for President Barack Obama

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Sunday night was the deadline for royalty deals to be hammered out between Internet radio broadcasters and royalty collection agency/record label lobbying conglomerate SoundExchange. So far, only deals with public broadcasters and the NAB have been announced. That leaves groups like religious broadcasters, small commercial webcasters (like Future Perfect Radio) and members of DiMA (like Pandora) up in the air for now. Read more at RAIN here.

The NAB has agreed to a pay-per-performance royalty structure. They'll owe $0.0015 per song, per play, per listener this year. That'll increase to $0.0025 by 2015. While these rates are lower than the previous CRB-set rates, Rusty Hodges of SomaFM points out (here) that "the only way this makes sense for broadcasters is if they're predominately talk or they're getting waivers in exchange for airplay of tracks."

This Week's Featured Bands, 2/16

Here's the run-down on this week's featured bands. Find out more, including interviews, videos and tour dates, at Future Perfect Radio.

Vote for the best artist here.

Alela Diane

Folk singer/songwriter ALELA DIANE is prepping the release of sophomore album To Be Still through Rough Trade, just five years after handing out her first album as a CD-R with hand-stitched covers. Haunting, melodic and enchanting, Diane follows up her strong debut with an equally impressive follow-up.

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

Austin's ...AND YOU SHALL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD have been making a new for themselves since forming in 1994. The fierce dream pop act from Austin are set to release their seventh album The Century of Self on February 17.

Port O'Brien

PORT O'BRIEN belong at once to California and Alaska, with the band's songwriters working in the later locale during summers on fishing boats and in bakeries. The music crafted during breaks and time ashore is modest, intimate and wholly unique.

Mountains

Brooklyn ambient music duo MOUNTAINS compose gloriously soothing sonic landscapes with out-of-the-ordinary instruments and a heavy load of layers. Their third album Choral lands February 17 and can be heard in full on Future Perfect Radio.