FN News Roundup: April 6, 2012

Patti Smith @ Webster Hall, 9/8/11

Happy Friday, kids! I'm typing this while watching the Yankees' opening game and streaming Screaming Females' new album Ugly in preparation for tonight's Bell House show (Tickets still available! Go!), so pleaze porden ani typus.

• The world-renowned Metropolitan Museum has announced its 2012-13 "Met Museum Presents" concert series with a hell of an opener: Patti Smith celebrating Andy Warhol! That's happening on September 28 (ticket info here) with Dean & Britta a little over a week later, so the Met is bringing the heat. No official word on their cheesesteak policy as of press time (New York Times)


• Few artists have the power to make the Internet collectively flip when they kinda-sorta-announce something, and one such artist is Kevin Shields - who kinda-sorta-announced that a NEW MY BLOODY VALENTINE ALBUM might be out later on this year! He's technically been saying that over and over again in the 21 years since Loveless came out... but hey, get cautiously psyched! (Pitchfork)


• Hope you were ready to hear a new Timbaland & Missy Elliott track today, because that's exactly what's happening right now (Beats Per Minute)


• Still bummed you didn't get into the Kraftwerk retrospective shows at the Museum of Modern Art? Well here's some good news - starting tomorrow (4/7), the MoMA will be exclusively selling a new limited-edition version of the band's The Catalogue 8-album box set! (Rolling Stone)


• And as a little parting gift for the weekend, stream Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt's sophomore solo album as Lotus Plaza, Spooky Action At A Distance after the jump. No sophomore slump here - easily going to wind up high on my Top Albums of 2012 list, and a must-listen for any Deerhunter fan (A.V. Club)

FN News Morning Roundup: March 14, 2012

Special morning edition of the News Roundup, with stuff I compiled yesterday as well as some new stuff. Stuff!

• Download the Melvins' new EP, The Bulls & The Bees, for free courtesy of Scion AV, and watch the video for leadoff track "The War On Wisdom" below! (BrooklynVegan)
• ::deep breath:: THERE'S GOING TO BE A NEW BOARDS OF CANADA ALBUM SOON! (Prefix Mag)
• You can stream Port of Marrow, the new album from The Shins, if you feel like it. (Consequence of Sound)
• The leadoff single from Lotus Plaza's upcoming album, "Strangers," is my new favorite thing at the moment - perfect for the warm weather here in NYC. Pick up Spooky Action At A Distance when it drops on April 2, which is soon!(Kranky)
• Whistling Chicagoan Andrew Bird stopped by The Colbert Report last night for a typically hilarious interview, after which he performed "EyeonEye" and "Danse Caribe" from Break It Yourself (Pitchfork)

Lockett Pundt Announces New Album & Releases New Single (+ Spring 2012 Tour Dates)

We give a ton of credit to frontman Bradford Cox for the continuing greatness of the Atlanta ambient punk band Deerhunter, but anyone who got lost in tracks like "Desire Lines" and "Fountain Stairs" off of Halcyon Digest knows how crucial guitarist Lockett Pundt is to the group's appeal. Pundt's 2009 solo album under his Lotus Plaza moniker, The Floodlight Collective, is an outstanding headphones-in-a-moonlit-room listening experience, and as Pitchfork reports, he's ready to release a follow-up album this spring entitled Spooky Action At A Distance.

The album drops on April 2 via Kranky and will be the focus on Pundt's upcoming tour that's starting on March 7 at Atlanta's 529. He'll swing up this way to play Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn on April 19 with labelmates Disappears - tickets for that show are available now, and it's likely the best $12 you'll spend today. Check out more tour dates along with the album tracklist after the jump.

To get a sense of where his head's at for this album, you can check out the new 10" split single that will come out on Valentine's Day via Audraglint. It features a new 9-minute shoegazey Lotus Plaza track called "Come Back," along with a song recorded  as Nice Weekend with his fiancee Shayda Yavari. Stream the Lotus Plaza track after the jump or check out the full split single over on Spotify.