For a while I tried to keep track of the rumors surrounding Joanna Newsom’s next album, but eventually gave up.

Tonight my roommate mentioned something about it coming out, and lo and behold, it’s being released in a week and there are tracks streaming on Drag City’s website.

Well… I can’t wait. The song up on Drag City right now (Kingfisher) didn’t immediately catch me but I’ve listened to it a few times and each time it’s growing on me… It took months before I really “got” Ys, and every once in a while I’ll put it on and listen to it on repeat for days before I decide that I can bare to listen to something else, so I am going to hold off on making any real judgment calls until I’ve had a chance to listen to the album a few dozen times. A triple LP/CD??!?! It’s going to be… amazing.  But… Andy Samberg?? Really?!

Another album’s release occurred without me noticing—Yeasayer’s Odd Blood. I couldn’t get enough of the song Ambling Alp when it was released in the fall or whenever. I still put it on every mix I make for friends or for myself. I wasn’t super psyched for the full album, because I thought their first was absolutely dreadful, and I watched some live videos on Youtube of other new songs and found them equally unlistenable, but as it turns out, the album is quite good.

On a completely unrelated note, I recently had the good fortune of hearing probably one of the most exquisite performances of my life. In the tea room at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, packed so full that it was sweltering inside despite the cold outside, I heard Agave Baroque present a program of works by Henry Purcell and some of his contemporaries on period instruments. The harpsichord alone seemed to take up 1/3 of the room.  Henry Purcell’s complete set of secular songs on Hyperion has been getting a lot of play in my headphones lately, and I was quite excited for this concert. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for this performance, which was just… I mean… there is nothing that I can really say to give justice to it, except to say perhaps that if you were not there, you missed out on a rare treat.

Because every single band in Atlanta (and the entire world) is insanely influenced by Holy Mountain director/composer/actor/set and costume designer Alejandro Jodorowsky’s work. Take, for example, the video for “Ambling Alp,” Yeasayer’s latest single:

A deserted desert? Huge amounts of unglamorized and unsexualized nudity? Mystical themes and mysterious rituals? Those are the hallmarks of Jodorowsky’s style, and the video is clearly a very well considered Jodorowsky homage. Closer to home, I’ve seen two different Atlanta bands playing with Holy Mountain projected behind them. The first Holy Mountain spotting was courtesy of El Fossil*. The second, a week later, was at a Tree Creature show.

Of course, after seeing all those references from my favorite local bands, I had to re-watch Holy Mountain. Disappointingly, the film doesn’t quite have the oomph I remembered from the first time I saw it. The scenes feel ridiculously drawn out, and the spectacle of (for example) seeing hundreds of birds fly out of a disemboweled mans stomach feels more silly then spiritually significant on second viewing.

Still, I’d recommend checking out Holy Mountain, if only to see where some of your favorite bands get their ideas.

*El Fossil play awesome surf-rock music. If that’s what you’re into, check out BeAtlanta.com’s in review of the band (with videos).

The somewhat awesome Brooklyn band Yeasayer has an interactive website to advertise its newest single and it’s very neat. Kinda Like being inside a crystal orb as part of a seance involving naked Brooklyn hipster-hippies. It has nudity, unsettling new-agey noise music and all sorts of spooky stuff that you’d probably barely associate with the single it advertises. It’s nice, however, to see that more mainstream Brooklyn artists are still trying to be “far out” instead of just being lo-fi and shambolic. Keepin it alive! Anyway, this is a compelling way to share music for promotional purposes rather than just giving it to the same blogs and it’s a reminder that the internet should still feel stange and interesting, as it’s not really felt that way lately, save for events such as the Blue Spiral above Norway which I will now post a video for:

I don’t know what that is, but it’s NOT a missile. Some time ago during the golden-era of the internet I discovered the HAARP Project and it seems like one of the most credible conspiracy theories that I was made aware of.  If the internet seems like its all regurgitated hype and gossip, at least it’s giving us several videos of the Blue Spiral. If it was ten years ago I would have to wait for Sightings or Unsolved Mysteries to see this kind of stuff.

Not sure exactly how to relate these two, just that the internet should still make you feel like you’re an explorer with discoveries still to find.

Now that White Trash has become one swarming pigsty of tourists, more tourists and American rockabillies, you have to go a little further afield to find a decent eatery and bar. Casolare by the canal in Kreuzberg is run by the italian punk mafia in Berlin, who also have restaurants in Mitte and Friedrichshain, and is perfect for hearty, authentic pizza and convivial drinking. You can sit outside with up to 20 people at one table, while enjoying live music from passing streetbands on Admiralsbrücke.