Photo by Ryan Russell

While we hear that Pelican plans on hibernating this winter and emerging with a new album sometime next year, the band’s still plugging away with the promotion of their current long player, City of Echoes. That includes their headlining spot on this month’s Hydra Head’s “Champions of Sound” tour, as well as the Headbanger’s Ball premiere of the band’s “Lost in the Headlights” video.

Check it after the jump and be sure to look out for the cameo from a certain Juan Perez. (self-titled staff writer, J. Bennett, also contributed to the shoot. Check out his Jay Reatard cover story here.)
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RADIOHEAD @ All Points West

MySpace Music premiered Radiohead’s latest video today, an animated “Reckoner” clip that was one of four finalists in a contest hosted by aniBoom. Clement Picon of France won $10,000 to turn his one-minute edit into a full-length cartoon production, as promised by a promotion that drew 1,000 entries from more than 150 cities, 40 countries and all five continents. (Antarctica doesn’t count.)

“The aniBoom video competition, totally blown me away it has,” Thom Yorke said in a statement. “We are proud that In Rainbows songs were the source of inspiration for so many amazing creations.”

Three additional winners will have their works shown in the coming weeks. You can take a look at what beat them right now though …

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We fell pretty damn hard for Poni Hoax earlier this year thanks to the seamless dance-rock symmetry of their second LP, Images of Sigrid (Tigersushi). Now before you scoff at the very idea of yet another band schooled in the art of Joy Division, Giorgio Moroder and the Talking Heads, know this: Poni Hoax’s music is more like a modern day update of classic French cold-wave music (see the excellent So Young But So Cold, BIPP compilations) than a Parisian spin on Bloc Party or Franz Ferdinand. They’re also diametrically-opposed to the Ed Banger-backed stereotype of French dance tracks being nothing but distorted, speaker-singeing synths and crowd-pleasing bits of electro, hip-hop and filtered disco. Basically, Images of Sigrid is an album you play while driving through rain-pelted streets at midnight, not your everyday collection of club bangers.

To find out more, check out the second issue of self-titled, which comes out next month and features a Poni Hoax profile. The above clip is from a popular French/German TV show and looks like it was actually lifted from 1984.

Um, yeah. We blame the ’80s. (Just look at those outfits!)

Hey, at least David Bowie and Mick Jagger didn’t follow their original plan for 1985’s “Live Aid” movement: covering the Bob Marley standard “One Love.” Either way, it should be noted that this ridiculous Martha and the Vandellas cover gave rise to the proto-Brangelina term, JaBo.

Crystal Castles - Crimewave (Crystal Castles VS. Health)

So this (neo-goth subtleties, strobe-tastic live shows) is why Crystal Castles recently scored a fashion spread in SPIN, five months after their debut dropped.

So we might as well dub the next couple days “…And You Will Us By the Trail of Posts” week. Aside from our review of last night’s special …Trail of Dead set and a studio report on the band’s sixth album that’s arriving later this afternoon, a reader just forwarded the double-take documentary above. All we’ve got to say is they haven’t changed a bit …

nudge ‘cymatic’ from nudge on Vimeo.

It’s been a while since we last heard a long-player from Nudge, although a perpetually-delayed EP is promised through Audraglint in September. Until then, there’s this exclusive track to help promote this year’s Brainwaves Festival. You don’t have to be stoned to enjoy it, but it might help.

Check out self-titled’s Sigur Rós coverage here.

“Meh” review of their new record aside, we still dig The Faint’s back catalog of pitch dark dance-rock jams; enough that we’ll be right up front for their Terminal 5 show later this month. (Dude, Antipop Consortium is opening!) Anyway, check the above clip to see what we mean and keep the faith.

While K.I.M. of The Presets already told self-titled everything we need to know about Australia (remember, koalas are not cuddly; they’re STD-ridden), we couldn’t help but share the latest music video from Apocalypso. In the capable hands of some directorial duo named Jonas & François, “Talk Like That” is turned into a creepy meditation on obsessive dance-rock fans that may or may not look like cracked-out models.

As a bonus for paying attention, we’ve also include the Lifelike remix of “This Boy’s In Love” after the jump …

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