[Photos by Andrew Parks]

Franz Ferdinand finally unveiled specific details about their third full-length at a not-so-secret Brooklyn show last night, from its title (Tonight) to six new songs that hinted at how different the LP may be.

“The last record was fast, furious, frantic, 150 beats per minute—it was like a teenager having sex,” frontman Alex Kapranos recently said in a BBC News interview. “This one’s a bit more assured and a bit friendlier for the dancefloor. It’s about 104/105 bpm.”

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[Photos by Will Calcutt]

By Andrew Parks

Matthew Dear is what most people would call a true professional. Aside from being able to balance three distinct aliases like a purposeful schizophrenic (the dank, psychedelic peak-hour anthems of Audion, the manic minimal techno of False, and the avant-pop approach of namesake albums like 2007’s justifiably-acclaimed Asa Breed LP), he treats tedious, thankless tasks as what they really are: part of the job description when you want to be seen as a continent-crossing, boundary-breaking DJ/producer/performer. That includes the following E-mail interview, which Dear feverishly delivered from an airport terminal … on the way to a wedding in Kentucky.

Yes, Kentucky. Which is quite far from where he’ll be this Sunday—playing a live set in the second-to-last slot of New York’s first-ever Minitek festival, right before sometime label boss Richie Hawtin. It’s one of two Audion appearances planned over the next month, yet another burst of productivity and split personalities that brings with it more “Big Hands” dates (his trio version of Matthew Dear tracks) and the seventh installment of Get Physical’s Body Language series. According to a press release that was slipped to self-titled a little early, “Matthew’s eagerly-awaited Body Language mix is a very personal selection, and one which reflects his own artistic interests, concerns and strategies. In a sense, he approached the project literally, seeking to explore aspects of both the ‘body’ and ‘language’ in his selection and ultimately achieve a marriage of the two … Meanwhile, the mix’s rhythmic default is one of sinewy, dancefloor-aimed 4×4 grooves, ‘body’ music at its purest and most devastating.”

Be sure to scroll all the way down for the s/t exclusive cover art and tracklisting, as well as Dear’s live dates. But first, a spontaneous Q&A …

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[Photos by Shawn Brackbill]

By Andrew Parks

The last time I spoke to Conrad Keely for a story, he was ‘borrowing’ the gargantuan office of an Interscope exec for the entire week. Not just conducting interviews for the afternoon; we’re talking some serious mi oficina es tu oficina action, as the …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead frontman chipped away at the artwork and sequencing of the band’s last major label album (2006’s So Divided).

In retrospect, the idea of Keely roaming free in a skyscraper suite (the room had a goddamn stand-in shower) is ironic to say the least. After all, Trail’s break from Interscope was far from amicable, leading Keely to completely reconsider his career path after more than a decade of tireless recording and touring.

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Yep, you read that right. In what likely won’t be the last final-hour full-length announcement of 2008, Bloc Party has announced the August 21 release of their third album, Intimacy. The band revealed all this excitement  today during their first-ever Web chat with fans.

According to a press release, Intimacy is the product of two sessions: one with Paul Epworth (Silent Alarm) in Kent and one with Jacknife Lee (A Weekend in the City) in London. Apparently, “Some songs are Bloc Party at their most wildly experimental, while other tracks are simply classic Bloc Party, fitting in seamlessly amongst fan-favorites ‘Helicopter’, ‘Banquet’ and ‘So Here We Are’.” We’re hoping for more of the latter considering the trip-hop-you-don’t-stop clumsiness of BP’s current single, “Mercury.”

Anyone interested in purchasing Intimacy can pre-order the CD pressing at www.blocparty.com. It’ll arrive on October 27 and feature bonus cuts that won’t be on this week’s digital version.

Check the tracklisting after the jump …

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self-titled was so blown away by Cursive’s live preview of their next LP that we hunted down Tim Kasher for a rundown of where the record’s at. Here’s what he had to say …

It started … let me think here … about a year and a half ago, when (bassist) Matt (Magin) and I began the discussion of whether we should do a sixth Cursive record or not. We tend to take these things “one record at a time,” focusing on the material at hand, with no plans for future records—just the one in our heads at the time. This time around, we didn’t much feel like doing another “Cursive” record, but DID have the urge to write something; something together, but without the proverbial rudder of that band name and its five previous records steering the direction of the music. So we decided we would simply write a record, write it any old way we wanted, and if it sounds like Cursive, we’ll call it Cursive. If it sounds so erratically different that it can’t be Cursive, then we’ll go through the nauseating process of finding a new band name.

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Good news from the wild streets of Wilmington, Delaware: The Spinto Band, self-titled’s favorite indie pop act, has finally finished their latest full-length and is close to sealing the deal with a new label. Not only that; they’ve also confirmed a month-long Thursday night residency at Brooklyn’s Union Hall.

“We are hoping for more of a bro-down than a concert atmosphere at these shows,” explains guitarist Jon Eaton, “And think Union Hall is the perfect setting.”

The dates and details:

7/17 — with Emily Brodsky, TBA
7/24 — with Sin City Band, TBA
7/31 — with Pepi Ginsburg, Balls of Flame Shoot Fire
8/7 — with Public Record, TBA

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We’ll have a full report—Dan Boeckner commentary track and all—on Wolf Parade’s latest LP, At Mount Zoomer, when it drops in a couple weeks. For now, Boeckner had a few details to reveal about the Handsome Furs record he’s currently working on with his wife, multi-instrumentalist Alexei Perry.

“This one sounds really heavy, with short songs—getting down to, like, Black Flag territory,” explains Boeckner. “We actually wrote a straight-up hardcore song yesterday. No joke.”

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In Studio A of Manhattan’s Legacy Studios, Common gave self-titled and a couple other choice publications an eight-song preview of his new album, Invincible Summer, which he says will be released in mid-July. Believe it or not, the record—partially inspired by the months the rapper spent in Prague while acting in the upcoming film Wanted—is tailor-made for clubs.

Here are our scattered, unedited notes from the session …

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Well, sorta. Here’s what the Prodigy mastermind said to say about the still-unfinished affair during a lengthy interview, the entirety of which will be posted here soon:

I’ve got the album title, which I can’t tell you. I’ve got the song titles, which I can’t tell you. I mean, I want to talk to you about it but it’s not the time yet. Anyway, it’s pretty all over the place, with the one similarity being that they will all be played live. It’s a more exciting sounding record than the last one. Some would say it was more of a solo project, which we needed to do at the time. This is definitely more of an album getting us back towards [where we were at the beginning].

Howlett also had a lot of nice things to say about the UK’s current dubstep trend, as well as Justice, whom he called “really exciting. When you’re dealing with Justice, you’re dealing with quality. It’s not just immature. It’s sick.” A Prodigy album possibly influenced by Justice and dubstep? Who knows? Whatever happens, Howlett hopes to have the record done and ready for a 2008 release.

Oh, by the way: The Prodigy would have played SxSW this year … had they finished the damn disc.

While the recent announcement of Sunday at Devil Dirt—the second full-length from the sweet and sour pairing of Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell—may seem like a surprise to most given Lanegan just released the Gutter Twins’ debut, we know better over here at self-titled. Why? Because Campbell told us the duo was almost done with another album a few months back—when a few simple questions about working with the former Screaming Tree turned into quite the insightful Q&A.

The true dirt after the jump …

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