A couple weeks ago, we told you that the new Shearwater album, The Golden Archipelago, is coming out February 23 in North America (and February 15 internationally), via Matador. Now, there's plenty more info about the epic indie band's upcoming LP, which is "the third album in a triptych of excursions about man's impact on the natural world," according to an admirably breathless post on Matador's website. The cover is above, and below you'll find the tracklist as well as a stream and download of the song "Castaways".

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Playing into the band's over-the-top tendencies, the CD and LP are both packaged with a "50-page perfect-bound book featuring a set of extracts from...

Photo by Elena Johnston; front page photo by Eirik Lande On Beach House's forthcoming album, Teen Dream, the BNM'ed new single "Norway" is preceded by "Silver Soul", and the long organ sustain that begins "Norway" is also the ending of "Silver Soul". Like "Norway", "Silver Soul" adds some new textures and colors to the Baltimore duo's dreamy, fluttering slow-core. This time out, there's downtuned distorto-guitar and cymbal wash mixed in with all that sleepy haze. Stream the song at Aziz

One for your diaries next week - Graham Fitkin: Piano Concerto Ruse – world première Wednesday 9 December 2009, 7.30pm London Chamber Orchestra St. John’s, Smith Square According to the composer: ‘There is no particular theme, but it’s brutal, rhythmic as well as being f**king hard for the soloist!’ More details and booking here.

Photo by Francis Chung

UPDATE: The Mew live album has been cancelled, according to Columbia.

Outrageous Danish prog rockers Mew impressed Trent Reznor enough for the Nine Inch Nails frontman to invite them out on tour earlier this year. And one of their opening sets will be immortalized on the upcoming live album Live from the Hollywood Palladium, which is due out digitally this Monday, December 7, via Columbia. The tracklist is below. Mew are currently on the road in North America.

In other Mew news, lead singer/guitarist Jonas Bjerre has teamed up with Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman and a-ha guitarist/keyboardist Magne Furuholmen...

Raekwon doesn't just break into bank vaults. He breaks into bank vaults and throws parties in them. That's the message of the video for Rae's "Surgical Gloves", one of the many, many highlights of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II. The entertainingly grim low-budget clip is part of a string of muddy, menacing Cuban Linx II videos that also includes "Catalina" and "Walk Wit Me". The best part comes around the three-minute mark, when Rae gamely air-pianos along with Alchemist's sinister beat.

Check it out below or over at Pitchfork.tv.

This week on Disquiet.com, all five daily Downstream entries are going to be culled from the great resource soundcloud.com. I’m at soundcloud.com/disquiet. One person’s sonic experiment is another’s everyday listening. “Petron” by Esbie (aka Sarah Brown) is just that: “the sound of an empty Petron bottle, pitch shifted over 3 octaves in Reason.” The raw material [...]

The story of the premiere of This Thread is one that I hope will serve to inspire ideas for how orchestras can successfully present new music.

By Colin Holter Name as many pieces as you can in the key of C major.

01 Peu Importe – a (3:00) 02 Peu Importe – b (2:48) 03 Peu Importe – Sale Chtaar (1:40) 04 Peu Importe – Une TV (3:59) 05 Peu Importe – e (1:14) 06 Peu Importe – f (1:29) 07 Peu Importe – g (1:23) 08 Peu Importe – h (4:13) 09 Peu Importe – Air de Repos (1:10) 10 Peu Importe – j (1:11) 11 [...]