Swedish vocal and drums outfit Wildbirds Peacedrums, whose debut album album, Heatcore, was released last year on Leaf, are now set to release it’s follow up, The Snake, on 13 April, once again on Leaf.

The Snake was originaly published in the band’s native land last year. Recorded in live conditions in Gothenburg, Sweden, the album is said to expand on the band’s original sound by introducing steel drums, piano, xylophone and marimba.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums are set to return to the UK for a string of live dates to coincide with the album release. Dates as follow:

1/04: Brighton
2/04: Norwich
3/04: Bristol
4/04: Sheffield
5/04: Glasgow
6/04: Manchester
7/04: London

Wildbirds & Peacedrums | The Leaf Label

Joshua Eustis, of New Orleans based duo Telefon Tel Aviv, today announced that his friend and ‘better half’ in the band, Charles Wesley Cooper III, had passed away on 22 January at the age of 31. In a message on the band’s myspace page, Eustis paid tribute to his long term friend, who he described as ‘a total sweetheart of a guy, a loving friend and confident to people everywhere.’

John Hughes, head of Chicago-based Hefty Records, who released the band’s first two albums, also paid tribute to Cooper on the label’s website, saying that ‘Cooper was an integral part of my label, but more importantly, my life. [...] The most defining memories of my career in music were spent with Telefon Tel Aviv’.

Telefon Tel Aviv released their third full length record, Immolate Yourself, on Ellen AlLien’s BPtich Control last Monday.

No further detail was given about the circumstances of Cooper’s death.

Our thoughts are with Charlie’s family and with Joshua Eustis.

Telefon Tel Aviv | Telefon Tel Aviv (MySpace)

Experimental French imprint Bip-hop, which has just delivered the first studio album by Brighton-based artist Bela Emerson and the ninth instalment in its excellent Bip-hop Generation series, will be celebrating ten years at the forefront of experimental music with an exclusive CD given away to subscribers with the March issue of The Wire.

The label, spearheaded by music activist Philippe Petit, a music journalist, radio DJ and musician, amongst other things, has released music by artists as diverse as Si-Cut.db, Twine, Spaceheads, Scanner, Angel, Iris Garrelfs, Rothko, Bovine Life, Janek Schaefer or the third collaborative effort between Max Eastley and David Toop, and featured the likes of Murcof, Burnt Friedman, Arovane, Datach’I, Schneider TM, Phonem, Ilpo Vaisänen, Taylor Deupree or FM3.

In 2002, the label started a new series of collaborative efforts entitled Reciprocess +/vs. in which two artists offered common compositions and remixes of each other’s work. So far, two volumes have been made available; the first one was a collaboration between Scottish artist Bovine Life, AKA Chris Dooks, and German artist Komet (Frank Bretschneider), and the second documented the collaboration between Stephan Mathieu and Douglas Benford. The CD given away in next month’s issue of The Wire is the third installment in this series, but this time, the project is curated by Philippe Petit and will feature eighty minutes of material from Aidan Baker, Chapter 24, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Simon Fisher Turner, Klangwart, Douglas Benford, Martkovo, Bela Emerson, Kumo, Eugene S. Robinson, Severin 24, Jason Forrest, Lydia Lunch, Jean-Hervé Peron, Strings  Of Consciousness, Sybarite, Jeru and dDamage.

Bip-Hop | Philippe Petit (MySpace)

The Black Dog will be releasing the follow-up to last year’s Radio Scarecrow on 9 April on Scottish imprint Soma. The album, entitled Further Vexations, is announced as a continuation of the themes running through its predecessor, with a slight orientation toward ‘dark club atmosphere’, due in part to the extensive touring the band did during last year.

The album was inspired by ‘the amount of personal freedoms being surrendered under the banner of “for your own safety”’ says The Black Dog’s Martin Dust about the album’s political aspect, evoking the rise of CCTV, biometrics and world wide databases and the apathy of the general public to react against these.

The band will be playing a string of live dates in the run up to the album release, as follow:

06/02: Berlin, Germany
20/02: Ljubuanja, Slovenia
21/03: Brussels, Belgium
4/04: Derry, Ireland

Additional dates to be added.

The Black Dog | Soma Quality Recordings

Brooklyn-based duo Mountains are set to release their third album on Thrill Jockey early in 2009.

The follow-up to their 2006 album Sewn, which was released on their own Apestaartje imprint, Choral was largely recorded live during winter and spring 2008 at home in Brooklyn, and features the pair’s trademark atmospheric Blend of treated acoustic and electronic sounds and field recordings.

Track listing is as follow:
Choral, Map Table, Telescope, Add Infinity, Melodica and Sheets Two

Thrill Jockey

Kid606 and Boxcutter head a lineup of local, national and international acts for Audioscope 2008, an all-day event in support of national housing and homelessness charity Shelter at the Jericho, in Oxford on Saturday 15 November.

Since 2001, AUDIOSCOPE has raised more than £17,000 for Shelter through live music events, presenting the best in local and national independent music in the process.

This year’s bill is topped by San Diego’s *Kid606*, who is one of the most exciting and influential electronic musicians around, mixing up the hardest, most danceable excesses of techno, breakbeat, dubstep, bassline and pretty much everything that’s great about electronica in 2008.

The show also features Boxcutter, who is one of the most influential figures on the UK dubstep scene; Leeds-based That Fucking Tank, one of the most energetic and confrontational bands around; The Oscillation, who play a bewildering mix of pop songs and expansive psychedelic freakouts that demands comparison with the harder edge of krautrock and bands like Spiritualized or Loop; plus performances from Oxford-based stars Witches, The Workhouse (who play their only gig this year at the event) and Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element, who also organise the festival.

Acts who have supported Audioscope by playing in the past include Four Tet, Explosions in the Sky, Clinic, Luke Vibert, Scout Niblett, Damo Suzuki (Can), Michael Rother (Kraftwerk, Neu!), Clark, The Young Knives, Electrelane and a host of other bands from across the UK and beyond.

Tickets for the 15 November event are on sale for £11 in advance at www.wegottickets.com, who will also donate the 50p booking fee to Shelter, or for £12 on the door. The event runs from 1.00 pm until 12.00 midnight.

Audioscope | Shelter | wegottickets.com

After years of silence, there is now a flurry of activity in the B12 camp with a number of releases announced. Following their first album in over ten years, Last Days Of Silence, released earlier this year, Mike Golding and Steve Rutter have announced the imminent release of Last Days Of Silence – Remixes, which features the pair’s reworking of a handful of tracks from the album, plus two completely new tracks. The album, which is due to be released on limited edition CD, and digital download, each containing eight tracks, and picture disc four-track sampler, will focused on the more atmospheric side of the duo. The album is due out on 20 October, and is available to order from the B12 website from Monday 13 October.

The duo will also make the entire B12 Records archive available for the first time on CD. In total, 98 tracks, released between 1990 and 2005 plus 27 previously unreleased tracks, will be collected on seven double CDs, with the first CD released on 17 November, with the following CDs released one at a time over the course of seven months. All tracks have been digitally remastered.

B12 Records

Tom Jenkinson is back, with his twelfth album as Squarepusher. Just A Souvenir is based on a strange dream Jenkinson had some time ago about a rock band playing a gig using modified or unusual instruments. Jenkinson headed down to his studio shortly after and spent a couple of weeks writing and recording, resulting in this fourteen track album.

Just A Souvenir, the first Squarepusher album since 2006’s Hello Everything, will be released on CD and LP by Warp Records on 27 October. The album is already available to download from Bleep.com.

To coincide with the release of the album, Squarepusher will be hitting the road for a few selected European and UK live dates, as follow:

19/11: Paris, France
21/11: Graz, Austria
22/11: Budapest, Hungary
26/11: Berlin, Germany
28/11: Amsterdam, Netherlands
30/11: Ghent, Belgium
5-7/12: All Tomorrow’s Parties’ Nightmare Before Christmas, Minehead, UK
11/12: Glasgow, UK
12/12: Manchester, UK

Squarepusher | Warp Records

Musician extraordinaire Fernando Corona, AKA Murcof, is set to return to the UK this autumn for a string of live dates during which he will perform a specially composed suite of music entitled Océano with members of Spanish classical ensemble BCN 216. Mexican-born Fernando Corona, who now lives in Barcelona, first emerged back in 2002 with his stunning debut album, Martes, on which he combined fine electronics, micro-beats and classical samples. He has since released three further album and toured extensively. Last year, Murcof performed tracks from his most recent album, Cosmos in planetarium across Europe, including at the newly re-opened Greenwich Planetarium in London.

This tour will be the first opportunity to see Murcof perform with a full set of classical musicians. Audio visual artist Flicker will provide visuals. The tour will coincide with the release of a new album, The Versailles Sessions, on The Leaf Label, although Océano and The Versailles Sessions are different pieces.

Full tour listing:

14/11: Reading, South Street Arts Centre
15/11: Bristol, Arnolfini
16/11: Birmingham, Hare & Hounds
17/11: Brighton, Duke Of York’s Picture House
18/11: Liverpool, The Bluecoat
19/11: Oxford, Holywell Music Room
20/11: London, Purcell Rooms, South Bank Centre
21/11: Norwich, Arts Centre
22/11: Belfast: Sonic Arts Research Centre

Murcof | Murcof (MySpace) | The Leaf Label

Canadian music magazine Textura is embarking on a new venture with the launch of their record label. The first release is a very limited album entitled Kubla Khan, named after the eighteenth century poem Kublan Khan Or A Vision In A Dream, A Fragment by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The album features the exclusive work of four very different artists and formations: Alexander Turnquist, Ryan Francesconi, who contributes two solo tracks and one with Lili De La Mora, The Retail Sectors and orchestramaxfieldparrish.

Kubla Khan is not a compilation in the traditional meaning of the word as it features specially commissioned work and actually works as an overall listening experience. The CD, of which only 500 copies have been pressed, is available from the Textura website.

Textura