Perhaps it was foolish to imagine that my first week back from the holiday break wouldn't be that busy, but I've been working late and partying later, as is my way. I bought tickets to some shows recently which I'm quite excited for (Man Man, Midlake, Peter Bjorn and John), and I'll be sure to get my cranky, morning-hating self out of bed tomorrow to score tickets for the Arcade Fire. 9AM will come quickly, and these tickets will sell out even quicker.

In other recent events, I caught Illinois again last month at Pianos. Twice, actually. It was a bit different this time around: when I previously saw them, they were a little drunk, very relaxed, and sounded awesome. This time the audience was full of industry folks, all there to see them. The first night, this definitely made them nervous, but they have such a charming stage presence it didn't hurt them too much. The next night, they were on, everything sounded great and everyone had a good time. Also, it's now official: Ace Fu will be releasing an EP from Illinois sometime this spring, probably March or April. You can hear a couple of tracks from it on their MySpace page, I can't wait to get a hold of this. And if you were lucky enough to get tickets, you can catch them opening up for Cold War Kids in a couple weeks at the Mercury Lounge. Personally, I hope that show gets moved to the Bowery, as that's where CWK should be playing, and then I'll be able to get in.

I've started giving my backlog of 2007 releases some love again, and I'm really digging on a few records already: the new Deerhoof is great, the new Of Montreal is growing on me fast, the Menomena record is strong, and I just got a hold of Amon Tobin's newest, which sounds pretty fucking cool and different if you're into him. I'm most certainly into him. This time around, he didn't sample anything, but had musicians record everything that he would later chop up into songs that fuck my mind.

I got word today that the Arcade Fire wrapped up recording and mastering their new record Neon Bible three weeks ago! How it is that they've kept that a secret, and that no one leaked an unfinished/unmastered version of the record is a little surprising but very cool. I can't wait to hear this, I'm digging the two tracks I already have very much.

Labels: Arcade Fire, Concert Reviews, Illinois