September 7, 2007

Update For Cutie, Radiohead, Björk

Slow Fridays are good for one thing: studio progress updates! Although, today has been kind of special as far as non-news studio news goes. So, here's the trifecta...

First up: Radiohead! LP7's like old faithful for reportage on the studio status front, but this one's more juicy than some of our past drool sessions. The last quasi-confirmed progress report came when Colin told some fans at East Village bar Hi-Fi that the band was in town to finish mastering the record. Today's report is more substantial: brother Jonny confirms to Paste that the album's done! But they have no idea when they'll release it. They're out of contract with EMI, so first thing first, they've gotta get a label.

Next on the docket, reports of a new Death Cab record.

Billboard's telling the world that Gibbard and the Cuties have just finished two weeks of pre-production and are hitting the studio hard mid-September to knock out the follow-up to Plans, the indie rockers second major-label release. Two interesting notes: Plans sold 902,000 records in the US, and there are no plans for a Postal Service record at present (don't believe what you read in SPIN, kids).

And finally, after declaring independence in support of Volta, Björk's aiming for one more studio release this year, a "live session" album featuring her touring army. Details are sketchy, although apparently Björk did some recording with her road crew while at Coachella. If you've seen her live, you know she's rearranging her tunes dramatically on this tour. So whether it's new material or re-recordings, should be a good time. She elaborates to Billboard:

But having two guys on electronics and one drummer means that I can go as macho as it is possible for me (and) do the hooligan songs. The brass helps out, with that obviously being quite 'butch,' but also makes it easy for me to do musically complex numbers. So overall the importance is on dynamism -- really, really quiet songs and really, really loud ones.

Macho, butch, hooligan. Love it. So, that's the three we've got for ya. You guys hear about anything else we should keep an ear out for?