"It is bright, vivacious and lots of fun."
The Observer

"Chirpy retro-orchestral arrangements and toe-tapping chamber-pop whirl by like an ornamental carousel, with a rigid rhythm section powering the engine within."
Financial Times

"One of their sharpest, tightest efforts ... And as ever, Sadier's sweet'n'sultry vocals draw you in and never let go."
The Sun

"Stereolab are still smarter than the average band."
Mixmag


Today marks the release of Chemical Chords, the new album from Stereolab. It is also their 4AD debut.

As The Wire recently said "a new Stereolab album can sometimes feel intensely needed," and with Chemical Chords (the eleventh album in an illustrious career), this rings true.

Chemical Chords began life in early-2007 when Tim Gane started messing with “a series of about seventy tiny drum loops” on top of improvised chord sequences using piano and vibraphone. “Building them up from there – later slowing the tracks down or speeding them up – a totally new way of doing songs for us…”

With typical prolificacy, the band laboured over the summer at their studio, Instant Zero (in Bordeaux, France), helping transform these blueprints into thirty two luminous new songs, with keyboardist/technician Joe Watson manning the mixing desk. Half the new repertoire was selected for this album, which, for all the breathless spontaneity of its invention, is arguably the band’s tautest, most highly focused work this century.

According to Tim Gane, it's a collection of “purposefully short, dense, fast pop songs,” brimming with Motown-like drums, O’Hagan’s finest baroque-pop brass and string arrangements and etched with some of Sadier’s most eloquent, mellifluous vocal performances to date. It is, nonetheless, classic Stereolab; like all their best work, a perfect equipoise between an implausibly cool past and a shamelessly exotic future.

Click here to read Tim Gane talking about the tracks that make up the new album.

Click here to see if Stereolab are playing a town near you soon.

It's a crazy world this business we call music; we've had the Radiohead pay what you want, the Prince stick it on a newspaper, the NIN give it away and even the Cliff Richard bid-up.tv model and now make way for the most honest, lovely way of releasing a record in the world... ever:

The "price at what the artist thinks it's worth" - the 'Minotaur Shock'!

Minotaur Shock, aka Bristolian David Edwards, purveyor of memorable electronic tunes, has painstakingly rated each track on his third album Amateur Dramatics and you pay what he reckons each track is worth - measured on technical difficulty, musical difficulty, extra musicians, computer crashing and other considerations.

You can pick and choose from tracks ranging from 33p to 75p, or even buy the whole thing for (the accumulative) £6.41.

It's all here: www.minotaurshock.com

And there's an extensive and rib-tickling run-down through each tracks rating. We hope you enjoy it as much as we here at 4AD do.

While you can buy direct from www.minotaurshock.com, the album is also available from iTunes and Boomkat.com (who sell high quality MP3s (320kbps) and FLAC/lossless files)

Should you need further encouragement, here are some press quotes to encourage the more traditional of you to take Amateur Dramatics seriously...

"The fun/replay rating of David's strident, soulful, toyshop electronica is pretty high throughout."
The Fader

"Such utilitarian valuing belies his music's beauty."
NME

"A rare beauty from the bargain basement."
Metro

"A mature, playful album which flits between genres with aplomb."
Music Week

"A world we approve of - or, at least, Minotaur Shock's version of it."
Artrocker

David has since taken his scoring system idea to other aspects of his life and is currently working out which child of his he should save first in the event of a fire.

Jóhann Jóhannsson returns with a new album, Fordlândia on November 3rd (ROW) / 4th (US).

An American magnate builds a doomed utopia in the depths of the Brazilian rainforest. A Victorian poetess laments the death of Pan. A pagan rocket scientist blows himself up in his Californian garage. A crippled German physicist draws up the equations which can make faster than light travel possible, unseen by the rest of the world.

Jóhann Jóhannsson's spellbinding new album draws these tantalising threads together, weaving a musical tapestry of hypnotic richness and surprising emotional depth.

Jóhannsson makes stately, slow-building and hauntingly melodic music - which frequently combines electronic processing with classical orchestrations - that has been quietly bewitching listeners for the last few years. His first two solo records - Englabörn (2002), written for string quartet, percussion and electronics, and Virthulegu Forsetar (2004), written for brass ensemble, drones and percussion – were released by the singular British independent Touch label.

Englabörn was derived from music that Johann wrote for an Icelandic play using string quartet, piano, organ, glockenspiel and percussion. These elements were processed and manipulated, adding delicate electronic accents to the otherwise entirely acoustic recordings. Virthulegu Forsetar was a one hour-long piece for eleven brass players, percussion, electronics, organs and piano. It shares Englabörn's quiet, elegiac beauty, but replaces the brevity of the first album's exquisite miniatures with an extended sweep of sound that reveals a long, slow process of evolution.

Jóhann is involved in many different projects in his native Iceland, including the all-analog Apparat Organ Quartet and Kitchen Motors, the art organization/think tank/record label which specializes in instigating collaborations and art projects across diverse artforms. Among many other things, he has also recently composed scores for the award-winning animator Marc Craste (Varmints, 2008) and the American independent film Personal Effects (David Hollander, 2008).

Johann's first release for 4AD, IBM 1401 - A User's Manual (2006), involved a sixty-piece string orchestra recorded at Prague's legendary Barrandov sound stage and incorporated electronics and vintage reel-to-reel recordings of a 1960's IBM 1401 mainframe computer and its accompanying instruction manual.

After IBM 1401, A User's Manual, Fordlândia is the second instalment in a proposed trilogy based on technology and iconic American brand names. Whereas IBM 1401, A User's Manual was a personal response to technology and its inevitable obsolescence (inspired by his father's work with mainframe computers in 1960s Iceland), Fordlândia springs out of a far more diffuse set of influences. It brings together the soaring grandeur of its predecessor – some sections were recorded with the same orchestra in Prague – and the intimacy of Englabörn, moving between heady, melting cadences and crystalline motifs with gorgeous, dreamlike logic.

In short, Fordlândia is Jóhann Jóhannsson's most complete and beautiful piece of music to date; a fascinating, immersive and deeply rewarding web of ideas and melodies, which is sure to win him a legion of new listeners.

New to 4AD, Anni Rossi brings her debut release for the label in the form of Afton, a six-track EP.

From Minnesota via Los Angeles, 22-year old Anni is now based in Chicago. Having been classically trained from a young age, Anni is a most accomplished multi-instrumentalist and as you’ll hear, it’s the viola that forms the centerpiece to her music.

Her debut 4AD release, Afton is both an accomplished and confident set. Fleshed out to great effect, most tracks were recorded in October 2006 and have been available before in different forms on limited releases and her MySpace page. Collected on this EP for the first time, they work incredibly well together and introduce her perfectly as a new American alternative talent.

Anni has recently been working at Electrical Audio, Illinois with Steve Albini on her debut album, which is slated for release in the New Year.

She’s no slouch, having already extensively toured her solo work and honing her live performances to a jaw-dropping tee. She can also count artists like Electrelane and The Ting Tings among her admirers and has toured Europe and the US with both of them.

Anni Rossi is in the UK next in support of this release.

First there was Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, then there was Return To Cookie Mountain and soon there will be Dear Science,. That’s right, as announced on Pitchfork, TV On The Radio are indeed returning with their “long-awaited” ™ new album this Autumn. Entitled Dear Science, we will be releasing it on Monday September 22nd to the world outside North America. This is exciting news! The tracklisting reads a little like this...

1. Halfway Home
2. Crying
3. Dancing Choose
4. Stork & Owl
5. Golden Age
6. Family Tree
7. Red Dress
8. Love Dog
9. Shout Me Out
10. DLZ
11. Lover's Day

The band have also just announced their first assault on the US and Canada (see below).

5th September - Roseland, Portland
6th September - Showbox, Seattle
7th September - Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver
9th September - MacEwan Ballroom, Calgary
10th September - Starlite Room, Edmonton
12th September - Knitting Factory, Boise
13th September - In the Venue, Salt Lake City
14th September - Red Rocks (Monolith Festival), Morrison
19th September - Street Scene, San Diego
20th September - Treasure Island Festival, San Francisco
10th October - Electric Factory, Philadelphia
11th October - Lupos, Providence
13th October - Wilbur Theatre, Boston
14th October - Masonic Temple, Brooklyn
15th October - Masonic Temple, Brooklyn
18th October - Bogorts, Cincinnati
19th October - Vogue Theatre, Indianapolis
20th October - First Ave, Minneapolis
21st October - First Ave, Minneapolis
22nd October - Riviera, Chicago
24th October - Voodoo Festival, New Orleans
25th October - Tabernacle, Atlanta
26th October - Bijou, Knoxville
28th October - Lakewood Theatre, Dallas
30th October - Stubbs, Austin
31st October - Diamond Ballroom, Oklahoma City
6th November - Wiltern, Los Angeles
8th November - 4th and B, San Diego