Get ready to love men in uniform.

It seems like just yesterday Chelsea Wolfe was releasing her stark solo debut, The Grime and the Glow, on the mysterious New York label Pendu. That title was no accident: the album was split between dense, overcast tracks that nestled Wolfe’s voice deep beneath strange waves of sound and tracks that purred and cooed slowly and only slightly ominously.

Well, if “Wasteland,” from her soon-to-be-released follow-up Apokalypsis, is any indication, the grime has won out. This is splendid, haunted house music: skin-crawling organ, distant ghostly clattering and Wolfe’s voice — pitch-bent and warped almost beyond recognition — mourning slowly and softly on top of it. It’s terrifically sinister, a fantastic omen of things to come.

Hear “Wasteland” here

Well, well, well. Look who’s decided to take some time off from high-fiving Kanye West, making smooth AM soft rock sex jams and basically having more goddamn side projects than James Franco: it’s Mr. Boñuel Iver. On June 21, Justin Vernon goes back to the woods for a new Bon Iver record that will be called…Bon Iver. Stick with what works! The record will feature an array of guests, among them, Colin Stetson, who everyone and their great niece seems to be trying to get me to listen to these days. To paraphrase De La Soul, stakes is high for Bonnie “Prince” Iver — it’s been a while since even the rightly-heralded Blood Bank EP, and this is the point where his mettle will be tested. And though I may have layered this post with one-liners, it’s just a defense mechanism to mask my fear of intimate folk music, because I actually do believe the man has it in him. We’ll find out for sure in June, I suppose! On the venerable and and basically perfect Jagjaguwar label, natch.

Unfamiliar Fishes promises to be Sarah Vowell’s most star-studded audiobook yet. Narrators include Edward Norton, Keanu Reeves, Paul Rudd, John Slattery, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, John Hodgman, Catherine Keener and Maya Rudolph. I would be thrilled to listen to any one of these people read the phone book. But even without this fantastic guest list, Unfamiliar Fishes is gonna be awesome because Sarah Vowell has a unique talent for making boring old history sound fun. If Sarah Vowell was your high school history teacher, you’d make it through every single class without drooling on your desk once. This time around, she takes on the tumultuous history of the state of Hawaii with her trademark insight and charm, as you can see in this utterly adorable book trailer.

New York’s Sacred Bones label has been owning it for a while now. Though they’re best known as being home to the midnight powerhouse that is Zola Jesus, the label has been cultivating a particular aesthetic for years now. To my mind, they remind me of Factory Records in the late ’70s — they definitely live on the Dark Side of the Street, trafficking in bands that don’t come out until way after midnight. Can we call it “pale core?”

In any event: this month they’ll be adding another name to their formidable roster: Cult of Youth. An initial listen to first single “New West” finds a throbbing, insistent, Pornography-era Cure bass line punching its way up from under fantastically dramatic vocals. It’s goth minimalism doing battle with camp’s flair for theater. I am fully on board. Look for it this Tuesday from Sacred Bones.

Cult of Youth – New West by sacredbones

Fergus & Geronimo – Where the Walls Are Made of Grass from Hardly Art on Vimeo.

On January 18th, Hardly Art will release the debut full-length by Fergus & Geronimo, an upstart indie duo whose string of singles over the last year or so have been impish and infectious. The full-length, Unlearn, promises the same: a batch of fantastic indie psych songs that find plenty of room for shoop-shoop backing harmonies and giddy R&B rhythms. You can get a tiny sense of that in the video for “Where the Walls Are Made of Grass,” posted above.

We had Marc Hogan track down the devious duo for a Who Are… feature that we’ll be running on the homepage in a few weeks. To help get you ready for the full-length, we thought we’d post it here first. Get to know Fergus & Geronimo after the jump.

File under: ’60s garage-pop laced with slacker irony
For fans of: The Fresh & Onlys, the Beets, Harlem, Box Elders, Strange Boys, Eat Skull, the Dead Milkmen, the Troggs
Personae: Jason Kelly and Andrew Savage (vocals, guitars, bass, drums, organ), with guests Elyse Schrock (vocal), Casey Carpenter (flute), Monet Robbins (saxophone)
From: Denton, Texas; now living in Brooklyn

“The rock ‘n’ roll business is pretty absurd, but the world of serious music is much worse,” Frank Zappa once told a bemused interviewer. Fergus & Geronimo started with the premise of “Motown by way of Mothers of Invention,” and the Texas-bred, Brooklyn-based duo clearly shares Zappa’s mischievously sardonic outlook. Unlearn, the band’s full-length debut for the Sub Pop imprint Hardly Art, is at once more musically polished and more lyrically caustic than the group’s promising run of singles on well-regarded indies Woodsist, Transparent and Tic Tac Totally!. Right before Kelly and Savage left their apartment to pick up a new four-track machine Savage had just bought off Craigslist, they spoke with eMusic’s Marc Hogan about Top 40 production values, a Super Bowl bet gone wrong and why networking is really, really important.

On shedding the “lo-fi” tag:

Andrew Savage: The difference between the singles and the record comes from the fact that we recorded the record on half-inch tape #&8212; 16 tracks — and the singles were recorded just, like, straight to a computer. I think that a lot of people have been writing about the songs that have been released from the album, the few that have made it, and still kind of branding them as lo-fi. That’s kind of perplexing to me, because we spent a lot of time making this record sound as great as we can. I just think that if it doesn’t sound like a Rihanna record…

On what else the blogs are missing about Fergus & Geronimo:

Andrew: It’s not my job to make sure anybody takes one thing away from this project. But really, I try to communicate as clearly as I can through music. And I am a sarcastic person, and we both definitely have a sense of humor and are very dry. That’s just an extension of who we’re trying to make this band be. It’s kind of really an exaggerated, kind of magnified version of our own emotions. A lot of the songs are pretty grandiose. Like, I’m not sexy enough to feel the stuff in “Powerful Lovin’.” That’s really not me. But it’s a pretty, I guess, sexy song. That’s the whole idea. So I don’t know. I guess if anyone were to take anything away from the group it’s that Fergus & Geronimo are sort of caricatures of our songwriting abilities. We’re playing these characters, really.

On the band’s name, drawn from 1994 Irish child-gang movie War of the Buttons:

Jason: Andrew takes the role of Fergus, while I take the role of Geronimo. Even though, in the movie, I don’t relate with Geronimo as much as I do with Fergus, because Geronimo is kind of a rich kid, the preppy boy, and I was never that dude. I could relate with Fergus more because he was the leader of the like ragtag poor kids. But I just liked the name Geronimo. It has a nice little zap to it.

On moving to Brooklyn:

Andrew: We only moved here because we lost a bet, a Super Bowl bet. I bet that the Jets would lose, and of course they won. So we’re here. We’re sticking it out for I think we said in the bet five years. As soon as that’s over, we’re getting our asses back to Texas. No joke. It’s really just a bet. If the Jets win, we’ll fucking move to New York City, like, the dumbest city in the world. [Actually, the New Orleans Saints won last year's Super Bowl-- ed.]
Jason: Can’t wait to get back to some heat.
Andrew: That’s what I want people to know is we’re sports fans first and musicians later, and that’s how much we care about sports is we moved a thousand miles away.

On current musical favorites:

Jason: It’s all over the spectrum. Sometimes I’ll listen to Sam Cooke and the next day I’ll be obsessed with the Fall. I listen to a lot of Alice Cooper and Badfinger. Wire. Classic shit.
Andrew: It’s no secret I’m pretty obsessed with the Fall, as well. But lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Adrian Orange, a dude out of Portland. And probably my favorite active American band right now is Tyvek, from Detroit. This band really is kind of a sum of our own influences. We’re both music hoarders, and so we take out of that bits and pieces and kind of quilt it together, you know?

On the fate of Andrew’s other band, Teenage Cool Kids, whom Jason also recorded:

Andrew: Teenage Cool Kids isn’t really active right now because we all live in different places. But we do have a record that needs to come out. So if you’ll put that in your, like, blog, the new Teenage Cool Kids record, that would be cool. ‘Cause it’s really good, and it needs to come out, but right now we’re pretty much only doing this. I’m working on another thing right now, too, but it’s top secret as of now.
Jason: They recorded the Teenage Cool Kids record in the same exact recording setup as the Fergus shit. So it sounds really good.
Andrew: If you like good-sounding records, it’s right up your alley. So if you’re reading this out in ‘zineland, you should know that there’s this sweet record that needs to come out. You can e-mail me at machomanandysavage@gmail.com.

On finding labels for their singles and album:

Andrew: Jeremy [Earl] from Woodsist has been my friend for a little bit. I met him back when he played my house in Denton with his band Meneguar, and I did a show with [another Earl band] Woods. I just sent it to him, you know, as a bro, and he offered to put it out. The Transparent one, maybe kind of came out of the blue — we’d never heard of those guys before, and we were like yeah, sure. The Tic Tac Totally! one was kind of similar circumstances, but of course we’d heard of them before.
Jason: I actually knew [Hardly Art's] Ruben Mendez for several years from his old band, the Coconut Coolouts. I just saw him play a lot.
Andrew: So basically it came from a lot of networking, just knowing the right people. Conference calls. You gotta know the right people to make it, you know.

On recording at home:

Jason: I’d say the only pitfall is just keeping yourself from just laying around. It was in the wintertime, so it was like super cold out, and we had this like super cozy, almost cottage-esque little house. Sometimes it would be kind of hard to get motivated to play a loud-ass like punk song or whatever. But I dunno. That’s not even really a disadvantage. Because if you take advantage of it, it can be really great. So, I don’t know— I think it’s perfect.

On their album’s guest performers:

Andrew: All three of those women have been very good friends. I’ve known Casey since I was 15. I’m probably closer to her than I am nearly anybody. And we’ve known Elyse and Monet for a really long time. They’re all very talented.
Jason: Denton’s pretty small. It’s kind of like one big family there. And they were just kind of like part of the family so that’s how we all knew each other. And they happened to be talented, too.
Andrew: It went down like we knew needed to have flute, and they played that, and we knew we needed a chick to talk on the record.
Jason: It just so happens that Elyse has amazing taste in music.
Andrew: It just so happens she’s a chick.
Jason: She has phenomenal taste in music. She’s a super big fan of, like, ’60s girl pop and all kinds of shit, really, all over the spectrum. But she totally I think naturally did the whole Shangri-La-esque voice. Like, perfect. Exactly what we wanted.

This April, our good friends at the excellent label Secretly Canadian will be releasing the debut album from Laurel Sprengelmeyer — aka Little Scream. Don’t let the name fool you — the music is small and tender and lovely, Sprengelmeyer’s delicate alto fluttering over plucked guitar and humming bass. That she’s touring with Sharon Van Etten this spring should give you a good idea what to expect. Want more of an idea? Take a listen to the tender first single, “The Heron and the Fox.”

Download: Little Scream, “The Heron and the Fox”

Tennis – Pigeon from Scott Laidlaw on Vimeo.

Next Tuesday, the indomitable Fat Possum records releases Cape Dory by the new band Tennis. Essentially a duo of Patrick Riley & Alaina Moore, Tennis write tiny little pop songs that put an emphasis on Moore’s lithe, childlike voice. Get a taste of what you’re in for next week with the video for first single “Pigeon.”

So the last week or two has seen some pretty stellar/high-profile stuff hitting the site in the UK, so I thought I’d take a moment to review some of it. Shall we? Note: A lot of these titles are UK-only, so apologies when/where not available:

Teenage Fanclub, Shadows – The evergreen power-pop masters return. The men who brought you Bandwagonesque are still trafficking in shimmering, heartache-filled guitar pop, and they can still kill you softly with it. James McNair did a Q&A with Norman Blake, and Dorian Lynskey had this to say:

Every generation has its musical comfort food, and for anyone who cherished 1991′s Bandwagonesque as Britain’s finest grunge album and 1994′s Grand Prix as an underrated Britpop tour de force, Teenage Fanclub fit the bill … On their ninth album, they still seem able to pluck tender, yearning melodies out of the air — “Shock and Awe” is a particularly lush example — but, as on their last few albums, the most rewarding songs come when they stray from the template.

The Divine Comedy, Bang Goes the Knighthood – Neil Hannon, underrated Britpop songsmith and redefiner of the term “arch,” is back with ripe, stately songs that exude Englishness and give immoderate pleasure. eMusic’s Andrew Perry chatted with Hannon, and it sounds like they had a great time; the Q&A that resulted is a must-read. Here’s Craig McLean, as well, with more on the record itself:

Neil Hannon, dandified son of a Bishop in Northern Ireland, was always a literate — and, occasionally, pretentious — chap … [But] this 10th studio album, coming 11 years after The Divine Comedy’s last UK Top 20 hit single, is pleasingly free of affectation, and jammed full of wit and melody. “At The Indie Disco,” sparkling with strings and a flight of female backing vocals, is irresistible.

Stornoway, Beachcomber’s Windowsill – Last week’s big new record was the debut from this well-scrubbed, quirky, and clever indie-pop group, who count an ornithologist and a doctor in their ranks. Their music sparkles with sly wit and gorgeous harmonies — it will put you in mind of classic, <IIf You’re Feeling Sinister-era Belle and Sebastian.

Rolo Tommassi, Cosmology – Soooo if gentle indie-folk songs comparing falling in love to zorbing are a bit too twee for your tastes, this might be the kind of nuclear insanity you need to clear out your ears. Jerking, berserk, prog/hardcore fusion, with all the disorienting switch-ups in tempo, palm-muted downstroke guitar chugging, and acid-gargled howling this might imply. This may or may not be a flattering comparison, but this feels like a melted-sulphur middle ground between the Melvins, Refused, and, uh, Mr. Bungle. If any of this fumbling off-the-cuff descrip intrigues, def check out.

Philly Groove Records, The Delfonics/First Choice/other classics – Philly Groove was a small but indispensable Philadelphia soul imprint set up by Stan Watson and Sam Bell in 1967, and together the released some of the era’s most vital Philly soul — the Delfonics and First Choice among them. Here they are, many of them available digitally for the first time. PLEASE dig into these — you really cannot go wrong.

Mock and Toof, Tuning Echoes – London-based producers and Juan MacLean remixers Mock and Toof delivered their airy, gorgeous synth-pop full-length last week, and I am just now getting to spending time with it.

Rowland S. Howard, Pop Crimes – Harrowing, haunted solo pop record from a former member of The Birthday Party.

Micah P. Hinson, And the Pioneer Saboteurs – Bleakly comic, pitch-dark country-folk from Hinson, who has the just the right pitted voice for songs this rangy and full of knowing regret.

Akala, Doublethink – Claustrophobic, industrial-tinged and incredibly eclectic rap concept album about , what else, an Orweillian future dystopia. Should appeal to El-P and anticon fans. Tim Noakes, in a review that will be live tomorrow, writes:

1984, George Orwell’s hellish vision of a dystopian future, has provided the inspiration for North London rapper Akala’s third album, Doublethink. Basing a whole record on Big Brother’s brainwashed surveillance society is not exactly a new concept. Yet, Akala has tried to accomplish something none of these artists ever dared — blending classical music, trance, rock, grime and hip-hop into a cohesive whole.Akala’s vision of modern inner city life will make you think twice about not only the state of the music industry, but Great Britain itself.

Rene Hell, Porcelain Opera – A gorgeous, ethereal record of ambient electronic music from the prolific American electronic musician Jeff Witscher. Vapor-trails synths, swirling sampled voices in babbling sensurround. A disarmingly beautiful little treasure.

This coming Tuesday sees the release of the new Shearwater record, The Golden Archipelago. Here’s eMusic’s Melissa Maerz with an idea of what to expect.

Shearwater
The Golden Archipelago
[Matador]
Release Date: 16 February 2010

An explorer, ecologist, and folk hero, Jonathan Meiburg is the Jacques Cousteau of indie-rock. A former graduate student with a specialty in geography and ornithology, the Shearwater frontman named both his Austin, Texas-based band and their critically-acclaimed 2008 album Rook after types of birds, and his gorgeously pastoral music examines nature with a scientist’s eye.

Inspired by research Meiburg conducted everywhere from the Galapagos to a remote Aboriginal community in northern Australia, The Golden Archipelago is a vivid illustration of the isolation of island life. The opening track begins with an eerie incantation of Bikini Atoll’s national anthem, sung by exiled Bikinians evacuated from their homeland after the staging of nuclear bomb tests. Over a delicate interlay of piano, brass and string instruments, Meiburg pays further tribute to their memories in “Meridian” and “God Made Me,” two chilling tales of “the roar in the sky… and the flames that fall / like fireflies.”

But where there’s terror, there’s also wonder: on the percussion-heavy ballad “Landscape at Speed” and the music-box waltz “Hidden Lakes,” Meiberg finds himself awed by the secret worlds of plants and animals. Singing in a fragile falsetto about long-lost native communities and the flora and fauna that’s grown in their stead, he’s written a celebration of life — both the kind we’ve largely left behind, and the kind that goes on without us.