RecaPitulation: Slow Club, Naked Raygun, Frank Black, Mellowdrone

Pitchfork is psyched to hear from D'Arcy. We couldn't care less.

The U.K.’s Moshi Moshi (”Hello” in Japanese) Records isn’t as big an operation you might expect - even though it’s been home to Bloc Party, Mates of State and Hot Chip, it’s still pretty much a little label that could. The label turned 10 years old last year, eating cake with Hot Chip, the Mae Shi and others at the O2 Arena in London, but now it’s time to do some aluminum-anniversary celebrating across the pond. Slow Club, Casiokids and the Wave Pictures will do the honors with a stretch lasting from August 4 in Chicago through the 13th in Seattle, with a few Canada dates tossed in for good measure.

Can’t decide if it’s worth your while? Whet your appetite with these samplings:

Slow Club prove themselves to be some sort of strange, lush hybrid of Woody Guthrie and Jenny Lewis on “It Doesn’t Have to Be Beautiful“:

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The perfectly named Norwegian collective Casiokids drop sounds you used to hear from ’80s-era keyboards into an otherwise-straightforward pop-rock song, “Gront Lys I Alle Ledd,” which actually well not really means “When Will My Neighbor Shut Up?” The slurry foreign-tongued vocals taste like chocolate:

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The chipper Wave Pictures strum and giggle their way through “Just Like a Drummer,” “waking up with the thunder of your typewriter”:

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Hello, Moshi. Hello, Annyong.

Here’s a name we did not expect to wake up to this morning: Naked Raygun. The Reagan-era Chicago punks - who helped solidify Corey Rusk’s Touch and Go offshoot, Quartersick, and pave the way for post-punk - will duck into the city’s Transient Sound Studios to put to tape a series of new songs. Those tracks - the first stuff NR will have recorded since ‘92 - will come out via a Riot Fest 7-inch series that is pegged to start in the fall. But why stop there? When that series is exhausted, the guys will gang up again to record a new studio effort. And - bonus - they even got five tour dates too, in Cambridge, Massachusetts (September 9); Philly (the 10th); Baltimore (the 11th); Brooklyn (the 12th); and Hoboken, New Jersey (the 13th). Paint It Black and Shot Baker will support. Know what we miss even more than Naked Raygun? Raygun magazine. …

Another day, another Frank Black update. Grand Duchy - a.k.a. the Pixies frontman (as Black Francis) and his wife, Violet Clark - are taking to the road beginning mañana for a quick trip across the States. The gigs - which will help spread the word about the synth-inflected duo’s already-out Petits Fours debut - begin in Washington, D.C. and end at Chicago’s Wicker Park Festival on the 25th. Black has also sprinkled some solo shows into the mix, which will keep him on his toes till August 4 in Portland, Oregon. …

Man, Mellowdrone are still around? That’s cool to hear. Late last year, M83 guitarist Jonathan Bates put together the pieces of his lo-fi L.A. project - which went dormant after a short-lived pact with Columbia and some personal issues on the part of Bates - to put to tape a new record. They then test-flighted Angry Bear live in front of a few friends and will finally get it out to the rest of us August 25 via Coming Home. “Angry Bear is the dude who comes out when I forget that the Universe does what she wants. When I forget that I’m her bitch. This record is me submitting to her,” Bates said in a submissive statement. Fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Like, for example, we totally didn’t expect to be talking about Naked Raygun and Mellowdrone today. …

Gross.