Trying to explain Death Vessel in a blog post would be like trying to draw an accurate map of Brooklyn on a post-it note. With a sharpie. Can’t be done. So lets just move on to the part where we would say, “never mind these bollocks, just get the new record and you’ll understand.” Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us was released on Sub Pop last Tuesday, find it at Other Music today, see him on tour throughout September.

On Iceland’s independence day, Sigur Ros chose to be in NYC to celebrate Olafur Eliasson’s P.S.1 show by performing in the MoMA atrium and hanging out with Fred. On stage with the band was none other than Honoré de Balzac, preserved for posterity by the great Auguste Rodin. Why is a monument to a French writer by a French sculptor on stage with an Icelandic band celebrating a Danish-Icelandic artist? That will remain one of life’s great mysteries. Here’s another great mystery: if silk-screen artist Shepard Fairey (of Obey Giant fame) and Sigur Ros singer Jónsi Birgisson were standing in the same room, could anyone tell them apart?

Slippery when wet, Fred lives on a prayer in the upper-deck bleacher seats at a recent Bon Jovi show in the City of Angels. Not to worry, FOF Alex B. laid her hands on him, keeping him safe and making sure he had a nice day.

Vincent Moon, much like Godard, Truffaut and les hommes of the New Wave of the 60s, is a French dude that loves endless tracking shots of young artists emoting their way through the streets of Paris. His much-hyped blog, quaintly titled La Blogothèque, features a growing series of impromptu music performances filmed in public places throughout the city, and has become the hottest thing in the indie stratosphere. It all began when Moon followed The Arcade Fire with his video camera as they played their way from a club stage out into the Paris night to close a show. He decided there was something immediate and accessible about this style of band documentary, something that people could connect with better than, say, a million dollar P. Diddy video. And thus, the Take Away Shows were born.

Originally based entirely in Paris, Take Away Shows now happen anywhere, as evidenced by the above clip of the Seattle band Throw Me The Statue performing on a Puget Sound ferry. For Vincent Moon, all that’s necessary is a band, a public place and a single tracking shot. Just like the old days.

Death Vessel is Joel Thibodeau playing music like you’d hear if you were hitching a boxcar from Portland to San Francisco with a guitar-toting dreamstate apparition in late August, 1939. And just what exactly does that sound like? You’ll have to head to Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg on Friday the 22nd to find out. Death Vessel is playing a free show as part of the Brooklyn Next Festival. While a Death Vessel performance is an ethereal wonder at any venue, it strikes a deeper chord among the decor of Pete’s Candy - like a surreal vignette from a David Lynch film. See Death Vessel now before his ever-increasing legion of devotees leaves you blocked in the hallway out of earshot.
_{(photo credit: heartonastick.blog-city.com)}