Music

Experimental singer/songwriter Jarboe (shown left) and Justin K. Broadrick, founding member of ambient/noise-rock act Jesu, have joined forces as J2. The duo has an album set for Spring 2008 on The End Records.

My Bloody Valentine frontman Kevin Shields has confirmed his influential band’s reunion and forthcoming album. The critically acclaimed group also announced 2008 UK tour dates — for which tickets went on sale today and already sold out in London, Manchester, and Glasgow — with All Tomorrow’s Parties.

The industrious collection of music makers known as Critters Buggin has recently released a live DVD, entitled The Clackervalve and the Old Clobberd Biscuits Out and Smack the Grand Ham Clappers Mother. The disc features an mix of live performances, short videos, and photo slideshows.

Schubas Tavern in Chicago is hosting its annual pop fest, Tomorrow Never Knows, for the fourth time. Running from January 16-20, the festival includes afro-beat eight-piece NOMO, acoustic songwriter John Vanderslice, prog-pop musician Bobby Conn, and indie rockers The Walkmen, Cloud Clout, Illinois, and White Rabbits.

Aerial can’t be blamed for trying. On the Swedish group’s new album, The Sentinel, it does an admirable job recycling tried and true post-rockisms, but it fails to present anything beyond evanescence, reductionisms, and nearly ubiquitous 3/4 time.

“Western Europe and the United States don’t differ much,” says Gogol Bordello founder and vocalist Eugene Hutz (shown left), discussing the various reactions to his band’s music before a performance in Paris.

Battles returned to Chicago last week to promote their new EP, Tonto. The collection of remixes is mostly of the track “Tonto,” from their full-length album Mirrored, which expanded the group’s electro-math-rock motif with synthesized vocals.

Indie duo Viva Voce has combined two older CDs, Lovers, Lead the Way! (2003) and The Heat Can Melt Your Brain (2004), into a healthy new offering augmented by eight bonus cuts.

Esteemed comedy troupe The Second City has announced its sixth-annual 24-hour benefit event, “The Second City That Never Sleeps: Letters to Santa,” which gives presents to needy children and families in Chicago for the holidays. The event takes place on December 4 at 7:00 PM and lasts for 24 hours.

Ire Works, the third full-length album by The Dillinger Escape Plan, is the innovative tech-metal quintet’s most diverse release to date. Like many decade-old bands, the New Jersey outfit’s progression in style follows a natural path, but an ever-shifting lineup is just as responsible for the change in course.

There are good things in store for international Black Mountain fans. Since the band’s esteemed 2006 invitation to the UK’s All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival in Minehead, Somerset, the psych-rockers have agreed to return to the 2007 festival next month.