Lost in the Trees put out one of my favorite albums of 2010, and the NC band is due to release its new one, A Church That Fits Our Needs, March 20 on Anti-. This is the first video from the record, which finds bandleader Ari Picker working through the carnage of his mother’s 2009 suicide. It’s a tribute, of sorts, and it takes the band’s orchestral folk sound to new heights. As NPR noted when it debuted “Red” this week, there’s a David Lynch feel to the video, and that haunting/beautiful sensation permeates the entire album. Read what Picker had to say about the video after the jump.

Lost in the Trees return to the Wexner Center April 5 with Poor Moon (Christian Wargo and Casey Wescott of Fleet Foxes).

Via NPR:

When my mom passed, I gathered up all of her art supplies (sewing machines, paint brushes, fabrics) and put them into my writing space. She had also left behind a lot of tapes of her interviewing other artists about their work, a unfinished documentary of sorts. I used the four-track machine to harvest some of my moms conversations with the artist Clyde Jones (a local wood sculptor), and used them as samples on the record. When I was little, we lived in a large unkempt farm house, and my mother turned one of the bigger rooms into her art gallery. Around Christmastime she would put on a show and sell her work. She would take leaves from our magnolia tree and spray paint them gold as decorations for around the house. She would also cut flowers from our night blooming cereus and float the pedals around in the bath tub and take pictures of them. All these little acts of taking normal things and making them beautiful – that is what really influences me. The golden leaves, the swirling paint brushes, they are all intended to conceptualize an intangible place, the place where art is created, as well as a space for passing souls.

El Pasado Es Un Animal Grotesco translates to (The Past Is a Grotesque Animal) which I guess you could ascertain in the header.  The title comes from an Of Montreal song.  It’s written and directed by Mariano Pensotti.  The play follows 4 people in Buenos Aires around over a ten year period and watches their lives unfold and unravel. Mr. Pensotti found 4 photographs and developed the story about these people from there. Although the play is in Spanish there are subtitles being projected in English on screens next to the stage. It sold the Wex out last night so I guess this probably adds to the experience.

Only two Columbus shows left. Tonight and Tomorrow. For ticket and time info hit up the Wex’s website.

In what was thought to be an “indefinite hiatus,” Icelandic icons Sigur Ros and French-Canadian director Vincent Morisset (of Arcade Fire’s Mirror Noir fame), recently released a new film, Inni. Juxtaposed with 2007′s Heima, Variety has described Inni as a “haunting, emotion-drenched . . . soul-stirring fusion of joy and heartache . . . usher[s] the listener into a state of near-celestial rapture.” In addition to the film, the band has self-released a double live album (from their Krunk label) in multiple formats that you can find here.

Inni has now been shown or booked for over 100 screenings in 22 countries worldwide, including film festivals in Venice, New York, Reykjavik, Athens, Vancouver, Istanbul and Taipei. Columbus will now also be a part of this celebration of music and cinema, with tickets now on sale for a screening at the Wex on November 30th at 7pm.

If you’ve not been in the loop about recent news from the band, check out the recent Wall Street Journal article where they discuss new music and the news page on their website, which is continuously kept current.

The Wexner Center screens a slew of impressive films every year that often fly under the radar. So here’s one for your radar: Tonight (7pm) and Friday (7:30pm) the Wex is screening the cult classic David Bowie film The Man Who Feel to Earth. From the website:

A cult film if ever there was one, The Man Who Fell to Earth stars David Bowie as an alien who arrives on Earth seeking water for his drought-stricken planet. His advanced mind eventually proves no match for the lure of such terrestrial pleasures as booze and television. Nicolas Roeg’s Earth-bound space opera favors emotion, performance, and design over the special effects that would come to dominate the sci-fi genre soon after the film’s release. Rip Torn, Candy Clark, and Buck Henry also star.

Head here for more info on upcoming films at the Wex. The Interrupters looks especially compelling:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If the name Brent Green and the Wex sound familiar in the same sentence, it’s because you probably followed my advice and went to see “Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then” last August.

This charmingly awkward and ominously tragic film is based on the life of Leonard Wood, a Louisville hardware store clerk who renovates his house into what he believes to be a “healing machine” to keep his terminally ill wife alive. It is Green’s first venture into the full-length feature world (an impressive one at that) AND he built a full-sized replica of this crazy house in his Pennsylvanian farmyard (which is amazing).

The actual house that was later sadly demolished was used as episode #4 of Green and Brendan Canty’s (of Fugazi) collaborative series, Burn to Shine. The project documents the life of a house by movie projections, narration and live music before it’s leveled. The Louisville show was curated by William Benton and contributing bands included Dead Child, Ultra Pulverize, Will Oldham, Magik Markers, Lords, Verktum, Commonwealth, Shipping News, Liberation Prophecy, Parlour, and Lucky Pineapple.

Tonight’s show ups the ante from last year’s screening as you will also be able to catch an accompanying live performance from a band made up of Todd Chandler of Dark, Dark, Dark; Brendan Canty of Fugazi; Michael McGinley and Alan Scalpone of the Bitter Tears; and Drew Henkels of Drew and the Medicinal Pen. Tickets are still available for tonight and the event starts at 8pm.

Full set

Here we are in 2011. I don’t know if this new UK band Viva Brother is going to blow up like Oasis and Blur in the U.S. Not too many bands really have that capability these days but I’ll be damned if “Darling Buds in May” isn’t my pick for “Best Song of the Summmer (2011 edition)”. I might even say it’s my favorite single of the YEAR if I really think about it.

I’m calling this a “Don’t Miss Show”. I’m saying this might be one of those “I saw them when they played in a really small venue” shows. I’ve been wrong before, but I don’t want to make the same mistake I made by missing Oasis in their infancy.

Viva Brother and 1,2,3 play Monday night at the Black Box on the Mershon Stage at the Wexner Center. Tickets are $12 and the show starts around 8pm.

Times New Viking

Psandwich

Times New Viking

Mike Rep and Tommy Jay

Psandwich

Times New Viking ROAST

Times New Viking

Check out the rest of the photos.

Tomorrow night (Friday, 7/1) Times New Viking will play its last Columbus show of the year, which bums me out. But, a roast hosted by none other than Ron House (Great Plains, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments) should add some levity to the evening. House’s band, Psandwich, will also play (full-length coming soon), as will kindred spirits Mike Rep and Tommy Jay. If I didn’t have to travel out of town, there is no way I’d miss this. Details, tickets for the Wexner Center event here.

In which a ski jumper jumps for a really long time. It’s quite peaceful, though, if you need to clear some brain fog. Bill Callahan’s new album, Apocalypse, is out now on Drag City, and I’ve been listening to it almost every day. Callahan will also be at the Wexner Center July 7 with Hidden Ritual.