Setlist
California
Miss Magdalene
Things We Lost In the Fire
Southern Sky
What Jail is Like (Afghan Whigs cover)

On their way to SXSW in March, Philly’s Thee, Idea Men stopped by WRVU in Nashville, TN with tourmates Katie Frank & The Pheromones, Dan Orlando and WC Lindsay.  The group of local musicians performed a cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” live on the Vanderbilt University radio station, with Orlando on keys and Lindsay behind the camera.  Check out the footage below and see Thee, Idea Men live at MilkBoy on June 13th.  Dan Orlando will be at Kennett Flash on June 1st.  Tickets and information for both shows can be found here.

Philadelphia ambient group Northern Valentine comes to Random Tea Room tonight. The five-piece’s music is improvisational and usually set to films and other projections that the group has made. Their most recent album, Fin de siècle, was released in March 2012. Tickets and information for the all ages show with onewayness and dRachEmUsiK can be found here. Below, check out a video of Northern Valentine performing live.

River City Extension plays the Theatre of Living Arts tonight. The group’s show at the TLA will mark the second day of their tour with The Hush Sound and Hockey, which runs until June 8th. Their latest album, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Your Anger, was released last year. Tickets and information for the all ages show with The Hush Sound, Hockey, Genevieve Schatz, and Lucas Carpenter can be found here. Below, watch a live video of River City Extension performing “South For The Winter” on Fearless Music.

I caught up with singer-guitarist Jen Sperling over email, and she tells me that the eleven-track album will feature some familiar material from the band’s live setlist, and some brand new cuts. She explains that taking it into a studio world allowed them to dig into each song’s sonic possibilities, “things like layered vocal harmonies, feedback, and other subtle production effects.” Sperling says the result is simultaneously more pop and more grit.

“I think that we’ve been able to further evolve what is an obvious nostalgia for a previous era of bands in our songs, into something more thoroughly modern,” she says. 

You can hear that in the first single, “New Penzance.” It builds on the punchy, melodic approach of the band’s earlier singles (see also: “Excavate,” and “Paint the Town“), and crafts a striking contract between snappy pop sensibilities and a fuzzy punk rock drive. Tomorrow, the band makes its first appearance since last summer, sneaking onto a bill at Ortlieb’s Lounge that also features Heyward Howkins and Taggart.

Sperling says she is excited for her return to the stage. “We are definitely ready.  We all really love performing, and are eager to present the songs to an audience in that format again.”

“Some of these songs might well be considered ‘old’ at this point,” Sperling continues, “But playing live always breathes new life into them.  Anything can happen when you’re interacting with an audience, and that sense of unknown, that energy and mystery, is something we’ve all really missed.”

Below, watch a trailer video of Break It Up in the studio with Zeigler, and listen to a stream of “New Penzance.”After the jump, check out the tracklist of the album.

Break It Up – S/T (tracklisting)
1. New Penzance
2. Excavate
3. Subterranean
4. Amplify Me
5. Out of Time
6. Sickness for Cure
7. Suzuki
8. Architect
9. Good Bones
10. From Scratch
11. We Have It