Doom metal masters Boris have at long last made an official MySpace page, just in time for their US release of Smile, out April 29th on Southern Lord. The album features guest appearances from past collaborators Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))) and Ghost’s Michio Kurihara. According to Southern Lord, Boris’ “Statement” 7″ teaser, containing the song by the same name from Smile and an exclusive b-side, has already sold all of its 3,000 copies.

Fans can find the dates of Boris’ upcoming European tour on their handy new MySpace profile, as well as watch some videos and listen to some well-selected tunes. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, their photos have been made private, so you’ll just have to imagine that part… or stare at a somewhat aloof hand-drawn bird-thing.

Boris on MySpace: www.myspace.com/borisdronevil
Southern Lord: www.southernlord.com

Welsh singer and Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys has had a busy year. “It’s been nuts, but in a good way.” Tonight he is performing solo in Chicago as part of a North American tour supporting his solo album, Candylion. By some miracle, Kliph Scurlock of the Flaming Lips just happened to be in town and is sitting in as a last-minute replacement drummer. “We met him at a show just before he started playing for the Flaming Lips. We became instant friends.” (more…)

Few bands could live up to the tense expectation presented by such an austere and otherworldly scene, but this is the forté of Sigur Rós, the most innovative and off-beat act to come out of Iceland since the Sugarcubes in 1986.

Sigur Rós doesn’t usually play shows in damp, concrete shells smelling of century-old herring or on rolling hilltops surrounded by bonfires. But during the summer of 2006, the melodic four-piece group set out for a host of locations like these with a film crew in tow to make Heima (Home), a feature-length documentary of an unconventional tour across their homeland. (more…)

Though few self-respecting artists would admit to making music for the sole purpose of pleasing their fans, it’s certainly a rare musician who makes an album that he doesn’t expect will connect with his audience. From Neil Young dropping an electronic album in the middle of a series of folk and rock records or Lou Reed terrorizing his listeners with an album of guitar feedback, artists have made albums that seem designed to shake less resilient listeners off their bandwagons. A similar path has now been taken by Guillermo Scott Herren, also known as Prefuse 73, for his new full-length album Preparations (reviewed in ALARM #29 - read it here!). In addition to his usual dose of experimental glitch-hop, Herren crafted an album of avant-garde classical music to go alongside. He wasn’t just following his creative intuition—he was making an album that could alienate his normally open-minded listeners. Some might even call it daring. (more…)

Rolling blunts with Iranian currency, appropriating coveted Iranian paintings with tattoos and bottles of whiskey, and turning the chador into a sexy, sensuously revealing cloth, San Francisco-based artist Taravat Talepasand loves to play. (more…)

Showing in the main room of New York’s Proposition Gallery until April 12 is Gothic Intrusion, a group show headlined by Chinese artist Huang Yan’s Skulls, a collection of intricate floral patterns and traditional Chinese landscapes painted directly onto human skulls. The image of the skull is echoed in a series of drawings by Alfredo Martinez, and complimented by industrial/architectural work by Jason Gringler. (more…)

Long car rides, too much gas-station coffee, and being surrounded by incompetent drivers on the California interstate have made the members of Dub Trio a little restless this afternoon, but the good-natured band from Brooklyn is taking it in stride.

Crooner Jeffery Osbourne’s 1982 R&B hit “On the Wings of Love” plays over satellite radio, a device, the band agrees, that has infinitely improved road trips. “Oh my god, yeah—it’s a beautiful thing!” guitarist DP Holmes exclaims.

The band is at the tail end of its West Coast tour with Helmet. Next week it’s back east to take off again with fellow New Yorkers and friends Gogol Bordello. Relentless touring is the life of an up-and-coming, hard-working band. (more…)

The fifth release from Massachusetts based Lo Fine is a slow and wandering work by composer and singer Kevin O’Rourke. Relying heavily on the steel pedal and O’Rourke’s soft vocals, Not For Us Two is a straightforward sounding record. No maddening metaphors or tricky hooks clutter the sparse acoustic songs and general melancholy that has become Lo Fine’s trademark. (more…)

Bill Callahan’s music is suiting to the high desert of central New Mexico, where he played last week to a packed crowd in Albuquerque. The evening was frigid - the town had barely seen rain for weeks and the venue where Callahan was supposed to play had nearly been torched a week before by a five-alarm fire next door. Albuquerque in winter feels down-and-out. Sunlight hardly helps make the dead cottonwood trees less sinister and lonesome. The night Callahan played, the whole town felt like a song from his catalog. (more…)

On the heels of his February ‘08 release of Adventures in Emceein, the prolific KRS-One has joined forces with hip-hop label Duck Down to release his follow-up, a collaboration with underground rapper Buckshot of Black Moon and Boot Camp Clik. Buckshot described the work of partner KRS-One as “‘Conflosation,’ even when KRS-One is flowing, he’s having a conversation with his audience.” (more…)