Image Courtesy Of PAPERMAG

More information has surfaced on Gaarden Records’ upcoming vinyl release from Matthew Robert Cooper, known to most as Eluvium. Here’s a quote from the label:

Nine short saturnian interludes make up the first proper vinyl release by the sound artist who has intrigued your collapsed antenna many times before as Eluvium, Matthew Robert Cooper. Atmospheric chamber music from the cardboard box vortex. Miniatures moves from swirling spatial feedback manipulations to stripped down minimal piano pieces and back while you watch from the curbside the ghostly parade. Limited to 2,000 copies with the first 1,000 on colored vinyl.

Those with purchase inquiries are encouraged to contact the Portland label here. Gaarden have also posted an MP3 of the track “Miniature 7.” I’ve embedded a stream of it for your convenience at the end of this post. Cooper recently completed another extensive tour with Explosions In The Sky, which seems to have yielded the following video. It is a brief clip of Cooper covering a portion of Explosions’ “The Only Moment We Were Alone,” their best song in my opinion. Cooper really should cover this song in full.

Thanks to Andy for the link to the video.

Since the release of Boxer (an album I was lukewarm on and grew to love), The National have toured at a feverish pace. This spring marked the band’s biggest tour yet, as they earned an opening spot on R.E.M.’s Accelerate tour alongside Modest Mouse. The band also ushered in their first DVD entry, A Skin, A Night. Filmed by Vincent Moon during the Boxer sessions, A Skin attempts to capture the tension and difficulty of recording an album from an an artier perspective. The DVD is generously packaged with The Virginia EP, which collects unreleased tracks, b-sides, demos, and live tracks.

To put it simply, A Skin comes off as a really nice looking visual press kit that you’ll watch once and then never again. Moon does an excellent job capturing the gritty atmosphere of Boxer, but for much of the film’s duration, he seems more concerned with subjecting the viewer to irrelevant imagery than allowing them to get closer to the band and their musical process. With that said, the scenes with the band, especially the ones that explain their struggles and slow rise to popularity, are fairly valuable.

Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of these moments to recommend A Skin to anyone but The National’s most hardcore fans. It would work much better if it were divided into segments and posted on the band’s website for free viewing. As nice as some of the visuals are, I believe that The National deserve a much better DVD to represent themselves. The goal of A Skin obviously wasn’t to capture the band’s live show, but what they need is a DVD that captures their spectacular concert performances.

If others fans, like myself, come away a bit disappointed by A Skin, The Virginia EP is there to weaken the blow. It isn’t a must-have either, but it does have some pleasant moments. Plus, it is nice to have most of The National’s odds-and-ends packaged on one disc. The songs are somewhat haphazardly slapped together, but the unreleased gem “You’ve Done It Again, Virginia” and an excellent live take on Bruce Springsteen’s “Mansion On The Hill” more than make up for the EP’s questionable presentation.

On Sunday night (6/22) I was able to attend the band’s final U.S. show before they headed to Europe. As I mentioned in my previous post, the show took place at a new venue in Richmond called The National. Originally opened in 1923, the venue was recently given a makeover by the crew behind The NorVA in Norfolk, another one of my favorite venues. Both the opener Centromatic and The National were clearly impressed with the venue, which includes a full hot tub backstage. Centromatic seemed thrilled by that.

It was my third time seeing The National. The previous two shows took place at the 9:30 Club last summer. The first of those shows was amazing, while the second was good, but not as memorable. This time around rivaled the first though, as the band appeared energized by the venue and its excellent audience. The setlist wasn’t much different than the previous outings, as it strictly featured songs from Alligator, Boxer, and the Cherry Tree EP. “You’ve Done It Again, Virginia” made an appearance during an unplanned second encore. The addition of two horn players that weren’t present during last summer’s shows has added new depth to The National’s stirring performances.

What I appreciate most about The National’s live show is that they are always grateful. I saw Mark Kozelek last week in Baltimore and I could tell that he could care less about being there. The National value their audience and give a full and complete effort. Singer Matt Berninger seems to lose himself in the music, which only helps their performances. He is always marching around the stage cheering on his bandmates like a gracious conductor. On Sunday at The National, his intensity was at its peak, despite the group’s demanding tour schedule. I walked out of that venue feeling like one of my favorite bands had done it again and as a music fan, there are few things more rewarding than that.

I noticed that, for some reason, the left menu on the site’s main page is not showing up in Internet Explorer for some reason. I will do my best to rectify this issue today.

 *6/25: The problem has been fixed. It had to do with a simple coding issue related to the audio streams I use in certain posts. Sorry for the inconvenience!*

Pam and I drove down to Richmond last night to see the final show of The National’s U.S. tour. The show took place at The National (heh), an amazing new venue from the creators of The NorVA in Norfolk. I’ll have a full review of the show later today as well as my thoughts on the group’s recent DVD release, A Skin, A Night. Until then, I salute The National for selling the shirt above. Yes, all proceeds will be donated to the campaign.