Stars Of The Lid’s Brian McBride has joined forces with producer Kenneth James Gibson to form Bell Gardens. The duo are working on an album that Gibson describes as “a new heady, classical, pop record” that contains “lots of vocals, strings, horns.” I know that isn’t much information, but I’ll try to dig up more. Until then, you can visit their MySpace page to listen to five rough mixes and form your own opinion. Listen to “To Land.” The strings sound great. It is wonderful to hear McBride tackle more straightforward material while retaining his classical influences.

Stars Of The Lid’s 1999 effort, Avec Laudenum, is coming to vinyl. Here’s the information straight from Mr. Kranky:

The other ‘new’ release is actually a vinyl version of the fabulous krank059 Stars of the Lid-Avec Laudenum album. When Sub Rosa originally released this album in 1999, they did a one-time pressing on vinyl but very few copies made their way to north america. This release also coincides with the start of their north american tour which i will once again tell you is not to be missed.

Both of these titles will be available for ordering from the website on monday april 7th and will start shipping immediately.

SOTL’s North American tour kicks off April 14th at the Echoplex in Los Angeles. The tour comes to the D.C. area on May 4th at IOTA in Arlington.

4/14 at echoplex [los angeles, ca]
4/15 at the independent [san francisco, ca]
4/17 at holocene [portland, or]
4/18 at triple door [seattle, wa]
4/21 at southern theater - wordless music series [minneapolis, mn]
4/22 at staerkel planetarium [champaign, il]
4/23 at sebring-lewis theatre [grinnell, ia]
4/24 at 930 listening room [louisville, ky]
4/25 at warhol museum [pittsburgh, pa]
4/26 at lakeshore theater [chicago, il]
4/27 at museum london [london, on]
4/28 at music gallery [toronto, on]
4/29 at masonic temple [montreal, qc]
5/01 at remis auditorium - museum of fine arts [boston, ma]
5/02 at good shepard faith church [new york city, ny]
5/03 at st. mary’s episcopal church @ penn university [philadelphia, pa]
5/04 at iota [arlington, va]
5/05 at fine arts theatre [asheville, nc]
5/07 at ritz theatre [austin, tx]
5/08 at granada theatre [dallas, tx]
5/17 at all tomorrow’s parties festival [butlins holiday centre/minehead, uk
5/19 at cube microplex cinema [bristol, uk]
5/20 at st.giles church [london,uk] w/ lichens
5/21 at hare and hounds king heath [birmingham,uk] w/chris herbert
5/22 at stereo [glasgow, uk]
5/23 at the tunnels [aberdeen, uk]
5/24 at church of st.thomas the martyr [newcastle-upon-tyne, uk]
5/25 at holy trinity church [leeds, uk]