Even though it was just this past January that Nick Cave announced he would be scoring a documentary about West Memphis Three (not to mention that 3D stop-motion Pinocchio project), the Grinder/Renaissance man already has a new project in the works, according to TwentyFourBit. Cave and frequent collaborator, Bad Seeds/Grinderman/Dirty Three multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, have contributed their prodigious talents to Australian director John Hillcoat’s film Lawelss. The cinematographic adaptation of Matt Bondurant’s prohibition-era novel The Wettest Country In the World is the third in a string of Hillcoat/Cave collaborations, including 2005′s The Proposition and Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road in 2009.

Starring Gary Oldman, Shia LaBoeuf, and Guy Pearce, Lawless will hit theaters in the fall after premiering at Cannes in August. That gives you the spring and summer to catch up on Cave’s long, long list of film scores, not to mention his other side projects (including waiting for that rumored new Bad Seeds record). While you’re at it, check out a trailer for the film below.

Once an unnerving prospect, Scarlett Johannson has been making music since the mid-2000s, recording with Pete Yorn and guesting on various albums/compilations. As Pitchfork points out, Johansson’s latest musical endeavor is a reworking of her 2006 cover of George Gershwin’s “Summertime”. This new version, produced by Massive Attack’s 3D and DFA’s Tim Goldsworthy, sees Johansson’s sultry whisper piled onto the ever-building sounds of heavy, chugging bass and varied effects. Enjoy the vixen-y performance while you can, as most of the track finds Johansson’s vocals overwhelmed by a surge of jungle-ready post-production techniques. Stream it below.

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The track is a part of the soundtrack to director Everardo Valerio Gout’s upcoming Spanish-language thriller Days Of Grace. Other collaborations on the OST included Nick Cave with Warren Ellis and Atticus Ross with Shigeru Umebayashi (the full tracklist is listed below). The soundtrack is in stores May 8th via Lakeshore Records, while Days Of Grace hits theaters later that month.

Days Of Grace Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Tracklist:
01. The Shack – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
02. Mundial de Futbol/Vivir en México (Victim X dialogue) – Carlos Bardem
03. Wrong Bust – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
04. Hiena (Lupe’s dialogue) – Tenoch Huerta
05. Butcher’s Hook/Porcinos Mexicanos – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
06. Días de Gracia (Comandante’s dialogue) – José Sefami
07. Here’s a Little Jolt for You – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
08. Criminal Traicionado (Madrina’s dialogue) – Verónica Falcón
09. Bronco – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
10. Burning the Shack – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
11. The Whack (Entering Kitchen) – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
12. Siempre hay alguien (Comandante’s dialogue) – José Sefami
13. Destiny – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
14. Days of Grace – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
15. Buenos dias muchachito/Pecados (Teacher’s dialogue) – Tenoch Huerta
16. Broken Time – Atticus Ross, Claudia Sarne & Leopold Ross
17. Kidnap – Atticus Ross, Claudia Sarne & Leopold Ross
18. Drugs – Atticus Ross, Claudia Sarne & Leopold Ross
19. Fear – Atticus Ross, Claudia Sarne & Leopold Ross
20. Revelations – Atticus Ross, Claudia Sarne & Leopold Ross
21. Hazla buena (Victim X dialogue) – Carlos Bardem
22. Quiero la verdad (Susana’s dialogue) – Dolores Heredia
23. Sumado: The Echoes between Stories – Shigeru Umebayashi
24. Susana’s Cello – Shigeru Umebayashi
25. Talking on the Water – Shigeru Umebayashi
26. Max’s Brother and Susana’s Daughter – Shigeru Umebayashi
27. One Way or Another – Shigeru Umebayashi
28. Her Emotions of Silent Thought – Shigeru Umebayashi
29. Not Knowing How Things Will End – Shigeru Umebayashi
30. Susana and Camila – Shigeru Umebayashi
31. Sumado: Cast the Shell – Shigeru Umebayashi
32. Song for Tula – Shigeru Umebayashi
33. Como dije (Victim X dialogue) – Carlos Bardem
34. Assault For La Coca – Bot’Ox
35. The Meat Song – Bot’Ox
36. Permanent Shade – Tim Goldsworthy, Euan Dickinson & Billy Fuller
37. Summertime – Scarlett Johansson vs. 3D
38. Vivir en México (Doroteo’s dialogue) – Kristyan Ferrer
39. Kantele – Shigeru Umebayashi

As previously reported, The Flaming Lips are compiling their various collaborations from the last year or so for a special Record Store Day release. Today, the band formally detailed the compilation.

Available April 21st, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends contains 13 collaborative tracks, many of which are previously unreleased. In addition to previously-heard efforts with Neon Indian, Prefuse 73, and Lightning Bolt, the compilation packs new collaborations with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Bon Iver, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Nick Cave, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Yoko Ono, Erykah Badu, and Biz Markie. Check out the full tracklist below.

The limited-edition album will be pressed on two high-quality, multi-color 12″ vinyl discs, housed in separate custom art jackets and poly bagged together.  A press release states that no two discs will look exactly alike and cautions that this will be on the only pressing.

In addition to the compilation, The Lips have also teamed with Mastodon for a split 7″ single as part of the Side by Side 2012 Series available exclusively for Record Store Day. One side features The Lips’ Soft Bulletin track “Spoonful Weighs a Ton”, while the flip-side contains Mastodon’s cover of it.

The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends Tracklist:
Side 1:
01. 2012 (feat. Ke$ha and Biz Markie)
02. Ashes In The Air (feat. Bon Iver)
03. Helping The Retarded To Know God (feat. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros)

Side 2:
04. Supermoon Made Me Want To Pee (feat. Prefuse 73)
05. Children Of The Moon (feat. Tame Impala)
06. That Ain’t My Trip (feat. Jim James of My Morning Jacket)
07. You, Man? Human? (feat. Nick Cave)

Side 3:
08. I’m Working At NASA On Acid (feat. Lightning Bolt)
09. Do It! (feat. Yoko Ono)
10. Is David Bowie Dying? (feat. Neon Indian)

Side 4:
11. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (feat. Erykah Badu)
12. Thunder Drops (feat. New Fumes)
13. I Don’t Want You To Die (feat. Chris Martin of Coldplay)

As previously reported, Nick Cave, Debbie Harry, Steve Wynn, Mark Lanegan, Isobel Campbell, and more are honoring late Gun Club frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce with a new compilation, entitled The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project. Available March 30th via Glitterhouse, the 18-track collection finds friends, collaborators, and fans reinterpreting and reworking previously unreleased or unfinished material from Pierce.

For their part, Cave and Harry have come together for a new cover of “The Breaking Hands”, a track which originally appeared on Gun Club’s 1987 album Mother Juno. As you can hear below, Cave and Harry’s reworking is a piano-driven ballad featuring strings, brushes, and bowed saw (via Pitchfork).

The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project is actually the second volume in a posthumus compilation series dedicated to Pierce. A third volume, entitled The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, is set for release in late 2012.

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As founding member of the ’80s LA punk group The Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee Pierce helped inspired the likes of Jack White, Henry Rollins, No Age, and countless others. In 1996, Pierce died from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 37, and has since been honored with an all-star covers compilation, entitled The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project. Volume one in the series, We Are Only Riders, was released in 2009. As TwentyFourBit points out, volume two,  The Journey Is Long, will arrive March 30th via Glitterhouse Records.

Spanning some 18 tracks, this latest compilation features covers by Nick Cave, Steve Wynn, Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell, The Jim Jones Revue, Barry Adamson, and a duet by Cave and Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry (Blondie was an early supporter of Pierce, previously paying homage to him with the song “Under the Gun” from their 1999 album No Exit). In a press release for the record, Pierce’s latter-day collaborator Cypress Grove explained that this endeavor is unlike any other tribute compilation, with much of the material moving beyond simple rehashings of old songs.

“The idea was that, these are not our songs, we merely interpret them. This is not a tribute project, which usually consists of third rate re-treads of an artist’s most famous work, but brand new material from beyond the grave. In some cases the artists have had to finish the songs, so there can be no nonsense about this not being as good as the original version as these are the original versions! It’s a musical collective of artists who have come together to interpret or complete skeletal, unfinished material by Jeffrey. Where possible we have used Jeffrey’s contributions, so he actually appears posthumously on this album.”

A third volume, entitled The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, is set for release in late 2012. For now, check out the Gun Club track “Hey Juana” below, followed by the album tracklist.

The Gun Club – “Hey Juana”

The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project: The Journey Is Long Tracklist:
01. City In Pain – Nick Cave
02. I’m Going Upstairs – Hugo Race
03. From Death To Texas – Steve Wynn
04. The Breaking Hands – Mark Lanegan & Isobel Campbell
05. The Jungle Book – The Amber Lights
06. Rose’s Blues – Bertrand Cantat, Pascal Humbert, Warren Ellis, Cypress Grove
07. Zonar Roze – Thalia Zedek & Chris Brokaw
08. L.A. County Jail Blues – Cypress Grove
09. I Wanna Be You – Barry Adamson
10. Sonny Boy – Mick Harvey
11. Book Of Love – Vertical Smile
12. Body And Soul – Astro-Unicorn
13. The Brink – Lydia Lunch
14. The Breaking Hands – Nick Cave & Deborah Harry
15. In My Room – Tex Perkins & Lydia Lunch
16. The Jungle Book – Tav Falco’s Panther Burns
17. St. Mark’s Place – Mick Harvey
18. Ain’t My Problem Baby – The Jim Jones Revue

 - Better Than Ezra, “Under You”

“But I was caught, like a fleeting thought / Stuck inside Leonard Cohen’s mind”

- Mercury Rev, “A Drop In Time”

“Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld / So I can sigh eternally”

- Nirvana, “Pennyroyal Tea”

It’s almost unbelievable now to think that we almost never heard Leonard Cohen, the singer. A well-regarded poet from the late 1950s through the mid-’60s, it was Judy Collins who encouraged the middle-aged Canadian writer to try his hand at performing his own songs, and the rest is history. She also had a successful cover of Cohen’s “Suzanne”.

Nearing half a century and 12 albums later, Cohen is one of the most celebrated and critically-acclaimed artists of the era. He’s also one of the most covered songwriters alive, with songs like “Suzanne” and “Hallelujah” registering several hundred different recordings alone. To celebrate the arrival of Old Ideas, his first new studio album in eight years, we’ve collected 30 great covers of Cohen songs for your listening pleasure.

For sake of brevity, this list sticks to a one-song-per-artist rule, with other exceptional covers by a musician cited in several cases. The list also doesn’t include any covers of “Hallelujah”, because everyone and their father has covered that one, and only a few come close to the Jeff Buckley version. (A few of the best ones are mentioned in the entries below, if you’d like to look them up for yourself.)

“Avalanche”

Who: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Where: From Her to Eternity (1984)
What: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds recorded a grim cover of “Avalanche”, which became the very first track on their debut album. Not losing a beat after the collapse of Cave’s former band, The Birthday Party, From Her to Eternity was as powerful a release as anything he had put out. (Cave has a number of Cohen covers to his name, including an excellent “I’m Your Man” from the soundtrack album of the same name, and a raucous version of “Tower of Song” on the I’m Your Fan tribute record.)

“Bird on a Wire”

Who: Johnny Cash
Where: American Recordings (1994)
What: Producer Rick Rubin revitalized Johnny Cash’s career with his first American album. Despite his status as a country icon, Cash was unable to find an audience for his new recordings. Rubin set up a studio at Cash’s home and recorded an acoustic set with him, which showcased the emotional power of his famous baritone voice on a combination of Cash originals and cover songs, Cohen’s classic “Bird on a Wire” among them.

Who: Willie Nelson
Where: Tower of Song: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1995)
What: Tower of Song was a mid-’90s tribute album that featured contributions from an all-star cast including Elton John, Bono, Sting, Billy Joel, Don Henley, and Peter Gabriel. Nelson’s countrified cover of “Bird on a Wire” is a highlight among the bunch. (Nelson also covered “Hallelujah” on his Ryan Adams-produced album, Songbird.)

Who: Fairport Convention
Where: Heyday: The BBC Radio Sessions, 1968-1969 (recorded in 1969, released in 1987)
What: As its title spells out, Heyday was a collection of live radio recordings from early in Fairport Convention’s career. Early supporters of Cohen’s, the English folk rockers covered several of his songs in the late 1960s.

“Chelsea Hotel #2”

Who: Lloyd Cole
Where: I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1991)
What: The ex-Commotions singer was in the studio working on his second solo album, Don’t Get Weird on Me, Babe, when he recorded this cover, which sounds like it could have been a B-side from his group’s breakout debut, Rattlesnakes. (Cole also performed a nice cover of “Famous Blue Raincoat” on KCRW, which appears on their Rare on Air, Vol. 2 compilation.)

“Everybody Knows”

Who: Concrete Blonde
Where: Pump Up The Volume Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1990)
What: The soundtrack for the Christian Slater pirate radio film Pump Up The Volume acts as a great time capsule for the era of college rock that immediately preceded Nirvana’s Nevermind, featuring tracks from Sonic Youth, Henry Rollins, the Pixies, and Soundgarden. While Cohen’s version was featured in the film – as the theme song for Slater’s radio show, no les – Concrete Blonde’s cover was included on the soundtrack and released as a single.

Who: Rufus Wainwright
Where: Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (2006)
What: Rufus Wainwright performed this excellent bossa nova-inflected rendition of “Everybody Knows” in the Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man documentary/concert film. There’s a long history of friendship between the Wainwright and Cohen families—Cohen’s daughter Lorca is the mother of Wainwright’s child, Cohen is name-dropped in the song “Want”, and Wainwright and sister Martha are all over the I’m Your Man concert film. Wainwright also counts a superb version of “Hallelujah” amongst his covers of the older poet’s work.

Who: Julee Cruise
Where: The Art of Being a Girl (2002)
What: The first album from David Lynch’s musical muse in nearly a decade, The Art of Being a Girl marked Cruise’s split from the director of the weird and his long-time musical collaborator, Angelo Badalamenti. The album was a far stylistic leap from the spooky, ethereal dreampop with which she’d made her name, and included this strange, trip-hop cover of “Everybody Knows”.

“Famous Blue Raincoat”

Who: Tori Amos
Where: Tower of Song: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1995)
What: In the year between the hit albums Under the Pink and Boys for Pele, Tori Amos contributed this beautiful piano cover of the popular Cohen song to the all-star tribute album Tower of Song. (Amos has also worked “Suzanne” into her live set at several points over the years.)

Who: Marissa Nadler
Where: Folk Off! (2006)
What: The Boston-based folkstress contributed this somewhat spooky cover of Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat”, a regular piece of her live setlist, to this two-disc compilation that pitted North American and British artists against each other in a good-natured competitive “folk off.”

“First We Take Manhattan”

Who: R.E.M.
Where: I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1991)
What: R.E.M. fans still in mourning can seek comfort in the large number of rare tracks and obscurities the band left behind. Among those is a cover of “First We Take Manhattan” from the I’m Your Fan Cohen tribute album, which was also included as a B-side on the U.K. single for “Drive”.

“Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye”

Who: The Lemonheads (featuring Liv Tyler)
Where: Varshons (2009)
What: The Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes spent years passing mix tapes to The Lemonheads’ Evan Dando, who later paid tribute by recording an album of covers consisting of songs from those tapes. Varshons includes perhaps the most surprising appearance on this list, when Dando duets with actress Liv Tyler (!?) on “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”.

“I Can’t Forget”

Who: Jarvis Cocker
Where: Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (2006)
What: Highly lauded for his own lyrical skills, the Pulp frontman and solo artist performed this sincere cover of “I Can’t Forget” in the tribute documentary I’m Your Man. (Cocker provides a spoken-word, slight re-interpretation of Cohen’s “Avalanche” lyrics for the Boys Noize and Erol Alkan dance track, “Avalanche (Terminal Velocity)”.)

Who: Pixies
Where: I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1991)
What: The Pixies were nearing the end of their recording career when they recorded this poppy cover of “I Can’t Forget” for a tribute album originally commissioned by French music mag Les Inrockuptibles. (Black Francis cited Cohen’s I’m You Man as one of his all-time favorite albums in the 33 1/3 volume on Doolittle.)

“If It Be Your Will”

Who: Antony
Where: Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (2006)
What: Antony Hegarty’s one-off performance in the I’m Your Man tribute documentary manages to make Cohen’s lyrics sound even more heartbreaking than on his original version. (Antony & The Johnsons also performed a great cover of “The Guests” live on BBC4 during the same year.)

“Joan of Arc”

Who: Anna Calvi
Where: B-side to the “Desire” single (2011)
What: British singer/shredder Anna Calvi paid tribute to Leonard Cohen by subtracting the thing he’s most famous from the song: his lyrics. Calvi found the song’s lyrics so atmospheric that she was inspired to write her own instrumental piece that followed the story that unfolds in Cohen’s verses.

“Lover, Lover, Lover”

Who: Ian McCulloch
Where: Mysterio (1992)
What: Singer Ian McCulloch included this very new wave-y cover of “Lover, Lover, Lover” on his second post-Echo and the Bunnymen solo album. (McCulloch must be a big-time Cohen fan, judging by his additional covers of “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”, “Suzanne”, and “There Is A War” appearing on various compilations.)

“Master Song”

Who: Beck, Devendra Banhart, and MGMT
Where: Record Club: Songs of Leonard Cohen (2009)
What: Beck’s all-star covers/jam side project took on the entirety of Cohen’s debut album for their second outing. With the help of Devendra Banhart and MGMT, they transform “Master Song” from a tender, acoustic song-poem to a vulgar, old-school hip-hop joint.

“One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong”

Who: Harvey Milk
Where: Courtesy and Good Will Toward Men (1996)
What: The Athens, GA stoner rock group Harvey Milk unplugged for a quiet (uncommon, for them) rendition of “One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong” on their sophomore album. (Their cover of “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy” is included on the Japanese limited edition of Life… The Best Game in Town.)

“So Long, Marianne”

Who: James
Where: I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1991)
What: The British band covered “So Long, Marianne” for an early alternative-era Cohen tribute album. At the time primarily known only in the U.K., it would still be two years before they released their breakout hit single “Laid”.

[Note: YouTube has blocked this song in most countries, so here's the Spotify link.]

Who: John Cale and Suzanne Vega
Where: Bleecker Street: Greenwich Village in the 60′s (1999)
What: Cale’s much more famous, of course, in the Cohen covers world for his sublime recording of “Hallelujah”, but his take on this track from Cohen’s debut record came almost a decade later and also features vocals from Suzanne Vega (of “Tom’s Diner” fame).

“Suzanne”

Who: Pearls Before Swine
Where: Balaklava (1967)
What: The first side of Tom Rapp’s surreal, heady sophomore album with Pearls Before Swine served as the singer/songwriter’s unsettling but powerful rail against the Vietnam War. The second side was perhaps more bizarre (if a bit less effective), beginning with this cover of “Suzanne” and ending with the Lord of the Rings-inspired song “Ring Thing” (for which Tolkien was given a joint songwriting credit).

Who: The Flying Lizards
Where: Top Ten (1984)
What: Known best for their bizarre new wave cover of “Money (That’s What I Want)”, The Flying Lizards’ cover of “Suzanne” is even further removed from the source material, featuring icy-cold synths, robotic drumming, and spoken word vocals. This is perhaps the second strangest cover on this list, after Beck’s Record Club entry.

Who: Nina Simone
Where: To Love Somebody (1969)
What: Clumped onto a rushed-out album that also contained three Bob Dylan tunes and two Bee Gees covers, Nina Simone’s cover of “Suzanne” is as bright and cheery as they get.

Who: Roberta Flack
Where: Killing Me Softly (1973)
What: The closing track to Roberta Flack’s Grammy Award-nominated album Killing Me Softly was a cover of the Cohen staple. Flack added orchestral flourishes and lingered on every lyric to create an extensive, nearly-10-minute rendition of the famous song.

Who: Neil Diamond
Where: Stones (1971)
What: While Neil Diamond’s Stones did contain his popular songs “I Am… I Said” and “Crunchy Granola Suite”, many of the tracks on the record are actually covers. Paired up with songs originally performed by Randy Newman and Joni Mitchell, it’s Diamond’s lush, pastoral Leonard Cohen cover that’s a standout.

“Who By Fire”

Who: Coil
Where: Horse Rotorvator (1986)
What: The name of the British industrial/experimental group’s landmark second album comes from a dream in which the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse tear out their steeds’ jawbones and graft them together to build a plow that will tear up the world. The cover of “Who By Fire” included there isn’t as terrifying as one might expect from such an album, but the atmospheric backing vocals are pretty haunting.

Who: The House of Love
Where: I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1991)
What: The House of Love may not be as beloved a band to come out of Creation Records as, say, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, or Oasis, but their self-titled debut record really holds up as a great piece of pre-Britpop British indie rock. Their cover of “Who By Fire” was the lead track on the U.K. edition of I’m Your Fan.

“Winter Lady”

Who: Palace Songs
Where: Hope EP (1994)
What: Will Oldham, the man of many changing names, released this EP under the Palace Songs moniker. Chronologically part of a spurt of singles and EPs released between Days in the Wake and Viva Last Blues, it’s more in tune with the full band sound he’d use more in his Bonnie “Prince” Billy days than much of the Palace era. This startling cover is included among Oldham originals.

“You Know Who I Am”

Who: Mama Cass Elliot
Where: Dream A Little Dream (1968)
What: The final Mamas & the Papas single, “Dream a Little Dream of Me” became the first Mama Cass solo single after label execs wagered on Elliot being the group’s breakout member. Their bet was good, as the song became a smash hit for the singer. Most of the album’s material was written by Elliot’s friends and Laurel Canyon neighbors, but there’s a sweetly-sung version of Cohen’s “You Know Who I Am” that’s quite pretty, despite a few overbearing psychedelic effects.

Conclusion

And there are some of our favorites. Given how popular Cohen’s songs have been over the last four-and-a0half decades, there are quite literally thousands of covers we couldn’t even begin to include. Please feel free to share your favorites in our comments section.

Whenever I hear anybody do one of my songs, my critical judgments go into immediate, suspended animation. I’m just knocked out when anybody does a cover of mine … First of all, I’m happy that someone has heard the song and is moved to cover it. Second of all, it gives me a completely fresh take on the song, and I can then enter it into my own judgmental process … I think there are songs that are better done than I have done them.”

- Leonard Cohen to KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, February 18, 1997

While Nick Cave and Warren Ellis recently disbanded Grinderman in favor of a new Bad Seeds album, the pair has also added a new project to their increasingly long catalog of film scores. With Cave already attached to a 3D adaptation of Pinocchio, TwentyFourBit now reports that both he and Ellis have provided music for West of Memphis, a new documentary about the West Memphis Three.

Directed and written by Amy Berg, and co-produced and co-written by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings), the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last week. Additional screenings have yet to be announced; in the meantime, check out the film’s trailer below.

Photo by Colin Athens

In between marijuana flavored gummy brains, gummy fetuses, real skulls, and 6-hour and 24-hour songs, The Flaming Lips’ weird-as-fuck 2011 output has also included high profile collaborations with the likes of Neon Indian, Lightning Bolt, and Prefuse 73. All of these collaborative tracks have made their way online (just click those links), but physical copies of the releases were limited to select record stores across the country. Now, though, Billboard reports that The Lips are planning to compile these collaborations, along with ones not yet recorded, for a upcoming Record Store Day 2012 release.

According to Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, the compilation will also include in-the-works collaborations with Death Cab For Cutie, Nick Cave, Ghostland Observatory, Cloudland Canyon, and maybe Lykke Li and Ke$ha, as well. “I am bound to the agreements we have with the other artists because we’re doing all of this as limited editions,” Coyne told Billboard. “They’re trusting us not just to sound cool but handle the music with special care.” Coyne also added that later in the year, most likely in October, a second compilation of the collaborations will be released.

Record Store Day 2012 is set for April 21st. Below, you can watch the video for The Flaming Lips and Lightning Bolt’s collaborative track, “I Wanna Get High But I Don’t Want Brain Damage”.

For whatever reason, vampire-related movies and TV shows has a knack for piecing together solid soundtracks. Keeping this trend alive (no pun intended), True Blood recently tapped Nick Cave and Neko Case to cover The Zombie’s “She’s Not There” for the premiere of its fourth season. The episode doesn’t air until Sunday, but KCRW, whose DJ Gary Calamar also serves as True Blood‘s music supervisor, has the exclusive stream. Click on now.

Despite being a part of the track himself, Nick Cave called his collaboration with UNKLE, the aptly titled “Money and Run”, “a fucking hit.” Inclined to agree with almost anything the Bad Seeds leader has to say, the track was just that: a mish-mash of oddly-shaped rock noises that was truly pleasing to the ear canal. Now, Cave and UNKLE are offering up a visual treat with the super NSFW video for the track. The clip, available for viewing above (via Mashable), features everything wondrous about being rich: a gorgeous house, lots of leisure time with your buddies, and the fun of tormenting women while torturing and hunting a perfect stranger. Boy, was Notorious B.I.G. right or what?

Only The Lonely is out now.

Höpfner is responsible for many of the illustrations inside of the album (you bought it, right?) and makes those images come to life in the new, somewhat-NSFW video. It opens like any normal cartoon might, but Höpfner makes it a point to turn the next five minutes into a slightly disturbing, yet entertaining, journey. The clip follows the adventures of what looks like an animated Nick Cave as he and his band feed on human breasts, throw grenades, and pretty much cause mayhem in general. It’s not all morbid though, and the animation also showcases the Grindermen performing synchronized dance moves like some sort of middle-aged, hard-rocking N’Sync.

The video is streaming below, and more of Höpfner’s work can be seen here. Grinderman are set to hit the European festival circuit over the summer, and their run culminates with an appearance at the Era New Horizons Festival in Poland. The band won’t be hitting the states anytime soon, but fans can still rejoice because the 53-year-old Cave said that he would start work on a new Bad Seeds record after the Grinderman tour ended.

“I have a starting date for the next [Bad Seeds] record,” Cave said last November,” [but] I’m not doing that until I’ve finished the Grinderman tour.” No telling if the world will get that album in 2011, but have a look at the video to hold you over until then.

What was it that we said earlier today about remixes between like-minded artists? Oh, right: that those are usually the best. Need further proof? Take a listen to Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme reworking Grinderman‘s song “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man” from 2010′s Grinderman 2. What was once pure scum rock is now glorious psychedlia, making Grinderman’s frontman Nick Cave all that more terrifying (not that he needed help anyways.)

The remix came about from a chance meeting between Homme and the band at an LA restaurant last year and some involvement by Gridnerman producer Nick Launay. According to a spokesman for the band, Cave and company are quite pleased with Homme’s work. Don’t take their word for it though; stream the song at Spin.com, or wait ’till it drops as a digital download and 12″ vinyl on June 14th.

Oh, and Mr. Homme, we’re just so glad you’re taking this music thing serious for once.

As previously reported, Cave lent his vocals to “Money and Run”, one of five tracks set to appear on UNKLE’s new EP, Only The Lonely, due for release April 5th. Despite Cave’s long admiration for the James Lavelle-led outfit, the song marks the first collaboration between the two acclaimed acts.

“I always had a huge soft spot for UNKLE — their pop sensibilities, their hooks, big choruses, their super-treated production — so when they sent me some music to sing over I jumped at the chance,” explained Cave in an issued statement.

Below, you can stream the end result, which Cave describes as a “joyful racket of the music. It’s a fucking hit.” Then pick up the entire EP, which also includes collaborations with The Duke Spirit’s Liela Moss, Gavin Clark, and ex-Sleepy Sun singer Rachel Fannan, via UNKLE’s online store.

Only The Lonely Tracklist:
01. Money and Run (feat, Nick Cave)
02. The Dog Is Black (feat, Leila Moss)
03. Only The Lonely (dub)
04. Wash The Love Away (feat. Gavin Clark)
05. Sunday Song (feat. Rachel Fannan)

Yeah, I guess we don’t get much of a break here after all.

So why do we put ourselves through all of this?

You know what they say, oftentimes it’s the things that you care about the most in life that drive you up the wall.

So with that in mind enjoy this recap post. Brush up on last week’s major events so you can prepare yourself for what’s guaranteed another incredibly fast-paced week.

– Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won a freaking Oscar. An Oscar! Sorry, we’re still not over that.

– It was all about The Strokes this week. Not only is there a new track for us to hear, there’s also a video to watch. Plus, they made Saturday Night Live somewhat watchable.

– Jack White and NPR will come together for an interview series.

– Interpol lost their bass player… again.

– The video for “Born This Way”, Lady Gaga‘s suspiciously Madonna-sounding single, made its debut. So did a track called “Government Hooker.” No joke. That’s actually the title.

– More of Nick Cave‘s plans came to light, including new reissues and a project with UNKLE.

– Some of the biggest names in rock right now will pay tribute to Ronnie James Dio.

– System of a Down expanded their 2011 comeback tour.

– Hip-hop upstarts and all-around oddballs Odd Future collaborated with Funny or Die.

– You now have even more reasons to scrimp and save for Record Store Day.

– R.E.M. offered fans a taste of their soon-t0-be released LP, Collapse Into Now, along with a couple new clips.

– Daft Punk‘s original score for Tron: Legacy is up for the “remix treatment.”

– My Morning Jacket detailed their forthcoming LP.

– We’re sponsoring a showcase at this year’s South By Southwest. Be there. You know you want to. And if you don’t,  then you should really get your priorities straight.

– The Pitchfork Music Festival announced its lineup. So if you want to get sweaty in Union Park this July with thousands of your new best friends, get your tickets quick.

– Phil Collins decided to call it quits.

– No,  Arctic Monkeys haven’t put out a new record yet. However, if you’ve been hankering for some new material, you’re in luck.

– While we’re on the subject, a lot of other artists put out new material this week. Eminem and Yelawolf united, Death Cab for Cutie shared a track from their latest effort, and a new M.I.A. single dropped. All in the same week. Wow.

– Proof that life goes on. Battles will tour this spring, and former member Tyondai Braxton is hard at work on a large-scale orchestra piece.

– Ever wonder what the world’s smallest album might sound like? Just take a look at what Chromeo did.

– Proving that they’re as prolific as ever, Of Montreal detailed their latest EP. (See, and I didn’t mention their forthcoming album once!)

– The Strokes‘  long-awaited fourth album won’t be available until later this month, but we’ve got an early review to tide you over until then, courtesy of Michael Roffman.

– Philip Roffman managed to catch one Bright Eyes‘ first shows in…well, a long time. You can read his review by clicking here.

– In the wake of the recent LCD Soundsystem ticketing fiasco, Jeremy D. Larson asked “who’s burning whom” in our latest edition of Insight.

In a recent announcement on their official site, UNKLE announced their new EP, Only The Lonely, would hit stores on April 4th. Along with appearances by Duke Spirit’s Liela Moss and former Sleepy Sun singer Rachel Fannan, Cave would front the band on the track “Money and Run”. The EP will serve as a warm-up of sorts, with the re-release of last year’s Where Did The Night Fall – Another Night Out following a week later.

As for Cave’s baby, the Bad Seeds will see four of their albums receive the reissue treatment: 1994’s Let Love In, 1996’s Murder Ballads, 1997’s The Boatman’s Call, and 2001’s No More Shall We Part. Each release will be shipped as a double-disc “Collectors Editions” and will feature the remastered CD and a bonus DVD featuring a 5.1 Surround Sound mix. Along with that, fans can then download four to five new bonus tracks, music videos, and another segment of  the band-sanctioned documentary Do You Love Me Like I Love You, which you can watch 13 minutes of here.

Check out the expanded tracklists for each reissue below (via SlicingUpEyeballs.com). Those efforts are available beginning May 17th.

Let Love In Tracklist:
CD
01. “Do You Love Me?”
02. “Nobody’s Baby Now”
03. “Loverman”
04. “Jangling Jack”
05. “Red Right Hand”
06. “I Let Love In”
07. “Thirsty Dog”
08. “Ain’t Gonna Rain Anymore”
09. “Lay Me Low”
10. “Do You Love Me? (Part 2)”

DVD
Audio (DTS Surround Sound 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and stereo):
01. “Do You Love Me?”
02. “Nobody’s Baby Now”
03. “Loverman”
04. “Jangling Jack”
05. “Red Right Hand”
06. “I Let Love In”
07. “Thirsty Dog”
08. “Ain’t Gonna Rain Anymore”
09. “Lay Me Low”
10. “Do You Love Me? (Part 2)”
11. “Cassiel’s Song” *
12. “Sail Away” *
13. “(I’ll Love You) Till The End Of The World” *
14. “That’s What Jazz Is To Me” *
15. “Where The Action Is” *

Video:
01. “Do You Love Me?”
02. “Loverman”
03. “Red Right Hand”
04. Short Film: “Do You Love Me Like I Love You” (Part 8: Let Love In)

Murder Ballads Tracklist:
CD
01. “Song Of Joy”
02. “Stagger Lee”
03. “Henry Lee”
04. “Lovely Creature”
05. “Where The Wild Roses Grow”
06. “The Curse Of Millhaven”
07. “The Kindness Of Strangers”
08. “Crow Jane”
09. “O’Malley’s Bar”
10. “Death Is Not The End”

DVD
Audio (DTS Surround Sound 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and stereo):
01. “Song Of Joy”
02. “Stagger Lee”
03. “Henry Lee”
04. “Lovely Creature”
05. “Where The Wild Roses Grow”
06. “The Curse Of Millhaven”
07. “The Kindness Of Strangers”
08. “Crow Jane”
09. “O’Malley’s Bar”
10. “Death Is Not The End”
11. “The Ballad Of Robert Moore And Betty Coltrane” *
12. “The Willow Garden” *
13. “King Kong Kitchee Kitchee Ki-Mi-O” *
14. “Knoxville Girl” *

Video:
01. “Stagger Lee”
02. “Where The Wild Roses Grow”
03. “Henry Lee”
04. Short Film: “Do You Love Me Like I Love You” (Part 9: Murder Ballads)

The Boatman’s Call Tracklist:
CD
01. “Into My Arms”
02. “Lime Tree Arbour”
03. “People Ain’t No Good”
04. “Brompton Oratory”
05. “There Is A Kingdom”
06. “(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?”
07. “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?”
08. “West Country Girl”
09. “Black Hair”
10. “Idiot Prayer”
11. “Far From Me”
12. “Green Eyes”

DVD
Audio (DTS Surround Sound 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and stereo):
01. “Into My Arms”
02. “Lime Tree Arbour”
03. “People Ain’t No Good”
04. “Brompton Oratory”
05. “There Is A Kingdom”
06. “(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?”
07. “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?”
08. “West Country Girl”
09. “Black Hair”
10. “Idiot Prayer”
11. “Far From Me”
12. “Green Eyes”
13. “Little Empty Boat” *
14. “Right Now I’m A-Roaming” *
15. “Black Hair (Band version)” *
16. “Come Into My Sleep” *
17. “Babe, I Got You Bad” *

Video:
01. “Into My Arms”
02. “(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?”
03. Short Film: “Do You Love Me Like I Love You” (Part 10: The Boatman’s Call)

No More Shall We Part Tracklist:
CD
01. “As I Sat Sadly By Her Side”
02. “And No More Shall We Part”
03. “Hallelujah”
04. “Love Letter”
05. “Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow”
06. “God Is In The House”
07. “Oh My Lord”
08. “Sweetheart Come”
09. “The Sorrowful Wife”
10. “We Came Along This Road”
11. “Gates To The Garden”
12. “Darker With The Day”

DVD
Audio (DTS Surround Sound 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and stereo):
01. “As I Sat Sadly By Her Side”
02. “And No More Shall We Part”
03. “Hallelujah”
04. “Love Letter”
05. “Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow”
06. “God Is In The House”
07. “Oh My Lord”
08. “Sweetheart Come”
09. “The Sorrowful Wife”
10. “We Came Along This Road”
11. “Gates To The Garden”
12. “Darker With The Day”
13. “Good Good Day” *
14. “Little Janey’s Gone” *
15. “Grief Came Riding” *
16. “Bless His Ever Loving Heart” *
17. “Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow (Westside Session)” *
18. “We Came Along This Road (Westside Session)” *
19. “God Is In The House (Westside Session)” *
20. “And No More Shall We Part (Westside Session)” *

Video:
01. “As I Sat Sadly By Her Side”
02. “Love Letter”
03. “Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow”
04. Short Film: Do You Love Me Like I Love You” (Part 11 : No More Shall We P

“There will be a new Bad Seeds record next year. I’ve got to write one. I haven’t written anything yet, but that’s not how I go about things anyway. I have the starting date for the next record and that’s when I go into the office and start it. I’m not doing that until I’ve finished the Grinderman tour, which is amazing. The band is something else.”

– After spending much of 2010 wreaking havoc with Grinderman, Nick Cave tells Spinner that he’ll use 2011 to deliver the Bad Seeds’ 15th studio album, and first since 2008′s Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!.

If it seems like every other CoS post lately is about a film score, it’s only because Alex Young dictated that if Kanye West could only appear in half of the site’s posts, than the other half must feature news about film scores. Luckily, there is plenty of news to go around on the subject. Some of the news was even 20 years old, like the Eddie Van Halen’s score for The Wild Life. But Tron 2 leads a pack of recent or upcoming films to feature original scores from popular musical figures, ranging from the biggest band in the world to some of the most respected knob turners.

This mingling of popular music and film has a long history, with artists of all sizes and calibers taking on the challenge. Take someone like Hans Zimmer, who in the seventies worked with The Buggles, only to leave pop music all together and flourish in film work. Or take people like Yann Tierson or Angelo Badalamenti, who have taken memorable film work in Amelie and the David Lynch filmography respectively and become pop icons because of it. But for many artists, film scoring is a mere flirtation with another world, and with it comes varying degrees of success and fulfillment. So, we thought a brief history was in order, covering pop music’s relationship with motion pictures. Enjoy!

Bob Dylan

In trying to find the origins of pop music and film scores becoming intertwined, I realized that everything depends on interpretation of the terms, but most of the material cites Bob Dylan‘s only movie score in his half-century long career as the first major popular artist being commissioned to work for motion pictures. The film is Pat Garett and Billy The Kid and I’m sure you can probably guess what the story is about. Think Young Guns but 1/20th as awesome. Dylan was featured in a supporting role, but the real coup was getting the folk legend to create original music for the western. Dylan composed a dusty, mostly instrumental score for the film, but the movie was not received well in 1973. Now it’s considered a masterpiece. The score is notable for being the home of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, one of Dylan’s most beloved and recreated tunes. But clearly, Dylan did not find love in working with Hollywood, as he has never wandered back in nearly 40 years.

Isaac Hayes

But starting this brief history with Dylan would merely be perpetuating the racism that apparently lingers over Hollywood histories. In 1971, a little film called Shaft was released, but it is as notable for what happened on screen as for what sounds were heard behind the action. The score, which included three lyrical songs, was made by Isaac Hayes who wished to have the title role. Though this didn’t happen, the double album was the first double album to ever be released by an R&B artist and won Hayes a number of awards, including an Oscar, only the third for an African-American in any category. Of course, the theme-song is still an instantly recognizable track and the two month project that Hayes undertook to create the score remained his biggest success throughout his life.

Stewart Copeland

While Dylan and Hayes were established songwriters when they made the leap to composing for film, Stewart Copeland‘s career was in a much different place. While earning a distinction as one of rock’s great drummers with The Police, Copeland was forced to reinvent himself after the band called it quits in 1984. Copeland had already received some notice for his score of Rumble Fish (“Rusty James doesn’t listen to white-man’s reggae”), and turned this interest into a successful second career. He has worked on a number of original scores, ranging from classics like Wall Street to bigger classics like Highlander 2. Hey, a paycheck is a paycheck…

Prince

Using film as a medium to further your music career was nothing new in the mid-80′s, with Elvis Presley and The Beatles having long ago traveled that road. Prince, who was already a well-known star at that point, took cross-marketing to new heights with Purple Rain, making it the defining moment of his career and one of the great albums of all time. The fact that it is an original score is almost a side note to the success the album gained, including two Grammy’s. Prince, though, has an Oscar as well to remind him of the silly film that accompanied his classic record.

Danny Elfman

With Danny Elfman, it is tough to say whether in 2010 he is better known as a film score composer or as the frontman from acclaimed and beloved 80′s band Oingo Boingo. And though Oingo Boingo may be how we first were introduced to Elfman, with classics like “Only A Lad” and “Dead Man’s Party”, he carries one of the most impressive resumes you’ll ever see. Scoring all but two of Tim Burton’s movies, he even has developed a unique aesthetic rooted in the macabre that creates atmosphere as much as Burton’s often-twisted visuals do. Yet Elfman has never won an Oscar or Golden Globe for his film contributions. Someone should work on mending that.

Mark Knopfler

Like Oingo Boingo, comprehending how huge Dire Straights was in the 80′s is lost on people who were not there, as the music has not aged as gracefully as, say, Prince’s. But through the year’s, acclaimed frontman and guitarist Mark Knopfler has seemed comfortable leaving the spotlight for low-key solo albums and occasional film scores. The Princess Bride is his best known work, which was released when Knopfler was still at his peak in popularity and was seen as a fantastic catch for Rob Reiner and his production team.

Peter Gabriel

By the late nineties, Peter Gabriel had already been a success within the band Genesis and as a solo artist. In fact, this was the height of his career, and his choice to score The Last Temptation Of Christ, the controversial film that features Jesus undergoing the same temptation that all men face, was risky and ultimately paid off. Passion, the title of the album that Gabriel released after furthering the score for months after the film’s premiere, won him a Grammy and began a popularization of world music, especially sounds from the far east that has served as a bridge for the global connections that internet would soon bring.

Yo La Tengo

One of the most quietly strong and consistent bands of the last quarter century, Yo La Tengo have flown under the radar on the movie scoring front much as they have on the pop music front. Sticking with low-budget indies, the trio worked on the acclaimed film Junebug (known for introducing the world to Amy Adams) and, more recently, the future-classic Adventureland… I seem to remember reading something about that soundtrack. Their film work has even been collected on the album They Shoot, We Score.

Billy Corgan

While we have focused on the high points and success stories in film scoring, not all rock stars have been so lucky. But who is really going to feel bad for Billy Corgan? As a pop star, he has made a personal mission out of making people forget everything he did right in the nineties. As a film score composer, he has an equally poor taste level, working on the music for two unforgettably bad films, Stigmata and Spun. But these are really just footnotes on a career filled with poor choices, but it’s comforting to know that he treats every aspect of his creative output with equal disregard his legacy.

Belle & Sebastian

Though you could argue that Belle & Sebastian should have known what they were getting into when they signed on to work with renegade filmmaker Todd Solondz, who was coming off the hard-to-watch but so-damn-good Happiness. But when the director only used a small portion of the music they submitted for Storytelling and rejected whole songs, the band and the studio were not too pleased. When the band released the score as an album, it was chopped up with bits of dialogue from the film, thus making it impossible to really appreciate away from the movie. It didn’t help that the songs were the weakest that the Scottish group has released in their otherwise outstanding career.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave has been involved with films almost as long as he has been involved in music (first was featured performing in 1979′s Dogs in Space), but he didn’t get around to his first film score until 2005, and it was for a movie that he also wrote the script for. The Proposition is a sort of Australian western, something Cave and film score partner Warren Ellis seem perfect for, with other scores working on variations of the same genre, including last year’s The Road. His film music is instrumental and not indicative of his pop music style. But Cave shows that sometimes the score is supposed to blend in more than be another star of the film.

Jon Brion & Nigel Godrich

Though Jon Brion and Nigel Godrich may be known for their production work rather than as musicians, they separately have proven the worth in both areas, which is impressive on its own. But they both also have shown an ability to score films, as well, making them the weirdest kind of triple threat I can thing of. Brion has done some spectacular work on films like Magnolia and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, while Godrich made his first film score this year with the much talked about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. They are kind of the everything-they-touch-turns-to-gold type.

Johnny Greenwood

If the name Jonny Greenwood is unfamiliar, well, I’m shocked. But, he is the lead guitarist of Radiohead and, as it turns out, also an experienced film score composer. His first major work was for the P.T. Anderson masterpiece There Will Be Blood, but he was disqualified from Oscar eligibility due to some weird-ass rules. Regardless, the score remains one of the finest ever made. Greenwood next collaborated on the score for the Murakami adaptation Norwegian Wood, which is currently making the festival rounds and earning rave reviews. In all things, Jonny Greenwood is amazing in ways that most people don’t even dream of. We should all be jealous.

Karen O

Karen O certainly cast some doubts when taking on the score of the beloved children’s book turned film Where The Wild Things Are. But when it became known that Nick Zinner and Bradford Cox were among her collaborators, cautious optimism turned to down-right anticipation. Some may argue that the score surpassed the film in quality, others hold the film in the highest regard. Still, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ singer managed to capture the movie within the music she created, whether you think that is for better or for worse.

James Murphy

James Murphy used to work in a record store. He had everything before everybody. And the man who’s breakthrough involved a listing of every artist relevant to him should be a shoe-in for film scoring. But Murphy, who may be better known as the creative mind behind LCD Soundsystem and the head of DFA records, failed to make a memorable mark with his first attempt, this years low-flying yet fantastic dramedy Greenberg. Though he didn’t wow with the music, the man at least continued his reputation for having incredible taste.

Broken Social Scene

With roughly a billion members, Broken Social Scene has to have a few film score veterans in there, right? Well, the band has actually scored films as a collective, notably the Ryan Gosling crackhead-teacher drama Half Nelson. They recently contributed a score for It’s Kind of a Funny Story, a rom-com with Zach Galifianakis that BSS even helped do promotional work on. Me, along with everyone else, decided to skip that one.

Daft Punk

Well, this might be the main reason for this whole article. Daft Punk haven’t released an album of new material in five years, they haven’t toured in three, and they have never scored a film. Tron 2 or Tron: Legacy is the decades overdue sequel to a video game themed cult classic. Due out on November 22nd, it is one of the most anticipated releases of the year and fans of dance music hold their breath to find out what comes next.

The Chemical Brothers

Hot on the heels of Daft Punk are The Chemical Brothers, another giant name in electronica who will be trying their hand at film scoring. The film Hanna, about a teenage assassin, is due in Spring 2012, but the album follows an original album just this year, and hardly has the same aura surrounding it that Tron: Legacy.

Now, Grinderman returns with a fantastic, more psychedelic follow-up to their 2007 debut. Grinderman 2 keeps some of the raw power that was heard on the last record but turns more to stoner rock. The results aren’t as good, but hot damn is it still pretty solid.

The dark and dirty bass and guitars are prevalent throughout the entire album, but they are showcased in songs like lead single “Heathen Child”. The ominous, shaking guitar swells give you a preview of what is about to come—a terrifying tale of a young girl “sitting in a bathtub, suckin’ her thumb,” waiting on her lover? Her fate? Whatever it might be, I don’t want to be there when it happens. When the chorus hits, the guitars become even more soaring and searing, and Cave’s voice acts the part perfectly, as he growls out, “She’s a heathen child.” As the song goes on, Cave warns, “You think your great big husband will protect you? You were wrong.” And I believe him.

The dirt shows up again on “Evil”. As Cave sneers out the last of the simple repeat of “Oh, baby, baby, baby,” the drums and guitars burst in a scream of noise and environment. As the verses come in, the guitars squelch and echo in the background in a way that reminds me of how The Chinese Stars can bend and force notes from a guitar that I didn’t think were possible. “Evil” is relentless and racing throughout and could easily fit on a horror film soundtrack.

For the majority of the album, however, Cave and Co. play their own brand of swirling stoner rock. There are some songs where it gets to be a bit too much, but Cave’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics save some tracks from a jamming hell—like “Worm Tamer” with the great line “You know my baby calls me the loch ness monster. Two big humps and then I’m gone.” Also great are “When My Baby Comes” and album opener “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man”—the latter of which combines the debut album’s force with the new record’s sound to create another menacing story of the morning after in some kind of Rob Zombie movie.

The psychedelic works for the most part but gets a little boring after a while. However, it definitely shouldn’t scare you away from listening to the album. If you are a fan of Nick Cave at all, then you will definitely love Grinderman 2. His darkness and eeriness is surpassed by none, and yet somehow it makes me want to dance so hard.

Following a month long trip across the UK and Europe, Grinderman will arrive in North America in mid-November. Toronto will get first dibs on the 11th, with the band then hitting Montreal, Boston, New York, Washington, DC, and Atlanta in the days that follow. From there, they’ll veer left and hit Tennessee, Chicago, and Minneapolis, all before capping things off with a series of west coast performances.

Tickets are set to go on sale starting Friday, August 20th via Ticketmaster.com. As mentioned, Grinderman 2 arrives on September 14th via ANTI-.

Grinderman 2010 Tour Dates:
09/25 – Nottingham, UK @ Nottingham Rock City
09/27 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds University
09/28 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowlands
09/29 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy
10/01 – London, UK @ Hammersmith Apollo
10/04 – Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks
10/05 – Zurich, CH @ Volkhaus
10/06 – Milan, IT @ Live
10/07 – Rome, IT @ Atlantico
10/09 – Ljubljana, SL @ Krizanke
10/10 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer
10/11 – Munich, DE @ Muffathalle
10/13 – Leipzig, DE @ Haus Auensee
10/14 – Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle
10/15 – Cologne, DE @ E-Werk
10/17 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
10/18 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
10/20 – Utrecht, NL @ MCV
10/21 – Hamburg, DE @ Docks
10/23 – Copenhagen, DK @ Falkoner Theatre
10/24 – Randers, DK @ Power Station
10/26 – Paris, FR @ Cite de la Music
10/28 – Groningen, NL @ Groningen De Oosterpoort
11/11 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix
11/12 – Montreal, QC @ Metropolis
11/13 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues
11/14 – New York, NY @ Nokia Theatre
11/16 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
11/18 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
11/19 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom
11/20 – Memphis, TN @ Minglewood Hall
11/22 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre
11/23 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
11/26 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
11/27 – Seattle, WA @ King Cat Theater
11/29 – San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
11/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Music Box
12/01 – San Diego, CA @ House of Blues

If you read these recaps regularly, then you know by now that I could say that about every week. So much goes on in the world of music that come Friday it’s nearly impossible to make sense of it all. However, these past few days were exceptional. It all began with an unfathomable tragedy overseas. A series of rumors (notice the multiple “may or may nots”) ranging from legit to just plain silly followed. A string of exciting details concerning major forthcoming releases and related events kept music fans on their toes. And then there was everything else in between.

See what I mean? It can only get even more interesting from here, right? At least I like to think so.

Here’s a quick look at what went down last weekend:

– A stampede at Germany’s Love Parade killed 19 people and injured 342 others.

– Excessive amounts of pigeon feces forced Kings of Leon to cancel their performance at St. Louis’  Verizon Wireless Ampitheater.

– Xiu Xiu and Shearwater‘s leading men announced plans to collaborate this fall.

And now for this week:

– Just days after The Suburbs is officially unveiled, Arcade Fire will perform at Madison Square Garden on August 5th. Terry Gilliam will direct a live YouTub webcast of the concert.

– The Rolling Stones will celebrate their (gasp!) 50th anniversary with an extensive tour. Rumors of retiremount abound. We’ll keep you posted on developments.

– Gorillaz detailed their forthcoming North American trek.

– U2 may or may not be  in the studio with an R&B legend you’ve probably never heard of.

– The Cars may or may not be reuniting.

– Battles may or may not preview new material during their upcoming NYC and London shows.

– Ten minutes of Daft Punk‘s score for the Tron remake may or may not be available for listening.

– The acclaimed Sonar Festival will take place in cities all across the globe. Organizers unveiled the Chicago lineup this week.

– Elton John will lend his talents to a musical adaptation of Animal Farm.

– Nick Cave is slated to revive The Crow franchise.

– Among the other long-awaited, non-Arcade Fire releases this summer is Interpol’s fourth LP. As the album’s drop date approaches, the group dished out tour dates and debuted “Barricade” on Letterman.

– Speaking of late night television, of Montreal and Solange Knowles teamed up to perform “Sex Karma” on Jimmy Fallon.

– Neil Young is also readying a new album, along with another Archives volume.

– Don’t expect that Kid Cudi record anytime soon. It’s been delayed again.

– Many actors have made stabs at musical careers. We can officially add Hugh Laurie to this list.

– The latest addition to the Guitar Hero franchise will feature a Rush story mode. Seriously.

– Watch these Kanye West videos. He sings acapella in not one but BOTH of them.

– With all this talk of the new Arcade Fire album someone had to actually review it. Editor-in-chief Michael Roffman did the honors.

– Suffice to say that Die Antwoord have raised eyebrows since bursting onto the scene late last year. Winston Robbins offered his thoughts on their 5 EP.

– Dave Buchanan examined our role models in a feature titled “Overdosing and Underachieving: Who Made Who?”

– Matt Wallin covered the inaugural HullabaLOU Music Festival.

– Headed to Lollapalooza next weekend? We’re throwing a little get-together before the festivities officially begin. Find out more here.

– One final plug  before signing off (I promise): we announced another official CoS Giveaway this week. Enter for a chance to win a Polaroid 300.

According to The Wrap, the beloved musician and surprisingly good screenwriter has reportedly taken on a project to rewrite a script by Stephen Norrington (Blade) and ”a major actor” that will take the revenge story to the Southwest and urban setting of  “Detroit or Pittsburgh or something like that”. If any of you have seen The Proposition, which also featured a script by the musician, you probably understand why fans of The Crow should be nothing but thrilled by this news. More specifics about the film should be released in the coming weeks, including the movie’s namesake hero, a role that must come with as certain eeriness.

Now, if we can get someone to fund the Russell Crowe-requested, Nick Cave-written Gladiator sequel, which ends with ”a 20-minute war sequence that ended up in Vietnam, and then in a toilet in the Pentagon, with [Crowe] as this rage-fueled eternal warrior,” a black hole might form in Hollywood because the universe just couldn’t handle the awesomeness.

Nick Cave and his boys from Grinderman dropped their first single today, and it’s one ol’ dirty bastard of a song. “Heathen Child” (via Pitchfork) sports that same gritty punk blues we’ve come to know from their first release, the same teeth-clenched fierce delivery Cave’s voice has offered for years, and dammit it is great to hear some new Grinderman, right? Check out the song below. “Heathen Child” satiates my hunger. For now…

The “Heathen Child” 12″ limited edition colored vinyl will be released September 6th, about a week ahead of Grinderman 2, and will include an alternate version entitled “Super Heathen Child” which includes a guitar solo from Mr. Robert Fripp who’s wailed with King Crimson and Bowie in the past. The downloadable single includes the B-side “Star Charmer.”

Grinderman 2 is due for release on September 14th via ANTI-.

All this and more was revealed today, courtesy of TwentyFourBit. Find all the pertinent information below, including the band’s upcoming European tour dates. Grinderman 2 is due for release on September 14th via ANTI-. Single number one “Heathen Child” will proceed the release on August 31st.

Grinderman 2 Tracklist:
01. Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man
02. Worm Tamer
03. Heathen Child
04. When My Baby Comes
05. What I Know
06. Evil
07. Kitchenette
08. Palaces Of Montezuma
09. Bellringer Blues

Grinderman 2010 Tour Dates:
09/25 – Nottingham, UK @ Nottingham Rock City
09/27 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds University
09/28 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowlands
09/29 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy
10/01 – London, UK @ Hammersmith Apollo
10/04 – Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks
10/05 – Zurich, CH @ Volkhaus
10/06 – Milan, IT @ Live
10/07 – Rome, IT @ Atlantico
10/09 – Ljubljana, SL @ Krizanke
10/10 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer
10/11 – Munich, DE @ Muffathalle
10/13 – Leipzig, DE @ Haus Auensee
10/14 – Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle
10/15 – Cologne, DE @ E-Werk
10/17 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
10/18 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
10/20 – Utrecht, NL @ MCV
10/21 – Hamburg, DE @ Docks
10/23 – Copenhagen, DK @ Falkoner Theatre
10/24 – Randers, DK @ Power Station

The novel focuses from Bunny Munro, a gritty 40-something anti-hero who’s life comes apart after his wife of many years commits suicide. “The idea was that we set him up as a hard guy and then bit by bit dismantle him to show that he’s a quivering wreck underneath it all,” Cave told Empire in a recent interview.

Spinner reports that Ray Winstone (The Departed, Beowolf) will play the titular character and John Hillcoat will direct, both of whom Cave worked with in The Proposition.

As far his his music is concerned, don’t forget about Grinderman 2, Nick Cave’s forthcoming music side-project, due out September 14th.

In an interview last year, collaborator Warren Ellis said the quartet branched out. “There’s an attitude in there that’s similar [to the first record], but sonically it’s got some pretty weird things going on,” he said. “It’s probably more fleshed out than the first one; we’ve probably learned to play the instruments a bit more.

“It’s kind of like stoner rock meets Sly Stone via Amon Duul. It’s very diverse, and there’s a lot of stuff on there that doesn’t sound like anything we’ve done before. Nick’s got a different thing going on with the lyrics than he would have from the Bad Seeds, and he’s found a new thing from the first album. Less sex? I wouldn’t say that. It’s psychedelic, and I think it’s great.”

The tracklist and cover art for the September 13th release are still under wraps, but the group has announced dates for the U.K. and Europe this fall.

Grinderman 2010 Tour Dates:
09/25 – Nottingham, UK @ Nottingham Rock City
09/27 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds University
09/28 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowlands
09/29 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy
10/01 – London, UK @ Hammersmith Apollo
10/04 – Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks
10/05 – Zurich, CH @ Volkhaus
10/06 – Milan, IT @ Live
10/07 – Rome, IT @ Atlantico
10/10 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer
10/11 – Munich, DE @ Muffathalle
10/13 – Leipzig, DE @ Haus Auensee
10/14 – Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle
10/15 – Cologne, DE @ E-Werk
10/17 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
10/20 – Utrecht, NL @ MCV
10/21 – Hamburg, DE @ Docks
10/23 – Copenhagen, DK @ Falkoner Theatre
10/24 – Randers, DK @ Power Station
10/26 – Paris, FR @ Cite de la Music

Cave’s original comes from No More Shall We Part, the 2003 album that signaled his return from heroin addiction. The melancholy melodrama seems an unexpected choice for the poppy pair, but they slow things down accordingly. Performing the song as a duet turns the laments of a scorned suitor into a dialogue between two lovers who just can’t get it right.

Hearing how well they merge their style with Cave’s only excites us more for Crushes (The Covers Mixtape), on which they also tackle Girls (“Laura”), Fleetwood Mac (“Second Hand News”), and Tom Waits (“Long Way Home”). The Covers Mixtape will be released digitally on June 15th, the same the duo will launch its bizarre Summer Crushes tour. And because “We made it as efficiently and independently as possible, so in turn we wanted to make it as easy as possible for anyone and everyone to hear it,” the band will be selling the album for only $5.

The first full-length recorded and produced by Hammel and Gardner themselves, with a mixing assist from longtime collaborator Peter Katis (The National, Interpol), the album hears the duo covering a variety of well-known acts, including Death Cab For Cutie (“Technicolor Girls”), Belle & Sebastian (“Sleep the Clock Around”), The Mars Volta (“Son et Lumiere”), Daniel Johnston (“True Love Will Find You in the End”), Girls (“Laura”), Nick Cave (“Love Letter”), and the legendary Tom Waits (“Long Way Home”).

“We’ve been talking about doing a covers record for a long time. We’d hear a great song at 2 AM while driving the straight line from one part of Texas to the next, and all we’d want to do is play that song as if we had written it,” explained the band in an issued press release. “There are so many artists we considered, some for the mere fact that they wrote a perfect song, some for nostalgia’s sake, some because more people need to hear them, some for the challenge, and some to shed a whole different light on a song: Our light… make it a duet, more optimistic or maybe less traditional.”

If you’re not already overwhelmed with excitement at this point, wait until you hear this: The record also had an “unexpected after-effect of jumpstarting the creation of the next Mates of State record.” Explains the band: “When we were finished, we couldn’t wait to write our own songs again…. In dissecting these songs, taking out the biggest creative component–actually writing the song–we were more thoughtful of other musical aspects.”

No word on release dates for either of the two albums, though the Crushes (The Covers Mixtape) will come first sometime this summer. As an early preview, you can check out the duo’s cover of Girls’ “Laura” over at its official website.

Crushes (The Covers Mixtape) Tracklist:
01. Laura (Girls)
02. Son et Lumiere (The Mars Volta)
03. Sleep the Clock Around (Belle & Sebastian)
04. Technicolor Girls (Death Cab for Cutie)
05. Long Way Home (Tom Waits)
06. Love Letter (Nick Cave)
07. Second Hand News (Fleetwood Mac)
08. 17 Pink Sugar Elephants (Vashti Bunyan)
09. Roller Coaster Ride (Dear Nora)
10. True Love Will Find You in the End (Daniel Johnston)

You can check out the end result, in video form below. The mp3 form of the song will be available beginning March 8th via 7digital. All proceeds go to Concern, a charity which has provided assistance to some of the poorest countries in the world including Haiti.

As slicing up eyeballs reports, the label will follow last year’s reissuing of the band’s first four albums with the re-release of three more full-lengths (1988’s Tender Prey, 1990’s The Good Son and 1992’s Henry’s Dream). The double-disc collector’s editions each include the original album digitally remastered on CD, plus a DVD featuring the new 5.1 mix, b-sides from each album’s singles, videos, and an installment of Do You Love Me Like I Love You, a specially commissioned film by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. Sound good? The tracklists for all three reissues can be found below:

Tender Prey Tracklist:
CD: Original album remastered
01. “The Mercy Seat”
02. “Up Jumped The Devil”
03. “Deanna”
04. “Watching Alice”
05. “Mercy”
06. “City Of Refuge”
07. “Slowly Goes The Night”
08. “Sunday’s Slave”
09. “Sugar, Sugar, Sugar”
10. “New Morning”

DVD: Original album in 5.1 + Extras
01. “The Mercy Seat”
02. “Up Jumped The Devil”
03. “Deanna”
04. “Watching Alice”
05. “Mercy”
06. “City Of Refuge”
07. “Slowly Goes The Night”
08. “Sunday’s Slave”
09. “Sugar, Sugar, Sugar”
10. “New Morning”
11. “The Mercy Seat” (Video version)
12. “Girl at the Bottom of my Glass”
13. “The Mercy Seat” (Acoustic version)
14. “City of Refuge” (Acoustic version)
15. “Deanna” (Acoustic version)
16. “Do You Love Me Like I Love You” (Part 5) [VIDEO]
17. “The Mercy Seat” [VIDEO]
18. “Deanna” [VIDEO]

The Good Son Tracklist:
CD: Original album remastered
01. “Foi Na Cruz”
02. “The Good Son”
03. “Sorrow’s Child”
04. “The Weeping Song”
05. “The Ship Song”
06. “The Hammer Song”
07. “Lament”
08. “The Witness Song”
09. “Lucy”

DVD: Original album in 5.1 + Extras
01. “Foi Na Cruz”
02. “The Good Son”
03. “Sorrow’s Child”
04. “The Weeping Song”
05. “The Ship Song”
06. “The Hammer Song”
07. “Lament”
08. “The Witness Song”
09. “Lucy”
10. “The Train Song”
11. “Cocks ‘n’ Asses”
12. “Helpless”
13. “Do You Love Me Like I Love You” (Part 6) [VIDEO]
14. “The Weeping Song” [VIDEO]
15. “The Ship Song” [VIDEO]

Henry’s Dream Tracklist:
01. “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry”
02. “I Had A Dream, Joe”
03. “Straight To You”
04. “Brother, My Cup Is Empty”
05. “Christina the Astonishing”
06. “When I First Came To Town”
07. “John Finn’s Wife”
08. “Loom Of The Land”
09. “Jack The Ripper”

DVD: Original album in 5.1 + Extras
01. “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry”
02. “I Had A Dream, Joe”
03. “Straight To You”
04. “Brother, My Cup Is Empty”
05. “Christina the Astonishing”
06. “When I First Came To Town”
07. “John Finn’s Wife”
08. “Loom Of The Land”
09. “Jack The Ripper”
10. “Blue Bird”
11. “Jack The Ripper” (Acoustic version)
12. “I Had a Dream Joe” (Live)
13. “The Good Son” (Live)
14. “The Mercy Seat” (Live)
15. “The Carny” (Live)
16. “The Ship Song” (Live)
17. “Do You Love Me Like I Love You” (Part 7) [VIDEO]
18. “I Had a Dream, Joe” [VIDEO]
19. “Straight to You” [VIDEO]

According to The Guardian, Nick Cave, Johnny Depp (he’s a musician too, don’t you know!), The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan, and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie are reportedly teaming up for a charity single. Though exact details of the project are still unclear, the high-profile foursome, along with singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, are said to be recording a cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins 1956 hit “I Put a Spell On You”, with all proceeds from the song’s sale going to the Haiti earthquake relief.

In other Haiti benefit news, the recently released Hope For Haiti Now was the first digitial-only release to hit #1. Good news, Haiti gets lots of money. Bad news, Ezra got bumped.