Micro-News
As the snow begins to pile up on the lawn I thought I'd take this opportunity to get caught up on the latest music news that you may have missed over the last 7 days as well as a preview to this weekends much anticipated Super Furry Animals show.

Earlier this week Robert Pollard announced that he has parted amicably with Merge Records and will release his new album Robert Pollard Is Off To Business on June 2nd via his brand new Guided By Voices, Inc. label. Off To Business will be the only proper "Robert Pollard" full length for 2008. However June 2nd is also the day that Fantagraphics' Town Of Mirrors: The Reassembled Imagery of RobertPollard, a lavish coffee-table book retrospective of Pollard's collage art and lyrics, as well as several Pollard art exhibits. The first release on GBV Inc. will be a 3-song EP released April 8, available only through www.robertpollard.net. The limited edition EP (cd & 12" 33 1/3 vinyl) will include one album standout "Weatherman And Skin Goddess" plus two exclusive non-album tracks. Thanks to Rich Turiel for posting the details of these releases.

Spiritualized have announced plans to release there first new album in over five years with Songs in A&E. The album is set to drop in the UK and Europe on May 19th. As of this post there is no information as to when the album will see the light of the day in the US. Can you say import?

Artic Monkey's frontman Alex Turner is preparing to release his first release from his side project, The Last Shadow Puppets The Age of the Understatement on Domino May 6th. The albums includes the 22-piece London Metropolitan Orchestra on some tracks. We'll get a preview of The Last Shadow Puppets when Domino releases The Age of the Understatement single on April 15th.

Saturday night will bring Super Furry Animals to the Paradise in support of there excellent Hey Venus album. I've been kicking myself for missing the Gruff Rhys' show at the Berkley Performance Center last year, so I'm pretty excited for this show. The bonus is, the owners of one of the my favorite releases of this young year Times New Viking are supporting. I'll post some kind of review next week.