FASHION Magazine

Woodpigeon is often compared to Sufjan Stevens and Belle & Sebastian, which could have something to do with what follows. Woodpigeon’s third LP, Die Stadt Muzikanten (Boompa), offers some of the happiest sad songs we’ve heard in a while. Writing in a small Berlin apartment, Calgarian songwriter Mark Andrew Hamilton started “thinking in terms of couples, of people coming and going, of walls and windows,” he says.

Maybe Depeche Mode (depechemode.com) got tired of Brooklyn kids biting their sounds. Maybe they ran out of cash to keep stocked in black turtlenecks. Maybe they, like Christophe Decarnin at Balmain, are going to cash in on the ‘80s revival as long as there’s still cash to go around. Whatever the reason, we’re happy the super trio is still making music in the 21st century–until we actually listen to the music and then we feel doubly sad. There’s the romantic sad: the existential lyrics, those gloomy Moogs! It’s dance music for partnerless wallflowers. And then there’s the nostalgic sad: didn’t they used to sound, well, exactly the same, but better back then?

Happy belated Easter: LCD Soundsystem, the “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” piano-tronic crew pronounced dead last year, is risen. No, James Murphy isn’t back on the synthesizer; instead, he’s producing his own reincarnation in the form of The Juan MacLean (myspace.com/thejuanmaclean).

You think you don’t know who Peter Bjorn and John (myspace.com/peterbjornandjohn) are (three of the disciples? It’s been a while since Sunday school) but you’re wrong. You know their wondrous one hit, “Young Folks,” a peachy jam of a three-year-old tune. YouTube it if you doubt the claim: unless you spent the summer of ’07 under an indie-rock ban, you were whistling the then one-year-old “Young Folks.” You, Kanye, Gossip Girl and probably your cocker spaniel, too.

Shout Out Out Out Out (is that four Outs? Whew) has a new album, Reintegration Time (Normals Welcome Records, March 3), though in music-blogging time it’s already in the dustbin. Still, we dig. And when it comes to these Canuck party-punkers, here’s the thing: no one cares when the record drops, only when the show goes down. That’s cause the Shout Outs are (as one SXSW blogger said after their whirl through Austin last week) “a live band’s live band.” Now back in our home and native land, they’re playing to the cool kids from left to right coast. Check myspace.com/shoutoutoutoutout for dates and deets and don’t miss your chance to dance (all night; is there any other way?).

The princess of London is Lily Allen. She is—no exaggeration—everywhere: on enormous billboards, on the radio, on every gossip page, on catwalk playlists, on the February cover of Spin. (She makes a charming appearance in FASHION’s latest issue, too!) And just when you’re starting to feel a bit bothered, she does something you can’t deny is brill. Like cover “Straight To Hell” by The Clash with all the insouciance she can muster, turning a punk classic into ska-lite delight (with the help of one Mick Jones, by the way). The song is a smash, the first whopping success from the covers album Heroes for humanitarian charity War Child. It starts playing in your head every time you see War Child posters on the subway and you think two things: 1. Is there anything Lily can’t get away with? And 2. Oh, right. I was supposed to blog about that album.

I Think We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat (Southern Fried Records, southernfriedrecords.com) is leaking like the Titanic, and no wonder. It’s the hotly anticipated new project from Norman Cook (if you say “Who?” we say “Fatboy Slim”) with guest stars David Byrne, Iggy Pop, Martha Wainwright, Jamie T, Emmy the Great and more, all under the name of The Brighton Port Authority (thebrightonportauthority.com).