The last Salteens album was released way back in 2003, so you’d be forgiven if you thought the Vancouver indie pop combo was dead and buried, or at least missing in action. That’s not entirely false, either—the band admits they didn’t really record anything for four years. But since the beginning of the new year, a reformed Salteens have been trying a new release tactic: instead of a new album, they plan to release two-track EPs online every month. The best part of it all is that the tracks will only cost you an e-mail address (presumably so they can add you to a mailing list of some sort).

“Hallowed Ways” is a fine reintroduction to the world of the Salteens; though the band are unlikely to return to the super-upbeat days of 2000’s Short Term Memories, the hooks and the horns are still around and it’s just as sweet as ever. Considering Scott Walker and company just spent a couple of weeks polishing up some demos, the final product sounds pretty good.

So far, there are two EPs out on the Salteens site for January and February, though the fruits of March’s labour will apparently be late in coming, no thanks to a flooded studio. It’s almost time for the April EP to come out too, so hopefully this doesn’t represent a major bump in the release schedule.

The Pipettes have just replaced two of its frontwomen recently. “We Are the Pipettes” is going to sound awfully different from here on out, as RiotBecki and Rose drop out of the picture and Ani and Anna drop in. No one’s sure how the band will sound now that none of the band’s original frontwomen remain, but with 20 songs apparently written, we’ll likely find out soon enough. But as fans pick triage the damage on message boards and blogs all over, it’s perhaps worth noting that this has happened to the Pipettes before.

Once upon a time it was RiotBecki, Rosay and Julia. Occasionally calling herself Julia Caesar, her real name is Julia Clark-Lowes. The Pipettes concept was actually part her idea, along with Cassettes member and assumed svengali Monster Bobby. Even so, Clark-Lowes apparently wasn’t long for the band, and decided to stick around only as long as it took to find a new third Pipette. Though the band has mentioned her name a couple of times in interviews and generally doesn’t play down her role, most fans probably won’t know about Clark-Lowes’ involvement. Which may be for the best, as her next music project is just now bearing fruit: she hooked up with Simon Clayton at a poetry slam and decided to form their own band after she’d finished with the Pipettes. She did retain one element from her former girl group, though: Clayton and Clark-Lowes immediately became Simon and Julia Indelicate, leaders of a rock band called the Indelicates.

If the songs off the band’s MySpace are any indication, the Indelicates mix equal parts guitar crunch and piano-pop sweetness to create what at least one review has called twee punk—which actually sounds about right, if you think of the band in the same vein as American projects like Bunnygrunt and Tullycraft. “Sixteen” in particular sounds a bit like Kate Bush fronting the New Pornographers. Clark-Lowes’ cheery, swooning vocals, perched atop a bright foundation of power pop, make for a winning combination. And in case you’d like some more name-checking, imagine Heavenly as fronted by a raspy-voiced bloke and you’ve got “Julia, We Don’t Live in the Sixties.” If this is the sort of thing we can expect from Pipettes alumna, then the future looks bright for Becki and Rose indeed.

Quickspace’s third and (so far) final album, The Death of Quickspace, holds the dubious honour of being the only album a record store employee has ever tried to talk me out of purchasing. It wasn’t exactly strong—just a simple “You sure? Do you want to listen to it first?” To this day I’m not sure why she thought to question the album—did she just not like it? Did she somehow remember me, some podunk high school kid who’d wander in on the occasional Wednesday afternoon after school let out early? Did someone else return the album saying it was crap? Was it an especially difficult album to get into, or maybe something only for people who knew what they were getting into? Because I sure as hell didn’t—I bought the album largely on the strength of the Matador name and the one song I’d heard off the album, the very song I’m posting tonight.

For a while, The Death of Quickspace sat unloved and unlistened on my shelf. It seemed maybe that record store girl was right—it was too abrasive, too long, too whatever. But like many albums I’ve been able to reassess with the passage of time, Quickspace’s final album is now a favourite of mine for many of the same reasons I wrote it off before. The key to unlocking the album, actually, turned out to be “A Rose,” track six of nine but essentially serving the purpose of the penultimate song (closer “4″ is basically 30 seconds of purposeful guitar noise). “A Rose” used to pass in one ear and out the other, the layers of noise on top managing to blot out what is actually a gorgeous song. But one day it all clicked—I can even remember the sunny-afternoon car ride when it happened—and now the song serves as prime evidence for my case that the best Quickspace songs are space rock played in a lush meadow.

The Death of Quickspace’s biggest asset over previous albums is the proper recording quality—no longer does it sound like the album’s being played on a low-bitrate internet stream. And though it only has nine tracks, two of which sound like different versions of other songs and one of which isn’t even a song, the album covers a wide variety of moods and volume levels in a much more concise package than the 70-minute Precious Falling. The Death of Quickspace was a breakthrough for the band in more ways than one—in addition to the cleaned-up sound and the continuing refinement of the Quickspace formula, the album was also the first to get a reasonably wide American release via Matador. But for whatever reason, the band failed to capitalize on the momentum, instead deciding to disappear altogether after they finished touring the release. Since then the Quickspace name and Tom Cullinan have popped up here and there, but no one’s really sure if the band is dead, on hiatus, in limbo, or somewhere in between.

Quickspace was/is a UK band born out of the ashes of Th’ Faith Healers, a Krautrock/drone-ish kind of indie pop group whose biggest claim to fame was supporting the Breeders and briefly sharing a label and a drummer with Stereolab. While most of the group went their separate ways into civilian life, Tom Cullinan had different ideas. After a fast but interrupted start out of the gates as Quickspace Supersport, Cullinan dropped half his band members and half the band’s name to become simply Quickspace.

1996 through 1998 represents the band’s most active period by far, with two albums and a couple of EPs ensuring that there was always a new Quickspace release every couple of months or so. Maintaining many of the drone-like qualities of Cullinan’s previous band while bolting on more free-ranging melodies, Quickspace’s best songs create an almost pastoral kind of noise—like space rock played in a sunny meadow lined with wildflowers and tall grass. Precious Falling, the band’s second album, covered a lot of bases, but all somehow manage to embody different variations of that same basic feeling. “Quickspace Happy Song #2″ is a lot noisier, while “Take Away” is more obviously bucolic and carefree, and “Obvious” exposes the band’s quieter side.

The major letdown is the sound, which like other similar records of the era (Prolapse’s The Italian Flag comes to mind, though it’s not nearly as bad) feels rather flat and lo-fi in a way that, for some reason, sounds even worse than the actual lo-fi movement in the American indie scene of the mid-90s. Luckily, Quickspace’s next album solved that problem quite nicely.

I’ve not bought it yet, but soon it will be mine: the new Long Blondes album. Here’s a lovely shouty track from Couples. If you’re like me, buying this album is pretty much a no-brainer, but if not, perhaps this song will convince you.

That’s all! A more considered response to follow in the near future.

Today I relived past glories—most of them other people’s, but a few of them mine. Pitchfork.tv started up this week, and the inaugural offerings range from “obvious attempt at positioning the new site” (Tim Harrington from Les Savy Fav interviewing prospective VJs) to “interesting if I cared about the band” (Man Man blowing up a trash can while recording their new album) to “amazing thing I wouldn’t have thought would be so great.” That last one is the Pixies reunion tour documentary, loudQUIETloud (online for one week only starting today), and it’s what made up most of my nostalgic musical roadtrip today. The Pixies have never been anywhere close to my favourite band, but seeing the forty-something members attempt to regroup and go back on tour after their long hiatus was really interesting, even to someone who has pitifully few Pixies albums and doesn’t really know very much about the band itself.

While watching the documentary and seeing the huge crowds at every show, and the teenaged kids giddy over meeting Kim Deal, and all the people who felt the band could do no wrong even as the band itself was wondering if they’d end up looking like fools, I reflected on why the Pixies didn’t seem to matter to me as much as it does to other people. I’ve had conversations with people where they’re shocked, shocked to find that there are people who could possibly not like the Pixies. “Everyone likes at least one song,” one of my friends told me, and it’s kinda true: people who know the Pixies generally like at least one of their songs. But that’s not the same as the undying devotion, the gratitude on display when the Pixies came back from the dead and blessed sold-out crowds with their mere presence. I don’t have that for the Pixies or for a lot of other bands that are often considered seminal or influential. I’ve always wondered why this is—is everything I listen to just weird, or mediocre, or is there something else to it?

One of the concerts I regret missing the most was a Sleater-Kinney concert some time in the late 90s. I would eventually see them three or four times, but it’s not Sleater-Kinney I feel bad about missing, but another band that opened for them: Versus. It turns out that the Sleater-Kinney show was the closest I ever came to seeing the long-running New York City indie rock band, who broke up shortly after touring 2000’s Hurrah. Versus will never have anywhere near the same clout or critical acclaim as the Pixies; besides the very small core group who still remembers albums like Secret Swingers and songs like “Fredrick’s of Hollywood,” no one seems particularly interested in Versus, except maybe as “that band before +/-” and even that’s stretching it.

But evidence of a Versus resurgence matters to me far more than the Pixies reunion ever did. On most objective metrics, Versus doesn’t even compare, but from a personal standpoint Versus wins hands down. It wasn’t the Pixies I would listen to constantly on the subway to and from high school. It wasn’t the Pixies that provided the soundtrack to my first year of college. It wasn’t Doolittle that I’d put on the radio late on a school night, or Surfer Rosa that I lent to my then-girlfriend; it was Secret Swingers. Incidentally, my friends laughed at me for giving my significant other that album because the first song was called “Lose that Dress.” I didn’t mean for it to be a come-on…

None of the above is any knock against the Pixies, of course. But the albums that have stuck with me over the years were the ones I made an acutely personal connection with, ones that ended up becoming markers for past lives. I remember running a bunch of errands on a Sunday afternoon the fall I went away to university, Hurrah blasting away in my headphones. I realized that for the first time ever, I was pretty much doing stuff on my own—no parents to have to ask for a drive, no curfew I had to meet, no house I had to be in that night besides my own dorm room. Nothing the Pixies have ever put out can possibly compete with that sort of personal attachment.

Seeing and hearing the footage from the shows Versus played late last year was a revelation. The band sounded just as good as they did eight years ago; the songs sounded just as vital, as if they hadn’t been sitting in a dusty box in the attic for a decade. It’s probably a sign that I’m getting old that I should hope for a full-blown Versus reunion, but at least I’m not the only one—people keep asking about Pavement reunions that probably won’t happen for a while, and Polvo’s getting back together for All Tomorrow’s Parties, and wait, isn’t there a Portishead album coming out in a few weeks? Maybe it’s time for my micro-generation to accept our fates and give in fully to nostalgia. If it means I get to listen to new Versus material, I’m willing to file my “too old to be cool” papers.

P.S. Two live versions and a whole bunch more available at the Versus MySpace. And seriously, watch that Pixies documentary, even if you’re not a fan.

So I was in the record store yesterday flipping through the new releases when I find the new Be Your Own Pet album. In an age where the internet rules all, release dates are broadcast far and wide, and album leaks are expected, it’s very hard not to get some advance warning of an album’s release—and yet here was an album I wasn’t expecting to see for at least a couple more months, sitting in my hot little hands waiting to be purchased.

If you know Be Your Own Pet at all and understand where they came from, Get Awkward probably won’t surprise you very much. Jemima Pearl is a better singer, the edges are a little duller, the melodies are a little more obvious. We’re still nowhere near Avril Lavigne territory, thank goodness, but it’s not quite the half-hour thrash-fest of their 2006 self-titled debut, either. Part of me already misses that earlier incarnation. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for Be Your Own Pet to mellow out as they enter the final stages of teenagehood, and of course they have to figure out how to expand on their basic punk formula sooner or later, but I really wouldn’t have minded just another half hour of bone-shattering shrieks and riffs.

But just because Get Awkward isn’t quite as intense or wilfully adolescent as the band’s first album doesn’t mean it can’t be just as good, so I’ll keep this on heavy rotation for a while longer. After all, with spring fast approaching, there’s nothing better in my collection of recent purchases to shake off the shell of winter dreariness.

The stylish 1960s Italian/French movie Danger: Diabolik is known for two things. In some circles it’s a cult classic. It’s based on an Italian comic and stars a dashing antihero thief with anarchic pretensions, and features gorgeous, lavish sets, tons of positively continental late-60s pizazz, and a suitably caper-ish soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. In other, perhaps larger circles, it’s also known as the last crappy film Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ever lampooned before Mike and the bots came crashing back to Earth.

If you know anything about MST3K, it’s the premise: a hapless guy and the robots he’s made are locked in a spaceship and forced to watch really bad movies, a fate they deal with by mercilessly poking fun at the movies as they play. Does that make Diabolik a bad movie? Well, sort of—it’s pretty unbelievable that a slick master thief who wears silly masks all the time would have a huge underground lair with gadgets and Rube Goldberg devices lying around, as Diabolik does. But as a fan of the movie pointed out on IMDB, isn’t that basically what Batman is—a man working outside the law who wears silly costumes and has an inexplicably giant and ornate underground lair? Besides which, compared to most of the movies MST3K lampoons, Danger: Diabolik actually has a soundtrack that doesn’t suck, composed by one of cinema’s greatest.

“Deep Down” would probably be a more effective theme if it wasn’t so obviously rehashed five times during the course of the film, but maybe that’s why Morricone was reportedly never happy with Diabolik’s soundtrack. It probably also works better in Italian than English. This version is the semi-officially released Italian version, cleaned up and apparently pressed to seven-inch—Morricone completists would know better than I. Though most of Morricone’s soundtracks have since found release, Danger: Diabolik isn’t one of them—the best anyone’s found so far is apparently a bootleg CD, recorded from the movie itself (which is why you can hear Diabolik’s over-the-top evil laugh at the beginning). I haven’t put that version up for two reasons: the sound quality isn’t as good, and the English lyrics will make you wince in pain. Better to stick with the Italian version and dream of trans-Atlantic excess free of complications like understandable lyrics.

Unless you understand Italian, of course, in which case I guess there’s no saving you from the cheese.

(P.S. You really want the English version? Here’s a video.)

I don’t personally have a whole lot of time for Valentine’s Day, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate some of the lovely things that go along with it. Like candy hearts. And grade-school valentine’s cards. Remember how your grade school teachers had you make funky little boxes made out of construction paper on Valentine’s Day, and then you and your fellow classmates would go around during recess and drop little cards with cheeky cartoons on the front into your friends’ boxes? It was like every year, your local elementary school decided there should be a referendum on how popular you were, with candygrams serving as votes. But even if you were one of the unpopular kids and you only got a couple of cards—elementary school was rarely so harsh as to leave a kid cardless—you could soothe the burning hole where your heart used to be by stuffing your face full of cinnamon hearts and burning a hole in your mouth instead.

To candy hearts, grade-school valentines, and innocent twee sentiments, I give you this early Dressy Bessy track. “If You Should Try to Kiss Her” comes from their first album, 1999’s Pink Hearts Yellow Moons. And if you can’t immediately offer up the missing elements from that title, then obviously you never ate your Lucky Charms as a kid—clearly Dressy Bessy were aiming for a particular aesthetic on this album. Though the Denver band rocks harder and faster these days, in some ways there’s no replacement for the twee-overload sugar rush of Dressy Bessy’s early days, and it doesn’t get much twee-er than this. So if you’re in need of a Valentine’s Day change of venue, try going back to second grade, and let Dressy Bessy be your time machine chauffeurs.

And when you get back, save some candy hearts for me.

This past Saturday, Toronto band Republic of Safety released its latest CD, Succession, to a local crowd of revellers and well-wishers. The party, I hear, went all night. And with good reason—Succession marks the Republic’s final release, and Saturday the band’s final show.

The band made the decision a couple of months back, not long after finishing the new EP; with the group’s main leaders Maggie MacDonald and Jonny Dovercourt headed in two different musical directions, it seemed obvious to them that the Republic’s days were numbered. For those of us not so in tune with the band’s personnel, though, we only heard about this about two weeks ago. In a way you could say Republic of Safety kinda sprung the announcement on us, but I guess border closures and refugee evacuations tend to be surprise affairs anyways.

Republic of Safety leaves behind three EPs and twelve songs—not an extensive discography, perhaps, but one full of gems nonetheless. The band began as a political agitprop garage punk band of sorts, though obviously one with a sense of humour; even to the end the band kept up the schtick of giving everyone in the band a minister title and claiming the Republic of Safety was a real country located off the coast of Torontopia. But over the years the band has mellowed their sound a bit and made friends with the Isles of Melody, and the running joke in interviews was that Succession was the band’s most commercial outing yet—a fantastic way of maintaining your street cred, since the band now has no way of capitalizing on whatever wider success Succession might face.

Unfortunately, it also means that if you’re just discovering Republic of Safety now, you’ve missed the boat. Dovercourt says he plans to take a bit of time off to collect himself and contemplate his musical future, while MacDonald’s thinking of taking things in a more synth-folk direction (maybe this explains how the band grabbed the Toronto opening spot for the Blow this past summer), which means it’s unlikely you’ll hear MacDonald shouting slogans over broken-glass guitar riffs anytime soon. If it’s any consolation, there’s an entire nation of refugees who feel your pain.