trouser press: lucinda williams, pj harvey and more

- Lucinda Williams cheers up on Little Honey 
- new PJ Harvey single out next month
- Tracy Chapman looks towards the future on new album
- copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Mary J. Blige 
- Amy Winehouse ’stars’ in online game
- Laura Barrett announces debut album

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Once famous for taking her time between albums – there was an 8-year gap between her second and third releases – Lucinda Williams has made good on her promise to make a swift follow-up to last year’s West with a new release scheduled for October. Little Honey not only collects some of the leftover songs from West that didn’t fit into that record’s heavy themes of death and betrayal, but also includes some much older songs that never made it out of the studio such as the 23-year-old ballad ‘Circles & Xs’ and ‘Well Well Well’, a fresh recording of an old demo Lucinda cut for her 1992 album Sweet Old World.

Though it is most striking for its considerably more upbeat feel than much of her recent material – largely due to newfound contentment with fiancé Tom Overby, who co-produced the album with Eric Liljestrand – Little Honey also features some star guest turns. Paste Magazine have already heralded her duet with Elvis Costello on ‘Jailhouse Tears’ as among the top five all-time greatest country/rock duets, while bluegrass singers Jim Lauderdale and Charlie Louvin give a new flavour to ‘Well Well Well’. Elsewhere, ‘Little Rock Star’ was improbably inspired by Pete Doherty – or as Lucinda puts it, “an empathetic look at self-indulgent, little-brat rock stars” – and features Susanna Hoffs and duet partner Matthew Sweet on harmonies.

Perhaps even more improbably, the album ends with a cover of AC/DC’s ‘It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)’. Little Honey is released on October 13th through Lost Highway.

Little Honey
01 Real Love
02 Circles & X’s
03 Tears Of Joy
04 Little Rock Star [feat. Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs]
05 Honey Bee
06 Well Well Well [feat. Charlie Louvin & Jim Lauderdale]
07 If Wishes Were Horses
08 Jailhouse Tears [feat. Elvis Costello]
09 Knowing
10 Heaven Blues
11 Rarity
12 Plan To Marry
13 It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N’ Roll)

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With a second collaborative album with John Parish on the near horizon (which may or may not be titled Replay Of The Disco Dancing), the last thing you’d expect from PJ Harvey right now is a fourth single from her decidedly uncommercial album White Chalk but apparently that’s exactly what we’re getting. On September 7th, Peej is releasing ‘Silence’ on 7″ vinyl and as a digital download. Both formats will include a 4-track demo version of ‘Evol’, a song from the Uh Huh Her era that Harvey often plays live but has never properly recorded.

‘Evol’
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0gQwf0KAHw]

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Four-time Grammy winner Tracy Chapman releases her eighth studio album, Our Bright Future, on November 9th. Recorded in Los Angeles and co-produced with Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux), the 11-track album is her first new material since 2005’s Where You Live. Um, that’s all we know so far.

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R&B star Mary J. Blige is being sued for allegedly stealing the music to her song ‘Work That’ from a producer who worked for the Drama Family Entertainment Company. The song, which recently featured in a (presumably lucrative) iPod ad in the States, is apparently worth $2 million in copyright infringement damages according to an Associated Press report.

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The latest craziness in the reliably deranged media circus that surrounds Amy Winehouse is a controversial new internet game being used to promote new spoof film ‘Disaster Movie’. In the game a drunk, drugged up and lusty Winehouse is freed from rehab by – guess what? – a natural disaster and the player has to guide her through various levels in which she uses drug paraphernalia and that famous beehive to beat up the likes of Batman and The Incredible Hulk before trying to break husband Blake Fielder-Civil out of prison.

Partake in the tasteless fun here. ‘Disaster Movie’ is out on August 29th.

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After two brilliant EPs of cute and geeky songs composed on an African thumb piano, the wonderful Laura Barrett has expanded her musical palette for upcoming debut album, Victory Garden, released in Canada on September 23rd through Paper Bag Records. The Toronto native, who is also a member of The Hidden Cameras, is joined by the equally lovely Basia Bulat who sings and plays her trusty autoharp. Other musicians include various members of The Hidden Cameras, Hylozoists, Metal Kites and Feuermusik.

Victory Garden
01 Wood Between Worlds
02 Consumption
03 Spoiler Alert
04 Chidiya
05 Bluebird
06 A Certain Major Vinylsky
07 Ferryland
08 The Sharper Side
09 Space Seed: The Musical
10 Escape To The Sun Dome
11 Rien A Declarer
12 To The Stars!

the amazing ‘Robot Ponies’ from her Earth Sciences EP
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHK7XLBhsdM]

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Alan Pedder

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: alan pedder, basia bulat, elvis costello, john parish, laura barrett, lucinda williams, mary j blige, news, pj harvey, susanna hoffs, the hidden cameras, tracy chapman

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 9:03 am and is filed under news, the inside leg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.