I know that it’s sometimes fashionable to put the diss on Pitchfork, whether’s it due to their smarmy reviews or their design, but their list of 100 awesome music videos is well worth a couple of your hours.  Some of their selections (“Take On Me”, “Frontier Psychiatrist”, “1999”) are obvious, while others a bit more inspired.

So, you’ve heard that Woven Hand is releasing a new album this year, entitled Mosaic.  Dutch site 3VOOR12 is currently streaming the entire album.  I haven’t listened to it all—I think I want to wait until the disc is actually in my grubby little hands—but what I have heard gives me chills. Mosaic comes out in the States on August 22.

Textura on Balún’s Something Comes Our Way: Though its sound echoes others, the album is consistently engrossing with a peak moment arriving at ‘Snol’ where Balún wraps shoegaze guitar and accordion in the dreamiest of melodies.

The members of KISS decide to prove once and for all that they are truly Knights In Satan’s Service, and open a coffeehouse in Myrtle Beach.

Arcade Fire Spill Droplets of Album Info.  It’s about freaking time.

I dropped a hint about this a few days ago, but Renae and I will be venturing up north to the wilderness outpost that is Toronto to attend this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).  And if this list of initial screenings is any indication, we made a wise choice.  Heck, it’d be worth going just to see Invisible Waves, Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s follow-up to Last Life In The Universe (one of my fave films).

Other films include Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes The Barley (the big winner at this year’s Cannes), Kim Ki-Duk’s Time (A film by one of the world’s most divisive directors?  How can I not be intrigued?), Babel (the latest from Alejandro Iñárritu, and one that’s garnered a number of raves), and Lights In The Dusk (Aki Kaurismäki’s follow-up to The Man Without A Past).

There are plenty of other titles I hope to see added in the coming months, so let’s keep our finger’s crossed.  And as usual, no mention of what might be showing at Midnight Madness, but there are plenty of little birdies dropping hints as to what might be hitting festival screens in the wee hours of the morning.  And they’re all very exciting.

Looks like Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip are determined to resurrect Hong Kong cinema all on their own.  First came Sha Po Lang, and now they’re working on Dragon Tiger Gate.  Which, from the looks of this leaked trailer, is going to be completely over the top in ways we haven’t seen since HK cinema circa late 80s/early 90s.  Via

Garrett Murray‘s been a busy fellow, it seems.  First, he gives his site’s design—which I drooled over awhile ago—a slight tweak.  And second, he’s released his own blogging app, appropriately titled SimpleLog.