New Spoon video: You Got Yr Cherry Bomb

Spoon has just released an incredible new video for "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb," arguably the best track off Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. If the visual style looks familiar, you recognize the work of former Black Lipstick singer/guitarist Phillip Niemeyer, who co-directed and animated the video along with digital media artist Ryan Junell.

Phillip has been a Peek-A-Boo artist in more ways than one for many years. In addition to performing with Black Lipstick, The Kiss Offs & Teen Titans, he's designed many posters and album covers, including these:

Phillip is now a designer in New York and makes up 1/3 of the Brooklyn-based design studio Double Triple, while Ryan Junell is a media director and digital artist extraordinaire living in San Francisco.

» You Got Yr Cherry Bomb video

The Octopus Project at the 2007 Austin Music Awards

The Octopus Project had another good showing at the Austin Music Awards last night. Yvonne won Best Miscellaneous Instrument for the second year in a row, and the band placed in eight total categories.

• #9 Best Band of the Year
• #2 Best Instrumental Band
• #2 Best Experimental Band
• #4 Best Indie Band
• #1 Best Austin Musician - Misc. Instrument, Theremin (Yvonne Lambert)
• #2 Best Austin Musician - Keyboards (Yvonne Lambert)
• #4 Best Austin Musician - Bass (Josh Lambert)
• #6 Best Austin Musician - Drums/Percussion (Toto Miranda)

Peek-A-Boo Records SXSW 2008 Events

SXSW 2008 is underway, and a full list of SXSW appearances by The Octopus Project and Peel can be found on the Peek-A-Boo Records tour dates page, but here are a few highlights:

eMusic SXSW Showcase
Wednesday, March 12 @ Maggie Mae's
 1 am - Bon Iver
12 am - Frightened Rabbit
11 pm - Peel
10 pm - Delorean
 9 pm - Hysterics
 8 pm - Day For Night

Kork Agency SXSW Showcase
Thursday, March 13 @ Emo's
 1 am - The Octopus Project
12 am - Islands
11 pm - Dandi Wind
10 pm - Gil Mantera's Party Dream
 9 pm - Howlin Rain
 8 pm - Jens Lekman



Porchlight Pop Fest 2008 (poster)
Saturday, March 15 @ Salvage Vanguard Theater
2803 Manor Road (Map)
Free entry, free beverages, all ages!

12 pm - David Karsten Daniels
 1 pm - Zykos
 2 pm - Peel
 3 pm - Headlights
 4 pm - Joan of Arc
 5 pm - The Little Ones
 6 pm - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
 7 pm - Zookeeper
10 pm - Diagonals (Steve Garcia from Black Lipstick!)
11 pm - Foreign Islands
12 am - List Christee (Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal)
 1 am - Gerard Cosloy (Matador Records)(DJ Set)
 2 am - The Octopus Project

The Octopus Project to play All Tomorrow's Parties 2008

On the heels of the announcement of The Octopus Project's first UK release, we are extremely excited to announce that the band has been invited to play the 2008 All Tomorrow's Parties Festival, currated by fellow Texans Explosions in the Sky. The weekend of May 16-18, The Octopus Project will join Explosions, Dinosaur Jr., Broken Social Scene, Animal Collective, Iron & Wine, Four Tet, Silver Jews and many others in the resort town of Minehead, UK, to perform for the thousands of fans that flock to this festival from all over Europe every year. Additional European dates will be announced soon.

» All Tomorrow's Parties Festival

New Octopus Project single on Too Pure

Pitchfork beat us to the scoop in announcing that UK label Too Pure will be releasing an Octopus Project 7" in March as a part of the label's new singles club. Too Pure, you might recall, is the label that first brought us Stereolab in the early '90s, and has since continued to issue music by such top notch artists as Electrelane, Seefeel, Scout Niblett and many others.

The Octopus Project 7" features two new songs, "Wet Gold" and "Moon Boil," recorded by the band and mastered at Abbey Road in London. The band describes the A-side as "a lovely jaunt through an arpeggiated land of goodness," and the B-side as "the most 'total rock' song we've ever done."

The pressing will be limited to 500 copies and only available via subscription to the Too Pure Singles Club, although the songs will also be made available for download on iTunes at some point.

» Too Pure Singles Club

New Octopus Project album is editor's pick in Rolling Stone

Last year Rolling Stone's senior music editor, David Fricke, named The Octopus Project one of five bands to watch out of thousands that performed at the 2006 SXSW music festival. That was pretty cool. But it still came as quite a surprise when the recent November 29th issue hit stands with another glowing review, this time praising the band's new full-length release, Hello, Avalanche. In the lead review in the editor's column "Fricke's Picks," Mr. Fricke described the band as, "smart pop scientists and total party animals, like Stereolab with happy feet," and went on to say the album was "tightly composed bundles of synthesized whoop and circus-calliope cheer." That was pretty cool, too.

» Read the Rolling Stone review

SPIN posts exclusive premiere of new Octopus Project video

SPIN.com has posted the exclusive premiere of The Octopus Project's new video, "Truck," the first from the new album Hello, Avalanche. Directed by Austin filmmakers The Zellner Brothers, the video combines fast-motion aeronautics and hand-illustrated characters to provide a peek into The Octopus Project's unique fantasy world. The Zellner Brothers had previously used The Octopus Project's music to score a short film called "Flotsam/Jetsam."

» The Octopus Project "Truck" video on SPIN.com