Last year, Twin Shadow released one of the best debut albums in many years, produced by Chris Taylor, a great musician from Grizzly Bear. We had the pleasure of seeing him Live this past week at Lux, one of best venues in Lisbon. This is one our favorite songs on the album, which was released by 4AD.

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Borne out of a desire to invigorate Sydney’s sedate CBD with some beautiful and engaging works of art, The Paper Mill is a new artist run space smack bang in the financial district, on Angel Place. I remember being dumbstruck by the majesty of Grizzly Bear this Sydney Festival, and looking next door to the rather nondescript Christian Book Store. Now I’m not sure if Jesus is all up on Twitter and the hard copy has gone the way of the music industry, but fast forward to today and four young artists with backgrounds ranging from art to graphic design and printmaking have taken over the space.

Credit to Clover Moore, as Sydney City Council is getting behind the project and helping to make the George Street precinct not just about Justin Hemmes making more money and pre-paid only bus rides. Not only are the youngsters curating some fine fine shows, they are also putting on artist talks, drawing classes, paper making and other workshops. Their first show — opening on September 7th — features some of Sydney’s brightest emerging artists, ranging from sculpture to drawing to video, but all with some sort of focus or engagement with paper.

Of course like most art endeavours in Australia, it is poorly funded and they are scraping by to set up the gallery, so they are putting on two fundraisers. When they asked my band The Paper Scissors to play, it was in the blink of an eye that we agreed, as we do like stationery and we are always willing to support people doing good things.

So Fundraiser 1 — let’s call it the Rock Fundraiser — is on at the Oxford Art Factory, tonight (Wednesday, August 25), and features The Paper Scissors, Bird Automatic, Eye to Eye, Lucy Hall, and Dara Gill. More details here.

It’s been a while since we last heard the clamorous sound of We Have Band, but for obvious reasons. Having toured extensively in 2009, the London-based trio took the later part of last year to enter the studio with producer Gareth Jones (Grizzly Bear, Interpol, Depeche Mode, These New Puritans). Now, the debut We Have Band album is due to drop in a few days.

We’ve been enjoying the new tracks, they’re well balanced, with that typical upbeat electro pop that they’re already known for, but also include some amazing tracks that slow things down a bit (Piano and Buffet, in particular). And they’ll be supporting the release with yet another world tour — starting in the UK first and then moving through the rest Europe across summer. Be sure to attend an intimate show if you can. Otherwise, you’ll have to continue waiting patiently like the rest of us.

We’re digging the Class Actress Terrible Remix of Ghosts by CANT, Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor solo project. Get freaky in the club, indeed.

In early 2009, Blind Man’s Colour suddenly found themselves the subject of tastemakers attention. Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste said, ‘You guys must hear these guys, love it!’, via Twitter. Which was good enough reason for us to check in and get a Secret Playlist from them. They started their Playlist off with the Lotus Plaza song, What Grows? [listen below] ‘From Lockett’s solo album, The Floodlight Collective, this track is so warm and nostalgic. The melodies and the production couldn’t sound more childish. It’s like an early 90s Sunday sunset’. Read the rest of Blind Man’s Colour’s Secret Playlist.

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The annual Fader Icon issue is has just come out and includes a spotlight on the legendary David Byrne, delving into his time in the Talking Heads all the way to his current work as a solo artist and founder of the Luaka Bop record label. There are also features on Grizzly Bear, Theophilus London, and Micachu. You can download the entire issue for free as a PDF as well as an MP3 Podcast, featuring music from the issue.

We asked Matthew ‘Woody’ Woodley, drummer and vocalist with Montreal group, Plants & Animals, which bands he thinks are doing interesting things right now and he gave us the following list: ‘Grizzly Bear, Malajube, Yeasayer, Metro League and the guys in the Patrick Watson band’. To read about Woody’s favorite songs right now, check out his recent Secret Playlist.