As the week started with the digital release of a new Jeff Mangum track on the Chris Knox tribute record, why not end the week with more unreleased video of Jeff playing in April 1998. This time he treats the audience to one of my favorite bootleg tracks “Sailing Through” from the cassette tape dubbed Beauty that is still available on most of the bittorrent sites that are still up and running.
Like the other videos that have been popping up, Jeff hold back no emotion on this live version of “Sailing Though” that then goes directly into “Two-Headed Boy Part 2″ in this 9+ minutes of musical ecstasy. This might be one of the only videos of him performing rarely-played song at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, CA. Thanks goes out to defgav for the post. Its been a good week.
A few months ago it was announced that Neutral Milk Hotel mastermind and current recluse Jeff Mangum would perform a cover song for the upcoming CD for recent stroke victim, Chris Knox. Knox is known for bringing the punk and alternative music scenes to New Zealand. The compilation is a double-CD release, and Mangum is featured on disc 2. Stroke: Songs For Chris Knox will be released in various formats on February 23.
The Earth stops spinning when news of new music by Jeff Mangum hits the indie music blogosphere. As promised by Circulatory System frontman Will Cullen Hart, their new album features contributions from the Neutral Milk Hotel mastermind. He plays drums on this. No, we don’t get to hear his voice, but this does hint that he’s putting his reclusive past behind him and digging in with his creative heals. And let me say that the new track is repeat-worthy. You can download “Round Again (featuring Jeff Mangum)” by Circulatory System 
If you stroll over to Amazon.com, you can search and find a page for the digital download of Atlas Sound’s highly anticipated sophomore album Logos, which is due to release on October 19 on Kranky. The page includes short previews of the albums eleven tracks. The track listing is somewhat different than the version that Bradford Cox accidentally leaked last Fall on his Deerhunter blog. The early Amazon page leads one to believe that the album is set to leak any day. If it does, make sure you support a great musical talent. Until then, the previews from Amazon indicate that Logos will surpass the critical acclaim that Bradford’s first solo effort received early last year. Here’s the 
Bradford Cox (Deerhunter) will bring his solo act back to our area with October shows at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg and Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church. Each show will be a co-headlining gig with UK electronic artists Broadcast. It’s been a busy year so far for Cox, who released Deerhunter’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP a few weeks ago and will release Logos, his second solo record in as many years this Fall. Deerhunter plays the Flying W Airport Resort in Medford, NJ this Saturday with Dan Deacon and No Age. Tickets are still available through TicketWeb 
Over the last two months, Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls) has been rehearsing with her old high school’s drama department and theater director. The production is called With The Needle That Sings In Her Heart and is inspired by the Neutral Milk Hotel masterpiece “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.” It’s not completely certain what Palmer’s role is, but from the information gathered it looks like she will be both playing music for and appearing in the play.
Ed Droste is taking a page out of Trent Reznor’s fan-friendly approach to releasing his band’s music. In a recent Tweet made by the Grizzly Bear front man, Droste comments on all the recent mashups of the band’s excellent new track, “Two Weeks,” that have been showing up all over cyberspace. He asks, “Should we just release the ‘stems’ of the song into the wild and see what people come up with?” Droste seems committed to the idea, “We are 4real considering it 4soon!” I wonder how Warp Records feels about this latest development.
Bradford Cox has posted another